Turner Ham House

After the success of the country ham biscuits a few weeks ago, I decided to bring another batch for the last tailgate of the year for us. On my way back from Roanoke on Thursday, I took a detour to visit Turner Ham House, which I discovered on Roadfood.

The retail portion of Turner Ham House is really just a convenience store located in Fulks Run, VA, which is located about 15 miles west of I-81 near New Market, VA. The store is just about 10 miles from the West Virginia border and is nestled right in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley.

I purchased 3 lbs. of country ham there for the same price as 2 lbs. of country ham at Balducci's. The Turner ham was sliced thin, but not shaved like what I bought at Balducci's. Nevertheless, the ham was excellent for biscuits and was just as big a hit. Joe assisted in the biscuit assembly process on Friday and we only wound up using half of what I bought. Looks like Julia and I get to power through another 1.5 lbs. of country ham in the near future, which I am quite happy about. I also purchased some Turner Ham House Vidalia Onion Peach Hot Sauce and Bill 'n Vern's Red Hot Rooster Sauce, but have not tried either of them yet.

As you might be able to see from the picture above, there is also a DVD of the 1985 flood available for purchase. I did not purchase one but I imagine it must be quite compelling if it's still on sale some 23 years later. I do remember the flood they are talking about though as Roanoke was flooded as well by the remnants of Hurricane Juan.

As for dining the rest of the weekend, there wasn't too much special. I had a great Peppermint Chocolate Chip Milkshake (a seasonal item) at Chick-fil-A on Friday, the chopped barbecue plate at Little Richard's on Saturday, and some boneless wings from Macado's on Sunday.

Tales from the 'Noke

I got there on Monday and during the drive down, I took some videos to demonstrate a particular theory I have developed over the past couple of years visiting Roanoke. The theory is pretty simple. The classic rock station here, 96.3 WROV: The Rock Of Virginia, plays more George Thorogood than any other station in the country. As evidence, I present you with the following video, which was taken within the first 30 seconds of me tuning into WROV on Monday. It's hard to hear the song in the background but it is the slide guitar solo from 'Move It On Over', the title track from George Thorogood's second album, released in 1978. As you can clearly see in the video, I am 23 miles from Roanoke and it's already on.

Shortly after hearing this, I also heard the following two songs, here for your viewing pleasure as well.


As for my father's surgery, it went well. It took him a substantial amount of time to wake up after the anesthesia. I guess he had awaken actually, but he couldn't stay awake for more than a few minutes. During this three hours or so, my Mom and I sat in the room trying to entertain ourselves while watching him sleep. I came up with the great idea to make a series of YouTube videos called, "Weekend at Wally's". These videos would be taken at various places around Roanoke with him posed doing various things, such as eating a hot dog at The Roanoke Weiner Stand, enjoying a Cheesy Western at The Texas Tavern, or taking in the view from the Mill Mountain Star. Alas the staff refused to release him before he woke up so this plan did not come to fruition.

My father ate Julia's Chicken Noodle Soup for at least 4 consecutive meals before I left, which means it must have been good. I prepared dinner Tuesday night, but it was just Stroganoff again so no pictures. However, here is a video of Ernie, a.k.a. The Ernie-Man, playing with his favorite toy. He continues his single-handed destruction of anything in my parents' basement after managing to break his ceramic water bowl in half this morning. It was a large and substantial bowl that managed to last through most of the lifetime of my brother's dog, Champ, who was a black lab and a great deal larger than Ernie.

Before leaving yesterday I stopped by The Roanoke Weiner Stand with my Mom and had two "without". The quality of the picture is not great since it was taken on my cell phone, but it's good enough. I believe the hot dog pictured is actually "all the way", which is the one my Mom had. I also helped my grandmother do a few things and noticed the following note pad sitting by her computer, which clearly evidences that she is reading this blog. Keep the comments clean!


We're off to Wake for the last time this season along with Joe from Joe Cooks Dinner and Stuff so see you next week.

Pizza and Chicken Noodle Soup

Julia finally got out of work today and we decided to make a pizza. We purchased pre-made whole wheat crust, canned pizza sauce, turkey pepperoni, ground Italian Sausage, mushrooms, mozzarella, and some goat cheese. You can clearly see the his and hers sides of the pizza below.













