In The Pits

Many expectations, once realized, fail to be anywhere near as breathtaking as the experience that was imagined in the anticipation. This leaves one with a wishful longing to go back to the moment just before the event became reality and exist with a blissful ignorance instead of continuing with the knowledge of what is. However, there are a few instances in this life when an expectation is actually so far beneath the actual experience that the expectation becomes somehow invalid. In these instances a life’s total set of experiences are not enough to prepare a person for the new reality. In these instances normal boundaries that frame our realities are disturbed and new thoughts are allowed in. That is why I am blogging about pizza on a BBQ site.

I had had a few people recommend Rico’s Pizzaria in Calhoun. I love good pizza and had been dissatisfied with the local chains for some time. I also have always wanted to try a Chicago style deep dish. Upon entering the restaurant I was immediately struck with the sights and smells that told me that this was a “real” pizza place. It was not someone’s idea of how this kind of place should be. It was a genuine pizza place. We were given menus and we took up seating in a booth and our drink orders were quickly produced. We were given ample time to look over the menu (which is needed as there are a good number of choices) and I was able to get any question answered. Once we made our selections I then had time to drink in the atmosphere. The music was a great mix of rock tunes from various decades and the decorations were tailored to match. The overhead lights were off but they were not needed as the light from outside and the kitchen was just right. The kitchen was visible from the booth we were in but I was surprised that there was no noticeable noise. I was also pleased with the appearance of the place. It was clean and looked well maintained.

спални

The food came out in a reasonable time frame with my daughter’s calzone coming first. It looked great and she was enjoying it so well that I almost got into it but my food was out just in time. I must say that I have never had a pizza this good. The crust was perfectly crisp on the outside while soft on the inside. The sauce was flavorful and not too thin. The blend of toppings was perfect. I have never been to Chicago so I can’t compare this pizza to a Windy City pie but I would bet that they could not do it any better. One thing to keep in mind is that this pizza will fill you up quick so be prepared to take some home, which is fine by me as that just means I have lunch tomorrow. The service was excellent and the staff all seemed friendly. I think I have found my new favorite Pizzaria (and I am not just talking about in Calhoun).

You can find Rico’s on the web here:

I recently tried the new BBQ City restaurant in Ft. Oglethorpe GA. They have a extensive menu including smoked pork beef & chicken, various burgers, BLTs, chicken sandwiches, hot dogs, Philly cheese steaks, a variety of salads and loaded potatoes as well as a full complement of sides and extras.

I pulled into the place just because it is new and on my way. Once I exited the car though, I knew I was onto something because of the smoke smell. A brief inspection of the rear of the business revealed a midsize portable smoker and a large pile of wood!

optical amplifierThey have plenty of seating area in the store, though I ordered mine to go as I was in a hurry.

I ordered a pork sandwich & onion rings. This was one of the largest BBQ sandwiches I’ve ever seen. The taste was outstanding, with a prominent but not overpowering smoke flavor. The sauce was a standardish sweet sauce. The onion rings were better than average and well worth getting again.

I will definitely be going down to BBQ City again! You can find them at 1549 Battlefield Pkwy, Fort Oglethorpe, GA Ph 706-861-0044

PapaMike

We are helping host a wild game cookoff on May 30, 2009 at Oakwood Baptist Church in Chickamauga, GA. This is part of a larger event featuring many outdoor equipment vendors and an evening with Hank Parker.

See the woods-n-water ministry page for details.

Any legal wild game prepared any style is acceptable for the competition.

$200 – 1st Prize
$100 – 2nd Prize

online casino$50 – Entry Fee

See the poster and application below. Contact info is in the application.

wild-game-cook-off-flyer

wild-game-cookoff-application

PapaMike

Had lunch at Wolf Creek Canyon this past week. It is located just off the square in Ellijay, GA.

Early in the day I ran into an old friend and he recommended it. I knew Pooles was closed and we did not have time to drive to the Pink Pig so seeing as he was the one who had introduced me to both of those places I figured it would be worth a shot. Once lunch time rolled around the group I was with were all in favor of BBQ as well and one of the folks in our group also recommended Wolf Creek Canyon so off we went.

The restaurant was not large but seemed to do a brisk business which may explain the “we are moving” sign on the counter. Much like most quick serve restaurants, orders are taken at the counter, paid for, and food is delivered to the counter before you sit down. There is no wait staff but orders come from the kitchen very quickly. The prices and selection were typical for a BBQ joint. 

