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James Villas Biography

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“I was always crazy about any Chinese takeout since everything on those long menus is so tempting, but when the craving really hit, the folks at Panda Delight over on Richmond almost knew without asking to pack me up an order of wings, a couple of egg rolls, shrimp dumplings, pork fried rice, and the best General Tso's chicken this side of Hong Kong. When my friend at the shelter, Eileen Silvers, got married at Temple Beth Yeshurum, I had a field day over the roast turkey and lamb and rice and baked salmon and jelly cakes on the reception buffet, and when me and Lyman would go out to Pancho's Cantina for Mexican, nothing would do but to follow up margaritas and a bowl of chunky guacamole and a platter of beef fajitas with a full order of pork carnitas and a few green chile sausages. And don't even ask about the barbecue and links and jalapeño cheese bread and pecan pie at Tinhorn BBQ. Just the thought still makes me drool.”

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Book:Hungry for Happiness
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“Of course, I myself had ordered the barbecue and links and ribs from the guys at Pink Pig- ten pounds of just the smoky brisket itself- and, of course, nothing would do but for Mama to serve them on her silver-plated platters somebody had given her when she and Daddy got married. But every single other dish on that huge table was Mama's handiwork. There were the collards she'd mentioned, but also her red cabbage coleslaw, and barbecued pintos, and big bowls of okra and tomatoes, and corn pudding, and potato salad made with potatoes boiled in water spiced with Texas Pete, and baskets of jalapeño cornbread, and not only two pans of her rich banana pudding but also two sticky cherry cobblers. Must have been twenty different items on that buffet- enough to feed double the number of guests.”

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“I'm not tootin' my own horn or anything, but I gotta say the buffet we set up on my dining room table with a blue-checkered cloth and some fresh daisies couldn't have looked more beautiful. Used my large, glazed, tobacco-spit pottery dish for the casserole, and with the crusty, buttered bread crumb topping, it was appetizing enough to be photographed for a food magazine. For the grits, I'd decided to sprinkle extra Parmesan over the top, so they were not only soft and creamy inside but a crispy golden brown outside. The congealed salad I fixed in a glass mold the shape of a pinecone, so when I turned it out on a plain white platter lined with leaves of romaine, the peaches and pecans could be clearly seen suspended in the lemony aspic in an interesting design. This time my hot buttermilk biscuits were as high and fluffy as Mama's, and next to the cloth-lined straw basket I had a big slab of the sweetest local country butter in the state of Texas, which I buy every weekend at the farmers' market out off Eldridge Parkway. We transferred Rosemary's yummy cake to the cut-crystal plate with tiny legs I remember my grandmamma using for birthday parties, and to tell the truth, I wondered how in hell I was gonna get through that lunch without cuttin' myself more than just a sliver of that mouthwatering caramel layer cake.”

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“Well, I was up bright and early, and while everybody else went to church or whatever they do on Sunday morning, I was chopping turkey and ham and mushrooms for the casserole and mixing chopped pickled peaches and pecans with cream cheese for the salad that had to congeal in the fridge at least two hours. I also decided to go ahead and mix all the dry ingredients and shortening for the biscuits so all I'd have to do would be to add buttermilk at the last minute, cut 'em out, and bake 'em. That left only the cheese grits, which I knew could be boiled in advance, then mixed with butter and sour cream and eggs and cheddar and a little garlic and seasonings, scraped into a big baking dish, and stuck in the oven with the casserole to get nice and golden by the time everybody arrived.”

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“And yeah, put out as I can be with Mama 'bout a lotta things, I gotta admit she gets all the credit for getting me interested in cooking when I was just knee-high to a grasshopper. Gladys never seemed to give a damn about it when we were kids, which I guess is why she and that family of hers nourish themselves today mainly on KFC and Whoppers and junk like that. But me, I couldn't keep my eyes off Mama when she'd fix a mess of short ribs, or cut out perfect rounds of buttermilk biscuit dough with a juice glass, or spread a thick, real shiny caramel icing over her 1-2-3-4 cakes. And I can remember like it was yesterday (must have been about 4 years old at the time) when she first let me help her bake cookies, especially the same jelly treats I still make today and could eat by the dozen if I didn't now have better control. "Honey, start opening those jars on the counter," she said while she creamed butter and sugar with her Sunbeam electric hand mixer in the same wide, chipped bowl she used to make for biscuit dough. Strawberry, peach, and mint- the flavors never varied for Mama's jelly treats, and just the idea of making these cookies with anything but jelly and jam she'd put up herself the year before would have been inconceivable to Mama.”

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“In no time, I'd beaten cream cheese and butter and confectioners' sugar and more vanilla with my electric hand mixer till the icing was real light and fluffy, and when the cakes were cooled a little, I handed Billy Po a serrated knife, showed him how to level the tops, and we both tasted the rich leftover pieces of cake. "Boy, that's delicious," he exclaimed as he nibbled real slow and his eyes got big. "Know what I love?" I said. "All those different textures. The smooth bananas, the stringy pineapple, and crunchy pecans. Nothing like it.”

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“So I march into this pizzeria, and smell hot cheese and basil and oregano and garlic and onions and maybe pepperoni in the air, and notice some youngsters and loud cowboys eating pizzas and drinking beer at wooden tables, and start studying all the scrumptious pies in the display case in front of the big oven. There's one with sausage and mushrooms and three cheeses, and one with bacon and charred peppers and black olives and shrimp, and another with tiny meatballs and broccoli and whole garlic cloves, and one called the Super Deluxe, with everything but the kitchen stove.”

