Linkdown: 10/18/17

– The Barbecue Festival is next weekend and here are the deets

 

– The updated Thrillist list of best barbecue in America contains 4 joints from NC, including a newer joint that only opened in the past couple of years

– The Eastern Carolina BBQ Throwdown threw down in Rocky Mount last weekend

– The Tour De Pig, a precursor event to the Barbecue Festival in Lexington later this month, was also this past weekend

– Next time you are in Houston:

– Missed this a few weeks back, but a fire at Swig & Swine West Ashley in Charleston caused it to close for a few weeks; as of this post it was scheduled to open by now but no word on whether it has yet

– Archibald’s in Northport, AL recently had a fire as well but is fine

– Heading to the NC State Fair this month? For the first time you can try beer and wine, including Birdsong

Linkdown: 2/22/17

– Congrats to chef/pit master Elliott Moss on his James Beard nomination for Best Chef: Southeast

– Could he win it like Aaron Franklin did two years ago?

– Marie, Let’s Eat! (the blog) turned 7 so they counted down the best barbecue in East Tennessee since they moved there last year

– Thrillist has a list of the most iconic restaurants in every state (and DC), which includes barbecue restaurants for NC and SC both

– Though Kathleen Purvis from the Charlotte Observer thinks maybe they should have looked past barbecue restaurants for each state

– Nice shot:

– Barbecue (the documentary film) will be the very first film premiering at SXSW

-The True Cue guys are at it again, trying to make the fourth Monday in February a new barbecue-related NC holiday

But Reed and Levine also educate us about the connection between politics and barbecue. Their search for such connections took them all the way back to late February of 1766 when “the Royal Governor of North Carolina, William Tryon, attempted to win the New Hanover militia’s good will by treating them to a barbecue. He did not succeed: citizens of Wilmington threw the barbecued ox in the river and poured out the beer. (This was not an early expression of North Carolinians’ preference for pork; they were upset about the Stamp Act.)”

Reed and Levine explain that this “expression” of discontent with British authority came seven years before “the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when some rowdy New Englanders threw boxes of tea in Boston harbor to protest a British tax.”

– From BBQ Hub

Linkdown: 3/16/16

– John Shelton Reed of True Cue in the New York Times on North Carolina and the Politics of Barbecue

– Thrillist releases the 2016 Best BBQ in America and it includes 4 from NC:  Lexington Barbecue, Allen & Son in Chapel Hill, Red Bridges in Shelby, and Skylight Inn in Ayden; there’s also a bracket contest you can vote in

– Local coverage of Allen & Son making the list

– Thrillist Charlotte’s list of best barbecue restaurants in the city include a closed restaurant (Bobbee O’s), a national chain (Jim N Nick’s), and a few other questionable choices

– Grant visits Carl’s Drive-Inn near Knoxville, which despite some old signage doesn’t actually sell its own pit-cooked barbecue anymore

– Queen City Q’s Whiskey & BBQ event is tonight

– Meanwhile, Midwood Smokehouse’s Wine & Swine Dinner (also tonight) is sold out:

– Speaking of wine and barbecue, the future of barbecue in Charleston after this past weekend’s Charleston Wine + Food Festival

The Charleston Wine + Food events, I think, offered a sort of preview of the future of barbecue in one of the South’s great culinary cities. At least a half dozen new barbecue joints have opened in the city in the past year, and several more are still in the works. Their fare is as diverse and ambitious as the dishes served up at the festival, and in an upcoming installment we’ll take a survey of this evolving Charleston barbecue restaurant scene.