Adventures in and Around Fort Worth

Gentling Brothers painted beautiful images like these that fill Bird Café's walls AF+B's Jack Rose All of a sudden, Fort Worth is cool. I always thought it was with its Cowtown roots, but now it is in a hip, cool cat kind of way (no...I'm not as old as I sound). With restaurants like Bird Café and AF+B we now have creative menus, fresh ingredients and crazy mixology behind the bar.  Part I: AF+B AF+B had a turkey pastrami sandwich special that day. Everything from the avocado and fennel purée and tomato jam to the turkey pastrami was house-made. The arugula was locally grown by House-made Turkey Pastrami the farmers depicted in the beautiful photography hanging on the tavern's walls. In fact my waiter James said nothing they serve has been out of the ground for more than three days. They make their own ginger syrups, "turn the curd" themselves for their ricotta, and create their own sweetened condensed milk. The only thing not h...

His first pair of blue jeans, cowboy boots, and his first rodeo.  Bucking broncos and bulls send cowboys flying, tough cowgirls whirl around barrels as their horses' hooves thunder back into a tunnel beneath the stands, and children scramble to catch their calves for prize money.  All of these things are reminiscent of the past, but the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo remind us city folks that the Wild West still lives right under our nose. Every winter Jan. 17-Feb. 8, cowboys from as far as France and Australia move to Fort Worth for a few weeks to show us how it's done. They perform daring tasks actually practiced on ranches all over the world to show off their antiquated skills and win prize money. And yes, these cowboys are the real deal. No show ponies here. This long-lived North Texas tradition is one I recommend for everyone. I go at least twice every year. Evening performances sell for $25 a ticket, and matinees $19. The event is held at the historic an...