Bucky's Barbecue and Bread

Annual Strawberry Shortcake

Curt — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:17:43 +0000

With June, strawberry season comes into full swing in Ohio. I love this… As with most produce, locally grown is so much better than shipped in, as the produce can ripen before being picked. Plus, I like that I can talk to the farmer that actually grew the food.

I got strawberries on the way home from work this year, at a farm north of Xenia, Ohio, from Doug Anderson of Anderson Farms. I took a photo of him for a Flickr project called ‘100 Strangers’, where participants agree to take photos of 100 people they don’t know, but they have to ask the people for permission first. For some, it’s an exercise in talking to unknown people; for me, it’s just trying to take better photos of people quickly.

Back to the strawberries… The strawberries I picked up with small and uniform in size and color. Obviously not big, commercially grown berries… a good thing! They were ripe when I got them, unlike grocery store berries typically are.

The shortcake recipe is simple and easy. I prefer biscuit-style shortbread, though my wife prefers something lighter. I think the thicker texture soaks up the strawberry juice really well. The basic recipe is:

2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp cold butter, cut into small chunks
4 tbsp cold water

Put the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and add the chunks of butter a little at a time, either cutting in with a pastry blender or mixing by hand until the texture is kind of like cornmeal. Add in just enough water to form a stiff dough.

I baked this on my Big Green Egg, so I had it fired up already and running at 425 degrees F. I formed it into individual shortbreads, but it can be baked as a rectangle, and I put it on parchment to make it easier to take on and off the stone on the egg. To sweeten the shortbread, if desired, it can be topped with a bit of sugar after it comes off the cooker, after being brushed with melted butter (optional). The shortbread takes 12-15 minutes to bake.

While the shortbread was baking outside, my wife came up with a great way to prep the strawberries. Instead of slicing each berry by hand, I used an egg slicer to evenly slice the berries. They were so sweet and juicy, I didn’t macerate them with sugar; I just left them as they were… sweet and juicy from the farm market!

To top the strawberry shortcake, I put heavy whipping cream in my stand mixer with some vanilla syrup, like what’s used for cappuccinos… about 2 tablespoons for a cup of cream. With the whisk attachment, I whipped the cream until it was nice and thick and formed soft peaks on the whisk when removed. Then I piled it on top of the strawberries.

This is one of the great things about summer in Ohio… The seasonal foods are great! I can find decent strawberries other times, but they’re nothing compared to locally grown berries that are handpicked when ripe.

A pretty good bbq

Curt — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 15:22:09 +0000

The church I attend, the Dayton Vineyard, has grown over the past 12 or so years I’ve been there. It’s gone from about 300 people back then to well over 2500 people on a given weekend. On top of that growth, the church was recently given a new location just north of downtown Dayton, Ohio.

The new spot started having services last fall, and it’s gone from about 30 people to 150 or more. I’d heard people talking about doing something to kick off the new location, and I thought it would be great to have a real barbecue there.

Keep in mind a couple of things about the Dayton Vineyard. The first is that we used to have block parties in different areas in Dayton called BBQ Dayton. The second is that our tagline is ‘A Pretty Good Church’, implying that we’re not perfect, but we try to be at least pretty good. So I combined the two into my idea and called it ‘A Pretty Good BBQ’.

Typically at a BBQ Dayton, burgers and hot dogs would be grilled and served, for free, to any that showed up. Someone had the idea to do to the same at the Dayton campus, but I said I thought we should do real barbecue instead of burgers and dogs. The first response I got was that burgers and dogs were good enough.

That kind of got to me a bit, and I kept hearing this still, small voice tell me that I shouldn’t serve others with ‘good enough’… I should serve with my best. And my best, for that sort of situation, was not only to cook barbecue, but to put out word to others to see if I could get help cooking barbecue.

So a few months ago, I put word out on the BBQ Brethren site that I wanted to do this thing. Included in it was not only travel to Dayton paid for by the cooks, but that I was also going to ask them to pay for a share of the meat we were going to cook then give away. Yes, I said give away.

I got responses that really amazed me. Clark came all the way down from Wisconsin, with Jeff from Chicago in tow; Steve and Mike came down from Michigan; Neil came from Chillicothe, Ohio; Bob from Westerville, Ohio; and Pat and Jeff were both local church members. Rick was local, too, and came by to keep morale going by cooking on his medium and mini big green eggs.

