WHEN A HIGH pressure ridge settles over Texas and weeks are seamlessly hot as Hades, I think of the folks up north and try to be happy for them — so relieved to be sprung from winter’s grip that they don’t want to “waste” a single summer day.

I think of their situation as being the flip side of a coin. While they are socked in by winter’s snow and ice, we may have a few cold and icy days, but we know it won’t last. And if the mercury up North hits the 90s some July day, the Yankees know it’s very temporary.

East Texas summer stasis does have its redemption, at least. I think of the wonderful foods that tempt us on every side.

All the vegetables growers bring to farmer’s markets make the “local foods” movement reasonable to follow here. And peaches from orchards such as McPeak’s in north Upshur and Efurd’s over the line in Camp County are well worth the journey.

HOMEMADE PEACH ice cream evokes delicious memories for me, but instead of trying to make my own I settle for the ice cream Efurd’s makes and sells from their produce stand.

You can have your black-eyed peas and purple hulls, but cream peas are irresistible to me. They’re available, and cry out for hot water cornbread to make a complete meal.

Thanks to my daughter Sally, who found a copy of the upscale food magazine Saveur at her home in Chapel Hill, N.C., I’m enjoying the July Texas issue. It borrows quite a bit from earlier editions of Texas magazines such as Texas Monthly and Texas Highways, which take note of Texas food ways from time to time.

Saveur has 24 chapters on that many “reasons why we love Texas.” These include: “slow-smoked brisket so good it makes you sigh; plump Galveston Bay oysters seared on a hot grill; over-the-top steaks cut from prime Texas steer; legendary chili cookoffs; the world’s greatest hot sauce festival; the mesquite-kissed cooking of the state’s southern frontier; and that delicious hybrid phenomenon called Tex-Mex.”

REASON No. 11 is barbecue. That chapter focuses entirely on barbecue done at a black church, the New Zion Missionary Baptist Church near Huntsville. Writer Patricia Sharpe, who is also foodwriter and restaurant editor for Texas Monthly, says it is known as the Church of the Holy Smoke, and she indicates that the opportunity to buy that barbecue from Thursday through Saturday each week is well worth a pilgrimage.

New Zion is one of 26 Texas barbecue souces listed in the cover story of the March issue of Texas Highways, which divides them regionally.

North Texas listings include Kilgore’s Country Tavern and Bodacious Bar-B-Q of Mount Pleasant, though why that one is singled out is not clear to me. I have found that you can’t go wrong at any Bodacious Bar-B-Q. anywhere in the region, including Gilmer and Longview.

EAST TEXAS, by Saveur’s definition, starts around Palestine and goes south past Houston.

The magazine has chapters on “the best beef on earth,” which it traces back to the Texas Longhorn, a breed that, according to purists, produces beef that makes the best chili; chuck wagon cooking; chili powder (Gebhardt’s is touted as best); a variety of Texas cheeses; Gulf oystermen; crawfish feasts and “superlative sides.”

These last include skillet cornbread with jalapeno peppers, classic coleslaw, long-cooked collard greens and pinto beans slow-simmered with pork and chiles.

A chapter on okra declares that you either love it or hate it. Put me in the former camp. You can’t beat it fried, unhealthy though it may be, and I especially enjoy pickled okra as produced by the San Angelo-based Talk O’ Texas company. According to Saveur, it sells more than 300,000 cases a year, and I’m glad to say you can buy it in Gilmer.

A chapter on El Paso cooking says it’s more Mex than Tex, and reveals “the subtleties of the local ingredients and seasonings.” Three generations of the Enriquez family are pictured preparing fish with a tomatillo sauce. Writer Beth Kraacklauer points out that even though food traditions reflect West Texas, northern Mexico and New Mexico, Juarez has become so dangerous that there is no ease in crossing the border.

EVEN THE mayor of Juarez now lives in El Paso, the writer notes. This was happily not the situation when I visited Juarez in the early 1960s and at a fine restaurant there was first introduced to nachos, made with goat cheese.

Nowadays it seems as if nachos have been on Mexican restaurant menus as long as enchiladas or tamales, but this is not so.

Saveur’s guide to Texas restaurants, divided from cheap to expensive, lists 39 eating places, none in Northeast Texas, heavy on Dallas and Houston.

One that is familiar to Gilmer folks who man the Yamboree booth at the Texas folklife Festival in San Antonnio each summer is Mi Tierra, landmark cafe near the produce market, open 24 hours a day and often featuring mariachi singers.

THE REPORTER column by Sam Gwynne gives a history of Austin-born Whole Foods Market, now an empire with 281 stores employing 52,000 people.

I knew that my daughter and her friends were irritated when Whole Foods bought out the two Wellspring Grocery stores in Chapel Hill and Durham, N.C. In deference to local feelings they left the Wellspring name in place for quite some time.

I didn’t know until reading Saveur that Whole Foods, up until then a health foods chain, was inspired by the Wellspring acquisition to start carrying gourmet products.

Nothing against the supermarkets available in the Gilmer-Longview-Tyler market areas, but I wish there were a Whole Foods store closer than Dallas. As far as I have been able to find out, there are no plans to open one in this area of two adjoining metro areas that are already big, and growing.

sgreene@tatertv.com