(Originally published on The Meaning of Pie in 2019)

It is fair to say that I spend a lot of time thinking about BBQ. It might even be fair to say I’m a little obsessed. I wouldn’t argue that. But, nevertheless, I’d like to share the why. Why BBQ? Out of all of the incredible foods out there, of all the amazing styles and restaurants, why BBQ? This past weekend, I took my daughter to Austin to visit the campus of The University of Texas. She is beginning her junior year of high school. I went to law school in Austin and while the city has changed dramatically since 1997, I wanted her to get a taste of why this town has been a rite of passage for so many. I wanted to make sure she saw her own backyard, so to speak, before her life carries her far away. Austin, College Station, Lubbock, San Antonio, Sherman, Dallas, Fort Worth, Wichita Falls. You name it. Our state boasts fine universities.

But this college journey finally put me in a position to make a pilgrimage to Snow’s BBQ, which is only open on Saturdays. Finally. When you have teenagers, the weekends don’t belong to you. Most of my BBQ jaunts (not joints) are weekday excursions. You might remember that my son and I scoured the Metroplex and points beyond during the three years we home-schooled. Barbecue Thursday ( #bbqthursday ) was our thing. And, yes, we made it to Austin and Taylor and Houston and some other far flung notable spots but like most, we fit BBQ into working. As with so many Texans, BBQ is work food, a lunch break, a quick bite and a respite from all that is. The new-ish and wonderful world of hitting the road to hit as many joints in three days as possible is a whole other category of BBQ consumption. And I love that, too. But I’ll return to that. BBQ in Texas goes back hundreds of years. Not decades. It goes back to when the meat walked to the BBQ. Since then, Texas has seen cattle drives, and railroads and interstate highways, each of which has fundamentally altered the way we all eat. BBQ is not a trend. It is just about the oldest form of cooking known to man. And, it has a footing in pre-history, and Native American History, and African American History, and European History, and South American History…and on and on. It is all about labor, migration, and innovation. It is about culture and place. It is about community. It is so American. And, it is so Texas. And it is so very much about the quilt that America and Texas were pieced into. Read history through the lens of food and you will always enjoy both history and food more.

But this college journey finally put me in a position to make a pilgrimage to Snow’s BBQ, which is only open on Saturdays. Finally. When you have teenagers, the weekends don’t belong to you. Most of my BBQ jaunts (not joints) are weekday excursions. You might remember that my son and I scoured the Metroplex and points beyond during the three years we home-schooled. Barbecue Thursday ( #bbqthursday ) was our thing. And, yes, we made it to Austin and Taylor and Houston and some other far flung notable spots but like most, we fit BBQ into working. As with so many Texans, BBQ is work food, a lunch break, a quick bite and a respite from all that is. The new-ish and wonderful world of hitting the road to hit as many joints in three days as possible is a whole other category of BBQ consumption. And I love that, too. But I’ll return to that. BBQ in Texas goes back hundreds of years. Not decades. It goes back to when the meat walked to the BBQ. Since then, Texas has seen cattle drives, and railroads and interstate highways, each of which has fundamentally altered the way we all eat. BBQ is not a trend. It is just about the oldest form of cooking known to man. And, it has a footing in pre-history, and Native American History, and African American History, and European History, and South American History…and on and on. It is all about labor, migration, and innovation. It is about culture and place. It is about community. It is so American. And, it is so Texas. And it is so very much about the quilt that America and Texas were pieced into. Read history through the lens of food and you will always enjoy both history and food more.

Sharing a meal with your family. A quick bite with coworkers, a pitmaster who knows your name and what you like. A town, a community, a place to meet. That is what BBQ means to me. My Papaw Virgil was a part of a BBQ crew in Wichita Falls called The Mavericks. My dad (Bill) and my mom’s husband (Bob) were members, too. This group started in the mid-1900’s as a booster club for the town and they would come together to cook for civic events. They designed mobile pits and beer trucks and they’d travel to cook all over the place. The men wore silver stars with their names on them. Ribs, beans, corn on the cob. The story goes that Papaw Virgil, a superintendent at Mead’s Fine Bread, would bake in rain gutters enormously long loaves of bread to serve with the BBQ. My mother fondly remembers him bringing the bread home on the way to a cook for his children to see. The loaves were on 12′ planks of wood that stretched the distance from the dash board of the station wagon to the back and out the rear window.  The Mavericks even had a band. Happy Hal and Buckets Hammond and a handful of other names of lovely men who liked getting together and having a beer or two, or three, and “Corralling Friends for Wichita Falls” since 1950. These guys were often mistaken for BBQ caterers, but were actually the pillars of that community who paid for these BBQ extravaganzas out of their own pockets.  These sorts of groups, community barbecues at churches, family reunions…this is the concept that formed the basis of why I love Texas barbecue.

