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DRINK LIKE A TEXAN Homegrown beer! Texas-made whiskey! Indigenous wine (that actually tastes good)! From Alpine hefeweizen and Fort Stockton Chenin Blanc to Galveston Madeira and Austin vodka, the state now has all manner of native libations (and expert tastemakers) to help quench our thirst. Cheers to our liquid revolution! BY DAVID ALAN, ER IC BENSON, JOR DAN BR EAL , A ARON CHAMBER LAIN, JESSICA DUPU Y, JOR DAN M ACK AY, AND FR ANCESCA M AR I
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THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS In 2012 Austin Tice answered a calling: to become a war photographer and tell the world what was happening in Syria. But then he went missing. BY SONIA SMITH
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TEN WRITERS TO WATCH (AND READ) Move over, J. Frank Dobie and Larry McMurtry. Texas has entered a new golden age of literature—and these are a few of its standout voices.
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GREEN ACRES How did smog-breathing, gridlockprone Houston become the newest natural wonder of the urban world? BY MIMI SWARTZ
CREDIT TK
Jester King Brewery founder Jeffrey Stuffings (center) with co-owners Michael Steffing (left) and Ron Extract.
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Reporter Columns Touts
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MISCELLANY
LEAD
FILM
MADE IN TEXAS
Authors, authors everywhere.
I, ROBOT. YOU, BALL.
“LET’S GO DIG UP DOM”
A group of UT computer scientists tries to program a team of machines to play soccer like the pros.
The hopelessly devoted, surprisingly normal, not at all creepy cult of Fandango.
ROCKETBUSTER HANDMADE CUSTOM BOOTS
12 ROAR OF THE CROWD
Say Watt? 20 EDITOR’S LETTER
Baylor, bared. by BR IAN D. SW EAN Y
22 BEHIND THE LINES
Erica Grieder on the real trouble with Ken Paxton. 380 THE TEXANIST
Our estimable advice columnist on finding love in the country, the (unquestioned!) merit of the State Fair, the fulfilling post-rodeo career of a bucking bull, and more.
ON THE COVER
Photograph by Jeff Wilson. Styling by Lauren Smith Ford. Makeup by Aubrie Layne for Lucky Cat Beauty. Hair by Sergio Morales for Pageboy at Salon Ceron.
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by LOUISA HALL Plus: A well-trained SEAL /
Bum Steer of the Month / Old News / Laura Wilson takes a shot / The Checklist, expanded / Meanwhile, in Texas . . . 48 CHAT
THE FOUR-STAR CHANCELLOR
After retiring from a celebrated career in the Navy, William McRaven takes on a new fight: the battle over higher education. by BR IAN D. SW EAN Y
“At the end of four years, the average student debt across the University of Texas System is under $21,000. That’s a small car. Education is the best value going.”
Because you know you’ve always wanted to kick it up.
by STEPHEN HAR R IGAN
by LAUR EN SMITH FOR D
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MUSIC
5 OF A KIND
BLACK IS THE NEW BLACK
REMAINS TO BE SEEN
Ten years after his last album, Clint Black has a new record— and the same old attitude.
Peace and quiet among our most famous gravestones.
by ANDY LANGER
by JOR DAN BR EAL
120 VITTLES
THE GULF OYSTER
It don’t need no fancy name. by COURTNEY BOND
122 PAT’S PICK
GET HIM TO THE GREEK
How Evan Turner opened the taverna Helen in a fit of passion—and brought Houston a modern twist on dolmades. by PATR ICIA SHAR PE Plus: The Tipsy Texan’s
Cocktail of the Month by DAVID ALAN
126 DINING GUIDE
WHERE TO EAT NOW
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THE SILENCE HEARD LOUD AND CLEAR
MISCELLANY
Texasmonthly.com’s August 20 story on a college rape case, “Silence at Baylor,” sparked an urgent discussion of how universities handle accusations of sexual violence by college athletes. It was, at last count, the fourth most widely read online story in our history and spurred Baylor president Kenneth Starr to order an investigation into the university’s handling of the matter.
B E H I N D T H E S C E N E S O F “ T E N W R I T E R S TO WATC H ( A N D R E A D ) ”
ALUMNI
THREE QUESTIONS FOR D. J. STOUT
Before becoming a partner in the Austin office of the international design firm Pentagram, D. J. Stout spent thirteen years as art director of T E X A S M O N T H LY , from 1987 to 2000. His new book, Variations on a Rectangle: 30 Years of Graphic Design From Texas Monthly to Pentagram (UT Press), is filled with hundreds of striking images, many of which originally appeared in this magazine. What do you miss the most about designing a magazine on a regular basis? The rhythmic, cyclical nature of devoting all my effort to one publication. At Pentagram we’re always working on dozens of design projects. At T E X A S M O N T H LY I could wear one hat—a cowboy hat. Which TM cover are you proudest of? In 1992, on her sixtieth birthday, Ann Richards announced that she wanted to learn to ride a motorcycle. So when we were brainstorming cover ideas for a story on Richards, the image of her riding a Harley hog in all-white leathers burst into my head. In my book I write about the humbling moment when a crowd of thousands stood up and cheered for that image when it was shown at her memorial service, in 2006. You went to Texas Tech. Your eventual successor at TM, Scott Dadich, went to Tech. His successor, our current creative director, T. J. Tucker, went to Tech. Our current art director, Emily Kimbro, went to Tech too. What’s the deal? When I graduated from Tech, in 1981, the art department didn’t have much of a graphic design program. What it did have was an experienced, energetic teacher named Frank Cheatham, who became my mentor. Over the years Tech’s graphic design department has placed a greater emphasis on teaching editorial design. I’d like to think that the T E X A S M O N T H LY legacy had something to do with that. 10
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LEIGH-ANN JACKSON
DAN SOLOMON
JOHN PHILLIP P SANTOS
is a Washington, D.C., native who interned at the Austin Chronicle and T E X A S M O N T H L Y while earning her BA in journalism from UT-Austin. She went on to become a staff writer at the Austin American-Statesman and now lives with her husband and daughter in Los Angeles, where she works as a freelance writer for such publications as the Los Angeles Times, MSN .com, and Previously.TV. She and Ruby author Cynthia Bond (“Cynthia Bond Can Still Hear the Echoes,” page 103) first became acquainted through a neighborhood mothers’ group ten years ago, when their daughters were toddlers.
moved to Texas from the Chicago suburbs when he was eighteen and quickly found himself immersed in the Rio Grande Valley’s punk-rock scene. In that community, he met many musicians and writers, including Death to the Bullshit Artists of South Texas, Vol. 1 author Fernando A. Flores (“Fernando A. Flores Takes the Rio Grande Valley PunkRock Blindfold Test,” page 102), with whom he would later share an apartment in Austin. These days, as a writer for T E X A S M O N T H L Y ’s Daily Post and for Fast Company’s Co.Create blog, he shares a house in Austin with his wife and their dog.
was born and raised in San Antonio. During a decades-long exile in South Bend, Oxford, New Haven, and Manhattan, he developed a theory about South Texas: that it harbored a deep story about what America was becoming, a slowly unfolding plotline that emerged from the fateful meeting between Old New Spain and the American Republic. He first met the artist and writer Ito Romo (“How Ito Romo Turned the Border Into His Canvas,” page 107) in the eighties and knew immediately that he had found a kindred spirit. Today, Santos once again lives in his hometown, and teaches at UT–San Antonio.
E X T E N D E D P L AY
I HAVE MET THE ENEMY, AND I LIKE HIM
Our interview with UT chancellor William McRaven ranged far and wide, and one of the topics we couldn’t fit into the print edition of this month’s Chat (“The Four-Star Chancellor,” page 48) were his thoughts about the university system’s fraught relationship with the board of regents and, in particular, controversial regent Wallace Hall. The online version of the conversation includes McRaven’s discussion of this dynamic, most surprisingly his admission that “contrary to popular belief, I actually like Wallace Hall. Wallace and I get along pretty well.” And this caveat: “Well, I do wish that Regent Hall would not have sued me, obviously.”
M C R AV E N P H O T O G R A P H B Y S A R A H W I L S O N
H E L M E T: C A L S P O RT M E D I A /A P I M AG E S ; SA N TOS : SA R A H L I M
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ROAR OF THE CROWD
WE CAN’T SAY
we were surprised by the exuberant nature of this month’s reader feedback. After all, September’s cover boy has, well, let’s just call it a high infatuation quotient. Witness, for instance, a letter from one die-hard Dallas Cowboys fan, who after confessing to “follow[ing] EVERYTHING” about the Houston Texans’ defensive standout, lamented: “Oh, J.J.! I am so sorry I left you in that hot mailbox all day long!” This reader’s enthusiasm for the hunky Mr. Watt was, in our opinion, matched in spirit only by one eloquent Facebook poet, who left this gem in our comments stream: “There is not enough mustard in Houston to cover that hot dog.”
To Serve and Protest About once every year or two, there is a T E X A S M O N T H L Y article that is so egregiously slanted, so beyond the values of mainstream America, or so totally lacking in common sense that I am tempted to cancel my subscription. “Crossing the Line” [Behind the Lines] fits all three criteria. From the first line, which refers to “the national scandal over police misconduct that began . . . in Ferguson, Missouri,” to the last paragraph composed of unadulterated hogwash, the article is maddeningly unresearched and sophomorically naive.
Email us at roar@texasmonthly.com. Or send letters to Roar of the Crowd, TEXAS MONTHLY , Box 1569, Austin, Texas 78767-1569. Letters addressed to TEXAS MONTHLY become the property of the magazine, and it owns all rights to their use. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.
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In Ferguson a jury determined there was no police misconduct (or in media speak, “failed to indict”) after sitting through hours of testimony and reading through thousands of pages of documents. Something I’m sure Dan Solomon couldn’t be bothered to do. “Unarmed” isn’t readily apparent and doesn’t mean you can’t be killed, especially when the suspect is trying to take your gun. And why in the name of fair and balanced reporting isn’t “unarmed teenager” followed by “who just robbed a store”? The police in McKinney were not called because the African American girl’s neighbors were white, as the article implies. The officer in Waller County “seems irritated” or “becomes enraged” but Bland merely “expresses frustration”? Give me a break. Did Solomon even watch the video? Bland was arrested for assault on a public servant. And the police are to blame because a woman with evidence of drugs in her system and a history of attempted suicide killed herself in a jail cell? Solomon asserts that the commonality is “an angry white cop escalating an innocent encounter and physically oppressing an unarmed black person,” when in fact, in these cases and others, the suspect was not only belligerent and combative but refused to follow police directives. By participating in this type of yellow-dog journalism to sell their wares, it seems as though many in the media strive to widen the racial divide rather than heal it, often resulting in retaliatory violence against
police officers. And if law-abiding blacks should not be painted with the same brush as the crowds of black protesters who loot and destroy when they lose a jury verdict or when they win a basketball championship, then neither should the overwhelming percentage of those who devote their lives to protecting and serving. BEVERLY MEYER, SAN ANTONIO
Body of Strife I was born and raised in Corpus Christi, and I am offended by “Amor Prohibido.” Referring to my hometown as an underdeveloped Cuba is not only inaccurate but also extremely rude. How can you claim to be a supporter of Texas when you bash your own cities? EMILIE KESTNER, VIA EMAIL
I loved the writing in this article, particularly the bit where Jeff Winkler describes Corpus Christi. As a transplant to the area, I have been trying to wrap my head around
ROAR OF THE CROWD
what is going on in the city for six years. Your description of Corpus nailed it. STEFANIE PERRYMAN, VIA EMAIL
Jeff Winkler’s article is so disorganized and poorly written that it’s difficult to decipher the point. If the point is that the Quintanilla family is not letting the public “love” Selena because they don’t let others use her image, how is that different from any other brand? I doubt T E X A S M O N T H LY would like a makeshift “Texas Monthly Festival” concert held without their permission, because it would hurt their image. The Quintanillas have every right to guard Selena’s name. After all, someone who claimed to “love” her is the very reason she is no longer with us. MICHELLE, VIA TEXASMONTHLY.COM
The point was that the commodification of Selena and the mythology that has risen out of her legacy get complicated when you consider the perspective that she was someone’s daughter, someone’s sister, and that to have to protect her image means to be constantly reminded of your loss. But at the same time, her family members are not the only ones who lost her, an entire culture did. So there is a fine line between holding on to what is true and letting her be what she was to other people.
Dixon, whom she had dated prior to meeting Sonnier. Dixon now stands accused of Sonnier’s murder. The story stated that Shetina was born in Salt Lake City and raised in Southern California. Shetina says she was “actually raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, Texas, Wyoming, Kansas, Missouri, and both Northern and Southern California.” We also stated that Shetina had once been a “cheerleader” for the Kansas City Chiefs. To clarify, she was a member of the Chiefettes, a dance team that performed at halftime, when she was a teenager living at home in the late seventies. In describing her previous husbands’ occupations, we referred to them as having worked for a “financial trading company” and in “the oil business,” respectively, but we did not intend to suggest that she had married either man for his money. According to Shetina, both men obtained those positions later in their careers, years after she had married them. In reporting the time frame of when Shetina first met Dixon, we wrote that she was a patient at one of Dixon’s spas while she was still married. She says that they met only after her divorce from her second husband and that “it was Dr. Dixon who sought her out, found her on Facebook, and
sent her a friend request.” After describing Dixon’s qualities, we wrote, “And, of course, the fact that he had money didn’t hurt.” Shetina denies this and says that she was “only interested in having a potentially peaceful, kind, loving, caring, and happy relationship with Dr. Dixon at that time, and she never considered ‘the fact that he had money’ as a factor in her relationship.” We did not intend to convey any impression that Shetina dated Dixon for his money. We wrote that, after her divorce, she moved to Lubbock because “she wanted to put some distance between herself and Dumas [where she had lived with her husband].” Shetina says that she moved “because it was an easy move for her as a single mother, and she had two close friends who lived in Lubbock.” She also wanted her sons to enroll in the Lubbock school district. In describing a teapot and a tea-of-themonth-club membership she had received from Dixon as a birthday present, we wrote, in part, that she was insulted because “she was no doubt accustomed to receiving expensive gifts from the men in her life.” Shetina says that she was “upset” because Dixon had mailed her the gift “instead of personally bringing [it] to her, regardless of value.” We regret the error. In reporting an exchange between Dixon and Shetina, we printed a text from her in which she wrote that she wouldn’t consider seeing him again “unless an engagement accompanied by a gigantic diamond ring were imminent.” Shetina says that
ALBERT SALAZAR, VIA TEXASMONTHLY.COM
THE TEX-YORK MENU Editors’ note: Our May 2015 issue included a feature story by Skip Hollandsworth about the murder of a Lubbock doctor named Joseph Sonnier [“A Deadly Dance”]. This story contained multiple passages that Richelle Shetina, a primary figure in the piece, claimed to be misleading or incorrect. In a letter, her lawyer writes that she was portrayed as a “gold-digging-marriage and relationship-wrecking divorcée.” We did not intend for our story to communicate that meaning or assert its truth. Shetina’s lawyer writes that she “had ended her relationship for entirely non-financial reasons with Dr. [Mike] Dixon months before she ever met Dr. Sonnier, and when she fell in love with Dr. Sonnier, it was for reasons unrelated to his wealth and status.” We also did not intend to suggest that she would have resumed a romantic relationship with
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In our September issue, inspired by the New York Times’ blasphemous guacamole-with-peas recipe, we asked readers to propose a Texas twist on a classic New York dish. Here are a few of your suggestions.
The Texas Reuben, barbecue and sauerkraut on rye. Or, Gulf Shrimp Rockefeller. SUSAN HOFFMAN, VIA EMAIL
Tortilla Pizza. SHARON MCCLELLAND, HOT SPRINGS, ARKANSAS
Knichiladas, two enchiladashaped knishes filled with potato, ground meat, or cheese and topped with chile con carne, cheese, and onions. MANNY PATEL, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
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W H AT DAV Y C RO C K E T T R E A L LY SA I D
— Dav y Crocket t
Had Boudro’s been serving Blackened Prime Rib, fresh Guacamole made tableside and Prickly Pear Margaritas back in 1836, the King of the Wild Frontier would have left Tennessee sooner. Loved by locals and travelers, Boudro’s is a mecca for great food on the River Walk. Frommers says ”Everybody loves this old standby on the River Walk.” Dine riverside, inside or (with reservations) on a barge dinner cruise. A T E XAS B I S T R O
on the
RIVER WALK
210. 224. 8 4 8 4 /421 e. commerce /san antonio /boudros.com 16
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her text was in the “context of prior communication with Dr. Dixon” and that she was joking. Though Dixon claimed that they discussed marriage, Shetina says the topic never came up “except eventually to tell him that she would not marry him.” We reported that Shetina had dated other men after the breakup with Dixon. She says that is false and that “the only man she dated after Dr. Dixon was Dr. Sonnier until he was murdered.” We also reported that toward the end of the summer of 2011 Shetina and Dixon went on a few dates together. Shetina says these were not “dates” but rather “meetings” involving small talk. Shetina also says that she did not pursue a relationship with Sonnier and that she gave him her number only after he asked her for it. Her lawyer writes, “When Shetina and Dr. Sonnier became involved in a romantic relationship, she did so because she considered him to be a very intelligent, loving, gentle, and unselfish man with whom she fell in love, and she did not become involved with him because of his wealth and status.” According to court documents, Dixon said that he had told Shetina that he had wanted to take her to Paris. Shetina says she “did not have any such conversation with Dr. Dixon about any proposed trip to Paris, France.” We reported that Dixon attended a Pathways program session in Dallas “to close the door” on his relationship with Shetina. Shetina says that he went hoping to see her. We reported that “as far as she knew, Dixon was happy with his new girlfriend.” Shetina says that “she did not know anything about Dr. Dixon’s personal life . . . at that time.” We wrote that Shetina was “chagrined” by all of the attention surrounding the case. We did not intend to suggest that in a negative way. Shetina says she has “no reason to be ‘chagrined’ in such context.” We also reported that, “according to Lubbock gossip,” Shetina was dating “a wealthy West Texas oilman.” In fact, she is dating a small-business owner in Abilene and the only oil he owns “is the oil he puts in his pickup truck.” We regret the error. We reported that Sonnier and Shetina discussed marriage but that he had “grown weary” of her insistence on a proposal. Shetina says this is false and that the couple “never had any conversations about getting married.” Shetina says the article also implied that she “wrecked Dr. Sonnier’s relationship with one of his ex-girlfriends.” We did not intend to convey that meaning, only to report that the ex-girlfriend was devastated when Sonnier became involved with Shetina. T
EDITOR IN CHIEF
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D I R EC TO R O F E D I TO R I A L O P E R AT I O N S DEPUTY EDITOR
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EDITOR’S LETTER
SHE WAS
a freshman at Baylor University with a promising career on the women’s soccer team. During homecoming weekend, in 2013, she agreed to go out with another promising athlete, a football player named Sam Ukwuachu. But he didn’t drive her to a party or to get a bite to eat as he had said; instead, he drove her to his apartment and raped her. She went to the hospital and later reported the crime to police. After a perfunctory investigation, the university opted not to discipline Ukwuachu. The Waco Police Department took months to bring the case to the McLennan County district attorney’s office, which finally pursued felony charges. This past August—nearly two years after the attack—Ukwuachu stood trial for second-degree sexual assault. He was still listed on the team’s roster at the time. ¶ When writer-at-large Dan Solomon and freelancer Jessica Luther reported these alarming facts in an investigative story titled “Silence at Baylor,” which was published on August 20 on texasmonthly.com, they ignited a national firestorm. Solomon and Luther explored what Baylor knew about Ukwuachu’s troubled past at Boise State, where he had transferred from, and what potential threat he presented on campus in Waco. As the case unfolded—within days, Ukwuachu was convicted and sentenced to 180 days in county jail—every major news organization in the country, from ESPN to the New York Times, began to ask the same questions. ¶ Many outlets chose to first focus on the university and its football program. In an editorial published by the Waco Tribune-Herald on August 25, the newspaper seemed more concerned about circling the wagons, writing that “Rushing to judgment and throwing a rope over a tree limb is an American vice.” ¶ Here’s one thing that editorial didn’t do: spend any serious time talking about the victim’s long and lonely path to justice. Despite bravely going to the authorities and pushing forward with her case, she ended up losing part of her athletic scholarship before eventually transferring to another university; Ukwuachu, meanwhile, was completing his undergraduate degree and preparing to start graduate school. ¶ There’s no doubt that Solomon and Luther’s story gained attention because it involved a top-ranked football team. But the deeper, more-important discussion going forward should center on campus sexual assault. How can administrations ensure that their campuses are as safe as possible? How can they raise awareness about prevention? And how can they ensure that justice moves quickly when a crime is committed? Those are questions we should all be asking, because they are the ones that some universities appear to have overlooked.
One oyster-opening device. Vittles, p. 120
One beer-opening device. “What’s the Brew-haha?” p. 92
An original Fandango crew cap, from cast member Bryan Cepak. “Let’s Go Dig Up Dom,” p. 52
B R I A N D. S W E A N Y A wire-hanger-and-electricaltape pistol holster, fashioned by retired Navy SEAL Clint Emerson. “Self-defense for Sheep,” p. 40
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of the Legislature. It would take twenty more years for the century of Democratic political hegemony to end, but the downfall had begun. Since last year’s general election, the apparent strength of the Republican Party of Texas has increasingly struck me as a trick of the eyes, enabled by the torpor of the state’s Democratic party and complacency among the voters themselves. And while the bloat and corruption of the GOP may not have reached Sharpstown levels, the effects on our state’s politics, policy, and public discourse are palpable, corrosive, and consequential. Our new attorney general, Ken Paxton, is a clear symptom. As most readers probably know, he was indicted in late July for three felonies under state securities law. That’s not good, of course. But the indictment isn’t the most troubling part of the story. What’s troubling is that Paxton was elected at all. Even before his legal troubles became public, his credentials for high office were underwhelming. In 2002 Paxton, a lawyer from McKinney specializing in wills, trusts, and investments, won a seat in the Texas House. Voters in Collin County would reelect him four times, though Paxton failed to author any significant legislation, chair any major committees, or even take an influential role in any important policy debates. Not until 2010, in fact, did he evince any notable political ambition. That year, Paxton announced that he would n the surface, at least, 2014 was a very good year for Repubtry to unseat Joe Straus licans in Texas. At the beginning of the cycle, Democrats as speaker of the Texas THE SCANDAL ISN’T had hoped the state might be turning blue. But on election House. A formal challenge night, Republicans quashed that daydream so thoroughly KEN PAXTON’S ALLEGED never materialized; Paxton that their success seemed almost punitive. Once again, CRIMES. IT’S THAT took himself out of contenthe GOP ran the table. The party elected a new goverHE WAS ELECTED IN tion at the beginning of the nor, lieutenant governor, comptroller, attorney general, THE FIRST PLACE. 2011 session, citing a lack agriculture commissioner, and land commissioner—all BY ER ICA GR IEDER of support. But by positing by at least a 19-point margin. ¶ Yet despite Republicans’ the challenge, Paxton had electoral success, all is not well in the party or the state it won esteem among the growing tea party has dominated for two decades and counting. At some point in the future, if historians are subset of the electorate. He shored up his trying to figure out when Texas Republicans began to squander what could have been a credentials in 2012 by endorsing Ted Cruz permanent majority, they may point to 2014 as a watershed year—the moment when the over David Dewhurst in their bitter fight party’s internal rot became evident. The problems with the Texas GOP today perhaps aren’t for the party’s U.S. Senate nomination. as glaring as the ones Texas Democrats faced in 1972, a result of the stock-fraud scandal Hitching himself to Cruz’s rising star is known as Sharpstown. In March of that year, two lawmakers, including House speaker Gus perhaps Paxton’s singular political acMutscher, were found guilty of conspiracy. In November the voters ousted the incumbent complishment. The people—or at least governor and lieutenant governor, Preston Smith and Ben Barnes; they also replaced much
Stinging Indictment
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the several hundred thousand GOP primary voters who matter most these days—rewarded him for it. In 2012 he won a seat in the Texas Senate. Then, in March 2014, buoyed by repeated praise from Cruz, Paxton placed first in a three-way Republican primary for attorney general and began preparing for a runoff against his former House colleague Dan Branch. By then, however, Paxton’s transgressions were becoming public. During the campaign, in response to a civil complaint, Paxton addressed a long-standing paperwork delinquency. Some of his clients in McKinney had needed investment advice as well as legal services. So, on several occasions, Paxton had referred his clients to Mowery Capital Management, also in McKinney. The owner of that firm, Fritz Mowery, was a friend of Paxton’s, and the two had an arrangement: Paxton would receive 30 percent of the asset-management fees from any clients he solicited on Mowery’s behalf. Per state law, anyone who solicits clients on behalf of an investment adviser is required to register with the Texas State Securities Board. Paxton did so in 2003 and again in 2013. However, in 2004, 2005, and 2012, when he also solicited clients, he did not register. Paxton admitted as much. On May 2, several weeks before the primary runoff, he was reprimanded and fined by the Texas State Securities Board. Though the issue was widely reported, Paxton easily defeated Branch in the runoff and proceeded to coast to victory in the general election despite barely bothering to campaign. But Paxton’s administrative penalty drew the attention of Texans for Public Justice, a left-leaning watchdog group, which noted that Paxton had effectively admitted to committing a third-degree felony and filed a criminal complaint with Austin prosecutors. The matter was eventually referred to Collin County, where, in April of this year, the district attorney’s office requested that the Texas Rangers begin an investigation into Paxton’s investment work and a judge appointed two special prosecutors to oversee the case. The result was the indictment, which was made public in August and includes three counts. There’s the third-degree felony charge concerning Paxton’s admitted failure to register. The other two charges are more serious, alleging securities fraud, which is a first-degree felony. According to the special prosecutors, Paxton encouraged two people (one of them state representative Byron Cook) to make significant investments in the McKinney-based tech company Servergy, in part by giving them | C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 3 0
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the impression that he too had invested. In reality, Paxton was being compensated by the company, which is currently under investigation by the federal Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly lying to investors. Each first-degree felony could send Paxton to prison for 5 to 99 years. Since the beginning of the saga, Paxton has maintained that his failure to register was an innocent oversight and that it should be treated as such. “We have paid an administrative fine of one thousand dollars,” said his spokesman, Anthony Holm, in May 2014, after the disciplinary order was issued. “We are pleased this matter has been resolved.” A few days later Holm dismissed the news that a similar civil complaint had been filed with the federal SEC: “This is clearly a political hit job.” In July Holm bristled at Texans for Public Justice’s criminal complaint: “Now, roughly one hundred days prior to the general election, a Democrat front group admitted that they are trying to make this matter something bigger than it was.” In August he scoffed at the news that another group, the Texas Coalition on Lawyer Accountability, had filed a complaint with the state bar: “Frankly, it’s a bit silly.” After the investigation began, in April of this year, Holm was less amused. “This appears to be a politically motivated effort to ruin the career of a longtime public servant,” he said this summer, adding that the special prosecutors, Houston lawyers Kent Schaffer and Brian Wice, were determined to try the case in the media. “These dominoes are falling,” he said in an interview with an Amarillo TV station, “and the victim is Ken Paxton.” (It’s worth noting that Holm would leave Paxton’s team in late July.) Some may feel it’s a bit of a stretch to cast Paxton as the victim. He is a Republican, in a state where Republicans hold all the political power, and he was indicted in his hometown, in Collin County, which is not exactly a liberal enclave. Undeterred, though, Paxton has essentially argued that he is merely a goof rather than a crook. That may, in fact, be true. Paxton has always attributed his legal missteps to innocent error. He didn’t know it was against the law. He’s corrected the forms now. But corruption and incompetence are not mutually exclusive, and besides, legally speaking, Paxton’s motives don’t make a difference. So for him to cry victim is fairly undignified. It’s also entirely predictable, considering the circumstances under which Paxton achieved high office in the first place. He became attorney general by becoming the Republican nominee. And he became the nominee by
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casting himself as the most conservative candidate in the Republican primary. He cited no real evidence to support this assertion because he didn’t have to. His connection to Cruz was apparently all he needed; his thin record and dubious qualifications were of comparatively little import to the sliver of the electorate that turned out for the runoff. Paxton isn’t the first Republican to use this playbook—he wasn’t even the only person to use it successfully in 2014—and he won’t be the last. In the aftermath of the indictment, there have been calls for Paxton’s resignation. It’s easy to understand why. As attorney general—the state’s top law enforcement official—Paxton heads one of the most important and vital agencies in Texas. It wouldn’t be surprising if Paxton steps down by the midpoint of his term: Greg Abbott, who spent twelve years as attorney general prior to becoming governor, would surely like to appoint a replacement, and the attorney general might see a chance to offer his resignation as part of a plea deal. But the people of Texas have no real recourse here, nor do we necessarily deserve one. Republican voters could have taken the trouble to educate themselves about the basic characters of the candidates on offer; again, several of Paxton’s transgressions were known before the election. If Texans, especially Republicans, don’t want an alleged felon for attorney general, they should keep that in mind next time before they nominate and elect one. Meanwhile, Democrats may be enjoying some schadenfreude at Paxton’s expense, but they too are partly responsible for his election. If Democrats competed effectively in statewide races, if Republicans had any fear that nominating someone like Paxton might lose them a general election, then we might have avoided this embarrassment. As for the Texans who don’t vote—well, their own behavior tells us that their preferences don’t matter. As it stands, there’s nothing that would force Paxton to step down. A Texas officeholder can continue to serve under indictment, and Paxton wouldn’t be the first attorney general to do so. Jim Mattox was elected attorney general in 1982, indicted in 1983, acquitted in 1985, and comfortably reelected in 1986, by voters who appreciated his instinct for combat. Why would things be different for Paxton? He is the product of a one-party political system that’s demonstrably troubled and that many Texans don’t seem especially motivated to change. It’s a truism that people get the officials they deserve. And Texas attorney general Ken Paxton is an indictment of us all. T
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I, Robot. YOU, BALL. CAN A GROUP OF AUSTIN COMPUTER SCIENTISTS TR AIN A TEAM OF MACHINES TO PLAY SOCCER WITHOUT BLOWING A FUSE?
REPORTER
BY LOUISA HALL
EDITED BY JEFF SALAMON
n the third floor of UT-Austin’s Gates Dell Complex, Katie Genter is standing on a six-by-nine-meter piece of turf holding a toddler-size robot under one arm. Genter has enormous blue eyes and a blond ponytail; the robot, a 58-centimeter-tall humanoid machine designed and built in France and programmed to play soccer, is made of shiny white plastic. His name is Gouda Daniels, and he has two fingers and a thumb on each hand, skiboot-shaped feet, glowing eyes, ear holes like small saucers, and a serious “injury”: his sonar, lodged in his plastic chest, is malfunctioning. To move the ball around the field he’ll have to rely solely on vision. ¶ When Genter, who is working on a Ph.D. in computer science at UT, powers Gouda on and places him on the turf, he adopts an athletic stance. He bends his knees, lifts his hands to shoulder height, and swivels his head. His teammates—Alison Brie, Arnold Schwarzen-cheddar, Gene Parmesan, and Colby Jack Bauer (the cheesy names are an inside joke)—are turned off. So are his opponents, a squadron of extra robots in numbered jerseys. The idea is to give Gouda a chance to focus on his individual rather than team skills. ¶ This is more complicated than it might seem. With unchallenged O
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This small victory took place in late June, just a few weeks before Genter and Gouda headed out to Hefei, China, for the 2015 Robot Soccer World Cup, an international robotics competition. The team they belong to, UT Austin Villa, is a mainstay in the Standard Platform League, one of RoboCup’s five soccer leagues. Each league has a different focus and different rules; games in the Simulation League,
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held, it was a feat just to set a single robot for instance, take place entirely in virtual in motion and a huge accomplishment to reality. In the Standard Platform League, get multiple robots walking at the same teams of five robots play soccer against time. “They ran into walls, fell over, and in one another, and no remote control is alone case, even caught on fire,” Stone says. lowed; the humans cannot assist their Now, not twenty years later, teams of five robots during play. robots are not only moving but moving Austin Villa—programmed by seven quickly while keeping track of other tasks. UT graduate students and a post-doctoral The fact that these robots are proscholar under the guidance of Peter Stone, grammed to act both adversarially and a computer science professor who founded cooperatively is one of the unique comthe franchise, in 2003—is usually regarded ponents of RoboCup. Competitors in most as a force to be reckoned with. In 2012 the robot competitions, such as the Internateam won the RoboCup in Mexico City, tional Aerial Robotics Competition, act defeating B-Human, a German team that alone. In 1993, when Stone was a graduate had gone 49-0 before the final match, by student at Carnegie Mellon, he read “On a commanding 4–2 score. In 2013 Austin Seeing Robots,” an article by University Villa came in a very respectable third. But a of British Columbia professor Alan Mackyear later, after reprogramming some of its worth that proposed the idea of a robot code, Austin Villa struggled from the start, soccer competition. For Stone, a competifailing even to advance beyond pool play. tive soccer player himself, that sounded This year, the team is hoping to regain like an inspired notion. At the time, much its former dominance. But in the weeks of the research in robotics focused on static leading up to departure, the players are planning, such as programming a robot struggling with setbacks ranging from that can get to the airport assuming the physical damage to faulty vision algoworld around it is perfectly static. Stone rithms. “Yesterday we had a meeting and was more interested in the interactions we started panicking,” says Genter, who between systems: a robot that can get to also serves as the chair of the Standard the airport while navigating around other Platform League’s Technical Commitvehicles. What better way, he thought, to tee. “I think it’ll come together, but it’s not improve robots’ cooperative capacities peaceful fine-tuning right now.” than to train them for soccer? The ultimate goal of the RoboCup comShortly after Mackworth’s petition is to create, by 2050, paper was published, two teams of humanoid robots groups in South Korea and that can beat the winning Previous page: Members Japan began putting together team of the human World of the UT Austin Villa an international robot soccer Cup. Watching Gouda strugteam on August 24, 2015. tournament. Stone quickly gle to keep himself upright, Above: An Austin Villa robot regards a “soccontacted them, and when the that goal seems a little farcer ball”; coach Katie first RoboCup was played four fetched. But in 1997, when Genter handles a few of years later, in Japan, Stone the first competition was her players.
RO B OT: CO U RT E SY O F T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F T E X A S
vigor, Gouda kicks the ball forward, past the immobile opposing team, which appears to be a good enough start. Unfortunately, once the ball comes to a stop behind the other team’s players, Gouda can’t see it. His head starts to spin. He walks in a befuddled circle. Then he sets out in the opposite direction, toward his own goal. “Oh, boy,” Genter says. “I might help him out.” She moves onto the field and nudges the ball into view. This has the desired effect. Gouda stops, spins, and begins to stride purposefully toward the ball. But then, as if he’s overeager to show off his moves, he suddenly totters dangerously and then falls over, before he can even get in a kick. “This is just sad,” Genter says, resisting the urge to help him up. The problem, she explains, is that Gouda’s walking program was recently altered so that he takes longer strides. That’s helpful for moving faster but unhelpful for maintaining balance. Motion, Genter says, is the biggest challenge for soccer-playing robots. Gouda has mastered incredible feats of cooperation, vision, and localization (the robot’s ability to determine where it is in relation to stationary and moving objects). But walking requires constant recalibrations to deal with holes and bumps in the turf or slight changes in gradient. These bots, it seems, weren’t made for walking. Now flat on his back, Gouda begins the laborious process of getting up. First, he props up his hips with his fists. Then he kicks his boots in the air for momentum, plants his feet, and hoists himself into a standing position. Vertical once again, he takes a few more steady strides. Then he teeters and falls down again. Once he’s back on his feet, Genter follows him around the way you’d follow a toddler who’s just learning to walk: a little bent over, ready to catch him. This time, though, Gouda manages to maintain his footing and weaves his way past his opponents, kicking the ball several more times before, finally, scoring a goal.
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was there. Now he’s a vice president of RoboCup and one of two people who have participated in every RoboCup since the competition began. And his predictions about RoboCup have been borne out. According to Stone, RoboCup research has contributed to countless advances in fields such as machine learning and robot vision. Spinoff technology from RoboCup has been put to use in disaster rescue robots and industrial robots. Amazon has acknowledged that much of the technology behind the robots it employs in its warehouses draws on ideas first tested at RoboCup. In fact, RoboCup has often been compared to the Apollo program: there’s no immediate value in putting a man on the moon or in training robots for soccer, but both have fostered innovation that has tremendous practical use. And every year the competition becomes fiercer, and new challenges are added to the tournament. This year in Hefei, Genter explains, the goalposts will be white rather than the customary yellow. That’s a big hurdle for every team. By league rules, all the robot players are white; now that the goalposts are the same color, the robots keep mistaking opponents for goalposts. It’s this difficulty that’s causing Genter the most anxiety as she prepares for the team’s trip across the Pacific Ocean. “We’re trying to fix it,” she says. She turns Gouda off and sits him down on a table, beside a row of computers. “I think we will. But that’s the panic point at the moment.” The RoboCup soccer tournament takes place in mid-July in Heifei’s Anhui Conference and Exhibition Center, a huge, warehouse-like space. Twenty-nine Standard Platform League teams from nineteen countries take turns playing on five SPL fields, loud with simultaneous matches. In the quarterfinals, Austin Villa—one of four teams from the United States—is playing a nail-biter against Chile. They’ve gotten this far after a series of near-miss
BUM STEER OF THE MONTH BY R ICH MALLEY
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victories, including a comeback against the Austrian Kangaroos and a triumph over China’s TJArk team following an all-nighter spent reviewing code and recalibrating the goalie’s pose. Now, though, Austin Villa is increasingly apprehensive. Its whistle-detection algorithm is too sensitive for the crowded conditions in the Exhibition Center; the players keep detecting starter whistles from other fields and begin playing too soon, drawing penalties. And because the Internet connection here is slower than the one it’s used to back home, the team communication systems are malfunctioning. These are sizable challenges, but Chile is struggling with the same issues, so it isn’t until the seven-minute mark, when Chile scores a goal from midfield, that Stone and his team decide that it’s time to change their strategy and call a time-out. As soon as play stops, Stone and his crew bring their robots to the sideline and turn off their whistledetection software, which has caused so much confusion in this noisy cavern. They know this will cause their players to start playing about fifteen seconds after each whistle, but it will also prevent penalties once play has gotten going. Exactly fifteen seconds after the next whistle blows, announcing the resumption of play, Chile scores another goal, just as Gouda and his teammates are starting to move. The time-out, Stone and his team members realize, was a terrible mistake. When halftime arrives, the humans of Austin Villa run onto the field and carry their players to the recharging station. Once all the players are plugged in, the humans huddle up and decide to turn the whistle function back on. When play resumes, this proves to be the right move; in the second half, though the team doesn’t score any goals, it holds Chile scoreless. Still, the loss is disappointing. “It’s painful to think that one poor decision may have cost us the quarterfinal,” Genter says. A few days after the tournament, Genter still seems tired; those long nights of recalibrating algorithms take their toll. Even so, she and her crew are already discussing their goals for RoboCup 2016, to be held
in Leipzig, Germany. Their priority over the next year will be to give the robots the ability to communicate without Wi-Fi, so that a slow Internet connection won’t affect their performance. Vision and whistle algorithms are important to RoboCup play, but communication is the key to everything. Even if Gouda, Brie, Schwarzen-cheddar, Parmesan, and Bauer learn to run and kick with elan—or if they simply manage to avoid falling down and catching on fire— they’ll still be playing soccer. And soccer, as any coach will be quick to tell you, is very much a team sport. T AUSTIN WRITER LOUISA HALL’S SECOND NOVEL, SPEAK, WAS PUBLISHED BY ECCO IN JULY.
LIFE SKILLS
Self-defense For Sheep nside a tidy, two-story brick house on a cul-de-sac in an upscale neighborhood in the suburbs of Dallas, Clint Emerson turned his back on me and raised his hands above his head. I lifted the Ruger 9mm pistol he had handed me moments before and pointed the barrel between his shoulder blades. It felt intensely unpleasant to level a gun, even an unloaded one, at a retired Navy SEAL, partly because of the fraught nature of the act but mostly because I was well aware of my lowly station I
DO YOU, DEFENDANT #SC100313, TAKE THIS WOMAN . . .
ª After a twenty-year-old man pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault for punching his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend, Smith County judge Randall Rogers told him he could either serve fifteen days in jail or, as part of a probation deal, marry his girlfriend within the next thirty days. The ceremony was held at city hall.
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y R I C A R D O M A R T I N E Z
INTRODUCING
MODERN MUSE L E
R O U G E
B E DA R I N G . B E A N I N S P I R AT I O N .
