According to a report, Chiefs WR Marquise “Hollywood” Brown will partner with Kansas City barbecue joint Q39 to create a new sandwich
Though Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Marquise “Hollywood” Brown has only been in Western Missouri for a few months, he has wasted no time getting acquainted with the region’s burgeoning barbecue scene.
According to a report by Aaron Ladd of KSHB 41 in Kansas City, Brown is set to partner with local barbecue restaurant Q39 on a “Hollywood” rib sandwich that will leave mouths watering on both sides of State Line Road.
While Ladd’s announcement didn’t mention when the sandwich would begin being served at Q39, it was said that it would feature pork ribeye, onions, pickles, and potato straws on a hoagie bun.
#Chiefs Hollywood Brown and @Q39KC are partnering on a new menu item
The ‘Hollywood’ Rib Sandwich features grilled and smoked pork ribeye, garlic aioli, pickles, shaved onions, honey BBQ sauce and potato straws on a hoagie bun pic.twitter.com/tUoCyYp7Kc
Brown is expected to play a major role in the Chiefs’ offense this season and sales of his sandwich could soar if he puts on a show during his first few games at Arrowhead Stadium.
Expect more collaborations between Brown and local businesses as his career in Kansas City progresses.
We went deep into enemy territory with #Lions Wire editor @JeffRisdon ahead of the #Chiefs’ Week 1 matchup against Detroit.
Week 1 of the 2023 NFL season is set to start with a bang when the Kansas City Chiefs face the Detroit Lions on Thursday night at Arrowhead Stadium. Both teams have plenty to prove over the course of their coming campaigns, and after successful preseasons, each is poised for success.
The Lions are of particular interest in 2023 as they face high expectations for the first time in what feels like forever. Detroit seems like a brand new football team with Dan Campbell at the helm as head coach, and after putting together an impressive 2022 campaign, the Lions are among the most intriguing teams in the NFL.
We sat down with Jeff Risdon of Lions Wire this week to talk about Detroit’s development and got some insight from behind enemy lines ahead of the highly anticipated Week 1 matchup in Kansas City.
Check out Risdon’s expert responses to our questions about the Lions below:
We share the best barbecue recipes and tips, plus how to buy a gas or charcoal grill, which accessories matter, and the top pitmasters.
IN THIS ARTICLE:
Grilling vs Barbecuing vs Smoking
Gas vs Charcoal Grilling
Grilling Tips & Techniques
How to Clean Your Grill
Best Barbecue/Grilling Recipes
BBQ Legends: Top Pitmasters
Before we explain everything you need to know about barbecue and grilling (and share the best videos about those topics), we need to define a few terms.
What happens if we don’t do this? Someone will point at you at the next outdoor food event and laugh when you claim you know to barbecue —because what you really mean is that you know how to grill… unless you really do know how to cook low and slow. As alfresco cooking experts frequently note: The two types of cooking (and the resulting flavors) are not the same. But they are often invoked as if interchangeable. So it’s now mandatory to begin any discussion with this kind of disclaimer.
To save you valuable time, and show you only useful videos, we scoured the Internet — Youtube, Instagram and TikTok included — to find the best buying tips, discussions of charcoal and gas, cleaning demonstrations, and a who’s who of legendary pitmasters. Plus, of course, the best barbecue and grilling recipes.
No longer do you need to watch several dozen videos tagged #bbqporn (1,262,279 posts), #smokedmeat (865,293 posts) or #grillinfools (137,692 posts) — though this is a fun rabbit hole to fall down. Just watch the ones below. We embed all videos with full attribution, and we are always updating our stories to make them better.
Grilling vs Barbecuing vs Smoking
Technically, grilling is the act of cooking food over a fire, quite hot (250°F – 450°F), and quickly — using gas or charcoal. Barbecue, on the other hand, is most often cooking “low and slow” (between 190°F and 300°F for several hours). Smoking, bear with me here, requires smoke, and is an even lower and slower kind of cooking; it’s not uncommon to smoke meat for over 24 hours (68°F – 176°F).
