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

The state of Texas will crown a new slate of high school football champions this week, as the finalists, from the six-man classification all the way up to class 6A, meet in a series of title games at AT&T Stadium, in Arlington. But forty years ago, the only winners in the state championship tilt between Odessa Permian and Beaumont French were chaos and confusion.More than 13,000 fans showed up in Irving that day in December 1984 to watch the class 5A—the University Athletic League’s largest enrollment classification at the time—finale at Texas Stadium. Odessa Permian was a perennial contender for district and state championships in those days, while Beaumont French eked out the football team’s first playoff berth in nine years with a 6–4 regular-season…

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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.

Borderline BiasI have been a subscriber for many years and love the magazine. What I do not appreciate is the political bias that is obvious when reading some of your articles. “The Border Crisis Won’t Be Solved at the Border” [November 2024] is one of them. There is ridicule of the governor’s trying to protect the border, but there is insufficient explanation of why there was suddenly a need for doing so. I believe that if the previous presidential administration’s policies had been kept, there would not have been a huge increase in the number of immigrants crossing the border illegally. The governor tried to protect Texas and Texans against this, as the federal government apparently had other priorities.There is mention of the costs to…

The post Roar of the Crowd: January 2025 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.

The younger generations—and possibly singer Sabrina Carpenter—have brought back the espresso martini. There’s no fighting it—stemmed glasses of rich, brown, caffeinated liquid dotted with three coffee beans are everywhere. Instead, we’re innovating it. Our espresso martini—a Texspresso Martini, if you will—has a Southern drawl, with mezcal adding a bit of smoke and pecans contributing richness. With three ingredients, there’s only so much you can change up in this dessert (or brunch) cocktail, but this combination is pretty spectacular. Mezcal has always been an excellent pairing for coffee. As the old saying goes, what grows together goes together, and coffee is harvested in many areas of Mexico that also produce mezcal, including Oaxaca and Guerrero. And when we’re talking Texas, my mind always goes to pecans, one…

The post Gen Z Brought Back the Espresso Martini. We Texified It. 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.

Since its release on the 1994 album Gringo Honeymoon, Robert Earl Keen’s “Merry Christmas From the Family” has become the “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” for those of us whose family get-togethers are less Hallmark and more National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.It’s not just humor, though, that has made the song a holiday—and honky-tonk—tradition. Like Willie Nelson’s “Pretty Paper” or Merle Haggard’s “If We Make It Through December,” the tune has a touch of melancholy that resonates this time of year and a relatability that relieves some of the pressure that comes with picture-perfect holiday expectations. With a cracker-barrel cast of characters who are hilarious but also tenderhearted, the song achieves a wistful nostalgia that feels like flipping through an album of old photos. “People tell me year after…

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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.

At the end of this year, after fifty years with Texas Monthly, dining critic Patricia Sharpe will be closing her tab and retiring. Pat bid her readers farewell and answered a few final questions about her gustatory adventures in an essay in Texas Monthly‘s December issue, but here, colleagues past and present share their anecdotes about and praise for Pat’s five decades with the magazine.A few weeks ago, Pat and I were waiting to be seated at the host stand of a restaurant in San Antonio, and the young woman asked for the phone number on the reservation. If you’ve read Pat’s wonderful December feature, you know she always makes a reservation under a fake name, but, of course, technology blew her cover long ago.…

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