It’s the dead of winter, supposedly—February 2—and a quick survey of mid-afternoon temperatures across Texas (70 degrees in Austin, 72 in Houston, 73 in Dallas, a frigid 50 in Amarillo, a balmy 77 in Brownsville) makes me think we’re in for an early spring.

But don’t take my word for it. Instead, listen to Remley the Babirusa at the Houston Zoo, who agreed to stand in for the traditional groundhog this morning—and predicted an early spring. (Groundhogs don’t like the hot and humid weather typically found in Houston, but Babirusas- small hairless pigs native to Indonesia—find it quite agreeable.)

This morning’s ultra-scientific weather-prognosticating ceremony offered Remley two choices: a two-foot paper “snowman” filled with watermelon slices and other tasty Babirusa treats, and a pink-and-white picnic scene featuring the same edible enticements. The rest of the ceremony followed tradition: If Remley chose the snowman, we’d have six more weeks of winter; if he chose the picnic scene, spring is on its way. My sources tell me that while Remley flirted with the winter scene, he ultimately dove into the picnic setting and decreed an early spring. So it’s official.

I’m consistently impressed with the creativity and imagination of the folks at the Houston Zoo, an AZA-accredited zoo that dates to 1922.  I believe that if Remley could talk, he’d say, “Now that the weather is warm, come visit me. I am a master of camouflage and move like a deer. And obviously I have great taste and a sense of humor.”

Like a lot of women in Central Texas, I imagine, I once dated a soldier stationed at Fort Hood, the lifeblood of the military city of Killeen. On most weekends during our short courtship, he’d visit me in Austin, where we’d frequent the live-music venues on Sixth Street and along Guadalupe, the road that parallels the UT campus.  On a few occasions, though, I made the one-hour trip to the base. This was a few years before Operation Desert Storm and many years before 9-11, and security concerns weren’t the same as they are now. So on one night when he had guard duty at one of the post’s motor pools, I accompanied him. I assume this was allowed but can’t be certain. Regardless, no one stopped us. And so I have a rather surreal and oddly romantic memory of a warm night curled up on an armored tank, watching the stars.

On visits to Austin, he’d claim there wasn’t much to do in Killeen. And so years later, I was surprised to read a story in the Austin American-Statesman about the wealth of interesting restaurants (Hawaiian! Korean! Puerto Rican! Trinidadian!) found along Rancier Avenue, an artery named “Tank Destroyer Boulevard” as it enters the Fort. I’m an adventurous eater, and fortunately my husband, Randy, usually cooperates amiably. And since last Saturday was free, we made the short trek to Killeen to explore.

The Fort is a big place and dominates the city: The official website of Fort Hood breaks down some demographics and illustrates the cultural and economic impact of the Fort’s population. According to the Comptroller’s office, the Fort has an estimated $10 billion impact on the Texas economy. With some 70,000 men and women living on post (27,000 of whom are in the military) and a total supported population numbering almost 400,000, Fort Hood is the largest active-duty armored post in the US Armed Services.

According to what I’ve read on the Internet and elsewhere, Killeen’s 8,000-strong Korean population is the result of the military’s presence in that country in the 1950s; when US servicemen returned to Killeen after the war, some brought new wives with them, and the community began to grow. So I wasn’t surprised to see numerous Korean noodle houses and barbecue joints along Rancier Avenue. And it turns out that because there’s a significant population of Pacific Islanders in Killeen (some of whom were in the service and others who wound up here after visiting relatives or friends in the service), restaurants popped up to cater to their tastes, as well.

Rancier itself—now lined with a dizzying number of barber shops, pawn shops, and military surplus stores—must have been a happening strip in the 1950s and 1960s, when the post’s population exploded. Many of the buildings still have vestiges of mid-Century architecture, but the majority look worse for wear and tear. We drove around a bit, chatting about Elvis Presley’s stint here in 1958, wondering if soldiers still had to dry-clean and press their uniforms, and debating which restaurant to try first.

I had read that the C & H Hawaiian Grill offered a raw-tuna dish called poke, which was served in a Styrofoam cup but still rivaled sashimi dishes at served high-end sushi places in Austin–so we headed there first. Turns out the owners, Cora and Hensan Timo, opened the grill in 2004 when their sons were stationed at Fort Hood.

Since it was around 3 o’clock, the place wasn’t overly busy; we ordered a few things at the counter and shared the small dining room with a few uniformed soldiers and their families. I loved the poke, which is raw ahi (tuna) marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil, and green onion—but Randy thought the sesame flavor overpowered the fish. We both enjoyed the Kalua Pork with cabbage (a large portion of smoked and roasted pulled pork served with white rice), but in our opinion the most unusual dish we ordered was the Samoan plate, a combination of barbecued ribs, Polish sausage, teriyaki chicken, and a side of chicken-y, slippery noodles. The Timos know their way around a barbecue pit! We were offered a choice of bananas cooked in coconut milk or rice, and we chose the banana, which was definitely different—starchy yet a bit sweet.

