Butcher and chef collaborate on Thanksgiving dinners for Atlanta families and first responders
A chef and a butcher from opposite sides of Atlanta came together to help families put Thanksgiving meals on the table.
Butcher Mark Frazie, owner of Frazie's Meat & Market in Riverside, handled the smoked turkeys, while Joey Ward, the chef and owner of Southern Belle in Poncey-Highland, handled the sides.
Frazie and Ward became golf buddies after being introduced by mutual contacts. The two men worked together to relieve families from the stress of cooking on Thanksgiving while supporting each other's businesses.
"We start off with a brine for 24 hours, and then we're going to inject it with our special butter, and then we inject it, we season it, let that sit for another 24 hours, and then we smoke it, and that takes another six hours on the smoker," Frazie said. "We did close to 100 smoked turkeys this year, so it was a lot."
"We're doing collard greens, we're doing housemade rolls with Banner Butter, we're doing sweet potato casserole with a little Biscoff cookie crumble on top," Ward said.
The two men have had to get creative to offset the impact of inflation on their businesses.
"With the prices of beef going up and prices of everything, it's hard for us to keep our prices down, but we're doing our best to keep our margins as close as we can," Frazie said.
"It's affecting everybody from the top to the bottom," Ward said. "So for us, it's all locally sourced products. We still stay true to that and to our integrity, and it has affected the price, totally, overall. But at the end of the day, we're hoping to feed a lot of happy families this Thanksgiving."
Frazie regular Florian Firlus is excited to try Southern Belle for the first time because of their partnership.
"I know this year has been tough on a lot of people with the economy so far, so I'm really hoping that we can come together — at least over Thanksgiving — and share a good meal together," Firlus said.
Frazie and Ward are also donating free meals to firefighters at two nearby stations and staffers at Grady Hospital.
"I know they're working on Thanksgiving, so the least I can do is feed them for Thanksgiving," Frazie said.