{"id":269,"date":"2014-08-20T10:07:40","date_gmt":"2014-08-20T17:07:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/?p=269"},"modified":"2014-08-20T21:07:01","modified_gmt":"2014-08-21T04:07:01","slug":"road-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/?p=269","title":{"rendered":"Road Trip"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Houston<\/a>
Nice little place . . .<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a relatively quiet summer at Chaos Manor it’s back on the road for a bit. I’m in Houston today, a city I’ve only been through once before. I’m giving a presentation on wine retailing here and I’m really looking forward to it. Not only do I get to meet Texas homebrew shop retailers (some of the friendliest folks you’ll ever meet) but also, Mexican food!<\/p>\n

\"texmex\"<\/a>
Come to Papa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you’ve never been to Texas but you have been to Mexico, the food is different. It’s even called ‘Tex-Mex’. But it’s ridiculously good, and I’m looking forward to digging into some of it.<\/p>\n

I’m only here for one day: tomorrow at o-dark thirty I’m off to Atlanta to catch up with some more retailers there. Just like Houston, I’m looking forward to meeting up with a great bunch of people and having a really detailed discussion of wine retailing in the USA.<\/p>\n

My lunch strategy might have to change there, but I’ve got a plan: barbecue. Canadians are woefully ignorant of real barbecue. Shamefully, we use that word to describe grilled food, which isn’t actually anything like barbecue, which actually centers around low-heat, long time cooking over smoky wood fires.<\/p>\n

\"franklin-bbq-brisket-6\"<\/a>
Now that’s a pit!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Before I started travelling in the USA I had no idea that there was so much regional variation–Texas does beef best while the Carolinas do pork but have fierce regional loyalties to different sauces. Memphis does chopped pork and fabulous ribs, while Kansas City barbecues any animal that holds still too long (barbecued lamb ribs are to die for). It was all confusing and I didn’t know what to order.<\/p>\n

But I put in action\u00a0a clever strategy: any place I go that has good barbecue, I ask for help, with a little twist. If I’m in Carolina I say, ‘I’ve had Texas barbecue–is this anything like that?’. Local pride swells like thunderheads, and folks are quick to guide the poor, misguided Canadian to ‘the good stuff’. Sure it’s \u00a0a wee bit of a fib, but I’ve had so much good barbecue from it that I can’t help myself.<\/p>\n

Which reminds me of\u00a0something my favorite food anthropologist, Margaret Visser <\/a>put in her book, Much Depends On Dinner<\/em>: people are the same everywhere: the only thing that changes is the dinner.<\/p>\n

But it’s a long time until dinner–work first!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Edited to Add . . .<\/h2>\n
\"barbecue\"<\/a>
Ribs, brisket, spicy sausage, jalapeno corn muffin, heart-attack potatoes and dirty rice. Even the salad had barbecued meat in it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That was some pretty good barbecue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After a relatively quiet summer at Chaos Manor it’s back on the road for a bit. I’m in Houston today, a city I’ve only been through once before. I’m giving a presentation on wine retailing here and I’m really looking forward to it. Not only do I get to meet Texas homebrew shop retailers (some … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Road Trip”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,84,83,75,58,33,48,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alcohol","category-barbecue","category-food","category-lifestyle","category-teaching","category-texas","category-travel","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=269"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":282,"href":"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269\/revisions\/282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.timvandergrift.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}