Exploring Buda, Texas-Just 45 Minutes North of San Antonio

by Celia Hayes

We didn't spend all of last weekend watching the wienerdogs run; the Buda City park where that event took place was pleasingly located right next to old down-town Buda, so when we had enough of wandering around between pavilions, we walked along the three or four blocks that constitute Buda ... and looked around. It's one of those sweet, small towns which retain enough of their original late 19th century buildings to be quite charming, even if those buildings mostly run along one side of the street ... because the railway runs alongside the other. Buda's town founding fathers set aside a 150-foot wide reserve of land between Main Street and the International and Great…

Spring and Tiger Pop

Visit Mission Realty for free online San Antonio home search

by Celia Hayes

Having a couple of dogs and a garden works very well at getting one out from behind a desk and a computer ... in that one of them – well, both of them – need to be watered frequently. The dogs must be walked, and the garden needs to be weeded and mulched. All these things must be performed often enough that anyone who has either or both is no danger of becoming fused to the task chair...

So – anyway, it's clear that spring has come early to the San Antonio metropolitan area: we started early vegetables in pots and planters a month ago ... and by the last week in February, the mountain laurel trees were in full bloom. Mountain laurels –…

 MAARs Pizza Restaurant Review-2 Thumbs Up!

by Celia Hayes

Well actually, MAARs doesn't want pizza – they actually want you to want their pizza. The Red Hat Ladies group that we belong to tries to rotate around to various local restaurants in the north-east quadrant of San Antonio. We have a monthly dinner event once a month; nothing fancy or expensive, just good eating for a reasonable price. We swap gifts now and again, and dress up for Halloween, all good fun. My daughter insists that I need a social life with real people off the internet now and again, and since it was her birthday month, and since the birthday celebrant gets to pick the restaurant for that month, my daughter opted for pizza at MAAR's Pizza.

It's right around the corner…

What Park City, Utah Has to Offer to the Texas Vacationer

by Ben Fisher

There is nothing more that Texans love than stepping out of their hometown for a vacation that is filled with the highest levels of luxury and comfort, and that is exactly what a vacation to Park City, Utah offers. Park City, Utah is a mountain community that features three world class resorts that is an oasis of beauty and a hub of outdoor activities. Park City offers the Texan a truly memorable vacation, whether it during the summer months or winter, and for the ski enthusiast, there is not a greater place on earth to vacation than Park City. Whether from Austin to El Paso, Houston to San Antonio, Paris to Dallas, Pampa to Midland and all parts in between, Texans love…

Local Color

by Julia Hayden

In a job that I had, several jobs ago, my immediate boss was a transplant from North Carolina, and one of the things that he often noted was how deep was the Hispanic influence on just about everything in this part of Texas. It is, after all, the Borderlands, where two different cultures mix and meld so thoroughly and have done so for so long that those of us accustomed to it. Of course we should dine on breakfast tacos, and the supermarket carry every imaginable variety of salsa, and listen to conjunto music, and have in our vocabulary a smattering or more of Spanish. It’s just the way that things are  . . .  and sometimes it takes a recent transplant, like my old boss, to notice it in a significant way.

For me…

Urban Street Food – Erick’s Tacos

While I’m not nearly as willing as Anthony Bourdain is to risk my health eating exotic foods in  . . .  ummm  . . .  exotic and off the beaten track venues, and I certainly draw the line at consuming tid-bits that I would have to muscle past my gag-reflex  . . .  I’ve always been pretty adventurous about street food, and taking a chance on a restaurant venue that may not look all that promising and first or second glance. I will always remember the little Chinese restaurant in my hometown – a tiny wooden shack, with peeling paint and a sagging roof, which appeared as if a good sneeze would bring it down all together.

We went past it for years, assuming that it was the kind of place where you’d…

Created Sunday, 19 September 2010 13:

Books, Burgers, and Bun'n'Barrel

For a household wherein the last time we packed out from an overseas assignment and the movers had a pool going on how many cartons of books they would finish up with - the count eventually topped out at 65 - we have an unseemly greed for more. We do not disdain any opportunity to explore second-hand bookstores, rummage sales, Half Price Books, the massive yearly PTA book sale at the Blossom Athletic Center, and the regular sales at our local San Antonio Library branch. The management there very kindly puts out a banner at the well-trafficked corner of Judson and Nacogdoches, and I have scored some lovely book bargains there in the past, notably when it came to Texiana.

Yes,…

An Old Fashioned San Antonio Diner at the Alamo

I wouldn't claim that San Antonio's G/M Steakhouse is the oldest continuously operating diner and purveyor of fast food, in all it's infinite varieties and greasy-grilled glory, but at fifty years and apparently going strong, it's definitely in the running. This, my children, is what fast food used to be, before the days of Micky D's, BK and Wendy's drive-up window open to all hours. This fountain of classic fast-food delights - hamburgers, fries, grilled sandwiches, breakfast tacos and chicken-fried steaks (plus all sorts of other steaks) is just across Alamo Plaza from another classic San Antonio institution of slightly longer duration, the Menger Hotel. My…

An Ode to the World's Most Perfect Breakfast Food

By Julia Hayden

Sing, Muses, of nature's - and San Antonio's most perfect breakfast entree, the food of the Gods, infinite in variety and nourishment! Unhappy mortals in less blessed locations may sing of their croissant and cafe au lait, the mixed breakfast grill, or toast with honey, jam on bread, even disgusting concoctions like sausage gravy, as vomitous in appearance as in taste ... but little do they know of the sublime perfection in the simple breakfast taco!

By the breakfast taco, I mean the real thing, the honest, southwest concoction served in thousands of little eateries scattered along the San Antonio highways and byways, painted in bright pink,…