Family Reunion Barbecue

Barbecue has come a long way in the past twenty years or so. Barbecue is featured on prime time television, haute BBQ is found in swanky restaurants, and competition barbecue is as popular as ever. Barbecue is a growth industry of equipment, rubs, and sauces. There is nothing wrong with any of that, I love to see the celebration of barbecue. But I recently got to do a cook that stripped all of that away and reminded me of something. The real magic of barbecue happens in the VFW halls, community centers, and back yard covered dish suppers across the country every weekend. The smoke of family and community barbecues brings families together, connects generations, and refreshes aged bonds of friendship.

 

Who knew that the BBQ pork sandwich had so much power?

When my sister visited us in January, she had the wonderful idea that she and I should cook BBQ for our big family reunion in North Carolina. I thought it was a great idea because we hadn't been to one of these since Trevor was a baby. We used to meet every year or so at a farm house around Thanksgiving and share a meal with our extended family. Then my grandmother passed away, life got in the way, and we just didn't make it back.

My grandmother holding Trevor (yes, that same Trevor who is now a big high school football player).  She passed away before the reunion the following year.  Take advantage of your family while you have them.

This is in a very rural part of North Carolina where my brother, sister, and I often spent Summer vacations running barefoot and wild on our grandparents' farm. It's where I learned to shoot a rifle, split firewood by reading the grooves, and fish. It's also where had my first real taste of barbecue from the local volunteer fire department's community fund raiser. I fell in love with the piquant, vinegary taste of that chopped smoked pork and I was hooked for life. 

I have to admit that I was more apprehensive about cooking BBQ for our North Carolina family than I have been about cooking for any competition judge. Cooking for a judge is just about a number or result. This was about family - family that knows good BBQ and has specific ideas of what that should be.

People with a true love of BBQ have two kinds of family - family by blood and family by smoke. I didn't want to haul my kamados 6 1/2 hours across the Smoky Mountains and my sister didn't want to drag hers up 500+ miles from Florida. When barbecue people hear about other barbecue people in a stitch, they step up and provide.  My sister went to work on Facebook and through a cousin found a couple of strangers in Whiteville (20 miles from where we were staying) who had a Big Green Egg.  Randy and Bonita didn't know us from Adam's house cat but they opened up their home to us like family - family by smoke.

A common question in the BBQ forums is "I'm cooking BBQ for X event, how should I do that and get it there?"

So our game plan was this:

We had 60 people confirmed with several pending so we estimated for 80 people, we would need about 27 lbs of pork so we would need about 55 lbs of raw pork shoulders to begin with.  (Estimated 1/3rd pound per person, if we were doing two meats, I'd drop that estimate to a quarter pound per person for the pork.  80/3 = 26.6 lbs of cooked pork. Assuming you'll have about 50% shrinkage during cooking and processing, double that to 53.2 lbs).  Not ever wanting to run short, we planned to make more than needed to have a reserve batch.  If we didn't use it, it was already sealed and refrigerated so we could freeze it and eat at home later.

Wed night - Cook 40 lbs of pork butts in Knoxville overnight from 6pm to 6am.  Break it down, vacuum seal it, and refrigerate it and haul it to NC in coolers.  This would be our reserve batch.  If needed, we would heat the sealed bags in hot water and then freshen it up with a little rub serve.
Fri night - Cook 40 lbs of pork butts in Whiteville overnight from 8pm to 8am.  Pull at 8am Saturday morning, hold in a Cambro, transport to the community center in Lisbon and chop it onsite to serve as the first batches.
That gave us about 3 extra hours in case the Friday night butts ran longer.  If they weren't close at 6am, we planned to bump the Egg cooking temperature up to 300°F to speed it along.  

It worked out pretty close to how we planned.  Please excuse a lot of the pictures.  Once on the trip, we were only shooting with our mobile phone cameras and often in low light situations.

First round of four 10 pound pork butts.  I came home at lunch and prepped them.  Prep consisted of trimming, injecting with Chris Lilly's injection plus 1 cup of water, and then seasoned with....

We used my signature BBQ rub .  Note that we have updated that recipe increasing some of the sugars and adding a few new things.  

Even though I had plenty of kamado grills available, I cooked all 4 butts in one Large BGE with an adjustable rig because I wanted to make sure I wouldn't run into any problems using the same set up in Whiteville on Friday.  In theory, cooking 4 butts shouldn't take any longer than 1 butt as long as they aren't pushed up against each other.  But 4 butts in one cooker seemed crowded so I wanted to make sure. The Adjustable Rig set up worked perfect and the butts were done right at 12 hours, slightly more than 1 hour per pound.

