Pork Barrel BBQ Restaurant Coming to Del Ray Neighborhood in Alexandria, Virginia

Coming soon to an adorable, yuppie neighborhood near … me: a new BBQ restaurant!

Pork Barrel BBQ, an award-winning sauce and dry rub company, was born right here in the Beltway, but their founders Heath and Brett were raised in my home state of Missouri. In his day job capacity, Heath and I worked together very briefly on getting a contribution from a Missouri politician I respect in the magazine I managed about a year and a half ago. (Sorry folks. Can’t name names. No politics on the food blog!)

Come to think of it, Frank works with the brother-in-law of the other half of this BBQing duo, too. It’s a small world after all!

Stay tuned for updates as we receive them about the restaurant’s opening.

Thermo Dynamics! Get excited!

“Temperature can’t hold sway over density and conductivity.”

Lost? About a year ago, I would have been. But thanks to the brilliance of Alton Brown, I understand thermo dynamics–and you can, too!

Thermo-wha?

Here’s the deal: If you’re looking to thaw/defrost something and a microwave is either unavailable or, well it pretty much ruins your food so I wouldn’t bother, what would you do? I won’t try to explain it because I can’t do a better job than Mr. Brown himself.

This is a snippet of the Good Eats episode, “What’s Up, Duck?” but I’m not interested in the duck part–today. Fast forward to 5:00 into the video for the most important cooking lesson every amateur chef needs to know. You can stop at 9:35 if you’re too aren’t into duck for the time being.

I will only add that at this very minute, I’m trying this technique by myself for the first time, and it’s working like a charm. (I’ve seen Frank, who introduced me to this, do this over and over again, but I wanted to give this a shot on my own.)