An online magazine called Chef’s Pencil (no, I’ve never heard of it before, either) stirred up a cauldron of controversy involving a cuisine that many people have strong opinions about: barbecue. The magazine analyzed TripAdvisor ratings of the barbecue restaurants in America’s 75 largest cities, and compiled a list of what they claim are the ten best cities in the country for barbecue. This was accompanied by a map showing where those cities are, and here it is:

The map, and the analysis that it was based on, made a lot of people angry. This Newsweek article sums up the controversy pretty well.

I won’t try to enumerate all of the things wrong with this map, because many people have already done that. (Matt Mitchell’s video is a good example.) I’ll just point out a couple of things.

The biggest outrage is that Texas is completely ignored. Now, I’m the first to admit that I’m not objective about barbecue. Of course I’m biased: I was raised on Texas-style barbecue because my father was born in Dallas, and he loved to make that kind of barbecue in his backyard grill. He was always tinkering with the sauce recipe and the way he cooked the beef brisket, in the hope of duplicating the sort of barbecue served in east Texas restaurants. He was never completely satisfied with the result, but I certainly enjoyed eating the meals that he produced. So it’s difficult for me to believe that no city in Texas made it into the top ten.

Some of the cities that did make it seem bizarrely inappropriate. Seattle, Newark, and Miami do not come to anyone’s mind when you ask them where they would go for great barbecue. As Matt points out, New Orleans has incredibly good food, but barbecue is not what it’s renowned for.

And Charlotte? Really? I grew up in the Charlotte area, and I’ve eaten in the city’s restaurants countless times. If it has some of the best barbecue in the country, I sure didn’t hear anything about it. And maybe I wouldn’t, but you can bet that Dad would have known about any good barbecue restaurant in Charlotte, and he would have taken the family to eat there. I don’t think that ever happened. (Maybe the excellent barbecue places in Charlotte only appeared after he died. Okay, I’m game. What are their names? I’d love to try them out. Update: According to TripAdvisor, these are the best barbecue restaurants in Charlotte.)

I think this project was doomed from the start, because its methodology was wrong. If you want to find the best barbecue in the country, why would you look only at the biggest cities? It’s not an urban cuisine. In my experience, some of the best barbecue is to be found in small towns and even rural settings. You’re more likely to find great barbecue at an Alabama church potluck than in any metropolis.

I can’t claim to know where the best barbecue in the country is. But the best I’ve ever tasted was at Bodacious Bar-B-Q in Longview, Texas. Longview isn’t a metropolis by any standard; it’s only the 47th largest city in Texas (81,653 residents in 2019). So the Chef’s Pencil analysis would have ignored it completely. And that’s why the map they produced is meaningless. If you’re only looking in big cities for great barbecue, you don’t understand barbecue at all.

Postscript: I notice that the barbecue analysis, including the top ten list and the map, has disappeared from the Chef’s Pencil website. I can understand why.

Want to go out for lunch, but can’t decide where? Let the Wheel of Food decide for you! (Or maybe it’s the Wheel of Lunch; the site uses both names in different places.) How does it work? Simple. Enter your ZIP code, then click Proceed. The Wheel is automatically populated with restaurants in your neighborhood and given an initial spin. When it stops, you have a randomly-chosen lunch location, complete with street address (and maybe even a rating from previous diners). If that location doesn’t appeal to you, just grab the Wheel and spin it again.
Source: CNET’s Buzz Out Loud podcast

Coffee is good for you! According to a new study, it’s the best source of antioxidants — better than tea, fruits, or vegetables. And when journalist Aaron McKenna tested various methods of overclocking yourself, he found coffee to be the most effective.
In moderation, of course. Too much caffeine will be bad for you. You can even kill yourself with the stuff, if you drink huge amounts of it. Energy Fiend has a handy Death by Caffeine calculator that uses your body weight to determine how much of your favorite caffeinated beverage constitutes a semilethal dose (technically, the LD50). According to the calculator, it would take 56 cups of drip coffee (or 146 cans of Mountain Dew) to kill me.

The Subway sandwich chain will phase out its Sub Club promotion during the next few months. (That’s the deal involving the card that you fill up with stamps and then redeem for a free sandwich.) Don’t get mad at Subway for this — they’ve been running the promotion for more than two decades. Blame the thieves and counterfeiters who have forced to Subway to pull the plug.

