The Texanist: Who on Earth Holds a Cookout at a Highway Rest Stop?
A Grapevine man is puzzled by those ubiquitous roadside grills.
A Temple native, David Courtney joined Texas Monthly in October 2005 and in July 2007 debuted his wildly popular advice column, the the Texanist, regularly the magazine’s most-read feature.
In 2017, the University of Texas Press published The Texanist: Fine Advice on Living in Texas, and in 2019, Fox Entertainment optioned the column with plans to develop a television show based on it. At the 37th Annual National City and Regional Magazine Awards, in 2022, the Texanist brought home the highly regarded Herb Lipson Award for Column Excellence. As the Texanist and as himself, Courtney has contributed his talents to such endeavors as the annual Bum Steer Awards, the quinquennial review of the fifty best barbecue joints in Texas, "The 50 Greatest Hamburgers in Texas,” “The 40 Best Small-Town Cafes,” and “Snap Judgment,” a compilation of the ten greatest plays in Texas college football, as well as “The Beachcomber,” for which he walked the entire 65-mile length of Padre Island National Seashore, and “Water, Water Everywhere,” for which he swam buck naked in Lake Travis, outside of Austin.
A Grapevine man is puzzled by those ubiquitous roadside grills.
A Lufkin man asks a sports-related question—and gets more answers than he bargained for.
An open letter to a team that made us all proud—and then started whiffing.
A Dallas man worries that hipsters have commandeered his favorite style of hat.
What we know today as the cowboy boot is a distinctive offshoot of styles favored by Genghis Khan, the Duke of Wellington, and myriad other horsemen throughout history.
The master bootmakers at Little’s, in San Antonio, demonstrate what goes into a fine boot.
An unnamed person from an unspecified place has an unsavory point of view.
An Austin couple debates the culinary worthiness of the crusty little ferrule beloved by many State Fair of Texas-goers.
A Dallas man vacationing on the Jersey Shore is discombobulated by a discombobulated Lone Star Flag.
A Southlake transplant falls hook, line, and sinker for the lie aquatic.
An El Paso man wasn’t impressed by his recent viewing of the West Texas phenomenon.
A Houston man wants to know if our columnist would be happy in another of Texas's many wonderful locales.
A British man is feeling guilty about walking around in exotic animal hide.
A pair of Austin birders think it’s time to replace the Northern mockingbird with something more . . . Texas-y.
A San Antonio woman is looking for some liquid relief from the heat. The Texanist has a deluge of options.
This week: Topless man on heedless car trip!
A Houston man is puzzled by the mustard-laden grub at Jack in the Box and McDonald’s.
Petty state rivalries, the final frontier.
This spring, I revisited this sparkling West Texas gem after its long closure—and I’m glad I did.
A Houston man visits Austin and is mildly flummoxed by RM 2222.
A Dallas man knows all about the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. It’s the people he wonders about.
An Austin man notes that the sky is the sky, no matter where you go.
A Dallas man’s relations also inexplicably refer to guacamole as “avocado dip.”
An Austin man argues that his spouse’s impressive Texas ancestry should count for something.
A Corpus Christi man pines for the days of two-stepping on those long wooden planks.
A Texan who spent a quarter of a century in Massachusetts is flummoxed by his former neighbors’ footwear foolishness.
A newcomer to East Texas thinks it’s fine to dispatch venomous snakes on sight.
A new arrival from Colorado wants the true-blue info on the red-meat special.
A newcomer to the state is looking for a cinematic introduction to his adopted home.
A McKinney man thinks our fearless columnist isn't as sharp as he used to be.
In our February “Love Letters to Texas” collector’s issue, the Texanist takes a walk down memory lane.
A soldier stationed in Afghanistan is looking forward to coming home.
A Connecticut Yankee new to San Antonio’s social circuit is vexed by an invitation’s dress code.
A Fort Worth man can’t bottle up his confusion any longer.
An Austin man thinks everyone knows that water turns to ice at 32 degrees.
A Sherman woman thinks the gravy-laden slab of breaded meat deserves its due.
A Canada man has a few questions about the Austin establishment immortalized in a Guy Clark song.
A young Aggie just wants everyone to like his Wisconsin-raised sweetheart.
A resident of Phoenix isn't sure her fellow Arizonans should be using that word so cavalierly.
A Boerne woman wonders if other Americans are as smitten as we are with the outlines of their states.
A Houston man wants to know what his options are when that dreaded day finally comes.
A California man wonders why people are angry at everyone's favorite Texas country artist
An Austin man is confused by all those new-fangled beer cans at his local grocery store.
A San Antonio man is tired of the grouchy guy two rows behind him.
A Lone Star native who has lived in the Northeast for nearly four decades is nervous about socializing when she's back at home.
A man raised in Sulphur Springs pines for a long-lost North Texas favorite.
A Notrees man thinks dousing meat in boiling water is akin to cheating.
A Brownsville woman wants to spend eternity in close proximity to Ma and Pa Ferguson.
A visitor from Iowa was baffled by his recent drive through the Lone Star State.
An Arizona woman just doesn’t get the appeal of Mrs. Baird’s Bread or Hill Country Fare cut green beans.