HOT BARBECUE AND COLD BEER

I was 14, and me and a buddy of mine went out in the country to a place where an old black guy sold barbecue and beer. We sang a few songs for the farm hands that had gathered in for the rainy afternoon, and got paid in the goods the old man sold. I thought then that there just wasn't a life that I liked better.

I went over to my sons today and played a few songs with him and his band, and then came home for lunch. I had homemade pulled pork barbecue, so hot that my forehead is sweating, and draft beer, so cold that my teeth are aching.

Just now, as I sat down at my computer I had an epiphany. It just don't get better than this.

Now, if I can just talk my wife into a few hours of wild love making...
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OK, OK, it'll be more like a few moments, but what the hell, it still don't get better...

Good man.

Dick, my wife makes some of the best southern style, pulled pork barbecue a man can find anywhere. Hickory smoked it is, and we have no use for a tomato based barbecue sauce. Just a homemade barbecue sauce of red pepper, vinegar, and just trace of sugar.

I can't stand what some people call barbecue. You know, when they cook some meat and drench it in some kind of thick red tomato goo to make it taste like something it ain't. And if I order barbecue, I don't want some yahoo to ask me if I want pork or chicken or ribs or something else. If I want any of that stuff I'll ask for it. When I order barbecue, I want to see a plate of just exactly what I described above.

It's kind of like ordering a steak and then covering it with sauce. If the steak is any good, you don't need sauce. If you see me pouring sauce on a steak, you'll know that I found it a very poor specimen of the meat family. And if I want something well done, I'll order the cheapest cut on the menu. Either that, or eat the sole of my shoe.

Mr. Red would agree, Don. Here's a sample of Georgia style...

The men were outside— mowing the grass, setting up tables and marking
off the parking lot. Brother Hollis was watching Mr. Red, who had the
grill belching columns of sweet-smelling hickory smoke into the sky
that could be seen for miles.
He was considered the best grill man in the county, and he aimed to
prove it again— but he was grumbling. “All these years I been makin’
deer taste lak beef er poke… an now I got to make th best beef I ever
seed taste lak deer!” Then he gave the preacher a wink and added, “But
I saved a whole hind quarter all the way up to the t-bones. “
The grill was a massive thing, measuring eight feet long and six feet
wide. Its five foot high walls held two levels of cooking racks and a
corrugated tin cover that was raised and lowered by a chain and pulley.
Beside the grill was an open fire, over which hung a large cast iron
pot of simmering Brunswick stew (something no southern barbecue would
be caught dead without). The fire was also used to re-supply the grill
with glowing coals of hickory wood.

Brother Hollis was trying to be in several places at once. Since last
year’s successful, but nearly disastrous catfish dinner, he felt the
pressure of having to maintain his reputation. The ones who had been at
last year’s fish fry when Mr. Haney’s dam burst (nearly washing them
away) had spread the word; now what was once just a local event had
reached statewide fame. People from all over Georgia (and parts of
Alabama and Florida) had already purchased tickets for a day of food
and entertainment. The pressure was on!
When the women were finally able to run him out of the kitchen he went outside to see how the barbecue was doing.
“Tell me again how you are going to pass this beef off as venison, Brother Red.”
“Well, Preacher, hit’s kinda like how I make deer taste lak poke er
beef. Hit’s the fat that adds mos’ o’ th gamey taste to deer—so I take
off the deer fat and add beef er poke t’ make it taste lak one er th
other.”
“I think I understand, Brother Red. So now you add deer fat to the beef?”
“You got it, Preacher! Here, let me show ya.”
Red pulled the chain that raised the cover on the grill. On the bottom
rack were the “roasts of Satan” that had been cut into smaller portions
to make Satan less identifiable. Above that on the top rack was real
venison, which was dripping fat down over the beef roasts.
“Me an Dubya had some deer roasts saved up, an that there’s that big
ol’ fat doe that Henry hit with his truck and gave him. I even poked
holes in ol’ Satan and stuffed them with deer fat.”
“Are you sure this will work, Brother Red?”
“Sho, hit’ll work! See, when hit’s all done, we gonna shred all the
meat up and mix it t’gether. Ol’ Satan gonna be somma th bes’ venison
barbecue you ever et!”
Big Tim drove up with another load of green hickory logs and backed up to where Red and the preacher were standing.
“Dang, that smells good, Red! When I get this wood offen th truck I’m
gonna have me a beer. Want one? I got long-necks in th cooler!”
Red grinned and lowered the cover on the grill.
“Let me hep you with that wood, Big Tim.”

