With humor, it’s so subjective that trying to think of what the ideal reader would think would drive you crazy.

If it's inappropriate to write about, if there's nothing funny about it, then it's not funny.

Many Texas barbecue fanatics have a strong belief in the beneficial properties of accumulated grease.

Everything was blamed on Castro. Mudslides in California. The fact that you can't buy a decent tomato anymore. Was there an exceptionally high pollen count in Massapequa, Long Island, one day? It was Castro, exporting sneezes.

There is no question that Rumanian-Jewish food is heavy. One meal is equal in heaviness, I would guess, to eight or nine years of steady mung-bean eating.

Although I grew up in Kansas City, ... I have always kept more or less au courant of Texas barbecue, like a sports fan who is almost monomaniacally obsessed with basketball but glances over at the N.H.L. standings now and then.

What interests me is what you might call vernacular writing, writing that connects you to a place.