Texas loves you anyway

Step one on the road to official travel madness is going to be a stop in the exotic land of Texas, for a visit with my grandmother and her twin sister, who will be celebrating 80-something years of life. We're trying to get my grandmother to write her autobiography, and every time we chat she comes up with some story that illuminates parts of her life I didn't know about--standing outside in a New Jersey winter, supervising school recess while the wind whipped around her ankles, at a time when women weren't allowed to wear pants; traveling New Zealand with her second husband; picking cotton to earn money for college--but I suspect that many of those revealing details aren't getting onto paper.

Texas is everything everyone says and then some: hospitable, hotter than blazes, stark and beautiful and depressing in turn, and, yes, the land of the best barbecue ever, bar none, thank you Kansas and all those eastern states for competing, but there wasn't a competition to begin with. It's just better in Texas, and in Texas, it's better at Black's. The first impressions were not promising--a salad bar? turkey sandwiches?--but the blackened ovens, the fact that menus scribbled on posterboard are full of misspellings, and, most important, the smell in the air tell the real story, which is this: It's amazing. Order the sliced brisket, grab a wedge of watermelon (skip the banana pudding, which is disgraced by Cool-Whip), grab a receipt for a beer, and don't forget a handful of white bread on your way out to the drinks counter, and you'll be a happy camper by the end of the first mouthful. It'll be a meal to remember in 20 years when you're dealing with high blood pressure. "Yes," you can think then, "I have to take aspirin and exercise and lose weight and be tutted at by physical trainers half my age. And by God, it's worth it. How much are airfares to Austin?"

Edited to add a picture of the pr0n. Sliced brisket, peppery beans, white bread, banana pudding (learn from my mistake and at least scrape off the whipped stuff), watermelon, and the appropriate wine for mesquite-smoked beef. "Look well--look well, o wolves!"