Linkdown: 4/21/21

Featured

Kevin’s BBQ Joints out here again doing yeoman’s work. This time, he reached out to 158 restaurants (4 were added since this Tweet) across the country to get what a best first order would look like. From North Carolina, Black Powder Smokehouse in Jamestown, Lawrence Barbecue in Raleigh, Longleaf Swine in Raleigh, Noble Smoke in Charlotte, Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge in Shelby, Southern Smoke in Garland. Naturally, Texas represents a large portion of the list and a separate “Texas-only” list is located here.

Native News

Wilber Shirley is celebrated on the UNC Press Blog by reposting his interview with John Shelton Reed and his late wife Dale Volberg Reed from “Holy Smoke: The Big Book of NC Barbecue”

D.G Martin also remembers Wilber Shirley and thanks Wilber’s and other community-based restaurants for their hospitality in addition to their food

Smoke Show BBQ will be doing another pop-up at Crown Station in Charlotte

Jon G’s gets in the pit fabrication game

Non-Native News

Less than a week until Black Smoke comes out

John Tanner gets a dispatch on Salvage Barbecue from his “Senior South Portland (Maine) Correspondents”

Smoked wings are a big hit in Columbia

The Riverdale Park, MD-based 2Fifty Texas BBQ is opening up a D.C. location

Vegan Mob was started in 2019

Linkdown: 3/24/21

Featured

In the latest sign that we’re slowly coming out of this pandemic, the BBQ Fest on the Neuse, “home to the largest whole hog cook-off in the world”, returns this May to Kinston, NC. This is on top of Governor Cooper announcing yesterday that as of this Friday restaurants can open at 75% capacity indoors and 100% outdoors. While this doesn’t mean that everything going’s to snap right back to how it was, things are definitely trending upward.

As for the BBQ Fest on the Neuse, the event hopes to be back in downtown Kinston but if they aren’t able to procure that permit they will go to the Lenoir County Fairgrounds. The barbecue competition will have less competitors, there will be less vendors, and the amount of bands and stages will also be smaller. Despite all this, hopes are high for “Kinston-Lenoir County’s signature event.

Says Joe Hargitt, Visit Kinston Chairman: “We want the overall feel to be a coming out party, after COVID, for the city of Kinston.”

Native News

Charlotte-based Mac’s Speed Shop eyes growth across the Southeast in the Carolinas, Tennessee and Florida

Jon G’s has a new convert

Non-Native News

Houston-based Blood Brothers BBQ, which fuses Asian flavors with central Texas barbecue, will open a location at the upcoming Resorts World casino on the Las Vegas strip in May

Ahead of his upcoming book Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue (out April 27 on UNC Press), Adrian Miller shares a few insights with Daniel Vaughn on his barbecue travels

Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ is on Eater’s list of noteworthy new cookbooks

More on that beer collab between La Barbecue and Zilker Brewing

Get brisket tips from Evan LeRoy; a video is available for Patreon members

Steve Raichlen has some brisket tips of his own over at Barbecue Bible

…and so does Jess Pryles. Must be something in the water.

Tips on fire maintenance

Sounds like my kind of place:

Robert Sietsema tries the brisket sandwich at four new NYC-area barbecue joints: Virgil’s Real Barbecue, John Brown BBQ, Izzy’s BBQ Smokehouse, and Hudson Smokehouse

Rest In Peace to Dorothy King of Everett & Jones Barbeque in Oakland

Friday Find: “How Pitmaster Matt Horn Developed His Signature ‘West Coast-Style’ Barbecue in Oakland”

Monk: Eater’s Smoke Point continues to roll out the content, this time going behind the scene with Matt Horn of Oakland’s Horn Barbecue. Instead of the tri-tip one might expect in California, Horn is putting out Central Texas-style barbecue mostly cooked by feel instead of temperature. Horn BBQ finally opened last fall to a lot of hype and by all accounts is delivering. For more eater

Description: Horn Barbecue pitmaster Matt Horn fell in love with barbecue from a young age, when he learned to get a feel for how to make juicy, tender, and smoky brisket, ribs, and other meats from his grandfather’s smoker without even using a thermometer. Now, he cultivates his “West Coast-style” barbecue, inspired by a combination of Central Texas barbecue, traditions from the deep south, and Horn’s Bay Area roots, at his restaurant in Oakland.

Linkdown: 10/28/20

Featured

This week, Adrian Miller, the James Beard Award-winning author and self-proclaimed “Soul Food Scholar” shared the cover art and preorder link for his forthcoming book entitled “Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue.” As I noted in my recent Barbecue Bros Book Club entry for “North Carolina’s Roadside Eateries” by D.G. Martin, while the John T. Edges and Bob Garners of the world have given us so much in terms of exposing us to places we might never have known about otherwise, it’s well past time to get a different perspective.

I am very much looking forward to reading both this book as well as Rodney Scott’s upcoming book to get just that. “Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue” will be out April 22, 2021 on University of North Carolina Press.

“Black Smoke celebrates the significant contributions that African Americans have made to the American barbecue story. You’ll learn how African Americans honed and popularized a cuisine rooted in Native American culinary tradition, and became its most effective ambassadors. I profile fascinating barbecuers from the past two centuries, look at different aspects of African American barbecue culture, and opine about barbecue’s future.”

Native News

The BBQ Review (@BbqRate) is a Twitter account I just found out about

John Tanner’s BBQ Blog visits The Pit in Raleigh for a solid meal

John Tanner also recently shared his favorite barbecue sauces

Congrats to Warner Stamey, founder of Stameys Barbecue, on his Barbecue Hall of Fame induction!

Non-Native News

Desiree Robinson of Cozy Corner is also a BBQ Hall of Fame inductee

This UPROXX interview with Rodney Scott covers a lot of the basics you may already know

Horn Barbecue has finally opened in Oakland (finally!)

The Drinking Pig by Chef Raheem Sealey is a weekend pop-up in Northeast Miami Dade

Franklin Barbecue has started shipping briskets through Goldbelly

A second location of Pappy’s Smokehouse has opened in the St. Louis area

LeRoy & Lewis has a Patreon account for exclusive content

This week is Texas Monthly BBQ Week