Buxton Hall

Linkdown: 8/27/14

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– Tyson Ho of Arrogant Swine writes a post about creating a menu at his upcoming whole hog joint in Bushwick and has this great quote:

“Every time brisket shows up on a Carolina menu, God runs over a basket of sweet fluffy kittens with a Mack truck.”

– Marie, Let’s Eat! returns to Fox Brothers Bar-B-Q and provides some great perspective on Atlanta barbecue in the process; also, Grant, I’ll take you up on that offer next time I’m in town!

– Sounds like crowds weren’t quite as good as hoped for at last week’s RibFest in Raleigh due to competing activities in downtown

– Carolina Barbecue off Business I-85 in Spartanburg gets some good marks

– “Valley BBQ tradition involves caring” includes a little bit of history

“Virginians don’t have a barbecue tradition,” Matthew Poteat, a Stauntonian from eastern North Carolina, starts to say, then rights himself before setting off a small war.

The nationally renowned North Carolina-barbecue style came from Tidewater Virginia, the Carolina Q Pig Pickers owner admits.

Pig done Poteat’s way involves pulling pieces of pork off the roast, chopping it coarse with a cleaver, and mixing the dark and white meat together, crispy skin and all. His sauce is “vinegar and red pepper sauce, real thin.”

While Texas and other states prefer red sauces, the vinegar-based sauce is the oldest and first in the country according to Poteat, who’s also a history professor at Lynchburg College.

– Look for The Great NC BBQ Map folks on Charlotte Today next Friday

– More from Buxton Hall:

Linkdown: 8/20/14

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– Wayne Monk, Sam Jones, and other “old-school pitmasters” weigh in on how the barbecue industry is changing

“To cook pork shoulders the way we do it, it’s a 10-hour process. It’s hard these days to find young men to learn a trade like this that they’re proud of, that have 10-hour days. People take shortcuts, like gas cookers. But the more gas cookers there are, the better my business gets.” – Rick Monk, Lexington Barbecue (Lexington, NC)

– You may remember this bill from a few months back due to its dubious claim to South Carolina being “birthplace of barbecue,” but in any case its finally official: barbecue is South Carolina’s “southern picnic cuisine”

– Speaking of South Carolina, would the Senator Frank Underwood from House of Cards really be eating ribs instead of pulled pork?

– Registration for the 2014 Q City Charlotte BBQ Championship is now live until slots fill up; also, it is now a NC BBQ Association event rather than a Memphis BBQ Network one as it had been in years past

– According to Daniel Vaughn, barbecue editor of Texas Monthly, “[t]he brisket I’ve had in New York lately is better than a lot of places in Texas”

– Vote for best barbecue (as well as other cuisines) in Creative Loafing Charlotte’s Best of 2014 survey

– On September 7, five Louisville chefs will compete in a whole hog challenge to determine who will be crowned the “BBQ King or Queen” (via)

At the stand-up tasting reception, they’ll serve six dishes that illustrate entire animal usage, scored on utilization, presentation, barbecue influences and flavor. The perfect plate spotlights the whole pig and can ultimately inspire restaurant owners to greater support of local agriculture, according to event founder Brady Lowe.

– This Eater guide to the best pulled pork in Austin features a couple of the usual suspects plus a few I hadn’t heard of before (via)

– Marie, Let’s Eat! visits Papa Joe’s BBQ Pit and Cook Out in a review from last week

– This month’s Carolina ‘Cue feature from Our State is Big Mike’s Barbecue, a food truck out of the Raleigh area

At this writing, there is but one place you can find Big Mike’s Barbecue: It’s indeterminate, location at present unknown, its setting determined by demand, a roving outlet for the conveyance of pork in its various guises. Big Mike calls it the Red Barn. You would, too, if you saw it, because that’s exactly what it appears to be. No room for towering bales of hay or horse stalls or tractors, though, just big enough for a sink and a counter and a little smoker toward the back, on what looks like a screened-in porch, and small enough to be pulled behind a GMC Sierra 2500HD. You order through one of the barn windows. On the window is a drawing of a pig holding a fork and knife, a pig with a big smile on his face, as if he’s happy to be eating himself. And, on any given day, the Red Barn could be in the parking lot of the building where you work, near a bar you frequent, or at a party where you’re the guest of honor.

– Brooks Sandwich House, home of Charlotte’s best burger, has barbecue available seasonally and it is back; I’m not sure what to expect from it but when I try it I’ll at least get a burger as well

– A preview of things to come from Buxton Hall?

