Tag: The Alamo

Posted on

Ask A Texan: Texas Chili Cookoff Tips for Beginners


Downhome And Humble Advice For Folks That Live So Far Out Yonder They Don’t Know Nothing About The World Except What They Hear At The Feed Store and The Septic Tank man
The Texan

This Texan received a letter pleading for help from Mr. Pico de’ Gallo of Bandera, Texas. Seems he is considering entering the world-famous Terlingua Chili Cookoff for the first time and is being forced to use his wife’s old family recipe, and has concerns.

Mr. Pico de’ Gallo: Mr. Texan, I’m entering the famous Terlingua Chili cook-off, and my wife, Conchita Bonita Maria, wants me to use her old Mexican family recipe. Her family is from San Antonio, and her great-great-great-grandmother was the cook for the defenders of the Alamo. Her name was Chile Conchita Madera, and history credits her for making the first batch of Chili, so the dish was named after her. She was also Davy Crockett’s girlfriend, and he and Jim Bowie got into a ruckus over her, and Davy shot off Jim Bowie’s pinkie toe with his famous rifle, Old Betsy. She and Davy were tight, but then he didn’t make it, and she left with the other women after Santa Anna won the battle. Santa Anna wanted to hire her as his personal cook, but she wouldn’t have any of it. My problem is my wife wants me to go out and get the fresh meat, the same stuff her great-great-great-grandmother used. Now I’ve got to go kill a bunch of Opossums, a few Skunks, some Rats, three or four Rattlesnakes, and a cow that got blown up by a cannonball during the fight. I’m not a hunter and don’t even own a rifle, only a .44 Magnum pistol, and I’m pretty sure if I shoot those critters with that Dirty Harry gun, it’s gonna blow them up to a pulp and won’t be of any use. And, to top it off, she also wants me to go to Marfa, Texas, and search the Chihuahuan Desert for the rare Chihuahuan Death Pepper, which grows near the mountains at the base of Cacti, and is really hard to find. I’m in a pickle here. Why can’t I just get some Wolf Brand canned chili and add some stuff to it? Help a brother out here.

The Texan: Well, Mr. de’ Gallo, I happen to be somewhat of an expert on Chili. My two son-in-laws have won the Terlingua Chili Cookoff twice in the last five years, so by osmosis and relations, they turned me into a Chili expert. I can tell right now, you don’t need to shoot all those road kill critters and blow them up, just go to HEB and get some pork, steak, ground beef, and other meats, and tell her you shot the critters. She won’t know the difference. I’ll email you my special recipe for my award-winning Chili. I use my special hot sauce, called Davy Crockett’s Colon Cannon, because it’s made with the Vietnamese Death pepper brought back to Texas from Vietnam in 1969 by my buddy, Tex Stiles, the famous BBQ Chef. He was fighting the Cong over there, and an old Mama San turned him onto the pepper. It’s the hottest one in the world, and one pepper could kill two or three folks, so you’ve got to use only one or two drops in your batch. I’ll send you some Cherry Bombs and a CD of John Wayne’s famous movie, ” The Alamo.” Your wife’s granny might be in there somewhere.

Posted on

Ask A Texan: Do These Truck Tires Make My Butt Look Too Big?


Classic Advice For Folks That Have Never Been To Texas…

The Texan

This Texan received an email from a Mr. Charles “Chunk” Fromage, who lives in Velveeta, Wisconsin. He and his wife visited Waco recently for a wedding and are puzzled by why everyone in Waco drives a giant pickup truck.

Mr. Fromage: Mr. Texan, the folks around Velveeta call me “Chunk,” that’s my nickname because I am a taddy on the chunky side. I saw your article in the back of the Pioneer Woman Monthly Cook Book that my wife, Nora Pat, bought at Walmart while we were in Waco, Texas, to attend the wedding of her cousin’s ninth marriage. I didn’t want to go because I was forced to attend the other eight. The last two lasted a few weeks at best, so I can’t see wasting time and fancy money on this one either. These JetBlue airplane tickets are spendy, but that’s another story I’ll write you about later.

