Avett Brother Joe Kwon talks about cooking whole hogs, which he'll do for the second time next weekend

Joe Kwon gets schooled by Sam Jones
 on how to finish whole hog
barbecue at TerraVita.

Last month at Chapel Hill's TerraVita Food & Drink Festival, hundreds of people signed up to take scheduled classes with leading chefs and food advocates from across the South.

Joe Kwon was not among them. The charismatic cellist for The Avett Brothers instead took advantage of a break in touring to attend barbecue school at the elbow of his friend, legendary pitmaster Sam Jones ofSkylight Inn in Ayden and the new Sam Jones Barbecue, which opens Tuesday in Winterville. Jones smoked a huge hog for TerraVita's Hill Fire dinner at Carrboro's Town Commons, which paired him with Raleigh's Ashley Christensen for a showstopper combination of pork and collard greens over heirloom popcorn spoon bread. 

Kwon spent the day soaking up wood smoke and drinking beer with a cluster of friends, all gathered around Jones' smoker. He took notes in his tablet and, along with a handful of folks fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, stood in wide-eyed wonder to watch his friend chop and season massive quantities of moist, flavorful pork.

He will apply the lessons he learned next weekend when he cooks a pig for Wild Yonder's Friendship Feast & Campout. (For details on and tickets for the Nov. 21–22 event in Mebane, click here.) Kwon called from Wisconsin, between shows on the Avetts' tour, to talk about his lifelong love of barbecue and his deep respect for Jones' well-earned acclaim.

INDY: When you built your home in downtown Raleigh, it was important to you to have dedicated space for outdoor entertaining and your smoker, made by Alabama pitmaster Nick Pihakis.
JOE KWON: I've always admired people who had these. I've had this long relationship with North Carolina barbecue from an early age, because of where I grew up in Winston-Salem. I loved going out to eat barbecue because it was so different from the Korean barbecue we ate at home. And today, I love cooking barbecue for friends at my home.

How did you connect with Sam Jones?
In my mind, Sam Jones is the gold standard of barbecue. When I met him, I realized he's married to the sister of someone in my circle from my days with Big Pretty and the Red Rockets [Kwon's band before joining The Avett Brothers]. It was this very chance meeting, but I also know him through Ashley Christensen.

He's the friggin' godfather of barbecue, and we've become good friends. I told him, "I would love to sit with you one day and learn to do this." So that's what we did at TerraVita. We talked and drank beer and I took a lot of notes in my iPad. I've cooked pig before—well, piece— but never a whole hog. It's a very different experience.

Have you had a chance to practice before cooking for the Wild Yonder event?
I did. Five days later, Raleigh Architecture (which designed his house) hosted an event and asked me to cook a pig. It was a good opportunity for me to try out what I learned. I messed up some, but it was amazing. Now all I want to do is cook pig. It's so calming. There's a great camaraderie sitting around the fire.

How did you mess up?
It was a big pig, at least 160 pounds, maybe more like 180. It barely fit on my cooker. I had a flame up in the last 15 minutes and lost all the skin. It was tragic. I was cursing up a storm. The skin is the best part. It's the crunch in all that juicy meat. That's why I need redemption at Wild Yonder.

What was the biggest surprise about the process?
The thing I've learned is the hardest part is getting the sauce mixture just right. I thought you premixed the sauce, but Sam pours it on after he's done most of the chopping. I was blown away. I thought, "That's the part. That's the secret." 

While it was tough to guess ratios, Sam Jones made no secret of his sauce ingredients: apple cider vinegar, Texas Pete's, iodized table salt and pre-ground black pepper—standard items of the Southern pantry.

That's the beauty of how amazing his barbecue is. It's so simple but it's so multi-dimensional. The texture is so amazingly soft and juicy, but at that same time, you've got these crunchy bits of skin and the fat. It's really what sets it apart. 

Sam Jones' portable barbecue gear at TerraVita.

You'll also be preparing Korean-style grilled short ribs to share the flavors of your family's table. What do you think about the wide array of commercial Korean-style barbecue sauces? 
Oh, no, never. It's so easy to make yourself that there's just no excuse to not try it. [See recipe below.]  My mother made this all the time when we were growing up. It's something you can pull together on a weeknight in 30 minutes, but it's really much better if you give the meat more time to marinate. Give it a quick grill and dinner's ready.

