Adventures in and Around Fort Worth

If you're looking for something cool to do besides lie around your house on the weekend, check out the Lone Star Film Society's Silent Sundays at the Kimbell's new Piano Pavilion auditorium. While silent films seem like a hard sell, you can expect a unique experience as you watch history's first films that shaped the industry with the accompaniment of live music. Way Down East  will screen 2 p.m. March 16,  Strike  plays 2 p.m. Sunday, April 20, and first ever Academy Award for best picture,  Wings, plays 2 p.m. May 18. I'm a little late in the game writing about this—the series kicked off Feb. 16. Their first production F. W. Murnau's "cinematic masterpiece" Sunrise had an unexpectedly large turnout. Classical pianist Robert Edwards performed his interpretation of the film live as the audience went back in time. After all, this is how moviegoers experienced film in the 1920s. And if they saw the same film three times, there may be a differen...

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...

American Food and Beverage just opened in Fort Worth across from the Brownstone and Waters on Crockett Street completing a trifecta of elegant dining experiences. Its open and airy space feels as fresh as its menu. I caught up with AF+B 's executive chef Jeff Harris about his passion for food, his story that ends at this restaurant, and why he left Bolsa in the Dallas Bishop Arts District. Jeff grew up in East Texas on his grandparents' farm. His grandmother prepared southern meals with fresh vegetables from the garden. His whole family—cousins, aunts, uncles and parents—would often eat these home-cooked meals together. They didn't need a special occasion, they had good food. He loved watching his grandmother throw things together in the kitchen. He said she didn't even use measuring spoons because she knew how to make most things by heart. Later he went to college changing his major until he finally got his real estate license and a desk job at a bank. But he ...

I stumbled upon this beautiful fledgling food blog when researching for a story I'm working on. I loved its best-new-restaurants-in-Fort Worth list. I will definitely refer to this list when trying to think of a new place to try! It has beautiful photography. Check it out. Food, Fort Worth Blog: Best New Fort Worth Restaurants of 2013 Beautiful food photo from blog Food, Fort Worth Also, check out Food, Fort Worth Blog's list of most anticipated new restaurants of 2014. 

By Jocelyn Tatum  Ready, set, GO! The big screen TVs reveal the stove top at the front of the room. Chef Christine bellows information to get the class started, and the first glass of wine is poured. It's time to play. If you haven't guessed yet, I am at a Central Market cooking class. I tried this because it appeals to many passions—my love for cooking and learning new things, and my love for meeting new people and hearing their stories, and my love for doing something different. Each group of four sat at one of the four assigned tables. That equals 16 people, which means the intimate feeling wasn't lost. We sipped wine, whisked egg whites until they held peaks, delighted in each other's stories, and learned things like "cooking light is about concentrated flavors [and] egg whites must be room temperature and in a metal bowl before they can hold peaks." Who salad ingredients knew? Before we prepared each course, Chef Christine demonstrate...