Grillin Greg

Chicken Fried Bacon

2008-05-27T15:40:00.000-07:00

So when will this be at the NC State Fair?

I suppose they'll serve it with a large bottle of Lipitor?

Secret Sauce

2008-01-11T07:54:00.000-08:00

This is another in my series of articles about how to market your sauce.

We usually get 2-3 inquiries a week from new vendors that have developed a new sauce that they'd like us to carry. In fact, that's one of the fun parts about the business -- the top of our refrigerator always has a huge supply of sauces to try. One of our rules is that we don't carry sauces that we don't like, unless it's a market leader and there's a huge demand for it. For instance, we generally don't use the ultra-hots personally, but we carry them because our customers appreciate it.

One thing you should consider when contacting distribution partners is timing. If you're going after specialty web sites and gift stores, Nov/Dec is a non-starter. They're just too busy with the holiday rush to look at you. Jan/Feb/Mar is a great time to be pushing a sauce -- if things start to work out, you'll be just in time for the big summer season. But calling someone on the phone during December is just going to earn you scorn.

Periodically we get a sample where the vendor is really coy about their product. Test bottles without ingredient lists seem to be the common method of trade secret protection. But today we got an actual printed letter (didn't know people still wrote those!) from a vendor that wanted us to sign a confidentiality agreement before they would send us a brochure about their special new product. Somebody's lawyer was a bit out of control.

Here's a bit of advice: you don't want to do business with someone that would sign that letter. Confidentiality agreements are always a hassle, so wise businesspeople don't sign them unless there's a really important reason. The chance to look at a brochure isn't a good reason to sign up for legal liability. This is not the right time for your department of business prevention to meddle.

Your "secret recipe" doesn't matter. Not one whit. You'll have to publish the ingredient list when you go commercial anyway, and any chef worth their mixing bowl can taste and experiment and replicate your recipe with enough time. The commercial value of the sauce is in marketing and distribution. If taste mattered, Kraft Barbeque Sauce wouldn't be a number one seller. Shelf space, a pretty label, and a well known brand name are far more useful than a secret recipe.

A secret product is even worse. As a retailer, we don't want products that people aren't looking for. We want well known products with high consumer demand, and preferably a supply limited to only us. So approaching retailers with a super secret hush hush plan is really the wrong direction.

We don't mind taking on new products. Everybody has to start somewhere, and we're proud that we've helped many new companies launch their products. These small batch products are usually much better than the glop you can buy in a grocery store, and that's what our business is built on. Finding those hidden gems and bringing them to our customers is a big part of what we do.

Don't expect a retailer to pay up front for your great new sauce -- there's just too much risk that it will be like 90% of the other new sauces on the market and be a flop. The retailer has enough cost in giving you shelf space, creating the web page, taking photos, writing copy, etc. The retailer is doing you a huge favor by giving you exposure.

If you're going to launch a new sauce, you need to be prepared to give away a lot of it. You're looking for exposure and distribution channels. Anything that gets in the way of that is a bad idea.

Add a Little Oil to your Marinade

2008-01-07T19:41:00.001-08:00

Tonight's dinner was grilled venison backstrap marinated with an off-the-shelf marinade. I've used this marinade before to mix in with venison burgers, and it's very tasty.

Tonight's dinner, while passable, was a bit on the dry side. While I was trying to decide where I went wrong, Gloria pointed out that one of the major differences between this marinade and Greg's Happy Sauce is that Greg's Happy Sauce contains olive oil, which helps to seal the meat while it cooks at a high temperature.

Lesson learned. If you're going to grill extremely lean meat such as venison and your grilling sauce/marinade doesn't have any oil, add a bit to it for better results.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

2007-12-13T08:24:00.001-08:00

Last month we ran an interesting donation game for Operation Sauce Drop. Gloria and I donated our season tickets for two games to Operation Sauce Drop, which then ran a donation auction. We let people donate to Operation Sauce Drop and specify that they were interested in a particular game. The people who made the highest donation for a game got the tickets. We raised over $500 on $300 worth of tickets, and the winners got a good deal on some great seats.

We got a lot of good feedback from that program and were proud to be able to see our tickets that we spent real money on generate more than just their face value for the troops. Several people suggested that we do it again, but instead of just posting in the Hurricanes Swap Meet section of their fan forums, we asked the moderators for permission to post a notice of the event in their main board. This presumably would have generated a lot more traffic.

