A Weekend in the Markets

by Celia Hayes

Several markets, actually – beginning with the super-gigantic NEISD – PTA book sale, which is held every year in April at the Blossom Athletic center basketball stadium. This is the nirvana of book sales to a serious aficionado of same, both because of the flat rate involved: 50 cents for softbound, one dollar for hard-bound, no matter what the size or original value of the book involved, and because … well, there is nearly half an acre of books, and all of them roughly organized by category, and I have been able to replace many of the books that my parents had in their house when it burned to the ground in 2003; books and serious publications like Horizon and American Heritage, which I consumed as…

One-Pan Wurst Supper

by Celia Hayes

One of my oldest and most favorite cookbooks – and the tattered and spotted condition of my copy certainly proves the age and status – is Barbara Swain's Cookery for 1 or 2. I may have bought it before I moved out of the women's barracks as a young Air Force sergeant. I was always cooking my own meals then, since the hours I worked were not compatible with the dining hall, and the barracks did have a primitive but functional kitchen.  I definitely possessed this copy by the time I settled into a teeny studio apartment, as I clearly recall cooking many of the entrees and brunch dishes on the propane gas stove there. The marvelous thing about this particular cookbook is that every recipe in it was scaled…

Short History of the Valero Texas Open

by Randy Watson

The Valero Texas Open is an official tournament on the PGA Tour and this year (2012) is the 90th anniversary. This year's Valero Open begins with Round 1 on April 19, 2012 at the JW Marriot Golf Resort and Spa on the ATT Oaks Course, in the affluent Cibolo Canyons community. The 2012 90th Anniversary Valero Texas Open Schedule.

The Valero Open started in 1922 and was first called the Texas Open. With the exception of 2 years 1927-28, The Texas Open was played until 1940 at the Old Brack (Brackenridge Park Golf Course.) During 1927-28 and beginning in 1941 until 1949, the Texas Open was played at the Willow Springs Golf Course. When in 1950 and 1951, it was played at both the Brackenridge Park…

Chocolate Covered Bacon

by Celia Hayes

It's one of those odd side-effects of having knocked around the world for three decades that there are places that feel more like a home-town to me than the town where I actually grew up. This is compounded by having had to research certain places down to almost the sub-atomic level, with the unsettling result that I finish up knowing the history of certain places in the Hill Country almost as well as a long-time native does.

Last Saturday, my daughter and I had to be in Fredericksburg for the German Heritage Foundation; a breakfast meeting at the Kuckucks' Nest shop to talk about certain historical things, and what was going on with the planning for this year's Pow-wow? Was it still going to be held at…

Frugality – Part One

by Celia Hayes

I suppose I have come by the predilection for thrift in a fairly straightforward way – I inherited it. There are things that because my parents didn't do them, I never actually have or would in the foreseeable future. Like purchase an entirely new automobile. Do you know how much it depreciates, as soon as you drive it off the lot? I can hear Dad lecturing me, even now. At least two years old, lightly used, dealer warranty.

Not even if I should become a fabulously wealthy and famous writer, the Margaret Mitchell of the Hill Country  . . .  nope, although I have now and again spent money unwisely, I just cannot bring myself to spend full retail on certain things. Apparently I am not alone in this,…

Land of the Lotus - Eaters

By Julia Hayden

I've been back for three or four days in the place which - if you bend down and squint sideways at it - is the place that I came from. That is, back-country Southern California; not the glitzy, glittery and glam 90210/Hollywierd/Sunset Boulevard So-Cal, but the other part of it. This is the hills and horse-country part, of steep hills and seasonal creeks, of black sage, monkey-flower, and shaggy-barked eucalyptus, of citrus and avocado groves, where granite out-croppings stick out of the thin soil like half-buried bones, and hawks wheel overhead.

The people who live there have horses, goats and cows the way ordinary suburbanites have cats, dogs and parakeets. In a…

Adventures in the Texas Hill Country

The Hill Country, that tract of rolling, lightly wooded hills north of San Antonio has always been South Texas' Lake District, our Berkshires, our Mackinac Island, or Yosemite; a cool, green refuge in the summer, a well-watered orchard oasis in the dusty barrens of the Southwest.. Rivers run through it--- the Guadalupe, the Pedernales--- and it is dotted with edibly charming small towns, like Wimberley, Johnson City, Kerrville, Comfort and Fredericksburg. Visitors like my mother often say it reminds them of rural Pennsylvania, a resemblance strengthened by the coincidence that large tracts of the Hill Country were settled in the mid 19th century by German…

Created Wednesday, 18 July 2007 22:42

Texas is big, diverse, and home to an extraordinary amount of various businesses, foods, and production of all types of goods and services, but most people don’t think of Texas as being a major wine-producing part of the world. Well, pretty soon people just may have to start mentioning Texas in the same breath as France, California, Spain, and Italy. In fact, if the recent San Francisco International Wine Competition is any indication, South Texas wines may become the toast of the industry.

At the most recent competition, numerous vineyards from as near as the Hill Country to as far as East Texas, Lubbock and Galveston won medals in the competition while drawing rave reviews. But it really shouldn’t come as…

Created Tuesday, 03 July 2007 17:32

Helotes, the Gateway to the Texas Hill Country

Written by Randy Watson

Situated just 16 miles from busy San Antonio is the historic and beautiful town of Helotes. Historic and beautiful, and meant to stay that way! For years, San Antonio has been trying to annex this uniquely peaceful community, but in 1981, the citizens of the town voted to incorporate into the City of Helotes, and the results have paid off. Rather than becoming just another district in the growing behemoth of San Antonio, Helotes is making its own decisions and calling its own shots these days, and is fierce in its determination to preserve the relaxed country atmosphere, neighborly way of life, and natural beauty that makes it such a…