The Chicken BBQ Phenomenon - Week 9

Nothing happened on Father's Day weekend. No chicken BBQs. Dads apparently don't need BBQ because they are BBQ embodied.

When I started this Chicken BBQ Phenomenon blog topic, I imagined that I would find a dozen BBQs every weekend because that's what my exaggerated mind remembered from the previous summer: small town chicken BBQs everywhere.

Maybe it's the recession. Maybe it's my memory. Maybe it's the rain. (Fashion note: Rain is the new sun in the Northeast.) At any rate, if I see one chicken BBQ on any given weekend this summer, it's a good weekend.

Despite the chicken BBQ shortage, the Trumansburg Rotary was out barbecuing chicken yesterday for July 4th, but business was slow. It's a grill-at-home-with-the-family holiday. Even I was at home grilling chicken - happy, free-range chicken.

The Chicken BBQ Phenomenon - Week 7

Hey! What happened to Weeks 5 and 6? Apparently small town Chicken BBQ's have a season. Kind of like rhubarb. They pop up in early May - specifically the weekend before Mother's Day - and then slowly peter out by the end of May when everyone has pigged out one too many weekends in a row and started to question why they are eating dry, tasteless, chewy hunks of flesh.

The above photo was a rare sighting of an Ithaca (i.e. larger town) Chicken BBQ a few weeks ago. I took this picture from the car window on my way out of town to the Big Apple, where I most certainly did not find any Big Chicken BBQ fundraisers.

Chicken BBQ's have not completely disappeared, but I am no longer seeing two or three in Trumansburg every weekend. This could change with Father's Day coming up this weekend.

I will be sure to post a Chicken BBQ update after the holiday weekend so stay tuned.

The Chicken BBQ Phenomenon - Week 4

Like Ithaca, Burdett is only 15 minutes from Trumansburg, but being in Schuyler County, it is worlds away. Going to Burdett is sort like falling backwards in time into 1950's small town America where there isn't even the need for a traffic light, unless you count the flashing one. I spent about five minutes taking pictures of the Chicken BBQ at the Burdett Fire Station last Saturday, wandering amongst the firemen, taking photos of them drinking their 10am beers. Oddly, not one of them acknowledged my presence. I was strangely invisible to them, a visitor from a future, more progressive world.
The women at the Grist Mill Cafe could relate to my alien experience. Directly across the street from the Burdett Fire Station, the Grist Mill is one of Ithaca's best kept secrets, probably because it is not in Ithaca. The Grist Mill is a wonderful little cafe with their own fresh-baked bread and the best hazelnut coffee in the world. They serve breakfast and lunch Tuesday-Saturday with a bunch of vegetarian options; I recommend the apple reuben and a side of their cous-cous salad. The croc-wearing Grist Mill gals told me that in the few years they have been open, only one fireman has dared to venture across the street and into their amazing cafe. And you thought firemen were brave.
The Grist Mill Cafe sure beats redneck chicken BBQ. The Grist Mill is so good that I want to share it with you, and so good that I don't want to share it with you so I can keep it all to myself. Shhhhh...it'll be our little secret.

One final note: the fresh local rhubarb for Felicia's Rhubarb Martini came from Deb, the owner of the Grist Mill. Thanks, Deb!

The Chicken BBQ Phenomenon - Week 3

As I drove out of Trumansburg last Saturday morning, I left the smell of at least three chicken BBQs behind me. Eager to explore the Chicken BBQ Phenomenon on the road, I did not pause to take pictures.

On the outskirts of Ithaca, I passed one Chicken BBQ, in Richford. Then, oddly, there was nothing. The small towns we drove through on Routes 79 and 206 were strangely devoid of greasy-fingered townies with greasy smiling faces. Apparently the BBQ Phenomenon had not reached these here country parts.

And then we arrived in Bainbridge, where a big truck was grilling a BBQ outside of a church. I did not venture inside where the grub was being served up on aluminum-wrapped paper plates. I asked the acne-clad boy at the grill, where did the Chicken BBQ Phenomenon come from? "It's an upstate thing," he said. When asked who the fundraiser was for, he said, "Some church thing." A young man of few words, yet so poignant.

The cute young girls who look to be about 14 years old in the picture below? Um, those are the moms. Apparently country girls look more youthful than the rest of us. Must be the water in Bainbridge.

The Chicken BBQ Phenomenon - Week 2

This post is one in a weekly series on The Chicken BBQ Phenomenon: the abrupt sprouting up of chicken BBQ fundraisers in small town parking lots every Saturday from April through September.

Last week's chicken BBQ in Trumansburg was at Ron Don's restaurant to raise money for Reynold's Racing. Lots of guys were standing around looking at cars when I drove past. When I returned with my camera, the food was already gone, but I still got to stand around and stare at totally awesome testosterone-laced cars with a bunch of old men.

They laughed when I told them I was writing about The Chicken BBQ Phenomenon. One said that he once traveled on a dirt road to a remote village in Hawaii where he found, surprise-surprise, a chicken BBQ fundraiser.

"See you next Saturday," the old guys said as I left. They knew what I knew: another chicken BBQ would magically appear in town.

Since I am going out of town this weekend, it looks like I will be missing the BBQ's in these here parts. I will take photos of the Phenomenon on the road this weekend.All chicken BBQ photos were taken by Amelia on her glorious iPhone.

The Chicken BBQ Phenomenon

The signs in late April all pointed to the fact that spring is well underway: flip-flops, shorts, pansies, black fly bites, lawnmowers rumbling to life, and the start of the mythical chicken BBQ season.

In the Village of Trumansburg, you will find at least one chicken BBQ fundraiser in somebody's parking lot every Saturday from April through September. I do not know who eats chicken BBQ; I know I don't. It feels weird to me to pull into a parking lot to eat, kind of like an impromptu drive-thru that sprouts up and disappears within hours. I have always assumed that if the chicken BBQ is a fundraiser for the school band, all the band students' parents are the only ones who show up to eat.

This summer, I am going to do a full-fledged investigation of the Chicken BBQ Phenomenon. I began my research on Saturday, April 25th:

There was one BBQ in Trumansburg that weekend, a fundraiser for the Rotary Club. I don't even know what the Rotary Club is. I think they do community stuff. Like sell chicken BBQ. Where did they buy their chickens? The Rotary man looked at me as if I asked a strange question. "At the Shur-Save," he said. Like, duh, it's Trumansburg. Where else would we buy them? "We use the Cornell recipe," the man continued, like I knew what that meant. "They are marinated for three days," he continued. "It's the best way EVER to barbecue a chicken." Or 200 of them.

Less common is an Ithaca chicken BBQ sighting, but I found one that same day at the Agway. It was a fundraiser for Ithaca's alternative high school, and they were making a killing. Must have been the organic, free-range chickens from..."Wegmans," a mom told me. "The local chicken farmer we were hoping to use did not work out."

Ok, I tried one. The free-range thing always makes me feel like I am doing something nice for the happy chickens who gave their little organic lives so I can eat. It tasted like...chicken. Chicken BBQ, to be exact.

I already have one to look forward to next week:

Comment on this blog post! Do you have The Chicken BBQ Phenomenon on your town? I want to hear from you.