Memphis cookbook author and pitmaster Troy Black shares tips and techniques with classes for newcomers and experienced backyard grillers.
Hey guys. Go ahead and move over, because the ladies are grilling tonight on South Main with author and award-winning pitmaster Troy Black.
The Thursday night class called “Grilling for Girls” teaches women how to prepare, grill, and serve a perfect steak.
“Typically, I think women left the grilling to the men,” Black says. “But these days, women are very interested in learning how to do it themselves.”
Yi Lynne Weber from Fox TV’s Master Chef and Food Network’s Cutthroat Kitchen also is preparing an appetizer for class members in Black’s beautiful loft kitchen where the class will be held.
Participants who can’t make tonight’s class can attend a repeat of the class next month or sign up for the few spaces remaining this weekend in the duo’s two-day cooking extravaganza titled “Real BBQ Know How.”
The barbecue class for both newcomers and experienced grillers kicks off Friday at 6 p.m. with instruction from Black and dinner prepared by Weber, the owner of Panama City’s first food truck called E. Street Café. Weber, who is renowned for her Asian-inspired street food, will serve Asian BBQ beef and spicy pork tacos on corn tortillas with cilantro relish and chili rojo salsa.
The barbecue class continues Saturday from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m., offering tips, demonstrations, and hands-on practice for meat selection, butchering techniques, cooking techniques, and rub and sauce recipes from Black’s extensive experience on the competitive barbecue circuit.
“Basically, the class will cover everything you need to know to create barbecue at home that will knock your socks off,” says Black, who holds more than 100 first-place ribbons and state titles from across the country.
A former garden design editor at Southern Living, Black’s fascination with barbecue followed an unexpected assignment to cover a barbecue cooking contest 17 years ago. He was instantly hooked, moving from almost a decade of competitive barbecue (“I traveled about 300 days a year,” he says) to directing the Sam’s Club National BBQ Tour. Black’s expertise eventually led him to hosting the World Food Championships in Las Vegas for three years and to two popular cookbooks: Big Book of BBQ, published in 2010 , and All Fired Up: Smokin’ Hot BBQ Secrets from the South’s Best Pitmasters, published in 2013.
Black’s moved from Nashville to Memphis about a year ago dovetailed with his current focus on teaching, writing (look for two new books next year) and loving America’s only unique cuisine.
“People always ask me, what’s your favorite sauce?” Black says. “I have lots of favorite sauces, because they are so unique from one another. I grew up in north Alabama, and the barbecue there resembles the barbecue in eastern Carolina. But the sauce in Birmingham? Well, it tastes completely different.”