Back home, in Velveeta, I drive a “oh fer cute” perky little pickup truck—a 1995 Ford with Michlen snow tires and only 55K original miles, kept in a heated garage in the winter. She’s a real beaut, and all the boys down at the Moose Lodge have been trying to get their hands on her for years. So, when we were at Walmart in our Avis rent-a-car, picking up a wedding present for the wife’s cousin, we both said, “Holy Moley” — the entire parking lot was full of these ginormous pickups with tires the size of a Dairy Cow. So, I’m telling Nora Pat that a man would need a ladder to get in and out of these rigs. I was right. One fella parked in the handicap space was using a hydraulic hoist installed in the bed of his giant truck to lift his hefty wife into the passenger seat because the truck was at least ten feet off the asphalt. Geez Louise! What is going on down in Texas with your pickup trucks?

The Texan: Well, Mr. Chunk, everyone in the south knows that everything is bigger in Texas, that includes our pickup trucks, our tires, Stetson hats, houses, bass boats, and our wives’ hair. The fascination with big wheels on our pickup trucks started at the Alamo back in 1836. I know the inside skinny on this because I am a member of the Sons Of The Alamo Lodge, and we keep up on our history.

When the Mexicans were advancing on the Alamo mission in San Antonio, Colonel Travis instructed his men to roll their cannons up dirt ramps to improve their accuracy. It was muddy, and the small, solid wooden wheels became stuck, and so did the cannon. One clever Texan took the large wooden spoked wheels off of an old wagon and rigged it up on the cannon, and bingo, the problem was solved, plus the cannon looked pretty darn sharp all jacked up off the ground. After firing a few shots at the Mexicans hanging out on the riverbank singing and doing shots of Tequilia, the boys noticed the cannon jumped around a bit too much when fired, so the same Texan removed the bed springs from Jim Bowie’s sick bed, which really pissed him off, and rigged them up on the cannon frame, allowing the firearm to resist the recoil of the explosion. The custom cannon was so accurate that the Texans obliterated the Mexican army’s Food Wagons (early versions of the Food Trucks), which pissed off Santa Anna because the men didn’t have their breakfast tacos and refused to attack until they were adequately fed. Even though the Texans lost the battle, the Mexicans were impressed by the captured cannon and began building their own the same way. Within a few months, the Texans got their hands on the Mexican cannons when they whooped their butt at San Jacinto, and pretty soon, all the wagons and buggies in Texas had big wheels and springs, jacking them up in the air so they would clear the rocks and rough roads. As pickup trucks grew bigger, Texans took that same technology and started jacking up their trucks and adding large wheels and tires so they could drive around the deer lease without a problem. Then they added roll bars and bright lights, loud stereo speakers, campers, and a hoist so they could get that freshly shot Buck into the back of the truck bed. Now, most of the pickups here in Texas have big wheels and handy little step ladders that fold out so we can get into our trucks. So, all of the fancy pickups and big wheels started at the Alamo. Betcha didn’t know any of that. By the way, why do you folks wear those blocks of cheese hats to your football games? I’m sending you a CD copy of John Wayne’s movie The Alamo and a box of cherry bombs you can use to blast an ice-fishing hole in your frozen lake.

Posted on

“Come And Take It” The Story of The Alamo Brisket


This Tall Tale is from 2021. With the anniversary of the final battle of The Alamo upon us, I figured a re-visit might be welcomed.

Tex R. Styles learned the art of grilling at a young age. His father, an expert, medal-winning griller, and smoker, proudly and meticulously teaches six-year-old Tex the art of cooking everything from burgers to ribs on his cast-iron Leonard Brothers charcoal grill. The family lineage of grilling over an open flame can be traced back to the British Isles and their ancestral home of Scotland, where a Styles family member cooked meat for Celtic warriors, the King of England, and Mary, Queen of Scots.

When Tex turns eleven, his father conducts a tiki-torch-lighted ceremony in their backyard and passes the sacred grilling tools to his only child. Father Frank, the local priest, attends the party and lays down a righteous blessing on Tex and the family grill.