The pork finished at 6am on Thursday so I was able to shred it and vacuum seal it before leaving for work that morning.

I serve my pork "naked" or without sauce, because I don't like covering it up with sauce.  But we like to give our guests options so we made a BBQ sauce bar.  Since this was North Carolina we had an Eastern NC vinegar sauce and a Western NC piedmont style sauce.  We also made our regular sweet, a sweet and spicy, and my sister made her acclaimed mustard BBQ sauce.  I highly recommend doing this when serving large crowds because everyone has their preferences about BBQ.

I came up with a great display idea for this.  I'll be doing a "DIY" post for that coming up shortly.

We drove over to Whiteville and Randy and Bonita couldn't have been nicer.  When I found that their Egg was surrounded by literally TONS of hardwood I took that as a harbinger of great things to come.  What better environment for a smoker?

The logs are actually for a wood furnace but still, it has to make the Egg feel happy.  

The only trouble we ran into was that the wire lead for the Auber controller/blower that I brought died an untimely death and my spare was 425 miles back at home.  No problem, we just went with the manual vents.  

We got the Egg loaded and then hung around to make sure it was stable.  We left around 9 and then came back around midnight.  The Egg was still humming along at 250F, just like we left it.  We switched the top rack out with the lower rack just to be on the safe side.

As you can see, I put a temp probe in one of the lower level butts and one on the top rack, just in case they finished at different times.  

Early in the morning and the butts were looking and smelling great.  They were mahogany and starting to form a nice bark.

Despite the horrible mobile phone's crappy camera and the blurriness, this is one of my favorite BBQ pictures I have ever taken.  It is my sister about 6am watching over the Egg and it looks like an old smoke house with the light beaming down through the smoke filled air.

This was another of my favorite shots - the sun peeking through the woods as night turns into morning and the Egg just doing its thing.

The internal temps bounced around a little at first.  One butt would be 10 degrees more cooked, then the other would catch up.  But towards the end, all 4 butts ended up finishing right about the same time.

Chopping the pork with my sister at the community center.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

It was a lot of work but it felt so great to see our family enjoying the fruits of our labor.  This cook meant more to me than any I can remember in the last 5 years.  It was special because of family but also because of getting to have my sister as my co-pitmaster.  It was like we were kids again, staying up all night having fun while all of the "adults" were asleep.  I will remember this cook forever.

Photo credit:  Ruth Grove

Cousin Mike told me a few stories about my granddad that I never knew.  For example, he gave Mike several acres to farm as his own.  He also shared some special memories of my grandfather from when his health was declining.  I never would have heard those precious memories if it wasn't for this reunion.  Photo Credit: Ruth Grove

We ended up with 80 of our family members attending and it couldn't have gone better.  Special times with family and friends treasuring old memories and making new ones - that is what BBQ is about.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

No family reunion is complete without a trip to remember those family members who are no longer with us, so we stopped by the cemetery.  I'm sad that Trevor never got to know his namesake, but it was good for him to hear the stories about his great grandfather.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

While in Elizabethtown, my parents, sister, and my family stayed at "The Rivah Getaway".  It's a private home for rent through Tripadvisor. Located on the banks of the Cape Fear River, this home is beautiful.  It's outfitted with a tremendous amount of deck space, fishing dock, grilling gazebo, canoe/boat dock, hot tub, and more.  It's a great place if you ever want to book a getaway vacation.  Just be sure to have a four wheel drive as the road in can get in really bad shape during the Spring rains.

View from the grilling area.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

View from the fishing dock.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

My dad and sister taking out the canoe for a trip on the river.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

View from the canoe.  Photo Credit:  Ruth Grove

View from one of the deck levels.

Trevor and me playing foosball.  This picture cracked me up because with my arms like that, hunched over, and the hoodie, I look like a T-Rex with short arms, don't I?  Raawwr!

I discovered two of my favorite foods of all time in the Cape Fear area as a kid.  The first is my first bite of real BBQ.  The second is an ATW ("all the way") burger from Melvin's (aka "the pool hall") in Elizabethtown. ATW means that it comes with slaw, chili, onions, and mustard. The flavors combine in a unique way to make the best burger I have ever had.  Back in the day, my grandmother told me that they had their meat ground specially by the meat department at the Red and White grocery store in town.  The grind included some bread and possibly some sausage. 

So while we were there, we got some Melvin's burgers.

