News
 
Gravatar

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

Christian Nationalism at the BorderAs I pulled into Dripping Springs on Thursday evening, the first thing I saw was a truck with two disproportionately large flags flying from its bed. One was the American flag. Its complement—displaying a red cross inside a blue square on a white background—was the Christian flag.Behind me, a big black SUV honked repeatedly in support of the convoy that had descended on this 5,500-person town. When the driver honked again upon passing a group of similar flag-bearing trucks outside the Taco Bell, I realized this might be a bigger event than anticipated. For the last week, I’d been following the progress of the “Take Our Border Back” convoy as it curled its way down from Virginia Beach, Virginia, where a group of Christian nationalists…

The post Who’s in God’s Army? appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

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

frito pie vittlesLet’s get this out of the way: I don’t really know who’s playing at the Super Bowl this year. I have a vague notion Taylor Swift will be there, and I’m aware Usher is slated to entertain us at halftime, but otherwise I’m drawing blanks. No, for me, Super Bowl Sunday is not the grand finale of a season of sport. Instead, it’s a deeply American holiday during which we gather ’round the snack table to worship at the altar of creamy dips and grilled protein. The “bowl” then refers to vessels of guac, bean dip, and corn relish and containers of Fritos, chips, pretzels, and more.The following recipes will get you well on your way to a filling spread of the most premier game-day bites.…

The post The Most Texan Things to Serve at Your Super Bowl Party  appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

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

dispatch from eagle passIf you happen to be looking for a place to stay the night in Eagle Pass, you’d be hard-pressed to find any available rooms within the city limits. The Holiday Inn Express is overrun with Florida troopers. The Hampton Inn has Texas National Guard forces and news crews out the wazoo. The hotels and motels have hiked their prices in the face of high demand: the Comfort Inn & Suites, a two-star establishment located downtown, recently posted rates starting at $400 a night for the weekend—more costly than some big-city luxury hotels (at the time of publication, the inn was completely sold out).The border town of about 28,000 used to be the sort of place most folks had seldom heard of. If they had, it…

The post Eagle Pass, the Site of a Tense Border Standoff, Has Become a “Movie Set” appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

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

Houston Cougars guard Jamal Shead (1) controls the ball while being guarded by Texas Longhorns forward Dillon Mitchell (23) and Texas Longhorns guard Tyrese Hunter (4) during the Big 12 college basketball game between Texas Longhorns and Houston Cougars on January 29, 2024, at Moody Center in Austin, Texas.Surely the University of Houston would not dominate the nation’s toughest men’s college basketball conference the way it dominated its previous league. Even Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson wasn’t sure what to expect from this debut season in the Big 12 after six straight years of finishing first or second in the American Athletic Conference. Sampson warned that the math might change.“We get the internet here in Houston,” he said last fall. “We get cable. We don’t need someone to tell us how good Kansas is or how good Baylor is. We get it. We know that our record isn’t going to be what it was, but I’m excited about it.”Or maybe the bottom line wouldn’t change much at all. Welcome to the transition season that…

The post New Conference? No Problem for the Houston Cougars appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

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

FEBRUARY PIT PERKS Brisket U | Get $15 off any Brisket U Class with code TXMNEWS24scTW Juan and Allie’s BBQ | Address: 114 Texas Spur 511 Sunset Texas 76270 La Barbecue | Hand cut smoked and seared ribeyes with two sides and a dessert for Valentines Day (2/14) 11am-6:00pm Eaker Barbecue | See calendar for specials

The post February 2024 Pit Perks appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

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

Do open primaries really kill rightwing candidates?There’s a new way Democrats are “rigging” elections, according to some right-wing Texas Republicans: by voting in them. After Republican Jill Dutton won a special-election runoff for a North Texas state House seat against Brent Money on Tuesday night, Luke Macias, a GOP consultant, seemed incensed. Dutton, a former school board member, who had the backing of groups aligned with Texas House leadership, eked out a narrow 111-vote victory over Money, a lawyer backed by Governor Greg Abbott, Senator Ted Cruz, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Defend Texas Liberty, which is overwhelmingly financed by West Texas oil billionaires Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks. Macias claimed that Dutton won only because she was supported by the deep-red district’s few liberals. “Over 500 Democrats voted early in…

The post Some Republicans Think Democrats Are Stealing Elections . . . by Voting appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

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

Miguel and Modesty Vidal have joked that they’ll keep moving their barbecue joint farther south until they get to Miguel’s hometown of San Antonio. They first opened Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ as a food truck on Sixth Street in Austin in 2013 before heading south to Brodie Lane, then to Menchaca Road in the southern tip of Austin. They made the jump to Buda last June with a new location in the Buda Mill & Grain Co. development.This is the first location for Valentina’s that isn’t a truck. I stopped in one Saturday soon after it opened, and the line of people waiting to order wrapped around the dining room and between the rows of long tables. I gave up, not aware of the possible…

The post Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ Inches Farther South With Its Huge Expansion appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

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

U.S. National Guards take measures at Shelby Park, where migrants try to cross the wire-spikes on the border in Eagle Pass, on January 30, 2024.Greg Abbott has long saluted U.S. Border Patrol. Just a few years ago, he made it clear that he’d stand by them, even if the man in the White House did not. In September 2021, Joe Biden condemned a crew of Border Patrol agents on horseback in Del Rio, on the Texas border, for charging at a group of Haitian migrants. Abbott was disgusted when he learned the agents—who “risk their lives to secure the border”—were under official investigation. “I have worked side by side with those Border Patrol agents. I want them to know something: if they are at risk of losing their job . . . you have a job in the state of Texas,” he said on Fox News. “I will hire you to help Texas…

The post Border Patrol and Texas Troopers Were Once the Best of Friends. What Happened? appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

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

Taking Texit seriously: What would it look likeSecession has long tantalized Texans. Twice we’ve been moved to pursue it—first in 1836, when we fought to win independence from Mexico, then again in 1861, when Texas joined the other states of the Confederacy in leaving the United States. The latter move’s failure seemed to settle the question of whether Texas (or any other state) held the right to secede from the union. The U.S. Supreme Court case that made secession illegal—Texas v. White, from 1869—also rejected the notion that, because Texas was once an independent republic, it enjoys special privileges when it comes to secession. Still, the matter has never been put to bed entirely, and has been attracting fresh attention amid the Lone Star State’s latest clash with the federal government at…

The post Is the Texas Secession Movement Getting Serious? appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!

Gravatar

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

The Story: Six BrothersIn the October 2005 issue of Texas Monthly, John Spong profiled Kevin Von Erich, the only surviving son in the famous Von Erich family—a family that dominated the world of professional wrestling in the 1980s, and that was marked by extreme tragedy. The 2023 feature film The Iron Claw has introduced new audiences to the tale, and in this installment of “The Story,” Spong reflects on what’s at the heart of it all.

The post The Story: Inside the Von Erich Family, From the Pages of Texas Monthly to the Silver Screen appeared first on Texas Monthly.

Thank you for reading!