Soy de Duval

TOPICS: Cooking Tejanos POSTED BY:  CARDENAS.AE@GMAIL.COM   APRIL 29, 2017 I have had a lifelong affair with Tejano cuisine. Actually cuisine sounds too fancy, it is a French word after all. Let’s just say I love my comida Tejana. Recently, while reading “The Reminiscences of a Texas Missionary,” I ran across an observation by Father P. F. Parisot, OMI, which I found interesting. While on his way to Brownsville late in 1857, the good father stopped in San Patricio to buy a horse and while there was introduced to Tejano cooking. A far cry from the cuisine he was familiar with growing up in France. Father Parisot writes, …we became acquainted with the tortilla. Bread in the Mexican ranches is not a wheaten loaf, but thin tortillas made from corn meal without any yeast. The women soften the corn in lime water and place it on a flat stone called a metate, and then with another stone shaped like a rolling-pin they grind the corn into a paste. This paste is then patted with the hands into th

TOPICS: Brush Country Catholic Church Oblates Roma POSTED BY:  CARDENAS.AE@GMAIL.COM   APRIL 24, 2017 It is always encouraging to receive feedback on a blog, but it is doubly encouraging when you can use the information you received from your readers. Such was the case with a photo I received from my friend and fellow historian R.J. Molina from Austin, by way of Hebbronville. R.J. sent me a photo of his granduncle Manuel Molina on horseback talking with a priest who was standing in front of him and his horse. R.J. did not know the name of the priest. I did not know whether or not the photo was significant to my research, but I felt it deserved further investigation because, depending on the timeframe, the priest could be an Oblate, who were the pioneer priests in the Rio Grande Valley, who occasionally made forays into Duval County.    The Oblates The new bishop of the new diocese of Galveston, Jean Marie Odin, sent the The Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, known simply as the Obl

TOPICS: Brush Country St. Francis De Paula POSTED BY:  CARDENAS.AE@GMAIL.COM   APRIL 10, 2017 This year is the sesquicentennial of St. Francis de Paula parish in San Diego. Sesquicentennial is another way to say, the 150th anniversary. I first heard the term when Texas celebrated its sesquicentennial and thought it sounded pretentious. Still do. But I digress. I thought it would be a great time to publish a book on the history of the parish. Still do, but am not sure I could do it in the remaining nine months. Still, I was discussing the project with a friend and mentioned that I already had a title: “St. Francis de Paula, Mother Church of the Brush Country.” She suggested I check this out, because there may be older churches in the Brush Country. That got me to thinking. What is the Brush Country anyway? What counties would make up this area? I have always thought of the Brush Country as Duval, Jim Hogg, Brooks, and Jim Wells Counties. If I am correct, there is no doubt that St. Franc