They all showed up on Saturday, May 17, to set up. Prior to that, Bob helped procure 500 pounds of meat that was delivered to the church for us. That’s 500 pounds! 200 pounds of beef brisket and 300 pounds of pork shoulder.

During the day, I got 50 wings from Chicken Louie, a local joint near the church. Clay was the cook, and was more than happy to help us out, making sure the wings were ready. Later, beef ribs were served, along with pizza and cherry pie filled puff pastries. It was quite a spread for the cooks!

The guys got set up during the afternoon, and we had a couple side competitions going on. The first was for ABT’s, or stuffed, smoked peppers. Only a few entries actually made it to judging, and yours truly took the honors! On Sunday morning, we also had a fatty (stuffed, smoked sausage) competition, with Neil taking the title here.

As we got near noon, the guys all had competition style turn in boxes, and put both pork and brisket in them to be judged by Mr. White, who used to run several kitchens at local restaurants.

After judging all the entries, the winner was the Vineyard’s own Pat Caudill of Patrick’s BBQ! Congrats to Pat, but the big event was already going, which was the serving of barbecue to people that showed up.

In under 45 minutes, 1400 cans/bottles of pop/water were served, and 1250 pulled pork and brisket sandwiches were served. It was an amazing day, seeing people enjoying themselves. To top off the weekend, the Vineyard had a record showing at their next free breakfast the next Thursday.

The whole idea was to serve people where they are, with a smile, showing them God loves them. And any real barbecuer knows God loves barbecue! (read Leviticus)

I want to thank all the people that helped with the event, the first of hopefully many, especially Steve Bowen, the pastor in charge of outreach, that helped with the meat, the site, the organization and the volunteers. We’ll make changes next year to make it even better. I’d have more shots of sandwiches, etc… But I was pretty busy at the time!

Grilled Meal - Pork Chops and Caprese Salad

Curt — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:37:14 +0000

I wanted to do some stuff on my Big Green Egg last week, so I got some really thick pork chops and the makings of caprese salad (what I understand to be tomatoes, fresh mozzarella cheese and basil), along with some ciabatta bread.

The set up was easy; get some coals going on the egg and get it heating up. While doing that, I opened a bottle of wine to breathe, which I thought was perfect for the meal… a bottle of Le Snoot Cabernet Savignon!

I also got the pork chops out of the fridge and seasoned them with grey salt, black pepper, oregano, onion powder and garlic powder. Since these were really thich (like 1 1/2″), I seasoned them pretty heavily.

I had wanted to grill a caprese salad for a while, but this was my first time doing it. I cut the tomatoes pretty thick, only three slices per tomato, using the vine-connected, medium sized tomatoes that aren’t too bad. I also cut some fresh mozz into enough slices so I had one per tomato slice, and I did a chiffinade cut on a bunch of fresh basil. I also cut half of a loaf of ciabatta bread into slices.

Once the fire was ready on the BGE (Big Green Egg), I put the chops on and seared both sides for about 1 1/2 minutes. They look small in the photo, but that’s only because the BGE is so big!

I moved the chops off the direct fire and place the tomato slices, drizzled with olive oil, on the center of the grate, letting them grill a bit, but not so much they were mush.

After about 4 minutes, I turned them over, and placed some mozzarella cheese on each slice. I ringed the grate with the slices to get them off the hottest fire, so I could grill the bread by drizzling the slices with olive oil and placing them on the grate.

By chance, or a bit of educated guessing, it was all ready at the same time, with the pork chops going inside a few minutes early to rest under foil. I drizzled each tomato slice with balsamic glaze and served with the Le Snoot wine.

In all, it wasn’t a bad meal health-wise. The chops were incredible, and the amount of seasoning was about right to add flavor to the chops without overpowering, but not too light to disappear, either. The bread… how could it not be good? And the grilled caprese salad was a huge hit, one I’ll be doing again, I’m sure!

And to make it even better, my dad was up for my niece’s graduation… She’s now Dr. Maggie Avila, OD, with her hood being bestowed on Saturday, June 7, 2008 from the School of Optometry at The Ohio State University (and if you wonder why it’s pronounced ‘Thee Ohio Statue University, just ask… I know why). Anyway, Dad got to join my wife and me for dinner on a hot June evening.

