Why Cheese Dip Is Important.

If you haven’t watched Nick Rogers’s documentary on the Arkansas origins of cheese dip, you should. We talked about this a while back when the documentary first came out, and I think it bears re-watching, especially where I’m about to go.


This photo isn’t from Arkansas. It’s from Terlingua, TX, from the World Championship Chili Cookoff by the Chili Appreciation Society International (which I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to compete in on the local level). Thousands of people come out to enjoy this nationally recognized competition each year -- to compete and see who has the best chili. It’s a Big Deal.

There are all sorts of competitions for this and that across the United States -- and these contests tend to be regionally focused. You’re going to find who has the best Key Lime Pie in the Florida Keys, right? The best barbecue in Memphis. The best this and that wherever. But what has Arkansas laid claim to?

Well, we do have the whole foods -- the melons, the rice, the peaches, the PurpleHull peas. Magnolia hosts an annual World Championship Steak Cookoff that’s gained some renown. I personally have advocated that pies may be one of our state’s greatest food assets -- but that’s my own personal opinion. And recently I’ve waxed on about the Arkansas Reuben.

But really, when you come down to it, Nick’s research into the origins of cheese dip trump it all. And no one’s really challenging his theory that cheese dip originated with Blackie Donnelly and Mexico Chiquito in the 1930s. I don’t date back that far myself, but I can recall cheese dip being part of my life from my earliest age. The friends I have that grew up in Arkansas all recall cheese dip as something special they’d have, whether at a restaurant or at home made from Velveeta and Rotel on the stove (and later in the microwave) -- this is a memory that not all of my out-of-state-born friends share.

So, cheese dip is from Arkansas. Well, what are we going to do about it? That’s the thing. We should promote it. I mean, really, every time I ask the question of Facebook fans “what’s the state food of Arkansas?” I get answers like catfish (from Mississippi), chocolate gravy (the Ozarks), cathead biscuits (well, they may have me there, but I’m still researching this) and such. Few foods fit the bill. For instance, the cheese-filled hot dog apparently was born in North Little Rock -- but when’s the last time you ate one? Atkins has a very good claim to being the birthplace of the fried pickle, but other states debate this. There’s Grapette outta Camden (that’s worthy of another story sometime), muscadine wine, pulled beef and pork barbecue served with slaw on a sandwich, mayhaw jelly, rice with sugar, sassafras tea, possum pie and Yarnell’s Ozark Black Walnut ice cream. But none of these have the power of cheese dip.

Why’s that? Well, almost everything on that list can be traced somewhere else in some form or fashion. There are other grape sodas; other people eat slaw with their barbecue and you can find mayhaws in Louisiana. Native Americans all over the South and Midwest have been using that great sassafras tree for generations and anyone with a recipe can whip up a possum pie. And while Yarnell’s is the only one doing Black Walnut as an ice cream flavor now (as far as I know) that could change.

Check out the event’s website… it has more information you really should see.
It’s the history. It’s the fact that until my generation you really didn’t see much cheese dip (and we’re talking cheese dip, not chili con queso like they have out west with meat in it) outside of Arkansas. What we consider to be a natural part of our dietary consumption today just isn’t considered so elsewhere. Trust me -- when I asked some of the folks in Door County, WI if they ever had cheese dip at a party, I got weird looks and a “why the heck would you do that?” reaction.

More importantly, it’s the timing of things. I sat down with Nick Rogers and John McClure to talk about this event coming up, the First Annual World Cheese Dip Competition. It’s going to be held at Dickey-Stephens Ballpark starting at noon on October 9th. They’ve already pulled in half of the competitors they expect to participate in the big to-do -- more than 50 restaurants and individuals who are going to compete to see who’s got the best cheese dip around.

Thing is, it couldn’t have come at a better time. Velveeta and Rotel are getting together -- they’re getting a national campaign going to celebrate cheese dip. There are a lot of dollars involved, a whole lot of publicity. And thanks to Nick and John that attention is going to be focused raht cheer on the Greater Little Rock Metropolitan Area. Folks are going to see what we’re really all about here.


