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Barbecue Time Machine

At dawn on the morning of Sunday October 16, I drove into the parking lot of the Washington Lodge of the Sons of Hermann. As I described in an earlier post, a handful of old fraternal organizations in this part of Texas have preserved the pit barbecue style that was once common all across the South. This Sons of Hermann Lodge was established in 1898 and the members claim that their barbecue tradition goes back that far too.
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Texas Eats: The New Lone Star Heritage Cookbook

From Ten Speed Press, release date March 6, 2012 Preorder from Amazon
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Deli Man: Starring Ziggy Gruber


Houston delicatessen owner Ziggy Gruber and his Post Oak restaurant, Kenny and Ziggy’s are starring in a movie. Erik Greenberg Anjou, a New York-based independent filmmaker, was in town last week with his production crew working on the documentary which is tentatively titled: Deli Man.
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Texas Cioppino


Chef Maurizio Ferrarese of Quattro Restaurant in the Houston Four Seasons hotel and I collaborated on a Texas cioppino last Friday. Maurizio invited me to join him in the kitchen as part of the Guest Chef series there. I know, I know, I am not really a chef. But I do work in a lot of kitchens–mainly developing Tex-Mex recipes.
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Texas BBQ Pork: The Brown Pig


The “Brown Beef” (top), “Brown Pig” (center) and “Little Pig Ham” (bottom) are the three most popular sandwiches at Neely’s Sandwich Shop on East Grand Avenue in Marshall, Texas. The first is made with chopped barbecued brisket and sells for $2.85, the last is made with sliced barbecued ham and sells for $3.25. But the $2.85 chopped barbecued pork sandwich outsells both of the other two by a wide margin–it’s become so iconic that most people mistakenly call the restaurant “Neely’s Brown Pig.”
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NYT on El Real

Restaurant Report: El Real Tex Mex in Houston
By CHERYL LU-LIEN TAN
Published newyorktimes.com: September 2, 2011

In the darkness of the Montrose neighborhood of Houston, the blaring neon Art Deco sign of a 1930s former movie theater stretches high into the sky. Its bright letters now spell out El Real Tex Mex.
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2012 Foodways Texas BBQ Summer Camp

Foodways Texas announces BBQ Summer Camp dates and details:
From Foodways Texas: “Mark your calendars for June 8-10, 2012, for the Foodways Texas Barbecue Summer Camp held in partnership with the Texas A&M University Meat Science Center in College Station, Texas. Tickets for the camp will go on sale sometime in November and we hope to announce a preliminary schedule of panels, pitmasters and events at that time. We will also expand the camp slightly to include a full day Friday and Saturday, as well as a half-day on Sunday. We expect you’ll be covered in at least four different types of wood smoke and have brine stains all over your clothes by the time you leave.

If hanging around in meat lockers sounds like fun...

Last summer’s camp was a huge success so we anticipate high demand for a limited amount of tickets. We allow Foodways Texas members to buy tickets at a discounted rate for two weeks before we open up sales to the general public, so we suggest you become a member September 1st, when we open up 2012 membership in order to secure the best chance to attend. If you have questions regarding the camp please address them to our director, Marvin Bendele, at marvin@foodwaystexas.com or call our office at 512-232-8560.”

Eating the Heat: The 21st Annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival

What a year it was at the hot sauce contest–the temperature was 111°F at 5 pm, just 1 degree short of Austin’s all time record high of 112! And still somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 people showed up.
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BBQ Road Trip: Going Whole Hog

BBQ Capital of the World?

After defeating South Carolina in a barbecue contest held in Washington DC back in the 1980s, Skylight Inn declared that tiny Ayden NC was the Barbecue Capital of the World.
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BBQ Road Trip: Pits of the Piedmont

Feediing the cookhouse furnace at Lexington (North Carolina) Barbecue


The array of chimneys sticking out of the brick cookhouse wall at Lexington Barbecue in Lexington North Carolina are very impressive.
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