After we had the pizza, Julia decided to make some Chicken Noodle Soup for me to take to my parents tomorrow. She followed Rachael Ray's recipe here. I haven't had any yet but Julia just said it tastes pretty good.
I am headed to my parents' house for a few days as my father is undergoing some minor surgery on Tuesday. I will likely be absent for a week or so as I come back on Thursday and then head down to Winston on Friday for the BC game. If we are lucky though, The Newtstress may enchant us with some of what she prepares up in my absence. Check back to see.

Fiesta Chicken w/Cilantro Lime Rice

As you can see, I purchased a new frame and managed to get it up on the wall without breaking it (yet). I'm not so certain it won't come crashing down upon the guitars in the middle of the night scaring the you know what out of us and leaving lots of damage in its wake. I'll keep you posted on that.

Since we saw Robert Earl Keen this week, I decided that I would prepare what I am hereby proclaiming to be 'Fiesta Chicken' for dinner on Thursday. This meal is a Tex-Mex meets Southwest meets my slow cooker sort of thing. Before I get into the actual recipe, let me first state my preference for the term "slow cooker" over "crock-pot". Crock-pot is actually a brand name, but it reminds me of the phrase "crock of s---". You can fill in the blanks. Have fun with it!! Feel free to comment on what four letter 's' word your crock would be full of, but keep it clean it as my grandmother may read this. Slow cooker sounds like you've got a plan and like you are just going to sit back and relax, possibly with a tasty beverage of some sort, while your food stews in its own goodness all day. While a slow cooker is usually "full of it", it being what I have chosen to throw in and some might say I too am "full of it", I would rather be a nice, laid-back slow cooker. So there you have it. I used my slow cooker last night.

In order to make cleaning up your slow cooker a little bit easier, I recommend using a slow cooker liner. It's essentially a big baggie that fits inside the pot and when you are done cooking and eating, you just throw it away. There is usually some liquid that has gotten out of it somehow, but nothing like what it would look like had the liner not been there.

The ingredients for Fiesta Chicken are:
- 6 chicken breasts (about 2.5 lbs)
- 2 cans of Campbell's Cheddar Cheese Soup
- 1 can of Ro*Tel Original
- 1 can (8.75 oz.) of Whole Kernel Corn, drained
- 1 jar (4.5 oz.) of Roasted Red Pepper Tapenade
- 1 can (4 oz.) of Diced Green Chiles (mild)
- 1 medium yellow onion, sliced
- Juice of 1 lime

The corn is not a necessity but it doesn't do any harm either. I also am aware that the tapenade defies the fiesta theme, but it is at least roasted red pepper. I would prefer to use Campbell's Southwest-Style Pepper Jack Soup, but I can never find it and the cheddar does just fine. There is apparently a Campbell's Fiesta Nacho Cheese Soup, but I cannot find that either nor have I tried it. I'm sure it would work as well.

I suppose there does not really need to be a method to putting everything in the slow cooker, but for me there is. I start with one of the cans of soup at the bottom of the slow cooker followed by three of the chicken breasts. I make sure to press the breasts into the soup so that some of it covers the top as well. Then I put in half of the canned/jarred ingredients and half of the onion, followed by the other three chicken breasts and the remainder of the canned/jarred ingredients. I have no idea whether this layering technique makes any difference, but I'd like to think that it does since the chicken on the bottom gets the same amount of stuff. When everything is in, then I add the lime juice and cover it. I cooked it on low for 8 hours yesterday, which makes for super tender chicken that shreds very nicely. I have also cooked it for 6 hours on high before and I recall that the breasts held together a little better with the shorter cooking time. So it's just a question of whether you want to shred the chicken or not. The shredded of course works better for tacos and burritos. The picture to the right is what it looks like when done cooking.

I came across the recipe for Cilantro Lime Rice after deciding to take a stab at making rice similar to Chipotle's. I know at least a couple of my readers are avowed Chipotle fans so this may be of particular interest to you. It's very simple and super tasty. The ingredients are:
- 1.5 cups of cooked rice
- 1 lime
- Zest of 1/2 a lime
- 1/4 cup of fresh cilantro, chopped
- Salt and pepper to taste

I prepare the rice as normal except I add the juice from one lime a little before the water comes to a boil so that it gets cooked into the rice. Once the rice is cooked, I mix in the lime zest, cilantro, salt and pepper. That all there is to it.

I decided to go for a burrito bowl and put the chicken and rice in a bowl along with some green tomatillo salsa and some shredded Mexican cheese blend. I highly recommend this meal.

