Barbecue Maven Forks Over Love and Food for Hungry

Chances are this weekend your grill will see a lot of action, from dads to grads it’s a big weekend for firing up the charcoal and feeding a crowd. Meet one grill master, who along with some help from his friends, fed a whopping 27,000 people in the days and weeks following Hurricane Sandy.

Nesconset resident Phil Rizzardi is part of Barbecue Brethren, a group of barbecue enthusiasts and backyard competition chefs who share their love of the grill with cookouts that feed a crowd and benefit a cause.

What started as a hobby in the 1990’s became a serious passion in 2003 when Rizzardi started the group, which now has 40,000 members in 160 countries worldwide.

“We like to cook and we can’t eat as much as we cook,” said Rizzardi a computer systems analyst for Grumman.  “We love cooking and feeding people and we find charities that we can do that for.”

When Hurricane Sandy was through and Long Islanders and area residents were left wet, cold and hungry, Rizzardi knew that his group could help. He just needed to organize them.

“While I was sitting on a gas line I thought, why don’t we enlist the power of the brethren instead of watching everyone suffer,” said Rizzardi.

He knew he needed help with some logistics and funds so he called around to ten different barbecue teams and began to mobilize. They headed out Long Beach, where they figured they could be of the most help.

“I think we served 14,000 meals in three days,” said Rizzardi. “We set up a buffet line for people to come to us and they could eat on site, but also we prepared mobile meals in Styrofoam boxes and began sending those out in a van to residents who were cleaning up.”

The devastation was something Rizzardi had never seen. He stayed involved and went to Lindenhurst to serve meals for Thanksgiving Day. His group served for the entire weekend preparing turkey, ham and pork loins along with all the fixings. 

“I walked around in Lindenhurst with boxes of food. It was gut wrenching,” he said. “One mom came out holding her baby and they were too proud to come to us and get food. It was heartbreaking.”

Rizzardi, along with 10 others, were recently honored as “Community Heroes of Hurricane Sandy during a planeside reception at Republic Airport.

“We enjoy doing it, so we are not shy about doing it for a reason,” said Rizzardi.