[warthog]

I reckon it was about four years ago that me 'n my kinfolk packed up the pickup truck and headed on down to a new life in North Carolina. It's a beautiful place to live, and we haven't looked back since, but there are just some things you can't get here.

Gone are the days of soft pretzels sold at a busy intersection, by a man who probably just urinated in the woods and didn't wash his hands. Gone, too, are the cholesterol sandwhiches native to Philadelphia. That's right, though there are many stores that profess to sell a delicious "Philly Steak-N-Cheese", those heaping piles of meat dripping with a cheese-like substance on an authentic Amoroso roll are long behind. Sure, I get to drive up once or twice a year to visit family and partake of the holy cheese steak. But it is no longer a regular part of my diet.

Yes, I can get Tastycakes and Habberset Scrapple here. We're not totally uncivilized.

Incidentally, those sandwhiches they sell here as "Philly Steak-N-Cheese" are more closely related to the cheesesteak hoagie (and a poor knockoff at that).

North Carolina is not without its own culinary secrets. If any of y'all ever come down, look me up, and I'll point you to the best of the best log-burning backwoods barbecue places. Forget what you think you know about BBQ. Real BBQ comes from a pig, not a cow. Real BBQ is slow cooked over hickory or oak coals for upwards of 18 hours or more. Real BBQ is served with a vinegar based sauce. And that slop they serve at Red, Hot, and Blue is about as close to BBQ as a cheese steak you'd buy at McDonald's.