And Wichita Falls never makes it on any lists. It is true that BBQ in North Texas is its own thing just as East Texas BBQ is distinct and South Texas BBQ is distinct. The ascendancy of Central Texas style BBQ eclipses regional styles to an extent, at least in some press, when the focus is on that perfect bite. I personally am a full convert, but my heart loves it all and Wichita Falls has a wonderful BBQ pedigree. Prine’s is one of the oldest joints in the state (1925) and its adherents can wax nostalgic about a chopped beef sammie with a scoop of pimento cheese on top just as passionately as anyone else. Bar L and P2 have been serving beer car side with BBQ for decades (grandfathered in legally with the likes of Keller’s Burgers in Dallas). Red Draw anyone? The Branding Iron is still a tried and true lunch spot where you can get a massive plate of food for not much over ten bucks. I met my husband, Pitts, for the first time in the Astrodome parking lot at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo BBQ Cook-off. Are you surprised? I think it was 1996, but who’s counting? A mutual friend had invited each of us (as well as my brother) to his team’s cook. So I’m off to Houston with brother Will for a little fun. The whole parking lot was roped off and each team had a section and each section was a party within a much larger party. I fell in love over BBQ and was engaged 13 days later, though we sensibly waited a few more years to get married. The day after he asked me to marry him (on a hilltop outside of Burnet, Texas), we went into town and ate BBQ at a little road side spot. I am not always seeking BBQ, but BBQ is always there.

So, as you see, I have a palate for nostalgia. Fast forward to my life as an adult. Fresh from law school I had a new job as an attorney and much to my delight, my colleagues had a taste for BBQ lunch. I was so pleased when early in my career one of the other attorneys (all older than I, and all men) poked his head into my office door and said, “C’mon, we’re going to get BBQ.” Mike Anderson’s BBQ was the spot we most often frequented. It was right by our office. They didn’t have to do that, by the way. In the late 90’s nobody was talking about being inclusive. Nobody was making a priority of making sure the new female associates got invited to the all-male lunches. But these guys took me along. Hollye Fisk, Craig Williams, Keith Webb…they probably have no idea twenty years on how much those BBQ lunches meant to me. My husband and I, pre-kids, had a big offset smoker behind our house. Evenings and weekends often involved steaks, or smoking pork or chickens. Our neighbors probably hated us. But our dear friend Steave Wayman would come over. He’d bring meat. Or, he’d bring beer. He always brought good bullshit. I miss Steave. He passed away several years ago but I’ll always remember him most fondly as a fixture in the back yard, out by the garage and the smoker. Oh, and should this all seem any more pre-ordained, a few years ago I did the Ancestry DNA thing and found out that Jill Grobowsky Bergus, owner of Lockhart Smokehouse in Dallas and Plano is my long lost very distant cousin. OF COURSE SHE IS!

Fast forward again, really fast, all the way to about eight years ago when I got involved with Foodways Texas. There is no wonder why I would be drawn to this group, the express mission of which is to preserve and celebrate Texas food cultures. It all started with a pie, but I quickly was drawn to the BBQ. I photographed the first BBQ Summer Camp in 2012 and my current BBQ life began in earnest. You see, there are thousands of me out there, using their senses and these places to connect them to a feeling of community or home. One’s unique background will populate the routes of the BBQ journey. What you like or don’t like. Sauce or no sauce. A little Tex-Mex vibe? Are you East Texas all the way? Or do you want to skip it all and head straight for Blood Brothers to try Thai Green Chile Boudin? Somebody get me a map! Where is Bellaire, Texas? That’s on my list. Your list is going to stack up differently. Beef or pork or sausage or juicy links…all of the above for me please. With sauce. And if you give me Texas Toast to dip in the BBQ sauce I’ll smile extra wide. Keep your rules to yourself. I love the sauce. But the camps have been a beautiful thing for me. I met the A&M crew and I have fallen in love with a university and town that I had not given enough of my attention before. I learned there is a thing called meat science. I learned about how to be a better cook, a better food buyer, and a better rancher in the classroom at Rosenthal over the years I’ve spent covering the camps for Foodways Texas, as both a writer and as a board member. I met the Texas BBQ Family, for lack of a better term. It is the best term. Jeff Savell, Davey Griffin and Ray Riley pull in the meat-centric people from all over the state as they believe it is their mission as educators to improve the lot of all of us who come into contact with meat. Ranchers go to Beef 706, Grocers and Food Industry folk go to Beef 101 (Pork and Poultry classes too). I can’t neglect to mention Creative Sausage Making. If you think A&M is all about undergraduate work, you are missing a lot of fun. They mentor the BBQ business end with BBQ Town Hall meetings yearly. And the BBQ family comes to A&M to cook for camp attendees and help with the panel discussions, and to learn from their peers. And all of these pitmasters are so generous in sharing their knowledge with each other and with the attendees. They know BBQ brings people together and they want each other to succeed, and they relish the opportunity to learn from one another and help one another. The BBQ camps are for all who love BBQ, whether competition cooks, backyard warriors, or folks looking to get into BBQ as a career. I am drawn in. On all counts. And that’s how I finally met Ms. Tootsie and Kerry Bexley and finally ended up at Snow’s this particular Saturday.

