Location: Hill CountryWhat You’ll Need: Road map, spittoonTexas runneth over with wineries; more than 160 are scattered from the Panhandle to the Piney Woods. But for a doable weekend that blends good wine and well-run tasting rooms with wonderful scenery, side trips, varied shopping, and restaurants both
AustinBig Top Candy Shop 1706 S. Congress Ave., 512-462-2220 or myspace.com/bigtopcandyshop.By George 1400 S. Congress Ave., 512-441-8600 or bygeorgeaustin.com.Continental Club 1315 S. Congress Ave., 512-441-2444 or conti nentalclub.com.Feather’s 1700B S. Congress Ave., 512-912-9779 or myspace.com/31622902.Home Slice Pizza 1415 S. Congress Ave., 512-444-7437
The most shocking thing about the murder of the Caffey family in East Texas last year was not how gruesome or inexplicable the crime was. It was that it was masterminded by sixteen-year-old Erin Caffey, a pretty girl who worked at the Sonic, sang in her church, and loved her
Is the Texas economy just late to the downturn, or are we insulated from the rest of the country’s woes? To answer this and other pressing pocketbook queries, Texas Monthly sat down with the state comptroller, the chairman of the UT Board of Regents, a legendary community organizer, a distinguished
Location: San AntonioWhat You’ll Need: Significant OtherMy husband and I have an annual tradition of going to San Antonio for the weekend—away from errands, our toddler, and everything else that keeps us too busy when we’re at home. It’s easy and inexpensive enough that even a short
For Steve Kemble, having as good a time as humanly possible as often as humanly possible is very serious business.
Location: Padre Island National SeashoreWhat You’ll Need: Sleeping bag, marshmallow-roasting stickSummer is not endless, and neither is the Padre Island National Seashore. But its 67.5-mile length is more than half of the whole of Padre Island, the world’s longest barrier island. And with that comes the
Location: The Frio, outside LeakeyWhat You’ll Need: Inner tube, groceriesI was promised no mosquitoes. The little buggers had just started to attack back home in Austin, and as I smacked my first one of the season against the wall (making a mess but impressing my husband and
Location: Wildcatter Ranch, GrahamWhat You’ll Need: Nothing at allThe wildcatter ranch resort and spa isn’t exactly a hard-core dude ranch, but that’s how I sold it to my dad and two brothers when we were mulling over plans for our annual family vacation. “Just think,” I told
Location: Dallas and Fort WorthWhat You’ll Need: Sketch pad, beretThe body of downtown Dallas has been prayed over more times than I can count. And while it may take an act of God to finally bring the Trinity River Project to life, there’s no question that when
Location: College Station and AustinWhat You’ll Need: Pork rinds, FrescaFirst, a caveat: The exhibits at presidential libraries are to history what the White House press office is to daily news. They burnish rather than analyze their subjects. But what the museum portion of a presidential library lacks
Location:: East TexasWhat You’ll Need: Full tank of gas, love of graniteSo you’re the kind of person who doesn’t like to plan your weekends. You don’t want to worry about reservations. And you absolutely, positively don’t want to fool with timetables. Then I’ve got two words for
Location: Lakeway Resort and Spa, outside AustinWhat You’ll Need: Bathing suit, trashy magazinesDon’t get me wrong: My wife and I are happy to take the Beloved One (our daughter) around the state so she can see things. Still, there are times when our idea of vacation heaven
Location: HoustonWhat You’ll Need: Open mind, credit cardI know that the idea of a weekend getaway in Houston—in summer, no less—might strike some people as cuckoo. (Oh, yeah? And how about Pittsburgh in February?) To those folks I can only say I’m sorry—for their ignorance. I have
Location: Fort DavisWhat You’ll Need: Cowboy hat, canteenThe pleasures of Fort Davis aren’t as arty or oddball as the ones in nearby Marfa or Alpine, but that’s not to say that things aren’t strange. For example, which is weirder: that Fort Davis and Jeff Davis County, in
Location: Las Colinas, the Colony, and DallasWhat You’ll Need: Big Bertha driver, GPS range finderThe Dallas area is home to three golf courses that allow players to experience what the game is like at the top level. You can play the same holes the pros have played,
State representative Allen Fletcher is the chairman of a House subcommittee on white-collar crime. So how did his very own company get tangled up in a white-collar-crime investigation?
Every female on earth believes she can dance. My big break came when a Bob Hope wannabe with shiny suits and a pinkie ring took me on as his sidekick for a two-week tour of Tokyo.
Rick Perry, Mirabeau B. Lamar, and the two visions of Texas.
The finest bands create not only great songs but also mood, and no one gets that like Austin’s Monahans. The four-piece group named itself after the tranquil West Texas oasis, but the band’s tone is dark and unnerving, like a storm rolling in— all pounding drums and big guitar
1. Crave Kitchen and BarSmack in the middle of El Paso’s Cincinnati Entertainment District is this industrial-cool restaurant that attracts everyone from college kids to suits. Inexpensive yet chic design solutions generate a big impact: Outside, a marquee-style arrow glows with yellow bulbs to amp up the drab facade, while
Rookie novelist Clancy Martin displays a veteran’s savvy when he grabs the reader on the opening page of How to Sell: “The first time I considered jewelry was the morning I stole my mother’s wedding ring. It was white gold. A hundred-year-old Art Nouveau band with eleven diamonds.”
