6 Atlanta food pop-ups this week, including a deep dive on the Alden

When/Where: 5-8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 21. Cultivation Brewing Co. (@cultivationbrewing) 650 Langford Drive, Norcross.

3-9 p.m. Monday, Aug. 24. Truck & Tap Duluth (@truckandtapduluth). 3137 Main St., Duluth.

Why you should check them out: Payne left the corporate world years ago to launch a food truck serving Indiana’s unofficial state dish, the classic fried pork tenderloin sandwich. The sandwich features a lean pork cutlet pounded thin and made huge, coated in a crunchy saltine cracker crumb crust and served on a bun with yellow mustard and pickles. In addition to this traditional version, he also serves variants, such as the spicy pig (topped with sriracha mustard and pickled jalapenos) and the Texan pig (dressed with barbecue sauce and pickles), along with deep-fried New Jersey ripper hot dogs.

Wood-fired barbecue meets pizza from Oso Smoke & Dough

Who: Oso Smoke & Dough (@osobbq) from Jay Felton.

When/Where: 8:30 a.m.-noon Saturdays, Peachtree Road Farmers Market (@ptreefarmersmkt). 2744 Peachtree Road NW, Buckhead.

9 a.m.-1 p.m. Sundays, Grant Park Farmers Market (@communityfarmersmarkets). 1040 Grant St. SE, Grant Park.

Why you should check them out: With Oso Smoke & Dough, Felton, who is also the chef de cuisine at Miller Union, brings together pizza dough and wood-fired barbecue for an osito: a foldable, handheld pizza pocket stuffed with smoked meats and farm produce. You’ll also find his newly added off-menu bear hug ice cream sandwich, which features house-made malted buttermilk ice cream hand-pressed between salted butterscotch cookies baked by Amber Felton, Jay’s wife. The bear hugs are limited and quickly sell out every weekend.

Credit: Agnes Setiady

Credit: Agnes Setiady

Taste of Indonesia from NezKitchen

Who: NezKitchen’s Taste of Indonesia (@nezkitchenatl) from Agnes Setiady.

When/Where: 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, Indoeats Foodmart (@indoeats_atl). 5199 Buford Highway NE, Doraville.

Why you should check them out: For 15 years, Setiady’s pop-up and catering business has shared her mother’s West Sumatra Indonesian family recipes. On the menu you will find iga rica-rica fried ribs in chile sauce, iga bakar barbecue ribs, mackerel in rica-rica sauce and beef balado with potatoes. She also serves nasi kapau, a traditional rice box from a small village near Bukittinggi in West Sumatra that has rice, omelet, grilled chicken, beef rendang and curry vegetables with collard greens, young jackfruit and green beans.

Credit: Randi Curling Photography

Credit: Randi Curling Photography

Craft barbecue from Keenan’s Pit Bar-B-Que

Who: Keenan’s Pit Bar-B-Que (@keenans_pit_bbq) from Brian Keenan.

When/Where: Noon until sold out Saturday, Aug. 22. Variant Brewing (@variantbrewingcompany). 66 Norcross St., Roswell.

Why you should check them out: At Variant Brewing this weekend, Keenan, a veteran pitmaster who launched one of Atlanta’s first pop-ups, in 2013, is serving up brisket tacos, brisket sandwiches and pork ribs along with a rotating selection of summer side items. Everything on the menu is prepped and cooked by Keenan alone. Punk Foodie tip: Get there early. The line starts around 11:30 a.m.

Credit: Beksa Lala

Credit: Beksa Lala

Polish classics and dumplings from Beksa Lala

Who: Beksa Lala (@beksa_atl) from Basia Piechoczek.

When/Where: 5-9 p.m. Mondays, Breaker Breaker (@breakerbreaker_atl). 921 Wylie St. SE, Reynoldstown.

