Labor Day Weekend 2011

Saturday I smoked some butts for a little get together at my mom's place on Sunday.

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The Most Epic Day Ever III

This past Friday was supposed to be spent eating and bar hopping our way through NYC, but due to some excessive celebrating the previous night, one member of our party (Chris) was ridiculously hungover the next morning so we ended up cancelling the trip.  After getting a couple more hours sleep, we decided to make the most of the day by getting breakfast and then smoking some ribs.  It ended up being a damn fine day all things considered.

Aside from the horribly slow service, our breakfast at Open Door Cafe was quite good.  We chose to dine al fresco and after our hostess seated us, she mentioned she was the barista and that they had a fully functioning espresso bar so I ordered my usual decaf soy latte.

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Sucsexful Boobecue Recipenis Testes

I'd say that's the most profound and intellectual post title I've come up with yet. The purpose of my most recent barbecue was to test some new recipes I've been wanting to try out. Overall, they came out very well. This was also the second meeting of our beer club the Maryland Beer Appreciation Society, which also went well.

My favorite items of the day were my fried pickles with a nice remoulade for dipping, the chipotle brown sugar sweet potatoes, and the coffee cocoa stout barbecue sauce I whipped up. Honorable mention goes to Deana's crab stuffed jalapeno poppers, and Jen's oreo-stuffed cookies (yes, I've decided to use people's full names, that abbreviating shit was getting on my nerves.) And, of course, Karen's amazing apple pie, my favorite. Join me on this epic quest of smoking meats and quaffing brews.

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Happy 10 Days before My 30th Birthday

Nah, I'm not trying to sell it. If you can comprehend basic math, then you can deduce my exact birthday from the title of this post. Are you up to the challenge?

This is just a pic post. These were probably the best ribs I've smoked to date. 7 hours total, six hours naked, one hour foiled. Temps held strong at 250 degrees. Four fist-sized chunks of hickory provided the perfect level of smoky goodness. Transported to my dad's place and sauced on the grill at around 300 degrees to caramelize and serve. Also tried a new baked bean recipe, which, after some serious tweaking, turned out pretty damn good. To drink? Lagunitas Lil Sumpin Sumpin, Flying Dog Raging Bitch (pictured below) and Table for Two.

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Pork Hangover

Yes, that's what I woke up with on Sunday morning, well at least that's what I tell myself (the hangover was more likely due to the copious amounts of Resurrection, Raging Bitch, and Old Dominion Oak Barrel Stout, and Pipeline Porter that I consumed.) Nonetheless this is not a post about words and artful descriptions, it's more about a happy little shindig that I had the pleasure of hosting Saturday night.

I was uber-excited, it being my first barbecue of the season and all. Of course the date I chose for it had to be right smack in the middle of a horribly chill bout of weather, along with below freezing temperatures overnight. Fortunately, in the end I defeated the vile and corrupt Lord Jack Frost with my Kingston Charcoal Claymore enchanted with all things Fire and Brimstonish... What the hell am I talking about? I think what I'm trying to say is that I was able to successfully smoke my meat despite temperatures in the upper-20s. Yeah, that was it.

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Raleigh Day 4

Our third night in Raleigh was the one I was looking forward to the most: We had reservations at The Pit. After having pitmaster Ed Mitchell’s barbecue at The Big Apple BBQ Block Party this past May, I was super-excited to try his grub in his home digs. This was the first time we’d walked out of downtown and my co-workers definitely made a few comments about the sketchy scenery. I ensured them that the restaurant was just over the next hill, which, gladly, it was.

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Birfday Shenanigans Pt. 3

For the third and final chapter of the epic saga that is my birthday celebration I threw one hell of a barbecue. The food was all fantastic, the highlight of which was when my sister-in-law said my potato salad was the best she'd ever had in her life.

Personally, I was responsible for pulled pork, spareribs, potato salad, and blueberry mojitos (I octupled my recipe to accommodate my guests). Friends and family provided the rest. A co-worker of mine brought an exceptionally good bok choy salad and my sister-in-law's raspberry pie nailed the spot between tart and sweet. Another co-worker bought me a pie from Dangerously Delicious Pies. During lunch one day at work after much deliberation I decided on a strawberry-rhubarb pie with crumb topping, which wasn't on their menu, but they happily said they could make. Strawberry-rhubarb is one of my favorite pies because of the play on sweet-tart. Unfortunately, it was just too sweet. I guess all pie places have to do to become ultra-popular is make insanely sweet pies. First it was Hoosier Mama and now Dangerously Delicious. Boo.

