Ulika Food Blog

Boudin

2012-01-19T22:08:00.000-06:00

I made some boudin before Christmas, but I never got around to posting the pics.

The pork and liver came from Porter Road Butcher, and the recipe was courtesy of Donald Link via The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook.

Special Feature Preview: Dizzy Pig

2012-01-19T21:52:00.000-06:00

Just a little preview of a feature coming up on Dizzy Pig Rubs

Sausage Making

2012-01-18T09:26:00.000-06:00

Just made up a little batch of Berkshire breakfast sausage.

Pimento Cheese, Please!

2012-01-06T09:42:00.003-06:00

Pimento Cheese, Please! from Christophile Konstas on Vimeo.

I'm going to have to whip up a batch this evening.

10 Best BBQ/Grilling Gift Ideas

2011-12-15T05:00:00.000-06:00

Thermapen™
One of the best tools when it comes to cooking meat is the Thermapen™. There are several cuts of meat that have a small window of perfect doneness, and the only way to nail it every time is with a Thermapen™. With 3-second readings and High accuracy to ±0.7°F, no other thermometer can match it. Note: the red one is the fastest.

Cookbooks
There is no better way to explore your horizons than with new cookbook Here are a couple of my favorites:

The Southern Foodways Alliance Community Cookbook

Primal Cuts: Cooking with America's Best Butchers

Whole Beast Butchery: The Complete Visual Guide to Beef, Lamb, and Pork

Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing

If you are looking strictly for a BBQ cookbook, I would go with one of these:

Paul Kirk's Championship Barbecue: Barbecue Your Way to Greatness With 575 Lip-Smackin' Recipes from the Baron of Barbecue

Big Bob Gibson's BBQ Book: Recipes and Secrets from a Legendary Barbecue Joint

Serious Barbecue: Smoke, Char, Baste, and Brush Your Way to Great Outdoor Cooking

Knives
Who doesn't love a good knife? Knives are the essential cooking tool, and you can never have too many. Here are a couple of good options:

Need a brisket slicer? Check out the Forschner Fibrox 12" Granton Edge Slicer.

How bout a nice Japanese Knife? The Shun Pro Usuba 6.5" is a really nice choice.

Edge Pro Knife Sharpening Kit
Once you have sharpened a knife with the Edge Pro, you will never use any other method. This kit allows you to get a mirror finish on a blades edge. If you are ever in a pinch and need to shave with a household kitchen knife, I would be sure to sharpen it with the edge pro first. There is no gimmick, and the price tag kinda gives that away, but you will never have to use another sharpening system again.

Big Green Egg
Why not go all out and get an egg. You know you want one, and what better time to splurge than at Christmas. They come in all shapes and sizes, so I'm sure you can find the one that is right for the special person on your list. Note: just because they may already have an Egg does not mean that they couldn't use another one.

The Pig Tail Food Flipper
A great alternative to the bbq tool set. Easily flip and handle smaller cuts of meat. I recommend the medium or small version. The largest one is just too big.

A BBQ Class
For the serious bbq'er in your life, look into some of these cooking classes.

Pellet Envy Competition BBQ Classes

Bub-Ba-Q Competition Cooking Class

Jack's Old South Cooking School

Chimney Starter
Most grill masters are probably already using one of these, but if you've seen a bottle of lighter fluid at your buddies house, by all means buy them a chimney starter. If they are using the lighter fluid in other ways you might want to check into this.

Epicurean Cutting Board
These cutting boards are rock solid. I have two of them that I use daily, and they are still as good as new after 5+ years.

Booze
What goes better with meat than booze? This one is really up to your preference, because most booze goes with bbq. Well everything except these:

10 Worst BBQ/Grilling Gift Ideas

2011-12-13T22:12:00.000-06:00

Apron Sets
No one really wants one of these things.

BBQ Tool Set
If you want to get someone a nice spatula or tongs, that's fine. However, the items that come in these sets are crap.

Bacon Themed Anything
These were slightly funny about two years ago, but don't waste your money.

Hamburger Press
If you feel like someone needs a hamburger press, they probably shouldn't be making hamburgers.