In short, they told us No. We wouldn't be allowed to post this offer, even in the swap meet. Frankly, why our organization offering tickets in exchange for people making donations is a violation of their TOS, while other people selling tickets for cash is not, is beyond me. But it's their forum, they can make whatever rules they want. It's a shame the troops will be waiting longer for their sauces because of the Cane's legal department.

One of the things that was said was that it couldn't be verified that the sauces were really going to the troops. Take a look at the Operation Sauce Drop Feedback page and think about how much money it would cost to fake those photos. How exactly do you get military people to pose with sauces in a helicopter as part of a hoax?

So instead of running another game, we're just going to sell our tickets for the Dec 28th game vs the Bruins and the New Year's Eve game vs the Islanders. I'm asking face value for the season ticket holder price of $75 each ($150/pair). These are section 103, Row K, seats 1 & 2. They're seven rows from the ice on the blue line at the end the Canes are on offense twice, behind the opposing team's bench. Frankly, you get a better view there than you do on the glass. These are Center Ice Premier seats, so you get access to the club level and The Deck, which will be an especially nice perk for the New Year's Eve game.

I'm going to donate the money to Operation Sauce Drop. First person to email me at grillinggreg at gmail dot com gets it.

Yahoo Stores Missed Cyber Monday

2007-11-27T05:25:00.000-08:00

Well, it wasn't just us. The story has hit the major news services. I've seen estimates that as high as 45,000 websites were down. Yahoo was gracious enough to post the following:

Some merchants are reporting that shoppers are receiving an error message indicating 'system unavailable' during the checkout process. We are aware of this issue and are currently investigating.

Some forum posters have posited that Yahoo put "tweaks" into their production system a mere 2 weeks before the big day. As anyone with a background in software development can tell you, that's insane. Those production systems should have been frozen until after the holidays.

Bill Hartzer points out that Yahoo doesn't have a service level agreement. That may be, but I think it would be hard for Yahoo to convince a jury that the lack of an SLA means that they're excused for being down on the biggest shopping day of the year.

Bill also suggested that Yahoo merchants could have redirected their order form to a different server. That's easier said than done -- the Yahoo TOS specifically forbids sending users to a different checkout system. Testing that would have been rather difficult because Yahoo would have shut the users down. And if you've ever done any programming on the Yahoo store system, you realize that it's not just a simple redirect. This would have been well beyond the technical capabilities of most stores.

Promote My Site suggests that these store owners still made the right choice by outsourcing their store.

Let me just say that maybe Yahoo could have done a better job - we don’t know what happened yet - but I’m sure they were paying attention to the problem, which is certainly more than most businesses could do.

It doesn't sound to me like Yahoo was paying attention. Or maybe they were. Before cyber Monday, Yahoo was predicting that it wasn't going to be such a big day:

But others say it's hardly the busiest online buying day of the year. Internet retailers should expect even bigger days on December 7 and 10, according to the folks at Yahoo! Shopping.

I guess they knew something last week that the rest of us didn't know.

So far today the web site seems to be working again and we're taking orders. But thanks to Yahoo, what should have been a big day was a bust for Carolina Sauce. So support your friends in a small business and place another order.

Yahoo Stores Crashing on Cyber Monday

2007-11-26T10:27:00.000-08:00

If you're having trouble placing an order on a yahoo store website (such as Carolina Sauce Company), you can blame Yahoo.

Yes, it's cyber Monday, the biggest online shopping day of the year, and Yahoo's stores are displaying an error page when many customers try to place an order. Many retailers go with Yahoo because of their promises of up time and bandwidth. A Yahoo store provides the customer with the assurance that they're dealing with a reputable retailer. This is absolutely devastating to a small business that relies upon cyber Monday for a large portion of its business.

One wonders if Yahoo's largest customers are being hit with these problems. Has Yahoo thrown the little guys out of the life boat?

If you're having trouble placing an order, please call and order by phone. We'll be glad to take your order. 919-765-0143

Hottest Pepper, Part II

2007-11-12T05:32:00.000-08:00

The moral to this story: Ask before you chomp down on a new pepper.

"It felt like someone tasered my mouth..."

