Globe Corner Blogs

In a few days I will be headed down to America’s favorite neighbor to the south: Texas. (Houston and Austin, to be specific.) Ah, Texas; home of cowboys, cowboy boots, cowboy hats, Cowboy Cheerleaders…Shiner Bock…and most importantly, my boyfriend’s family. This will be my first trip to the state and I’m quite excited. And by excited, I mean terrified. I feel like Gulliver about to stumble into Brobdingnag, land of giants: enormous spans of land, monstrous oil thingies, belt buckles the size of my head. I am not sure exactly where this anxiety is stemming from; after all, my boyfriend is Texan and I like him all right… There are just so many stereotypically Texan traditions that are so atypically me — guns and steak being the first to come to mind. Now, I know that no one in his family was going to hold a gun to my head and force me to eat a flank of cow, but my boyfriend’s next revelation shocked me: they were scared of little ol’ meat-free me!

Therefore, I am preparing for my trip by stashing as many boxes of veggie burgers as I can in my carry-on. (To answer every Hamburgler’s question: they’re ready when they’re hot.) I believe it will be easy to find the room in my bag as, with temperatures projected to be at or above 100-degrees the entire time, I plan on wearing as little as decently possible. And in fact, if this little Midwesterner is really melting, she may just wear the frozen patties.

Perhaps I won’t go that far, but I may purchase a ten-gallon hat, or perhaps — for increased shade and higher embarrassment factor — a sombrero. Hopefully this will keep me cool and inconspicuous until we get to Austin, a city that has been described as “the Berkeley of Texas.” (When you think of it that way, there’s no “Berkeley of California” at all.) I feel very fortunate to be going there with someone who lived there for four years and who already knows where to find the best live music, which bars have the best beer selection, which coffee shops have free refills, and how to get to The Oasis on Lake Travis (sunset capital of Texas) in time for the traditional sunset shot. One thing I know I have to find myself though, is the veggie-friendly Tex-Mex places. So, I’ve been doing a bit of snooping online and in Frommer’s San Antonio & Austin and the Moon Handbook to Austin. As of today, Mother’s Cafe & Garden and Mr. Natural are definitely on the list, as well as Veggie Heaven, because with a name like that, how can you miss it?

I’ll be reporting back in about ten days. You can look forward to learning: what shade of red my skin is, how much I spent on Texas-shaped geegaws, if I was converted to meatatarianism by simply breathing the air down there, and what my new belt buckle says.

Read more: Austin, Food & Wine, South US, Texas, Travel


Llalan specializes in all things Ohio, but has funny stories from all over the US and Canada, plus a few snort-inducing ones from Thailand. And not only does she read books from around the world, she also samples beers in as many languages as possible. Favorite style: the multi-national American Double IPA.

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