Meatopia Wrapup

All-star chefs give meat-eaters a lot to gnaw on at Texas-sized feast

This weekend San Antonio's Pearl Brewery complex played host to the first Texas edition of Meatopia, the ode to meat-eating and live-fire cooking conceived by James Beard Award-winning food writer Josh Ozersky.

At Saturday night's kick-off event, a dinner for 300 called The Beefsteak, Ozersky neatly summed up the motivation for and philosophy behind the two-day event. "I came to Texas to eat meat with people who like to eat meat," Ozersky proclaimed to cheers and applause.

Indeed, the meat did flow. Three chefs, Tim Rattray of San Antonio's The Granary, Tim Byres from Smoke Restaurant in Dallas and New York chef Andrew Toscano prepared steak dishes that came out sliced and ready to eat to the communal tables. To quench their thirst, diners had their choice of wine, beer and cocktails from the event's sponsors. Together with live music, excess was the theme; even the small, token bowl of vegetables present to each table had a root beer glaze.

"I came to Texas to eat meat with people who like to eat meat," Ozersky proclaimed to cheers and applause.

Of the dishes, Rattray's steak with barbecue butter had the best crust, which made for an excellent contrast with the fatty, properly medium rare meat. But everything was delicious. Sitting next to a couple other Houstonians, we immediately began plotting our dream team of chefs for an all-steak fest.

Two quibbles. First, there didn't seem to be a system in place for evenly distributing the entrees. After checking in with friends, they never received Tim Byres's coffee-cured steak with relish; since our table had an extra plate, we sent it their way. At my table, we only received one plate of Andrew Toscano's Calabrian-chile rubbed steak. Second, for an event which is inspired by Gilded Age excess, none of us reported being as ridiculously over-the-top full as we expected. A couple more plates of meat per table would have finished us off, although our cardiologists probably approve of the organizer's relative restraint.

Choosing from among 32 chefs

With an extra hour of sleep, I arrived at Meatopia Sunday morning ready to attack the 32 chefs who were serving meat in all its forms across the Pearl complex. For a first-time event, I thought it was extremely well-organized. Only the highest profile chefs, like Austin's Paul Qui, Dallas's John Tesar and San Antonio's Johnny Hernandez, attracted significant lines, and they moved quickly. Also, the model of paying one price that includes all food and beverages is a welcome respite from other festivals that require constantly paying additional money for food or coupons.

Although I made a heroic effort to sample all 32 options, I gave up with five or six to go. Sadly, that meant I missed San Antonio chef Jason Dady's porchetta, which looked absolutely spectacular and attracted a consistent crowd. I also didn't try cookbook author Adam Perry Lang's barbecue sandwich, but his rig and setup were among the most impressive looking displays of the day. There's always next year.

Underbelly was Houston's sole representative, but Chris Shepherd and his crew acquitted themselves well with a whole roasted pig prepared with Korean spices. The restaurant brought enough people, including sous chefs Ryan Lachaine and Lyle Bento and pastry chef Victoria Dearmond, that they were able to sample some of the other dishes between tending to the booth. In particular, Shepherd enjoyed the lamb neck gyro prepared by California chef John Fink.

My Top Six dishes of Meatopia

Johnny Hernandez of La Gloria in San Antonio: There was something almost medieval looking about Hernandez's stretched out, roasted cabrito. He served the tender goat meat on freshly made tortillas with an array of salsas. "Best taco I ever had," Ozersky tweeted.

Rene Ortiz, formerly of Sway in Austin & Ford Fry of The Optimist (among others) in Atlanta: Amidst the beef heart, lamb necks and bison, anyone preparing chicken has to be pretty impressive to be memorable. Ortiz's grilled chicken with chile paste and other spices delivered in a big way: moist, flavorful, spicy. If not for this tweet from Eater National's Paula Forbes, I might have missed it. Although Fry has made his name in Atlanta, he's a Houston native who graduated from Lamar High School. His chicken parts included feet and breast. Asked about how to eat it, Fry told one diner "just gnaw on it." Yes, chef.

Geronimo Lopez of Nao in San Antonio: Lopez serves as both executive chef and instructor at this restaurant that's part of the Culinary Institute of America's campus at Pearl; he made the most of his home field advantage. The large, hanging veal legs cooked at Nao's outdoor kitchen was among the day's most impressive displays, and the side of creamy polenta was so delicious I briefly pondered a second helping.

Andrew Weissman of Il Sogno Osteria in San Antonio: The chef's braised, stuffed breast of veal was tender, juicy and beautifully cooked. Amidst a lot of chefs with bold flavors, Weissman stood out with his subtlety. Well played.

Ned Elliot of Foreign & Domestic in Austin: Which isn't to say there wasn't a place for bold flavors. Elliot's crispy lamb ribs were spicy, intensely flavored and a total mess to eat. Isn't that half the fun of attending an event called Meatopia?

That's a lot of whole roasted lamb.

16 Meatopia in San Antonio November 2013

Photo by Eric Sandler

That's a lot of whole roasted lamb.

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eat real food

Houston DJ-turned-TikTok star cooks up a cult following one recipe at a time

Courtesy of Uncle Dibbz

Uncle Dibbz, a.k.a. A.H. Bowden, has built a devoted following for his viral recipes.

For the past month, Uncle Dibbz has been, shall we say, going ham on social media with the myriad videos of alternative Thanksgiving dishes. He’s dropped how-to clips for such recipes as Cajun-roasted turkey, honey-baked ham/hens, oven-bag turkey, and six-piece fried turkey (to go). Basically, if you don’t want to cook a bland ol’ Butterball this Turkey Day, Dibbz has you covered.

