Linkdown: 5/18/16

– Per Raleigh Eats, Ed Mitchell’s Que is returning, this time to the Brier Creek neighborhood in Raleigh

– Southern Smoke BBQ in Garland is one of 6 Farm-to-Table Restaurants in Eastern NC to Try This Summer

Matthew and Jessica work with farms in their area and around the state to source the best and freshest seasonal ingredients for their businesses. Matthew works with a young farmer named Caleb Johnson, a graduate of North Carolina State University, and his farm: AJ Family Farms. He will check in with Caleb regularly to see what’s in season, and come up with dishes based on the weather. “I buy whatever he’s got,” Matthew says of Caleb’s farm. “Last week he had beautiful green tomatoes, so we did a corn and green tomato succotash over grits. That’s kind of my approach.”

– John Shelton Reed thinks NC needs a new holiday commemorating the Wilmington Barbecue of 1766

– Mac’s Speed Shop in Charlotte may be expanding its original South End location

– Brisket +Tacos = Crazy Delicious

An excerpt from Rien Fertel’s new book “The One True Barbecue” on Ricky Scott

– Speaking of Fertel’s new book, Rodney Scott is bringing his whole hog to Charleston’s Butcher & Bee for a book signing

– However, not all reactions to “The One True Barbecue” have been positive; Ed Mitchell and Wilber Shirley each took exception to how there were portrayed negatively in the book but not interviewed for it

– Buxton Hall Barbecue is throwing a 5 course dinner with whiskey, beer, and barbecue:

Linkdown: 5/11/16

– We were fortunate enough to be considered “experts” (shh…don’t tell them) and submitted nominees for 10Best.com’s Best BBQ Pork Sandwich in NC contest. Voting ends June 6 at 12pm ET.

– Some coverage of the 10Best contest from Pitt County, Asheville, and Garland

– Creative Loafing profiles Seoul Food Meat Co.

– Over at Marie, Let’s Eat!, Grant visits the last remaining Old Hickory House, located in Tucker, GA, as well as Big Cove BB-Q in Owens Cross Roads, AL

– Whole-hog Carolina barbecue converts Louisiana-native Rien Fertel

Mr. Fertel locates the birthplace of whole-hog barbecue in eastern North Carolina. In aptly named Pitt County, he visits three whole-hog establishments. The agriculture-and-livestock-rich region, he says, is “a bastion, or pit, as it were, where the nation’s oldest vernacular barbecue tradition has been slowly smoking for nearly two centuries.”

– Matthew Odam recently went on a 16-stop barbecue tour throughout Texas

– Midwood Smokehouse’s crinkle cut fries makes this list of best fries in Charlotte from Charlotte Agenda

– Always worth a link:

Friday Find: CBS This Morning visits Franklin Barbecue

Yet another behind the scenes look at Franklin Barbecue:

“Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto” shows what Aaron Franklin has perfected since smoking beef brisket for friends in his back yard. Franklin says all good Texans barbecue, but he is special: a James Beard Award winner with eager customers who wait for hours at his restaurant. Vinita Nair takes a behind-the-scenes look at Franklin Barbeque in Austin, Texas.

Linkdown: 4/27/16

– NC State University is holding a barbecue camp in June

– Sam Jones and Ed Mitchell are once again part of The Big Apple Barbecue Block Party

– Grant visits Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur, AL – home of the white sauce and “perfectly fine, middle-of-the-pack barbecue”

– TMBBQ interviews Laura Loomis, the 28 year old female pitmaster of Two Bros BBQ in San Antonio

– A roundup of barbecue cookbooks out this spring

– Bullock’s Bar-B-Que in Durham will be closed for a few weeks after a fire

– The Barbecue Festival in Lexington is a food festival within driving distance from Charlotte that defines NC cuisine, according to Charlotte Five

– Speaking of Lexington, this blog considers it one of the 14 best places in the world for barbecue and we fully agree (although it mistakenly attributes Stamey’s in Greensboro to Lexington)

– Houston Chronicle BBQ writer JC Reid on the pitfalls of defining true ‘cue

Needless to say, a few pitmasters took umbrage with this definition and compliance method. Pitmaster Carey Bringle of the popular Peg Leg Porker barbecue restaurant in Nashville responded on his Facebook page: “I can assure you that (the True ‘Cue folks) are not experts. First off, they are writers, not pitmasters.”

– Potential “Pitmaster General”?