Robert Earl Keen

So I mentioned that we were going to see Robert Earl Keen at the 9:30 Club last night. The show was great. This was the fourth time I have seen him this year and this was probably the second best show behind the one in Bryan, TX (College Station really) with Joe. Of course multiple $6 pitchers of Shiner Bock could have influenced my opinion of the Bryan show, but I remember it being fun and rowdy, especially since it was a few hours after the Texas A&M spring game.

Last night we got to hear some of the new stuff that he has been playing and I am looking forward to finding out when a new album is coming. He is playing at least 5 or 6 new songs pretty regularly so a new album must be taking shape. This knowledge though brings me to a realization that I know Joe can sympathize with, the realization that I have possibly entered into "fanboy" territory.

If you have been to visit us recently you know that our guest bedroom serves as the guitar room/Wake Forest room. I have a 5 guitar stand set up with a few more in cases in the room. Last Christmas my Mom gave me a framed poster from a music festival in Winston-Salem called "Music Downtown". The poster is very cool and is hanging above all of the guitar stuff, along with a small 4 x 6 picture of me playing with my band in high school. There is an empty space above the guitar rack between these two items and when I saw the poster for the Downtown Hoedown in Lufkin, TX, which Joe and I also attended in April, I knew it would fit in perfectly with the existing musical decor. However, I forgot about this plan and never got around to putting it in a frame.

While going through luggage recently, I discovered my ticket stub from the Lufkin show, which set my plan into motion. After every show, Robert Earl Keen signs autographs. I have never partaken in this ritual before....until last night that is. The guys in the band actually set up and break down their own gear so I talked with Rich Brotherton, who plays lead guitar, after the Bryan show. Joe tried to take a picture of this but the video card was full and we were too intoxicated to realize it.

Unbeknownst to Julia and Sally, I had two objectives heading into the show last night, which were 1) get Robert Earl Keen and Rich Brotherton to sign the Lufkin ticket stub and 2) find out how old Rich's Epiphone Riviera is.

After the last song, we lingered a bit so I could get the ticket signed. There was a line to meet Robert Earl Keen but Rich was breaking down his stuff on stage and signing stuff for people from there, so I decided to head his way first. When I walked up, there were two highly intoxicated girls talking to him, one of whom was telling him that she was about to divorce her husband and that this show was exactly what she needed. He took it all in stride and tried to carry on some semblance of a normal conversation with them, which was pretty amusing. Eventually I handed him the ticket stub and asked how old the Riviera is. He signed the ticket and said it is actually a 1996 reissue. Objective #2 had been fulfilled and half of #1 as well.

We then made our way through the now shorter line to have Robert Earl Keen sign stuff. Julia waited beside the line but Sally went through it with me. Sally tried to claim that my "man crush" is on Robert Earl Keen, but I corrected her as I think it's actually on Rich Brotherton, as he is the superior musician technically. He's no Josh Howard though Joe..... Anyway, Robert Earl Keen signed the ticket and we made our way out. The ticket stub has now been framed along with the poster. Please note that I managed to break the glass while putting it all together so I will have to get another super cheap frame for it tomorrow, at which point I will hopefully have a picture of it on the wall for my loyal readers.

Just to complete the fanboy extravaganza in one post, I went through recently to figure out how many times I have seen them, as Julia and I discussed it at some point but weren't able to nail down a number. To the best of my knowledge and research, the list is as follows:
10/10/00 - Ziggy's, Winston-Salem, NC (Alan went to this one with me)
06/03/01 - Ziggy's, Winston-Salem, NC
05/03/03 - House of Blues, Chicago, IL
09/02/04 - The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA
08/13/05 - Recher Theater, Towson, MD
04/13/06 - The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA
11/14/06 - The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA
11/14/07 - The Birchmere, Alexandria, VA
04/18/08 - Pitser Garrison Civic Center, Lufkin, TX
04/19/08 - Texas Hall of Fame, Bryan, TX
04/20/08 - Toyota Texas Bass Classic, Quitman, TX
11/12/08 - 9:30 Club, Washington, DC

For dinner tonight, I've got something special cooking, which I will detail tomorrow. Thanks for reading this whole thing if you made it this far.

Stroganoff

My proclivity for authentic Russian delicacies has already been documented here, so I figured it was time to return to another family favorite, stroganoff.

When I was growing up we used to have it served over rice (of course), but once I started preparing it for myself I discovered that noodles are actually the more popular choice to accompany it. To that end I present you with turkey stroganoff over egg noodles.

