Monday, August 18, 7:00 p.m.
Members $90, guests $115

When Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call hit the trail from Lonesome Dove in Larry McMurtry’s novel of that name, they faced the usual pioneer hardships: horse rustlers, sandstorms, stampedes, snakes, and Indians. When chef Tim Love of The Lonesome Dove Western Bistro hits the trail this month, his challenges will be wholly different. Where—Love must decide—to rustle up the best blue crab? How to ford the creek on horseback for the finest wild cress? And what victuals to serve those fancy Eastern elites who dine at the Beard House? That last one’s easy—Love’s trademark Western Urban Cuisine, of course!

Love, who will be cooking at the Beard House this month for the first time, is making an epic Event out of the evening, mostly, he says, to draw attention to the centennial of James Beard’s birth. He’s loading up his entire crew on a private bus, and heading for the highway; en route from Fort Worth to New York City, the team will forage for ingredients for their Beard House dinner. And if Love isn’t likely to encounter any ruthless outlaws, hard-bitten cowboys, or prostitutes with hearts of gold, he is hoping to rendezvous with President Bush! Love says he cooked for then Governor Bush, and he’s trying to arrange a repeat performance when he stops in D.C. Love will also break his journey at the “wonderful, wonderful” farmers’ market in Little Rock, Arkansas, at a farm his dad once owned in Tennessee, and in Philadelphia, where he plans to track down wild game. We’re hoping his saddlebags have space for some bottles of grape from Trefethen Winery, where Love has wine made for his restaurant.

Will he be wearing his trademark white Stetson? You betcha. “Keep an eye on that cowboy in the kitchen when you visit The Lonesome Dove—he’s the one wearing the ten-gallon hat and the million-dollar grin,” according to Southern Living.

Love, a born-and-bred Texan, is at home on the range and at the range. He earned his kitchen spurs in Knoxville, Tennessee, at Kotsi’s Grill, Kiva Grill, and the Knoxville Radisson. Then he followed the trail west to the Uptown Bistro in Frisco, Colorado. But the wild open spaces of Texas called, and he returned home to work at Mira Vista Golf Club and, later, at Reata, Fort Worth’s premier restaurant. Eventually, Love and his wife, Emilie, opened the stylish Lonesome Dove in the historic stockyard district of Fort Worth. There, Texas Living stated, he “rounds up both Western and worldly flavors.” So this is how the West was Won!