Congrats to Maggie, of course… I’m really proud of you!

Memorial Day Weekend on the Big Green Egg

Curt — Tue, 27 May 2008 15:32:26 +0000

We’re just past Memorial Day weekend. I have to say that I’m a bit saddened that Memorial Day isn’t really observed for what it’s meant to honor, which is fallen U.S. soldiers. I don’t go out of my way to do a lot for the day, but I do think about the sacrifices made by others. Unfortunately, I saw a lot of other celebrations going on, too, that had nothing to do with that; people are just confused, I guess.

On Saturday, Pat of Patrick’s BBQ held his annual customer appreciation event by cooking anything that he could fit in his smoker (which is a whole lot). While there, I noticed a field of wildflowers, and I had to wander down to get a better look.

It is a long weekend, and it unofficially denotes the start of summer. We had incredible weather for Saturday and Sunday, with Monday not too awful. On Sunday, my dad and stepmother were in Ohio, and they spent the afternoon and evening with us, which was all the excuse I needed to put the XL Big Green Egg through it’s paces, just to see how it did with a variety of tasks.

First up was bread. I’ve heard that the egg makes a great bread oven, so I wanted to find out. With just charcoal, no wood chunks, going at about 600 degrees, I put a couple of loaves on the egg, only to quickly find that my friend Rick was right.. the platesetter gets too hot to cook on directly! I burned the bottoms of the loaves severely! So I added a stone on top of the platesetter, with a gap of air in between, and put more bread on. I misted the bread when I put it on, and immediately lowered the temp to around 460-480. The bread was done in about 20 minutes, and it came out great. The oven spring was incredible, and the crust was really nicely done.

After the bread was done, I put the grate on the cooker and placed 4 Vidalia onions, with grey salt, pepper and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar, on the edge of the grate and grilled, at about 650 degrees, sea scallops. I did nothing to the scallops other than grey salt and black pepper… Some times, the food speaks for itself without a lot of embellishment.

After the grilling, I put the platesetter back in and added a prime rib that was encrusted with a thick layer of kosher salt (mixed with water to form a paste). The onions were set along the edges of the platesetter, but not where they blocked the air circulation. The prime rib was taken off, after smoking with cherry wood to 120 degrees F, and allowed to rest for a bit, then sliced and served with the onions.

For dessert, I took the lead from my friend Rick and made puff pastries. I put the stone back on the platesetter and raised the temperature to about 400 degrees F. The puff pastry shells went on the stone, on parchment paper, until they were about half done, at which time I took the middle out of the shells and piped in a bit of cream cheese mixed with butter and sugar. After the shells were baked, I added berries and served the dessert. This is one worth doing again, though I want to make my own shells and make them a bit bigger.

So, how did Norman do (I’ve named the Big Green Egg Norman for some reason I don’t quite know)? The days’ food was great! I have to plan out my timing a bit better, but, all in all, it was a very successful day’s work by the Big Green Egg!

My new big green egg

Curt — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:35:28 +0000

We had some really nice weather last week, ending with a gorgeous May Saturday, highs around 70, lots of sun, so it was a perfect time to try out my new toy.

A lot of you reading this will know what a Big Green Egg is, though a lot of you may not. It’s pretty simple; a Big Green Egg is a green ceramic cooker. I can’t call it a grill or a smoker because it’s great at doing both.

Well, I finally have one! There are multiple sizes, from a tabletop ‘mini’, to the original and most popular ‘large’, to what I got, the ‘XL’. Though carefully engineereed, the unit itself is simple; ceramic shell that’s very well insulated, firebox, firering, fire grate, cooking grate, lid and exhaust. What’s so great about that? The cermic allows great insulation, meaning I don’t have to worry much about weather affecting my cooking, the cooker can go for hours and hours and hours with very little interaction, and it can also grill at about 800 degrees F when opened up.

Most will recommend a ‘large’ size, but I wanted the XL for the quantity of food it can hold. The cooking grate is 24″ in diameter, versus 18″ on the large. That’s 452 square inches vs. 254 square inches!

For Mother’s Day, I wanted to do my first cook, and I am a proponent of using smoker’s capacity when I do cook, so I planned on 2 brisket flats, 2 Boston butts and 2 pork tenderloins.