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Ribs and Skydiving

Here's a more light-hearted post... fo dat ass.  I'm giving the "new" blogger posting format a try.  We'll see how successful it goes. 

A few weeks ago I had a little get together and I smoked my best ribs to date along with a big pitcher of Blueberry Mojitos and some Creole Potato Salad. The ribs and trimmings were on for 8.5 hours over Kingston briqs and apple chunks. I used the Texas Sugarless recipe here on TVWB and sprayed with AJ every 2 hours and basted with Andy Nelson's Bama BBQ Sauce at the end.

Temps held perfectly 215-225 all through the smoke, only rising up to 235 after being hit by direct sunlight.

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2010 Big Apple BBQ Block Party

I'm going to test a different style of posting for a while and see how you/I like it (although I know in reality no one reads this thing). If you feel you like the much more long-winded and detailed posts or these shorter straight to the point posts please leave a reply in the comments section. Previous entries were done in story mode. Now we're switching to arcade mode. Please insert coin(s).

So, my wife and I attended the 2010 Big Apple BBQ Block Party in New York City a few weekends ago. It was a really awesome experience and overall I was really pleased with it. We steered clear of the NY-based institutions because we can try their products anytime we're in the city. The lines were not nearly as bad as I'd expected (granted we had a speed pass) and we got to try some really great food. Here's the short of it:

My favorite main dishes:

- The BBQ Mutton from Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn in Owensboro, KY (my overall favorite item of the entire festival)
- The Whole-Hog Sandwich from The Pit in Raleigh, NC
- The Pulled Pork Sandwich from Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur, AL
- Honorable mention: The Western-Tennessee Style Whole-Hog Sandwich from Martin's Bar-B-Que Joint in Nashville, TN

My favorite sides:

- Housemade Sweet Pickles from Martin's Bar-B-Que Joint in Nashville, TN
- Pimento Cheese from Jim 'N Nick's in Birmingham, AL
- Baked Beans from 17th Street Bar & Grill in Murphysboro, IL

The biggest disappointment:

- Hands down the Baby Back Ribs from 17th Street Bar & Grill in Murphysboro, IL

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This Dark Horse should be put down

As soon as I caught wind about the Carolina barbecue/tex-mex themed menu of the Dark Horse Saloon (originally titled the Stranger's Pub) I caught wood. I'd been counting the days until it's grand opening in early-March. Barbecue and Nuevo-Tex-Mex fusion is most certainly a type of cuisine I'm very passionate about, and I was uber-excited to try a local chef's take. I was able to find a few more details about the chef's crudentials on the great local blog Bel Air News and Views and was also excited to see that the food was positively reviewed there. So I invited a few friends out to try as much of their menu as we could for lunch a few Sundays ago.

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Feast your eyes on my meat

Sorry I haven't been updating this like a good blogger, but with the change in weather we've been trying to get things done around the house, plus the warm weather social life is starting to kick in.

I've also been busy planning two food-centric trips to NYC (one of which is a pizza tour with my fellow blogger friend pizzablogger) and one to Chicago as well as our first anniversary road-trip which will include Montreal, Quebec City, Portland, ME, and Boston. Yes, lots of planning and food research is involved. Suggestions welcome. I'm leaving the non-food-related stuff to the Mrs. although I did manage to score front row center tickets to Cirque de Soleil in Quebec. I'm pretty stoked about that.

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NYC 07/09: Day 3: Eating Big

After a quick shower and some web research we collected all of our things and thanked everyone for letting us stay the weekend. We decided to hit up Levain Bakery for one of their popular fist-sized cookies.


Originally, I planned on either hitting up Jing Fong for dim sum or Chola for some amazing Indian buffet, but I had a sweet tooth that apparently two milkshakes and pie from the dinner party hadn't quite satiated. It took a bit of navigating to find it since they have such a small sign in a tucked-away space, but we persevered. I ordered a chocolate peanut-butter cookie and Zack went with their most popular chocolate chip walnut.



