This may be a sordid admission — especially on the part of a food critic, but you would normally never catch me at a steakhouse of any kind on my own quarter. Make that quarter K. I find them stuffy, expensive and utterly unexciting. A slab of meat on an unadorned...
While few of us may ever find a need to put our corporate jet on www.ebay.com, as Sarah Palin did, we have all at one time or another wanted to sell good stuff we no longer want or need. Garage sales and consignment shops have been around a long time and fill that...
Picture this … you’re a Roman centurion just back from conquering someone, and you want some R & R. So you head down to the first of three progressively warmer rooms, where you’ll be slathered with oils. After an hour or so, you’ll jump into a small private area with...
In the early 1990s, Tracy Frank was working with autistic children and living in an Austin subdivision with a dozen dogs and several cats, all of which were rescued or adopted. Having that many animals wasn't suitable — or practical — in that neighborhood, so Frank...
Thanks to the steady advancement of medical research, organ transplantation has become an effective last resort treatment for many patients suffering from organ failure. But the need for organs far exceeds availability, says Pat Giordano, the executive director of the...
Sure, it may look glamorous, but marketing is a tough business, requiring both creativity and strategic planning. It is the special individual who can utilize both sides of the brain to conceive of fresh and exciting ideas and then execute and position them in a way...
In the costume shop of the University of the Incarnate Word's theater department, Margaret Mitchell has laid out six or seven drawings of costume designs on a large counter. The pictures show women clad in lush, flowery long dresses with plunging necklines, while the...
Why not, we thought: Let's make a mini-vacation of it. We agreed to meet for a drink downtown at Zinc Champagne and Wine Bar, then to wander through La Villita to our final destination, the new Luca Ristorante Enoteca at the Fairmount Hotel. I suppose I could have...
The Elm Creek garden home of Dr. Francisco and Graciela Cigarroa is a study in elegance. The large gas lamp by the entry gate hints at the Old World ambience within. Just beyond the gate is a large courtyard of sun and shadows with a fountain that plays its natural...
Do you remember how it felt to start a new job? Did you find your "first day" interesting and exciting? Did your boss and your peers try to make you feel comfortable and glad to be there? Or did you experience a "first day" that made you wonder if you'd made a huge...
The Texas State Capitol's sunset red granite dome shimmers pink at sunrise. It's a glorious September morn in Austin, just 85 miles from the Alamo City, but a world away when it comes to the style, attitude and terrain of this town. Best of all, it feels distant,...
So you meet someone and you can't help noticing their facial features — particularly the eyes and then the mouth. You'll remember their smile as being pleasant — or perhaps for some rather unsavory teeth, dulled by stains from years of coffee or tea consumption,...
Twenty years into a successful career as an executive with Eastman Kodak's health care division, Catherine Burzik could have stayed right where she was, but the company she'd been devoted to all those years was moving in a new direction, and she wondered if it was...
Usually called nuns, women religious were once a familiar presence in American life, running schools and hospitals, helping the poor and generally responding to the needs of the downtrodden and the hurting. Though their numbers have declined, there are still women...
Recession, high gas prices, low numbers of college graduates and high levels of unemployment translate to a job market where quality counts. Now more than ever, it is imperative for companies to hire only the best and most capable employees in the field, not only in...
When Barbara Phillips decided to relocate from Houston to her native San Antonio 13 years ago, she did so to be close to family and to give her 11-year-old son a chance to grow up knowing his grandparents. Though Houston had been good for her career, she never really...
The Dominion in northwest San Antonio is noted for its celebrity mansions and an elegant golf club where the city"s elite meet for recreation. Not all of the community"s residents live in mansions, though; some reside in the garden homes located along the golf club"s...
There is much that is seductive about Wildfish, beginning with a pair of water-sheeted columns at the entry and continuing with the runway lighting that leads you inexorably toward the large sunken bar with its communal tables and suspended fish skeleton sculpture....