Gas vs Charcoal Grilling
Grills generally come in two styles: propane gas-powered with knobs to adjust flames vs charcoal. The variables with both include size (how much space to cook on), the portability (wheels, handles, weight), special features (like a smoker or a dedicated searing flame) and the price.
Pros of gas grill:
Easy to use
Starts quickly, no waiting for embers
Easy to adjust temperature
No lighter fluid or firestarter needed
Doesn’t leave a pile of ash
Doesn’t emit carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and soot.
Cons of gas grill:
You have to employ wood chips and a smoker box to get smoke flavor
More expensive than most charcoal grills
Requires gas either from a portable cylinder or natural gas delivered via underground pipes from your home’s gas supply to the grill.
The butt of jokes among some hardcore bbq folks
Pros of charcoal grill:
Smoky flavor comes naturally
Can get really really hot (1200F+)
Less expensive than gas grills in most cases
Portable in most cases
Repairs are generally inexpensive
Cons of charcoal grill:
Requires newspaper and/or other flammable materials (charcoal chimney, fire starters) to get the flames going (serious cooks don’t use lighter fluid because it affects the flavor)
It’s grillingseason! In our lab, we wire the surface of each gas grill with thermocouples and perform four temperature tests. See ratings and reviews at cr.org/grills. #grilling#outdoorcooking#foodtiktok
Lowe’s “How to Choose the Right Grill” covers the basics in 2:37, includes electric grills as well, and, equally important, they show how to use the grills, charcoal, and chimney.
Charcoal Grill Tips & Techniques
How to Light a Charcoal Grill (No Lighter Fluid or Chimney)
No science here. Just a regular guy sharing tips that get the job done. What you need: wadded up newspaper, long lighter, tongs, 20 minutes or so.
How to Light a Charcoal Grill Using a Chimney Starter (No Lighter Fluid)
After watching a few dozen videos on how to use a chimney starter, we finally found a video that shows you where to put the newspaper at the bottom, how to dump the hot coals out of the contraption, why you need two cooking zones, and everything else you need to know in under a minute… set to AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” Winner.
So you’re passionate about the flavor that only charcoal grills can achieve, but are you equally headstrong about what kind of charcoal to use? Cookout Coach gets to the point fairly quickly and doesn’t meander. At 1:23 in the video, he compares lump charcoal to briquette. Briquettes are basically lumps that have been broken up and reconstituted — and have grooves to allow airflow. The result? More consistent pieces, more even cook times, more uniform heat.
The flipside? Some companies add chemicals that you can taste (or that affect the smoke). Lump burns hotter and adds wood flavor. Briquettes are better for low and slow cooking. Bonus tip: You want thin, white smoke — not thick clouds. Be patient and wait for the damn thing to hit optimum temperature.
How about other forms of charcoal-like Japanese Binchotan and the various types of woods to cook with?
Watch BBQ Hall of Famer Meathead compare the various forms of charcoal. Binchotan, for example, burns more evenly and hotter than wood. He also demonstrates how to work with wood logs, chunks, untreated oak flooring, wood chips (which cook quickly), compressed sawdust bricks, and compressed sawdust pellets (no glues or binders). Shape and size matter most.
Best unintentionally funny line at 4:26: “Let’s start with a little lesson about thermodynamics.” Then he explains radiation, convection, and conduction as if they were interactions with a lover.
Hot vs Cold Smoking
There are two smoking techniques: cold smoking and hot smoking. While it’s all about temperature, sure, the techniques actually represent two ways of cooking — and one is best for immediate eating while the other is more of a preservation method.
Hot smoking is basically cooking with smoke. Cold (or warm smoking) changes the exterior of the product but it’s not cooked. Hot smoking — which can get hotter than 200F to 250F — breaks down collagen in the meat to tenderize it, and also fully cooks it. During hot smoking, the smoker keeps the temperature from 126F to 176F. Cold smoking cooks meat at temperatures between 68F and 86F for 12 to 24 hours or more, but meats smoked this way first have to be cured; coat them in salt or soak them in brine before smoking and then cook afterward to be safe.
