The Arizona Pork Council has always been a great support of our events. This small but passionate group of people do whatever they can to make sure that meat eaters remember that the pig is the best animal ever invented.

What does a chicken give you? Chicken and, well, chicken. Boring. No doubt cow gives pig a run for its money in terms of number of cuts, plus cows give us milk and that’s definitely an edge. But would you rather drink milk (not an option for the lactose intolerant) or eat bacon for the rest of your life?

Enough said. Bacon is the pigs eternal trump card. Pigs rule. Which is why, when you walk into the Arizona Barbecue Festival this weekend you will immediately smell and see tons of St-Louis-style ribs slowly smoked by Slade Bros. and their competition team, Major Woody’s, along with some reps from the Arizona Pork Council. Using exclusively Farmer John ribs, the Arizona Pork Council supports farmers both big and small, making sure that their products are marketed properly. What better place than a BBQ Festival?

So no matter which of the three gates you use to get into the fest, you’ll run into a virtual pig farm of smoked ribs and pork butt. Learn a little about Farmer John and try to pry the secret rub recipe from Slade Bros. BBQ. Swap bacon stories and talk about how stupid milk is. Grab some Pork Council recipes for everything from pulled pork to pork chops, do up a pork loin or experiment with a pork shank. Find a good place for ham. Or make pork belly for the first time. It’s a pork paradise over at that booth.

Just don’t forget to always remember pig. Although beef might be “what’s for dinner,” pork is “what’s forever.”

Tom’s got his thumb on some good BBQ.

What in the heck do we mean by that? Unlikely entry into the Arizona Barbecue Festival this weekend – that’s what we mean. Tom’s Thumb Fresh Market is going to throw down with some of the country’s best BBQ’ers and try to win $40,000 at the Arizona Barbecue Festival.

Not like the place needs the winnings … We hear Tom’s Thumb, a stylish new gas station on the corner of 94th Street and Bell Road in North Scottsdale is killing it with their multipurpose concept. Tom’s Thumb is more than just a place to fill your tank. It’s a corner store, car wash, coffeebar, groovy and stylish neighborhood hangout, and so much more.

At Tom’s, attendants in 50s-style white uniforms, well, attend to your needs, while chef Tudie Frank-Johnson makes sure you’re fed for breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the Campfire Bisto inside. Her menu includes a mix of Southern home cooking like creamy grits and barbecue to Arizona (and EATERAZ) favorites like tacos. Pinnacle Perk Coffee Bar serves up locally roasted brews from drips to lattes. And in the market, fresh produce and local artisan products await. There’s even a wine sommelier and his name is Chuck Hesson. He’s usually there to help you find the right vino, brew, or whatever you might have a hankering for.

So our suggestion? This Saturday morning, stop by Tom’s Thumb for a car wash and small bite to eat, then head over to the Arizona Barbecue Festival, where most of the crew will be dishing out some mouthwatering ‘que. (And hopefully on their way to some big fat winning checks.) They’re competing Saturday only, so check them out then!

Tom’s Thumb Fresh Market
9393 E. Bell Rd.
Scottsdale, AZ 85260
480-513-8186
www.TomsThumbFreshMarket.com

Yep, it’s another EAZ shameless plug, but this one comes with a heartfelt story of triumph … and bourbon.

Three years ago, we threw what we thought was a nice little barbecue festival at the Scottsdale Waterfront. The location was sexy, but we booked too many teams, crammed too much into the strangely shaped lot, neglected to address the fact that we were on dirt, and had friends and family do things like work the front, pick up trash, and keep overall order.

We failed on every front. But, a lot of people came, most still had fun (thanks for Jack Daniel’s), and we had the urge to try again. Year two was a lot better, but the BBQ teams still couldn’t hold on and feed the hungry BBQ fans. Although the event functioned fantastically, we needed more food.

So here we are, year three, and the event has left the Waterfront nest to find a home of its own at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick (Indian Bend and 101). The event layout is not only three times bigger, but we’ve counted up those precious $2 BBQ samples, and believe us–there’s enough! There’s not only enough, there’s enough for two days!

So the Arizona Barbecue Festival has gone to two full days (11am-7pm each day) and now you don’t have to:

A) fight for parking in that Nordstrom garage … there’s tons of free parking lots!
B) worry about getting there early for BBQ samples … there’s enough!
C) Yelp later about how we didn’t have any shade … we’ve rented more tents than ever!

Saturday is the main competition, with all 85+ teams throwing down for $30,000. If you like, join us for the Awards Ceremony in the baseball stadium at 5:30pm. On Sunday, the teams are focused on ribs, trying to win $10,000. The Arizona Pork Council and their partner, Farmer John, will make sure there are enough St. Louis-cut smoked ribs to go around all weekend, but Sunday, the bulk of these babies will see the light of day (meaning your stomach).

There are cornhole tournaments for cash all weekend long, a whiskey row expo on Saturday, and a Southern Comfort Cherry Party tent on Sunday. As always, VIP tickets get you open bar, line-less entry, a couple tasting tix, and food from new BBQ Fest supporter, Carrabba’s! They’re calling it, “BBQ done the Italian way.” We call it: enough food for VIP ticket holder.

