More From the Twilight Dinner

Thursday's Twilight Dinner to benefit Jones Valley Urban Farm was indeed a delicious success. Under a full moon, in the middle of the garden, Chefs Frank Stitt of Highlands Bar and Grill, Robby Melvin of Birmingham's Salt Fine Catering along with Chef Drew Robinson, Nick Pihakis, Joshua Gentry and others from the Birmingham Jim 'N Nick's cooked an Argentine style Asado. Pardis Stitt worked with the event team to make sure everything flowed smoothly, Mike "Rathead" Riley served as auctioneer for a live auction where master distiller, Julian Van Winkle was in attendance and auctioned off a selection of three of his reserve Pappy Van Winkle Bourbons. Birmingham's Mayor William A. Bell stopped by to tour the farm, chat with the chefs and sit down to dinner with over 150 diners. Seated at one, very long table in the middle of the 25th Street location of the Jones Valley Urban Farm, everyone enjoyed a family-style service of organic beef, pasture-raised lamb and sausages along with just-picked autumn vegetables and lovely wines from Argentina. The dinner, along with the live auction raised approximately $50,000 for the non-profit, urban farm.
Visit www.jvuf.org to find out more about Jones Valley Urban Farm

A few pictures from the Alabama Asado

An Alabama Asado

Thursday September 23rd was a great evening at Jones Valley Urban Farm (http://www.jvuf.org/). Frank Stitt and his team came together with myself and the Jim 'N Nick's crew for a twilight supper billed as an Alabama Asado on the farm. We grilled and roasted a whole lamb from Sequatchie Cove Farm as well as a slew of other meats and vegetables a plenty from the farm.

After dinner we had a live and silent auction with items from Billy Reid, Pappy Van Winkle, Natalie Chanin amongst others that raised funds and tremendous awareness for this still largely unrecognized jewel in downtown Birmingham.

Bourbon & Q

We are in the process of getting the final details worked out for the Bourbon & Q dinner we are hosting in our Charleston restaurant during the Charleston Wine & Food Festival. The menu looks fantastic with food offerings from the likes of Mike Mills, Rodney Scott, Jimmy Hagood, Robert Barber, Dan Latham and yours truly, the Jim 'N Nick's crew. If that is not enough, Julian Van Winkle will be in the house providing his fine bourbon from the Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery and mixologist extraordinaire Greg Best will be turning out some of his famous creations with those fine spirits.
The evening promises to be a great time and we're looking forward to seeing some old friends, making some new ones and fully satiating our gullets. Check it and other happenings out on the CW&F website.
www.charlestonwineandfood.com/new

Big Apple Here We Come

It's official, we've been invited back to the 2010 installment of the Big Apple Barbecue Block Party. The experience was absolutely incredible last year. New Yorker's blew us away with their voracious appetite for barbecue as well as their curiosity for this gem of Southern cuisine and its place in our culture. The hospitality of the Blue Smoke crew and the Union Square Hospitality Group was absolutely first class to boot.

We are thrilled to be invited back. Check their website out and be sure to stay tuned here for updates closer to the event.

http://www.bigapplebbq.org/

Holy Smoke!!!

Well, there's not any way to really put into terms that we are just flat out, knocked down, drug out, hung up and delirious over the fact that Nick has been nominated for the best restaurateur by the James Beard Foundation. What to say? Not much to be honest because we're really caught off guard by this whole thing.

So, the soliloquy aside, we are humbled. Nick has said many times over that we are all in this together and hey, that's it. We here at Jim 'N Nick's rely everyday on the fact that we are family. Hell, if we're not then we're really just playing a cruel joke on each other because we all spend so damn much time with each other that we ought to be family anyway! And when we say family around here we start by looking first at the people who come in to share our table day in and day out. The fact that we have guests who choose to make "us" "their" restaurant is more humbling to us than any award ever could be. They are why we're here, they are why people notice we're here and they, save the soliloquy, are why we'll keep doing what we do.

Hey, we are happy about this nomination. Actually proud as new parents and you can bet your last drop of barbecue sauce on that. But at the end of the day we know why we're here and why we'll be here tomorrow and that is what we're most thankful for. To put it humbly, and in terms of where we come from, we're living in high cotton! Thank you James Beard Foundation for the recognition and thank you, our gracious guests for making this nomination possible.

Newest Addition to the Fleet

Rolling grills, Rolling Stones, vintage corvettes. Why does it seem like some of the best things are associated with wheels? Hey, I don't know but I'll tell you that anytime we expand our fleet of mobile barbecue pits my level of personal pride creeps up another notch. We got the newest addition in late last night and it is not the biggest rig we own but it looks to be one of the most powerful. A whole hog pit, a grill for the little cuts and a two burner stove all in one compact unit. I like the big 10,000 pound rigs we have too but I'll go back to my all things on wheels comment and say this little baby is more like a barbecue deuce coupe. I'm ready to crank 'er up!