Montreal Cinema & Smokehouse

 fig. a:  hog wild

Yes, ma'am!  Yes, siree!

Tonight (July 17th) there'll be another chapter in an ongoing series of film, dj, and food events at Place de la Paix, right next door to the Société des arts technologiques (SAT) [1201 boulevard St-Laurent].

Our hosts tonight are Film Pop, Pop Montreal, and the SAT.

The 9:00 p.m. screening will be Andrew Bujalski's 2013 film Computer Chess (with a video intro by none other than Wiley Wiggins [of Dazed & Confused fame).

And I'll be serving up smoky chopped pork sandwiches and BBQ tofu sandwiches (?!) from 7:00 - 9:00 (or until supplies last).

Sandwiches:  $5.

Screening:  FREE.

In case of rain:  this event will be moved inside the safety and comfort of the SAT.  In other words, this thing's a go, rain or shine.

Hope to see you there!

In smoke & film we trust.

aj

Return to Smokey Mt.

 fig. a:  the invite

It was that time of year again.  Time to head down the 87 to the Catskills.  Time to fire up the smoker. Time to feed a whole mess of nice people from the City, from the Catskills, and beyond, on a gloriously beautiful midsummer's eve with some true Southern hospitality.

 fig. b:  the bill

Thing is, up until the last minute, for the first time in five years, we weren't sure if we were going to be able to make it--which is why we didn't make the bill.

But by Friday afternoon, by the grace of God (and with a little help from an extra-special friend--TY!) we'd arrived at the Stone House, checked in, and gone for a dip in a nearby swimming hole.  And by evening that Smokey Mountain smoker was all fired up, sending sweet hickory smoke wafting in the air, and slowly, magically turning almost 40 pounds of Fleisher's pork shoulders into hog heaven.

 fig. c:  getting up to temp

By noon the next day those shoulders had been pulled, chopped, and dressed into a towering heap of luscious North Carolina-style smoky chopped pork, and we were busily putting together our sides.

By 3:00 p.m. the guests had started to arrive in full force.  And by 6:00 p.m. dinner was served.

The spread:

3x 12-lb Fleisher's pork shoulders, hickory smoked and chopped 

Martin's potato rolls 

Tidewater coleslaw 

AJ's Down East baked beans 

Smokehouse potato salad 

AJ's Holy Grub BBQ sauce 

AEB Totally Jacked-Up BBQ sauce 

Blackcurrant lemonade 

Michelle's rhubarb & white chocolate petit fours

By about 7:15 the pork had been entirely cleaned out.  People made themselves four or five heaping sandwiches.  It was like a well-mannered, totally relaxed feeding frenzy.

By 9:00 p.m., as Color War took the outdoor stage, hickory smoke wasn't the only smoke in the air.

 fig. d:  up in smoke

And by 10:00, after Color War's set had ended in ecstatic dancing and thunderous applause, there was a whole mess of other smoke shooting into a clear, star- and firefly-filled Catskills night.

 fig. e:  c'mon, baby, light my pyre

I'm not sure if it was all that smoke, or what, but I started to have all kinds of strange and interesting visions.  Like this guy.

 fig. f:  double fantasy

Saw him in a vision not long after the Theme from Twin Peaks played announcing the arrival of Color War onstage.  Had the even stranger experience of seeing him mounted to the wall of a log cabin the very next day.

Didn't get an invite?  Like to try some of my "luscious North Carolina-style smoky chopped pork"?  Well, if the Good Lord's willing and the creek don't rise, you'll get your chance tomorrow.  I'll be selling chopped pork sandwiches at Place de la Paix, right next to the Société des Arts Technologiques and the Foodlab, tomorrow, July 17, from 7:00 p.m. till 9:00 p.m.  What's the occasion?  It's a Pop Montreal/Film Pop presentation of Computer Chess on the outdoor screen.  It's also part of a Film, DJ's, and Chefs series that's going on all summer again this year.

Hope to see you there!

In smoke we trust.

aj

p.s. Many thanks to Patricia for making all of this possible, and to Flannery for invaluable assistance in the kitchen.

On the road 5: Zingerman's Roadhouse

 fig. a:  the Roadhouse

If only road food was this easy all the time.  I mean, sure, there wouldn't be the thrill of the hunt, but at least we'd be fully satisfied.