Yes, that is one mess of a burger but that's one of the things that makes it so insanely good.

What a fun cooking adventure that I got to share with my sister. I know it won't be another 15 years before I get back here. Does your family do a big reunion every few years?  Do you usually attend? 

Upcoming Guest Post & Food For Thought

Krazy Kitchen Guest Post
On Valentine's Weekend, I am hosting a brunch and a dinner for the lovers' weekend over at Welcome To Our Krazy Kitchen. The theme is (surprise surprise) "romance".

It's going to be fun for us. That week is also our 15th anniversary, so the brunch is going to be a small, intimate menu of some of Alexis' favorites or things that are special to us over the years.

The dinner is going to be entertaining because I am going to have help. My friend and martial arts instructor, Robert, and I are going to cook dinner for Alexis and his fiance. I've been teaching him how to cook a good bit for the past year, but that's mostly been butts, ribs, steaks, and things on the grill. This will be the first full dinner menu we've done together that wasn't BBQ.

Food For Thought
We had a decent amount of snow last night and the boys were over at the horse farm next door, sledding and snowboarding at midnight. I went to sleep but Alexis stayed up. In part to wait for the boys but we had watched Paranormal Activity and I think it had her a bit spooked;)

Anyway, when I woke up this morning, I found this note in the kitchen. I couldn't resist writing a reply at the bottom.

She had also made me two batches of home made cinnamon rolls, wrapped and ready for baking.

I popped them in the oven and quietly set about cleaning the kitchen as quietly as possible. I wanted her to get her rest and if she heard me banging around, she'd feel like she had to get up.

She said she would do it, but she didn't mess it up herself. My walking back and forth to the grill through this mess all night and tracking it inside didn't help any.

Alexis woke up just as I had finished cleaning the kitchen and the rolls were ready.

As we enjoyed our rolls in a quiet morning lull, I smiled at her and thought about "romance". It's not just in flowers and cards, although those are nice romantic gestures. But real, bona fide romance? It's found in sticky notes and cinnamon rolls.

Those two seemingly small things Alexis did put a skip in my step this morning and made my day. Thanks Hon!

Easy Chicken Paprika

Before I write about the food related stuff, one of the things I like to do every now and then is the One Minute Writer. Every day they give you a topic and you're supposed to write about it for 60 seconds. Sixty seconds flies by fast.

I thought today's OMW was food related: What good thing could you have too much of?

My response: Circus peanuts, plain and simple. They are my favorite candy as a kid but damn, they could make me sicker than a trash eating dog! I never knew which would get me first, the artificial banana flavoring or the sheer quantity of that thick marshmallowy [BEEP time up].

So why the heck was an orange candy peanut flavored with banana anyway? It doesn't make sense when you think about it.


Anyway, here is a very simple dish that we found on BigOven a few years ago. It works in a pinch and the boys have liked it each time we made it. Far from gourmet but it is perfect for "middle of the week cooking from what's in the pantry night".


Easy Chicken Paprika
Easy elegance: Browned chicken is added to a creamy mushroom sauce enriched with sour cream and seasoned with paprika and red pepper.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon Butter or margarine
4 Boneless chicken breast
1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup
2 teaspoons Paprika
1/8 teaspoon Ground red pepper
1/3 cup Sour cream

Instructions
Heat butter in skillet. Add chicken and brown on both sides. Take chicken out and place into a greased casserole dish. Add soup into skillet along with paprika and ground red pepper. Heat to a boil. Cover and cook over low heat 5 minutes. Stir in sour cream and then pour over chicken. Bake for 30 minutes at 350 covered with foil.

Serve with spatzle or buttered noodles.

Like I said, easy comfort food.

Back to the one minute writer question: What good thing could YOU have too much of?

Apple wood Smoked Turkey Breast

For the past 4 or 5 years, we have had "Thanksgiving in August". I don't know how that started but we've just kept it going.

First, we had the traditional "Thanksgiving" football game. We went to see Trevor's 10 y/o team play their season opening bowl game.They lost 20-7 but I was proud to see Trevor play in his first game and even make a tackle on his first play.Then we made the Thanksgiving feast, a full spread of turkey, sweet potatoes, stuffing, garlic green beans, and rolls. Sorry for the lack pictures. Things got chaotic as dinner neared so I didn't get any of the full meal, just the bird.