This recipe is super simple and not exact at all. I usually use ground beef but have used ground turkey the last few times. Since I am using turkey, I throw in a few cloves of chopped garlic, half of a medium yellow onion (chopped), and usually some frozen peppers, which I did not have tonight. I throw these ingredients in a sauce pan over medium heat along with some olive oil. After about 30 seconds, I add a package of ground turkey (1.3 lbs) and brown the meat, which should take somewhere between 5-10 minutes.

Once the meat has been browned and the fat has been drained, I add one can of Cream of Mushroom soup, one 8 oz. container of sour cream, a splash of Worcestershire Sauce, a couple pinches of mustard powder, and salt and pepper to taste. I also add a little bit of water to give it the consistency I am looking for. I don't have a measure for that so just eyeball it. This concoction is then heated thoroughly and served over egg noodles.

It may not be much to look at, but it is a solid little meal with very little preparation required.

Update from the weekend

Before heading out of town on Friday, I snapped the first picture on the left, which is the front of our building. The second picture is the same scene from back in the spring. I am showing these because the color in the tree in the back was done in the middle of last week and it's pretty much bare now.

We loaded up on Friday night and picked up our friends Jen and James and headed down to Winston for the game. We stopped for dinner at Sonic in Fredericksburg, where I ordered a Bacon Cheeseburger Toaster Sandwich and tots. The sandwich was just OK. I had higher hopes for it as I usually enjoy the Texas Toast there. Oh well. Somewhere between Petersburg and South Hill I also mashed a bag of M&M's.

On Saturday, we got out to the tailgate around 9AM and began to enjoy the ham biscuits I put together on Friday afternoon. I purchased 2 lbs of the thinly sliced Virginia country ham from Balducci's and put it on some Martin's Famous Party Potato Rolls. I didn't think to take a picture of all the biscuits as I was putting them together, but it was quite the undertaking. Julia did manage to snap the picture to the left of what they looked like before they disappeared at the tailgate....both trays of them. People really seemed to enjoy them so perhaps we have found our food niche for Almost Gold. I ate some pigs in a blanket and some homemade chicken nuggets at the tailgate, but basically just stuck to the ham biscuits I guess.

After the game, we went out to Ted's Kickin' Chicken and then stopped by Cook Out for a milkshake. I had the caramel cheesecake shake for the first time and was very pleased with it.

On Sunday, we headed down to Lexington and hit John Wayne's Barbecue, where Sally had taken us before. I had the chopped bbq plate with mac & cheese and deviled eggs (both of which were classified as "veggies") and some hush puppies. I drank sweet tea of course. It was all super delicious.

We made our way back to DC, but not before stopping at Jersey Mike's in Ashland to grab a dinner, and in my case, also lunch for today. I selected the giant Original Italian and happily enjoyed it.

That wraps up the weekend recap. I am not preparing anything for dinner tonight and we headed to the Robert Earl Keen show at the 9:30 Club (technically named Nightclub 9:30) on Wednesday night so it may be a light week here. Be sure to check back just the same.

Buffalo Chicken Strips

I heard whispers that Mandy did not like my steak from earlier this week. For this reason, coupled with the fact that I was not feeling very inspired again, I decided to go with Buffalo Chicken Strips last night.
It's pretty difficult so here it goes. I used two packages of pre-cut chicken tenderloins that totaled probably about 1.75 lbs. I put these in a Ziploc bag and dumped a bottle of Whole Ranch Hot Wing Sauce from Whole Foods on top. I actually let this sit for probably close to two days since we decided to go out to eat the night before. I then threw it all in a baking dish and baked them at 375° for 30 minutes. Done.

The sauce is actually really good and I'm sure Mandy would approve. That's all for now. See you next week.

Los Tios

Julia and I went to Los Tios Grill in Del Ray tonight for dinner. Joe and Mandy have been there with us and it is hands down our favorite "Mexican" place up here.

When we walked in, we were greeted by a gentleman playing Spanish guitar, which is a new thing for Los Tios. It was a little out of place since he was just standing somewhere near the bar talking to people, but it could be a nice addition.

For the meal, I sat facing a partition, but Julia got a great view of a highly intoxicated couple who were enjoying multiple margaritas. They were seated just below the painting of the flamenco dancer above. On a related note, I actually really like the painting to the left in the first picture as the colors are super vivid. Anyway, I guess the couple started out just looking at each of seductively, but then she stood over him and did some sort of dance thing while he had his hands on her hips. She then proceeded to sit in his lap for probably the last 20 minutes of the meal. This was a completely bizarre scene in a respectable restaurant setting and I think the wait staff was a bit baffled.

