This year’s World Science Fiction Convention meant a trip to Kansas City, and Kansas City, of course, meant BBQ. I managed seven BBQ meals, and wish I could have fit in a few more. There were several restaurants, such as LC’s and Snead’s, which I was unable to get to because of panel scheduling, party invites, and pulling off the recording of five new episodes of Eating the Fantastic.

Wherever I went, burnt ends were a part of my meal, though I was surprised by how many of the burnt ends weren’t, well … burnt ends. Several of them either weren’t burnt or weren’t ends.

In order to fulfill the demand for something which constitutes an incredibly small part of a brisket, many restaurants try to turn other sections of the brisket into burnt ends, which while sometimes tasty, doesn’t really fit my own definition of a naturally occurring burnt end.

And so …

Arthur Bryant’s

My barbecue tour began Tuesday night with what’s perhaps the most famous Kansas City barbecue joint, especially to those who don’t live there. I ordered the burnt ends, ribs, and baked beans, expecting to have my mind blown, and while I wasn’t disappointed by the meal, my mind remained unblown … but surprised. Because thought the ribs were fine, and the burnt ends were tasty, the latter didn’t seem either fatty or charred enough to be burnt ends, but were rather heavily sauced chunks of beef. And the beans, while above average, didn’t come close to my favorite, at Hometown BBQ. (more…)

I arrived home late last night from the Kansas City Worldcon, where I visited seven BBQ joints and recorded five more episodes of Eating the Fantastic. But before we get to any of those, it’s time for the first of three episodes captured during last month’s Readercon.

My guest and I wandered off from the con hotel to Quincy’s Pad Thai, from which Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts, seems to have ordered takeout a lot.

Joining me was Resa Nelson, whose story “The Dragonslayer’s Sword” I published in the first issue of Science Fiction Age. My decision to purchase the story was validated when at the end of our first year, I tabulated thousands of subscriber surveys and discovered readers had voted that tale their second-favorite story—and their #1 fantasy.

We discussed how the short story of hers I’d published in Science Fiction Age grew into not just a single novel, but a series of novels, why she watches the Japanese movie The Mystery of Rampo before beginning any new writing project, what she learned from the hundreds of film interviews she did for Realms of Fantasy magazine, and more.

Here’s how you can pull up a chair to the table— (more…)

And so Eating the Fantastic says farewell to Balticon … by saying hello to writer, editor, publisher, foodie, baseball enthusiast (and more!) Cecilia Tan.

Cecilia is the publisher of Circlet Press, the author of the Slow Surrender trilogy and the serialized Darron’s Guitar Chronicles, the cowriter of The 50 Greatest Yankee Games and The 50 Greatest Red Sox Games … but that’s just a partial list of her accomplishments, as this episode will reveal. We broke away from Balticon for lunch at Family Meal (the site of my earlier chats with Sarah Pinsker and Fran Wilde), as the restaurant’s not only good, but extremely close to the con hotel.

Cecilia and I discussed how her self-published Telepaths Don’t Need Safewords gave birth to the Circlet Press empire, the advice she received from Tor publisher Tom Doherty, her love for the Legion of Super-Heroes, the lesson you should learn from the fact mass market publishing finally caught up with what she’d been doing all along, and much more. Plus a few things you might not know about her, such as her teen presidency of the largest Menudo fan club in the English-speaking world!

Here’s how you can eavesdrop— (more…)

For the latest episode of Eating the Fantastic, I broke away from Balticon for lunch with Fran Wilde at a restaurant extremely close by, and in doing so ended up replicating for you an aspect of con-going I’d yet to bring to you before—the fact we sometimes get so busy at these events that it’s impossible to squeeze in a leisurely meal.

And so this is an Eating the Fantastic first—an episode recorded not just during lunch at Family Meal, but also later, back at the con over cookies from Vacarro’s (because there had to be food involved, of course), in a room set aside for kaffeklatches.

Fran is the Nebula Award-winning and Compton Crook Award-winning author of Updraft, plus the host of the Cooking the Books podcast, which has a writers + food focus just like mine.

