Book Review
	More Feature Articles   Visit Message Boards   Get Our Free Newsletter

Texas Cooking Online: Grandma's Cookbook Over 300 recipes Communities People & Chat. Message boards on cooking. Cooks Need to Know Handy substitutions, equivalent measurements and metric conversions Feature Articles Dessert Spotlight Traditional Texas Fare John Raven, Ph.B. Articles about Texas' most famous foods - Barbecue and Chili Humor Letters to the Editor Texana: Our sister site devoted to Texas books, travel, people and culture Lone Star Bookstore Reviews of cookbooks, Texas wine books and Texana Texas Food Festivals Food and wine festivals around the state Texas Cookoffs Competition barbecue and chili events Notable Native Texans The famous & infamous born in Texas Free Newsletter Our newsletter informs you of new articles and recipes, plus more updates to our web sites. T-Shirt Contest Fill out our guestbook to enter the monthly contest

Barbecuing Around Texas By Richard K. Troxell Purchase This Book Now on Amazon.Com Book Review By Steve Labinski If you like eating barbecue, you will enjoy the compiled reviews and ratings in the new book Barbecuing Around Texas. Author Richard K. Troxell brings together a full plate of barbecue restaurants, focusing especially on the meats and sauce served, as opposed to the vegetables and desserts. The author explains in his forward how he apparently awoke one morning with the urge to travel thousands of miles sampling and reviewing restaurants around the state. The divides the book into seven geographic regions, and reviews a good mix in all the cities. He does not review all barbecue restaurants (pity the person who attempts to ambitiously eat at every standing barbecue restaurant in Texas). The forward goes into a fairly good primer of barbecue terminology, like rubs and barbecue pits. Texas Cooking readers should already be very familiar with these aspects of barbecue thanks to the numerous articles on the subject by John Raven. Troxell establishes a ratings system for the restaurants. I found his system to puzzle me sometimes. Some places where I've enjoyed perfectly good barbecue received lower then average ratings. But on the whole, places with very high quality food received an 8, on a scale of 1 to 10. Establishments with a 7 rating are numerous, and they serve fine barbecue as well. (Fortunately in Texas we enjoy plenty of barbecue) The stories of his servings and reception at the many restaurants are often interesting. Troxell especially likes the food served at the County Line restaurants of San Antonio and Austin. For me, I've always found their service too fancy for my taste. But on the whole, if you want a book that shows lots of good places to eat, buy Barbecuing Around Texas. Purchase This Book Now on Amazon.Com

Book Excerpt: City of Lockhart - Black's BBQ - Rating: 8 A sign reads, "Black's BBQ. Est. 1932. Texas' oldest and best major restaurant continuously owned by the same family." Wrong? Prause's in La Grange wins the family longevity battle. But Black's did throw in the word "best." According to the courts, everybody has the right to call their whatever the best. I think Black's BBQ was thinking about Kreuz Market down the street when they had the sign painted. My suggestion is that Black's should drop Texas' and insert Lockhart's. I entered Black's after the big lunch crowd. I zipped right through the line, picked up my usual samples, and took a seat. Only a couple of other tables had occupants, and they stared at a sports game on the TV. >P> My slice of brisket had a 5/16-inch pink ribbon. Good sign. It took slices with my fork to sseparatethe meat. No fat appeared. The atoma was faint, and my bite disclosed superior flavor. I gave it a 7. The barbecue sauce had the basics with a mysterious something extra. Was it pickle juice? Sides: coleslaw, creamy potato salad, and pinto beans. Dessert: peach and cherry cobbler, apple pie, pecan pie, and banana pudding. The décor said Western. I looked at raw wood paneling, a great collection of longhorn horns, some nice mounted deer head trophies, and pictures of Lockhart High School football teams going back to 1909. Owner Edgar Black Jr. was out, and I talked with Nat Castillo, as employee about their brisket. He showed me their two long and open brick pits. After staring at so many rotisserie pits, these looked beautiful to me. Nat said they used post oak and smoked briskets eighteen to twenty-four hours. They did it in two steps. They put in sticks and brisket and fired up the day before. Early the next morning, they added more sticks. It was a manual operation. No gas. No electricity. No gauges. No thermometer. Barbecuing that satisfies the soul and not the machine. He said the only rub they used was salt and pepper.

Jump To Texas Cooking Front Page
Search Recipe Cookbook - News Features - People & Chat - Contests / Guestbook

Free Newsletter
Our e-mail newsletter arrives informing you of news, new recipes, and more updates to our web sites.
    sample newsletter