You might have heard of the good people at Zingerman's.  They established a delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan, back in 1982 that long ago became a legend.  They knew what it took to keep the Jewish deli tradition alive, and they knew how to name a good sandwich,* but things didn't stop there.  Not only did they fashion themselves into perhaps the country's premier purveyor of fine foods, featuring a brilliantly curated selection of America's must-have regional specialties, but they established a veritable empire of good eats and tasty treats right there in Ann Arbor.  In addition to the deli, Zingerman's line-up now includes a bake shop, a creamery, a coffee shop, a candy "manufactory," and Zingerman's Roadhouse, their full-service restaurant.

Visiting the constellation of Zingerman's businesses in quick succession is a feat that requires so much will power, so much self-control (it's all so tempting!), that Zingerman's has named it the Tour de Food and actually enters all those who successfully complete the circuit in a 24-hour period in a rather generous draw (you stand to win a $250 gift certificate).  But for those who are just passing through Ann Arbor, the Roadhouse makes for an awfully convenient and delicious pit stop, and a great introduction to Zingerman's particular brand of magic.  Imagine a restaurant that served all your favorite American comfort foods, using only the very best ingredients sourced from the best producers across the continent, and prepared with the utmost care.  Imagine that same restaurant adding a top-notch barbecue pit** built into a vintage Airstream directly adjacent to it.  Now imagine that restaurant situated in a Eastern Michigan strip mall just seconds from the I-94.  That's Zingerman's Roadhouse for you, and if you've got an aversion to dining in strip malls, well, it's time to get over it because you don't want to miss out on a place like this.

 fig. b:  exterior decorating

When you step up to the restaurant, you're going to have to decide whether you want to go to the restaurant, or visit the barbecue/bake shop/coffee shop next to it.  I recommend that you do both:  visit the restaurant, eat to your heart's content, then swing by the Airstream to pick up some goodies for later.

 fig. c:  the perfect brunch

If you happen to visit Zingerman's Roadhouse in the morning, you'll find an extensive breakfast & brunch menu to choose from.  For brunch there's a full assortment of omelettes, waffles, and egg dishes to choose from, and some of them get kind of elaborate, but you might just want to go for the grits & eggs combo, featuring Anson Mills stone-ground grits, eggs any style, scallions and Cabot aged cheddar, fresh biscuits, Nueske's applewood-smoked bacon, sorghum molasses, homemade preserves, and a side of homemade hot sauce (upon request).  That was exactly what I wanted, and it was exactly what I got.  Even better, it was just as good as I imagined.  Really good coffee, too.

Jeez, why couldn't every brunch be like this?

 fig. d:  streamlined for better smoking

Afterwards, I paid a visit to the Airstream to pick up some treats for the road.  I mean, I had to make it all the way to Montreal that day--I was going to want to have lunch at some point, right?

So I picked up a smoked whole hog pulled pork sandwich, some Zapp's potato chips, and another coffee for the road.

 fig. e:  pulled pork picnic

And wouldn't you know it, a few hours later I had myself just about the tastiest picnic lunch you could imagine, considering I was traveling along the 401.  The only thing was that I forgot to ask for a side of some barbecue sauce or hot sauce.  Good thing I just happened to have a bottle of Arthur Bryant's barbecue sauce on hand (!).  You know what they say:  Be prepared.

Zingerman's Roadhouse and Road Show, 2501 Jackson Ave., Ann Arbor, MI, (734) 663-FOOD

aj

* Actually, naming is a big part of the Zingerman's story.  They were meant to be called Greenberg's, but then one thing led to another...

** How good?  Well, Jane & Michael Stern included Zingerman's in their list of the top barbecue joints in America when they put together their special BBQ edition of Popular Plates back in 2010.  When they did, they wrote:  "...Zingerman's goes beyond any ordinary definition of a barbecue restaurant.  But we would be horribly remiss not to include it here, because the pulled pork is as succulent as any found in North Carolina [!], and it is only a slight exaggeration to say it melts in your mouth."  That's a helluva claim, and I haven't traveled the BBQ trails of the Carolinas extensively enough to weigh in with any authority, but I can say that that pulled pork sandwich tasted mighty fine to me.  I would have served it on a bit less bready of a roll (Zingerman's uses one of their famous onion rolls), but that's just me.