Read the whole story of the Good Ol' Boys Wild Game Dinner in the
soon-to-be-released Wizards of Words 2009 Anthology. Sorry, little plug
there...

Dear E. Don,
That sounds like 'Ropa Viejo' to me. Yum, yum. We have a vat of it each and every Christmas party with big rolls.

Anyone have an awesome recipe for homemade strawberry ice cream. The cranking kind, only electric. I have so many strawberries, I want to branch out in a delicious way and offer homemade icecream on cones just for coming out.

Love,
Betty

Betty, that sounds like a great idea. Our daughter lives about 50 miles south of Macon and we go to pick strawberries when we visit her in the spring. There are a lot of great big farms, but the one we go to has free strawberry ice cream in small cups, and we love it.

Good luck, and I wish we were close enough to visit your place. I'll bet you have some great berries.

I'd almost make the trip from CA to FL for some of Betty's strawberry ice cream.

And Brew, I'll look for your story. Mine, The Face on the Sketchpad, will be in there as well.

I love BBQ, but while I love Don's version, or his wife's version, I still like the tomato based sauced as well. When I went through Kansas City, I stopped at several BBQ places and had a hard time leaving. I love it all.

I'm with ya, Don, on the BBQ sauce. Tomato-based is best on chicken and
the hot, vinegary kind on pork. Ropa viejo, is it, Betty? I'd like to
learn that method. Sounds like a fermented brew? My folks made
hand-cranked ice cream too, and the same base was used with bananas,
strawberries or pineapple - all good, but the banana was my favorite.

The only thing I can remember about Mama Barnes' recipe is that it used
equal parts of evaporated (PET) milk and condensed (Eagle Brand) milk,
sweetened to taste. Could have been something else in there - vanilla
flavoring maybe. Some of the fruit juice was added to the mix, and the
big chunks were added after the cream had begin to become slushy, just
before fully freezing.

Brenda, E.Don has a story in there too! Who else in this board?

I've got a story in the WOW Anthology as well, guys. It's called Miller's Luck, and I'm looking forward to this years edition.

But I still can't abide tomato based sauce on barbecue, Brenda. Covers up the barbecue taste.

I don't care for any sauce added after the meat's cooked, but I like it, if I'm going to have sauce, basted on the meat during the cooking process.

But pure BBQ, cooked in a smoker without sauce is the best, but it's hard to find - at least in So Ca

It's even harder to find whole hog, pit cooked barbecue anymore.

We used to have a couple of big, several family gathering, barbecues every summer, and it wasn't so many years ago that we still dug a fire pit and actually cooked the pig in the ground. Then some people built some of the 8 foot long cookers, and most everyone started using them. Still used hickory wood, and always started late one afternoon, cooked the pig all night, and had the big doins the next day. Everyone brought side dishes, and there were horseshoe games, plenty of ice cold beer, and a lot of live country music. My wife always made potato salad and cole slaw, and somehow I always wound up singing for my supper.

Guys, I don't miss much about the old home town, not much back there for me anymore, but now and then I truly miss the companionship and the good times. The summer barbecues were wonderful gatherings, and what I wouldn't give to be able to have that old crowd together again.

I wouldn't want to return to days gone by, but oh, bbq and music. What could be better?!

Okay...so, I love all of it...but, if there is no red sauce, what will I drop on my white shirt?

I always, always, always drop sauce on my white shirt.

It never fails.

What, no Brunswick stew? Other than that it sounds like the barbecues
we had. Oh, almost forgot the sweet mixed pickles and toasted bread...
lol

It's kinda reminiscent of hog-killin' day...

Dear E. Don,
There was a time several years ago, (around 20) that my David and I did the hog roast shebang that you describe.

Our hog (wild) was basted in mayo and sour oranges and roasted over night by drunk people. Somewhere around dawn, they wandered into the house and slept on the floor. I stepped over them on my way to work.
People came and played their guitars, played the harmonica, danced on the grass, drank a lot, ate and sang.

