What….Winter???

Who says?  Heck, as I am typing this the World Series has yet to begin!  They are the ‘Boys of Summer’, why is this weather in the Northeast SO miserable?

As luck would have it, I’m not that big of a baseball fan to begin with (don’t hate me for it) but it sounded like a good line to start a Mid-Fall blog entry with!  Just a few things to say today so you all don’t feel like I have abandoned the blogosphere!  We are keeping busy as the leaves begin to drop, which I appreciate VERY much and hope to keep up all Winter (banish the thought) long.   Smokers are burning night and day and I’ve seen a few customers smile as that Pulled Pork sandwich is ripped with their teeth…so all is well in “Q”-ville.

All of this smoking has been keeping us a bit distracted from the 2010 Menu which will include some old favorites and some new additions.  We are trying new recipes and scouring the country to find out what the ultimate BBQ side dishes are and I’d be interested in what you’ve got to say too!  Let me know what your favorite BBQ side dish is and perhaps it’ll make it onto the Menu.  In fact, if it’s REALLY good, I’ll even name it after you…how about them apples?

That’s it for now…keep on keeping on!

jak

Crisp Mornings and Low Hanging Smoke

Fall has always been my favorite season for a whole bunch of reasons, not the least of which (I assume) is that I was born in October!  SO…all you other October children out there, here’s a big Happy Birthday shout out!  In addition to Birthdays, there is the crisp cool air that greets you every morning and the hint of a change in the color of the leaves on the mountain!  In a few weeks the colors will be in full glory and I’ll be reminded even more why Central PA is such a nice place to live and work!  Finally, as it pertains to BBQ (I may have mentioned this before), cooler weather typically means a bit longer on the smoker for our “Q”, which I believe lends itself to a bit tastier product!  Alas, that’s just MY opinion…you should try some and see for yourself!

We’ve got LOTS going on around here wrapping up the busy Summer season and preparing for the influx of Holiday Party and Family Gatherings to come.  We’ve still got plenty of room to add your event if you are looking to offer your guests a BBQ treat in the next couple of months!  We are also still offering a reduced Booking Fee for any 2010 event booked by Halloween, if you’d like more details you can call us at 717-254-1937 or shoot me an e-mail: Jim@GreatQ4U.com

Thanks again to all of our clients who got to share the love this past summer, we truly appreciate your business!  We are working on adding quite a bit for 2010, including a whole new menu that will feature our traditional favorites along with many new offerings that will be sure to tempt your taste buds.  Our progress toward opening a walk-up service location on the West Shore is slowly coming along, but like so many other things we are measuring our growth as the economy continues to lag!  If you are interested in helping us to grow, please don’t hesitate to let me know, I am always open to suggestions and help!

That’s it for now, but I’m sure there’s more news to come soon! – jak

Fall has arrived!!!

SO much for keeping the Blog even remotely up to date!  I cannot believe that the Summer has officially passed yet again without a vacation…not a complaint mind you, but merely an observation.  Fall has arrived and we are keeping the fires burning…literally.  Lots of catering to do yet this year as we are planning a complete overhaul of our menu for 2010 to include some GREAT additions and changes based on our observations and customer input!  We are also in the final stages of putting together the Business Plan and more importantly, the financing package to open a walk up location on the West Shore that would be open 4 days a week from Thursday through Sunday.  Our menu would include all of our specialties, but would also incorporate some of the Pit Boss’s specials based on what’s fresh that week!  From authentic seafood gumbo to some of the best hush puppies you’ll ever git…we’ll have lots to tempt your taste buds!

As you might imagine…feeding all of our Fall customers, planning a new menu and starting a walk-up addition to our catering business is keeping us more than a bit busy!  Not to mention the new additions to the family (photo below)!  I’ll do my best to keep you apprised of our progress here and in the mean time…if you know anyone in the banking business or who’d like to have a stake in BBQ catering business…call me!!!  – jak

Little Bit and Little Cross

Post Labor Day Update

I know…I should have posted an update sooner…Hoover’s passing was a blah note to leave it all on and we were REALLY lucky to have a chance to spend any time with a dog like him…he got me through A LOT of stress for a few years immediately preceeding my current BBQ lifestyle!  SO…in his honor we have brewed up a special ‘Organic’ batch of “Groovie Hoovie’s 7 Pepper Hab Sauce” made with our own organic Habenero, Jalapeno, Hot Banana, Cayenne, Cow Tongue, Cow Horn and Pablano peppers!  We have a VERY limited number of bottles left…10 or less to be exact…and we are offering them for $25 (5oz. bottle) with all proceeds going to a Hoover memorial in next year’s garden!  (He LOVED to eat…particularly carrots!  So I am thinking a carrot patch!)

