God bless Jerry Reed, God bless Billy Carter.
Alright........put me back on your RSS feed, I'm renewing my "vows" to the blog. Its been an incredibly busy summer. Big things are on the horizon for Martin's Bar-B-Que that Ill get into in a few weeks when some of the dust settles.......but the point is I am going to start blogging on a regular basis again, a couple times a week at least. I didnt realize how well read the blog was until this summer, only blogging once every 3 weeks or so, getting emails from folks who are getting irritated at the lack of fresh content. I am going to give you a summary of whats been going on since my last post, not a lot of detail to it. Before I do that though I gotta tell you that my grandfather passed on to the good Lord this past Saturday morning. I wont take you through a bunch of stuff but we were close and he was a fine Christian man. His influence on me and my career as a restaurantuer was beyond what he knew. You see, my first entry and/or interest to cooking was watching my Dad grill. It was a process, it was methodical. Dad was almost annoyed at those who "grilled" on gas grills. The mention of lighter fluid was dang near sinful. At my household it is the same way. If I ever see my boy, Wyatt, with a can of lighter fluid......other than using it to light a fire to keep hypothermia setting in.....I will tear his ass up! We never had a drop of lighter fluid on our property. We always used a chimney starter with raw charcoal. I think the hook was set not by the taste of the steak, but by the process of getting there. There was a right way to do things and a wrong way and he was very serious about us grilling the right way. Well, my Daddy learned all that when he started dating Mom, from his future father in-law. Dad played basketball at Mississippi State and would come home on the weekends and Pa-King would grill. Dad grilled growing up with his Dad, but the "show".....the magnitude of the procedure......the "we're one of the few that adhere to doing it right"......the PRIDE, came from Pa-King. I dont know where or how Pa-King became that methodical about things, but I'm glad he did. I've had two loves in my life in regards to career, growing up in and working in the securites industry trading and selling bonds, and this restaurant. The first one I still miss greatly, and as I continue to pay down debt for this Joint will start trading some again from my own account. The second though I can trace where I am to Kit V. King teaching my ol' Man, who taught me, who took it even further.
We rolled out the new menu and new pricing. We've only had one comment on the price increase. The new menu items are Mississippi Hot Tamales, Baby-Backs, Slug Burgers, Brunswick Stew and Elgin Hot Guts (Texas style BBQ sausage). The sausage is not ready yet because of the producer dragging their feet, probably a couple of weeks away. The tamales have sold out, we're trying to make more today. The slugs have sold well and the Baby's are flying out. I'll be interested to see what my extended sales turn out to be.
Yesterday I wrecked the F-350 flatbed and the catering trailer. Some dick-head slammed on the brakes in front of me and gave me 3 options: hit him in the rear end and send his stupid ass through the windshield, keep sliding left and hit an on-coming car, or jerk the wheel right into a 6' deep ditch. I hit the ditch, tore out the whole dad-gum front end of my truck. Once I figured out I was alright, I jumped out to check the trailer.......it was fine. Then I got pissed and said some un-christian things about the bastard who caused the whole thing. I guess I'm gonna have to buy a used/new truck, which I dont want to have to do. I'll shop around over the next month or two and find a deal.
The website is coming in the next 3 months or so. It will be very interactive and sleek. A lot of audio/video content, retail store, this blog, etc..
In the process of having a 32-36' mobile kitchen built. I plan on putting the pit I have on the catering trailer on the back of the new mobile kitchen, and putting two custom whole hog pits on the catering trailer (one on each end).
So thats about it, Ill blog again in the next day or two. I also plan on using the audio blog quite a bit so keep an eye out for that.