When young Tex fires up the charcoal on summer evenings, the neighborhood gathers in his backyard to watch the boy genius at work.
Once he has entered his “Zen-cooking zone,” he serves up a better T-Bone than Cattlemen’s, and his burgers are known to bring tears to a grown man’s eyes. Around Fort Worth, the word is out that some little kid over on Ryan Ave is a “grilling Jesse.”

Tex receives a bright green Weber grill for his thirteenth birthday and a professional cooking apron with his name embroidered across the front. The Star-Telegram newspaper takes his picture and writes a glowing article that appears in the Sunday food section. Over on Channel 5, Bobbie Wygant mentions him on her television show and sends him a congratulations card. He is now a local celebrity. Dan Jenkins, the hot-shot sports writer at the Telegram, does a piece on Tex for Sports Illustrated, and just like that, young Tex is officially a “big deal.”

When Tex turns sixteen, like his father and grandfather, he is inducted into the “Sons Of The Alamo” Masonic Lodge. To become a member, your family tree must include one direct family member who fought and died at the Alamo. Tex’s great-great-great-grandfather was a defender and was killed in the siege. He was also the head cook and griller for the Texian Army and a rowdy drinking buddy of Jim Bowie and Colonel Travis.

New members must speak before the lodge elders, recounting the siege from their family’s history. Since childhood, Tex had heard this family story a hundred times and can repeat it word for word, but tonight, he is drawing a blank on some critical details and decides to wing it a bit. In the mind of a sixteen-year-old, his modernized recount of the battle makes perfect sense.

He stands in front of the assembled elders, leans into the microphone, and begins;
“In late 1835, my great-great-great-grandfather, Angus Styles, traveled from the Smokey mountains of Tennessee to the dangerous plains of Texas with David Crockett and his band of long-rifle toting buckskin-clad rabble-rousers. Angus was in the dog house with his wife most of the time, so he figured a year or two in the wilds of Texas would smooth everything out with the Mrs.

Before immigrating to America, Angus was the chief griller and top dog chef for the Duke and Duchess of Edinburg in Europe. David Crockett knew Angus was a master griller and wanted him to travel with his men so they would eat well. Crockett and the men killed the meat, and Angus grilled it to perfection.

Arriving in Texas, Crockett tells Angus they are making a stop-over for a few days at a mission called The Alamo in San Antonio De Bexar. A buddy needs help fighting off a few Mexican soldiers; it shouldn’t take more than two days.

Once at the Alamo, arriving in the dark, entering via the back gate, Angus realizes Crockett was wrong in his evaluation. The rag-tag Army behind the walls would be no match for the thousands of Mexican soldiers sitting on a riverbank a few hundred yards away, eating tortilla wraps and polishing their long bayonets. Mariachi music floating on the breeze gave the scene a weird party-like atmosphere.

Angus locates and converts an old Adobe oven to a smoker griller, working on some chow for the Texians. Brisket, ribs, and sausage, along with his secret sauce, will be on the supper menu.

A young pioneer woman from northern Texas is there with her father, a volunteer. Veronica Baird is busy baking bread and cinnamon rolls in another adobe oven and lends Angus a hand stoking his fire. A prominent German fellow, Gustav Shiner, wanders over and offers Angus a mug of his homebrew beer. It’s looking like the Army will eat and drink well tonight.

A chilly March wind is blowing toward the Mexican Army camp, and the troops smell the delightful aroma of cooking meat and baking bread. Having marched 1500 miles with little food, they are famished, and the wafting perfume makes them salivate like an old hound dog.

General Santa Anna and his officers also smell the same heavenly aroma and, having not much to eat in the past few days, hatch a scheme to get their hands on that meat and freshly baked bread. Santa Anna sends a white flag rider with a note to the gates of the Alamo.