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“Gladys loved Mama's red devil cake with chocolate icing, but what I always begged her to fix for my birthday was her rich hummingbird cake with pineapple and bananas and pecans and a real sweet cream cheese icing. Daddy adored that cake too, and I can still hear him telling me before he'd go to work to be sure and cut him a thick slice and wrap it in plastic and put it in the fridge for him. To this day, I don't know how the cake got its crazy name, and when I finally asked Mama not long ago if she knew, all she did was twist her mouth and frown the way she does when she's exasperated, and tell me not to ask dumb questions, then say, "maybe it's because hummingbirds love red sugar water and the nectar in flowers and anything else sweet. But I can tell you one thing, and that's that I'm not about to put a cake outside to see if hummingbirds'll peck at it.”

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“Well, I was sure this handsome buck would follow us both out, but when I got back to the kitchen, there he still was picking at some leftover Cajun popcorn in a bowl on the counter. "Oh, don't eat that!" I almost screamed. "It's awful cold. And, besides, you need to dip it in garlic mayonnaise for it to be really good." "I think it's pretty good as is," he said, and suddenly I began to wonder if maybe I looked too heavy in the loose harlequin pants and metallic gold shirt I was wearing. "What's it called?" "Cajun popcorn." "But it's fried shrimp, isn't it?" "Yeah, though over in Louisiana they usually use crawfish." "Why's it called popcorn?" "I have no earthly idea. Maybe 'cause people it fast as popcorn." "What all's in it?" I was now rinsing and drying some platters with a dishcloth and in a hurry to put out some more nutty fingers. "You do ask a lot of questions, Mr. Webster," I kidded him. "Sure you're not some hotshot chef out looking to steal recipes?" He laughed and said, "Jerry. Call me Jerry. And no, I'm no recipe thief. I simply love good food and am always looking for new ideas." "Okay, Jerry, there's everything in that battered popcorn except the kitchen stove." "Like what?" he kept on. "Like garlic and onion and a few hundred herbs and spices- and lots of love." He smiled and asked, "Deep fried?" "Yep, in peanut oil, but not too long- no more than about two minutes. Gotta be crisp on the outside but not overcooked.”

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“Rachael Ray was in the middle of making small lemon bars, which reminded me almost immediately of a new recipe for lemon drop cookies I'd been wanting to try and maybe serve at an upcoming children's birthday party I had scheduled. Like I say, cooking can be like therapy for me when I'm real upset, and no sooner had I grabbed a bag of lemon drop candy in the cabinet, wrapped the nuggets in a towel, and begun beating them to bits with a hammer than I calmed down and concentrated on making the batter just right. Butter, sugar, grated lemon rind, heavy cream, an egg, flour baking powder and salt, the crushed candy- the ingredients couldn't have been simpler. What I wondered about was whether the candy would melt during the baking, and I got my answer after the cookies had been in the oven about twelve minutes, and I finally bit into a cooled one, and noticed a slight crunch that was one of the most wonderful sensations I'd ever experienced. Yeah, the cookies were out of this world, and I knew the kids would love 'em, but since I personally like most of my cookies to be kinda chewy, I did decide then and there that the next time I baked a batch, I'd test the texture after only ten minutes of baking- or till just the edges of the cookies browned. I also decided these cookies could give Miss Rachael Ray's lemon bars a good run for their money, and that they should have me on that program doing something a little different. I mean, anybody can make ordinary lemon bars.”

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“Of course Mary Jane and Sam were there with Nugget, Cha Cha's golden retriever mix we rescued from a disgusting pen at a house out in Pasadena. Eileen and Harry Silvers came with their poodle, Zizi, and Venus with her Yorkshire, Macho. Lester and his wife, Bambi, brought Grindel, a beagle mix they adopted from the shelter. And with one of Rosemary's friend's corgi, and a shepherd mix, and a spaniel, plus Sugar and Spice, we had nine dogs in all. What we didn't have were any children since I'd made it clear to everyone that things would probably be hectic enough without a bunch of screaming kids fooling with the dogs and demanding attention.”

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“All I can say is the bubbling pizza tasted as spectacular as it looked, and I didn't even fool with fixin' a salad to go with it. Since Sugar and Spice were begging and whining, I picked off a few pieces of sausage and pepperoni and tossed them to the dogs while I kept watching Emeril roll out and stretch some dough and trying not to think about Vernon and Sally and the way they'd deceived me. What I really wanted to do was scream at Emeril that his dough was too thick and more like the Chicago style than the crisp classic Neopolitan one I was eating. But, instead, I finished munching on the slice, and looked at the meatballs and pieces of bacon and golden mushrooms and shiny olives and onions nestled in all the melted cheese on the next slice, and started nibbling on that one. By now, Emeril was chopping herbs while he sautéed onions and garlic in olive oil, and when I wasn't concentrating on him, my thoughts shifted again to Vernon and Sally, and the humiliating stunt they'd pulled on me, and how I'd really like to take my gun and blow both their brains out. Then I wondered why in hell Emeril would dog up his pizza with so much tomato sauce, and Sugar was driving me crazy begging for more meat, and before I realized it, I was sinking my teeth into a third slice loaded mainly with red peppers and sausage that had a wonderful fennel taste and telling myself how much better this pizza was than the one Emeril was fixin'.”

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