Julia had a frozen mango margarita, which she reported was good. I wasn't feeling up to drinking and stuck with water. One of us needed to drive home anyway. Julia got the shrimp quesadilla and I went with.....wait for it.....the chicken quesadilla with a side of white rice. The white rice at Los Tios is probably the best I have ever had and is always a must for me. It's seriously just rice but is completely tasty.

Given my qualifier of either preparing and/or eating chicken and rice, this counts towards the counter, which has now reached 3.

Red Meat From The Formerly Red State

First of all, I'm not an artist so I'm not too good with the colors and stuff. Does that look blue to you?

OK, moving on. Since I am "All-American" as evidenced by the fact that I voted today, I decided to go with a classic "meat and potatoes" theme tonight. You can also call this a "meat and two", which would be equally as "All-American".

I purchased a 1.5 lb sirloin yesterday at Whole Foods Market. I wasn't quite sure how I wanted to prepare this steak since we don't have a grill, but then it hit me. I am going to pan sear this thing and then bake it in the oven. Here are the ingredients that I decided to use to make this super delicious.

- Ground Black Pepper
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 Medium Yellow Onion
- 3 Garlic Cloves, pressed
- 1/4 lb Virginia Country Ham, sliced very thin
- Sliced Mushrooms

I let the steak sit out for 30 minutes until it reached room temperate and pressed some ground black pepper into both sides of the steak and brushed both sides with olive oil. I then preheated a baking dish to 450°. If we had a broiler pan, I probably would have gone that route instead of baking. Once the oven was preheated, I seared both sides of the steak over medium-high heat for 2 minutes each. While the steak was searing I removed the preheated baking dish from the oven and lined the bottom of it with enough of the country ham to cover the length of the steak. I then placed some sliced onion on top of the ham before setting the seared steak on top of it. I then covered the top of the steak with the pressed garlic cloves, then covered the top of the steak with more of the country ham. Finally I placed some mushrooms on top of the ham and baked it all in the oven at 450° for 17 minutes without flipping.

The idea behind using Virginia country ham was for its overwhelming saltiness, which I hoped would bake evenly into the steak. I choose ham over bacon because I didn't want the fat from the bacon, just the saltiness. Since the ham was sliced so thin, there wouldn't be much fat coming out of it. I suppose you can also use pancetta, but that doesn't make the steak as "Virginia" as using Virginia country ham. It should be noted though that it is next to impossible to find any country ham actually behind the deli counter. They have some pre-packaged country ham steaks at most grocery stores, but in order to get some sliced thin, I wound up going to Balducci's after first trying two separate Harris Teeter locations where I have found it in the past.

For the potato portion of the meal, I prepared some garlic mashed potatoes. I used 6 golden potatoes and ran them through a food mill to mash them as I generally like my potatoes without chunks, almost whipped I suppose. I added 4 cloves of pressed garlic, some margarine, and milk until the potatoes looked smooth enough for me. Finally I added salt and pepper to taste.

Last but not least, I went with a green bean portion of the meal. For this portion, I pulled apart some slices of the country ham and added it in a pot with a can of drained cut green beans along with some chopped onion, margarine, salt to taste, and a pinch of sugar. This was cooked over low heat for probably close to 30 minutes.

Everything turned out pretty great. The only thing I would change is to add a little bit of salt to the steak before searing it. The ham, garlic, and onion gave the steak a great flavor though so I wouldn't change anything I did there. The mashed potatoes were better than I remember them being anytime recently that I have made them and the green beans were excellent with the ham and onions and broke down quite nicely.

The Newtster Heads To The Polls

Julia and I went to vote this morning. Her alarm started going off at 6, which is when the polls opened. After snoozing a few times, we got up and out of the house at 6:33. We walked to the fire station where we vote and got in line at 6:52. The line was probably 4 times longer than any of the other three times we have voted there in the past.

During the wait, we were a captive audience for an overzealous Obama worker who took her responsibility to hold a homemade sign very seriously and felt the need to continue talking to the line to tell us how long it was taking, where we could get free stuff with our "I Voted" sticker, and generally just being annoying.

