Bright Orange Sunrise

4:30 am. I can no longer lie here and wait for the alarm.

  My sleep has been muddied with anticipation for the last few hours.  As if my sleep engine has a bad spark plug and just sputters and chokes.  My morning preparation is rough, clumsy and loud.  Once dressed, I try to quietly amble down the stairs and stretch out my back and neck and fill my brain full of coffee starter fluid.  My gear is loaded and I make several passes in and out the front door to warm up the car and pack last minute essentials.

The air is clear and cooler than normal.  It is one of the first 50 degree mornings of the season and I welcome the cooler air.  I look up from the darkness to take in a twinkling sky.  The morning constellations always make my face transform from furrowed brow to wide open grin.  I am ready to take on this day and see what unfolds.  I say a quick pitmaster prayer.  “Lord please allow Joel to cook this hog right and make it through the night safely.  Please allow this band of caterers to interact and form new friendships.  Please allow our love of this work to translate into the bellies of our guests. May we have a day that allows us to see a beautiful view.  Amen.”

Driving in the dark on a busy I-40 to the small town of Kenansville, NC.  This town has always been a pass through town for me.  It is located along a road that is a shortcut to the family beach place.  I have only ever stopped for gas or air dried sausage, a local delicacy. As I arrive, I find the covering that will act as our dining room and kitchen.  I slowly pull into a row of tobacco storage containers that look little like a tiny main street shopping area for this farm.  The shelter or small pavilion is where Joel and Katie are sitting on a picnic table and checking the hog.  I am slow to stand and stretch outside the mostly empty transport van.

The two on watch have been at this location since midnight and fired the pig cooker at 2:00am.  The conversation is choppy at first and I can see the post hurricane wind and arrival of cooler air has forced Katie into PokeMon pajama pants.  Joel has refused the cooler air and remains in his standard shorts and a t-shirt with a grey baseball hat.  As the sun begins to rise and light peaks over the trees in the far horizon, the vast farmland begins to show itself. I see a small pen with a sign that says “Orphans”. 

There is a litter of piglets beginning to rise and play in the hay.  I am drawn to visit with them and see they are ready for attention.  They are ready for the morning meal as the farmer and two others soon arrive. As the sun peaks over the distant tall pines, I go over to talk with the farmer.  Our conversation is easy, slow, and getting warmer by the story.  I learn a great deal.  Immediately fascinated by this slow talking leader.  Part farmer, part provider, part coach, part director, part businessman, part sage.

Joel shared with him our connection to barbecue and how important and respectful we are to this concept of a time honored tradition.  I think this opens the door for deeper conversation for Adam Grady.  I ask him” what do you do differently here on this farm that sets you apart?”  I think he enjoys the question, but instead of answering it, he politely switches gears and provides me the history of the family farm and how he circled back to it.  I am thankful for the unmentioned shift and realize he is coaching me into a much more important conversation and also more appropriate.  Hard to understand where you are, unless you know where you have been kind of unspoken philosophy.  I immediately enjoy his subtle direction that can be really loud and prevalent if you listen for it.  Farmer Grady is quick to point to the sacrifice and life lessons in responsibility that growing up on a farm requires.

He shared with me the farm’s transition from tobacco to side crops and a more centered focus to his father and grandfather’s passion for raising hogs.  That raising hogs was not his passion at first, but much better than raising turkeys for Butterball.  He talked about how he started to “settle down” in his life.  Then quick to correct that he did not settle down, just got more focused on things that were more important; like his new wife and the new challenges the state brought to his family farm.  He shares with me the many transitions and challenges of the State and how he was luckily ahead of the curve.  He shares with me a story about his father and a bidding process that ensued.  How his farm was seen as an elite level sustainable and environmentally friendly farm, unbeknownst to them.  How the state helped them with finance to complete even more important environmental acts to help protect the rivers and creeks health and prevention of contamination.  He talked about his return to raising hogs due to a creative idea that sparks up. 

