Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2021 i Texas Highways Magazine

Asking someone to select the best thing they’ve ever eaten in Texas may seem like an unfairly difficult question, but the responses to our query may have resulted in our most mouthwatering cover story yet. To give you even more delectable recommendations, I asked our resident staff gourmands to share their favorite Texas restaurant meals. Tyson Bird, digital strategies manager: The minute I set foot in the Lost Maples Cafe in Utopia after days of camping, I knew I was in for a life-changing chicken-fried steak. The golden-brown entrée with gravy and mashed potatoes was the best I’ve had in Texas. My only regret? Not saving room for pie. Ashley Burch, art director: One of the best things I’ve ever eaten was the gelato at OroBianco Italian Creamery in Blanco,…

Dark Beasts of Texas When I was living in Austin, I liked having them around [“Grackles!,” October]. I suspect they, as individuals, feel about us the way we feel about them, as individuals. Mort Stine, Greenville, North Carolina My reckoning is that [grackles] have been roosting in the same spot for thousands of years, and we just came along and built a mall there. Thomas Stewart Webber, San Angelo Juan Seguín Seguín represented many Tejanos in the same situation but not in leadership roles like him [“Caught Between 2 Countries,” October]. He was not a traitor but a hero who had courage to do what was right no matter the cost. Eloy Zamora, Palmview One Under Par Grackles are experts at stealing crackers and candy from my golf cart as…

To know the geography of Texas, you must know its rivers. The book Viva Texas Rivers! Adventures, Misadventures, and Glimpses of Nirvana along Our Storied Waterways may be the most comprehensive effort to date to capture the charms, mythologies, and challenges of the state’s rivers in one volume. Published by Texas A&M University Press, the book is a glide down more than 28 waterways with more than 70 writers, mostly Texans, as your guides. The compilation explores the muck as well as the transcendence of Texas rivers and includes pieces by songwriters T-Bone Walker and Butch Hancock, poets Naomi Shihab Nye and Carmen Tafolla, nonfiction writers S.C. Gwynne and John Graves, and novelists Attica Locke and Joe R. Lansdale. Two Texas Highways stories are also featured—Michael Barnes and Joe Starr’s…

It’s more than chef Eric Hunter’s menu that inspires return visits to the Chop House, found within the Midland Hotel. It’s the inspired craftsmanship he employs with every item. He makes the cavatelli pasta from semolina fresh each morning. He smokes brisket and queso as well as molasses-cured salmon. The charcuterie presentation involves meats he cured, grainy mustard he made from scratch, vegetables and fruits he pickled, and even a wooden board he milled, cut, stained, and finished. You taste the passion in every bite. historicmidlandhotel.com…

In the decade he’s called Fort Worth home, Jonathan Morris has fashioned enough new roles for himself to make most of us a little breathless. In 2014, the social media manager-turned-entrepreneur opened Fort Worth Barber Shop near the Cultural District. Set in a former automotive garage made of cinder blocks, Morris’ shop offers a haircut and hot-towel shave along with an old-fashioned setting for conversation and connection. The Barber Shop immersed Morris in the network of creatives who’ve been building a small-business scene with a youthful and modern vibe that goes beyond the cowboys-and-culture theme for which Fort Worth has long been known. He channeled that energy into his next project, Hotel Dryce, a boutique lodging that opened in the Cultural District in August. Morris’ projects caught the attention of…

Food styling has been a career-long passion for Texas Highways Art Director Ashley Burch. This month’s cover, shot by photographer Eric W. Pohl, features table settings from Burch’s personal collection of props. “Over time I’ve collected way too many place settings and dinnerware and cups and bowls, and this was a good way for me to put that to use,” Burch says. The cover shoot took around three hours, with a couple hours of preparation and about 30 minutes of photography. “We’re constantly working against time because stuff starts to look sad,” she says. “Ice starts to melt; things start to coagulate. With the ramen we really wanted to continuously get steam to fight that.” The perfectionism Burch shows on set pops up in her personal life too. “My family…

