I was so focused on getting my Franklin BBQ mission accomplished during LoneStarCon 3 that I’d completely forgotten I’d also intended to knock a few restaurants off my Man v. Food checklist while in San Antonio. In fact, it wasn’t until during my kaffeeklatch that, thanks to one of the participants who’s as much of a foodie as I am, I was reminded of Lulu’s Bakery & Cafe … and its famous three-pound cinnamon roll.

Since, according to Google, Lulu’s turned out to be only 1.3 miles away, I figured … heck, I’ll walk! Once I got more than a couple of blocks away from the convention center, though, I seemed to be the only one walking, probably because Texans know better than to go for a hike in the sun when it’s 91 degrees. On the other hand, there was no traffic either, so I didn’t have to pause at intersections, which meant the heat couldn’t have been the only explanation. Who knows? Maybe downtown San Antonio is always dead on weekends once you get out of the tourist sections.

In any case, I soon made it to Lulu’s, where my waitress quickly pushed ice water at me. I must have appeared more overheated then I felt.

It was the three-pound cinnamon roll that had brought me there, but once I noted on the menu the number of years Lulu’s had been proclaimed as serving the best chicken-fried steak in San Antonio, I knew I’d have to start my day with that—plus sides of fried okra and mashed potatoes. And you know—it was damn fine chicken-fried steak.

The place was packed (well, it was 11:30 a.m. on a Saturday), so I sat at the counter, and watched the short-order cooks and waitresses. They were all friendly, and seemed more like family to each other than workers. They kibitzed with the regulars—and there were a ton of them—about health, kids, and whatever else was going on in their lives. (If Texans can kibitz, that is. I know Kinky Friedman can. But how about the rest of them?)

When it got to cinnamon roll time, I figured I’d order a normal-sized one and take a three-pounder to go, but it turned out—three-pounders are all Lulu’s bakes! “Eat whatever you can and we’ll wrap up the rest,” is what I was told. Whatever I could wasn’t much, not after that chicken-fried steak, so most of it went back with me—plus a second humongous cinnamon roll, since I’d planned to hand out chunks of it at the con, just as I had of Franklin’s brisket on Thursday.

Luckily, the monster had more than just size on its side. It was good, too, far better than you’d expect anything that large could be.

I wanted a T-shirt, too, and when I asked whether it came in XL, I was told, “Honey, we’ve got ’em in 5XL.”

With cinnamon rolls that big … they’d better.

On the way back to Worldcon for my autographing session, I tweeted that anyone who wanted a hunk of gooey goodness should come by my table. It didn’t matter whether they wanted an autograph or not.

And when people got a taste, both there and as I wandered the exhibit hall, I could see that they usually thought first, hey, how good can something that big be, but then changed their minds after ripping off a hunk and devouring it. And moving in for seconds.

Having handed out as much as I could in the exhibit area, I started back to the SFWA suite. But before I could get there, I bumped into some pals who were hanging out in the convention center atrium—John Scalzi, Tobias Buckell, Paolo Bacigalupi, Karl Schroeder, Bud Sparhawk and others. And after helping finish off that first bun, they took turns hefting the untouched one, and each felt that Lulu’s famous three-pound cinnamon bun … wasn’t. Three pounds that is. The guesses ranged from two and a half to five pounds.

A scale was needed! I suggested that John use his Amanda Palmer-like powers and tweet a request for a scale to be bought to us. But he didn’t feel it would have worked, not before we’d have to move on to our next programming assignments. So we thought we’d be left to forever speculate, until someone spotted a UPS store a couple of hundred yards away, and off I dashed.

I held out the untouched cinnamon roll to the bemused UPS guy and explained that, no, I had no desire to ship it, I only wanted to weigh it. Luckily, he’d heard of Lulu’s, and so was game. He gestured at the scale, which revealed that Lulu’s famous three-pound cinnamon roll …

… was 3.7 pounds.

Now that’s the kind of false advertising I can sink my teeth into!