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My mother made a mean shrimp creole. Whenever she fixed it, even though shrimp were pretty dear, she made about twice as much as our family could eat. She swore that there were a few neighbors on our block who had an antenna for shrimp creole, and if she cooked it, they would come.

She was right.  It was eerie.  And when these men showed up, on the pretense of dropping in to have a drink, she'd fix them a plate, they'd pull up a chair, and we'd all tuck in. It was a cardinal sin at our house not to have enough food when guests were present.  And the guests' responsibility was to be good company.  Most of our guest more than lived up to their part of the bargain.

Coming from this perspective, it's been interesting to read about the furor the Party Crashers have created. Mind you, I'm not saying that crashing a party is acceptable--far from it--but it is the second level commentary, the Opinions that have popped up after everyone realized that the First Socializers were safe and had nothing but their protocol violated, that interests me most.

The New York Times published an article explaining in earnestness that the most serious thing that was broached was the Social Code of our nation's capitol. I read it with great curiosity--as a book editor, how people work fascinates me, and anything that promises insight on this Enigma of Enigmas makes good mental cud.

Here's the deal: in Washington, New York and LA--those bastions of culture, if not hospitality--the social currencies are, as you would expect, power, money and beauty. People make their social decisions based on who has the most currency of the realm: in the latter two, they flock to have photo ops with others who will increase their currency, but in D.C., however, real power lies behind the throne, so photo ops--Power Wall decor--have to be carefully curated.

Fascinating. It got me wondering about my own town.  What's the driving force behind socializing in Houston? In Texas in general? Texas has its share of power, money and beauty, but somehow it all seems to mix up in a big chili pot of hospitality. Sure there are cronies, selective groups who gather, interest driven affairs, but if you follow Paper City or the star section in the Chronicle very long, one thing starts to jump out: These folks are all mingling.

The art people, the smart people, the philanthropic, the young and the old, conservative people and liberal people are all out their rubbing elbows. From hIgh brow to hoi polloi, you'll find all sorts at the Diverse Works gala, the Orange Show's Art Car Parade and in venues from the streets of Houston to the country clubs supporting the Pink Ribbons Project, or raising big funds for the American Cancer Society in their jeans. And they truly have hearts as big as the Ritz.

So what's the social currency here? Is it a can-do currency? Is it a wildcatter thing? Or is it broad horizons that make drawing-room games seem somewhat effete and lifeless, if amusing on the surface? Big-time socializing here may draw in power, but, like the Grinch realized about Christmas, it seems to be about something more.

What if Mr.and Mrs.Salahi had come to Houston? Would Leon Hale be in a frenzy? Would the Chronicle's newest style watchers analyze them? Or would we just shake their hands, introduce ourselves and offer them a plate of shrimp or roast beast?

What brings you here? What's your story? How can you help? This town has some money, but it's not just a money city; it has some power, but it's not about suits or spooks. And, no doubt it has it's share of beautiful people, but it's not particularly superficial. Houston has it's own unique currency, an H-town flavor, and an energetic spirit that makes it hard to categorize. With an authenticity that's hard to match, it's a great place to hang your hat. Whether you live here, or you're just paying a social call, all are welcome.

It's hard to crash an open house.

Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.
~F. Scott Fitzgerald

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Once I decided to really spread out the Thanksgiving love, I realized that there are and endless supply of things that make my cranberry sauce jiggle. A dozen days can hardly do justice to all the delightful people, books and experiences around Bright Sky.

On the First Day of Thanksgiving, I was thankful for our founder, Rue Judd, and all the work she did getting this little publishing company going out in West Texas.

On the Second Day of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for H'town, the current home of Bright Sky Press.

Houston, Texas is neither East, nor West, South nor North. It is not traditionally beautiful, but it has oak alleys that will knock your socks off, mysterious winding bayous, and massive mounds of festive azaleas that could make the most exotic flamenco dancer feel like a wallflower. It has architecture: from the most modern skyscrapers to the funkiest wooden music hall to the indescribably delightful Orange Show. Most of all, it has an open, creative, can-do soul: hard core inner-beauty.

Houston is worth it. In more ways than I can ever rhapsodize about here. Today, I am thankful that this funky, energetic city is home to all kinds of off-beat, new, outside-the-box, inspirational, connective and wired talent.