The set up for the fire is easily done; the cooker using natural lump charcoal and wood chunks. I just about filled the fire box with lump, adding in several chunks of hickory, and I lit one half a chimney of charcoal, adding that on top of the unlit lump. For smoking, a platesetter is used, which is a flat ceramic piece that sits on top of the firebox to ensure the heat is all indirect. It’s basically a ceramic layer between the fire and the food that still ensures proper airflow. I put the grate right on top of that instead of adding the fire ring because I was going to use a second lifted grate to hold the pork butts.

It took some fiddling around with the air intake and the exhaust to get the smoker to get to 225 degrees F, but once I did, I loaded up all the food. I did this around 6 pm on Saturday, and I fiddled here and there to make sure the fire kept going at the same rate. Now here’s my mistake… I got ahead of myself (read ‘too tired’) and thought I had the fire going perfectly, but I ended up shutting it down over about 4 hours. Since the smoker had cooled enough (completely my fault), I took everything in, wrapped it in foil and finished it in the oven for the last 20 degrees needed.

So how did the food turn out? The pork tenderloin only took about 1 1/2 hours, if that, to get to 145 degrees, which is right where I like it. So Saturday night, we got to enjoy that along with a salad. I had slathered the tenderloin with seedless blackberry preserves, chipotle pepper chile powder, salt and pepper. Then I also made a sauce to try with it out of the preserves, a bit of water and some chipotle Tabasco sauce. This was really good stuff!

The only problem I had about putting the pork and brisket in the oven was that I think meat loses some smokiness when you do that. With that said, the meat still turned out great. I actually overcooked the brisket a little, but the flavor was good, and there’s a modicum of smoke ring. It’s not what I’m used to with my big stick burner, but it’s still good. I think one of the things I’ve learned is to add a bit more wood; I only used about 4 chunks of hickory this time. Maybe I need to double that… It will be fun learning, though!

I didn’t take photos of our Mother’s Day meal, but I did make what I am calling ‘bbq sliders’. They’re on small, artisanal rolls instead of buns, just a few quick bites each. I did pulled pork on a multigrain roll, and brisket was done on rosemary rolls. The rolls were a nice way to add some healthfulness to a pulled pork sandwich.

I usually don’t like messing with classics like pulled pork and brisket sandwiches, but, now and then, subtle additions like the multigrain and rosemary work nicely. There’s still nothing quite like a pulled pork sandwich with slaw on a plain old burger bun, though.

Leftover Flat Iron Steak

Curt — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:31:49 +0000

We’re finally used to being back home from vacation in Maine. We were only gone a few days, but we really fell in love with Maine in general and Kennebunkport in particular! But now we’re back in the country, replacing sights of the Atlantic with sights of farmers.

We had some people over the other night, and I was going to fix flank steak, but I saw this flat iron steak at the market. They were giving out samples, and it was pretty good, so i thought I’d try it.

Flat iron steak was developed by researchers at the University of Florida and the University of Nebraska, and it’s part of the top blade roast. The name comes from the steak’s shape looking like an iron, and it comes from one of the two most tender muscles on a steer. It’s a top blade steak, but flat iron steak sounds better.

I was warned not to cook this past medium rare, as it’s likely to toughen up as the steak overcooks. That’s fine with me, as I prefer rare to medium rare anyway. I originally grilled the steaks with a coffee rub (ground coffee, a bit of salt, sugar, black pepper, garlic and onion).

To use up the leftovers, though, I sliced the steak into strip and put them on a griddle pan to heat them up. So as not to overcook the steak, I only heated it on one side, just to get the meat warned up. I also sliced some good artisan bread and some Vincent cheese, a new Dutch cheese named after Vincent Van Gogh. It’s got good flavor to stand up to the steak.

I just toasted the bread by buttering one side and putting it in the same pan the steak was in, piled everything up on the bread, and enjoyed! I’ll take leftover steak any chance I get, and the flat iron steak was cheap and pretty good… It’s well worth a try.

Lobstah Passengers

Curt — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:11:26 +0000

When my wife and I were coming back from Maine last Monday, we found out that we could buy live lobsters and check them as luggage on the plane… So we did!

Pre-sunrise, Kennebunkport, ME

Roger at the Portland Lobster Pound was more than happy to help us out, so we got a couple 1 1/2 pounders in a box to go. We were told that these bugs would be fine for about 24 hours in the box… So off to the airport, a couple of hours early for our flight, since it was starting to rain anyway.