He is interrupted by a phone that will not stop ringing, even though he has been denying the call 4 times.  He asks to handle the call.  Then quickly two Latino farm hands arrive.  As he turns to answer their question, his soft slow country drawl turns to a rapid fire of fluent Spanish, providing specific direction on how to handle the problem that has surfaced.  As they turn to go, he looks back at me and seamlessly finishes his story (in his southern storytelling tempo) about some of the bumps in the road in the journey of this farm.  Including a vivid story about a mutual friend we share in the restaurant/real estate business.  How we can be pushed to the brink of losing our cool in anger and how important it is to keep your head. 

He said, “after the meeting, I progressively got more and more angry. By the time I reached my farm, from the meeting, I was so mad that I was thankful I was home for I would have surely burnt his place down”. 

I believed him.

He shared the backside of that story. How it is important to stand up to people who treat you unfairly and use berating and degrading words designed to break you down.  How no matter how mad they make you, to keep your cool.  Be polite and quickly and strongly deny their demands and have a backup plan.  How you must swallow your desire to snap back and find a way through this issue.  How this will yield better results and later grow your resources. 

I am dazzled by the simplicity of his stories and his well-educated skill set, mixed with an ability to connect with many different kinds of people and backgrounds.  There are so many things that I have yet to learn about this farm, but I am so excited about learning them.  His conversation set the table for a wonderful feast of information.  Although I did not get to tour the farm, I am so excited about the future prospect to do so.

All of this preparation, I have described, is designed for one short moment.  Five months prior, Joel was invited by his mentor Nate, Executive chef for Joyce Farms, to prepare a meal.  The meal was to be evidence (to the farm tour participants) of how all of the extraordinary efforts and honed practices of the farmer could be witnessed in the end result to the consumer.  That all of this calculated effort to drive quality, be healthier to the consumer, and ultimately leave less of a footprint on our environment, could be communicated to the taste buds.  If this sounds like a lot of pressure to put on Joel Dobson (Pitmaster) and his band of chefs? You would be correct. 

Joel was provided pheasant from Joyce Farms and a hog from Grady Farm to prepare for the farm tour guests.   The rest of the menu was open to find side dishes that would complement the meat, without overshadowing the mainstage.

Joyce Farms was intending increase demand of their own poultry, as well as the demand and volume of Grady’s pork.  The idea was to bring top chefs, restaurant owners, and distributors to a common table.  To see, hear, and feel the farms.  To understand the difference of striving for more and how it translates into our food and our passions.

Joel Dobson recognized the depth of this opportunity right away.  Months before this day, he created his “Dream Team” as he called it.  He brought in Katie, a pastry chef of epic proportion.  Speedy, a spry young witty chef to make the spectacular but simple and not overbearing sides like 4 cheese creamy Mac N Cheese and finely shredded and seasoned collard greens.  Jared, a newly promoted executive chef to smoke and sear the pheasant. 

Perhaps this sounds delicious to you.  It sounded extremely risky and brash to me.  In my mind and spilling out my mouth came…”Lemme get this straight.  You wanna serve barbecue, collard greens, mac and cheese, and a very temperamental bird to a group of the top restaurant people and a handful of James Beard award winning, mostly southern raised chefs?  How is this going to make a statement of anything other than been there, done that.”

Joel even took this a step further.  His return was impressive. “Pete we are not only going to serve them this menu, we are going to do it on our own design of pig cookers.”  He hit me right in the heart.  Joel and I have been dreaming about making our own cooker for years.  We would take the base design from the best cooker we could find and make it even better.  Countless bar napkins have been privy to our ideas and dreams, bleeding our ink designs and visual descriptions.  My approach being more design and aesthetic. Joel being more practical to form, function, and efficiency.  This sparked my interest and yet alarms are sounding in my head.  The fear of flopping on my face and the inability to see yet what Joel had to offer the world froze me in my flip flops.  I agreed anyway.

Fast forward to the break of morning on the day of this event.  After looking at the playpen of orphan pigs, I turn to see the backside of our new cooker. 