Things remain busy here and I am personally quite thankful for that!  I truly appreciate everyone’s business and hope that we have exceeded all our client’s expectations!  We have quite a bit on our plates and are in the process of re-working and expanding our menu.  In addition, we are actively looking to add walk-up service at least 4 days a week at some point in the next 6 months…depending on many details!  I’ll keep you posted on our progress!  Finally, we are booking events into 2010 and currently offering a reduced booking fee of 25% on any 2010 event to our online readers…so it’s a good way to lock in at 2009 prices and save 5% on your booking at the same time!

Stay tuned for upcoming news about competitions, appearences and our new menu!

Stay up to date with BBQ Trends and News!

In my ongoing attempts to try and keep up with the BBQ blogging I know that I am not ‘Sir Typesalot’, but I am making an effort here!  As I am sure most readers of this Blog can realize, this is peak “Q” season for us and time for blogging is only available after happy smiles appear on the faces of our customers!  As always, thanks again to everyone who has had us cater their event this season and thanks as well to all the folks who have booked next years events…we look forward to serving you!

My reason for this blog is to point fellow BBQ enthusiasts toward 2 organizations that have done a great deal to make real “Q” a prolific part of the American culinary scene, both of which we belong to and believe in.  Not in any particular order they are the Kansas City BBQ Society (www.kcbs.us) and the National BBQ Association (www.nbbqa.org).  In addition to the fact that these organizations both provide copius quantities of BBQ news, tips and general information, they have made significant contributions to the current BBQ craze that’s going on here in the good old USA!  Afterall…what’s more American than authentic BBQ?  I am writing this piece about them in hopes that if you are a true enthusiast and you haven’t already joined these organizations, perhaps you’ll consider doing so.  Each offers many benefits and connects you directly to a network of like minded BBQ folks.

I personally can attest that our membership in each organization has had many benefits to me personally and to our business.  In addition to all of the goodies and information that comes along with membership, I have learned a great deal from their helpful tips, courses and fellow members.  SO…that’s my pitch…you should check them out!

BBQ Thoughts for the day…

So, here it is on Friday morning and yet another weekend approaches!  As usual a busy one which includes quite a few miles of travelling and not nearly enough time for rest, but alas I am not complaining.  Instead I am typing a few words here following a long overdue update to the website.  Since I took the time to type the invitation for followers of my website news updates to come here, I thought that the least I could do was to type a current post!

OK, so here’s where it gets valid:  I’ve been giving a great deal of consideration to purchasing a pretty big commercial kitchen (concession style) trailer that would both serve as a fully functional mobile support unit for our catering business AND as a physical location (somewhere in the Greater Harrisburg metroplex) for folks to stop by and enjoy some Great BBQ and perhaps some things that we don’t currently offer like, say: really good hush puppies…cheesy grits….hand cut fries….you get the picture.  My question for you is this; do you think that there is a market for Authentically Wood Smoked BBQ and sides at a walk up location on the West Shore?  I mean, I know that there are some folks doing it now, but there’s simply no pulled pork around done the way we do ours! 

OK, so that’s my interactive question of the day, now I’d be interested in your responses!  Thanks – jak

Hoy! Hoy! Summer’s here…

OK, so perhaps my last post regarding the expedited arrival of Fall was a tad premature!  As it turns out, when you spend so many hours making sure that others have all they need to enjoy their summer get-togethers and parties, I guess it’s easy to get stuck ‘in the bubble’.  Now that the rains have (at least temoprarily) subsided and that Pacific Northwest style weather has passed, I’ve been investing some effort into planning OUR parties!  It wasn’t all that long ago that I would have hosted several of them by this time of the year, but then again I was so much older then…I’m younger than that now! (Thanks Roger)  Plans are in the works for a few festivities, the first of which will occur within a week and will include a whole hog, LOTS of fruit, fresh organic veggies, delicious accompaniments and a scenic vista of the beautiful Susquehanna River!  It will be the first of a few ‘personal’ celebrations of the season, one of which will include an invite to all of our Facebook Friends…so if you’re not already on the list…join today and bring some of your friends along!  You can visit our page at: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/GreatQ4U-BBQ-Catering-in-Central-Pennsylvania/30070237853?ref=ts