BBQ Breakdown

figs. a & b: a postcard from Cornwallville

Way back in June, we found ourselves back in Upstate catering our favorite young summer bonanza. The Caretakers were pretty happy with the job we did the year before, so they signed us up for a repeat performance and we were all too happy to oblige.

The menu was pretty much the same as it had been the year before, except that with the number of prospective attendees having swollen to 70+, the quantities were substantially bigger.

How much bigger? I'll give you an example. As you'll recall, we smoked 2 x 10-12 lb pork shoulders slow & low for last year's bash. This year, however, we smoked 3 pork shoulders slow & low, and they were all in the 17-20 lb range (!). This took more kettle barbecues. It also took more time, more applewood, and more attention. You may also recall that we were pretty enthusiastic about last year's shoulders. This year they came from our friends at Fleisher's and they were the very nicest pork shoulders we'd ever seen. Real blue-ribbon specimens. So nice, in fact, that all that smoking turned 'em into candy.

Anyway, aside from the quantities, the menu looked very similar to last year's:

3 x 17-20 lb pork shoulders, applewood-smoked and pulled
6 x full racks of MO-style Ribs
Down East Baked Beans
Smokehouse Potato Salad
Tidewater Coleslaw
Sweet tea

fig. c: "what'll you have?

We even dusted off the same PBR sign we used last year to add a little bbq shack-charm to the proceedings, although this year T. upped the bbq shack-charm with a lovely chalk rendering of a happy pig.

fig. d: mystery band

One thing that entirely new about the young summer bbq 2.0 was that it came with real, live musical entertainment.

The rumor that circulated prior to bbq day was that the mystery band was a "bluegrass outfit," possibly from New York City.

When two dapper young gentleman in suits and slicked-back hair arrived, looking not unlike The Stanley Brothers in their youth, we thought the rumor had been confirmed.

But then they laid into their first number, and the lead singer began a-hollerin' the blues Charley Patton-style, and we knew we were in for something altogether different.

I, for one, was fully mesmerized. The well-chosen selections, the bare-bones arrangements, the full-throated vocals, the tangled woods, and the warm, humid weather all added up to a performance quite unlike I'd ever seen. I don't remember them performing any Dock Boggs tunes, but for some reason I was left thinking about the lives of itinerant musicians like Boggs who played a wide variety of occasions (weddings, parties, anything) all through the mountains and hollers of western Virginia and eastern Kentucky. Again, it might have had something to do with those vocals. Greil Marcus once wrote of Boggs that he "sounded as if his bones were coming through his skin every time he opened his mouth." I'm not sure the exact same analogy applies here, but, like I said, these were full-throated vocals and these two gents were obviously well-schooled in the sounds of the "old, weird America" that produced Boggs.

Anyway, when they finished their set, I went up and asked them what they called themselves and whether they were regularly gigging. Malcolm, the singer, told me they went by the name of The Dough Rollers and that, yes, they played regularly in New York.

The other night, I looked The Dough Rollers up again for the first time since late June/early July and found that, sure enough, they had been doing quite a bit of gigging. As a matter of fact, on that very night they were playing a gig in Oakland, CA. I looked up the venue they were playing and it was the venerable Fox Theater.

"Jeez, The Fox," I thought. "They must be opening for someone pretty big."

Ready for this? Bob Dylan.



Looking for barbecue recipes of all kinds? You can find a whole mess of them here, here, here, and here to throw your very own bbq breakdown.* Good things happen when you do. Be forewarned, though, your guests may be moved to acts of reverence.

p.s. Many thanks to the Caretakers for having us, and to all our NY area crew for showing the love.

aj

* Musical act not included.

Open House

fig. a: invitation

Sometime back in late June, we were part of a crack team of entertainers that had been enlisted to throw a summer bash commemorating a year in the Catskills. And, oh, what a year! In just 12 months, the M.H. Merchant Stone House had been restored, refurbished, and revitalized, local friendships had been cultivated, and roots (both literal and figurative) had been sunk deep in the ground. Not surprisingly, given this flurry of activity, The Caretakers were in a celebrating mood. We were thrilled to be invited to the festivities, and seriously honored to be asked to help represent.