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in his taxonomic view of the world, which is divided into three classes: sheepdogs (soldiers), wolves (bad guys), and sheep (noncombatants such as myself ). Even more unnerving was the fact that Emerson simply doesn’t look the part. He isn’t a bearish, physically imposing good ol’ boy with hands like catcher’s mitts, like the late Chris Kyle (a former SEAL teammate of his). Emerson is the other kind of operative, the nondescript guy who can disappear in a crowd, whom you don’t see coming until it is too late. In gray slacks and a crisp white button-down shirt, he could easily be mistaken for a 41-year-old desk jockey. He’s lean and slightly weathered, like a man who has spent some time in the desert. Emerson, who retired in January after twenty years in the Navy, served most of his career as a SEAL. His team was the first into Afghanistan, then Iraq, which wasn’t as much of a culture shock for him as one might imagine: though he graduated from Plano Senior High, he largely grew up in Saudi Arabia, where his father worked for Saudi Aramco. “Westerners are not exactly treated the best in Saudi Arabia, and as a child I didn’t care much for the people or the culture,” he said. “As an adult, I understand their culture better and accept that we were the visitors. But it left me with a certain dislike that led to becoming a SEAL and a desire to go back as a soldier. Now that
OLD NEWS
BY JULIA SUITS
I’ve been back to the Middle East many erative’s Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evadtimes, I’ve noticed kids, a portion of them, ing Capture, and Surviving Any Dangerlooking at me with a familiar stare—one of ous Situation (Touchstone Books), which distaste. The same stare I had cast many comes out on October 13. times on Saudi men.” In his book and in the seDuring his time in the Navy, curity consulting business he Emerson became what operaruns, Emerson wants his readPrevious page: tors call a “violent nomad,” a ers and clients to understand Emerson outside his North Texas home. globe-trotting ghost with a dizthat against seemingly imposAbove: Emerson, zyingly broad skill set. “Being sible odds, there are courses of using a bobby pin to a SEAL is nothing more than action that even sheep can take, get out of handcuffs. Both photos taken being a professional troubleif they’re willing to adopt the on August 27, 2015. maker,” he said. “The biggest ways of sheepdogs and wolves. quality is being adaptable, beWith that in mind, and with my ing creative.” He knows, for example, how strategic advantage ostensibly insurmountto construct a “rectal concealment” device able, I followed Emerson’s instructions and out of a cigar tube, a bulletproof vest out of asked him to try to disarm me, an assailant duct tape and books, and a silencer out of with a gun at his back. He briefly glanced a plastic bottle, wire mesh, and steel wool. over his shoulder, took half a step back, and Those are just three of the skills outlined in stopped when the barrel contacted his vertehis book, 100 Deadly Skills: The SEAL Opbrae. Then, before my primary motor cortex could transmit a signal to my trigger finger, he pivoted out of the line of fire and trapped my wrist in his left armpit. His right elbow came wheeling around with disconcerting speed and stopped within inches of my face, to the eternal gratitude of my orbital bones. “You have to learn from the predators,” he said. “Because your natural-born instinct won’t be good enough.” —BRANTLEY HARGROVE
PHOTOGRAPHY
How the West Was Shot n 1979 a budding photographer in Dallas named Laura Wilson was hired by Richard Avedon, the famed New York fashion photographer, to work with him on an ambitious project to depict the people of the American West. For six summers, Wilson traveled through seventeen states in a Chevrolet Suburban with Avedon I
ª “HELLO! —A telephone has been put up in Young’s drug store at Hempstead and a number of conversations were held yesterday.” —BRENHAM WEEKLY BANNER, MARCH 25, 1886
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FOR MORE OLD NEWS, FOLLOW @TWEETSOFOLD.
EMERSON PHOTOGRAPHS BY MISTY KEASLER
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SP EC IA L SU PE RS IZ ED EX PA ND ED ED IT IO N!
MUSIC
SERVANT OF LOVE , PATTY
GRIFFIN ( THIRTY TIGERS , SEPTEMBER 25)
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BOOKS
A HOUSE OF MY OWN , SANDRA CISNEROS
( KNOPF , OCTOBER 6)
As she departed her longtime home in San Antonio for Mexico, Cisneros gathered a few decades’ worth of nonfiction pieces that trace her path from working-class Chicagoan to internationally celebrated author. There’s a fair amount of Texas here, not all of it celebratory. “San Antonio,” she writes, “is all about tribes, and once your tribe breaks up or migrates, you’re on your own.” M AT T L A N K E S
belong to the isolated Hutterite religious and two other assistants. “I was drawn to clan in Montana, and, of course, ranchers the landscape,” she says. “I loved the sparseand working cowboys—the last symbols of ness and the openness, and I found myself the way the West used to be. In That Day: interested in the people there in a way I Pictures in the American West, a book hadn’t expected.” of Wilson’s photos that Yale University In 1985, not long after Avedon’s exhibiPress and Southern Methodist University tion, “In the American West,” premiered is putting out this month, Larry McMurtry to international acclaim at Fort Worth’s writes, “Wilson has an ever-searching eye Amon Carter Museum of American Art, for the bleak beauty of the West—and for Wilson was back on the road again, this time its bleak reality, too.” to do her own photos, focusing on people That eye, though, is the eye of an outwho were, as she puts it, “living in their own sider. Raised in a small town in Massaparticularly enclosed worlds, often far away chusetts, she studied art and literature at from the social and cultural mainstream.” the Connecticut College for Women. In Now, thirty years later, Wilson has her 1966 she moved to Dallas when her husown major exhibition at the Amon Carter. band, Robert, whom she met when he was “That Day,” which runs through Februat Dartmouth, was hired to be president ary, is composed of 71 photographs (many of the city’s public television and radio originally published in such magazines stations. She spent her time raising their as the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and TEXAS three sons—Andrew, Owen, and Luke (all MONTHLY) and clearly establishes Wilson of whom have had their own success, in as one of the foremost visual chroniclers of Hollywood)—and she frequently took their the modern-day West. Her pictures capture photographs. In the mid-seventies, she gritty dogfighters positioning their pit bulls decided to pursue photography as a career for battle, stone-faced border agents chasand built a darkroom at the house. Then, ing down undocumented workers, hollowthrough her husband, she met Avedon. eyed itinerant laborers living in threadbare Right now, Wilson is working on two new tents, female trick riders performing at a projects. She’s putting together a book of rodeo, and teenage girls dressed in $30,000 portraits of world-renowned authors and a gowns preparing for a debutante ball in collection of photos she has taken on movie Laredo. She has photographed cocky Navy sets. And she is still wandering fighter pilots at a base in a rethe West, looking for more people mote corner of Nevada, downto shoot. “I live by a quote from on-their-luck Native Americans Wilson in Santa Henry James: ‘Try to be one of the at a South Dakota reservation, Fe County, people on whom nothing is lost.’ ” a six-man high school football New Mexico, team in West Texas, women who —SKIP HOLLANDSWORTH last year.
The longtime Austin singersongwriter’s tenth album is the first since her split with rocker Robert Plant, and the mood is aptly downcast. But while heartache may drive “Hurt a Little While” and “You Never Asked Me,” Griffin casts her lyrical net wide, delving into mystical poetry and, on “Good and Gone,” which was inspired by a police shooting, the genre of protest song.
THE CHECKLIST
A look at what to read, watch, and listen to this (wonderfully jam-packed) month in order to achieve maximum Texas cultural literacy.
MUSIC
WE ARE THE DRUM ,
MUSIC
CASS COUNTY , DON
KENDRICK SCOTT ORACLE
HENLEY ( CAPITOL REC -
Like labelmates and fellow Houstonians Robert Glasper and Jason Moran, drummer Kendrick Scott wants to reinvent jazz. On his group Oracle’s new album, that means covering the electronic musician Flying Lotus, playing melodies that are more Radiohead than Monk, and eschewing the genre’s usual “string of solos” for a kinetic, collective bustle.
The once-and-future Eagles front man’s first album since the turn of the century, recorded in Dallas and Nashville, is something different: a meditation on the northeast Texas county where he was raised. A roots record? Perhaps, albeit a roots record that opens with guest appearances from Mick Jagger and Miranda Lambert and, at times, sounds a lot like a Tom Petty record.
( BLUE NOTE , SEPTEMBER 25)
BOOKS
ORDS , SEPTEMBER 25)
FILM
BATS OF THE REPUBLIC ,
MY ALL - AMERICAN ,
ZACHARY THOMAS
DODSON ( DOUBLEDAY , OCTOBER 6)
Dodson, an El Pasoan turned Finn, is better known as a designer of books than a writer of books, so it’s no surprise that this novel, a fantastical adventure that stretches from revolutionary-era Texas to twenty-second-century Texas, is festooned with technical diagrams, animal portraiture, and newspaper clippings that somehow never overwhelm the story.
BOOKS
COMIN ’ RIGHT AT YA : HOW
MUSIC
MAYHEM : THREE LIVES OF
FRIEDMAN ( AVENUE A ,
HARRIS ( GIVAL PRESS ,
A JEWISH YANKEE HIPPIE
I EVER MET , KINKY
THE OFTEN OUTRAGEOUS
OCTOBER 1)
HISTORY OF ASLEEP AT
For his first album in more than three decades, Friedman hasn’t exactly exerted himself—there isn’t one brand-new Kinky song to be found among these dozen tracks. But more often than not, his sparely arranged covers of songs by the likes of Dylan, Haggard, and Cash are the last thing you’d expect from the would-be governor: humble and heartfelt.
WENT COUNTRY , OR ,
THE WHEEL , RAY BENSON
AND DAVID MENCONI ( UT PRESS , OCTOBER 1)
The emphasis in that overstuffed subtitle is on “Outrageous.” The western swing bandleader’s let-it-all-hangout memoir doesn’t skimp on the details of life on the road, be it onstage antics or his prodigious intake of marijuana (“I still smoke it to this day”).
TELEVISION
BOOKS
THE LONELIEST MAN
MUSIC
A WOMAN , ELIZABETH OCTOBER 5)
The “three lives” rendered in this Central Texas–set novel—the protagonist’s early-twentieth-century girlhood, her brief marriage, and the decades she spent in a PTSD-like state after being cast out by her rural German community—are all overshadowed by a grotesque crime of passion whose mention, Fort Worth native Harris writes, “makes men cross their legs.”
BOOKS
PROPHET ’ S PREY ( SHOW -
A FIELD PHILOSOPHER ’ S
DIRECTED BY ANGELO
TIME , OCTOBER 10)
VEGA INTL . NIGHT INDIAN ( MOM + POP ,
ADAM BRIGGLE
Forty-four years after his death, Longhorn legend Freddie Steinmark has never really left us. In addition to his autobiography, there was Jim Dent’s reverent 2011 biography, a recent authorized biography from UT Press, and now a biopic starring Aaron Eckhart as Darrell Royal and Finn Wittrock as the young safety who played through intense pain to bring home the 1969 championship.
Based on private investigator Sam Brower’s book of the same title, this documentary gives a full account of how Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, terrorized the community of thousands he once ruled. There are revelatory interviews, but it’s the audio evidence that was played in court—warning: it is gruesome listening—that’s the most chilling.
PIZZO ( OCTOBER 9)
SCHOOL , NEON OCTOBER 16)
During the run-up to his third album, did Alan Palomo, leader of the chill-wave band Neon Indian, listen to a lot of Prince? It appears he did. Did the Brooklynite-by-wayof-San-Antonio-and-Denton then do his best to write a few Prince-like cuts for his first record in four years? It seems so. And did he make a fool of himself in the attempt? Amazingly, he did not.
GUIDE TO FRACKING ,
( LIVERIGHT / NORTON ,
OCTOBER 19)
According to this engaging account, when Briggle began teaching at the University of North Texas with hopes of energizing the discipline of philosophy by helping it reengage with social issues, he had no idea that this ambition would turn him into a leader of Denton’s groundbreaking—and, thanks to the Lege, frustrated—ban on fracking.
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C H AT
THE FOUR-STAR
Chancellor
AFTER A STORIED MILITARY CAREER, WILLIAM MCR AVEN HAS TAKEN ON PERHAPS THE GREATEST CHALLENGE OF HIS LIFE: OVERSEEING THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SYSTEM. INTERVIEW BY BRIAN D. SWEANY
n 2011 William McRaven became one of the most famous figures in the country after he commanded the SEAL team that killed Osama bin Laden. The Dallas Morning News named him its Texan of the Year, and he was the first runner-up for Time’s Person of the Year. But the training that led to that moment began when he was growing up in San Antonio in a military family and continued after he enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin as a member of the Navy ROTC. Following his retirement as a four-star admiral, he returned to Austin once more in January, when he became the chancellor of the UT System, overseeing its fourteen institutions. I
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BRIAN D. SWEANY: You gave a celebrated commencement address to the graduates at UT-Austin in 2014 in which you talked about your SEAL training and about your own graduation as a Longhorn nearly forty years ago. Tell me about your time as a student. WILLIAM MCRAVEN: When I started my freshman year, I was a walk-on to the track team, I was in the ROTC program, and I had a girlfriend. It was the perfect storm in terms of things that could hurt you, so I had to learn to prioritize. I learned a lot at UT, but most of it was not out of the textbooks. Most of it was dealing with professors, dealing with roommates, dealing with girlfriends. BDS: Life issues. WM: Life issues. Exactly. So I’ve always thought that the real benefit of college is the opportunity to be in a bit of a protected environment and make mistakes without them having a critical effect. As a journalism major, I really liked having the opportunity to take so many electives and learn so many things. I took philosophy. I took Sufi mysticism. I took things that I would never have taken. It was just phenomenal, and I wouldn’t have traded it for anything. BDS: You were one of the most famous men in the military when you decided to take this job. What was the appeal? WM: The opportunity to help change the lives of young men and women in Texas. During my 37 years in the military I did some exciting things— jumping out of airplanes, locking out of submarines. But what meant the most was the service to Special Operations, the service to the Navy, and the service to the nation. Normally when four-stars retire, they become a CEO or go on the speaking circuit. I realized that neither of those would be as gratifying as being back in a position where I could work in the service of a greater good. BDS: When you became chancellor earlier this year, the Legislature was taking up several bills related to guns. You said early on that “the presence of concealed weapons will make campus a less-safe environment.” Now that campus carry has passed, what are your thoughts? WM: I haven’t changed my mind. But here’s my responsibility now, and this gets back to my military upbringing:
PHOTOGRAPH BY SARAH WILSON
You have the opportunity to argue a point all the way up until the decision is made. But once that decision is made, you salute smartly and move out. That’s where we are. The governor signed the bill, and the decision has been made. Now we’re going to do everything possible to continue to make the campuses as safe as they can be. BDS: Let’s talk a bit about the issues that the board has been grappling with for a while. When you consider problems like affordability, accessibility, teaching loads, and infrastructure, what keeps you up at night? WM: I don’t lose sleep over any of those because I think the narrative is wrong in those areas. I think we here in Texas have almost the most affordable education in the country. BDS: Even though tuition has gone up as state revenue has gone down? WM: Here’s what folks don’t understand: Let’s take the Rio Grande Valley, where we have increased the tuition. Did you know that 87 percent of entering freshmen will pay nothing in terms of tuition and fees? People don’t realize that. They say, “Well, you increased the tuition at UT-RGV.” And we say, “Yes, but we also increased the number of Pell Grants, and therefore the number of students going for free is higher.” Here’s something else that always amazes me. At the end of four years, the average student debt across the University of Texas System is under $21,000. That’s a small car. Education is
the best value going. about that. It’s completely unimportant. Given your military background, how BDS: You mentioned as we were talking did you prepare yourself on the complexibefore the interview that you’d like to see ties of higher education policy? the UT-A&M football rivalry renewed. Is that a possibility? WM: I have a magnificent staff, so when I have a tough issue, I don’t need to make that WM: I’m a big believer that we need to decision in isolation. The other thing that get back and play the game. I’m not sure helped, frankly, was that I jumped into a legeverybody’s in agreement with me, but that’s islative session. It probably would’ve taken a tradition worth reviving. me eighteen months to get up to speed had BDS: You can always call A&M chancellor it not been for the session— John Sharp and make that I really had to know the stuff happen. because I was testifying and WM: [Laughs.] At some point Previous page: meeting with members and I think the game will happen, McRaven, in his office editorial boards. It really was a and that will be a great thing in downtown Austin, on August 24, 2015. kind of crucible for me. for both Austin and College Above: McRaven conStation. There’s too much hisBDS: Did you ever say, “I’m ducts the UT marching tory there to let it end. T the guy who led the team that band during a Longhorns basketball game got bin Laden, and this is how at the Frank Erwin This interview has been edited it should be.” Center, in Austin, on for clarity and length. WM: Nah. Nobody cares January 24, 2015. BDS:
MEANWHILE, IN TEXAS...
W TEXASMONTHLY.COM Get our up-to-the-minute take on the news at the Daily Post from Abby Johnston, John Nova Lomax, Dan Solomon, and Jeff Winkler; read a longer version of this month’s interview with William McRaven; and argue with Erica Grieder and the rest of our political staff on Burkablog.
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I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y R O S S M A C D O N A L D
I CO N S P O RTS W I R E /A P I M AG E S
ª A man was arrested in Angelina County for, among other things, throwing chain saws at police during a high-speed chase. Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings successfully performed the HeimBY JEFF WINKLER lich maneuver on a woman who was choking on fajita meat at a local restaurant. Police responded to a call by concerned citizens who reported an exorcism taking place at an Odessa duck pond. Waco went 50 days without rain, breaking a nearly century-old record of 47 days. The Sulphur Springs’ Downtown Revitalization Board rescinded its demand that the Potato House restaurant take down its beloved “Potato Man” s i g n , a t h re e -f o o t- t a l l anthropomorphic potato. T h e Na t i o n a l Fe d e ra t i o n of State High School Associations reported that participation in high school football in Texas has dropped 2.78 percent since 2010. Lee Harvey Oswald’s original tombstone was returned to Texas years after it was illicitly sold to a museum in Illinois. It was so hot that the cleats of one Allen High School football player melted during practice. A moon crater was named after a deceased San Antonio astronomer.
© 2015 Goose Island Beer Company, Chicago, IL. Enjoy responsibly. Great American Beer Festival® Awards (Category: English Style India Pale Ale): 2012 Gold (India Pale Ale), 2009 Silver (IPA), 2007 Silver (India Pale Ale), 2004 Silver (Goose Island India Pale Ale), 2001 Bronze (India Pale Ale), 2000 Gold (Goose Island IPA).
COLUMNS
S
FILM
“Let’s Go Dig Up Dom”
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P H OTO G R A P H BY M A R K I L L S L E Y, CO U RT E SY O F J E F F B RO O K I N G S ; CO LO R I N G BY N I C K I LO N G O R I A
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annual pilgrimage to various homely locations aw it when it first came out. Liked in the Trans-Pecos, where the movie was shot in it just fine. Went on with my life. 1983. About forty people—some of them veterans ¶ That pretty much describes the THIRTY YEARS OF of the first gathering, in 2008, others here for the history of my own involvement with FANDANGO FANDOM. first time—had flown in from around the world to Fandango, the 1985 movie, starring BY STEPH EN H A R R IGA N view an unremarkable gas station in Marathon, a young Kevin Costner, about five where the self-styled “groovers” (the road-trip University of Texas students on buddies in the movie) stop for a front-end alignment after their car’s bumper gets torn off a berserk, beery graduation road in a train-lassoing misadventure. The devotees had stared in wonder at an abandoned, trip to the Mexican border. Finanfalling-down bracero’s shack off Interstate 20 that the filmmakers had long ago painted to cially, Fandango was a meteoric resemble an abandoned, falling-down Mexican cantina named Chata Ortegas. They had failure, streaking in and out of a paltry 27 huddled over satellite maps to pinpoint some of the more obscure, though no less crucial, theaters in a few weeks, making less than cinematic landmarks. (“There’s that concrete stanchion right there. And nestled in these $100,000. Its fate was foretold by a blunt bushes is that rock I was telling you about.”) The pilgrims had come to Alpine to worship Warner Bros. interoffice memo after a diat the shrine of the Sonic, where once was uttered a line of dialogue—“Give me three chili sastrous test screening: “The movie does not provide an adequate degree of audience satisfaction or enjoyment to moviegoers.” ¶ But the box-office oracles of thirty years ago had no way of taking into account the seeping impact the movie would have over the decades on people like Bruce Hickman, an F-14 pilot laid up with a sinus infection on an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf in 1987, transfixed by Fandango as he watched it over and over again until he was healthy enough to be put back on The “groovers” the flight schedule. Or on Jesper (clockwise from Lisberg, a teenager in Aarhus, left): Kevin Costner, Judd Nelson, Sam Denmark, whose friend had just Robards, Chuck gotten a VCR circa 1989. They Bush, and Bryan Cepak, in a previused the marvelous new invenously unpublished tion to record the first movie publicity still. they came across on Danish national television. They had only one tape and hence only one movie to watch. But Fandango, a rowdy paean to lost youth, was a perfect story for kids who were approaching the end of folkeskole, when Danish compulsory education is over and childhood friends begin to scatter. By 2006 the movie had its hooks so deep into Doug Mitchell, a private investigator from Warrensburg, Missouri, that he showed it to his fiancée, Laura, as a premarital test. “If she didn’t like Fandango, it probably wasn’t going to work.” ¶ And here they all were in Alpine on a recent July evening, swatting the flies off their tater tots at the local Sonic. It was the second day of Ultimate Fandango, a not-quite-
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DENISE (above left) told her Ob/Gyn about the history of breast and ovarian cancer in her family during a routine exam at UT Southwestern. Her doctor had a genetic counselor reach out to her. After meeting with Caitlin (above right), Denise decided to have further testing, and a BRCA1 cancerous mutation was discovered. Learning this, Denise chose to have her ovaries and tubes removed. Microscopic cancer was discovered. Denise has received treatment and is looking forward to the future.
Denise didn’t know she had a genetic mutation. Finding it led us right to her cancer. *HUJLY NLUL[PJZ YLZLHYJO PZ VUL VM [OL YLHZVUZ <; :V\[O^LZ[LYU /HYVSK * :PTTVUZ *HUJLY *LU[LY OHZ ILLU H^HYKLK [OL 5H[PVUHS *HUJLY 0UZ[P[\[L»Z OPNOLZ[ KLZPNUH[PVU ¶ *VTWYLOLUZP]L *HUJLY *LU[LY 5*0 KLZPNUH[LK JVTWYLOLUZP]L JHUJLY JLU[LYZ HYL HTVUN [OL TVZ[ HK]HUJLK PU [OL ^VYSK ¶ VUS` JHUJLY JLU[LYZ UH[PVUHSS` OH]L L]LY YLJLP]LK [OPZ KPZ[PUJ[PVU 4VYL [OHU TLTILYZ MYVT V]LY KLWHY[TLU[Z [OYV\NOV\[ <; :V\[O^LZ[LYU WYV]PKL V]LY H KVaLU THQVY JHUJLY JHYL WYVNYHTZ [OH[ HK]HUJL [OL [YLH[TLU[ HUK WYL]LU[PVU VM JHUJLY <; :V\[O^LZ[LYU WO`ZPJPHUZ HUK ZJPLU[PZ[Z JVUK\J[ SHIVYH[VY` YLZLHYJO JSPUPJHS YLZLHYJO HUK WVW\SH[PVU IHZLK YLZLHYJO SLHKPUN [V UL^ KY\NZ HUK [YLH[TLU[Z HPTLK H[ PTWYV]PUN WH[PLU[ JHYL HUK \S[PTH[LS` ZH]PUN SP]LZ 0M `V\ VY H SV]LK VUL PZ MHJPUN JHUJLY `V\ ^HU[ [OL TVZ[ PUUV]H[P]L [YLH[TLU[Z SLHKPUN LKNL YLZLHYJO HUK [OL SH[LZ[ [LJOUVSVN` @V\ ^HU[ JHUJLY JHYL H[ [OL OPNOLZ[ SL]LS ¶ <; :V\[O^LZ[LYU /HYVSK * :PTTVUZ *VTWYLOLUZP]L *HUJLY *LU[LY
To find out more about the benefits of an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, go to utswmedicine.org/NCI
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dogs and a malt”—that in Fandango world is as immortal as “Forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown.” This year’s Ultimate Fandango was the fourth UF and the biggest yet, and everybody thought that it really was the ultimate one. Though it was later decided there would be a 2018 UF, at the moment there were no plans to convene it again. This was mostly because it’s a lot of trouble, and Fandango fans tend to have real jobs and real lives and are only—to borrow a description of the film itself from the Internet Movie Database website—“mildly cultish.” And anyway, this year would have been an appropriate time to call it quits, since 2015 is Fandango’s thirtieth anniversary, a wistful milestone for a film whose theme— embedded in a raucous road comedy—is the fleetingness of youth. Notably absent from the festivities at the Sonic, as they had been at all previous gatherings, were the two Kevins. Kevin Costner was, presumably, busy being a movie star. No hard feelings. Kevin Reynolds, the Waco native and Baylor graduate who wrote and directed Fandango and went on to direct other Costner vehicles, like Waterworld and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, had taken a pass as well (as had Costner’s fellow groovers Judd Nelson and Sam Robards). “I guess my feeling about it was that it was my first film, the quintessential coming-of-age story that every director has to get out of their system before they can move on to anything else,” Reynolds told me over the phone about his hesitation to jump into the Fandango mosh pit himself. “Like most of my pictures, it’s hard for me to watch. It’s just too painful to go back and revisit the things you wish you’d done differently. Each one of them sort of marks a time in your life, and you can’t go back to that place.” Fandango began as a thirty-minute short that Reynolds made when he was a graduate student at the University of Southern California. It was a very funny and technically ambitious comedy about a carful of dissolute fraternity boys and their adventures at a parachute school run by a zonked-out hippie in the middle of the desert. The movie so impressed Steven Spielberg that he hired Reynolds to create a full-length feature. The uproarious parachute sequence—recreated almost shot for shot—is at the center of the full-length version, but Fandango, Reynolds says, “became a little more heartfelt than zany.” The movie is set in 1971, and beneath the hijinks is a desperate awareness of lost love, lost innocence, and Vietnam. In the movie, the five groovers are on a mission to dig up a bottle of Dom Perignon they buried during a previous, less-freighted trip. They scramble down a steep hillside to a boulder with the word “Dom” chiseled into it. When they unearth the bottle, Costner grabs it, leaps up onto a rock that is vertiginously
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Now offering services in: McKinney All services are not available at all locations. Physicians provide clinical services as members of the medical staff at one of Baylor Scott & White Health’s subsidiary, community or affiliated medical centers and do not provide clinical services as employees or agents of those medical centers, Baylor Health Care System, Scott & White Healthcare or Baylor Scott & White Health. ©2015 Baylor Scott & White Health.
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This year the party is even BIGGER! Since 1886, the State Fair of Texas has celebrated the unique culture and spirit of the Lone Star State. With more than 100 daily shows, concerts, family-friendly activities and more included in admission, you can’t miss this classic Texas tradition.
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perched above the Rio Grande, and proclaims with the world-weariness of youth, “Here’s to us and what we were.” The revels at the Sonic were over well before dark, and at eight o’clock the next morning the Fandango fans were all gathered in the parking lot of the Maverick Inn, getting ready to caravan the hundred or so miles to the most resonant and uncorrupted of all the sights along the Sacred Way, Dom Rock itself. Driving the lead car was 66-year-old Jeff Brookings. The burden of Ultimate Fandango leadership had fallen to him after Alex Musson, the editor of the UK humor magazine Mustard, decided that with two young kids he could no longer afford to hop the pond from London to Alpine every few years. Brookings lives in Midland and is semiretired from the automotive-parts business. He had missed Fandango’s theatrical run—in fact, I was treated like Neil Armstrong at UF because I had actually participated in history by seeing the movie in a theater when it was released—but he’d happened across it several years later on Showtime. He had grown up in the landscape and among the sorts of characters that populate Fandango and was still reverberating from the shock of recognition. “I always tell people that I knew everybody in that movie. They just had different names.” A couple of hours later, we arrived at a turnout on FM 170 a few miles past Lajitas. “We’re surprised at how normal everybody is,” Ben Soltesz, a forty-ish software executive from Pittsburgh, told me as we walked downslope to the site of Dom Rock. He and his wife, Megan, had left their three kids with Megan’s parents, and both seemed equal parts delighted and mystified to be here. They were normal themselves and weren’t even wearing “Let’s Go Dig Up Dom” T-shirts. But the movie’s themes had clearly sluiced right into the ion channels of Ben’s brain. “Good music,” he said. “Being on the road. Beer. And friendship. I’ve lived my life by those four tenets.” Thirty years of wind and weather had not eroded the word “Dom” that the filmmakers had incised into the boulder. It was still eerily visible and, to anybody who was not a Fandango-head, would have seemed as mysterious as an ancient petroglyph. Even though we were less than a hundred yards from the highway, the location appeared thrillingly remote and dangerously scenic, high above a canyon with the narrow muddy strip of the Rio Grande far below. Several dozen people stood there at the edge of the abyss among thorny ocotillo branches. Some of them had brought their own bottles of Dom and uncorked them at the base of Dom Rock. They weren’t all civilians. Three cast members from Fandango were proudly in
attendance, including Marvin J. McIntyre, whose performance as the genial but braindead parachute instructor—in both the shortfilm prototype and the final version—I had vividly remembered lo these thirty years. Chuck Bush, who plays the hulking and unflappable groover named Dorman, walks with a cane—he suffered a stroke a few years ago—and had prudently decided to remain near the road and not scramble down the slope. In the early eighties he was working as a bodyguard for a rock-concert company when Reynolds and his production assistant, Mark Illsley, spotted him walking out of an Austin 7-Eleven. “They were looking for the biggest guy they could find,” he says. That’s because a large part of Dorman’s role in the film involves carrying around the drunkatose and seldom-glimpsed “fifth groover,” who has only one brief moment of consciousness at the end of the movie. The fifth groover was played by Bryan Cepak, who, when he was a student at UT, answered an ad in the Daily Texan that read, “Do You Want to Be a Star?” The casting people told him they were looking for a “diminutive business student,” and that was what he was. And he sort of did become a star, in the sense that every now and then a patient in his Houston chiropractic clinic will notice the Fandango poster in his office and exclaim, “Oh my God! You’re the one they carried around!” The rock aerie that Kevin Costner leaps upon for his climactic champagne salute is perched at the end of a short, narrow ridge a few hundred feet away from Dom Rock. One by one, the participants of Ultimate Fandango inched out onto the ledge to have their photos taken sitting next to McIntyre as they held up a bottle of Dom. It was more or less a sheer drop down to the river. That night, at a screening of Fandango at the Rangra movie theater, in Alpine, we would watch Costner, in a dusty tuxedo and cowboy boots, run heedlessly across the narrow ridgeline and stand at the summit of this rock. Reynolds told me that Costner had been afraid of heights, but in the movie he looks afraid of nothing. Standing silhouetted against the Mexican canyons, in the full glory of his soon-to-be-movie-star self, he certainly looks unafraid of time. But thirty years have passed anyway. Since Costner wasn’t here today, it fell to Cepak to cautiously creep onto the top of the rock, recite Fandango’s most self-consciously resonant line, and reenact the movie’s core ritual. “Here’s to us,” the groover turned chiropractor said, just before McIntyre launched a bottle of Dom Perignon toward the Rio Grande, “and what we’ll be.” T
Chad Laurans, founder and CEO of SimpliSafe, invented a smarter way to protect your home
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Six New Mexico Photos You Need in Your Feed
WHITE SANDS NATIONAL MONUMENT
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
TAOS SKI VALLEY
BANDELIER NATIONAL MONUMENT
rom the oldest capital city in America to world-class skiing and historic pueblos, New Mexico is a photographer’s paradise. Bring your camera, leave the crowds behind, and get the shot of a lifetime. WHITE SANDS NATIONAL MONUMENT
Enjoy the otherworldly dunescape from the 16-mile scenic road, and photograph a friend as the sun sinks behind the Organ Mountains. If you can’t score one of the ten backcountry camping spots in the middle of the dunes, hightail it to the Inn of the Mountain Gods 60 miles away in Mescalero (from $159; innofthemountaingods.com).
2
THE ELK OF THE VALLES CALDERA NATIONAL PRESERVE
The volcanic caldera provides a stunning backdrop for 3,000 elk, one of the state’s largest and most iconic herds. Get a shot of the Valle Grande herd from an overlook on the side of Highway 4 or from inside the Caldera. Eat at Los Ojos Restaurant and Saloon (losojossaloon.com) in Jemez Springs, 30 miles away, and stay at the Elk Mountain Lodge, also in Jemez Springs (from $119; elkmtnlodge.com).
3
RED ROCK BALLOON RALLY, GALLUP
The Red Rock Balloon Rally, a three-day festival featuring more than 200 balloons,
is the second largest event of its kind in the world (newmexico.org/red-rockballoon-rally; December 4–6). Capture the colorful balloons framed against the red rock backdrop at dawn. Grab dinner at the Badlands Grill, a steak-and-seafood spot in Gallup (badlandsgrill.com), and spend the night at the classic El Rancho Hotel on Route 66 (from $109; route66hotels.org).
4
BANDELIER NATIONAL MONUMENT
Explore an ancestral pueblo dating back to 1100 C.E. that lies in the middle of beautiful Frijoles Canyon.Walk the 1.2-mile Main Loop Trail to see excavated archeological sites and snap a picture as you climb a ladder into a cliff dwelling. Refuel with burritos at the family-owned El Parasol restaurant in Los Alamos (elparasol.com/los-alamos) before heading to La Posada de Santa Fe Resort and Spa, just off the plaza in the state capital (from $127; laposadadesantafe.com).
5
THE CRANES OF THE BOSQUE DEL APACHE
texasmonthly.com
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A POWDER RUN AT TAOS SKI VALLEY
+VEF ½VWX GLEMV EX 8ESW 7OM :EPPI] SRI SJ the top resorts in the Rocky Mountains, and shoot your buddy dropping off the mountain’s fabled ridge into Juarez Bowl. Recharge after a long day with dinner at the luxurious Saint Bernard (stbernardtaos. GSQ ERH [MRH HS[R RI\X XS XLI ½VITPEGI EX one of the ski-in-ski-out Bavarian Chalets at the foot of Kachina Peak (from $450; sleeps 6–8; taospropertyrentals.com).
Every fall the world’s largest concentration of sandhill cranes—some 20,000—migrate
Adventure that Feeds the Soul. newmexico.org 62
to the lush wetlands of southern New Mexico.To witness the sky full of cranes, you’ll want to arrive before sunrise during the Festival of the Cranes (November 17–22; festivalofthecranes.com). Chow down on a green chile cheeseburger at The Owl Cafe in San Antonio (575-835-9946), then grab a beer at the Socorro Springs Restaurant and Brewing Company (socorrosprings. com). Spend the night in San Antonio at the Fite Ranch Bed and Breakfast (from ½XIVERGLFIHERHFVIEOJEWX GSQ
RED ROCK BALLOON RALLY, GALLUP
PHOTOS: NEW MEXICO TOURISM DEPARTMENT (NMTD)
1
Where the Rockies begin.
Adventure that Feeds the Soul. newmexico.org
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Adventure that Feeds the Soul. newmexico.org
HERITAGE HOTELS & RESORTS Santa Fe, Albuquerque,Taos, Las Cruces 505-836-6700, hhandr.com Heritage Hotels & Resorts offers visitors authentic cultural experiences in the best New Mexico tourist cities of Santa Fe,Taos, Albuquerque and Las Cruces. Each Heritage Hotel tells a unique story of New Mexico’s culture and history through original art, architecture and interior design using local artists. Guests also get an exclusive Local Treasures discount card good for 15 percent off the best restaurants, shopping and attractions in the area. In Santa Fe, experience luxury in the heart of the plaza at the newly renovated Eldorado Hotel & Spa featuring the award-winning Nidah Spa or choose the simplicity of the monastic décor of Hotel St. Francis or the devotional art at Hotel Chimayo de Santa Fe. In Taos, the luxury 8-room Palacio de Marquesa is a newly renovated contemporary
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sanctuary celebrating the remarkable women artists of Taos.The landmark Hotel Albuquerque at Old Town offers visitors the best of Albuquerque’s favorite tourist spot and the Spanish-colonial themed Hotel Encanto de Las Cruces is Southern New Mexico’s best luxury resort.The revenue from every room night at every Heritage Hotel supports a different loGEP GYPXYVEP RSR TVS½X SVKERM^EXMSR WS ZMWMXSVW are helping to preserve the unique cultural heritage of New Mexico.
CARLSBAD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 575-887-6516 carlsbadnmtrue.com Imagine an evening boat ride on the Pecos River with illuminated backyards and islands of twinkling lights.The holiday spirit shines through as wise men and angels sparkle in a fairyland of lights. Carlsbad may be located in the Chihuahuan desert, but there is a river running through the heart of town! The river provides a multitude of opportunities to residents and visitors alike. Christmas on the Pecos is one of those special events. It is created by over 100 homeowners who spend hours decorating their riverfront properties with Christmas themed lights— from the Christmas in the Desert Southwest theme at one home to Santa’s land at another. Carlsbad residents are proud to show off their creativity and their community pride each Christmas season. From the Friday after Thanksgiving through New Year’s Eve, Christmas wraps itself around the riverfront, illuminated backyards, boat docks and islands with millions of spectacular lights.You won’t want
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to miss the sights and sounds of Christmas during this annual event.Tickets are available at christmasonthepecos.com.
RUIDOSO 877-RUIDOSO, 575-257-7395 discoverruidoso.com Fall in the mountains of Southern New Mexico brings crisp, cool air, the cozy intimacy SJ GYHHPMRK YT MR JVSRX SJ E ½VI JEPP GSPSVW ERH time to take a breath and regroup before the busy holiday season kicks off. Get a jump start your holiday shopping with a stroll through mid-town Ruidoso, a ZIV] [EPOEFPI WLSTTMRK HMWXVMGX ½PPIH [MXL unique retail stores and restaurants.The opXMSRW EVI PMQMXPIWW°LERH QEHI NI[IPV] ½RI art, distinctive clothing and antiques await you all within a short walk. Fall weather is mild enough to explore the hundreds of miles of trails that surround Ruidoso. Some of those trails may be found right in town where outdoor enthusiasts enjoy beautiful multi-purpose trails at Cedar Creek and Grindstone Lake. Looking for an adrenaline rush? The Apache
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Imagine an evening boat ride on the Pecos River with illuminated backyards and islands of twinkling lights. The holiday spirit shines through as wise men and angels sparkle in a fairyland of lights.
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Wind Rider Zip Tour opened at Ski Apache this year, offering a three-span zip line tour that begins and rises above 11,000 feet. Complete with parallel cables enabling riders to glide down the mountain side-by-side, the tour reaches over 8,900 feet in length, making it one of the longest in the world.
THE LODGE AT SIERRA BLANCA Ruidoso, 866-211-7727 thelodgeatsierrablanca.com The Lodge at Sierra Blanca in Ruidoso is an ideal retreat for couples, girl’s getaways, families, weddings and reunions.The property MW MQQIVWIH MR VYWXMG GLEVQ [LIVI ½VITPEGIW Jacuzzi tubs, cozy patios and stunning vistas from every guestroom and suite add opulence to a casual environment. Rooms have free Wi-
Fi, HBO, refrigerators, microwave and coffee maker. Premium suites feature a separate living room and other upscale additions.The Lodge at Sierra Blanca is conveniently located for access to various restaurants, midtown shopping and the Lincoln National Forest, Ruidoso’s outdoor playground. 8LI PSFF] [IPGSQIW [MXL E PEVKI VSGO ½VIplace and oversized chairs and the spacious FEGO TEXMS MRGPYHIW ER MRZMXMRK ½VI TMX XEFPIW for enjoying a cocktail or simply an opportunity to breathe in the fresh mountain air. Surroundings include The Links Golf Course, miles of woodland walking trails and views of the mountain ranges and Sierra Blanca. AmeRMXMIW PMOI E LIEXIH MRHSSV TSSP LSX XYF ½Xness room, private meeting room, spa services and extensive free breakfast including omelet bar make a stay even more memorable. Es-
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cape to the cool mountains and see the Web site for packages available for golf, skiing and special savings, especially during off-season.
BARBARA MEIKLE FINE ART Santa Fe, 505-992-0400 QIMOPI½RIEVX GSQ Celebrating joyful color and vibrant movement with the images of horses, donkeys,
bison, longhorns and owls, as well as mercurial clouds hovering over stunning landscapes, Barbara Meikle has brought acclaim to her work and her Santa Fe gallery.The peace and serenity of a timeless land radiate from this painter and sculptor, while the old adobe home that is her gallery houses glowing paintings and bronzes, an enchanting oasis of laughter and amity in a busy world. Barbara also raises money for horse and donkey
rescue through her art, often having the four-legged critters visit her gallery so she can paint them live. Other artists shown here include painters Carla Spence and Robert Burt, as well as glass artist David Shanfeld, ceramicist Randy Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Brien and kenetic sculptor Andrew Carson. A visit to this gallery is an experience that will be repeated often to view the constantly changing panorama of delightful creations.
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Visit texasmonthly.com/promotions to register for your chance to win and for complete rules and regulations. Deadline to enter is October 16, 2015 at 5 p.m. 68
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505-983-9598 montecristihats.com Celebrating its 39th year in Santa Fe, Montecristi Hats has fashioned custom-made hats for celebrities and world leaders as well as working cowboys and everyday people who just appreciate a great hat. Numbering presidents, governors, senators, ambassadors, titans SJ MRHYWXV] ERH ½RERGI QSZMI WXEVW ERH XLI super wealthy among its clients, this custom hatter has earned its stellar reputation by seeking out the best raw material and following the most exacting construction principles for its unique interpretations of western, traditional, and modern designs. Clients who come XS XLI WLST EVI GYWXSQ ½XXIH [MXL ER ERXMUYI French tool that’s more than120 years old. Montecristi’s top-of-the-line hats are made JVSQ XLI ½RIWX FIEZIV JYV JIPX EZEMPEFPI ERH XLI straws are often of the legendary Montecristi Super Fino quality, weaves so rare they range in price from $10,000 to $30,000. Montecristi Hats also offers an extraordinary selection of hat bands, including hand-cut sterling bands inset with gold and precious stones. Clients GER ½RH GSSVHMREXMRK FIPX FYGOPIW ERH GSRGLS belts here, too. And for ladies, there are hats from the legendary Manhattan millinery designer Patricia Underwood. Among the movie stars donning Montecristi hats in recent movies are Tommy Lee Jones in The Homesman, Liam Neeson in Seraphim Falls, and Ed Harris in Appaloosa.