There are two categories -- one for professional chefs and restaurants, another for individuals like you and me that might have a pretty good recipe they want to try out. These folks are going to sit their booths up along the concourse at Dickey-Stephens and serve up samples of cheese dip to the thousands expected to attend. And it’s not all that expensive -- a $5 donation for the average Joe, or $10 if you want to join The Southern Cheese Dip Academy and have some voting power to determine the winners. Those winners have a lot of prizes they’re going to want to take home -- the specially made platter-trophies by Arkansas artist Julie Holt, the prize money, the trip to represent Arkansas in the New Orleans Road Food Festival. It’s a big deal.

Which brings me back to Terlingua. I have yet to go. I want to go. Every time I participate in a CASI sponsored chili cookoff I thumb through the photo albums of pictures taken by my fellow chili-chefs and gawk at the fun and debauchery set out on a windy Texas plain in November. It looks like the best tailgating weekend you’ve ever had, combined with a weekend sleepover or road rally, a gigantic sea of people from every walk of life who share this one common interest.

Thing is, that many people traveling that far -- that’s a whole lot of money there, money spent on lodging, on food at local restaurants, on supplies at local grocery stores and on souvenirs from local shops. And we could have that here.

That is, if it catches on. And I think there’s a good possibility the World Cheese Dip Competition will. I can see in a few years entrants coming from the big cheese states like Wisconsin, from France and Switzerland, from South America and all over Mexico to compete. I could see regional head-to-head action and bragging rights from our favorite restaurants. The subliminal cheese dip culture could come to the surface in a really big way.

So I’m urging you to check out the event. I’m even taking time away from my normal weeklong sojourn at the Arkansas State Fair just to spend the evening among the masses, listening to music and watching the Hogs play and sampling all those different dips. I’m very excited about the whole thing.

The Slow Road.

I’ve been all over the state, driving highways and byways from Sulphur Springs to Lake Village and Texarkana to Paragould these past few months. I’ve seen crazy names for barbecue places, unusual road signs, people who may or may not know how to drive, you name it. But I certainly didn’t expect to find what I found north of Cedarville.

Grav and I were on our way to Fayetteville for the first home game of the season. We were gathering research on the tailgating phenomenom and needed some great stories and excellent photographs. But being around noon and the game not being until six, we decided to go ahead and have lunch at a place called Imajerk BBQ there in Cedarville.

Lunch was good and we were geared up for what we expected to just be an hour or less on the road. We consulted the TomTom and decided rather than taking Highway 59 all the way up to Tontitown, we’d be better off heading up Highway 220 and going through Devil’s Den State Park. TomTom cheerfully told us we’d be at our destination at 3:05pm.

The road seemed pretty decent, though the “Curvy Steep Road Ahead, Use Low Gear” signs told us it’d be a pretty thrilling ride. We swept down into one valley and out across another, cheerfully chattering on about what sort of Hog fans we might encounter.

We came to this beautiful bridge across Lee Creek and *whomp* suddenly hit gravel. The road had very quickly gone from asphalt to barely above dirt without as much as a “how do you do.” I pulled to the side quickly and consulted the TomTom, which could only offer me two bits of information: “Some portions of highway may be unpaved” and “Acquiring Signal.”

Well, always being up for an adventure, we decided to press on. And at first, it was a nice respite. Highway 220 curves back and forth through some of the most desolate stretches of forest in the Ozarks, with ridges and drop-offs and lots of flora and fauna. We even saw a few deer.

A few miles up the road we came to a single lane low-water crossing, got halfway across and came to a quick stop. The view of the short bluffs under the canopy of trees over the dark blue-brown water below was breathtaking, and Grav had to jump out to take pictures. I reminded him that we needed to make haste and get to Fayetteville.

Well, let me tell you what -- there was no haste to be made. There were few road signs, no highway markers, no help from TomTom and a gradual disintegration of the roadbed surface. Four-wheelers passed us in the other direction several times. We pulled to the side to let a dooley pass and wondered just how much further we were going to have to travel.

And yet through the whole portion of the trip we were marveling at the sheer beauty of it all, the intertwined trees above, the floor of the woodland, the stones that would jut out from the roadbed and caused us to do crazy maneuvers to miss them. We both agreed how great it would be to be able to stop and photograph it all -- the temperature was perfect, the lighting sublime, the afternoon perfectly lazy.

