Pig Pen's Original Seasoning.....

.....git you someadis! I admit that Pig Pen and Cletus, aka Brad and Tomme, are some of my best friends on the competition BBQ circuit but I wouldn't rave about their product unless I fully believed in it. I met these two at the Charlotte Blues Brews and BBQ five years ago. It was the first competition for me and them. I have competed under several different team names but they remain the P&C Smokeaholics.

Anyway they came up with this seasoning and it is awesome. Great on seafood and chicken. I put it on shrimp and bacon wrapped scallops for Friday night eats at the competitions and it is a hit. I also use it as the rub for my competition chicken and since using it my chicken has finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and a bunch of other top 10 placements.

And if you ever scramble up some sausage, taters, eggs and cheese is ain't bad on that neither.

Get it here:

http://www.smokingpig.net/

Cheap Eats

A few slices of homemade smoked country sausage, a little cabbage, some sliced onion , a dab of homemade mustard and hot sauce. About .50 worth of food. I guarantee there's people that spent $12.00 for lunch that didn't eat as good.

A Little Andouille...

...left in the stuffer, a few IQF shrimp and I was on my way to jambalaya....

It's Ground Hog Day......

So I ground some. 15 lbs of andouille ready for le smokeur.

A Half Mystery

Just outside the city limits of Pittsburgh, over the bridge crossing the Monongahela River, is the town of Homestead Pa. It was once home to Homestead Steel works, the largest steel mill in the world. Like many rust belt communities built around the steel industry it was a thriving blue collar town with many "working man' bars for the steelworkers to unwind after a grueling day of hot labor. One of those bars was Chiodo's. Owned by Sam and Joe Chiodo the joint had a long history. From the ceiling hung all manner of objects. A rifle, a sausage grinder, a picture of Joe Dimaggio and Marilyn Monroe and dozens, maybe hundreds, of bras all reportedly removed on premise and hung in memory of some raucous evening.

By 1984 the steel mill had just about shut down and many of the businesses that depended on it were gone too. Chiodo's decided to try something different to retain business and started offering unique and imported beers. The idea caught on and the first beer bar in Pittsburgh was born, long before the craft beer revolution in America.

My favorite item on the Chiodo's menu was the Mystery Sandwich. It was huge so my normal order was a "half mystery". It consisted of a handformed oblong burger patty topped with a split piece of kolbassi (kielbasa to the rest of the world), sauerkraut, marinara sauce and a slice of american cheese and a slice of provelone with pepperoni in between. I made up a half mystery today and had to substitute swiss for the cheese but it was a fine replica of the original.

Eventualy the town of Homestead began to recover from the closing of the mill and retail development came to the area. Like so many other places the land on which Chiodo's was situated became more valuable than the business itself and Chiodo's was sold to a developer. A Walgreen's stands at the site now.

Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs---"Devil Do"

On A Heel....

...with the works. The town I grew up in was home to a bar/ restaurant named the Greenfront. It was in a narrow frame building facing a side street and was owned by the Polimina family. It was painted green. The family's patriarch and the restaurant's founder was named Frank but everyone called him Pa. By the time I was old enough to go there Pa's involvement was limited to stopping by every afternoon to enjoy a glass of wine and converstion with his old italian friends.

Everyone who worked at the Greenfront was related. Frank's son Vince was the general manager and worked everyday behind the bar. Food was cooked on the flatop grill located behind the bar and was manned either by Vince's brother -in -law George Salvagno or by his cousin "Chink" Lagrott. Chink's real name was Dominick but he was a huge man and his bulbous cheeks made his eyes look like he was squinting, hence the politically incorrect nickname. Rounding out the cast was another cousin, Alex Martino. Alex was a mail carrier and got done early on his route every day so he could stop by the Greenfront by lunchtime and pick up bets to take out the the local paramutual racetrack. Winners would tip him and he made some pocket money that way. One time Vince placed a bet on a real longshot and Alex "booked" the bet instead of placing it. Of course the horse won and Alex worked at the restaurant for free for quite awhile after that. Nobody gave him money to bet anymore either.

The italian sausages weren't linked but formed in patties. You could get a burger or sausage on a hamburger roll, on sliced italian bread or "on a heel" which was the end of the italian bread loaf. I always had mine on a heel. The most popular way to get the sandwiches was "with the works". That was ketchup, relish, onions and some of Vince's sister's sauce which was kept bubbling on the back of the cooktop. Next to the sauce was another little pot with hot peppers stewing in sauce. You asked for "all the way" if you wanted the peppers.

I was thinking about the Greenfront this morning while making italian sausage so I took some that was left in the stuffer and cut the heel from a loaf of Italian bread. Here's to you Pa, Vince, George, Chink and Alex.