Fork Thermometer
You shouldn't poke you meat with a fork to turn it or to get the temp of it, and the thermometer on these is about as accurate as this guy.

Grill Branding Iron
Clever idea? In theory maybe, but they don't work very well. Beef is too dark for it to really show up, and your chicken and pork really don't need to be branded for any reason.

Indoor Grill
A true grill master will fire up the grill in snow, sleet, rain, or a tornado. Also these things are a bitch to clean up.

I Can't Believe It's a Lighter
Is that a shotgun shell? That's a cute little camera. No, they are lighters silly.

Themed BBQ Sauce
Really? I like Georgia, but I don't need some generic bbq sauce just because it says Georgia on it.

Bottle Brush
Have you ever tried to use one of these? If you have, you would never buy this for someone.

Check back tomorrow for the 10 Best BBQ/Grill Gifts.

Cured: A Short Film by Joe York

2011-10-13T08:05:00.001-05:00

Have you ordered your ham yet?

CURED from UM Media Documentary Projects on Vimeo.

BBQ Sauce of the Week: Southern Soul's Sweet Georgia Soul

2011-09-30T09:30:00.003-05:00

Southern Soul BBQ restaurant in St. Simons, GA has not been around for 100 years, but don’t tell that to Griffin Bufkin and Harrison Sapp. The two proprietors of Southern Soul BBQ have quickly put their BBQ joint on the map by cooking low and slow traditional bbq. They have been featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, and pitmaster Harrison Sapp appeared on season 2 of BBQ Pitmasters. This publicity only showed America what the locals already knew: that these two were putting out some damn fine que.

Their Sweet Georgia Soul sauce may have the appearance of a Kansas City style sauce, but at the first taste, you quickly realize that St. Simons Georgia is ways off from KC. The base is tomato, but you pick up mustard and pepper undertones right away. While strong mustard flavors may seem strange to some, it is truly a staple in this region (see the yellow area of the map below). Even though this sauce is named Sweet Georgia Soul, the slight sugary sweetness that you get is outweighed by a black pepper kick, but that only gets high marks in my book. Overall, it is very versatile sauce that has a smooth finish, and works great on chicken and pork.

While I am not the foremost expert on the sauces of this region, I can say that I have had more than a few sauces from this area, and Southern Soul’s Sweet Georgia Soul stacks up with the best of them.

Grade: A

Turning Up The Heat

2011-09-25T19:22:00.002-05:00

sausage, habanero puree, habanero extract, jalapeno, hot banana pepper, sprinkled with fresh cayenne

Shrimp Creole

2011-09-18T07:49:00.001-05:00

shrimp stock creole sauce shrimp creole

ramen momofuku style via lucky peach

2011-08-27T16:46:00.001-05:00

steeping kombu making broth tare - roasted chicken back, bacon, sake, mirin, soy ramen with pork, 6 min 10 sec egg, nori, and myojo chukazanmai noodles

Making Ketchup

2011-08-23T23:02:00.001-05:00

BBQ SAUCE OF THE WEEK: Shirley J

2011-08-03T16:34:00.005-05:00

Just when you think you've seen everything...along comes just-add-water instant barbecue sauce. Seriously.

Although the idea of just-add-water barbecue sauce may seem unusual, to those familiar with the Shirley J line of products, it should come as no surprise. Shirley J offers a full line of instant just-add-water food products - everything from sauces and seasonings to all manner of doughs. The company sells the products through their website, but also through a network of home-based sellers.

Making the sauce really is just as simple as adding water. It's one part powder and three parts water, but you can tweak it thicker or thinner as you see fit. I mixed some up right here at work.

The sauce has a reddish brown color with flecks of spices suspended throughout. The texture is a little bit grainy, but I'm not sure if that's because it came from a powder or because of the spices. Flavor is sweet and tomatoey and tangy and vinegary at first, giving way to significant notes of mustard, onion, garlic, lemon, and pepper. The heat level is mild.

Overall, the sauce is much better than I was expecting it to be, having come from a powder, but still not on par with really good traditonally packaged barbecue sauces. I should note that the package mentions that simmering the sauce for 2-3 minutes will improve results.