We talked about what she lost the night she won her Nebula Award, her love for Anne McCaffrey’s The Ship Who Sang, the power of poetry, why she tries to do one thing a month that scares her, her Cooking the Books podcast, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us at the tables— (more…)

Readercon, which concluded its 27th incarnation yesterday in Quincy, Massachusetts, is consistently my favorite convention of the year. Since it’s always been special to me, I thought I’d do something special in return. And once I learned that back in 1950, Dunkin’ Donuts was born just a few miles from our hotel, and the first restaurant still stood, I knew exactly what that something would be.

I paid a visit to that original location—which is decorated with a retro flair—

—and returned to the con with a fresh dozen.

I planted myself in the lobby (as captured in the photo below by Ellen Kushner), where I offered free donuts to the first 12 random passersby willing to give brief interviews about their favorite Readercon memories.

I had no idea who might wander over, but knew that something entertaining would surely come out of this sugary experiment. And it did! I ended up with 15 guests digging into those 12 donuts—the differential being because there were three who eschewed—in a “lightning round” 13th episode I’ve decided to call the Readercon Donut Spectacular. Surprise visitors included Greer Gilman, Maria Dahvana Headley, Rajan Khanna, plus a dozen more.

Guests—some of whom had attended nearly every Readercon, and some for whom this was their first—shared their peak Readercon moments, many of which revolved around Samuel R. Delany.

Here’s how you can join us for a sugar rush— (more…)

For the fifth and final episode of Eating the Fantastic recorded in Las Vegas during StokerCon, I headed out to Hash House A Go Go, one of my favorite restaurants—at least in its San Diego incarnation. My breakfast there is always one of my favorite Comic-Con meals. But alas, there turned out to be more than a 90-minute wait that Sunday morning in Vegas, so I moved on to Yard House at the recommendation of my guest, Gene O’Neill, who’d eaten there earlier that weekend.

Gene, with whom I attended the Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth, has been nominated 11 times for the Bram Stoker Award, and has won twice, in the categories of Long Fiction and Fiction Collection.

We reminisced about our shared Clarion experience way back in 1979, our reaction upon seeing a stack of Jack London’s rejection slips, the personality trait he shares with Harlan Ellison, what he learned from Carol Emshwiller, what he and Kim Stanley Robinson taught each other during their eight-hour drives to Eugene, Oregon for workshops with Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm, and much more.

Here’s how you can get a seat at the table— (more…)

For my fourth episode of Eating the Fantastic recorded during StokerCon, Linda Addison joined me at Yardbird, a Southern food restaurant inside The Venetian which Eater, a site I trust, promised that once you’re done, “you’ll feel like you just ate at your favorite Southern relative’s home.” Since I have no Southern relatives, I can’t attest to the truth of that statement, only that my Chicken ‘n’ Watermelon ‘n’ Waffles was excellent.

You may know Linda primarily as a four-time Bram Stoker Award-winning poet, but she is oh so much more, as you’ll learn should you give this episode a listen.

We talked of how someone who earned a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics transforms into a four-time Bram Stoker Award winning writer, the way a chance encounter with Grand Master Frederik Pohl during a New York is Book Country Festival helped her make her first sale to Asimov’s, why this acclaimed horror poet has now decided to go from micro to macro and write a science fiction trilogy, and much more.

Here’s how you can join us—though sadly, you’ll have to get your own Shrimp ‘n’ Grits. (more…)

The livestream announcing the World’s 50 Best Restaurants for 2016 wrapped up about an hour ago, resulting in a surprise at the top, since the assumption was that #1 would go to one of the two restaurants which had been trading off that spot recently—either Noma or El Celler de Can Roca.

A personal surprise, though, was that I’d dined at more restaurants out of this Top 50 than any previous list. When the lists for 2013 and 2014 were announced, it turned out I’d already been to four of the Top 50 for those years, which rose to seven for 2015, and now for this year, that number has risen to eight …

And you can find out what I thought of each of those meals by clicking on the links below. (Note, though, that my visits took place on the dates of the individual posts, and not during the past 12 months.)

