6 CHARLOTTEMAGAZINE.COM // JUNE 2019
AROUND OUR PICNIC TABLE sat a father
and his two daughters, three couples (two of
them neighbors turned best friends), and me.
Ten strangers, sitting under a red umbrella on
the front patio of Sweet Lew’s BBQ, talking
about our favorite restaurants, the best bris-
ket in town, and Game of Thrones.
We all live in dierent neighborhoods—
Starmount, University, uptown, Optimist
Park—and we’re all transplants from dier-
ent places like South Carolina, New York,
Maryland, and Delaware. But we all like
barbecue, which is why we were at Sweet
Lew’s QC Cookout on a Sunday evening
in late April. The event raised money for
Bryan Furman, a pitmaster from Charlotte
who lost his Atlanta-based smokehouse in
a recent re.
Once we got our trays of ribs and bris-
ket, the table was silent. Almost everyone
bobbed their heads, a nod that translates to,
“This is damn good food.” The nodding con-
tinued as the band started to play an instru-
mental version of “Sunny Days,” the Sesame
Street theme.
“Oh! It’s Sesame Street,” the woman next
to me says. She sings along, “How to get to
Sesame Streeeet.”
A few weeks before, I was at Moo & Brew
Fest, a cra beer and burger festival at the
AvidXchangeMusicFactory. Charlotte maga-
zine was a sponsor for the event, and we set
up a table to pass out magazines and talk
to festival-goers. I asked each person who
approached, “What stories do you want to
read?”
More stories about the LGBT community,
said the rst person I asked.
Guns, said the second.
Whew.
There’s a lot to disagree about nowa-
days, especially in a new Southern city like
Charlotte. We straddle the line between
progressive north and traditional south, but
those dierent perspectives help build ourvibrant city. Though viewpoints vary, the
fact that Charlotteans are outspoken in their
beliefs means we all have something in com-
mon: We care.
We care about the safety of our city. We
weep when tragedy strikes our neighbors,
our colleagues, our friends, the students at
our local university. We cry out for change.
In April, when I spoke with Charlotte-
based writer Amber Smith about her upcom-
ing novel, she said something that resonated
with this larger idea. “Our dierences are
amazing, and they make us who we are, but
there are things we all have in common. We
all know what it feels like to have to nd our-
selves and rebuild our lives.”
Furman has faced not one but two res
during his time in the barbecue business.
He rebuilt aer the rst and now has to do
it again—with help from familiar faces in
the city’s dining scene, like Lewis Donald of
Sweet Lew’s, Greg Collier of The Yolk and Lo
& Cellar, and Keia Mastrianni of Milk Glass
Pie, who donated their proceeds from the
event to Furman’s rebuilding eorts.
When you talk to the people behind a
barbecue joint (and we do, starting on page
50), the arguments around the tradition-
laden meal seem super£uous. Is eastern- or
Lexington-style barbecue better? Is it BBQ,
barbecue, bar-b-que, or barbeque?
Just like our city, barbecue’s variances
based on taste and region only strengthen
the dish’s legacy. Like the dierent back-
grounds of the strangers around our table at
Sweet Lew’s, which only made our conversa-
tion that much better.
The morning aer the cookout, I Google
the lyrics to “Sunny Days.” “Sweepin’ the
clouds away. On my way to where the air is
sweet.” I spend the next 24 hours humming
the song in my head, bobbing my head with
nostalgia.
Barbecue has the same eect.
LOGAN CYRUSWe straddle
the line
between
progressive
north and
traditional
south, but
those different
perspectives
help build our
vibrant city.
FROM THE EDITORSWEEPIN’ THE CLOUDS AWAY
Emma Way
[email protected]The air is a little sweeter in our barbecue community