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Black Is the New Black later, Black believes his stubbornness is the main reason he’s where he is today—which is to say, unattached to a major label and unlikely to get new songs played on country radio. At 53, he’s a country-music legend but no longer a country-music superstar. Maybe you’ve heard he’s got a new record coming out, his first in nearly a decade (not counting a Cracker Barrel exclusive from two years ago). Or more to the point, maybe you haven’t. And if you’re wondering if Clint Black thinks he can wage the kind of comeback that would allow him to compete with Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton, or Florida Georgia Line, Clint Black wants you to know he’s not that delusional. “To me, those guys work inside a different industry,” says Black. “I’m more of a momand-pop now.” And this particular pop is self-aware enough to know how embarrassing it would be if he resurfaced trying to play a young man’s game, throwing his voice over schlocky hip-hop beats to grab a little radio play. Black’s tenth album, On Purpose, is being put out by his own label, Black Top Records, via lint Black had already won the argument. Five Thirty Tigers, a Nashville-based times. Between 1989 and 1994, Black released boutique marketing and distribufive albums, each of which sold a million copies ON HIS FIRST ALBUM IN tion company. Thirty Tigers has or more. Back then, country superstars who sang A DECADE, THE ONETIME had a nice run of success lately, their own songs were even more of an anomaly COUNTRY SUPERSTAR IS playing a pivotal role in launchthan they are today, and Black had written every STILL REFUSING TO ing Americana acts like Jason last song on those records, usually sharing the PLAY THE NASHVILLE GAME. Isbell and Sturgill Simpson and credit with his bandleader and guitarist, Hayden BY A N DY L A NGER signing up more-established acts Nicholas. Yet during the run-up to each of those that have gone the independent albums, his label, RCA, would ask him to consider route, like Lucinda Williams, Pat Green, and a stack of songs written by professional Nashville songwriters—the sort of tunesmiths Ryan Bingham. But if you do some rough Music Row publishing companies task with churning out formulaic chart-toppers. “How math and throw out a couple of posthumous about we just use the guys that wrote the last album?” Black would usually answer, fully Waylon Jennings releases the company was expecting to be the only one chuckling. ¶ By 1996, when it was time to add a few new songs involved with, Black has sold more records to his first greatest-hits collection, RCA finally knew better than to ask a man who had in his career than every other Thirty Tigers delivered nearly two dozen top-ten country hits—including such classics as “A Better artist combined. Man,” “Like the Rain,” and “Loving Blind”—if he needed some help in the songwriting Black is working with Thirty Tigers, he department. But Black saw the obligatory prerelease meeting with the label as a chance says, mostly because twice in the past ten to outline his philosophy one last time. ¶ “I told them that if a doctor told me that I could years he got burned by major label execs take a pill that would let me live ten years longer but I’d have to stop eating food, I wouldn’t who seemed excited to attach themselves do it,” says Black. “Food is one of the great joys in life. I’d take my chances with the food. So to a proven star—and then confessed that I told them, ‘If you told me that recording other people’s songs would help me sell ten mila deal would be contingent on his willinglion more albums, I wouldn’t do it. It’s not why I’m here. I’d love to sell ten million records, ness to record someone else’s songs. Once but that’s not the place where I start from. It’s not negotiable.’ ” ¶ Nearly twenty years 70
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again, Black thought his track record should have made those conversations moot. And again, he had to let ’em know that the issue was nonnegotiable. “In country music now, it’s really just three people who decide what song you sing, who produces it, and how it sounds,” says Black. “You can have a lot of success that way. They’re running a business. I happen to be a capitalist myself. But I like to run my business my way. They can run theirs their way. I just wish I had been wise enough to not let them waste so much of my time.” Black’s stubbornness is a product of what he describes as “a Texan’s ingrained independent spirit.” Although he was born in New Jersey, where his Texas-born-and-bred father was working a construction gig, the family moved back to Houston a few months later and before long settled in Spring Branch. He picked up the guitar at fifteen and, inspired by his father’s devotion to country music, immediately took an interest in songwriting, listening closely to the likes of Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Jim Croce. “My father taught me at an early age to look at liner notes and credits— this is the artist, this is the songwriter, this is the producer,” he says. After a stint playing bass and singing harmonies in his older brother’s country band, Black went out on his own and spent the better part of a decade playing around town as often as five times a week, eight or nine hours straight—a schedule that might’ve started with an afternoon slot at the Holiday Inn Greenway Plaza’s lounge, followed by a happy hour show at Fitzgerald’s, and then an hour’s drive south for a nine to two coffeehouse gig in Galveston. By 1987 his demos had caught the ear of ZZ Top manager Bill Ham, who convinced RCA that Black could be the label’s best hope for cracking the market that tradition-minded singers like George Strait, Dwight Yoakam, and Randy Travis were pioneering. Killin’ Time’s staggering success—two million sales and four number one singles in a little less than two years—coincided with the emergence of still more “new traditionalist” singers, like Garth Brooks and, not long after, Alan Jackson. Black stood out as perhaps the most traditional by integrating two-steps, western swing, and Cajun elements, all of which he’d picked up playing Texas honky-tonks and dance halls. Black never again made a record as popular as Killin’ Time, but the gold and platinum certifications didn’t stop until the late nineties, when he took a few years away from the business to focus on family; he and his wife, the actress Lisa Hartman Black, have a daughter, Lily, who is now fourteen. And when he returned, he decided he’d had enough of the major-label system. (Though he still had a thing for the limelight, as evidenced by his appearances as
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IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION • DYMISTA can cause sleepiness or drowsiness. Do not drive, operate machinery, or do anything that needs you to be alert until you know how DYMISTA affects you. • Do not drink alcohol or take any other medicines that may cause you to feel sleepy while using DYMISTA. It can increase your chances of having serious side effects. DYMISTA may cause serious side effects including: • Sleepiness or drowsiness • Nasal Problems. Symptoms of nasal problems may include: crusting in the nose, nosebleeds, runny nose, hole in the cartilage between your nose (nasal septal perforation). A whistling sound when you breathe may be a symptom of nasal septal perforation. • Slow wound healing. You should not use DYMISTA until your nose has healed if you have a sore in your nose, if you have had surgery on your nose, or if your nose has been injured. • Thrush (Candida), a fungal infection in your nose and throat. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any redness or white colored patches in your nose or mouth. • Eye problems, such as glaucoma or cataracts. Some people may have eye problems, including glaucoma and cataracts. You should have regular eye
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APPROVED USES DYMISTA is a prescription medicine used to treat symptoms of seasonal allergic rhinitis in people 6 years of age and older, who need treatment with both azelastine hydrochloride and fluticasone propionate. DYMISTA may help to reduce your nasal symptoms including stuffy nose, runny nose, itching, and sneezing.
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SUMMARY OF INFORMATION ABOUT DYMISTA DYMISTA (Dy-Mist-A) (azelastine hydrochloride and fluticasone propionate) Nasal Spray This patient information does not include all the information needed to use DYMISTA safely and effectively. Please see the full Prescribing Information.
DYMISTA and other medicines may affect each other, causing side effects. Especially tell your healthcare provider if you take: • ritanovir (Norvir) or medicines that contain ritanovir (commonly used to treat HIV infection or AIDS). • ketoconazole, fluconazole, or itraconazole (for fungal infections). Ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist for a list of these medications, if you are not sure.
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• DYMISTA is a prescription medicine used to treat symptoms of seasonal allergic rhinitis in people 6 years of age and older, who need treatment with both azelastine hydrochloride and fluticasone propionate. • DYMISTA may help to reduce your nasal symptoms including stuffy nose, runny nose, itching, and sneezing. It is not known if DYMISTA is safe or effective in children under 4 years of age.
What should I tell my healthcare provider before using DYMISTA? Before using DYMISTA tell your healthcare provider if you: • have had recent nasal sores, nasal surgery, or nasal injury. • have eye or vision problems, such as cataracts or glaucoma (increased pressure in your eye). • have tuberculosis or any untreated fungal, bacterial, viral infections or eye infections caused by herpes. • have been near someone who has chickenpox or measles. • are not feeling well or have any other symptoms that you do not understand. • have any other medical conditions. • are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if DYMISTA will harm your unborn baby. Talk to your healthcare provider if you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant.
• DYMISTA can cause sleepiness or drowsiness. Do not drive, operate machinery, or do anything that needs you to be alert until you know how DYMISTA affects you. • Do not drink alcohol or take any other medicines that may cause you to feel sleepy while using DYMISTA. It can increase your chances of having serious side effects.
What are the possible side effects of DYMISTA? The most common side effects of DYMISTA include: • changes in taste. • nosebleeds. • headache. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effect that bothers you or that does not go away. These are not all of the possible side effects of DYMISTA. For more information, ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088. This information is not comprehensive. To get more information: • Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist. • Visit www.DYMISTA.com to obtain FDA-approved product labeling. • Call 1-888-939-6478.
• are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. It is not known if DYMISTA passes into your breast milk. Talk to your healthcare provider about the best way to feed your baby while using DYMISTA. Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements.
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a contestant on the second season of Celebrity Apprentice.) His next two albums were released by his own Equity Music Group, which promised equity shares to its artists (“a great idea delivered upon by imbeciles,” he says of the label, which shuttered in 2008). Neither record sold that much, but the downturn had nothing to do with quality—ten records into his career, he hasn’t made a record yet that didn’t sound like a Clint Black record. So don’t call On Purpose a comeback: he’s been here for years, doing pretty much the same thing and doing it very well. His voice is still deep and surprisingly supple, and he’s still turning clever phrases (“I’ve been better, I’ve been worse / Got a little money, but it’s in her purse”). Black, whom this magazine described as having a “distinctly methodical and sober streak when it comes to business” all the way back in 1989, says his expectations are modest. “I know where we are in the industry and where I am with Thirty Tigers,” he says. “They’re not Sony, for all that is and isn’t. If I reach my core fans, that’s success enough for me. But with the Internet, I have a tenlane highway to reach them. When I started out, it was two lanes: major label or nothing. Now we have YouTube. In 1990 we had the Nashville Network and maybe you got on the Tonight Show. Now you just have to let your fans know where to find you. And we have a lot of ways to do that.” Black is also modest and pragmatic about the prospects of leaving a meaningful legacy. Throughout his career as a songwriter, time and what you make of it has been his predominant theme: from “Killin’ Time” to “Buying Time” to “No Time to Kill.” On Purpose opens with a tune about taking stock and slowing down, “Time for That.” Black says that beneath the tall hat and goofy smile lies a weary fatalist, a worldview spurred early on by watching the Vietnam War unfold and by a family history of cancer. “I’ve always sung about time because I see it as this precious thing we probably don’t have much of,” he says. “Will any of this matter to anyone a hundred years from now?” he wonders. “Probably not. Maybe twenty years from now that first album might matter. It’s a thrill to think that maybe when people talk about great country music, I might be included in the discussion. But ultimately you have to look at yourself as being ashes to ashes and dust to dust, so you better enjoy what you’re doing and do it for the right reason, because at some point it’s not going to matter to anyone else. So I’m going to be me, I’m going to do what I do, and whatever that gets me I’ll take, good or bad. And, you know, the bad ain’t that bad. The good’s been pretty good, though.” T
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Don Burro 1 ounce Don Julio® Blanco Tequila 1/2 ounce Ginger Cordial 1/4 ounce Lime Juice 1 heavy dash Apple Serum* Apple Slices and Cinnamon Stick for Garnish
*To create Apple Serum, combine equal parts apple-flavored liqueur, apple bitters, and apple cider vinegar into a cocktail shaker. Shake well. Strain into rocks glass. Combine Don Julio ® Blanco Tequila, ginger cordial, lime juice and apple serum into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well. Strain contents into rocks glass over ice. Garnish with apple slices and a cinnamon stick. THIS RECIPE CONTAINS NO MORE THAN 0.6 FL OZ. OF ALCOHOL PER SERVING.
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Combine Don Julio ® Reposado Tequila, rose aperitif wine, orange and grapefruit bitters into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well. Strain contents into highball glass over ice. Garnish with grapefruit slice and spice rim. THIS RECIPE CONTAINS NO MORE THAN 0.6 FL OZ. OF ALCOHOL PER SERVING
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P H O T O G R A P H S T H I S P A G E B Y J O D Y H O R T O N , W Y N N M Y E R S , T R E V O R PA U L H U S , A N D J E N N Y S A T H N G A M ; O P P O S I T E P A G E : T H E V O O R H E S
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WINE FERMENTED FROM H I L L CO U N T RY G R E N AC H E GRAPES! TEXAS ARTISANS ARE TURNING OUR CROPS I N TO A S L E W O F AWA R D W I N N I N G A D U LT B E V E R AG E S . A N D T H E Y A L L H AV E O N E T H I N G I N CO M M O N :
T H E Y TA S T E L I K E T E X A S .
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exans are a thirsty bunch. Sam Houston was such a lush while living among the Cherokees that he reportedly earned the nickname “Big Drunk.” Time has done nothing to quench our craving. In any given month we pour back as much as sixty million gallons or so of wine, beer, and distilled spirits— enough to fill almost a hundred Olympic pools. As recently as a decade ago, nearly all that alcohol was trucked in from out of state. But something crafty is happening: brewers and distillers are now taking our fruits and grains and creating beverages that capture the essence of Texas. ¶ For once, we have the Legislature to thank. Until two years ago, breweries weren’t allowed to sell beer on their premises, and it was illegal for brewpubs to distribute their products to stores. Craft spirits faced the same conundrum: distilleries weren’t allowed to offer tastings or to sell on-site. ¶ The liquid revolution that’s followed the new laws is truly buzz-worthy: Texas’s craft breweries and brewpubs (the most destination-worthy of which are listed, starting on page 92) annually produce roughly 1.7 gallons of beer for every Texan 21 years or older. In 2014 Texas’s microbrews—including wild yeast sours, German-style hefeweizens, and extra special bitter ales—bagged sixteen medals at the all-important Great American Beer Festival. Just as inventive, the state’s more than sixty distillers are making everything from gin to apricot brandy. And our ambitious bartenders (page 90) are spinning these spirits into salty, sour, and sweet cocktails that take the edge off Texas’s tempestuous weather. ¶ But don’t forget the wine, the best bottles of which appear on page 84. That industry, as a Texpat-turnedCalifornia-wine-snob notes starting on page 82, has matured after an awkward adolescence. More than 350 wineries now span our great state. The High Plains has more in common with California’s Napa Valley than you might imagine and is home to roughly 85 percent of our vineyards. The area’s peanut and cotton farmers, often plagued by drought, didn’t think twice before turning their fields over to warmweather grapes, many of which take a three-hundredmile journey down to the Hill Country to be pressed into bold reds, crisp whites, and refreshing rosés. It’s probably not the process that the Franciscan friars employed when they established North America’s first vineyard in Texas, back in 1662, but today’s Texas wine goes much better with barbecue. ¶ So forget that foreign stuff; Texas now has all the booze that’s fit to print. Sam Houston would certainly toast to that.
Pedernales Cellars GSM P. 85
Mesa Vineyards 2013 Chenin Blanc P. 85
Big Bend Brewing Co. Frontera IPA P. 94
William Chris Wines Mourvèdre P. 85
Val Verde Winery Don Luis Tawny Port P. 85
Spicewood Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc P. 85
PHOTOGRAPH BY THE VOORHES
Lakewood Brewing Co. The Temptress
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Jester King Brewery Atrial Rubicite
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Lady Governor, made with Tito’s Handmade Vodka P. 90
Community Beer Co. Public Ale P. 93
Kiepersol Estates Winery 2012 Stainless Cabernet Sauvignon
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P. 85
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Saint Arnold Brewing Co. Boiler Room P. 93
Duchman Family Winery Sangiovese P. 85
Babes, made with Treaty Oak Platinum Rum
Alba Huerta’s Spiced Julep
Haak Vineyards & Winery 2013 Madeira Blanc du Bois
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Hops & Grain Greenhouse IPA
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Summer in Cathay, made with Moody June Gin P. 90
Real Ale Brewing Co. Hans’ Pils
Freetail Brewing Co. Bat Outta Helles
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Desert Shandy, made with Kinsman Rakia P. 90
Bending Branch Winery 2012 Estate Tannat, CM
Locations are approximate. Glasses are big.
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REIGN OF TERROIR A DECADE AND A HALF A F T E R I W ROT E A B O U T T H E POOR QUALITY OF TEXAS WINES FOR THIS MAGAZINE, LO N E S TA R V I N T N E R S A R E S TA R T I N G TO T U R N H E A D S . by Jordan Mackay
ifteen years ago this month, I penned a piece in this magazine about Texas wine that would change my life. Weeks after the story came out, the phone in my cubicle rang. On the line was an editor at Food & Wine who’d read the story and asked if I would want to write an essay. I was just an amateur oenophile at the time, harboring no professional ambitions. But one thing led to another, and a year later I was living in San Francisco and publishing monthly columns in the Austin American-Statesman and a Bay Area metro magazine. By now, I’ve traveled to almost every significant wine region on six continents, published a few books on wine, and even married a sommelier in a Sonoma vineyard. All thanks to an innocent article about a production area that was, at the time, irrelevant to the rest of the world. ¶ In that piece I complained about the low quality of wine from Texas, the country’s fifth-largest producer, especially compared with other top states like Oregon and Washington. And I lamented that Texas had yet to produce a single world-class wine. ¶ But Texas wasn’t even producing great, wellpriced table wine. The world is overflowing with cheap, generic, technically well-made wine Duchman Family from places like ArgenWinery’s Dave Reilly tina and Chile, places inspects grapes before harvest. INSET: that can make it more The French and consistently than Texas American oak barrels Duchman prefers. and at a fraction of the
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BY TH E NUM B E RS WINERIES IN TEXAS
MORE THAN 4,000 ACRES OF VINEYARDS IN TEXAS
P E R C E N TA G E O F T E X A S V I N E YA R D S T H AT A R E IN THE HIGH PLAINS
Jordan Mackay is a James Beard Award–winning writer who starts a proper meal with an aperitif, moves on to wine, and finishes with a straight spirit.
ACRES IN TEXAS ARE UNDER VINE
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WINE PHOTOGRAPH BY THE VOORHES
S TAT I S T I C S : T E X A S W I N E A N D G R A P E G ROW E R S A S SO C I AT I O N , K I M M C P H E R S O N , J E S S I C A DU P U Y
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my reporting, I remember one local winemaker pourNATURAL WINE Organic HYBRID GRAPE A cross between two STRUCTURE The ing me some of his 200 wine made with minimal chemigrape varieties, usually a classic European wine overall balance of a wine’s cal or physical alteration. Trendy grape and a heartier native American species, tannin, acidity, alcohol, percent new-oak Charand somewhat controversial in with the goal of creating a palatable wine and body. Well-structured donnay, meaning it had the wine world. grape that’s more weather- and pest-resistant. wines tend to age nicely. been fermented and aged consecutively in brandnew oak barrels to intensify the toasty, woody taste. This much new oak (these days, 100 percent is often considered cost. Those are fine for wine drinkers. But wine lovers ask for more. excessive) would be an atrocity for the world’s best Chardonnay, No matter the price, what we ultimately want is for it to taste like much less the weak, flabby stuff he had produced. I wasn’t galled it comes from somewhere. The terroir of the wine—or its “somemerely by the offensiveness of the wine but by the superior, selfwhereness,” to use a term coined by the wine writer Matt Kramer— congratulatory manner with which he deigned to let people try it. comes not only from the climate and soils of a place but also from This wasn’t a real wine culture but a pantomime version of one. the sensibilities and cuisines of the people who live there. ¶ At the ¶ The editors stuck the piece with the inflammatory headline “Sour time of my first article, if Texas wines tasted like they came from Grapes,” perhaps causing the article to garner some strong reacsomewhere, it seemed to be a place whose people weren’t discerning tions from people who probably didn’t read past the first couple of about what they drank and whose smug vintners passed off poor paragraphs. More than one Texas wine lover threatened to cancel imitations of wines that came from elsewhere. Things like excessive his subscription, and the state’s agriculture commissioner sent a oak and overripeness—traits that might seem impressive to some— letter defending Texas wine. I was a little miffed by the response. typically drown out any hope of finding deeper qualities. During
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DARE TO BE GRAPE THESE SIX SPLENDID WINERIES ARE SETTING THE STANDARD FOR TEXAS VITICULTURE. BY JESSICA DUPUY
n the late sixties, Texas Tech chemistry professor Clinton “Doc” McPherson and horticulture professor Bob Reed planted a few wine grapes outside Lubbock. The deep sandy loam had long been home to cotton, peanuts, and soybeans, but never to grapes. To their surprise, the vines flourished, producing fruit as ripe and balanced as what you might find in Southern France. The two went on to establish Llano Estacado Winery, the second bonded Texas winemaking operation since Prohibition. Today it is one of the largest wineries in the state, producing several premier, restaurant-only wines in addition to its commercial line. Others soon followed suit. In 1975 Fall Creek Vineyards, in Tow, planted its first vines; Messina Hof Winery and Resort, in Bryan, did the same two years later. Now each produces nearly 50,000 cases annually. Through trial and error in testing soils, climate, and various grape varieties, these pioneers laid the foundation for Texas viticulture. Now a new generation of vintners is taking these lessons and advancing the industry beyond anything that could have been imagined half a century ago. The following six wineries are creating wines that aren’t just excellent, they’re authentic. They taste like Texas.
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While I’d been critical of the thinness and sour flavors that marked many Texas wines, I’d also highlighted various other winemakers who were experimenting with grapes, harvesting times, and vineyard sites, setting up the state’s wine for a better future. Well, here we are in the future. So this summer, I came back to spend some time looking into how Texas’s wines and wine culture have evolved.
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ine is the ultimate slow food. To produce something palatable, grape vines must be meticulously tended—pruned, precisely irrigated, and guarded against an onslaught of pests, molds, diseases, and unpredictable, ever-changing weather conditions. After the fruit is ready, a million more decisions must be made in order to guide the juice into becoming wine; one must choose the optimal harvesting moment, whether or not to use ambient or commercial yeasts, and so on. Mistakes at any point could seriously compromise the development of acidity, flavor, and tannins. Since this process happens only once a year, most vintners will never have more than thirty or forty shots in their lives to get it right. Compare that with the world’s greatest wines, whether from France, Spain, or Italy, which have benefited from thousands of years of uninterrupted practice. Texas’s modern industry is only in its forties, a blip in wine time. And thanks to the extreme climate, it’s exceptionally hard to grow supple wine grapes here. In California, where it’s easy, wines were already garnering international attention a century before the shocking Judgment of Paris, when a Golden State wine ranked best in each category at the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976. Today California boasts over 600,000 acres of vineyards, offering its winemakers boundless sources of grapes for experimentation. Texas’s acreage, on the other hand, is a drop in the bucket, roughly 4,000 acres. Somewhereness cannot be manufactured, only discovered, and discovery in those mere 4,000 acres depends on asking the right questions. The main character in “Sour Grapes,” Jim Johnson, who with his wife, Karen, created Alamosa Wine Cellars in 1996, was asking the right ones from the beginning. What grapes should be grown? And what location had the best combination | C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 1 9 6
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Jessica Dupuy is a certified sommelier and a certified specialist of wine and spirits who has been on T E X A S M O N T H LY ’s adult beverage beat for the past five years. She loves champagne and french fries.
MCPHERSON CELLARS
DUCHMAN FA M I LY W I N E RY
LUBBOCK, HIGH PLAINS
DRIFTWOOD, SOUTH HILL COUNTRY
After Kim McPherson learned to press with some of the best in Napa Valley and at Llano Estacado Winery, founded by his father, he launched McPherson Cellars in 1998. Since then, he’s produced a consistent (and approachably priced) lineup made with warm-climate grapes. The light and fruity 2013 Les Copains Red ($14) is a blend of the “red friends” that originated in France’s rugged Southern Rhône region: Mourvèdre, Cinsault, Carignan, Grenache, and Syrah. Brimming with ripe strawberries and tart cherries, it holds an earthy undertone. The 2014 Albariño ($16), with a tropical fruit and lemon zest nose framed by minerality, suits grilled seafood. 1615 Texas Ave, 806-687-9463
One of the state’s most consistent producers, Duchman Family Winery built its reputation on Italian grape varieties, believing that what is good for the Italian soils of Tuscany, Abruzzo, and Sardinia is also good for Texas. Today it vinifies a few other, non-Italian grapes, like Tempranillo, but its soul is still poured into wines like its rich and earthy Montepulciano ($19), with hints of black cherry, sautéed mushroom, and cocoa, and its sturdy Sangiovese ($15), accented by bright bing cherry, cola, and hints of hot red earth. The lemony Vermentino ($15) has a touch of orange blossom and tropical pineapple on the nose. 13308 FM 150, 512-858-1470
Longtime soccer buddies Doug Lewis and Duncan McNabb sidestepped corporate life after earning business and chemistry degrees, respectively, and bought one hundred acres between Johnson City and Hye, where they built a winery from the ground up. There they produce bold reds and crisp whites with grapes sourced from six acres of their estate, as well as from the High Plains and elsewhere in the Hill Country. Their quaffable 2014 Swim Spot ($14) is a Vinho Verde style of wine known for its freshness and light body, while their 2011 Round Mountain Vineyard Reserve ($50), crafted from Tempranillo, Tinta Cão, and Touriga Nacional, is robust and deeply structured. 3209 U.S. 290 West, 512-987-0660
WILLIAM CHRIS V I N EYA R D S
S P I C EWO O D V I N EYA R D S
P E D E R NA L E S CELLARS
HYE, HILL COUNTRY
SPICEWOOD, HILL COUNTRY
S T O N E WA L L , H I L L C O U N T R Y
Opened in 2008, this partnering of wine veteran William Blackmon and recently graduated A&M entomology and horticulture major Chris Brundrett made Hye, a tiny town near Fredericksburg, a must-stop for wine lovers. Driven by a “wine is grown in the vineyard, not made” philosophy, William Chris tries not to change the expression of the fruit once it has been picked. The blending and barrel aging complement the wine rather than dominate it. The Enchanté red blend ($42) is very popular, but single varietals like the new Texas Mourvèdre ($36) and the 2011 Estate Block 500 Merlot ($45) allow the grapes that are best suited for Texas soils to speak for themselves. 10352 U.S. 290, 830-998-7654
Just northwest of Austin along Texas Highway 71, Spicewood Vineyards has cornered the market for Sauvignon Blanc in Texas by successfully growing an unlikely candidate for Texas’s climate with a little luck from its well-drained sandy loam soils. The 2014 ($17) is a beautiful example, with aromas of white daisy and lemongrass and hints of grapefruit, papaya, and guava on the palate. Its 2012 Hill Country Estate Tempranillo ($46) is arguably the state’s best expression of the Spanish grape, and its newly released 2013 Syrah ($30), with its dark fruit beneath light notes of smoked meat, is reminiscent of Rhône Valley greats. 1419 County Road 409, 830-693-5328
Although the Kuhlken family has grown red Bordeaux and Spanish varietals for more than 25 years, they didn’t establish their own winery until 2006, when two siblings and their spouses partnered to open a production facility and tasting room. Their champion Spanish red variety Tempranillo Reserve ($50) and Southern French white variety Viognier ($17) have regularly won gold medals from the San Francisco International Wine Competition, the TexSom International Wine Awards, and the Lyon International Wine Competition. Also of note is a French Rhône “GSM” (Grenache, Syrah, and Mourvèdre, $26), with leather, cocoa, and pepper notes. 2916 Upper Albert Rd, 830-644-2037
L EW I S W I N E S
J O H N S O N C I T Y, H I L L C O U N T R Y
COMFORT: Bending Branch Winery’s Tannat grapes, a dark, inky variety from Southwest France and Uruguay, make for innovative wines with rich fruit concentration and grippy tannin. 2012 Estate Tannat, CM, $60. DEL RIO: Val Verde Winery, founded in the sleepy border WINE FINDS city in 1883, is the state’s oldest continuously running winery and has been operated by four generations of Qualias. Don Luis Tawny Port, $40. SANTA FE: Haak Vineyards & Winery, which has been flourishing in Galveston County for more than thirty years, consistently makes a Madeira on par with some of the best from its titular source in Portugal. 2013 Madeira Blanc du Bois, $39.95. FORT STOCKTON: Mesa Vineyards spans more than five hundred acres (making it the state’s largest vineyard) and produces 600,000 cases of wine under labels ranging from Ste. Genevieve to Peregrine Hill to its very own Mesa Vineyards, which you can taste at the historic Grey Mule Saloon. 2013 Mesa Vineyards Chenin Blanc, $12. TYLER: Kiepersol Estates Winery is known for the linear character of its “stainless” Cabernet Sauvignons, Merlots, and Syrahs, which are aged in stainless-steel tanks rather than in oak barrels, a practice virtually unheard of for such aggressive grapes. 2012 Stainless Cabernet Sauvignon, $23.
UNEXPECTED
BOTTLE PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE VOORHES
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BY TH E NUM B E RS LEGAL DISTILLERIES IN TEXAS IN 1990
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LEGAL DISTILLERIES IN TEXAS IN 2015 WHISKEYS, DEFINED
BOURBON, MADE FROM >51% CORN, AGED IN CHARRED OAK BARRELS
MALT WHISKEY, MADE FROM >51% MALTED BARLEY
THE H A N G OV E R C H I P TAT E B U I LT B A LC O N E S I N TO O N E O F T H E C O U N T R Y ’ S M O S T I N N O VAT I V E W H I S K E Y DISTILLERIES. BUT LAST YEAR H E LO S T T H E C O M PA N Y I N A BITTER CLASH WITH HIS I N V E S TO R S . N O W H E ’ S S TA R TI N G F R O M S C R ATC H —A G A I N . by Eric Benson
WHISKEY PHOTOGRAPH BY THE VOORHES
STATISTICS: TEXAS DISTILLED SPIRITS ASSOCIATION; ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO TAX AND TRADE BUREAU
CORN WHISKEY, MADE FROM >80% CORN
Spirits Glossary
The viscous porridge of grains—often corn, rye, and malted barley—that is fermented and, in the case of spirits, distilled. Applies also to beer.
MASH
When heat is applied to fermented liquid, distillation occurs as alcohol evaporates and is captured and condensed back into liquid at a much higher proof. Hard spirits are distilled beverages.
DISTILLATION
SHRUB Similar to “drinking vinegar,” a shrub is a cocktail syrup made from fruit that is macerated with sugar and acidulated with vinegar. Popular during Colonial times, shrubs are making a comeback.
¶ Forty-year-old Tate—sturdy and balding, with a beard so mehip Tate, one of America’s most acclaimed ticulously groomed it might as well have been topiary—was buncraft whiskey makers, opened the door dled up in a peacoat. A few weeks later, while Tate and his small to his new distillery, an 11,000-squareteam were cleaning out debris from the warehouse, they would foot warehouse standing between a pavstumble upon a two-foot rattlesnake. And now, as Tate trudged ing company’s landfill and the Waco Reup to the small second floor where the distillery’s management gional Airport, and surveyed the mess inside. would one day have its offices, he illuminated a corner that looked ¶ It was a dreary late-February day, overcast and just below freezas though it had been occupied until only recently—a lost man’s ing. A few pale rays filtered through the grime-covered skylights winter home. ¶ Not too long ago, it would have been inconceivable 21 feet above, but otherwise the room was dark. Accompanied by his that Tate would be reporting to work in such a place. His talents newly minted operations chief, Terry Vanderpool, Tate stepped into were too rare to be spent on months of sweeping. Tate had been the building and flicked on his flashlight. There were deep cracks the president and head distiller of Balcones—a Waco in the concrete floor, haphazard piles of pipes, and the distillery that he had founded in 2008—and under his occasional steel beam thrusting forth from the ground ABOVE, FROM LEFT: direction, it had become the most celebrated whiskey like a medieval pike. “Terry says we’ll be up and running Chip Tate in front of fermentation tanks producer in Texas and one of the unquestioned leaders by the summer, but life will disabuse him of that noat his new distillery, of the national craft whiskey boom. When he started tion,” Tate said. His expectations were more tempered. where he also builds his own pot stills. Balcones, Tate had announced himself boldly, setting He hoped to be making his first distillation by this fall.
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into an adjacent room where he planned to weld stills for himself and select clients. “We’ll have a power hammer and a bunch of torches and the ability to cut and manipulate, weld, bend, and roll.” If you squinted just right, you could see the future lurking in the shadows. In a year or two, a dozen scruffy employees would be shoveling out the mash from the stills and filling up wooden barrels by the roomful. Standing there, Tate could see it more clearly. “This is so much more space than we had last time,” he said. “But I’m telling you: in five more years, it’s not going to feel that way. Probably two years from now, it’s not going to feel that way.”
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was a nerd,” Tate told me a few months later over woodfired oysters and a bottle of Sancerre. “I won’t say I read the entire World Book Encyclopedia, but I at least made it to F, and if you make it to F, you get to B, and in there is ‘beer.’ The World Book is very detailed about enzymes.” Tate was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, the son of a nuclear engineer father and a critical-care-nurse mother. But when he was two years old, his family moved to Germany, where he received an early crash course in Old World connoisseurship. “When I was six, we used to go on what are called wandern, sort of countryside strolls,” Tate said. “We’d eat dark bread and chocolate and I’d have a sip of wine from skins.” The experience proved formative. At age twelve, back in Lynchburg, Tate fell in love with cooking, and soon cooking led to baking, baking led to yeast, yeast led to fermentation, and | C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 1 5 0 Austin-based writer Eric Benson prefers his whiskey like his copy—neat.
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B OT TO M L E F T: B R A N D O N T H I B O D E AU X
out to make what he called “Texas whisky,” a heretofore nonexistent category (using the Scottish spelling) that, he would later write, was designed to capture the state’s “maverick tendencies, its climate, its restrictions and its freedoms, and its fierce notions of independence.” And in 2009 he made good on it, releasing a Texas-made whiskey into the market for the first time since Prohibition: Baby Blue, an aged corn whiskey named for the George Strait song. In the years after Baby Blue’s debut, Balcones spun out new, wildly inventive products, and it succeeded beyond even Tate’s outsized ambitions, winning 140 awards between 2010 and 2014. Tate hadn’t tried to ape the big Kentucky distilleries by making bourbon, the most popular type of American whiskey; instead he made other kinds of whiskeys and spirits that tasted like nothing else, using ingredients like Hopi blue corn and Mission figs to create rich, earthy flavors more often associated with great wines. Whiskey writers around the country were gobsmacked, likening Tate to Michelangelo, Kurt Cobain, and Steve Jobs. But just as the rocket ship known as Chip Tate was close to achieving escape velocity, it got knocked off course, overheated, and then fell back to earth. Tate was standing in this empty warehouse because last year his run at Balcones had come to an acrimonious end. Not long after signing a multimillion-dollar deal with a small private-equity group, Tate had started butting heads with the investors, first over the escalating cost estimates of an expansion, then over whether he was fit to manage the company. In August 2014 the feud spilled into court, and after three and a half months of fighting over alleged threats, the legality of restraining orders, and the ambiguities of contractual language, the parties settled. On December 5, Tate departed Balcones for good. With his flashlight, Tate now tried to conjure what would soon be the throbbing heart of his new operation, Tate & Company. (“I wanted to avoid any confusion in the future about who’s going to be working here for a long time,” he said.) He pointed to one wall, where a pair of gleaming two-thousand-gallon copper pot stills would soon transform fermented grains into a crude distillate. He nodded toward another wall, where four smaller stills would further refine that liquid into a high-proof spirit, which would then be aged in oak barrels for years. Tate moved his flashlight along the floor to the spot where giant tanks would hold the raw materials of distilling—malted barley and corn and fruit. “This will be the copper works,” Tate said as we passed from the main distillery floor
SOUTHERN C O M F O RT ALBA HUERTA, ARGUABLY THE BEST BARTENDER IN TEXAS, CHATS ABOUT SERVING COCKTAILS IN HOUSTON. INTERVIEW BY FRANCESCA MARI
artending is the only job that Alba Huerta has ever had, and it’s the only job she has ever wanted. Her family moved to Houston from Monterrey, Mexico, when she was six, and she began serving up adult beverages a year before she could even legally drink. After perfecting the art of the cocktail at Houston’s celebrated Anvil Bar & Refuge, she became the bar director of the business group that owns it, Clumsy Butcher, and, with Anvil owners Bobby Heugel and Kevin Floyd, established the buzzy downtown mez-
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caleria the Pastry War. Last year, Huerta turned her attention to Southern cocktail culture, opening Julep in the Sixth Ward. FRANCESCA MARI: What
J U L E P B A R : J U L I E SO E F E R
appeals to you about bartending? ALBA HUERTA: I always tell people that before I was making cocktails I was making friends behind the bar. Wherever I work, I want to make sure it’s a place where people feel welcome. FM: How does that play out in the design of Julep? AH: A lot of the design was meant to be timeless. Guests walk in, and we tell them we’ve been open only a year, and they can’t believe it. We have a very light color palette, a lot of natural light—even my back bar feels like a pantry—so it has this warm, homey feel. FM: What cocktails best suit Texas?
HUERTA’S SPICED JULEP: Soak a tea infuser filled with 5 allspice berries, 1/2 a cinnamon stick, and 5 cloves in a cup of overproof rum. Set aside. In a metal julep cup, gently muddle 12 mint leaves in 1/2 ounce turbinado syrup. Add 1 1/2 ounces bonded apple brandy and 1/2 ounce Jamaican pot-still rum. With a pair of tongs, remove infuser and discard overproof rum. Using a lighter, set infuser on fire, and drop into the julep cup. Dash aromatic bitters and express fresh lemon oil onto flame. Add crushed ice and stir to dilution, about 10 times. Add more crushed ice and garnish with mint sprig, seasonal fruit, and powdered sugar. PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEFF WILSON
There’s seasonality, and then there’s also how I feel today. So if I’m walking around outside in 100-degree weather, and I walk into a bar, I’m going to want a drink that’s refreshing. That’s why we love drinks that are sour, tart, refreshing, spicy, and sweet. F M : Is that why we love margaritas? Because they’re citrusy and sweet and it’s hot here nine months out of the year? AH: I certainly think so. That’s proven itself with t h e S a l t wa t e r S o u t h Menu that we’re currently launching at Julep. That menu draws ingredients from different port cities and coastal regions. With Houston being on the Gulf, the menu’s been very well received because of its acidity and sodium. The cocktails have a little bit of salt and lemon. FM: Do you get your inspiration for cocktails mostly from ingredients? AH: Ingredients, themes, and people. If I come across something like a honey-dried fig and we can make a soda out of it, that’s great. And then the soda becomes the mixer, AH:
so we have to find the right spirit.* And sometimes our guests have requests and sometimes that leads to creating something. FM: Who are your guests and what do they want? AH: The city itself is very diverse, so you can have a multitude of cultures walking in the door. And we try to have something for just about everyone, so the flavor profiles on the menu go from being bitter and boozy to light and refreshing to something that’s a little bit sweet. F M : The Spiced Julep seems to speak to Houston’s place as part Deep South, part Lone Star State. Was that on your
mind or were you just trying to construct a great drink? AH: All those things. That Julep was created from two hot drinks that I usually serve the two chilly days of the year. Converting them into a julep made them cold and refreshing to enjoy more year-round. And the Spiced Julep is for the more adventurous drinker. The spices get lit on fire. FM: Do you have any tips for the home mixologist? AH: Always have fresh ingredients—fresh-squeezed lemon juice, fresh-squeezed lime juice—and invest the time to make things like simple syrup yourself. FM: What staples should a home bartender have? AH: A good home cabinet is tequila, bourbon, and gin. You can play with those spirits in so many ways, and they translate into so many different recipes. Just having those three things would make most of my days very, very happy.
*See which spirit Huerta chose to create a honey-driedfig highball at texasmonthly.com.
MOVED BY THE SPIRITS INSPIRED BY TEXAS’S NEW ARRAY OF HOMEGROWN HARD ALCOHOLS, SOME OF THE STATE’S MOST I N N OVAT I V E BART E N D E R S C R E AT E FIVE B OLD NEW CO CKTAILS. B Y D AV I D A L A N
DE TERRA SOTOL
GENIUS LIQUIDS In June 2013 Mike Groener and Charles Cheung launched Genius Liquids with a pair of gins, uniquely distilled from cane sugar. Two years later they began producing the first—and only—domestic sotol. Sotol is a spirit native to Chihuahua, Mexico, though the agave-like plant from which it is distilled grows throughout South and West Texas. T H E B A R T E N D E R Mary Stanley is the proprietor of the restaurant Turtle, an outpost of elevated dining on the main drag of Brownwood, on the western edge of the Hill Country. This is her nod to the mojito.
WAT E R M E L O N M O J I T O 6–7 mint leaves 1 ounce simple syrup 1 1/2 ounces De Terra Sotol 4 ounces fresh watermelon juice 1 /2 ounce fresh lime juice 2 drops Scrappy’s Cardamom Bitters Muddle mint and simple syrup in a cocktail shaker. Add sotol, watermelon juice, lime juice, and bitters. Add ice and shake. Strain over ice and serve in a Collins glass. Garnish with melon cubes and mint leaves on a skewer. KINSMAN RAKIA
D O R C O L D I S T I L L I N G C O M PA N Y Dorćol Distilling Company is the brainchild of Chris Mobley and Boyan Kalusevic, the latter of whom is continuing a family tradition of fruit distilling that goes back several generations in Eastern Europe. Dorćol’s flagship product is Kinsman Rakia, a fruit brandy (apricots in this case), generally un-aged. The rakia is first fermented and distilled in Serbia
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before being shipped to San Antonio for the finishing run, making Dorćol the only distillery in Texas to specialize in producing the national drink of several Balkan states. T H E B A R T E N D E R Michelle Fierro-Quintero and her husband, Juan, travel to places like Austin and New Orleans seeking flavors to bring back to their hometown of El Paso, where they opened one of the city’s first craft cocktail bars, the Black Orchid Lounge, in 2013. This cocktail was inspired by the tradition in El Paso of pouring Mexican beer into a margarita.
DESERT SHANDY 1 ounce Kinsman Rakia 3 /4 ounce rosemary-infused syrup* 3 /4 ounce fresh lemon juice 2–3 ounces La Frontera IPA or similar Combine first 3 ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Add ice and shake vigorously to chill. Strain over ice in a snifter and top off with IPA. Garnish with a rosemary sprig. *For the rosemary-infused syrup: 1 cup sugar 1 cup water 1 small fresh rosemary sprig Combine sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring occasionally until sugar is dissolved. Reduce heat and add sprig; cook for 2–3 minutes. Strain into jar, then chill. T I T O ’S H A N D M A D E VO D KA
MOCKINGBIRD DISTILLERY Tito Beveridge (yes, that’s his real last name) was so far ahead of his time that when he decided to open a vodka distillery in the nineties, there was literally no
clear process by which to do so. Over the next twenty years his perseverance wading through the regulatory hurdles paid off: Tito’s Handmade Vodka, a pot-still corn vodka distilled just south of Austin, is not just the best-known Texas spirit, it is by far the most widely distributed, sold in all fifty states. T H E B A R T E N D E R Brian Floyd mans the bar at the Austin outpost of New York’s Weather Up. He loves this vodka cocktail for its versatility: If you’re entertaining a group, turn it into a punch. If you don’t have a lemon, use lemonade.