But we had an assignment to carry out, and concern smacked us over whether we would get there in time. So we pressed on, for the most part. There were a few instances we had to pause -- including one place where the deer were standing right by the road and didn't spook when we drove right up by them. Even in our haste, we had to momentarily stop and shoot.

The road started to improve, and a couple of SUVs came our way. We made it about a half mile further and came into the horse camp area of Devil’s Den State Park. A few hundred yards later we both cheered as tires hit asphalt once again.

We did manage to make it to Fayetteville on time, but decided to forgo a return trip via Highway 220. Later I’d discover that the road is Arkansas’ only unpaved highway. I do wonder if it would be wise to do an upgrade. The equipment needed to pave the road might damage an almost pristine forest in all its glory. One day I’ll go back and take my time, as much time as it should take to look at 220 right.

Fair game.

Some folks look forward to Christmas; I look forward to the State Fair. I suppose it’s something linked in my head from childhood, where birthday trips were often taken to the Arkansas State Fair (I seem to recall it being earlier in the year at that time, but perhaps we just celebrated my birthday a few days late) -- the one time of year I’d indulge in all those things children dream about, great fun rides, midway games and foods I couldn’t have at any other time.

The latter’s now one of the beats I cover, a fascination of mine that I can’t quite shake. This year I’m going to explore not just our own Arkansas State Fair, I’m traveling to Dallas the week before to experience the Texas State Fair as well. Why? Lots of reasons. Many of the things that are introduced there (and at the Minnesota State Fair, which I hope to attend next year) come here and are popular items. The Texas State Fair also has one really crazy competition -- the fried-things competition -- and that’s where we get crazy stuff like fried Oreos and fried Dr. Pepper and such.

Just got my information for this year’s Arkansas State Fair and have been looking through it. Most of the favorites are back, but among the new items are a few surprises.

Going through the list, I noticed some “new” items that didn’t seem new to me at all, like elephant ears. I woulda sworn we’ve had elephant ears at our state fair. I know I’ve seen them on the local level. Wisconsin Fried Cheese? I know for certain I ate that two years ago, I have photos! Still wish we could get some squeaky cheese this direction.

I can’t quite fathom that biscuits and gravy are unheard of at the State Fair, but there they are on the list. Biscuits and chocolate gravy also make the list. I’m going to avoid both -- you’ll understand why in a few weeks.

I am curious to see if Mozzarella Fingers are just mozzarella sticks or some mutant large item that I will endeavor to consume in mass quantities.

There are some interesting, particularly hillbilly sort of things that are making their way into our fair this year. Like Hillbilly Hollar Fruit Drinks (which would seem to me to be some form of pre-moonshine, but I could be wrong). Hillbilly Homebrew is also on the list -- I’m guessing this will be root beer, but I could be wrong. Also among the listings: BBQ Rabbit Sandwiches. I like rabbit, but what are you really getting here that’s different from beef or pork barbecue? Unless we’re talking about a smoked rabbit.

Something I’m sure lots of folks are going to try are Chocolate Smooches. These sorta make sense. We’ve battered and deep fried a whole lot of other things -- why not batter and deep fry a Hershey’s Kiss? I’m hoping on this front that they are individual Kisses -- that’d make for better sharing. And as we all know, the best part of most Fair foods is sharing them with the ones you haul out to the fairgrounds.

Of course, there will be items on a stick, one being Swiss & Rye on a Stick. Perhaps it’s a weird version of a cheese stick? Odder still is Egg on a Stick. Boiled? Battered? Deep fried? You got me. That’s what my Texas State Fair research will be all about.

I’m also very interested in checking out the Cabritas Wrap… which apparently includes goat. I have no problem with goat… in some instances, it can be quite tasty.

None of these items, though, seem anywhere near as odd as Fried Beer. I’ve been doing a little research, and it appears that fried beer is a frozen beer concentrate tucked into ravioli, frozen, battered and deep fried. Personally, I am concerned about the combustibility rate of such a product. I mean, in theory something liquid put in a pasta package and deep fried should be at the boiling point when taken from the fryer. I wonder if they allow them to cool down first.