First published in England in 2008, The Exchange-Rate Between Love and Money is the kind of inventive, intelligent fiction that now deserves to make a splash stateside for Dallas-bred Thomas Leveritt. Set in Sarajevo circa 2002, it is a sly, tragicomic exploration of commerce, politics, and romance in
In the West Texas town of Alpine, Hugh MacLeod writes Gaping Void, a cheeky blog he launched in August 2001 with the deadpan tagline “Cartoons Drawn on the Back of Business Cards.” Now a 13,000-word essay from the Web site has spawned his first book, Ignore Everybody (and
The 26-year-old Dallas-raised chanteuse (real name: Annie Clark), a former member of the Polyphonic Spree, received universal adulation for her independently made, far-reaching 2007 pop debut, Marry Me. Now she’s back with the even more ambitious ACTOR (4AD).How did you get the music bug?My uncle is an amazing jazz
When the Meat Puppets emerged from the Arizona desert in the early eighties, no one knew what to make of their raw, hyperaccelerated blend of country and psychedelic rock. The Kirkwood brothers (bassist Cris, singer-guitarist-songwriter Curt) had gone beyond a hardcore-punk style to adopt this new sound, and while
“I stood in line and left my name / Took about six hours or so / Well, the man just grinned like it was all a game / Said they’d let me know.” These lines, from the new Steve Earle album, have just the sort of populist, humanistic slant
“People are going to hit, or they’re not going to hit. Some guys are going to have a better season than they had before, and some aren’t. There’s not a whole lot I can do except put the right players in the right positions and expect them to perform.”
Emily Post may have deplored any sort of public spitting as “disgusting” and “too nauseating to comment on,” but such notions of etiquette have never stuck with the patrons of Luling’s annual Watermelon Thump. Every June, the World Championship Seed Spitting Contest draws hundreds of spectators who hope to witness
The former music editor for the Dallas Observer was just another Texas teen when metal rockers Pantera emerged from Arlington in the nineties and went on to sell millions of records and concert tickets worldwide. In BLACK TOOTH GRIN: THE HIGH LIFE, GOOD TIMES, AND TRAGIC END OF “DIMEBAG” DARRELL
The Polaris Academy in Houston, a KIPP school, has made significant academic gains in its first two years.
Whether you are planning a dinner party for twelve or a quiet meal at home for two, cooking has never been so easy thanks to chef David Bull's new interactive cookbook, Bull's Eye on Food.
Recipe from Chef David Bull’s interactive cookbook, Bull’s Eye on Food.
Recipe from Chef David Bull’s interactive cookbook, Bull’s Eye on Food
Texas is full of buried booty—or, to be a bit more accurate, full of stories about buried booty that no one has been able to find. Here are six of the supposedly greatest Texas treasures still out there. May the hunters strike gold.
What to do in humid Houston during the summer? If you’re Lynn Wyatt, you don’t sweat it and ask a couple dozen of your closest acquaintances to a book signing party for your dear, dear friend Candy Spelling, mother of Tori and author of Stories From Candyland.
Recipe From Chef David Bull’s Interactive Cookbook, Bull’s Eye on Food
A recipe from Chef Josh Watkins at the Carillon, AT&T Executive Conference Center, Austin8 coral sea prawns, peeled and deveined 2 fennel bulbs, shaved 8 ounces kalamata olives, Halved 1 tablespoon garlic, finely diced 1 tablespoon shallots, finely diced 1 tablespoon saffron 2 tablespoons tomato paste 1 cup white wine
Up close, the little pieces of artist Shou Ping Newcomb’s work begin to pop out: the petals of a bluebonnet, the scales of a koi.
The 24th amendment prohibiting the poll tax on voters has been formally approved by the state of Texas—more than four decades later.
Was the Army as much to blame for the Mahmudiyah killings as its perpetrators?
How a stranger with a metal detector helped me find my wedding band three years later.
Despite the fact that Texas boasts more than 150 wineries and is growing in popularity as a wine destination, many people aren’t that familiar with the state’s many offerings. The Austin Wine Festival hopes to change that.
The uncertain future of funding sexual assault programs through strip club fees.
Politics, leadership struggles, and the recent resignation of President Elsa Murano have some Aggies in crisis mode.
Coast Global Seafood, Plano, and Buenos Aires Café East, Austin
Since tax day, when Governor Perry flirted with the idea of Texas seceding from the Union, we have been treated to a full-blown rampage of anti-Texan invective the likes of which have not been seen since George W. Bush decamped from Washington for brushier pastures. “This one state has
Patricia Sharpe’s article on her favorite dishes under $10 really brought home the truth in the cliché “Time changes everything” [“How to Eat Well in Hard Times,” April 2009]. When my wife and I were first married and attending Sul Ross State College, our weekly grocery budget was $8.
