BBQ
So tomorrow is the kickoff of the Big Apple BBQ.
This is a big deal for Jamie and I. How far the mighty vegetarians have fallen. Well, as they say, everything in moderation… Except for occasions like tomorrow.
Fourteen champion BBQ purveyors from across this great land of ours with their pits running at full smoke! And since it’s going to be hot and humid tomorrow, I mean that in all its permutations. All right in tony Madison Square Park. Hundreds, if not thousands, of folks walkin’ ’round with plates piled high with brisket, pulled pork, short ribs and sausage.
Oooh, sausage. Jamie and I usually disagree on who serves the best brisket, but we are always in full agreement that the best sausage, probably in the world, comes from The Southside Market in Elgin, (hard “g” as in goat, not as in the liquor) TX. Great Gravy Marie is their hot sausage good. You can order it online for delivery, but we never have. It’s a treat we get to experience once a year at the BABBQ. Someday we’ll make the pilgrimage to Elgin and try it out in their restaurant; a worthy expedition, and probably the only thing that would get me to TX.
I did note from the BABBQ site, that our other fav, Smokey O’s from St. Louis, MO, will not be there this year. We liked their brisket a lot, we loved the woman who ran the place, and we especially loved the reaction you got when you told someone that you’d had BBQ’d snoot, which is a Smokey O’s specialty. “What”, you ask, “is BBQ’d snoot? It couldn’t be…, could it?”
Yes, Virginia, yes. It could. BBQ’d snoot is the meat from around the pig’s snoot (odd that I keep typing snot), flattened, deep fried and served with BBQ sauce. Think pork rinds from a different part of the pig. Last year’s were less cruchy than the year prior. I think I preferred it that way, while Jamie preferred more crunch. But alas, unless a trip to St. Louis is in our future, and since I doubt we’ll be doing any baseball stadium trips this year, we’ll have to go snootless this time ’round.
This is a two day event and usually we attend both days. This year, however, since the Tony Awards are on Sunday night, we’ll be skipping the second day. This is a painful sacrifice but a necessary one. It’s about an hour from where we live to the BBQ. And since we’ve given up TV (more on that some other day), we’re watching the Tony’s in midtown. We’ll undoubtedly want a rest between events and well, that’s just too much travelling for entertainment. So we’ll eat our fill on Saturday. Rest up on all Sunday during the day and then head to Luxia/Mont Blanc for our Tony viewing pleasure.
Now, truth be told, we don’t usually watch the Tony’s. But this year, our favorite duo Kiki and Herb are nominated for their Broadway show in the Special Theatrical Event category. Oddly enough, the only other nominee in the category is Jay Johnson, the ventriloquist, for his show The Two and Only!. It is odd for so many reasons, but the one that strikes me as oddest, at the moment, is that Kiki and Herb’s show had to close to make room for Jay Johnson’s. Kiki and Herb could’ve extended their run but the theatre was closely booked. So Kiki got kicked out of the theatre to make room for puppet boy. An interesting contest indeed. And, to be fair, I do hear that The Two and Only was quite a good show and Jay Johnson is not a boy. Not that he’s a girl, he’s just a bit long in the tooth to be called a boy.
Anyway (or as David Milch writes it in any script he pens, “anyways”), I’m just hoping that the Special Theatrical Event is on the actual broadcast and not in the non-broadcast “we need to give out these creative awards but who cares” section. As a former theatre techie, I find the dismissal of the creative awards maddening, but I also realize that most of America couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the Tony’s anyway, so keep it short for America. Anyways…
Ok, so there’s the weekend. Big meat in a tony park and Tony’s midtown of the Big Apple. Fun filled and jam packed.
But first, we’re getting up a 6am tomorrow to do the laundry. Will the glamour never end?
Nite,
k.
BBQ sounds good; once I was told that the north-american BBQ isn’t as good as our “asado”, but I had never eat BBQ. The main difference between BBQ and asado is the way they are cooked. While in BBQ you have the live coal inmediatly under the meat, the asado is less “closed”, and allows air flow, moving with it the smoke (some people say it’s nocive, I don’t know if it’s true, but anyhow… who cares?). The way meat is put over the live coal makes the grease melt over the whole piece and adds some taste.
I’m not an expert about BBQ, but it’s a common/traditional sunday’s food in my country (Argentina).
About the sauce: the typical sauce we use is called chimichurri. It’s a “heavy” sauce, made of lot of things, a little sharp.
Here is a nice photo of a traditional asado
http://www.umabroad.umn.edu/programs/AMERICAS/buenosAires/images/large/Asado.jpg
Aclaration: we do not use to wear those clothes, but some people in the north and farmers do.
Have an excellent weekend! 🙂
Hi Zim! Thanks for the post and the pic.
Ah, the problem of defining BBQ. In the US, so many different cooking methods are called BBQ, but few are actually real BBQ. What most people call BBQ is grilled meat.
True BBQ is cooked for a very long time, anywhere from around 7 to 16 hours at a very low temperature, 225 to 275 degrees farenheit. An integral part of this process is the smoke.
The enclosure is filled with smoke from, usually hickory or cherry wood which gives the meat a beautiful smoke ring through the flesh. See the rosy red ring?
The longer it smokes, the deeper the ring.
I found this page from http://www.savorynewyork.com that has short interviews with each of the pit masters at the event describing what they’d be cooking. You can see some of the techniques and cookers in the clips.
Ok, I’m BBQ’d out. Nite, k.
Interesting! I’ll check out that site 🙂
It’s nice to learn about other cultures this way ^^