Happy for Pappy’sHow excited should you be that Skip Steele from Pappy’s Smokehouse has been added to the roster of the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party?
Boulud Makes the A-list; Blue Hill’s New SlaughterhousePlus Lisa’s peanut-butter mashed potatoes from ‘Top Chef’ end up on a menu, there are some good wine books to buy for Dad, and more, in our morning digest of news and gossip.
Jason Perlow Captures the Soul of the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party
This past weekend’s Big Apple Barbecue Block Party was bigger than ever, and any number of bloggers, Sunday newspapers, and podcasters have tried to capture the excitement. But for our money, nobody has really done it like Jason Perlow, whose enormous Flickr slideshow on Off the Broiler conveys the appeal of good-natured Southerners handling massive amounts of meat. Check it out: It’s not the same as being there, but it’s better than just looking at images of ribs and chicken. (Not that we mind looking at images of ribs and chicken.)
Big Apple Barbecue Block Party 2007 Slide Show [Off the Broiler]
User’s Guide
How to Properly Pig Out at the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party
The Big Apple Barbecue Block Party, which happens this weekend in Madison Square Park, is the biggest and most important barbecue event of the year by far. But you still stand a good chance of being miserable there unless you know what you’re doing. Every year more people come, putting more pressure on the vendors and making it hard to enjoy yourself. Here are a few tips on finding barbecue bliss.
Mediavore
Zak Pelaccio Leaves 5 Ninth; Survival of the Fittest in the HamptonsZak Pelaccio leaves 5 Ninth to pursue projects with Jeffrey Chodorow; his replacement, Dan Perilla, a.k.a. Chino, is a Pelaccio protégé who will oversee the restaurant’s move away from Asian flavors. [Mouthing Off/Food & Wine]
The competition is brutal for Hamptons restaurants, and only the strong survive more than a season or two. [Newsday]
The current lobster-roll craze started at the Pearl Oyster Bar, and its shameless imitators really ought to admit who influenced them. [Serious Eats]
Back of the House
The Big Apple Barbecue Block Party Steamrolls the OppositionThe Danny Meyer broadcasting service just put out the word: The Big Apple Barbecue Block Party is on for this year. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Although the annual June bonanza is hugely popular, it’s also massively challenging. Past barbecuers have expressed much dismay that souvenirs and T-shirts yield very little profit (food profits go to the Madison Park Conservancy), and that the travel allowance doesn’t cover the cost of transporting heavy smoking equipment across hundreds of miles.
