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I'm on a diet. So it makes just about no sense that I picked Calvin's BBQ for my latest BYOB outing.

Monday Oct 02, 2006.     By Zinny Fandel

Food Feed

I'm on a diet. It's a quickie (the only kind I know) in anticipation of a wedding I'm heading to in two weeks. I'll be seeing a pack of college acquaintances who haven't laid eyes on me since I was a supple 21-year-old, and this past week's over-consumption (heck, just consumption) of seven-cheese fondue, pomegranate martinis, waffle fries, veal meatballs and deep-dish sausage pizza have left me looking like a plump llama. Or at least, that's how I feel.

So it makes just about no sense that I picked Calvin's BBQ, 2540 W. Armitage Ave., for my latest BYOB outing with Steamer. I associate good ol' Southern BBQ with family reunions in North Carolina, where I'd spend dinner shoving as many buttery biscuits in my mouth as I possibly could, topped off with a few bites of skin off a fried chicken leg. I was clearly on the path to llama-hood then.

But I was in the mood for something cheap and casual, and the idea of dinner at a place that leaves big rolls of paper towels on the table in anticipation of the mess you're about to make sounded right on.

I swung by Wine Discount Center on the way home. It's increasingly becoming a favorite spot, mainly because I can blitzkrieg in there, find someone to help me match food with wine in under a minute and quickly be on my way with a well suited bottle. This time I made a beeline to the checkout and blurted it out: Smoky BBQ. Red. Ten dollars.

The clerk took me to the front of the shop and showed me a few Cabernets. Then we hit the money—a $7.99 bottle of Razon Garnacha, a Spanish Grenache that he promised was not only tasty, but would really play off of any spiciness in the barbecue sauce. And since it's all about the sauce, I was set.

It was 4:45 p.m., a whopping 10 hours into my diet, and I was ready for dinner. Knowing how crabby I get when my blood-sugar (and blood-alcohol) levels drop, Steamer agreed to meet me stat. I pulled up to the shack of a spot, parked the bike, gave him a peck and tore through the menu.

I sort of have a thing about bones...and not eating off them. As a kid that bite or two of skin was the closest I got to the center of a chicken leg, and not much has changed for all my culinary maturity. So began the boneless sandwich debate.

Pulled pork? Not feeling it. Charbroiled chicken? Steamer nixed it as '"too boring." Shrimp po' boy? That pesky attempt to avoid fried foods. I asked the waitress (whose primary job certainly seemed to be facilitating the endless takeout orders) her opinion as she dropped off the clear plastic cups that would double as stemware. On her recommendation I ordered the BBQ turkey breast sandwich, choosing a sweet potato as my side.

Steamer, immediately entranced by a Magic Marker sign that announced the $12.95 full slab of barbecue baby back ribs special, had already made his choice, and added on fries. Then we waited, sipping the beefy wine (so rich! I think Grenache is going to be the next variety that I slowly overdose on) and watching Married With Children on the TV while listening to the manager and employees go back and forth at each other. In other words, we were not living in Date City. But we were having a good time.

After icy crisp dinner salads, we made way for some hefty plates: Steamer's ribs were giant (as was his pile of used paper towels) and my sweet potato was better referred to as a yam—a gigantic root vegetable that I ate one-eighth of. To my surprise, my sandwich was about as healthy a meal as you can find in a barbecue joint: lean, think slices of flavorful turkey, piled high in a sog-free bun and drizzled with sauce.

Unable to match my every-last-bite approach, Steamer got half of his ribs wrapped to-go, along with my brick of a yam. We got the bill, bemoaned the fact that the ribs "deal" was designed for dummies like us (we missed the part about it being a Tuesday special, making his Friday night ribs a $17.95 splurge), picked at a bowl of peach cobbler made from canned peaches (in peach season?) and hopped back on the bikes. After all, I had some calories to burn.

Zinny Fandel's tales of living the (mostly) BYOB life are intended to be attempted at home and in the community, preferably at BYOB restaurants. If you know of a BYOB spot she simply must tipple at, let her know.