Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole

12.13.15   New Texas Almanac features articles on food, wine

2016-17 Texas Almanac, published by the Texas State Historical Association, is jam-packed as usual with updated statistical and reference material — appropriate for the state’s official reference book.

But each edition of the Almanac always includes several features highlighting different aspects of Texas history and culture.

Food and wine are the lead articles in the new Almanac. Veteran food writer and cookbook author Dotty Griffith writes about the “five culinary sub-states” of Texas, pointing out how the five regions emphasize different types of cuisine, resulting from their history and cultural influences.

Griffith offers five recipes from The Texas Holiday Cookbook as examples: Chili con carne from South Texas; gumbo from the Texas Gulf Coast; brisket from Central Texas; Lone Star caviar (black-eyed peas) from East Texas; and pecan pie from West Texas.

Melinda Esco, author of Texas Wineries, provides a history of the expanding Texas wine industry, noting that Texas has more than 200 wineries and is the fifth-largest wine-producing  state — after California, New York, Washington and Oregon.

Other features this year include an analysis of Texas professional and college sports by Dallas sports radio host Norm Hitzges and an article by Almanac editor Elizabeth Cruce Alvarez on the 70th anniversary of the King Ranch horse Assault winning the 1946 Triple Crown.

The Almanac also publishes “A Brief Sketch of Texas History” in each edition, but the sketch badly needs updating since it only covers up to 1980. A lot has happened in Texas in the past thirty-five years, including two Texans being elected President, and readers should expect a biennial reference book, produced by the state historical association, to be appropriately current with the state’s history.

The Almanac is $24.95 flexbound and $39.95 hardcover.

Running for his life: Serge Gasore, former Abilene Christian University track and cross country star runner, has written My Day to Die: Running for My Life about surviving the genocide campaign in Rwanda in 1994 when he was seven.

Assisted by Abilene resident Patsy Watson, Gasore tells his remarkable story about how he literally had to run for his life every day during the genocide, when hundreds of thousands were murdered. Then, as a teenager, he was kidnapped for three days and taken into the jungle where every day he thought it would be “my day to die.”

Miraculously, Gasore ended up at ACU on a track scholarship in 2005. Although he spoke no English when he arrived in the U.S., he graduated in four years and then earned two master’s degrees. He and his wife have established a foundation to help orphans in Rwanda and will return to Rwanda next month as missionaries. Read more about the foundation on his website, Rwandachildren.org.

“Never have I known anyone with more reason to hate and be bitter,” Watson writes, “and yet never have I known a more kind, gentle, loving and forgiving person.”

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Glenn Dromgoole is co-author, with Carlton Stowers, of 101 Essential Texas Books Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.