Three Layer Cake

Queen of the Grill:  Interview with Elizabeth Karmel
 

See Elizabeth's recipe for the Cooks' Ribs in the (F)ood Section.
 

Rose Levy Beranbaum wrote me an email not too long ago which read, ”If you’re looking for a real superstar, you have to talk to Elizabeth Karmel.”  And boy is she ever!  Elizabeth Karmel is the kind of woman I really admire.  She’s southern (from North Carolina), smart, strong-willed, and can grill a mean rack of ribs…or chicken…or anything.  In fact, her motto is, “If you can eat it, you can grill it,” and she has been on a personal crusade for the past decade to make grilling a lifestyle choice.  (With the name “Karmel”, it seems as though it were her destiny to fall in love with the flavors of grill-“karmelized” food!) 

Elizabeth started in the grill world handling marketing and PR client Weber Grills, where she often stood out as the lone woman in front of the grill.  Inside the office, when people came to her with grilling questions, instead of saying she didn’t know, she went to the grill and figured out a way to do it.  It was during this time that she began to put together her own repertoire of grilling and barbecue techniques from scratch.  She tossed aside existing cookbooks which she found perpetuated outdated methods based on yesterday’s technology, and developed a ‘no muss, no fuss’ way of approaching cooking over an open flame that renders superior results.  Her initiative and curiosity to create correct methods which take advantage of improvements in grilling equipment is how, for example, she is able to reproduce authentic Southern Barbecue in a New York cooking school classroom that has absolutely no outdoor access!  The techniques she has developed over the past fifteen years are the basis of her first book Taming the Flame, and are also what make her the First Lady of Grilling. 

Based on her extensive experience Elizabeth has also developed her own line of grilling tools and accessories called Grill Friends.  Her website, GirlsattheGrill.com, is an A to Z on grilling, from advice on selecting a grill through making dessert on it and cleanup.  She also offers a weekly newsletter with recipes and cooking tips called GrillNEWS.  It’s a must-read before heading outdoors to grill, or barbecue, for your next meal.

In the U.S., Elizabeth can be found on television, in print, on the barbecue circuit, and at cooking schools teaching modern grilling and barbecuing techniques and extolling the virtues of a grilling lifestyle.  In her interview at ThreeLayerCake, Elizabeth shares her enthusiasm for grilled food, a recipe for the best pork ribs known to man, and what Slow Food means to her…and more!
 

Let’s start with a fundamental question:  The difference between grilling and barbecuing.  When should you choose one or the other? 

Basically the difference between grilling and barbecue is that grilling is generally hot and quick cooking and barbecue is low and slow. What that means is a low heat which is always indirect heat and a long cooking time, so food cooks over a low temperature very slowly.  That is generally what is regarded as the difference between grilling and barbecue.  However, when you get into authentic barbecue the real defining factor is that real barbecue has to be accented with wood smoke.  For example, I can grill-roast a whole chicken using indirect heat, this includes beer-can chicken style, and that is indirect grilling.  If I barbecue it, I’m cooking it on indirect heat and using wood chips and that’s real barbecue.  But that’s getting into the minutiae of the definition.  The subtitle of my book is…secrets for hot and quick grilling and low and slow BBQ.  The genesis of the subtitle is because my editor is from New York and grew up there and I kept explaining the difference between the two cooking methods to her.  Then one day during the photo shoot for the book I looked at her and said How can I say this plain and simple…grilling is hot and quick and barbecuing is low and slow…  and it just took. 

How has your message about grilling changed with the increase in diet-related illnesses (like obesity) in the U.S.?  What about the foods you champion?  Is this even a concern in your work? 