Located near the Terlingua ghost town, Willow House offers refined comfort amid the rugged Chihuahuan Desert. The lodging’s 12 casitas capitalize on the landscape with unobstructed views that stretch to the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park, which is 6 miles east. Covering more than 1,250 square miles, Big Bend draws visitors to the Rio Grande borderland to explore its scenery, history, and culture. As a longtime resident of nearby Marathon, photographer E. Dan Klepper knew winter conditions would make for stark desert colors when he visited Willow House in January for “Little Boxes on the Hillside” (April 2021). He brought along his colorful kites, just in case. “I like to bring something out of the ordinary into the landscape,” Klepper says. “The kites are magical and unpredictable, and…

12 hours-3 days Cooking time for tubers in an earth oven 1870s Decade professional hide hunters slaughtered millions of bison 1794 Year of first successful wheat harvest at Mission San José People have lived in the area we now call Texas for at least 13,000 years and have resourcefully transformed the landscape’s plants and animals into food in all seasons. Early inhabitants hunted mammoth, horses, camels, and the Bison antiquus—a much larger forerunner of today’s animal—until the herds were supplanted by modern bison around 7,500 years ago. Indigenous people also hunted pronghorn, deer, rabbits, turkeys, and quail. They harvested persimmons, mustang grapes, and pecans; and ground acorns and mesquite pods into flour. They ate catfish, turtles, freshwater mussels, and crawfish, as well as large land snails. By about 1100, several…

FEW AREAS of the economy were hit as hard by the COVID-19 pandemic as the tourism industry. In Texas, consumer travel spending dropped by nearly a third from 2019 to 2020, resulting in an estimated $53.5 billion loss in economic activity, according to the Office of the Governor, Economic Development and Tourism. But Texans aren’t the kind of people to stay put forever, and the past year has seen a major comeback for leisure travel. Hotels, restaurants, and tourist sites have spent millions to retrofit and reimagine their operations with safety and cleanliness in mind, winning guests back in droves. Air travel and hotel occupancy rates are almost back to pre-pandemic levels; of the half-million hospitality workers who lost their jobs in spring 2020, around 400,000 have been hired back…

Free TRAVEL INFO 1 Abilene Convention & Visitors Bureau 2 Andrews Chamber of Commerce & Convention & Visitors Bureau 3 Audie Murphy | American Cotton Museum 4 Bandera County Convention & Visitors Bureau 5 Blanco Chamber of Commerce 6 Boerne Convention & Visitors Bureau 7 Brady/McCulloch County Visitors Center 8 Cedar Park Tourism 9 City of Bee Cave 10 City of Gonzales 11 City of Port Isabel 12 City of Portland 13 Cleburne Chamber of Commerce 14 Corsicana Convention & Visitors Center 15 Cuero Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture 16 Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden 17 Destination Bryan 18 Dobie Dichos 19 Dripping Springs Visitors Bureau 20 Fredericksburg Convention & Visitors Bureau 21 Galveston Island Section 22 George H.W. Bush Presidential Library & Museum 23 Georgetown Convention & Visitors Bureau…

Hundreds of bird species rely on the Gulf of Mexico at varying points in their life cycles. The Gulf Coast Bird Observatory, a nonprofit celebrating its 25th year, works to protect these birds by preserving a healthy ecosystem and conducting research on their nesting, habitats, and migration. To promote the observatory’s efforts, Brew on the Bayou, the organization’s third annual soiree of beer, wine, and avian education, takes place Nov. 6. The wooded grounds of the observatory, on 34 acres of bottomland hardwood forest in Lake Jackson, are filled with live music and food. “It’s a nice evening next to the bayou, with large oak trees all around you,” says Martin Hagne, the observatory’s executive director. The Birds of Prey raptor show is a highlight of the evening, where rescued…

OCT. 8, 1935 The Great Depression hit Austin hard. Unable to find a job, 29-year-old Harry Akin went into business for himself, opening a burger joint at the corner of Congress Avenue and Riverside Drive in 1932. He named his restaurant Night Hawk because it stayed open late. Set in an old fruit stand just south of downtown, the original Night Hawk had two booths and a counter with eight stools. Burgers cost 15 cents. The next year, Akin paid $100 for the small café shown in this photo (pictured are staff members, not Akin). Located at 1907 Guadalupe St., Night Hawk No. 2 was a hit with the University of Texas crowd. In time, the Night Hawk chain grew to include seven restaurants, with locations in San Antonio and…

