UPDATE-back cover text, feedback welcome

I work at a special ed school and engage my fellow workers in barbeque debates without end. Listening to them, I exist in disbelief. It's more like barbeque war. Only they make the greatest barbeque ever and only they know of the greatest barbeque place of all time. They would rather stop breathing than concede defeat. They are right and everyone else is wrong. I couldn't take it. Enough is enough. I warned them. It wasn't an idle threat. I up and left on a whirlwind tour to find out for myself.

For the life of me I never imagined a pit master blowtorches ribs not far from the Gateway to the West or that a Ribshack in the Home of Lincoln sneaks apples into their century old secret sauce or I'd be escorted on a personal tour of one of the most chomping smokehouses in America. But somewhere in there a car wreck detoured me, a lightning blast sent me scurrying, and a baseball game screwed up my schedule, all in the name of barbeque.

I gripped my camera in a death grip listening to the preachings of a barbeque evangelist, and schmoozed with a Bear in the middle of Missouri. One second I'm watching TV and the next I'm whispering in the ear of an Idol. Oh what fun to watch naughty rotund guys work their craft! And somehow, someway, that dastardly man known as The Fever threw a curveball down the middle of all this. Damn him.

Who has the best barbeque, where is the best barbeque? Have you ever wondered that yourself? So many of us get an urge to hop in the car and go. I did. Somewhere out there, right this second, is an Uncle Joe unhunkered and on fire, blending a secret ingredient into his secret sauce that only the CIA could discover. So come join me, and let's uncover those secrets. Remember, it's the journey more than the destination.