Off the Desk and Into the Sauce with House of Q in Vernon, BC

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If you are tired of mixing the same seasoning spices every time you cook a steak, then you have to meet Brian Misko. If you are not up to making your own BBQ sauces from scratch, when quickly needing to grill a pork chop, or slow smoking a butt, then House of Q is your home. You have something in common. If you are in need of tasty BBQ seasoning spices and sauces for your cooking hobby, there is a Q solution.

Brian built a business from it. He created base seasoning and saucing for his out-of-control hobby and then shared it with other like-minded BBQ and grilling enthusiasts. It quickly became the go-to for customers pressed for time, with no appetite for compromise. People that require award-winning foundations for their love of meat. He called it House of Q.

Successful companies come from innovative entrepreneurs that invent products or services out of necessity. People who take their products to market for others to also enjoy. Brian is one of the best examples of how to start such a business. He is selling something he made, like, and use regularly. By doing it, he is adding value with his products, advice and support, to other like-minded enthusiasts in his BBQ industry.

This is part of the TWO COWBOYS' EPIC GLOBAL TRAVEL & CULINARY EXPERIENCE - 2019! 

Episode 1 - Cooking with Yoders

Episode 2 - Cooking with Q

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Escaping the Pod

It is an all too familiar, yet, still an inspiring story. According to Brian, it started around 2004. His cubicle in the software industry became too small. His escape was the discovery of his love for cooking. More and more of his time went into this passion. BBQ competitions followed. Before long, a little media attention, and voila! House of Q was born as a byproduct of this drive for award-winning food.

BBQ'ers have few choices for making a living from their passion. Some will call it art. Many cater to functions. A few start restaurants or smokehouses. Even fewer become entertainers. Starting a manufacturing business and launching a consumer brand with the name "House of Q" is probably one of the hardest and gutsiest ways to earn a living.

Brian escaped his pod. Today he spends his time honing his competitive cooking streak, developing new products, promoting them where he can, and inspiring others to discover their own food passions.

What he makes, promises to deliver a little help on the way to BBQ salvation. It includes a cookbook, seasoning spice blends, and sugary smokey spicey sauces - the necessary base ingredients for old-fashioned low and slow Southern BBQ. In his free time, he is generous with his advice and his commitment to inspire healthy living through good eating, and the art of cooking with fire.

Observations

Here is where the House of Q meets the Two Cowboys. We eagerly promote something we enjoy.

The Cowboys likes using Brian's products. It saves us from assembling our own beef pepper seasoning, which mostly contains the same ingredients. Q's all-purpose seasoning works equally well on pork ribs and chicken. We cannot decide if we like the Rocking Red or the Apple Butter Sauce more. We guess it depends on our mood and the amount of beer lubricating our cook. All we know is that our pork has never tasted more "Appelly" and "Zingy" when combining the two.

When it comes down to it, we share a passion for cooking with Brian. We agree about the need to advocate for more people to cook, grill and BBQ at home. You eat better that way. We both buy from local food producers, sourcing in-season ingredients for our cook, and include more fresh vegetables and meat protein in our diets.

Above all, we love sharing our passion with the people we call our friends. There is nothing better than to cook with fire, doing it for, and with the people we love, and findings innovative ways of telling the world about it. That is why we like a little House of Q. It comes from the same place.

Enjoy!

P.S. Get your House of Q products here.

Hendrik

Cooking Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Photos

Getting the Sauce

Quality Control 

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Eating Mopane Worms, Biltong, Pang and Pap at ATKV - Klein Kariba in Bela-Bela, South Africa

Coming Home

While Canada is in the middle of winter’s icy grip, we decided to head south towards the sun and to explore and rediscover our homeland of South Africa. After eighteen years away, not much has changed, yet everything is different. 

It is the start of the TWO COWBOYS' EPIC GLOBAL TRAVEL & CULINARY EXPERIENCE - 2019! 

Biltong Potjie at ATKV - Klein Kariba.

Township Tour - Bela Bela

Wildlife Safari

Pang!

Toeka se Dae

Cooking at the Koswerf

DO YOU WANT YOUR BUSINESS OR COMMUNITY FEATURED?

Coming to South Africa is coming full circle for the Cowboys. This is where it all started. We were born South African and grew up during some of the more turbulent times in the country's recent history. In 2001 we set out to see the world and broaden our horizons. We are still on that journey, and it is ironic to come home eighteen years later to find it a place very much the same as the one we've left behind, yet very different - good different - in many respects.

The international perspective of South African travel is mainly negative due to news coverage about safety, corruption, and ongoing conflict. It is an out-of-the-way destination with concerns for the traveller. It is why the destination is unfortunately frequently moved to the bottom of the travellers' priority bucket-list.

Mexico is similar in that it offers phenomenal vacations and experiences to travellers and at the same time it is also marred by adverse news reporting related to safety and corruption. The difference is that Mexico succeeded in positioning its travel and tourism products by addressing these concerns. They've done it through all-inclusive packaging, offered to the travel trade, and marketed accordingly. Travellers' concerns are addressed through "white-glove" handling in a controlled manner, from the moment they step off the aeroplane until they are safely back at the airport's departure hall.

