Cooking up Crossroads Cuisine in 2024

The story of Oklahoma food, drink and dining will be written this year

The snow has arrived and nobody is going anywhere for a couple days so this is an ideal time to share some big news: I’m writing a book.

Signed a contract with University of Oklahoma Press last week to write a nonfiction book about the way Oklahoma eats, cooks and dines from its historic foodways to producing consecutive Jack Daniel World Champion pitmasters in 2019 and 2020 and James Beard Awards winners in 2022 and 2023.

What this means to the Food Dood Feed and its faithful subscribers is expanded coverage. You might remember last May when I filed barbecue dispatches about Oklahoma’s epic Gubernatorial barbecue in 1923 or about the amazing barbecue pitmastery chef Tabb Singleton is conjuring down in Idabel. Those posts and a trip that took me through Krebs and Hochatown were exploratory trips made to determine how to approach this project. Now that the ink is dried on the contract, I’m scheduling trips across the state starting next month.

The working title for the book is Crossroads Cuisine of Oklahoma, but that could change. The inspiration for the title is the final chapter of the book, the Crossroads Culinary Project. It’s an ongoing campaign spearheaded by chef Kurt Fleischfresser. Along with top chefs from around the state, the Big Kahuna will take part in polishing up the existing Official Oklahoma State Meal then reimagine it completely from the current menu of biscuits and gravy on top of chicken-fried steak with all the trimmings. We intend to create a feast fit for all Oklahomans, free queso and all.

To do that, we’ve got practice sessions planned. For those sessions to bear fruit, we’ll need random tastebuds. The tastebuds of paying subscribers will get right of first refusal to any such practice sessions. They’ll also get a glimpse into my field notes in real time and an invitation to the inevitable book launch.

Finally, dear subscriber, if you support this endeavor it’s more important now than ever to become paid subscriber or gift a couple. I’m building a team to produce a docuseries to go along with the book, but it’ll take funding to see it through. All proceeds The Food Dood Feed raises go into the war chest we’ll need to make it happen.

That makes this snowy day the ideal day to pay for a subscription. It’ll also allow you to read on for a quick take on a new Mexican restaurant and more tasty tidbits from around the 405 diningscape.