Food

EDINBURG — It’s a familiar and comforting aroma for bakeries — the smell of sweet bread filling the environment as pastries of various flavors...

HARLINGEN — I step into the peaceful diner and look over a blackboard covered with the house specials.

BROWNSVILLE — A blue marlin dives toward a table of diners; its flight frozen in mid-air by a taxidermist.

HARLINGEN — I step out of the November cold into the warm restaurant and wait for instructions.

HARLINGEN — It’s a Tuesday night at La Playa Mexican Café, and the warm lights spread from the ceiling and fall onto wooden tables and tiled floors while country music fill the dinner air.

It’s a time of remembrance.

MERCEDES — The first time I’d heard of the legendary Hot Cheeto pizza from Moran’s Pizzeria, I was on the phone with my soon-to-be girlfriend.

SAN BENITO — It’s late afternoon. The mood at Calaca’s Tacos and Beer is quiet and refreshing.

A line of cars snakes through the parking lot outside the American Legion Post 205, where the post’s members are hard at work passing out 400 free chicken dinners to the community Saturday in Harlingen.

If you love the color purple, you are going to love the newest character added to M&M’s candy.