There’s also the Fried Frozen Margarita, which is probably in the same vein. Never fear, my friends, Grav and I will put ourselves (and our tongues) on the line to sample some of these items before they can cross the state line. While there’s been no word on whether they will actually appear at the Arkansas State Fair, I sure wouldn’t be surprised. After all, we didn’t know that double deep fried/batter fried bacon was coming last year, yet there it was in all its glory, as Leif put it, “gilding the lily.”

There’s also word of a deep fried Cobb salad. I don’t know how that would rightly work.

Anyway, planning to head there the weekend before the Arkansas State Fair so I can accomplish some well-needed research on the subject, and to galvanize myself against the ten day gastronomic adventure that is the Arkansas State Fair. Will I be surprised at Texas-sized proportions? Will I have my photo taken with Big Tex? And just how easy will it be to get from our hotel to the Fair, courtesy of DART? Lots of questions to be answered, that’s for darn sure.

One way or another, there's no doubt as to this: at some point during the Arkansas State Fair, I will attend with my daughter. We will share a funnell cake. It will make us both very happy.

Fair season is upon us. Be hungry. Be very hungry.

The world stops turning.

“Good morning, dear.” I wonder what the reaction was to those very first words spoken on As The World Turns by Helen Wagner that afternoon in 1956. Did the handful of housewives blessed to have a television on look up to see what was on the screen? Could they have known that the series would last more than 50 years?

As The World Turns is, for the moment, the longest continuously running television soap opera in the world. That will end September 17th - and the BBC’s Coronation Street will take up the crown, so to speak. Many have wondered if Wagner would speak the last words of the series -- but she passed away this May and her character, Nancy Hughes, was announced as having died in her sleep on the show.

It was also the first of the half-hour serials; before ATWT all soaps were 15 minutes in length, and the show premiered just three hours before the second one, The Edge of Night. It would eventually go to a full hour in the 70s. The continuing story of the Hughes’ and the Snyders in Oakdale captured the hearts of thousands of fans.

The end of the soap, though, is just another symptom of change in the way we live, how we’ve changed as a viewing nation. My mother recalled to me how the first notes of a certain soap opera theme meant naptime -- for the next two hours, my maternal grandmother would be taken away to Another World (or As The World Turns, in this case) and leave behind the drudgery of housewife life. The whole day was structured around those soap operas -- when to do the washing, when to serve lunch, when to put the smaller children down for a nap.

A friend of mine related being shooed out of the house each day at 12:30 to go play in the summer heat, not to return until a favorite serial was over. He told me how it was essential he not bother his mother until after the soaps were over; the rule of thumb was not to fetch her for any reason unless he was bleeding more than a Band-Aid would hold in a few minutes.

My mom was a working mom, and I never really saw her get into daytime soaps (nighttime soaps were another matter -- I recall quite clearly how nonplussed she was that my brother Zack decided to alert her he was on the way in the middle of Dallas) but my paternal grandmother was quite devoted to Days Of Our Lives on the other network. When I was in her home, it was quiet time, and I’d better play quietly with my Lite-Brite and not make a peep.

I didn’t understand the allure when I was small -- the drama didn’t have much to do with an Arkansas girl growing up in the big city. But I did get hooked in the summer of 1987. I watched as I rode a stationary bike, eager to be more fit when I returned to school in the fall. I watched KARK -- first the news at noon and then Alice and then Days. Perhaps I was not meant to be a soap opera viewer; that was the summer of the Ollie North hearings and several times a week the soaps would be pre-empted by testimony from Capitol Hill. After that, I stopped trying to catch the stories.

With our on-demand, video on request sort of world, few have the time to carve out that hour each day. It’s not just soap operas -- I saw audiences erode from our broadcasts over my 12 years in television news. Who has time anymore to wait for a show when there are so many other ways to be entertained?

Guiding Light went out last September. Once As The World Turns ends, there will be just six daytime soap operas on the Big Three networks, half of what was on in 1990. Are we the generation that will see the end of the daytime soap? Will we be the ones who finally hear those last words -- “good night, dear?”

Southern eats and fair-type treats.

Okay, I’ve had some weird things in restaurants, but this one takes the cake. I suppose it’s fitting, since it is fair season.

