1000 miles, 6 tanks of gas, 90 lbs. of BBQ, and 130 happy diners later and I’m back in Chicago after an inspiring (and exhausting) trip down to Kansas City for the opening weekend of “The Bread Boys!” Sean Starowitz’s and Andrew Erdrich’s “Speakeasy” show at The Charlotte Street Foundation’s La Esquina space.
The intention of my project “Midwest BBQ Migration” was to draw connections between the BBQ traditions of Chicago and Kansas City from their common ancestry in the south to their adaptation to Midwestern tastes. Sean had connected me prior to my trip with Billy Emerson, a Kansas City BBQ Society award winning pitmaster. Through our ongoing phone conversations, Billy and I brainstormed to develop a menu together. I learned quickly that this guy was probably out of my league considering my own sparse dabblings in the art of smoking meat. I’ve cooked whole hog with a pretty good deal of success as well as indirect smoking on a Weber kettle, but my only experience with a real smoker has been a few smokes on a jury rigged set up that’s been pieced together over the years at Ox-Bow. I do know what I like, though, especially in terms of Chicago style- hot links and rib tips. Knowing I couldn’t source hotlinks in KC, I picked up a 30 lb. case from Uncle John’s before I left town. I picked up 40 lbs. of spare ribs from a massive country processing plant in KC, K called Bichelmeyer’s who happily cut the spares St. Louis style, reserving the tips for us to smoke separately.
Needless to say, I deferred to the experts the day of the smoke and stayed out of their way as they manned their mighty impressive rig:
The boys brought 30 lbs. of Krizman’s House of Sausage’s BBQ roll sausage which apparently is the same product smoked by the legendary Arthur Bryant’s. Those went on first, rubbed in their signature rub. They were kind enough to lend some to the rib and tips effort too. Spares went on second. Billy was somewhat skeptical to smoke the ribs only for 4-5 hours as per my Chicago style recipe, but I knew that we do things hot and fast in our neck of the woods, so we cranked the smoker up to 250 -260.
Working with Billy and his crew, who call themselves “Grill Talk” was a true pleasure. True BBQ men they were, setting up a makeshift kitchen under a pop up canopy tent complete with all the possible rub and sauce ingredients you could ask for. Their passion for BBQ is not all about business though, cold Boulevard Pilsners kept the sunny afternoon laid back and convivial. Turns out Billy is a bit of a Renaissance man and kindred spirit, a morel forager, organic dirt salesman, antique dealer, and house DJ as well as a BBQ man.
Go time arrived soon enough, and the cavalry came in equipped with a portable meat slicer for the BBQ roll:
I jumped on the trailer and met our audience. We served up two options: a Chicago combo with tasting portions of spares, tips, and links on white bread. The Grill Talk- conceived platter was a long roll stuffed with thin sliced BBQ roll, some grilled peppers, and their sauce served atop pit beans fortified with more sausage. The curator just could not help but jump onto the line for some action:
I had a huge hand of help from Sean’s buddy Max Watson, a food truck veteran who used to run Port Fonda, a gourmet Mexican operation served out of a custom Air Stream trailer. This guy was super pro, he saved my butt as the customers queued up while my line was still in complete disarray. Good thing he was a fan of vintage Southern hip hop, we got into lockstep rhythm and the rest of the night flew by.
The whole experience felt truly collaborative and my overall impression was that Kansas City has an incredibly supportive energy that comfortably crosses disciplines. I like to think my buddy Sean plays more than a little role as catalyst for this amazing synergy. Billy, the Grill Talk boys, and Max made the whole event feel super successful to me and that the E-Dogz enterprise is working- a conversation, collaboration, and celebration of down home cooking.
The Bread Boys have a fruitful relationship with a relatively new fine dining joint, The Rieger Hotel, helmed by chef Howard Hanna- they have worked together to launch a Bread KC! event at the restaurant and Howard designed a sandwich for the Speakeasy pop up deli. I ate at the Rieger three times during my four day stay in KC and was incredibly impressed by the high level of inventive, quality ingredient forward cuisine coming out of their kitchen. However, the true camaraderie I saw in the staff there under the leadership of Chef Hanna was truly inspiring- I loved sitting at their chef’s counter watching the grace and good humor going down in that kitchen. So, it was so very much an honor when Howard happened to swing by the event in the wee hours (after we’d been whiskey-ing for a few hours next door). Wishfully, I had set aside a sampler for him just in case this opportunity happened to present itself. I gave him a quick spiel about Chi- style BBQ and I’m pretty sure he approved of our efforts:
One Comment