I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore

I have discovered that the best place for BBQ is in Kansas hands down; well that’s at least until June while my brother John and his friend Manjo are still in Command and General Staff College at Ft Leavenworth. There’s a chance that their next assignment might be back at Ft Bragg in NC and then we might have to do some more BBQ research, but NC does make some mighty tasty pig sandwiches. I’ve been telling people that I think Koreans are the southerners of the Asian world because their cooking style is all about the BBQ (dewegi bulgogi) and pickled dishes (kimchi) and Eun Young is a mean cook.

Last night we had a big family style BBQ over at Manjo’s house off base, and I wasn’t sure why he decided to live off base (since Leavenworth is so nice), until I saw his BBQ equipment and I had my most resent feeling of envy and I just don’t get that all that often. This dude has the most excellent outdoor man kitchen I’ve ever seen. His smoker is two 55 gallon oil barrels welded together and painted black with the appropriate doors in the right location and it seems like it was built to survive tornado season out here. Then we have his grill that he made out of an old oil drum that you would use to store heating oil for a house and then his out door sink was made from a steamer that you would use in a buffet restaurant to keep things warm. All of this he made with his Uncle that taught him how to weld and machine these kinds of things, and it really made me want to even more seriously pursue taking a welding class or two.

Manjo is also from the other side of the globe and is an American Pacific Islander from Guam, which I think also, gives him a lot of street credit already in the world of BBQ. At least in my mind of stereotypes and ignorance, I see people that live on islands as being the original BBQ pit masters since they must have been one of the early cultures that learned to master and control the fire pit. They also must be very social since they live in close proximity to one another on an island and there for friendly people {I take it if you’re not friendly you probably end up on the pit ;) }. When we got there he took me on the tour of the equipment, first up to see the tower and show me its ins and outs and that he can smoke 8 pork shoulders in there at the same time! He slices up his meat into long slices about 1”x1”x12” and hangs them over the rebar poles that he has strung horizontally, and so we grabbed a bit of meat for a snack and continued on the tour. It was some tasty meat and let me tell you if you didn’t already know that BBQ is at its best when it’s still hot and the juices flow easily. I then got to see the enormous grill that he had, which was probably which could probably hold about 115 gallons inside of it, and the custom made doors and hood he fashioned on it. He ended up throwing on a couple chickens that he chopped at the breast bone with this hunk of steel formed into a crude butchers knife that he had purchased during his tour in Korea that had a look to it that gave you the understanding that he meant business. Once the chicken was done he put it in a bath of soy sauce, vinegar, and lemon and that was awesome too. A couple of his tools that we didn’t get to use that day was this huge wooden box with a metal lid that could cook half a pig inside of it Dutch oven style by placing the charcoal briskets on top and then there was a small more portable grill that didn’t look like it got a whole lot of use.

For dinner in addition to the dwegi bulgogi that Eun Young brought with us we had the smoked pork from the tower, ribs that Manjo had smoked earlier and heated up for us (better than Arthur Bryant’s ribs), a couple different kinds of chopped chicken (I forgot to get the exact names of them), rice which I would compare to how all the BBQ places I went to served sliced white bread (where there are Asian people there is good rice), kimchi (pickled foods are a must at a BBQ), and plenty of beer to go around. It was a BBQ to remember and I’m looking forward to stopping on by on the way home for another warm meal!