Delicious Mischief, the popular food and wine radio program airing weekly in Houston, Dallas and Austin, spins off a quirky West Texas sibling called A Taste of Delicious Mischief Fridays at 8:20 a.m. on 1240 AM KVLF. Starting this Friday, Taste will be heard in Alpine, Marfa and Fort Davis spread out over Brewster, Presidio and Jeff Davis counties.
Hosted for the past 23 years by John DeMers, veteran journalist and author of 50 published books about cuisine, travel, history and culture, the program is built around interviews with chefs, sommeliers, winemakers, distillers and craft brewers. A Taste of Delicious Mischief is presented by Alpine’s historic Holland Hotel and its new Century Bar & Grill, along with founding Texas sponsor Spec’s Wines, Spirits & Finer Foods.
“Historically, this region was called the Trans-Pecos because it was on the far side of the river from, well, just about everything,” offers DeMers. “Now a remarkable number of wonderful chefs and restaurants are calling the Big Bend region home. As a parttime resident for several years, I look forward to telling stories about great food and wine - to the people I’m shopping next to at Thriftway or McCoy’s.”
A Taste of Delicious Mischief plans to expand to other towns in area, such as Fort Stockton, Van Horn and Pecos, as far north as Midland and the rest of the oil-rich Permian Basin – towns that serve as important feeder markets for both Big Bend National Park and the Holland Hotel. As such, Taste will serve as the “West Texas Edition” of the Delicious Mischief heard in the larger Texas cities.
“We’re pretty passionate about food and drink around here,” says hotel general manager Carla McFarland. “We couldn’t pass up the chance to join forces with a radio program and a radio guy who’s every bit as passionate about them as we are.”
DeMers launched Delicious Mischief as a Monday-Friday lunchtime half-hour 23 years ago in his food-crazed hometown of New Orleans. It quickly evolved into a weekend hour and followed DeMers to Texas a dozen years ago when he was named food editor of the Houston Chronicle, a position he’d earlier held worldwide for United Press International (UPI). Writing and broadcasting assignments have taken him to 136 foreign countries over the decades.
The current one-hour Delicious Mischief is heard each Saturday at 11 a.m. in Austin on KJCE 1370 AM, at 2 p.m. in Houston on KNTH 1070 AM and at 7 p.m. in Dallas on KLIF 570 AM.
As an author, DeMers has published nonfiction ranging from Follow the Smoke: 14,783 Miles of Great Texas Barbecue to Lone Star Chefs , Fischer & Wieser Fredericksburg Flavors and the most recent Reata cookbook. His fiction includes the Chef Brett mystery series (Marfa Shadows, Marfa Rocks and Marfa Blues), and the Danny Morales crime novel Terlingua Heat. DeMers is currently writing a cookbook with the legendary Cordua restaurant family of Houston and a book-length history of M.L. Leddy boots and saddles of San Angelo and Fort Worth.
KVLF, broadcasting to listeners in Alpine, Marfa and Fort Davis with its sister FM country-music station KALP from baseball’s beloved Kokernot Field, calls itself The Voice of the Last Frontier. “I love that,” says DeMers. “For me, the shoe – on in this case, the boot – definitely fits.”
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