Northeast
Next hot thing in hot wings, 'trashed' or 'dirty,' breaks the rules of America's favorite bar food
America’s hottest hot-wing trend is garbage.
Bar-food aficionados can’t wait to take it out or enjoy it at the bar with a few cold beers.
Trash wings are a popular style of chicken wing served at pubs and restaurants in and around St. Louis, Missouri. The same style of fried chicken is called dirt wings in Connecticut.
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Trash or dirt wings are fried, doused in hot sauce — then fried again. The process creates delectable little poultry limbs with skin so crispy that it snaps when you bite into it. Yet the meat remains juicy inside.
They’ve grown into casual culinary traditions in both parts of the country over the past three decades.
Zach Jalbert, a customer at Fenton Bar and Grill in Fenton, Missouri, called its locally famous trash wings “beautiful.” (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
“I like to then re-dip the wings in whatever sauce is available,” Zach Jalbert, a customer at Fenton Bar and Grill in Fenton, Missouri, told Fox News Digital.
“Look at that! It’s beautiful. Wow!” Jalbert added, holding up a wing in front of his eyes before crunching into it.
“Look at that! It’s beautiful. Wow!” — Zach Jalbert, trash wing enthusiast
Trash or dirt wings appear poised to break out as a national phenomenon in 2024 — while disrupting 60 years of American culinary tradition established when Buffalo wings were first fried in Buffalo, New York in 1964.
“I love it when people step outside the box,” America’s “Wing King” and Buffalo native Drew Cerza, founder of the National Buffalo Wing Festival, told Fox News Digital.
Dirt wings are a Connecticut casual-dining tradition that originated in the 1990s at J. Timothy’s Taverne in Plainville. The wings are fried, sauced, refrigerated, then fried and sauced a second time when they’re ordered. (Courtesy J. Timothy’s Taverne)
“That’s how cool new things are created.”
Trash wings earned their name because cooking the saucy once-fried wings again “trashes the oil.”
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J. Timothy’s Taverne in Plainville, Connecticut, is the birthplace of dirt wings.
The bar-food favorite boasts a more personal origin story that “came about just by dumb luck,” said beverage director Rino Ouellet.
“Wing King” Drew Cerza proclaims Miki Sudo the victor over Joey Chestnut at the 2022 National Buffalo Wing Festival. Sudo ate 233 chicken wings in 12 minutes, to 224 for Chestnut. (Courtesy Drew Cerza)
J. Timothy’s fielded a beer-league softball team when it opened nearly 30 years ago.
“We were all in our 20s. The oldest guy on the team, our pitcher, was in his 40s. We called him Dirt,” said Ouellet.
The pitcher was, to the rest of the players, older than dirt.
“The trashed wing is a phenomenal culinary delight and is now synonymous with St. Louis.” — Pat Imig, Imig Communications
One day, the oft-told tale goes, Dirt ordered wings at the bar and stepped out to have a cigarette.
He returned to the bar and asked for his now-cold wings to be reheated.
They were an instant sensation.
Trash wings at Fenton Bar and Grill in Fenton, Missouri. Double-fried trash wings are a culinary tradition in and around St. Louis. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
“Pretty soon the entire softball team was coming in asking for Dirt’s wings,” said Oullet.
Dirt wings are now a bar-food favorite at pubs and sports bars across Connecticut.
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Trash wings also appeared in St. Louis about 30 years ago. The simultaneous appearance in New England and along the Mississippi River of the similar wings appears to be complete coincidence.
Fenton’s touts itself as the “home of the trashed wing.”
But St. Louis magazine reports they were invented elsewhere.
Fenton Bar and Grill in Fenton, Missouri, outside St. Louis, is a popular destination for trash wings. A local culinary tradition, trash wings are fried, sauced and then fried again, making for a crispy wing that’s moist inside. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
“My father started doing trashed wings 30 years ago at one of his restaurants, Frankie G‘s Grill and Bar in Oakville,” Billy Gianino Jr., of Billy G’s in Kirkwood, told the outlet in 2022.
The story claims that Fenton’s general manager Chuck Nash “semi-corroborated Gianino’s story.”
“The trashed wing is a phenomenal culinary delight and is now synonymous with St. Louis casual cuisine,” Pat Imig of Imig Communications, a local food insider and chicken-wing aficionado, told Fox News Digital.
Trash wings served at Fenton Bar and Grill in Fenton, Missouri; and Fenton manager Kelly Brannam. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
After achieving local stardom in Connecticut and Missouri, dirt and trash wings have recently appeared on menus in Chicago, New York City — and even as far away as London.
A similar twice-cooked wing is found in Buffalo, New York — except these are finished on a grill after being fried and sauced, said Cerza.
Double-fried wings “break the cardinal rule of wings here in Buffalo,” claims the keeper of the city’s storied wing-tradition.
But, he added, “there are no rules when you’re creating new rules.”
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Police are investigating a deadly shooting that occurred overnight in Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood.
Boston police said they responded to a report of a person shot in the area of 24 Stow Road in Mattapan around 12:12 a.m. on Monday.