We popped into a pawn shop and a surplus store, dropped by Partin’s Jamaican Bakery and Grill to pick up a menu for next time (paki-crusted plantains! Jamming jerk patties! Yabba-braised tilapia! Sambo oxtail!), then swung by the Caribbean grill for some to-go fare from Trinidad-Tobago. Faced with a selection of such savory items as stewed chicken, oxtail, fried shark, and Indian-inspired roti, we chose an order of curried goat and another order of jerk chicken. When we were asked, “How hot can you eat it?” I responded, “Hot enough to make our scalps sweat.” The server behind the counter raised an eyebrow and squirted copious amounts of some secret ingredient into our to-go-boxes.

As we returned to Austin, the aroma in the car made my stomach growl. Later that night as we dug into leftovers, our scalps sweating and our taste-buds firing on all cylinders, we made plans for another culinary adventure in Killeen. After all, we’ve only scratched the surface.

I recently went to see the new Martin Scorsese film Hugo, the director’s first film intended for family viewing—and a 3D picture to boot. Based on American writer Brian Selznick’s Caldecott Award-winning book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, about an orphan living in a busy, 1930s train station in Paris, the film captivated me with its characters, inventive plot, and gorgeous use of 3D-technology. The movie (and book) draws heavily on the mythology and history of real-life French filmmaker Georges Mèliés, a magician by training who directed more than 500 innovative films before declaring bankruptcy in 1913.

Interestingly, the Mèliés story has a Texas connection. One of the reasons Georges Mèliés suffered financially toward the end of his film career was that American film companies were screening pirated versions of his films, so in 1902 he sent his brother Gaston Mèliés to the United States to guard his copyrights.

Gaston, also a filmmaker, spent a few years in New York, but he eventually settled in San Antonio, possibly to treat himself to the healing sulphur waters near the ruins of the San Jose Mission. In San Antonio, Gaston Mèliés established a studio called the Star Film Ranch, and devoted his talents to turning out some 70 one-reel films, mostly westerns. The San Jose ruins served as the set for at least three Star Film productions, all made in 1910. Like his brother Georges, Gaston was fond of special effects and outlandish action sequences: A May 1976 story in the San Antonio Light notes that Mèliés’ film An Unwilling Cowboy featured a full-blown square dance on horseback.

In 1911, Gaston and his Star Film Ranch maximized the appeal of the Alamo with a film called The Immortal Alamo, in which Mèliés cast himself as William Travis (and director John Ford’s older brother Francis played Davy Crockett). Students from the Peacock Academy, a San Antonio military institute, played both Texian and Mexican soldiers.

It’s a big state, but a small world.

In January issue of Texas Highways, which we’re putting to bed before the Thanksgiving holiday, my colleague Nola McKey suggests an action-packed 2012 itinerary for those of you who adore a good festival.

I’m particularly interested in the upcoming Whooping Crane Festival in Port Aransas (February 23-26)—not only because I love Port A, but also because I admire the birds’ tenaciousness and survival skills. After all, while whooping cranes are still on the state and federal Endangered Species List, their flock size should reach record levels this year. Once numbering only 21 birds in the entire planet, whoopers in 2012 are expected to number somewhere around 290, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Biologist Tom Stehn.

Texas’ winter flock of whooping cranes spend the summer in northwestern Canada, at Wood Buffalo National Park, and usually travel to Texas through a migration corridor that crosses over the Texas Panhandle and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Then the birds head south, where their flight path takes them over Waco, Austin, and Victoria before arriving at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in November.

A quick phone call to the refuge just now confirmed their arrival, and the numbers are looking good, folks. The park official with whom I spoke said they hadn’t conducted a formal survey yet, but they’re estimating that 75% of the population has already arrived, with more trickling in every day. They’ll stay in Texas through March or April, depending on weather conditions.

I’m fascinated by the fact that it’s possible (not likely, but possible nonetheless) to spy these birds during migration—perhaps even in the skies above Austin. They tend to migrate in small groups of four or five birds, and they often stop at wetlands environments or agricultural fields en route to the coast. While they resemble sandhill cranes, whooping cranes are larger—more than four feet tall (the tallest birds in North America!)— and are solid white, except for black wing tips that are visible only when they’re flying.

I hope to get to the Port A region sometime this winter to see them. See
www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/texas/aransas/

Last weekend (November 12-13) was the first weekend of the newly expanded, bigger-and-better East Austin Studio Tour, which invites the public to tour more than 145 artists’ studios throughout East Austin over two weekends. It’s the Tour’s 10^th anniversary, and it’s amazing to me to think about how it’s grown from a grassroots effort with 28 studios on tour to this year’s veritable art party.