We get up to check our lobsters and luggage only to find out that weather between Portland and Dayton has caused cancellations, and that we’d been moved to a morning flight out. After checking for something sooner, we asked what our options were… And there was a 7:10 flight that would get us home at about 2 pm… I jumped on it, as this put us at 23 hours with the lobsters!

Cape Neddick Lighthouse, ME

With little further ado, we made it home just fine. Since it was a nice day, I decided to try a taste test between boiled and grilled lobster.

Ok, P eta isn’t going to like me for this post… One of the bugs was allowed to wander around the cutting board while I took pre-bath photos of it. I even tried to get it to stand on its head, but I didn’t try very hard, really. Off it went into a pot of water, but only after signing a modeling release…

(maybe he should have read the fine print…)

The other lobster was brought out to receive an even quicker end, at the point of a Shun chef’s knife. My wife took a bunch of photos that I put together in a little stop-action video showing how I cut the bug in half. Call it what you will, lobster snuff film, ocean creature horror movie, but it was delicious in the end!

To boil/steam the lobster, it’s simply timing; I steamed the lobster for about 21 minutes. Grilling is less about timing, though there is some of that. I put the halves meat side down, with the claws over the hottest part of the fire, for about 3-4 minutes, then turn over the halves and flip the claws until the meat in the halves looks done (opaque, just past translucent). As soon as I flipped them, I also added butter… I had no herbs, but I would typically do a basil butter for this.

Once they were done, we dined on lobster with a nice Viognier wine (one of the few whites I really enjoy). What a great meal!

The verdict? While I really like grilled lobster, when they’re this fresh, I prefer steamed or boiled… The stuff is just so good, there’s no reason to add the grilled flavor. I also don’t like using too much butter for dipping when it’s this good. If I lived in New England, I might do grilled now and then just for a difference, but, since I don’t get live lobster that often in Ohio, I’ll probably stick to mostly steamed.

If you want to invite me over for grilled lobster, though, I will accept!

Kennebunkport, Maine and the Lobstah Roll

Curt — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:17:58 +0000

It’s good to be back home now, but not completely. My wife and I just spent a few days in the great state of Maine, specifically in the Kennebunkport area. No, we didn’t dine with the Bush family, but we did drive by George Sr’s compound. The town was gorgeous, and nearby Goose Rocks beach provided some great sunrise photos.

I never thought about Maine and food much, but there are a few things that I will always connect with Maine now… The most obvious is, of course, lobstah! Along with lobstah, and, yes, I’m going to spell it that way throughout this blog entry, is the Lobstah Roll, a sandwich I quickly came to love. Also, Maine produces more blueberries than any other state. Note: I was corrected! Maine produces more WILD blueberries than any other state!

The first question I’ve been asked is - Why would you go to Maine in April??? And that’s easy to answer… I like cooler weather, and the season is just getting under way, so the crowds weren’t there yet. Why choose Kennebunkport? It’s not because George Sr. thinks it’s great; it really got decided because the hotel I found was offering a weekend of ballroom dancing lessons along with 2 nights in Kennebunkport. It turns out that more weddings are done at the Nonantum than any other place in Maine.

So I did actually dance last weekend. We had 3 two hour sessions, and we learned very basic steps for foxtrot, waltz, rumba and swing. And I did ok. The best part was that my wife enjoyed it, followed by the fact that we got to meet other couples (all from Boston), and we had a great time.

Today I’m going to concentrate on my newfound favorite sandwich, the Lobstah Roll!I had one each day I was in Maine, starting with a Kennebunkport pub/restaurant called Allison’s. Next was Mabel’s Lobster Claw, then Henry VIII, and, finally, DiMillo’s Floating Restaurant in Portland. That’s the order in which I had them. At the end of this, I’ll tell you which I liked, best to worst. I have to say, though, even the worst was great!

Allison’s

I was actually a bit disappointed in Allison’s as a place. The quaint town of Kennebunkport houses a lot of old shops in old-looking buildings. Allison’s interior is just too new looking. I wish they spent some time making it look older! The lobstah roll here was a typical example of this sandwich species… The bun is a New England style hot dog bun, which is more like a folded piece of bread than a typical hot dog bun, which allows the outside to be toasted. Then green leaf lettuce is laid down, topped with a mixture of lobster meat and a bit of mayonnaise… Not a lot of mayo, just enough to hold the meat together well. Served with fries and cole slaw, this is a prototypical Lobstah Roll.

