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Ed lost me with the, “I would have pushed through it.” Some things cannot be pushed through and it’s real easy for someone who has never experienced one of those things to be flip about it.
Anyway… I discovered a local BBQ place up here in Northern Virginia that has the best beef ever. I do not say that lightly, given that during my years in Plano and Austin we’d go out on the weekends and try out the BBQ some little town’s Lions Club or Optimist Club or heritage festival had spent two days slaving over a pit preparing and it was almost all uniformly amazing.
But this local stuff — it’s like it was designed just for me. The smoke aroma hits me and I start to drool. All smoke, no burning. It’s just as good cold (and just as smoky) and with or without sauce. (I’m starving just writing this.) And their whole chicken! That pinky-red meat all packed with flavor. My friend ordered her Thanksgiving turkey from them and her San Antonio-bred husband was in love.
… I may need to go get a snack.
Oh, exactly. You don’t push through heat stroke unless you want someone to push through to a coffin. I’m a HARD ASS and as unsympathetic to whiny behavior as it gets, and even I was going, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Someone put a wet towel on her head NOW.”
Ahh, but I do like a little (a lot) burn. Mmmmm, jalapeno! :D I will be staright out and say the best BBQ I have ever had in my life is Dreamland BBQ in Tuscaloosa, which is the Rolls Royce of BBQ. Period.
Spice burn = ok. Ash burn = not okay. I’m talkiing that wonderful smoke where you can taste the the wood, hickory or mesquite or apple or whatever, and the spices and that indescribable thing that is smoke itself, but there’s no acrid char to overwhelm and obscure.
And though, as you point out, grilling is not BBQ, burning the damn meat is WRONG, YOU MORONS, regardless of the cooking technique.
Not that I resent how meat has been so shamefully mistreated this season., no.
The “I would have pushed through” thing always bugs me on these shows. There are some things that I’ve watched and gone, “Y’know, I probably would have tried to get through that,” but having suffered from heat exhaustion before (curse you, North Dakota summer!), I probably would have been happy that she hadn’t fainted/thrown up before she got attention.
I am, sadly, BBQ-deficient. Seattle is fantastic for a great deal of food-related things, but BBQ ain’t one of them.
This is the challenge these chefs should have seen coming as soon as they were dropped off in Texas so I don’t understand how they could have done so many things wrong. Undercooked beans, un-smoked meats, underwhelming side dishes? Unbelievable!
I’m not a big fan of The Salt Lick though I love to bring out of town visitors there because it really is an awesome space and the BYOB means we get a cooler full of local beer to taste around the table.
Ed is winning the whiny bitch trophy hands down.
Ed was a total asshat. I can’t stand it when people get all wimpy and shit, but Sarah was seriously ill. And I abhor the way he treated her. Dude. Uncool. Grow up and let’s not kid ourselves, if the roles had been reversed, Ed would have expected to be treated like a king.