Snow’s is not the answer to “Why BBQ?” It is a part of the why, one family of BBQ, and a member of the Texas BBQ family, amongst many. But it is one perfect example of the answer to why. Yes the food is as good as you have heard. If you go looking for a great example of Texas BBQ, you will be pleased. But, that is only one part of the equation. Snow’s is situated on the side of a road in the tiny town of Lexington. It is the epitome of a small town BBQ joint. The dang sale barn is at the end of the street and cattle are calling up the main drag. The tiny building accepts the patient disciples and the orders are filled inside. But the outside is the engine and the soul. Around back is a set of BBQ smokers…several kinds. And all of the meat is cooked under a covered area out back. When Lily and I walked around back we walked into this most amazing scene. Ms. Tootsie and Kerry and Clay Cowgill were moving a million miles a second. Opening, adding, probing, removing, turning…constant motion, barely time for a hug, though we were made so welcome. It was my honor to introduce my daughter to everyone and have her witness the incessant, hot, purposeful work going on as the service got into full swing. There were about 70 souls in line and the food was coming out hot and beautiful. This was at around 9 a.m.

I was not there to shoot photos, exactly. But you can imagine the impulse is difficult to resist. The beauty of the hard work, the coordination of efforts, the people up since all hours to feed people who had traveled from far away (we chatted to a lovely couple from San Diego) and Lexington neighbors who were picking up to-go orders. Each was having fits over the BBQ, and each was hoping to say hello or grab a quick photo with Tootsie and Kerry. Kerry never missed a beat. In and out, answering the phone on an ear-set, “Yes, Saturdays only.” Ms. Tootsie was everywhere at once. Strong, purposeful and sure. And this. Every single time someone asked, every…single…time, they stopped what they were doing and said hello and jumped in a group photo. Then back off to work. I saw this play out a dozen times and took phones and snapped at least six photos for people. How are you? Where did you come from? How was your food? Thank you so much for coming? Y’all come back again. The Snow’s crew was amazing.

Cooking outside, cooking with wood and fire and coals and smoke. In the morning of a hot, hot Texas day. Out in the country. Just to make people happy. Just to meet the high expectations and repay the efforts of the travelers with efforts of extreme hospitality. It is picnic tables, paper towels, and meats laid out just so on butcher paper. Iced tea. The line is filled with farmers, retirees, college kids, attorneys, teachers, police officers, pitmasters and plumbers. Everyone. There is no dress code. There is no pretense. There is no maître d. I met strangers and I ran into old friends. I grabbed some photos and filled my belly. We had to head back to Dallas. But it was a pilgrimage completed and a chance to see people who have been unfailingly generous with their time and efforts with me and with the BBQ Camps. But here’s what you might miss if you are not obsessive. The wall of the outside space near the cash register is covered with stickers from other BBQ joints. Clay was wearing a t–shirt from another BBQ joint, Reveille BBQ in Houston. Kerry’s daughter, who was working as fast and furious as the others, was wearing a Brett’s Backyard BBQ t-shirt. Brett’s, the new joint on the block if you will, from a handful of miles up the road, was Snow’s most recent neck and neck competitor for the Texas Monthly barbecue reader’s choice brackets which ended this month. In line was Richard Flores. At a nearby table was Robert Sierra and his family. Yoni Levin of the Best Barbecue Podcast was there, too. Hugs, photos, BBQ, banter, hospitality, very hot and hard work, and people traveling from all over to be a part of it. The people who truly love eating and making Texas BBQ want to support as many restaurants as possible. The owners are friends. They want you to go down the road and hit another spot, too.

