Northern California

Summer of Love 45th Anniversary

What Wine Are You Pouring for Mother's Day Brunch?

Wine pairing aside, can you think of a better excuse for day-time drinking than Mother's Day brunch? And joking aside, can you think of a more challenging occasion for wine pairing than Mother's Day brunch? A classic Mother's Day meal at our house may consist of myriad flavors and aromas: Smoked f ... More >>

Six-String Pawn Stars: Top 10 Famous Stolen Guitars

Tom Petty got a real kick in the balls late last week when he discovered that his vintage blond 1967 12-string Rickenbacker and his Gibson SGTV Junior had been stolen from a California soundstage where the Heartbreakers had been rehearsing for an upcoming tour. Three other vintage guitars owned by b ... More >>

Tasting Notes: This Week in Wine Blogs

Wine Thoughts: There's so much groovy stuff happening this week in the Texas enoblogosphere. But we just have to open today's post with a nod to one of our favorite and most balanced wine bloggers here in our state, Sandra Crittenden, author of Wine Thoughts, who writes about one of our pet peeves: ... More >>

Houston Texans Grieving Process 3.0: At Least We're Not This 49er Fan

It's been a couple weeks, but perhaps some of you are still smarting from the Texans' loss to the Ravens ending their two-game playoff run. As I expressed from the day after that game, there are lots of ways to cope with a loss, but to me the best way is taking some semblance of pleasure in the pai ... More >>

Happy Birthday Janis Joplin: Kozmic Pearl's Myrna Sanders On The Late Rock Icon

Today would have been rock great and former Port Arthur resident Janis Joplin's 69th birthday, a fact that would have Joplin snicker for the next year. Since her death in 1970, at the sad magical age of 27, the legend of Joplin has grown immensely, with her vocal style and stage presence helping inf ... More >>

Odd Pair: Asparagus and Wine

Today we think of asparagus as one of the standard vegetable side dishes in the contemporary canon of American gastronomy. But in another era, asparagus was considered one of the world's greatest delicacies: The insatiable King Louis XIV built greenhouses so that he could eat asparagus all year rou ... More >>

Cop-Car BJ Story Turns into Whataburger Debate

Enough about the blow job, already.​Our story on the woman who decided to give her co-arrestee a blow job in the back seat of a cop car got some attention; we can't imagine why. Since the initial arrest happened at a Whataburger, commenters at Gawker quickly turned discussion from "cop-car bl ... More >>

ACL: Black Dub In The Hour Of Tranquility

Photos by Marco TorresPhosphorescent​It's been a low-key afternoon. It rained again. Still is. Rocks Off ate some fried chicken and sat in the Vista Equity tent while the gospel quartet Endurance lifted our spirits. It doesn't matter what your spiritual inclination is - you haven't seen danci ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Texas Blanc du Bois

​Above: Blanc du Bois grapes from the 2010 harvest at the Cruz de Comal Winery in the Texas Hill Country. To tell the story of winemaking in Texas today, we need to start with what happened in California back in the 1970s and the way wine has been marketed historically in the U.S. When I was ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Orange Wine (Yes, Orange)

​White wine, rosé wine, red wine, orange wine... Orange wine? Qu'est-ce que c'est? No, it's not a wine concocted by Longhorn fans. (They call UT the orange tide? Call me Deacon Blue Nun). Orange wine is a loosely codified category of winemaking and winemakers who macerate the juice obtained ... More >>

Chef Chat, Part 3: Domenica Catelli of Catelli's

Photos by Matthew DresdenCatelli's Ravioli (dc sauce on the left, butter garlic on the right)​After our spirited conversation (covered in parts one and two of this Chef Chat), Domenica Catelli brought out a few of her restaurant's dishes. I asked her about the challenges in creating a menu whe ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Cat Piss in Your Wine? No, That's Jalapeño

​Of all the "aromatic" white grapes in the world, there is probably none more distinctive than Sauvignon Blanc. In France, it can be steely and intensely fragrant, as in Sancerre where it often takes on a cat piss (more properly called "tom cat") note on the nose. In Bordeaux, Sauvignon Blan ... More >>