Linkdown: 5/28/14

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– Here’s What You Need to Know About North Carolina Barbecue according to Southern Living

– Buxton Hall is getting ready:

– The Pit Durham, who have a sign that reads “No Weapons. No Concealed Firearms” on its front door, was unfortunately  robbed at gunpoint by three men a few Sundays ago, luckily no one was injured

– Garden and Gun Magazine’s recommendations for finding barbecue in NYC includes Mighty Quinn’s, BrisketTown in Brooklyn, and Arrogant Swine

– Marie, Let’s Eat! visits Brooks Barbeque in Muscle Shoals, which he would “happily rank Brooks alongside Brick Pit in Mobile as the two best barbecue restaurants in the state, and top ten in the country.”

– A short profile on Garland and Amanda Hudgins, a SC couple who teach barbecue classes and compete (and occasionally win) in competitions

– Myron Mixon, never afraid to mince words, believes that most cooking shows on tv are too complicated (h/t bbqboard)

Barbecue is not that way. There’s fire and smoke and you can take some ingredients out of your pantry and then you’re cooking. It’s a style that relates so much more to common people.

– La Barbecue tops The Austin American-Statesman’s Matthew Odam’s list of best barbecue in Austin

– Big Wayner’s got some great photos from this year’s Memphis in May

– Well, this certainly is a list: CBS Local’s list of best barbecue in Charlotte

– Another week, another confounding barbecue list: Nashville is Travel and Leisure’s best city for barbecue in the US. Plus, there are no NC cities on the list, but it does include such barbecue meccas such as Denver, Providence and Orlando in the top 20 list.

Linkdown: 5/21/14

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– Texas really isn’t taking TripAdvisor’s list that listed them #3 behind Georgia and NC barbecue very well; no really, they aren’t taking it well at all

– The Charlotte Observer Archive Twitter account (@Observer Archive) has this archive photo about Stanton’s Barbeque and Fish Camp Fly-In Restaurant in Bennettsville, SC (across the NC/SC state line from Laurinburg) that is still in existence today:

– Trucking Info is definitely not my usual source of barbecue content, but here’s an article entitled “I Came to an Engine Teardown and Learned About Barbecue”

Inspired by Shell’s relationship with the BBQ Pitmasters show on Destination America, the barbeque pit will be used for industry and customer events. The pit, which can cook enough barbeque to feed 100 or more people, was built by champion barbeque grillers, Pitt’s and Spitt’s.

Houston-based, Pitt’s and Spitt’s has more than 75 years of combined experience designing and fabricating custom competition barbeque trailers, grills, pits and smokers. The Pitt’s & Spitt’s World Champion Cooking Team has won over 30 barbecue and cooking awards, and Shell Rotella is a sponsor of the team this year.

– “The Best Barbecue I’ve Ever Had Was Made by a Bunch of Damn Yankees”

– Alex and Zoe Ranucci of Ranucci’s Big Butt BBQ, Grand Championship-winning team of the 2013 Q City Championship, were featured in the first issue of a new magazine called Barbecue America

– Bill Spoon’s is featured on this list of “great barbecue restaurants” from USA Today as part of their National Barbecue Month coverage

– Both Rodney Scott and the SC Barbecue Trail get a mention in this article entitled “SC barbecue business gets a boost from social media” (h/t bbqboard)

– The Blue Ridge BBQ & Music Festival is looking for between 300 and 500 volunteers for June 13 and 14

– Elliot Moss’ previous barbecue concept, Buxton Hill, is dead. Long live his new concept, Buxton *Hall*

Moss’ thing is whole-hog, wood-fired barbecue. “He’s bringing a really artisanal, traditional approach to barbecue that he feels has been missing from a lot of barbecue in the south,” said Irani.

Many Asheville barbecue restaurants, including 12 Bones, Luella’s and Little Pigs Bar-B-Que, use smokers fired with both gas and wood, a system that makes it easier for cooks to control time and temperature while cooking.

– Charlotte-based food writer Keia Mastrianni accompanied two restaurateurs from San Francisco on an epic Carolinas barbecue tour (research for their now-opened barbecue restaurant Smokestack) which included Lexington #1, Wilber’s, B’s Barbecue, Scott’s Barbecue, and several more; part 1 and part 2

– The Charlotte couple behind The Great NC BBQ Map gets interviewed in Charlotte Magazine this month and shares a few more details about the map coming next month

AA: You promised to be comprehensive. That’s a big statement.

AAF: We have talked about the national chains and statewide chains and things like that. And definitely statewide chains are going to be on there, but we’re leaning toward not doing the nationwide ones because that feels a little different and it’s not so much about North Carolina history and heritage and everything.