My roll recipe has been passed down to the women of my dad’s family for generations. Now that I have kids, I have a different view of the tradition.
When I first arrived in Texas, I didn’t get the fawning over Whataburger. I tried to understand by eating 21 straight meals there.
The far–East Austin bar is an elephant graveyard for restaurant signs of decades past, but we’re still trying to figure out who it’s really for.
The 19-mile Houston road isn't the kind of place tourists appreciate. But it's everything I love about my city.
Sure, the restaurant chain was founded in Dallas and is currently headquartered there—but the concept also embraces the Dallas identity.
Living in a taco-obsessed world and reporting on border issues makes senior editor Jack Herrera’s relationship with the dish complex—and a little frustrating.
The 48th annual event in Brady rekindled both treasured and painful memories for a writer who’s been attending since infancy.
Eating meat—even when you’re practicing a plant-based diet—is every Texan’s right.
I’ve been the target of censorship and vicious harassment, but my greatest worry is what this trend means for young people who rely on school libraries.
After nearly two years of pandemic life, I didn’t even realize just how much I was craving this release.
I didn’t wake up one day and think, “I’m going to traipse around the woods and eat raw things.” But over time, I learned how to fill my pantry with delicious (and free!) foraged ingredients.
To survive the pandemic, the beloved Longview restaurant had to evolve. As a waiter there, I did too.
When I was growing up, Dr Pepper was a rare indulgence. Now it’s a reminder of how far I’ve come.
Stuttering is finally in the spotlight, thanks to Joe Biden’s campaign and the announcement of a groundbreaking new University of Texas research center. But it’s always been part of my life.
Rewarding and ignoring are the two key tenets of dog training. They’ve helped me get through this summer, too.
After living most of my life in Texas, I finally gave Willie Nelson a serious listen and learned a few things about my Nigerian mom.
Spoon is my favorite band. Spoon has a new album out. It is my favorite Spoon album. That is all.
She died twenty years ago, when I was ten. Yet even as the distance grows, I've found a way to keep her close.
When I needed a new home office, I thought I’d save money by hiring a draftsman. I got what I paid for—and more.
Life along the Pedernales was everything one could hope for—until it wasn’t.
After my father abandoned us I had to grow up fast. And when the chance for payback came, I took it.
The heretical choice to not own a vehicle in a city that worships the automobile.
When my wife, Sonia Van Meter, was chosen as one of the Mars One finalists, I realized that my potential loss was humanity’s gain.
When I was nine years old, I struggled to make a super 8 movie as my life unspooled around me.
For the first time in its history, Blue Bell is in a right sticky mess.
How my wife and I got more than we bargained for on a trip to Boquillas.
How a trip to South Padre Island, a grand theft auto, and an English folk singer forever changed my life’s course.
It rhymes with “sexist” and “Lexus.”
Beset by high-end interior Mexican, mid-range fajita-and-’rita chains, budget taquerias, and taco trucks—and whatever Torchy’s is—Houston’s old-school Tex-Mex is fading away.
Returning to El Paso and finding that you can’t go home again. Or maybe you can.
Why we will always worship the ground we walk on.
Growing up in my family, there were things you just didn’t talk about. Like feelings. Or sex. Or dying from AIDS.
I thought being a landman in the Eagle Ford Shale would help replenish my bank account. I quickly got more than I bargained for.
How one feline (and then a couple more, and then another) conquered both our hearts and our mice.
A man marks his territory.
As a teenager I thought a quick paint job would help my family blend in to our white suburban neighborhood. Now I'm glad it wasn't that simple.
The lonely, calloused, plaster-caked ballad of the do-it-yourself renovator.
Woodland Heights may not be the fanciest neighborhood in Houston, or the quietest, or the coolest (and it can be a little full of itself), but it’s mine.
Growing up at Charro Days.
If you have kids, being a caregiver to an elderly parent may feel a bit familiar.
The lessons of a family heirloom.
How eating cornbread and beans taught me who I was—and who we are as Texans.
As my son graduates from college, I’m learning to say goodbye to him—again.
In my 86 years I’ve come into the possession of an assortment of firearms: a Colt .32-caliber semiautomatic pistol that my grandfather bought at a hardware store in Cuero; a Remington Model 870 pump, 20-gauge shotgun that my Aggie uncle-by-marriage used to shoot birds; the Winchester Model 06 pump .22
The art of romantic osculation barely survived the jaded seventies. Now it’s time to rediscover the private delights and civic benefits of real kissing.