The Troops Need You

2007-11-04T06:59:00.000-08:00

I was listening to a radio show on XM this weekend (sorry, can't remember which one), and the mother of a soldier serving in Afghanistan called in during a segment about the diplomats that are refusing to serve in Iraq. Her comment was along the lines of our troops know what real suffering is. They go out and they're in danger every day. They get shot at, they sleep outside, and all they've got to eat are these terrible tasting MREs. My son has lost 10 pounds in the last two months.

Wow, just like a mother. I heard that story, and then reread some of the comments on the Operation Sauce Drop Feedback page and it warmed my heart that we're able to send over a little taste of heaven to some people that really appreciate it. If you haven't done so, now would be a good time to support Operation Sauce Drop.

Then Gloria told me that donations have basically dried up and while we've sent out over 50 gift boxes, we've got 60 service people in the queue that are in danger of spending Christmas without their sauces. Remember, it takes a long time to send something over to the sandbox, so the time is now if you'd like to do something for the holidays for them. This isn't a box with just a few sample sized bottles in them -- it's the real deal, a holiday gift pack of hot sauces, barbeque sauces, and zesty snacks of their choice.

We've been brainstorming on what we can do to raise some more funds for this effort. Carolina Sauce is already offering a 10% discount coupon to newsletter readers that make a $5 donation -- that's a pretty good deal: on an order of $50 Carolina Sauce made your donation for you. There are not that many businesses that will take a slice of 10% of their revenue off the top during the holiday season to support the troops, but this is really important to her.

Another thought was that we'd donate some meat and my talents and do a fund raiser, selling barbeque sandwiches for a $5 donation. If we could find a busy enough venue that would allow us to set up we could probably bring in the money we'll need in an afternoon. Anybody out there know somebody that would allow us to set up and do that? Those of you that have had my barbeque know what a good deal this would be.

The big thing we need is publicity. We've contacted all the "A" List bloggers we could think of that would be favorable to supporting the troops, and frankly I'm a bit disappointed that most of them just decided to ignore this important project. To those that did write about it, thank you. And to those that didn't, shame on you.

I understand that perhaps people are a little weary of the "Support the Troops" causes. I just finished reading House To House by David Bellavia. If you think you're a little weary, stand in the boots of the guys that were cleaning out that bad guys from Fallujah for a few minutes. I came away from reading that book absolutely humbled that I can do so little for our heroes.

I also understand that there are lots of programs sending over "stuff" for the troops. While those are all good, my feeling is that the military ought to be providing things like baby wipes and drink powder to our troops. The distinguishing thing about Operation Sauce Drop is that it lets them pick out something for themselves rather than getting a random box, and it's something that they wouldn't get even if our government had it together enough to supply them with everything they need. The letters of thanks we're getting really warm our hearts -- they really appreciate this.

I'm open for ideas if anyone can come up with more ways we can raise money to send boxes over to the troops. Please just email me at GrillingGreg at Gmail dot com or leave a comment.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2007-11-01T18:39:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's November, when grilling supplies go on massive sale at your local big box store to make room for the Christmas decorations.

Today I happened by the Lowes in Roanoake Rapids looking for lump charcoal. They had Cowboy Hardwood Lump Charcoal for $4.00/bag. If you're a grilling or barbeque guru, you already know that lump charcoal is a key to great results -- if you're using petroleum based briquettes you'll always have a slight petroleum taste, regardless of the marketing budget and commercials of those big companies. The cool kids know to use lump charcoal. It burns longer and hotter and provides real wood smoke taste. You can add additional charcoal to the fire without getting a "foomp" of gas fumes. (In other words, you don't have to start another chimney just to add some coals). If you didn't know that, now you do.

Is $4.00/bag a good deal? In a word, YES. Check the internet -- I've seen it for $19.40/bag plus shipping. Frankly, I'm going to stock up. You've been warned!

They also had chimney starters for $6.00. It's not the great stainless steel one, but for $6.00 you can afford a few.

What I can't figure out is why people don't realize that winter is the perfect time for barbeque. It's easier to keep the fire at lower temps on a 40 degree day than in 90 degrees of summer heat. Barbeque is a year round activity!

New Hottest Hot Pepper

2007-10-31T08:24:00.000-07:00

There's a new record for the hottest chili pepper:

Researchers at New Mexico State University have discovered the world’s hottest chili pepper. It's called the Bhut Jolokia, a variety originating in Assam, India.