Beef short ribs used to be really cheap. Now, everyone wants to eat short ribs so the price has gone up. It's important to get them cut across the bone so you get three or four pieces per rib. Very few places will sell that. I always go to S-Mart in Cary. They cut them nice and thin, which is how I like them.

Other than flavor profile, what's the biggest difference between Korean and North Carolina barbecue?
Korean barbecue is really fast. I still love it and make it all the time. But for me, that long process of cooking North Carolina barbecue is a more satisfying experience. It's about sitting there, putting the time in. That's a big part of the soul of it. 

Your mother will mark her 70th birthday on Saturday. What's for dinner?
Skylight Inn is catering barbecue for us, and we're getting some sides from Beasley's (Chicken + Honey). I'd love to cook it myself, but I'll get back into town at 2, and the party's at 5. I'll be lucky to get home, take a shower and change clothes, and get there in time to help set up.

Joe Kwon's Galbi: Korean-style BBQ Short Ribs
5 lbs. beef short ribs, cut across the bone into thin pieces
10 tbs. sugar
3/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 onion, grated
2 stalks green onion, diced
8 cloves of garlic, minced
3 tbs. toasted sesame oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Peel garlic and onion; mince the garlic and grate the onion. Transfer half of the garlic and onion to a small mixing bowl or cup, then add soy sauce, 5 tablespoons sugar, sesame oil, green onion. Mix well and set aside.

Arrange spare ribs in a large, deep dish and evenly distribute the remaining sugar, plus salt and pepper, on all the ribs. Then sprinkle on remaining onion and garlic; let the beef sit 15 minutes. Pour the marinade over the beef, coating each piece. Cover and place in refrigerator at least 30 minutes or several hours before grilling.


Remove ribs from marinade, shaking off excess liquid. Grill to a nice medium, about 4-5 minutes per side, and serve with short grain rice and kimchi. 

This post first appeared in Indy Week.

Little cookbooks, big results: Short Stack series has a Raleigh connection with Kaitlyn Goalen

Kaitlyn Goalen
(Indy Week photo by Jeremy M. Lange)

Increasingly, home cooks are forgoing expensive cookbooks in favor of finding recipes online or downloading interactive lessons to their e-readers. Why pay for milk, they reason, when they have free access to a highly productive cow?

Amid such frugal thinking, it may seem surprising that Short Stack—a collection of single-topic mini-cookbooks, handmade and stitched with peppermint-striped baker's string—would achieve success in the overstuffed culinary marketplace. These decidedly retro productions have charmed critics and attracted the participation of top cookbook writers and recipe developers.

Reviews have celebrated the creativity of New York City-based publisher Nick Fauchald, a former editor of Food & Wine, and the more than $92,000 the project quickly raised via Kickstarter. Interestingly, however, none of the ample praise has mentioned that Short Stack has roots in Raleigh.

Fauchald's co-founder and editor is Kaitlyn Goalen, who divides her time between Raleigh and Brooklyn. A former writer for Food & Wine and website Tasting Table, Goalen is the founder of Wild Yonder, a Raleigh-based foodcentric outdoor camp experience for adults. The 26-year-old has an even better reason for hanging around the capital city, however. She dates chef and restaurateur Ashley Christensen.

Goalen says she and Fauchald share a passion for vintage cookbooks, especially the giveaways that used to come with a bag of flour or the purchase of a new appliance in the 1940s and '50s. "Producing these small, beautiful, handmade books goes against everything in the industry," Goalen says. "But I think that's exactly why they click with people. You can look through one of these in 10 minutes and know what you want to make."

So far, Short Stack has published 10 titles, the most recent of which is Plums by Martha Holmberg. Previous topics include corn, honey, broccoli, sweet potatoes, grits, buttermilk, strawberries, tomatoes and eggs. Upcoming issues focus on apples and brown sugar.

While several volumes cover the same turf as the Savor the South series of single-topic cookbooks published by UNC Press, Short Stack is not Southern focused. And the slim collections include just 20 recipes each. "They are more like an author's love letter to a particular ingredient than a comprehensive cookbook," Goalen says.

