The Barons Storm Atlanta

[Boots]

So, this will be kind of a long story blog-wise, but I have been limited in being active lately due to life, so I’ll beg forgiveness instead of permission, this being the legal disclaimer and your chance to punch out before getting pulled into the story line...

Yoda and I essentially lead two amateur cook teams at this stage, the first being the alumni team of our old Cadet outfit from A&M called The Country Club. The second team I call The Barons of Barbecue, consisting of me, Yoda, and our good friend "The Samurai", a top notch professional from the Dallas area, a team we put together just to do specialty cooks. This is the story of the first ride of The Barons... and ride hard we did.

So a while back, Yoda and I did an offsite cook for about 20 at a first-class Texas ranch for one of my clients for the board meeting of one of the finest hotel companies in the US. And by first-class ranch I am talking top of the class, the cremo spread the cremo, this place put the "Swell" into Swank, word of honor. The cook went off great, awesome compliment to the business meetings, and all the folks that flew in from around the country for the meetings had a great time and a great slice of what I humbly think of as the Texas heritage. Coupla months then go by.... all seems quiet on the Southwestern front.

RINNNGGGG!!! So, I get a call from another client that knows the first client, also fantastic people of the first caliber, and first client has been yakking at second client about first client's cook. Second client bows up, and not to be outdone, they hop on the special emergency red BootsPhone. "Yo, Boots, would you drive yer rig over to Atlanta and have a go at a mano-a-mano Throwdown against a celebrity chef for our meetings?” I pause for a second. "Does the Pope look like a Polaris Missile?” I reply. They pause for a second; the CFO calls in the Treasurer to translate. "I think he said yes....Boots, can you confirm??” "Naturalatorily!" I sez. And it was on, the March to Atlanta.

So last month, we load up the Rosebud (specially tweaked up with her new etched-with-a-Dremel logos), and we marched on Atlanta like a bunch of Shriners headed for a 2 fer 1 sale at the fez shop. After a 15 hour cruise through the Deep Sowwwth, during which on one occasion we did actually observe 6 fried chicken shacks all located within a one block area of Meridian Mississippi, we crash landed in the parking lot of the 5 star hotel like an Acapulco cliff diver mistaking a blue rock for the water. It's midnight, and dressed like two West Texas rig hands, we stumbled up the front desk to the evident alarm of the personnel there. "Who are you and whaddya want?” The clerk eyeballed me over her little half moon glasses, one eyebrow raised. "We're the cow cookers from Texas, lady, open the bar and stand back and I promise nobody will get hurt - much." She brightened right up at that. "OHHH, you're the famous award-winning Texas barbecue chefs the owner arranged for!" I'm stunned; I look over at Yoda, who's got a look on his face like the kid caught with a hand in the cookie jar. "Just roll with it" he says, "what they don't know can't put us in jail". I look back at Nurse Ratchet. "Yep, that's us, the famous celebrity guys. If Taylor Swift calls, jest take a message. We have a restraining order out on her - you can't take any chances with these stalkers these days." Three bellmen then jumped out from behind a potted rhododendron and hauled all our stuff up to the room. It did get interesting when it was time to unpack the Rosebud, though. The only way we could get her into the courtyard was to wheel her right through the red Italian marble floored lobby. Talk about first rate service, the bellmen did all the huffin and puffin, all I had to do was steer. Sure beat haulin' her around by hand like we had to do in Taylor in 107 degrees some years back.

So Monday, we roll down to the courtyard, crank up Rosebud, and get after it. By Tuesday morning we're up to 20 hours on 3 Wagyu Prime briskets and the whole courtyard smells like Lockhart in autumn. We crank up the ribs, and open up a ceremonial Shiner offering to the barbecue gods (small g). Right about the time we're turning up our Bocks, who walks around the corner but our competition...Chef Art Smith. Two times James Beard award winnin' Art Smith. First two seasons of Barbecue Pitmasters Judge Art Smith. Personal chef to Oprah for 10 years Art Smith. Chef of about a dozen high class restaurants Art Smith. Author of best-selling cookbooks Art Smith. Iron Chef butt kickin' Art Smith. Equipped to deal diamond-tipped foodie death to three Texans Art Smith. Yep, THAT Art Smith. He walks up; I swear I hear the theme music from High Noon playing in the background. You coulda heard a pin drop. "Howdy, guys!" he sez with a big grin. "Whatcha cookin? It smells GREAT out here!" And that's pretty much how the whole deal went from there, he and the Chef d’Hotel Didier (a bona fide Frenchman ranked in the Top 300 Chefs of France) were tremendous hosts and first rate gentlemen, treated us with the utmost professional courtesy including a tour of the hotel and restaurant facilities and kitchens. Their kitchen and wait staff were all fantastic and work their butts off – while we work hard during a cook it’s nothing like those guys working a shift – they are a well oiled machine.

