Bodacious Boomer

Having grown up in Texas, eating BBQ was  a regular part of my life. Without exception, every weekend my dad would fire up the pit and cook a massive amount of BBQ. As I looked back I realized that he never cooked any beef brisket on the pit. Instead, every weekend he prepared ribs, sausage, steaks and chicken. Sometimes he’d smoke a whole pork shoulder. Then my mom would slice it thin and stack it on a toasted bun with sauce and coleslaw. (I guess that was their version of brisket.) It never seemed strange to me at the time that we didn’t have brisket. You can’t miss what you didn’t know I suppose.

Once in a great while if I was out with my dad for lunch he would take me to the Barbecue Inn on Crosstimbers. The waitresses all had names like “Flo”or “Eunice” and wore uniforms with little white aprons and caps that matched. Doug and I met a friend there within the last year or so. I think they still have a couple of the waitresses from back in the day. I find that sad. (I hope I’m not going to have to work that hard when I’m in my 70′s.)

When you’re away from home for awhile you start to miss food from home. One summer we spent three solid months in Colorado. While in Glenwood Springs, we really had a yen for some BBQ and wound up at a place called Marshall Dillon’s. When we traveled like that, getting from one festival to another, we didn’t eat “out”AKA fancy every day. Most days it was just sandwiches. So this was going to be a treat. Then I saw the server coming toward us with two big bowls on her tray. This made no sense I thought, we ordered barbecued beef ribs. She put it down in front of us with a big smile and went “Enjoy!”That was impossible. The ribs had been boiled (literally), then put in a bowl which held  a lagoon of Campbell’s Tomato Soup- at least that’s what it tasted like. (They tried to tell me it was BBQ sauce.) Those ribs were inedible. I asked if they were always served that way and was told “Sure that’s the way everybody likes them.” Obviously, “everybody” didn’t include any Texans.

When we finished our tour in Colorado we headed straight to Memphis for a 10 day event. Memphis is known for having some of the best BBQ restaurants anywhere. So while we were there, we hit two of them-the Rendezvous and Interstate BBQ. The pig cartoon at the top of this blog is from The Rendezvous. (It’s how to order their famous ribs online.) The Rendezvous is in a basement on 2nd st. When we were they told us how proud they were that some of the servers who’d started there in ’48 were still with them- just like the Barbecue Inn. (Does BBQ have some heretofore undiscovered properties for life extension?) The ribs at the Rendezvous were really good, just very different from what we were used to since they are never sauced. They’re cooked with a dry rub on them.

The BBQ at Interstate seemed more familiar to me since it had BBQ sauce. However,  there were some things on the menu that seemed downright odd. I had never heard of BBQ spaghetti, a BBQ salad or BBQ nachos before. (They even had BBQ bologna.) “Give the people what they want and they’ll keep coming back.” they say. They’ve been there 30 years and have won beaucoup awards. I guess they’re the personification of that adage.

Have you ever noticed that some of the best food comes from some of the most “questionable” looking places? There was a place that like about 30 miles NW of Houston back in the day called “BlackBoys BBQ.” (No one gave a second thought to the name of his place back then.) My dad made sure that he ate there anytime he was in the area. BlackBoy plunged a huge BBQ fork into the brisket, then the entire brisket was placed on the table in front of you along with a butcher knife. You were given a loaf of white bread to go with it. (He took the whole “self-serve” concept to a new level.) If you wanted additional sauce it was put on your sandwich by a piece of undershirt wrapped around a stick that had been sitting in the sauce bucket all day. You ate as much as you wanted and paid accordingly when you were done. (I’m sure these days the health inspectors would be all over that place.) No one I knew ever got sick from eating there. BlackBoy put his two kids through college with the money from his little BBQ shack. If there’s food in Heaven, I’m sure BlackBoy’s up there cooking his brisket with my dad just waiting for it to be done.