Why you should check them out: In August, for her ongoing residency at Breaker Breaker, Beksa Lala’s Piechoczek is serving a variety of Polish dishes, including a Hungarian pepper chopped chicken sandwich. She’s also serving paprykarz szczecinski, a Polish classic brought back from West Africa by Polish sailors. It features a filet of Atlantic cod marinated with peppers, served with Jollof-style rice and toast points. As for Polish dumplings, she’s offering four types this month: house pierogi (fried or boiled with cheese topped with caramelized onions, with sour cream), summer pierogi (boiled with summer squash, super sweet corn, purple basil and spicy cucumber sauce), kopytka (boiled then seared potato and flour dumplings, cave-aged cheese broth and a fresh fig salad) and chilled spicy uszka (small pierogi filled with mushrooms, tossed with Soupbelly’s chile oil, fresh sorrel, cucumber, pickled carrots and a sweet potato glaze). For those who want to try all the dumplings, a platter is available with half portions of each.

Credit: Mindful Muse Media

Credit: Mindful Muse Media

The post-disaster pop-up pivot

The Alden’s Jared Hucks sustains his brand and team with the help of community.

Who: The Alden (thealdenatl) from Jared Hucks.

When/Where: 6-9 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 22, and Sunday, Aug. 23. Big Green Egg Culinary Center (@biggreenegg). 3786 DeKalb Technology Parkway, Doraville.

When a Mother’s Day fire near the restaurant forced Chamblee’s Michelin-recognized treasure to close, Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov called right away to see how he could help. Chef-owner Hucks needed help dismantling and storing his patio’s heavy custom-cooking Eggs — a massive setup featuring two extra-larges and a double-XL. Within 5 minutes, Gertsacov had someone from Big Green Egg on their way to rescue the equipment and put it in storage.

It was just the first of many ways the hospitality industry has helped keep Hucks cooking away from his home space. In June, Hucks was invited by chef Shai Lavi for a collaboration at his Third Space restaurant. In July, Hucks put on a live-fire cookout at Chamblee & Vine (for which Big Green Egg delivered grills), and Ecco Buckhead invited him to do a brunch restaurant takeover.

Hucks recently told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that, while the public may see only the highly competitive side, this crisis has proved the chef community is actually quite supportive. “It’s been amazing, all the support we’ve gotten from the industry and different restaurants reaching out, wanting to help. That is the high point. That’s what’s getting us through and helping us get these events on the calendar.”

Although the pop-up circuit is often associated with young chefs trying to carve out a name, Hucks is using the platform to keep his entire team employed, engaged and earning an income while the physical restaurant rebuilds. At the same time, the events maintain vital brand visibility, keeping the Alden top of mind with diners and the local culinary scene.

Hucks also said he is using his pop-ups as a fun way to learn. “It’s challenging, and everybody learns different things. It’s also just a fun sort of adventurous learning process for all of us because we’re working outside of our systems that we’re accustomed to working in.” He said that stepping outside the familiarity of his restaurant allows him to collaborate with others to expand his network and to keep learning as a chef.

This weekend, the pop-up at the Big Green Egg Culinary Center in Doraville will be an interactive live-fire event where Hucks will walk guests through his charcoal cooking methodology as he prepares the meal.

Every dish on the family-style menu will be cooked on a Big Green Egg, using a range of grilling techniques, including direct grilling, smoking, baking, cast-iron searing and indirect heat.

Hucks will serve three courses, each showcasing a different global cuisine: a Southeast Asian course featuring charcoal-grilled pork lettuce wraps (thit nuong), Thai grilled red snapper and palm sugar-glazed pineapple; a Caribbean course featuring wood-fired jerk quail, cast-iron mojo beef steak and smoked Puerto Rican flan; and a vegetarian North African course highlighting sumac-roasted carrots, a smoked cauliflower crown and charcoal-baked goat cheese-stuffed dates.

Although there were only a few remaining tickets ($103.75 each) for the Big Green Egg event at the time of publication, Hucks will be continuing pop-ups into the fall, including a dinner with Under Pressure Wine Bar at Brush Sushi ($263.47 per person) with a script-flipping process of building a menu around Under Pressure’s selected wines, similar to what Avize’s chef-owner Karl Gorline is doing with Under Pressure in August.

Reserve a spot for the Big Green Egg event.

Reserve a spot for the Brush Sushi and Under Pressure wine event.

Note: By their very nature, pop-ups are fluid and subject to the whims of weather. For the latest schedule and information, consult the pop-ups’ Instagram feeds.