“He (Hightower) was such an enthusiastic promoter, and that he did such a good job getting the word out about Texas foods and Texas wines. California was always the end-all, be-all with the whole California food movement. Suddenly, we were doing the same thing here in Texas, with more personality. I think we sold it better, frankly. What I remember […]
Robert del Grande
“Jim Hightower was the more eloquent voice of all of us and drew us all together. It helped everything because we all concluded that we were individuals but we would be better if we all worked together as a group. I remember saying that one restaurant cannot support one purveyor. The purveyor, the grower, the farmer need multiple people so […]
Susan Auler
“He (Hightower) was wonderful. That was the first time any state agency had given agriculture any attention, so it was incredible. I do believe we did some trips to either New York or Philadelphia. I need to sit with Bruce (Auden) and Robert (del Grande) and lean on their memories, go back and look at some photographs. He stirred up […]
Bruce Auden
“It really was the wine that had the biggest impact for the restaurant scene because we could sell wines and use wines that were high quality. You don’t see change unless you were there when it was different. Jim Hightower was a totally different person from everybody we’ve had since him…I just took it for granted that what he was […]