Looking back, I wonder about that freedom of spirit we all had, even though we worked so hard, took care of our children, and did not hurt anyone.

Perhaps I should write a song of remembering.

Better yet, you should do it. I think sometimes your heart and mine melt into the same wave link in the memory way.

Love,
Betty

I think they do too, Betty, and you've got it to a "T", other than the mayo and orange thing.

I have many songs about remembering, some pretty good, some not so hot, but all written when I was under the influence of old times.

Speaking of songs. I've written a lot, and had a lot recorded. Most of them were by up and coming independent artists and never did anything, or earned very much money. In 1979, however, a young singer named Sheila Andrews was recording on the Ovation Label, the same label that had the Kendalls and Joe Sun, and she was trying to get on the Opry. She'd auditioned and was told that she just didn't sound country enough. Brien Fisher, who produced the Kendalls, was CMA Producer of the Year a couple of times, listened to a song that I had written with his brother. He recorded it on Sheila, and it got to 19 on the Billboard Charts, and stayed on the charts for about 25 weeks or so. Sheila went back and sang it for the Opry folks, and this time they had her on the show. The song was called

IT DON'T GET BETTER THAN THIS, and here are the lyrics.


IT DON’T GET BETTER THAN THIS

Don Harpe, Jack Fisher


I’ve seen the sunrise in the Shenandoah Valley

It sure is a wonderful thing

Seen all the stars shining down over Texas

Washed my face in the warm Georgia rain.

I know why people fall in love with Colorado

Mother Nature put on quite a show

I’ve seen lots of grass but I ain’t seen any greener

Than the grass we’ve got growin’ at home.



And it don’t, get better than this

Lovin’ you, every day

It don’t, get better than this

There’s no findin’ a better way

You’ve taken me higher than the Great Smoky Mountains

You’re the reason my whole world exists

And there ain’t no way, to get any higher

Cause it don’t get better than this.



I’ve stood on the bank of the Mississippi River

Watched steamboats paddle out of sight

Seen summer lightnin’ dancin’ round over Dixie

And the lights of Chicago at night

I’ve breathed the cool clean air in Alaska

It’s the kind of place that dreams are made of

I’ve been close to heaven but I ain’t been any closer

Than the heaven I’ve found in your love.



And it don’t, get better than this

Lovin’ you, every day

It don’t, get better than this

There’s no findin’ a better way

You’ve taken me higher than the Great Smoky Mountains

You’re the reason my whole world exists

And there ain’t no way, to get any higher

Cause it don’t get better than this.



Harpe, Fisher

Ó 1979

Album was called Lovesick, it was released in 1980, and our song was the first single. It can still be found online. I looked it up a few months ago to see if I could find it, and lo and behold, there it was. Shelia was a great singer, well ahead of her time with her vocalizing, but unfortunately she died a couple of years later. We lost a good friend, and the world lost a talent that might have gone on to superstardom.

Should have made the photo smaller. Sorry.

Remember the old hippy song, "Alice's Restaurant," (not about our Alice), the Arlo Guthrie song:

"You can get anything you want
At Alice's Restaurant.
Just waalk right in, it's around the back
Abour a half-a-mile from the railroad track..."

My cousin-in-law, Junior Broussard, made up a song to the same tune that he and my cousins always played and sang at our family barbeque gatherings:

"You can get anything you want
At Feagin's Barbeque..."

You may have heard me speak of my Uncle Feagin before. He was a marine during WWII, and had memories of places like Iwo Jima and the Pacific that are much like Dick's of Normandy and France. He came home, went back to school on the GI Bill, got a law degree, and was our home-town's District Attorney for several years. His five children would bring their dates, then husbands, wives, and children to his huge gatherings on some wooded property he had outside of Mauriceville, near Orange. There was no house, but he had electricity run to the property, and a couple of electric sockets nailed to a pine tree near the rock-lined pit where he, his brothers, and my father would spend the night, tending the slow-cooking brisket (sorry, E Don and Brew. Pulled pork is good too, just different.) Feagin would never tell us just what went into the sauce, but it wasn't tomato based. They would put up a tent after they got a bit older, and especially after the night a thunderstorm that they learned later had spawned a couple of small tornadoes nearly messed up the meat. They all got soaked protecting the coals. My Mom and her sisters-in-law spent the day before cooking beans, potato salad, and everything else you can think of, the we would head out with a couple of portable tables, food, and beer to replace what had been consumed by the cooks. The young guys would bring their guitars - Junior played in a local band off and on, as did Feagin's son Ben.


