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

It wasn’t unusual for Harper to fall suddenly. “She’s a toe walker,” said her mother, Brooke Wilson, referring to a condition associated with her daughter’s autism. “She’ll literally just be standing there, and she’ll tip over.” But this time was different.One morning last fall, Wilson was getting ready to go to her job as a special education teacher when her husband called out from the kitchen. She rushed in to find nine-year-old Harper slumped over, with her head on the counter. When Wilson lifted Harper’s face, the girl’s eyes rolled back, and her body crumpled downward. “Thank God I was right there, so her head didn’t hit the floor,” Wilson said. “It was the scariest thing. My whole body was shaking.”As the family rushed to…

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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.

In May, Meebs Aslam gave a $10 donation to a political campaign promising to oust one of the nation’s most loathed senators. Colin Allred, then a Democratic congressman from Dallas, had just announced a bid against incumbent Ted Cruz. Aslam, a precinct chair for the Travis County Democratic Party, was initially so enamored by the relatively green House member—“Allred was in the NFL; he’s this really exciting, physically fit, well-spoken, kind person”—that he volunteered to help with invitations for one of Allred’s November fundraisers. There, Aslam said he watched a who’s who of deep-pocketed Democrats and big party figures, including U.S. transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten, schmooze and ultimately donate around $12,000 in total to Allred’s campaign. Allred quickly caught fire and emerged as…

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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.

David Segovia and Bryan and Kimmy Bingham, the trio of owners at Sunbird Barbecue in Longview, spent a long two and a half years in a food truck. They thought their plan for a brick-and-mortar would materialize quickly, but after moving eight miles west to White Oak and serving under a pseudonym in Shreveport, Louisiana, they finally opened a permanent spot in December.In 2021, the three hatched a plan to open their own place while working at the original Bodacious Bar-B-Q on Mobberly Avenue in Longview. Three years earlier, Segovia was working for a document shredding company and answered a job ad Bryan posted for the pit room. “I didn’t even tell my wife what I was doing,” Segovia said of the brief interview process.…

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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.

After driving nine miles, over four cattle guards, along a private road just northwest of Amarillo, I worried that I might have made a wrong turn as I saw an entry gate on the horizon bearing the name “Mack Dick Ranch.” But soon enough I came upon what could be mistaken for a standard methane gas plant, complete with a skunk-like odor.The facility’s collection of Cold War–era stainless steel pipes and office buildings create a mood of drab utilitarianism, in muted tones of green, gray, and mustard yellow. I’d come here to see for myself where the federal government stores enough helium to fill about 13,000 Goodyear blimps—each big enough to carry ten tons of cargo—or more than 4 billion mylar party balloons.Known as the…

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The Bullet SwallowerElizabeth Gonzalez JamesAntonio Sonoro, one of the protagonists of this spectacular new novel, is a desperate, violent man who’ll do anything to provide for his family. Well, not quite anything. He won’t stop drinking, won’t get a job, and often won’t come home at all. Antonio is happier scheming, stealing, and, when he’s so inclined, killing. When he hears, in the summer of 1895, that looted treasure is being taken from Mexico to Houston, he’s sure his family’s fortune lies on that train. Antonio’s journey from Dorado, Mexico, into Texas and back again leaves a trail of violence and blood—much of it his. In 1964, Jaime Sonoro is a successful Mexican actor who knows almost nothing about his grandfather Antonio or his other ancestors…

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