Barbecue Archives - Queen of the Food Age

Events

Charleston Food Film Festival, Night 1

April 25, 2014

I’m basically a professional photographer.

Last night, Lily and I attended the first night of the 2nd Annual Charleston Food Film Festival atop the USS Yorktown in the Charleston Harbor.

Look how excited we are!

The main feature the first night was “Kings of BBQ Barbecue Kuwait,” a short film by director John Markus (who’s super nice, btw), which chronicles him as he “teams up with the most legendary BBQ Pitmasters in America, travel to the Middle East, and cook an unforgettable homestyle dinner of smoked brisket and chicken for thousands of US troops stationed in Kuwait.”

The film was about 37 minutes long, and was a joy to watch. I was entertained from start to finish. The coolest part was when you were sitting in your seat watching the soldiers enjoy their brisket on the screen, brisket suddenly appeared in your lap for you to try, too. The brisket was provided by Sticky Fingers and was prepared by the pitmasters from the film who’d been cooking it for most of the day.

The best kinds of events are the ones where food magically appears in front of you.

The second film was called “Mile High Pie,” by director Melanie Addington, which told the story of ” mile-high pies at Ed & Kay’s Restaurant in Benton, Arkansas.” The film was about 4 minutes long, and I really enjoyed the lemon meringue pie we sampled during the film, provided by Wild Flour bakery in Charleston.

Magically appearing pie!

After the films were over, there were buffet stations setup with a full BBQ feast available (chicken wings, brisket, baked beans, coleslaw, potato salad, and beers from Holy City Brewery), being served to us by the same pitmasters who were featured in the first film.

So delicious.

Although I took the time to stop and talk to each of the pitmasters, I was extra excited to get a photo with my favorite, Johnny Trigg, a two-time Jack Daniels World Championship Invitational grand champ.

The champ, Johnny Trigg!

I really enjoyed getting the opportunity to talk to director John Markus about what inspired him to make the movie. You can tell by the way he talked (even with BBQ sauce smeared on his cheek) that he put some of his own heart into the film. He seemed to genuinely be pleased to hear that we enjoyed the film.

Director John Markus

I had a crazy amount of fun and can’t wait for tonight and tomorrow’s events, where I’ll be joined by my mom at High Wire Distilling (which I’m excited about because I haven’t been there yet). Tickets are still on sale, and if you enter QUEENS10 at checkout, you’ll save 10%! Hope to see you there!

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Quote of the Week

Quote of the Week 2/25/13

February 25, 2013

This week’s quote is inspired by the delicious Barbecue I ate in Orangeburg this weekend. It comes from BBQ enthusiast Vince Staten who wrote a nifty guide about the best BBQ joints and recipes in the US. I haven’t read it yet, but I want to!

“The story of barbecue is the story of America: Settlers arrive on great unspoiled continent, discover wondrous riches, set them on fire and eat them.”
–Vince Staten

Am I the only one who thinks he kind of looks like the Keebler Elf?

Quote of the Week

Quote of the Week 6/11/12

June 12, 2012

I am exhausted. This post is late because I basically slept all day yesterday once I got back from Atlanta. I could probably sleep another three days and be totally ok.

I left for Auburn on Thursday to visit Ben, because I’m a silly girl who misses her boyfriend. He picked me up in Atlanta and brought me back to Auburn where he made a delicious pork roast in the crock pot. Friday morning I tried to stick to my diet by working out while Ben was in class. After he got out of class, we drove around the backroads around the city. We saw a bunch of cows. Nothing too exciting.

For dinner we went to a place called Cheeburger Cheeburger that looked like an old-fashioned diner like in “Grease.” They had a huge list of ingredients so you could build a custom burger, and an even bigger list of ingredients to build a perfect milkshake. I had a burger with cheddar cheese, onions, guacamole, tomatoes, chopped garlic, and bacon, and stuck with a Dr. Pepper float. Ben got a chocolate milkshake with irish cream that was pretty delicious. We also split a thing of fries and onion rings. It was pretty delicious, but I definitely felt gross afterward.After dinner, a bunch of his friends went to see Prometheus but we didn’t want to go, so we hung out with his roommate and built a blanket fort and played with glow sticks.

On Saturday Ben and I lazed around and spent most of the day watching HBO’s Girls, and other television shows/youtube videos. For dinner we went to this mediocre barbecue restaurant that RAN OUT OF COLLARD GREENS (how do you run out of collard greens?? At a barbecue restaurant?? IN THE SOUTH?!?!). And the night pretty much went down hill from there, culminating in the shooting deaths of three people literally right outside of Ben’s apartment. All in all, not exactly how I pictured spending my time in Auburn.

