My ticketed event series — the “American Culinary Curiosity Dinner” — took place Wednesday at Jungle Jim’s International Market (their dedicated event center, actually) outside Cincinnati. Jungle Jim’s is the largest grocery store in America, with over 200,000 square feet of floor space — by my very rough estimate, it seems about the size of five Wal-Marts put together.

Although I was there for the Curiosity Dinner, I was able to fit in a few hours of shopping — and I brought TWO empty suitcases, including an insulated bag for refrigerated goods, to tote my purchases home. Here they are, with a few notes below…

As for the dinner, all of the events have a SECRET MENU (the element of surprise is part of the fun) of regional American foods that are nearly impossible to find outside their respective hometowns but since each event is different, I can now spoil the absolute mind-blower of the Cincinnati event…

ALTOONA-STYLE PIZZA! America’s most infamous pizza was re-created for us by the incredible Chef Mike. For those unfamiliar, this pizza is served only in Altoona PA and consists of a Sicilian crust with tomato sauce, a slice of salami, a green pepper ring, and American cheese. I had never tried it but was DYING TO… and I did!

I have to say… I loved it! As did everyone else I talked to. It was reminiscent of the lazy English muffin pizzas I sometimes make with spaghetti sauce and whatever else is in the fridge. But something about the combo of flavors — especially with the American cheese — was really really enjoyable. I think I’m gonna start making it at home.

The next event is TEN DAYS AWAY! Tix now on sale for it below:

• OMAHA (Nite Owl) on June 24

• SAN DIEGO on July 15 (Ponyboy) & July 16 (Ballast Point Brewing)

• ATLANTA (Southern Belle) on July 22

• GREENSBORO NC (Neighbors) on August 10 & 11

• BOSTON (JM Curley) on August 18

• with more to come (hopefully) including NYC, Milwaukee, Chicago, Nashville, and Phoenix before the holidays

I kindly request you tell your friends in those cities about this event and forward them this newsletter if you think they’d even be slightly interested!

Subscribers to this newsletter will be alerted when new sets of tickets go on sale or when new cities are added — or, again, you can sign up to be informed of that through my website.

This Week’s All-Timer

This will be a recurring feature of this newsletter in which I highlight one of my all-time favorite foods or food products which I haven’t talked or posted about in awhile.

This week, it’s Felton & Mary’s Medium BBQ Sauce. I use a lot of BBQ sauce. Oddly I don’t use it for cooking most of the time. I dip stuff in it, like pretzels or Cheetos or chicken nuggets and so forth. I have had a LOT of different BBQ sauces and none of them, in the seven years I have been keeping track, are as good as this one.

It has everything you might want in a BBQ sauce… but, uh, better? A richer, stronger flavor. A bit of heat. A luscious thickness. And it sticks nicely to those pretzels I use to convey it into my mouth.

If you’re in Portland (like me) you should be able to find it in most slightly-fancy grocery stores. If not, please order some from the link above! You will enjoy, I promise.

How about you forward this newsletter to someone else who might enjoy it? That’d be appreciated.

And if you got this newsletter forwarded to you, I hope you’ll subscribe now at this link!