In this week's Meet & Eat, we talk to Robb Walsh, cookbook author, food critic, and, last but not least, proud Texan. Walsh, whose upcoming Texas Cowboy Cookbook will hit shelves April 10, is one of our favorite food writers. Mosey on in and say howdy. More

Austin area meat eaters and music lovers will tell you about the wonders of Stubb's, the barbecue restaurant and live music venue on Red River founded by the late chef and pitmaster C. B. Stubblefield. The recently published Stubb's Bar-B-Q Cookbook has recipes from the restaurant as well as Stubblefield's personal cookbook, as well as photos and stories from his colorful life. The Austin American-Statesman's Kitty Crider shares the book's recipe for Korean Steak, Stubb-Style, created after Stubblefield served in Korea and "discovered that Koreans and Texans have much in common: Both love beef, chili peppers, and grilling over a charcoal pit."... More

Peggy Grodinsky of the Houston Chronicle and other area foodies bid farewell to their Lettuce Lady, a.k.a. sustainable gardening pioneer Camille Waters, who is moving to Mexico to start a new life: "She opened the door for a lot of people who are doing farmers markets today, (for) bringing great product to your back door,'" chef Mark Cox said. "She got the ball going on (eating) local. She was one of the first to say, "I can grow the product here in Houston."While Houston is no San Francisco - a city where headlining exquisite regional produce on fine-restaurant menus is de rigueur - a small network of "boutique farmers'' supply Houston's best chefs with locally grown produce and sell... More

The 29th anniversary of Austin's pandemonious potted pork festival is coming up—this year's SPAMARAMA® will be held April 7, from noon till six. There's a SPAM™ cook-off, of course, with cash prizes going to the winners of the Open and Professional categories, as well as the People's Choice Award; the SPAMALYMPICS™ features storied events like "the SPAM® Disc Shoot, the SPAM™ Call (remotely similar to a hog call), the SPAM™ Can Relay and the SPAMBURGER® Eating Contest". Keep Austin weird, indeed. [via Weird Eats]... More

Texan Independence Day was a few days ago and Homesick Texan celebrated it by writing about her home state's unofficial dish: While many foods hold sway over my heart, none (except for my beloved refried beans) reigns supreme more than chicken-fried steak, which is neither chicken nor steak (at least in the dry-aged, marbled-slab of prime beef sense of the word). This Texan delicacy is a cutlet of tenderized top-round beef, battered and fried in a skillet (much like fried chicken, hence the name), and served with cream gravy. In other parts of the country, you may see it labeled country fried steak, but a Texan would never call it that—it's always chicken fried to us.... More

The yearly South By Southwest conference in Austin is coming up this weekend and so Virginia B. Wood of the Austin Chronicle put together Smoke Trail, a guide to eleven purveyors of delectable BBQ around the city center: "Central Texas is nationally known for great barbecue, and we consider the capital to be the burnished buckle of that famous barbecue belt. In part because Austin is where the South meets the Southwest, we've got it all here – the mesquite-smoked West Texas cowboy style, the German/Czech sausages and dry-rubbed smoked meats, and the soul-satisfying deep South style of meats smoked over hardwoods and slathered with sauce. Working on the assumption that many of our March visitors will be concentrated... More

In honor of the upcoming Chinese New Year (Sunday, February 18 ushers in the Year of the Pig), we talked to our food-loving friends around the country to find out where they'd send Serious Eaters for some great Chinese food. Inside, picks from Atlanta, Seattle, Miami, San Francisco, and more, along with the symbolism of some of the food eaten on the eve of the new lunar year. Year of the Pig—Serious Eaters, don't you love that?!? More

Don't mess with Texas. And, by all means, don't mess with Texas's hamburger. A state legislator there is embroiled in a burger battle with Louis' Lunch of New Haven, Connecticut, over which state can claim to be the birthplace of the hamburger. Says New Haven's mayor, John DeStefano Jr.: "We are even the birthplace of George Bush, who wants people to think he's from Texas. So yes, the hamburger is as much a New Haven original as President Bush. Get over it, Texas."... More