Come the 6 o’clock cocktail call, Yoda, The Samurai and I are all out still working Rosebud and the Caveman Kettle like galley slaves, prepping food for our half of 35 people. Three Wagyu prime briskets, 5 racks of spares, 4 racks of baby backs, 5 split roasters and a couple dozen Hula Thighs, and a whole kettle full of The Samurai’s bacon wrapped, jalapeno-citrus shrimp done Hawaiian style. We are competing in what I call a Texas open (Beef, Pork, Chicken of any cut and an Anything Goes). Temp is up to about 93 Atlanta style, and the cooks are cooking faster than the food. Art’s people rolled his big rig out, this honking big stainless combo wood grill/gasser about the size of a Ford truck, about 4PM and a satellite flurry of cook’s helpers are whirling around him and Didier as they create magic in 2 hours without much breaking a sweat. Meanwhile over in our neck of the woods, Rosebud is heaving and wheezing like the Texas Eagle on the uphill El Paso run while I load the box like a greasy fireman. And let me tell you, homefield advantage is very real in both cooking and football. Art fires up these honking huge Cowboy Ribeyes of like 4 pounds each (they call them Tomahawks over there) that look like the flanks of Taurus, Cornish hens, ribs, and Didier throws down with these wood-fired shrimp pizzas with crusts like the most famous Paris bakery, little floaty, flakey, crispy little things that taste like buttery angel biscuits. It went completely down to the wire, a faux death struggle amongst food wielding gladiators riding fire and steel like the charging charioteers in Ben Hur. The Samurai plated his last prawns exactly at the 7 o’clock dinner call, and then the mob descended on it all like hungry wolves. People I had seen eat salads at meetings for 10 years came away with heaping 3 pound plates of meat and ate like cavemen, grunting and squealing like wild beasts (and that was just the ladies). In thirty minutes, it was all over, nearly all of it devoured (note our side had started with about 100 pounds, uncooked). I swore I saw some of the waiters stuffing ribs up under sleeves and jackets; one guy was so overjoyed he promised to name a kid after me, wanted to know my name – I couldn’t help myself – so the poor kid is going to go through life now with his teacher calling the roll every morning going “Bond, James Bond”.

After dinner and the completion of the cook-off throwdown, Art hosted us for Blanton’s and other great whiskeys at his Bourbon Bar at his Southern Art Restaurant, treating us to a celebrity walk through with introductions to the patrons of the restaurant, which was packed…I can now say we got our 15 Minutes of Fame, check the box! We poured great bourbon and talked food and the South for several hours like the colonels of old out on a back porch shaded by Magnolia trees. Art even let me and Yoda give him advice on getting outfitted for a cowboy hat, and raved on about the Samurai’s shrimp. Our client was great as always, gracious and accomodating, and above all, fully into the spirit of doing good business while having fun doing it. Coulda’ died happy right there in the bar of the hotel. Great times.

And who won the throw down, you ask? You mean you have to ask?

O ye of little faith….

[Boots]

Cont'd.

[Boots]

Cont'd.

[Boots]

Cont'd

[egghead]

Whoooaaaa Bubbbba!!

Nice road trip Boots

[Boots]

Thanks Eggman. It was quite a fandango, hope we represented all you boys well. ;
_

[limey]

Dayummm, is all I can say. I'm a man of few words. Great pics. Well done gents.

[k.a.m.]

Boots, Congrats on an Awesome cook. The pics were Awesome and the story read like a fine novel. Thank you for sharing, I enjoyed the read and the pics.

[Race5]

Mucho Congrats!

Fun reading and very interesting style of story telling sir!

[Hotch]

Well done Boots.

[Fish and teach]

So boots. Edumacate me please as to why there is a wash tub under the fire box.....

[k.a.m.]

So boots. Edumacate me please as to why there is a wash tub under the fire box.....

I would imagine to catch the ash from his firebox.

[Boots]

Bingo. Having learned that embers falling out can and will set fire to dry grass underneath, say in 107 degrees in Taylor. made things a bit more exciting.

[Fish and teach]

Gotcha. I'm a volunteer fireman. Should have thought about that...

[bsooner75]

I was thinking it would make cleaning out the firebox a little easier as well. I might be on the search for a wash tub for mine.

Boots - I assume the statute of limitations has passed on your taylor incident?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Twitter handle @bsooner75