In tests that yield Scoville heat units (SHUs), the Bhut Jolokia reached 1 million SHUs, almost double the SHUs of former hotshot Red Savina (a type of habanero pepper), which measured a mere 577,000. The result was announced today by the American Society for Horticultural Science.

Let's put this in perspective. A jalapeno's Scoville rating is 2500-5000 depending upon the strain. The Bhut Jolokia is 200 times hotter than that. It's twice as hot as a Red Savina, and it's in the range of many extracts.

Military grade pepper spray is about 500,000 Scovilles. The civilian stuff is 100,00 Scovilles.

It's odd that this was grown in India since, while Indian food is hot, it's not hyper hot. The hottest food I've had in India was Thai food.

This reminds me of an old joke. The sun is 27M degrees F at it's core. If you bite into one of these peppers, you'll get an effect that is half as hot as that!

I wonder which vendor will be first to bottle a sauce based upon this pepper?

Operation Sauce Drop Feedback

2007-10-29T10:50:00.001-07:00

Ok, if that isn't the the coolest picture you've seen in a long time there's no helping you.

Perhaps a reader can identify that aircraft for us? Looks like a Blackhawk to me....I think the No Survivors package on the dash sends to appropriate message to Al Qaeda!

Go ahead and take a look at the Operation Sauce Drop Feedback page. The troops are saying some truly wonderful things about this program. They really appreciate your donations!

Haven't made a donation yet? How about skipping a cup of coffee at Starbucks and putting a smile on a service person's face and a little fire on their taste buds? A $5 donation to Operation Sauce Drop will accomplish that, and more!

Pork Loin and Sauerkraut in a Dutch Oven

2007-10-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

Last year I was lucky enough to receive a Dutch Oven for Christmas. I've made a few things in it in the oven, but hadn't really experimented with it on a fire until last week. The results were amazing.

Cover the bottom of the dutch oven with sauerkraut. Place a pork loin on top of the kraut. Add one cup of liquid -- all I had on hand was water, but a white wine or a dark beer would be even better. Season with caraway seed, black pepper, and garlic to taste. Then cover with a liberal squirt of a spicy brown mustard.

Put the over on a bed of coals, with coals on the lid. Turn the lid a quarter turn every 15 minutes, and cook for one hour.

Slice the pork loin on the bias, and serve with kraut. I also threw in a few chicken sausages that I had grilled a few days before.

Absolutely wonderful. The pork loin comes out fork tender and juicy.

The only thing I would change if I was serving this to a group of people would be to garnish with some red cabbage, because otherwise it's a very yellow/white dish. And some diced apples in the pot would have had a nice effect too, but I'm still doing the low carb thing.

East vs West

2007-10-22T09:25:00.000-07:00

I was in Jackson, NC with a friend this weekend and we discovered that it was Jackson Day. There were several pig cookers set up in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly, and they were offering samples of their barbeque.

My friend, who is from near Lexington, and I tried the Q. It was a typical chopped Q with vinegar and hot red pepper flakes, fairly common for the region. I rated it about a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10.

My friend was completely shocked as disgusted with the Q. She didn't like the pepper flakes in the meat at all, and thought there was too much vinegar. That makes sense, because she's from the center of the piedmont style barbeque world.

So the battle between east and west continues...

Junior's Long Island Pizza in Durham - Low Carb Hurricane Game!

2007-10-12T10:52:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to Junior's Long Island Pizza in Durham to watch the Carolina Hurricanes dominate the Ottawa Senators. The Canes rocked and we had a great meal.

I've been doing the low carb thing the last month or so, and it's very hard to stick to it at a sports bar. Let's face it, most pub food is high carb. While I love onion rings, garlic bread, and fried calamari, they're just not on the menu right now. And I don't even want to talk about beer.

Junior's is located at the old Damon's location, and it's still a great venue for watching a game. 4 wide screen TVs in the dining room, and tons of other TVs on the walls. The added benefit is they have the remote sound systems so you can listen to the audio of your choice. That's much better than listening to the sound of a football game while trying to guess what Chuck or John would be saying about the Canes as you're watching.

