The fishing team got a hot tip that if one were to go to the hinterlands of Austin, to the sprawling suburbs, that behind a certain big box store there was a rainwater runoff settling pond, and that within that pond were some of the most voracious bass in town. So of course we all
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The great thing about tamales is that they’re the gift that keeps on giving. With a couple of dollars worth of low-grade pork, and pennies worth of spices, cornmeal and corn husks, you can make a pile of tamales which will keep in the freezer forever. The trick to making a really good tamale, is
It had been a little while since I had visited the lunch counter at the back of the convenience store on Cedar Avenue and 14th Street. The ownership had changed, so they now offered more soul food and barbecue than they had before, but they still had gizzards. The proprietress fried me up a
About mid-summer here in Austin, the prickly pear get ripe. They bloat purple in the punishing sun, sprouting with tantalizing juiciness from the middle of daunting thickets of thorns. I pass by a lot of these prickly pear groves on my daily bike commute, the nopalito cactus flourishes in the poor soil and neglect of
I haven’t stopped exploring the menus of the fruit cup stands down on Riverside. One of the standard options on the non-fruit side of their menus is chicharrones preparados. Reading the name, I initially thought that this food would be a pile of fried pork skins topped with beans, cream, and other delicious garnishes. But
For a while now I’ve been fascinated with the stretch of the Colorado River downstream from Lady Bird Lake. At one point, my friend Peter Gabriel and I planned on taking a float trip down the river from the Montopolis bridge to the 973 bridge near the airport. It was a genius idea because the
I saw this owl while on my way to the convenience store. It flew into a tree, and I could see its squat little shape up in the branches. It was a little after dark, so I turned on the flash on the phone. But all you can see is the reflection of one eye.
I was turning the soil in my garden, and this great big spider fell out of a clump of leaves. I didn’t want to kill it, because I am a gentleman, so I scooted it onto the shovel to transport it somewhere safer. It didn’t want to get onto the shovel, so I had to
So there I was, walking through the back yard to the garage, and there’s this ear-splitting screech right at ear level. Normally the cicadas are high in the trees, filling Austin with that noise that sounds like heat feels, but this one was on a low-hanging branch. Even so, I never would have found it
If you are at all cool, you’re way into steampunk. And as it turns out, I’ve published several stories that could vaguely be considered on the outskirts of that genre. That’s why you should be excited to learn that my story The Secret of Pogoplis, has been reprinted by Beneath Ceaseless Skies in their new