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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.

Texas-tortoise-South-Rio-Grande-Valley-featThe elusive Texas tortoise is slow, brown, and shaped like a rock—all traits that make this small, rare reptile tough to spot as it scoots through the dense Tamaulipan thornscrub of the Rio Grande Valley. Jackie Tleimat, a PhD candidate in biology at Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, knows this better than anyone. She’s spent a lot of time trying to find Texas tortoises, which live only in South Texas and parts of Mexico.In 2022, Tleimat placed about 45 game cameras across Cactus Creek Ranch, a four hundred-acre expanse outside the small town of Rio Hondo. Then she waited . . . and waited. While the camera captured plenty of deer, fiddler crabs, and nilgai, it was exceedingly rare for a tortoise to stroll in front of the…

The post Don’t Mess With the Texas Tortoise Task Force 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.

tesla cybertruck meetupThey know you think they’re members of a personality cult and that their $100,000 truck looks like it was designed by a drunk toddler. They’ve seen the stories about their vehicles getting coal rolled or their stainless steel bodies targeted by vandals. They also know that somehow—during a period in American history so polarized that elected leaders are calling for a “national divorce”—the very sight of their futuristic-looking truck is enough to unite some progressive-leaning Americans and staunch conservatives in an unlikely coalition of mutual contempt. Over the past few months, Cybertruck owners have been on the receiving end of so much hate—typically in the form of middle fingers from their fellow motorists—that they say they understand your anger better than you do. The truth, they…

The post At the World’s First Cybertruck Rodeo, Flamethrowers Are Toys and Winning Is a Way of Life 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.

Bastrop-Elon-Musk-organic-farm-Boring-CompanyWhen they learned that Elon Musk had purchased 280 acres of land a short drive from their organic farm, it seemed like a miracle. For more than a decade, husband and wife Skip Connett and Erin Flynn had worked to turn Wilbarger Bend, a rural agricultural area located in a lush floodplain along the Colorado River about a half-hour drive southeast of downtown Austin, into a community-based farming hub like others around the country. Though they’d enjoyed some success over their five years of working the land, it had become apparent that their vision would require more money and more property. For years, Flynn had joked that what the couple needed was for a benevolent billionaire to drop out of the sky—someone who was willing…

The post Their Dream Was to Build an Organic Farm. Then Elon Musk Moved Into the Neighborhood. 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.

Tacos de lechon, al pastor, and ribeye carne asada.Sergio Quijano ended up in Texas by following a girl. The Mexico City native was fourteen. She was sixteen. The young lady, who is now his wife, gave him a directive. “ ‘If you really love me, you’ll come to Texas.’ And I did,” he recalls. “I was in the [best] shape of my life,” he jokes as we sit across a metal table from each other. “I was very handsome. I was a knockout. I used to practice boxing, and I had a six-pack.” Age, he claims, has gotten the better of him, but his humor remains intact. “I’ve lost my hair. I got fat,” he laughs. But from the years of working as a dishwasher through serving as wine director at Julian Barsotti’s restaurants,…

The post A New Dallas Taqueria Has a Lot of Potential in Showcasing Mexico City’s Famed Tacos 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.

Ball gloves hang on display before being packaged at the Nokona manufacturing facility in Nocona, Texas. Since the Great Depression, Nokona has been making gloves in a small town outside Dallas with a long history of producing boots and whips for cowboys.The Nokona Ballglove Factory, located about ten miles south of the Red River in Montague County, has been manufacturing baseball gloves for ninety years. The small facility is the last domestic producer of baseball gloves in the United States, with an average output of about one hundred gloves per day and 42 workers on the factory floor. Nokona can’t match the sales or major league endorsements of glove makers like Rawlings or Wilson. But those industry giants might not be able to boast of employees as devoted to their jobs as Nokona’s Malinda Reynolds.Reynolds cites her first day working at the plant without hesitation: “June twenty-fourth, 1977.” That was soon after she graduated from nearby Gold-Burg High School. Reynolds began back then as a glove…

The post Inside America’s Last Domestic Manufacturer of Baseball Gloves 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.

