Barbecue Bros Book Club: “Michael Symon’s Playing With Fire” by Michael Symon

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Not that we’re anywhere close to being qualified enough to evaluate books but more so as a public service announcement we will periodically discuss barbecue and barbecue-related books.

Monk: Michael Symon’s Playing with Fire: BBQ and More from the Grill, Smoker, and Fireplace: A Cookbook is part of a recent trend of cookbooks from barbecue personalities. See: Rodney Scott (2021), Aaron Franklin (2015), Matthew Register (2019), Christopher Prieto (2019), Ed Randolph (2019), Sam Jones (2019), and Elliott Moss (2016). Not that I mind, as it has clearly given me lots of content over the years.

As for Michael Symon’s contribution to the barbecue cookbook world (which came out in 2018), he starts off with a short “love letter to live-fire cooking” and that sets the tone for the rest of the book. Not strictly a barbecue book, Symon includes a lot of grilling recipes informed by his love of Cleveland.

Symon makes his case for “Cleveland-style barbecue,” which is “a style and menu that draw upon Cleveland’s rich cultural heritage, much of which is firmly rooted in eastern Europe.” He goes on “We season meats with Jewish deli-style pastrami spices, our kielbasa is made by a sixty-year-old Ukrainian butcher at the West Side Market, we smoke over locally sourced apple- and cherrywoods; we serve Hungarian-based sides like spaetzle and cabbage; our tangy mustard-based sauce is designed around the legendary local stadium-style mustard Bertman Ball Park.”

Outside of the typical barbecue recipes, that is what sets this book apart. I was disappointed that we only really get Symon’s perspective in the introductory letter and some of the short intros to the recipes. Contrasted with Rodney Scott’s recent book that bared so much of his barbecue soul and history, it seems like a missed opportunity.

All in all, Michael Symon’s “Playing with Fire” features nice food photography and a slightly different point of view, but is far from an essential barbecue book. I’d recommend checking out the books from Sam Jones, Elliott Moss, Rodney Scott, or Aaron Franklin first and then preview this book at your library to see if Cleveland-style barbecue and live-fire cooking with ingredients native to that region is of interest to you.

Friday Find: “A Weekend in Lexington”

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Monk: In this short feature from UNC TV’s NC Weekend, host Deborah Holt Noel traverses across the city, taking in all the tastes and experiences it has to offer. From wakeboarding to donuts to breweries and wineries.

But of course, there’s also barbecue. On that front, she visits the barbecue pit that was discovered during the renovation of City Hall in 2014 (1:01) which also contains all of the posters of The Barbecue Festival (2:00) which brings in 150,000 visitors each October and will continue next year.

No trip to Lexington is complete without actually eating barbecue, and she wraps up the barbecue content in this video by visiting the two most prominent restaurants in Lexington Barbecue (3:19 and Bar-B-Q Center (4:45), which started as an ice cream parlor.

Description: There’s so much to do in Lexington that you can spend an entire weekend there and that’s just what we did with visits to breweries, wineries, restaurants, donut shops, even a wake park! Lexington, NC https://visitlexingtonnc.com/

Linkdown: 11/10/21

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The Local Palate and writer Jenn Rice detail a pretty action-packed eastern North Carolina barbecue itinerary. The usual suspects are on the list including Barbecue Bros faves Wilber’s Barbecue and Southern Smoke BBQ, but there are plenty of ones I haven’t tried yet. Bookmarking for next Spring.

Native News

A new live-fire cooking restaurant called Cinder is opening in Charlotte from Husk veteran Duke Kroger (who identifies as a pitmaster in his Twitter profile)

Mac’s Speed Shop is closing its Cornelius restaurant but opening a new one in Mooresville

Jon G’s was featured in the Fall 2021 Issue of QC Exclusive

ICYMI last month, Boxyard RTP and Lawrence Barbecue are one of the 12 hottest restaurants in the Triangle

The Smoking Ho takes on North Carolina starting with Buxton Hall #CarHOlinaBBQTrip

Lewis Donald and Sweet Lew’s BBQ raised funds to help the family of a young girl who tragically took her own life at the age of 11

Non-Native News

Heim Barbecue’s Dallas location will be closed for a few weeks after a fire but its Fort Worth locations remain open

Last week’s Georgia barbecue-focused The Smoke Sheet

The SmoKing of Meats is Joe Musungi, who blends Filipino and Texas barbecue

Are barbecue lines a thing of the past?

New-ish barbecue joint Palmira BBQ is one of the stalls at Port of Call

Barbecue Bros Book Club: The Texas Monthly 2021 Top 50 Issue

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Not that we’re anywhere close to being qualified enough to evaluate books but more so as a public service announcement we will periodically discuss barbecue and barbecue-related books. And in this case, barbecue magazine issues.

Every four years, the most anticipated issue of Texas Monthly is awaited not only by Texas barbecue fans but also by just about all Texas barbecue restaurants as well. The Top 50 is the end product of “32 Texas Monthly editorial staffers and 3 freelancers [who] visited 411 barbecue joints over eight weeks during the spring and summer, driving many thousands of miles in the process.”

As for the issue itself, the Texas Monthly Top 50 and its related features takes up about 30 pages of the November issue of the magazine. That covers: the top 10 with extended write ups, shorter write-ups on the remaining 40 of the 50, a list of the 50 honorable mentioned joints, plus a couple of short articles. Beautiful photos are featured throughout.

I can’t help but be struck by the newness of the joints in the top 50 but also the youth of several of the top joints. The five pitmasters at #1 joint Goldee’s BBQ in Fort Worth are all under 27, the five listed pitmasters at #3 Truth Barbeque in Houston are all under 35, Evan LeRoy of #5 LeRoy and Lewis is 35, and four of the other joints in the top 10 have pitmasters under 40 (Franklin Barbeque, Evie Mae’s Pit Barbeque, Snow’s BBQ, and Panther City BBQ). And as noted in the lead-in, 29 of the top 50 are new to the list.

Goldee’s Barbecue in particular is one I hope to visit soon. Besides the youth of the pitmasters noted above, I love the multi-culturality. Black, white, Laotian; these are some of the new faces of always changing barbecue scene.

Also included in the issue is the updated Top 50 BBQ Joints Passport, a highly coveted item for all Texas BBQ hunters. As folks visit the various joints, they get a stamp in the hopes of completing the passport. Who knows if I’ll get the opportunity to get stamps of my own, but I urge folks to practice civility when visiting these joints in the coming weeks and months. I recall anecdotal evidence of impatience and ugliness after the last list drop in 2017.

The Texas Monthly Top 50 issue is available through the Texas Monthly Store online (now sold out) for those of us not in Texas but be warned that you will be paying about $15 for the single issue after shipping. It’s also available as part of “The Ultimate Texas BBQ Guide Bundle” which will run you $50 before shipping (also now sold out). Even with the increased price for those out of state, it’s worth having for any serious barbecue fan.