{"id":8071,"date":"2026-02-05T14:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T20:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/?page_id=8071"},"modified":"2026-02-05T20:38:28","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T02:38:28","slug":"books-brunch-2026","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/books-brunch-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Books & Brunch 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”8077″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” css=””][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

Thursday, February 26, 2026<\/span><\/h3>\n

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The Briar Club<\/span><\/h3>\n

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Master of Ceremonies and Auctioneer<\/h3>\n

Frank Billingsley <\/strong>has been a favorite Houston TV weatherman for more than 30 years and retired in June of 2024 from KPRC Channel 2. He was chief meteorologist and investigative reporter, starting his TV career in Virginia. An author himself, he wrote Swabbed & Found, an accounting of his journey to find his birth parents. Through his book, Frank \u201cput a human face\u201d on the science of genealogy. He was a presenter at our 2022 Books and Brunch and emcee and auctioneer last year. He still serves the community by emceeing and acting as auctioneer at other fund raisers.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”7408″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_btn title=”Purchase Tickets” color=”danger” size=”lg” align=”center” css=”” button_block=”true” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fmy.onecause.com%2Fevent%2Forganizations%2F8cb46089-f164-465d-ad93-f3e0c478b5f4%2Fevents%2Fvevt%3A8261ea56-d0b0-412b-9067-ebadca2b34c3%2Fhome%2Fstory|title:Books%20%26%20Brunch|target:_blank”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Guest Authors<\/span><\/h2>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”8080″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” css=””][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text css=””]Sylvia Casares:<\/strong> Houston\u2019s Enchilada Queen When it comes to claiming the crown for Houston\u2019s enchilada kingdom, the Enchilada Queen is without question Sylvia\u2019s Enchilada Kitchen\u00a0owner Sylvia Casares. Her restaurants serve a whopping 20 varieties of enchiladas along with\u00a0a variety of other border and Tex-Mex dishes. Sylvia was born on the Texas-Mexico border in\u00a0Brownsville, Texas, and grew up with an acute interest in food, flavors and taste. She started\u00a0with a degree in Home Economics from the University of Texas which eventually led to her\u00a0working with restaurateurs all over the state until 1998 when she opened her own. She now has two, one of\u00a0which is where this Enchilada Queen regularly holds court in the form of ongoing cooking classes. Another of her\u00a0long-time dreams came true in 2016 when a debut cookbook, \u201cThe Enchilada Queen Cookbook\u201d (St. Martin\u2019s Griffin,\u00a0$27.98) by her, went on sale nationwide. In 2024 she launched a line of Signature Sauces made popular at her two\u00a0successful restaurants for commercial sale. The three sauces – Sylvia\u2019s Salsa, the Enchilada Tomatillo Sauce and\u00a0the Enchilada Chili Gravy \u2013 are now for sale at Central Markets statewide, at various retail stores, online and at\u00a0the restaurants. Over the years she has received international attention for her skills in the kitchen, and was\u00a0named a semi finalist for Best Chef Texas by the distinguished James Beard Foundation.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text css=””]Tobey Blanton Forney:<\/strong> A native Texan and 1993 graduate of Rice University, Tabitha (\u201cTobey\u201d)\u00a0Forney is a novelist and an attorney. Her debut novel, PAPER AIRPLANES, was published by She\u00a0Writes Press and has garnered many awards and accolades, including the 2022 Eric Hoffer Book\u00a0Awards Winner in General Fiction, 2022 Eric Hoffer First Horizon Book Awards Winner, 2022 16th\u00a0Annual National Indie Excellence Awards Finalist in both Literary Fiction and Women\u2019s Fiction,2022 IPPY Awards Bronze Winner in Best First Book (Fiction), 2022 IBPA Benjamin Franklin\u00a0Awards Finalist in both Best New Voice: Fiction & Fiction: General, and 2021 American Fiction Awards Finalist\u00a0in Literary Fiction. In addition to writing, she\u2019s an estate planning attorney, ashtanga yoga practitioner, MENSA\u00a0member, Presidential Scholar, and member of the Writer\u2019s League of Texas. She lives in Houston with her three\u00a0children.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”8082″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” css=””][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]<\/p>\n

Last Year’s Event<\/span><\/h3>\n

April 3, 2025<\/span><\/h3>\n

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”8077″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” css=””][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””] Thursday, February 26, 2026   The Briar Club [\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text css=””] Master of Ceremonies and Auctioneer Frank Billingsley has been a favorite Houston TV weatherman for more than 30 years and retired in June of 2024 from KPRC Channel 2. He was chief meteorologist and investigative reporter, starting his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67149,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-8071","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8071"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8088,"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/8071\/revisions\/8088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.assistanceleague.org\/houston\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}