Research. In this case, that means putting down the books and rolling up the sleeves.

It means sticky fingers and smudges of sauce on your face and chunks of char wedged in your teeth. Anticipation, lust, passion, tradition, obsession, a touch of folklore, no shortage of good-natured gluttony and, yes, you'll want a toothpick handy.

On this long weekend, the unofficial start of barbecue season, we are crisscrossing the regional map in search of barbecue joints.

We'll pull into an industrial park in the south area, a large and pretty much upscale restaurant in Rocklin, and plenty of points in between.

We'll encounter a man married to a woman named Charlie, a TV celebrity whose menu is even wilder than his hair, and a guy who grew up in Detroit and moved to California, where he does Texas-style barbecue. We'll meet a onetime roofer who mastered the art of low and slow, and a chef whose survival instincts in this recession saw him transition from fine dining to down-home barbecue.

Barbecue is a big tent; it appeals to every income group and demographic. Even many vegetarians have to fight off urges that date back to the discovery of fire.

For good barbecue, you don't really need a map. Point your nose in the air and inhale deeply – assuming, of course, you're nowhere near one of those "ultra lounge" dudes sporting too much department store cologne.

Great smells appeal to most of us – coffee beans, sizzling bacon, roasted garlic, fresh-baked bread, cinnamon on warm toast – but perhaps none can compare with barbecue.

Barbecue is different from grilling – putting hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken directly over intense heat and cooking quickly. Grilling is great, too. I'll take a grilled hot dog or sausage on a bun anytime.

Barbecue is a style of cooking and a way of life. It combines time (plenty), heat (not so much) and smoke (just so) to perform magic. You can use tough, dreadful cuts of meat and transform them into tender, flavorful meals. But how does it happen?

One component that makes meat tough is connective tissue, called collagen. If you take briskets or pork ribs and cook them quickly, congratulations, you've just made Boomer the Rottweiler a really nice chew toy.

To make the meat not only edible but amazingly edible, cook it gradually. Little by little, the collagen melts and becomes gelatin, beginning at about 160 degrees. This allows the muscle to relax and break apart, and the melted connective tissue imparts greater flavor. Add a little smoke and you have a very American culinary masterpiece.

How can you identify good barbecue? Look beyond the varied styles and even snobbery to this: If the meat is moist and tender and tasty, you're eating good barbecue. If it's too dry and too dull, you're not. The rest is personal.

Here are some of the places I have visited recently enough to know they are doing barbecue the right way. Your list may differ.

JR's Texas Bar-B-Que: If there were a prize for confidence, the owner of this place would win hands down. But Floyd "JR" Rothenberger backs up that confidence with great barbecue – smoky, tender, delicious.

The baby back ribs are lean and meaty and need no sauce to enjoy, though I like to dunk the ribs in one of three sauces available – spicy, sweet or original.

This plain-folks eatery is tucked away on a tiny street in an industrial park, and with good reason. Think emissions. "I'm a mile from Highway 99, and I've had people tell me they could smell it from there," Rothenberger said with a laugh. That's the mesquite talking.

The proprietor was in the roofing business for decades before trying his hand at barbecue. He fell in love with the process and grew obsessed with mastering it.

The brisket dinner is highly recommended, as is the brisket sandwich for lunch. When a police sergeant friend of mine bit into the brisket sandwich recently, he never looked up from the meat, mumbling something that sounded like, "This is really, really good."

MacQue's Bar-B-Que: It's also in a gritty part of town. There are no attempts to spiff up the joint.

Mack Thomas was obsessed with barbecue long before he opened MacQue's at his current location in 1992.

Visitors will notice the heavy use of sauce here. It is slathered all over the ribs and chicken, to excellent effect. Don't come here on a first date.

The pork spareribs are among the best, and the chicken is very tender and moist. The pulled pork is also quite good, with pleasant hints of smokiness.

Thomas, who married his wife, Charlie, in 1966, says the same philosophy works with barbecue as marriage – take your time, do it right, be patient. His barbecue sauce is sold in upscale Nugget markets and other stores.

I made a nice discovery here. Sitting in the car with a large takeout order, I thought I would have a quick nibble of the collard greens. They were so delicious, without a hint of bitterness, that I nibbled and nibbled until they were gone – before I even backed out of my parking space.