I made it to a few stops last Saturday, including the home painting studio of my friend David Leonard, who paints cityscapes, landscapes, and industrial settings. See his painting at left, titled City Park (Dallas,TX), which he completed in 2008. I admire his work because he somehow marries a photorealist’s attention to detail with the warmth and vibrancy of an Impressionist. His work is frequently featured at Austin’s Davis Gallery, but it’s fun to see his works in a home setting, and to study where and how he works.

That’s part of the appeal of the tour for me—to witness the art-making process and setting of each artist. So I’ll hit the streets again this Sunday, spend a little money to support artists whose works grab me, and no doubt find inspiration in details both large and small. See www.eastaustinstudiotour.com.

I took a vacation day recently to celebrate a milestone with my husband, and we decided to play tourist in Austin. First, we took the dogs to the new hike-and-bike trail that wends through the city’s growing Mueller neighborhood, where local artwork embellishes the trails, and where botanists with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center have helped restore a swath of native prairie grassland. Then, intrigued by the promise of more public art, we ventured downtown to the swinging 2^nd Street District, where we browsed the shops, checked out the new Violet Crown Cinema (finally! an art cinema downtown!), and spent a rewarding few hours exploring the artwork found throughout Austin’s beautiful, limestone-and-copper City Hall, which was designed by architect Antoine Predock. (The angular, copper “armadillo tail,” which juts above 2^nd Street, “literally shouts ‘Here I am!’” according to architect Phil Reed of the local firm Cotera +Reed.)

Modern architecture aside, what a surprising treat this art collection is. This is the 7^th year that City Hall has hosted its year-long People’s Gallery exhibit—a collection of more than 150 visual artworks by local artists. The program, part of the city’s Art in Public Places initiative, is designed to encourage public dialogue and the understanding and enjoyment of visual art, and I’d say it accomplishes that goal. Edgy sculptures, contemporary paintings, intriguing photographs, and mixed-media pieces galore are displayed in the hallways, foyers, lobbies, and meeting rooms throughout City Hall, and we enjoyed admiring them as we moseyed through the warmly lit building. (There’s free parking in the City Hall Parking Garage, too; validate your ticket at City Hall or at most 2^nd Street District shops and restaurants.)

The People’s Gallery Exhibition 2011 remains on view through January 12, and you can cast your vote for the People’s Choice Awards through December 30.

Marian Haigh's sculpture "jackrabbit," wood-fired stoneware

See www.ci.austin.tx.us/cityhall/gallery.htm.

As fall’s first cool front pushed dramatic clouds into the skies above downtown Austin on Thursday night, I made my way through a well-behaved crowd viewing paintings, collages, and sculptures at the new W Hotel offices of Gensler, the global architecture firm that has designed hundreds of sleek structures in places as far away as Shanghai and Istanbul.

Since art, architecture, and community often meld together, it makes sense that Gensler chose to host the official launch party of a new endeavor called Generous Art, an online art gallery that envisions art purchases as community-oriented transactions. Conceived and brought to fruition by visual artist and entrepreneur Jennifer Chenoweth, Generous Art works like this: When a site visitor purchases art, the retail price is divided among the artist (40%), a nonprofit organization of the buyer’s choosing (40%), and the gallery itself.

More than 20 Austin-area artists are currently on board, including Virginia Fleck, who creates colorful and intricate collages from plastic bags and other recycled materials; Stella Alesi, a realist painter focused on the life cycle of birds, lizards, plants, and other life forms; Wells Mason, a craftsman currently fascinated with blurring the line between sculpture and furniture; and Emily Moores, whose stark yet evocative charcoal-on-paper works resemble Japanese woodcuts. Beautiful stuff.

This thought has stayed with me all day: Art, beauty, and community—all intangible concepts worth nurturing, whenever and wherever we find it.

Chef Monica Pope at Revival Market, a grocery, butcher, and charcuterie in the Heights. Photo by Julie Soefer.

A few years ago, I had the good fortune to participate in one of Houston’s first “Where the Chefs Eat” Culinary Tours, a collaboration between some of the city’s most adventuresome chefs and the Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau—both groups who sought to elevate the city’s reputation as a world-class food town. Instead of visiting some of Houston’s many well-regarded “fine dining” spots, we explored a half-dozen or so casual and/or family-owned joints that the chefs frequent when they’re not cooking in their own restaurants. We toured the kitchens, met the owners, traded recipes and stories, and generally had a blast—feasting on veritable banquets of barbecue, Thai entrees, Indian dishes, and interior Mexican specialties—with professional chefs to guide us in our exploration of new cuisines, ingredients, and preparations.