South Africa offers as much, if not more, at an equally competitive rate. Wildlife, culture, cuisine, natural beauty, history, human capital and yet, it hasn't even started to fire up its tourism machinery. It lacks packaged products that overcome travellers' concerns and that are competitively positioned and highly rated. If you compare its positioning and messaging to other similarly developing world destinations, it definitely has the opportunity. It is now merely a matter of South Africans grasping it.

The Two Cowboys hope that we can play a small role in promoting this unique destination, its businesses and its people. We will be sharing content about our experiences. With our travel partners, we will be bringing you along for an incredible journey.

This is how our tour of South Africa started at one of the happy places we enjoyed as children, ATKV's - Klein Kariba Resort in Bela-Bela.

ATKV - Klein Kariba

Klein Kariba has a lot to offer as a typical South African family resort. It is a beautiful setting close to the main cities of Gauteng, with great weather, wildlife, beautiful camping, chalets, glamping tents, and hot and cold swimming pools. It has been a must-do family vacation spot for as long as we can remember. The resort continues to be a local favourite. Weekends and holidays are packed with visitors. Some have been patrons for generations.

I know the place well. After frequent trips tenting there during the early 1990s, I eventually wooed and married my wife at Klein Kariba, 26 years ago.

Our favourite spot at the resort, then and it still is now, must be the restaurant, Koswerf. “Koswerf” is the Afrikaans term for an outdoor kitchen or cooking area. This one is unfortunately mainly indoors. However, with the beautiful weather of the Waterberg Region, there is ample opportunity, all over the resort, to partake in cooking outdoors. Wherever you turn, the iconic cultural pastime called "braai" (cooking over an open fire outdoors) happens spontaneously, every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

We were fortunate to be hosted by Riaan Maritz and his team. They reluctantly handed us the keys to the pantry, and we kicked off our week cooking up a storm in the Koswerf’s kitchen. On our menu was a Cuban-style Arepa with a South African Peri-Peri Chicken Livers and Mango-Salsa twist. To round it off, we were introduced to the local tropical passionfruit samba sensation of Pang!! (more about this later).

In turn, they reciprocated with a Biltong Potjie (a risotto-like stew made with a lot of cream and cheese, and cooked over an open fire). We lubricated festivities with Caipirinhas as it was our turn to quench the thirsts.

When you visit ATKV - Klein Kariba, the resort has a lot to offer at its facilities. However, it is easy to miss some of the many attractions and other rich offerings of the Bela-Bela area. Klein Kariba sees its responsibility not only to be a destination of choice but to also encourage visitation around the area. That is why Riaan introduced us to M Court Township Tours. They afforded us an eye-opening opportunity to experience some of the curiosities that make up everyday life in a typical township in South Africa. We even tasted the local beer they brew (no license or permit required) and ate mopane worms and pap!

We visited one of the more popular "Padstalle" (roadside shops) called "Toeka se Dae". Here we were treated to freshly baked bread, home-made ginger beer, biltong, and enormous cold and crispy koeksisters.

Do you remember Pang?

What if we told you that we discovered absolute passionfruit gold just outside the gates of ATKV Klein Kariba? Chances are that if you ate anything real passionfruit-related in South Africa or Europe, then Stilhoek Boerdery had something to do with it. They are one of the largest passionfruit producers in South Africa. Nine months in the year they are shipping their products all over the country and some export markets.

It doesn’t stop there, they also bottle the passionfruit pulp with a swig of vodka and call it Pang! The range expanded from there with Mango, Strawberry and even a spicy Jalapeño, as its popularity grew in the local cocktail consuming market. Klein Kariba is fortunate to offer this locally produced godly elixir at the resort, where it is popular with their younger patrons during the summer holidays ( (legal drinking age, of course!).

Observations

After eighteen years away not much has changed, yet everything is different. Klein Kariba still feels like home to us. However, it is apparent that it evolved in that it reached out to play an increasingly important and more inclusive role in the more diverse local communities of Bela-Bela.

After decades, during which people in a changing South Africa treated each other with animosity and suspicion, it is evident that those that are reaching out to each other, are the ones making a positive difference in their community. Klein Kariba is the main attraction, yet it collaborates with local entrepreneurs and businesses across the spectrum to lend a hand and facilitate success for others too. Business is always more natural when people work together. Those that discover it early continues to prosper.

We are enthused to see that our home language - Afrikaans - is treasured by everyone, even more than we remembered. Yet, everyone is welcome if you speak English, Zulu, German, Cantonese or another language. The South African culture of food, friendliness and hospitality is found around every corner, and the beautiful wildlife setting of the resort’s facilities remains absolute and intoxicating.

Klein Kariba is for everyone. We cannot highlight this single feature enough. Yes, the people of South Africa knows it well and loves it. It is such a gem that they will be forgiven to try and keep it to themselves. However, we hope we can entice the world to come and see it too. We are so proud to be home and proud of what we see and experience, that we want to share it with the world.

Enjoy our programming and see what makes this such a great place to visit. Then, book your ticket and see for yourself. Come for the food, the wildlife, the weather. Above all,  meet the great people of Klein Kariba and Bela-Bela. You may just find us here as well.

We are glad to be home, again!

Hendrik
Wandering Cowboy!

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.

Photos

All Over the World - of South Africa!

Boere Cuban Arepa

Koeksister!

Uber Africa!

Bushlab

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