There were lots of low carb choices on the menu. I didn't feel like a salad, so I went with the chicken wings (not fried) as an appetizer. The waiter made a big deal about how hot the wings would be, but I don't think he realized who he was dealing with. They were a touch hotter than a Texas Pete based sauce, but certainly not in the Dave's Gourmet range. But very good.

I got creative for the main meal. I ordered three sides: sausage, meatballs, and Italian vegetables. The sausage and vegetables were excellent, but the meatballs kick it up another notch. I've had meatballs literally the world over, and these are on par with the best. I think you have to go to Mulberry Street in NYC to do as well.

The only downside is that we pretty much had a private dining room for the game. Except for the bar, which seemed to be doing a brisk business, we were the only ones there for most of the game. So come on Caniacs. Instead of fighting for standing room at the Ale House, cruise two blocks to Juniors and enjoy better food and a great atmosphere.

How To Market a Barbeque Sauce

2007-10-11T09:01:00.001-07:00

This question was posted on Yahoo Answers a while back. I think the "best" answer deserves a fisking:

A lot of planning. First you need to perfect your recipe so you can make large enough quantities for canning/bottling.

Not completely wrong, but to not talk about the economics of the ingredients you're going to use in your sauce as part of the recipe phase is amateurish, at best. You can have the best sauce in the world, but if it costs you $7.00/bottle to make, you're not going to be able to sell it. And converting your recipe to 150 gallon batches is more than just simple math. And it can be rather expensive to mix up 150 gallons of something that turns out to taste bad.

Next you will have to rent a commercial space to make the sauce, because you can't make, for sale, any commercial foods in your house.

This is bad advice. True, you can't just mix it up in your house, but in most states you'll have to get a certification to even be able to rent a commercial kitchen. In North Carolina, it's pickle school. The chances that there is a kitchen with the right equipment near you are pretty slim, and the transportation cost of traveling to the kitchen is going to be a huge hit on your profit margin that doesn't apply to your competitors.

You're far better off just finding a co-packer. They can most likely produce your batch for less per bottle than you can do it yourself, and they've already covered all the legal hurdles.

Then hit all the local markets, not the chains and sample it out on one of those table stations. Also try selling to a restaurant or some food service company.

That's your best bet, but I'd add a few things. 1) You'll have to offer consignment terms to the local market. They're taking a huge risk by giving you shelf space (which they don't have much of), and there's no way they can afford to pay you up front for the sauce. Think about the economics of putting out a free case in every market you want to be in. If you can't handle that, it's not going to work. 2) The only way to sell an unknown sauce is to sample it out. The label won't sell it for you. People try things from companies they know. That's why Kraft Barbeque Sauce outsells Jim's Own Homestyle at the supermarket, even though Kraft is in the little leagues for taste and Jim's is Michael Jordan. It's not about taste. 3) Sampling is very hard work. You'll be giving up your Saturdays, working an eight hour shift to expose your product to 200 people, 20 of which may buy the sauce, and 2 of which will become repeat customers. And that's if your sauce is really good. With a margin of $1/bottle, you're making $2.50/hour. You won't quite cover your gas to get to the store if it's not close.

This list is very abridged and it is more expensive than it sounds.

Yeah, a lot more expensive. $20K is a standard figure just to get the first bottle onto a shelf. Add in the cost of your time for 3 years of blood, sweat, and tears to get a small business built. And in the end, you might have a job that pays $50K/year. Sure, there are some that make it to the big time. The Bone Suckin Sauces people have hit the big time. I even saw it for sale in London. But I remember them starting out in the early 1990s, and they had a huge distribution network behind them to get started (Ford's Fancy Fruits is a huge food distributor in NC), so they rolled out much faster than you will.

If you want more ideas, there are a lot of articles on the Internet, which is also another way to sell, get in touch with an Internet sales company and market it that way.

This is perhaps the worst advice offered in the article.

You cannot sell a sauce on the internet that people haven't heard of. If they won't buy it in the store by just picking up the bottle and reading the label, there's absolutely no way they're going to purchase it on the internet. It makes a lot more sense to market through someone like Carolina Sauce, but even they can't perform magic if there isn't any demand for your sauce. The service the internet marketer is providing is the framework, distribution, and fulfillment end of things. They can quickly dominate the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) for a given produce because they're an authority site. You can't put up your own web site and hope to compete with that. They can spread their costs across hundreds of products, and you've got just a few sauces. Nope, the internet for sauces only makes sense once you've started to build a demand.

