A Denver marijuana dispensary has opened the country’s first restaurant with a menu laced with pot.  The Ganja Gourmet sells brownies,  chocolates,  lasagna, and a goat cheese and sausage pizza.  Let’s hope their ganja cookery tastes better than those oddly green, haybale-tasting brownies you made in college.

Colorado is one of the states that allows medical marijuana patients to buy pot with a doctor’s recommendation, so all customers must have their doctor’s permission before ordering anything off the menu. The Associated Press reports that goat cheese and sausage pizza sells for $89, which might make it the most expensive pizza in the county.  I wonder if I can just buy a slice and sprinkle on a little extra “oregano” from the shaky jar instead?

After all these years of torturing you with pretty photos from my barbecue contests, I sincerely hope you’ve had the chance to go to one in person and eat the great food that my contest peers cook.

If you haven’t been to one, tune in to BBQ Pitmasters, TLC’s brand new series that airs tonight at 10pm across all time zones.  It’ll give an insider’s view of  competition BBQ at some of the biggest contests in America.

My friends Harry Soo and Mark Tung of Slap Yo’ Daddy BBQ, featuring pit bitch Gary Notley star in this series. They’re the only team from west of Texas cast for the show, and will be challenging some of the behemoths of the contest BBQ world. Harry and Mark came out of nowhere two years ago, and have won one grand champion title after another. There’s no journalistic detachment on this one – I’ll be rooting for Slap Yo’ Daddy all the way!

My barbecue teammate Neil Strawder, aka BigMista, is a TV spokesperson for Fresh & Easy, the grocery store chain owned by the British Tesco conglomerate.

What’s Fresh & Easy? It’s sort of a convenience store supersized into a supermarket, with a focus on low prices. It’s for someone who wants to cook their own meals, with minimal hassle. Think blister packed fresh meats, many ready-flavored, in family sized portions to make dinner prep fast and easy.

Fresh & Easy hired Neil because he’s got a reputation as Los Angeles’ best BBQ cook among many Chowhounds, Yelpers and the general public, which voted for our team as People’s Choice champion in numerous BBQ contests. Well that, and his natural telegenic personality.

This Fourth of July, he’s been making the rounds on TV morning shows in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and San Diego. Here’s BigMista on Fox5 in Vegas. On other shows, he gives BBQ cookout tips to make your Fourth Fresh & Easy. I can’t work in that phrase into this post any more times, people.

He’s a natural! Watch for Neil and family in an upcoming episode of Over Your Head on HGTV, too. Get this man an agent, quick!

Last Friday, New York State authorities temporarily shut down H&H Bagels, the renowned bagel baker on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The New York Times reports on the story here.

The shutdown affected both the retail store and a second production facility.  Opinions vary on how “good” H&H’s bagels are within the New York City bagel bubble, but H&H is among the few producers that sells authentic bagels (parbaked and frozen) wholesale to restaurants and bakeries across the country. A permanent shutdown of the bagel production plant will have a far reaching effect on customers such as Barney Greengrass in Los Angeles, where expat New Yorkers go for their bagel mit schmear.