Linkdown: 6/8/16

– Destination BBQ has put together a list of barbecue joints along the I-95 corridor in South Carolina

– Where to find barbecue in Cabarrus County (just north of Charlotte), including Barbecue Bros fave The Smoke Pit (our review here)

– For a short time last week, there was a Facebook page for Ed Mitchell’s Que at Brier Creek but it has since been taken down

– Grant’s latest stops: Owen’s Bar-B-Que in Tallapoosa and Adams Bar-B-Q in Cartersville

– Eater’s Complete Guide to the 2016 NY Big Apple Barbecue Block Party

– The Smoking Ho visits FullHouse BBQ in Georgetown, TX

– The Blue Ridge BBQ and Music Festival is this weekend in Tryon

– Morris Barbeque in Hookerton is 85 years young

 

Linkdown: 6/1/16

Take a tour of Central Texas Barbecue with Chef Mark Ladner

– Couple more barbecue stops from Grant: Hawg Heaven BBQ in Hogansville, GA and Mac’s BBQ in Warm Springs, GA

How to identify a good BBQ joint, from Garden & Gun

Barbecue, though, is democratic. If you have a hankering for chopped pork and a few hours to kill, you can find a platter. But how do you know before you order if you’re getting real-deal, barbecue or a slow-cooker surprise? The experts say to look for wood and smoke, of course, but there’s more to the best joints than that.

– The NC Aquarium in Kure Beach is having a Father’s Day barbecue catered by A&G Barbecue down the road

– Bon Appetit weighs in on American barbecue, with bits from Buxton Hall, Sam Jones BBQ, and Picnic

Linkdown: 5/25/16

– Another writeup on Rien Fertel’s latest book, The One True Barbecue, with the tagline “Get to Ayden before it’s too late”…now too late for what, I’m not quite sure

– Speaking of Ayden, this past weekend it became home to the Kings of Q BBQ Cook-off and Festival

– Three questions with The Improper Pig, who started a food truck just in time for the summer

– A very interesting read on how Daniel Vaughn helped Tuffy Stone’s Cool Smoke competition team lose at this month’s Memphis in May

– Vaughn also weighs in with an appreciation of The Salt Lick, which sometimes gets unfairly maligned as “overrated”

– The Wall Street Journal profiles Melissa Cookston, “the most decorated woman in competitive barbecue” (h/t)

– Grant’s latest Georgia barbecue stops: The Butt Hutt in Athens, Tucker’s Bar-B-Q in Macon, Hudson’s BBQ in Roberta, and Piggie Park in Thomaston

– Catching up with Robert Moss’ latest entries for The Daily South: a writeup on The One True Barbecue and the end of a Savannah BBQ legend; here’s an excerpt from the first linked article on whole hog:

Whether the whole hog tradition is dying out or evolving into a new form is left unsettled. By the end of the story, Chris Siler at Siler’s Old Time has switched to pork shoulders after it got too hard to procure whole hogs, and Ricky Parker is gone, dead from liver disease at only 51. At the same time, a new generation of cooks from other walks of life, like Tyson Ho at Arrogant Swine in Brooklyn, NY, and Elliot Moss at Buxton Hall in Asheville, NC, have made the “journey into the madness of whole-hog fanaticism.”

– Always worth revisiting the basics

Linkdown: 5/11/16

– We were fortunate enough to be considered “experts” (shh…don’t tell them) and submitted nominees for 10Best.com’s Best BBQ Pork Sandwich in NC contest. Voting ends June 6 at 12pm ET.

– Some coverage of the 10Best contest from Pitt County, Asheville, and Garland

– Creative Loafing profiles Seoul Food Meat Co.

– Over at Marie, Let’s Eat!, Grant visits the last remaining Old Hickory House, located in Tucker, GA, as well as Big Cove BB-Q in Owens Cross Roads, AL

– Whole-hog Carolina barbecue converts Louisiana-native Rien Fertel

Mr. Fertel locates the birthplace of whole-hog barbecue in eastern North Carolina. In aptly named Pitt County, he visits three whole-hog establishments. The agriculture-and-livestock-rich region, he says, is “a bastion, or pit, as it were, where the nation’s oldest vernacular barbecue tradition has been slowly smoking for nearly two centuries.”

– Matthew Odam recently went on a 16-stop barbecue tour throughout Texas

– Midwood Smokehouse’s crinkle cut fries makes this list of best fries in Charlotte from Charlotte Agenda

– Always worth a link: