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'God Save Texas' Iliana Sosa interview“Writers have been sizing up Texas from its earliest days, usually harshly,” writes Pulitizer Prize winner and Texas Monthly alum Lawrence Wright in the opening of his 2018 book, God Save Texas. The same could probably be said of filmmakers, especially where the Texas-Mexico border is concerned. Narcos and migrants, desert and dust—one easily falls into the trap of depicting the starkness of two sides without adequately capturing the nuance of those who live in between. Inspired by Wright’s book, a new HBO documentary trilogy by the same name introduces viewers to the Lone Star State in its immense complexity by sending three Texan directors back to their hometowns. Richard Linklater presents a portrait of Texas’s criminal justice system in his native Huntsville; Alex Stapleton spotlights…

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Ken Paxton Watch: Ken Paxton Takes on the Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Diocese of El Paso loaned out a run-down, two-story red brick building on the city’s East San Antonio Avenue, ten blocks from the border with Mexico, to a group of five young parishioners who felt moved that “the gospel calls us all to [serve] the poor.” In El Paso, that often means asylum seekers and migrants, so providing them with food and shelter became the mission of the group, which created a nongovernmental organization called Annunciation House. That was back in 1978, and in the decades since, Annunciation House quietly ministered to migrants without stirring controversy—until Tuesday. That’s when Attorney General Ken Paxton posted a tweet announcing a lawsuit against the NGO, declaring that such organizations “facilitate astonishing horrors including human smuggling” and decrying them as…

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The OG Burger from Dayne's Craft Barbecue.At six two and 270 pounds, chef Ethan Davis has a body built for smashing burger patties. He’s the kitchen manager and burger specialist at Dayne’s Craft Barbecue, in Aledo, just west of Fort Worth. It’s only appropriate that owners Dayne and Ashley Weaver would need a scouting report for folks to wield an aluminum spatula in a town whose identity is so tightly linked to football (Aledo High School has won eleven state championships in the last fifteen years). “Some of our employees can’t get high enough to get the leverage they need to get a good smash on it,” Weaver said, and he knows from experience. “I made the first seven thousand burgers myself.” He debuted the OG Burger in April 2021, and…

The post These Brisket Smash Burgers Are So Good, They Annoy Their Pitmaster Creator appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

tcr ultramarathon colorado bendIn the latest dispatch from Texas Country Reporter, meet the man behind dozens of ultramarathon trail races organized under the banner Tejas Trails. Runners at these events accomplish extraordinary feats—sixty-kilometer distances during overnight races on rugged routes in places like Colorado Bend State Park. And supporting them from start to finish, often during a twenty-hour marathon shift, is PJ Izaguirre. Watch for the full story.

The post Happiness Is a Community of Ultramarathon Trail Runners in Central Texas appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Climate Change Is Killing Texas BatsOn a recent day in November, under a mesh tent in their Austin backyard, Dianne Odegard and Lee Mackenzie took turns hand-feeding the dozens of bats in their care. Partners both in life and in the Austin Bat Refuge, a nonprofit they run from their home in the Cherrywood neighborhood, the septuagenarian couple has rescued thousands of injured bats over the past two decades. Their garden is full of night-blooming greenery: fragrant jasmine, Mexican honeysuckle, and burnt red shrimp plants, all in service of their nocturnal charges, who take practice flights under the tent come nightfall. Mackenzie, his shoulder-length gray hair tied into a ponytail, wore a black latex glove as he fed live worms to Sylvie, a hoary bat (so named for its white-tipped fur, resembling…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Smoked oxtails at Charlie’s Bar-BQue, in Beaumont.Every Thursday morning Charles Brewer procures sliced oxtails from his local H-E-B. He sprinkles them liberally with TexJoy barbecue seasoning, then adds extra dashes of paprika and onion powder. After that, he smokes them over red oak and hickory for twelve to fifteen hours at his joint, Charlie’s Bar-B-Que, in Beaumont. That’s how long it takes a much bigger brisket to cook, so it might come as a surprise that a three-inch chunk of meat is equally stubborn. “It’s a long process, but the payoff is worth it,” Brewer told me. “We never have any leftovers.” Oxtails are sliced from the tail of a cow. With nose-to-tail cooking being in vogue, the cut of meat, long prized for its richness, has found new fans. The…

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Get in-depth coverage of news, reviews and conversations about Texas barbecue. It's basically Christmas every day for barbecue-lovers.

