SHELBY, Ohio – Shelby locals got a taste of the barbecue life Tuesday, Aug. 11, at the pavilion behind Marvin Memorial Library, thanks to Ben Lash, owner of The Vault Wine Bar, and the library.
The barbecue basics class, which was put together by library assistant Shelly Krystofik, gave participants an opportunity to learn essential barbecue tips from Lash, as well as try different recipes.
“It is rewarding, but it’s also good advertising for us,” Lash said of the event. “It gives us a chance to come out and talk to some folks that haven’t been to our place before.”
The Vault opened a little over a year ago in the former Citizens Bank building, which is located at 29 W. Main St. in Shelby. Lash opened the restaurant with his wife, Cindy.
Lash, who said he is not formally trained, demonstrated how to prepare and grill chicken, pork tenderloin, hamburgers, mixed vegetables, swordfish, and pineapple.
Of his many tips, he shared that he prefers charcoal to gas grilling because he thinks the flavor is better and that there are fewer things that can go wrong. He also likes to use burger that is 80 percent lean and 20 percent fat.
If burger is too lean, he said, it will be dry. Lash gets his burger from Homestead Spring Farm in Ashland.
With store-bought chicken breast, he suggested butterflying the pieces so they cook more evenly.
His No. 1 tip, however, was to not overdo it when learning to barbecue.
“Keep it simple, especially if you’re just starting out,” Lash said. “Find one thing and get really good at it and get confident that you know how to do it.”
Another important tip he shared was to first cook the food that takes the longest and add from there. He explained that a common error among amateur grill chefs is to put everything on at once.
For instance, Lash put his vegetable blend on first because it took the longest. From there, he added a pork tenderloin, hamburgers, swordfish, chicken, and finally pineapple – which cooked the quickest.
“One thing I like to do is always try to have something different that you can’t get anywhere else,” Lash said during the demonstration.
After everything was made, participants followed Lash into the pavilion to test the food, as well as a few other dishes, including a coconut gelato, on which he placed the freshly grilled pineapple that was seasoned with cinnamon sugar.
Krystofik said the idea for the event came from an Ohio Library Council conference she attended.
“The one person who spoke at the conference said he does a barbecue class, and it lasts all day,” she said. “He brings his own smoker and his own spices, and he lets the people take home different spices in a Ziploc bag throughout the day, and then he stays at the smoker all day, and at 7 o’clock, he does a program.”
While an all-day set up wouldn’t work at Marvin Memorial, Krystofik said, she decided to scale it back and offer something similar – and the first person she thought of was Lash.
“Then I talked to people here at work, and they loved the idea, so, of course, I had to find out if funding was OK and if we could do it,” she said. “And they said, ‘yes,’ so here we are.”
According to Krystofik, offering events such as this to the public is “vital” to the library, which is located at 29 W. Whitney Ave.
“It is important for the town to know we want them to come and that we want them to be a big part of what we have here,” she said.
A few other important tips Lash shared was to let meat rise to room temperature before putting it on the grill and to put indentations in the center of burger patties to keep them from “puffing up.” Also, using a chimney starter instead of lighter fluid allows for a quicker and more efficient charcoal burn.
Creating different heat zones can be helpful too, Lash said. This can be done by adding more or less charcoal to different spots on the grill, and it allows food to cook at different temperatures, which is important if it is cooking too slowly or too quickly.
“We’re happy that a lot of people came – it was a great turn out,” Krystofik said. “We’re going to talk to Ben and maybe have him come back out in May and maybe do a night class to kick off grilling season.”