That there is a fried rib. You heard me right, fried rib. It’s not part of the usual breakfast fare at Fort Smith’s Calico County, but the big signs outside and inside the restaurants promoting the dish got us curious. Grav and I had to check them out. Of course, we got breakfast, too.

Calico County was the 12th breakfast I managed in just over three days on a sweep of western and northwestern Arkansas morning eateries. It was also the last, for good reason. This particular Labor Day morning I was about breakfasted out, and I needed something that was really going to spark my interest and satisfy my breakfast wants.

Of course, you don’t go to Calico County without trying the cinnamon rolls. They just come out with every meal, a fact of life that’s been a standard for the restaurant’s twenty-someodd years. Over that time the place has served up over six million of the coffee-perfect rolls. Unlike the average cinnamon roll, these aren’t caked or iced with way too much sugar. They’re tight little traditional homestyle rolls full of cinnamon tightly rolled and sliced and baked. And when you sit down the waitress brings you out a towel-lined basket with a couple. To me, on a normal day, that single warm-from-the-oven cinnamon roll and a cuppa joe would be enough for breakfast.

But when your belly’s been stretched out from eating eleven other breakfasts in the past three days… a simple cinnamon roll’s not going to do it. So into the menu I went. And I have to say, I was really tempted by the Fruit-Topped Waffle ($4.25), a Belgian waffle topped with blueberries, peaches and bananas, but because I knew I’d be telling you about it I knew I needed to have one of the famed country breakfasts.

The breakfasts, by the way, are pretty much what you choose. You can have the Bargain Basement Special ($4.65) and get an egg dish and a bread and a starch, or go a bit more for the Traditional ($5.65) and get a meat, an egg dish and a bread. But I wanted grits. So I had two choices, and since I wasn’t quite hungry enough for the Giant Country Breakfast ($7.20) I went for A Hearty Favorite ($6.35). So did Grav. But what we got was so different… well, here you go.

I chose a Scrambled Country Omelet -- usually a two-egg dish with potatoes, onions, ham and green peppers but which they omitted the peppers for me. I also went with a New York Strip Steak, some biscuits with chocolate gravy and of course grits. Grav chose a couple of eggs over easy, the country fried steak, toast and spicy potatoes. But he also asked our waitress if he could try one of those fried ribs. She said she’d check for us.

Out she came a few moments later with something that looked like a big bar of batter on a small plate with a side of barbecue sauce. We both took pictures of it and then Grav picked it up and bit into it. He had a series of looks that crossed his face: concentration, surprise, relief when he took a drink of soda, and excitement. “You have to write this down,” he told me,

“Let me get my notebook.”

“Okay, hurry, you have got to write this down.”

“Fine, I’m ready.”

“On first bite, this is worthy of a Tie Dye Travels just for this. As my teeth go through this chicken fried steak shell… it’s fried to perfection… immediately through the crust, it feels like my teeth are going through soft butter. But it’s not fat -- it’s meat with a little fat, so tender like biting through gelatin, it’s that tender. The meat is permeated with barbecue sauce, a sweet sauce. The flavor? It’s like chicken fried steak on the outside with a barbecue rib inside. And it just comes completely off the bone.”

I just grinned and took another photo. This was one of those times I was ambivalent about my pork allergy. I mean, I would have liked to have tried the thing, but on the other hand all that cholesterol was just kinda hollering out this rebel yell of badness. I can’t imagine what a platter of these things would be like -- and our waitress told us the fried rib meal comes five or six bones to the plate.

She brought us out our breakfasts moments later, and two very different breakfasts they were. Grav’s country fried steak was smaller than I had expected, and he told me the dinner size portion was about three times that size. But it was thick and covered in cream gravy and an excellent breading that held on well to the steak. He let me try a bit, and I tell you, if it’s not the best country fried steak I’ve had in Arkansas, it’s awful close.

His eggs? Sufficiently runny. His toast? Sufficiently toasty. His potatoes? I tried them… and was impressed. The pan-fried Spicy Potatoes are very soft, well cooked potatoes sautéed up with black pepper, green bell pepper and onion with a little Jalapeno. Hearty enough to enjoy on their own.

