Tall Tales & Falsehoods

A while back I discovered I had a food allergy. Not really knowing why – I would break out in hives in the middle of the night. The hives would originate where I had restricted blood flow (ie. ring finger, waste band, etc) and eventually spread throughout the rest of my body. The hives are not serious, (at least not that I know of) but can last up to 12 hours. The main drawback (besides the swelling of my pretty face) is the itchy sensation that the hives cause. After about the third time of breaking out in hives I wanted to find out why. I knew that it had to do with the food that I was eating so I started to keep a journal of everything that I digested. At one dinner party that my wife and I attended I stressed to the guest my concerns over the nights meal stating that I would most likely breakout latter on that night. Low and behold I did. However this was the turning of the tide in my new fond war against my food allergy. One of the dinner guest compared some of list from my food journal with the contents of our dinner menu. After some investigative google searches we both arrived at the conclusion that the allergy had to do with preservatives found in certain foods.

It all became an amusing story due to the fact that I would mostly breakout when I ate store bought bbq sauce. (The irony of the fact that I am so into the bbq culture didn’t escape me.) I would commonly get teased on the fact that the foods that I hold dear are also the ones that I am allergic to. So I started to really analyze the way in which I interacted with food.

Now I try and eat fresh meals. I buy local. I try my best to eat non-processed food. The more and more I research the more I find myself questioning the way in which we all interact with food. Food is a staple of life and I have become dependent of other people to produce substance for me to live. Not only that, the same food that I rely on other people to provide for me is also making me sick. So this year I am taking it one step further and I am going to try and produce my own food.

Welcome to my garden, welcome to be becoming more self relient.

The past couple of weeks I have been looking for inspiration for a custom made grill. While the internet can provide you with lots of information and insight sometimes it is best to go out and experience the real thing. So when the opportunity came up to judge the Kingstree Pig Pickin Festival I jumped all over it.

The festival is a real treat of Lowcountry Style BBQ. They serve it two ways down here, hot and hotter! With over 60 teams this year I knew I would get to sample a few really good BBQ plates. I was not let down! However after judging my taste buds had just about enough of the hot pepper vinegar based BBQ, so I decided to see how each cook was set-up to to prepare these great samples.

The big difference about this competition verses others that I have attended is that this competition brings out a bunch of what I like to call “backwood cookers.” These cooks are traditionalist. They still cook and prepare the BBQ the same way that their Grandfather’s once did. I love to see it. It gets away from all the glitz and glam of most competition and gets right down to the meat of it all, The Q!

While I didn’t find much inspiration for building my own rig I did find tons of fundamental principals in BBQ itself. It was a fun competition and I took away a lot of valuable information.

Below is a few photos of the different ways people were cooking at the Kingstree Festival.

Wow, It has been a year since the birth of my child – Memphis Addison Pope. Over that time I have learned a lot about her and hopefully she has learned some about me. I know at this stage in her life I hold major influence over her; her likes and dislikes, her taste in music and art and even her eating habits. I am trying to make the best of it by showing here some of the the things that have influenced me over the years and that may (or may not) influence her.

My wife asked  me to design an invitation for her first birthday party and while I normally turned down these opportunities I deiced to go for it. I have a hard time designing for myself. There are too many options, too many possibilities that I can do which makes it hard for me to settle on just one idea. All I knew for this is that I didn’t want to go the traditional princess route. I know her mind will be warped soon enough so I wanted to go in a different direction.

Memphis Pope First Birthday Invitation

As you can see I pulled the reference from the great Sun Records logo and built the invitation around that. It is a gate fold in the center of the 45 and opens up to a traditional “faux” letterpress poster. I would have loved to actually had it letter pressed by Hatch Show prints our of Nashville or Yee Haw Industries out of Knoxville. Maybe another time.

Memphis Addison Pope I love you and hope you are not to mad at me for trying to raise you to like some of the things that I think are cool. I know soon enough that you will want to have a princess theme birtday party but for now how about some Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis?

With the fourth of July vastly approaching I wanted to make sure I had everything on hand to have a successful cookout. This year I am going to make a whole mess of ribs and I needed to knock out the dry rub before hand. This is the same dry rub that I use for my Boston butts as well as my new recipe for salsa baked chicken. I highly recommend trying this rub as a base for your own. That’s how this rub came into existence. I am using something that I dug up from Bob Gibson and have made it to my own.

It’s pretty basic but if you have any questions please feel free to email me or leave a comment. Happy grilling everyone!