These cookies were definitely big enough to provide adequate energy for walking the streets of Manhattan all day… or participating in a triathlon. They were colossal. Mine was packed with more peanut butter chips than I thought possible, but as soon as I tasted Zack’s I realized why it was their best-seller. The center was a gooey mass of cookie dough and the walnuts provided the perfect flavor and texture compliment. The mouthfeel was superb. I downed mine without much trouble--I pride myself on being a human garbage disposal—but it took Zack some serious effort to finish his. After a few bottles of water we were hydrated and packed full of carbs and ready to take on the city.

At first we walked down Broadway with no real direction just taking in the sights. We saw an Urban Outfitters so we stopped in there. Meanwhile Zack was trying to find the address to Forbidden Planet on his phone because I had been there on previous trips and thought he would appreciate it. We happened by a sign for Nintendo World so we high-tailed it over to Rockefeller Plaza.


Nintendo World was cool but nothing over the top. I picked up a case for my DSi and was hoping to find some sweet Dragon Quest toys, I really want a metal slime, but unfortunately the toys were mostly Pokemon, and the expected Mario and Zelda.


We did see some awesome old-school Mario wall stickers (masterfully modeled by yours truly above) but they were $75 a set. No thanks. I went to pay for my case and the cashier told us it was still a pretty long walk to Forbidden Planet so instead he suggested we hit up another comic shop. So we changed our destination to Midtown Comics at 45th and Lexington.

We headed over there and looked around. It was a pretty sweet comic shop all-in-all but I still didn’t find any sweet toys to add to my collection. There was a bust of Unicron from the Transformers animated movie but it was out of my price range. There was also a really sweet statue of Gandalf battling the Balrog, but that was even more out of my price range. We went to the 42nd St. station and, after checking the time, surmised that we didn’t have enough time to make it to the buffet which ended at 3. Frustration kicked in as I wracked my brain trying to think of a decent culinary destination to end our otherwise terrific weekend in the city. I was out of ideas and my Zagat handbook wasn’t really helping. It looked like it was going to be a shot in the dark… and the clock was ticking. I was almost at my breaking point when, in a last ditch effort, I scanned over my hand-written page of notes for anything in the West 40s and there it was, a shining beacon of barbecue delight: Daisy May’s BBQ USA at 11th Ave. and 46th St. I looked at Zack and asked if he were in the mood for barbecue and in typical Zack fashion he responded “Hells yeah, dude! I love barbecue.” We had our next culinary destination.

I had researched NYC barbecue joints for previous trips and Daisy May’s had always been a consideration, but for one reason or another I had never made it out there. I immediately felt more accustomed to the blocks close to Daisy May’s near the Western edge of Manhattan. There were no huge skyscrapers in sight and I almost felt like I was back home. It felt much less surreal and had an unpretentious vibe about it. I commented to Zack that if I ever had the chance to move to the city I think I would look for a place in that area of town. We rounded the corner and spotted the spinning BBQ sign and knew we had finally arrived.


Upon entering I was thrilled to find the cafeteria barbecue joint atmosphere that the e-reviewers had raved about. The sides were laid out in plain view and there were two workers manning the counter but with a laid back attitude that conveyed the notion that I could take all the time in the world to decide what I wanted. But I knew what I wanted. A big fat Oklahoma Beef Rib was what I wanted. I asked the guy what his most popular side items were and decided on the cheesy creamed corn and the sweet potatoes. A diet Barqs rounded out my order. After I placed the order the girl at the register confirmed it all with the guy prepping the food and I overheard him say “Diet??” I had the urge to say to him “Yes, I’m not counting calories, I just prefer diet over regular soda.” I was about to consume a football sized chunk of barbecued meat, the notion of counting calories seemed quite absurd at that point. Zack ordered the pulled pork with beans and rice and baked beans with beef tips and what turned out to be a monster jar of sweet tea. My order was up by the time Zack had placed his, and his quickly followed. The barbecue feast was about to begin. The dining area was great with it’s wood finish and a decently sized plasma TV mounted on opposite walls. One was showing country music videos and the other was showing the Mets game, I chose the seat facing the Mets game. Sorry Zack.



