The Oxford American food issue is now on the stands.

I guested edited. And I'm proud as hell of what we wrought. You'll have to buy a mag to get the full scope of the effort. But here are links to my guest editorial and Todd Kliman's kick ass profile of the peripateic chef Peter Chang.

Just sent my new street food book text to editor. Let the bourbon drinking begin.

Meanwhile, new photos from the project, taken by my colleague Angie Mosier, are posted here.

Got a couple pieces in the new Garden & Gun magazine.

One on a new wine, a shiraz from Australia, aged in used bourbon barrels.

A second on Town House, the avant garde restaurant in Chilhowie, Virginia.

A paean to the po-boy, written for the nice folks at the NYT.

The 12th Southern Foodways Symposium has concluded.

With a ballet. Inspired by pork. Choreographed by Trey McIntyre.

Take a look at the dancers below, from Ballet Memphis.

And conjure the song "Gimme Gimme Chitlins" by Huey Piano Smith.

And you have an inkling of what transpired.

Photo by Pableaux Johnson

Allow me to present, on behalf of the NYT, the pepperoni roll straight outa the coal mines of West Virginia.

The new Oxford American is on the shelves. Look for two Jack Pendarvis pieces, a meditation on procrastination by Diane Roberts, and more.

I wrote an homage to Brown Family Dairy in Oxford, Billy Ray Brown's six-cow operation, peddling hormone-free, non-homogenized milk. As backdrop, I used an essay by his father, the late and great Larry Brown.

Buy a copy of the mag or just read my piece here.

I've been to Tucson twice in the last six months. Researching truck food and street food, I fell hard for the place.

Yes, the borderlands are a place of contention that cultural critic Gloria E. Anzaldúa once described as “una herida abieta,” which translates as “an open wound,” where “the Third World grates against the first and bleeds.”

But the borderlands are also a place of smooth and easy cultural exchange and complement, where constituencies as various as accordion-driven Tejano bands, black velvet portraitists and carne asada grill cooks have honed a modern Mexican-American aesthetic.

Today, the NYT ran my piece on Sonoran hotdogs, a totem of borderlands culture that just happens to taste great.

Read my NYT story of honest American fusion, set in Salt Lake City.

With walk-on parts by Liberace and Tom Petty. And leading rolls played by a disparate family of Greeks.

And fast food feeds of pastrami-capped cheeseburgers. 

My paean to Scott's Bar-B-Q near Hemingway, SC ran in the NYT today. 

Here's hoping my words pay appropriate homage to the intellect and ingenuity  required to cook honest bbq.

I know Peter Frank Edwards's pics -- as below and in a slide show on the site -- showcase as much.