For everything that New York City has to offer, it's difficult for a Texan to find the comforts of home, 1,500 miles away. Tex-Mex, Iced Tea, B-B-Q, Ro-tel Tomatoes, Breakfast Sausage, Chicken Fried Steak, Dr. Pepper... not easy to find in the big city.
And, apparently we can add Adam's Extract to the list. Last month when I was in NYC visiting my long-time/best friend, we decided to make cookies, and he lamented that there was no "good" vanilla. Only the real stuff. Adam's Best is not really vanilla, it's vanilla flavoring. But most importantly it has the coolest packaging (meaning it hasn't changed much since 1905). I had know idea it was a Texas original.
From the Adams Extract site:"[In 1905], most vanilla was sold to pharmacies and was often labeled “Do not bake or freeze.” John A. Adams, a pharmacist whose imagination was stirred by his wife’s yearning for a flavoring that wouldn’t bake or freeze out, announced that he could produce a better vanilla than the one his wife was currently using. Working with just $6.71 worth of materials on top of an old icebox, Adams discovered the formula he wanted."Today, I'm sending my friend a big box of the stuff, along with some long promised photos of us, and some other Texas treats, which I won't share here on the off chance he's reading!