When they arrived, officers found a vehicle parked in front of 24 Stow Road with a man inside suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Boston EMS transported the man to a local hospital, where he later died.
No arrests have been announced.
The shooting remains under investigation, and anyone with information is being asked to call homicide detectives at 617-343-4470. Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling 1-800-494-TIPS, texting the word “TIP” to 27463 or online.
PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Steelers did it. They are AFC North champions for the first time since 2020 after a thrilling victory in Week 18.
Now, the Steelers are host the Houston Texans to finish off Wild Card Weekend. It’s another challenging matchup and another game that the Steelers will likely be considered the underdogs.
But, against the ever-growing odds, it’s possible that the Steelers could actually do this. They might just have what it takes to win the Super Bowl.
Timely Defensive Performance
There is nothing more dangerous in the postseason than a surging defense. Countless Super Bowl-winning teams are fueled by a lock-down defensive group.
The Steelers aren’t there, quite yet, but there have been glimpses of a Steel Curtain lurking.
One way they’ve displayed that is with their run defense. Since Week 14, the Steelers have vastly improved their ability to stop the run. They’ve held their opponents to under 100 yards rushing in three of the last five games.
The secondary remains a problem, evidenced once again by the multiple explosive plays they surrendered in Week 18.
But they can make up for that with their ability to create turnovers. The Steelers finished with the fourth-best turnover differential in the NFL. They finished the regular season with 15 interceptions and 12 fumbles, the second-most forced this year.
The DK of It All
The Steelers offense was in a brutal place after wide receiver DK Metcalf was suspended for the final two games of the regular season. They failed to record a touchdown in their Week 17 loss, and running back Kenneth Gainwell was the team’s leading receiver in Week 18.
In their first postseason game, Metcalf is back. His suspension ends, and the Steelers’ best offensive player returns. Despite missing the final two contests, he finished his first season in Pittsburgh with 59 receptions on 99 targets, 850 yards and six touchdowns.
With Metcalf back, the offense suddenly has hope again. Quarterback Aaron Rodgers found a way to drag the passing game forward in Week 18. He threw for 294 yards, including a game-winning touchdown throw to Calvin Austin III.
But no one is as dynamic as Metcalf. His physicality and speed can be unguardable at times, and with the Steelers set to face the league’s stingiest defenses, Metcalf’s production remains paramount.
It might be unlikely, but it’s suddenly possible. The Steelers have struggled at various points of the season, but that all fades away when the postseason begins. In its place comes hope and a belief that this team has what it takes to go on a long playoff run.
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As 2026 begins, Connecticut is gearing up another busy news year. The legislature is in session beginning next month, with numerous items up for consideration that could have an impact on residents. Also, Gov. Ned Lamont is seeking a third term and the entire General Assembly is up for election, which could alter the balance of power in Connecticut.
Also in 2026, new laws on housing, cancer screening, absentee ballots and more went into effect January 1.
But before we get too far into 2026, let’s take a look back at CTNewsJunkie’s biggest stories of 2025, as determined by our readers. In scanning the list of top 10 most-read stories, transportation, elections, new laws, a new state holiday and clean energy emerged as popular reads.
Credit: Olga Maksimava / Shutterstock
Transportation
It is easy to see what weighs most on readers’ minds, as transportation-related stories made up fully half of the 10 most popular stories list.
Four of the top 10 stories (#s 2, 3, 8 and 10 on the list) dealt with traffic cameras. What towns have been approved for them? What towns are applying? What are the rules for using them to enforce speed? How much revenue do they generate? These were all questions on the minds of readers.
The fifth transit-related story, and sixth-most popular overall, dealt with the construction of the new Naugatuck Metro-North train station and overhaul of the surrounding area into a mixed-use community.
New laws
Two of CTNewsJunkie’s top 10 stories of 2025 dealt with new state laws. Our Dec. 19 story about new laws taking effect January 1 came in at #7, and a similar story in June about new laws taking effect July 1 ranked #9 for the year.
Offshore wind
CTNewsJunkie’s coverage of the Revolution Wind project proved popular with readers, but only one story on that topic cracked the annual top 10. Published on Dec. 26, traditionally a slow news day, the story about four northeastern governors demanding a briefing on the alleged national security concerns of offshore wind generation drew enough interest to rank #5 on the annual list.
Light overcomes darkness
Connecticut gained a new state holiday in 2025, and readers made the story about the announcement the fourth-most popular story of the year.
Public Act 25-59 established Diwali as a state holiday. Connecticut is only the second state to recognize the Southeast Asian holiday celebrating the victory of light over darkness. The state holiday officially is the 15th day of the month Kartik in the Hindu lunar calendar. In the Gregorian calendar the holiday typically falls in September or October.
Democrats roll in municipal elections
CTNewsJunkie’s most-read story of 2025, by far, was the Nov. 5 story detailing the results of the Nov. 4 municipal elections. Connecticut’s political landscape changed dramatically in one day, with 27 towns flipping from Republican to Democratic leadership. In contrast, one town — Easton — flipped the other way, with a Republican replacing an incumbent Democrat who did not seek reelection.
At just over 36%, voter turnout was about 10% higher than average for an odd-numbered year.
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