Tasty Texas Treats

Keli Gwyn, author of “A Love Returned” in the Seven Brides for Seven Texans Romance Collection, here to talk about treats, tasty Texas-style ones.

My mother grew up in Texas. She introduced me to sweet tea at a young age. In fact, I can’t remember life before sweet tea.

For those who might not know what sweet tea is, it’s sweetened iced tea. The trick to making it “just right” is getting enough sugar in it. If you mix in the sugar when the tea is still warm and then cool it down, you can get more sugar absorbed into the mix. Not that I worried overmuch about that. Part of the fun for my younger self was tipping my emptied glass and letting the excess sugar on the bottom slide onto my tongue. It was like drinking liquid candy. Yum!

My maternal grandmother took charge of preparing our family feasts when she moved to town in my teens. One of the meals I most looked forward to was Nanny’s beans and chowchow, which she served on New Year’s Day. I wasn’t a huge fan of the beans themselves, but I loved burying them under a mound of her tangy chowchow, which was a pickled relish she learned to make when she lived in Texas. I never learned exactly what was in Nanny’s chowchow, but it sure tasted good.

Houston Hart, the hero of “A Love Returned,” spent twelve years in California, but he’s back in Texas now. One of the things he’d been looking forward to upon his return was sinking his teeth into one of the tasty tamales made by the Hart’s cook, Perla. Because of her Mexican heritage, she made the best tamales around, at least according to the Hart men.

Houston’s dream is realized when he sits down to a meal of tamales. Here’s the opening paragraph of the story.

Twelve years was a long time to wait for a tamale. Sam Houston Hart forked a bite and savored the spicy taste.

Since the stories in the collection take place in Texas, I thought it would be fun to offer some tasty Texas treats in my giveaway packages this week. I learned about the Texas Millionaries from my mom, who likes them. My research led me to the Longhorns and the pecan pralines.

Seeing the pralines brought back another memory of the pecan pies Nanny made for Thanksgiving each year. I’m not a fan of pecans or pies, but the memory of my Nanny’s pies is special nonetheless.

Today’s the last day to win the tasty trio of Texas-themed treats I’ve been giving away all week, so be sure to enter the giveaway. Here’s how…

Questions for You
Answer at least one to enter the giveaway.

Which Texas-themed treats are your favorites?

How do you like your iced tea, sweetened or not?

Do you like nuts in your candies? If so, which kinds?

The E-x-p-a-n-d-i-n-g Giveaway

Each day this week, I’ve added a new item to the prize package, making it BIGGER and better than the one before.

Yesterday’s prize package included three tasty Texas treats: a Texas Millionaire, a Texas Longhorn and a pecan praline plus all three books in the Lone Star Cowboy League continuity series from the Love Inspired Historical line that Erica, Gabrielle and I write for: Stand-in Rancher Daddy by Renee Ryan, A Family for the Rancher by Louise M. Gouge and A Rancher of Convenience by Regina Scott.

The winner of the day four prize package is Bonnie Roof! Congratulations, Bonnie! I will get your candies and books on their way to you.

Today I’m adding Texas Cinderella, another Love Inspired Historical, this one by Winnie Griggs. That’s a total of SEVEN items, which seems like a fitting number for the final prize package in my Expanding Giveaway, wouldn’t you say?

To enter my final giveaway this week, all you have to do is leave a comment with the answer to one of the questions above by midnight EST. I’ll choose the winner using random.org and will ask Erica to include the name of Friday’s winner in her Saturday post tomorrow.

We’re saving our biggest and best prize for the final post in three weeks, when Erica will announce the winner of our Kindle Fire giveaway. One lucky winner will receive a Kindle Fire loaded with other books written by the authors of the Seven Brides for Seven Texans Romance Collection, including my three Love Inspired Historicals and two by Gabrielle. You can enter the giveaway below, if you haven’t already done so.

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