It should come as no surprise that poets are often exceptionally fine cooks, savoring food the way they savor words and at the same time recognizing that just as a gathering of words does not necessarily mean a good poem, neither does a mixture of ingredients necessarily mean a good recipe. In Cooking with the Texas Poets Laureate, the editors, all members of Dr. Paul Ruffin’s 2014 graduate Editing/Publishing class, solicited recipes and food-related poetry and prose from Texas Poet Laureates of this millennia. The result is a most unusual gathering of personalities equally comfortable with the spatula or the pen.

Eating Texas

It’s taken a long apprenticeship

to make waffles in the shape of Texas.

First there were mountains over Waco.

Then the Panhandle sank.

A few more false starts when

the Red River swamped Oklahoma

and the Rio Grande dripped into Mexico.

Now I can make perfect ones.

All I have to do is take care

to stop pouring the batter a little shy

of El Paso, Dalhart, and Texarkana.

For some reason, Brownsville needs more.

Otherwise, my grandchildren complain they

don’t have the tail of Texas to bite off.