Don’t ask me why, but when it comes to barbecue I always go for the sides first. I dug into the golden glop first and my eyes lit up. This was the first time I had had creamed corn and cheese combined and it was instantly addictive. I noticed green and red bell pepper mixed in but if it had a little heat to it, I would’ve raved about it all day. I think I’ll do a little research on it and try making my own with the addition of some serranos or maybe chipotles. Nonetheless it was an awesome combination of sweet and savory. The cheese was nice and warm and smooth and the corn was whole kernel and gave a nice pop in each bite. I honestly don’t know how they got whole corn kernels like that. In my experience, when cutting corn straight from the cob it never feels quite whole and these certainly didn’t taste like any canned variety. Thinking about it right now is making my mouth water and my stomach rumble. I could eat a whole bowl of that stuff. It was a wonderful way to start the meal.

On the other hand, the sweet potatoes I must certainly rave about. These were without a doubt the best sweet potatoes I’ve ever had. This includes other barbecue places I’ve tried and sweet potato casserole served at Thanksgiving. The only other iteration of sweet potato that comes close to this is the sweet potato pancakes I had at EJ’s in Brooklyn a few years back. It was super smooth without a single lump and so creamy. I couldn’t put my finger on what made them so great, they just were. I think more often than not people doctor up sweet potatoes with too much sugar or marshmallows or whatever else, but these had the perfect level of sweetness. I hadn’t even tried my beef rib and I had already chalked this up as a great meal. I glanced across at Zack and he was doing much of same thing, having decimated his beans and rice and not touched the baked beans or pork. Sadly, I missed my chance to try them, they were gone. The baked beans were good but nothing special. I got what I thought was a nice burnt end in my bite but didn't taste anything so it may have been a cube of fat, I'm really not sure.

The pulled pork was so chopped and moist that it had an almost mushy consistency to it. The last pulled pork I had had before that was Andy Nelson's at our wedding shower, and it blew the pulled pork at Daisy May's out of the water. Another thing to mention was they didn't give Zack a bun, just a plastic container of pulled pork. I found that a tad strange. Is eating pulled pork as a big pile o' meat instead of a sandwich a common practice in some barbecue joints? I've never heard of it before. The sweet tea was great since it wasn't over-the-top sweet like most concoctions labeled as Southern Sweet Tea. Zack downed his entire jar of the stuff. If I had done that I would've been bouncing off the walls. Well done Zack, well done.


My beef rib was good not great, but I expected as much and ordered it more as a novelty than anything else. The overall experience was very primitive and if had had a spear handy I probably would've hunted locals for sport. The caramelized outer crust was definitely the best part. There was more fat content than I prefer, but the meat was tender and juicy and... abundant.


As much as I wanted to, and I most certainly could have, I did not finish the entire thing. I couldn't get the notion of walking around the city with a mean case of the meat sweats out of my head. I really would've been miserable if I had finished it all. Plus I practically licked my side dishes clean, so that gave me at least some sense of accomplishment.

The most off-putting thing about Daisy May's was the lack of table barbecue sauce(s). This was also a first for me. Barbecue establishments that I've been to always have their own sauce that they make and bottle. Perfecting one's own barbecue sauce, in my opinion, is a huge part of barbecue culture and should be a pre-requisite for opening your own barbecue joint. Zack even got up to ask the guy behind the counter and nope, no barbecue sauce. This was unexpected and definitely a mark in the negative category. After we were done stuffing our face, we relaxed for a bit and reminisced about the highlights of our great weekend. But it wasn't quite over yet. We paid our check and headed out the door. I had one more thing to do.

Ice cream. Yes, that's right, I am quite mad, quite mad indeed. I didn't do any research, but I wanted a nice sweet finish to my meal. Zack looked at me like I was insane, I think the sweet tea did him in. I saw a Pinkberry and the name rang a bell so we headed inside. I asked what the dealio was since I'd never been there and ended up sampling their coconut and passion fruit. I ordered a small passion fruit and since you get two toppings I did a double-up of strawberries. It was nice and light and refreshing. I've never been a huge fan of passion fruit, but this had a tangy sweet that struck me as more prevalent than iterations I had had in the past. I finished it, despite my stomach's protest during the last few bites. Bah, I surely walked it all off. Yeah, no... still recovering.

That is the conclusion of our weekend excursion in NYC. Sorry that some of the pictures from this post were blurry, I'll try to do better! I hope you enjoyed reading our tale and don't doubt that there will be other similar trips recounted on Microcosm K both from the recent past and the ever-promising future. Thanks for reading.