On Sunday we tried our hand at making homemade crunchwrap supremes. We failed miserably, although it was a fun failure. Ben took me back to Atlanta and we met up with Sean and Christine for dinner for some of the worst pizza I’ve ever eaten.

Although I was pretty disappointed in most of the food I ate over the weekend (Ben’s pork, and Cheeburger excluded) I still love food enough to enjoy the experience of trying new things. There’s a risk you take when eating at a new restaurant. This could either be something great or something awful, but you’ll never know until you try. Which brings us to this week’s quote from Mexican journalist, Alma Guillermoprieto.

“I love food and I love everything involved with food. I love the fun of it. I love restaurants. I love cooking, although I don’t cook very much. I love kitchens.”
–Alma Guillermoprieto

“Do you see the space between my hands? Someone fill it with Cheeseburger ASAP!”

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Charleston, SC Restaurant Reviews

JB’s Smokeshack – Closed

February 29, 2012

Update 5/10/18 – It’s with a heavy heart I report the closure of JB’s Smokeshack. The owner retired and tried to sell the business, but no one bought it, so it’s officially closed up shop.

JB’s Smokeshack is the epitome of great barbecue, there are no two ways about it. It embodies all of the characteristics I look for when selecting a quality barbecue joint:

Sweet Tea. Homemade, Paula Deen sweet, and ice cold.
Baked beans with meat in them. Seriously. PUT SOME MEAT IN DEM BEANS.
Pulled pork that tastes delicious before you even put sauce on it. If your meat doesn’t taste like anything before you put the sauce on it, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.
And on the subject of sauce, being a southern girl, I prefer my barbecue sauce to be mustard based. But I’m not opposed to vinegar or tomato based sauces. I just like to have the mustard base sauce as an option in case your other sauces suck.
A buffet, so that I am able to shove as much meat into my face as humanly possible… and then some (that’s what she said?).

JB’s does all of this exceptionally well. You know it has to be good for me to be willing to drive 25 minutes out into the middle of banjo country to get there. Their sweet tea is amazing. The perfect level of sweet, in my opinion. But then again, I subscribe to the Gospel According To Paula Deen (Our sacraments are butter, sugar, and butter….it’s pretty great), so to each his own.

You can’t argue with Paula, ya’ll

When it comes to baked beans, I’m pretty sure I’ve never eaten anything like JB’s. They have some of their pulled pork in the beans, so they’re beany and meaty and sweet and savory all at the same time. Their pulled pork is amazing all on its own. I’ve been to plenty of barbeque places that really rely on their sauce to give the barbeque all of the flavor. And while I agree that the sauce is an integral part of the barbeque equation, I don’t think it should be the main flavor factor. The flavor of the pork should complement the sauce and vice versa, each adding its own flavor profiles to the mix, so it’s like a barbeque party in your mouth. JB’s definitely does this superbly. I could seriously eat their pork without any sauce on it at all. But that would be unfair to their fabulous sauces, which I also love. I like to mix the mustard one with Mama’s Sweet and Spicy (which I’m pretty sure is vinegar based), and it’s AMAZING, trust me on this.

We’re gettin’ a little saucy up in here.

And finally, their buffet is outstanding. I love their beans (obviously), macaroni and cheese (although I’ve definitely had better mac n cheese), collards (spicy and meaty, just the way I like it), green beans, fried okra, and fried creamed corn bites (seriously, those are amazing… I could probably eat 100 of them in one sitting).

This is what I imagine heaven looks like.

They also have a meat station which they alternate the offerings of regularly. They’ve had brisket, ham, etc., which they carve for you right there.

Ron Swanson would get teary-eyed looking at this delicious hunk of meat.

They also have some salad on their buffet, which I’m pretty sure they put there just to taunt you. It stares as you judgementally as you load up your plate with meat and beans and macaroni and meat like “Hey fatty. You know you should just be eating salad. You know you’re going to hate yourself later” but I can never actually hear what it’s saying to me over the sound of my own chewing. I usually make three trips to the buffet, loading up on meat and beans, and then collapse on the table, praying for death….

Sweet, meaty death

So I’ve never actually eaten dessert at JB’s. But I’m sure it’s delicious, because everything else sure is. I really want to try the “pluff mud pudding,” which reminds me of the dirt pudding I used to eat when I was in kindergarten. You know, chocolate pudding, crushed up oreos (to look like dirt) and gummy worms. It’s awesome. Ben got the banana pudding but was unimpressed (but once again, CANADIAN).

Man, feels like kindergarten all over again.

So basically it’s awesome. I would recommend fasting for three days or so before visiting, so that you can truly appreciate the meat cornucopia that is JB’s Smokeshack. They’re also really great people who truly take pride in their food, so how can you go wrong with that?