I grew up in Alabama eating barbecue. Although I live in DC, I was able to continue eating barbecue during a long career with the Justice Department, mainly litigating voting rights cases. I spent much of my time on the road in Alabama and Mississippi, but the cases took me to barbecue places all over the country, from Boston to San Diego and from Miami to Seattle. I was always looking for good restaurants, and for a long time kept a list divided into two parts: "barbecue" and "other." (The list is out of date but if you ask for a copy in the comments, I'll email it to you.) I also have lots of relatives in North Carolina, which happens to be the nearest place to DC with good barbecue. And I spent several months in Texas, teaching at Baylor Law School, during which time I ate a whole lot of barbecue, guided mainly the Texas Monthly magazine's list of the 50 best places there. More recently, we've been traveling internationally, and are enjoying barbecue and other slow-cooked pork in the US and across Europe. There are many different style of barbecue, and I try to appreciate each on its own terms. And I love food, and often report on other types of restaurants. I have been making barbecue on my Weber grills -- pork butts cooked very slowly over direct heat with lots of hickory smoke -- since ...1976. My wife, Nancy, set up this blog for me for Fathers' Day a while back, and I have enjoyed my barbecue experiences -- eating, cooking and traveling. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I do.