It’s Sunday morning and I just finished a relaxing cup of Dunkin Donut’s finest, truck’s clean and lawn’s not too bad!  I am looking forward to a day of semi-relaxation so that I can tell my surgeon that I was compliant with his instructions following a recent double cut for at least 12 hours!   I am also reflecting on yesterday’s Pulled Pork and Chicken which came out better (in my humble opinion) than ANY other batch so far this year!  Which brings me to a short, but relevant diatribe about Pork Butt…which as you are probably aware comes from the top of the front shoulder…NOT the butt…which is the HAM!  Anyway, just some insight for those aspiring to do this at home (which is a GREAT idea), I like to cook mine ‘blade in’.  It is a subject on which you may find some controversy and in which every Pit Master has an opinion, some cook the whole front shoulder in tact, some cook it with the bones removed and I prefer to do it with the bone in.  My rationale is simple, I personally believe that the bone and its associated connective tissues impart both flavor and moisture during the smoking process.  I mean, 16 to 20 hours on the smoker can (if not closely controlled) dry out the meat and  no one likes stringy, stick in your teeth pulled pork!

So, there’s your tip for the day and a Sunday morning reflection.  I am hoping that all who read this have the best Summer ever and that you don’t forget to make some time to spend with family and friends!  They, like this whole life, are a gift and I for one am quite thankful for both!   – Peace, love and tranquility to all! – jak

BBQ Season is in FULL Swing!!!

It happens every year about this time…in fact this year it seems a bit later than most.  Perhaps it was the cold weather that I spent so many months whining about on the website that kept folks from warming up to Spring…but the certainly have warmed up!  Spring and BBQ season are in full swing around here and as always, I would like to thank all the folks who have chosen GreatQ4U! to make their upcoming events a bit more special. 

For those of you folks considering a BBQ caterer…here are some things to remember about us:  1. ALL of your food is hand crafted and prepared specifically for your event! (This is BIG!) We don’t rewarm any frozen anything for your event…it’s too important for that!  2. We time your meat selections to come off the smokers just prior to your event in order to provide the optimal taste, texture and aroma that you’d expect from Great “Q”!  3.  We’re focused on our customers…no matter what your needs or requests, we’ll do our best to meet and exceed it!  We even have an online ‘Customers Only’ section of our Web Site to make special offers available to all those folks who have helped us to grow over the years!  4. We simply offer Great “Q” for YOU!  We know that planning and executing a successful party can be stressful and time intensive.  We work with you to make serving high quality food as easy as, well, cooking a Pork Butt!!!

We are filling up for the season, but because of our 400+ Square Feet of smoker space, we still have plenty of room to fit your event in!  Give us a call at 717-254-1937 or e-mail me at Jim@GreatQ4U.com and I’ll be happy to help any way I can! – jak

SPRING…sure doesn’t FEEL like Spring!

You’d think by now I would have given up on ranting about the cold weather, but here we are…several days into SPRING and my thermometer was darned close to the single digits this morning!  OK…that’s it for the rant and now onto the day’s news:

Organic Garden ‘09 has had it’s first turning and will soon be the lucky recipient of some rich compost and peat courtesy of the tiller!  Following that, we’re READY to start planting!  We’ve got our hearty cold weather stuff on standby, including; Spuds, Onions, Beets, Artichokes, LOTS of Lettuce, Turnips and more!  Carrots and Parsnips are yet to come along with a greatly enhanced herb garden this year for even more culinary variety!  In addition to our current planting schedule, we’ll be adding a wide variety of Heirloom Tomatos, Eggplant, Brussels Sprouts, Peas of many varieties, Okra, Cukes, Pickles and of course…PEPPERS!!! Lot’s of HOT peppers planned for this season along with several colors of Bell too!  In addition to it’s Organic upkeep, this year I am quite proud that the garden will be drip watered with rainwater supplied via a pump running on Solar power!  It’s the little things!

In addition to all the gardening, we’re gearing up for our upcoming seasonal Competition debut at “Pork-In-The-Park” in Salisbury, MD on April 17th & 18th!  For folks who haven’t ever attended before this is a 2 day EVENT!  The fine folks at Wicomico County Tourism really do it up and have LOTS going on over 2 days to make it an event that you shouldn’t miss.  This year they’re expecting over 100 Competition BBQ Teams to make it the Biggest BBQ Competition East of the Mississippi!  For more info, check out: www.porkinthepark.org

Finally, ’tis the season…thanks for all who have booked their events!  If you’re looking to add GreatQ to your upcoming event, please call as soon as possible so we can check our calendar and make room for you!  We’ve got lots of stuff going on this year and look forward to our best year yet!