Brandon, of Farmstead Meatsmith, explains with ample detail his experience with smoking in this rather personal and passionate five-minute clip.
How to Make…
How to Make Brisket
Here’s how to shop for brisket, trim it, and what’s in chef Aaron Franklin’s “secret” rub.
How to Inject a Pork Shoulder
World-champion pitmaster Danielle Bennett (Diva Q) offers five minutes of detail-oriented pig shoulder tips while wielding a huge injector that looks (and works) like a caulk gun and carries “straight-up peach nectar.”
The “winningest” man in barbecue shows us how to grill ribs (below).
How to Cook on a Cedar Plank
Watch this guy at Weber Grills explain how to use a cedar plank to get the most flavor out of your seafood. Note: You have to soak the plank in water for at least an hour before using it.
How to Create Heat “Zones” for Grilling Different Foods
Simply put: Some foods need more heat than others and you want to be able to cook more than one type of food at a time on a grill. Use direct heat when you want to cook a steak, burger, kebab or seafood that you will be eating within the hour. Indirect heating is used for slow-roasting dishes and pizzas.
Brisket Best-Kept Secret Ingredient
What’s the secret ingredient that some pitmasters use for brisket, especially in Texas? Answer: Lawry’s seasoning. That, plus the requisite kosher salt and fresh pepper, as well as garlic, mustard, and pickle juice. In what proportions? Aha! That’s a matter of taste and may require a few viewings. But we’ve seen something like this:
8 parts fresh ground pepper
3 parts Lawry’s seasoning
3 parts kosher salt
1 part granulated garlic
Vegan BBQ: Yes That’s a Thing
Burgers, steaks, and ribs are not the only options. Nathalie.Vegan shares an infographic that reminds us of all the other options — grill-friendly vegetables, vegan sausage, and various types of tofu, seitan and plant-based products.
Meat with bones takes longer to cook (but often tastes richer)
Steaks charred on a charcoal grill are generally going to taste better than steaks on a gas grill (it’s a high heat thing).
Trim fat off steaks before cooking. Avoids burning.
Season steak with salt and pepper to get a nice caramelized crust.
Chicken should get salt and pepper too, but also generally needs a marinade, brine or sauce.
Seafood tastes even better when grilled on a cedar plank.
Steaks must rest after being removed from the grill. If you cut into one too soon, you’ll lose lots of juice.
Know your temperatures: Rare = 120 degrees. Medium = 140 degrees. Well-done =160 degrees.
Vegetables usually don’t need seasoning before grilling
How Not to Grill: BBQ Fails
The clips in this video demonstrate everything you should not do. Don’t pour lighter fluid on a flame. Don’t put off cleaning your grill (fails are mostly flareups). If you watch one of these “fails” compilations, you’ll have seen about 75% of what’s online — enjoy, sure, but learn from other people’s mistakes too.
10 Great Grilling Accessories
In addition to a grill (and plates), you should own at least some of the following gear:
a digital instant-read thermometer
a pair of tongs
a big spatula
a big fork
cheap kitchen towels
washable oven mitts also come in handy.
a side table
a wire brush
a cedar plank for cooking seafood
a pizza stone (you guessed it; for cooking pizza)
Cleaning Your Grill
How to Clean a Gas Grill
You might expect Home Depot’s video to shamelessly sell cleaning products — soaps, scrubbing pads, towels. But no. This video, at 3:10, quickly details how to clean every part of your grill (ceramic, stainless steel, and porcelain), not just the grates where food cooks.
The 12-Step Gas Grill Cleaning Program
We’ve abbreviated the steps below:
Pre-heat grill for 15 minutes on high heat; this makes it easy to remove leftover food and grease
Turn the gas off and clean the grates. Dip a stiff wire brush in water before brushing grates.
Add dish soap to the water to dissolve grease or use a dedicated grill cleaner with clinging foam that penetrates baked-on grease, food and carbon deposits.
Let the grates cool, but while still warm, wipe them down with a damp cloth.
