Daniel Vaughn

Linkdown: 5/22/24 – The Three-Time Grand Champions Edition

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Monk: The Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest was held this past weekend in Memphis, and The Shed yet again took home the Grand Champion and Whole Hog titles. The Grand Champion title was the third for the 17-time competition team from Ocean Springs, MS led by brother and sister Brad Orrison and Brooke Lewis.

The full list of winners in other categories are on their website. Of note, Big Bob Gibson and Chris Lilly took home yet another Pork Shoulder title.

Of note, the upstart barbecue competition SmokeSlam also took place the same weekend at Tom Lee Park, the former site of the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest.

Here were the winners of SmokeSlam:

Native News

Friends of the blog The Low and Slow Barbecue Show featured Jon G’s Barbecue

Union Barbecue is a newer barbecue food truck in Charlotte native Holden Sasser

Pizza Peel in the Plaza Midwood is closing after a decade open and is turning into an Improper Pig

Mike D’s BBQ in east Durham but got a couple of lifelines through a Rapid Recovery loan  from The NC Rural Center

Non-Native News

City Limits Barbeque has been testing out pork steaks

Smoke Queen Barbecue is run by Winnie Yee-Lakhani and was recently featured by J.C. Reid in a recent profile

After last week’s tornadoes, many Houston restaurants are still without power including Gatlin’s BBQ and Feges BBQ

Daniel Vaughn digs up the first article on Franklin Barbecue

Linkdown: 5/1/24 – The It’s Gonna be May Edition

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Monk: April was a busy month for ol’ Monk here, but we’re back with the first linkdown in a while. Hoping to get back to a more regular schedule now.

Native News

John Tanner on Bum’s in Ayden

The 40th Lexington Barbecue Festival will be on October 26

ICYMI

Non-Native News

John Tanner has started a “survey of SC barbecue and hash” if you want to follow along on his blog; here are the first entries

Damien Brockway of Distant Relatives and Deepa Shridhar are teaming up for a barbecue-Indian lunch service this week

Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ‘s Buda restaurant is temporarily closed while they sell to new management

The Pit Room‘s second location is now open in Memorial, TX

On a recent trip to NYC, Daniel Vaughn finds some promise in Bark Barbecue, located in a stall in the Time Out Market food hall, but also finds that the city’s best barbecue days may be behind it

Congrats to Meat Church on 10 Years!

Daniel Vaughn trains David Farrier how to be a barbecue reviewer on the Flightless Bird Podcast

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Link to web version

Monk: Flightless Bird is a podcast where journalist David Farrier, the New Zealand-born host the podcast is named after, explores various American customs through the lens of a curious outsider.

In this episode from March 2023, David meets up with Texas Monthly Barbecue Editor Daniel Vaughn to live a day in the life of a barbecue reviewer. That means a barbecue road trip to 4 of Vaughn’s favorite barbecue joints. Starting in Austin, David and Daniel visit Micklethwait Craft Meats before heading on to City Market in Luling, Smitty’s Market in Lockhart, and finally Distant Relatives back in Austin.

Along the way, David gets a primer on American (and specifically Texas) barbecue, learns what it means to be a pitmaster, and even dispels the myth that Texas don’t like barbecue sauce. And after a full day of barbecue where he experiences profuse meat sweats and almost gets sick, he ultimately earns the respect of Vaughn due to his “intestinal fortitude.” Which is just about the highest of praise coming from a professional barbecue eater.

Note: the barbecue part of the episode starts at 27:00 after some introductory discussion on New Zealand food customs.

Description: In this week’s Flightless Bird, David Farrier travels to Austin, Texas to investigate America’s love of BBQ. Why do 7 out of 10 adults in America own some kind of BBQ device, and why is there so much BBQ in Texas? David meets up with the BBQ editor of Texas Monthly, Daniel Vaughn. David discovers that Daniel has eaten at over 2,000 barbecue spots all over the planet… 2,119 to be precise – many of them in Texas. Daniel agrees to take David on a day of BBQ eating, from Austin to Lockhart to Luling – shoving brisket and sides town their gullets in a feeding frenzy of epic proportions.

Texas BBQ, with a foreign spin

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Monk: From November 2023, CBS Sunday Morning sits down with Kareem El-Ghayesh of KG BBQ, Don Nguyen of Khoi Barbecue, Tatsu Aikawa of Kemuri Tatsu-Ya, and Texas Monthly Barbecue Editor Daniel Vaughn to discuss the newer fusion barbecue places in Texas that spotlight flavors not native to central. Just don’t call it fusion.

Description: The Lone Star State’s distinctive barbecue is getting some impressive variations, with the help of pitmasters with roots in such places as Egypt, Vietnam and Japan. Correspondent Lee Cowan talks with some of the new bright lights of Texas BBQ, and with Daniel Vaughn, barbecue editor of Texas Monthly.