Who is Dibbz, you say? Well, he’s a North Jersey-born, Georgia-bred, Houston-based chef who’s been building quite the foodie rep online. Several videos across his TikTok, Instagram and YouTube pages, from his Cajun-boiled fried chicken (2 million on IG) to his “Propose to Me Pasta” (12.3 million on TikTok), has amassed millions of views. But Dibbz (government name: A.H. Bowden) wasn’t always a culinary content creator. He used to spin music back in Atlanta as DJ DiBiase, named after retired wrestler Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase. “DiBiase is a mouthful to say, so people just always call me ‘D’ or ‘Dibbz’ for short,” says Bowden, 37, during a Zoom interview.

@uncledibbz PROPOSE To Me PASTA 💍 🍝 Trust your Uncle! This SEAFOOD Pasta will seal the deal 👌🏽 Get my recipe below ⬇️ or on uncledibbz.com [@uncledibbz Link in Bio] 🌐 **Ingredients:** - 8 ounces spaghetti - 1 lb mixed seafood (shrimp, scallops, crab meat, etc.) - 2 tablespoons olive oil - Fresh chopped basil - 2 cloves garlic, minced - 1/2 cup white wine - 1/4 cup heavy cream - 2 tablespoons unsalted butter - Salt and pepper to taste - Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust [link in bio] - Fresh parsley, chopped (for garnish) - Grated Parmesan cheese (for garnish) **Instructions:** 1. Cook the spaghetti pasta according to the package instructions until al dente. Drain and set aside. 2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the minced garlic, chopped basil and sauté for about 1 minute until fragrant. 3. Add the mixed seafood to the skillet. Season with Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust to taste and cook for 2-3 minutes until cooked through. Remove the seafood from the skillet and set aside. 4. Pour in the white wine to the skillet and let it simmer for 2 minutes, allowing the alcohol to cook off. 5. Stir in the heavy cream, butter, Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust seasoning, salt, and pepper. Cook for another 2-3 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly. 6. Add the cooked spaghetti and cooked mixed seafood to the skillet. Toss everything together until well coated with the sauce. 7. Remove from heat and garnish with fresh parsley and grated Parmesan cheese. 8. Serve hot and enjoy the flavorful Seafood Spaghetti. That's good Shawty! #UncleDibbz #ThatsGoodShawty #Pasta #marryme #proposal #bride #wife #husband #relationshipgoals #datenight #easyrecipe #seafood #cajun #cooking #fyp #foryou #viral #houston ♬ original sound - Uncle Dibbz 🍴

He was making a nice living as a DJ, even serving as rapper Big K.R.I.T.’s touring DJ for a while. But when the pandemic hit, the gigs obviously dried up.

“I was living in Miami at the time,” he says. “And, you know, when you have a lot of time on your hands to think – but also need to figure out a way to, you know, sustain an income and everything like that – the ideas start coming,”

Like most DJs at that time, he was doing live mixes on Instagram. But his days throwing cookout parties in Atlanta inspired him to start doing his cooking videos, where he used his very own seasoning. Of course, he had a lemon pepper blend, which he used in a lemon pepper hot wings video that currently has over a half-million views on TikTok.

“I'm about to go live to DJ later that night, and my phone was just going off with orders,” he recalls. “So I'm like, where are these orders coming from? And it's not from my friends. I'm seeing the cities and the states. I don't know these people.”

Thanks to his videos, which usually end with him saying his signature line “That’s good shawty!” (that’s also the name of his cookbook he released last year), Dibbz went into the seasoning business full time. He eventually hired another person to help send out the piles of orders he was receiving.

He even got an order from former Dallas Cowboy Emmitt Smith, one of his favorite athletes. “I remember doing a book report on him when I was in fourth grade,” he boasts.

Although Dibbz has a flair for making meals that border on decadent, he’s an ardent practitioner of cooking with natural ingredients, especially in his seasoning. He has several low-sodium seasoning, including Bebe’s Salt Free – named after his mother, who had open-heart surgery a few weeks before the pandemic started.

“I don't think a lot of people understand the amount of toxins and chemicals that go into a lot of these seasonings,” he says. “You're starting to see it in the news now. A lot of the foods with certain dyes are being taken off the shelves and things like that.’

Soon, Dibbz moved himself and his new business to Houston, a favorite place to perform as well as a town whose hip-hop got him into music. He cites local chopped-and-screwed gods DJ Screw, Michael 5000 Watts, and OG Ron C as his holy trinity of influences. To give props to the music of his new home, he created a hot sauce – called HXT Sauce – whose uncharacteristically large bottle resembles Promethazine cough syrup (aka the key ingredient in lean, the preferred purple cocktail for the city’s rap community).

“It's not necessarily about promoting that usage,” he says. “But, at the same time, it’s just a homage to one of the factors and influences of screwed-and-chopped music.”

Dibbz still indulges in spinning records from time to time. The Waxaholics’ DJ Big Reeks has gotten him to break out the vinyl a few times during his Thursday-night sets at Alley Kat Bar & Lounge in Midtown. But creating new recipes, dropping delicious content and proving you can eat and live in a hearty, healthy fashion still remains his full-time mission.

“I’m not just talking about eating cauliflower rice all day and every day, but just eat real food,” he says. “We're eating fake food. That's the bottom line. We're eating fake food and my whole purpose is to inspire people to eat real food and that starts with real ingredients, real herbs, you know – real natural seasonings.”

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