Texas West Bar-B-Que: Loved the pork ribs here, tender but with enough bite and pull to make them satisfying. The brisket and tri-tip are also superb, even if they've never heard of tri-tip in Texas.

There are two main locations and now a third, scaled-down version in the food court at the Roseville Galleria.

The man behind Texas West is Dino "Mr. BBQ" Vergolini. Plano? Texarkana? Houston? Nope. The Texas barbecue master hails from Detroit. But he's no pretender.

Texas West adheres to various dry rubs to impart flavor to the meat. Then it's all about working the heat at about 220 degrees; brisket cooks for up to 18 hours, ribs four to six.

Don't be alarmed by that pink hue in the ribs or chicken. It's a sign that it's been smoked properly.

Mr. BBQ also makes killer French fries. The potatoes are hand-cut and seasoned with the same dry rub used on the baby back ribs. Do not have this food anywhere near you while driving a car or operating heavy equipment – it's way too distracting.

Holy Chick n' Waffles: The name of this new joint in Rancho Cordova doesn't tell the whole story. Sure, they're doing the Southern juxtaposition of chicken and waffles, but they're also doing some mean and tasty ribs and tri-tip.

At the helm in the kitchen is Jua Moore, whose food I encountered last year at Chanterelle restaurant at downtown's Sterling Hotel. The restaurant closed a few months ago, but Moore, who lost his job as sous chef, didn't sit around.

About the style of cooking he does now, Moore says, "It's just having the patience. The more you touch the meat, the more the smoke gets out. The secret is the dry rub and cooking low and slow."

Moore's collard greens were among the best I've had – and those aren't rushed, either. He creates the base by combining turkey legs, onions, garlic, herbs and spices in a huge pot and lets it simmer overnight until all of the flavor is teased out of the bones.

Tex Wasabi's: This menu is the wildest compilation of food choices I've seen since the rundown of midnight snacks at Graceland.

The ribs had excellent flavor and perhaps the perfect amount of toothsome texture. And the pulled pork had the most moisture and flavor of all the places I tried.

This is a surprising recommendation. Guy Fieri is a colorful and charming TV presence, but he also knows how to create good food.

Lucille's Smokehouse Bar-B-Que: This place looks almost too fancy to have good barbecue. It's a large, nicely appointed, family- oriented dining room that happens to get the barbecue right. Try the St. Louis ribs with the spicy sauce on the side, or the tri-tip. The brisket is smoked for 22 hours – and you know what happens when time and temperature work their magic.

And more: In the end, there were too many places to give a complete list. I left off the excellent House of Chicken and Ribs in Antelope because I recently reviewed the place in full. (It got four stars.) I also left out the very popular Sandra Dee's, the relatively new My BBQ Spot in midtown and the very good Ludy's Main Street BBQ in Woodland.

The obsessed home cook

David Hill of Oaks Hardware in Fair Oaks Village is an award-winning barbecue master who conducts monthly barbecue classes at the store. He is a big proponent of a smoker called the Big Green Egg, which is made of heavy ceramic and sells for about $1,000.

His advice: "Go home and don't be afraid of something that takes 12 hours. Have it be fun and don't be in a panic."

Hill said that while pork ribs get much of the attention and prestige in competitions, "you can't beat a big fat beef rib."

"True barbecue," he said, "is really no more than salt, pepper and garlic – very common seasonings on crappy meat. I mean, brisket is just the worst cut of meat in the world."

But 20-plus hours later, the heat and the smoke work their magic – and somewhere along the way, great barbecue happens.

Before I sign off for this week, I want to address an issue that cropped up with my recent review of Esquire Grill. In Tuesday's paper, we ran a correction because my review did not properly distinguish among my three separate visits.

The anecdote at the beginning of the review occurred on a different night than the following anecdote pertaining to service and the food I ordered. Confused? That was my problem. I unwittingly blurred the days and the events as I was reworking the beginning of the piece. Regular readers may be startled to learn that the writing doesn't come out exactly as I like the first go around. It doesn't.

I visit every restaurant, including Esquire Grill, with the expectation that I am going to have a good time, as I believe that is how regular customers feel when they are going out to eat.

Despite the mistake in chronology, I am confident that the review gave readers a sincere accounting of my overall experiences there and provided the proper balance of details to support the somewhat negative conclusions I made about the restaurant.

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Call The Bee's Blair Anthony Robertson, (916) 321-1099.

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