There are two types of home cooks in this world: those who have trudged down the path to pizza perfection and those who have not. If you're in the club, you intimately know the struggles for ever-higher oven temperatures and endless experimentation to determine the optimal placement of your pizza stone. You've likely dabbled in 00 flour and spent far too much money on tomatoes shipped straight from Italy. If you're not in the club, you're missing out on some potential frustration but also the great reward of having a home that smells like freshly baked pizza.

I've had my own struggles with pizza, so this video posted on YouTube by Cooks Illustrated jumped out at me recently. Narrator Christopher Kimball calls the pie at Di Fara Pizza in Brooklyn the best pizza he's ever had, a big claim considering the number of pizzerias in New York City alone. Toward the end of the clip when he actually tastes the pie in question you can see how the slice stands straight out to the side as he picks it up. The crust looks thin, crisp and structurally sound. It looks delicious.

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Parsley from the Dallas Community Gardens

I'm obsessed with parsley. Not that curly-leafed bullshit sitting next to your petite filet, I'm talking about the flat-leaf variety that's known for its tender texture and sweeter flavor. If you get some fresh from the farmers market you'll notice a much more robust flavor than the grocery store varieties. Two vendors representing the IRC sponsored community gardens had parsley for sale at the last two White Rock Local Markets. They're asking just a dollar for each bunch. You should offer them two.

That super-fresh vegetal flavor will fade in the first day or two, but the stuff will continue to green up your dishes for much longer. Just wash the leaves and then store them in a big Ziploc bag, with a wet piece of paper towel lining one side, and you'll have fresh parsley for weeks.

What do you do with it? Everything.

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If you got to the White Rock Local Market at 9 a.m. you were already too late. A few bunches of chubby carrots and just 3 pounds of asparagus disappeared in an instant. The signs of the coming season are just beginning to awaken and only the early birds take home the true treasures. Disappointed, I consoled myself with this beautiful bok choy (tough life, huh?) and resolved to jump out of bed next week with a bit more enthusiasm.

Roy and Sophia Martinez used to casually grow vegetables for their smoothies before a double layoff converted them into farmers. Now they're responsible for some absolutely pristine bok choy that eventually sold out at this weekend's market too.

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Swiss chard from the Texas Worm Ranch

I hope you didn't miss the farmers markets this weekend. While this year's season is still in its infancy, plenty of beautiful vegetables are sprouting at nearby farms. Greens are king right now, and this Swiss chard is a great example of garden fresh produce that beats anything you can find at the store.

See also:
- Farmers Market Report: Greens Are Springing in Coppell

The Texas Worm Ranch is a regular participant at the White Rock Local Market, and while they're mostly known for their "tea," a potent brew made from worm castings for fertilization and pest control, they're also doing a little gardening themselves. These greens were offered for $3 a bundle, but I was offered two bundles for five -- a more than fair price.

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Mushrooms and toasted bread make a great filler for a farmers market salad.

For a long time I didn't love to prospect at farmers markets, if only because I had no clue how to use them. As a home cook, when I wanted to make a meal, I paged through my cookbooks looking for inspirational pictures, wrote down a massive ingredient list and then hit the grocery store. That's not so easy to do if you want to hit up a local farmers market. Most of the time you'll have no idea what you'll get until you're there, and if you don't act fast and buy quick, many of the choice ingredients have already been cleaned out.

To make the best use of your local farmers market you have to stay flexible. You have to be able to look at what's available, come up with a recipe or two in your head, and then execute it. Otherwise you'll be the guy standing around with a coffee next to Luscher's Red Hots and wondering why everyone else is having so much fun.

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Puffy Tacos on the menu at Tupinamba

Back in December I started my search for the puffy taco, a deep fried delicacy, which according to popular convention hails from San Antonio, yet is impossible to find just a few hours away here in Dallas. That first blog post kicked off a dialogue with Eddie Dominguez, who says he's been tweaking his own puffy taco since the post.

See also:
- Tracking Down the Origin of Dallas' "Puffy" Tacos

Dominguez tells me he went online, put puffy tacos in YouTube and checked out different recipes people were trying. Then he started testing different variations. He said he tried recipes that added baking powered to the raw masa used in making puffy tacos and he tried recipes that left it out. He tried different frying temperatures and different frying times. He says he even drove to San Antonio to try puffy tacos at Henry's and a few other places.

He came back to Dallas with pictures and a few more ideas. And now there's a menu placard on the tables in his restaurant offering San Antonio style puffy tacos with rice and beans for $8.25.

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I expected a strange look and a question or two from my dinner guests. After all, I was standing in front of a red hot fireplace with a wild look in my eye and a large flap of meat dangling from my fist. "Why aren't you using a grill?" one asked, which was easy to answer since I didn't have one. "You might use a cast iron skillet or your broiler," another offered before pointing out the obvious. "It would be easier."

And it would have. But I wasn't cooking a steak in the fireplace because I was worried about simplicity or ease. This was a matter of culinary adventure. Besides, it's not even that crazy. It's been done here, and over here too.

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With low heat and patience, you can have the best breakfast tacos right at home.

On my last trip to Austin, I was lucky enough to stumble into Tamale House before driving back home to Dallas. I'd read about the hole in the wall in The New York Times, but my friends who have spent time in Austin all tell me the taqueria is old news; they've been eating at Tamale House for years.

What struck me about the the breakfast tacos I ordered were the eggs and bacon tucked inside each one. The tortillas were run-of-the-mill, but the bacon was crisp, crunchy and not at all rubbery, and the eggs were soft and moist with an almost custard-like consistency.

I've been searching for a comparable taco here in Dallas, and I think I may give up. I've found great tortillas and good bacon in various renditions, but the one error I can't get around is overcooked eggs. It's gotten bad enough that I've decided to make my own. My apartment still smells delicious.

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I'm a pretty big traditionalist. I throw similar dining events at my home year after year because I love revisiting food memories. It's nice the way the smell of a certain dish evokes time spent with old friends, but the best part is introducing my time-tested traditions to new guests. One of the best of them all is the New Year's Day meal I've been enjoying for as long as I can remember.

A meal of pork and cabbage on the first day of the new year is a food tradition that straddles many cultures, but the German tradition is the best in my eyes. If you buy great ingredients and handle them with care you'll end up with a meal that fills your house with an absolutely intoxicating aroma. This meal scales easily too, so you'll also be able to feed a whole army of friends.

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What makes for a good cookbook? Decades ago, massive recipe compilations with detailed instructions for everything anyone could possibly want to prepare were considered mandatory components of any kitchen library. The Joy Of Cooking, Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook, and How to Cook Everything, were, and still are, popular titles that taught novices the basics of cooking.

Over recent decades though, the trend has shifted to more personal recipe collections that combine story telling and lush photography to create cookbooks that read more like storybooks or travel journals than culinary encyclopedias. Cookbooks are becoming less about mechanics and technique and more about a connection with an author or a time, place or mood. Paging through a good cookbook nowadays has become a journey in itself -- one you don't have to leave your kitchen to enjoy.

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