I’m not a nutritionist, but I am very very interested in good wholesome healthy food.  My theory is that there is a direct correlation between obesity and processed foods.  I feel that we should eat as close to the source as possible—we should eat food that is one step away from the soil.  I don’t want to eat my vegetables that are ground and dehydrated and puffed or extruded.  I don’t want to eat food that’s so far removed from the original that I can’t tell where it came from.  In terms of my work this is not an everyday concern, but one of the ways in which I do encourage women and men to embrace the grill is to tell them this is win-win:  It’s intrinsically healthy.  Generally, you’re not adding heavy sauces, no sautéing, no frying.  It’s a light coating of olive oil, kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper, maybe some other seasonings if you like.  Then you’re cooking it and the heat does most of the work for you, resulting in delicious caramelization of the natural sugars that are inherent in all foods.  So in the sense that I am promoting grilling as a healthy food, that’s as far as it goes.  My mantra is “if you can eat it, you can grill it,” especially vegetables.  There are people who say they don’t eat vegetables, but once I grill them, they love it.  Think about the difference between grilled asparagus and boiled asparagus.  There’s a recipe in my book called “Finger Lickin’ Asparagus”—it’s just olive oil and kosher salt and people can’t believe it that there isn’t more to the recipe because it tastes so good.
 

Americans are gradually getting into the Slow Food movement, of which you are a member in the U.S.  Where does grilling fit into Slow Food USA?  How does your work fit into the movement? 

Barbecue is the original slow food, absolutely!  There is nothing fast about it.  It’s not expensive.  It’s generally made with the toughest cuts of meat, whether it’s pig or cow, which is why you have to cook it slowly because it needs low heat and the luxury of time to melt the connective tissues and let the fat render out as it cooks.  The other thing is, to me, slow food is about relishing the process as well as the outcome and making food preparation part of the process..  In this country, at least, outdoor cooking is perceived as a “mini vacation.”  When food is prepared indoors in America it’s generally a solitary activity.  When it’s prepared outdoors, everybody wants to get involved, have a drink, socialize and participate.  Through my work, I encourage both men and women to make grilling and barbecue their everyday cooking technique.  That means people get together as a group and do it.  I want people to look at outdoor cooking as a lifestyle.
 

You teach grilling across the country.  Do you find a difference in your students?  What about the foods they are interested in?

Most of the people I teach are culinary enthusiasts so there are differences in tastes, but most of the people who take my classes have a very very open mind. 

I teach an authentic Southern Barbecue class in New York City at the Institute of Culinary Education.  The barbecue tastes authentic but the technique is anything but authentic.  We use a stovetop smoker to smoke the meat and finish it in a low convection oven. (Photo (right):  Southern Barbecue)

Your mission is to diffuse the message that “if you can eat it, you can grill it”.  My mission is to convert vegetarians to eating meat by convincing them to eat a pork rib.  Describe the perfect pork rib, how you’d prepare it, and what you’d serve with it.

I have actually converted many vegetarians, and I love it!  They’re like, “Oh I don’t eat meat…” and I say, “Just try it!!”  OK, here’s the perfect pork rib:  They’re called “The Cooks’ Ribs”.  I’ve been active on the barbecue circuit for many years and I belong to a team called Swine and Dine.  In fact, I just wrote an article on my experiences at Memphis in May Championship Barbecue Contest for Chile Pepper magazine, called Falling in Love with the Pig. 

This is a recipe that I learned from the head cook of my barbecue team and they are the ribs that the cooks keep and make for themselves because they are too time intensive to make for the whole team.  On “rib night” of the contest, we feed 1000 people.  They are served good ribs, but they are traditional.  The Cooks’ Ribs take three times as long to make, and once an hour they are immersed into a “bath.”  The recipe is in my cookbook and at the end of this interview.  The beauty of The Cooks’ Ribs is they are smoked low and slow and instead of being “mopped” occasionally, they are submerged in a basting sauce (the “bath”) that has spices, vinegar, and a little bit of oil in it.  After the ribs are colored with the perfect patina of barbecue, and they’re just about done, they are put into two layers of aluminum foil, “two racks to a pack.”  They are drizzled with honey, sprinkled with more  rub, nestled together and wrapped in aluminum foil packages.  The packs of ribs go back on the grill at a low heat for several more hours.  What happens during the final cooking is the “secret;”  the honey and rub further caramelize the meat and this forms the best ‘burnt-ends’ bark on every (rib) bone.  You don’t need sauce.  Inside the meat is tender and pink, and it is the best rib you’ve ever had.  They are so good, they’ll make you want to strip down naked!!  It is rib nirvana!