LADY GOVERNOR 1 1/2 ounces Tito’s Handmade Vodka 1 ounce Texas grapefruit juice 3 /4 ounce fresh lemon juice 3 /4 ounce simple syrup 1 /4 Aperol dash Peychaud’s Bitters Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and shake with ice to chill and dilute. Strain over ice in a Collins glass and garnish with a lemon wheel. M O O DY J U N E G I N
BONE SPIRITS Bone Spirits was founded in 2010 by Jeff Peace, a former lawyer. The distillery takes a “farm to bottle” approach, fermenting and distilling all their spirits from mostly Texas grain on the property. Its lineup includes Moody June Gin, Smith’s Vodka, and a moonshine and corn whiskey under the Fitch’s Goat label. T H E B A R T E N D E R Christopher Ware was one of the most in-demand mixologists in San Antonio (serving up drinks at Bohanan’s and Arcade) before he finally opened his own bar, Paramour, in 2015. This is his solution for an abundant harvest of loquats, a small stone fruit native to China that has flourished in South and Central Texas for more than a century.
S U M M E R I N C AT H AY 4–5 mint sprigs 3 /4 ounce loquat-ginger shrub* 2 ounces Moody June Gin 3 /4 ounce fresh lemon juice 2–3 ounces Topo Chico Muddle mint sprigs and shrub in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add gin, lemon juice, and ice and shake vigorously. Strain over ice in a highball glass and top with Topo Chico.
*For the loquat-ginger shrub: 2 cups pitted loquats 1 cup grated ginger 16 ounces vinegar 1 1/2 cups sugar Combine fruit, ginger, and vinegar in a saucepan and heat to just shy of boiling, approximately 190 to 200 degrees. Simmer for 10 minutes. Transfer the liquid to a jar, allow to cool, and cover tightly. Let stand for 3 to 4 weeks, then strain through a coffee filter. In a saucepan, combine the strained liquid and sugar, bring to a boil until sugar dissolves, remove from heat, and let cool. T R E AT Y OA K P L AT I N U M RU M
TREATT Y OAK DISTT ILLINGG Founded in 2006, Treaty Oak Distilling was one of Texas’s oldest operating distilleries. The Platinum Rum was its first release and the first spirit to be made from raw molasses in Texas. Nearly a decade later, Treaty Oak also produces bourbon and Starlite, a corn-and-wheat vodka, and in 2009, it debuted the first Texas gin, using local botanicals like lavender and rosemary to give this traditionally English spirit a Texas sense of place. T H E B A R T E N D E R Alex Gregg, an Anvil alum and a fixture on Houston’s cocktail scene from the start, now heads the bar at Moving Sidewalk, one of the numerous great cocktail destinations populating Main Street. This is his high-tech take on the strawberry daiquiri.
BABES 3 /4 ounce Texas strawberry juice (or 2 strawberries muddled with 3/4 ounce simple syrup) 2 ounces Treaty Oak Platinum Rum 1 ounce lime cordial (or fresh lime juice) 1 ounce Topo Chico At Moving Sidewalk, Gregg combines the ingredients in a keg and carbonates the whole mess. For the adventurous home bartender, combine ingredients in a soda siphon and charge with CO2. Alternatively, combine strawberry juice, rum, and lime cordial in a cocktail shaker. Shake well. Strain into a champagne coupe or red Solo cup (“depending on your mood,” says Gregg). Top with Topo Chico and garnish with half a strawberry.
Summer in Cathay
Lady Governor
Watermelon Mojito
Babes
Desert Shandy
David Alan is the author of Tipsy Texan: Spirits and Cocktails From the Lone Star State. His primary accomplishment is having turned his fondness for adult refreshment into an actual career; he is the manager of trade education and mixology at Patr贸n.
PHOTOGRAPH BY THE VOORHES
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B Y T H E N U M B E R S CRAFT BREWERIES IN TEXAS IN 2014 (AND GROWING)
982,918 BARRELS OF CRAFT BEER PRODUCED IN 2014
THE FIRST TEXAS C R A F T B R E W E R Y, S A I N T ARNOLD, OPENED IN
W H AT ’ S THE B R E W-H A H A? THESE EIGHT BREWERIES— AS SCENIC AS THEY A R E S AV O R Y—A R E C R E AT I N G Q U I T E T H E B U Z Z . by Jordan Breal and Aaron Chamberlain
he Legislature hasn’t yet declared beer our official state beverage (what’s the hold up, folks?), but it is. A beer’s what we reach for on 100-degree days. A cold one’s what we’re cracking open at the start of every three-meat-plate dinner. It’s the social glue of our tailgate parties, honkytonks, and float trips. Our love affair with fermented brews dates back to our lager-loving German and Czech ancestors, who bequeathed us quenching classics like Pearl, Shiner, and Lone Star. But there’s a new era upon us, one that’s evolved beyond the light beer and “Long live longnecks” credo of our daddies’ drinking days. ¶ We’ve officially entered the age of the craft beer. Breweries like Saint Arnold, Real Ale, and Live Oak have been tinkering since the nineties with Old World recipes to produce new beers that are smoky, sour, and dark. But innovation has become the rule, not the exception, in the past couple years, since the watershed legislation of 2013 that allowed breweries to sell beer on-site and brewpubs to distribute to outside bars and retailers. Since then, places like Deep Ellum Brewing Co., in Dallas, have rapidly expanded, adding taprooms and distribution centers, while the fermented nectars of ambitious start-ups like Austin’s Black Star Co-op have begun springing up in local watering holes where they were once forbidden. There are now some two hundred breweries and brewpubs in Texas. The following eight—which stretch from far-flung West Texas to downtown Houston—are as refreshing as they are road-trip-worthy.
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BEER AND BOTTLE CAP PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE VOORHES
S TAT I S T I C S : T H E B R E W E R S A S S O C I AT I O N ; S A I N T A R N O L D B R E W I N G CO.
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JESTER KING BREWERY AUSTIN Just as the local terroir brings Jester King’s farm-
house (read: wild yeast) ales to life, so too does its pastoral setting infuse the mood at this popular brewpub. On the 220-acre spread in southwest Austin is a former thirties-era machine shop from Victoria (where you can peek at the fermentation tanks), an open-air barn (the perfect spot to eat a pie from Stanley’s Farmhouse Pizza), and huge oaks under which to play cornhole and wonder why anyone would choose to do his day-drinking indoors. Open Fri 4–10, Sat noon–10, Sun noon–6. Tours Fri at 6, Sat & Sun at 1, 3 & 5; free. 13187 Fitzhugh Rd, 512-537-5100, jesterkingbrewery.com. MUST DRINK LE PETIT PRINCE, A DRY FARMHOUSE TABLE BEER; ATRIAL RUBICITE, A SOUR RASPBERRY BEER
COMMUNITY BEER CO.
SAINT ARNOLD BREWING CO. The state’s oldest craft brewery is now of legal drinking age, and what better way to celebrate its twenty-first than by raising a glass at “Saint Arnoldville,” just north of downtown Houston. Each of the tanks at the 104,000-square-foot warehouse is named for a saint, but special reverence is reserved, of course, for its namesake, Saint Arnold of Metz, whose importance you’ll learn of on the tour. Plans to add a beer garden are in the works, but you can already enjoy daily lunch specials (veggie combo plate, prime rib French dip) during the week. Open Mon–Fri 11–4:15, Sat 11–3. Tours Mon–Fri at 3:30, Sat at noon, 1 & 2; $10 (includes souvenir glass and four beer tokens; closed-toe shoes required Mon–Fri). 2000 Lyons Ave, 713-686-9494, saintarnold.com.
HOUSTON
MUST DRINK BOILER ROOM, A TART BERLINER WEISSE
DA L L A S As its name suggests, this two-anda-half-year-old brewery in the Design District puts a premium on bringing friends and strangers together in the name of some of the best beer in all of North Texas. Its communal cup—and yours—runs over during weekly open houses, which feature live music, food trucks, a small gallery of local artists’ works, a giant Jenga game, and a behind-the-scenes peek at its operations, which boast an in-house yeast lab. Open Wed & Thur 5–9, Fri & Sat 5–10. Open house & tours Sat 2–5; $15 ($10 in advance; includes souvenir cup and three beer tickets). 1530 Inspiration Dr, 214-751-7921, communitybeer.com. M U S T D R I N K PUBLIC ALE, AN ENGLISH-STYLE EXTRA SPECIAL BITTER
Jordan Breal, T E X A S M O N T H LY ’s travel writer, bypasses the pale ales and goes straight for the milk stouts. Aaron Aar Chamberlain is a cofounder of the Austin Beer B Guide and drinker of Hans’ Pils.
J E S T E R K I N G A N D S A I N T A R N O L D P H O T O G R A P H S B Y J O D Y H O R T O N ; C O M M U N I T Y P H O T O G R A P H B Y T R E V O R PA U L H U S
REAL ALE BREWING CO. BLANCO What began in the basement of a Blanco antiques store has evolved,
BIG BEND BREWING CO.
nineteen years later, into a 49-person operation that pumps out more than 60,000 barrels of beer a year (all of which are, proudly, sold solely in-state). The shiny new taproom, open since March, offers more than a dozen beers—yes, including the brewery’s popular Firemans #4—as well as a bird’s-eye view of the packaging room, so you can watch as four hundred bottles of unpasteurized and unfiltered beer shoot down the line every minute. Open Thur–Sat 11–5. Tours Fri & Sat at 1 & 3; free (closed-toe shoes recommended). 231 San Saba Ct, 830-833-2534, realalebrewing.com. MUST DRINK HANS’ PILS, A HOPPY GERMAN-STYLE PILSNER
ALPINE Travelers heading west on U.S. 90 who’ve
got Marfa on their minds would be wise to make a strategic pit stop in Alpine to visit what may be the most remote brewery in the country. Founded in 2012, it doesn’t have a long history, though brewmaster Steve Anderson, formerly of Live Oak Brewing Co., in Austin, has already been garnering attention for his Old World–style beers (like Tejas Lager and Big Bend Hefeweizen). Call for hours. Tours Wed–Fri at 3, Sat at 1 & 3; $10 (includes souvenir glass and tastings). 3401 U.S. 90W, 432-837-3700, bigbendbrewing.com.
Beer Glossary
The conversion of sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, a task performed by yeast, as in the transformation of grape juice into wine.
FERMENTATION
Derived from the climbing bine plant, hops are a key ingredient in beer brewing. They battle bacterial growth, while also adding bitterness and flavor (such as citrus, pine, or floral).
HOPS
MUST DRINK T H E C I T R U SY F RO NT E R A IPA
HOPS & GRAIN At the eastern end of boozy Sixth Street you’ll find the most visitor-friendly taproom in Texas: it’s open seven days a week, doubles as a coffeehouse, has a library of board games, and welcomes kids and dogs (the latter, restricted to the patio, get brew biscuits made from leftover grains). For now, the beer is “free” with the purchase of a souvenir glass, though owner Josh Hare is working to procure the necessary permits to sell brew on-site. Open daily 8–10. Tours Thur & Fri at 5, Sat at 1, 3 & 5; free. 507 Calles, 512-914-2467, hopsandgrain.com.
AUSTIN
MUST DRINK GREENHOUSE IPA SERIES, A MONTHLY RELEASE EXPERIMENTING WITH HOPS
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H O P S & G R A I N, F R E E T A I L , A N D R E A L A L E P H O T O G R A P H S B Y J O D Y H O R T O N
KING OF HOP THE FOUNDER OF AUSTIN’S MAVERICK JESTER KING BREWERY TALKS ABOUT HIS BIG NEW PROJECT. INTERVIEW BY AARON CHAMBERLAIN
s I sat down beside Jeffrey Stuffings, the founder of Jester King Brewery, in Austin, I noticed he was covered in grass clippings. Apparently I had interrupted the weed whacking he was doing in the surrounding fields to prepare for the customers who would line up that afternoon, awaiting the release of the brewery’s über-popular seasonal raspberry sour beer, Atrial Rubicite (pictured). But I hadn’t come to talk to him about that but about something else entirely: Jester King’s obsession with spontaneous fermentation, a brewing technique developed in Brussels and the Pajottenland region of Belgium. Spontaneously fermented beer begins with all the normal ingredients—grains, hot water, hops—
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LAKEWOOD BREWING CO. If the stained-glass window featuring a tulip-shaped chalice is too subtle a clue that this small-batch outfit has European roots, the enormous “Schol!” emblazoned on the wall (that’d be Flemish for “Cheers”) should tip you off. (Founder Wim Bens, who established this labor of love in 2011, is a Belgiumborn, Texas-raised SMU grad.) After you belly up to the long bar for a stout and an IPA, head over to the newly opened four-thousand-square-foot beer garden, which has both a stage and seating for two-hundredplus, making it perfect, in other words, for that intimate brewhouse wedding of your dreams. Open Wed & Thur 3–8, Fri 3–9, Sat noon–9, Sun noon–6. Tours on the hour Sat 1–5, Sun 1–3; free. 2302 Executive Dr, 972-864-2337, lakewoodbrewing.com.
GARLAND
except the active one: yeast. The brew is left exposed overnight, allowing it to be fermented instead by the natural bacteria and yeast in the air, which continue to live in the beer as it ages in the barrels. Jester King is currently the only brewery in Texas—and one of only a handful in the country—brewing with this method. AARON CHAMB BERLAIN: You began your spontaneous brewing project in 2013. Why did you choose to brew this way? JEFFREY STUFFINGS: To capture our environment. Through modern practices and procedures you can practically make a beer taste more or less the same anywhere on earth. When we travel, it can be a minor frustration that we have beers that taste exactly like another | C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 1 9 0
MUST DRINK THE TEMPTRESS, A SILKY-SMOOTH IMPERIAL MILK STOUT
FREETAIL BREWING CO. First came the brewpub, in 2008, a big leap from Scott Metzger’s “duct tape and determination” home-brewing days. Then, last summer, came the 30,000-square-foot production facility, which paves the way for much wider distribution. You can still visit the original location and pair your seasonal brew with a Supreme Batastrophe pizza, before heading south of downtown to see the thirteen-tap tasting room and inquire about the expanded barrel-aging and sour-beer program; word on the street is they’ll be using Pinot Noir barrels from the Oregon winery co-owned by none other than Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich. Original brewpub: Open Mon–Sat 11 a.m.–midnight, Sun noon–midnight. 4035 North Loop 1604 West, 210-3954974. Taproom: Open Thur & Fri 4–9, Sat 2–9. Tours Sat 3 & 5; free. 2000 S. Presa, 210-625-6000, freetailbrewing.com.
SAN ANTONIO
MUST DRINK BAT OUTTA HELLES, A MALTY BAVARIAN-STYLE HELLES LAGER
B I G B E N D P H O T O G R A P H B Y J E N N I F E R B O O M E R ; L A K E W O O D P H O T O G R A P H B Y T R E V O R PA U L H U S
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THE ROAD TO 96
IN 2012 HOUSTON NATIVE AUSTIN TICE HEEDED A CALLING TO BECOME A JOURNALIST IN WAR-RAVAGED SYRIA. HIS PHOTOGRAPHS, STORIES, AND TWEETS SHED NEW LIGHT ON THE CONFLICT— UNTIL ONE DAY THEY STOPPED. by SONIA SMITH
DAMASCUS I L LU S T R AT I O N BY O W E N F R E E M A N
Syria, before he saw his byline in the Washington Post, and before he made worldwide news, Austin Tice had a revelation in the desert. At 29, he had insatiable curiosity and a surfeit of charisma, and though he generally wasn’t one to entertain visions, he’d been thinking a lot about his future. It was 2011, and he was three months into his deployment at Camp Leatherneck, in southern Afghanistan, with his fellow Marines. Despite being in a war zone, he was restless. The Arab Spring, the wave of democratic uprisings sweeping through Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, had been making headlines; the Islamic world was changing fast, and he felt desperately removed from the action. “So often I feel like I was born in the wrong age, or at least on the wrong continent,” he wrote on Facebook that July. But then, as he spent his downtime between missions gaz-
TURKEY Antakya
Aleppo
SYRIA Khan Shaykhun Kafr Zita
Homs
LEBANON Ya b r o u d Beirut
A l Ta l Damascus Daraya
THIS PAGE, FROM TOP: Austin and his
six younger siblings; Austin as an Eagle Scout; a photo Austin took of the Syrian independence flag in Al Tal. OPPOSITE PAGE: Marc and Debra Tice at their home, in Houston; Austin swimming in Daraya; Austin reporting in Al Tal.
considers the question, ‘What can I do that will be really important?’ ” Like so many young idealists, Austin ended up in law school, but, as would frequently be the case in his life, he’d soon grown restless. After one semester of legal studies at Georgetown, he signed up for the Marine Corps, and in 2005 he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. “I felt there was this sort of disconnect between the world I was living in, where I went to class every day and parties, and
FA M I LY P H OTO G R A P H S CO U RT E SY O F T H E T I C E S ; F L AG : AU S T I N T I C E / M C T V I A G E T T Y I M AG E S
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ing at photos of protesters in the streets of the Libyan capital and reading tweets about rebels clashing with forces loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, an idea came to him. Excitedly, he hurried to his commander’s office and burst in. He knew what he was going to do, he announced: become a war photographer. The commander, Lieutenant Colonel Brian Bruggeman, looked at him cockeyed. Bruggeman had talked often with Austin during their deployment, and though Bruggeman had come to enjoy his big ideas, this was unusual even for him. “Why would you want to do that?” Bruggeman said. Austin’s eyes widened. “Why wouldn’t you? Who wouldn’t want to do that?” Had Bruggeman known Austin before their deployment, he might have seen the moment coming. Growing up in Westbury, in southwest Houston, as the oldest of seven, Austin had always had a passionate streak. His mother, Debra, homeschooled her children in a house where NPR, newspapers, and the Bible stood in for television—which the family sold at a garage sale in 1988— and weekends were filled with canoeing and camping. One morning, when he was a first grader, Austin came downstairs to find that his assignments for the day weren’t ready. He turned to his mother and said, “ ‘You don’t care about my future. You don’t care about my education. I have no promise here,’ ” Debra recalled. “Everything was always so intense and urgent and relevant with him. He was like that from birth.” His intensity led to academic success. A National Merit finalist and an Eagle Scout, Austin enrolled in the University of Houston’s Honors College just before his sixteenth birthday. Even then he’d felt the pull of the larger world. During his admissions interview, when asked what he wanted to do with his life, he replied, “Well, I really want to be a foreign correspondent for NPR.” (Jodie Koszegi, the admissions counselor, was impressed. “He knew his own mind,” she told me.) Soon he’d landed a gig writing for the campus paper, the Daily Cougar, and two years later, in the fall of 1999, he transferred to Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. By the time he graduated, in 2002, he had grown into his lanky frame and earned a reputation for his direct, if not always gracious, manner. One college friend explained, “He’s the kind of person who really has a vision of his place in the world and who
V I D EO S T I L L : CO U RT E SY O F C B S
then what I would read in the paper,” he would later say in an interview, archived at the Library of Congress. After two deployments, he restarted his first year of law school in 2008, but he found that the discipline and sense of mission he’d acquired in the military made him impatient with his younger, flip-flop-wearing classmates. In early 2011 he volunteered for another deployment as a reservist. This was how he’d ended up in Afghanistan. No sooner had he arrived, however,
than he began wrestling with the U.S. military’s role and tactics in the Middle East. “Heading out soon on a horribly conceived mission,” he wrote once on Twitter. “Hopefully will be forgotten like most dumb missions are; otherwise, see you on CNN.” His commander took his frustrations in stride. “He would drive conversations with ques-
Reporting what HE WITNESSED ON HIS WAY TO DAMAS CUS, he felt sure, WOULD OPEN the world’s EYES.
DEBRA AND MARC TICE BY BILL SALLANS
tions that were not typical of conversations I was having with anyone, regardless of rank,” Bruggeman said. “He was very curious as to the purpose of our involvement. Austin has a refined sense of justice.” When, two weeks after announcing his new calling, Austin lugged a heavy, expensive Nikon camera that he’d just purchased into Bruggeman’s office, the commander was impressed. “It is not uncommon for someone to have a mid-deployment epiphany,” he said. “A lot of times people think, ‘Hey, I’m going to get out and go to school.’ This was a bit more of a radical epiphany. Not many people follow through on their radical mid-deployment epiphanies, but he did.” The same day he bought his camera— August 11, his thirtieth birthday—Austin also purchased a plane ticket to Cairo for the following March. His deployment would end in December, and though he planned to return to law school for the spring semester, his main focus was to prepare for life as a foreign journalist. As a trial run, he intended to spend his spring break documenting the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution. Scanning daily headlines on his computer, he weighed where he might commit himself after that. He briefly considered Libya, but Gaddafi fell in October, and as the news cycle moved on, Austin’s attention shifted to Syria. The conflict there, which had begun in March 2011 as a peaceful protest movement against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, had turned increasingly violent as the government cracked down on protesters. Now the Free Syrian Army—a ragtag association of mostly Sunni defectors from the military—was fighting to depose the better-equipped Assad regime, which is composed largely of Alawites, a Shiite minority. As the violence worsened, the government banned foreign news organizations and often refused to issue visas to journalists, forcing them to either embed with the regime or illegally cross the Turkish or Lebanese borders. Those who did sneak into the country exposed themselves to tremendous risk. Syria was quickly becoming the most dangerous place in the world—a “black hole,” as some would later call it—for journalists. (Since the start of the Syrian uprising, some 95 journalists have been killed there, and at least 12 are currently | C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 2 0 8
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WRITERS
TO WATCH (AND READ) We’ve entered a golden age—perhaps the golden age—of Texas literature. Here are some of the people making it happen.
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in the midst of a literary boom. Barely a week goes by without the arrival in T E X A S M O N T H LY ’s mailbox of a novel or story collection worthy of our attention. And an impressive—and, by unscientific guesstimate, growing— number of these books are very much about Texas. Ben Fountain, Elizabeth Crook, Oscar Cásares, Philipp Meyer, Sandra Cisneros, Attica Locke, and Dagoberto Gilb are just a few of the Texans who have already made names for themselves writing about their home state. Coming up right behind them is a new crew of writers who have likewise bucked the old publishing industry belief that Texas isn’t a serious subject. They are a notably diE X A N S A R E N O S T R A N G E R S TO verse lot in terms of gender, ethnicthe universal human impulse to loity, age, and regional identity, hailing cate a golden age in the past: There from and writing about nearly every was the Austin of yore, before the corner of the state. In fact, the hardtech zillionaires arrived. Marfa, beest part of creating the list of ten writfore the hipsters took over. The Cowers on the pages that follow was deboys, when Tom Landry was in his ciding whom to exclude; prime. ¶ This truism the bench is deep. ¶ Unapplies to our literary The Texas Book Festival will host doubtedly, we will soon legacy as well. It’s difa panel featuring be able to assemble a ficult for us to imagauthors from this story list made up of entirely ine that any contemduring the weekend of different, and equally porary Texas writer October 17. Go to impressive, writers will be immortalized texasbookfestival.org for based on the letters of in statuary or have a more information. protest that we’ll get middle school named in response to this story. How could after him à la J. Frank Dobie, Walter you leave out Scott Blackwood? And Prescott Webb, and Roy Bedichek. Keija Parssinen? And Bill Cotter? And Or that anyone will describe the Bret Anthony Johnston? And Jacquearc of our history as commandingly line Kelly? Because if there’s as Larry McMurtry did during the anything Texans like to do peak of his great, decades-long run. even more than look back ¶ But anyone who’s paying attention with longing, it’s brag about to the fiction being produced in Texas how great we are right now. today can’t help but notice that we’re
PHOTOGRAPH BY CODY HAMILTON
EDITED BY JEFF SALAMON
FERNANDO A. FLORES TAKES THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY PUNK-ROCK BLINDFOLD TEST by Dan Solomon
were printed—but those copies landed in the right hands, earning Flores an honorable mention award from San Antonio’s Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Foundation. That reception gave him a shot of confidence, leading him to complete a border-region novel about mythical beasts, exploited laborers, and foodie culture, which he is currently shopping around. Meanwhile, the 33-year-old writer spends most of his days sitting in the Austin house he shares with his wife, the poet Taisia Kitaiskaia, pecking away at an Olivetti Underwood Lettera 32 manual typewriter, next to a boom box and unruly piles of CDs and cassette tapes. On a recent afternoon, he took time away from his writing to submit himself to a blindfold test featuring songs from the Valley punk scene’s latenineties/early-aughts heyday. Unsurprisingly, he recognized each one immediately.
that Flores had portrayed them in an unFor a genial guy, Fernando A. flattering light. The members of the ValFlores has a lot of enemies. Beley punk band Inkbag were particularly fore his first collection of short affronted. They saw something very fastories, Death to the Bullshit Artists of miliar—and deeply insulting—when they South Texas, Vol. 1 , was published last read the story of “Pinbag,” an unflinching year, members of the Rio Grande Valdepiction of a trio of punk-rock losers. A ley punk/emo/indie rock scene waited few weeks after the book’s publication, in hopeful anticipation of finally seeing Flores got word that if the members of the their world faithfully depicted by someone band ran into him, he might wind up with who knew it well. But Flores, who grew up a few missing teeth. in Alton, just outside McAllen, wasn’t inStill, it wasn’t all bad news. The book’s terested in that kind of documentation; he run was small—only two hundred copies was inspired by that scene, but he didn’t feel compelled to stay true to it. Death was full of characters THE FIRST FOUR SENTENCES OF FLORES’S AS YET UNPUBLISHED built around details—a stutNOVEL DO TRUFFLEPIGS CRY REAL TEARS, BELLACOSA? ter, for instance—that their “Bellacosa walked carefully over the rotting planks, unsure this real-life counterparts didn’t was the shack where he was born. Its roof was missing, and he possess. Though the book was looked up at the aluminum sky. It hadn’t caved in, so he figured some billed as fiction, many memSouth Texas zephyr galloped away with it. He stomped down hard and bers of the Valley’s largely igfine orange dust lifted and formed a ghost in his own image, eager to dance or play cards, then sank back down into the cracks.” nored music community felt
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WE SUCK, “TOO HARDCORE”
“I remember going to see We Suck at Room 710, in Austin. They played there on my twenty-first birthday. I was
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEANN MUELLER
visiting from the Valley, and the bartender was giving me free shots. So by the time they got onstage, I was all sauced up. I was the only one there from the Valley, and [lead singer] Marc [Villarreal] liked to go up to people and get them to sing the chorus, so he came right up to me, because he knew that I knew all the words.” To hear Dan Solomon’s playlist of Rio Grande Valley punk-rock songs, including those mentioned here, go to texasmonthly.com.
YOINK!, “STAY AWAY FROM MY GIRLFRIEND”
“This song is great. I saw [drummer] Lindsay [Kinsolving] in Austin a few months after the book came out, when everybody started hating me, and she said something like, ‘Thank you for doing that.’ She didn’t mean ‘Thank you for writing the book,’ she meant ‘Thank you for pissing everybody off.’ I remember feeling really apologetic, and she was just smiling about it the whole time.” INKBAG, “TEN MINUTE LOVE”
“I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote that story [“Pinbag”]. I love Inkbag. And it just got out of hand. I never thought that anybody would read it—that story was sitting in my drawer for three or four years. I didn’t mean any harm to them on a social level. But at the same time, they weren’t the best people in the world either. They wrote a song called “Danny’s Drunk Again,” about what a screwup their friend Danny was. And Danny was a real guy. They didn’t even change his name. When you’re twenty, twenty-one years old, that might seem cool. But what happens twenty years later, when you’re no longer that Danny?” CHARLIE DANIELS DEATH WISH, “KNIFE HANDLES (MERCENARY SONG #1)”
“ These guys were amazing. There’s a video on YouTube of them playing at Trenton Point [a former event hall in Edinburg], and Eric Fly’s guitar strap keeps coming undone, and he keeps struggling with it, but he’s also going insane, and at some point maybe he decides that it just doesn’t matter. Everybody in the Valley loved these guys. All of those bands wanted to be Death Wish. I saw that recent cover piece in T E X A S M O N T H L Y [“The Secret History of Texas Music,” July 2015] on the stories behind all these Texas songs, and I feel like there needs to be an alternative list. I was happy to see the Butthole Surfers there, but I’d love to see one about the great underground Texas bands that nobody knows about.”
I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y J O N S T I T C H
CYNTHIA BOND
Can Still Hear the Echoes B Y L E I G H -A N N J A C K S O N
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ynthia Bond’s debut novel, Ruby, had the sort of reception every first-time author dreams of. There were rave reviews in Kirkus and People, and sales leaped when it was named an Oprah’s Book Club 2.0 selection. The story of Ruby Bell, a black woman from rural East Texas who descends into madness after a life of unspeakable violence and tragedy, has even been optioned by Hollywood, with Bond writing the screenplay. But a small subset of readers hated the book’s explicit portrayal of various forms of abuse. One Amazon reviewer wrote, “It was so vile, there were many pages I couldn’t read.” “People ask, ‘How can you write about things that are this difficult?’ ” Bond says, HOW BOND KEPT sitting in the dining room of her Los Angeles home. “I just say, ‘The stories that I’ve HER SANITY heard are far more difficult than the ones that I put in there.’ ” WHILE WRITING Many of those stories are ones that Bond grew up hearing. The 54-year-old writer ABOUT THE DARKEST SIDES was born in Hempstead, an hour northwest of Houston, and lived there until the OF HUMANITY age of 6, when her parents relocated to Kansas. She remembers making the drive “I wrote one back for every wedding and funeral and spending summers at her grandmother’s section of Ruby in home in Beaumont. “We always felt like we were Texans,” she says. a church. And I’m The book draws on a great deal of family lore, most hauntingly the handed-down really glad I did! I tales of the unsolved crimes committed against two of her aunts. According to Bond’s know this sounds a bit odd, but I family, nearly a century ago a white sheriff and his deputies targeted eighteenwould say to the year-old Carrie Marshall because she was involved in a relationship with her married characters, ‘You white employer, whose well-connected wife, it is said, sought revenge. She was are not coming detained along with her sister Iantha, who was raped by officers. Carrie was killed. home with me. Vintage photos of the two women hang on one wall of Bond’s dining room. If you want your Teenage Carrie is dressed modestly, sitting primly on a porch. In another frame, story told, you have to stay here.’ a grown-up Iantha strikes a glamorous pose, flaunting the stylish finger waves of I was going home the thirties. “Her whole life, my mother has wanted somebody to tell their story,” with just me. ” Bond says. “There’s been no justice.” This fall, Bond plans to return to Southeast Texas with her mother to uncover more family truths, tall tales, and traditions for the sequel to Ruby, which is the first installment of a trilogy. They’ll spend time interviewing elderly family members who’ve never left the area. “Everyone has their own version of the things that happened,” she says. “Some of them are in their eighties and nineties; I want to talk to them before they die.” But even while she’s delving deep into the past, it will be tough for Bond to ignore the present. Sandra Bland, whose recent death in a Waller County jail cell sparked a nationwide outcry, died in Bond’s hometown. And Bland was arrested while en route to a new job at Prairie View A&M University, where Bond’s father once taught English. Bond doesn’t yet have a concrete plan, but she can imagine the shape of the trilogy shifting to make way for today’s headlines. “The injustice,” she says. “It echoes.”
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MERRITT TIERCE IS READY FOR HER NAP
men in the space of three months. “It wasn’t about pleasure,” Tierce wrote of Marie’s often brutal sexual encounters. “It was about how some kinds of pain make fine antidotes to others.” When I recently met Tierce at a quiet restaurant in Denton, where she now lives, she didn’t strike me as the self-destructive type. Dressed in strappy white shoes and a sleeveless yellow dress, with her pretty, angular face framed by chunky glasses, the 36-year-old cheerfully told stories about her new husband, her teenage children, and her passion for gardening. “People look at me and say, ‘You’re the one who wrote that book about the waitress,’ ” she said, “and I reply, ‘Yeah, sometimes I have trouble believing it myself.’ ” In fact, when she finished writing at the coffee shop, she had no expectation that her story, titled “Suck It,” would ever be published. “I assumed it wasn’t good enough,” she said. But she worked up the courage to show it to the Dallas writer Ben Fountain, whom she had met through a friend. At the time, Fountain was busy: his first book was about to be published, and he was working as the fiction editor of SMU’s literary journal, the Southwest Review. But he agreed to look at her story. “I found myself reading ‘Suck It’ every other day for two weeks, trying to figure out if it was really as good as I thought it was,” Fountain said. “And it was more than good. Her writing was totally unsentimental, at times outrageously hilarious, and at other times absolutely terrifying.” Tierce had always been fiercely intelligent. In 1997, when she graduated from high school in Denton, she was named a National Merit
by Skip Hollandsworth
One night in Dallas in March 2006, Merritt Tierce, an emotionally fragile, divorced young mother of two children, got into an argument with a former lover. Alone in her apartment, she burst into tears. Nearly overwhelmed with despair, she put a hot iron to her thighs. Then she drove to a coffee shop and opened her laptop. Like a lot of people, Tierce had always wanted to be a writer, but she had never written anything except some college papers. That night, however, she decided to write a short story set in a fictionalized restaurant that was not unlike Nick and Sam’s, the high-end Dallas steakhouse where she was then working as a waitress. Among her characters were Sal and Danny, the restaurant’s owners, and customers ranging from sports stars to big-spending businessmen. Mostly, however, Tierce wrote about a 21-year-old waitress named Marie, an emotionally fragile, divorced young mother who tried to deal with the pain in her life by cutting herself and selfmedicating with drugs and constant sex with more than thirty
scholar, which essentially meant she could attend any university she wanted. But because she was a devout Christian, she eventually chose Abilene Christian University. In her senior year of college, she was accepted into the Yale Divinity School. Then she discovered she was pregnant. “I had just written a paper for class affirming the biblical views against abortion,” she said. “There was no question I would have the baby—which in my family meant there was no question the baby’s father and I would have to get married.” They returned to Denton, where Tierce worked as a secretary while her husband finished his undergraduate degree. She gave birth to their son in 2000, had a daughter a year later, and took a job waitressing at Chili’s. “We were poor, on food stamps and Medicaid,” she said. “And I was so miserable. I didn’t know what had happened to my life.” Tierce began spiraling into depression. She cut and burned herself, split up with her husband, and briefly went into treatment. She kept waitressing, and in 2005 she was hired at Nick and Sam’s. The managers loved her: cool and imperturbable, she was assigned to wait on visiting celebrities like George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, and Derek Jeter. Rush Limbaugh gave her a $2,000 tip—twice. “I was able to put on a good performance, playing the smart girl, making clever conversation with the customers,” she said. None of them had any idea that when her shift was over, she would do whatever she could to numb her self-loathing. Tierce in her Fountain’s encourwriting room, a converted closet in agement helped Tierce her Denton home, on get her life back to-
The Selected Tweets of
MANUEL GONZALES
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rowing up in Fort Worth and Plano, Manuel Gonzales read tons of fantasy and science fiction. Even as a UT–Austin undergraduate who was immersed in “literary” fiction, he never lost his taste for the fantastical. Gonzales’s 2013 debut collection, The Miniature Wife, reflects that sensibility; each story creates a small, hermetically
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sealed world (a plane that has been circling Dallas for twenty years, a video game in which an avatar achieves self-awareness) that follows rules different from those of our own world. His first novel, The Regional Office Is Under Attack!, due out in April, is yet another hybrid of high and low, a book about a “coterie of super-powered female assassins [who protect] the globe from annihilation.” One of the assassins, as it happens, is
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from Texas, a locale that shows up in much of Gonzales’s work. “It’s a landscape and people that I’m very comfortable with,” he told a book club two years ago. “Which makes it easier for me to create a scene, create a place that feels—to me, anyway—imaginable and believable.” When he’s not working on his fiction, the 41-year-old Gonzales teaches creative writing at the University of Kentucky, in Lexington, where he and his wife, Sharon, and their children, Anabel and Dashiell, now live, and keeps up a regular stream on Twitter that is every bit as funny and odd as his stories.
match various characters with their real-life counterparts. “Who is the basketball player that the waitress had sex with?” they won“Read write read write read.” der. “Which church pastor won’t allow waiters to speak directly to him?” One thing that has impressed many readwork for a few years ers is that Tierce didn’t come up with a suas the executive digarcoated ending. Toward the end of the rector of a Texas aborbook, when Marie is asked about her phition-rights organizalosophy of life, she says, “Don’t bitch. Just tion. She also got an adapt. Nothing is going to go right and evagent, who told her erything is going to be hard.” she had enough maThe irony is that things are now going terial for a book. The right for Tierce, who spends much of her prospect of having the time with her new husband, her two chilbook published wordren, her stepdaughter, and their six pets. ried her; she knew As far as she knows, her kids haven’t yet that people would reread the book, nor do they seem interested gard it as a thinly disin doing so. “They see me as a boring and guised memoir. “But happy mom, which is the truth,” she said. it was important to “Today, I actually took two naps.” me to tell the truth, Tierce did say that she’s worried about no matter how ugly,” one thing: what to write next. She’s got an she said. idea for a trilogy of novels—“which, knowIn 2014 Doubleday ing me, will take a decade to write, and I need published Love Me to publish something soon, because we’ve Back to high praise. got bills to pay and college tuitions coming The New York Times up.” But she admits she doesn’t have another called it “a brilliant, searing personal story to tell about herself— devastating debut.” “absolutely nothing,” she said. The attention from I asked her if she would ever go back to reviewers was heartening, but Tierce said work at Nick and Sam’s, even part-time, to that what makes her most proud is that make some extra money. Tierce threw back “people who work in the service industry her head and laughed. “No. All caps, NO,” she would come up to me and say, ‘You did it. said. “It was a scene, a great Dallas scene, I’ll This is my life. You nailed it.’ ” grant you that, but it was never my scene. I And then there’s the response among now like the quiet.” Dallas’s well-heeled set, who have treated She laughed again. “I really like the quiet.” her book as a rich source of gossip, trying to WHAT TIERCE TOLD THE PEN AMERICAN CENTER WHEN IT ASKED HER FOR FIVE WORDS OF ADVICE FOR ASPIRING NOVELISTS AND SHORT-STORY WRITERS
gether. He published “Suck It” in the Southwest Review in 2007, and soon after, Tierce was accepted into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she wrote more stories about Marie. Periodically, needing to bolster her income, she would return to Dallas to wait tables at Nick and Sam’s. After she left Iowa, in 2011, she went to
@hrniles MARCH 1, 2013 Oh. Right. I35 sucks. #upperlevel #lowerlevel #allthelevels #atx @hrniles JUNE 5, 2013 By my count babies outnumber adults on this plane. Almost none of them fit into the overhead compartments.
folded clothes. Ha. Just kidding. Kids are drunk; so am I. @hrniles SEPTEMBER 1, 2013 So weird that there’s no kids menu at the Yellow Rose. Guess its steak for the kids. #whereareallthefamilyfriendlystripclubs?
@hrniles SEPTEMBER 23, 2013 Am currently on the most humid Newark Airport Express bus in all of time. We are cultivating our own ecosystem here. @hrniles FEBRUARY 4, 2014 Hey, it’s officially February 4th! Paperbacks of THE
WHERE DO WRITERS GET ALL THOSE CRAZY IDEAS?
@hrniles AUGUST 31, 2013 Day 2, Operation Mommy’s in NY: made chocolate chip pancakes, cleaned kitchen,
Gonzales was once inspired to write a zombie story by his experience as a high school teacher “surrounded by soulcrushing tenth graders.”
MINIATURE WIFE are now available. People have been lining up since 6am! #noreally @hrniles MARCH 6, 2014 There are no bears in Texas. (Famous last words before we take our inaugural family camping trip.) @hrniles APRIL 8, 2014 Gate’s not closed yet and the woman next to me is already into the Sky Mall Magazine. Pace yourself, Lady. It’s a
marathon, not a sprint. @hrniles FEBRUARY 20, 2015 Shout out to the blue-haired young woman in the book signing line in Vegas who suggested I write fairy tale erotica. #booyah @hrniles SEPTEMBER 1, 2015 Oh hey! Kentucky has mosquitoes too! Did you know? Now you know! Not just Texas. Kentucky too. Yay! I sure did miss them. texasmonthly.com
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TO TAME A LAND, LOUIS L’A MOUR
So I’m this Blackfeet kid—only Indian kid in my school, my county, my everywhere— reading pulp cowboy novels with titles like this. Like the land needed “taming.” But at twelve? This was gospel. This was history. And this novel was one that my uncle and I traded back and forth, read over and over. What fascinated me about it was that the hero was always pulling Plutarch from his saddlebag and hunkering down behind a boulder to read. Oh, I thought, cool people read. And ancient Greek stuff, at that. Six years after the first time I opened To Tame a Land, I was a philosophy major. CONAN THE ___________, ROBERT JORDAN
Yep, Robert Jordan, not Robert E. Howard, who was actually from Texas. Howard may have created Conan, but Jordan, later famous for his Wheel of Time fantasy series, wrote a bunch of Conan novels in the eighties. And that was the Conan—the Invincible, the Defender, the Unconquered— that I found in that closet. To me, Conan was Indian through and through: he used whatever tactics would help him win the fight, and he always barely got out with his skin intact.