Mabel’s Lobster Claw

After a dinner of mussels cooked in beer at Federal Jack’s, which somehow escaped my camera, Saturday found us sitting at the quaint Mabel’s Lobster Claw, within easy walking distance of the Nonantum. Mabel’s has been around for over 70 years, and they have a wine list you would not expect at a place this small and so local diner looking. The wine list includes wines like Opus One and the like! However, I wasn’t there for that style of eating… I had a Shipyard Ale (Shipyard started at Federal Jack’s) to go with my Lobstah Roll. This time, the roll was still on leaf lettuce, but the lobster meat was mayonnaise-less. Still very much what one would expect in a Lobstah Roll.

Henry VIII

The next day found us driving southwest along highway 9, going from Kennebunkport to Kennebunk to Wells to Ogunquit to York. Had I looked at a map, I would have gone on to Portsmouth, but I didn’t realize how close we were, but Cape Neddick had a lighthouse, which was pretty cool to see. We were looking for a place in Ogunquit, but when we got there, it was packed and hard to find a parking spot, so we drove on back to Kennebunkport and went to Henry VIII, which we already knew had great sandwiches. Their lobstah roll is a bit different in that they don’t use the typical hot dog bun; instead, they use kind of a baguette, like they use on their other sandwiches. Leaf lettuce was there, and there was just a touch of mayo, and the meat was obviously good. A Lobstah Roll curve ball in that different bread was used, though.

DiMillo’s Floating Restaurant

The last roll was in Portland, on our way to the airport. The day was colder, grey and starting to rain. We walked out to DiMillo’s Floating Restaurant on Long Wharf, and I got the last lobstah roll of my trip. This time, it was again on the New England hot dog bun, but with iceberg lettuce instead of leaf, and no mayo to notice. This was a pretty good way to end the Lobstah Roll portion of my trip.

There were my 4 samples of Lobstah Rolls. As promised here are my rankings, and why:

Mabel’s Lobster Claw. Everything about this lobstah roll was right, and the meat was perfectly cooked and tender. The lobstah was highlighted and really showed off here.
Allison’s. The ambiance may be why Allison’s took second instead of first, as it was also a great lobstah roll. The mayo wasn’t overpowering at all, but I wish it looked more like a Kennebunkport pub than a sports bar.
DiMillo’s Floating Restaurant. Very good, but the iceberg lettuce was a bit too bitter to place higher.
Henry VIII. The downfall for this is the great bread used. The baguette style bread takes over too much of the spotlight from the lobster meat. In a lobstah roll, the lobstah is king! Unfortunately, the lobstah has to share the throne with the bread here.

As I said, all were great. If Henry VIII was the only lobstah roll available, I wouldn’t complain at all. I might only eat half the bread, but I’d enjoy every bite still! And I learned that Maine, even off season, is a really great place! The slogan of the state is ‘The Way Life Should Be”, and I believe it.

Ramblings of an absent food blogger

Curt — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:29:14 +0000

No excuses other than just being busy. I haven’t posted in about 3 weeks, so here is a bit of this and that.

First, I’ll be off to Kennebunkport, ME, later this month with my wife to celebrate our 5th anniversary. I’ll be eating lots o’ lobstah and reporting back on food from a new-to-me area.

I just haven’t been cooking much, but my wife did make some snickerdoodles a while ago; I’ll be getting the recipe and posting it in the next few days. They are fantastic, as anyone that likes cinnamon cookies can attest. Here’s a sample shot of the cookies…

I also made more chocolate chip cookies! I had a bit more fun with the camera this time, and even took some chocolate chip macro shots…

And last for now, I’m currently working about 15 minutes from my favorite hamburger joint in the world, Crabill’s Hamburgers in Urbana, Ohio. We drove up for lunch my first week in the area, and I got four doubles with mustard and onion. They opened in 1927, and only had mustard, onion and relish until 1992 or something like that, when they bowed to pressure to add ketchup. I have never had and never will have ketchup on a Greasy Burger (as we have always called them)! I had to have a bag of Mumford’s potato chips to go along with my burgers, of course (also made in Urbana)

Food Photo 101 - Lesson 6

Curt — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 13:00:36 +0000

Food Photo 101 is back! Here is Nika’s next lesson, near and dear to my stomach…

(Dark and delicious BBQ’d and smoked pork butt)
I am sorry that the next class in this series has taken so long to produce.Today I am going to step away form technical and aesthetic foci and be a bit less formal and try to tackle some of the challenges of shooting BBQ’d foods and scenes for your blog.Some of you, like Curt, may have a preference (or obsession) for BBQ so many of your images are going to have similar BBQ related needs.

