The front of our booth

John D pouring a Bud Light

Birthday boy Jeff Stamm of Double J SmokeHouse and Saloon, on the right.

Head WordPress guy Matt Mullenweg

WordPress tech ninjas Nacin and Otto

I don’t even know these people, but for some reason I deemed this shot blogworthy.

Jambalaya

Mardoqueo and Mikey

Magyn

Moody

Moody

Here’s a pic of the Nuh-Uh Girl eating

Post-Wednesday night at the Saucer. GM Kirk will shit his pants when he sees his lime costs going through the roof on this beer.

Full photo album here (about 80 photos). I’ll take more tomorrow.

Not sure about the fire ant status in the shoulder area where my team is. I’ve been so busy working hard that I haven’t had time to notice.

Patio Porkers are smaller teams, who have 10 x 10 booths and have a limit on how big their cooking rig can be. Patio Porkers cook ribs and compete against one another, but not the ribs teams. If a Patio Porker wins first place, it graduates and must enter one of the big three (Ribs, Shoulder, Whole Hog) in future years.

The tacos salads are actually just variations of their regular tacos, with more lettuce. Since I’ve never tried the Fuel truck before, I decided to order what is probably their most famous item, the bison tacos, in regular format rather than as a salad.

I was definitely happy with my purchase. The ground bison meat was tasty, and well accented with pico, cilantro, and sour cream. What really made this meal stand out, though, was the soft tortilla shells in which the tacos were double-wrapped. They were yummy and added a Mexican flair to the dish.

There were a wide variety of sauces and seasonings to add to your food.

A really good lunch that hit the spot, and that will put some “fuel” in my tank for the afternoon until I can get to BBQ Fest. If you haven’t had a chance to try the Fuel truck, I definitely recommend you do next time it’s in your neighborhood.

A funny side note: The people in the truck asked if I was “that guy who is always tweeting about tube tops.”

The National Ornamental Metal Museum is doing a demo in Court Square right now, so if you get food truck fare and want to eat outside, that would be something interesting to watch.

All right, it’s almost time to party! I’ve got to get a few errands done, then it will be time to hit the Saucer for some pre-BBQ beers.

In other Downtown news, the cobblestones along the river are about to undergo a $6 million renovation. A plaza and a fountain at the foot of Union will be added. More details in this Daily News article.

Interesting post I saw on Facebook this morning: Which birthdays are most common? Mine’s about average. September is a huge month for birthdays, apparently.

Also seen on Facebook: 5 tips for pairing cheap beers with personal failures. See, beer goes with everything!

Fuel Food Truck is headed to the Barking Lot at Main and Jefferson, and they have taco salads. Sounds like LUNCH to me! They’ll be ready to go at 11:15.

However, yesterday it was the Polish who stepped it up. One of my Facebook friends is on vacation in Florida, and posted a photo of herself. I asked for, and received, permission to re-post the pic here, to serve as an example to others.

Three words. TUBE. TOP. DRESS. If you’re trying to pick out what to wear to BBQ Fest, let this serve as an example to you. This is how it’s done. God bless the Polish. That thing that happened in the 18th century where the Russians, Prussians, and Austrians carved up their country was total B.S.

It amazes me how come people don’t get it. Yesterday afternoon I texted a friend who had to go out of town for a few hours. “When you get back, put on a tube top and come hang out at the Blind Bear,” I told her. So I was at the Bear, but about 11 I decided to walk over to Huey’s for Paul’s Drunkass Food. Not 30 seconds after I ordered a Heinz 57 burger and fries, I got a text. “I’m at the Bear,” she said.

“Do you have a tube top on?” I replied.

“No”

Seriously. SERIOUSLY??? You expect me to walk away from $10 of food when you’re not even going to dress appropriately? I know I’ve been ranting on this a lot lately, and it’s not even Tube Top Month yet and I apologize to my readers for having to endure it. But certain people just are not getting with the program and it’s irritating me to no end.