After a few years, he had an above-ground swimming pool put in. Still no house, and the nearest thing to a john was an old two-seater stuck between a couple of camphor trees out in the woods, but we had that pool.

Tomorrow I'm cooking shredded beef tacos (yes, beef again). No tomato sauce, just a bit of chipotle in adobo. There will be ears of fresh corn with cilantro-lime butter and guacamole with sun-dried tomatoes (Rick Bayless' recipe), and a bottle or so of South American Malbec to wash then down. It won't be Feagin's Barbeque, but family gatherings are a good thing.

And BTW, by the next Sunday dinner, I could very well be Grannie Annie for real. Lyn is due the 13th.

Ann

We had a roasted pig for one of our daughter's wedding. The pig had belonged to the farmer our property backed onto and he roasted it for us. They do that a lot in Wisconsin. Of course, usually the beer is there also.

We had our church choir over one Sunday and the guys set up the speakers and played music on our patio. The town sheriff called and told me to have my kids quiet the music down. I told him it was the church choir, not my kids.

My husband never wrote any songs, but a man in his music group did.

I have listened to lots of harmonica music.

Carol

E Don and Phil write such professional song lyrics. They are such an entertaining and valuable addition to the board. I've never tried to write song lyrics just for myself, but there is a character named Briny Devlin in a novel I'm working on who does. I've had to write a couple for him. I really like the character; he's a bit like that intellectual cowboy I've been trying to find since my divorce, that my son says is too much a contradiction in terms to exist. One of the songs "he" wrote was based on some of the images and concepts in T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets.


The laughter of the children who
Are hidden in the trees
Whose voices keep on callin' in
The rustle of the leaves

Remind us that there's more to life
Than livin’ day by day
There are other folks and places
That time cannot take away

The river keeps on flowin'
Even if we do not see
And the bell keeps clangin’ softly
As we roll toward the sea

And the fire that surrounds us
Is just there to help us see
That we've been this way before and
That it all was meant to be

Cause time is just a circle
And life is just a dream
The tomorrows and the yesterdays
Aren't really what they seem

For what appears to be the end
Ain't But another trip around
To see what we have seen before
But know what we have found

Ann

Love the brisket too, Ann. I have a friend from San Antonio who brings
us back our pre-ordered briskets along with the special rub you can
only get there for some reason. No sauce needed.

It's funny... you order barbecue in Georgia and it will automatically
be pork. Do that in Texas and you'll get beef. The sauce is different
too. Out west it is usually mustard-based, where in the southeast, it's
tomato-based. I like `em both, but the pepper-vinegar is my favorite on
either.

Ann,

Your song is beautiful. Keep wishing and who knows when the man of your dreams will ride into your life.

Carol

Carol,
That would be nice, but at my age, he would probably have to ride in on an electric cart, which would be fine. And maybe not. One of Ailcy's daughters, my great-great grandmother, whom I was named for, rode side-saddle into her eighties, so who knows.




(I've been wanting an excuse to use this little graphic from the time I first signed on here )

Ann

I like brisket too, Ann, but again, they always have to have that sauce. I think the meat tastes better with just the hickory smoke from the coals, and if you want it a bit hot then you use the pepper/vinegar sauce. To be, barbecue is what you do when you cook the meat, and not the flavor from the sauce that you put on it.

We had brisket a lot when we lived in Oklahoma, and some of the folks out there are really good cooks, but it just wasn't the same as what I grew up eating. I expect that we all have our favorites, and that most of us like what we know best. To Ann, it's brisket, to me it's pulled pork. Up Nawth, God only knows what kind of concoction they cook up and try to pass off as barbecue.

Memphis has good barbecue, but again, most of the commercial houses there use a red sauce or a rub. Actually, I guess their kind of barbecue, as well as the Texas/Oklahoma brisket, and the chicken and St Louis ribs and the rest are fine. That is, if you can't get the real thing.