The James Beard Award

Linkdown: 5/27/15

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– TripAdvisor has come out with their annual huh? list of best barbecue states and places

– The Greenville (SC) Barbecue Tour will launch June 6 and run every Saturday

– Texas BBQ Treasure Hunt has some thoughts (for and against) about Aaron Franklin winning a James Beard Award

– Speaking of Franklin, you can watch the first episode of his new PBS show online

– India gets a barbecue food truck

– Sean Brock’s most under-the-radar eating experience in Nashville is Mary’s Old Fashioned Pit Barbecue

– TMBBQ’s thoughts on The 100 Best Barbecue Restaurants in America

– Food Republic has a list of barbecue festivals across the country over the next few months

– Marie, Let’s Eat! continues his tour of Alabama barbecue: Betty’s Bar-B-Q in Anniston, AL and Bob Sykes Bar-B-Q in Bessemer, AL

– As a follow up from the AP Stylebook, Our State Magazine’s editor’s thoughts on “barbecue” as a noun rather than a verb

– A couple of good recent barbecue articles from Our State Magazine

Linkdown: 5/20/15

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– In cool local barbecue and beer news, Birdsong Brewing is brewing a small batch beer with the help of Queen City Q

– Congrats to Mac’s Speed Shop as they took 5th in whole hog at last weekend’s Memphis in May

– Charlotte food writer Kathleen Purvis breaks down 5 new barbecue books from 12 Bones, Franklin Barbecue, and more

– Charlotte Five points out what you can eat at The Improper Pig for under $20 (tip not included)

– Chef Ben Adams of Durham’s Piedmont is leaving that restaurant to open a barbecue restaurant in North Durham with Wyatt Dickson, whom he met back in college at UNC

– Meanwhile, The AP Stylebook gets things horribly, horribly wrong: barbecue is a noun not a verb

– This opinion article from blues singer Pam Saulsby contains some updates on Ed Mitchell’s next venture

A reliable source tells me that while Mr. Mitchell’s Que Restaurant and Blues Experience is no longer in business at The American Tobacco Campus in Durham, there are plans to re-open in a larger location. In fact, Mitchell has his eye on two locations: one between Chapel Hill and Durham and another on the outskirts of Raleigh.

– Robert Moss has a list of the top 5 southern barbecue sides, broken down by region, in his latest column

– Catching up with prior posts from Moss, one on Aaron Franklin winning a James Beard award and another on shoulder clod, “Texas’s forgotten bbq star”

– If you’re smoking barbecue at home (and you should), here’s some great info on what wood to use for what meat

– The Men In Blazers met up with GFOP’s (great friends of the pod) at Joe’s Kansas City last week

Linkdown: 3/25/15

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– The “Elite Ate” of Garden and Gun’s Barbecue Bracket has been posted; in the Mid Atlantic region Skylight Inn has been eliminated by Red Bridges Barbecue Lodge and faces Lexington Barbecue. The rest of the bracket is located here and voting ends Thursday at 10pm

– Speaking of brackets and barbecue, Red Clay Soul’s Georgia BBQ Bracket Challenge is also down to its “Great Eight”

– Last week, Robert Moss took a deeper look at barbecue spaghetti in Memphis

– Marie, Let’s Eat! stops at Hodges Bar-B-Que in Decatur, GA and Blue Sky Barbecue in Woodstock, GA in two of his latest chapters

– The pitmasters for the 2015 Big Apple Barbecue Block Party have been announced, and Ed Mitchell is not attending this year

– Another reminder that the NCBBQA cooking and judging school is this Saturday, March 28

– Aaron Franklin is a James Beard finalist for Best Chef: South

– If, like me, you are less than familiar with Alabama and Georgia barbecue, here’s a primer

When it comes to regional barbecue, some people claim that neither Georgia nor Alabama has a distinctive style. We say, think again.

Sure, you can find everything from Texas brisket to Memphis ribs in Atlanta, but on the two-lane highways, a definite Georgia style emerges. Pork shoulders or hams are cooked over hickory and dressed in a thin tomato-and-vinegar sauce. They’re served with Brunswick stew, a hearty combination of chicken, beef, or pork (or all three) simmered with tomatoes and corn. Some of these elements carry over into Alabama—chopped pork dressed in tomato-and-vinegar sauce, plus a somewhat thinner Brunswick stew. But there’s too much variation to identify a single Alabama style. Sauces range from ruddy, tomato-based mixtures to thick mustard-spiked concoctions. Most distinctive is Alabama’s mayonnaise-based white sauce. Some are traditional, others more modern, but one element unites: They’re all delicious.

Linkdown: 2/25/15

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– The chapter on Midwood Smokehouse from Marie, Let’s Eat! was posted earlier this week (our photos from the meet up here); he also checked out Mac’s Speed Shop during his Charlotte-area travels in January

– More on Smoke Modern Barbeque’s second location in Ballantyne

– A review of Uncle J’s BBQ and Restaurant in Kings Mountain from the Gaston Gazette

– Expansion into the South is a sign of City Barbeque’s success; Speedy checked out their Cary location a few weeks back and thought it was decent

– Could Aaron Franklin actually win a James Beard Award?

– Did you know a barbecue pork sandwich chain used to dominate Texas and the rest of the south?

– Lexington makes the list on Thrillist’s list of best barbecue cities in the US

– Lockhart also makes the list at #3, and TMBBQ has a timeline of the city’s barbecue

– Is chicken mull having a moment? First a post on The Daily South, then another on Serious Eats (granted, both by Robert Moss), now Garden and Gun has a recipe