THE PAPERBACK SKELETONS IN STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES’S CLOSET made it to Texas Tech. That was where writMy uncle Randall always had a ing found me. book in his hand. He read in the I was sitting in class one day when two car, he read at restaurants, he read police officers showed up to take me to the when you were talking to him. He read lots university hospital. Uncle Randall had of different things, but mostly it was Louis been airlifted to the burn center there afL’Amour’s westerns and contemporary ter an accident, and I was the only family thrillers. When I was twelve, Uncle Ranthey could locate. Sitting in the waiting dall looked up long enough to see that I was room for three days, with only a pen and a reader as well, so he walked me down his a spiral notebook, I wrote my first story, hall to a linen-closet door and opened it up about a girl in a coma who receives a visit onto a wall of paperbacks. There were books from her dead boyfriend. When I got back behind books, as deep in as I could reach. to school, I turned it in and won an award He told me to take three, and when I was for it, and my adviser said I should consider done, bring them back and take three more. adding English to my philosophy major, This was before I discovered that Midwhich I quickly did. land, the closest big town, had used bookAs for Uncle Randall, he’s doing great stores and public libraries. (My hometown, now. His paperback collection isn’t Greenwood, had pretty much nothing.) around anymore, but those books are Without my uncle letting me burn through still in my head, and my his stash, I don’t think I heart, and my pen. Here would be a writer today. I NUMBER are four that have stayed might not have even made OF BOOKS with me all these years. it past seventeen, and defPUBLISHED SINCE 2000: 22 initely never would have —STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES
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MIAMI MASSACRE, DON PENDLETON
There were dozens of books about the exploits of Mack Bolan, an Army vet turned Mafia antagonist, and I read exactly one of them. Bolan didn’t do it for me; I couldn’t squint enough to see Mack Bolan as an Indian. But out of respect for Uncle Randall, I always took one Bolan book, which I’d then return as if I’d read it, saying I was ready for more of that brand of adventure. And that wasn’t necessarily a lie; I burned through the many John D. MacDonald and Ian Fleming novels in my uncle’s collection. But Mack Bolan, he was my pretend friend. I “read” him so I could keep reading through that shelf. RENDEZVOUS WITH RAMA, ARTHUR C. CLARKE
I wouldn’t get to Philip K. Dick, Samuel Delany, and Ursula K. Le Guin for a decade yet, so Clarke was the one who took me to space. Rama is the only science fiction I remember from my uncle’s closet; it may have been there by accident. I don’t remember much about what actually happens in Rama, but I distinctly remember the experience of reading it, how my face went slack with wonder, numb with delight. This world Clarke was showing me, I wanted to go there, now. I still do.
How I T O R O M O Turned the Border Into His Canvas B Y J O H N P H I L L I P S A N TO S
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top the dining room table in Ito Romo’s bungalow in central San Antonio, there’s a handcrafted skull in a vitrine, meticulously bedecked with shiny black beans. Nearby, in another glass case, a miniature highway scene captures the moment when an eighteen-wheeler’s trailer door opens to reveal a pile of lifeless bodies. They’re reminders that long before Romo became a writer, he was an artist who drew and painted and made hauntingly autochthonous sculptures such as these. Yet words always captivated Romo, who majored in English as an undergraduate at San Antonio’s St. Mary’s University. “I loved literature,” the 54-year-old Laredo native says. “But I never wrote creatively.” Instead, he spent much of the eighties as part ROMO’S NEXT BOOK of a group that birthed the vibrant art scene that continues to energize San Antonio. A “mestizo Still, he always felt an affinity between his work and literature, which he had never vampire novel” stopped reading and thinking about. “In my art, I was telling stories visually,” he says. that begins in After moving to New York City in the late nineties, Romo began to feel a compulsion Granada in to write. “I felt an explosion of pent-up words and images and emotions, some bright the eighteenth century, moves and beautiful, others dark—and beautiful too,” he says. “I found another kind of brush through Mexico, I didn’t know I had: my pen.” and ends in New Romo’s first collection of stories, 2000’s El Puente/The Bridge, established him as a York City in 2043. writer with a knack for evoking the mythic inner dramas of borderlands people. The book is terse and austere in its language, but there’s a sense of the fantastic about Romo’s story cycle; the Rio Grande itself appears as a character in many of the linked tales, and even turns blood red. For all its daring, El Puente is full of subjects that flirt with Latino literary cliché: endearing old ladies and dying echoes of the folkloric. “That book’s like a fairy tale,” he explains. “It still has hope, and it’s a little whimsical.” Soon after its publication, though, Romo felt an urge to transform his work once again. “I wanted to kill the abuelita,” he says. “I wanted to kill the tortilla stories. I wanted to say, ‘All right, so Hispanic writers have had to pay their dues, have had to write the way others wanted us to write for such a long time. I’m not going to do that.’ ” The apocalyptic foreboding of El Puente, which was soon borne out by the wave of narco-violence that overtook the region, comes into full flower in 2013’s story collection, The Border Is Burning. Thirteen years after his first book, Romo’s stories grew darker. Car crashes, houses on fire, furtive sexual trysts, tweaking crank heads trying to maintain control—this suite of Romo cuentitos evokes a world in which chaos is rampant, and the gyre of events is ever-widening, threatening to explode. Yet these stark vignettes nonetheless show great compassion for people who Romo says are usually dismissed as “villains, lepers, and murderers.” For a man who deals with such bleak material, Romo describes his ambitions in surprisingly sanguine terms: “I just hope I can produce work that in one way or another, be it dark or be it light, speaks to respect, dignity, hope, peace, and love.”
A FEW OTHER THINGS MARCUS J. GUILLORY IS WORKING ON Ti’ John, the protagonist of Marcus J. Guillory’s 2014 debut novel, Red Now and Laters, is, as Guillory acknowledges, a thinly veiled version of himself. Like Ti’ John, Guillory grew up in Houston’s South Park neighborhood, the son of Louisiana Creoles who moved to Texas for economic opportunity. And like Ti’ John, Guillory saw a lot of violence as a young man. But though Ti’ John’s story ends just as he heads off for the University of Pennsylvania, Guillory’s life got even more interesting after he left Houston. Following his college graduation, Guillory attended law school, wrote screenplays, and worked on Snoop Dogg’s “reality sitcom.” Today the 42-year-old writer splits his time between Seattle and L.A. Here’s what he’s been up to lately. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL
“In the rural South, a lot of people go to these get-rich-quick seminars. This screenplay, a character study of four people from Kerrville who go to one, asks what happens when you put hope in people’s lives. I picked Kerrville because I got a ticket there in 1999. I was an entertainment lawyer in L.A., and the firm had just gotten me a brand-new Mercedes, and I wanted to go back home and show it off, because nobody in my family had ever had a European vehicle. So I’m on I-10,
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going 103 miles per hour—I had it coming— and this Kerrville officer, a big ol’ guy with a big ol’ red nose, pulls me over and gives me a ticket. On the trip back, I stopped at the Dairy Queen in Kerrville and just listened to people talking. So when I was thinking about this screenplay, I thought, ‘Let’s do Kerrville—it’s got some character, it’s got some history.’ ”
THE DOBIE SISTERS: A CONVERSATION BETWEEN MARY HELEN SPECHT AND NAN CUBA
TRILL
For two writers who are separated by a few decades in age, 36-year-old Mary Helen Specht and 68-year-old Nan Cuba have a surprising amount in common. Both were raised in smallish Texas cities (Specht in Abilene, Cuba in Temple) before settling in considerably larger Texas cities (Austin, San Antonio), where they both teach creative writing at Catholic universities (St. Edward’s, Our Lady of the Lake). Both also released acclaimed Texas-set debut novels in the past couple of years (Specht’s Migratory Animals recently received a rave from the New York Times Book Review; Cuba’s Body and Bread was labeled a “Riveting Read” by O, the Oprah Magazine); both cite the late Texas writer Katherine Anne Porter as a major influence; and both have had the honor of being chosen as Dobie Paisano fellows by the Texas Institute of Letters (Specht resided at the Paisano Ranch in 2008; Cuba begins her fellowship in February). So it seemed only natural to have the two authors sit down and have a conversation about writing, teaching, and the legacy of Texas literature. And better still, to have them do so at Katherine Anne Porter’s childhood home, in Kyle, which is maintained by the Burdine Johnson Foundation and Texas State University and hosts a prestigious visiting-writers series. Below is a brief excerpt from their conversation. You can read considerably more of what they had to say at texasmonthly.com.
“This is a screenplay that follows the path of a young Houston rapper who blows up, but he has a secret: he’s illiterate. And then he loses his voice, and all of a sudden he has to learn how to read and write so he can show his lyrics to people. At some point I’m gonna get that made. Might THE UNEXPECTED be a good time ENTRY ON THE CV n ow, g i ve n Guillory is, aphow Straight parently, the first Outta CompAmerican to ever write ton is doing.” a produced screenplay for a Bollywood movie, 2009’s Karma, Confessions and Holi.
TRINIDADSENOLIA
“I’ve always played music, and a few years ago I started getting into electronic music. Then I met the L.A. radio DJ Garth Trinidad, and I asked him if he’d be interested in reciting my prose over dance music I’d composed. I took a pseudonym—“Mateo Senolia”—and we became Trinidad- Senolia. In 2012 we got a record deal with the house-music label Yoruba Records, and our first EP included Trinidad reciting a passage from Red Now and Laters. It was a huge hit in the Afro house scene around the world, and people started really getting into the lyrics. I got an email from a young South African who wrote down what he thought the lyrics were but wanted to check them. I was floored! This was exactly what I’d set out to do: turn listeners into readers.” THE DAY JOB
“I’m working as a counselor at a group home for incarcerated teens in Seattle. I teach them life skills, chaperone them, cook them breakfast every morning. They remind me of some of the kids I grew up with. Sometimes you try to figure out why kids are incarcerated, and 80 percent of the time I think maybe it’s because they’re hanging out with the wrong kids. But then you meet the parents and you really start to understand. Some of these parents should be locked up.”
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NAN CUBA: At least one bookstore manager outside of Texas labeled Body and Bread as “regional.” And of course we’re resistant to that label: it means you have a limited audience. Which didn’t surprise me: I knew that I would have a limited audience, because I write literary fiction. So, to be literary and also regional, now you have, like, three people who are reading your book. I’m working on another book now, and it’s also set in Texas. I can’t help it. That’s what I do. And I’m fine with that. Has your work ever been called regional? MARY HELEN SPECHT: Maybe I don’t get that label as much because I write mostly SPECHT’S ADVICE TO CUBA ON about urban Texas. There certainly are STAYING AT THE PAISANO RANCH sections of Migratory Animals that are “Invite me out to stay with you. And watch out for the water moccasins.” based on the Paisano Ranch, where I lived
for a while. When I got the Dobie, I had been living outside of Texas for a number of years, and I didn’t think I would ever come back. But I returned for that fellowship, and seven years later, I’m still here. It was interesting being at the ranch, because even though people think of Abilene as rural, it’s still a town. Most of the people I went to high school with were more likely to be in heavy metal bands than to be roping cows. So the Dobie ranch was a return to Texas but almost a return to this imaginative Texas that I wouldn’t say I’d ever fully lived in. Generally, the thing that interests me the most is this sort of post-Western Texas, where there are still these myths and masculine stereotypes but the reality is very different. I feel like Larry McMurtry, who wrote that he had to read himself out of the culture before he could read himself back in. As a kid, I was more interested in reading Jane Eyre and the Beats. It wasn’t until I left Texas that I started appreciating, for example, Katherine Anne Porter. And of course I identified with her in the sense that she left Texas. She didn’t want to think of herself as a regional writer. But I would certainly say that her best and most complex work is about Texas. Texas certainly wants to claim her now. And I think she felt ambivalent about that. NC: Yes, she did. MHS: And I can relate to that. In my twenties, I felt really ambivalent about that connection. Only later, and now, am I starting to settle into all the things that are great about being a Texas writer. NC: My friend Donley Watt, who’s also a writer, grew up in East Texas. Once, we were comparing stories about our hometowns, and I said, “Okay, Don, be honest, how would you describe Temple?” And he said, “Temple is a place that wishes it could be Waco.” [Laughs.] Well, okay, it’s a small town. But it was a wonderful place to grow up. I grew up in a world where story was everywhere. Everyone knew how to do it. When the family got together, that’s what we did. Everybody has family myths, but these were rich. We used to visit my grandmother and we would sit on a swing outside her house and she would sing every Texas song she could think of: “Texas, Our Texas,” “Deep in the Heart of Texas”—we went through all of them, absoSpecht (left) and lutely. “This is who you are, Cuba on the back porch of the KathNan,” she was telling me. erine Anne Porter And that was the message House, in Kyle, on over and over, you bet.
Flipping Through L I S A S A N D L I N ’s Back Pages B Y M I M I S WA R T Z
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f you’ve never thought about Beaumont as a great setting for a murder mystery, that just shows a lack of imagination on your part. Everything a good writer needs for noir is there: the sticky air, the swampy landscape, the insular, one-industry town—devoted to the oil business, in this case—that gives birth to a cast of characters up and down the social spectrum. And to top it all off, reptiles, both real and metaphorical. “I haven’t had a dramatic enough life to write a memoir, and I’m way past a coming-of-age novel,” Beaumont native Lisa Sandlin says, explaining how she came to write what may be the best whodunit ever set in her hometown. “And with a mystery you’re not stuck with only the plot; you can also engage with theme and a sense of place.” In her debut novel, The Do-Right, out this month from El Paso’s Cinco Puntos Press, the 64-year-old Sandlin has established Texas’s easternmost city as a place that, like Los Angeles and New York, possesses a seemingly infinite number of dark secrets. The same is true of Sandlin’s main characters, Tom Phelan, a roughneck turned private eye, and his secretary, Delpha Wade, who is SANDLIN’S trying to begin her life again after serving time for killing one of the two men who HONORS brutally raped her. As their friendship and working relationship deepen, Phelan An NEA and Wade join forces to solve a handful of disappearances, all the while providing Fellowship, an glimpse after glimpse of a Beaumont rich in nuance and complexity. “Beaumont has award from the some dramatic history, along the lines of that saying about war: ‘months of boredom Texas Institute of punctuated by moments of terror,’ ” Sandlin explains. “Only it’d be ‘years of ho-hum Letters for Best Book of Fiction, punctuated by amazing or desperate events.’ Like the Lucas gusher, or the racial a Dobie Paisano strife at the shipyard during World War II that called down martial law.” Fellowship, a VioSandlin comes naturally to her authority on all things Beaumont; her father was a let Crown Award, chemical engineer for Mobil Oil. “Up close to the refineries, you had a huge sense of pro- a Pushcart Prize, a New Mexico cess,” she recalls. “Roaring, pipes, tanks, burning flares. At night they lit up like fairyland.” She attributes her strong ear for dialogue to her grandparents, who hailed from Book Award, and the Christopher East Texas and Mississippi. “They talked some music,” Sandlin says. Some of that Hewitt Award for apparently got handed down. “Listen to how you talk,” a close friend told her when Fiction. she was thirty. “You should be a writer.” She sat down and immediately wrote a passage about two young girls, and was hooked. “Even if I failed at it, I was going to write,” she says. She didn’t fail at it, but for a while, as is the case with many women writers, life—she raised a child on her own and held down a series of uninspiring jobs—kept getting in the way. Her first book, a collection of short stories, wasn’t published until she was forty. These days, she lives in Omaha and teaches at the University of Nebraska’s Writer’s Workshop. Still, Beaumont has remained her muse; right now, she’s 12,000 words into a sequel to The Do-Right. “I always knew I’d be back,” she says of Texas. Then again, maybe she never really left. T
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W H AT I F H O U S T O N W E R E K N O W N F O R I T S PA R K S I N S T E A D O F The city has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into an
BY illustration MIMIby Dan SWARTZ Cosgrove
ITS STRIPMALLS? ITS BIKE TRAILS INSTEAD OF ITS FREEWAYS?
extreme green makeover—and that vision is starting to bloom.
“Miles of aggressive concrete, uninhabited by any living green thing . . . glitter flags calling attention to displays of shiny new and used cars or to heaps of used construction equipment and remaindered industrial parts; motels and ammo shops, girlie joints and medical clinics—the Houston freeway landscape was an urban crust that resembled the ugly discolored tissue of a bad scar across clean skin” is the way landscape architect Kevin Shanley described the Houston of forty years ago, an account that echoes virtually every characterization of Houston from the fifties through the nineties. Dirty air, dirty water, a city ringed and bisected by nearly impassable highways—that was Houston, love it or leave it. But if you’ve stuck around, you have probably noticed something strange. Houston doesn’t look like Houston anymore. Maybe it doesn’t resemble Portland or San Francisco or even Austin, but smog no longer provides those psychedelic sunsets. The “Reeking Regatta” down Buffalo Bayou no longer demands a gas mask. With completely straight faces, people are talking about preserving migratory flyways, expanding bike-share programs, and prettifying freeway exit ramps. They are quoting from the work of Texas A&M professor
J I M W I E H O F F, L I F T E D U P A E R I A L P H OTO G R A P H Y
you lived in Houston at a certain time—say, before the year 2000—you might remember the Mudhole. That was the nickname given to the reflection pool at Hermann Park, located about four miles south of downtown. The Mudhole was largely populated by hungry but diffident ducks, along with the occasional discarded tire, which inevitably drifted, gay and oblivious, toward the middle of the pool until some brave soul waded in and fished it out. Few people hung out at the Mudhole because, well, why would you? Your shoes would get all cakey and your kids would get all dirty, and there wasn’t enough shade to provide even a hint of relief on a hot summer day. The same was true of Hermann Park
itself and its 445 parched, patchy acres. Given to the city by philanthropist George Hermann in 1914, it sits adjacent to the loveliest and most exclusive residential neighborhood in Houston: Shadyside, conceived of by Texaco founder Joseph Cullinan in 1916. Hermann also borders the plummy Hotel Zaza, the Museum of Natural Science, the Texas Medical Center, and the leafy Rice University campus. But prestige was not catching: for years, most Houstonians ignored the park proper, using it more as a cut-through to park venues like the zoo or the golf course or Miller Outdoor Theatre. Sometimes people used one of the many sun-bleached parking lots to wash their cars. Mainly, drug addicts and indigent patients discharged from Ben Taub Hospital camped there. Strolling through a park, spending an afternoon on a shady bench with a good book, or picnicking with a lover was something people did in Paris. Houstonians had backyards for those sorts of things. More important, to live in Houston back then meant that you accepted as a certain truth, or even harbored as a point of pride, that the city’s unsightliness was a direct result of its success. It was growing too fast to care about its looks.
CREDIT TK
George Bush International Airport
Greens Bayou Halls Bayou
White Oak Bayou
Buffalo Bayou
Memorial Park
Hunting Bayou
Downtown
Minute Maid Park Ship Channel Discovery Green The University of Houston
Exxon Refinery
The Galleria The Menil Collection Rice University Hermann Park Texas Medical Center
Hobby Airport
Reliant Stadium Brays Bayou
Sims Bayou
The Cruise ShipTerminal
OPPOSITE: The renovated Centennial Gardens, at Hermann Park, which has undergone a $100 million
restoration. ABOVE: Houston leaders hope that its bayous can become as prominent as its highways. “We want to create green infrastructure instead of gray infrastructure,” says Tom Bacon.
John Crompton, whose specialty is park financing and marketing. They worship the Harris County Flood Control District. The Mudhole is no more. It’s now the Mary Gibbs and Jesse H. Jones Reflection Pool, edged in stone and bordered with benches and vine-covered pergolas. Thanks to a $119 million restoration that began back in the nineties, Hermann Park is now jammed with people basking in its glory, chattering in everything from English and Spanish to Farsi and Vietnamese. Visitors no longer rush through the park to get to other venues; they rent pedal boats on the beautified McGovern Lake or journey to the top of the thirty-foot mount to admire the rainbow of perennial beds blooming in the Centennial Gardens below. Houston, for decades a contender in America’s Ugliest City Sweepstakes, has become fanatically green. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on this extreme makeover—Hermann Park is only one project—and “You can’t believe you’re in Houston” has replaced “It’s not as bad as you think” as an unofficial motto. Every major American city in the United States has one or more massive parks projects in the works. But Houston’s comefrom-behind reinvention is about more than reputation, it’s about economic survival. Houston may be the nation’s fourthlargest city, but civic leaders have begun to worry, very quietly, about who would want to live here when fossil fuels no longer drive MAP BY DAN COS GROVE
the economy; short term, they have been fretting about what will happen if oil sits too long below $50 a barrel. “Houston is great at going from worst to first,” one local booster told me with the optimism that has always been endemic to this city. If that requires besting Central Park and the High Line in Manhattan, so be it. Millennium Park in Chicago? Can do! But change does not come easy to a culture that’s long been invested in exponential economic growth at all costs.
“We’re fixing quality of life,” Tom Bacon assured me one steamy summer morning. We had met for breakfast al fresco at a cafe in the Heights; I couldn’t help noticing that his crisp white shirt stood up magnificently to the heat. Bacon is a youthful sixty years old, tall, athletically lean, and handsome in a craggy, Lincolnesque way. He has the supreme confidence of someone whose success in global real estate—he traveled the world for developer Gerald Hines and then founded Lionstone Investments—has propelled him to the top of the food chain. Not surprisingly, Bacon’s accomplishments as the chairman of the Houston Parks Board, with its mission to create, preserve, and advocate for parkland, have been downright impres-
sive. So far 14,000 acres have been added. Belonging to the organization has even become a badge of honor; it might not sound very sexy, unless you think of it as another form of development, which it has become. Bacon’s unbridled passion for turning Houston green was a little disorienting, because historically the city’s most famous projects have included an air-conditioned domed stadium, an air-conditioned luxury shopping mall with an ice-skating rink, and a whole bunch of air-conditioned signature skyscrapers connected by air-conditioned underground tunnels. “What’s your picture of Houston?” Bacon asked me. I had to think for a minute, which spurred him to a little impatient prompting. Then I got it: “A map of the city with all the freeways,” I answered. Bacon rewarded me with a tolerant nod. “But what if your picture of Houston was . . .” Bacon opened his laptop and with his long fingers went tap tap tap. Then he turned the screen toward me for the big reveal: “. . . this?” It took me a minute to recognize what I was seeing: a series of narrow rivers flowing into a larger body of water. I blinked. Twice. “That’s Houston,” Bacon said, triumphant. The image was something you never see: Houston without roads. Instead, nine bayous joined hands, meeting up in either Lake Houston or Galveston Bay. This is the Parks Board’s moon shot: Bayou Greenways 2020, which will put parkland within a mile and a half of six out of ten Houstonians by creating a network of trails along all the bayous. That way, backers say, Houstonians can pass a lovely Sunday without setting foot on a city street, or ride a bike for miles without facing down the homicidal impulses of local drivers. “We want to create green infrastructure instead of gray infrastructure,” Bacon insisted, the kind of notion that could have gotten a person committed here twenty years ago. As Bacon sees it, America is in the midst of a second City Beautiful movement, the first being a late-nineteenth-century trend in major urban centers, supporting beautification as a force for social good. Today’s motives are not quite as pure: the benefits of green space have become necessities in attracting the kind of intellectual capital that sustains cities. But Houston was slow to catch on. It has been a deeply held belief since the end of World War II that no one came here to commune with nature; they came to work hard and better themselves, whether they wound up in an apartment complex with a community laundry room or | C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 2 4 4
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It’s said that everything is bigger in Texas, from our wide-open spaces to our legendary places, from our down-home hospitality to our incredible culture. It’s only fitting that our specialty pediatric care would be as vast and comprehensive as the state it calls home. Texas Children’s Hospital is home to more than 40 subspecialties, ensuring that children receive the best possible treatment, no matter what. Whenever you need us, you’ll find us right here.
Only in Texas.
©2015 Texas Children’s Hospital. All rights reserved. MPR1386_081815
TOUTS WHAT TO BUY, DO, AND EAT THIS MONTH
S
MADE IN TEXAS
Rocketbuster Handmade Custom Boots P R I N C I PA L : NEVENA CHRISTI LO C AT I O N : E L PA S O
t’s a typical day at Rocketbuster headquarters, in the historic Union Plaza District of downtown El Paso. Three men sit at a cutting table, meticulously hand-tooling unfinished leather; nearby, another employee, who happens to be a trained architect and a graffiti artist, stains a future I
The Electric Cowgirl ($1,595) next to an antique sewing machine used in production.
5 O F A K I N D 118 | V I T T L E S 120 | P A T ’ S P I C K 122 | D I N I N G G U I D E 126 PHOTOGRAPHS BY JEFF WILSON
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boot shaft with an intricate pattern; yet another employee shows a group of Japanese tourists around. At the center of the action is Rocketbuster’s owner, Nevena Christi. A California native who studied fine art in Paris, Christi was living in New York and working for fashion designer Nicole Miller when she first visited El Paso, in 1994, to commission several pairs of boots for one of Miller’s fashion shows from Rocketbuster’s then owner, Marty Snortum. The two instantly bonded over their passion for all things vintage, and soon they fell in love. In 1997 Christi moved across the country to be with Snortum—and to take over Rocketbuster. “Marty was working full-time as a photographer and running Rocketbuster on the side,” she explains. “I put all my energy, and my whole savings, into the company.” Since then, she has created outrageous, one-of-a-kind designs for thousands of customers, including celebrities like Taylor Swift and Ethan Hawke. “As an artist, I don’t want to make the same thing twice,” Christi says. “And the people who buy our boots are fun, exciting, artistic, and never dull.”
Q&A WITH NEVENA CHRISTI
W
TEX T AND INTERVIEW BY L AUREN SMITH FORD
ABOVE, FROM TOP:
Mr. Big, $4,395; Roadside America, $2,650; El Indio, $1,195; Lone Star, $2,495. TOP RIGHT:
Christi in her shop. LEFT:
Christi staining a design on a boot, following a sketch she drew based on a customer’s request.
Is it true that your husband traded his car for Rocketbuster Boots in 1989? Yes! Marty was out at a bar one night, and he ran into this German guy he knew who had moved to El Paso to start a boot company. The guy was making plain brown cowboy boots and sending them overseas, but it wasn’t really working out for him. He had named his company Rocketbuster Boots after his classic Oldsmobile Rocket Eighty-Eight, and he had always loved Marty’s 1953 Cadillac hearse. After a few drinks, they traded Rocketbuster Boots for the hearse. Was it a difficult decision to leave your big fashion job in New York and move to El Paso? When I arrived here, in 1997, it felt like a scene from
Green Acres, where the fancy lady from the big city moves to the sticks. In New York, I had a fun lifestyle where I was making a lot of money, going to parties and restaurants. But then I fell in love and none of that mattered. All the boots start with your sketches. What have been some of your most elaborate designs? I am always surprised by what people come up with. We did a pair of boots for a spinal surgeon that featured a spine drawing from an anatomy book, a pair with a map of Texas routing out all the places a customer lived throughout his life, a pair for a woman who wanted to memorialize all her mother’s favorite things. We are up for anything. You also take all the measurements for people who come in to order boots. How detailed is this process? I actually invented my own form for
tracing feet for boot measurements. Our boots are not just a size 8. We measure calf size and how high up the leg the calf is, the ball of the foot, the arch. We build a wooden or plastic last to match each customer’s foot and build boots from those highly customized lasts. What is the best part of your job? I am really just trying to save the world of cowboy boots one day at a time. I want people to appreciate things that are historically American and handmade, and cowboy boots are just as American as baseball and apple pie. In the busy world we live in, with landfills full of plastic, our boots hold their value. We are making something that no one will throw away, beat to hell or not. T For more information, go to rocket buster.com. LAUREN SMITH FORD IS A WRITER AND STYLIST IN AUSTIN.
+ 5 OF A KIND
Remains To Be Seen
FIVE CEMETERIES TO VISIT BEFORE YOU DIE. BY JORDAN BREAL
T E X A S S TAT E C E M E T E RY AUSTIN As Tanya Tucker astutely observed in her 1978 hit “Texas (When I Die),” even if you don’t make it to heaven, there’s another eternal resting place that may be preferable anyway. Until then (and may it be very long until then), you can pay your respects to and steal epitaph ideas from the estimated 50,000 graveyards around the state, from the prehistoric Loma Sandia burial site, near the town of Three Rivers, to the feng shui–optimized Garden of Eternal Peace, in Houston’s Forest Park Westheimer Cemetery. To secure a final address at the vaunted Texas State Cemetery, in East Austin, you’ll need to be an eligible state official or else the three-member committee will need to agree that you’ve made “a significant contribution to Texas history and culture.” More than half of the 3,500 who’ve made the cut since the cemetery officially opened, in 1854, are Confederate soldiers. Beside them are thirteen governors, eighteen Republic of Texas vets, and a number of dream dinner party guests: Stephen F. Austin, Barbara Jordan, and Bud Shrake among them. Fun fact: the flag- and tree-lined road that bisects this verdant spread is technically the state’s shortest highway. 909 Navasota, 512-463-0605 118
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SEMINOLE I N D I A N S CO U T S C E M E T E RY NEAR B R AC K E T T V I L L E A simple gate leads to the final home of an untold number of Black Seminole Scouts, the descendants of escaped slaves and Florida’s Seminole Indians who aided the U.S. Army during the Indian Wars of the 1870’s. The four white-marble headstones fenced off in the cemetery’s southeast corner belong to Medal of Honor recipients, including trumpeter Isaac Payne, who is said to be heard playing on moonlit nights. 3 miles south of Brackettville on FM 3348
EVERGREEN C E M E T E RY PA R I S East Texas businessman Willet Babcock (1828–1881) isn’t a household name, but visitors flock to see his towering headstone, topped with what appears to be Jesus wearing cowboy boots. Dating to 1866, Evergreen has 40,000 residents, so if you see third-generation caretaker Jim Blassingame, ask him to point out the more unusual markers, like saloon owner D.H. Moore’s cross, festooned with doves, axes, and an inscription from his wife, Marvin. 560 Evergreen, 903-784-6750
F O R E S T PA R K L AW N DA L E C E M E T E RY H O U S TO N Bluesman Lightnin’ Hopkins. Art patrons John and Dominique de Menil. Oil well firefighter Red Adair. Convicted murderer Karla Faye Tucker. They each took very different paths in life yet all ended up here, on the banks of Brays Bayou, in one of the state’s largest cemeteries. Tucker’s grave is unmarked, but among the more than 125,000 plots are several artful memorials, including crypts with Tiffany stained-glass windows. 6900 Lawndale, 713-928-5141
CO N CO R D I A C E M E T E RY E L PA S O The Franklin Mountains provide a dramatic backdrop for 60,000 tombstones, while the cemetery’s many outlaws— including infamous gunslinger John Wesley Hardin—provide the lore. Stroll through the city’s history, with sections designated for buffalo soldiers, Chinese immigrants, and Mormon pioneers. Ghosts are said to be year-round inhabitants, but things get particularly lively during the Día de los Muertos festival held every November 1. 3700 E. Yandell Dr, 915-842-8200
P H O T O G R A P H S B Y M AT T H E W J O H N S O N
+ VITTLES
The Gulf Oyster
EAST COAST, WEST COAST. THIRD COAST, BEST COAST. BY COURTNEY BOND
he Gulf of Mexico is home to the largest remaining wild oyster reefs in the world, yet our brawny T bivalve often finds itself fishing for the compliments routinely lavished on its prestigious East and West Coast brethren, those of winsome, wispy names like Beausoleil and Kusshi. Gulf oysters too were once classified by their respective estuaries, up until the mid-1800’s, when a confluence of sheer quantity, increasing national demand, and the arrival of the railroad made it more profitable to do away with those niceties and ship them out in a monolithic mass, “commodity” oysters stripped of their provenance and, subsequently, their singularity. ¶ That’s never stopped Texans from appreciating the meaty mollusks: raw and fried, in gumbos, and, of course, on the grill, where their flame-kissed shells serve as vessels in which they poach themselves in their own liquor (and maybe a little chile butter). And as we come up on prime oyster season—they just get bigger and sweeter from here on out—we can rest easy knowing that Texas is at the forefront of a movement to restore the proper appellations to our manifold Gulf oyster. Perhaps someday menus will be as likely to tout the “merroir” of a Possum Pass from Galveston Bay as a Pickle Point from Prince Edward Island.
‘BUT WAIT A BIT,’ THE OYSTERS CR IED, / ‘BEFOR E WE HAVE OUR CHAT; / FOR SOME OF US AR E OUT OF BR EATH, / AND ALL OF US AR E FAT!’ —“THE WALRUS AND THE CARPENTER,” LEWIS CARROLL
GRILLED GULF OYSTERS WITH JAL APEÑO BUTTER
Buy as many Gulf oysters as you and your lucky friends want to eat. Get a hot fire going on the grill (charcoal is best if you want that smoky flavor). Meanwhile, give your oysters a good scrubbing, discarding any with broken or open shells. Then shuck your oysters, removing the top shell and placing the oyster along with its liquor in the deeper shell. Get all your shucks in a row on a large baking sheet, add a little nubbin of your compound butter to each, and head for the grill. Gently place the oysters on the grill (in batches, if you have a bunch) and close the lid for about 3 minutes. Then take a peek; you’ll want to see the edges of the oysters starting to curl up a little and the butter getting brown and bubbly. Don’t overcook; they shouldn’t take more than 4 or 5 minutes. Carefully remove from the grill—don’t spill the juice!— arrange on a bed of rock salt (if you want to be fancy), and serve with hot sauce, saltines, and beer. Compound butter is merely a stick (or more) of softened butter to which you can add anything that appeals to you; ours included: 2 cloves of garlic, minced; 1 jalapeño, seeded and diced; 1 tablespoon or so chopped cilantro; the juice of one lime; and salt and pepper to taste. T
P H OTO G R A P H BY J O DY H O RTO N
he said, “I lived in Greece for seven years when I was young. My father was an English + teacher, and by the time I left, in 1988, when I was eighteen, I had fallen in love with the PAT’S PICK country and its culture, especially with the food. Ultimately I went into the wine business, but I knew that someday I absolutely, positively had to open a Greek restaurant. You could have sat down with me and said, ‘Here’s ten million dollars to open another type of restaurant,’ and I would have pushed the check back across the table and said, EVAN TURNER FELL PASSIONATELY IN LOVE WITH GREECE AS A ‘Sorry. It has to be Greek.’ ” TEENAGER. SOME THIRTY YEARS LATER, THE HOUSTON SOMMELIER That, my friends, is passion. The offspring of Turner’s love affair with HAS A TAVERNA ALL HIS OWN. BY PATRICIA SHARPE the country is a small venue near Rice University loosely modeled on a taverna. The setting is a long, narrow room with red-brick walls and high ceilings, where designer Erin Hicks has chosen upholstered banquettes and fancy mirrors to give a touch of elegance; exposed ductwork and industrial metal chairs keep things casual. Presiding over the kitchen is 27-year-old William Wright, who met Turner last year when they both worked at Table on Post Oak. With a fervor of his own for all things Mediterranean (the graduate of New York’s International Culinary Center previously cooked at Michelin-starred restaurants in Sicily), Wright has come up with a menu that draws on Hellenic classics but doesn’t hesitate to have a little fun with tradition. “All the dishes are meant to be shared,” explained our server, “and the kitchen sends them out as soon as each one is ready.” We were starving, so that suited the four of us fine. I definitely wanted the squash fritters. My friends zeroed in on the dolmades. The waitress touted the trio of dips (pictured, next page), which I privately thought would be ho-hum. HELEN But when they came, with a sesame 2429 Rice Blvd, seed–crusted baguette, I was never Houston (832-831-7133). so happy to be wrong. The first of L & D Tue–Sun. the three spreads was charred egg$$–$$$ plant—melitzanosalata—which OPENED was like a lighter, more textured he word “passion” gets tossed around July 22, 2015 T baba ghanoush. The garlicky a lot by food writers. It’s not enough mashed chickpeas were a kissing for chefs to merely care about a cuisine, they cousin of hummus, but fluffier, with pungent must be passionate about it. Farmers are cracked coriander on top that gave them a not simply enthusiastic about heritage pigs fragrant, holiday-ish note. But the surprise and heirloom parsnips, they’re filled with was the ktipiti, a bright-orange yogurt-andpassion. The poor word is so overworked it’s Greek-cheese combo blended with sweet losing its edge. A known offender, I recently red peppers. Turner, who happened to be vowed never to use it except as defined by walking by, said he had taken to calling the Webster’s: “intense, driving, or overmasteraddictive stuff Greek queso. ing feeling.” Not long after, I was in Houston Since we had his attention, we asked dining at a new place named Helen, when him to help us choose a wine. He had been someone at our table asked principal owner deeply involved in putting the all-Hellenic Evan Turner how he came to open a Greek collection together and says it is the secondrestaurant, given that he isn’t Greek. “Well,”
Get Him to the Greek
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P H OTO G R A P H S BY J O DY H O RTO N
largest in the country. The reasonably priced 2013 Malagouzia he suggested for us—a white wine made from an ancient but newly revived Greek varietal— completely lived up to his glowing description: “gorgeously aromatic, redolent of white apricot and citrus, with a beautiful clean finish.” If you were of a mind to, you could easily make a meal of the appealing small plates. The next arrival, spiky golden-brown fritters, looked rather like baby hedgehogs (the well-fried zucchini-matchstick patties were good, but as I had expected, the best part was the accompanying fried squash blossom, so generously stuffed with creamy cheeses that its little seams were about to split). Not long afterward, the dolmades appeared, wearing emerald jackets of fresh collard greens (a blessed relief from dolmades’ usual wrappers, apparently made from pieces of army surplus pup tents masquerading as grape leaves). Even more brilliant, the typical epoxy-
like filling had become a blend of fluffy white rice, corn, pine nuts, and golden currants, all set off by a limpid pool of lemon-egg sauce. But as appealing as it might be, a dinner of all snacks would not provide enough protein to, say, run a marathon or break into a Greek line dance (not that we intended to do either). So we looked on the right-hand side of the menu to check out the main courses. And, Texans that we are, we went for the ribs, in this case, peppery, meaty lamb ribs stacked on a platter like kindling. We grabbed and gnawed, then polished off the underlying bed of orzo and al dente greens (dandelion, mustard, and collard). Turner, stopping by on his perpetual-motion rounds, signaled a thumbs-up: “Every Greek grandmother wants you to eat your greens!” At this point, a substantial platter unexpectedly appeared—who ordered this?! Apparently we had, and it’s a testament to the kitchen that we avidly consumed
most of it. The name of the dish, Stewed Chicken and Okra, hardly did justice to the tender fowl, cut into pieces and bolstered with falling-apart potatoes under a russet-hued tomato sauce. It didn’t seem so much Greek as universal, a dish with comfort cooked in. For dessert, we couldn’t pass up the feta mousse, a more-savorythan-sweet creation accompanied by a voluptuous poached fig. And, in a final act of valor, we agreed to vote on a proposed menu addition, a pistachio almond cake embraced by chocolate ganache (previous page). Our verdict: it should stay. Houston has never lacked for Greek restaurants. Names like Zorba the Greek’s and Athens Bar and Grill, where legend holds that sailors and locals once danced on the tables, echo through the decades. Others, like Niko Niko’s, are still going strong. But I think it’s fair to say that there hasn’t been one quite like Helen, where tradition and modernity meet on an equal footing. To open any restaurant requires a massive act of will. To depart from the tried and true requires an even greater commitment. You could say it takes passion. Noah Webster would approve. T
THE TIPSY TEXAN’S
COCKTAIL MONTH OF THE
BY DAVID AL AN
C O C K TA I L : SEASONAL PIMM’S CUP BAR: T H E M O N T E R E Y, S A N A N TO N I O
The Pimm’s Cup is a quintessential British drink. Its base ingredient is Pimm’s No. 1, a low-proof, slightly citric, ginbased aperitif liqueur that has been quenching summer thirsts for more than a century and a half. Other brands of so-called “fruit cups” are sold in the UK, but Pimm’s is the only one to be widely distributed this side of the pond. Served tall, topped with a little of what the Brits call “lemonade”—more like our
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lemon-lime soda—and garnished with herbs and a slice of cucumber, it becomes the classic Pimm’s Cup cocktail. A veritable picture of refreshment, it’s a fixture at lawn parties and the unofficial cocktail of Wimbledon. Which raises the question of what it has to do with Texas. At the Monterey, in San Antonio, bar manager Karah Carmack has turned the staid Pimm’s Cup into a cornucopia of cocktail variations. Each week she coordinates with her produce purveyor to acquire fruits at the peak of their season, from which she creates a jam that is shaken into the cocktail. Then, instead of lemon-lime soda,
she tops the drink with a housemade ginger beer that also makes use of seasonal produce. At press time, the jam was being made with pineapple and assorted berries, the ginger beer with mangos. As for the garnishes, always a striking feature of the Pimm’s Cup, anything is fair game; right now Carmack is using pea shoots and candied ginger. And right now is also a good time to head to San Antonio if you want to sample the drink in its native habitat: after five years, the Monterey is closing on November 4. DAVID ALAN IS THE AUTHOR OF TIPSY TEXAN: SPIRITS AND COCKTAILS FROM THE LONE STAR STATE. FOR A RECIPE, VISIT TEXASMONTHLY.COM.
PHOTOGRAPH BY THE VOORHES
WE HAVE THE
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Learn more at neuro.memorialhermann.org
S
DINING GUIDE
Amarillo BEST IN TOWN
OHMS CAFÉ & BAR S A M E R I C A N | This bistro remains Amarillo’s most consistent fine-
dining option. Dinner leans toward beef (like a perfect bonein ribeye) and fish (flown in fresh twice a week), while lunch features comfort-food favorites served cafeteria-style. Bar. 619 S. Tyler (806-373-3233). L Mon–Fri. D Tue–Sat. (5/15)
$$$
TYLER’S BARBEQUE S B A R B E C U E | Five days a week
Where to Eat Now
OUR CAREFULLY CURATED GUIDE TO THE BEST RESTAURANTS IN TEXAS AND SOME NOTEWORTHY NEW ARRIVALS. EDITED BY PATRICIA SHARPE AND COURTNEY BOND
Tyler’s demonstrates how it earned its spot on TM’s list of top barbecue joints, serving mesquite-smoked ribs, brisket, and links to carnivorous pilgrims. Arrive early. 2014 Paramount (806-331-2271). L & D Tue–Sat. (3/15)
$–$$
NEW IN TOWN
GRILLS GON’ WILD A M E R I C A N | The gals running
this gem want you to feel at home, love your food, and leave smiling. The whimsical place (the condiment bottles have blinking eyes) is located just off I-27 next to Eskimo Hut, which is convenient, as it’s BYOB. The exceptional quality comes from fresh ingredients and straightup TLC. The burgers and Philly cheesesteaks are the menu standouts, but the daily specials are good too, like fish tacos on Tuesday and ribeyes on Saturday. BYOB. 7200 W. McCormick Rd (806-418-6001). L & D Mon–Sat. (10/15)
$
Austin BEST IN TOWN
BARLEY SWINE S S N E W A M E R I C A N | The little
limestone building’s oft-changing $85 prix-fixe menu is one of the best fine-dining experiences in the city, offering a parade of miniature courses that might include something like the “Scrambled Egg, Crawfish Boil”: a beguiling puddle of creamy, eggy custard topped with bits of crayfish and potato (both soft and crispy). Beer & wine. 2024 S. Lamar Blvd (512-394-8150). D Tue–Sat. (8/15)
$$$
CLARK’S OYSTER BAR S S E A F O O D | The best of the beautiful, briny sea is delivered here,
in a crisp setting that combines mid-century-modern design with Nantucket prep. Bar. 1200 W. 6th (512-297-2525). L Mon–Fri.