Texas Salt Co. owners Daniel and Andrew Almand.So many rodeo champions hail from Bandera County that the monument on the courthouse lawn has no more room for names on its bronze plaque. A small town about an hour’s drive northwest of San Antonio, Bandera beckons folks with other sorts of cowboy dreams too. It inspired Robert Earl Keen, who moved here in the late eighties after a disappointing stint in Nashville, to start writing songs again. Tourists come for the staged gunfights behind the visitors center on Saturday afternoons. And just down Main Street from the legendary Arkey Blue’s Silver Dollar honky-tonk, a couple has built a business by giving the cowboy treatment to a simple ingredient.Daniel and Andrew Almand launched Texas Salt Co. three years ago after creating a briny blend…

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heartdrum cynthia leitich harper imprintSoft watercolor smudges of vibrant red, turquoise, and yellow sprawl across the first pages of the children’s book Jingle Dancer, by Cynthia Leitich Smith. Head in hand, Smith’s young protagonist, Jenna, imagines her grandmother donning Native American regalia as she dances a traditional jingle dance: “Tink, tink, tink, tink, sang cone-shaped jingles sewn to Grandma Wolfe’s dress.” Inside the wisps of Jenna’s daydream, Grandma Wolfe stands tall in a red dress sewn with neat rows of silver metal cones, which hit one another to create a tinkling, rainlike sound. She’s also wearing a contestant number strung along the bottom of her gown; she’s about to participate in the women’s jingle dance, a powwow event in which dancers compete for prize money. Smith and illustrators Cornelius Van…

The post Less Than 2 Percent of Children’s Books Feature Indigenous Characters. Heartdrum Wants to Change That. appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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Willie Nelson, Bill Wittliff, and Lawrence WrightWhen Willie released “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die” as a single on, of course, April 20, 2012, it became an instant fan favorite, and there are a host of reasons why. For one, it’s a great mix of three Willie hallmarks, namely a catchy melody, his insouciant wit, and weed, and concertgoers have been waving joints overhead when he plays it ever since. On the record, it’s a bright-line example of the wide net he’s always cast when it comes to collaborators: a Highwaymen-esque partnering with Kris Kristofferson, Jamey Johnson . . . and Snoop Dogg. And then, for the real-deal Willie nerds who notice Buddy Cannon’s name among the co-writers, it’s a pivotal entry in his songwriting catalog, a crucial first step into the…

The post Pulitzer Prize Winner Lawrence Wright on the Existential Quality of Watching Willie Nelson and Trigger Grow Old Together appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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Jermaine O’Neal coaching the Dynamic Prep basketball team.Chances are, you’ve never heard of the boys basketball team that’s by far the best in Texas, at least according to ESPN’s national rankings.Dynamic Prep has only been a school for two years. Its regular-season record was 21–1 , and ESPN has it at number 14 in the nation. The only other Texas team in the rankings is Plano East Senior High, at number 24. “They have the most talented team in Texas,” said Sam Lowe, director of the Metroplex-based Great American Shoot-Out, which scouts players and holds offseason tournaments across Texas.Three of Dynamic Prep’s players are in GASO’s top hundred seniors in the state: number 35 guard-wing Leon Horner, number 42 point guard Jaylen Washington, and number 67 forward Malachi Hayes. Three more are…

The post Texas’s Top High School for Hoops Has Eleven Students, and They’re All on the Basketball Team appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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