He drove 18,000 miles, traveled through 100 counties, and visited over 200 restaurants.

He dwelt amongst strangers for three days a week, every week for seven months.

He did all of this in the name of barbecue.

Jim Early, '62 and '64 and a resident of Winston-Salem, knows his barbecue. The respected gourmet cook, lawyer and barbecue expert dedicated over a year of his life to find the best barbecue he could find in each of the 100 counties in North Carolina.

Published and distributed by Lowes Foods stores, The Best Tarheel Barbecue, Manteo to Murphy has been labeled by Early as a "barbecue travel guide."

In addition to providing a roadmap for North Carolina barbecue aficionados, the book contains barbecue history, recipes and Early's personal critiques of 140 barbecue restaurants.

"It was not my intent ever to go out and rank these restaurants. I wasn't trying to be a David Letterman," Early said. "My intent was to try to find for those who didn't have the time to discover for themselves the best barbecue in each of North Carolina's 100 counties. It's somewhat of a barbecue travel guide, something that you can keep in your car ¯ it has the names of the roads, interstate and state routes," he said.

As a gourmet chef, Early was able to easily critique the barbecue. To have an entry in the book, the barbecue restaurant had to cook their own barbecue and make their own sauce, all while ranking a "five" or better on Early's personal ten-point taste scale.

Early stresses that North Carolina does not have two, but three specific types of barbecue: Eastern style, Lexington style, and a style specific to a region "west of Asheville."

Early set out across North Carolina to write a book "like none had ever been written about barbecue, because North Carolina is the barbecue capital of the world," he said.

Compiling the book's information, which took over seven months, required that Early juggle his day job with his "field work." From Monday to Thursday, Early practiced law for 12 hours a day. Then, on every Thursday night at 9 p.m., he would leave for the specific area he "worked" at until Sunday.

Early began his Fridays at 5 a.m. to question the locals for the names of nearby barbecue restaurants. He continued, by word of mouth, to seek out as many barbecue venues he could find until 10 p.m., when they shut down. Early continued this process through the remainder of his weekends.

With his fieldwork completed, Early had to find a publishing house to publish the book. Since he intended for all of the proceeds from the book's sale to benefit Special Olympics, Early had to find a publisher that would be both professional and profitable.

"I went to several publishing houses, but the book becomes their property and they get all the money until the book reaches the point of profitability," Early said.

By a stroke of luck, Lowes Foods offered to "put up a lot of money" for the design, printing and editing of the book. This, combined with the incorporation of his own company to publish the book, enabled Early to produce his work.

Without a distributor, though, Early's book would never be seen on the shelves. National distributors require almost 50 percent of a book's profits. After doing the math, Early discovered that Special Olympics would only be making about 10 cents a book if he signed on with a national distributor.

Troubled by these numbers, Early went back to Lowes Foods to seek out another deal: he proposed that the store carry the book in their chain of 104 grocery stores in North Carolina. The store agreed. Not only is the book being carried in each of the 104 stores, but it has also been distributed to most of the 140 barbecue restaurants mentioned in the book. Through this deal, Special Olympics will receive 40-50 percent of the revenue generated by the book's sales.