Editions are sold online by subscription and for $14 each at select shops around the globe. Locally, they are sold at Parker and Otis in Durham.

Collection of Short Stack mini-cookbooks at Book Larder in Seattle

Short Stack already has a full roster of books scheduled for 2015 and is considering titles for 2016.

"We're trying to work on how to grow and keep the integrity of the project intact," Goalen says. "There have been times where we could have gone cheaper, or done things a little differently, but our success is validating."

With such a hectic work life, Goalen says she's glad to escape the city and enjoy a more relaxed pace in Raleigh.

"As someone who has only lived in giant cities before, I love it here," says the Los Angeles native. "People in New York seem burnt out, running on adrenaline and ambition. People I meet here are all incredibly engaged in something. They value the integrity of what they're doing and are passionate about collaborating.

"For me, having two communities feels really refreshing," she adds. "Some of our friends see us as having an essence of cool here in Raleigh. You know, cool people doing cool things at half the rent."

The mix of culturally savvy consumers and the natural beauty of North Carolina inspired Goalen to create Wild Yonder with friends Meredith Pittman and Heather Cook. The idea bubbled up while they were enjoying a few beers at the Wooden Nickel in Hillsborough.

"We thought about how great it would be to have a camp for grownups—with bourbon," she recalls with a laugh. "The next day we still were talking about it and decided to give it a shot."

Camps this season have featured games like Capture the Flask and a lesson in How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse. "Instead of nasty camp food", we had an amazing meal prepared in advance by Cheetie Kumar of Garland, Goalen says. Live music was provided by Phil Cook of Megafaun and upscale s'mores were made with handcrafted Videri chocolate. A planned sleepover experience last weekend was canceled because of low ticket sales (tickets were $200 and up), but Goalen is optimistic about scheduling several next year. "The ultimate goal is to set up a hotel that will be a full-time project," she says. A location has not been selected but likely will be in or near the Triangle. "It would be a place where we could have programs, but also be a beautiful retreat."

SWEET POTATO–COCONUT MILK SOUP
Excerpted from Sweet Potatoes by Scott Hocker. Reprinted with permission of Short Stack.

This bold soup is so simple to make, it's nearly absurd. The recipe is inspired by what we in the United States know at many Thai restaurants as tom kha. As David Thompson notes in his superb cookbook Thai Food, this soup is more like a distant member of the tom gati school, a collection of soups that feature boiled coconut cream. It's fiery, sweet, sour and rich, from both the coconut and the sweet potatoes. I purée the soup for a silkier texture, even though doing so is inauthentic. But then so is using sweet potatoes.

Serves 4

2 small Thai or other hot chiles, stemmed
1 large shallot (about 4 oz.), peeled and thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, peeled
3 cilantro roots, scraped with the edge of a knife to remove dirt (cilantro roots are available at some farmers markets and Asian markets; if you can't find any, substitute 1/3 cup coarsely chopped thick cilantro stems)
2 cups vegetable or chicken stock
One 14-oz. can unsweetened coconut milk
1 medium sweet potato (about 10 oz.), peeled and cut into 1/2- to 1-inch pieces
Kosher salt
1 tsp. tightly packed light brown sugar
1 Tbsp plus 1 tsp. fish sauce
3 to 4 Tbsp. fresh lime juice (from about 2 limes)
¼ cup roughly chopped cilantro leaves

In a mortar, pound the Thai chiles, shallot, garlic and cilantro roots or stems together with a pestle until bruised (alternatively, pulse 3 to 4 times in a food processor).

In a large saucepan, bring the stock and coconut milk to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Add the chile-garlic mixture, sweet potatoes and 3/4 tsp. of salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sweet potatoes are extremely soft, about 15 minutes.

Using a handheld immersion blender (or regular blender), purée the soup until it's smooth. Strain the soup through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing on the solids. Discard the solids and return the liquid to the saucepan. Bring to a simmer and add the brown sugar, fish sauce and lime juice. Adjust the seasonings, if needed; the flavor should be boldly sweet, salty and sour. Divide the soup among 4 bowls and garnish with cilantro leaves. Serve immediately.


This post first appeared in Indy Week.