Standing in the courtyard, surrounded by hundred-plus fighters, Travis reads the letter, ” Dear Sirs and Scurrilous Rebels, on behalf of our large and overpowering Mexican Army and of course, myself, General Santa Anna, we would be willing to offer you a general surrender of sorts if you would share your delicious meat and bread with my troops. Looking forward to a good meal. Yours until death, General Santa Anna.”

The men, in unison, yell, “hell no,” we are not sharing our chow. Being a bit smart-ass, Travis orders two 20-pound cannons to fire a rebuke into the Mexican camp.

The first cannonball destroys the Mexican’s chuck wagon and what beans and flour the troops have left. The second cannonball blows up the cantina wagon, vaporizing numerous cases of tequila and wine. Now, the officers and troops have no food and no hooch. Santa Anna is as mad as a rabid raccoon and screams, “that’s it boys, we are taking the mission pronto.”

The battle started that evening, and as we all know, it didn’t turn out well for the Texians. Veronica Baird survived the massacre and said that Angus Styles and Gustav Shiner fought off the advancing soldiers with carving knives, a keg tap, and her sizeable wooden baker’s Peel. They fought to their death.


As the women and children of the Alamo were escorted out of the mission, Veronica Baird spots Santa Anna, sitting on his black horse, about to take a bite from one of her captured Baird Cinnamon rolls. She chunks a rock and knocks it out of his hand. General Santa Anna’s Great Dane dog, Mucho Perro, gobbles it down before it hits the ground. Sweet revenge.

She later wrote a book about the battle, which sold pretty well here in Texas. Not only is the Alamo our sacred national treasure, but it was also the first BBQ joint in Texas. Thank you, and I hope you enjoyed the story of my grandfather Angus dying at the Alamo.” And with that, Tex takes a seat next to his stunned father.

Posted on

God Bless The Alamo


A few more days until we solemnly recognize the fall of the Alamo, March 6th, 1836. It’s not a day that will live in infamy like Pearl Harbor, the battles of Gettysburg and Yorktown, but for us native Texans, it’s a day of retrospect that deserves the reverence we bestow upon it.

The blog-es-phere is chock full of opinions about Travis and his men; poor old Santa Anna only wanted to get along, move along and be friends, but had to kill all the defenders because he was forced to. Bullshit, he was a murdering dictator and knew full well what he was doing. Three thousand plus soldiers against less than two hundred poorly equipped pioneers and farmers. Not much brotherly love was present in San Antonio that February and March. There are even stories, one of which I read today, that swear black slaves were picking Texas cotton outside the gates of the mission before the Mexican army invaded. If it’s on the internet, it’s got to be true. Right?

Starting in the first grade, I was taught the history of the Alamo. My teacher made sure my classmates and I knew the story of the battle, the events that led up to it, and the aftermath at San Jacinto. Mrs. Edwards, my teacher, was a native of San Antonio, so she was a bit “ett” up with the whole thing. Us six year- olds, although slightly lacking in historical proficiency, understood the enormity and the importance of the battle. We regularly staged a neighborhood reproduction of the battle a few times a month, using my parent’s garage as the besieged mission.

Walt Disney and his television series Davey Crockett, King of The Wild Frontier, turned every boy, and most girls, in my grade school into a rabid Texian defender, ready and willing to fight the battle a second time using our Daisy BB guns and Cub Scout knives for arms. Having a native Texan and hometown boy, Fess Parker, in the role of old Davey didn’t go unnoticed in Fort Worth. Fess, dressed in full buckskin and coonskin cap came to Fort Worth to promote the show and the schools had to declare a holiday because they were empty. That is how serious we are about our history. Yes, we are all braggarts, insufferable most of the time, and onery as a Honey Badger, but pound for pound, put us against any enemy, and we will get the job done. My fellow members at The Sons of The Alamo Lodge, of which I am a member in good standing, can attest to our state of readiness.

Keep your powder dry; God Bless The Alamo, Goliad, San Jacinto, William Travis, Sam Houston, Juan Sequin, Davey Crockett, Bob Wills, Willie Nelson, and George Strait.