So, bright and early, one fine Friday morning, we packed the AEB Mobile Unit full of barbecue gear and hit the road. We'd proposed a homestyle barbecue spread for the festivities, and The Caretakers liked our vision. The proposed menu looked something like this:

2 x 10-12 lb pork shoulders, applewood-smoked and pulled
Down East Baked Beans
Smokehouse Potato Salad
Tidewater Cole slaw
Poor man's caviar
Sweet tea
White Chocolate Cake & Strawberries

If many of these selections look familiar, there's a reason for that.

The next day, Saturday, was Party Day. When we'd arrived the day before, we'd hit the ground running, so a lot of our prep was already taken care of. On our last visit, Michelle and I had gathered a whole bunch of apple wood from the yard, so we had plenty of sweet-smelling fuel too.

fig. b: fruitwood 4 smoking

When I fired up the barbecue, it was still overcast, and threatening rain, and with all the rain they'd had over the last 4-5 weeks, the forest out back was bright, bright green.

fig. c: green forest, blue smoke

One of the last things we prepped was the sweet tea. We made a lot of tea, but it sure didn't look like it because the dispenser we were using could have held enough for the whole Russian Army.

fig. d: sweet tea

With all the prep work done, all the arrangements taken care of, it was time to wash up and make ourselves presentable for our guests.

fig. e: bathtime

About an hour before the guests showed up, with the shoulders still smoking away, I made a sign to advertise some of our offerings.

fig. f: what'll you have?

I spent hours tending the barbecue, but with my beers, my ballcap, my baseball glove and baseball, and my barbecue, not to mention the two most perfect shoulders I've ever seen, I was pretty much in hog heaven. Plus, I had a nice turntable to keep me company. These Caretakers had seriously thought of everything.

fig. g: bbq hi-fi

Minutes before the action got underway, with the shoulders nearing the moment of truth, Michelle and I took the time to have commemorative portraits taken.

fig. h: m & a

How did things turn out? The party was a huge hit, and, miracle of miracles, even though we'd had a number of downpours that very day, one of which was torrential, the skies cleared up right as the guests began to appear, the sun began to shine, and the evening was a perfect summer evening, with hundreds of fireflies dancing in the meadow, and thousands of stars in the sky. Our barbecue menu went over big--that combination of fruitwood and slow & low cooking made for the most succulent pulled pork and some sensationally smoky ribs--and we ended up making exactly the right amount of food: just enough to keep the midnight snackers occupied. But the real stars were the M.H. Merchant Stone House, its grounds, and its Caretakers. Everything was perfect, and--the true test!--the party soon took on a life of its own. Many of the guests had driven 2-3 hours from New York City and New Jersey to attend, and everyone seemed positively thrilled that they'd made the excursion.

A lot of people had heard that "a famous pastry chef" was part of the catering team, so there's no question that Michelle's dessert was eagerly anticipated. This being essentially a barbecue meal, she'd decided to go with a dessert that was more homespun. She'd settled on a simple, even foolproof, white cake whose tanginess (from the combination of buttermilk and white chocolate) makes for an ideal complement to fresh strawberries, and which she'd recently made a central part of her raspberry/pistachio dessert at Laloux. Strawberries were good and plentiful at the time, and Michelle envisioned following up the barbecue with something of a small-scale strawberry social. Now, if you live in Quebec, you might have noticed that the fraises d'automne are available now--if you've never tried them before, they're amazing, oftentimes even better than our summer strawberries, and this cake really lets them shine.

fig. i: quebec strawberries

White Chocolate Cake with Strawberries

2 c. flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
3 oz white chocolate, melted
1 1/2 sticks butter, soft
1 1/2 C sugar
4 yolks
1 tsp vanilla
1 C buttermilk
4 egg whites
1/4 C sugar

fresh strawberries, stemmed and quartered
sugar
lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350˚F.

Toss your strawberries with sugar and lemon juice to taste. Allow them to macerate while you make the cake.