Grade: B-

BBQ SAUCE OF THE WEEK: Old Hickory

2011-07-28T15:51:00.004-05:00

Here in Nashville, you see a lot of stuff named after Andrew Jackson. I realize that there are places and things named after the man all over the country, but those all use "Jackson". Here in Nashville, we prefer to use Jackson's nickname - Old Hickory.

But Old Hickory Bar-B-Q is not in Nashville, Tennessee, but rather Owensboro, Kentucky. Owensboro, which actually calls itself the "Bar-B-Q Capital of the World", is better known for its International Bar-B-Q Festival and for the Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn. But the locals will tell you that the best barbecue in town is at Old Hickory. Mutton is the specialty in these parts, along with a kind of barbecue stew called burgoo. Perhaps someday soon we will do a report on Old Hickory and Owensboro barbecue, but for today we're just looking at the sauce.

First of all, I dig the label and I dig the Ball jar, both of which probably have not changed in decades. The sauce is ultra-thin and has a deep dark red color. The aroma is of worcestershire sauce and vinegar, and the taste is more of the same. There is a strong savory element, followed by a bright tartness and a hint of tomatoey sweetness. There is a subtle peppery aftertaste. This seems to be a sauce that's made specifically to complement the barbecue it accompanies, so tasting it alone might be kind of misleading. But even on its own, this is a unique sauce - much more worcestershire flavor than your normal vinegar-based sauce.

Grade: B

Sweet and Spicy Pickles

2011-07-23T18:03:00.001-05:00

Last week I had a little pickling disaster. I went through the whole process of making a nice big quart of sweet and spicy pickles, and on the last step of the water bath, my jar cracked. My last hour of work was just floating in a pool of failure. Not to be out done by some fragile glass, I set out to make another batch this weekend. I found some nice cukes and hot peppers at the farmers market, and bought new and shiny Ball jars. No breaks this time. Now we play the waiting game. In a few weeks we will know if the effort was worth it.

New Meat Curing Chamber

2011-07-22T23:09:00.001-05:00

Scored this True GDM-26 fridge (that's 26 cubic feet) on Craigslist for $50. I'm going to make a few mods, and it will become a meat curing chamber. This pic does not show the Dr. Pepper wrap, but more to come.

Stove Monkeys T-Shirt Giveaway: Caption Contest

2011-07-12T11:35:00.002-05:00

Our friends at Stove Monkeys have some of the best food related t-shirts around, and you could be the lucky recipient of one. We are giving away this 'I Love Pork' shirt to someone out there on the interwebs. All you have to do is come up with a funny caption for this picture:

Damn you public healthcare!
Then post it in the comments and also tweet @StoveMonkeys or post on the Stove Monkeys facebook page. We will select a winner on Friday July 15th at 10am. Good Luck.

Bonnaroo X: The Evolution of 'Roo Food

2011-06-17T07:37:00.000-05:00

Long, long ago, in the first years of the festival on the farm (circa 2002 - 2003), the hippies roamed the rolling hills of Manchester with their dreadlocked hair, their patchwork clothing, their hula hoops and their handmade signs advertising "free hugs" hanging from the open back of their vintage minibuses. In addition to their random drum circle formations, they organized themselves in rows down Shakedown Street for post-show vending. You could grab a grilled cheese, a veggie quesadilla, the popular chicken bacon ranch wrap (man, that was dank), even semi-exotic bottles of beer brought from the different regions from whence the carpools came. Sure, there was no regulation or food safety inspection - you just couldn't look at the hands, or worse, the fingernails of your chef - but the food was hot, cheap and served with a smile. Goo balls and other heady treats were available in every variety, if that was your thing. Trades welcome.

Some festival goers bought the $7 funnel cakes and $6 corn dogs from the carny-style food vendors set up in the fledgeling Centeroo commons, but no one was going for their $3 bottles of water or $4 popsicles as every other car in the lot had a stocked cooler with your choice of $1 water, Gatorade, beer or 2-for-1 freezer pops. And while I'm sure the reasons that festival officials provided for the lock down on lot vending that began in the third year included buzz words such as 'safety' and 'cleanliness' - it was all about the green.

