Agriculture Sector

How To: Grow Tomatoes in the City of Houston

One would think that living in the heart of Houston doesn't lend itself well to growing tomatoes for the summer season. Things would be much easier if there was more open space and more sunlight to grow a pot of tomatoes, right? Recently, I spoke with Sherri Harrah, from Plants For All Seasons on 2 ... More >>

Texas Cattle Ranchers Face a Trifecta of Worrying Issues, Which Means Higher Beef Prices in 2013

This year will mark the 136th time the Cattle Raisers Convention has met, but it's in a climate that these cattlemen haven't battled for a long time. More than 2,500 ranchers and landowners are convening in Fort Worth this March to discuss a trifecta of issues that won't easily be solved. Ranchers ... More >>

Rockets Blocked Out

Sources say Astros Stopped a deal to bring CSN Houston, Rockets Games to DirecTV.

Climate Change, a Hard Fact for European Winemakers

My wife, daughter, and I are on the last leg of a road trip that has taken us through ten of Italy's 20 regions, from the far northeast to Mt. Vesuvius on the western coast of the south, to the tip of the heel of the boot in Lecce (Apulia [Puglia]). Today we're in central Italy, along the Adriatic s ... More >>

Sorry Houston, No Farm-Fresh Milk for You

Here's a riddle: why would a dairy choose to stop selling milk to Houston resellers for $5 a gallon and instead sell it all to a giant co-op for a mere $1.62 a gallon? The answer? Unbearable pressure. Local milk producer Way Back When Dairy, run by the Ganskey family, has become a valued resourc ... More >>

USDA's Meatless Monday "A Slap in the Face!" Texas Ag Comish Says

In a blog post today, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples says the U.S. Department of Agriculture's call for Meatless Mondays as part of a green environmental effort is a gross betrayal of everything the federal government should stand for. He calls for the firing of whomever came up with ... More >>

Coast Guard Seized $100,000 Worth of Illegal Shrimp Last Week

Only a couple of weeks prior to the Gulf of Mexico commercial shrimp season opening, the Coast Guard has been busy seizing thousands of pounds of illegally harvested shrimp in Texas waters. Last Monday, the Coast Guard Cutter Heron caught two shrimping boats hauling up their catches in closed water ... More >>

Glendon Bruening: Farm Worker Shoots Wad at Man Who Sexted His Wife

Who knew the wheat fields of the Panhandle were so rife with lust and passion? Call this story 50 Sheaves of Wheat. Per Connectamarillo.com, Ochiltree County sheriff Terry Bouchard said that 61-year-old Glendon Bruening was enraged when he found out that a fellow reaper had been texting lewd image ... More >>

Cattle Prices Doubling, While Experts Predict the Beef Industry May Need 5 Years to Recover

The bustling East Texas cattle auction that the Washington Post recently featured in an article about cattle prices couldn't have been more different from the near-empty auction that I attended last fall, during the worst of the 2011 drought. "Since we've gotten rain and everything, the price has r ... More >>

Meat Market

You'll probably be paying more for your rib eyes and Whoppers thanks to the great Texas drought of 2011.

Meat Market: Sorry State

Slim pickings at an East Texas cattle auction point to a grim future for the industry.

Invasive Black Tiger Shrimp On the Rise in the Gulf of Mexico

Black tiger shrimp are monsters, the kind of creatures that make you think that maybe "jumbo shrimp" isn't such an oxymoron after all. The distinctive black-and-orange-striped shrimp can grow to more than a foot in length and over a pound in weight. And according to the Galveston Daily News, they're ... More >>

10 Fish You're Eating That Are Endangered Species

Human beings: acting like jerks since we killed off the pupfish.​Yesterday, we touched briefly on the plight of the idiot fish, a small red fish with giant, round marbles for eyes. It's delicious, despite its odd appearance. And it's also endangered. Yet it's still sold and served across the w ... More >>

The Roughest Catch: Ike Jime on the Gulf Coast, Part 1 of 4

Photos by GroovehouseCaptain Barry Irwin prepares to set out from Aransas Pass for the day on the La Victoria, a commercial trawler. See more photos from the expedition in our slideshow.​"I don't eat bait," growls Captain Barry Irwin, pointedly ignoring the plate of raw bonito being offered to ... More >>

Underground Footage From a Texas Dairy Farm (Not for the Weak of Stomach)

Undercover footage from a dairy farm southwest of Amarillo shows workers crushing sick and injured calves' skulls with pickaxes and hammers, and tossing dying calves on a pile of dead ones in the back of a truck -- acts that one animal welfare group says violates state cruelty laws. Gathered by ... More >>

Comment of the Day

​Katharine Shilcutt reported on renewed efforts to assign appellations to Gulf oysters, and some commenters didn't like the idea so much. "Seriously," P. T. Barnum wrote. "Were these same oysters selling for inflated prices before their fancy name? Nope. Sucker." But PJ Stoops defended the pra ... More >>

Reporting from the Southern Foodways Alliance Symposium: The Gulf and the Spill

Robb WalshJim Gossen and oysterman Tracy Woody checking oyster leases in Galveston Bay.​At the Southern Foodways Alliance annual symposium this week, Brett Anderson of the New Orleans Times-Picayune moderated a panel discussion on "The Gulf and the Spill." Panelists were former Houston Press ... More >>

A Taste of Honey: Harvesting A Beehive

Photos by Brittanie SheyTom Helm, urban outdoorsman and hobbyist beekeeper​This weekend we were invited to a honey-harvesting party at the home of Tom Helm, an urban outdoorsman who in 2006 was the subject of our cover story "Dark Water", in which he and then-Press reporter Josh Harkinson kaya ... More >>

Down on the Farm

The Humane Society and big agriculture slug it out over animal rights.

Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager

​Do you love strawberries? Do you love beer? If so, then you'll love Abita's Strawberry Harvest. Strawberry Harvest is a wheat beer made with real Ponchatoula strawberries. Some liken it to Purple Haze but with strawberries instead of raspberries. This lager is crisp and light with a subtle ... More >>

Houston Company Hit With Claim Its Fish Contain PCBs

​A Houston-based fish-oil manufacturer might be exposing consumers to a harmful carcinogen, according to a lawsuit filed by environmental activists earlier this month.Filed in a California Superior Court, the suit accuses Omega Protein and seven other fish-oil manufacturers of failing to warn cons ... More >>

Pig Farm

The rise and fall of pork bellies, by the writer of Urinetown

Net Gains and Losses

Is the Omega Protein company overfishing the most important fish in the sea?

Gulf Oyster Ban Hysteria

​"A couple of months would have been okay, but five months is too much," oysterman Misho Ivic said about the newly announced FDA summer oyster ban. Oystermen were taken by surprise last weekend when the FDA went over the head of the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Commission and announced an a ... More >>

Rioja's Paella

Photo by Robb WalshThe paella at Rioja restaurant on Kirkwood is one of the best I've ever eaten. You can get it at lunch with two tapas appetizers for $13. Paella is one of those dishes that can leave you completely indifferent or knock your socks off, depending on the skill of the cook and the qua ... More >>

Oysters and Coffee

photo by Robb Walsh These petite-sized Galveston Bay oysters made a lovely breakfast. I ate them with some heavily buttered German sourdough rye toast from the HEB on Bunker Hill and a cup of Community Club coffee. A drop of lemon and a dash of Tabasco perked up the breakfast half shells nicely. Oy ... More >>

Oyster Lovers Unite

This Valentine's weekend may be your best chance to eat oysters for years to come

Fish Story: Arctic Char

There are lots of fishing camps in Nunavik, Quebec's arctic region, devoted to fly fishing for arctic char. There's even an annual arctic char fishing derby in Whale Cove, in case you want to try your luck. The highly prized freshwater game fish is a traditional food of the Inuit natives and its hig ... More >>

The King Catfish Ranch

If you're looking for shining examples of the local indigenous cuisine while driving Highway 59 through East Texas and you've already had your fill of barbecue then its time to pull over for some catfish. I purchased this fried catfish dinner with cole slaw, french fries, odd cylindrical hush puppie ... More >>

Texas Pols, Make Sure Those Checks Have Cleared -- It's Bankruptcy Time For Bo Pilgrim

Ah, Bo Pilgrim -- it takes a tough man to go from passing out checks on the floor of the Texas Legislature to filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but you've done it.Pilgrim's Pride, the toast of Pittsburg, Texas, announced today that it's seeking bankrputcy protection "in an effort to address certain ... More >>

Buttermilk--The New Yogurt?

Shorthanded

Foreign pickers aren't getting through the post-9/11 barricades to harvest U.S. crops

A Cut Above

The future of the best beef in America may depend on a herd in East Texas

Pope: The Garden Gourmet

Monica Pope

Haute Stuff

Robb Walsh is a James Beard finalist times two

Sex, Death and Oysters

Beneath the muddy waters of Galveston Bay lies one of the greatest seafood treasure troves on earth

Bring On the Bovine

Beef-mad Houstonians keep eating steaks

A Chick Book

Sylvia Tomlinson fries the poultry industry in Plucked and Burned

Catching a Big One

Moody hooks a $75 million verdict against a fish farm and a law firm

Fish Fraud

Passing off cheap fish for expensive red snapper is against the law. But no one enforces the regulations. So Texas restaurants are free to rip you off.

American Kobe

Lynn's Steakhouse proves a few restaurants still serve up USDA Prime

A Matter of Fat

The U.S. beef industry's lower standards have led to an increase in chop houses

Letters

Ministry Magic, Rice Wars, Cross to Bear

RiceTec Paddy Whack

An Alvin-based rice company, the Prince of Liechtenstein, the United States Patent Office, and an Indian eco-feminist bring global trade debates to a roiling boil on Houston's back burner

Full of Manure

You say you want a totally organic world?

Letters 07-20-2000

The Long Haul

Immigrant shrimpers survived Vietnam and the wrath of Texas rednecks. Can they do the same with new fishing restrictions?

Farm to Market

Kody Ellis shows pigs. What have pigs shown him?

Oprah Does Amarillo

It's the Queen of Talk versus the Meat Men, and outside the courtroom, master media manipulator Winfrey is already the clear winner.

Swinish Behavior

Texas A&M's attempt to push an animal research center on a black neighborhood has raised a sour smell in College Station