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Quote by Liza Palmer

“The smell of oak and barbecue permeate the air around the small house. Delfina uses oak for her barbecue and Mom (and me) always used hickory. People said that you could tell where North Star was solely based on the competing smells that met in the air just above the town. That little weevil of an idea pops back up. Our plot of land. It's still there.”

Quote by Liza Palmer

Book:Nowhere But Home
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Nowhere But Home

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Liza Palmer

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“Barbecue, vegetable plate, baked beans, sweet tea, fried cherry pie, and an apple I'm almost catatonic as I hold the little slip of paper in my hand now. Harlan, Cody, and I didn't need Shawn to go into what "barbecue" meant. Classic Texas barbecue is a beef brisket, sausage, and ribs. A "vegetable plate" is traditionally a potato salad, raw white onions, and pickles. Not quite what most people would call a healthy vegetable plate, but this is how we do it in Texas.”

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Book:Nowhere But Home
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“She'd gotten the butcher to grind a mixture of filet mignon and chuck steak for the burgers, and had blended in mushrooms and blue cheese; she'd ordered hot dogs from Chicago, which came delivered in a cooler of dry ice. She'd made her own barbecue sauce, plus dozens of elaborate canapés, slivers of smoked salmon on cucumbers and a refined version of onion dip, where she spent an hour caramelizing onions.”

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“I eyed the spread, wondering where I should start. Skewers of pork barbecue, the slightest hint of char releasing a delicious, smoky aroma, beckoned me, as did the platter of grilled adobo chicken wings next to it. As I loaded up my plate with meat, my aunt reached over to put a tofu-and-mushroom skewer on my mountain of rice. "Can you tell me what you think of this, anak? I'm testing the recipes for our Founder's Day booth and this will be our main vegetarian offering. I used a similar marinade as our barbecue, but it's not quite right." Looking at the array of food on the table, I noticed it was all pica-pica, or finger food. Things that could easily be prepared at the booth and eaten while wandering the festival. The barbecue skewers were obviously the mains, but she also had fish balls (so much better than it sounded) and my favorite, kwek-kwek. The hard-boiled quail eggs were skewered, dipped in a bright orange batter colored with annatto seeds, and deep-fried. So simple and delicious, especially if you dipped it in my aunt's sweet and spicy vinegar sauces.”

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Book:Homicide and Halo-Halo
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“She passed out plates loaded with her signature melt-away brisket crusted with the smoky candy of the fire, links she’d crafted in partnership with a sustainable ranch up near Point Reyes, butter-dipped smoked portobellos, and impossibly tender ribs smothered in her artisanal sauces. Her best sides were on display---cornbread, moist as pudding, from her mother’s private recipe collection, beans and greens, peppery jicama slaw, and her signature hummingbird cake for dessert.”

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“But one person had stayed quiet ever since Alisha’s wedding, the person whose blessing she wanted most, and he was sitting across from her, leaning back in his chair like he wanted to put some distance between himself and the platter of tempeh barbecue sliders. “Vegetarian barbecue?” Pops made it sound like blasphemy. She grinned. Silence was damning, but pushback she could handle. “Yep. I want to make sure there’s something for everyone here. And expanding our options makes sense from a business standpoint. If we’re getting more out-of-town customers, we need to offer dishes to suit a variety of dietary needs and preferences.” She nudged the plate toward him. “C’mon, I bet you’ll love it.” He picked up a slider and took a bite, then went back for another with a murmur of appreciation. “That’s actually tasty,” he admitted. “But why’d you go and make new buns? We’ve already got rolls on the menu.” “Yeah, but these are gluten-free.” “Quit lying.” He twisted the roll around, scrutinizing it like he was trying to ascertain its chemical makeup, then took another bite and chewed, brow creased in thought. “Vegetarian options I guess I can get used to, even though we used to have a pig on the sign,” he said, and chuckled.”

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“The smoky smell of the first burgers hitting the grill lured the early arrivers to the backyard, and the barbecue kicked off. Mae left the front door unlocked and opened the back gate to let people come as they pleased. Slowly, the table filled with more food beyond Mae's contributions: Harriet's cornbread, Patty's tea cakes, a burger and hot dog station Jeremiah had set up, Phyllis's coleslaw, collard greens with pink flecks of ham from another of Althea's church friends, a watermelon and cucumber salad from Marlene and Joan, and more. In the ice-filled coolers Mae and Connor had set out, people were helping themselves to sodas, beers, water, and---once Richard arrived---homemade cider.”

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“A while ago, I went to a food festival in South London, where-- in a smoky, concrete atrium between two runs of railway arches-- about a dozen barbecue stalls were set up. You can find barbecue and grill cooking easily enough in Peckham. There is suya, South African braii, skewers of chicken kofte, all of which use direct heat in a way that Britain hasn't done properly since the suckling-pig era. The barbecue festival was different. Instead of barbecuing-- a verb, a way of cooking-- it felt like people were doing barbecue, in the same way that your uncle will do Sean Connery when he's taking impression requests. Of the dozen or so vendors, most were doing nonspecific, seemingly American-inspired barbecue: slow-cooked brisket piled into burgers, burnt ends, actually burnt ends, cheeseburger wings, beef sliders, ribs and ribs and ribs, Texas-inspired massaman curry. Even when the flavors were global, the foundations cleaved to certain barbecue methods, and the basic units of North American culinary vocab. 'Cherry smoked char siu glazed kurobuta pork belly taco.' 'House brined & cherry smoked short rib pastrami slider.' 'Hickory smoked brisket.' 'Crack pork'-- in a pork-crackling 'taco.”

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Book:All Consuming: Why We Eat the Way We Eat Now
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