Mix the dry ingredients together. Set aside. Cream the butter and first count of sugar together until light and fluffy. Add yolks one at a time, and scrape down the sides. Mix well. Add vanilla and melted white chocolate. Add buttermilk and dry ingredients alternately in 4 batches, ending with buttermilk. Set aside. Make a meringue with the whites and last count of sugar. Fold into the cake batter. Pour into a half-sheet pan (12” x 17”) lined with a silpat or parchment paper. Bake 15-20 min. Unmold when still warm.

Dress with some of your strawberries and enjoy.

[based on a recipe from Sherry Yard’s Desserts by the Yard]

The next day we celebrated the success of our celebration at a local swimming hole.

fig. j: water baby

And later that day we paid what's become a mandatory visit to Clare and Carl's on our way back to Montreal.

fig. k: clare & carl's

A half an hour later, on the other side of Plattsburgh, and with those ominous clouds now gone, we put the finishing touches on the weekend with a cone at another favorite of ours, Harrigan's Soft Ice Cream.

fig. l: harrigan's

Clare & Carl's, 4727 State Route 9, Plattsburgh, (518) 561-1163

Harrigan's Soft Ice Cream, 1247 State Route 3, West Plattsburgh, (518) 561-8110

aj

p.s. This post dedicated to the memory of Chico, who had the best personality, and the softest paws.

fig. m: sleepytime

BBQ #1, pt. 2: Sunday

It sure wasn't easy to sleep that Saturday night/Sunday morning. We were a little bit nervous, of course--the usual butterflies we get when we try out a new recipe for an occasion combined with the fact that the alarm was going to be rudely awakening us at 4:45--but more than anything, it was the aroma of that pork shoulder making its way through the apartment that made it tough to doze off. That rub was something else, and as the shoulder began to cook it quickly filled the apartment with its sweet spiciness--we found it was quite a distraction, and I'm sure some of our neighbors had otherwise inexplicable barbecue-related dreams. Somehow we managed to get a bit of shut-eye, Michelle was even able to get herself out of bed to make sure the roast was going as planned at 4:45, and when we awoke again the pork shoulder was fully cooked. We took it out of the oven, unwrapped it, noted its perfect appearance, and then took its temperature just to make doubly sure ("170º F." "Perfect!"). Then while Michelle shredded the pork and separated it into two batches, I mixed together the Sacred Harp-Approved sauce and got ready to smoke the North Carolina-Style pork.

By 10:00 both our pulled pork batches were ready to go, so we quickly set up our rummage sale, including a few not-so-hidden gems,*



made some early sales, then settled in for our first pulled pork sandwiches (breakfast!) at about 10:45, before the lunchtime rush. For our first taste, we both opted for the North Carolina-Style barbecue, complete with cole slaw dressing and a side of beans. The Alabama-Style barbecue tasted pretty great, too, but the hickory smoked flavor of the North Carolina barbecue was absolutely irresistible. The verdict: That dog can hunt! Again, we weren't going to be challenging the supremacy of Lexington Barbecue #1 or Wilber's or any one of those other legendary barbecue joints with our North Carolina-style pulled pork, but this was a mighty fine sandwich, made all the better because of the unreal smoky-tanginess of our cole slaw and by a single, solitary touch of local flavor: that Montreal classic, the Portuguese bun. Schlesinger and Willoughby acutally recommend serving their pulled pork barbecue on "cheap white fluffy buns," presumably to get that full, Deep South, "white trash" effect--we went "cheap," "white," and even a bit "fluffy," but, surrounded by excellent Portuguese bakeries on all sides, there was no reason to opt for something that tasted like it came off the shelves of Piggly Wiggly. We couldn't have been happier. In fact, Michelle, who'd never had true pulled pork barbecue before, just some sickly sweet slop she got at a local restaurant once, was quite nearly in tears. But we had a job to do, so before things got out of hand we cleared our plates and braced ourselves for the throngs.

All in all, our sandwiches were a big hit. Some who'd opted to stick to the sides wound up getting tempted to buy a sandwich too; some who'd enjoyed their first sandwich ordered a second to take home with them. This was by no means a massive barbecue--for our first streetside barbecue, we'd tried to keep things limited--but by 1:00 we'd sold out of both kinds of pork, our cole slaw, our beans, and about 5 jugs of Michelle's 100% Guaranteed Lemon-aid. The People had spoken.

