Smoking In Sharon

The last time I ate chef Bennett Chinn’s food, it was served on big white dinner plates next to gleaming stemware, in a restaurant with candles, linen napkins, exposed timbers and a two-sided fireplace warming a dozen or so tables.

    And the menu — what a menu, inspired in part by what food writers straight-facedly called “molecular gastronomy,†the culinary high jinx of 2007 — listed scallops with lobster foam (a sauce “deconstructed†by a blast of nitrous oxide into sweet, minuscule, saline, lobstery  bubbles); oysters barely warmed in a vodka-cream sauce; tenderloin of beef poached, yes, poached, in duck fat, and crème brûlée flavored with saffron.

   That was Moosilauke in Kent. Then.

   This is When Pigs Fly. Now.  In Sharon. Chinn’s latest culinary adventure serves up Southern barbecue — pulled chicken, smoked beef brisket and baby back ribs — along with sides like corn pudding, deviled eggs, collard greens, black-eyed peas, cole slaw, pickles, cornbread, chocolate brownies, all dished up on paper plates with plastic forks, and mostly packed to go in styrofoam boxes. And customers waiting for orders can watch “The Price Is Right†on TV.

   One chef.

   Two psyches.  

   Chinn, dressed entirely in black, with Nike’s “Livestrong†stamped on the cap, looks happy.

   This 40-year-old CIA graduate is still crew-cut, photogenic,

savvy, but these days he talks a lot about his Southern roots (he grew up in Atlanta where he and his mother cooked Gourmet magazine dishes together and then competed for who plated them best). But he has little to say, unless prompted, about lecithin-infused airs and gellifications of the past. That’s because his heart is with that great torpedo of an Amish-made $7,900 smoker, right across from the fire station on Main Street, which was treating ribs to a heavy dose of apple and cherry wood smoke, with some mesquite, too, for that touch of Texas, the day I visited.

   So, how come the big change?

   That was easy.

   “I aspired to have my own business†— read be my own boss. Chinn, like many chefs, has had quite a few bosses in recent years, moving from Cascade Mountain Winery in Amenia, to Haymaker in Poughkeepsie and then Moosilauke. Now he’s smoking in his own spot with partner Rodger Ecker.

   But first, Chinn went online to research rubs and smokers and temperatures and techniques. And now, he says, he’s got everything right: a perfect dry rub, which he won’t describe, and a technique, which he will discuss with anyone walking in the door.

   And why barbecue?

   It’s the right food at the right price, he says. p

      When Pigs Fly is located at 29 Main St., in Sharon, CT. The number there is 860-492-0000, and the hours are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., every day of the week. For detailed information on Chinn’s menu and on his catering business, go to www.hudsonvalleybbq.com.