I was hungry so I ordered both pork and beef sandwiches with stew and a drink. This was a mistake. The portion size is huge and I really only needed one sandwich (nobody warned me). The pork was very good. It was pulled and chopped but not too much. The only complaint with it was that it was a little dry. It came with no sauce on it but they had 3 sauces on the table (sweet, hot, and sweet vinegar). A mix of sweet and hot produced a decent flavor. The beef on the other hand was not to my liking. It was a brisket but was chopped instead of sliced. It was not real clean and was not tender. The flavor was ok and I picked around and ate 1/2 the sandwich but I figure they just did not cook it long enough. The stew was a good simple stew. They did not try to fancy it up like so many places are doing and that is fine by me.

All in all I found this place to be pretty good but will avoid the beef. I am not sure I would drive out of my way to go there but if I was in town and Pooles was not open I would eat there again. I know it deserves at least one more try as one of the people in the group who eats there often said it is usually much better. Knowing how any place can have an off day and knowing how many folks have recommended this place to me I am guessing an “on” day visit would shift this place from pretty good to great.

10. A set of grill tools

            This item makes the list, not because it is a bad gift, but because any self-respecting BBQ guy will already have a set of tools that he has hand selected to perform the tasks that are required. I want to save you the embarrassment of buying a gift that he will, no doubt, have to take back to Wal-Mart.

9. An apron

            Women and chefs wear aprons in the kitchen. A BBQ guy wipes his hands on his shirt. Usually, this is the shirt you got him last year that he did not like. One exception is the black leather “apron” as this adds a touch of cool.

8. The New York City video guide to grilling BBQ on a balcony

            People who live in NYC don’t get BBQ. It’s not their fault but, as the video title suggests, they have too many things going against them. This video is going to try to tell you that good BBQ can be made in a grill. It can’t.

7. Oven mitts

            BBQ is made in pits and not in ovens therefore this is a useless and, dare I say, insulting gift. If the BBQ guy you know requested these you may need to do an unannounced inspection the next time he is claiming to be smoking something.

6. A beginner’s book about “BBQ” grilling that has recipes like smoke grilled tofu with capers in an avocado hollandaise sauce

            BBQ is about smoking meat over woods coals at low temperatures. The BBQ guy will already know this and will feel a civic duty to inform you that grilling is NOT BBQing. However, books like Smoke and Spice by the Jamison’s is perfectly fine as these books acknowledge the true nature of BBQ.

5. Anything from Food network (Alton Brown is an exception)

            Food network has too many people that have uttered the line “Although BBQ is normally made in a pit, you can make just as good BBQ at home in your oven or grill”. See 8 and 7 above.

4. Tickets to a cooking class

            Cooking classes are often run by chefs. These folks are trained in cities and tend to have a philosophy that traditional cooking methods must be “perfected” with the introduction of things like charcoal and lighter fluid. They don’t get out much. Giving a BBQ guy these tickets will ruin his cooking (if he actually goes).

3. An ECB propane fired upright water “smoker”

            Giving this gift has been known to turn many to the dark side. Lured by the ease and speed of this device, they will be convinced that they are now creating real BBQ faster. Nothing can be further from the truth. Not only will it rob them of the joys of learning a traditional cooking method they will produce disappointing results lacking the flavor real wood provides. However, I do hear scrap metal is selling pretty well these days.

2. A bottle of commercial sauce off QVC

            There are many good bottled sauces on the market but they are not made by Kraft or Sonny’s and do not contain High Fructose Corn Syrup. If you want to get sauce for a BBQ guy, find out where he eats BBQ, when he is not making it himself, and get a bottle from there. Or, better yet, take him with you and buy him lunch and the sauce.

1. Bag of MatchLight

While you’re at it, just put the whole bag in his stocking. You are sending the same message.

I recently tried my hand a smoked turkey for the first time. I’ve had nothing but positive reviews from all tasters so far. I did it by first using the hounds brine . And then smoking it with apple wood & charcoal for about 6 hours.

PapaMike

Due to a major hard drive crash (we are talking loud noises and no booting) Michael’s last post got totally blown away. I promise that this was not done because I was jealous of the great looking turkey he had prepared and I sure hope he has a copy of the info and pics so he can repost.