Apple wood Smoked Turkey Breast

Ingredients

• 1 Turkey breast fresh, bone in
• 1/2 cup Salt
• 5-6 bay leaves
• 2 T whole peppercorns
• 1 cup Maple syrup
• 1/2 ea Onion halved (i.e. 2 quarters)
• 1 ea Carrot halved
• 1 ea Lemon pierced w/ fork 4-6 times
• 3 sprigs Thyme fresh
• 1 1/2 tablespoon Poultry seasoning
• Apple wood chips

Instructions
Place turkey breast in a stock pot (Note: This should be a full, bone in turkey breast). Add enough water to cover, salt, peppercorns, bay leaves and maple syrup to make the brine. Cover and place under refrigeration for 12 hours.
Take the breast out and rinse it under cold water very thoroughly. Pat dry. Spritz the outside of the breast with a light coating of olive oil. Season with Poultry Perfect Rub (From the book Smoke and Spice by Cheryl & Bill Jamison) for best results or you can just make a simple rub of salt, pepper, and commercially available poultry seasoning. Stuff the cavity of the breast with the onion, thyme, lemon, and carrot. This time I was out of carrot so I used a quartered Granny Smith apple and that worked great too. TIP: If you get a bone in breast that has had the back bone removed, you can use a kaboob to hold the veggies/fruits in place.
The purpose of using apple wood is that poultry is very susceptible to smoke, so you want to use a mild wood. If you use hickory or oak, you could easily overpower the bird with too much smoke flavor which is just as bad as using too much salt or too much of anything in a recipe. I buy my apple wood chips from the grocery store, more and more chains are carrying a variety of wood chips in their charcoal section these days.
Soak my wood chips or not? This is up to you. I've heard arguments for and against soaking your wood chips before smoking. I have done it both ways and can't really tell a difference. So my preference is not to bother with it.
Smoke the bird at 225f (grate level temperature) until it hits 160 degrees internal (about 1 hour a pound at this temp). On a large Big Green Egg, this was a dome temp of 250f and I had about a cup of apple wood chips mixed in with the lump coal. I took care to make sure the wood was evenly distributed throughout the coal. If you just toss it on top, it will all burn off at the beginning instead of a long, even smoke.
If you don't have a smoker, you could probably do this on a grill if you keep a close eye on it. Set your grill up for indirect heat so the turkey is not over the flame. Put the wood chips in a smoker box or a home made foil pouch with holes poked in it. Place that directly over the flame. Try to get a light smoke, you don't want a thick white smoke billowing out of your grill.
With the Egg, I find I don't have to baste the turkey except one time near the end and that is more for presentation purposes. When I use my offset smoker, I brush it with a mix of olive oil, melted butter and some fresh thyme several times during the smoking.
Remove from smoker when the internal temperature hits 160F. This takes about 1 hour per pound at this cooking temperature, but go by the internal temperature. Wrap with foil and place in an empty cooler (no ice) to let it rest for 30 minutes.
Slice and serve.
It came out juicy, not even a hint dry. I've made it this way a half dozen times now and every time has been consistently the best turkey I've ever had anywhere.
And finally, the giving of thanks.

1. I am thankful for my wife, my best friend and lover. (I'll let you wonder if that's all the same person ;) )
2. I am thankful for my family.
3. I am thankful for my friends (ya'll included!)
4. I am thankful more than ever that I have a job. It used to be so easy to take that for granted and even whine about it.
5. I am thankful that I live in a country that allows me the freedom to have my own opinions and express them without fear of reprisal, or being caned for not following someone else's religious beliefs, or having my fingers cut off for voting in an election.
6. I am thankful for all of the military personnel, police, and fire & rescue crews that stand in harm's way for my family.
7. I am thankful for my kitchen equipment but especially my Big Green Egg!
8. I am thankful for my health. I appreciate it more and more the older I get!
9. I am thankful for the beautiful local nature of East Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains.
10. I am thankful for food! Particularly the availability and variety that we are truly blessed with. I was putting a 5 lb bag of rice up yesterday after shopping and actually felt a bit guilty as I stuffed it in our full pantry, thinking of how that bag is more than some families get in a month in some countries.

So what are you thankful for today? (Besides the fact that this long winded post is over?)

Food for Thought

Typically, this blog is only about food, but my tag line is "Thoughts about food and food for thought" so just consider this post the latter.

On Sunday, I saw this post about ...plowed fields and lessons... over at Robin's photoblog "One Still Frame". It reminded me of a similar lesson I learned from my grandfather.

Growing up, the highlight of my summer vacation was getting to spend as much time as I could on my grandparents farm in North Carolina. Sure most people wanted to head to DisneyWorld in nearby Orlando, but I loved being on that farm, playing in the fields and exploring the barns and pack houses. They grew tobacco, soy beans, corn, and then all of their own vegetables. What we ate for dinner, we usually had picked that morning. Can't get much fresher than that.

