Friday Find

Friday Find: Kansas City’s Best Pitmasters Gather for Party in the Pit

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Monk: Friend of the blog Ryan Cooper from The Smoke Sheet co-hosted the inaugural Party in the Pit (alongside Chef Terra Whipple of Chef J BBQ), which recently brought together folks from the barbecue community to celebrate Kansas City barbecue. A full write-up was featured in this week’s Smoke Sheet newsletter.

Description: Jordan Turner captured this video of the inaugural Party in the Pit, which brought together the BBQ community in a celebration of Kansas City BBQ. The exclusive event highlighted barbecue from 18 of the city’s top pitmasters, who shared a variety of delicious dishes with attendees, while Bull Creek Distillery served their award-winning spirits. That evening, local artist Philip Bergantine created a portrait of Henry Perry, the father of Kansas City BBQ, which was presented to Perry’s granddaughter Bernetta McKindra. The event was organized by Terra Whipple of Chef J BBQ and The Smoke Sheet’s Ryan Cooper. 

Preparations Underway for the Barbecue Festival in Lexington

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Monk: Preparations are underway, not only from the organizers of the festival but also the restaurants on the fringe of town who hope to get additional traffic from the 150,000 or so folks coming into town for the weekend.

I did learn from this video that a barbecue joint named Cafe 71 has recently opened in the former Rick’s Smokehouse in Welcome, which is wonderful news and has been added to my list.

Friday Find: Kelsey Pribilski of “BBQuest” Wants Everyone to Know That She is Indeed a Native Texan

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Monk: While BBQuest host Kelsey Pribilski was technically born in Georgia, she wants to settle once and for all that her family is originally from Texas and she has lived there all her life minus a few years growing up in other states as an Army brat. This and some good behind-the-scenes of the show in this latest interview from Kevin’s BBQ Joints. For more on BBQuest, I reviewed season 3 in a recent post.

Description: In this episode, I sit down with Kelsey Pribilski from BBQuest which is now in its third season and is produced by the Texas Beef Council.

How Pitmaster Kelly Nevarez Brought Mexican Spice to Texas Barbecue

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Monk: Kelly Nevarez of LaVaca BBQ in Port LaVaca, TX brings the Hispanic influences of her family and culture to her barbecue not only in terms of spices used in the rubs but also twists on Texas barbecue such as smoked pork and brisket tamales wrapped in butcher paper. LaVaca is very much a family operation, with Kelly’s parents Christine and Lupe very much in the mix from making blue corn tortillas to smoking the fajita meat for the steak fajitas. It seems like they have something special going on at LaVaca BBQ.

Description: At LaVaca BBQ in Port LaVaca, Texas, the Nevarez family draws from their Hispanic culture and Texas upbringing to make Big Red pork ribs, smoked pulled pork and brisket tamales, beef cheek barbacoa, steak fajitas on blue corn tortillas, and more.