Confessions of another BBQ Snob*

Bruce Tomaso, right, joins fellow members of the Texas BBQ Posse on our 2013 Best of Texas Tour.
(Photo by Tom Fox/DMN)

By Bruce Tomaso

A few weeks ago, while on a BBQ tour with the Posse, I had an epiphany.

It wasn’t a magnificent epiphany. I’m not Archimedes. But it was enough to permanently change the way I approach this quest of ours for “the greatest smoked meats in the greatest state in the Union.”

I realized that I’ve become a BBQ snob.

I’m not particularly proud of this, but I don’t apologize, either. I’ve simply reached a stage where I have no interest in eating mediocre barbecue. (And sweet baby Jesus, there’s a lot of mediocre barbecue out there.)

True confessions of a BBQ vegan

Wearing my favorite BBQ t-shirt from Stanley's while dining at our favorite vegan joint, The Loving Hut in Addison.

I've been a blogger for the past ten years, writing mainly about photojournalism and barbecue. I even helped start the now-defunct Dallas Morning News fantasy football blog in the early 2000's.

Because I have a confession to make, this may be the toughest post I've ever had to write.

For six long weeks in February and March of this year, I walked in the shoes of the enemy. The co-founder of the Texas BBQ Posse became a vegan.

I'm the same guy who claimed victory over the meat-free world in 2010 when the Texas BBQ Posse cook team converted two vegetarians with Bryan Gooding's first-place chicken at the first Blues, Bandits and Blues cookoff in Oak Cliff.

My life as a vegan started innocently enough when I went to a Christmas party at the home of our friends Ray and Susan Shepard. Ray is a serious barbecue expert and member of the championship Boys Can Smoke cook team out of Tulsa.