Lights! Camera! Auction!
All over Texas, smart shoppers are bidding on everything from antiques to airplanes. Join them before the best buys are going, going, gone.
December 1997 Issue
Features
Searching for Santa
This time of year, Yule find him hanging around East Texas: On lawns and roofs, he’s a Claus célèbre.
The War on Cedar
It’s unpalatable to cattle, an invader of grasslands, and a water hog. So why can’t I just get rid of it? Because it’s a vegetative Vietnam.
“I’ve Written Enough Fiction”
So says Larry McMurtry, Texas’ best—and best-known— novelist. But that doesn’t mean he’s giving up literature altogether; in fact, his days are quite booked.
What’s Black and White And Red-faced All Over?
The University of Texas at Austin, whose paralysis in response to the Hopwood decision ignited racial tensions. And that was before Lino Graglia said a word.
Columns
His Perfect World
Growing up in Longview and Texas City, John Lee Hancock dreamed of a life in the movies. Today, he’s one of L.A.’s hottest screenwriters.
Tortilla Flat
A year after she was forced to file for bankruptcy, Houston’s Ninfa Laurenzo is cooking up a way to save her popular restaurant chain.
Never Say Die
Can Miller Quarles live forever? The 83-year-old Houstonian hopes so—and he’ll pay $100,000 to anyone who will help him.
Crime Pays
He hasn’t been able to find his father’s killer, but Austinite David Wheeler’s computer programs are catching lots of other crooks.
Weekly, Strongly
Why are small-town Texas newspapers thriving? Because unlike big-city dailies, they know their readers, and they give them what they want.
Reporter
Tommy Tune
I started dancing when I was five, after [Houston dance teacher] Emmamae Horn visited my school and asked my parents if I could enroll in her dance class. It must have run in the family, though, because my parents were great dancers too. When I was about nine, I remember
CD and Book Reviews
Hot CDsSure, you can waltz across Texas to the Cornell Hurd Band’s Texas Fruit Shack (Behemoth), but you can also shuffle, two-step, boogie, and maybe even jitterbug. Joined by guest stars like Johnny Bush, Austinite Hurd fronts a versatile group that puts an authoritative stamp on the full run of
The Wrong Man
George W. Bush pardoned convicted rapist Kevin Byrd after DNA evidence proved he was the wrong man. How did he get sent to prison in the first place?
Brown in Front
Ten reasons why former police chief Lee Brown is well positioned to be elected Houston’s first black mayor on December 6: (1) He ran stronger than expected in the November 4 primary, with 42 percent to Rob Mosbacher’s 29 percent. Both were projected to poll in the 30’s. (2) The
Austin, Storied
Just as Austin is the Dallas of the nineties—a booming cultural icon bordering on cliché—Austin Stories may be the Dallas of the nineties. The MTV sitcom, which debuted this fall, is weekly television’s first credible portrayal of Texas and Texans since J.R. got shot. (Walker, Texas Ranger? Kung fu in
Web
Hot Chocolate Cake
Pistachio and Eggnog Milk Sauce1/2 cup shelled pistachios 4 medium egg yolks 1/2 cup sugar (less if using eggnog, to taste) 1/2 quart whipping cream or eggnog 1 quart milk 1 vanilla bean, splitRoast pistachios at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, chop, and cool. Whisk egg yolks and sugar in
Miscellany
State Fare
How did the chefs at Dallas’ French Room whip up such a delicious cake? Choc it up to creativity.
Her Home Page Is Her Castle
“I love lists,” says Ann Castle, who got into the listmaking business last year when the online magazine Slate asked her for a roundup of the nation’s biggest givers. “Because of the Slate list, lots of people have contacted me about doing this in their state,” she says, though she
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