The late, great food critic Anthony Bourdain once said, “Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it’s a start.” Georgia foodies are lucky to have one of the country’s leading experts on barbecue—Jim Auchmutey.

Georgia Writers Museum is excited to announce “4B’s Bash—Barbecue, Beer, Books, and Band,” a “Meet the Author” event featuring Auchmutey, to be held on Saturday, May 7th, at 6pm at The Edgewater on Lake Sinclair, the newest addition to Oconee Springs Park, located at 109 S. Spring Rd, Eatonton, GA 31024.

Barbecue will be furnished by Fresh Air Barbecue in Jackson, GA, named the all-time best barbecue in Georgia by WSB Channel 2 television in Atlanta after conducting a statewide search. Established in 1928, Fresh Air has served millions of patrons from around the country. Esquire Magazine named it one of the “Best heritage barbecue joints in America.”

Music will be provided by The Tom Hill Trio, featuring bass player Annette Harris Shakespeare, the great-great-granddaughter of Joel Chandler Harris.

The cost of the event will be $25 per person, which includes a barbecue plate, one drink ticket, two hours of great dance music, and book talk by Jim on his book, Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America. Copies of the book will be at the event for sale. You will want to have Jim autograph your copy. Contact Georgia Writers Museum at www.georgiawritersmuseum.org to register for this fun event.

Jim Auchmutey is the author of two books that were named “Books All Georgians Should Read” by the Georgia Center for the Book: The Class of '65: A Student, a Divided Town, and the Long Road to Forgiveness and Smokelore: A Short History of Barbecue in America. Jim wrote for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for almost 30 years and was twice named the Cox Newspaper chain's Writer of the Year. He is a founding member of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi, and has won awards for his food writing. He was a guest curator for the Atlanta History Center’s Barbecue Nation exhibition, which inspired his latest book, Smokelore.