Chef Chat, Part 1: Jose Vela of Mockingbird Bistro and His Previous Life as a Drummer in a Mexican Rock Band
This is the first part of a three-part Chef Chat series. Check back with us for Parts 2 and 3, which will run in this same space Thursday and Friday. Mockingbird Bistro is one of our city’s finest hidden gems. Sitting smack dab in the middle of a residential neighborhood…
Condom Conundrum: Pride Houston Under Fire for Contraception Distribution Policy at Pride Parade
You might think something as simple as giving away condoms would not create a controversy. Then again, Congress convened a panel last year to discuss the birth control provision of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act that included no women, but it did have members of the clergy. In this instance,…
Reality Bites: My Cat From Hell
I’m not a cat person, but as with any pet (okay, maybe not fish), if you made the committment to buying/adopting/conjuring one as your familiar, you need to step and take responsibility for raising it. The same probably applies to kids. I dunno, they’re my wife’s problem. Sometimes, however, the…
NASA’s New Astronauts: Half Women, None Alive for the Moon Landing
There was a generation of kids who grew up idolizing the astronauts. The men of the Mercury missions, the Apollo crews — the guys who risked everything, put it all on the line to beat the Russians and launch into outer space. John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Neil Armstrong — these…
Brooklyn Athletic Club: Mixing Stylish Drinks With Gourmet & Comfort Food
When the corner lot on Richmond Avenue that was once home to Zimm’s Little Deck opened up, restaurateur Shepard Ross pounced. He telephoned Chef Jeff Axline in Austin and once again, the two of them partnered for a new venture. In an homage to Brooklyn and Houston, the Brooklyn Athletic…
The Five Weirdest Rap Beefs
Do you remember J-Kwon? If you don’t, I’ll remind you. He had a song called “Tipsy” back in 2004 that hit No. 2 on the Billboard charts. After that he dropped off the face of the earth (literally, for a while). Well, J-Kwon is back and he’s having a big…
Cover Story: The Professor and the Blackmailer
When Texas A&M professor James Aune jumped off a campus parking garage roof to his death in January, students and faculty didn’t know what to think. A brilliant man, Aune — who headed the Department of Communication– left behind a wife and two adult sons. To anyone looking from the…
UPDATED: Woodrow’s Alum Begs Kickstarter For Another Bar; Plus Three More Insulting Houston Campaigns
UPDATE (Wednesday, 4 p.m.): According to Little Woodrow’s owner Danny Evans, also former owner of Big Woodrow’s on Chimney Rock, the man behind the Woodrow’s Cypress Kickstarter campaign is not affiliated with the other Woodrow’s at all, and he is pursuing legal action against him. Houston Kickstarter is amazing. I…
Five Fashion-Themed Books for the Beach
Summer reading lists are everywhere. Your favorite bookstore has probably compiled one or ten, and everyone from the New York Times Book Review to NPR Books is busily compiling a list of literary companions for us to enjoy throughout the summer months. Here at the Houston Press we’ve published a…
How To: Throw a Summer Outdoor Dinner Party
The unfortunate part about summer in Texas, more specifically in Houston, is that you want to go outside but it’s just too dang hot to stay out there for more than five minutes without breaking into a sweat. My family loves to grill during the summertime, and we love taking…
Perry Wants to Save Water, Keep the Railroad Commission Unreformed
After all of the hubbub that surrounded the passing of the state water plan, Gov. Rick Perry signed some water conservation legislation into law last Friday with nary a ripple in the political waters. Water companies will have to audit water lines to check for leaks that could be losing…
Water, Water Everywhere at Catherine Couturier Gallery
In the traditional Japanese art of flower arrangement, mizugiwa means the point where the water and plant meet. In English, that’s better known as the shore or bank, but it doesn’t seem nearly as poetic. In “Water’s Edge (Mizugiwa)” at Catherine Couturier Gallery, Houston artist Libbie J. Masterson explores this…
The Non-Pressure Test: Make Hollandaise & Eggs Benedict Like a MasterChef
Masterchef is back (and with another Houstonian in the mix)! We’ve been loving the season so far, especially the pressure tests. But with a pissed-off Ramsay, daunting time restraints and cameras right in the contestants’ faces waiting for them to break down in an ugly cry in front of the…
Governor Perry Signs Bill Allowing Teachers and Students to Say “Merry Christmas”
Last December, Houston Representative Dwayne Bohac picked up his son from first grade and asked what he’d done in class. His son answered that they’d decorated their “holiday tree” with “holiday ornaments.” This concerned Bohac. “Why do we call it a holiday tree at school, but a Christmas tree at…
Ronnie James Dio’s Dungeon Opens Again On Magical New Releases
Dio Finding the Sacred Heart: Live in Philly 1986 Eagle Vision, 143 mins., $14.98 DVD/$19.98 Blu-ray Though he passed away from stomach cancer in 2010 (right here in Houston, according to several reports), fans of Ronnie James Dio have had a steady stream of newly-released music and projects to feast…
Janet Evanovich Leaves Trenton, NJ, and Takes Lee Goldberg with Her in New Book Collaboration (UPDATED)
Author and TV producer Lee Goldberg (Monk series) and bestselling author Janet Evanovich (most famous for her Stephanie Plum series) met at a book signing about 18 years ago and have remained pals and of like minds ever since. They got together about a year ago, started talking books and…
This Week in Food Blogs: Barbecue Road Trip Songs & Why the Cronut Is Overrated
Hungry in Houston: Last week, Adam Brower checked out the newly opened Hurricane Grill and Wings located in Spring on FM 1960. He has been disappointed with Houston’s wing offerings; however, Hurricane Grill and Wings met his criteria of good wings. With more than 30 choices of sauces, and the…
Texas’s Representative Can’t Help But Support Faulty Science, Fetal Masturbation
If you never thought you’d see the day in which an elected United States Representative discusses, in an open forum, a fetus taking pleasure in genital touching, you may want to stop reading this post. If, however, you were always under the impression that it was inevitable that a member…
Pickle Juice: The Perfect Workout Refreshment?