Monday, February 28, was our moving-in day at the new location in Research Triangle Park. There was plenty of coffee available that morning, because the management had provided coffee urns and trays of danishes to sustain us while we unpacked our stuff and put it away. But that was a one-time thing. On Tuesday morning I went looking for coffee and discovered the horrible truth: the new coffee clubs we were promised did not exist. Not yet, anyway. The only coffee in this building was inside vending machines.
I did my best not to panic. This has to be a temporary state of affairs, I told myself. Access to coffee is one of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. You can’t just cut off the coffee supply to office workers; they’ll scrawl revolutionary slogans on the whiteboards, set fire to the copiers, and eventually rise in open revolt. So I resolved to wait and see.
A week went by. By the following Monday, unrest had reached a level that management could no longer ignore. So an e-mail message was sent out to everyone in the building, announcing the location of the new coffee club facilities. I went immediately to that location with my mug in hand, and found that the message was somewhat premature. Yes, there was a coffee maker in that room. However, it had not even been completely removed from its packaging, and it was not connected to either water or electricity. With a shriek of frustration and rage, I slunk back to my office.
Today, two weeks after the move, I heard a rumor that the coffee club was finally operational. Initially, I was inclined to dismiss it. Then I saw that Brent Sienna had finally ended his coffee abstinence. Shortly after that, I read that a new version of Java has been released. Obviously someone was trying to tell me something.
Although I had seen no official announcement, I went to see if the coffee facilities were up and running. Lo and behold, they were. With trembling hands, I drew my first cup of workplace coffee since arriving in this building, added sweetener and creamer, and carried it back to my office. And it was good. I didn’t drink a triple espresso, so I wasn’t affected quite so dramatically as Brent was. But I wonder if it’s made me a bit hyper. Would I notice if my coherence or attention span were affected?
Dave Barry is famous for (among other things) pointing out that various phrases would make good names for rock bands. Well, lately, I’ve found myself doing something similar: I’ll sometimes look at a phrase and find myself thinking, “That would make a good name for a blog.” For example, wouldn’t “Not in the Face!” be a good blog name?
That particular thought came to me this morning as I was returning to my office from an errand that took me through a fire door to an adjoining building. I had to push it open, and I was careful to comply with the sign on the door that says OPEN SLOWLY, because if I were to fling it open quickly, I could hit someone in the face. On the return trip, I had to pull the door open, and I noticed an identical sign on that side of the door. Which makes sense, because if I were to yank the door open quickly, I might hit myself in the face. I’m sure that happened on a daily basis before the signs were posted.
Um . . . yeah. I’m definitely hyper.
UPDATE: What is it with the bizarre coffee-related coincidences? A few hours after I posted this entry, I got in my car and turned on my radio. The first thing I heard was a financial analyst discussing the stock price of Ciena, a company whose name sounds exactly like Brent Sienna’s surname. Oh, and I was sucking on a coffee-flavored hard candy at the moment this happened. Like I said, somebody is trying to tell me something.

Tomorrow is moving day. The IBM site where I work in Raleigh is being closed, and everyone here is moving to the main site out at Research Triangle Park. Preparing for the move is no big deal for me; I’ve only been here for two years, so I haven’t accumulated very much stuff. And I have almost no paper files, just half a drawer full. I think I can fit everything I have, apart from my computer, into a single moving box. We’re getting all new office furniture at our new location, so we don’t have to move any of that stuff. This should be effortless.
But not painless. I’m currently going through caffeine withdrawal. Until now, we’ve had voluntary “coffee clubs” operating in all three buildings at this site. You can either pay by the cup or pay a flat monthly fee for unlimited coffee (which is what I did). But in preparation for the move, the existing coffee clubs have shut down. At first, this was a good thing; the coffee in my club has been free as the club used up its remaining stocks of coffee grounds, creamer, sweeteners, and other supplies.
About a week ago, the regular coffee ran out. There’s still some decaf left, but man cannot live on decaf alone. So now I’m stumbling through my day with an empty mug, trying to keep my eyes open. It’s rough. By a strange coincidence, comic strip character Brent Sienna (he’s the one drinking directly from the coffeepot) is going through the same thing.
We do have a coffee vending machine, but if I’m going to get my caffeine fix from a machine, I’ll just buy a Dr. Pepper or a Mountain Dew. Except that I can’t! The drink machines take dollar bills, but all I have is a five-dollar bill, which is useless! I’m going to have to go to the convenience store that’s diagonally across the intersection from here, which means going outside and waiting in the rain for the crossing signal to change. Twice. And then twice more on my way back! Aaarrgghh!!! Okay, gotta calm down. Deep breaths.
We start work at our new offices on Monday, at which point I’ll have access to coffee again. I’m not sure I’m going to make it.
UPDATE: Another strange coincidence. As I was standing on the street corner waiting to cross, a Toyota Sienna drove by right in front of me.
FURTHER UPDATE: About an hour after I posted this, the coffee maker on my floor was dismantled, packed up, and taken away. So now I can’t even have decaf any more. KHAAAN!!!

I have never seen the point of eating chicken wings. In fact, I’m not sure they actually qualify as food. Wings are more accurately described as breaded, seasoned, and deep-fried chicken bones with skin. Yes, there’s a little bit of meat on a wing, but it’s so minuscule and requires so much effort to ingest that it’s really not worthwhile. The increasing popularity of chicken wings is the result of a very successful marketing campaign on the part of the food service industry, which realized that you should never throw away your scraps if you can convince people to buy them. (That’s also the explanation for the breadsticks that pizza delivery places all sell now. Those used to be leftover dough that got thrown away, until some clever marketer realized that you could get people to pay for them.)
I don’t have any real problem with this; if some folks are willing to buy fried bones, that’s their own business. But now things are getting downright bizarre. Appliance maker Rival now offers the Wing-It, a deep-fryer whose only purpose is to enable you to make your own chicken wings. Why in God’s name would anyone want to do that? If you’re going to prepare your own chicken at home, would it not make more sense to buy the chicken parts that actually have meat on them? Why would you go out of your way to buy the most worthless part of the chicken and a special tool for cooking it? Someone please explain this to me.