My ticketed event series — the “American Culinary Curiosity Dinner” — took place over the past two nights at Murray’s Tavern in Austin, Texas. This was the first since the pilot events took place in January in my hometown of Portland, Oregon, and the first of my summer tour…

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 surprises of the concluded Austin event…

Many thanks to the folks at Murray’s Tavern, especially Travis, Aaren, Sage, Brian, and Chef Art, for pulling off this complex event flawlessly and preparing all these rare items deliciously.

One especially delightful aspect of the event was that Aaron Franklin attended. Aaron is the famous James Beard Award-winning pit-master of perhaps America’s most-celebrated BBQ place, Franklin BBQ.

The next event is NEXT WEEK! Tix now on sale for the linked events below:

• CINCINNATI (Jungle Jim’s) on June 11

• 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 Henderson’s Relish. This product is one of my all-time favorite condiments. It hails from Sheffield, England, and is little known outside that area — even in the rest of England — and I LOVE IT! It’s one of those things where I simply can’t get enough of it in my mouth at one time, like cotton candy (I’m aware that sounds weird).

It’s most similar to Worcestershire sauce (but more delicious in several ways) and unlike that sauce, it’s vegan ‘cause it doesn’t have ground-up anchovies in it. I’ve used it in and on many different foods but my favorite is apparently (?) one of most popular ways it’s used in the U.K. which is on a “cheese toastie”, which is the British version of a grilled cheese sandwich, usually open-faced. For that, I usually buy some strong British cheese too.

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

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