D 7 days. B Sat & Sun. (5/15)
$$$
CONGRESS S S N E W A M E R I C A N | David Bull’s elaborate dishes—satiny corn cus-
tard sprinkled with fresh corn kernels amid swaths of cajeta; white-fleshed cobia with pistachios, grilled ramps, and eyewatering pickled pioppini mushrooms—is decidedly in character with the setting of crystal chandeliers and lofty banquettes.
Bar. 200 Congress Ave (512-827-2760). D Tue–Sat. (7/15) $$$$ FONDA SAN MIGUEL S M E X I C A N | What a treasure.
Over the years, artisans from Mexico have transformed a once blocky building into a graceful replica of a centuries-old hacienda. The food skews interior, with dishes like velvety mole negro and paper-thin ancho chiles stuffed to bursting with pork, capers, and raisins. Bar. 2330 W.
North Loop (512-459-4121). D Mon–Sat. B Sun. (6/15) V ALCHEMY, SAN ANTONIO EC L EC T I C | Is this a cocktail lounge that serves snacks or a restaurant with interesting cocktails, we ask? Both, it seems, but the quirky, delicious food is what’s making waves with those in the know. Choices are limited, yes, but we’ve sampled four of the six entrées and several small plates, and not one disappointed. Our favorites: a Russian-tinged version of hummus with black bread and radishes; the green curry (seasonal and spicy); and the Akaushi beef tartare, served with dark rye and aioli. We’ll have to come back for the ramen (the secret, per our waitress, being “two pig’s heads and two days”). P.S. Service can be uneven and the AC woefully inadequate, so go when it’s nice enough to sit at an outdoor table. Bar. 1123 N. Flores (210-320-1168). D Mon & Wed–Sat.(10/15) $$–$$$
New
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$$$
FRANKLIN BARBECUE S B A R B E C U E | We don’t know when
personable pitmaster Aaron Franklin sleeps, but our recent stint in the famous two-hourplus line proved that his standards are as high as ever. When you finally arrive at the cutting board, whatever you choose— the meltingly tender brisket enrobed in a peppery, crunchy black bark; the bodacious beef ribs; the pulled pork—will represent the pinnacle of the smoker’s art. Beer. 900 E. 11th (512-653-1187). L Tue–Sun. (7/15)
$
JEFFREY’S S NEW AMERICAN |
The now three-year-old iteration of this Austin institution has been known to put on an air or two. But it’s a neighborhood restaurant at heart, with gracious servers delivering upscale Texas cuisine in a posh country French dining room. Expect the likes of meaty white wine–braised shortribs
PHOTOGRAPH BY JOSH HUSKIN
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and shellfish risotto, its golden rice bathed in uni butter. Bar. 1204 West Lynn (512-477-5584). D 7 days. (6/15)
$$$$
LAUNDERETTE S M E D I T E R R A N E A N | This storefront, with its wrapUpdate around glass windows, long counter, and casual
mid-century-modern feel, is a neighborhood beacon of good fellowship and even better food. Chef-owner Rene Ortiz’s Mediterranean menu rocks, its emphatic herbs and spices mellowed by creamy yogurts, cheeses, and purees. Start with a “Toast,” like our sesame seed–spangled bread spread with smoked butternut puree and topped with a little salad (white-anchovy-tinged arugula Caesar spruced up with curls of three-year-aged Parmesan). Beef carpaccio, anchored with sumptuously marbled beef, comes crowned with purslane and celery in a rakish cornichon-caper vinaigrette. You can get a traditional meal with a protein and two sides here, but it’s fun to order small plates and let everybody spear forkfuls of sugar snap peas (with generous slices of serrano ham) and grilled prawns (on lush yogurt under a shower of sweet Aleppo pepper flakes). Pastry chef Laura Sawicki turns tradition upside down, like when Key lime pie becomes cubes of lime curd and graham cracker crumbs paired with sour-cream ice cream and dabs of svelte avocado mousse. Bar. 2115 Holly (512-382-1599). D 7 days. (10/15)
$$$
LENOIR S NEW AMERICAN |
With its brass carriage lights and creamy muslin curtains, tiny Lenoir sets a lovely mood. Chefs/spouses Todd Duplechan and Jessica Maher’s $40 three-course prix fixe is one of the best bargains in town. Beer & wine. 1807 S. 1st (512-215-9778). D Tue–Sat. (4/15)
OLAMAIE S NEW AMERICAN |
$$$
This modern cottage’s distinctive accent echoes the Deep South’s most creative dining venues, but the flavors are easy to like. You’ll be over the moon with the wagyu ribeye with baked onions in a creamy sauce soubise or the Florida pink snapper, pan-roasted and set atop buttery
creamed corn and subtly minted purple potatoes. Bar. 1610 San Antonio (512-474-2796). L Wed–Sat. D Tue–Sat. (8/15) $$$ QUI S
E C L E C T I C | Expect a whirlwind journey at Paul Qui’s quirky East Austin gem, where the two artfully composed prix-fixe menus (one omnivore, the other vegetable) touch down in Spain and the Philippines, swing by Japan and settle comfortably back in Texas without leaving their passengers in a befuddled state of culinary culture shock. Flavors are properly distinct but always harmonious. Slivers of pickled garlic and red onion contrast beautifully with earthy maitake and chanterelle mushrooms, not to mention the thin swath of Qui’s signature dinuguan, a pork blood “gravy.” For the mussels escabeche, the fat bivalves are marinated in champagne vinegar, then set aside a pool of potato espuma flavored by a rusty tomato adobo. Smoky pickled okra, grilled and fried, come ready to drag through a frothy yogurt whey drizzled with spicy zucchini oil. Corn pudding is topped with an effervescent lime sorbet and a puff of meringue that’s seared with a piece of binchotan charcoal right at the table, creating a roasted-marshmallow effect. Masterful cocktails and a casual Pulutan menu (bar snacks, more or less) are served on the inviting patio, which is separated from the dining room by a wall-length sliding door, and the service is exceedingly professional but still warm and engaging. Bar. 1600 E. 6th Update
(512-436-9626). D Mon–Sat. (10/15)
$$$$
UCHI S S S J A PA N E S E | This sultry enclave, with its low lights and crimson
wallpaper, dazzles with every dish, like silken escolar, beautifully grilled and offered in an amber puddle of yuzu pon; sous vide short rib, the beef precisely cubed and artfully arranged; and near-frothy bundles of zucchini tempura. Beer, wine & sake.
801 S. Lamar Blvd (512-916-4808). D 7 days. (9/15)
$$$
UCHIKO SSS J A PA N E S E | The best spot in this cacophonous modern house is
right at the corner of the sushi bar, where the chefs welcome
you as one of their own and yell out orders to each other in Japanese like a military platoon. Daily specials always tempt, like splendid kinmedai sashimi bathed in a savory onion oil and adorned with sweet grapes or a lighter version of French vichyssoise made with daikon and served with a dollop of tangy miso-eggplant compote. Of course no visit is complete without a few pieces of sushi, like the fresh scallop with lemon or the Japanese sea bream with shiso leaf, lemon zest, and Maldon salt or the often overlooked avocado with yuzukosho and tamari. Don’t miss the olive gelato made savory with sprinkles of thyme, tart with fresh lemon curd, and sweet with crunchy cocoa nibs and chocolate ganache. Beer, wine & sake. 4200 N. Lamar Blvd (512-916-4808). D 7 days. (9/15)
comforting than plump mezzaluna ravioli stuffed with butternut squash or a bubbling dish of lasagna at an old-school trattoria. At Vespaio, the service is always friendly, the dining room is convivial, and the little touches leave a lasting impression. Bar. 1610 S. Congress Ave
(512-441-6100). D 7 days. (6/15)
Mexican seafood restaurant from chefs Alma Alcocer-Thomas and Jeff Martinez is beachy-keen, with muted seascape colors and macramé hangings that will remind you of hammocks swinging in the breeze. Our starter of Gulf crab and guacamole was a sweet and savory treat, but the snapper ceviche—with green olives, jícama, and tomatillo—proved rather dry. Our friend quite liked his crunchy Manchego-crusted shrimp, plump and juicy in a sweet corn sauce surrounding a mound of peppery arugula. The absolute star of the evening, though, was our grilled red snapper in a classic green pumpkin seed mole over house-made chochoyotes (masa “dumplings”). While you wait, have one of a half dozen margaritas along with the gratis escabeche of lightly pickled vegetables—the best
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$$$
NEW IN TOWN
ALCOMAR M E X I C A N | This
For Reservations, Call 1-800-392-5937
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$$$
VESPAIO RISTORANTE S I TA L I A N | There’s nothing more
nbcf.org
Austin
version we’ve had in town. Bar. 1816 S. 1st (512-401-3161). L & D 7 days. (10/15)
$$
BUN BELLY VIETNAMESE |
LUXURY RESIDENCES ON CONGRESS AVENUE
SUMMIT LEVEL AVAILABLE NOW
If you’re seeking a Vietnamese restaurant that’s authentic and economical, Bun Belly probably isn’t for you. But this small self-described “contemporary” place has the bonuses of a smart interior (blond bamboo paneling and “sputnik” lighting fixtures) and prices that are fine if you can handle $9 for a good-sized but not huge bowl of pho. Presentation is a strong point, as with the bright, flavorful, and beautifully arranged shrimp spring rolls. We had mixed feelings about the banh mi (we loved the crisp baguette and the pork belly but weren’t crazy about the rather strong pork-liver pâté), but absolutely worth a return trip was a vermicelli bowl with lemongrasschile-garlic beef. Pistachio ice cream “sandwiches” sounded like great fun, but the grilled buns were so soft they were indistinguishable from the ice cream. Bar. 5001 Airport Blvd
(512-358-4101). L & D 7 days. (10/15)
$$
DINE NEW AMERICAN |
A fresh new concept for downtown’s Radisson Hotel, with celebrated Austin chef David Garrido newly at the helm, this bright and airy modern American restaurant offers the variety of flavors you’d expect in such a multipurpose venue. Shrimp cocktail from the raw bar was delicious with its accompanying tomato-avocado sauce, and Garrido’s signature crispy oysters on fried yuca chips received an update with a tangy pineapple pico. Tender wagyu steak was beautifully cooked and served with a refreshing garlicky parsley sauce and crispy fries, but the pan-seared snapper had so much accompanying fennel that the delicate saffron sauce got lost in the shuffle. Bar. Radisson Hotel, 111 E. Cesar Chavez (512-478-2991). B, L & D 7 days. (10/15)
$$
JULIET I TA L I A N |
What’s in a name? Lovely Juliet is the long-awaited descendant of Romeo’s, which served up plates of solid Italian-American food in this location for years. Although the space, with its comfortably chic patio and mid-century-style furniture, offers a fresh update of the physical surroundings, clumsy service and underwhelming food kept our enthusiasm at bay. That’s not to say that the airy soppressata-andAsiago-topped pizza and the mushroom ragù over creamy white polenta didn’t sate. They did. But the affected olive oil tasting and the one-dimensional bucatini alla amatriciana didn’t deliver. Bar. 1500 Barton Springs Rd (512-479-1800). D 7 days. (10/15)
POLICIES AND DEFINITIONS REVIEWS ARE WRITTEN BY RESIDENT CRITICS IN THE CITIES THAT WE LIST. THEY ARE ANONYMOUS TO ENSURE THAT THEY RECEIVE NO SPECIAL TREATMENT. The magazine accepts no advertising or other consideration in exchange for a listing; expenses are paid by T E X A S M O N T H LY . Restaurants are revisited every three to six months; the date at the end of a listing is the month it was most recently updated. The Dining Guide represents only a fraction of recommended restaurants in any city in any given month; for more detailed coverage, go to texasmonthly .com/food. Send correspondence to foodeditor@texasmonthly .com or Dining Guide, Box 1569, Austin, Texas 78767.
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STAR POLICY, CREDIT CARDS, AND PRICE SCALE Three stars designate a superlative restaurant. Two stars designate an excellent restaurant. One star designates an extremely good restaurant. All listed restaurants accept major credit cards unless otherwise noted. Prices represent a typical meal for one (entrée, side dishes, dessert, and beverage), not including alcohol, tax, and tip. $ Less than $12 $$ $12–$30 $$$ $31–$50 $$$$ More than $50
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The debate rages among Texas families as to who makes the best country chicken fried steak and gravy and the fluffiest biscuits. We don’t want to get in the middle of who’s the best cook, but we will say Pioneer has been helping make Texas recipes Texan since 1851.
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three or four. Bar. 3871 Stagg Dr (409-212-9650). L & D 7
Beaumont–Port Arthur
days. (10/15)
BEST IN TOWN
THE GRILL S A M E R I C A N | If you
like a well-cooked steak, like a beef tenderloin served with crabmeat and a tart béarnaise, this cozy place is up to the task. The adjacent Cabana offers a more casual atmosphere. Bar. 6680 Calder Ave, Beaumont (409-866-0039).
D Tue–Sat. (4/15)
$$–$$$
KATHARINE & COMPANY S A M E R I C A N | This eatery, set in a historic
building near downtown, serves lunch only but makes it the most important meal of the day with seasonal specials like grilled shrimp napped with a bacon-infused brown-butter vinaigrette. Beer & wine.
1495 Calder Ave, Beaumont (409-833-9919). L Mon–Fri. D first $$ Thur of the month. (8/15) PK’S GRILL S A M E R I C A N | This spot has a hometown feel and a menu that fea-
tures a host of ocean delicacies (the tilapia crusted in almonds is good) as well as meaty items like a filet mignon cooked to a perfect medium rare. Beer & wine. 1627 Strickland Dr, Orange
(409-883-8900) L & D Mon–Sat. (8/15)
$$
SUGA’S DEEP SOUTH CUISINE & JAZZ BAR S A M E R I C A N / C A J U N | This restaurant in a historic building offers
specialties like buffalo tenderloin and crab-stuffed tilapia, as well as crowd pleasers like fried shrimp with a crunchy cornmeal coating. Bar. 461 Bowie, Beaumont (409-813-1808).
L Mon–Fri. D Mon–Sat. B Sun. (4/15)
Bryan–College Station BEST IN TOWN
CHRISTOPHER’S WORLD GRILLE S N E W A M E R I C A N | Nestled in a turn-of-the-century ranch house,
Christopher’s is a go-to for an elegant dinner. But don’t overlook brunch, which offers everything from bananas Foster French toast and beef enchiladas crowned with fried eggs to crepes Newburg, the paper-thin pancakes enveloping mushrooms, shrimp, and crab in a creamy sauce. Bar. 5001 Boonville Rd, Bryan (979-776-2181). L & D 7 days. B Sat & Sun. (8/15) $$$
MADDEN’S CASUAL GOURMET S N E W A M E R I C A N | The cozy elegance Update invites you to sit down and relish a
of Madden’s respite from everyday life. The superlative cuisine matches the atmosphere, with offerings ranging from a sockeye salmon BLT for lunch to smoked duck for dinner. Wine. 202 S. Bryan,
Bryan (979-779-2558). L Mon–Sat. D Thur–Sat. (10/15)
you to linger, and you’ll need every bit of that time to put away one of the steaks here. The extensive menu offers everything from pulled-pork tacos to a 40-ounce porterhouse for two—or
$$$
THE REPUBLIC S S T E A K S | This is a real-deal
steakhouse, from burnished wood to copper bar. And the atmosphere isn’t smoke and mirrors: our ribeyes were among the most flavorful we’d ever tasted.
Bar. 701 University Dr East, College Station (979-260-4120). D $$$–$$$$ Mon–Sat. (5/15)
Corpus Christi BEST IN TOWN
DRAGONFLY S F R E N C H | We are never
dier, trained in Lyon, serves up the likes of flounder with grilled shrimp in a chardonnay cream sauce and fork-tender pork belly topped with baked apples and a rich caper sauce.
Bar. 14701 S. Padre Island Dr (361-949-2224). L Tue–Fri. D Tue– $$$ Sat. (7/15)
$$
NEW IN TOWN
JERRY NELSON’S HILL COUNTRY A M E R I C A N | The hunting lodge feel invites
$$$–$$$$
disappointed when we visit this North Padre bistro, with its quirky French folk art. Dominique Cor-
MAMMA MIA’S S I TA L I A N | Marino Delzotto
and his long-tenured staff provide neighborly hospitality in this compact downtown ristorante. The modest list of Italian standards is always popular; regular customers avoid repetition by choosing from daily specials, like a prime New York strip the equal of any found in a bigcity steakhouse. Beer & wine. 128 N. Mesquite (361-883-3773). D Wed–Sat. (9/15)
$$$ (cash only)
VENETIAN HOT PLATE S I TA L I A N | While retaining Italian
standards, the menu at this Port A gem has evolved to include more red meat and seafood, like pan-seared diver scallops and a gorgeous pepper-crusted ribeye. Bar. 232 Beach Ave, Port Aransas (361-749-7617). D Tue– Sat. (6/15)
$$$
VIETNAM S A S I A N | The larger-than-life Golden Buddha presiding over the
dining room has truly blessed Tony Lam’s kitchen. We usually opt for a daily special, but the menu standards are delightful, like the signature crispy-skinned half chicken and the jumbo shrimp in a rice-flour batter. Bar. 701 N. Water (361-853-2682). L Mon–Fri. D Mon–Sat. (2/15)
$$–$$$
Dallas BEST IN TOWN
CASA RUBIA S S PA N I S H | The imaginative
menu at this Trinity Groves tapas restaurant delineates dishes with the headings “Simple” and “Complex.” Of the former, a salad of house-made queso fresco, Cara Cara oranges, and spritely vinaigrette was the perfect
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Admission is free. Image ©Laura Wilson
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prelude for the latter, tender pulpo a la plancha with saffronscented potatoes, pickled onion, and romesco verde. Bar. 3011
Gulden Ln (469-513-6349). D 7 days. (5/15)
$$$
FEARING’S S S AMERICAN/SOUTHWESTERN |
Snag a table by the pool, a setting that’s as good as it gets, to enjoy Dean Fearing’s creative cuisine, like a Bibb lettuce salad with Point Reyes blue cheese and wood-grilled, sorghum-glazed pork tenderloin on a salad of field peas and corn. Fearing was cooking regional cuisine when today’s locavores were still in short pants. Bar. Ritz-Carlton, 2121 Mc Kinney Ave (214-922-4848). B, L & D 7 days. (7/15)
$$$$
THE FRENCH ROOM S F R E N C H | This elegant room must have an artist in residence; we
rarely see such beautiful dishes. And the flavors—think smoked salmon with lumps of king crab and crème fraîche dotted with capers, pineapple confit, and onion jam—are as impressive as the presentation. Bar. Adolphus Hotel, 1321 Commerce (214-742-
8200). D Tue–Sat. (5/15)
$$$$
It seems impossible to make a bad choice in this stylish, comfortable dining room, whether it’s crispy veal sweetbreads punctuated by a frisée salad or grilled striped bass with a charred-radish tzatziki. Bar. 2323 N. Henderson Ave
(214-370-9426). D Tue–Sun. (6/15)
$$$
LUCIA S S S I TA L I A N | Whether it’s something luxe, like a foie gras–stuffed
prune, or earthy and satisfying, like seared sea scallops coupled with artichokes, hen of the woods mushrooms, and salsa verde, the food at this homey storefront is never disappointing. Beer & wine. 408 W. 8th (214-948-4998). D Tue–Sat. (7/15) $$–$$$
KNIFE S S T E A K S | Considering
the quality of the steaks, we figure the cows must live pretty luxuriously on 44 Farms, the main meat purveyor for this sleek modern steakhouse. The unadorned chunks of beef, from culotte and tri-tip to filet mignon and ribeye, are like velvet. Bar. 5300 E. Mockingbird Ln (214-443-
9339). L Mon–Sat. B & D 7 days. (8/15)
$$$$
THE MANSION S N E W A M E R I C A N | Dinner
or brunch is the usual objective of a visit to these gracious dining rooms, but lunch can be just as satisfying. Imagine an astounding spring melon gazpacho with hefty hunks of blue crab or salmon flecked with shaved black truffle. Bar. Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, 2821 Turtle Creek
Blvd (214-443-4747). B, L & D 7 days. (8/15)
$$$$
MIA’S TEX-MEX S T E X- M E X | Brunch is always festive at this insanely popular spot.
Order up a margarita and feast on chorizo con huevos with refried beans and potatoes or Jack Hongos, which involve filling warm flour tortillas with mushrooms, poblanos, and melted Monterey Jack. Beer, wine & margaritas. 4322 Lemmon Ave (214526-1020). L & D 7 days. (9/15)
$$
NONNA S S I TA L I A N | The big
wood-fired oven in the back room of this casual but not too informal trattoria lends a warm glow to a plate of glorious Gulf oysters baked casino-style or a luxe béchamel lasagna with lamb ragù. Bar. 4115 Lomo Alto Dr (214521-1800). L Fri. D Mon–Sat. (6/15)
$$$
PECAN LODGE S B A R B E C U E | If you’ve got a crowd, pony up $65 for the Trough.
Capable of feeding four and undoubtedly several more, it’s a pound each of the legendary brisket and pork ribs; a halfpound of luscious pulled pork; three sausage links; and one humongous beef rib. Alas, the lines have not gotten any shorter nor the parking any easier. Still, it’s worth it. Beer. 2702 Main (214-748-8900). L Tue–Sun. D Fri & Sat. (9/15)
$$
STEPHAN PYLES S S N E W A M E R I C A N | We really enjoyed our pan-roasted Update Chatham cod—moist and mild—but we were thrown
a bit by the chorizo lobster feijoada upon which it was resting. SP’s version using kidney rather than black beans had very little chorizo, and although we weren’t wearing our glasses, we failed to see any lobster in the bowl. Pickled onion and cucumber salad was refreshing, but the decorative slice of grilled bread with a swath of saffron aioli left us underwhelmed. Just because a small slice of jalapeño, which orna-
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Dallas
CIAO BELLA!
(Handmade in Italy. Beautiful in any language.)
THE 100% ITALIAN LEATHER SOFA
$899 AT THE DUMP $2800 AT HIGH-END STORES
mented our frozen chocolate soufflé with passion fruit and small quarter-size cookies of coconut cake, is candied does not mean that the heat has diminished. On a pleasant night, abandon the spacious, arty dining room for a seat on the patio. Bar. 1807 Ross Ave (214-580-7000). L Mon–Fri. D Mon–Sat.
(10/15)
$$$–$$$$
TEI-AN SOBA HOUSE S J A PA N E S E | Each component
of our bento box at this serene spot was a jewel unto itself, particularly the white seaweed salad and the buckwheat rice risotto. We expected the Japanese pumpkin tempura to levitate off the plate, it was so perfectly executed. Bar. 1722 Routh (214-220-2828). L Tue–Fri &
Sun. D Tue–Sat. (7/15)
$$$
NEW IN TOWN
BOULANGERIE B A K E R Y | Village Baking Co., which supplies bread to many fine
local restaurants, has opened a small sunny space, both casual cafe and bread market, on lowest Greenville. We were tempted by the array of breakfast croissants but went with a croque monsieur made with a slice of pain au levain (sourdough) stacked with rounds of local tomato, micro-thin slices of ham, oozy Gruyère, and a sprinkle of thyme. 1921 Greenville Ave (214-
821-3477). Open 7 days. (10/15)
$
EL BOLERO M E X I C A N | An
interior that sparkles with cool blue tiles makes a pleasant space to sample entrées like Oaxacan pan-seared scallops, top-hatted with dabs of kicky chapulín salsa, alongside rice generously studded with chunks of fresh lobster. Or desserts like tres leches napolitano, an airy three-tiered wonder of moist cake, both chocolate and vanilla, layered with strawberry whipped cream. We could have eaten an entire platter of elotes, the tender corn sprinkled with chile dust, crema fresca, and cotija cheese. John Tesar recently consulted on the menu, and it seems to have paid off. Bar. 1201 Oak Lawn Ave
(214-757-9653). L & D 7 days. (10/15)
$$$
El Paso BEST IN TOWN
ARDOVINO’S DESERT CROSSING S I TA L I A N | This sprawling 66-year-old restaurant, Update housed in a historic stucco building and fronted with
a large patio, delights guests with its warm hospitality. Pre-dinner cocktails in the rustic Mecca Lounge are a must, followed by dinner in one of the funky red-velvet booths or at one of the sleek tables. Roasted olives served in a castiron skillet make a fine prelude to the organic wood-grilled veal chop, the rich meat balanced with lemony anchovy-based spaghettini. Fish is good here too; try the pan-seared Atlantic salmon stuffed with herby goat cheese. There’s live music most weekends. Bar. 1 Ardovino Dr, Sunland Park, New Mexico (575589-0653). D Tue–Sun. B Sat & Sun. (10/15)
$$$
CAFÉ CENTRAL S A M E R I C A N | Owner Alejandro Orozco and James Update Beard–nominated chef Armando Pomales keep this
fine-dining establishment fresh with updated interiors and new menu items. The main dining room is classic and clubby, the bar is a hot spot for business types, and the glassenclosed patio can be transformed into a cigar bar replete with fire pits and low couches. Tender, buttery baked escargots are a great starter; follow that with the salad of slow-roasted beets topped with creamy goat cheese and walnuts. Entrée specials change daily, but you can’t go wrong with our perennial favorite: roasted sea bass on subtly floral jasmine rice. Bar. 109 N.
Oregon (915-545-2233). L & D Mon–Sat. (10/15)
$$$
GARUFA S A R G E N T I N E A N | Polished furniture and dark wood Update floors, accented with brickwork and gold-toned
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walls, set off paintings of tango dancers set above the doors like religious iconography. Famous for house-made empanadas, Garufa offers seven varieties, including a creamy Roquefort cheese mixed with celery and pecans. Among the salads, we like the one with avocado, apple, and hearts of palm.
& #( % $% ( ' ' & % "
* * *
)% & #! *
El Paso
Steaks, cooked Argentinean-style on a special imported grill, remain the city’s best. The 21-ounce butterflied ribeye is juicy and flavorful, as are the smoky slow-roasted short ribs. Add a fried egg to your steak for a traditional experience. Bar. 5411
N. Mesa (915-833-6100). L & D 7 days. (10/15)
$$$
Fort Worth BEST IN TOWN
BONNELL’S S SEAFOOD/STEAKS |
Warm light softens this spacious dining room, creating a mood suited to an old-school dining experience that may include smoked-shrimp bisque, its creamy depths hinting of pecan wood, and a lean buffalo tenderloin with rye-spiked cream. Bar. 4259 Bryant Irvin Rd (817-738-5489) . L Tue–Fri. D Tue–Sat. (6/15)
$$$$
CAFÉ MODERN S A M E R I C A N | The kitchen’s effort in sourcing the best local ingre-
dients shows in every dish, from crispy baby artichoke hearts with spinach-Parmesan aioli to an elegant pork chop brined in ginger beer and molasses. Bar. Modern Art Museum, 3200 Darnell (817-840-2157). L & D Tue–Fri. B Sat & Sun. (7/15)
$$$
ELLERBE FINE FOODS S N E W A M E R I C A N / C A J U N | Chef Molly McCook is at the top of her
game at this easygoing spot, ever resourceful and inventive with local goods. Think cumin-scented carpaccio, fashioned from water buffalo raised in nearby Azle, and heirloom tomatoes from West Texas’s Scott Farms, shining from beneath sautéed wild halibut. Beer & wine. 1501 W. Magnolia Ave (817926-3663). L Tue–Fri. D Tue–Sat. (8/15)
GRACE S NEW AMERICAN |
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At this smart, spacious venue, Blaine Staniford delivers cleverly elegant food anchored by substantial flavor, from a bountiful board of charcuterie featuring pecan-smoked salami and lamb mortadella with pistachios to sumptuous
lobster-stuffed agnolotti. Bar. 777 Main (817-877-3388). D 7
days. (7/15)
$$$
LE CEP S F R E N C H | Sleek and spare, with cool grey-and-white Update tones, this sophisticated retreat romances us from
the moment we sit down, starting with an offering of lovely selections from the champagne cart. Favorites from the changing prix-fixe menu this time out began with the paper-thin, crisp slices of beets layered with arugula, a hint of feta, and balsamic vinaigrette, followed by delicate scallops coddled in a Parmesan-infused cream and then tender leg of lamb hinting of rosemary, with farro as a wee pillow. Chef Sandra Avila’s deft hand extends to the sweet endings, evidenced in her lavender glacé with berry cream and fresh mint. The growing list of French wines impresses, and each pairing with the four- or eight-course menu items is on point. Bar. 3324 W. 7th (817-900-2468). D Tue–Sat. (10/15)
$$$$
REVOLVER TACO LOUNGE S M E X I C A N | Much to our joy, Regino Rojas’s Cultural District hot
spot is not closing. To be denied the seared duck breast tacos with house-made corn tortillas is unthinkable. We celebrated the reprieve with ceviche made with Caribbean flying fish, grapefruit and tangerine, micro-herbs, and a dusting of pink salt, which made us fall for this jewel box of a bistro all over again. Bar. 2822 W. 7th (817-820-0122). D Tue–Sat. (9/15) $$$
Galveston
OLYMPIA GRILL AT PIER 21 S G R E E K / S E A F O O D | The airy dining room with its panoramic view
of the bay complements a menu that leans to fresh seafood and Greek favorites. Bar. Pier 21, at Harborside Dr (409-765-0021). L & D 7 days. B Sat & Sun. (6/15)
$$–$$$
RUDY & PACO S S S T E A K S / S E A F O O D | The Latin influences that accent the menu at
this white-tablecloth enclave don’t overpower so much as add a little extra to entrées like red snapper topped with a cilantroscented cream sauce and salmon prepared with a fiery-sweet mango habanero sauce. Bar. 2028 Postoffice (409-762-3696).
L Mon–Fri. D Mon–Sat. (6/15)
$$$$
STEVE’S LANDING S S E A F O O D | Like the Update the last hurricane,
restaurant that emerged after the menu here has also undergone a transformation. The light, airy space beguiled us with a great view of the bay as we shared crispy ceviche tostadas, the tart, lime-marinated fish sided by ripe mango and fiery pico. The pecan-crusted snapper also received raves, as did the tacos of tempura fish fried in a Mexican-beer batter, served on house-made corn tortillas, and boosted by crunchy, spicy slaw. Bar. 1290 Bay Vue Rd,
Crystal Beach (409-684-1999). L Thur–Sun. D Mon, Tue & Thur– $$–$$$ Sun. (10/15)
Houston BEST IN TOWN
BEST IN TOWN
GAIDO’S S S E A F O O D | An Island landmark for seafood, Gaido’s has looked
a little tired for some time. But that’s quickly forgotten when you sample the stuffed flounder napped with mild cream sauce. Bar. 3828 Seawall Blvd (409-762-9625). L & D 7 days.
(2/15)
$$$
CARACOL S M E X I C A N | The
airy space may be a bit noisy, but the food at this local favorite makes it all worthwhile. We recently savored a nigh perfect meal, starting with crunchy little pork tacos with avocado-tomatillo salsa and moving on to a huge rack of lamb in a deep, rich mole sided by sesame seed tamales. Bar. 2200 Post
Oak Blvd (713-622-9996). L & D 7 days. B Sun. (8/15)
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FINALIST
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When facing cancer, a fraction of a millimeter can make a world of difference.
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Studies show proton therapy effective treatment for childhood cancer At the MD Anderson Proton Therapy Center, a dedicated team of cancer experts continues to harness the power of technology to help children with cancer. Proton therapy is an advanced form of radiation treatment. In contrast to traditional radiation, which uses photons, protons release their energy directly into the tumor site, minimizing exposure to surrounding tissues and reducing potential side effects. The precision of this targeted approach is especially beneficial when treating children. The Proton Therapy Center was the first facility in the country to offer an even more innovative form of proton therapy, known as intensity modulated proton therapy, or IMPT. IMPT allows for even greater precision when treating tumors.
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“Because it spares healthy tissue, we think proton therapy is the more effective way to treat childhood cancers,” said David Grosshans, M.D., pediatric radiation oncologist at the Proton Therapy Center. Grosshans has conducted and published multiple studies, supervising laboratory and clinical research on proton therapy. He is encouraged by the results. “We just completed a clinical study for childhood craniopharyngioma, a very common brain tumor, which included patients treated with IMPT,” Grosshans said. “Overall, proton therapy patients showed a three-year survival rate of 94 percent among the 52 children who were part of the study.” Grosshans is excited by the prospect of additional research centered on this technology. “This truly is cutting edge,” he said. “I’m proud to be part of it.”
Houston
COLTIVARE S I TA L I A N | The temptation at this excellent, wildly Update popular, modestly priced Revival Market outpost is
to order the same dishes each visit, like the superb spaghetti swirled with black pepper, Parmesan, and olive oil and the cauliflower studded with pine nuts and raisins (both dishes together are just under $20). We restrained ourselves recently and reached out for a pizza, the perfect, puffy-aroundthe-edges crust piled high with pepperoni, tomato, mozzarella, and greens. We also enjoyed the juicy heirloom tomatoes with arugula, feta, and balsamic vinaigrette with a refreshing cucumber gazpacho on the side. Fair warning: on a Saturday night, a line had formed before 5:00. Bar. 3320 White Oak Dr
(713-637-4095). L Sat & Sun. D Wed–Mon. (10/15)
$$–$$$
DA MARCO S S S I TA L I A N | Many Houstonians
name Da Marco as their favorite Italian spot. That’s not surprising, given the inviting cottage setting, fine wines, and imaginative fare that includes dishes like grilled octopus graced with pepperoncini and sweet orange and braised short ribs with burrata risotto. Bar. 1520 West-
heimer Rd (713-807-8857). L Tue–Fri. D Tue–Sat. (8/15) $$$
ÉTOILE S FR E NC H | Boasting a casually smart setting with stone and wood
accents, Étoile has become our favorite destination for fine French fare. Try the foie gras au torchon, a cold duck foie terrine with dried-fruit mousseline, or the handsomely presented lobster atop basil risotto. Bar. 1101-11 Uptown Park Blvd (713-668-5808). L Mon–Fri. D 7 days. B Sat & Sun. (5/15)
$$$
INDIKA S S I N D I A N | Colorful
Indika has been for years the city’s destination for modern, multilayered Indian cuisine. Here, a filet of beef is a grass-fed tenderloin coated in oniony kalonji seeds, and shrimp Rangoon combines grilled mustard shrimp, noodles, and coconut lentil curry. Savvy cocktails and adventurous vegan choices add to the appeal. Bar. 516 Westheimer Rd
(713-524-2170). L Tue–Fri. D Tue–Sat. B Sun. (9/15)
$$$
KATA ROBATA S S J A PA N E S E | This sleek, well-managed
classic is known for fine fare, beautifully served. True, some dishes, such as the Miso Lobster Macaroni & Cheese, don’t really qualify as Japanese, but no one’s complaining. The sushi and sashimi are pristine, and top marks go to cooked items like lovely oblongs of fried tofu with mushrooms and a truffle oil sauce and cubes of Texas Kobe beef on skewers. Bar. 3600 Kirby Dr (713-526-8858). L & D
7 days. (9/15)
$$$
KILLEN’S TEXAS BARBECUE S B A R B E C U E | Cue the ’cue! Like the juicy
brisket, with a great crust (perhaps the best in the region, which is saying a lot in Texas). Or the smoky pork ribs and slabs of turkey breast with a little heat around the edges. Beer. 3613 E. Broadway, Pearland (281-485-2272). L Tue–Sun. (6/15)
$–$$
OXHEART S E C L E C T I C | In the
shadow of elevated freeways, this modest downtown spot seems an unlikely setting for one of the hottest dinner tickets in town. No surprise, though, given the imaginative and playful series of dishes that we recently enjoyed at Justin Yu’s domain. The $74 menu is set; choose the regular or the vegetarian option (substitutions are graciously provided in case of dietary issues). Highlights included a ruffled pile of beet slices, cooked, dried, and rehydrated in citrus juice, arranged atop little grapefruit cubes, all dusted with grains of dried mandarin peel; a stew of preserved daikon with cream and charred onions; and roasted sunchoke with honey and meyer lemon. Beer & wine. 1302 Nance (832-830-8592). D Thur–
Mon. (9/15)
$$$$
THE PASS S N E W A M E R I C A N | Entering the Pass, tucked away in the building
housing big sibling Provisions, involves slipping through a door disguised as a wall into an intimate space with an open kitchen at the far end. Its six- or nine-course tasting menu changes frequently, and each allows a vegetable-focused version, which, frankly, is often more imaginative than the meaty one. Like our “tomato” course, which translated to a little slab of tomato topped with puffed roasted quinoa in a coconut truffle oil, or the Arzak Egg, a jamón, egg, and grilled asparagus dish that
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managed to be crunchy, soft, and rich all at the same time. Bar.
807 Taft (713-628-9020). D Tue–Sat. (9/15)
$$$$
UCHI S S
J A PA N E S E | Expect well-trained servers, a bustling setting, and a menu that’s great for sharing—or hoarding—at this popular outpost of the Austin operation. Everything had us scrambling for that last bite, like the ethereal shrimp and escolar tempura and the Pitchfork roll, with luscious chunks of beef and feathery, crispy leeks. Beer, wine & sake. 904 Westheimer
Rd (713-522-4808). D 7 days. (5/15)
$$$
NEW IN TOWN
BRAMBLE
The looong-awaited restaurant from chef Randy Rucker has opened in the former Mancuso’s location (hint: look for the old sign). On our visit in the second week, two dishes stood out. The first was a spectacular ebony-crusted ribeye for two with reduced oxtail jus. The second, equally carnivorous, was pork ribs—with pink flesh and a coppery exterior—finished with a complex caramel glaze involving plums, whey, and chile piquin. That’s the Randy Rucker we remember. But some dishes that sounded lively proved rather dull, like blue lump crabmeat salad with yellow wax beans and a bland chive pistou. And some were downright bizarre, like pork bouillon, thick and satisfying, with lovely oyster mushrooms and impossibly rubbery gnocchi. The high-style presentations play off the rustic room, with its reclaimed wood and filament lights. Bar. 2231 S. Voss Rd (832-819-0322). D Mon–Sat. (10/15) $$$ NEW AMERICAN |
HELEN
G R E E K | Helen
does not evoke ancient Greece. The look is contemporary and the menu subtly tweaks tradition. Grecophile co-owner Evan Turner and chef William Wright modernize dolmades with bright collard-green wrappers and a splendid filling of rice, pine nuts, and raisins. Meaty lamb ribs are piled on top of orzo and mixed greens. For every familiar Greek dish (chickpea dip, grilled eggplant spread), there’s one that’s likely
new to you (chicken with potatoes and okra in a rich tomato sauce—comfort on a plate). No wonder the tall red-brick room is packed. Bar. 2429 Rice Blvd (832-831-7133). L & D Tue–Sun. $$–$$$ (10/15) See also Pat’s Pick, page 122.
shrimp-spiked queso and the thick, crisp chips with guacamole and fresh salsa. However, we would skip the unusually sweet campechana and the salty beef fajitas. The stacked chicken enchiladas didn’t come off much better. Bottoms up! Bar. 2517 Ralph (832-962-4745). D 7 days. B Sat & Sun. (10/15) $$–$$$
IZAKAYA
At the hotly anticipated Japanese gastropub by the Azuma Group (Kata Robata), the atmosphere is whimsical, with prismatic murals by tattoo artist Catfish Perez, natural wood furnishings, Japanese toys, and painted concrete floors. Just as playful is the Japanese-inspired menu, created by Kata Robata’s Manabu Horiuchi and former Cove chef JeanPhilippe Gaston. Menu items, which are more modern-eccentric than sushi-centric, are meant to be shared tapas-style. Highlights on our first visit: tuna poke with ginger, arugula, and micro mushrooms; antelope meatballs; and steamed shumai stuffed with duck confit served with spicy-fruity marmalade (so good we wanted another order). The Thai shrimp and papaya salad missed the mark with salty, mushy (head on) shrimp and shredded papaya hiding searing hot chile peppers. Another downer: grilled bacon-wrapped “rice cake” skewers—terribly chewy (like gum). We were disappointed the new eatery had somehow run out of the Wagyu strip steak (listed on the menu—not a special), though it had just opened its doors for dinner on a Saturday night. Bar. 318 Gray (713-527-8988). D 7 $$$ days. (10/15)
E C L E C T I C J A PA N E S E |
LA GRANGE
The name of a storied Hill Country town—site of the infamous Chicken Ranch brothel celebrated in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas— is apparently a magnet for thirtysomethings on the prowl for novel Mexican food. The Montrose-area haunt, from the owners of the Raven, along with other partners, is in fact more watering hole than eatery. A boisterous crowd regularly packs the two-story space, with its huge patios, chic decor, multiple bars, and killer margaritas. For chow, best bets are the mini house-made grilled flour tortillas served with spicy
Laredo BEST IN TOWN
BORDER FOUNDRY S N E W A M E R I C A N | Three’s the charm here, with a rustic ambience,
a seasonal South Texas menu, and a family legacy of great dining. Soaring brick walls frame a transparent wine cellar, and the impressive menu casts a wide net. Our favorite appetizer is the seared tuna perched atop compressed watermelon and sassily mortared with horseradish. Bacon-wrapped quail morsels bask in a nutty Cajun cream sauce, while succulent double-bone pork chops get a boost from a sweet potato puree gilded with chunky applesauce. The fall menu boasts a stunning duck cassoulet with seared duck breast, buttery Peruvian white beans, nutty Minnesota wild rice, duck confit, and a toothsome sweetand-sour cherry gastrique. A roasted and crisp-skinned salmon filet sides with nutty farro, thick with red peppers, onions, and mushrooms, all nicely drizzled with a tart dill yogurt sauce. The bar’s mixologists are, in a word, masterful. Bar. 7718 McPherson Rd (956-724-5907). L & D Mon–Sat. (9/15)
Lubbock BEST IN TOWN
CAST IRON GRILL S A M E R I C A N | A rustic-looking diner with West Texas Update kitsch on the walls, Cast Iron Grill is a local favorite,
known especially for its pies, which are made fresh
Be a fan, catch the fever Have you caught the fever? Do you call yourself a fan? Yes and yes! Then it’s time to warm up your wave and get your cheer on because Cedar Park’s hometown team the Texas Stars take to the ice this October. Get your tickets now, before these shooting Stars become NHL legends.
