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GOURMET NEWS APRIL 2017 www.gourmetnews.com CONDIMENTS 1 6 Lillie's Q: Bottling the Southern Barbecue Tradition pork shoulder and also in 2016. In the years in between, we were in the top 10 al- most every year," he says. Today, Lillie's Q is a collection of three restaurants around the country – the original loca- tion in Destin, Florida; a Chicago location that opened in 2010, and one in Brea, California – with a menu that offers elevated southern fa- vorites and sides like shrimp and grits, fried pickles and boiled peanuts as well as the award-winning barbecue and the sauces that McKenna originally developed to serve on the side when he presented his barbecue to the contest judges. "All the barbecue stuff was created for our competition team," he says. That line of sauces, with six varieties that reflect a range of Southern barbecue tradi- tion, are now packaged for retail in 16- fluid-ounce bottles that retail for $8. Two of them reflect the Memphis sweet and smoky style with a tomato base. Smoky has a hint of brown sugar along with some smoke and goes well on pork ribs, while Hot Smoky has the same sweet flavor pro- file but offers a kiss of heat. North Carolina is represented with a couple of choices: ENC reflects the eastern North Carolina taste for peppery sauces with cayenne, red and black peppers in an apple cider vinegar base, while Carolina is a western North Carolina sauce with tomato and vinegar spiked with apple and lime juices for a traditional tangy taste. Gold is a South Carolina mustard and vinegar sauce, and Ivory represents the white sauce of Alabama, which is based on mayonnaise and vinegar with a dash of cayenne pepper. Ivory works on chicken and pork, and it's also great as a dressing for cole slaw, according to McKenna. "My two favorites are Gold, which is where I'm from, and also Hot Smoky," he says. "A lot of people take a couple of them and mix them themselves to make their own sauce." For more information, visit www .lilliesq.com. GN BY LORRIE BAUMANN Chef Charlie McKenna's family comes from Greenville, South Carolina, and if you cut him, he bleeds barbecue sauce. "It's sort of bred into you when you're younger because that's one of the main food styles," he says. He traces his interest in cooking back to his grandmother Lillie. "When I was little she would have me in the kitchen, helping make the biscuits and gravy," he says. That being the case, it was no won- der that when he decided to start his first restaurant in 2008, he served barbecue and other Southern cooking, and he named it Lillie's Q. He and his dad had already been compet- ing as a team on the barbecue circuit, and they were doing rather well at the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, held every year in Memphis, Tennessee. "In 2007, we won the world championships in Little Acre Offers a Gourmet Take on Condiments unusual," she says. "It's not like ordinary ketchup." But, she points out, "Lots of peo- ple like ketchup on their hot dogs." And with that, the defense rests. Objec- tion by the gen- tleman from Chicago over- ruled. Sit down, sir. Bill's hot dog cart business got started when he was working in a previous career in which his place of busi- ness was served by a lunch wagon. Bill got to know the guy behind the counter and started thinking that the lunch wagon seemed like a fun business, and a hot dog cart seemed like the most feasible way to get into it. "It just seemed like a fun thing to do," Trina says. "He's a vegetarian. He doesn't even eat hot dogs.... We were just doing it for amusement, pretty much, hop- ing we'd make a few dollars." It didn't take the couple long to figure out that if you're going to serve hot dogs, including the veggie dogs that Bill does eat, you're going to need to serve a relish, and hot dog sales might go better if you offered a really good relish. "We started with three different kinds of relish," Trina says. "When we were serving the condi- ments, people asked if they could take it home with them to make burgers or hot dogs." Then if you're making your condiments in sufficient quantity to supply the cus- tomers who want to take some home, you need a commercial kitchen. Thus does the snowball roll down the mountain to be- come an avalanche. "This whole thing is not something we planned out ahead of time. We basically fell into this," Trina says. Today, Little Acre's gour- met condiments are gather- ing a following in New England. Trina makes the products in small batches in the Genuine Local shared- space kitchen facility in Meredith, New Hampshire, and they're being sold in Eataly's Boston location and in the local Whole Foods stores as well as through the company's website. The product line includes the company's original Three Pepper Ketchup, which has flavor that's more about the red peppers than the crushed tomatoes that are also part of the recipe. There are also a couple of spicier versions, including the More Spicy Three Pepper Ketchup that was just recognized at Zest Fest. "The first reaction to the ketchup when people try it for the first time is usually, 'Wow'," Trina says. "It works well as a cocktail sauce or a pizza sauce. You can use it as a salsa for nachos. I make a black bean hummus with it – it's very versatile." And since this whole line started at a hot dog cart, of course it includes mustards – Trina makes hers with whole seeds – lots of them – that pop in the mouth like caviar. The varieties include Original and Balsamic & Fig. "It's more like a pickled mustard seed. There's one that's yellow, and the other one is made with bal- samic vinegar," Trina says. "They're really nice with charcuterie plates. They're great glazes for meats. The balsamic is nice with salmon.... or to take your hors d'oeuvres to the next level. We're adding bold taste sen- sations to ordinary, everyday foods. It's very unique stuff." For more information, visit www.littleacregourmet.com. GN BY LORRIE BAUMANN Little Acre Gourmet Foods produces the More Spicy Three Pepper Ketchup that just won an award at the 2017 Zest Fest's Fiery Foods Challenge, as well a line of other small-batch premium condiments. But it all started out as a hot dog cart owned by Bill Ahrens and his wife Trina, who are also the co-Owners of Little Acre Gourmet Foods. This suggests that Trina's an expert witness with absolute, unquestionable credibility on the question of whether it's acceptable to eat ketchup on a hot dog. She says it is. Granted, her argument isn't exactly that just any ketchup is fine atop a wiener. "Everything we make is very different, very "My two favorites are Gold, which is where I'm from, and also Hot Smoky." —CHARLIE MCKENNA "It works well as a cocktail sauce or a pizza sauce. You can use it as a salsa for nachos. I make a black bean hummus with it – it's very versatile." —TRINA AHRENS

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