It all started when I noticed that I had not gotten any email since about December 14th. A little investigating and I discovered that the built in antivirus checker (clamav) in SME server was acting up and not allowing mail in or out. I turned clamav off and mail started working again. I decided that I needed to remove and reinstall clam ( as it appeared there was some file corruption most likely from a power outage earlier) and then run a backup, you know, just to be safe. Well, I never got to the backup cause the server died right as I began the clam removal. As I could hear the click click click of the hard drive I knew there was no getting a backup.     Ya know, soft raid is great as long as the boot drive is not the one that goes out.

Lucky I had a backup from just BEFORE Michael’s last post and that post and one or two pieces of email (spam) were all that was lost. I would say the moral of the story is to do the backup first but in this case I think the drive would never have made it through it anyway. BTW SME rocks! the backup restore feature restored the entire server include the mysql database needed to run this blog, all users, and email from one file and took 10 minutes to do it.

ag

yep, it’s true.

Ha Ha Ha

ag

So I am up in Chattanooga Valley doing some training with a group of school tech. people when it gets to be lunch time. Normally, I am not asked to join a group for lunch and I have to find my own way, so it was very thoughtful of them to invite me to go with them. When they decided where to go they told me we would go to the Purple Daisy. In my head I saw a cute little place with lots of dainty menu items and nothing I would care for. Then they told me it was BBQ. I am still not sure what a place called Purple Daisy would be like. Well, was I in for a surprise! We pulled up and the first thing I saw was a smoker with a real wood pile and no gas tanks. The smell filled the air and I was starting to get excited. Sure enough, when we got seated, I looked at the menu and there it was; REAL BBQ. I order a pulled pork sandwich with hot sauce. It was well priced and I got a good portion. The sauce was a vinegar sauce with just enough sweet and heat for me to be happy. The meat was pulled clean and had a fairly strong but not bitter smoke flavor. This was some of the better bbq I have had at a joint as of late. I will try to get by there again.

ag

First I’ll say that the party went well and a good time was had by all! Thanks to all who came and blessed us with their presence and who helped out. And thanks to God for holding off the threatening rain!

Alan’s pulled pork was his best effort ever! It was really remarkable stuff.

Dad’s BBQ chicken was also excellent, and when served with the white sauce was really fascinating.

White sauce is interesting stuff. I’m definitely not done playing with it yet. The recipe I used was simple enough:
1/2 cup cider vinegar
3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons white sugar
1/2 cup mayonnaise
Mix and chill.

There was a little fiasco with the smoker. I put the ribs on a little before noon. After the second turn at 4 hours, I went to get a shower. Alan and his family had arrived by now, as had another friend, Bobby, and his family. Half way through my shower Christy pounds on the door and says that Alan says there is a problem with the smoker. I replied that I had soap it my hair right then so Alan had better do something! I rush to get dressed and out there, and discovered that Alan was fighting a fire in the main barrel of the pit! Smoke was rolling out and flames were just under the ribs, charbroiling them in their own grease! I wish I had pictures to post but there was no time. We quickly got the ribs off and doused the flame. Thanks to Alan and Bobby’s quick action we were able to save 9 of 13 slabs.

I didn’t catch the warning signs though that the smoker had been giving me all day though. I had noticed that the temperature didn’t come up as quickly as I had expected. Now with 13 slabs it can take a while, but by the first turn at 2 hours it should be up. Today it wasn’t. I did notice thought that it was cruising at about 200 F with very little fuel. And the ends of some of the ribs were burnt, which is odd with a cold smoker. I had told Christy several times during the smoke that something was wrong, that it wasn’t acting normal. What happened was that we had a low level grease fire from almost the beginning. It was past the thermometer, that’s why I thought I had a cold smoker and also why it didn’t seem to need fuel. It finally caught well when the meat got up to temp. That’s when the smoke started to roll. This was caused by grease running down hill into the fire box and creating a flammable trail back to the main barrel.

Why has this never happened before? I moved the smoker from its traditional spot to a spot inside a fence to keep our 2 year old away from it. I didn’t realize it but the fire box had always been slightly uphill in previous spots. This time it was down hill causing the grease to run in to the firebox.

All in all it was a great party with plenty of good BBQ. There were leftovers even after having lost the 4 slabs.

Thanks again to all that came and put it on your calendars for next year. I’ll try not to burn the ribs.

PapaMike