Blazin' Barlow's BBQ

First load of wood for this season has arrived. I will be splitting and stacking a few evenings this week in preparation for the arrival of more wood.

Now you ask why do I not purchase the firewood already spit? Fair question, but to be honest it comes split just not split to the correct dimensions. Oh sure I could burn large chunks, however for a more cleaning burning, hotter fire I prefer to have each log round split into 4 parts as opposed to just 2.

Also, while I do believe wood burning is more environmentally friendly then burning gas, electricity, etc. I also prefer to run as efficient as possible in order to only use what wood we must.

I am reminded of an old proverb I once read;

“Though you live near a forest, do not waste firewood”
- Chinese Proverb

While I am not running the BBQ's tonight, I am running the wood stove - I am convinced that there is no other source of heat so warm and all encompassing as a wood fire.

I am off to do up a few quotes before I call it a night.

Yours in BBQ quoting bliss!

Blazin' Barlow

Will folks, with the wedding season fast approaching we are as busy as ever taking quote requests, adjusting quotes, and resending quotes. I am finding that so much of the business is actual time spent not only providing quotes but in educating potential customers as to what their guests may want.

Let me provide an example;

Joe emails me asking for a quote on a pig roast for his wife's 50 birthday. Now he is expecting 100 people - fantastic.

Here's the issue - from my experience if you have 100 people and you have a pig roast, approx. 20 people will not eat it once they see it, 10 people are vegetarians, and the kids either love it or run away scared.

So, I explain my experience to Joe, who sees my points but still wants to book a pig roast. I go ahead and quote the event with pig and sides and Joe comes back to me saying it looks good, but he does need to confirm with his wife, as it is her birthday party afetr all.

A week goes by and I have another party interested in the date that Joe wanted - still no word from Joe, I call him back and ask him for a status update as I have the other party on hold while I wait for his decision. Joe informs me that his wife is thinking a pig might not be the best idea and they are thinking of ordering Chinese - Chinese for 100 people!@#@! - Joe better bring out the Amex Platinum Card! I mention to Joe that we offer all sorts of other menu items, but by this point his wife is convinced she wants Chinese, as I am just a guy that cooks pigs.

I thank Joe for his time and go about booking the other event.

So, all in all I lost approx. an hour on that deal - not terrible but it was an hour I could have been stacking wood, cleaning the BBQ, playing with my son, etc.

Now, I think I have seen the error of my ways and need to post another blog entry on what I can tell a potential customer in advance to make things easier on them. It is in the works - but will anyone read it?

Now, you may be wondering what all the rant has to do with Vegetarians, not a whole lot really, but I came across a quote by a favorite writer of mine, Anthony Bourdain and figured I would share it. Anthony by the way is a genius!


"Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter-faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn.

To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living.

Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It's healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I've worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold.

Oh, I'll accommodate them, I'll rummage around for something to feed them, for a 'vegetarian plate', if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine."

That get you laughing?
Yours in BBQ!
Blazin' Barlow

In fact, the groundhog has predicted another six weeks of cold and possibility snowy weather. While I am a lover of everything winter, I do look forward to being able to BBQ in the warm sunshine again.

However with the groundhog working against me I have decided that this would be a fine time to get the website back in order and part of that process is to migrate the blog from our own site to "Blogger" which I believe to be a much more robust platform with better templates, archiving, indexing, and of course searching. This will be out first post to the Blogger platform however we plan on weekly posts from here on out - I know I have said that before, but I am more committed to the cause this time around and will stick too it.

On the website site we plan on doing the following;

1) Add additional pictures
2) Updated Menu

You should see these changes occur over the next few weeks.

Thanks for checking in and best regards,

Yours in BBQ!
Blazin' Barlow