This winter, I discovered a new barbecue dude right in our own backyard. Craig Adcock is one of Kansas City’s unexpected personalities. He halfway jokes that he plays “well with most and that life is too short to drink bad wine and eat bad food!”
Since founding his company, Belly Up Barbecue, Adcock has shared interviews on wine and food pairings, judged barbecue on national television and his profile was recently included in a new book by Martha McCarty, “The Book of Dreamers. 50 ordinary people. Who they are. What they dreamed. How they did it.”
Adcock grew up in Mississippi and met his wife while in the Army in Virginia. After three years living in El Paso, Texas, he now lives in Kansas City where he has resided for 14 years. After a decade of “losing part of his soul” in corporate America and grilling and chilling with some of the top chefs and winemakers across America, he jumped in with both feet into the humble life of catering in 2007. His interest in cooking professionally started with his passion for sharing with others and a New Year’s resolution to learn to barbecue and cook fish on the grill.
Adcock’s commitment to premium selections of meats and products from artisan purveyors and local farmers, along with his unwillingness to sacrifice quality for profit margin, put him into a class of few. He jokingly told his wife, “We may not make any money, but at least we’ll never starve!” After the economic downturn, Adcock found it necessary to expand his business offerings. Beyond catering, he makes and ships one of the BEST rum cakes across the nation, and believe me when I tell you, I have personally endorsed the rum cakes and have eaten my weight in them the past year...seriously.
Now for the barbecue. Adcock pushes his product offerings to boutique mom-and-pop shops across the nation. He also founded the nation’s first Barbecue of the Month Club. His club is reasonably priced at $215 for a three-month membership (including shipping), which provides 10 to 12 portions of fully cooked and prepared grilled fare and smoked offerings per shipment. The barbecue arrives at your door on dry ice, normally in boil-in bags for easy reheat — 12 minutes simmered in the unopened bag, and it’s ready!
Adcock says the Berkshire pulled pork, free-range drunken chicken, beef tenderloins, pastrami and smoked turkey tortilla stew with New Mexico green chiles are all fabulously delicious offerings of his club. As an additional feature of the club, Adcock offers an unconditional guarantee — you don’t like it, you don’t pay for it. Also, Adcock doesn’t use barbecue sauce on his product and exclusively uses fruit woods — primarily Missouri Peach Orchard Wood – so there’s no hiding flaws. The flavor of the meat is undeniably pure.
This year brings more change to Adcock’s business. He is migrating from the catering arena to special events, or as he calls it, “the experience.” In his catering business, Adcock will focus on small bites throughout the night—sort of a modern day tapas concept—while cooking at the client’s house or his venue. Adcock says he can also do large-scale events but prefers a more intimate crowd of 25 (starting at $35 per person), several bottles of wine and unique food selections.
In the future, Adcock plans to expand his Barbecue of the Month Club to include a premium offering level as well as promote his product offerings across the nation and possibly pen a scratch-and-sniff cookbook by the end of the year. But perhaps what excites him most is the challenge of branding his unique version of the culinary experience or “Grillin’ & Chillin’ Sessions,” as he calls them. Throughout the past six years, Adcock has begun performing skill-to-skill sessions with winemakers and foodies across the nation.
“They pop the corks, I prepare the food,” he says.
Already, Adcock has more than a few sessions planned for 2010 with key foodies in Florida, Oregon and California.
As for his inspiration, Adcock keeps it simple.
“You know, I have come to realize that I’m really just a wine drinker with a cooking problem!” he says.
Get ready Kansas City...Belly Up Barbecue is here!
words: Jasper Mirabile, Jr.