I’m in Modesto, California this week for The Meet: Blues, Brews and Barbecue. It’s one of the biggest barbecue contests west of the Mississippi held in conjunction with a national caliber track meet. I’m sharing a stage with Ray “Dr. BBQ” Lampe and Brent Walton, one of the best competition BBQ cooks in the country who also lives in this area. We’re teaching a BBQ 101 class in front of 3000 or so people this Saturday, and my segment is about grilled pizzas.

As part of the buildup, we taped a couple of preview spots for Sacramento’s News10 morning show, Sacramento & Co. You can see me on today’s video clip here . Yesterday’s clip with Ray and Brent is here. Part of my mission was to pitch this class and get people interested in coming to learn how to grill a pizza.

How did that pizza look on the grill? Bet you didn’t realize it wasn’t baked. I was asked to have a pizza made before the spot because I only had about 60 seconds for my bit. That’s not enough time to bake pizza live for the camera. If making a cold pizza look delicious weren’t hard enough, we also didn’t have that grill fired up, either. We didn’t want spend all morning firing up the charcoal and waiting for the grill to cool down after the taping. So what to do? I put the flame spreader tip on my propane torch and “baked” the pesto and chicken sausage pizza. How’d I do?

Sorry to keep you in suspense by not ending this mango saga sooner. I sold this story to the L.A. Times, and wanted to avoid any rights conflicts with them. Read about it on page three of today’s Food section, or for a limited time, on the Times website (free registration required).

From a business standpoint, 2007 was a trial run for all parties in the supply chain, and they smartly chose a “wait and see” approach in this new business of importing mangos from India. This year, they brought in relatively small consignments by costly air freight. Why risk big shipments of expensive fruit that might not sell? When they smooth the import process, we’ll probably see an improvement in the quality of fruit, access to more of the other commercial mango varieties grown in India, and most critically, lower prices.

The price of these mangos is expected to drop substantially when they can perfect the logistics of shipping them via refrigerated ocean freight. Since Indian produce exporters already send their mangos on sea voyages to other nations, it’s a matter of time before they perfect the timing of picking, packing and shipping mangos for U.S. consumption.

The catch 22 is that few American distributors are willing to foot the financial risk of importing an ocean container full of Indian mangos. Why not? American consumers haven’t shown enough interest them yet. How come? Because they’re too expensive. Why’s that? Because they’re shipped by air freight. What would it take to bring down the cost? And so on.

In the meantime, expect to pay high prices for Indian mangos, if you can find them at all. You’re most likely to find them at the largest Indian groceries in cities with a big Indian-American community. In Southern California, these stores stocked them as of last week, for an average price of $35 for a case of twelve.

Pioneer Cash & Carry, 18601 Pioneer Blvd., Artesia, CA; 562-809-9433.

Ambala Cash & Carry, 18411 Pioneer Blvd., Artesia, CA; 562-924-1441.

Farm Fresh, 18551 Pioneer Blvd., Artesia, CA; 562-865-3191.

New Bombay Stores, 917 W. Foothill Blvd., Upland, CA; 909-981-9323; and 1385 Blaine St., Unit H3, Riverside, CA 951-788-3042.

Bombay Bazaar, 3848 N. McKinley St., Corona, CA; 951-272-3820.

Melissa’s World Produce http://www.melissas.com ; 800-588-0151; $55 per case, plus shipping.

Did I mention that I’m freelancing for Q, the quarterly trade journal of the National Barbecue Assocation? Now you know. I had the pleasure of interviewing barbecue cookoff legend Chris Lilly for Q’s second issue. Barbecue fans might recognize him as the host and executive producer of All Star BBQ Showdown and BBQ Championship Series. Both of these competition BBQ shows aired on the Versus Network.

For copyright reasons, I can’t publish that interview on this blog, but I can share an upcoming appearance where New Yorkers can meet Mr. Lilly.

March 12, 2007 New York, NY Madison Square Park (23rd Street and Broadway) Kingsford Charcoal presents the “Spring Forward, Get Griling” event. Grilling and barbecuing demonstrations from 7am - 7pm by champion pitmaster Chris Lilly, barbecue expert Rick Rodgers, and grilling authority Aaron Sanchez. The public is invited to celebrate the earlier start of Daylight Savings Time and get a jump on the grilling season.

Bitter Irony Alert: Most Manhattan residents don’t have outdoor patios on their apartments, and therefore don’t own grills.

Happy New Year, everyone. I start this year off with a thank you to Amy Scattergood of the Los Angeles Times, which ran a piece today on our local food blogging community. While her story focuses on two blogs that merge entertainment industry gossip with the L.A. food scene, it also highlights many of our town’s most interesting pure food blogs.

In December 2005, the Times ran a different piece about our local blog community, and I’m glad to see several relative newcomers mentioned this time around, like Chubbypanda, and Rameniac. Prolific long timers like Pat Saperstein’s Eating L.A. and Sarah’s The Delicious Life also made the cut, while others like elmomonster’s Monster Munching inexplicably didn’t. Much love to you nonetheless, elmo.

Unique voices in the blogosphere continue to join our chorus. Welcome to the fray, and congratulations to all those mentioned.