So, What makes your “Q” So Great???

Glad you asked!  It’s a question that I get fairly frequently and I am always happy to share my thoughts about.  This whole adventure started because as a kid growing up in Pittsburgh who’s parents owned a house in North Carolina and brother went to NC State, I fell in love at a very early age with Carolina Style BBQ.  I ate it every time I had the chance, from as many BBQ shacks as I could find.  I paid close attention to the taste, texture and smell.  I watched carefully as second or third generation Pit Master’s stoked their Pits and prepared their “Q”.  After a while, I wasn’t going to North Carolina as much as I once did and I began to crave BBQ.  I tried several local restaurants and so-called “BBQ” places and found that no one anywhere near me was able to come close to my memories.  I got to thinking that I would have to take the Bull by the horns (or Pig by the tail, I guess) and learn to make it myself!

That’s where the Odyssey began!  I started with sauce and had competition in mind from the start.  I had read and heard from several sources that ‘Carolina Style’ Vinegar sauce just couldn’t win at BBQ competitions. “B.S.”…not the degree, but the byproduct of hay, I thought!  I started mixing and combingin all of the ingredients I thought could create an Award Winning sauce that had firm roots in the Carolinas!  Finally, after nearly 5 years and LOTS of test runs, I developed Hoover’s Southern Fusion BBQ Sauce…it’s a great combination of a Tomato based sauce more typical of Kansas City and a Carolina Vinegar sauce.  Turns out, folks REALLY like it…so we make quite a bit of it these days!  Understanding that not everyone likes really tangy sauce, I wroked on another concoction that eventually became Daisy Duke’s Memphis Tang…it’s much sweeter, but still has a pretty good twang to it!  Folks like it too!

All the while I was reading and watching Pit Masters at their craft.  I carefully researched and made my Pit selection, which was Traeger Pellet stoves.  I chose them for a number of reasons that I have articulated in a previous blog entitled “Why Pellets?”, but in brief I thought the combination of constant temperature control and consistent smoke mixes couldn’t be beat.  A few of the Grand Champions of several Nationally prominent BBQ Competitions seemed to agree!  Once the Pits were in place, I turned to the products!  It is, in my humble opinion, VERY important to start with quality meats.  To them I would add my Secret Rub…even though I knew that there were lots of folks using commercially packaged Rubs with great success, it needed to be the way I remembered those great “Q” experiences of my youth…so I worked on it until I got it right.  A bit of Rub ans some oil to work it into the meat and just enough rest for those flavors to penetrate the meat.  Then onto the Pit to cook…the learning curve was pretty steep, but the reward was worth it!

We are proud of our “Q” and it’s taste, texture and smell.  We cook all of our meats at VERY low temperatures ranging from 190-240 degrees for as long as it takes for them to be done.  There’s no absolutes in “Q”..every cut of meat is a bit different.  Depending on the meat, it can be on the smoker from 6 to 24 hours or more.  While it’s smoking, it gets just enough attention with a wet mop to build a tasty crust (or ‘Bark’ in “Q-speak”) and when it’s done on the smoke it gets to rest as long as it needs to in order for all those flavors to reach their peak!  Our “Q” ain’t braised in the oven and smothered with sauce so you won’t notice…no, it’s got a nice healthy smoke ring and a truly Great flavor that stands up just fine without ANY sauce at all!  In fact, I always recommend going easy on the sauce, so folks can taste the meat!

To round it all out, we added Sides, Desserts and Appetizers that are all made to order and chosen specifically to compliment the “Q” and there you have it, the abbreviated story of GreatQ4U!  We are happy to provide information, help develop special menus and give you estimates in writing so you’ve got it right there in front of you!  On top of all that, I personally gaurantee that you’ll love our “Q”!  It’s BBQ season here and the phone’s ringing A LOT…so if you’re thinking about having an event of any kind and want to add the special touch of hand crafted BBQ to the party…call SOON!  We’ve even tossed in an extra bonus of 5% off the total tab for any event booked by March 31st! 

Give us a call and see how we can help! – jak