For example: I am thankful for our writer friend Katherine Center, author of Bright Side of Disaster and Everyone Is Beautiful as well as godmother to our kirtsy book.  I am thankful for her introduction to Laura Mayes, author of said kirtsy book. I am thankful for the generous open hearts and creative connectivity of these two ladies which led to: Karen Walrond--a.k. better k. as Chookooloonks--who's currently penning and shooting The Beauty of Different for us; Monica Danna--a.k.b.k. as Cosmopolitician--who leads our social media socials, works with so many of our authors, and generally inspires us to keep trying to save the world; and Jim Prather--a.k.b.k. as YouData, an absolutely innovative and exciting approach to advertising--who shares his projector so generously when we find ourselves in need and generally offers us inspiring insight on publishing.

And these truly wonderful people are just the tip of the iceberg here in H'town. Everywhere I turn, someone new and wonderful pops up. Someone willing to look at things with completely new eyes, someone with a creative vision that just makes me thankful that I am Here, and not There. Someone like Matthew Wettergreen, Brian Gaubert or Katie Laird.

I am thankful that we are in this town, right here, right now, surrounded by people whose creativity is as big as their hearts--a rare and precious combination, and what I think people really mean when they say that Houston is the Energy Capital of America. I love this kind of energy.

Thanksgiving Tip #2: Take time out over the holidays to fill your own creative cup by seeing a movie like Fantastic Mr. Fox by another talented H'town alum, Wes Anderson. Old school animation + new school ways of seeing definitely = food for thought t hat is way less fattening and more satisfying than any pi.

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.
Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.
~Albert Schweitzer

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What is it about barbecue? Why is it such a religion? Why is it that Bright Sky can publish all kinds of books about subjects from museums to musicians to mucho mas, and our all-time-bestselling book is a barbecue cookbook?

It took publishing one more barbecue book to find out.  As it turns out, barbecue in Texas is the ultimate soul food. We’ve all heard people in the Carolinas crowing about that pale sour stuff they call Carolina barbecue, and my sister who is a former Kentucky Wildcat will make noise about barbecue in the bluegrass sometimes, but I never thought much about it.  Never entered a cook-off; never got into fisticuffs with anybody about my dinner.  I’d just head down to Goode Company and enjoy.  Every once in a while, as I added extra pickles to my chopped beef sandwich, I’d see a poster: You might give some serious thought about thanking your lucky stars you’re in Texas.  I’d get misty in a yearnful way for a state of mind I didn’t yet have a passport to reach. I did buy that bumper sticker for a friend from Tennessee who was a recalcitrant Texan for a long time, and I do have several pairs of cowboy boots, but until this author set me straight, I never really got the barbecue thang.

That was then.  Now there is this book called Follow the Smoke.  The author, John DeMers, will tell you that before this book, he was a food guy, not a barbecue guy.  This is his thirty-seventh published book—I’d go out on a limb and say I wish we had published them all, but not having had a chance to read all thirty-seven, maybe I shouldn’t.  John is a food-everything: food-critic, food-writer, food-radio guy, food-connoisseur , food-fixer, food-lover, maybe even a food-fighter somewhere  in his past.  He knows about food. 

Transplanted to Texas from New Orleans, he did not take the everything is better in fill-in-the-blank attitude that some who join us take. John decided he really liked Texas.  It embraced him and gave him a good home and lots of, well, food. Great food.  Food with history, food with character and food with soul.  When he wanted to write a book that showed the character of Texas, he thought about it for a minute (less than a minute, as he says), and he realized that book would be about barbecue.

John got in his car and set out across miles and miles of Texas to eat barbecue.  But what is most interesting is that he was not drawn to burn all this gas because of the food, he was drawn by the stories.  Texas, he says, has four faces of barbecue.  And as he drove 14,785 miles and ate in 114 great barbecue joints—sometimes eight meals a day—he discovered amazing stories behind every brisket, rib and sausage that he encountered.  And being a thinker, as well as an eater, he pulled all these stories together in a real philosophy of Texas barbecue that does as good a job of explaining the demographics and population history of the Lone Star state as anything Steve Klineberg has ever opined in the hallowed halls of Rice University.

So, even though I don’t have a ranch, and I can only eat barbecue for lunch when Tums are handy, after reading Follow the Smoke, and hearing John explain barbecue in these humanistic terms, I feel more Texan than ever. Although I wasn’t born here, I got here as fast as I could, and, somewhere in my cluttered life I do have one of those aforementioned posters now; but  understanding barbecue helps me to be just a little more Texan.  Not in need- more-sunscreen-on-the-back-of-my-neck way, but in a really nice Houston, It’s Worth It way, a way that, like Follow the Smoke, recognizes that we have a great state made up of a great diversity of people, many of whom can cook up a whale of a meal.

And that is indeed something to be thankful for.
 

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