For mine? I had that steak, and I’d ordered it medium rare, and for a breakfast steak (which tends to be thinner than a dinner steak) I was pleased at the robust pinkness. The scramble was decent, with a coating of American cheese on top. The grits? Aw yeah. I was craving grits and I got what I deserved, nice soft barely grainy grits with plenty of butter in them already. I ate every bit of those grits.

And then there was the biscuit. I’d ordered my platter with biscuit and chocolate gravy -- not because I’m a fan of chocolate gravy but because I was curious about it and because I wanted a biscuit. The biscuit itself was about three and half inches tall and golden and sitting on the edge of my plate like a crown. I picked it up and pulled it apart, and the scent of sweetness came to me. These are just slightly sweet quite buttery biscuits that are flaky and moist within and they are perfect. I peeled a bit of the inside and ate it, and looked at the chocolate gravy with a sigh. Because of you, dear reader, I am willing to sacrifice a little biscuit for some gravy topping it really doesn’t need.

See, though many people claim chocolate gravy is an Arkansas thing I didn’t come into contact with it until I was an adult, and it always seems weird. Worse still, so many of the places I have gone have substituted a heated chocolate pudding for the gravy that I have become disenchanted. But Calico County has such a sterling reputation for good Southern food that I figured what the hell.

And… this was indeed chocolate gravy. I could taste the butter and the flour that had been rouxed together, the cocoa powder and the added milk and sugar. It tasted all right and it felt authentic. I… I’m just not a big fan of chocolate gravy, that’s all.

But I did go after that biscuit with some real butter. In fact, Grav was poking fun at me because I opened packet after packet and smeared it on, ate a layer and repeated. I really wanted that butter and that biscuit was the perfect vehicle. I think I would have really been happy that morning with just a bowl of grits and a couple of biscuits.

It was good food, and it was a lot of food. And it was just what I needed. But when I got up after eating most of that platter and drinking a couple of cups of coffee I found I didn’t want to move.

By the register, there’s a rack of day old rolls and cinnamon rolls. A dozen cinnamon rolls are $2.75, and they come with directions on how to warm them up at home. And they’re worth it. You can even freeze them, which is great if you don’t live close (like me) but rarely practical, since a box of a dozen won’t last a full day at my house.

I’m not sure when Calico County opened, but it has been around since at least the mid-80s and many say it is THE place to have breakfast in Fort Smith. That’s saying something, since Fort Smith is blessed with a higher percentage of locally owned mom and pop style breakfast joints and 24 hour diners than anywhere else I’ve found in Arkansas. I’m glad I dropped in. And I’m really glad I didn’t attempt it on the same day as I tried all those other breakfasts… that story’s still to come.

You’ll find Calico County off Rogers Avenue west of I-540. Don’t fret, there’s a big billboard-type sign with an arrow to get you there. They have a great website or you can call (479) 452-3299.

Follow the smoke.

How do you know the really good barbecue joints? Well, it’s like counting rings on a tree. If a place shows its age, has been around and looks like hell, chances are it’s pretty good. And then there’s the scent of smoke in the air, of course. Maybe there’s a corollary between good barbecue and bad architecture. Who knows?

Traci, my traveling companion of the day, was taking me across a portion of western Tennessee to hound out some story ideas. We were on our way to Humboldt and scouting out a good place to have lunch once we were done with our business there. We’d already passed through Belz and the pickings had looked slim. A scattering of closed businesses and convenience stores had been the only signs of consumables on the road since, and we were chatting about how good barbecue restaurants usually look pretty ragged.

We rounded a curve and spotted an old boarded up white two story building with a lean-to on the side and a big pile of firewood out front. I commented “wow, that’d be one of those great little barbecue joints to try. Looks closed, though.”

“It does,” Traci agreed. But then - “hey, there’s smoke coming out.”

And sure enough there was, a plume of smoke from a chimney on the back side of the lean-to, a little building pressed up against that boarded building with a sign out front that said Sam‘s Bar-B-Q. “That might be some of the best barbecue we’ve ever tried,” I told her.

“You want to go back?”

“Maybe. Let’s see what else there is.”