1. Osteria Francescana, Modena, Italy
2. El Celler de Can Roca, Girona, Spain
3. Eleven Madison Park, New York City, U.S.A.
4. Central, Lima, Peru
5. Noma, Copenhagen, Denmark
6. Mirazur, Menton, France
7. Mugaritz, San Sebastian, Spain
8. Narisawa, Tokyo, Japan
9. Steirereck, Vienna, Austria
10. Asador Etxebarri, Axpe, Spain
11. D.O.M., Sao Paolo, Brazil
12. Quintonil, Mexico City, Mexico
13. Maido, Lima, Peru
14. The Ledbury, London, United Kingdom
15. Alinea, Chicago, U.S.A.
16. Azurmendi, Larrabetzu, Spain
17. Piazza Duomo, Alba, Italy
18. White Rabbit, Moscow, Russia
19. Arpège, Paris, France
20. Amber, Hong Kong, China
21. Arzak, San Sebastian, Spain
22. Test Kitchen, Cape Town, South Africa
23. Gaggan, Bangkok, Thailand
24. Le Bernardin, New York City, U.S.A.
25. Pujol, Mexico City, Mexico
26. The Clove Club, London, United Kingdom
27. Saison, San Francisco, U.S.A.
28. Geranium, Copenhagen, Denmark
29. Tickets, Barcelona, Spain
30. Astrid y Gaston, Lima, Peru
31. Nihonryori RyuGin, Tokyo
32. Restaurant Andre, Singapore
33. Attica, Melbourne, Australia
34. Restaurant Tim Raue, Berlin, Germany
35. Vendome, Bergisch Gladbach, Germany
36. Boragó, Santiago, Chile
37. Nahm, Bangkok, Thailand
38. De Librije, Zwolle, Netherlands
39. Le Calendre, Rubano, Italy
40. Relae, Copenhagen, Denmark
41. Fäviken, Järpen, Sweden
42. Ultraviolet by Paul Pairet, Shanghai, China
43. Biko, Mexico City, Mexico
44. Estela, New York, U.S.A.
45. Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, London, United Kingdom
46. Combal Zero, Rivoli, Italy
47. Schloss Schauenstein, Austria Furstenau, Switzerland
48. Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Pocatino Hills, New York
49. Quique Dacosta, Deniam, Spain
50. Septime, Paris, France

I don’t think I’ll be able to get to any of the others before the 2017 list is announced … but I can always dream, can’t I?

Are you up for lunch at a spot in Las Vegas once once dubbed “the best Thai restaurant in America” by Gourmet magazine? Then pull up a chair to the table at Lotus of Siam, where Mary Turzillo and I snuck away to during StokerCon for some great food—and great conversation. You can eavesdrop on the latter, but as for the former, the photos below will have to suffice.

I had the great honor of publishing Mary’s story “Mars is No Place for Children” when I was the editor of Science Fiction Age, and then the additional honor of being Toastmaster at the Nebula Awards banquet the year she walked away with a trophy for that very story.

We talked about whether there’s a Venn Diagram overlap between her horror and science fiction readership, how her Cajun Sushi Hamsters from Hell writers workshop got its name, why she won’t be self-publishing her unpublished novels, what Gene Wolfe taught her about revising her fiction, and much more.

Here’s how you can pull up a seat to the table— (more…)

During the recent StokerCon in Las Vegas, I did what I always do during conventions—slip away as often as possible to chow down and catch up with friends. One of those meals took place in old-timey ice cream parlor Serendipity 3, and was recorded (as so many convention meals will be from now on) as an episode of Eating the Fantastic.

My dinner companion this time around was Maria Alexander, whose debut novel, Mr. Wicker, won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. But in addition to being a novelist, Maria’s also a poet, screenwriter, games writer, swordswoman, and so much more—and I attempted to explore all those facets in this episode.

So join us as we discuss Mr. Wicker‘s transformation from a short story to a screenplay to a Stoker Award-winning novel, how she convinced Clive Barker to be her mentor, what’s wrong with most of the swordswomen we see on book covers and TV, and much more.

Here’s how you can pull up a seat to the table— (more…)