The lineup of bands grew more and more commercial with each passing year, and with the decreasing dominance of the jam and increasing crackdown on unlicensed vending (quickly eliminating not only their lot food, but also their sales of glass wares, posters, clothing, etc. that in many cases funded their travel from show to show), the strength of the hippie numbers was weakened. By 2010, I was walking down a Shakedown Street full of 100% commercial vendors.

As Bonnaroo, and most notably, Centeroo, has evolved over the years, the food offerings slowly expanded as well. The carnival food has remained (and don't think I'm dissing the genre - it's just not necessarily something you want to live on for four days), but the options have grown from all-things-deep-fried to include vegan burritos, chicken curry, southern BBQ, breakfast buffets, cajun delicacies, rice bowls, pad thai, pitas and more. Of course, after the $2,000 vendor entry free and hefty 25% to 35% cut by the 'roo (depending on the "complexity of menu"), the prices we're asked to pay are pretty gross. But at Bonnaroo, food is fuel. Spilling out of That Tent or Which Stage, you need sustenance, your camp is far away, and you unflinchingly produce your wallet.

One of the more popular items this year was the arepa - a fried fat pancake made of ground corn, served with various savory toppings or used like a bun around sausage. The pizza tents tend to have long lines as well and 'rooers can get a hot slice from the well-oiled festival vending machine that is 'I ♥ Spicy Pie' at several locations throughout the farm. In their second year to travel to Tennessee, the certified organic Full of Life Wood Fired Flatbread Pizzas out of Los Alamos, California was wildly popular too: they were sold out of everything except a few flax pizzas by early Sunday afternoon.

But this year, Bonnaroo further stepped up their vending game with the addition of the Food Truck Oasis. In a sneaky spot between This Tent and the water slides, the food truck caravan lifted their shutters and served a reported 12,000 dirty attendees each day. We honed in on the 1962 silver airstream trailer from Miami, the gastroPod, and ordered a crispy white corn arepa (with a poached egg and slaw) along with the Sloppy Jose - a brisket slider with espresso BBQ sauce. The Taco Bus, also from Florida, served authentic Mexican street food while Good You out of Kansas City had a hefty waiting line for their organic burgers. (On principle, I could not eat at an establishment that used the Curlz typeface for their logo.) Knoxville's own Petro's offered their tasty bowls of chili and chips while Pot Kettle Black out of Charleston, SC sold out of their soulful sandwiches, crafted to honor their "poor immigrant roots" with nods to Italian and French dishes. The truck with the most flava, if you will, was most certainly Eatbox - serving the world's "sexiest" gourmet meatballs with heaping sides of pun and innuendo. Their disco ball drew you in, but their meatballs (including the Dirty South grass-fed beef meatball with bacon and hashbrowns and the Daisy Chain eggplant-lentil veggie meatball) and organic handmade popsicles drew visitors back multiple times. Local all-natural Angus beef farmers Bear Creek set up their trailer as well (though not in the designated square - clearly an autonomous unit for mid-Mall snacking) to sell burgers.

Always on the environmentally-friendly side, Bonnaroo brought back Planet Roo this year as well and offered a conscious eating experience at the 100% waste-free Planet Roo Cafe that offered fresh produce from Middle Tennessee (grilled sweet potatoes, baby spinach salads) along with higher-brow dishes such as pan-seared trout and pecan stir-fry. I couldn't get in the door with all of the people congratulating themselves for being in there. I joke wichoo.

And Bonnaroo brought the beer this year as well with a Broo'ers Festival tent featuring 21 breweries including Nashville local Yazoo Brewery, Athens-born Terrapin Beer, Vermont's Magic Hat, Brooklyn Brewery, Good People Brewing Co. from Alabama, and Mississippi's Lazy Magnolia. Our beer of choice for the weekend was from the Virginia brewery Starr Hill - their Lucy, Festie, Northern Lights and Amber Ale varieties were served at no charge in the Artist's tent by the four hardest working men at Bonnaroo.