Since we were running early, we rolled around town a bit. Saw a place right up the road called Armour BBQ, and there was a little ribs-and-catfish place downtown. We took Highway 79 on to the north past downtown and saw a place called Sip of Suds, which we both instantly thought must be a Laundromat but which turned out to be a bar. There were a lot of grills -- Humboldt Grill, T-Baby’s Bar and Grill, the East End Grill. But nothing really caught our fancy.

We ended up asking folks at the West Tennessee Regional Arts Center about their selections for restaurants in the area. Outright, I asked Bill Hickerson with the Center what he thought about Sam’s. “It’s barbecue. It’s good,” was his response. Not much more. Apparently the only real way to get the real story on Sam’s was to stop in.

So back down Highway 79 we went, a little apprehensive but very hungry. The sign in the window had been turned around to “OPEN” and there was a screen door on the other side of the main entrance open and fragrant with smoke. Inside a single wall unit air conditioner was fighting for its life against the heat of the day, a sole ceiling fan giving it just enough oomph to spread a little bit of coolness around the room.

And what a tiny room it was. The entire space wasn’t much larger than my bedroom at home. A counter and register divided the area in two; on the road side, two tables and five chairs shared space with a bun rack and a refrigerated drink and pie cooler. On the other, a refrigerator hunched under a big fan. There were two commercial sinks improbably shoved in the back and a single white home-style oven crowded in, its top laden with pies of several sorts. There was a large woman behind the register who welcomed us when we came in and asked us what we wanted.

There was no printed menu, just a wipeboard that had been wiped and reused over and over again. Traci and I counted up the cash we had; this was obviously a place that didn’t accept plastic. She had eight bucks; I had about $15 of quarters in a pouch, a practical joke from my husband who decided he’d more than literally follow directions.

The board was full of items that were tasty. As we looked through, the lady behind the counter told us “now, our pork sandwich, that’s the best.”

Traci looked back at her and told her “well, we can’t do pork, but what else is good?”

“It’s all good, all good,” she told us.

I looked over the board, mindful of what we had left to spend. I wasn’t all that concerned about sides like “potatoe” salad or slaw or beans that were $1.69 a “surving.” I just wanted to try some meat and sauce and see if it was any good. The chicken sandwich at $3 seemed like a no-brainer, and Traci and I decided to split one along with a BBQ beef sandwich. Other items caught my eye, but I held back -- on things like Homemade Rolls for $3.50 a pan and the BBQ Krey Bologna (Krey is apparently the West Tennessee answer to Petit Jean Meats).

We had a seat at one of the two little tables while the lady went into the back and got our stuff together. She did pull out a plastic container from the refrigerator before she walked back there, telling us she’d have to reheat the beef. That was fine with us.

A blue collar guy came in and stood at the counter, waiting for our hostess to come back. He told us he’d been coming there as long as he could remember, but he couldn’t pin a date on the origin of the place. Another guy, an older man, also came in and started telling us that this was Sam’s but it wasn’t -- that the original Sam was in an assisted living facility, and that even the original Sam wasn’t the original guy on the sign. I had to go back later and do research, and I found a few things out.

See, Sam’s Bar-B-Q started off as something else back in time lost. Sam Donald -- that’s the Sam the business is named for -- retired from the local arsenal in 1965 and went to work for his brother-in-law’s barbecue joint downtown. And over that time he learned how to make the sauce and such. He worked the concrete pits there at the old place. The old place closed down, and people pressured Sam to get his own place going. So he started Sam’s Bar-B-Q in 1988. And for years it was just him and his wife, making not much more than smoked pulled pork shoulders, smoking them over hickory and oak. He was a big proponent of wood smoke for barbecue.

In 2007 Sam finally retired at the ripe old age of 87. He handed down the business to his son-in-law John, who also goes by the name “Sam.” John (we’ll refer to him this way just to eliminate the confusion) has added a few menu items like those homemade rolls and sides and pies that he makes himself. We didn’t get to meet John while we weren’t there, but we did have a pretty good idea of what sort of history went into this place.

Our hostess came back through the door with two paper sacks. “This one,” she told us, “this is the beef brisket and th’other’n’s the chicken. Y’all sure you don’t want anything else?”

“Kat, I saw you eyeballing that pie,” Traci goaded me.

“It looks good.”

“What sorts do you have?” Traci asked.