A couple more observations from the wait.
- The fire station is located just a street away from one of the last bastions of Section 8 housing in Old Town and the line wrapped around to that street. It was pretty obvious that the Mini Coopers and Priuses parked along the street were likely people voting and not residents.
- At 7:30 a minivan rolled down the street blaring 'Father Figure' by George Michael. It's hard to imagine who that person might be, but I have a feeling I might not like them. Or would I? It's hard to tell.
- At 7:45, an SUV full of girls rolled by yelling, "Yea!!!! Right to vote!!!" That was pretty entertaining.
- There was also a woman in front us of wearing a red and black jacket with "Badd Girls" emblazoned across the back. She had two young sons with her and would occasionally step out of line to talk on the phone and/or smoke a cigarette, at which point the kids would start acting up and she would yell, "Michael!!! Jordan!!!!", which could be their names or maybe just her favorite former NBA player and they were expected to stop acting up and show him some proper respect. Either way they would straighten up. She did have to flick one of them in the ear once inside the fire station to get him to stop playing with his gum and used that as a warning for the other kid, who was told he would be next.

We got into the fire station at around 8:15 and went through the line to verify our identities. I then went to the next line to get my PIN number for the voting machine, which was printed at 8:33:50. I stepped out of the door at 8:35, completely satisfied that my vote would be effectively canceled out immediately by 75-80% of the people I had just seen in line.

I also wore my Androewood t-shirt to vote, though it was under a hooded sweatshirt. I guess people will not be able to judge for themselves.

Lemon Pepper Chicken and Rice

That's the tree this morning. It seems to be at peak if not a bit past it already. Pretty much everything near our house is at peak, which is nice.

The Newtster was not feeling particularly inspired to cook tonight and therefore will keep this post appropriately succinct. I purchased the makings for three separate meals today (you will see the other two later in the week probably) and gave Julia "ladies' choice" on what we have. She went with Lemon Pepper Chicken and Rice tonight.

All I did for this one was marinate a package of chicken breasts for a few hours in a mixture of soy sauce and fresh lemon juice (1/2 a lemon). I threw this in a baking dish with a little more soy sauce and the juice from the other half of the lemon. Here's where it gets CRAZY. I sprinkled McCormick Lemon & Pepper Seasoning Salt on top of the breasts before baking them for 35 minutes at 375°.

Julia asked me to get some more frozen broccoli for her and I also picked up some frozen sweet corn. I threw the corn in with the rice once it was done cooking and Julia also added some broccoli to hers.

It was exactly what we both wanted in a dinner and seemed to be a bit tastier than when I prepared this in the past. If you are short on ideas for dinner, just marinate some meat in soy sauce and throw some seasoning on it. It's good.

(Note: I couldn't get the flash to work on the picture of the food on the plate and just gave up because I wanted to eat it. As a result, everything looks very dull, which it pretty much is since it's only chicken and rice after all.)

Buz and Ned's Real Barbecue

On our way back from the game on Sunday, we made a stop in Richmond with Sarah Helms to eat at Buz and Ned's Real Barbecue. Sarah had always wanted to try this place but had never come up with a good enough excuse to go. That's where The Newtster comes in.

Buz and Ned's is apparently a bit of a Richmond tradition these days. Since I have not lived in Richmond since 1992 though, I was not familiar with the place. I learned though that it was my uncle Chip's favorite barbecue joint in Richmond, though he said the only one he knew about was in a shack in the parking lot in front of a gun store on Route 1 in Ashland, north of Richmond. This location may still be there, but we went to one downtown near the old Richmond Diamond.

Buz and Ned's was apparently featured on Throwdown! with Bobby Flay in an episode featuring BBQ Spare Ribs. Buz evidently won as the staff was wearing t-shirts reading "The Flay Slayer".

While the ribs looked good, we were told to go with the pulled pork sandwich. Sarah and I both got the pork sandwich while Julia went with the pulled chicken sandwich. We all enjoyed our sandwiches, which had a nice smoky and sweet flavor due to the sauce. We all wished there had been some of the sauce on the table to add to the sandwiches, but maybe it was elsewhere in the restaurant. I really have no complaints about the sandwich though as it was the best I have had in quite a while.

We also had an array of side items, including macaroni and cheese (can't be seen in the pictures), cinnamon bourbon apples, hush puppies, and sweet potato fries. I thought the fries were the best of the bunch as they were both sweet and salty. The macaroni and cheese was good as far as texture and appearance, but could have used a bit more salt and pepper, which were on the table. The sweet tea was also quite good.

All in all, I would certainly go back to Buz and Ned's but it is probably not in the top 5 barbecue joints I have been to.