But let's face it, you don't go to Bonnaroo for the food. Like the rest of your life that you leave behind, your at-home eating tendencies, your all-organic grocery shopping and your general food snobbery tends to disappear the moment that you step onto the farm. The food is just another aspect of the evolving experience, getting bigger and more carefully crafted (for better or worse) each year. Try new bands, new products, new food, new realities, but what really matters is that you drink lots of water.

See you next year!

Cochon de Lait

2011-06-15T14:51:00.006-05:00

Joe York and the SFA are at it again. To Live and Die in Avoyelles Parish is the latest mini-doc by the duo that just debuted last weekend at the Big Apple BBQ in New York. The film documents the tradition of Cochon de Lait in the small parish of Avoyelles. I'm pretty sure no one had ever heard of a cochon de lait in New York, but after watching this mini-doc, I doubt they will ever stop dreaming about it.

To learn more about a cochon de lait and a coon ass microwave, watch
To Live and Die in Avoyelles Parish.

To Live and Die in Avoyelles Parish from UM Media Documentary Projects on Vimeo.

Friday Night Slice, Part 23

2011-06-10T07:53:00.005-05:00

PIZZA BUDS

Nashville's streets are getting more and more packed as the food truck trend finally made its way down South this year. There's tacos, grilled cheeses, milkshakes, marshmallows, Barbie Burgers, even waffles...a whole blog is already up and running to cover our mobile food options.

And what appears to be the slightly dirty, drunk uncle of them all is the Pizza Buds truck. Pretty much the opposite of state-of-the-art, their ride is a cross between hipster vintage and junkyard ghetto - the perfect appeal factor for Nashville hipsters.

We parked at Yazoo Brewery in the Gulch on a Friday evening and ordered our pepperoni and cheese "12-inch frisbee" to eat picnic style in the parking lot. Initial concern: pizza isn't the most portable food out there. Things I buy on the street need to come on a stick or in a wrapper. But hey, they gave us plates and napkins!

The pizza was definitely cooked to order and came out blazing hot. I have no idea about the cooking method employed as I couldn't see what was going on inside the rusty camper - I envision stained beige ovens plugged into an overloaded outlet, but these guys still have to pass codes, right?

The Pizza Buds serve a rustic thin crust pie. The cheese was good and gooey (medium pull away) and the pepperoni was sliced perfectly to get that slight crunch. They were still soft in the center and left a little grease, but that's good grease. The sauce was unobtrusive and just gave you the idea of tomatoes without any unnecessary chunks or other gritty business, but they did do the last minute sprinkle that ruins so many pizzas. Here are some random Italian spices! Thankfully, they didn't sprinkle too long and I didn't get a piece of parsley in my mouth or anything.

Now for the crust. Have you all seen the newest campaign of Miracle Whip commercials? They are GENIUS. They admit that Miracle Whip isn't for everyone and that some people downright loathe it, but what's brilliant is that the company is asking you pick a side. Either love them or hate them. Embrace the emotion fully and support your choice with fervor. Damn the lukewarm! Now I hate Miracle Whip, but I LOVE these commercials. And I love the idea. So I'm asking you, pizza eaters, to go taste the Pizza Buds crust and pick a side. It's bizarre and unlike any pizza crust I've ever tried, starting out all normal and bready and then...wait...what the hell was that? Is that sugar? Cinnamon? Huh? I have a feeling that there will some serious polarity in the responses of your dining crew.

So how does it measure up against the rest of the pizza in town? Aside from the exotic crust, it's not the heaviest hitter out there. But at 2:00am when you're pouring your drunk self out of a show, I bet that it's the best darn thing you've ever eaten.

Where you at Pizza Buds? Check Twitter.

