Page 36 - JULY 2021 Digital Issue

cover story
Sweet
Swine &
a Big Hat
CHRISTY JONES
bigdsqtn@gmail.com
If there is one thing, Dolly Par- ton has taught me, “if you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.”
Being cooped up with canceled events felt like an extended rainy season. But, with that many cooks stuck at home, there are bound to be some new creations and flavorful experi- ments ready for the world to see.
I spent the last few weeks on an extended road trip that brought new flavors, old friends, and some advice from a few cham- pions.
First stop, the Sweet Swine
O’Mine test kitchen with our buddy Mark Lambert for a bit of rib cooking. Growing up with my dad, Big D’ Danny Montgomery, I’ve been fortunate enough to experience what happens when you get those two together. Old friends, you never know if they will be harvesting the meat for dinner or trying out new products.
Whatever they are cooking, you can bet it is going to be tasty!
They first met many years ago at Memphis in May (MIM). After watching Big D’ and Paul Hood take home a couple of MIM world championships in ribs, Mark made his way over to their booth to ask about the Backwoods Smokers. Mark, a fairly new cook on the KCBS circuit at the time, wanted to know more before he bought a Backwoods Smoker. A short time later, he became a distributor and grew his business. Oh yeah, and he also added six world championships to his resume.
Swapping stories, they talked about how much fun they
had a few years back. Mark, Big D’, and Malcolm Reed put on a show filming an episode of Na- tional Geographics’ “Eric Greenspan is Hungry.” Mark threw down a ‘cluck, purr, yelp, gobble’ call bringing a wild turkey within shooting dis- tance. Hunting can be an ad- venture surrounded by an eight-person camera crew wan- dering around smoking ciga- rettes. Somehow, Mark managed to make the shot be- fore the bird was scared off. Mark laughed as he told me, “what the episode did not show was your brother, Casey, was in- cluded in the episode as their ace in the hole. If the crew did- n’t capture a successful hunt
that day, Casey had brought fresh meat from his recent hunt.” Oh, the
magic of televi-
sion. If you want a
few laughs and good recipes, look the show up on YouTube. Season 1 Episode 3: Mis- sissippi Wild Turkey.
Meisters of Que, these two hold more knowledge about meat and cooking methods than I can grasp. The perfect combo to do a lit- tle meat quality
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JULY 2021