If you really believe in it, it will be easier to sell. Good Luck.

Just remember, there are 1,000 other people that have the best sauce any of their friends have ever tasted trying to launch their sauce this year. 2 of them will be around in 3 years.

Source(s):
experience. I was going to sell an array of sauces, but I am going to wait until I get my on restaurant.

To paraphrase Mick Dundee, "That's not experience..." Take it from someone who has been there, done that, got the t-shirt, and worn it out. This is a vanity business. It's cool to see your name on a bottle, and you'll most likely build a small following of huge fans, but you're not going to get rich.

And from the other answers:

Word of mouth is the best way to advertise.Try entering some bbq competitions in your area. People will get to talking and then maybe that will help spread the word to someone who has a connection.

Yeah, sure. That will get you a few hundred loyal customers that purchase a bottle every month or so, if you're lucky. Can you live on $200/month?

As usual, the business value of information you get on the internet is worth what you paid for it. So go buy something from my Amazon store and pay for this advice! :}

The Tech Economy is Booming

2007-10-11T08:33:00.000-07:00

It really feels like 1998. And I'm not saying that because I'm both a barbeque maven and a techie. I base that on my personal indicator of economic activity:

The Grilling Greg Restaurant Service Indicator -- GGRIS. When it's high (100) service is great, but nobody can afford to eat out. When it's low (0), service is terrible and the restaurants are full.

During the tech bust of 2000, restaurant service was fantastic. Lots of people that fancied themselves web designers ended up waiting tables, and were glad for the job. As things loosened up, they moved on to better jobs, but the overall quality of people available to fill the service positions was still pretty high. In general, there were more people than jobs, so restaurants could be a bit picky about who they hired. And there were less people at restaurants because the techies had less disposable income, so service wasn't so strained. If you were lucky enough to be able to ride out the tech bust with a good paying job, service at restaurants was downright great for a few years.

As techies become employed, they started to eat out again. And the pool of highly qualified people started to dwindle. Now we're back to 1998, where you're lucky if your waitstaff even speaks english in a comprehensible fashion. And the restaurants are full of techies with big salaries, so restaurant management could really care less that their service is terrible. Where else are you going to go for lunch in RTP?

I think the GGRIS is running about 10 right now. If you're a techie, I suppose you'd rather have a low GGRIS because then you can afford everything else. But until the tech bubble bursts again, I think I''ll just devote more time to making my own barbeque -- which is better than any restaurant can produce, but that's another post.

More Good things about Chili Peppers

2007-10-05T11:23:00.001-07:00

Scientific American tells us that Chili Pepper Cocktail Blunts Pain

A key ingredient in chili peppers, chased with a local anesthetic, could be just the ticket for ending pain in the dentist's chair and on the operating table without the potentially dangerous side effects and all-numbing aftermath of traditional anesthesia, says a new Harvard Medical School study.

Researchers report in Nature that a combination of capsaicin (the ingredient that gives chili peppers their bite) and QX-314, a derivative of lidocaine (a local anesthetic used by dentists and to relieve inflamed, itchy skin), effectively silences pain-sensing nerve cells without disturbing other neurons that control motor function and other sensations.

So I guess there's something to the idea that you can get stoned on hot sauce!

The Wacky Brits

2007-10-02T18:24:00.000-07:00

The Telegraph has an interesting article on barbeque in the UK. Or more to the point, an interpretation of barbeque in the US from a British viewpoint.

It's full of gems. Such as:

Quite what you might be smoking tends to depend on the region. In the south east, barbecue refers to pork, Texans (not surprisingly) prefer beef, usually brisket, and Kentucky is known for mutton.

Kentucky mutton barbeque? Hmm, I'll have to try that.

Or how about:

Barbecue sauces One of the best US brands, Stubbs, can be found at www.essentialbbq.co.uk. Tesco and Waitrose stock the Bone Suckin' range of sauces and rib rubs. Paul Newman's sauces are also widely available.

Stubbs one of the best? I'll grant it's better than Kraft, but one of the best? And Bone Suckin Sauce has made it all the way to London? Say it ain't so!