* * * * *

Cold Pizza:
Friday Night Slice, Part 1: MAFIAoZA's and Joey's House of Pizza
Friday Night Slice, Part 2: Pizza Perfect and Pizza Perfect Kebobs
Friday Night Slice, Part 3: Rudino's Pizza and Grinders
Friday Night Slice, Part 4: Chicago Style Italian Beef
Friday Night Slice, Part 5: Pie In The Sky
Friday Night Slice, Part 6: Castrillo's Pizza
Friday Night Slice, Part 7: California Pizza Kitchen
Friday Night Slice, Part 8: Ahart's Pizza Garden (Murfreesboro)
Friday Night Slice, Part 9: New York Pizza Depot (Clarksville)
Friday Night Slice, Part 10: Matteo's Pizzeria
Friday Night Slice, Part 11: Angelo's Picnic Pizza (Antioch)
Friday Night Slice, Part 12: Manny's House of Pizza
Friday Night Slice, Part 13: Nashville Pizza Co.
Friday Night Slice, Part 14: Brick's Cafe
Friday Night Slice, Part 15: Sal's Pizza (Hermitage)
Friday Night Slice, Part 16: Painturo's (Mt. Juliet)
Friday Night Slice, Part 17: Brothers' Pizza (Franklin)
Friday Night Slice, Part 18: Snappy Tomato, Roma, and Jet's
Friday Night Slice, Part 19: Geadello's Pizza
Friday Night Slice, Part 20: Michaelangelo's Pizza
Friday Night Slice, Part 21: Caesar's Ristorante Italiano
Friday Night Slice, Part 22: Cool Springs Brewery (Franklin)

Got any suggestions for places that I should cover? Let me know!

Friday Night Slice, Part 22

2011-06-03T06:48:00.000-05:00

Nice to see you again, Friday Night Slice.

It's been a while, but you still love pizza and so do we. You were once so committed to finding the best pizza in town and it's not time to give up now. Let's catch up on a few reviews so that we can meet some of Nashville's newer joints this Summer...

* * * * *

Cool Springs Brewery (formerly Guido's)

Oh Guido's. We all fondly remember the original 21st Avenue location (R.I.P.) with its thin slices of greasy pizza and tiny basement full of our fellow 15 to 17-year-olds in Chuck Taylors and oversized flannel shirts. The all-ages venue was the only place that you could get into and the only place where your friend's new band could plug in. The list of local talent alone that cut their teeth at Guido's is surely an impressive one - but that's another post better suited for this blog's other posters (we're waiting, BP and Andrew J).

My memories of Guido's had everything to do with that venue and nothing to do with their food. I'm certainly not saying that the pizza was bad, it's just that the pizza was never why I (or any of my friends) went there. So I remember being completely surprised when I heard that they were opening a satellite location in a strip mall in Cool Springs sometime around 2004.

When the Mr. and I visited (about a year before I was the Mrs.), it was nothing like the original Guido's. This Guido's had tables and waiters and black cloth napkins. It still claimed to have live music, but now in the form of sleepy jazz. The pizza had tried to go gourmet and they offered a build-your-own bar in the back. I must not have done a very good job building my own as we didn't go back until a new sign appeared on the door: Cool Springs Brewery.

Under new ownership, Cool Springs Brewery opened in late 2009 offering "the finest New York syle Pizzas [sic], Craft Brew and the best Live Music in town." Hmmm. The new name alone was not a good way to start our relationship. How do you present yourself as neighborhood microbrewery when Cool Springs is not really neighborhood? I recall a conversation that I had a few years back with a local hipster who commented on the fact that Cool Springs has Starbucks, McDonalds, Ann Taylor, Borders, GAP, and every other chain store imaginable. It has everything, he noted, except a SOUL (said with emphasis). He was a little overly concerned with the issue, but he was right.

So you bought a "be a microbrewery" kit and kept the little black stage in the corner, but how's the pizza?

In case you've forgotten how I roll, I only order pepperoni and cheese for these reviews.

The wait was a little long, but the pizza was piping hot with bubbly cheese and curling pepperoni cups, served on the traditional raised metal platter. The sauce and ingredients were fresh (as in, fresh from the fridge to the oven) but the taste was pretty typical. The tomato sauce was present but lacked any distinct good or bad flavor and the cheese was the standard, pre-grated, soft mozzarella blend. It was tasty, somewhat greasy, hot and gooey with a reasonable pullaway. The overall taste was pretty good, it just didn't have anything unique or interesting going on. Many of these joints must use the same food supplier.

