






The good, the bad and the ugly of opening up a BBQ Joint!

Went to the SFA's annual symposium in Oxford (Ole Miss) a week or so ago. This is the first symposium I attended. I have intended to go for 4 years now and always bump into some reason for having to miss it. I really regret not going earlier, what a fantastic event! This years event was as its title reads, the "Liquid South". Everything from southern spring water to buttermilk to moonshine. The speakers were absolutely hilarious yet informative. I still remember my summers staying with my grandparents, specifically my dads parents, in Corinth. We would come in at lunch and Ma-Ma would have this big lunch made for us and my grandfather would fill up a big glass of cold buttermilk and dip his cornbread in it. He'd get me to try it every time just so he could laugh at how much I disliked it. I just had a large glass of whole buttermilk and cornbread yesterday for my lunch.........funny how things take a turn on a man in life.

ooked Brisket Quesidillas. There were documentary films shown by SFA, speakers such as John T. Edge and Jim Myers, Bourbon & Beer tastings and a whole lot more. Looking forward to next year!
look at it. I had already been planning on going to take Martha to the city and hang out with some guys at the event, so it was an easy decision for me. On thursday before I left the guy building the deck showed up. I flew in Friday afternoon , dropped Martha off at our hotel (the Jolly Madison) and went straight down to Madison Park (26th & Madison) to get the hogs on with Ed.





Like the one here in the picture. Well, put my face on that body.......and thats what I fell like right now. I have sinned...........committed gluttony! The food I ate tonight was nothing short of phenomenal! Absolutely stunning! I highly suggest you get over there!







My good buddy Carey Bringle (Peg Leg Porker) was asked by the Lobel boys to cook & attend the prestigious "Aspen Food & Wine" festival. This week I asked Carey to guest blog about the experience. By the way......look at the dadgum fat marble in those 3" thick (yes you read that right!) Wagyu dry aged New York strips. Also Carey is pictured with food/wine celebrity Andrea Immer.
I wanted a wine sauce using a Shiraz/Syrah. He gave me instructions on a sauce using that demi as a base. It turned out unreal. Then he gave me his thoughts on the patte' filler. I found some wild mushrooms and made my patte' with shallots, herbs, butter, balsamic, lemon juice and I threw in just a few raisins with it..........beat those up in a food processor and WOW was that good! So John McCall & I spend most of the morning prepping this out to bring down to the tent to construct and cook it there. Turn in time is 2:30. We get there about 12:45.......walk in the tent and there is nowhere to cook this because everything is in use. Leave it to some ol' boys from Corinth, MS to come through for you. Tom Underwood from "Pigs-R-Us" came down to the tent to see if we had any celery. I asked Tom if he had some cook space......he said "hell yeah we'll fire one up for you". We fired up a small cooker he had on his trailer. While we were waiting for the coals to get the temp up to 425* to bake this thing in me, John & Robbie started constructing this Kangaroo Wellington. We put it in @2:05 which is almost not enough time to get the pastry around the meat baked so I added some more coals, opened the vents up a little and got that cooker to 450*. Now that's a little too hot but I had no choice cause I was runnin' out of time. As you can see the wellington to the left had already started to burn some. We got it out at 2:28. Robbie boxed it with some lettuce and all 3 of us started sprinting for the turn in tent. The way we were dressed we looked like the guys from that early 80's movie "Chariots of Fire" running to the tent. We made by about 15 seconds. We came in 22nd out of 70 odd teams. I was a little pissed at myself because I let us run out of time to do the presentation right. I am sure that the creativity and the taste was there to place top 3. Maybe I'm wrong but I felt really, really good about this. I think we got docked points for presentation and also I think that the pastry might have gotten soggy on top due to condensation in the Styrofoam box waiting its turn for the judges to taste it. Also @2:28 with 2 minutes to go and I cut it open the flakes from the pastry went all over the lettuce bed......looking like Harry Carey leaned down and shook some dandruff off over it. So I've learned a little lesson on turn in time and to make sure you give yourself enough of it! Thanks to John McNiel for the guidance and creative help and thanks to John McCall and Robbie Lundy for all the help that day......really appreciate it!
