Article and photography by Joshua Fitzwater Allman’s Bar-B-Q is unequivocally a historic Fredericksburg barbecue destination. Opened officially as a barbecue spot in 1954, it has had its ups and downs over the years if you talk to locals. Some might even argue that its true days of barbecue glory ended in the late 1980’s. Since then, Allman’s has mostly stayed afloat in large part due to its endearingly nostalgic exterior facade and the intriguing history of past owners, cooks and signage hanging on its walls. It’s hard to argue for some that the barbecue and food are the central draw, particu ..read more

Article and photography by Joshua Fitzwater Lead photo- pitmaster and owner of The Original Ronnie’s BBQ, Ronnie Logan, Sr. If memory serves, in 2020, leading African-American foodways scholar and then solo James Beard award winning author, Adrian Miller, posted on his social media that he was traveling from Colorado to Virginia to do research for an upcoming barbecue book, and wanted to know if anyone had any recommendations for Black barbecue joints in Virginia. Immediately upon reading this, managing editor of Southern Grit Magazine, Deb Freeman and I, the publisher of Southern Grit, knew ..read more

Article by Robert Linné Photography by David Flores Takeout from D’Annunzio’s Bakery My first taste of West Virginia was almost heaven – a small loaf of a slightly sweet American-style yeast dough wrapped around a very generous knob of ground pepperoni, baked until beautifully browned. The sausage had given up a good amount of spicy grease to the spongy dough at the center, while some leaked out in the bake to make for crunchy bites at the corners of the crust. The ratio of pepperoni to roll seemed a little wrong—almost sinful—but like all the best transgressions this first bite led to anoth ..read more

Article by Mary Scott Hardaway Fletcher Photography by Joshua Fitzwater Lead photo: Craig Hartman Owner, Chef, Pitmaster The Barbeque Exchange Gordonsville is a crossroads town with the kind of Mayberry main street that’s particularly charming on a blustery Thursday in November. The town hall boasts strands of garland, and giant wreaths speckled with holly adorn the storefronts. It’s 10:59 AM and folks are already starting to make their way to the top of Main Street and up the steps of the Barbeque Exchange, a 13-year-old institution here in central Virginia. The Barbeque Exchange in the even ..read more

Article by Mary Scott Hardaway (Originally published in the 016 edition of Southern Grit Magazine as part of the “Virginia Barbecue Today” section of the magazine) “If everything that everyone wants to call ‘barbecue’ is barbecue, then face it, nothing is really barbecue.” Barbecue historian, lecturer and author Joe Haynes often sounds more like a philosopher than pitmaster. He’s not particularly interested in lofty hypotheticals, though. For Haynes, the fact of the matter is: the only reason we have barbecue brawls and pit wars and Hatfield-McCoy style feuds today is because, more than 400 ye ..read more

An Heirloom Hunters Feature The Heirloom Hunters are Deb “Stone Fruit” Freeman and Joshua “Fruit Stand” Fitzwater. Since 2019, the duo drove through the American South and Eastern seaboard from their home state of Virginia searching, learning about and tasting heirloom fruits and vegetables with a particular focus on watermelons. To date, they have tried some forty plus varieties of heirloom watermelon. The following article is a follow-up to “Heirloom Hunters: Louisiana’s Calhoun Watermelons” published in the 015 edition of Southern Grit Magazine. Article by Debra Freeman Photography by ..read more

Article by Joshua Fitzwater All Black & White photography by Gregory Hodges Additional photography of Gregory Hodges by Yung-Han Chang and Joshua Fitzwater Lead photo above: Paul Matheny, owner and pitmaster of Paulie’s Pig-Out in Afton, Virginia on April 2022 | Photograph by Gregory Hodges Lean into the smoke, let it envelope you. Now check the composition, don’t forget to check the light one last time, alright, breathe out, breathe, steady your hands, okay, steady now, steady, click. Now hurry up and move before you get hit by oncoming traffic. These are the thoughts of photographer Greg ..read more

Article by Robert F. Owens and Debra Freeman Photography by Tora Carter and Joshua Fitzwater Although many people would love to make a mark in their professions, few have the talent to excel, and even fewer have paved the way for others to succeed as well. In the Hampton Roads culinary sphere, perhaps there is no better example of that than Dedra Blount and her twin sister Debra Brabson. After years of catering and hosting cooking classes throughout the area, the pair opened Now You’re Cooking Culinary Studio eight years ago in Chesapeake. Their dream was to create a space of their own where t ..read more