On March 29 we received this letter to the editor:
The greasy slop recipes in Home Plates are disgusting, the photos were stomach turning. The chili looked like diarrhea, the meat was charred and carcinogenic, and anything fried and/or covered in cheese and grease is disgusting. The enchiladas look like exudate from an untended wound. Doves wrapped in cream cheese and bacon destroys the delicious taste of doves. Try potted dove or quail, that is a real Texas dish. I’ve lived in Texas all my long life and I have never eaten such horrible food. But then I am not fat and unhealthy as are so many Texans. Anyone eating the food in Home Plates would soon be butt-sprung, gut-busted, old before their time, and headed for the cardiac care unit. Your article should make a lot of people turn vegetarian. I have a question for Patricia Sharpe: Do you eat such unhealthy food and if so, how much do you weigh and how many bypass surgeries (heart and/or gastric) have you had? Even if these recipes are only “tongue in cheek,” Home Plates will only promote the belief that Texans are ignorant, tasteless, crude, backwoods red necks! Just stop it! Try printing articles that make us look better and don’t hold us up to ridicule, if that is possible. Barbara Duvall Houston, Texas
Oh well – can’t please everybody! That question about Pat, of course, was answered in her classic 2005 essay “Confessions of a Skinny Bitch.”
