It may seem odd to some to have a wedding on the Fourth of July; it’s Independence Day after all and marriage is often the end of independence. But it makes sense this day, this year–because ever since the June 26 Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the LGBTQ community now has the freedom…
Living
Ferra’s coffee comandante eyes chocolate
“When I was in Chiapas a couple of years ago, a woman came up to me in the market with samples of her home-produced chocolate roasted with peanuts and cinnamon.” “I usually run toward threats, not away,” offered Ferra Coffee’s owner Susan Jaime. She was talking about the fact that in her dealings with growers…
Joe Carmack’s East Side plantings
A wandering landscape artist makes a home in Denver Heights Joe Carmack wants to plant orchards. Urban orchards. Orchards composed not of apples in the pioneering-America-of-legend sense, but mostly of citrus—with a pomegranate or two here and there. “They do well in San Antonio,” he says. But for the moment he’s focused on a…
Tracking queer couples and gentrification
The relationship between the queer community and gentrification can be slippery to define, in part because the latter term is sometimes used loosely. But conventional wisdom assumes a causal relationship: “While GLBTQ people in general are participants in gentrification, gay men in particular are often at the vanguard of gentrifying neighborhoods,” writes sociologist Mikaila Mariel…
Living practice, Practice living
” … practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.” “Squeeze your legs together like Gertrude and Alice!” exclaimed dance Professor Montoya, with a glimmer in his eye, laughing at his own clever innuendo. We were all clueless freshmen at SMU in that Martha Graham dance class, glancing at each other in our peripheral…
Business spotlight: Feast
From reading cookbooks in the back of HH-60 helicopters to a yearlong apprenticeship where his fingers never left the cutting board, Chef Stefan Bowers was destined for culinary greatness. In 2011, while working as executive chef at 20Nine, Bowers met entrepreneur Andrew Goodman, and the pair opened the doors to Feast, the King William spot…
Business spotlight: Anne Marie’s Carriage House Bistro
In 1896, the Sullivan Carriage House was built for Texas civil-war hero turned banker Daniel J. Sullivan. By 1987, stonemasons were taking apart the piece of Richardsonian Romanesque architecture to move it to its new home at the San Antonio Botanical Garden. Nearly one hundred years after it was first built, the Carriage House was…
SNAP offers assistance to pet owners with HIV
A program from the local branch of the Spay-Neuter Assistance Program (SNAP) is offering free and low-cost veterinary services to San Antonio residents living with HIV/AIDS. The program, dubbed the Animal Aid Program, provides free spay-neuter surgery, free wellness exams, and at-cost wellness services and products for the pets of low-income persons with HIV/AIDS. Program…
Tips for navigating the sharing economy
The Sharing Economy, children. Have you made its acquaintance? If Lyft has ferried your drunk carcass home across the river Tryx, you are already part of it. Sharing Economy apps and online services may help people get around town, but they also offer lodging in private homes and spaces around the world. Users trade room…
Business spotlight: Shag the Salon
Are you hip to the Shag? Then shimmy on down to McCullough to find the mod-est spot San Antonio’s got to offer. The lime green yellow dotted building houses some of the Alamo City’s most daring stylists; trust your tresses to Shag the Salon because “good hair doesn’t happen by itself.” Stylists and co-owners David…