Based on our experience, these recipes are sure-fire. If you're an amateur of pulled pork lacking the necessary equipment or the wherewithal to pull off 5-7 hours of hardwood or hardwood charcoal slow cooking over constant but indirect heat, these here are the recipes for you. Of course, there's absolutely no reason to start your barbecue at 12:45 a.m., unless you're itching for a fresh BBQ brunch. I've written them out as we actually prepared them, noting the source recipe that served as the inspiration/foundation for each. Here goes...

All-South Barbecue Rub

2 tbsp sea salt
2 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp cumin, freshly toasted and ground
2 tbsp chili powder
2 tbsp freshly cracked black pepper
1 tbsp cayenne
2 tbsp sweet paprika
1 tbsp hot paprika
1 tbsp smoked sweet paprika

Mix together. Makes about 1 cup of rub.

[adapted from Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby's The Thrill of the Grill.]

Basic Pulled Pork Barbecue

1 bone-in pork Boston butt (about 11 lbs.)
1 cup All-South Barbecue Rub

Rub the pork butt on all sides with the dry rub and allow it to come to temperature, about 1 1/2 hours. About 30 minutes before you’re ready to roast your meat, preheat your oven to 300º F. Wrap the shoulder well in aluminum foil, sealing it very tightly at the top. Transfer the shoulder to a deep roasting pan, leaving the sealed side up, and fill the pan halfway with water. Bake, refilling the water halfway through, until the pork is exceedingly tender and falling away from the bone, about 8 hours.

Unwrap the pork, discarding any juices, and transfer to a baking sheet or large cutting board. When the pork is cool enough to handle, shred it, discarding the bones and any fat, and transfer to a large bowl.

When all was said and done and the bones and fat had been discarded, we were left with about 5 – 5 1/2 lbs of tender pulled pork. You’re now ready to add your sauce/s and finish your barbecue.

[adapted from Coy Ivey's Pulled Pork Barbecue recipe in Kathryn Eastburn's "The Sacred Feast," Saveur, June/July 2006 and Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby's The Thrill of the Grill.]

Sacred Harp-Approved Alabama-Style Pulled Pork Barbecue

1 3/4 cups high-quality barbecue sauce (see recipe below)
1 cup ketchup
1/3 cup Coca-Cola
1/2 tsp Tabasco sauce
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Mix the barbecue sauce, ketchup, Coca-Cola, Tabasco, cayenne, salt, and pepper to taste. Take your cooked, shredded pulled pork, and add the barbecue sauce concoction as desired (this sauce was more than enough for the 3 lbs of meat we turned into Alabama-Style barbecue), mixing well to combine.

Transfer the pork to a baking dish, making sure to cover it tightly with aluminum foil. Cook in the oven until the pork is heated through and the flavors have fully mingled, about 45 minutes.

Spoon the pork into a split Portuguese bun and serve warm or hot, with sides of cole slaw (see recipe below) and beans.

[adapted from Coy Ivey's Pulled Pork Barbecue recipe in Kathryn Eastburn's "The Sacred Feast," Saveur, June/July 2006.]

Eastern North Carolina Pulled Pork Barbecue

1 cup white vinegar
1 cup cider vinegar
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp crushed red pepper flakes
1 tbsp Tabasco sauce
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste

Preheat your grill. Place your hickory wood chip smoking device (filled with 2 cups of pre-soaked hickory chips) on the bottom of your grill [we were using a gas grill], giving it about 10-15 minutes to come to temperature and start smoking. Meanwhile, transfer your cooked, shredded pulled pork to an open sachet made of aluminum foil. When the smoker has begun to do its job, place your sachet on the grill, closing the lid, and allowing it to smoke for about 15 minutes to get a full hickory-smoked flavor.

While the pork is smoking, mix up your sauce. Just mix all the ingredients listed above together. Any extra will keep for 2 months in the refrigerator, covered.

Transfer your smoked pork to a large bowl, and add the Eastern North Carolina-Style Barbecue Sauce as desired. We mixed up about 2 lbs of the North Carolina-Style barbecue, and we had quite a bit of the Eastern North Carolina sauce left over.