Having spent a fair amount of time perusing running Web sites for nutrition tips, I am used to encountering strange food and drink recommendations, particularly in online forums where everyone is a nutritionist (or at least pretends to be). Often I chalk up the more bizarre advice to the eccentricities…
Please, Rick Rubin: Leave Metal Bands Alone
Unless you live under a rock, you’ve probably heard that Black Sabbath recently released their long awaited comeback album, 13. It’s their first with Ozzy Osbourne on vocals since 1978’s Never Say Die, and riding high at No. 1 on the UK Charts, their first No. 1 hit since 1970’s…
Soon the Rich Will Own Gaming and Going to the Movies Completely
You might have heard recently that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg lamented that the blockbuster was killing the movie industry, which is funny because they, you know, invented it. The two elder auteurs correctly pointed out that films seem to either be made for $1 million or $250 million, with…
Conspiracy Theorists Are Dead Wrong About the NBA
I don’t get it. I read about conspiracy theories all the time. From 9/11 was an inside job to aliens to “false flags,” I try to reasonably digest the possibilites, but I just can’t wrap my head around them. This isn’t to say I don’t think cover-ups or conspiracies don’t…
Exp Bar Rises to Our Video Game Cocktail Challenge
A little bit back I explored the best of the video game-inspired cocktails, and that’s how I made the acquaintance Joe Fronczek of Exp Bar, based out of Lewisville, TX. It turns out that there is a huge community of gamers who are also mixologists. Folks like Fronczek and the…
I Tried to Explain Transgender Doom Metal to My Three-Year-Old
I wasn’t really in a very good mood on Sunday. Taking the Daughter With One F out of the house so the wife can study for nursing school is my task every weekend, and though my daughter is an angel, I would remind you that so was Lucifer. It’s too…
100 Creatives: Browncoat, Pin-Up Pop Artist
What He Does: The man they call Browncoat, or alternatively, DJ Twinkle-Toes, is a graphic artists and DJ here in Houston. His work is pop art at its finest, mixing almost photorealistic faces with cartoonish hair and clothing in his figures. It’s a mixture of toy store packaging mixed with…
Chad Johnson’s Good Day (Freedom!) Turns into a Bad Day (TMZ!)
There was a time when Chad Johnson actually co-hosted a reality show. In 2010, the then-Bengal wide receiver collaborated with teammate Terrell Owens on a six-episode train wreck called The T. Ocho Show. In 2012, Chad Johnson married a VH-1 reality television star named Evelyn Lozada, and there was a…
Test Driving the New Myspace
So, Myspace is back. With a massive overhaul of content and a huge advertising campaign, plus backing from lots of “cool” people like Pharrell and Jimmy Kimmel, Myspace has relaunched and is trying to get back in the social networking game. What Myspace is not doing, thankfully, is trying to…
Music’s 10 Biggest Tools Right Now
Let’s just jump right on in to this one, shall we? Blogs about musicians exhibiting extreme tool-like behavior don’t need much of an introduction. A lot of musicians opt out of behaving like normal, rational adults, and we like to rag on them a bit, especially when they’re misbehaving on…
Top 5 Daiquiris to Try in Houston
In a city where the margarita tends to monopolize the frozen alcoholic beverage market, one can easily forget there are other cocktails that are just as icy and intoxicating. In the past, I’ve explored multiple alternatives to the margarita , and this summer I’m homing in America’s second most popular…