The crust was not New York thin, but still in the thin family with a crunchy outside and soft interior around the edges. Not the greatest, but not half bad. You can sample the different pizzas at their daily lunch buffet and the menu additionally includes pastas, wings, stuffed mushrooms, subs, calzones, strombolis, salads and desserts (including a chocolate pizza). The Mr. didn't have much to say about the beer either. Ho hum. Maybe we should talk more about the old Guido's instead?

Cool Springs Brewery (formerly Guido's)
600A Frazier Drive, Ste. 135, Franklin, 37067 (map)
dine in and carry out

* * * * *

BONUS: Lupi's Pizza Pies

FYI. Lupi's Pizza = worth the drive to Chattanooga.

So far on our journey through pizza in Tennessee, MAFIAoZA's, Pizza Perfect, Manny's and Joey's have dominated...but Lupi knocks these kids down with one punch! Oh no! Is there a Nashville contender that can compete? Stay tuned for the upcoming Friday Night Slice installments from the Pizza Buds food truck and City House.

Lupi's Pizza Pies
four locations in Chattanooga and Cleveland, Tennessee
dine in, delivery, carry out, take-and-bake and catering

* * * * *

Cold Pizza:
Friday Night Slice, Part 1: MAFIAoZA's and Joey's House of Pizza
Friday Night Slice, Part 2: Pizza Perfect and Pizza Perfect Kebobs
Friday Night Slice, Part 3: Rudino's Pizza and Grinders
Friday Night Slice, Part 4: Chicago Style Italian Beef
Friday Night Slice, Part 5: Pie In The Sky
Friday Night Slice, Part 6: Castrillo's Pizza
Friday Night Slice, Part 7: California Pizza Kitchen
Friday Night Slice, Part 8: Ahart's Pizza Garden (Murfreesboro)
Friday Night Slice, Part 9: New York Pizza Depot (Clarksville)
Friday Night Slice, Part 10: Matteo's Pizzeria
Friday Night Slice, Part 11: Angelo's Picnic Pizza (Antioch)
Friday Night Slice, Part 12: Manny's House of Pizza
Friday Night Slice, Part 13: Nashville Pizza Co.
Friday Night Slice, Part 14: Brick's Cafe
Friday Night Slice, Part 15: Sal's Pizza (Hermitage)
Friday Night Slice, Part 16: Painturo's (Mt. Juliet)
Friday Night Slice, Part 17: Brothers' Pizza (Franklin)
Friday Night Slice, Part 18: Snappy Tomato, Roma and Jet's
Friday Night Slice, Part 19: Geadello's Pizza
Friday Night Slice, Part 20: Michaelangelo's Pizza
Friday Night Slice, Part 21: Caesar's Ristorante Italiano

Got any suggestions for places that I should cover? Let me know!

BBQ Skillet Brigade to Northern Alabama

2011-05-13T13:12:00.005-05:00

images from Moulton, Alabama (map), Russellville, Alabama (map) and Phil Campbell, Alabama (map) - Friday, May 6, 2011

THANK YOU to our family and friends who supported our trip to Northern Alabama where we served BBQ lunches and cold drinks to 350 grateful residents, workers and volunteers in the area. We were also able to bring 540 gallons of bottled water and fill the rest of trailer with baby supplies to distribute to victims of the storms.

Thank you to Andy Orr and Chi Chi Faulk for going with us and a HUGE THANK YOU to Steve at Genghis Grill for stepping up and donating ALL of the pork for us to smoke and make into the sandwiches.

BBQ SAUCE OF THE WEEK: Claude's

2011-05-11T11:55:00.004-05:00

Claude's, a company in West Texas, offers a variety of marinades, sauces, and seasonings under three different brand names - Claude's, Great American, and Casa Corona. The Western Style sauce sampled here is a bit more savory than your average barbecue sauce, with the spices singing more loudly than usual. It's not spicy at all, but has a definite chili powder essence, with lots of mustard, onion, and garlic flavor as well. It's not a bad sauce for when you want something thick, but not as sweet.

