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Galleries and shops in Edom.With its rusted metal roof and mismatched wood exterior, the cabin that houses the Blade Bar, a knife shop in Ben Wheeler, in northeast Texas’s Van Zandt County, looks like an exhibit you might encounter at a living history museum. It once belonged to the late Dan Harrison, an internationally renowned knife-maker who created custom knives for Lyndon B. Johnson and Queen Elizabeth II. On the February day I visited, two children, who turned out to belong to owners Johnathan and Rhiannon Sibley, ran around the front-porch swing, sucking on rock candy lollipops. Across the street, diners were enjoying burgers and beers at the Forge Bar and Grill, a restaurant in an old blacksmith shop that now hosts live music in its sprawling outdoor area. My…

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Trey Kistler in the finishing room at Kistler Custom Fishing Rods, in Magnolia, on April 3, 2024.As a child growing up in the small town of Tomball, about 35 miles northwest of Houston, Trey Kistler loved fishing so much that he would illicitly cast for bass in private ponds in his suburban neighborhood. “If they didn’t shoot at me, then I would sneak in,” he recalls with a laugh. Even back then he favored high-end equipment, no doubt because his father, Billy Kistler, was a cofounder of Houston’s All Star Rods, known for its off-the-shelf graphite bass poles. Trey eventually enlisted in the Army and served in the Middle East during the Gulf War. By the time he came home, in 1991, his dad had cofounded another off-the-shelf rod maker, CastAway. He taught Trey the craft. By 1999, Trey had started his…

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texmexplainer hamburgerGloria Perez, who owns 102-year-old Rutledge Hamburgers, in Brownsville, serves the platonic ideal of the hamburguesa mexicana in the U.S. The beef patty (seared on a flattop here as opposed to grilled over the more traditional mesquite coals) is dressed with American cheese, a slice of salty ham, crisp lettuce, and sweet tomatoes and served on a buttery bun. It’s the addition of the processed pork product (and, usually, the mesquite grilling) that makes the result a Mexican burger. It’s not clear when borderland chefs first put their spin on the hamburger, but a 1948 edition of the Brownsville Herald mentioned that Mexican burgers were being sold at a market in Matamoros. The following year a column in the Abilene Reporter-News noted them in a…

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TM Talks Richard Linklater Hit ManOne should never attempt to guess what kind of film Richard Linklater is going to make next. Since 1985, the indie maverick has written and directed movies about everyone from eccentric Austin misfits (Slacker) to Texas high schoolers on the last day of classes (Dazed and Confused) to a young couple who meet on a train in Europe (Before Sunrise). He has tackled genres as varied as the western (The Newton Boys), political satire (Fast Food Nation), and science fiction (A Scanner Darkly). He released a coming-of-age movie (Boyhood) that he filmed over the course of twelve years, using the same cast of actors as they aged in real time, and a black comedy, Bernie, that was based on a Texas Monthly article I wrote…

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texanist dessert bakingQ: The Texanist’s monthly column is my favorite feature in the print edition of Texas Monthly, but I always wait until I’ve read the rest of the magazine to savor it, kind of like dessert. Speaking of which: What are the best desserts in the Lone Star State?Grant Betz, Sugar LandA: Well, thank you very much—for the sweet compliment as well as this sweet query, which the Texanist finds to be very on-brand for a letter writer who hails from Sugar Land.Speaking of which, Sugar Land, as you are likely aware, Mr. Betz, happens to be situated in an area known as the sugar bowl of Texas. And your city of residence is named partly in honor of the famed Imperial Sugar company, Texas’s oldest brand, which was founded way…

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Nick Caster, Noah Green, and Christina Caster on the set of Gus Plus Us, at Caster Studios, in Dripping Springs, on March 18, 2024.When you’re a puppet, the simplest act can get complicated quickly. For Gus, the titular star of the children’s show Gus Plus Us, looking at a road map requires his creator, Nick Caster, who controls Gus’s left arm and mouth, to coordinate with another puppeteer who’s working Gus’s right hand. As the two men iron out their choreography, lying shoulder to shoulder atop a wheeled cart parked below the camera frame, the director notes another problem: the map bears the unmistakable curve of the Texas shoreline, a detail that would seem to place Gus—an imaginary blue-tufted creature of an unspecified forest—squarely in our neck of the woods. As the crew debates the potential ramifications of this reveal, I turn to Christina Caster, Nick’s wife—she also…

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ev Bill Lawson speaks from the pulpit during services at Wheeler Ave. Baptist Church, Sunday. Rev. Lawson conducted his last day of church services Sunday 8/29/04, before retiring from being the pastor of Wheeler Ave. Baptist Church.The Reverend William Lawson, a beloved preacher and community leader known as “Houston’s pastor” who led efforts to desegregate the city, died Tuesday at the age of 95. Lawson was judicious in the fight for social justice, his prudent approach evident from the start. One spring evening in 1960, on the Texas Southern University campus, Lawson—then a lanky 31-year-old who’d arrived in Texas just five years earlier—invited a handful of students from the Progressive Youth Association, which was dedicated to advancing desegregation in Houston, into the den of the Baptist Student Union, where he was director. The group’s leader, a dynamic TSU law student and Army vet named Eldrewey Stearns, had gained some notoriety around campus after telling city council about a police beating he’d recently endured.…

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Austin Amelio Shopping ColumnBorn and raised in the Texas capital, multihyphenate actor-artist-skateboarder Austin Amelio has been lucky enough to see his television and film career blossom in his hometown. “I’ve barely stepped foot in L.A.,” says the 36-year-old, which is fortunate, seeing as his “favorite place to create in the world is Texas.”Amelio was a professional skateboarder and visual artist living in Austin when he booked his first big acting gig with fellow Texan Richard Linklater in the 2016 film Everybody Wants Some!!, a follow-up of sorts to the director’s beloved standout Dazed and Confused. Thanks in part to his role in the film, where he appeared alongside fellow Austinite Glen Powell for the first time, Amelio followed that success with a prime spot in the zombie thriller series…

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May 2024 Pit PerksMay Pit Perks Brisket U | Get $15 off any Brisket U Class with code TXMNEWS24scTW Eaker Barbecue | 10% off merch and free sticker.* LaVaca BBQ | 10% food and merch* Tejas Chocolate & BBQ | 20% off merchandise, rubs, and sauce bottles.* HOT LUCK Live Food & Music Festival | Use code TMBBQCLUB24 for 20% off tickets!

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Ted Cruz InterviewNot too long ago, Ted Cruz carefully guarded against any talk that he might collaborate with Democrats. Consider the time, in December 2022, when Texas’s junior senator traveled to Georgia to campaign for Herschel Walker, the Republican senatorial candidate, in a runoff that would ultimately firm up Democrats’ control of the upper chamber. Walker’s opponent, Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, released an ad touting his partnership with Cruz on an amendment to the omnibus infrastructure bill that expanded Interstate 14, to show voters, in a state that had voted deep red for decades, his ability to work across the aisle. Cruz, who ultimately voted against the bill, fired back at Warnock on the Texan’s podcast, accusing the Georgian politician of trying to distract voters from…

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