Mrs. Rudolph Smith, the former Roberta Stieler, was one of the sweetest women I’ve ever known. She, and even her mother, were frequent visitors to das Peach Haus after it opened in 1969. Her family’s roots run deep throughout Fredericksburg and across the surrounding Hill Country. Adolf Stieler, lik...

I’ve always preferred cookbooks that tell stories. Without them, recipes feel like instructions without a past. Last March, while browsing Kerrville’s thrift shop, I was reminded just how much story can hide between two covers. Cookbooks, especially those given as gifts, often end up there. One in p...

The first European flag to fly over Texas, albeit briefly, was France’s. René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, planted it in 1685. His venture ended badly — his body was likely fed to the fish of the muddy Trinity River. Later, in 1818, a group of Napoleon’s refugees attempted to establish Champ ...

Doug Hubbard, who compiled “Favorite Recipes of Famous Texans” in 1988, was not an outsider to Fredericksburg. By the mid-1970s, he was serving as Exe...

Ayear ago, Deanna Fischer gave me a reprint of “The First Texas Cook Book,” originally published in 1883 by the Houston’s Ladies Association of the Fi...

One of the more intriguing recipes in Sarah Morgan’s “The Saga of Texas Cookery” (1973) is her own Texas-Style Gnocchi, pronounced nyo kee. Sarah clai...