Lightly coat the grates with a spray cooking oil or vegetable oil (pour on a folded paper towel) to make it easier next time.
Remove the heat deflectors located over the burners and clean with dish soap. Dry with a towel. No more flare-ups.
Over time, the burners rust, food and debris can block some of the burner’s gas ports, which creates uneven burning.
Remove gunk using a stiff wire brush. Brush across the ports (lengthwise may push debris into the burner holes).
Use soapy water to clean the burner valve; run water through the inside to remove any debris. Now’s your chance to clean the cook box with a brush and warm soapy water as well as the underside of the lid.
Remove the propane tank below and place a bucket under the cook box to catch the dirty water. Rinse with a garden hose. Use paper towels to dry the burners and reinstall them.
Use a specially formulated stainless steel cleaner to wash the outside of a stainless steel grill. A micro fiber cloth is best for cleaning the outside of the grills.
Cover your grill in between uses.
How to Clean Any Grill with Tin (Aluminum) Foil
Ok, it shouldn’t take 2:41 to demonstrate this very simple “hack” but you don’t have to watch the whole thing. You can stop at 1:23. The gist of it: Ball up a sheet of aluminum foil, hold in one hand, scrape lengthwise up and down the grill grates, knocking food bits off, knowing that this kind of cleanup is cheap, easy, chemical-free and won’t leave brush bristles potentially in your mouth.
How to Clean a Grill with an Onion
Why an onion?: MexicanXConnection claims that it removes whatever food was leftover from previous users (especially if you grill at public parks and beaches), it also seasons the grates, and it smell freaking amazing. Good to know: Place half an onion at the end of a large fork or other sharp instrument, turn gas grill to 400 degrees (charcoal grillers can just wait until grill is clearly hot), and scrub in any direction you want. Savor the needless burp at 4:54.
Davis Love III, the unofficial mayor of the island, helped give Southern Soul a new lease on life, and it later returned the favor.
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Smoke rolled from the side of the building. Within minutes flames leapt from the roof. By the time the fire department extinguished the blaze, the roof had collapsed and Southern Soul, the half-century-old converted gas station that Harrison Sapp and Griffin Bufkin had turned into a haven for barbecue lovers was gutted.
The fire happened in 2010, just months after Guy Fieri of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” the Food Network favorite, had filmed a segment that was bound to shoot Southern Soul to stardom. But to hear Sapp tell it, something special resulted from their hopes and dreams going up in smoke.
“The whole island took care of us,” Sapp said. “The building was still smoking, I thought our little dream was done and he’s standing there telling me we could use his warehouse for as long as we needed to.”
He is Davis Love III, PGA Championship winner, Ryder Cup captain, host of the island’s PGA Tour stop, the RSM Classic, who grew up on this part of a chain of barrier islands nicknamed the Golden Isles, working in the cart barn as a teenager and cutting the crab grass out of the greens at Sea Island’s Seaside Course with a hook knife. Love, the unofficial mayor of the island, helped give the restaurant a new lease on life.
Just weeks after the fire, Southern Soul was back in business, operating first under a canvas tarpaulin and then a mobile food trailer. Sapp remembers being hot and sweaty and just plain dirty. Every chance he could, he’d escape for some A/C.
“I would go into their office (at Crown Sports Management, which represents Love) like Kramer in ‘Seinfeld’ and just sit on their couch and talk to them forever,” Sapp recalled. “We just became friends.”
Bufkin and Sapp had served Love over the years in their previous lives as bartenders at various island establishments, but they struck up a friendship over food.
“Davis loves barbecue more than anybody you’ve ever met,” Sapp said. “He’d rather be cooking barbecue than anything.”
— Southern Soul BBQ (@southernsoulbbq) April 3, 2020
That segment of “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” aired in the fall of 2010, not long after Southern Soul moved back into a restored version of its original restaurant at the side of a roundabout just a mile off the beach. Business boomed.
“It’s amazing what happens when he comes,” Love said of Fieri. Not long after, Garden & Gun heaped praise and pretty soon it snowballed to Southern Living proclaiming Southern Soul “the best barbecue in the south.”
