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While it may sound like a racy bowl of chili, Devil’s Bowl is instead a nasty tub of dirt where modifieds, late models, super sprints and street stock cars get sideways in the turns and throw up pinwheels of North Texas clay every Saturday night. A super sprint flipped and crushed its gangly headgear, prompting an announcer to jab “that’s got to hurt … in the billfold,” or some such. You could make crème brulee off the USA modified’s exhaust pipe flames.

But what’s most important about Devil’s Bowl is the cuisine. BBQ beef, haunted by Heinz, comes in a hot foil pouch on bun that looks and tastes like it came off a printing press -- sweet and tangy with a messy chipped beef demeanor and all for $2.50. Or try the nachos: nicely rounded tortilla chips with spurts of hot imitation Velveeta and all the jalapeños you can tong from a plastic jug -- $2.25. For desert, we enjoyed some pulverized rubber hose and exploded suspension parts topped with North Texas Clay sprinkles courtesy of the modified wreck in front the grandstands.

Johnny Palpot Jr., a beefy fellow who defies the laws of particle physics (those street stock cockpits are tiny), won the street stock event. We forget who won the other divisions on account of the $3 beers. Watch for upcoming reviews of Devil’s Bowl beef ‘n' bean burritos, tacos and hot dogs. --Mark Stuertz

Amongst the pleasures we’ve missed in our adventures in gluttony is the joy of pink salt from the Himalayas. Say what? Yeah, the Paris Hilton-pink unrefined fossil marine salt that formed some 200 million years ago in the mountains of the Sherpas. It has a pinkish shimmer, a swell granulometry and crunch, and a slightly bitter pinch on the finish -- everything you want from the pink in your life.

This is just one of the many wonders to be found at Central Market Southlake's Salts of the Earth salt lickbar. There’s hibiscus salt and salt with Mediterranean herbs, black olives and Sri Lanka curry. There’s Fleur de Sel, or hand-harvested sea salts, from the Mediterranean and Atlantic. And much, much more.

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If we may recommend a wine for your Fourth of July, well, the Marlborough Unoaked Chardonnay is a fine way to start the day.

We see that Charles Shaw Chardonnay, otherwise known as the Two Buck Chuck, captured a double-gold medal at the California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition, marking it California’s best chardonnay with Best of California and Best of Class laurels to boot. The Two Buck Chuck is sold exclusively through Trader Joe’s, a delicious little value gourmet grocer that has yet to crack the Texas market (must they pass through an H.E. Butt?).

So why did this Chuck win? There’s a tremendous glut of California chardonnay grapes due to exuberant planting over the years, which means good grapes can be had at basement prices. This, while by-the-glass tastes have shifted to cleaner pinot grigios, sauvignon blancs and even Rieslings. Secondly, the toasty oak buttery flavor that made California wines the toasting rage a decade or so ago have has grown intolerably flabby to many palates. Plus those gobs of butter are a terrible accompaniment to most food.

And so, bring on the Kiwis.

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