Stories

Smells like Texas - Special Edition Texas-inspired candles by The Periapt, made exclusively for Sam & Davy

Rafael Campos was listed in The Economists’ Top 50 Diversity Professionals, has been shortlisted in the British LGBT Awards for the Corporate Rising Star category, and was shortlisted for the Advocate of the Year Award at the 2017 Women in Finance Awards. He is an immigrant, a Human Resources business partner, a lifelong gamer, a devoted life partner, and a proud Mexican-American Texpat.

Pitmaster MIguel Vidal shares some secrets to what makes his food some of the best Tex-Mex BBQ in Austin, Texas. “The key is the consistency of the fire,” Vidal explains about smoking barbecue. “You gotta keep looking at it and ask yourself, ‘what color is the smoke? Is it blue, is it black?'”  Every little thing counts, from the temperature to the time, to the type of wood. 

A cafe with a cause? Or a charity that serves coffee?

“We get a pretty even mix of people who come and in are like, ‘You had really good reviews on Yelp,’ and those who come in and say, ‘I heard about your cause through my church,’” says Raggett. “We didn’t want people to come here for the cause and choke on the coffee,” she laughs. “We wanted people to come here to a nice atmosphere and good coffee, and educate them on human trafficking.”

With a regular training schedule of 24 hours a week — that’s twice-a-day two-hour sessions, six days a week, plus a 5-10k run before each training session when prepping for fight — it’s no wonder KC is of the caliber of fighter that would be tapped for the USMF World Championship Team. But being far from home, especially if home is Texas, can be tough for even the toughest Muay Thai fighter. 

Within the first year of his Texas BBQ blog thesmokingho.com, Jimmy Ho  started gaining traction as a local barbecue authority, scoring a Texas Monthly gig through the magazine’s Barbecue Editor, Daniel Vaughn, whom he met in the Texas BBQ circuit. "When Daniel gave me that Texas Monthly gig, I thought, writing about BBQ could really lead to something."

"Texas is a great place," says Will Buckman, owner and Pitmaster of Corkscrew BBQ in Spring, Texas. "We have damn near everything you want to do — in two hours you can be doing something completely different from what you’re doing now."

"I act as the pitmaster, and my wife runs the kitchen and restaurant," Will says of their family-owned Texas BBQ joint. "She takes care of prep in the morning, and in the afternoon, I put the meat in the smokers for the next day."

 

It comes down to how we roast the cocoa beans. I started by putting the beans in the oven, and while waiting thought, “What would a good Texan do?” So I started roasting them in a BBQ pit. A lot of our BBQ recipes and sides are collaborations between each other and the home cooking we grew up with. 

"When you move away from Texas, you miss the food and the people. So I’ve recreated that here in Seattle. There is a DNA level of friendship between fellow Texans. Texans come and eat here every day; this is where Texans in Seattle hang out." - Jack Timmons, Pitmaster, Jack's BBQ, Seattle, WA

How did Texas transplant Bramwell Tripp become a master of local Houston BBQ? "I personally love doing pork ribs, but brisket and beef ribs are obviously the biggest challenge," says the Italian chef turned pitmaster of The Pit Room in Houston's Montrose neighborhood. "Anyone can throw meat on a smoker, but when you have fourteen hours worth of smoking… you learn the hard way."

 

"It’s a 24/7 job. We’re closed Mondays and Tuesdays, but even days off aren't really days off; that’s when we take care of maintenance and receive deliveries, and other things. Really, I just live a normal person’s life with meat perpetually smoking in the back. It’s like hosting a dinner party every day. It’s a lifestyle, and I love what I do. It’s perfect." - Grant Pinkerton, Pinkerton's BBQ, Houston, TX