Robb Walsh tells serious eaters everything they could possibly want to know about Dr Pepper in a brilliant piece of reporting and commentary, including these facts: There are now three local Texas bottlers making the original Dr Pepper with pure cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup (which Walsh objects to just on principle). Visitors to the original Dr Pepper bottling plant in Dublin, Texas, can buy 20 cases for "personal use"Bootleggers and legit concerns are now distributing said Dr Pepper in convenience stores, gas stations, and even in upscale Texas grocery store Central Market Walsh had passers-by blindly taste both kinds of Dr Pepper. Younger people thought the original Dr Pepper tasted weird. Walsh himself likes to cook... More

Editor's note: Occasionally what looks at first glance to be a conventional guidebook transcends the genre in surprising ways. John T. Edge's Southern Belly is just such a read, which is why I'm pleased that he has allowed us to excerpt selected items from it on Serious Eats, where they appear every other week. —Ed Levine "Back in the kitchen, they shuck a dozen, set them topless over a pecan- and oak-fueled fire, swab each with butter and Parmesan cheese, and cook until the shells shade toward black, the oysters lips curl, and the cheese burbles and spits." http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565125479/serieats-20">By John T. Edge | If a team of New Urbanists set out to design the perfect waterside joint according to the... More

Houston Press food critic Robb Walsh discovers a pupusa truck at South Post Oak Road and Tidewater Drive (map): "A Salvadorean lady named Elisa churns out pupusas at an amazing clip. I watched her make a dozen in five minutes." The cool graphics on the truck (including what what Walsh calls a "funky chicken") are almost worth the price of ignition alone.... More

When I asked all of you to pray for me diet-wise because I was headed to Dallas and New Orleans, I meant it. Here's the kind of thing I'm going to be doing for the next four days: My friend Robb Walsh, restaurant critic of the Houston Press, who perhaps knows more about barbecue and Tex-Mex food than any man alive, picked me up at the Dallas airport yesterday at 5:30 p.m. and announced we were going on a real Fort Worth food tour for the rest of the evening. By 6 p.m., we put our names on the list at a fried-chicken and chicken-fried-steak roadhouse called Babe's Chicken Dinner House in Roanoke, Texas. While we were waiting for... More

Photograph from Fellowship of the Rich on Flickr Since my "real" job (whatever that means) is in the "music industry" (radio is still part of the music industry, right?), I've always dreamed of going to the SXSW music festival. I've heard great things about Austin, Texas, and my friends and co-workers always have amazing stories of great shows that I am bound to love that take place in a really cool town. But this year, I discovered a new aspect of SXSW that makes me feel jealous about not getting to go: all the serious sandwiches. Thanks to blogs, Flickr, and most important, the invention of the iPhone, the SXSW food porn has been pouring in since last week—and I... More

The trio of SXSW Festivals and Conferences (Music, Film, and Interactive), best described as Spring Break for geeks, kicks off this weekend in Austin, Texas. Maybe you've already decided which panels, screenings, shows, and parties you'll be attending—or not. That's OK, there are more pressing concerns like, where are you going to eat? More

Ed Crowell, Kitty Crider, Dale Rice, and Renee Studebaker of the Austin American-Statesman all spent an entire week in April as locavores, trying their best to eat only food that was grown and manufactured within a 200-mile radius of Austin. Crider points out that "while Texas is a large agricultural state, Travis County is not," and so while there were many things they chose to do without (bananas, tortilla chips), there are also foods they expanded their definitions to include (oranges from the Rio Grande Valley, seafood from the Gulf), and others they rationalized into keeping like coffee, tea and spices saying, "after all, this country's pioneers traded afar for those things, too." All four writers kept detailed diaries... More

Lindsay Schechter and Kendra Scott are the Houston Dairymaids, and they sell artisanal cheeses from all over Texas. Wait, what? Alison Cook of the Houston Chronicle follows the Dairymaids around town and discovers Texas cheese is finally coming of age: [Paula] Lambert has brought her smooth, pungent Blanca Bianco, a proudly stinky aged cheese made with raw cow's milk, its rind hand-rubbed daily in white wine.Chrissy Omo, an 18-year old Blanco cheesemaker who's a freshman in college, causes a buzz with her CKC Farms Baby Caprino, a soft-ripened goat cheese with a white rind like velvet, its creaminess underlain by a fascinating tang of watercress.The pinnacle of the evening is the cylinder of Ste. Maure goat's cheese from Pure... More

Sometimes, when I can't sleep, I end up surfing the web in search of great food writing that will allow me to vicariously enjoy the food being written about in a way that is both soothing and satisfying. Around 3 this morning, I found myself seeking out the best of barbecue musings of the Houston Press's Robb Walsh, who writes about 'cue with more heart and soul than just about anybody I know. Writing about Burns Bar B Q he says, "His brisket falls apart on the way to your mouth." Makes me want some right now. On Thelma's Bar-B-Que, Walsh opines, "You judge a barbecue joint by its smoked meat. And the best comes from a real pit.... More