All right. It’s BBQ Fest. Let me explain what happens tonight. Thursday-Saturday the park is open to the public, but teams can buy tickets for the Wednesday “Friends & Family Night” private party. There’s a maximum of 50 tickets per team. Sounds like a lot, but when you have a team with 37 members and 4 sponsoring organizations, tickets can be scarce. It’s hard enough to get tickets for every team member, much less spouses and friends. We’ve always found a way to make it work though.

I have not yet seen our booth, but I hear that Holliday Flowers totally rocked it and it far exceeds the 2009 and 2010 booths they did for our old team. I will take lots of photos tonight. Our booth is almost all the way to the south, literally about 4 booths from the southernmost tip. We’re on the bluff side, not the river side, but our booth is so tall that it has a river view. Our friends at Squeal Street are about a 2 minute walk away.

Park opening time is 5:30 tonight, but as always I like to pre-game at the Saucer. I’ll probably get there about 2:30 if anyone wants to meet up. Tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday I’ll pre-game at the Saucer at 11 AM.

This just in: I have a request from the captain of the Squeal Street team. He has asked me to remind everyone that due to park conditions, everyone needs to wear comfortable clothes to BBQ Fest. Tube tops would be your best bet. So there you have it. It’s not just me, it’s BBQ team captains offering that advice.

I’ll be back later today with a news post. Right now it’s time to shower, wash my team shirt, and charge all the spare batteries for the Tube Top Cam. Tonight I’ll try to get some pics of the booth posted to Facebook and Twitter.

Wednesday: 10:30 (private party – Friends & Family Night)

Thursday: midnight

Friday: midnight

Saturday: 10

I’ve also been asked when is the best night to go. My vote would be for Thursday. Thursday and Friday are the big party nights, but Thursday is more relaxed because you have fewer stupid people and freeloaders to deal with. Actually, it depends on what booths you plan on visiting. If they have “sponsor night” when they cater to and wait on their sponsors, it may be Thursday and it may be difficult to get in those booths. Our team doesn’t have a sponsor night – they party with us all weekend – so for my money Thursday is best.

All right. The BBQ team just sent out an alert asking for help. I’m on it and ready to work HARD! Heading to the booth location now. My map shows the location at “northwest corner of Second and Peabody Place.” I’m not sure that’s 100% accurate but I have to go with what I have. Maybe by tomorrow I’ll have better directions.

They had today’s menu posted and I gave it a look.

I decided to give the gumbo a try. Their menu changes but I understand the gumbo is one of the staples of the menu.

I’m enjoying it at home now as I type this. Very tasty chicken and sausage gumbo. It reminds me of the gumbos I had when I visited New Orleans for a business trip two years ago.

The Memphis Connect blog has more info about Scratch. You can follow the truck on Facebook and Twitter.

]]> http://www.paulryburn.com/blog/2012/05/15/gumbo-scratch-food-truck/feed/ 0 http://www.paulryburn.com/blog/2012/05/15/random-pics-from-this-weekend-that-i-forgot-were-on-my-phone-until-just-now/ http://www.paulryburn.com/blog/2012/05/15/random-pics-from-this-weekend-that-i-forgot-were-on-my-phone-until-just-now/#comments Tue, 15 May 2012 15:18:33 +0000 paulryburn http://www.paulryburn.com/blog/?p=12033 <p style="text-align: center;"></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Nap time at the Goose</p> <p style="text-align: center;"></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Kevin Cerrito and Ciara in Grizzlies headband. Kevin, by the way, hosts trivia tonight at Ferraro&#8217;s Pizzeria and Pub. Prizes for the winners and for the best team name, and $1 PBR and Rolling Rock. 8 PM start time.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"></p> <p style="text-align: center;">Beth and [...]

Nap time at the Goose

Kevin Cerrito and Ciara in Grizzlies headband. Kevin, by the way, hosts trivia tonight at Ferraro’s Pizzeria and Pub. Prizes for the winners and for the best team name, and $1 PBR and Rolling Rock. 8 PM start time.

Beth and Amanda at the Blind Bear

Kelly and her dad at the Bear. As usual, no tube top and plenty of excuses from Kelly.

Otto with his hair braided

Pizza from the Goose. The Silly Goose changed its menu about three weeks ago and really expanded their pizza selection. This is the Mexican/southwestern pizza (can’t remember its exact name). You can get it with chicken or beef.