There’s so much more going on, but the focus is on BBQ and providing over five tons of those precious $2 samples. We promise you’ll eat well, in the shade, having endured very short lines (if any).

Third time’s a charm, so let’s give it a go! Check out www.azbbqfestival.com for all the info, and we hope to see you this weekend.

Over the next three days, you’re going to read about a huge project we’ve got coming up this weekend. It’s a small little party on 10 acres at Salt River Fields. If this week weren’t such a busy one, you know where you’d find us? The new El Santo.

It’s one part taco joint, one part pool bar, and two parts party. Sure, the Scottsdale scene has been flocking there, but the menu reads like an EATERAZ wet dream–tons of tacos, apps, and stuff you can mix and mingle. El Santo is the newest project for the guys who brought you Stingray Sushi, Geisha A Go Go, and most recently, Spanish Fly. From pictures, the place looks like Spanish Fly, but it’s further up north — Scottsdale Quarter-ish — and definitely the 2.0 version of our town’s first dedicated pool bar.

So if you have time to play hooky this week, unlike us, here is the place you should do it:

When the fax machine was invented, we imagine everyone acted like they didn’t really care about it, but deep down they’re were thinking, “Holy shit, this thing’s #$%&*ing amazing. How does it do that?!”

A similar invention is upon us, only this one doesn’t send pages through space. It just scoops ice cream real quick, which is basically like someone invented world peace. Or planes. See, it’s pretty important.

This new Heat Conducting Ice Cream Scooper solves the age-old issue of not being able to get your spoon through a block of frozen ice cream. Sure, something like this already exists, but none that look as cool as this … making it a virtual first. For the low price of about $40, you can never again have to try to scoop ice cream. You can just do it. It’s as easy as sending fax.

Heat conduction. It may not send papers through space, but dammit, it makes life easy.

If you’re asking yourself where to go for breakfast in Old Town, you’ve got two options: Breakfast Club and, well, Breakfast Club’s other half of the room – that is, unless you’ve heard about Dottie’s.

Dottie’s True Blue Café has been quietly open for about a little about two months and hasn’t really told anybody because the owners—Brent Abney and Joe Green—wanted to get their act together first.

Well, it’s well past first and they’ve got it all running smoothly. We stopped in for breakfast this morning and were excited to find an alternative outside the Club.

We sat in the main dining room, which feels rightfully diner-esque. But on a weekend, the bar would be the perfect place to nurse a hangover and the patio would be perfect for sweating out the night before’s booze consumption.

Food-wise, we aren’t able to report on a basic, everyday breakfast because we were too tempted by the right side of this menu:

http://dotties.biz/menu/

Here, you’ll see things like the scramble with pulled pork, roasted onions, and jack cheese, with a side of flour tortillas and home fries for $11; a chorizo scramble with onions and cheddar cheese, topped heapingly with pico de gallo for $12.25; and a smoked whiskey fennel sausage scramble with mushrooms and baby spinach for $11.50. All of which we had, by the way. Although the latter comes with an addictive grilled chili-cheddar cornbread, the chorizo was our hands-down favorite. It had the most flavor and made for great hand-held burrito like rolls with the flour tortilla that came on the side. Mixing all three scrambles worked really well, too.

The coffee flowed, the WiFi was fast, and the service was great. On the sweet side of the menu, we tried the blueberry cornmeal pancakes, $10.95, which are thin, plate-sized, and covered in powdered sugar. They were definitely order-again-worthy. We also tried a single plain cake for $3.95. It wasn’t the lightest pancake we’ve ever tried, but it tasted healthy, almost wheatesque.

The side of bacon sent one message—this place would make a killer BLT. The slices were fat, crispy as hell, and just salty enough. Next time. Dottie’s is only open for breakfast and lunch, so the next meal will surely be a nooner.

Dottie’s True Blue Café
4151 N. Marshall Way
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
480-874-0303

Hours: Tue-Sun 7:30am-3pm

While we were all gasping in horror, realizing that much of our meat product was actually some kind of custardy pink slime made from the bits and pieces left over once an animal is slaughtered, some other weird food fact was “scraping” by.

Scrape. It’s the new pink slime. Just read this: www.theatlantic.com. You know that spicy tuna roll you ordered last? Notice how it’s not a nice, deep red piece of unencumbered tuna meat, but more of a paste? Sure it’s delicious, just like pink slime, but it’s made from the leftovers, the below-grade, the stuff you think you don’t want to eat once you know what it is. Plus, it’s mixed up, often frozen, then served as raw.

But if you’re like us, you won’t really give a shit and change your ways. You’ll still eat it, you’ll still not really care. But a lot of people do, and we wonder if we’ll start seeing amendments to sushi menus once word of this scrape gets around. Slime is all but finished now that places like McDonald’s have gone slimeless. But what of this? What will Stingray Sushi do? Go scrape-less? Will Sushi Roku shun the scrape? Will scrape get scrapped at Sushi Brokers? Is RA going to remove their reckless menu of scrapey sushi? Will scrape succumb to the…

Okay, we’ll stop with the drama. Scrape or no scrape, we just thought you should know.