Beekeeping boom in TexasAs Art Holbrook walked across ten pastoral acres in Argyle, thirty miles northwest of Dallas, he knew he’d found his dream home. The rolling countryside was shaded by enormous post oak trees, some of them as old as three hundred years, and aside from some light cattle grazing, the property had been virtually untouched by humans for at least sixty years. Holbrook, 71, was enamored with a GMC flatbed truck that had broken down under a tree in 1953, one year after he was born, and never moved again. “That’s some of the most pristine property on the face of the earth,” he says. The chairman and CEO of a Dallas-based fabrication company had been looking for a peaceful place to live out his golden…

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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.

republican reactions to trump convictionWe all know that Republican politics now is largely a matter of keeping your friends close and your enemies out of office at whatever cost. In Texas, even the pretense of having principles is wearing thin. But the way some elected officials have responded to Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts—resulting from a bungled cover-up of his extramarital affair with an adult film star—is nothing short of remarkable. Nearly every prominent GOP official in the state has come to the defense of Stormy Daniels’ (alleged) paramour. More than that, some are vowing vengeance.Eight years ago, virtually the entire Republican establishment here—save for a few supporters of Rick Perry and Jeb Bush—were in lockstep behind Senator Ted Cruz. As right wing as they come, Cruz…

The post The Texas GOP Has Made Its Bed With Trump—Conviction Be Damned 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.

Fort-Worth-BBQ-Co-Barbeque-Company-chopped-brisket-sandwich-elotesFinding the newest barbecue joint in Fort Worth can be a challenge. Fort Worth BBQ Company took over what had been the second oldest spot in town when Bailey’s Bar-B-Que sold after 93 years in business. Chris Magallanes and Ernest Morales, owners of our current tenth best barbecue joint in the state, Panther City BBQ, bought the place. They quickly reopened March 1, but they’re still waiting on a sign to make the arrival more official. The first sign fabricator fell through, so the drawn-out permitting process with the city had to begin anew. For now, the old Bailey’s sign remains, but walk through the door and you’ll see that plenty has changed inside.The last time I wrote in detail about Bailey’s Bar-B-Que, Brenda Phifer…

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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.

Shaz & Kiks founders Shaz Rajashekar and Kiku Chaudhuri.Sisters Shaz Rajashekar and Kiku Chaudhuri spent their school vacations traveling from Memorial in Houston to visit family in the lush Himalayan foothills of West Bengal, India. The two recall idyllic summers where they would indulge in the Ayurvedic practice of hair oiling, a centuries-old tradition, during which their grandmother would firmly massage handmade hair oils into their scalps. Crafting the oil was a practice in and of itself. Their grandmother would pick amla berries, hibiscus flowers, holy basil, and moringa leaves from her garden, mix them with fenugreek seeds, and steep the plants in bhringraj, coconut, or sesame oil. The sisters grew up with a love of these ingredients and rituals, and in 2020, they founded hair care brand Shaz & Kiks to share…

The post How Two Texan Sisters Are Bringing Ancient Beauty Tips to the Western World 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 exterior of a Bennigans.In high school, my town’s Bennigan’s was where my friends and I filled up on Cokes, burgers, and Monte Cristos; we flirted, were friend zoned, and convinced the servers it was someone’s birthday when it wasn’t. The chain, which was started by Steak and Ale founder and Pillsbury executive vice president Norman E. Brinker in 1976, was where my parents often took my sisters and me for post-Mass lunches. Those were nervous outings. I didn’t want to get the Monte Cristo’s jelly or powdered sugar on my suit and tie. But overall, Bennigan’s was a series of memories, fuzzy from a halo made of smiles. Those years fell into the seventies-to-nineties halcyon days of the casual-dining chains that revolutionized popular American dining. Brinker and Chili’s founder…

The post News of This Beloved Chain Restaurant’s Death Is (Somewhat) Exaggerated appeared first on Texas Monthly.

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