Posted on

Ice Storms and The Alamo


Texas is in the midst of a nasty ice storm. It started with sleet, then freezing rain, a dusting of snow, and now more freezing rain mixed with thunder, sleet, and lightning snow. I envy the folks up north; they get plain old snow. it may be five feet deep, but it’s not ice.

Ice storms are part of our history. Our great authors, Larry McMurtry and J. Frank Dobie often wrote of them in their novels. Hondo Crouch, the lord of Luckenbach, Texas, commented, “there is nothing as lovely as a good ice storm to make you stay inside to ponder and piddle.”

In 1836, when General Santa Anna marched his troops from Mexico to San Antonio to dispose of those pesky Texians who were having a barbeque cookout at the Alamo, his men were pelted with ice and sleet storms. Most of his soldiers came from warmer parts of Mexico and died in the scrub brush of south Texas, frozen solid while standing upright or in mid-stride. Santa Anna lost his personal wagon full of Tequila; the bottles froze.

Here in Granbury, the most historical small Town in Texas, the day before “Icemegedon” hit, my wife and I went to our local H.E.B. for a few items. We know how to “hunker down,” so we don’t require much.

Good God, it was as if the world was ending. Masses of shoppers grabbed everything they could from the almost bare shelves. One lady had a basket full of Mrs. Baird’s bread and twenty-six packs of Dr. Pepper and Big Red. I ran into Mooch and Mrs. Mooch, and he had a basket full of Red Baron Pizzas and Pork Rinds, which is actually survival food here in Texas. I saw two older women in a tug-of-war over the last pack of pork ribs, and the bakery ladies were smacking shoppers with loaves of French bread as they came over the counter. It was pandemonium at its finest. The wine shelves were empty, as well as the beer coolers. If you have enough booze, food is not required to sustain life.

Back to the Alamo, if I may. It’s a good comparison to the state of our country today, and we are fighting a similar battle, destined to lose. The defenders, which would be the citizens of Texas, are sheltered in the mission and are attempting to hold off the invading hordes, which would be Mexico and the rest of South America. By letter, Travis, now Governor Abbot, begged for reinforcements, which never came. Thus, the mission was breached, and the defenders slaughtered. President Biden is now playing the part of General Santa Anna, and Senorita Kamala is his muse.

All of this happened because of an ice storm. I think Hondo was right. It’s a good day to ponder and piddle.

Posted on

I Am A Texan


In honor of Texas Independence Day and the fall of The Alamo, I am bringing this post back to life. If I had a recent picture of myself in a Stetson or a nice straw hat, I would include it, but sadly, this picture is it. I don’t take selfies, only a few since the invention of such a silly thing. I looked for my coonskin Davy Crockett cap, which would have added to the story, but I believe my mother tossed it sometime in my twenties. God Bless Texas.

I am, and always will be, a stubborn, self-righteous, braggart, and proud son of Texas. If there was a lodge called ” Sons of The Alamo,” I would be a member. I bleed red, white, and blue with a lone big star. My battle flag is the ” Come And Take It,” from the skirmish with the Mexican army in Gonzalez, Texas, that sparked the Texas Revolution.

In my dreams, I carried Davy Crockett’s old Betsy from Tennessee and sharpened Jim Bowie’s knife so slick he could shave with it. I helped Colonel Travis write his famous pleading letter for more troops to defend the Alamo, and I was with the defenders on the narrow pulpits of that old fort when it fell after thirteen days of defiance. I fanned the horse flies away from a wounded Sam Houston as he lay underneath a shade tree along the banks of a bend in a creek called Texas on the Brazos. I was with the Texian army as they rousted and defeated General Santa Anna’s troops on the battlefield of San Jacinto.

I sat on the commander’s deck with Texan Admiral Chester Nimitz during the battle of the Coral Sea as the Japs relentlessly attacked our armada. I rode with the Texas Rangers as they fought the Comanches and Pancho Villa. I was but a boy with a dog-eared history book, but in my dreams, I was a part of the glorious history of my home state. I will always be eternally grateful for being born a son of Texas.