It's Too Damn Hot.

It’s a special edition newsletter this week. Friday morning inbox infiltration isn’t our norm, but transparently: it’s been a wild one. But we are here, and glad you are too and would’ve missed you if we’d just taken the week off.

Welcome back to The Meat Platter. Let’s jump to it.

The AJC Super 11 has recognized Georgia's 11 best senior high school football players since 1985. Meet the 2026 AJC Super 11.

Those top 10 positions articles are still available to read over on the AJC website too. We just thought this might provide a succinct overview while also not lasting into the fall months with everyone that needed to be recognized.

Apparently, chicken and waffled needed to become a sandwich.

We’re usually hesitant to report on fast-food menu news because, respectfully, there are only so many limited-edition sauces a person can care about. But Chick-fil-A got our attention this week.

Starting August 17, they’re rolling out a Chicken & Waffles Sandwich nationwide for a limited time. It takes the chicken sandwich we all know, loses the bun, and replaces it with a maple-flavored Belgian-style waffle. There’s also a spicy version, because apparently restraint was never part of the plan. The fall menu will also include two new s’mores-inspired treats.

Are we skeptical? A little. Will we try it? Obviously. This is investigative journalism.

We have reached that beautiful point in August where everyone is officially and annoyingly counting down those days to kickoff. (Just kidding about the annoying part- GO DAWGS!)

The first preseason coaches poll has Georgia sitting at No. 3 in the country, behind Ohio State and Oregon, with seven first-place votes going to the Dawgs. And in Athens, there’s a particularly interesting storyline developing around the offense: Georgia says it wants to be more aggressive throwing the ball downfield this season, putting a lot of responsibility on returning quarterback Gunner Stockton. Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo has been talking openly about creating more explosive plays rather than simply grinding out drives.

Translation for those of us who don't spend August studying film: Georgia wants to throw the football.

Whether that actually happens when SEC play arrives is another matter entirely, but for now there’s reason to be intrigued.

More importantly, this means we are rapidly approaching the time of year when perfectly reasonable adults structure entire Saturdays around a television schedule and start cooking meat at 8:30 in the morning.

Nature is healing.

Have you guys checked in on our Spotify playlist for August? Abbye’s got her picks this month lined up for the listening and she’s out for GOATED playlist.

We say this often but really mean it this time: expect the unexpected. She’s throwing it back to the late 90’s, early 2000’s, with weezy and drizzy in between. Get over there and give it a listen.

If you’re looking for a late-summer road trip, there’s an event coming up that checks an almost suspicious number of Meat Platter boxes.

Southern Grown returns to Sea Island, Georgia, later this month with a weekend built around Southern food, music, spirits and live-fire cooking. One of the headline events is Rhythm & 'Cues, a live-fire feast featuring third-generation North Carolina pitmaster Sam Jones alongside music from singer-songwriter Holly Williams and cocktails from Blade and Bow Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.

Sam Jones comes from one of the most respected whole-hog barbecue families in the country, and his family's style is about as traditional as American barbecue gets: whole hogs cooked slowly over wood coals, chopped together and seasoned simply enough that the pork and smoke still do the talking.

Put that next to live music, bourbon and a weekend on Sea Island and suddenly we’ve discovered a work trip everyone is willing to volunteer for.

We’re just saying: there are worse ways to spend the end of August.

Food & Wine asked pitmasters this week about the mistakes they see home cooks making, and the list was surprisingly basic: cutting into meat to see whether it's done, pressing burgers and steaks into the grate, cooking on dirty grills and generally fighting the food instead of controlling the cook.

Our addition to the list? Stop treating the entire grill like it needs to be the same temperature.

This is where good charcoal matters. A two-zone setup only works well if you've got a fire that burns hot, clean and predictably. Meat Head Charcoal gives you the high heat you want for that hard sear while still allowing you to control the cook by adjusting your vents and moving food around the grill.

Basically: before you spend $300 on something Bluetooth-enabled, learn to move your chicken six inches to the left.

It might be the best grilling upgrade you make all summer.

Did you know, the little droplets of moisture that appear on top of a steak while it's cooking can actually tell you what's happening inside it.

As meat heats up, its muscle fibers begin contracting and pushing moisture toward the surface. When you start seeing juices bead heavily on top, the interior has moved well beyond the raw stage and the proteins are actively tightening.

It's one reason experienced grill cooks can learn a surprising amount simply by watching the meat instead of constantly poking, cutting and flipping it.

Your thermometer still gets the final say, we're not animals, but the grill gives you more clues than you might realize.

We’ll be sharing more as we get closer to time, but are excited to announce our participation in Southern Living’s Food and Fire event at Southbound in September.

Southbound is a nonprofit food festival built around Birmingham’s culinary identity, with a mission to connect chefs, farmers, makers, and the broader community while celebrating the city’s food history and where it’s headed next. The 2026 festival runs for 10 days, with signature events centered around places like Pepper Place and Sloss Furnaces.

Read more about it here and we will share more about this v cool event upcoming.

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My friend said “What rhymes with orange.”

—I said, “No… it doesn’t.”