Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Honestly, it's gotta be meatloaf - the kind with lots of bell pepper and onion ground with the meat.

Uh, Serious Eats. Newsy, recipe-y, and a bit controversial. Like NYT of Food.

Mt first cookbook was Gourmet's Old Vienna Cookbook, which Istill use frequently.

The first time I visited my baby at Hvard and stayed in his house, he and his friends took me to "Nocch's", really just a few steps from his house. We ordered an artichoke pizza, a whole one, and 4 of his roomies and I ate the whole damn pan of pizza.

A Pakistani exchange student introduced us to Peshawari -style curries cooked in a karahi. The curries worked their magic in South Texas and made us sweat, which helped cool us off.

Oreo cheesecake is my biggest success with my guests, but my personal best success was mastering puff pastry. Put I can't make strudel pastry from scratch. I tear the crap out of it when I try. Sigh.

Simon, can you post a recipe here? Both for the candied rose petals and the ice cream?

Beef stock. I make pretty good beef stock, but never attempted to can it. I have canned home-smoked salmon in the past, so I guess I really could can stock. It would leave a lot of room in my freezer for other good stuff as well...

lamb cake mold pound cake with strawberries. Also Lemon-angel cake dessert - Lemon bavarian with cubes of angel food stirred in and chilled in greased angel food pan, unmolded and cut like a cake. I frost it with whipped cream rosettes before serving.

Real chocolate pudding, made from scratch, with unsweetened whipped cream on top.

Carne Guisada with just-baked flour tortillas.

Upscale Downtown - Bohannan's. The shrimp is the only good thing at Paesano's, Boudro's is good, especially their famous guacamole. All else on the River sucks, IMHO as a resident. Le Reve is very good, but much more than trip advisor says.

Taco Taco is great, closer to downtown is Tito's on So. Alamo. Skip the BBQ in SA. Especially skip the BBQ inside Loop 1604. Mi Tierra is not good Mexican food, but great atmosphere, with roving mariachis, etc. Food pretty much sucks, except for the bakery items.

Picante Grill on Broadway just south of Hildebrand is really good, authentic Mexican food. Food from the interior of Mexico is very good. Award-winning chef, family-owned, nice enough for a sort of special occasion. Not a great bar, but food is memorable. That is where we take out-of-towners for a sit-down Mexican meal.

Bohannan's is where we go for a celebration meal. Maybe the best beef in Texas. And the salads knock my socks off every time.