So you say you love BBQ. But do you LOVE it? Like really, really LOVE it?

Here’s your chance to prove it. On May 19th and 20th, we’ve got over 85 national pitmasters coming in to compete for $40,000 in prize money at the 3rd Annual Arizona BBQ Festival. Because we have 85 teams, we need 100 judges!

So, we’re holding a Kansas City Barbecue Society certification class this Sunday, May 13th, from 3pm to 7pm, at a Holiday Inn Express in Scottsdale. Class lasts four hours and includes all four KCBS competition meats: chicken, pulled pork, brisket, and pork ribs.

We know, we know, it’s Mother’s Day. But who’da thunk we’d need this many judges! Class costs $40 if you can judge the Scottsdale contest. Please email lisa@affordablefoodfestivals.com if you are interested and she’ll send you all deets!

Want to get the culinary crap kicked out of you? Want to go head to head with Gordon Ramsay (yes, he’s still around, and yes, he’s still yelling at people). You could be next!

Fox TV’s Hell’s Kitchen is casting for a new season and they’re putting out a call for chefs, line cooks, sous chefs, restaurant owners, bakers, grill cooks … just about anyone associated with the ‘ole restaurant biz.

All you’ve gotta do is send an e-mail to hellskitchencasting2012@gmail.com and do the following:

Write “Hell’s Kitchen” in subject line
Include stats: name, where you work, where you live currently (city/state), age, cooking experience
Attach a fun photo
Add any fun info about why you would be perfect for the show

Just don’t yell. That’s Ramsay’s part.

Here’s a question: How come when Chef Aaron May closes a restaurant and opens one in the same two weeks, he’s a swindler. But when Sam Fox does it, nobody seems to notice the close? (Granted, they then rail on the mediocrity of the food, but Fox’s numbers don’t lie — do you see any empty tables at North?)

So May just closed Vitamin T last week and everybody’s wondering what’s up. If it were any other day, we might try to find out. But it’s Friday, and since we talk food on Fridays, let’s focus on the positive–the opening of his new Praying Monk Restaurant & Bar. We stopped in for lunch to check out the place that replaced Iruña (another May venture with longtime biz partners and friends, Quinn Goldsberry and Mickey Venerable). We didn’t think Iruña was hurting that bad, but one look at the Praying Monk menu and you realize – this is better.

Better, not because things are a little less expensive. Better, not because the space is more comfortable now. Better, not because there’s a pastrami sandwich on the menu. Wait, that’s exactly why. The tapas may have been great, but a pastrami on rye or a triple-decker club is just, well, better.

Praying Monk is as casual as can be. Lay back in shorts and flip flops on the couches by the bar, or dress up in the dining room. Or better yet, don the flip flops and tees in the dining room, or wear a suit while martini-ing in the bar. This seems like one of those places where anything goes and that’s okay.

Kinda like the menu–anything goes and that’s okay. Share snacks like: Tenderbelly corn dogs with a mustard dip and a dish of sliced up ballpark pretzels, crispy pig ears that deliver just a little heat (def give the lime a squeeze that garnishes the dish), or chunks of pork belly softly steaming in a bowl of white beans (priced $8, $5, and $6, respectively). Or, go app like shrimp and grits ($11) and entrees like tagliatelle with impossibly tender lobster in a tomato ragout ($24) or fried quail with Brussels sprouts slaw and blue cheese potato salad, $15.

When we stopped in for lunch, our party of three kept it simple–we ordered four of the seven sandwiches on the menu (all $9-$12), and threw in some snacks for good measure. The burger was mouthwateringly seasoned. The housemade pastrami on Karsh’s rye was smokey and juicy and everything you want pastrami to be. The Paia fish sandwich presented the flakiest white fish we’ve ever seen on a sandwich, and paired with a soft, buttery bun and caper aioli, it was the surefire hit of the group. The club sandwich focused less on the decking (a.k.a. bread) and more on the contents, all of which had us pondering a second order, had we not been full from snacks.

The pig ears are a must, as we guarantee you’ve never had them this snacky and, well, this okay-to-eat anywhere else in town. The corndogs were a little short on the dog and heavy on the breading, but the breading was sweet and airy and amazingly delicious. You could add chunks of it to the club, the burger, anything really, and it would only enhance. We knew fries were coming with the sandwiches, but our server talked us into an order of the crispy potatoes (halves and quarters and random pieces) covered in shaved Parmesan and chives with an cloud-like truffle aioli ($9). Thank you, server, those potatoes are a must for future visits. And the aioli is good enough to bottle.

Another must: the first beer on the list of about 50 (15-ish on tap)–Blanche de Bruxelles, $6. It’s like a cloudy Hef mixed with a little sandy beach vacation and easy summer sippin’. Honestly, what a discovery. We highly recommend you give it a try. Betcha order two.

Praying Monk has been open for about 12 seconds, and we felt like it was all ready for action. So it’s safe to say: give a whirl, whether you’re in a suit, flip flops, or both (which would totally work in a place like this).

Praying Monk
7217 E. 1st St.
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
480-398-3020