In other news, if you’re wondering where the black smoke was coming from this morning Downtown, there was a junkyard fire at Chelsea and Breedlove.

Congratulations to the Oklahoma City Thunder on whipping the L.A. Lakers last night, beating them by 29. Also congrats to James Harden on winning the NBA Sixth Man of the Year award. Harden, of course, returned recently from a concussion thanks to a vicious elbow by Ron Artest near the end of the regular season. When asked if he would shake Harden’s hand before the game, Artest said that he doesn’t shake hands with substitutes. Artest should have changed his name to Metta World Piece, because he’s the biggest piece of shit in the NBA.

Lunch plans have been decided. The Scratch food truck is parked at Second and Court. Follow them on Twitter at @MobileScratch.

Guy Fieri was in town last week filming an episode of his Food Network Show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. He visited six Memphis-area restaurants – see this Daily News blog post for details – and two of them were Downtown. South of Beale and Rizzo’s Diner were among the restaurants to receive a visit. Can’t wait to see the show. Michael Patrick invited me to be part of the filming for Rizzo’s but I couldn’t get away from work. If you haven’t been to SOB and Rizzo’s, you’re missing out on some mighty good food. By the way, Rizzo’s announced that they now have the back room air conditioned and can accept large parties of 20-25.

Last night I was surfing Facebook on my phone, and one of the Downtown Blue Monkey’s regulars posted that they’ve booked Jeremy Stanfill to play Saturday night. What a MASSIVE improvement over a year ago when they had karaoke on Saturdays. The Monkey may actually be on my radar for something to do after BBQ Fest wraps up at 10 Saturday night. What a pleasure it will be to hear a professional musician there. A year ago you’d walk in and think you were hearing a cat who just had its tail stepped on… then you’d realize it was Robo singing “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.”

By the way, for those of you who miss karaoke, you can get your fill of it Wednesdays at Thai Bistro on Madison. But a better plan would be to walk across the street for Diamond Dave’s bingo night at the Brass Door.

In other live music news, 1960s British Invasion band Jeffrey and the Pacemakers will bring the jangle to Downtown Huey’s Sunday night at 8:30.

Historian Jimmy Ogle leads a free walking tour of the Pinch District at 11:45. Meet at the Main & Overton trolley stop.

Councilman Edmund Ford has proposed a $2 million grant to help redevelop the Chisca Hotel into apartments. It would go along with the $17 million in private funds investors have raised. Details here. This is perhaps our last chance to save the Chisca. I hope it works out.

I walked past the future home of Aldo’s Pizza Pies yesterday. Progress is coming along nicely and I hear they will be hiring soon.

Last night I returned to Silly Goose poker for the 7:30 game, and my run of bad luck continued. With people out for BBQ Fest it was a smaller game than usual, just one 8-handed table in play. I made it all the way to heads up, and on about the third hand of two-handed play I was dealt 4-3. That’s not a great hand but when you’re heads up you have to relax your starting hand standards. So I called and the flop came 5-6-7. Of course, I was very happy to go all-in with that flop! My opponent called with top pair and a draw to a higher straight – an absolutely beautiful call because there were so many cards that could improve her to the best hand. By the river she’d hit a full house to win and claim the $50 gift certificate prize.

Congrats on a fine win.

Earlier in the evening, I’d been at Pint Nite at the Saucer. One of the girls who’d been working day shift and was now off duty came in with a friend, both wearing tube top dresses. THIS IS HOW IT’S DONE, PEOPLE. Tube tops and tube top dresses. In other Saucer news, Amy told the UPS guy that he has a big package.

I wrapped up the evening with a burger at the Blind Bear. Not just any burger, but one topped with pepper jack cheese. Damn Michael Bean can cook. I think, however, that Bean should supplement his income by publishing a book titled “101 Ways to Be a Pest at the Poker Table.”

All right, time to hit Publish and jump in the shower. I’ll be at happy hour at the Saucer at 4, poker with Jamie at the Bear at 8. Undecided where to eat lunch as of yet.