Linkdown: 6/7/17

– A great article by Keia Mastrianni in the June/July edition of The Local Palate; the print edition is out now

– The Raleigh News & Observer has a new series called “Good ‘Eatin” that takes a weekly visit to local eateries in North Carolina, and it will continue through Labor Day; this week it visits Pattan’s Downtown Grille in downtown Rockingham that has a franken-sauce of east, west, and SC but cooks over wood

– See if you can find Midwood Smokehouse in this cool Charlotte 8-bit art:

– Frank Scibelli – the restaurateur behind Midwood Smokehouse, Midwood Smokeshack, Yafo, and more – has been named a finalist for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year in the Southeast

– The Daily Reflector out of Greenville, NC has a profile on Parker’s Barbecue in Wilson

– Congrats to Mac’s for winning second in whole hog at this year’s Memphis in May; here’s the deets on the rig they smoked on

– 12 Bones and Buxton Hall Barbecue are on Kathleen Purvis’ list of things to do in Asheville

– TMBBQ on how Texas got a legit Texas barbecue joint

Some photos from last week’s Cape Fear BBQ Festival in Wilmington

– The story behind Texas Pete, the perfect hot sauce for NC barbecue

Linkdown: 3/22/17

– Will Bigham and Christopher Soto of The Improper Pig in Charlotte are doing great work feeding 400 homeless while The Salvation Army’s kitchen undergoes renovations

– Congrats to Luella’s  Bar-B-Que in Asheville for 10 years of being open

Luella’s has teamed with Asheville’s Hi-Wire Brewing Co. to create Pig on a Wire Anniversary Ale, an amber honey-wheat ale that goes well with barbecue.

– Elliott Moss is one of Zagat’s 9 southern chefs to watch this year

– Speaking of Buxton Hall, they make the list of Garden & Gun’s fried chicken bucket list for NC

– TMBBQ on Barbecue (the film)

– John Lewis joined CBS This Morning and brought some recipes for his upcoming Tex-Mex restaurant in Charleston, Juan Luis

– Great sign at Chubby’s Bar-B-Q in Chattanooga. The barbecue? According to Marie, Let’s Eat!: ehhhhh

– A short video on Wilber’s Barbecue in Goldsboro from The Southern Weekend

– If you don’t know, now you know:

Barbecue Bros Book Club: Buxton Hall BBQ Book of Smoke by Elliott Moss

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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.

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“Buxton Hall BBQ Book of Smoke” is a book of recipes from Chef Elliott Moss, the head chef and pitmaster of, you guessed it, Buxton Hall Barbecue. It also functions as a coffee table book of sorts with its beautiful color photography. Finally, it also contains narrative from Moss; among other things, he explains the history of how Buxton Hall came to be, his own family history of barbecue, inspiration for the restaurant, and his philosophy when it comes to barbecue and food.

In terms of the recipes, Moss divides the book between pit smoking techniques and meats, favorite foods found at Buxton Hall, sides, and desserts. While this section of the book is heavy on the recipes themselves, Moss still gives a couple paragraphs introduction on each dish so his voice continues throughout the book past those initial pages.

This was a quick read but I enjoyed reading Elliott Moss’s writing on barbecue (his passion is quite evident) and particularly the food porn-y full color photography (something I wish more barbecue books would have). “Buxton Hall BBQ Book of Smoke” will sit on my shelf as a beautifully laid out reference book that I will go back to try some of the recipes and techniques in the future (hello, cinder block pit and burn barrel).

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Linkdown: 2/8/17

– You’ve got two days left to vote in this very important poll

– More on Mobile, AL’s The Brick Pit being saved by both social media as well as faith

– The latest stop for Marie, Let’s Eat! is Spencer B’s BBQ just south of the Tennessee-Georgia line and it contains some of his discussion with Speedy from their visit to B’s Cracklin’ Bar-B-Q on New Year’s Eve (pardon the long block of text)

I suggested that a big reason I’ve been so disappointed with the options around Chattanooga is that barbecue in Georgia can be so radically different everywhere and anywhere you go that it’s impossible to get bored, and incredibly difficult to predict what any new place will be like. The flavor profiles, the sauces, the techniques, these can all vary spectacularly in the same small town.

Speedy wasn’t ready to agree with that. After all, he grew up eating Lexington-style pork and slaw trays in central North Carolina, and it’s certainly true that in my limited experience, not just in Lexington itself but in the whole Greensboro-Salisbury corridor, you don’t see variety with quite the broad brush that I’m talking about there. So it’s certainly possible that what I’m finding in eastern Tennessee is what comes naturally in other places: people who’ve lived here for decades grow up perfecting a style which draws inspiration from what’s in the community already.

The problem, to put it delicately, is that Lexington-style barbecue is a million, billion times yummier than what’s going on in eastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia.

– Charleston Eater takes a sneak peek at Rodney Scott’s BBQ in Charleston, which is so dang close to opening

– Here’s a closer look at the menu from Charleston City Paper; while people may have complained, when it opens Rodney Scott’s pork by the pound price will be right in line with the average in Charleston

– In case you missed Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods, he went to a few barbecue joints in the southeast – including Fox Bros BBQ, Buxton Hall Barbecue, and Shealy’s BBQ

– First We Feast is just asking for a fight from all of the different barbecue factions