Frankly, I don't see how they can possibly make barbeque in the UK. Think of how expensive it would be to ship all the North Carolina oak wood they'd need.

I wish She Was my Representative!

2007-09-29T12:39:00.001-07:00

Somehow, I don't think David Price would get it like this. Evidently, there's a group in Michigan called "Save the Doves" that is against dove hunting. They published a response from Susan Tabor to their request to not allow doves to be considered game animals:

Constituent to Rep Tabor: "Michigan has far more important and pressing issues than what animal to add to a hunting list. We have a lack of jobs, lack of good paying jobs, our land is getting all used up by houses, and now we allow the demise of our natural resources. There are already plenty of game animals. Now they allow the killing of innocent doves; want to add sand hill cranes and possibly wolves to the list of game animals, what is next. I am really sickened by it...Please consider the creatures God put here on this earth, just as He put us here on this earth and give them more respect and put an end to this never ending "game list" the committee is talking about in House Bill 6272."

Response from Susan Tabor: "yes I know. Have you ever watched a dove fall from the sky after you've shot it? Have you ever tasted them after wrapping them with bacon and lightly grilling them? let me guess. you don't eat meat right?"

But it gets better. The next response:

Constituent to Rep Tabor: "I thank you for responding to my email. I am 72 and have not missed any election since I was old enough to vote...I will continue my petition drive because I firmly believe that dove hunting is not a challenging sport as you proported. They are lazy, dumb, slow flying bird that are a favorite prey of hawks. I do not appreciate your rather cryptic comment. It is insulting."

Response from Susan Tabor:
"I'm insulted that you think you know more about dove hunting than I do. Have you watched it? Tried it? I can assure you they are not lazy, dumb or slow flying and most of all - THEY ARE DELICIOUS! YUM YUM! There. We are both insulted now. Have a great day!"

Wow, I wish she'd move to North Carolina so I could vote for her!

I'm sorry, but anyone that thinks that doves are a "lazy, dumb, slow flying bird" is totally clueless. They've obviously never seen a dove jink out of the way because they spotted your muzzle blast. Or seen a dove run the gauntlet of 15 hunters and emerge unscathed. They are by far one of the most challenging game birds to hunt. And frankly, they're also one of the tastiest!

It's nice to see a politician that doesn't claim to "understand their position" and stoop down to try to reason with them. Sometimes you just have to make fun of the wackos, because there's no convincing them.

Last of the Venison

2007-09-29T11:10:00.000-07:00

I don't do too many "here's what I ate last night" posts, but this meal will be an exception. While rummaging through the freezer, I found a last package of venison burger hiding in the back.

Venison is extremely lean meat, so I always mix it with a bit of seasoning, bread crumbs, egg, and a marinade. This time it was Big Daddy's Marinade, which provides a wonderful taste.

Heat up the grill to maximum. Spray each side of the burger with non-stick spray because there's generally not enough fat in the meat to keep it from sticking. Cook the burgers on a side for 3-5 minutes (depending upon their size), then flip. Only flip a burger once. You'll notice the nice grill marks on the meat -- that's due to the high heat. Now, cut back on the heat to a medium, and add cheese. In this case, it was some very nice crumbled blue cheese. By the time the cheese melts, the burgers will be done. Even though I grind my own meat, I still prefer hamburgers cooked to medium.

We also had some grilled peppers and onions on the side.

Black powder season starts next Saturday. I'm so hungry I can barely wait!

NC Barbeque Trail

2007-09-19T15:59:00.000-07:00

Chowhound had a good exchange on barbeque places in NC. Let me comment:

1) The Skylight Inn in Ayden is the best. Hands down. No contest.

2) A barbeque restaurant with more than one location is by definition no longer a barbeque joint. It's a chain.

3) You can't make barbeque without burning wood. If you don't see a big pile of hickory or oak stacked up outside the restaurant, turn around and keep looking. Many places cook their pork butts in an oven. That's roast pork, not barbeque.

4) There's a severe shortage of decent barbeque anywhere near the beach. The only place that I can think of even remotely close to the water is Smithfields in Havelock, but that doesn't count for 2 & 3 above. I'd be interested in hearing any theories explaining this phenomenon.

5) The barbeque you make in your own backyard will be better than most restaurants, at 1/20th the cost.

