Varmint

I'd want to go to the Moonlight in Owensboro, KY just to say I had mutton barbecue.

Stephenson's is on Highway 50. To get there, you'll want to get on I-40 west towards Raleigh. Take exit 319. Turn left onto highway 210 for about a mile or 2. Turn right onto Highway 50, go about 1/2 mile. Stephenson's will be on your right. Phone is 910-894-4530. They're closed Sunday and Monday. Wilber's actually has a website: http://www.esn.net/wilbers/ There are a couple of barbecue restaurants in Southern Pines, but I haven't visited either of them. John's Barbeque & Seafood Talberts Barbecue I'm not familiar with the Eastwood Diner. But then, if you're in Pinehurst, what you really want to do is sit in a rocking chair on the porch of the Pinehurst Hotel, drinking mint juleps. Off topic: Where are you playing?

Wow, you've managed to hit pretty much a wasteland with respect to barbecue with that area. Most of the barbecue joints that are worth a side trip will exceed your hour limit. For some reason, the Sandhills area hasn't developed a solid barbecue foundation. What would help is if you let me know from which direction you'd be traveling. If you're on I-95 coming from the North, I can steer you in the right direction for a couple of joints that are not too far away. There's a couple of good places in Wilson (Mitchell's is my favorite). There's a good place just north of the I-95, I-40 intersection -- Stephenson's. If you're willing to take a greater detour, then head over to Goldsboro and visit Wilbers, still my all-time favorite. If you're coming from the East (unlikely) or the West, I can hook you up in those directions, too. The bottom line is that any decent barbecue is probably an hour to 90 minutes away from Pinehurst/Southern Pines.

This may be common in some cities, but we have a trendy Chinese restaurant here in North Carolina that charges you 75 cents if you want a fork -- yes, they're trying to be funny, but they actually charge you for the fork.

You can occasionally find a top-notch offering in some of the ballparks, and not necessarily in the luxury boxes. I know that the old Milwaukee County Stadium (before they opened the fancy new Miller Park) had some of the best bratwurst you could find. It was quintessential ballpark food, but it was done very well -- slowly grilled to allow just the right amount of exterior browning. I remember eating 5 of them the first time I went to a Brewers game -- an accomplishment I have no desire to repeat. Of course, what else would you expect from a park where the between-inning entertainment consists of a race between three different types of sausage and they sing the "Beer Barrel Polka" during the seventh inning stretch?

You can use baking tiles as well as pizza bricks. We have two pizza bricks, and I really wouldn't think of making a pizza without them. You'll want to get the largest one you can find, as you don't want your pizza size limited by the stone. Their primary purpose is to ensure that the pizza dough gets cooked thoroughly, from the direct heat the stone provides. Make sure that you preheat your oven for at least half an hour. You can have the oven over 500 degrees, as pizzas really bake best in a hot oven. To help get the pizza off the peel, I use semolina under the dough to act as mini-ball bearings. Others use regular flour or corn meal. Cleaning the stones is really not that big of a deal. They're going to get stained, but the hot oven chars anything that slides off the pizza onto the stone. I've never used any water on my stones, as that could cause them to crack (the stones are porous, and water in them can expand when heated). I just scrape off the charred bits, and the stone is ready to go. If you don't have a pizza peel, get one or two. If you live in a decent sized city, look for restaurant supply stores that sell used goods. Pizza businesses go out of business fairly often, so the stores often have used peels and baking tiles. I have a wood one and a metal peel that I bought for a total of $7.50 from a restaurant supply store in Milwaukee a decade ago. Have fun!

Bolivar seems to have more of a southern food problem than I. I'll see if I can add: Blenheim's Ginger Ale Pork Chop sandwich Fresh collard greens (or any other greens) Hoppin' John Chicken Fried Steak Fried pies Chicken and pastry Brunswick Stew Mashed rutabagas . . . and, of course, the place to get all this stuff, Piggly Wiggly (Edited by Varmint at 4:27 pm on Feb. 6, 2002)

What are some of the quintessential southern foods that come to your mind (other than barbecue). I'm really talking about foods that you generally don't find in the North. I can think of . . . Pimiento Cheese Pork Rinds (awesome, when they're good and fresh) Boiled peanuts (make sure they're at least room temp) Moon Pies Cheese Straws Moravian sugar cookies and sugar cakes CheerWine (diet CheerWine is the best) I could go on all day. There are a number of Southern exports that have become common up North, including Krispy Kremes, breakfast biscuits, and sweet tea.

Gee, what wine goes well with pigs in a blanket?

We've found a very cheap Montepulciano d'Abruzzo that we buy several cases at a time. Masciarelli is the winery, and it's almost always a dependable, if not exciting, everyday wine. You can find it almost anywhere from 6 to 7 bucks a bottle, perhaps less. This is a great value. One thing nice about this wine is that it is fairly consistent from vintage to vintage. It'll never knock your socks off, but it won't ever disappoint you, either.

As far as pure performance is concerned (i.e., the ability to grind pepper quickly with minimal effort), I've found that nothing beats a brass Turkish coffee grinder. This tool can grind tablespoons of fairly finely ground pepper in seconds, without a lot of effort. The hinged handle gives you plenty of torque to grind easily. Moreover, you avoid the mess of pepper "crumbs" collecting on a counter, as the grinding mechanism sits on a reservoir base. This base is also great when you want to grind several teaspoons at a time, as you grind right into the base. The downside of this mill is that it isn't the most stable gadget in the world. It tends to fall over from time to time, which may deter some folks from putting it on the table. Nevertheless, I wouldn't trade it for any other grinder. I think these grinders are quite common, so finding them should be easy. What I can't say, however, is whether all grinders work as well as mine.

I don't have any great inspirations, although an uncooked sauce of tomatoes, basil, olive oil, garlic and sea salt is awesome -- make sure you warm the plates first. However, we purchased a small electric motor to attach to our machine. It made the pasta making so much simpler. I'd make the sauce, my wife would make the pasta. She'd be ready with the pasta by the time the water was boiling. We were able to eat much sooner than if we used dry pasta!

I used to live about 30 miles away from the Troyer Farms plant, and if you were down wind, you could smell the potatoes from about a mile away. It's a pretty amazing place, and it used to be a standard school field trip to get a tour of the place (although I think they no longer give tours). One problem with those chips is that if you don't eat them all, they're so hygroscopic that on the second day, they taste as if someone has licked them all. Yuck! One final, but nonetheless interesting point about the plant, is that it is located across the street from a porn drive-in. I haven't been in the area in 10 years, so I wouldn't be surprised if the drive-in is gone, but amazingly, you could actually see the screen somewhat from the road. What a wonderful place for a 16-year old to pull off the side of the road!