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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.

texanist frito pie may 2024Q:  When I introduced my English husband to Frito pie, I was surprised to find him less than enthused. Could you explain the origins of this ingenious meal, and why Texans find it so tasty?Mary Lowry, AustinA: Ah, the Frito pie, a.k.a. the Frito chili pie, the chili Frito pie, the walking taco, the taco in a bag, the Frito boat, and the Texas straw hat. Whatever you call it, a bag of Fritos corn chips topped with a ladleful of spicy chili, a fistful of grated yellow cheese, a sprinkling of chopped onion and sliced or diced jalapeño, and sometimes even a dollop of sour cream is a dish near and dear to the Texanist’s timeworn old ticker.Though we know that the Frito chip…

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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.

A new marker remembering enslaved people who were brought to Texas by sea, or who perished along the journey, is unveiled in Port Arthur on March 23, 2024.The ship sailed through Sabine Pass in Port Arthur, at the southeast tip of Texas, carrying a group of at least eight Black men, British subjects from Barbados who’d been granted freedom from slavery. It was April of 1836, around the time of other well-memorialized events in Texas. On board were at least eight Black men, British subjects from Barbados who’d been granted freedom from slavery. Among them were William Gunsil, Edward Hicks, Samuel Redman, April Sashly, Henry Small, William Thomas, Edward Whittaker, and an unnamed man. They came aboard a ship whose captain, John Taylor, had a scheme to sell them back into bondage.Taylor found interested buyers among some prominent early Texas settlers, including A.B. Hardin, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, and…

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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.

Daniel-Webster-Wallace-80-John-Texas-cowboy-featOne day in the late 1930s, Daniel Webster Wallace—“80 John,” as he was known in ranching circles—rode his favorite horse, Blondie, from his Mitchell County ranch to the Loraine post office. It was a familiar route for him in this mostly flat, sandy part of the state halfway between Midland and Abilene. He had made the six-mile round trip dozens of times. Wallace collected his mail then walked back to Blondie. In his time, 80 John had broken hundreds of broncs. His tougher-than-bull-hide body had never failed him. But on this day, he lacked the strength to swing his leg over the saddle. A group of men saw him struggling and hustled over to lift 80 John onto Blondie. Wallace was Black. The men who helped…

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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.

delicate ribbed undersides of pale lavender mushrooms“This is where I saw the fairy ring,” said my mushroom guide, Angel Schatz. We paused in the deep shade of a nature trail improbably located a mile from a busy Central Texas highway. For a minute the two of us scanned the drifts of brown leaves, hoping for a flash of lavender that would signal the presence of a mushroom I had not heard of until a week before: the wood blewit. Like many fungi, it often grows in a natural ring that ancient European cultures attributed to fairies, pixies, or elves. The wood blewit is a comely and hardy fungus that grows worldwide, including in Texas. More importantly for my immediate purposes, it is a tasty fungus. We scuffed up a few leaves.…

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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.

Esquivel at Panther Creek Wind Farm, on March 20, 2024.Caroline Esquivel, who is 39, maintains wind turbines for RWE, a renewable energy firm that operates 26 wind farms across Texas.  My day starts at 4 a.m. I have an hour-long commute from Odessa to Big Spring, so I leave my house at 4:40 to get to work around 6. If I leave ten minutes late, I hit traffic. I don’t drink coffee or energy drinks, and everyone’s like, “How do you survive?” I don’t know—my parents taught me to work hard at whatever I do, so I just go. In the mornings I hardly even listen to music. Sometimes I’ll pick up a coworker who needs a ride, but mostly I’m just driving. When I get to the site, I meet up with my partner,…

The post Rule One of Wind Turbine Repair Work: Don’t Leave Your Phone at the Top 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.

Behind the Scenes of MotoGP with a Texas Motorcycle Racing MechanicIt was a sticky, sunny afternoon at the Circuit of the Americas. Thousands of spectators were gathered on Sunday to catch the rush of MotoGP. Who among the best motorcycle road racers in the world would win the Grand Prix of the Americas?The race was only halfway through when, after seizing the lead with his swift and aggressive riding, Spain’s Marc Márquez slid into the gravel and crashed. Audible gasps swept through the devastated crowd, but there was little time for fans to dwell on the disappointing twist. With nine of twenty laps left, the crown was up for grabs. Fighting his way up from eleventh place, Maverick Viñales, another Spaniard, swerved past Pecco Bagnaia and then Jorge Martin before overtaking Pedro Acosta for first…

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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.

A Cinnamon Girl Soaps bar in the Arredondo home studio, in Del Rio, on March 12, 2024.Mia Arredondo, then a high school sophomore in Del Rio, couldn’t come up with an idea for a business-class project. Frustrated, she did what any teenager does when stymied by homework: she yelled, “Mom!” During their brainstorming session, Mia was considering making skin-care items, such as sugar scrubs and lotions, when her mother, Kathy, remembered a soapmaking lesson she’d taken during a chemistry lab at Texas A&M University in the eighties. “I told her, ‘Hey, why don’t we learn how to make soap?’ ” Kathy recalls. After reading some soapmaking books, they purchased a soap mold, lye, and oils and then created their first batch. They ended up earning some serious extra credit. Within a year, the Arredondos, including Mia’s older sister, Sarah, had founded an actual…

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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.

Alex Jones buys land in TerlinguaOn the edge of Big Bend National Park, in the remote far West Texas town of approximately 150, Terlingua residents have coined a lot of sayings. There’s one about dating in the town: “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.” There’s one about the brand of eccentrics who choose to live there: “Everyone in Terlingua is running from something,” said Stephanie Neckar, a local real estate agent. Another resident recently told me: “We’re all here because we’re not all there.” I was talking to these folks about a new interloper who ought to fit right in: the excitable alt-right radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.Jones, along with his Austin-based company, Free Speech Systems, was ordered to pay $1.5 billion in damages 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.

Owner Phillip Helberg seasons citrus pork steaks at Helberg Barbecue, in Woodway.When a barbecue joint is destroyed by fire, many of us would assume the smoker is to blame. But at Helberg Barbecue, in Woodway, just west of Waco, the November 2023 fire originated inside the nearby food trailer the staff used as a kitchen. When owner-pitmaster Phillip Helberg looked at security footage, he saw the propane tanks attached to the trailer ignite. Then the fire traveled via an awning to the restaurant, where the intensity of the heat damaged the steel beams that supported the roof. (Thankfully no one was harmed.) Helberg and his wife and co-owner, Yvette, didn’t have long to mourn. Three days before Christmas, they began operating a drive-through from a new trailer next to the burned-out hulk that used to be…

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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 Permian Will Pay You to Haul Its Natural Gas AwayImagine a sign by the egg case at your local H-E-B: “Take a dozen home. Please. We’ll pay you $4 per carton. No limit per customer.”Sound outlandish? Maybe, but this is essentially what has happened with natural gas in West Texas in recent days. Last weekend, the price for gas at the Waha Hub, a major pipeline junction near Fort Stockton, was -$3 per thousand cubic feet. That’s negative three dollars. If you sent gas to Waha, you had to pay someone to take it off your hands.You may now be saying to yourself, “I’d like some of that gas. I use natural gas to cook dinner every night. Can I get paid to burn gas?” The answer to your question is: Not unless you…

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