(Whole trout with asparagus, key limes, and grapefruit)
When I think of BBQ I think of my backyard and mostly grilling, which is not BBQing at all.
(Charcoal for grilled fish)
Grilling is, I think, much easier to shoot because the grill can be better lit and you are not trying to capture the unctuous depths of a pit smoker.Compare:Grilling

(Mozzarella stuffed blue cheese and basil hamburgers)

(Whole trout on the grill with asparagus)
Pit Smoker
(B.T.’s BBQ: Boston Butt Pork Slow roasted pit BBQ)
Both cooking methods can give you similar problems - mainly dark, lumpy chunks of delicious meat that is mostly not photogenic or not nearly photogenic enough to equal the beauty of it’s flavor.
(BBQ pork butt)
It is also hard to “food style” away the essential darkness of a perfectly smoked BBQ’d pork butt because that, in person, is what is so arresting in its beauty. In a photo, the pork butt looks like it has been burned and dried to inedibility (when, in fact, its smoked and moist).
(BBQ Pork Ribs)
Another problem with BBQ and grilling is that its a shame to lose the context by focusing too closely. If you show just the BBQ’d rib you miss the dramatic smoky grill, pit, or smoker. This means you might want to shoot outside and then lighting becomes less predictable (but exciting too). To do any sort of ambient outdoor shooting you need to master your manual settings, shoot lots of shots from many angles, and be patient!
B.T.’s Smokehouse: Slow roasted pit BBQ beef ribs
Go for detail, interesting point of view, drama, and emphasize context whenever possible.
(B.T.’s Smokehouse: Slow roasted pit BBQ beef brisket, pork butt, chicken)
Did I mention that you should be patient? Be patient with yourself mostly because you need to take the time to capture many alternative shots but you need to also take the time to go through all of those shots and asses which ones work, how they happened and also identify those that didn’t work. Those that didn’t work can be helpful teaching tools for you so that the next time you will know what to avoid (not that you would take any fewer shots, just that the ones you do take will likely not repeat too many of the previous mistakes).
(Slow roasted pork butt)
I have been including various shots above from my own grilling and BBQ. Next I am going to show some images from a shoot a couple of weeks ago that I did at Brian Trietman’s B.T.’s Smokehouse (see these two blog posts: An improbable meat nirvana in a BBQ wasteland, Criminally Good Smoked Salmon and Bacon - B.T.’s Smokehouse). I was shooting inside of his mini-restaurant and I had no special plates because I wanted the location and the non-fussy nature of the BBQ to show through.I took a flash head but did not end up using it. Below you can see a shot of the set up - a table by some windows and a fluorescent light overhead. The light coming in from the windows was super-bright bluish light bouncing off of the snow outside. By far, the most dominant light was from the windows.

When I got in close to shoot that side of salmon, I got this (with a bit of white balance correction after shooting in RAW)
(B.T.’s Smokehouse: insanely delicious smoked salmon)
I wasn’t that happy with the light in that location and my attempts to bounce didn’t give me much sparkle as you can see below.
(B.T.’s Smokehouse: insane smoked bacon)I did some other shooting in the mini-restaurant/service window but didn’t do much outside because the snow was just too much for getting much of a shot. I used my Canon 30D kit lens for the general shots below.
(B.T.’s Smokehouse: smoked beef jerky)

(B.T.’s Smokehouse: bacon for smoking - seasoning)

(B.T.’s Smokehouse: ribs for smoking - seasoning)
Your TaskUsing everything you have learned in the past Food Photo 101 classes, go out and either shoot your own BBQ (I am sure Curt will because he has quite the set up and I am looking forward to seeing it!) or perhaps find an event where some real pit BBQers are doing their thing.Post it to your blog and send us your link or post it to the Food Photo 101 group on Flickr.

Thats it! I am looking forward to seeing what you all submit.

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