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Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 Cup Paprika
1/3 Cup Garlic Salt
1/3 Cup Kosher Salt
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar
1 Tablespoon Chili Powder
1 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
2 Teaspoon Ground Black Pepper
2 Teaspoon Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
1 Teaspoon Oregano
1 Teaspoon Cumin
1 Teaspoon Dry Mustard

Directions:
1) Mix all ingredients in medium size mixing bowl

* You can store the dry rub at room temperature indefinitely.
** Should make enough for 2-3 butts.

Dre's Butt Rub On Ribs

Great as a rub for pork and chicken. Maybe to sweet for beef.

There is much more to cooking great BBQ than sauce, heat and smoke. Most are intimidated by it all. To overcome that intimidation I recommend starting off with a much more simple approach.

With this approach you can test the waters while learning some of the simple pleasures of cooking good BBQ.

Ingredients:

1 Boston Butt (Pork Shoulder)
1 Batch Of Mop Bucket Swine Sauce

Cooking Equipment:

1 Crockpot

How To:

1) Place the Boston Butt into the crockpot
2) Pour in the Mop Bucket Swine Sauce to where it covers 7/8 of the meat.
3) Turn the crockpot on high and let it sit for 10-12 hrs. (You won’t burn the meat just make sure you have the sauce in the crockpot. If it evaporates add a bit more.)
4) Turn off the crockpot and let stand for 30-60 min.
5) Remove meat from pot. It should start to fall apart.
6) Pull meat apart. It should be stringy. Make sure you separate it from the fat.
7) And That’s it! You now have some pretty tasty BBQ.
Use the last bit of the Mop Bucket Swine Sauce as your finishing sauce.

My simple notes:

What I do is put in the meat and then pour the sauce where it is covering about 90% of it. Turn on the slow cooker about 9pm and let it cook overnight. Then around 7 am I turn it off. About 8 am I bust it up in the cooker. It should fall right apart. The I shift through the meat taking out all the fat and traying the meat. Toss out all the juices/sauce. You should have some sauce left over from the night before to use as a serving sauce if anybody wants it. You shouldn’t need it but it’s good to have.

It has been exactly one week since I have started a new way of thinking and consuming food. (Some people like to use the word “diet,” but I think of too many negative things when I hear the word diet.) Last Sunday my wife and I stated An Adventure of Food.

We wanted to look at food in a new light and figure out ways of experimenting with it. The main purpose of our Adventure is we wanted to find out creative ways of reducing our body weight while enjoying better foods. We took a base weight of our selves and set goals. From there using a pretty nifty little iPhone application (Loose It!) we calculated our target weight and calorie intake. This gave us a baseline for the experiment with food to begin.

Since last Sunday my wife and I have eaten many more meals together, shared conversation over long walks and developed a new since of family bonding. We still eat what we want, but we control our portions. We now exercise, along with Harley and Memphis, on a regular basis. We even formulate meals that neither one of us ever thought we could. So far the Adventure of Food has been a great success. Even if we do not loose weight, I think Heidi and I both have gain much more out of it.

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For those of you who were wondering:

My Daily Calorie Budget: 1,637

I was 2,162 calories under my weekly budget.

So far I have lost 4 pounds.

At current rate I will reach my target weight July 10, 2009

Favorite meal of the week: Marinated Italian Chicken Breast over a bed of Rotini Pasta Salad

Since CREATE South 2009 I have had a few request for my sauce that I used on the BBQ. While some feel as if your sauce is your mark on the BBQ world I feel as if it is just a tool in the genetic make-up of your meat. So here it goes in full glorious detail!

The Mop Bucket Swine Sauce is used as a both a finishing sauce and as a basting sauce for pull pork BBQ (is there any other kind?) This is a pepper/vinegar sauces that has just the right amount of bite. It is best to make the sauce at least one day prior to serving.

Ingredients

• 4 Cups of Apple Cider Vinegar
• 0.25 Cups of Brown Sugar
• 3 Tablespoons of Salt
• 3 Tablespoons of Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
• 1.5 Teaspoons of Cayenne Pepper
• 1 Teaspoon Ground Black Pepper

Directions:

1. Pour vinegar in large sauce pot and bring to boil.
2. Stir in brown sugar. Let it fully dissolve.
3. Next add salt, cayenne and black pepper.
4. Stir.
5. Add red pepper flakes.
6. Let boil for 3-5 minuets.
7. Remove from heat and let cool.
8. Pour into your “mop bucket” sauce container.
9. Let sauce sit for 6-8 hours.
10. Shake and serve.

Sauce will hold for up to six months in controlled temperature.

* Best to make this sauce one day prior to serving.

Another year has come and gone for CREATE South. It was a great experience this year. As one of the co-founders of CREATE South my hands touch all facets of the conference. For better or worse that is just how it is. We learned a tremendous amount from 2008 and even more form 2009. CREATE South 2010 should be even better.

