Music City Southern Hot Wing Festival

Undoubtedly, the best part of the Music City Southern Hot Wing Festival was meeting Myron Mixon, who couldn’t have been nicer. He was there filming an episode of BBQ Pitmasters, a favorite show of the Barbecue Bros. I told Myron that I was from close by Lexington, and he told me that he loved Lexington and that they’d be filming in Charlotte in two weeks at the BBQ and Blues Festival, and that his team would be competing there. I was thinking of going anyway, but this just sealed the deal. I got glimpses of Tuffy Stone and Aaron Franklin, but didn’t get a chance to chat with either one. Hope to in Charlotte.

As for the wings, I was pretty disappointed. There were only a dozen or so vendors, and several of them were not sufficiently prepared with enough wings for the crowd. I probably sampled wings from six vendors, with my two favorites being from Corner Pub and 3 Star BBQ, both of whom smoked their wings. However, nothing I ate really jumped out at me. Too bad I didn’t get to sample whatever the teams on BBQ Pitmasters were smoking.

-Speedy

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Spain BBQ

While in Spain earlier this month, I realized that while they do love their pig they primarily focus on cured hams, such as jamon iberico or jamon serrano. However, in the Mercado de San Miguel in Madrid Mrs. Monk and I stumbled upon a stand called “BBBQ Market” – with the three B’s standing for for butifarras (a type of Catalan sausage), bellotas (the finest type of jamon iberico), and barbacoa (the term from which “barbecue” originates, standing for cooking meat over an open flame). I can’t exactly recall which three sausages or sauces we picked, although I assure you we stayed away from the green mustard sauce (even in Spain, no mustard sauce!). However, I can tell you that the sausages were split and grilled alongside a bun (except for a particularly juicy type that wasn’t cut open while grilling) and we enjoyed them with some sangria in the market. Not the typical type of barbecue we blog about here, but just thought I’d share what Spaniards consider “barbecue” and how we escaped the heat for a short bit in Madrid.

Monk