We talk with some regularity in these pages about the Culinary Institute of America (CIA), and rightly so, what with it being one of San Antonio’s marquis educational destinations. Indeed, the CIA is widely regarded as the best preparatory school in the world for those aspiring to careers in the culinary arts. And while the school’s graduates routinely end up working at (and frequently starting) the world’s finest eateries, it’s always gratifying when one of the Alamo City’s native sons returns to share his culinary gifts with his home town. Such is the case with CIA-trained Chef Johnny Hernandez, lifelong San Antonian and far and away the most successful and best-known culinarian ...
Does life have to stop because our half of the earth is dark? Don DeLillo (White Noise) I imagine that, like all of us, it needs a break now and then. It’s a big job, after all, lighting and warming us all, growing the veggies and flowers. And with a family of nine to look after, not to mention two hundred-fourteen grandkids. It’s a lot. So I don’t begrudge the sun its respite. It is a thoughtful guardian, leaving behind in its absence a soothing nightlight and a promise of return the same time each morning. I do, though, hope that it’s not all work and sleep. I hope that once the working day is done it goes out at least once in a while to grab a drink with friends, maybe ...
In a time of cars and planes, cell phones and internet, how to explain to someone under fifty the wonder of the singing cowboy? But sing they did, Gene and Roy sitting tall in the saddle resplendent in suits of white, strumming their guitars, as they sauntered off into the sunset. My dad had all Gene’s 78’s, with their pops and crackles, the hiss of the needle dragging heavy over old vinyl. I found an old Victrola— the kind you wind up— to play his records on. And though dad rode off long ago in his own blaze of glory, his records live on, Gene’s voice ringing through the hiss and static of years, reminder of a time when the good guy won every gunfight, always ...
“It went from running away from the police to shaking their hands and saying, ‘Thanks for watching our wall while we’re not here.’ Back in the day, we would see a building or a wall and call someone asking for permission to paint there. Now they’re calling us and asking us to do it. Hell, and commissioning us to do it!” Funny how life turns around sometimes, particularly when you’re a street artist who grew up doing something many people regarded as little more than vandalism. David (Shek) Vega, one of San Antonio’s best known urban artists, fondly recalls the marked differences between the San Antonio of his teenage years and today. “These days, Nik (artistic collaborator ...
