IS HOUSTON A MELTING POT, A SALAD BOWL, OR A BBQ KOLACHE? Chron food critic Alison Cook frames the new Killen’s barbecue brisket-filled kolache from Peña’s Donut Heaven & Grill in Pearland (pictured above at 11601 Shadow Creek Pkwy.) as a mere restaging onto a dinner plate — or in a to-go bag at least — of the larger metropolis’s cultural blend: “Mixing and matching has become our culinary birthright. In the nation that is Texas, Houston — with its port and its flourishing economy and its early influx of international immigrants — has been the leading edge of this trend. Whereas 20 years ago, the advent of a huevos ranchero kolache at the Kolache Factory attracted a bit of delighted surprise, now the reaction to Peña’s idea of stuffing the Tex­Czech bun with Killen’s sanctified brisket is more along the lines of ‘What took you so long?‘ Indeed, just hours after the brisket kolache was announced to the world, kolache baker extraordinaire Victoria Rittinger was already riffing further on the idea.” [Houston Chronicle] Photo: Peña’s Donut Heaven & Grill