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$$$
MEXICAN |
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Meaning “wild place,” the Rawah (Ray-wa) wilderness of Colorado is a diverse and complex region. Rawah Rye IPA balances a slightly spicy malt base with a bright and fruity hop character.
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DECEMBER 2015 cover story
BEST TACOS IN TEXAS
Lubbock
daily and are impossible to pass up. Last time we visited, we arrived early in the morning—the place is lively even then—for some steak and eggs and breakfast sandwiches. Frying is what the kitchen does best, and we recommend the chicken-fried steak—yes, even for breakfast. As we were walking out, we spotted the pies on the counter and we knew we’d be back. 620 19th (806-771-7690). B & L Mon–Fri. (10/15)
$$
THE WEST TABLE S N E W A M E R I C A N | The West
Table has quickly become the clear choice for sophisticated dining in Lubbock. Chef Cameron West’s changing menu is always exciting, from the spaghetti squash pasta to the chicken-fried elk. Bar. 1204 Broadway (806993-9378). L Wed–Fri. D Wed–Sun. B Sun. (7/15)
$$$
Midland– Odessa BEST IN TOWN
THE GARLIC PRESS S S E A F O O D / S T E A K S | Consistently
good food has made this restaurant one of the most highly regarded in Midland. The seared scallops with lemon-butter-basil sauce are alone worth a visit. And if you’re a fan of escargots, don’t pass them up here; you’ll be hard-pressed to find any other preparation of this caliber nearby. Beer & wine. 2200 W. Wadley Ave, Midland (432-570-4020).
L Tue–Fri. D Tue–Sat. (2/15) $$–$$$
Rio Grande Valley BEST IN TOWN
THE CENTENNIAL CLUB S S T E A K S | There’s no need to wait for a special occasion Update to enjoy the scene at this swanky former private club.
We stopped in for live music, a hand-crafted cocktail, and a bit of the ever-changing assortment of charcuterie elegantly presented on a polished slab of local mesquite. We hung around for the second set and enjoyed the comforting yet exotic Border Sliders: hot cornbread muffins stuffed with slow-roasted beef cheek and topped with a zesty slaw. This is the way Grandma would cook, if she were a gourmet. Bar. 1410 Austin Ave (956-627-6257). D Tue–Sat. (10/15)
$$$–$$$$
SALT, MCALLEN S N E W A M E R I C A N | It’s fun to sit at the kitchen-front bar Update and chat with the crew while watching your dinner
being prepared at this rustic modern bistro (these seats are first come, first served). We started with the shrimp, fresh Gulf beauties in a creamy sriracha beurre blanc with pickled peppers and capers; we couldn’t resist mopping up the piquant sauce with bread. We moved on to the duck breast with a crispy seared cap topped with a black cherry compote and somehow saved enough room for the Baked Alaska Pie served in a pâte sucrée and topped with toasted meringue. Bar. 210 N. Main (956-627-6304). D Mon–Sat. (10/15)
$$$
SEA RANCH, SOUTH PADRE ISLAND S S E A F O O D | As we watched a fishing fleet return with the setting
sun, we were disheartened to learn that the snapper throats we craved were sold out (who leaked the secret?). Nevertheless, we were delighted by the General Hector: broiled flaky flounder with sweet Gulf shrimp riding atop. A local’s hangout, this 35-year-old institution prides itself on pairing local seafood with an elegant atmosphere. Bar. 1 Padre Blvd (956-761-1314). D 7 days. (9/15)
$$$
A D C L O S I N G : O C T O B E R 2 3 | C O N TA C T Y O U R T E X A S M O N T H L Y R E P R E S E N TAT I V E O R S O P H I E D U VA L L AT 5 1 2 - 3 2 0 - 6 9 8 5 O R S D U VA L L @ T E X A S M O N T H L Y. C O M .
NEW IN TOWN
LA CARAVANE, MCALLEN K E B A B S | Mobile vendors have
a place to call home at McAllen’s new food park, located under the palm trees near the chamber of commerce. From La Caravane’s menu of gourmet fare on a stick, we enjoyed a skewer of grilled shrimp, chicken, beef, and vegetables served with a spicy chipotle sauce. The potato croquettes were crunchy battered balls of creamy mashed spuds; we suggest substituting them for fries. McAllen Food Park, 10 N. Broadway (956-445-4743). L & D Tue–Sat. $ (10/15)
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In 1990, Maida’s Belts and Buckles’ founder and owner, Jason Maida, opened his doors in Houston, offering locals an array of custom-made exotic skin belts and heirloom quality buckles. Today, the Maida legacy lives on in the exquisite belts and buckles worn with pride by devotees from around Houston, across the country, and as far away as Australia, Japan and Uruguay. This fall marks Maida’s Belts and Buckles 25 Year Celebration in Business. And they have lots in store! That’s right . . .Buckle Up because they are gearing up for a great ride for the upcoming 25 years with an Anniversary Celebration and Trunk Show Thursday through Saturday, November 5–7. Fabulous artisans from around the country will be at the store to help design a custom piece or just to chat. To receive an invitation and more information, sign up at maidasbelts.com or follow us on Facebook.
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One look at a belt or buckle from Maida’s Belts & Buckles, and you’ll see that exquisite craftsmanship is not a lost art. Every customized piece is made by hand, made to last, with a reverence for tradition and commitment to quality passed down through four generations. Save The Date for our Anniversary Celebration featuring Buckle Artisans from around the country. November 5th - 7th VISIT US ONLINE AT MAIDASBELTS.COM OR CALL US AT 1.800.785.6036 BUCKLE SHOWN: JASON CHRISTOPHER TRINITY FILIGREE. FOUR-PIECE STERLING SILVER BUCKLE SET WITH SOLID 14K GREEN GOLD HAND CUT FILIGREE SCROLLS, 14K YELLOW GOLD ROPE EDGE AND MONOGRAM SHIELD $9,000. HEIRLOOM QUALITY BUCKLES PRICE STARTING AT $400 TO OVER $15,000. EXOTIC SKIN BELTS FROM $95. FINE JEWELRY AND ACCESSORIES FOR LADIES AND GENTS.
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Rio Grande Valley
THE SMOKING OAK, MERCEDES B A R B E C U E | After years of barbecue-eating
expeditions, the pitmaster here converted his family homestead into a Central Texas–style joint complete with custom-built brick smoker. Our moist brisket came with a bright red smoke ring but just a hint of smoke, because he only burns mild oak. The pork ribs had just enough pull and a sweet touch of brown sugar, while the sausage satisfied with a good snap and black-pepper kick. The baked beans left us wishing for charro beans, but the chunky potato salad (a family recipe) was satisfying. Get there early because they do sell out! 546 Hidalgo (956-5652246). L Fri–Sun. (10/15)
$–$$
San Antonio BIGA ON THE BANKS S E C L E C T I C / N E W A M E R I C A N | Season
after season at this restaurant with a river view, we watch Bruce Auden operate the kitchen like a jazz ensemble. Each visit brings a new riff, like tempura-light Shiner beer onion rings enhanced with zingy pickled vegetables. Or venison and quail accompanied with a wedge of goat cheese–masa quiche. Bar. 203 S. St. Mary’s $$$
BLISS S NEW AMERICAN
| Mark Bliss remains at the top of his game, his imaginative creations ranging from an elegant endive salad, complete with spiced walnuts and watercress, to heavy artillery like Chinese-inspired rare duck breast served with a slab of seductively rich duck foie gras. The upscale decor gives cool modern touches to an elderly building. Bar. 926 S. Presa (210-225-2547). D Tue–Sat. (8/15)
$$$$
DOUGH PIZZERIA NAPOLETANA S I TA L I A N | Freshly made Italian cheeses, both mozUpdate zarella and burrata, are the trademark here, where
the kitchen strives (very successfully) to turn out the most Naples-like pizza possible. Yet the ambitious menu keeps growing. We recently lunched on a salad of bresaola (air-dried beef, slightly salty, from the Valtellina) with spinach, Parmesan, and a white balsamic vinaigrette. The house special is a margherita pizza (mozzarella, tomato, basil); add a salad and it would be hard to find a better lunch. The pizza list is long, supplemented by eight or ten optional add-ons. At dinner, servings are a bit heftier, but the menu is still Naples all the way. Tables are a bit crowded, but the added space has a pleasant airiness to it, and a recent expansion has cut down on the wait. Beer & wine. 6989 Blanco Rd (210-979-6565). L & D 7 days. (10/15)
$$–$$$
FEAST S NEW AMERICAN |
In no other restaurant have we so luxuriated in the exquisite, even exotic tastes of the dishes served. Plate after plate bowled us over with bold, original flavors. We had asparagus with Parmesan aioli and candied hazelnuts (wonderfully flavorful, if a bit salty); grilled Belgian endive with grapefruit, olives, and avocado (a superb combination); Pernod quick-cured salmon with lemon sourdough and oaksmoked pear; and mussels flavored with harissa. Each dish was a new revelation. Don’t come here for a tête-a-tête; the noise level in the elegant all-white dining room can be overpowering. Bar. 1024 S. Alamo (210-534-1024). D Tue–Sat. B Sun.
(9/15)
$$$
IL SOGNO OSTERIA S I TA L I A N | We dropped in late
one evening and found everything as responsive as if we had been the night’s first customers. Swordfish, roasted to peak succulence, with artichokes, fennel, and tomatoes, was the standout. While not formal, the dining rooms have a nice sense of decorum. Beer & wine. The Pearl, 200
E. Grayson (210-223-3900). B, L & D Tue–Sun. (7/15)
$$$
THE MONTEREY S E C L E C T I C | Known for wildly original cuisine, super casual Mon-
terey attracts those who want something different. Huitlacoche cornbread, pastrami dumplings, nacho ramen—there’s no telling where the menu will take you. Beer & wine. 1127 S. St. Mary’s (210-745-2581). D Tue–Sat. B Sun. (6/15)
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ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT W I L D F I R E S. smokeybear.com
BEST IN TOWN
(210-225-0722). D 7 days. (6/15)
Remember
$$$
San Antonio
RESTAURANT GWENDOLYN S N E W A M E R I C A N | With its focus on the culinary techniques of an
1850’s kitchen, Gwendolyn is old-fashioned in the best sense of the word. The changing prix fixe three- and five-course menus embody a modern vision that’s based on what James Beard– nominated chef Michael Sohocki calls “honest” food. Beer & wine. 152 E. Pecan (210-222-1849). D Tue–Sat. (5/15) $$$–$$$$
SANDBAR FISH HOUSE & MARKET S S E A F O O D | The sheer culinary class Andrew Weissman brought
to San Antonio at Le Rêve lives to fight another day here. The same command of technique and unfailing attention to detail make visits memorable. Even the simple dishes, such as the crisp sautéed trout with horseradish cream and sliced olives, can be conspicuous for their elegance. Beer & wine. The Pearl,
200 E. Grayson (210-222-2426). L & D Tue–Sat. (4/15) $$–$$$ TRE TRATTORIA S I TA L I A N | Sit outdoors under the riverside trees (or inside under
the colorful blown-glass chandelier) for an experience that evokes the Italian countryside. Many family-style options are offered, such as the luxe marinated ribeye, roasted free-range chicken, and crispy-skin rainbow trout. Bar. 4003 Broadway (210-805-0333). L & D 7 days. (4/15)
$$$
NEW IN TOWN
f ALCHEMY
See page 126.
Tyler–Longview BEST IN TOWN
CAFÉ BARRON’S S A M E R I C A N | This eatery is beloved for business lunches and spe-
cial occasions, serving dishes like an excellent mahimahi with black forbidden rice and a nigh-flawless demi-glace–adorned
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filet mignon. Beer & wine. 405 W. Loop 281, Longview (903-663$$–$$$ 4737). L Mon–Sat. D Tue–Sat. (5/15) KIEPERSOL ESTATES S A M E R I C A N | Tucked into the
Kiepersol winery, this restaurant is special. The atmosphere is lovely, the service attentive, and the cuisine—a marvelous filet with peppercorn cream, a flawless cherries jubilee prepared table-side—superb. Bar. 21508 Merlot Ln, Tyler (903-894-3300). B Sat. L & D Tue–Sat. $$$ (6/15)
MI CASITA S M E X I C A N | It’s an
offbeat diner, with white clapboard siding and a tin roof, but the consistently excellent Mexican fare brings us back. We have never been disappointed with the conscientious service. Expect a wait at lunchtime. Beer. 408
N. Spur 63, Longview (903-758-8226). B & L 7 days. D Mon–Sat. $ (3/15)
Elsewhere WEST BEST IN TOWN
BLUE MOUNTAIN BISTRO, FORT DAVIS S A M E R I C A N | The rain we dashed through on the Update way in left us damp and hungry. But the extremely
friendly and competent staff cosseted us with prompt drinks and a basket of wonderful bread and herbed butter. Soon a chile- and citrus-spiked slab of salmon appeared, and we made short work of it. Our only grievance was the kitchen’s paranoia about its meat prep: the Bistro Burger, which comes medium-well, also comes with the admonition, “Customer assumes all risks for foodborne illnesses,” and a pork chop takes almost half an hour, apparently so they can cook all the moist, pink goodness out of
it. Bar. Hotel Limpia, 101 Memorial Square (432-426-3244). $$–$$$ B, L & D Thur–Tue. (10/ 15) MAIYA’S, MARFA S I TA L I A N | The high-ceilinged space is clean and contemporary, with
two tables in the bay windows for the see-and-be-seen crowd. But the faces around the room were glum. What was lacking? Well, menus, drinks, food, service. The staff, though apparently around, was not much in evidence. Perhaps they were waiting for something, like the bread that emerged from the kitchen more than an hour after the restaurant opened. Good thing the food—delicate lasagnas, well-prepared fish—and drinks are so good. And that there’s not more competition in town. Bar. 103 N. Highland (432-729-4410). D $$$ Wed–Sat. (9/15)
12 GAGE, MARATHON S A M E R I C A N | An aesthetic sensibility is apparent here, Update from the artwork to the Western-but-sleek decor to
the plating, and we admire the ambition of chef Mike Alvarez, whose menu includes mussels and escargots in addition to proteins that swim, fly, and walk. Apparently designed for big appetites, the starters could easily make a meal, and often do. On our last visit we were blown away by the hoisinglazed pork skewer and its accompanying house-made kimchi. But a ramen bowl underwhelmed with its lack of seasoning and cold poached egg. Servers manage to be unobtrusive but always there just before you realize you need them—a neat trick. Bar. Gage Hotel, 102 U.S. 90W (432-386-4437). D 7 days. $$–$$$ T (10/15)
W TEXASMONTHLY.COM The restaurants reviewed in these pages are just a smidgen of our Dining Guide coverage. Visit us online for reviews of more than 700 restaurants around the state.
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LOUISIANA LONE STAR RESTAURANT NIGHT Texas Monthly and Louisiana Culinary Trails are partnering to bring chefs from both states together for one extraordinary night in Austin. Visit participating restaurants for dinner on October 13 and enjoy authentic Louisiana fare.
TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 13 • AUSTIN PARTICIPATING RESTAURANTS AND CHEFS ARRO (AUSTIN) | Andrew Curren OXLOT 9 (COVINGTON) | Jeffrey Hansell BESS BISTRO (AUSTIN) | Roman Murphy RESTAURANT SAGE (MONROE) | Blake Phillips THE CARILLON (AUSTIN) | Christopher Wilson WINE COUNTRY BISTRO & BOTTLE SHOP (SHREVEPORT) | Anthony Felan COVER 3 (AUSTIN) | Kirk Doyle SPIRITS FOOD & FRIENDS (ALEXANDRIA) | Stephen Naegle HILLSIDE FARMACY (AUSTIN) | Sonya Coté THE FRENCH PRESS (LAFAYETTE) | Justin Girouard JACOBY’S RESTAURANT & MERCANTILE (AUSTIN) | Carlos Ysaguirre CITY PORK BRASSERIE & BAR (BATON ROUGE) | Ryan Andre L AV RESTAURANT & WINE BAR (AUSTIN) | Janina O’Leary TABLEAU (NEW ORLEANS) | John Martin PARKSIDE (AUSTIN) | Nathan Lemley LANDRY’S SEAFOOD HOUSE AT THE GOLDEN NUGGET (LAKE CHARLES) | Brett Baldwin PORTER ALEHOUSE & GASTROPUB (AUSTIN) | Neil Joiner & Joseph Bixel JACK DANIEL’S® BAR & GRILL AT L’AUBERGE (LAKE CHARLES) | Lyle Broussard FOR MORE DETAILS, VISIT TEXASMONTHLY.COM/LOUISIANALONESTARNIGHT #TASTELOUISIANA
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THE HANGOVER CONTINUED FROM PAGE 88
fermentation led him to the B volume of the World Book. At age fourteen, Tate began his first experiment in home brewing, making a primitive beerlike substance from “wheat germ and flour and whatever else,” and as the years passed, his experiments only grew more elaborate. At the College of William and Mary, where Tate went to study physics before deciding he was a philosopher, the brewing grew from a hobby to an avocation. (He hardly ditched science, though, spending summers working at his father’s nuclear engineering firm.) By the time he started his graduate studies in religion at Union Theological Seminary, in Richmond, making beer was nearly a full-time pursuit. “I’d like to think I spent as many hours reading theology as I did brewing in graduate school,” Tate said, “but I’m not so sure.” For the next decade, Tate worked a series of office jobs—insurance salesman, graduate admissions dean, IT consultant—as he followed his first wife, an academic, to Notre Dame and then to Baylor. When the marriage ended, in 2007, Tate realized just how long he had been deferring his dream. By that point his obsession with brewing beer had evolved into a passion for making whiskey, and although his experience in the field amounted to some experiments in a “friend’s” garage (distilling spirits at home is a criminal offense), he thought he could do it on a commercial scale. Tate saw in distillation “the intersection of art and science”—physics, philosophy, wandern, and wheat germ mixed into a potent mash. Soon Tate, along with a small team that included a friend from brewing circles, Jared Himstedt, and an Austin-based investor named Stephen Germer, was building a distillery inside a cramped brick building in downtown Waco. “I said, ‘This is my raison d’être,’ ” Tate told me. “I wasn’t even going to clean the pile of crap left over from the divorce, I would get to that next year. It was: I’m building a distillery. How? I don’t know. You weld? Nope, not yet. It was just an all-or-nothing kind of thing.” Texas does not have a long whiskey tradition. According to bourbon historian Michael Veach, the state had no registered distilleries prior to Prohibition (moonshiners are another story). And it wasn’t until 1995 that Bert “Tito” Beveridge secured Texas’s first Distiller’s and Rectifier’s Permit for his company, Fifth Generation Inc., and soon began to produce Tito’s Vodka. Beveridge was a pioneer not only in Texas but nationally. In 2000 the U.S. had only 24 craft distilleries selling product—the spiritsworld equivalent of microbreweries—accord-
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ing to industry research by Michael Kinstlick, CEO of Coppersea Distillery. By 2008, when Tate founded Balcones, there were 143. Over the next five years, the number of craft distilleries quadrupled, to 588 (in Texas the number grew from 1 to 26 over the same period), and national sales of super-premium whiskey (a category that includes most craft outfits as well as mass-market brands like Woodford Reserve and Knob Creek) doubled. When microbreweries had started to boom, in the eighties and nineties, the movement was widely seen as reclaiming beer from the watered-down industrial hegemony of Miller, Coors, and Anheuser-Busch—a war of craft against crap. But the new whiskey makers didn’t receive the same support. Savvy spirits consumers didn’t view major distilleries like Jim Beam and Heaven Hill as peddlers of undrinkable swill; they generally saw them as makers of fine, sometimes even transcendent products. (It’s likely that every American whiskey you’ve ever imbibed—whether it’s bargain-bin Old Crow or cult-art-object Pappy Van Winkle—was produced by one of a handful of “legacy” distilleries, most of them based in Kentucky.) No sane person would have argued that a bottle of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was a less sophisticated beverage than a can of Bud Light, but as craft distilleries began to emerge, in the mid-aughts, plenty of highly knowledgeable people judged nearly all their whiskeys to be vastly inferior to a shot of Jack Daniel’s. The reason had to do with age. Unlike their big-time Kentucky counterparts, craft distilleries simply couldn’t wait for their products to mature in barrels for a decade. They needed cash flow much sooner. So they tried to age their whiskeys faster, employing barrels that were much smaller than the standard 53-gallon tubs. (Because small barrels have a higher surface-area-to-alcohol ratio than large barrels, they allow more of the spirit to interact with the wood, which, in theory, should accelerate maturation.) The established whiskey world tended to view this process as the equivalent of a teenage boy dressing up in his dad’s pinstripe suit. A young whiskey could be made to look like an older whiskey, but it would be transparently immature—too woody, off-puttingly grainy, and far less smooth. As the veteran whiskey blogger Chuck Cowdery succinctly put it, “Small barrels still produce lousy whiskey.” The issue seemed fatal for the craft movement. But when I called Cowdery in July, he told me he felt that the problems of craft whiskey were both more fundamental and more surmountable than the conventional wisdom would suggest. “The challenge for craft distilleries hasn’t been little barrels,” Cowdery
said. “The challenge has been, Can you make something that is different that also tastes good? Across the board, craft distillers have been more successful at ‘Does it taste different?’ than ‘Does it taste good?’ But Chip has been successful at both.” Some so-called craft distillers have, in truth, sidestepped these challenges entirely. Instead of laboring over small barrels, they “source” whiskey, buying aged product from big industrial distillers. Then they blend it, slap a cool label on it, and minimize any mention of where their product was distilled. (One such company, Iowa-based Templeton Rye Spirits, recently settled three class-action lawsuits brought by consumers who alleged deceptive marketing.) Tate had no interest in such a shortcut, though, and his extreme brand of authenticity became one of Balcones’s key selling points. He was a muck-under-thefingernails master distiller in an industry with more than its share of fakers. The building that Balcones purchased in 2008 was no one’s idea of an ideal space for a distillery. A former welding shop crammed next to the support pylons of a bridge spanning Waco Creek, it had low ceilings and a leaky roof, and it was tiny—not much more than two thousand square feet. But limitations can sometimes free the mind, and Tate already had a plan for how to crack the code of craft. His first insight was to avoid imitation. “You’re never going to out–Maker’s Mark Maker’s Mark,” he likes to say. “So don’t try. Do something different.” Major American distilleries primarily used column stills, so Tate decided he would use Scotch-style pot stills, a morelabor-intensive technology that afforded him more control over the final product. First, Tate bought two 1,000-liter devices from a small Portuguese company, then he re-welded and refashioned many of the parts. “I got scars that I could show you and scars I shouldn’t show you,” Tate told me. The big American whiskey producers base their recipes around industrial yellow corn, so Tate scouted for rarer ingredients. “A vintner wouldn’t just get any grape that he could get, he’d look for the one that had the right taste and the right structures,” Tate said. “So I thought, ‘What if we looked at it like that?’ ” Balcones’s first distillation took place on May 29, 2009, and in September of that year, the company unveiled its first two products: Baby Blue and Rumble, a “wildflower honey, turbinado sugar, and Mission fig spirit” that was, more or less, Tate’s whimsical, flavorbomb take on rum. The spirits were promising and unusual, but they were very young and a little rough
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Journalism that makes a difference. In January 2012 Texas Monthly executive editor Pamela Colloff reported on the case of Hannah Overton, a mother sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a foster child she and her husband hoped to adopt. Soon after the conviction, doubts about the verdict’s fairness emerged among parties involved in the case, including jurors, physicians, and prosecutors. Shortly after the story was published, the Court of Criminal Appeals took notice and called for the case to be reexamined. The court overturned the conviction in September 2014 and Hannah Overton was released on bond in December 2014 after serving eight years in prison. In April 2015, all charges against Hannah Overton were dismissed.
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around the edges. Selling bottles was a struggle. “People purchased our products because they felt sorry for me,” Germer, Tate’s original investor, told me. “The only thing that was selling was when my wife and I were standing outside of Spec’s on New Year’s Eve, saying, ‘Hey, I’m Steve, this is the whiskey that I make with my buddy Chip. Want to try it?’ ” In those first months, Balcones would release bottles not necessarily because they were ready but because the company needed to pay bills. But the product quickly improved. Six months after releasing Baby Blue and Rumble, Tate entered them in the March 2010 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, one of the industry’s most prestigious events. Rumble was awarded a silver. Baby Blue came away with a double gold. Soon Balcones was experimenting with innovative aging techniques. Instead of just using standard-size, virgin American oak barrels, Tate adapted a technique from French brandy production. He would move Balcones’s spirits between big and small, and new and old, barrels to help remove the astringent tastes common in young whiskeys and create a more balanced product. The technique produced more award-winning results: there was True Blue, a woodier and more mature version of Baby Blue; Brimstone, a corn whiskey that is smoked with scrub oak and can taste so charred as to be almost undrinkable; and Texas Single Malt #1, Tate’s brash take on traditional Scotch. “In those days, there were a lot of quasimoonshiners, but Chip was actually thinking in terms of individuality, thinking in terms of terroir,” Dave Broom, the Scottish author of The World Atlas of Whisky, told me. “The most important quote that Chip ever gave was ‘I don’t want to make whiskey in Texas, I want to make Texas whiskey.’ He was making something attached to the land.” Balcones was hardly the only craft distillery making worthwhile products. There was Koval, in Chicago; Corsair, in Nashville; Tuthilltown, in New York; and Garrison Bros., in Hye, to name a few. But no one played the part of the master distiller better than Tate. He had the swagger to tell Whisky Advocate editor Lew Bryson that he made the best whiskey in the world. He would go to New York, and the little distiller from Texas would mesmerize a roomful of national distributors with his exuberant stories of still welding. “That’s what I loved about Chip,” Germer said. “He had that wildcatter mentality—he was fearless.” In late 2012 Balcones submitted Texas Single Malt #1 to the London-based Best in Glass competition, which selects the finest whiskey released in the world that year. In a blind taste test, judges sipped | C O N T I N U E D O N PA G E 1 7 1
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FROM THE PANHANDLE TO THE TEXAS COAST AND MORE, PLUS OUT-OF-STATE DESTINATIONS AS WELL, THIS SPECIAL SECTION OFFERS GREAT IDEAS FOR GREAT GETAWAYS.
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Free Getaway? That's Easy in Amarillo A M A R I L L O C O N V E N T I O N & V I S I T O R C O U N C I L • 8 0 0 - 6 9 2 -1 3 3 8 • V I S I TA M A R I L L O . C O M
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efore heading into the town of Amarillo drop by the English Field Restaurant for breakfast or lunch and a free front-row seat to watch planes landing and taking off.
See the free Amarillo Museum of Art to catch a traveling exhibit and items from their collection. Also free are local galleries such as Process Art House, Cerulean Gallery and Lile Art Gallery (famous for their Cadillite jewelry straight from Cadillac Ranch). Join the locals at First Friday Art Walk in the Galleries at Sunset Center for music, food and art from over 50 local artists. It’s all free, except when a piece moves you. Stretch with a walk around Medi-Park Lake; just bring bread for the ducks and geese. Look for nearly 100 American Quarter Horse statues located around Amarillo—no admission. Visit Bill’s Backyard Classics where 100 world-class cars are on display under one roof, remember your family camping trips at the RV Museum at Jack Sisemore’s Traveland, or get airborne at the Texas Air & Space Museum. Donations are welcome.
AFTER A DAY OF TRAVEL, COWBOY GELATO PUTS SMILES ON KIDS’ FACES.
Ready to shop? Look for some custom boots (Beck Boots) or a custom saddle (Oliver’s Saddle Shop) before browsing almost 100 businesses on Historic Route 66. Hungry? Youngblood’s Downtown Café is seen on The Travel Network, Coyote Bluff Café is a TripAdvisor Top 10 Burger Joint and Cowboy Gelato is located on Historic Route 66. Before you leave don’t forget the Cadillac Ranch, always free and open 24/7. Catching a plane? Take a few extra minutes for the Airport Art Gallery, located before you head into the security area. You guessed it—it’s free. Looking for more, free or otherwise? Check visitamarillo.com.
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STUNNING CARS AWAIT YOU AT BILL’S BACKYARD CLASSICS.
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Experience the New World Class Destination of Choice T H E J L B A R R A N C H & R E S O R T • S O N O R A , T X • 8 5 5 - 4 1 4 -3 3 3 7 • J L B A R . C O M
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ntroducing The JL Bar Ranch & Resort— where guests come to indulge in the comforts of an unparalleled resort and the serenity of the wild. Spanning 13,000 acres on the western edge of the majestic Texas Hill Country, the ranch offers a peaceful escape for those seeking to enjoy the natural landscapes. Designed exclusively for executive hunts, corporate retreats, and special concert events, The JL Bar Ranch & Resort is one of the most unique properties in the southern United States. The resort offers 16 luxury cabins surrounding the Main Lodge, where the Executive Chef prepares field-to-table creations paired with decadent wines from the JL Bar Wine Cellar. MAIN LODGE IS SITUATED ATOP AN INFINITY POOL, HOT TUB, AND WEDDING TERRACE.
From trophy Whitetails to exotic hunts for Axis, Blackbuck, Fallow Deer, and Red Stag, The JL Bar Ranch & Resort offers a variety of hunting scenarios. The on-site professional shooting instructors and knowledgeable guides ensure a memorable hunting expedition for novice and avid hunters alike. Conveniently located less than half a mile from the Main Lodge, the JL Bar Airport provides the ability to land on-site and settle into one of the luxury cabins in a matter of minutes. Flying time to the JL Bar Airport is less than 50 minutes from all regional FBO’s in Dallas, Austin, Houston, and El Paso. For your next fall getaway, be one of the first guests to take in the wild and wonderful experience of The JL Bar Ranch & Resort.
MAIN LODGE FEATURES A BAR, WINE CELLAR, GAME ROOM, LOUNGE, AND CONFERENCE AREA.
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An Unrivaled Ranch & Resort Experience Hunting I Private Events I Airport I Cuisine I Wildlife I Resort
www.JLbar.com
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The Magic of Christmas Comes to Life! G AY L O R D T E XA N R E S O R T • G R A P E V I N E • 8 1 7-7 7 8 -1 0 0 0 • G AY L O R DT E XA N . C O M
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he magic of the Christmas season comes to life at Gaylord Texan Resort. You and your family will marvel at dozens of lavish holiday displays that include more than 2 million twinkling lights and acres of larger-thanlife decorations. Enjoy heartwarming visits with Santa as well as Snow Tubing, Milk and Cookies with Mrs. Claus, gingerbread decorating, The Elf on the Shelf® Scavenger Hunt and other exclusive holiday events and attractions to get you in the spirit of the season! This year, ICE! will be featuring an all new theme – Christmas Around the World. Journey through colorful holiday displays in more than two million pounds of hand-carved ice sculptures. Delight in a celebration of cultures from around the world featuring holiday scenes and children from Mexico, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands, to name a few. Travel through the North Pole to see Santa and his elves while enjoying thrilling two-story-tall ice slides, an enchanting Parade of Toys, larger-than-life ornaments, Santa’s sleigh to sit inside, and the Frostbite Factory – an interactive live carving station showcasing real master artisans from Harbin, China. This awe-inspiring experience concludes with the wonder and majesty of a full nativity in stunning, crystal clear ice. It’s all part of Lone Star Christmas!
COME SEE SANTA CLAUS AND HAVE YOUR PICTURE TAKEN WITH HIM!
BE SURE TO TAKE IN THE 2 MILLION TWINKLING LIGHTS, 15,000 ORNAMENTS AND AN AMAZING 54-FOOT-TALL CHRISTMAS TREE IN OUR ATRIUM.
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the magic of comes to life
Nov. 12, 2015 - Jan. 3, 2016 • 2 million twinkling lights along with lavish holiday displays • NEW ICE! theme - 2 million pounds of colorful, hand-carved ice sculptures and slides featuring Christmas Around the World • Santa’s Wild Workshop Snow Tubing • NEW - The Elf on the Shelf® Scavenger Hunt • Milk & Cookies with Mrs. Claus • Gingerbread Decorating Corner sponsored by PEEPS® • And much more....
ChristmasAtGaylordTexan.com
GRAPEVINE, TX
| (817) 778-1000
Pepsi and Pepsi Globe are registered trademarks of PepsiCo, Inc. The Elf on the Shelf ® and © 2015 CCA and B, LLC. All rights reserved. PEEPS ® trademark Just Born, Inc. © 2015. All rights reserved.
ICE! PRESENTED BY
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Casinos and Cajun Adventures in Lake Charles, Louisiana L A K E C H A R L E S / S O U T H W E S T L O U I S I A N A C O N V E N T I O N A N D V I S I T O R S B U R E A U • 8 0 0 - 4 5 6 -7 9 5 2 VISITLAKECHARLES.ORG/BESTTIME
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scape the ordinary and cross the border over into Lake Charles/ Southwest Louisiana where you’ll encounter Cajun adventures in friendly surroundings. The area is known for premier casino gaming with Golden Nugget Lake Charles, L’Auberge Casino Resort, the Isle of Capri Casino Hotel, and Delta Downs Racetrack Casino & Hotel. Enjoy succulent seafood and Cajun dishes like crawfish pistolettes and boudin! You can take a taste from stops along the area’s
Southwest Louisiana Boudin Trail and visit Bayou Rum for a taste of rum made from Louisiana’s sugarcane. Experience Louisiana’s Outback with a visit to the new Creole Nature Trail Adventure Point that immerses you in Louisiana’s unique landscape and culture; or drive the Creole Nature Trail All-American Road, complete with wildlife refuges, walking trails and Gulf beaches. There’s also live music, events, and fun-filled festivals that are sure to have you dancing!
WITH FOUR CASINOS, LAKE CHARLES/SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA IS A PREMIER RESORT DESTINATION.
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GREAT getaways
Home Comforts. Hotel Amenities. The Phillips Club, New York THE PHILLIPS CLUB • NEW YORK • 212-835-8800 • PHILLIPSCLUB.COM
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he Phillips Club delivers the ultimate New York experience with impressive value, service and luxury. Nestled beside the historic Lincoln Center performing arts complex, guests will enjoy numerous restaurants, shopping and activities. Central Park, Time Warner Center, Rockefeller Center, 5th Avenue and Times Square are all nearby, as are the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim.
The Phillips Club offers modern accommodations gracefully furnished and tastefully designed including a full-size kitchen with a four-serving china/flatware/stemware set, Panasonic HD TV, Bose sound system, Wi-Fi and in-room safe. Residents are treated to all the amenities of an elite hotel with all the privacy and warmth of a traditional single-family home. It is the perfect “home away from home.” THE PERFECT "HOME AWAY FROM HOME" IN NEW YORK
LUXURY AMENITIES INCLUDING THE SOUGHT AFTER “I LIVE IN MANHATTAN” FEELING.
When you need a home away from home, The Phillips Club welcomes guests for short - term and extended stays of a night, week, month or more. Guests enjoy stylish residences, full kitchens, entertainment centers, 24 - hour concierge, private doorman and preferred access to Equinox Sports Club NY fitness and spa facilities. It’s all located in the heart of the city, just steps from Lincoln Center and the best Manhattan has to offer.
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Y O R K
155 W EST 66 TH STREET 212 835 8800 WWW.PHILLIPSCLUB.COM
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This is West Texas V I S I T L U B B O C K • 8 0 6 -747- 5 2 3 2 •
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hen the nights light up with brilliant performances, the art scene heats up with local flair and area-grown grapes are transformed into a savory glass of wine, you’ve arrived in Lubbock. A vibrant history can be discovered at the National Ranching Heritage Center, where 48 authentic structures dating back to the 1700s have been restored or at the American Wind Power Center, which houses the largest collection of windmills in the world. Catch a show at the famed Cactus Theater, or pay a visit to five award-winning wineries for custom tours and tastings. Visitors love Lubbock’s eclectic art scene, especially during Lubbock’s famous, monthly First Friday Art Trail. For more information about events, restaurants, hotels and attractions, go to visitlubbock.org.
Deep in the
Heart
FIRST FRIDAY ART TRAIL
While some things change, our roots remain the same. Since 1909, Lubbock continues to impress the masses with our western heritage. Sit on the front porch of an old frontier house at the National Ranching Heritage Center, or savor an authentic chuckwagon dinner at the National Cowboy Symposium and Celebration. Let us help you rediscover your roots in Lubbock, Texas.
visitlubbock.org 800.692.4035
Candlelight at the Ranch National Ranching Heritage Center
AMERICAN WIND POWER CENTER
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Feel on Top of the World VISIT TUCSON • 800-638-8350 • VISITTUCSON.ORG
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hen you want to feel on top of the world, there’s no better choice than to head to one of Tucson’s world-class destination spas. Frequented by celebrities and luminaries (although the staff will never tell tales), Canyon Ranch and Miraval capture the natural beauty of the desert and provide a health-focused experience that will make it hard to go home. Both spas offer a seemingly infinite number of programs and services designed to help you finish your stay a better person—
plus tools to take home to continue your growth. If you haven’t been, you’re in for the time of your life, immersed in a seamless experience designed around your well-being. If it’s been awhile since your last stay, you’ll be surprised by new offerings, but still taken aback by the overall luxury of the experience. Find time for yourself at VisitTucson.org/ Oasis. Step outside your comfort zone (safely) on Miraval’s ropes course.
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20th Annual Texas Country Reporter Festival WAXA H A C H I E C O N V E N T I O N & V I S I T O R S B U R E A U • 4 6 9 -3 0 9 - 4 0 4 0 • WAXA H A C H I E C V B . C O M
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oin Bob Phillips, host of the weekly TV show, Texas Country Reporter, for the 20th Annual Texas Country Reporter Festival. This one-day arts and music festival will take place around the historic courthouse square in downtown Waxahachie on Saturday, October 24, from 9 am–7 pm. Admission is free. Festival goers will be entertained all day, including a free concert by America, best known for their hit singles "Sister Golden
Hair," "A Horse with No Name," "Ventura Highway," and many more. Surrounding the Waxahachie courthouse square will be more than 250 booths set-up with artists, craftspeople, food, live entertainment and some of the people who have been featured on Texas Country Reporter over the years.
MEET BOB PHILLIPS, HOST OF THE WEEKLY TV SHOW, TEXAS COUNTRY REPORTER , AT HIS ANNUAL FESTIVAL.
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Experience down home hospitality that can only be found in Waxahachie. You’ll find the legendary Ellis County Courthouse, plus numerous unique dining and shopping opportunities. Upcoming events include: SCREAMS Halloween Park, Texas Country Reporter Festival, and Waxahachie Veterans Weekend. 166
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Tyler is Coming Up Roses! V I S I T T Y L E R • 9 0 3 - 5 9 2 -1 6 6 1 • V I S I T T Y L E R . C O M
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o other town in Texas lays claim to a budding heritage quite like Tyler’s. Tucked serenely in the Piney Woods, Tyler is home to some of the state’s most bountiful rose gardens. While visiting Tyler, take in a show at the historic Liberty Hall, wander through beautiful art galleries or visit cozy hometown cafes.
Municipal Rose Garden. All month long, Tyler celebrates budding beds of roses with horticulture workshops, garden tours, and other festivities culminating in the pinnacle Rose Season event: the Texas Rose Festival (October 15–17). More than any other, this time of year in Tyler begs you to take some time to stop and smell the roses.
October brings Rose Season and with it, 32,000 blooming bushes at the Tyler TYLER, TEXAS IS THE KNOWN AS THE ROSE CAPITAL OF AMERICA.