During the RSM Classic, if you’re looking to meet a professional golfer, just take a seat at one of Southern Soul’s picnic tables and wait. Jimmy Walker and Trey Mullinax were among the first pros to show up. Walker critiqued the brisket, and Mullinax wondered why they closed so early. Zach Johnson, Jonathan Byrd, Keith Mitchell, Hudson Swafford and Harris English – who says, “It’s hard to beat that weekday worker pulled pork sandwich and fries, but I need a nap afterwards,” – are among the local pros who eat there regularly.
“When they are younger they eat there a lot,” Sapp said. “When they get married, their wives don’t let them go there as much. They won’t say that, but that’s the truth.”
On Tuesday of tournament week, Sapp began cooking in the oak-fired Lang and Oyler pits at 1 a.m. to cater lunch on the driving range at Sea Island, which has become a tradition like no other.
Love, who likes to stop by for the Thursday pastrami special, inquired after the fire about expanding the business and ended up going in as a partner in Southern Soul. (In 2019, they opened a second restaurant, Frosty’s Griddle and Shake – you haven’t lived until you’ve tried the Davis Love III pimento cheeseburger – and currently have a building under contract in Brunswick, Georgia, for their first restaurant off island.)
“Yeah, I’m shocked how it has blown up,” said Love, who can be found pitching in to cook Boston butt, smoked for 12-14 hours over oak, at Southern Soul when they are short-handed. “I’m their least talented, highest-priced employee.”
Love moved to the island as a child in 1978, when his father, famed teaching pro Davis Love Jr., was given a blank slate to start an instructional school anywhere in the country he wanted. He chose Sea Island Resort, and Davis has called this place halfway between Savannah, Georgia and Jacksonville, Florida, home ever since. With his golf and business successes, Love, the winner of 21 PGA Tour titles, could have moved anywhere, but he and wife Robin, his high-school sweetheart, never considered leaving and built a home nestled among live oaks and palms on a secluded five-acre lot with prime marsh frontage. For a decade, Love hosted the RSM Classic’s pro-am draft party in a tent in his backyard, where participants feasted on the island’s best low-country cuisine, including barbecue from Southern Soul.
Sapp gets all choked up when he thinks of Love’s contributions to the community, some of which are well-documented through his Davis Love Foundation, which has raised more than $14 million in its first 12 years hosting the tournament to support charities focused on children and families in need. But there are other acts of kindness for which Love seeks no publicity. Take, for one, how Love cooked up all the food in their freezer and gave it away to locals when the island lost power during a hurricane a few years ago, and his efforts to support the restaurant business when COVID-19 hit and threatened many of his regular haunts.
“He would book parties with them and pre-pay for everything – jeez it is hard to talk about – to help them pay their rent,” Sapp said. “He wouldn’t say he was paying their rent, but that’s basically what he was doing. He booked two parties with us that he didn’t have for a year and a half. He was doing that all over the island. I mean, he’s legit. I’d kill somebody for him.”
Flames fully engulf the St. Simons Island home of Davis Love III in 2020. [Kyle Jurgens, Glynn County Fire and Rescue]On March 27, 2020, 10 years to the day that Southern Soul burned to the ground, Love’s home was destroyed in an early-morning two-alarm fire. Thankfully, no one was injured. Just as Love was the first resident on the scene to lend a helping hand when Southern Soul was engulfed in flames, Sapp and his wife returned the favor, cooking breakfast for the Love family and first responders.
“It was really sad that it happened to him,” Sapp said. “We all sat there and watched it burn.”
But just as Southern Soul came back better than ever, Love has proved he can conquer all. When he speaks of the fire, it doesn’t take long for him to shift the conversation to the outpouring of support his family received.
“I feel so blessed,” he said.
Family keepsakes were lost, but what Love learned to appreciate is that he truly is a beloved member of the community, an island institution every bit as much as the avenue of oaks dripping with moss that stand sentinel at Sea Island’s entranceway, or the bag piper playing at sunset. For Love, this whole island will always be home.
