Barbecue Block Party

It was overcast and rainy, but the lines were still long at the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party that Todd and I went to yesterday. It was out in front of Blue Smoke, and 27th street was blocked off between Park Avenue and Lexington. Live jazz, crowds, smoke and some good barbecue.

The organizers had invited award-winning barbecuers from North Carolina, Illinois, even Nevada. We bought 15 tickets ($1 per ticket with each plate costing $6; the food booths wouldn't take cash) and started at the shortest line, sharing an order of Chipotle Chicken Wings and Potato Salad from Blue Smoke. The sauce was good, smokey and spicy, but the wings were kind of anemic. While we ate that, we stood in a long line in the rain for pork shoulder and baked beans made by Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Que from Alabama. The shredded pork, served on seeded buns, was the softest meat I've ever had, but it needed the sauce for flavor (which it definitely had).

Then I had to run back to the booth for more tickets while Todd stood in another long line so we could try the food from Kreuz Market from Lockhart, Texas. (These lines were such a tease, because they all snaked right up next to the smoke pits where the booth cooked the food you were standing in line to try.) I'm glad we did because the sausage with onions and sliced sweet n sour pickles on Sunshine white bread (I love it when what seems like a basic national packaged food becomes fundamental to a recipe for something fantastic) was the highlight of our day. The rain had stopped, so we squatted on the sidewalk to eat. Biting through the soft bread and then the crunchy skin of the spicy sausage, we listened to jazz with fellow urban dwellers willing to brave the rain for a bit of smoke on a city street.