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New Braunfels Natural Bridge Caverns, San Antonio Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, San Antonio 61 New Braunfels COC 62 New Braunfels Historic Museum Association 63 Rewards, Austin 64 River City Resorts, New Braunfels 65 San Antonio CVB 66 San Antonio Zoo 67 SAS Factory & General Store, San Antonio 68 Seguin CVB 69 Selma, City of 70 South Congress Hotel 71 Texas Ski Ranch, New Braunfels 72 The Resort at La Cantera 73 Travaasa 74 Wimberley Glassworks 75 Wurstfest, New Braunfels Panhandle Plains 76 Abilene CVB 77 Amarillo 78 Visit Lubbock 79 Museum of Texas Tech University 80 Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum 81 San Angelo CVB Piney Woods 82 The Bluffs At Mill Branch 83 Conroe CVB 84 Huntsville CVB 85 Lufkin CVB 86 Nacogdoches CVB 87 Shenandoah CVB 88 Tyler CVB 89 The Woodlands CVB Prairies and Lakes (North Texas) 90 Amon Carter Museum 91 Brenham/Washington County CVB 92 Bryan-College Station CVB 93 Canton Visitors Bureau 94 Forsyth Galleries at Texas A&M 95 Fort Worth CVB 96 Gaylord Texan 97 George Bush Presidential Library and Museum 98 Grapevine 99 Marburger Farms Antique Show 100 Sherman Dept. of Tourism 101 The Theatre Company 102 Waxahachie OTHER LOCATIONS Alabama 103 Gulf Shores & Orange Beach Tourism 104 Kaiser Realty by Wyndham Vacation Rentals Arizona 105 Arizona Office of Tourism 106 Visit Mesa 107 Visit Phoenix 108 Scottsdale CVB 109 Talking Stick Resort, Scottsdale 110 Visit Tempe 111 Visit Tucson 59 60
Arkansas 112 Arkansas Retirement/Relocation 113 Arkansas State Parks 114 Arlington Resort Hotel 115 Fayetteville 116 Hot Springs 117 Mountain Magazine State Park 118 Northwest Arkansas Tourism Assn. 119 State of Arkansas 120 Van Buren 121 Western Arkansas Mountain Frontier Colorado 122 4 UR Ranch 123 Beaver Run Resort & Conference Center 124 Breckenridge Resort Chamber 125 The Broadmoor 126 Colorado Office of Tourism 127 Colorado Springs CVB 128 Crested Butte Mountain Resort 129 Visit Denver 130 Durango 131 Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad 132 Estes Park 133 Estes Park Central 134 Gunnison-Crested Butte Tourism Association 135 Keystone Resorts 136 Steamboat, CO 137 Telluride 138 Wine Country Inn Costa Rica 139 Stay in Costa Rica Florida 140 The Beaches of Fort Myers & Sanibel 141 Couples Resorts 142 Edgewater Beach Condominium 143 Visit Florida 144 The Florida Keys & Key West 145 Heart of Florida’s Emerald Coast 146 Hilton Sandestin 147 Loews Don CeSar Hotel 148 Panama City Beach 149 Seeing Red Wine Festival 150 Visit South Walton 151 Viva Florida: Northwest Louisiana 152 Alexandria-Pineville Area CVB 153 Cajun Coast 154 Coushatta Casino 155 French Market 156 Golden Nugget Lake Charles 157 Houma Area CVB 158 Iberia Parish 159 Iberville Parish 160 Jeff Davis Parish 161 Lafayette CVC*** 162 Lake Charles-Southwest Louisiana 163 Louisiana Culinary Trails 164 Louisiana Travel Promotion Association 165 Monroe-West Monroe CVB 166 Natchitoches Area CVB 167 New Orleans 168 Ruston-Lincoln CVB 169 Sabine Parish CVB
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THE HANGOVER CONTINUED FROM PAGE 154
entries from the redoubtable Scottish houses Macallan, Glenmorangie, and Balvenie, but when they rendered their verdict, they named the upstart Texan the winner. The award and, especially, a New York Times article that followed skyrocketed demand. The only solution was expansion, and the kind of expansion that Tate envisioned required an influx of capital that Balcones, a bootstrapping business that had been on the verge of bankruptcy several times, just didn’t have. In spring 2013 though, it looked as if Tate had foun d his ideal partners: a group called PE Investors II, headed by Greg Allen, a Charlottesville, Virginia–based businessman who had made a fortune transforming his family’s food-processing company into a $520-million-a-year empire. Allen was investing in Balcones, he told the Times, because he was excited by the “romantic concept of helping these people build their dream.” The deal seemed phenomenal: Tate’s base salary would nearly triple, to $175,000 a year. Balcones would be able to move into a much larger distillery, and Tate would remain completely in charge of the day-to-day operations and strategic decisions, or so he thought. “I said to Chip, ‘You get someone to give you eight million dollars and have someone leave you with twenty-five, thirty percent of the company, it sounds like a great deal,’ ” recalled Thomas Smith, an East Texas–based investor and friend of Tate’s. “But I also told him, ‘Be aware that people who are in private equity are tough customers. Maybe it’s best to underpromise and overdeliver. It’ll bite you in the ass if you don’t.’ ”
Let’s face it. Who hasn’t been one or all of these things at some point in our life in Texas. Existence in the Lone Star State has many thorny points of contention and they don’t all grow on plants. Fortunately Texas Monthly has provided a forum (kindly turn to the last page) where The Texanist is ready to help with his inimitable advice, prudent wisdom and pickle-sorting expertise.
THE TEXANIST OFFERING FINE ADVICE SINCE 2007
Before Tate and I toured his new distillery in February, we met at his home, in China Spring, about twenty minutes northwest of downtown Waco. Tate lives with his second wife, Nicole Field, a painter and teacher, and their five children, three teenagers from Field’s first marriage and their two young children together. The place is grand and just a touch macabre: a 5,400-square-foot nineteenth-century plantation-style house with fourteen-foot ceilings, a massive woodburning stove, a fully stocked humidor, two human skeleton models, and, of course, a vast whiskey collection. “Do you want lunch?” Tate asked me as soon as we’d shaken hands, moving toward the kitchen without waiting for an answer. Soon the distiller was standing over a stove, deftly preparing soft-boiled eggs and crispy bacon, and darting into the pantry for spices while carrying on a conversation about the end of his time at Balcones.
in a pickle IN PampA? doubting in dallas? generally vexed by texas?
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“I felt like England in World War II,” Tate called out. “The last thing I wanted to do was be at war with the Germans, but I had to decide: Do I want to learn to speak German, or do I want to fight?” People who meet Tate are often struck by his inability to stand still. His friends Robert and Jonathan Likarish, the founders of Ironroot Republic Distillery, in Denison, told me they were initially confused by Tate’s habit of walking away in the middle of a conversation when an idea seemed to strike him. (“At first I didn’t know whether to be offended, but that’s just Chip,” Jonathan laughed.) The constant movement perhaps only amplifies Tate’s skills as an absorbing, and at times rambling, raconteur—a distiller-inmotion whose ability to expound authoritatively on any aspect of the whiskey trade seems bottomless. Ask Tate about the history of distillation or maintaining a proper barrel program or, if you’re in the mood for poetry, the high art of blending, and he’s liable to launch into reveries. “You’re not just combining flavors—it’s a lot more like composing music,” Tate told me. “There is a progression when you’re tasting whiskey: there’s the nose, the initial flavor, the mid-palate, the finish, and how that moves is important. It’s like you’re determining the way chords flow from one to another, what the bass line is going to be, who’s carrying the melody line, and just how the whole thing flows.” As we stood in his kitchen, it was only two months after Tate’s settlement with Balcones, and the distiller still felt defiant and wounded. In the days following the end of the lawsuit, Balcones had released employee affidavits to the press that claimed that Tate had acted aggressively in his final months at the distillery, and Tate had responded by filing a defamation suit against Jared Himstedt, his longtime production manager and Balcones’s current head distiller. In the suit, Tate and his attorney had lashed out, calling the laidback, well-liked Himstedt a “Judas” and accusing him of “conspir[ing] with the Investors to push Chip out of his own company.” But Himstedt and the others were all in his past now. Tate needed to staff up his new operation, and even though he was months away from anything resembling distillation, prospective hires were already dropping in on him. “There are always people coming by trying to get a job,” Tate’s wife told me later that day, a little exasperated. “We’ll see if they can put up with his temper.” “I don’t have a temper when things are done right,” Tate protested. “Or when they’re done wrong—for the first four times.” Field smiled at her husband. “It’s fine for
you to be the mad scientist.” Sometimes a mad scientist is what you need to create a magical elixir. But alchemy can take its toll. “The whiskey business is very romantic,” Tate told me, “but more than that it’s really hard and dangerous and sweaty. It’s a little like Saving Private Ryan” (Tate is fond of World War II analogies). Employees at Balcones had a motto: “We’re Balcones, we do shit the hard way.” The work was grueling and physically taxing, especially as production ramped up. The distilling staff shoveled the mash by hand, a laborious process that is mechanized at larger facilities. Tate welded and pounded copper into new stills in the middle of the small building, driving some employees nuts with the noise and sparks. Assistant distillers who came in for the 1 p.m. shift could find themselves working nonstop until well after midnight. “You didn’t have downtime,” Trenton Smith, who worked as a production intern from November 2012 to late 2013, told me. “Your break was driving a forklift.” Part of doing shit the hard way was dealing with the boss. No former employee that I spoke with doubts Tate’s talent as a master distiller and blender, with a rare palate and capacious creativity. But all of them said that Tate was demanding and micromanaging and he could come across as condescending and pedantic, especially when he felt something wasn’t being done to his specifications. The approach left many employees on edge. “I would go up there and walk in the door and I would feel a pretty dark vibe,” said Germer, who eventually clashed with Tate and sold his share in the company. “We lost a lot of good, talented people.” Tate had built the distillery from the ground up, and he had a hard time delegating. He needed to inspect every barrel when it came in, and he could get bogged down lecturing experienced employees on the “right way” to do everything from distillation to bottling. To some employees, Tate’s penchant for long disquisitions on the science and history of distilling could be helpful, even riveting. Smith, who is now planning on starting his own distillery in the Hill Country, fondly remembers connecting with Tate during a twenty-minute conversation on the molecular science of distilling. But to others at the distillery, Tate could come across as a blowhard. “He’d wow us and confuse us with this technical crap without giving us the practical knowledge to actually do our jobs,” said Alex Thomas, an assistant distiller who left in 2014. “Then he’d lord it over us when something went wrong.” Sometimes, Tate would seize dramatically
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on small mistakes. The Likarish brothers remember visiting the distillery one day when Tate saw one of his employees pouring water into a barrel that had already been conditioned with whiskey. Tate bounded across the ďŹ&#x201A;oor, picked up the barrel, and tried to shake out every last droplet while bellowing, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The essence! The essence!â&#x20AC;? Other times, Tateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s temper could have a more menacing cast. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I have seen him take an eighteen-inch monkey wrench and beat it against a large metal trash dumpster in ďŹ ts of rage,â&#x20AC;? Himstedt stated in one of the Balcones affidavits. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not easy for anyone to work for,â&#x20AC;? Tate said when I asked him about his former employeesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; difficulties with him. â&#x20AC;&#x153;When Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m in my zone, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mystifying to me when thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s somebody who doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t get it. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like, Why donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you understand? For people who didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have my hunger and passion, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m sure it felt like Nazi rules.â&#x20AC;? Thomas Smith, Tateâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s investor friend, had done work ďŹ nancing Hollywood movies, and when he met Tate, he saw the distiller as being a kindred spirit to some of the ďŹ lm directors heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d worked with. Tate was a passionately committed artist. He had â&#x20AC;&#x153;worked his ass offâ&#x20AC;? to build his business and reputation. And he was uncompromising in his vision, even if realizing it meant not playing well with others. For Tate, â&#x20AC;&#x153;the end was everything,â&#x20AC;? Smith judged, and if he wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t easy to work for, he certainly wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t going to be easy to oversee, especially for a group of MBA types who expected a certain level of control and input. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I told them from the beginning, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;I want it to be understood that I run the company, period,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;? Tate told me. â&#x20AC;&#x153; â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;If something comes up and I think you can help, then weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have that conversationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;not if you think you can help.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;? In retrospect, the clash to come seemed not only inevitable but entirely predictable. After taking control of 58 percent of the company, Allenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s group established growth targets that spoke to its ambitions. In 2013 the revenue goal would be $1.47 million. By 2017 that ďŹ gure would rise to $4 million. Two years later it would double to $8 million. And by 2023 Balcones would be taking in $15 million or more annually. By then Balcones would be a cash cow, with a likely valuation of over $100 million. If they ever wanted to sell, Tate would be a very rich man. But such goals required a much larger capacity than was possible in the old welding shop by the bridge. Balcones had already bought the 65,000-square-foot Texas Fireproof Storage building that would be the distilleryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new home, but the company needed to renovate it and install much bigger stills.
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Tate and his partners decided that, this time, they would purchase them from the greatest still maker in the world, the Scottish company Forsyths. Initially, Tate told the board that the new distillery would likely cost in the neighborhood of $4 million. But when it became clear that a special cooling system would be required to combat the Texas heat, the cost estimates, according to Balcones, began to creep up, first to $8 million, then, in April 2014, to $12.6 million. The potential cost escalations set off an increasingly hostile push and pull over Tate’s role and future at the company. Allen told Tate that he wouldn’t be receiving a bonus in 2014 and that the board was appointing Keith Bellinger, the head of distribution, to be the company’s vice president and chief operating officer. Tate could remain “the face of the company outside the building,” Allen suggested in an email, but he should surrender his management role within it. In early July, Allen gave Tate a “highly critical” performance review and asked that he file expense reports and a twice-monthly travel schedule. The oversight was necessary, Allen would tell the podcast WhiskyCast, because Tate “had trouble with budgeting, he had trouble with organization, he had trouble, frankly, with culture.” This wasn’t the kind of arrangement Tate thought that he’d struck. He felt ambushed, and he wondered if the investors were planning to get rid of him to flip the company for a profit. Moreover, Tate believed that Allen’s group just didn’t get it. “You need revenue, but more than anything else, we have to captivate the world’s attention,” Tate told me. “If we don’t, it doesn’t matter what friggin’ goals we meet. I think a bunch of guys whose basic business experience is making frozen chicken nuggets, they can’t hear that.” Meanwhile, Allen and the rest of the board members were moving forward with a plan to raise an additional $15 million to fund the expansion, a capital infusion that could have diluted Tate’s stake in the company to below 10 percent. (Allen had offered Tate a loan to maintain nearly all of his ownership stake, but Tate found the terms—which included relinquishing his management role—onerous.) Tate’s presence was required for the board to have a voting quorum, so, incensed, he simply stopped attending meetings. In July Tate was increasingly convinced that the partnership was doomed, and according to a memo written by Allen that was released to the press, he became increasingly erratic at work, engaging in “ranting and ravings . . . about how he would destroy the facility and the company before he would ever let someone else run [it].”
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International Pop is organized by the Walker Art Center. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
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Major support for the exhibition is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, the Prospect Creek Foundation, the Terra Foundation for American Art, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and the Margaret and Angus Wurtele Family Foundation. Additional support is generously provided by Judy Dayton, Lyn De Logi, Marge and Irv Weiser, and Audrey and Zygi Wilf.
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The DMA’s presentation is made possible with major support provided by Deutsche Bank. Additional support is provided by TWO X TWO for AIDS and Art, an annual fundraising event that jointly benefits amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research and the Dallas Museum of Art, and by the Contemporary Art Initiative. Marketing support is provided by the Dallas Tourism Public Improvement District and the Dallas Convention & Visitors Bureau and Texas Monthly. The Dallas Museum of Art is supported, in part, by the generosity of DMA members and donors, the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, and the Texas Commission on the Arts. IMAGE: Tadanori Yokoo, Film still from Kiss, Kiss, Kiss (detail), 1964, 16 mm film transferred to video, courtesy the artist and Nanzuka Gallery, Tokyo, © Tadanori Yokoo
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On August 5, Allen and the other investors decided they’d had enough. With two privately hired off-duty officers waiting in a car outside, Allen confronted Tate and told him that he needed to take a sixty-day leave while they sorted out his future at the company. The next night, according to a police report filed by Allen, Tate called the investment manager of another board member and said that Tate’s wife wanted to see the distillery burn to the ground and that “he should have put two bullets in Greg’s chest.” (Tate has consistently said that his words in both the phone call and the affidavit were misrepresented. “It’s a good story that I’m the Walter White of distilling,” he told me, “but that’s not the case. I know I live in the real world with consequences.”) Whatever the nature of the perceived threats, the battle soon moved on to its next phase. On August 22 Balcones filed a lawsuit in McLennan County’s 170th District Court, asking for an injunction against Tate, which would effectively bar him from the facility and forbid him to talk to the media. The judge granted Balcones the requested restraining order, and three weeks later, Tate and his lawyer filed their response. The board’s actions, it read, were “an attempt to purloin the plump ripe peach that is Balcones from the founder Chip, who built it with his own two hands from scratch. . . . Somewhere, Vladimir Putin is smiling.” (“Did we know that we were poking the bear?” Tate said when I asked him about the flamboyant language. “Absolutely.”) As soon as the litigation spilled onto the pages of the Waco Tribune-Herald in early September, the whiskey community made its allegiances clear. An online campaign in support of Tate began, with the hashtags #ISupportChipTate and #nochipnobalcones earning support from whiskey luminaries like Dave Broom and Lew Bryson. “The @BalconesWhisky issue is like an art gallery thinking they still have a business without artists,” read one tweet from the whiskey blogger Curt Robinson. Tate favorited it. But there was no saving Tate at Balcones, even though he won the fight’s major legal battle. In early November, Judge Jim Meyer ruled that the board could not recapitalize, reorganize, or even discipline Tate at a meeting at which the “founder manager”— in other words, Tate—was not present. But Tate was still a minority shareholder, and the bridges had all been burned. On December 5, 2014, the sides settled. Tate sold his 27 percent stake in Balcones, agreed to a fifteenmonth noncompete clause that barred him from producing whiskey (but not building a distillery), and either quit or was fired, depending on whom you ask. Still, there was an upside for Tate: he was
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now in possession of more money than he’d ever had in his life, and he had become unquestionably the most famous craft distiller in the country. If you believed that Tate could repeat his success with his new distillery, as most whiskey experts whom I spoke to emphatically did, then it seemed as if he might have come out of the situation in very good shape. He would be in charge of a big new venture, and, with a plan to lock up the company’s Class A voting stock for himself, he would make sure that he stayed in control. Meanwhile, Balcones wasn’t doing badly either. There was no doubt that it was a “fundamentally different company” without Tate, as Cowdery wrote, but with Himstedt as the new head distiller, it had continued to win awards (albeit, Tate would add, with his whiskeys), it was planning to launch several new products, and it was going forward with plans to move into the new distillery. “The rumor mill was that Chip was brilliant enough to have orchestrated the whole thing,” Jonathan Likarish told me. “It was like a Hollywood Instagram naked selfie staged for publicity. Now everyone knows who Chip Tate is, and everyone knows what Balcones is. I realize now that there are grudges, but at the outset I really wondered if it was staged.” When I asked Tate about this theory, his lips curled into a slight grin. “If I were that Machiavellian, I wouldn’t admit it,” he said. In February Tate had told me that he would be welding his new stills by the first half of April, but when I visited the Tate & Company distillery in late June, the sheets of copper had just arrived. The signs of progress, however, were undeniable. The warehouse no longer looked like a horror-movie set. Daylight beamed in through giant roll-up doors. The tanks and vats and mixers, purchased from Baltimore’s Heavy Seas brewery, were now in place, dominating the main room. Inside a trailer next to the warehouse—Tate’s makeshift office—I found the distiller wearing his uniform of leather suspenders and canvas work pants, looking through an online version of The Art of Coppersmithing: A Practical Treatise on Working Sheets of Copper Into All Forms, a guide, he proudly told me, published in 1911. Tate couldn’t start making whiskey until March 2016 because of the terms of his settlement, and because he planned on having a two-year aging process, he wasn’t expecting to sell any of it until 2018. But sooner than that, he would begin distilling the state’s native grapes into a potent brandy, the start, Tate hoped, of a “Texas brandy tradition.” The Tate & Company team that would help him was beginning to take shape. Vanderpool, Tate’s
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original operations chief, was gone (“Things just didn’t work out in different ways,” Tate said), but two former Balcones employees, Arnulfo Aguilar and Curtis Grabowski, had joined Tate, and he had hired a Seattle-born distiller and welder named Etti Bane, who quickly assumed Vanderpool’s role as the de facto number two. (“When I met Chip, he gave me a business card with his cellphone number on it and he said, ‘You seem like the right kind of pain in the ass,’ ” Bane told me.) Bane seemed to have already figured out Tate. On a lunch break, as they looked online for anvils, he began to correct her on a minor technical point. “You’re right, I’m wrong. You’re big, I’m small,” she snapped. He backed off with a smile. Later, inside the warehouse itself, Tate, Aguilar, Grabowski, and Bane began to work the copper for the first time, using a heavy-duty metal rolling machine to shape what would soon be part of the massive pot stills. Tate had never used the equipment before, and it showed. Feeding the first sheet of copper—the future neck of one of his stills—into the machine, he remarked, “It’ll be somewhere between really good and miraculous if we make this work right.” The work was slow, painstaking, and largely improvised, with Tate and his crew lifting the piece up and down as he adjusted the height and pitch of the machine’s four rollers. After an hour, an awkwardly shaped cone had been molded. Uneven and tilted, it looked like a Richard Serra sculpture; Tate would hammer it into finished shape. It was hard to imagine that Allen’s group would have taken kindly to the two-month delay or to Tate’s idiosyncratic approach to shaping highly valuable pieces of copper. But Tate has always seen what he does as an art— consequences be damned—and he knows that mistakes and inefficiencies are just the raw material of happy accidents and the key to unforeseen innovations, the kind of things that made Balcones a success in the first place. A few weeks after the arrival of the copper, Tate was kicking back in his suite at the Hotel Monteleone, in New Orleans, detailing the future of his new distillery to an elegantly dressed Mumbai-based spirits distributor named Keshav Prakash. Tate had come to the Crescent City for the annual Tales of the Cocktail convention, and while he wouldn’t have any whiskey to sell for a few years, he was still much in demand. Writers like Broom met with him to hear about his plans and be regaled by his stories; beverage consultants eagerly pressed business cards into his hands as he prepared to speak on a panel titled “What’s the Right Deal to Take?”; younger distillers
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sought him out and Tate sampled their wares, staying up until midnight to talk with them about chill filtration and the dangers of fusel alcohols. (“He’s the first celebrity distiller in our conference,” Jonathan Likarish told me. “People just follow him around—it’s like a Pied Piper effect.”) Prakash, though, was an unexpected companion. India is the world’s largest whiskey market, but Indians don’t drink American whiskey, much less limited-production craft whiskey from Texas. And craft spirits makers are generally advised to focus distribution and outreach tightly on their local markets. Strategies that involve conquering New York City, to say nothing of the entire Indian subcontinent, are generally considered unsound. But the world had consistently embraced Tate’s whiskeys, and he had always been too recklessly ambitious to heed industry dogma anyway. “I first met Chip with another amazing distiller, Patrick [van Zuidam], from the Netherlands,” Prakash said as I joined them. “Patrick has an amazing, pristine, very Dutch distillery.” “We have a working toilet,” Tate quipped. “Tell me, what do you plan?” Prakash asked. “We’ll do thirty to fifty thousand cases— that’s the first stable orbit,” Tate said. “At Balcones we were doing five thousand. The only thing that kept people from burning us at the stake is that I promised I was building new stills. You could say we were a huge success, but Dewars does nineteen million cases.” “With vested interest, I’m interested in hearing more about the whiskeys,” Prakash pressed. “We’ll be making very similar things to what I made before,” Tate said. “If other people continue to make that, then that’s their decision.” “Good,” Prakash said. “Why reinvent the wheel? Too many people are doing too many different things. India isn’t ready for the weird stuff.” Tate smiled. “If you ask the average person in a bar today which craft whiskey they like, I’m not sure if they could tell you. Five years ago, I know that no one would be able to tell you.” He paused. “Five years from now, I think some of them will be able to tell you.” Prakash nodded. He needed to be on his way, but he said he was looking forward to a future collaboration. The men agreed to talk in two years. Tate had seen how fortunes could rise and fall, how control could slip through your iron grip, how dreams could blow up in your face. It was never too early to begin laying a new foundation. “I’ve realized that you’ve got to plan for success,” Tate had told Prakash. “If you don’t, when you have success, you’re screwed.” T
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 95
brewery’s. Our aspiration is to add something meaningful to the beer world—something that otherwise wouldn’t exist. Spontaneous fermentation with as many native ingredients as possible is the way to go about that. AC: Can you briefly describe your process of brewing these beers? JS: We take a very traditional approach. It involves a grist [a combination of milled grains] of 60 percent malted barley and 40 percent raw wheat. We do a turbid mash [a mix of hot water and grains that creates a complex “wort” of sugars, starches, and proteins, which provides nutrients for the yeasts and bacteria that will slowly ferment the beer over a very long period of time]. It involves a number of temperature rests and transferring the wort back and forth from the kettle [a brewing vessel where the wort is boiled] to our mash tun [a vessel where grist is soaked and heated to convert starches to sugar], manipulating some very under-modified grains, and then the wort is boiled for 240 minutes. We add aged hops that have spent quite a lot of time drying; we put ours in burlap bags and keep them in the attic of a horse barn, and they get wilted, oxidized, and funky. Historically this was to harness the preservative qualities of the hops without having a whole lot of bitterness, as the bitterness drops out in the aging process. After the boil, we knock out the wort to our coolship [an open, flat cooling vessel]. Ours holds eighteen barrels’ worth of wort and is eight-foot-by-ten-foot stainless steel—basically a shallow pan. AC: When do you do this? JS: Our coolship season is December through February. We wait for a really cold night of the year, when overnight lows drop into the low 30’s, which serves to chill the wort and also to eliminate some of the thermobacteria and other harmful microorganisms that could lead the beer to go bad. We do not touch the wort until it cools overnight to 60 degrees. We get nice airflow through the room to bring in microflora from the outside. It falls into the wort and inoculates the beer. Then, the next morning, we pump the mixture into large oak casks that are about four hundred to six hundred liters. The beer slowly ferments spontaneously. Another important ingredient is well water, untreated and unfiltered right from the Trinity Aquifer beneath our feet. Well water, Texas grains, old hops from our barn, and native microflora are used to make something unique to this part of the Hill Country. AC: How long is the aging process once the beer is transferred to the oak casks? JS: It varies. We have tasted some of our spontaneously fermented beer and thought it could
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San Antonio’s five Spanish Colonial missions—including the Alamo—were named a World Heritage site this year by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)— making them the first World Heritage site in Texas. This rare honor, shared by iconic landmarks like the Statue of Liberty and Independence Hall, recognizes the most significant cultural and natural sites on earth, including the Grand Canyon, Stonehenge, and the Great Wall of China. The fact that these missions from the 1700s remain thriving centers of Christian faith compounds their importance as places of living history (all except the Alamo are active Catholic parishes). Built at intervals along a seven-mile stretch of the spring-fed San Antonio River, the five missions were self-sustaining communities with livestock, fields of crops, and a gravi-
ty-feed canal system with an aqueduct still used today for irrigation. On the weekend of October 16-18, the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park celebrates its World Heritage designation and the centennial of the National Park Service. This family event includes an “Archaeology Day” on October 17 (9 a.m.—2 p.m.) at Mission San José with free demonstrations and activities. Of course, with their graceful bell towers, carved limestone facades, and arched colonnades, few places in San Antonio are more beautiful at Christmastime. Visitors can attend the festive Mariachi Masses held every Sunday at Mission Concepción and Mission San José. These cultural treasures will be decked out for the holidays with flowers, garlands, and Nativity scenes. The missions also host special events and services during the Yuletide season. On December 6, Mission Concepción celebrates the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and hosts a Matachines Festival at 2 p.m., where up to 500 colorfully dressed Matachines dancers perform in front of the mission. In addition, several missions have services on December 12 honoring the Virgin of Guadalupe, Mexico’s patron saint. A Las Posadas celebration, dramatizing the Holy Family’s search for an inn, takes place at Mission Concepción on December 16 at 6 p.m. December 19 brings the entertaining and earthy Los Pastores at 7 p.m., a Spanish folk play about the shepherds’ journey to worship the Christ Child and the obstacles the Devil puts in their way. Mission San José has hosted this popular comic play every year since 1947. Mission Concepción has Mariachi Masses at noon on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Now visitors can hike or bike between the missions and the downtown River Walk on the beautifully landscaped trails of the Mission Reach. Again the
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River Walk’s towering cypress trees and bridges will sparkle with thousands of twinkling lights, creating a magical holiday wonderland for its own festive array of holiday events.
BANDERA
Bandera, Cowboy Capital of the World, rings in the holidays cowpoke-style, starting with the Living Christmas Nativity on the Courthouse Lawn, followed by a lighted night parade, strolling carolers, a visit from Cowboy Santa, and holiday shopping until 9 p.m. (December 4). Or enjoy cowboy singing and storytelling at the Cowboy Capital Campfire in City Park (December 5), and drive through the park’s Bandera Trail of Lights. Don’t miss the cowboy carolers on horseback in the Longhorn Saloon’s Christmas Singing in the Saddle event down Main Street (December 20).
FREDERICKSBURG
Downtown Fredericksburg becomes a magical place with the Lighting of the German Christmas Pyramid and the Community Christmas Tree on the Marktplatz, where the fun includes free hot chocolate and cookies and free pictures with Santa (November 27). The magic continues with glittering floats in the Chamber Light the Night Christmas Parade and shopping until 10 p.m. in the After Glow Market on the Marktplatz (December 4). And what could be more festive than outdoor ice skating in the Eisbahn (November 27-January 2) or following the Texas Hill Country Wineries “Holiday Wine Trail” (December 4-20).
at the Hill Country Arts Foundation— provides the perfect way to jump-start your holiday shopping (November 10-12). December brings the popular Christmas Concert by the Symphony of the Hills Orchestra (December 3), as well as a concert by Mickey Gilley (December 6), both in the Cailloux Theater. Another opportunity to fill your Santa sleigh is the Hill Country Shopping Extravaganza (December 12).
SEGUIN
From hot cocoa to real snow, Seguin’s annual Holiday Stroll offers three days of family fun. Festivities begin on December 3 with the Holiday Lights Parade downtown and the lighting of the town square. On Friday night, December 4, patrons purchase mugs designed by local artists and stroll around the downtown square, sampling each shop’s hot cocoa as they browse for unique gifts and enjoy live entertainment. The North Pole comes to town December 5 with ornament-making, photos with Santa, real snow to play in, and other holiday activities.
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be worthy of blending after just six months. Typically, to achieve a beautiful, highly complex beer, you have to have a large stock that can develop across multiple years. That’s why we have been patient: wait and attain. This winter we will have three-year-old, two-year-old, and one-year-old spontaneously fermented beer that we can start blending. AC: You were inspired by Cantillon Brewery, in Brussels. Who were your other inspirations for using this brewing technique? JS: Yeah, number one would be Cantillon. Up there as well is 3 Fonteinen, Oud Beersel, and a new blender, Tilquin, also right outside Brussels. And then domestically, Allagash, in Portland, Maine, has made some impressive spontaneously fermented beer. We are careful to refer to Cantillon, 3 Fonteinen, and Oud Beersel’s [spontaneously fermented] beers as “lambic,” because it’s a geographic term. There is no legal protection like there is with champagne, but we have heard Jean van Roy, the owner of Cantillon, whom we respect immensely, say, “I’d rather not have American brewers call their beer lambic, because it refers to our region of the world.” And what’s the point of trying to make something that tastes exactly like that part of the world? At Jester King, we are trying to represent what’s here in this part of Texas. For that reason we have never tried to rip off their names. AC: What styles of beers will come out of this project? Will you start with a gueuze-style, a straight blend of younger and older barrels? Will you be using fruit? JS: Just as we are hesitant to use the term “lambic,” we would say the same thing for “gueuze.” The first blend we make and release will be a straight, unfruited, spontaneously fermented beer, so people can hopefully enjoy and learn what a native fermentation is like at this particular location. And that is not to say it will be the same down the road. We will eventually do fruit re-fermentations as well. AC: Do you think your first spontaneous fermentation blends will be available in bottles in 2016? JS: I anticipate that, but there are no guarantees. What we are tasting in the barrels is really great. We are excited about the way it has fermented. We think we should be able to blend and bottle this winter. Unknown is how long we want to allow it to mature in the bottle. It might be ready around summer of next year. AC: What Jester King beer should we be drinking in the meantime? JS: Le Petit Prince, a simple farmhouse table beer.
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This interview has been edited for clarity and length. T texasmonthly.com
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KEY to the CURE Get the shirt. Shop the weekend. Show your support.
Join Saks Fifth Avenue in the fight against cancer. Get the shirt, designed by Jason Wu, available exclusively at Saks this October. Then shop Thursday to Sunday, October 15 to 18, when Saks will donate 2% of sales to local and national cancer charities.* Special thanks to Julianne Moore, the 2015 Ambassador for the Entertainment Industry Foundation, Stand Up To Cancer and Saks Fifth Avenue’s Key To The Cure *THURSDAY TO SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15 TO 18, 2% OF PARTICIPATING VENDOR NET SALES AND PARTICIPATING VENDOR FLAT DONATIONS FROM SAKS FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK AND BEVERLY HILLS, AND SAKS.COM UP TO A TOTAL OF $500,000 WILL BE DONATED TO OUR NATIONAL BENEFICIARY, THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY FOUNDATION (EIF) AND ITS PROGRAM STAND UP TO CANCER (SU2C). ADDITIONALLY, FROM OCTOBER 1 TO OCTOBER 31, 100% OF THE KEY TO THE CURE T-SHIRT SALES FROM THESE LOCATIONS AND SAKSOFF5TH.COM WILL BE DONATED TO EIF/SU2C. FOR ALL OTHER SAKS FIFTH AVENUE LOCATIONS, AN ALLOCATED AMOUNT BASED ON STORE’S WEIGHTED AVERAGE OF TOTAL SALES COLLECTED FROM 2% OF PARTICIPATING VENDOR NET SALES AND PARTICIPATING VENDOR FLAT DONATIONS FROM THURSDAY TO SUNDAY, OCTOBER 15 TO 18, ALONG WITH 100% OF THE KEY TO THE CURE T-SHIRT SALES WILL BE DONATED TO EACH STORE’S DESIGNATED CHARITY PARTICIPATING IN THE KEY TO THE CURE CAMPAIGN.
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REIGN OF TERROIR CONTINUED FROM PAGE 84
of climate, soils, and marketability? It seemed only fitting to pay him a visit fifteen years later. At their little vineyard, winery, and tasting room in the broad hills west of Lampasas, Jim, sporting his customary Hawaiian print shirt and scraggly beard, and Karen greeted me with a pour of their rosato. A dry, very robust wine, it was darker and richer than most of today’s fashionable vin gris (or light pink) rosés—stubbornly unconventional, much like its maker. Johnson is significant as a part of the movement to eschew mainstream varieties like Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, and Merlot. When he started out, those grapes drove the market nationwide, but Johnson knew they struggled in Texas’s climate, making inferior versions of the wines from elsewhere that already flooded store shelves. Instead, Johnson focused on grapes from warmer European climes, like Southern France (Viognier), Italy (Sangiovese), and Spain (Tempranillo). “The conventional wisdom at the time was that if you’re going to be a Texas winery, you’ve got to plant the market-driven varietals,” Johnson told me. “What we decided was that conventional wisdom was meant for conventional people. Our buddy told us, ‘Nobody’s going to buy Texas Sangiovese. It’s hard enough to sell Italian Sangiovese.’ I think we were both mentally prepared for the market to reject everything we did, because that’s what people told us would happen. But it didn’t, and we never looked back.” That is, until now. After a few pleasantries about the wine, Johnson asked, “Have I indicated to you that we’re retiring?” The news caught me off guard. “This interview is kind of the bookend of all this. You were there at the start and you’re here at the end,” he said. He told me that the vineyard is for sale and that the tasting room would close for good after Labor Day. The reason for the sale isn’t exactly business related, though I’m sure the wine business has taken its toll. Initial capital investment is high; years of hard work go into it before you even have fruit, much less wine, which may or may not be good. Then the wine must be sold in a crowded, competitive, and confounding marketplace. For most producers, especially small ones, financial returns, if they ever come, will be enjoyed by their descendants. “Karen’s seventy-one and I’m sixty-eight,” he said. “It’s time. We want to travel in Europe before we get too old and decrepit to haul our bags.” Though Johnson did admit to making a few mistakes along the way, such as positioning his tasting room in the far north of the Hill Country instead of along the 290 corridor
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west of Austin, which for wine tourism has become Texas’s version of Napa Valley. Direct sales to consumers from tasting rooms and winery clubs are especially important revenue streams for smaller wineries. Being located seventy miles north of all the action didn’t help Alamosa’s business. The fact is that Johnson’s wines, though some were good, were never so great as to inspire life-changing sales. If they had been, I suspect the Johnsons would still be in it. Johnson wasn’t Texas’s most important winemaker, but he was a gutsy, forward-thinking spirit who spent twenty years laying the groundwork, preaching about Texas Tempranillo instead of Cabernet Sauvignon. Today’s winemakers are taking the questions Johnson—and the other pioneers who thought like him—put to the land and going further, making Johnson’s radical choices seem somewhat safe. They’re not merely planting Sangiovese, Italy’s most common variety, but Aglianico, Nero d’Avola, and Vermentino, grapes even more suited to warmer climates. They’re not only making Syrah, a well-known variety from the South of France, but Mourvèdre, Cinsault, Tannat, and Picpoul. These grapes are so outside the mainstream, they represent nothing short of a Texas declaration of wine independence. If I had to choose one wine I found this year that articulates the new horizon of Texas wine, I’d pick the Cinsault rosé pét-nat from William Chris Vineyards, a producer in Hye. Allow me to decode rosé pét-nat for you: Pét-nat is the wine style, a genre so recently popularized by wine hipsters from France that it’s still unknown to many aficionados in the U.S. and is produced by only a handful of U.S. wine nerds. The term is shorthand for pétillant naturel, French for “naturally sparkling,” a low-fi technique popular in the natural-wine movement for producing sparkling wines without the addition of yeast or sugar, as practiced in Champagne. To find a rosé made from Cinsault in Texas was staggering, but a pét-nat even more so. This wine couldn’t have existed fifteen years ago; it’s a flowering of Texas’s new connectedness, resourcefulness, and creativity. And did I mention that it was damn good? One of the better pét-nats I’ve had—pink in color, fairly dry, with the racy flavor of wild strawberries and a rich, creamy, bubbly texture. It’s too early to tell if it exhibits somewhereness, but it undeniably boasted the clarity and spark of something that wants to exist. Chris Brundrett, one half of William Chris, is illustrative of the new generation of Texas winemakers: he’s young, wine is his sole job, and he’s open to anything. Also in this new generation are the two very young men behind
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Lewis Wines, former college roommates Doug Lewis and Duncan McNabb. They make a wine called Swim Spot from Blanc du Bois—a hybrid grape created in Florida in 1968 to successfully grow in hot southern conditions— which is a dead ringer for Portugal’s classically crisp, dry, low-alcohol Vinho Verde. And then there’s Pedernales Cellars’ Fredrik Osterberg, a Swede who married a Texan with a vineyard. He gave up a finance career in London to move to Texas and start a wine business with his wife, Julie Kuhlken, her brother, David, and his wife, Heather. First and foremost, wines like Swim Spot and the Cinsault rosé are balanced and palatable. They’re refreshing, urging us to come back for a second sip. They have some complexity and minerality, secondary traits that our palates find compelling. They are dry and sometimes acidic and racy, which makes them agreeable with food—wine’s primary responsibility—adding a refreshing spark to unctuous, classically Texan fare like barbecue and burgers.
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One morning at 1 a.m. in the August heat of Dallas, I found myself trudging up from a suite on the golf course of the Four Seasons— where a party had been raging, fueled by an iced bathtub filled with wine, including a jeroboam (four bottles’ worth) of Prosecco—to the hotel lobby, where at least fifty people were still swarming. Amid the throng, I recognized winemakers from California, Washington, and Australia, sommeliers from New York and Chicago. Wine bottles were strewn all over as revelers clustered in various groups, swirling their glasses, sniffing, and talking noisily. Someone wandered through in a terrycloth bathrobe, while a swimsuit-clad phalanx headed to the long-since-closed pool, and a well-known wine critic poured me a glass of old and rare Chartreuse, all while the hotel staff impassively waited for the crowd to go to bed. I’m not sure when that happened. But I am sure that the next morning, these same people were back in form, wearing suits and business attire as they studiously attended soldout, expertly conducted seminars with such titles as “White Grape Varieties of Greece” and “Wines of Process: Sparkling, Oxidized, Fortified, and Beyond.” By evening, it would all devolve again, starting with hospitality suites sponsored by the likes of German vineyards, a low-alcohol California wine group, and even Texas wineries, as well as various importers and distributors. Lots of industries work hard and play hard, but I can think of few where play is such an integral part of the work. No venue better incorporates both than the Texas Sommelier Conference, known as TexSom (full disclosure: T E X A S M O N T H L Y is a sponsor). Founded
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CLOCKWISE, FROM LEFT C O M A L PA R A D E , G R U E N E H A L L , W U R S T F E S T, L A N D A PA R K G O L F C O U R S E
NEW BRAUNFELS N O T J U S T A O N E -T R I C K P O N Y
GET A JUMP ON THE HOLIDAYS
The holiday season is fast approaching, and what better place to find a perfect gift than at one of the unique shops or boutiques? From the latest fashions to toys, books, and treasured antiques, you’re sure to find something for everyone. While you’re here, give yourself a gift of a delicious meal at one of the town’s local eateries. Diners can enjoy everything from Tex-Mex, burgers and BBQ to Asian fusion and beyond. Come hungry.
German and domestic beers, including craft brews from throughout the country. You may also enjoy many special events and the finest in Alpine and Bavarian-style culture and entertainment. It’s a slice of the old country, right here in the Hill Country. For details, Polka over to wurstfest.com for details. MORE POPULAR FALL EVENTS IN AND AROUND THE CITY: OLD GRUENE MARKET DAYS
New Braunfels is home to two gorgeous public golf courses, offering a relaxing game in serene Hill Country settings. Equipment rentals are available for travelers or bring your own lucky set of clubs. Onsite dining and pro shops complete the experience. Fore!
September 19–20, October 17–18, November 21–22 and December 5–6 Nearly 100 vendors offer uniquely crafted items, collectibles and packaged Texas foods. Market hours are 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Free admission. For more information, visit gruenemarketdays.com or call 830-832-1721.
NOBODY THROWS A PARTY LIKE WURSTFEST
COMAL COUNTY FAIR AND RODEO
A unique celebration rich in German culture and full of Texas fun, Wurstfest runs November 6–15. Experience food, music, dancing, and an exciting midway. Sample
September 23–27 Join us for the largest county fair in central Texas. Festivities include the annual parade (with a special parade for pets), a rodeo,
COME PLAY A ROUND
car show, chili cook-off, and lots of great exhibitors and vendors. There is plenty to see, do, and eat. Bring the whole family for this wholesome slice of Americana. Visit comalcountyfair.org. GRUENE MUSIC AND WINE FESTIVAL
October 8–11 Benefitting the United Way of Comal County, this annual festival draws some of the top vineyards and wine experts from across our great state. Learn all about wine while you sample a wide variety of the wares. They offer over 100 different Texas wines from more than 30 different wineries. This will also be their sixth year offering beer tastings on Sunday. Wine, beer, music and food make for a great time in this historic setting. More info is available at gruenemusicandwinefest.org.
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Want to find out more? Contact: New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce, Conventions and Visitors Bureau 800-572-2626 or playinnewbraunfels.com
PHOTOS: NEW BRAUNFELS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
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ew Braunfels is the go-to spot for summer fun in the Texas sun, but this quaint little city has plenty to see and do all year round. Even after the river outfitters close up shop for the season, thousands of tourists come to sample live entertainment, dining, shopping, and culture in this historic Texas town.