Tasting Notes: This Week in Wine Blogs

​This is the first of a series of wine blog roundups. Know a blog we should be paying particular attention to? Leave the address in the comments section below. Wine Camp: Craig Camp out on the west coast is always at the top of our Google reader feed. This week he ponders the nature of wine c ... More >>

Manifest Destiny and Museums

​This is the first of a series of wine blog roundups. Know a blog we should be paying particular attention to? Leave the address in the comments section below. Wine Camp: Craig Camp out on the west coast is always at the top of our Google reader feed. This week he ponders the nature of wine c ... More >>

The Pomplamoose Revolution

How a band with no CDs or record deal is changing the music industry

UC Radio's Mike Yusi: How To Succeed In Podcasting

"Traditional radio is as dead as Joey Ramone." ​Last year, Rocks Off's editor - who will be played by upcoming Celebrity Apprentice contestant Gary Busey for the duration of this article - hauled us into his office and said, "Dammit, With One F! This radio on the Internet thing is blowing up ... More >>

Oral Sex Leads To Intercourse Among Teens, Study Somehow Discovers

It all starts with the oral sex​The Houston Chronicle's Mom blog led us to this amazing piece of scientific research. We'll let the official press release headline speak for itself: "Having oral sex increases likelihood of intercourse among teens."That was the profound conclusion reached by a stud ... More >>

Raise Your Glass to Texas Wine History

​The last few years I had the opportunity to live in both San Francisco and Napa Valley and work in the thriving California wine industry. Overall it was a very enriching experience; I learned a lot about the micro-climates that dictate Northern California's growing seasons, met some notable w ... More >>

I Wanna Be Your Dog (Or Cat): Back To School Edition

School's only been in session for two days, yet some teachers are already piling on the homework. This isn't a huge deal for home-schooled kids, who pretty just much have to memorize which animals God created on which day, but it can be a real pain in the neck for those in public school.The dogs in ... More >>

Birdemic Shock and Terror

This film is for the birds

Revolting Youth

Cult novel must continue its search for a worthy film adaptation.

Lonesome Onry and Mean: The Second Act of Onetime "New Dylan" Larry Hosford

​Unless you're a professional Trivial Pursuit player, chances are high you've never heard of Larry Hosford. But there was a time when Hosford was hailed as the next Bob Dylan and was hanging around Shelter Records with the likes of George Harrison, Leon Russell and J.J. Cale. Lonesome, Onry and Me ... More >>

City of Coffee

Is Houston about to become America's coffee capital?

Salvadorans and Murals

Is Houston about to become America's coffee capital?

Know Your Enemy

Green Day follows their Bush-bashing smash American Idiot with the even more epic 21st Century Breakdown.

Aftermath: Rancid and Rise Against at Verizon Wireless Theater

Craig HlavatyThere's something about the punk rock of Northern California's Rancid will remain forever and indelibly ingrained in Aftermath's heart. No matter what we seem to find ourselves getting into, all we need to hear is a few spins of ...And Out Come The Wolves to bring us back to our liberty ... More >>

Steak, Wine and Pie at Dharma Cafe

Craig HlavatyThere's something about the punk rock of Northern California's Rancid will remain forever and indelibly ingrained in Aftermath's heart. No matter what we seem to find ourselves getting into, all we need to hear is a few spins of ...And Out Come The Wolves to bring us back to our liberty ... More >>

Fish Gone Wild

Craig HlavatyThere's something about the punk rock of Northern California's Rancid will remain forever and indelibly ingrained in Aftermath's heart. No matter what we seem to find ourselves getting into, all we need to hear is a few spins of ...And Out Come The Wolves to bring us back to our liberty ... More >>

French-American Alliance

Laurier Café

Hip-hop, Tejas

Latinos take on rap music and make it their own

Dharma and John

Dharma Cafe has atmosphere to spare and a lot of good home cooking, but you might want to pass on the pizza

Asian Cajuns

At the Vietnamese-American-owned Cajun Corner, Louisiana mudbugs get a dose of special sauce

Getting Stomped

Texas boasts the soil, the climate and the grapes for a strong wine industry. So what stands in its way? Bad taste and politicians.

House of the Rising Sun

The stars align at Scott Tycer's Aries

Playmaker

Houston's Bo Eason was among the NFL's toughest tacklers. But he takes his hardest hits in writing about his very intimate House of Pain.