The genesis of this recipe and most championship recipes is this:  most of the cooks on the barbecue circuit don’t really have any experience in the kitchen.  The Cooks’ Ribs came about as a natural evolution of the ingredients and techniques that they were using during the grilling contests.  They started playing around with what was handy… the basting sauce a.k.a. “the bath” was sitting on the grill and was warm, and the meat was warm so it absorbed “the bath” easily.  The honey is from a Honey Bear so you squirt it easily on the meat to add a touch of sweetness.  And wrapping barbecue in foil packs is done by most barbecuers—I call it the Texas Crutch.  Competition Barbecuers say if you’re not wrapping, you either losing or lying.  So all of these things just came together and the  cooks asked themselves “Why not try this and see what happens?”  In this case, what happened was the best rib (recipe) I have ever had. 

During Barbecue contests or at authentic barbecue joints, very few side dishes are served with the meat and the rib, because the meat is IT. You just eat ribs (or other barbecue) till you can’t eat anymore.  If I were going to serve them at a dinner party, I would serve them with my cast-iron skillet cornbread (that has a secret ingredient which is creamed corn).  It’s savory, not sweet.  I would also make coleslaw and potato salad because that’s what everyone expects to eat at a cook-out.   My favorite dessert after barbecue is lemon bars because I think the tartness of the lemon perfectly cuts through of the richness of the smoked meat that you’ve eaten.

How much of your message is girls and how much is grills?  

It’s all grills all the time.  But I wrote the information on my website in a way that demystifies it for girls.  The reason I did that is because during my work for Weber I realized that most of the time, I was the only girl at the grill.  I didn’t understand it because 95% of the meals in the U.S. are prepared by women!  It’s not about pushing ”him”out of the way, it’s about sharing in the fun!  I did a survey when Weber was my client and I found out that the women plan the meal, do the shopping, the prep work, they hand him the meat, he puts it on the grill, takes it off, takes the credit, and she does the clean up.  So if you use the grill…let’s say you’re just making dinner on a Monday night.  You could use the grill and it would be easier for you, no clean up, etc. etc.  I want girls to embrace outdoor cooking as a part of everyday life.  The weekly newsletter is called the GrillNEWS.  It’s basically a free recipe newsletter and you must join the LadyBug Club to receive it.  40% of my subscribers are men.  [Editor’s note:  To subscribe, click on the Lady Bug icon on Elizabeth’s site and it will take you to a page to sign up.]

You had been an IACP cookbook award judge for four years running before you published your own Taming the Flame.  Over that time, had you noticed a change in the cookbooks that were being produced?  Did that experience help shape your ideas for your own book?  

Being a judge did not help shape my ideas for the book.  My book is the culmination of fifteen years of barbecue experience, grilling experience, traveling, and an absolute passion for outdoor cooking.  My equipment happens to be outdoors, but I can make a very refined French meal using the grill.  Or I can make a classic Italian dish using the grill.  I may change it and the method may be slightly different, but the basic flavors are the same.  For example, in my cookbook I have a recipe for New World Scaloppini, some people may not like it, but in my tastes, I like it better than the traditional because you don’t bread the veal.  When you bread the veal, it gets soggy.  I love grilling the meat and seeing the little grill marks peeking through the mushrooms in the sauce.  I think it is wonderful that you get all that wonderful flavor without breading.  For me, I truly believe you can prepare almost anything using the grill. 

In terms of what I have noticed in the last ten years in terms of cookbook evolution—more photography and more books with huge budgets.  Sometimes, celebrity chefs and corporations supplement a publisher’s budget for photography and that’s how you get these gorgeous coffee table books.  It’s a matter of economics, so if you might add $25,000 or $50,000 or more….  That’s where the difference comes in.  Eye candy is very appealing, and it sells.  But it’s almost unfair to the cookbooks that don’t have the same kind of budget to compete in the same category.

Interview continues...