Barbecue was never meant to be convenient. Special-event pits, out-of-the-way shacks, waxed-paper plates and stained shirts — all signs of the glory of Southern barbecue, the experts like to tell us. Eighty percent of all barbecue chronicles open with something like "Twenty miles outside of Aberdeen, at the intersection of State Road 49 and Johnson Lane, you'll find two busted-out pickups, a slump-roofed outhouse, and Jimmy Rae Whiffle, the best brisket smoker in the state." So there's something fitting about the fact that Facebook-enabled San Franciscans like me have spent the past few months hunting down mobile smokers with high aspirations and no fixed location. A half-dozen new barbecue trucks and carts now appear irregularly on street corners, while several established smoker-caterers have moved indoors, inside other businesses, in fact. I located eight new 'cuers over... More >>>