My grandfather taught me how to plow in a straight line, by first having me plow one or part of one on my own. I carefully tried to steer the tractor, keeping a close eye on the front wheels and struggling to keep them in a straight line. I was meticulous. If I thought the front wheels were even slightly veering one way, I'd adjust back to the other side. I thought I did a good job until I looked behind me and saw a squiggly swerving line.

Then my grandfather had me try again, but this time, he told me to focus not on where I was, but where I was going to be. He told me NOT to be staring down at the front wheels and the ground below. He had me pick a tree on the opposite side of the field and told me to use THAT as my guide instead. Look at THAT tree and drive straight towards it. I did it his way and sure enough, I left a straight line behind me.

When vacation was over that year and I was back in Florida, I practiced this when mowing the lawn. I'd pick a spot before me in the distance, a fence, a bush, whatever and laid straight lines. Everytime I did it, it reminded me of that particular day with Grandpa.

Much later in life, I realized that my grandfather wasn't just teaching me how to plow a straight line that day. He was also giving me a life lesson about keeping an appropriate focus on life. He was teaching me it isn't where I am right this second that is important, rather, it is where I am going that matters. He was teaching me about keeping my eyes on the prize, so to speak.

I'm 41 now. Oneil (grandfather) has been gone for some 20+ years. The farm has been sold long ago. I haven't stepped foot on a farm in forever. Trevor (9 y/o) carries Oneil's name. I hope that I can teach him how to "plow straight lines" one day as well as my grandfather taught me.

25 Culinary Things About Me

It seems that everyone this past week has been doing that 25 things about me on Facebook and their blogs. I did one on Facebook but while making french toast for the family this morning I thought that I should do one from a culinary standpoint. I have no idea how this will go but I'm going to give it a shot.

1. My full knife set is Henckles but my favorite knife to use has become a Caphalon santako.
2. I miss my wife working at Williams and Sonoma for the amazing discount that employees get. I can't afford to shop there much these days.
3. I probably cook 3-4 meals a week on my Big Green Egg.
4. I am disciplined in all the exercise that I do because I have zero discipline around heavy cream, bacon, and butter. I have a 21 BMI that I don't plan on going up.
5. I like to wear my mp3 player and dance around while cooking.
6. I have Kitchenaide and Cuisinart sets of pans and pots. However, my work horse is a pair of el cheapo industrial skillets from Sam's (Bakers and Chef's brand).
7. I don't have a wooden cutting board.
8. I love summer because of all the herbs that my wife grows in the front yard. There is something comforting about strolling your front yard for ingredients. Maybe it's because of being on my grandparents farm in North Carolina as a child and loving to pick dinner from their private stock garden.
9. God knew what he was doing when he made artichokes.
10. He kind of blew it on brussels sprouts though.
11. I'm a carnivore, I rarely have a meal without meat. I've been known to have meat as a side dish to meat;)
12. Cooking is theraputic for me. It is my way of relieving stress.
13. I have catered three events. That was NOT theraputic and did NOT relieve stress.
14. My mother is my inspiration for learning to cook although I took a different path and we rarely cook the same.
15. I'm not real experienced at cooking Fried Chicken of all things. I just don't like dealing with all the oil. I'd rather just spatchcock the bird and throw in on the smoker.
16. Fire! Fire! I'm Beavis and Butthead when it comes to cooking. I'd flambe ice cream if it were possible.
    
17. Sometimes I can't eat what I've cooked until the next day, especially when it's been a several hour long cook. Everyone can be wolfing it down and saying how good it is, but something just makes me loose my appetite. The next day, it's delicious.
    
18. I will cry if I ever have to give up my gas oven & range.
19. I always have a tea towel over my right shoulder while cooking.
20. I have absolutely zero culinary training other than Food Network and before that PBS.
21. If I won the lottery, I'd immediately enroll in the CIA or similar school.
22. My wife is my sous chef.
    
23. I miss Emeril Lagasse. Not the caricature from Emeril Live. I'm talking about the dude that he was in his first show. He was great then.
    
24. I have a man crush on Alton Brown. Brandi actually stood in line for hours to get him to sign a copy of his most recent book, for me.
    
25. I'm a firm believer that if a recipe calls for milk, they meant half and half. If it calls for half and half, they meant heavy cream :)

Wow, that was harder than I thought. I dare you to give it a shot if you have a food blog.