Rio Bravo Books

A vey complete account of the life and work of this craftsman whose work stands today scattered over the southwest. Excellent research and good photography--well done!

Like author Patsy Light, I was intrigued when I moved to San Antonio, Texas by the strange concrete false-wood constructions that dot the city: a jungle hut bus stop on Broadway, an arbor footbridge in Brackenridge Park, a 125-foot long rail fence at the Alamo Cement Company's headquarters. Who, I thought, would do something like this? Architectual historian Light has now provided the answer in this well-researched book illustrated with beautiful color pgotographs. They are the work of Dionicio Rodriguez, a master craftsman trained in Mexico who came to San Antonio in 1924 and went on to create visionary environments all over the United States until his death in 1955. Rodriguez left no papers or plans, and Light spent 10 years tracking down men and women who worked with him to gather material for this book. The person who emerges from her interviews is a dapper and secretive man who worked in overalls pulled on over a three-piece suit and mixed his colors in the trunk of his car so that his helpers could not learn his secrets. He was prosperous enough to buy a new car every year during the Depression, and he and his crew travelled from San Antonio all over the country to create such wonders as a grotto lined with conch shells in Port Arthur, Texas, a 19th-century mill with a 10,000-pound concrete waterwheel in North Little Rock, Arkanas, and a cemetery ornamented with Biblical landmarks in Memphis, Tennessee.

Rodriguez's skill with concrete and color enabled him to create unique environments in the 19th-century rustic tradition that rank with Sam Rodia's Watts Towers and Leonard Knight's Salvation Mountain. This wonderful book will appeal to anyone interested in rustic architecture, folk art, visionary environments, or just plain whackiness.

Great cook book with a lot of GREAT FOOD inside their spice mix recipe is worth the price of the book!!! Jerry

I bought this cookbook at a Rio Bravo restaurant about 6 years ago. The only recipes I use often are the pico de gallo and guacamole, although the rest of the book looks scrumptious. The pico and guac recipes (you need the pico to make the guac) are superb. I make them often at family gatherings and parties and get rave reviews. That said, neither recipe tastes anything like the versions served at Rio Bravo or Chevys. Really, the book's recipes are better - they are fresher and have more flavor.

As a fan of Chevy's Fresh Mex restaurants, I was surprised to see they'd give away their secret recipes to the public. But it probably increased patronage of the restaurants. A smart move. A great little cookbook. To me, worth it for just three recipes alone -- the "master sauce" Chipotle Puree (that I always make with canned chipotles in adobo, by the way, not dried chilies), the Sweet Chipotle dressing, and the fish tacos. I always keep a jar of that chipotle puree in my frig. Just a tablespoon seasons so many recipes and it keeps for weeks. As expected for most restaurant cookbooks, many recipes are not simple, but require other recipes as "ingredients". The fish tacos is one, but is well worth the effort. As a local cooking teacher where I live, I've taught several classes based on the recipes in this book -- all to raves!

My only complaint with this book has more to do with amazon than this book. The book I received was an earlier edition, not the updated version as shown in the pictures. The recipes are wonderful with beautiful pictures and explanations. It also gives unique ideas for hosting your own Mexican theme celebration.

We bought this primarily because we had read that it had the recipe for tortilla soup and also because we hoped that it would have a recipe for their salsa. Unfortunately, it has neither. That being said, it's still a half way decent cookbook, and was pretty cheap.

El Mesquite is a novel on the history of Nueces County, Texas from the time of Spanish Landgrants to the early 1900's. The author, Elena Zamora O'Shea, writes the novel from the viewpoint of a mesquite tree. The tree, "Posta del Palo Alto", is a marker on one of the old Spanish trails common in Texas. The story details the settlement of the area around the tree, working its way from the earliest settlement of the area to around 1905.

Being a native of this area of Texas and being intimately knowledgeable of Nueces County, it was a fascinating story for me.

I suggest that you read the novel first, then read the introduction. Leticia M. Garza-Falcon writes a very interesting, but very long winded introduction to the novel that essentially tells the whole story, leaving little for the reader to discover in the novel.

I recommend it for anyone that has an interest in South Texas history, or Hispanic based novels.

This was, apart from a few flaws, a very enjoyable book about one of the most enjoyable movies of all time. Wood's pleasure in "Rio Bravo" is apparent on every page. He points out the similarities between "Rio Bravo" and "Only Angels Have Wings" and "To Have and Have Not." He brilliantly demolishes the "High Noon" left wing- "Rio Bravo" right wing dichotomy that so many repeat without thinking. His analysis of key scenes is right on the money.

Yet there are flaws. There is a passage that compares Howard Hawks to Jean Paul Sartre that just didn't work for me. Likewise, Wood's discovery of a gay context between Dude and Colorado failed to convince. However, my biggest gripe is that Wood goes on and on about how Feathers is the most vulnerable and touching of Hawks' heroines, and he never mentions the fact that "Rio Bravo" was co-written by Leigh Brackett, who was a woman! Indeed, Wood seems supremely uninterested in the circumstances of how the film was made, which bothered me. It was as if everything just sprang from Hawks' forehead.

However, this didn't take away from the fun of the book, which reflects the fun of the movie.

What a great topic, and what a promising title. Sadly, though, the authors are never able to draw tight the numerous strands they attempt to follow through the book, with the result that it seems at the end to be a hodgepodge of anecdote and heaped-up observation contributing nothing to a cogent argument. What is even sadder is that given the current state of academic publishing in this country, this is likely to be the only work published on the subject for a long time.