“We have chess pie, chocolate chess pie, pecan, sweet potato, and I think we have some in the case.”

I was digging out quarters to shore up our $8.31 ticket for our two sandwiches. “How much is the pie?”

“It’s a dollar 65 -- it’d be a dollar 89 with the tax.”

“Fair enough.” I dug around for more change and handed it to Traci, who handed it over to our cashier.

“What do you want?”

“Chocolate chess.”

“It’s real good,” our hostess told us as she turned to the stovetop and cut out a slice. “He comes in and makes it every day.”

“Who does?” I asked.

“Sam. He makes all the food.”

“All right then.”

Traci came and sat down and we negotiated the bags between us. The tiny tabletop wasn’t much for holding what we had, but we pulled out the aluminum foil wrapped sandwiches and sauce cups and sat our bags on the floor.

I’ve been surprised by many things in this job, but I can honestly say I’d never seen the sight that greeted me. I opened the aluminum foil wrapped pouch and was greeted with the sight of a naked smoked chicken leg quarter sandwiched between two slices of white bread. For a moment, I just looked. Then I pointed it out to Traci, and we both laughed at it.

Well, that wasn’t going to do. I lifted the bread off the top and tugged a little at the leg bone -- and all three of the bones in the quarter just came out. It was as if I had pulled a loose seam and all the stuffing had come out. I was left with a messy pile of pink smoked chicken inside a little skin on that slice of bread. I managed to get it up under the bread and dab a little sauce on it before I cut it off and slid half over to Traci.

The barbecue beef she’d opened was a big wet pile of thick cut and sliced brisket, with plenty of visible marbling. It was served up on a big yellow bun and looked like a cardiologist’s nightmare. Or, as I’d put it, damn good barbecue.

I started out on that chicken sandwich, having to grasp it back deep into my palm and hold it together with my fingers to keep the sandwich integrity going. And let me tell you what -- that has to be the most tender chicken I have ever sampled. It was smoky and pink and slightly salty, it held its own against the sauce and it dampened the white bread considerably. It was the sort of sandwich best eaten over the sink, but it was mighty fine. I can see how someone might pick up one of these sandwiches and take it for lunch on a jobsite, how they could flick out those bones with one pull and a flick of the wrist and wrap that sandwich up tight in the foil for less messy eating. It may be the best barbecue chicken I ever had.

Part of that was the sauce, which was a vinegar based sauce heavy on the black pepper and clouded with a whole lot of other spices. There wasn’t any sweetness to it, just the tang and the bit of heat from that pepper and not much else. But it was the perfect sauce for that hickory wood smoker. It made the white bread taste sweet and the chicken taste meatier.

And of course, there was that beef sandwich. We had swapped halves and once I finally made it through the chicken sandwich I had my side of the brisket, moist and smoky and it just fell apart in my mouth. None of this dry Texas style beef brisket or the coarsely veined slices you get from Corky’s or the other Memphis barbecue places. This is how I have brisket when I make it -- smoked so long on such a well-marbled cut of meat that it literally dissolves on the tongue. It was very wet, though, but that bun did what it needed to do to keep the barbecue together.

Our hostess handed over that slice of Chocolate Chess Pie in a Styrofoam container. We took our little plastic forks and dug into it -- after photos, of course. I like my Chess Pie, and I even like it when it’s adulterated a little with something else. This was good. It was the consistency I expected from Chess Pie but with a brownie-type crust that had formed on top, the center ooey soft, all poured into an apparently storebought crust. I could forgive that -- I mean, if one man’s in charge of barbecue, rolls, sides and pie, I can give him a little slack.

We had places to go and things to do -- our next stop was the Alex Haley home in Henning, a good bit of a drive from Humboldt. So we had to go. But that’s fine. I think I will be making a special trip back at some point to get me some more of that. I want to try one of those whole smoked chickens for $7. I want to see if the chicken falls off the carcass like it did off that leg quarter.

You too can find Sam’s Bar-B-Que. Take Highway 79 up from the interstate at Brownsville -- it’s on the right as you enter Humboldt. The restaurant is open from ten to six every day except Sunday, when it’s open from noon until four. I bet they’d take a phone order, too -- (731) 784-9850. And chances are this is as close as you’re going to get to a business website.