Serve in a split Portuguese bun with a generous dollop of Piedmont-Style Cole Slaw (see recipe below), hot sauce, if you’re so inclined, and a side of beans (or corn, as the case may be).



[adapted from Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby's The Thrill of the Grill.]

A.J.'s Tangy Piedmont Cole Slaw

1 1/2 cups Hellmann’s mayonnaise
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp celery seed
1/2 – 3/4 cup high-quality barbecue sauce (see recipe below)
1/4 – 1/2 tsp smoked sweet paprika
Salt and freshly cracked black pepper to taste
1 head green cabbage, finely shredded
2 carrots, finely grated

In a small bowl, blend the mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar, celery seed, barbecue sauce, paprika, salt and pepper, and mix well.

In a large bowl, combine the cabbage and the carrots. Pour the dressing over the mixture and blend well. Refrigerate until serving time, at least 2 hours.

Makes about 2 1/2 cups.

[adapted from Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby's The Thrill of the Grill.]

Not Quite All-American Barbecue Sauce

This recipe is a version of Schlesinger and Willoughby's Basic All-American Barbecue Sauce with two major differences: first of all, the yield (about 1/4 of the original), and secondly, I replaced a bit of liquid smoke with a healthy touch of chipotle purée, giving the sauce a bit of added heat while still adding some smokiness to the mix.

1 large onion, chopped
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 28-oz can of tomato purée
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 tbsp packed dark brown sugar
1 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 tbsp salt
1/2 tbsp freshly cracked black pepper
1/2 tbsp paprika
1/2 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp molasses
1/4 cup orange juice
1/2 – 1 tsp chipotle purée
2 tbsp brown Dijon mustard

In a large saucepan, sauté the onion in the oil over medium-high heat until golden brown, about 7-10 minutes.

Add the remaining ingredients, bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat and simmer uncovered at the lowest possible heat (while still simmering) for 4 hours.

Purée the sauce. Adjust the seasonings, if needed.

This sauce will keep in the refrigerator for weeks.

We used this sauce in the Sacred Harp-Approved barbecue and in the Piedmont-Style cole slaw, we also left some out on our fixings table in case anyone wanted to add even more zest to their sandwich.

[adapted from Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby's The Thrill of the Grill.]

That's everything you need. Knock yourselves out.

aj

*I always kinda feel like Enid of Ghost World fame when I throw a garage/rummage sale. There are always a few items (like that toothpick dispenser) that I actually really don't want to sell. I was thrilled when Birdy came back up the stairs with us at the end of the sale. After all, he actually bends over and plucks toothpicks with his bill!

BBQ #1, pt. 1: Saturday

What ended up being somewhat of a Week of Barbecue started out timidly enough. I'd slipped away to a cottage on Little Lake in Ontario without Michelle (when it comes to restaurant work, the show must go on, right?) for some Canada Day R & R. The Canada Day fireworks display in Bala got washed out due to torrential rains, but we made up for that the next day with some pyrotechnics on the gas grill. We had a couple of racks of spare ribs that we spent the weekend contemplating and visualizing before we finally decided to turn them into a batch of the Sticky Spicy Ribs featured in Gourmet's summer grilling issue in May. Those racks certainly lived up to their name, and they were so finger-lickin' good that six of us made short work of those short ribs, but as someone who's a steadfast "dry" when it comes to the "wet" vs. "dry" split on barbecueing ribs, I found myself thinking ahead to the next barbecue, and more than anything else I had my mind not on ribs but on North Carolina-style pulled pork barbecue. After all, we had to make up for those sandwiches we'd missed out on in New York.

When I got back to Montreal, Michelle and I got to talking barbecue. By the end of the week we'd settled on our menu and we'd decided to take our barbecue to the streets as a fundraiser for the nebulous Guerrilla Street Food Coalition and their ongoing battle against Montreal's insane bylaws regarding street vendors. Those of you who've been reading "...an endless banquet" for some time will know just where we stand on this issue, but if you need a refresher you can take a look here or here. Anyway, we consulted a whole host of recipes for pulled pork barbecue before picking two and finding a way to synthesize them in such a way that we could offer two different types of pulled pork sandwich from one cut of meat.