I am again frozen in my well-worn shoes.  The biggest smile just erupted on my face.  I wanted to cry, but instead I just felt like beaming.  Joel had done it.  The manufacturer of the cooker had translated our ideas (mostly Joel’s ideas) and produced a statement of “WOW”.  The smoke pouring out of the chimneys like syrup off a pancake.  Joel looked at me and asked if I would open this bad ass machine to help him flip the hog.  He opened the hood to reveal a perfect color of mahogany butterflied hog with all the jowl meat intact.  Joel pulled a pin, cranked a lightning bolt shaped arm and effortlessly turned the hog from bones down to skin down. We pulled four pins.  Removed one of the perfectly engineered grates and admired this meat with dangling grease stalactites now pointing upward like stalagmites of bacon flavored dark brown drippings.

Joel was well on his way to making the statement he had intended.  The preparation had very few glitches and when a problem surfaced, much like the farmer earlier described, “it was handled with calm, cool, and calculated adjustments”.  Preparation is everything.  However, there are times when things do not work properly or you ask too much of an item.  The problem was that the pig cooker was being asked to heat up to 500 degrees for searing and then dropping the temp to smoke these very sensitive pheasant quarters.  A very difficult task for a cooker engineered to go low and slow. This is when you can see importance of having a good team.  Well vetted and experienced.  Jared handled the situation beautifully.  Trading back and forth quarters from hot to warm surfaces until brought to proper finishing temperature, just in the nick of time.

As the patrons came to the shelter for a quick introduction to the catering team and short bio of Joel’s credentials, we could see that everyone’s eyes were fixated on the smoke drenched rich brown whole hog.  Nate also described the launch of our new line of Grills and how they should ask him questions and get involved with the pig pickin’, get dirty,  and more importantly engage Joel in conversation.

While they were doing this, I snuck over to taste some of the pork I had just pulled.  I was so busy getting the job done I had not yet reaped the benefit.  I grabbed a section right under the spine that is one of my favorites.  The satin texture between my fingers felt slippery and moist but good even consistency.  Once I dropped it into my open mouth, I was immediately hit with a buttery, creamy almost nutty like flavor.  It was the best bite I can remember in a long time.  Seasoned only with smoke and salt, this bite was powerful.  Struck a chord down my spine like a 300 yard drive off a T box or a tuning fork on the base of an acoustic guitar.  A hum of reverberation.

My mind went right to the farmer.  Oh, he is going to be giddy!  Again a giant smile broadened my face.  This time a little more sinister like the Grinch who knew what was about to happen.  As Nate said a quick blessing, the restaurateurs and chefs dug into the food.  We served them well.  I noticed very little sauce was used on the pork. Usually BBQ is trenched in it. Patrons came back for seconds and thirds.  Soon the Mac n cheese gone.  Collards were nothing but pot likker.  Even the tricky pheasant was being pulled off the bone.  Farm hands followed and finished off the remaining food.  The deserts were being shoplifted off the table.  Katie had made a homage to the oatmeal cream pies I remembered as a kid.  Except hers were integrated with Kalua like flavor in the chewy cookie and coconut sweetness penetrating the inner white filling of the cookie sandwich.  They were wrapped like presents in wax paper and contained in a see through custom fit bag with a khaki colored twine tied off.  People were stuffing pocketbooks with them for the bus ride back to Raleigh.

Upon conclusion, our catering team sat in a circle. Conversing on coolers and the tailgate of a pickup truck. Enjoying a well-deserved afternoon beer.  Farmer Adam Grady approaches Joel from Joel’s rear right side.  I hear him ask Joel quietly so as if only him to hear, “What did you do different this time?”.

Joel responded, “just a little more smoke and less temp.  I don’t know.  Must be the pig”.  As these words bounced around Adam Grady’s head. His red mustache spread across his face like a bright orange, wide open field sunrise in the biggest grin I had seen all day.  It was all the confirmation we needed. Resonation that all his hard work, sacrifice, problem solving and environmental efforts could be translated into the end result.  That Joel had found a way to help carry his enormous effort into Taste Bud translation. That the beauty of this farm was much like a sunrise in its simplicity.  Happens every day, but when it all comes together, beautiful views can plaster the landscape and make you realize all that you have in front of you.

This story brought to you by Pete Kindem. Hope you enjoyed this story of another Tailgate Adventure. This story is totally sponsored by Original Grills and Catering. Cook up a Dream.