As I look back on getting CREATE South 2009 together I wanted to make sure I posted some of the key points that I think will lead us to an even better conference in 2010.

• Remember to have fun
• Don’t forget to ask for help
• Know your strengths and weaknesses
• Plan ahead
• Have contingencies
• Find more sponsors

I like to tell myself that this is a grassroots conference. This takes a little pressure off. With a grassroots effort, things tend to a be a little more laid back, expectations from others aren’t so high, and the ability to change everything at the last minute is ok.

Andre @ CREATE South 2009 By Chrys

I do not like structured environments and I want to make sure that CREATE South stays true to the grassroots feel. One day I want to be able to hand off CREATE South to the new blood and let them run with the philosophy that we have instilled in it.

One of the best things we did this year was partner up with Horry Georgetown Technical College. In doing so we had a new found partner with some of the same goals. They were able to provide real life, hands on applications for their students to test their skills. CREATE South in returned received a venue to have the conference and an ongoing working relationship with a leader in the community. For that I am grateful.

Between planning, organizing and cooking I got to have a little fun and meet some really cool people. For me the conference isn’t what I learn in the session but rather what I take away from the people that I meet there. This year was a great exercise in networking for myself and my ideas.

I feel as if CREATE South 2009 was a big success. It laid down a firm foundation to build an even better conference with in 2010.

Until then check out some of the other CREATE South 2009 links:

Tiffany Trent Blog Post

CREATE South 2009 Flickr Group Pool

The Twitter Talk

I love food. As some of you may know I am a certified BBQ judge for the State of South Carolina (SCBA) as well as a member of the KCBS. This weekend I will become the youngest Certified Senior Judge in the state of South Carolina. I am pretty happy about this. I have worked hard over the past two years to achieve this status and will wear my new had with red sash with pride come Saturday. If you get a chance come on out. For more information check out www.smokeonthebeach.com.

Also for all lovers of meat you might want to check out some of the tasty recipies that Home Ec 101 is having for their BeefitsWhatsforDinner.com promotion. They have recipies for Mediterranean Beef Pitas, Walnut Crusted Roast, and Herb Crusted Steaks. Plus they are having a promotional giveaway from a giftcard and cook book. Go check them out and eat some meat!

Today started my attempt to become what some call a “Localvore.” While I do not like calling myself this and that this is the best way to describe what I am trying to accomplish. A little research about localvores lead me to the conclusion that I actually hate labels. Basically what I am trying to do is eat locally. This includes, but is not limited to, eating out and cooking at home. I have searched out local (SC and NC) companies that I can buy at the grocery store.

Today started my first day of trying this. For lunch I went up to Piggly Wiggly and found some Radd Dews BBQ! Ohh how lucky. I bought a pint and decided to make this my main meal for the week at work. When I got home form work Heidi and I went to both Food Lion (a NC based company) and Piggly Wiggly to scout out some food for dinner. Since we did not have that much money I only bought a few products. I am not going to waste any of the food that I have at the house at present. I figure that I can just combine the new local based products whit what I already have and gradually progress to an all local diet.

Some would say that living in the South has both its advantages and disadvantages when it comes to being a localvore. For instance there is an abundance of pork products made locally. From BBQ and sauces to pork skins and sausage. This makes me a little concerned for my general health but I sure do love me some pork. The south also has a good number of farmers markets and even at my front door there is a sea of possibilities. All of these things make me very excited.

So why am I doing this? Is it to save the world, to make a statement? These may both be a byproduct but the real reason is that I want to try and get back to simpler times. Not even 50 years ago the people of Horry County ate what they grew, produced or traded. There were not so many choices. The choices you had were direct result of knowing and supporting your neighbor. You worked together as a community, you shared and you prospered. I think that today we have to many choices, we are too greedy and have no sense of community. While I know that what I am doing will have not real affect on or even get me close to simpler times it will give me a sense of what it was like. How far off I will never do but I do enjoy the fact that I am supporting my neighbor, my local butcher, farmer, or restaurant. If It does have some impact on the environment or it makes a statement about society than even better.

Please be forewarned that I am not in it to save animals or some shit like that. I don’t really care if I fall off the wagon in some sort of fashion. I am not in it to listen to you bitch at me if I am not doing it right. These are my rules and I am making them up as I go along. Its my experiment that is able to go awry at anytime. But I am open to new information that you may know about local products, so please pass them along.

The Egg & I Farm – Lemar, SC

Carolina Pride

Blenheim Ginger Ale

Margaret Holmes

Charleston Favorites