Hemphill sits on the edge of the Sabine National Forest, about 10 miles west of Toledo Bend Reservoir and the Texas-Louisiana border. The forest and the lake, which is part of the Sabine River, make this area a paradise for birders, hikers, hunters, and anglers. The forest took on a different distinction on Feb. 1, 2003, however, when recovery workers converged on Sabine County to search for remnants of space shuttle Columbia. Returning from a 16-day scientific mission, the NASA shuttle unexpectedly broke apart when reentering Earth’s atmosphere, scattering debris across the area. Belinda Gay, a Hemphill resident since 1998, was one of the many locals who rushed to help in the recovery effort, scouring the forest for signs of the wreckage and coordinating volunteers. She and others later worked…

Biryani An Indian dish common throughout South Asia, biryani is basmati rice with an array of ingredients: mutton, chicken, veggies, paneer, and seasonings. Himalaya chef Kaiser Lashkari calls his Anthony Bourdain-approved mutton biryani “the Indo-Pakistani version of Spanish paella.” Himalaya, 6652 Southwest Fwy. 713-532-2837; himalayarestauranthouston.com Chat Chat (or chaat) is the term for a range of Indian street snacks usually made with fried dough. Samosas, the popular triangular potato and pea-filled pastries, are chat. Another common chat is dahi puri, crispy wafer balls stuffed with sprouts, potatoes, and yogurt. Chowpatty Chat, 5711 Hillcroft St. 832-203-7965; chowpattychat.com Dosa A dosa is a thin South Indian pancake made from a fermented batter of lentils and rice. The most common is the masala dosa with savory potatoes tucked inside. The Mysore masala dosa is a…

For a town of around 1,500, Hico packs a wallop, drawing in city dwellers who enjoy small-town charm paired with urban amenities. Sitting at the tip-top of the Hill Country, where US 281 crosses State Highway 6, Hico (HYEcoe) first earned its stop-worthy reputation from the towering meringue pies at the Koffee Kup restaurant. These days, there’s far more than dessert to keep you amused for a full weekend. Everything’s in walking distance, from the limestone-studded Bosque River on the south end of downtown to the statue of Billy the Kid, the outlaw said to have lived out his life here in anonymity, at the north end of downtown Hico. The only time you’ll need a car is to head 20 miles south to Hamilton to check out art, music,…

Alahmad in Wylie, a city 30 miles northeast of Dallas. Alahmad and her friends, Khuloud Sultan, Nawarah Shaker, and Maisaa Alkhdir, have cooked an elaborate afternoon meal. I catch whiffs of the food they’ve prepared: grilled chicken seasoned with aromatics and cilantro, alongside roasted, shredded carrots. Their near-instantaneous kindness and willingness to break bread with me has already cemented the meal as one of my most memorable dining experiences. Welcoming guests with food, love, and generosity is common in places like Syria, the women’s country of origin. “Home was a lot of people—our family, our friends, our community,” Alahmad says. “I miss home, where our front door was always open. So I try to create something similar here.” Alahmad is one of 6.8 million refugees who left the Middle Eastern…

The sweet smell of peppermint hits you the moment you walk through the front door of the little candy shop on West Hubbard Street in the East Texas town of Lindale. It’s a comforting, nostalgic scent patrons of Lindale Candy Company have enjoyed since the business was founded in 1946 by James “Candy Jim” and his wife, Ruby Withrow. In the hands of the store’s current owners, Jeremiah and Kaitlin Cagle, decadent chocolate aromas also tantalize the olfactory sense. Kaitlin grew up 25 miles away in Grand Saline, where she started making chocolates in high school and perfected her craft working at a local chocolate shop. Starting in 2013, she began selling her own decorated chocolate truffles and other candies at the “world’s largest flea market,” Canton’s First Mondays, and…

Houston is known as the city that sent humans to the moon, but it should also be known as the place that brings the entire earth together. Not only is Houston the most populous city in Texas, but it’s also one of the most culturally diverse. Exploring Houston’s Chinatown district showcases all the flavors, sights, and adventure of a trip to East Asia. Hong Kong Food Market If you want to learn about a different culture, the best place to start is the local market. From the outside this building looks like an H-E-B, but inside it feels like shopping in another country. The aisles are lined with items like black garlic, shrimp paste, and green curry paste, and the fresh fish section sells everything from conch to stingray. It…