On Saturday morning we made our trip to see Vito and pick up the massive 11-lb. pork shoulder we'd ordered from him, along with some salt pork for my Down East Baked Beans. We love going to see Vito for all our butcher shop needs, but it's especially satisfying when we go in to get an uncommon cut of meat. On those occasions he seems particularly interested in what we're intending to make, so he prods us for a few details and he always asks us to come back with a full report. That day we both got the feeling there weren't too many others coming into Vito's and buying pork shoulders. I went back home, started my beans (I always bake them for about 8 hours to get them just right), and a couple of hours later, as I was heading back out to do some more shopping for our barbecue, I was literally stopped in my tracks by the Festival of India procession making its way along St-Joseph.



Here I was in the midst of preparing a Festival of Pork and who should I run into but a massive gathering of people trying to spread Krishna consciousness through vegetarian cuisine and workshops on yoga and meditation. I paused for a moment, but then somehow found comfort in the fact that one of the buses that was part of the parade hailed from a Krishna temple in Sandy Ridge, NC, right in the heart of North Carolina's Piedmont region. If anything, the smell of my hickory barbecue wafting across the festival site at Jeanne-Mance Park, just blocks from our house, would help make those Sandy Ridgers feel right at home. That was the theory, in any case.

By the time Michelle got home from work late on Saturday night, the beans were cooked, the cole slaw had been prepared, the homemade barbecue sauce was chilling in the fridge, and the pork shoulder was slathered with homemade barbecue rub, just waiting to cooked to perfection. The two recipes we'd chosen for our pulled pork were vastly different. The most basic one was a recipe that had shown up in Saveur in the June/July 2006 issue, a recipe that's a fixture of the buffet accompanying the annual Henagar-Union Sacred Harp Convention in DeKalb Country, Alabama (Fasola!). Like all good barbecue, it's cooked "slow and low," but this recipe didn't involve a rub and it's one that doesn't even require owning a barbecue. The other recipe was a more or less traditional North Carolina pulled pork barbecue recipe that we'd found in Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby's The Thrill of the Grill, a book that hasn't lost any of its charm in the 15+ years it's been in print. Not only did this version of pulled pork involve a rub, it also called for 5-7 hours of cooking time over a hardwood charcoal grill--it did claim to be authentic, after all. The other major difference between these two recipes was that one called for a "bone-in" pork butt (Alabama), the other a boneless butt (Eastern North Carolina). The final complicating factor was that we definitely wanted to do some grilling--some hickory smoked grilling, to be exact--but we were pretty sure our barbecue was not cut out for 7 hours of "slow and low" cooking. We've only got a beat-up, hand-me-down gas grill, not one of these new-fangled big-rigs you see in all the food magazines (and elsewhere) these days.



What to do? Well, as indicated above, we'd decided on the "bone-in" pork butt because we'd become convinced the flavor would be even better (and, after all, if it's good enough for Lexington Barbecue #1, it's good enough for us), and we'd decided to apply a rub to the whole cut of meat. We then decided to roast the shoulder in the oven for 8 hours in the manner outlined by the Alabama recipe to get the entire thing to that ever-so-desirable "falling off the bone" point. When that was done, we'd shred the meat, divide it in two, mix the Alabama half with its sauce and bake it for another 45 minutes, as per the recipe, while simultaneously finishing the North Carolina half on a hickory-smoked grill before mixing it with its wonderfully vinegary Eastern North Carolina sauce. This was not exactly going to be an honest-to-goodness North Carolina-style hardwood barbecue showcase, and we sure weren't going to be winning any prizes with our method, but then we're located about 700 miles north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and about 1,000 miles from the heart of North Carolina's barbecue country, so we weren't too worried about getting busted by the BBQ police. At the very least, we were pretty sure our pulled pork was going to be better than anything to be found in these parts, and we were hoping that our sandwiches might help tide us over until we get a chance to make that BBQ Odyssey we've been dreaming of.

So at 12:45 a.m. we wrapped our spice-laden pork shoulder tightly in aluminum foil, placed it in a water bath in our massive concave roasting pan and slid it into our pre-heated oven. Then we set the alarm for 4:45 a.m., when one of us would have to get up to see if the water bath needed to be replenished, poured a couple of bourbon and waters, and sat out on our back porch to take in a summer breeze or two and unwind before hitting the sack.

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