The only downside to the tours? They’re so popular that they sell out quickly. So I was excited to receive the 2012 tour schedule and to learn that the three-year-old program has grown to encompass more tours, more chefs, and more restaurants. Another interesting element: Proceeds from the 2012 tours will benefit the new Foodways Texas organization (www.foodwaystexas.com ), which opens to public membership in 2012 and whose mission is to “preserve, promote, and celebrate the diverse food cultures of Texas.”

Tickets for the first tour—January 22’s “Chinese New Year with Chefs Chris Shepherd and Justin Yu” —go on sale December 1, followed by opportunities to join tours such as “Late night Bars and Bites with Chefs Seth Siegel-Gardener, Terrence Gallivan, and Bobby Heugel and Kevin Floyd,” “Oysters with Chefs Mark Holley and Jonathan Jones,” and many others. New additions for 2012 include farm tours, explorations of coffee and dessert, and a look-see at citywide Day of the Dead celebrations; popular “repeats” include explorations of barbecue, street food, Southern comfort food, and Vietnamese cuisine. See www.houstonculinarytours.com for a full run-down.

I’m learning to love wine. A few years ago, a friend organized a series of wine-tasting parties based on recommendations from Master Sommelier (and SMU graduate) Andrea Immer Robinson’s book Great Wine Made Simple. As we progressed through the first chapters—learning to differentiate between light-bodied and full-bodied styles, identifying characteristics of “The Big Six Grapes” (Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon, and Shiraz), and building a vocabulary of “flavor words” like tannic and oaky—I began to think about how the pleasures of drinking wine encompasses not only taste, but also tradition, history, agriculture, geography, chemistry, geology, and travel. Robinson, now one of fewer than 20 women in the world who have been made Master Sommeliers by the Court of Master Sommeliers, makes the wine world approachable and fun. After all, her own education began while she was a college student in Dallas, when she took a wine-tasting class at The Grape, a popular restaurant on Greenville Avenue.

Last night, I had the opportunity to attend a wine-tasting event at Austin’s Barr Mansion and Artisan Ballroom, a beautiful event site in northeast Austin that is the nation’s only certified organic event facility. A two-story clapboard Victorian home anchors the site of a former farmstead, and past a series of native-plant gardens and sprawling oak trees (a Certified Wildlife Habitat), a modern, glass-and-cedar ballroom (recently rebuilt after being destroyed by fire last year) hosts events for up to 600 people.

This particular tasting, hosted by the Loire Valley Wine Bureau, offered opportunities to sample an array of delicious varietals from France’s Loire Valley, which benefits from the temperature-moderating influence of the Atlantic Ocean. There are some 65 appellations (wine-growing regions) in the Loire Valley, and the primary grapes used include Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc, and a grape called Melon de Bourgogne, which lends itself to crisp, dry whites.

Since one of my favorite varietals is Sauvignon Blanc—a grape used in Texas wines produced by Fall Creek Vineyards, Spicewood Vineyards, and other Texas producers—I was particularly interested in exploring the differences in style between French versions (often made in the Sancerre appellations) compare. This, I learned, is a classic “Old World/New World” comparison.

Seems to me that Texas Sauvignon Blancs, like their New World siblings from Australia and New Zealand, seem slightly effervescent and bright, while the French Sancerres seemed creamier, with an expressive floral nose and a still-spritely mouthfeel.

I enjoyed chatting with an aspiring sommelier named Justine Langston, who currently buys wine for the small wine-bar chain Crú and will be sitting for her Sommelier Certification exam in October. Langston told me that in Europe, wine-drinking is rarely intimidating, and is in fact transcends all classes of society. The days of snooty sommeliers in America is over, she assured me.

In a room filled with so many outstanding French wines—some from vineyards that date back hundreds of years—I couldn’t help but wonder how the young Texas wine industry compares. One vendor told me that the difference wasn’t necessarily a difference in quality, even as he acknowledged the challenges of growing certain varietals in Texas simply because it gets so dang hot here. So we grow the ones that DO perform well here, he said—much as vineyards do the world over. The difference, this fellow told me, is more a result of scale. Texan growers simply cannot produce as much wine as large vineyards in France, Italy, Chile, and Spain, for example—and so in general, a high-quality Texan wine costs more than a comparable bottle from more-established wine-producing regions. Any thoughts on this, wine folks out there?

I don’t mind paying a few extra dollars to support a local industry. But I still like to experience how a style is made in other parts of the world—to compare, contrast, and become more knowledgeable. It’s a fun endeavor, and one of the few educational paths where repeating a lesson is encouraged. Cheers.

A great weekend all around! Were you there? What was the moment that stood out for you? On the third day, I finally figured out how to maneuver through the streams of people, which reminded me of water rivulets making their way down a windshield on a rainy day. At some point, you just have to jump in and go with the flow.