So there is all this wonderful food just waiting for you. The pitmasters, of course, get the credit…as do the other partners, wives, kids and employees working right alongside creating amazing desserts and side dishes and serving and smiling and making sure everything that is not meat goes off without a hitch. But, I also give the guys at A&M a lot of credit for this. And I give credit to Daniel Vaughn and I give credit to some of the BBQ festival people like J.C. Reid and Michael Fulmer, who have all worked to make TX BBQ a group of great people, a community, instead of a disparate group of individuals. And then there are the BBQ photographers like the inimitable Wyatt McSpadden, who have shown us the beauty of the people and environments that you don’t often see from the front of the house. And then there are the people, the droves of people who love BBQ and respect the work and want to eat at every darn spot in the state. So many cool people I’ve met that it would take a year to name, and people I still hope to meet on this journey. But that is another story for another time. Suffice to say that when you do go on down the road to Brett’s, he’s got a whole entire wall of stickers from his “competitors” and the glass at Cattleack in Dallas is covered with stickers, and the wall is covered with portraits of “competitors.” And this pattern repeats itself over and over again on the BBQ trail. Watch their Instagram accounts. The photos are just as often of pitmasters visiting and supporting each other as they are of their own places. Just last week, two of my favorite BBQ families (Roegels and Brotherton) were running all over the South (not Texas, but America) visiting other places that they have heard about or where friends work. It is totally cool. And it is just not something you see in other industries or areas of business.

And this is my bit on the rankings and Texas Monthly. While a winner is crowned every few years, the entire point is to get you out there to try a whole bunch of places. Nobody I know or have met has only gone to the Number One spot. No, they go all over the place. They don’t go to one place five times and nowhere else. And they don’t go to five places once. They go to as many as they can possibly go to. And they are all looking for that jewel that hasn’t been on any list, too. I am a person who would happily hide in one comfortable nostalgic place forever. Don’t get me started on how nice it is to sit in Southside Market in Elgin. I could eat there every day, forever. It has that home feel that I love. But when I read Daniel’s columns I always learn something I didn’t know before and learn about places I have never heard of before, and I go. And he hits all the notes on history and culture, not just the top spots. If you think that is all about the Top 50 list, and nothing else, you are not really reading the work. But by all means, dig deeper. Drive further. Explore. Please. Leave your well known areas and try the little place you have never heard of from anyone else. Talk up the places that aren’t being talked up. I want to know about them.

The lines? Some folks gripe about how they’d never stand in a line for food, no matter how good it was. Move on then, I say. There are thousands of places to go and many can get you in and out in a flash. And they are waiting for you. They need you. But the lines are about people. The lines are about talking to the folks in front of you and behind you, and getting to know where everyone came from and where they are going. If you have your mind set straight, you are there for the fun and the food and yes, the line itself. When Ford and I sat in the Franklin BBQ line it was a gas. Camping chairs and a deck of cards. College kids throwing a baseball. An inflatable sofa. People running to get doughnuts. The line is just part of the atmosphere at certain places. There are places that I like to go regularly and I wouldn’t stand in line very long. And there are days when I choose my BBQ by who won’t have a line because I don’t have the time. And there are places that never have lines and I love to go simply because they make me so happy. My hope is that people will see that TX BBQ is a much bigger thing than any one style, place, idea, or wait time. When a friend asks me a question about where they should go for BBQ, my first question is how much time do they have to spend. The common denominator is that behind the pits, line or no, there are people busting their butts in very inhospitable temperatures, to serve you a meal. And the ones with the lines…half the people are there with groups of friends making a day of it. But don’t dog on the lines. It is a good sign for a large group of Texas businesses that are largely locally owned, employing local people, supporting the local little league team, and paying property taxes.

So, why BBQ you ask? This is why. People, family, place, hospitality, enjoying old memories again, creating new memories, learning new things. I prefer keeping to myself and hiding behind a computer most of the time. This passion gets me out amongst some of the best humans our state has to offer. I’m using Snow’s as my example here because it was my latest spot to enjoy, but my example of why BBQ could have been photos or a story from 40 (or 400) different places in this beautiful state. Why BBQ? It is a self-answering question. Because…BBQ! Now, get out there.