You'll notice I gave Chowhound a nofollow link. That's because they do the same to all their posts. You've got to give love to deserve it back.

And I'm a bit angry with the moderators at Chowhound, who thought that a post on Operation Sauce Drop was off topic and deleted it, even though for the 10 minutes it was up it got several responses saying "Great Idea!" Sorry, but anyone unwilling to help the troops goes down several notches in my estimation.

Grilled Fish

2007-09-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

Most people are usually not willing to try to grill fish. Burgers, steaks, and chicken are the extent of their repertoire. That's a shame, because grilled fish can be the best method of delivering tasty delights to your plate. Here's a list of tips for grilling the most daunting pieces of fish:

1) Clean your grates. Really, really, clean them. Make them spotless. Clean grates don't stick.

2) Wipe your grates down with oil, preferably pure olive oil, but anything with a high smoke point. Do this before you apply the heat.

3) Spray your fish on both sides with a non-stick spray.

4) Make sure the grates are at temperature before you put the fish on. You're looking for a quick sear. Putting fish onto grates that are still heating up is an invitation for sticking.

5) Flip the fish exactly once. Multiple flips are an invitation for breakage.

6) Use a wide spatula that can support the entire piece of fish as you flip it.

7) Cut the fish into pieces that are a uniform thickness. A single piece of fish with widely different thicknesses, such as a standard fillet, will be overdone on one end at the least.

8) Marinate your fish in a sauce for a few hours or overnight to remove the "fishy" taste of lesser cuts.

9) Cook the fish at high heat. Fish is a quick hit -- low and slow produces fish jerky.

10) Remove your fish from the grill when it's about 80% done. Carry over will finish it as you plate it.

11) Drizzle a little sauce over the fish with about a minute left on the grill before you plate it. It heats up the sauce and allows it to caramelize. Or just use melted butter and lemon, but keep in mind that the butter will burn quite easily so hold off until the end.

If you're still terrified, try using a fish basket. Just follow the same steps, but flip the entire basket instead of the individual pieces of fish.

If you want to wrap fish with foil, why use a grill? The foil effectively keeps out the grilled taste, so ban it from your grill. Same thing with stuffing whole fish -- the skin/scales effectively insulates the fish from the flavor, so you might as well do it in the broiler.

If you're worried about under cooking fish, remember that 127 million Japanese eat raw fish all the time. Roll it in rice and you've got sushi! Underdone fish is far preferable to overcooked, dried out fish. You can always put a plate of underdone fish in the microwave for 15 seconds if the carryover effect doesn't quite work out the way you planned.

Durham Red and White Closes -- The End of an Era

2007-09-12T20:58:00.000-07:00

The Herald Sun had this sad news for Durham meat connoisseurs this week. Free registration is required, but the story is that the Red and White Grocery known to locals as "Billy's" is closing this week.

Billy, who is 78 and has owned the store since the 1950s, is going to retire.

Bill was one of the first store owners to take on Greg's Happy Sauce as a product in our early days. Many local fans of the sauce went to Billy's to get their fix.

Billy had the best spareribs around. He'd do a St. Louis cut for me right there. Or grind up a pork butt to mix with venison for making my own sausage. His frozen vegetables were wonderful.

We wish him well, and we're really going to miss him!

Deer For Breakfast

2007-09-06T06:42:00.001-07:00

No, not a venison recipe. Go watch this.

Deer for Breakfast

Really, go watch it. It's worth the time. And it shows just how easy deer hunting is. :}

Bacon Wrapped Dove Breast

2007-09-04T11:32:00.001-07:00

Dove season opened in North Carolina on Saturday, so it's time for a tasty treat!

Breast out your doves and soak in buttermilk for at least two hours. Overnight is better. Wash, then apply salt and pepper. Grill over a hot fire until the meat reaches an internal temperature of about 100 degrees. They should now have a nice set of grill marks and a crispy outer layer. Wrap in bacon, securing with toothpicks. Put them back on the fire until the bacon is done and the internal temp is at 180.

Starting them off with bacon wrapping just dries out the bacon. The moisture loss that you're trying to stop with the bacon fat only really occurs when you're inching up into the safety zone of 180, so putting the bacon on for the final stretch is the best way to end up with a juicy bird and perfectly done bacon.

Enjoy. I hate to say it, but you don't need any sauce for this recipe!