Texas just may be the state in the Union with the strongest masculine image. Our heroes, from cowboys to the Alamo to Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston, have always been men. But there have also always been women with gumption.

The Texas women in these pages have made history in a variety of ways--some outrageous, some inventive, most courageous. They have been crusaders, sports stars, outlaws, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, ranchers and cowgirls, philanthropists, artists--and often, characters. They lived outside convention and caught public attention to one degree or another. For...

In Texas, "chef" covers a wide range of cooking styles. Included here are chefs who are heavily influenced by classical training, but there are also chefs who take Southwestern cuisine to a state of high art, chefs who specialize in Tex-Mex and others who cook the traditional dishes of the interior of Mexico and who bring new innovative touches to Mexican cuisine. There are even winery owners who combine their passion for fine wine with a passion for fine food. And what picture of Texas cooking would be complete without chuck-wagon cooking?

This small book is not a comprehensive study of...

FEATURING 160 RECIPES and Recipe for a happy family:
Start with a lot of love.
Mix in some firm rules, respect, a willingness to share, and a willingness to listen.
Season with lots of laughter, more than a few pets, a lot of "extended family," and frequent meals together.
Stir and mix frequently. Gets better with age.
When good friend Sheila Taylor Wells said, half jokingly, "We should write a cookbook together," I took her seriously. I think she was probably dismayed at the time, for I immediately sat down and pounded out five thousand words about my childhood. For...

When Elmer Kelton died in the fall of 2009, the literary world lost a consummate writer, a man the "New York Times "called a "novelist who brought the sensibility of the old-style western to bear on a modern Texas landscape of oil fields and financially troubled ranches." Kelton was also a modest, kind man, always willing to advise a struggling writer or write a blurb for a first time published author, or assign publishing rights to his six masterpieces to a small university press. TCU Press owes a great debt of gratitude to Kelton, and this volume, "Elmer Kelton: Memories and Essays,"...

Susan Hogan is smart, pretty-and prickly. There was no other word for it. She is prickly with Jake Phillips and her Aunt Jenny, the two people who love her most in the world. And she is prickly and impatient with some of her academic colleagues and the petty jealousies in the English department at Oak Grove University. When a coed's body is found in her car and she is suspected of murder, Susan gets even more defensive. But when someone begins to stalk and threaten her-trying to run her down, killing the plants on her deck, causing a moped wreck that breaks her ankle-prickly mixes with fear....

Texans love to eat, and one dish they can t get enough of is chili so much so that chili con carne is Texas s state meal. This seemingly simple staple of Texan identity proves to be anything but, however. Beans or no beans? Beef, pork, or turkey? From a can or from scratch?
" Texas Is Chili Country" is a brief look at the favored fare its colorful history, its many incarnations, and the ways it has spread both across the country and the world. The history includes chuckwagon chili, the chili queens of San Antonio, the first attempts at canned chili, the development of chili societies and...

Arson, a bad beating, and a recluse who claims someone is trying to kill her all collide in this third Blue Plate Cafe Mystery with Kate Chambers. Torn between trying to save David Clinkscales, her old boss and new lover, and curiosity about Edith Aldridge's story of an attempt on her life, Kate has to remind herself she has a cafe to run. She nurses a morose David, whose spirit has been hurt as badly as his body, and tries to placate Mrs. Aldridge, who was once accused of murdering her husband but acquitted. One by one, Mrs. Aldridge's stepchildren enter the picture. Is it coincidence that...

Just when Kelly's life has calmed, she faces yet another of life's puzzles. Except the pieces in this one don't fit. First the apartment behind her house is torched, then a string of bizzare "accidents" occur to set her off-balance. Who is stalking her? Where does the disappearance of a young girl and her disreputable boyfriend fit in? And why are two men using the same name? Is the surprise inheritance another part of the puzzle? At a time when she is most vulnerable, Kelly can't make the pieces fit. Before Kelly can get the whole picture, she helps the family of a hostage, rescues a kidnap...