A trip to Texarkana, TX - where everything meets everything: states, roads, people and even food

From the “visitors guide” of the Texarkana Chamber of Commerce site:

"Although many have contended for the honor, it's not known officially who gave Texarkana its name. One popular version credits a Colonel Gus Knobel (…) who marked the name "TEX-ARK-ANA" on a board and nailed it to a tree with the statement, "This is the name of a town which is to be built here." It was believed at the time that the Louisiana boundary was just a few miles to the south (actually it is only 25), and Colonel Knobel, in selecting the city's name, derived it from TEXas, ARKansas, and LouisiANA. "

Most of my husband’s family lives in this town in northern Texas with this particular name. I always love to go there, mainly because I sincerely love those people, but not only that. The atmosphere is great and this idea of a place where three states meet has always fascinated me, maybe because our own family is quite an interesting melting pot itself, so what better place to have us all merging together?





This side of the family can definitely cook and when I go there I always have a lot to learn. During this trip in particular we cooked one dinner together, a “tex-alian” dinner you might say, mixing what we know and what we like and the result was definitely satisfying for everybody, if you can measure that from that one sentence everybody would say as soon as they walked into the house: “Boy, it smells good in here!”





There were some perfectly smoked pork loins going hand in hand with broccoli and sausage farfalle pasta, traditional cornbread sitting by baked cauliflowers in béchamel sauce and much more. Of course I had to make my beloved Miscati












I know I might be boring repeating one more time that cooking basically means “love” to me: the love that you find, breath, smell and taste in a family kitchen where people are happy to be right where they are, among those few faces that really make a difference in their lives.