Grade: B

BBQ Skillet Brigade for Tornado Victims

2011-05-01T16:06:00.007-05:00

HELP ALABAMA

This Friday (May 6), Rob and some friends and members of the BBQ team will be heading to Phil Campbell, Alabama - a small town of only about 1000 residents that was devastated by the tornadoes. The town has not received as much coverage as the bigger areas understandably, but it lost 30 of its residents - which is nearly 10% of the total number of lives lost in the storm across the South (currently reported).

We will be meeting up with the pastor of a local church in the area to serve lunch to 300 affected residents and volunteers. Additionally, the guys will be loading the trailer with pallets of water and supplies to deliver to those in need in the area.

>>Will you consider pitching in a little money or buying some supplies to send with them?

Needs:
- Donations: we're buying cases of pork butts, buns, chips and bottles of water for the lunch, pallets of water by the gallon (a requested need from the church), and baby supplies
- Supplies: diapers (in all sizes), baby wipes and manual can openers
**Update: we will be checking in on Wednesday night to see if there are additional needs**

**To pitch in, send an e-mail to Rob **

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Food Ramblings #1

2011-04-23T23:30:00.002-05:00

So I was watching Parks & Recreation Thursday night - best show on TV (well, best sitcom, which is like saying "the smartest monkey" or "the least sweaty Kirstie Alley appendage") - and Ron Swanson and Rob Lowe's character (hereforth referred to as Rob Lowe) were having a burger cook-off. Rob Lowe made a gourmet turkey burger with fancy trimmings while Ron's entry was simply a dirt-cheap beef patty in between two plain buns. Of course, everybody chose the red meat. As Ron said, "Turkey can never beat cow, Chris". And that pretty much settled it: Cow is king. And Rob Lowe's character on the show is called Chris.

Anyway, like Chris, we've all worked really hard to make something healthy and/or disgusting edible when cows and pigs are everywhere practically begging us to ingest them. Take pumpkin pie. Some people like pumpkins, but they are wrong. They are not food. If you have to add buckets of butter and sugar, you need a better base. Strawberries and apples seem to work. Now I realize that some people love their pumpkin pie, and to each his or her own...as long as he or she doesn't try to guilt me into a slice because his or her great-grandmother had a special recipe. Very probably the same recipe that could be applied to turn the recipe book into some glorious pie, and I wouldn't be very interested in that, either. It's no coincidence that the best compliment that you can receive on a pumpkin pie is that it doesn't taste like pumpkins at all. For goodness sake, they sit on front porches for months and the homeless never move on them. That alone should tell you they are not food.

Potatoes. Common as air, and about as joyless of an eating experience. Of course, when you pile on the cheese, bacon bits, sour cream, chives, and butter it's another story. It does make me wonder if something else should come with my steak, though. Like french fries or an angioplasty. Cauliflower is another one. I love broccoli, but cauliflower is essentially an albino broccoli that grows in dark, damp places, like sewers. So what do you do with it? Cheese. Once you have significantly more cheese than cauliflower, it becomes food and is okay to eat in small amounts should your survival be at stake. It is a little known fact that most cauliflower is foraged by people who get lost in the sewer - so if you plan on doing any traveling under ground, don't be the guy who forgets cheese. And try to avoid the mole people, they will try to sell you useless crap. Last time I thought I'd scored a deal, but when I got to the surface I realized it was Problem Child 2.

I won't even start down the road of tofurkey or any other meat substitute. Eating something doesn't make it food. A table leg can be eaten, as one end of my dog has demonstrated - but, as the other end later proved, it isn't a viable (or sustainable) food source. Give me the real thing - be it chicken, beef, pork. Unless I'm at McDonald's, in which case I'll have two of whatever that McRib thing is. As is far too often the case, I'm with Mitch Hedberg...somebody needs to tell the turkeys to just be themselves. Beef is for burgers. Turkeys are for giving kindergarteners something to do with construction paper and hand tracings. They shouldn't be moonlighting (or is it sunlighting?) as beef or sausage, mostly because it leaves the door open for tofu to play dress up with their feathers. Ron Swanson has a picture in his office of bacon and eggs (see below) - because breakfast is the most important three meals of the day - and you can bet a rat's mustache it's not turkey bacon on that plate.

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