My friend and fellow food blogger Eddie Lin of the extreme food blog Deep End Dining, has a brand new book out called Extreme Cuisine.

He’s appearing in Orange County this Saturday for a book signing in Santa Ana. Come on down and meet the man who ate his wife’s placenta (or is it his newborn daughter’s)?  No shit, placenta. Ask him yourself!

Date: Saturday, March 6, 2010
Time: 1:00pm – 3:00pm
Location: The Road Less Traveled 2204 N. Main St., Santa Ana, CA

Fab’s Hot Dogs, the San Fernando Valley dog house, is moving to a bigger location down the street this spring (or summer). The sausage slingers, slammed since the exposure on Food TV’s Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, needed desperately to expand out of their tiny, nine seat hole in the wall.  The owners confirmed today that they signed a new lease in the Loehmann’s Plaza, down the street from their current Reseda location.

Seating will expand, parking will improve, and hopefully, so will the wait to get a couple of dogs. What makes this place special? For starters, this is L.A.’s only place to get a ripper, a deep fried dog famous in its native New Jersey. Want a grilled dog? Steamed dog? A bacon wrapped street dog? A pastrami dog? Also – tater tots.

Fabs Hot Dogs
Now:
6747 Tampa Ave.
Reseda, CA 91335
818-344-4336

Starting Spring or Summer 2010:
In the Loehmann’s Plaza Shopping Center
Tampa Avenue and Victory Boulevard
Reseda, CA

The competition BBQ season starts early here in the Southwest.  Lake Havasu City is the site of an Arizona state championship contest, on February 26 & 27, 2010.  The organizers are holding a KCBS judging class on the day prior for those who’d like to learn the finer points of eating and scoring the competitors’ hard work.

Some of you have been watching the BBQ Pitmasters show on TLC, and are dying to cook on the contest circuit.  If you want to score well, it helps to know what target to hit, so I’d highly recommend taking this class. There aren’t that many judging classes held in this region, so take it while it’s reasonably close. I got certified several years ago, and judged a few contests in 2009. Being on the other side of the judge’s tent has helped understand what my competition’s food looks and tastes like.

You’ll be taught the rules, how to score, and the pitfalls to watch for when scoring meat. You’ll also eat a whole lot of barbecue, both good and bad. Now you’ll have a framework to describe what good or bad means. Space is limited, so sign up today!

KCBS Certified Judges Class
KCBS Members $35. / Non-Members $80.
Presented by HAVA BBQ
February 25, 2010
Check-In 5:30 PM / Class Starts 6 PM

Place:
BBQ Bill’s Big Easy Bistro
3557 Maricopa Avenue
Lake Havasu City, AZ. 86406

KCBS Rep’s: Merl Whitebook & Gene Goycochea

Applications @ http://www.havabbq.com

It’s like when two people you know would hit it off finally meet. This week, Pulitzer Prize winning food writer Jonathon Gold happened (finally) upon my BBQ contest teammate Neil Strawder’s BBQ stand at the Atwater’s Farmers Market. It’s only been a year since Neil quit his banking career to run BigMista’s BBQ full time, Mr. Gold. <\eyeroll>.

Neil tells me that J Gold stopped by at 1:30pm, long after almost everything was sold out. He scraped together a few leftover pieces of meat and made an impromptu sampler plate. Not the best way to impress L.A.’s most influential food critic, perhaps, but what can you do?

In this week’s Squid Ink blog on the LA Weekly, Gold said,

If Bigmista could scrounge together a lunch this splendid from scrapings and bin-leavings, I can only marvel at the possibilities afforded by the food he actually means to sell.

Hopefully, my two friends can start spending more time together, and get to know each other better. If anyone can appreciate the wonders of real BBQ, it’s these two. Congratulations, Neil, for the well deserved props.