![]() Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas are also home to some of his favorites. While once campaigning for a Democrat in North Carolina, he drove 150 miles out of his way just to hit a good barbecue joint. “I’ve built trips around barbecue,” says Coons. “It’s spectacular barbecue.”ĭespite representing a mid-Atlantic state synonymous with crabs and orange crushes, the 12-year Delaware senator happens to be a brisket buff. “The quantity is simply staggering,” says Coons. Louis spare ribs, and 80 pounds of jumbo chicken wings. By the numbers, that’s 170 pounds of pork, 180 pounds of Texas beef brisket, 130 pounds of St. There they slow-smoked 560 pounds of meat on hickory wood up to 12 hours the night before the luncheon. Days before the event, the pitmaster couples packed up a massive 24-wheeler and made the 600-mile drive up from Georgia to a staging location in Alexandria, Virginia. “It takes a lot of coordination and months of planning to make the event go smoothly,” says Thornton. Senate Photographic Services John Shinkle Susan Collins, R-Maine, grabbing a plate between Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. Bub-Ba-Q’s award-winning dry rub was tasked with seasoning the meats. This year, the Thorntons brought along Food Network stars William “Bubba” Latimer and Shannon Latimer - of Salty Mule in Canton and Bub-Ba-Q in Woodstock and Jasper, Georgia - to help cook and expand the menu. It’s an incredible honor and very humbling.” “You think you’ll do it once in your lifetime and now here we are on year 12. “When you get into this business you never dream you’ll be driving to Washington,” he says. Just 40 senators showed up to that inaugural one, which was also Thornton’s first-ever trip to D.C. Sit down at a table and put differences aside,” says Thornton. “Being the Southern gentleman he is, Isakson knew how to win peoples’ hearts. Their late home-state senator Isakson personally recruited them to do so. “It gives them a reason to chat about ‘What barbecue is like where you’re from’ and ‘Do you have a favorite restaurant.’ That often leads to longer conservations because everyone gets seconds.”ĭale Thornton and Tracey Thornton, the owners of South 40 Smokehouse in Marietta, Georgia, always cater the event. “If you take a look around, puts people in a good mood,” says Coons. (Georgia’s game-changing Herschel Walker scandal may have been a juicy topic of conversation, had the news broke last week.) Grass-fed Angus beef brisket was slow smoked on hickory and cherry woods for 12 hours the night before. (This year, a cluster of earpiece-wearing suits noticeably stood outside the tall double doors as senators dined inside.)ĭespite a monumental midterm election looming ahead, the delicious smell of barbecue filling the soaring dining room seemed to dissipate any apparent blue-and-red tension in the air. ![]() The pandemic put the self-serve barbecue on pause in 2020, but it returned last year with a 75-percent showing of the senate - just months after insurrectionists stormed its same building that connects to the Capitol. Senators are always invited, and this year had an excellent attendance rate, with around 90 members congregating around circular white-clothed tables. Raphael Warnock) and two other iconic names from across the aisle: Republican Senators Roy Blunt of Missouri and Sen. That is your price of admission.”Ĭoons, previously just a hungry attendee for years, co-led the luncheon this year with a fellow Democrat from Georgia (Sen. Sticking to tradition, Coons says he carried on Isakson’s sole rule of the annual bipartisan buffet: “Come in, get a plate, and sit next to someone you don’t know or ever talk to. The off-record event, held in the Beaux-Arts building’s soaring Kennedy Caucus Room, was created to build relationships across party lines at a time when weekly caucus and conference lunches petered out. “He fought fiercely for his state but routinely put his country over his party.” “Johnny was a remarkable bridge-builder between caucuses that had a hard time hearing each other all the time,” Coons tells Eater. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who retired his seat in 2019 and passed away last December after a battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was close friends with its founder, Sen. ![]() The 12th annual bipartisan luncheon, held Thursday, September 29, was particularly poignant for its co-organizer Sen. It wasn’t for any sort of vote or debate, but rather to dig into good old-fashioned barbecue personally prepared by award-winning Georgia pitmasters. One afternoon last week on Capitol Hill, a steady stream of the nation’s top elected officials paraded into the same marble-lined room atop the Russell Senate Office Building.
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