Statesville

Friday Find: Kathleen Purvis’ Short 2010 Barbecue Road Trip

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Image via Kathleen Purvis

In 2010,  Charlotte Observer food writer Kathleen Purvis documented a barbecue road trip in 3 short blog posts and if there is anything we love here at Barbecue Bros, it’s a barbecue road trip. If you want to read the opinion of someone who is actually qualified to write about barbecue and food in general, please read on. I’ve included a few short sentences below from each of the entries.

Barbecue road trip, Part I: Keaton’s, Cleveland, NC

The real star of the menu is just the same: Half-chicken fried, dipped in sauce and grilled. The meat inside is a little dry, but the skin is the point, peppery and just a little chewy.

Barbecue road trip, Part II: Port-A-Pit, Statesville, NC

The barbecue is smoky, moist and already sauced, the sauce on the side is dark, sweet and tastes strongly of liquid smoke.

Barbecue road trip, Part III: Cook’s BBQ, Lexington, NC

I’ve been hearing about Brandon Cook at Cook’s BBQ for a couple of years. I had just been waiting for an open travel day to check his place out. The son of barbecuer Doug Cook, who owns Backcountry Barbecue in Lexington, Brandon opened his own place and decided to forego modern shortcuts like electric or gas cookers and go back to all-wood cooked barbecue.

Link to all posts on Kathleen Purvis’ blog tagged with “barbecue”

–Monk

Friday Find: Port-A-Pit BBQ Video Profile

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Port-A-Pit BBQ, Statesville, NC

I hadn’t previously heard of Port-A-Pit BBQ, but they are the barbecue catering arm of Koala-T-Katering in Statesville. And apparently they are kind of hard to find if you are looking for takeout from the offices of Koala-T. Here’s another video profile from Our State Magazine from some time ago, similar to the one for Hillsborough BBQ Company we posted a few weeks back. Watch it, if only to hear what is my introduction to the use of the word “rotisserize.”

–Monk

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)

Linkdown: 5/13/14

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– North Carolina is #2 on TripAdvisor’s “Top 10 States for BBQ.” Sure, I guess I can buy that. #1 on the list? Georgia…wait, what?

– Speaking of Georgia, here’s an interview with native son Myron Mixon from Conde Nast Traveler

– Statesville has a place that serves both eastern and western NC barbecue

– Another list of barbecue around the world, entitled “From the Philippines to Australia, a Gorgeous Look at BBQ Around the World”

– Eater’s guide to eating brisket in NYC, including Barbecue Bros fave Mighty Quinn’s

– Unfortunately, you need a subscription to read the whole article on barbecue styles in the Houston area, but there are these two fantastic sentences just before the paywall:

There are a lot of different styles in the United States, but the two barbecue heavyweights are North Carolina and Texas. Barbecue folks in Kansas City and Memphis are going to take umbrage at that statement, but that’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

– A recap of last week’s Getting Jiggy with the Piggy last weekend in Concord

– The Wide Open Bluegrass Festival, as well as the Whole Hog Barbecue Championship that takes place alongside it, will remain in Raleigh until at least 2018 

– Alton Brown’s favorite barbecue is…North Carolina barbecue (specifically eastern; question and answer is at 2:13 of the linked video). 

– Tacos faced barbecue in this final round of Food Network’s “Regional Foods Face-Off” bracket. Spoiler alert: barbecue won.

Congratulations, barbecue! You are the pride of the South. If you think about it, what’s more American than barbecue? It was born and bred in the United States. And even though there are different types of barbecuing methods, preparations and sauces, which are very often hotly contested between states, at the end of the day it’s easy to bring together a crowd of family and friends when there’s a barbecue nearby. And with summer just around the corner, it’s time to pull out those grills and dust off those barbecue pits because grilling season is ahead!

– Not sure how long it’s been up, but the website for Ed Mitchell’s ‘Que is live and you can take a look at the menu here; full plates include both chopped and pulled eastern Carolina whole hog as well as chopped bbq turkey, brisket, ribs, fried chicken, and bbq half-chickens. The original opening was in April, but hopefully we’ll hear more details soon

Linkdown: 4/23/14

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– Giving a whole other meaning to barbecue hash, the owner/operator of Smokey’s BBQ in Dallas, NC charged for selling marijuana in and around his restaurant

– The NCAA recently allowed unlimited snacks for “student-athletes” and this article runs down the best advantages gained by schools due to local cuisine (many of which are not coincidentally barbecue)

NC State: The Wolfpack will attempt to turn the ACC’s best prospects away from Tallahassee by offering unlimited whole hog barbecue and vinegar-based sauce from The Pit in Raleigh. The toughest recruiting battles on Tobacco Road will be between NC State and North Carolina, which will attempt to lure recruits with fried chicken-and-cheddar biscuits from Chapel Hill’s Time-Out (available 24 hours a day, of course).

– A Barbecue Bros hometown joint gets a shout out from The Great NC BBQ Map

– Is Durham becoming a barbecue mecca? BBQ Jew thinks so.

– The Barbecue Bros tend to stay out of political debates and focus on barbecue, but this final paragraph in a story about last night’s debate of GOP candidates for Senate in NC caught our eye

In a lightning round at the end of the debate, the candidates were asked to pick their favorite style of North Carolina barbecue. Three picked Lexington, which is built around a vinegar-based red sauce.

“I love it all,” said Tillis, smiling coyly.

– The latest stops on Marie, Let’s Eat!’s epic NC barbecue road trip finds him in Hill’s Lexington Barbecue in Winston-Salem, Deano’s in Mocksville, and Carolina Bar-B-Q in Statesville; gotta say I’ve definitely enjoyed reading about Grant’s NC travels (barbecue-related and not) the past few weeks