tasty business

how to avoid the meat sweats on the tx bbq trail

hey guys, remember last year when i went on that bbq tour with the alamo and ate so much meat that my pants (literally) almost burst?

well, guess what. I DID IT AGAIN! cos i am a glutton for punishment!! like, even more than i am a glutton for actual meat.

except this year, i was an experienced veteran and therefore WAY smarter about portion size and questions like, “how much sausage is too much?” (the answer will save yr life, trust me). and so, today, i offer you an insider’s perspective on surviving the sometimes treacherous, always tasty texas bbq trail.

henri was once again my companion for this Day of Meat, along with erica and her dad, the famous papa g!

apparently, i wasn’t the only one who learned a thing or two from last year’s tour, cos tim wisely decided to replace the keg (and its easily spillable, esp. on a moving vehicle, cups) with cans of bud light. plus, at 10:00 AM, it’s a lot easier to drink a beer that tastes like water.

our first stop was in lexington at snow’s bbq, recently lauded by texas monthly as the best bbq place in all of texas!!

no really. they’re only open on saturday. the doors open at 8 AM, they cook a thousand pounds of meat, and then they close when the food is gone. this means that if you want to actually eat at snow’s, you need to be there by 10 AM.

i can actually hear some of you guys saying, “10 am?!! for barbecue?! you’ve got to be kidding.” all i can say is, i bet y’all aren’t from texas.

LOOK AT ALL OF THAT MEAT. HOLY GOODNESS!

like true pioneers, our group totally manifest destinied the place, and oh yeah, did i mention that we were wearing matching shirts? cutest little bbq tour group EVER!

i don’t know if i agree with texas monthly, but snow’s was certainly top notch. and, for the record, i tried one piece of brisket and a half link of sausage. cos it’s all about ENDURANCE, folks. hasty eaters quickly become victims of the trail, mark my pants on it.

erica and papa g. agreed: our first stop was tasty business!

and GUESS WHAT ELSE I FOUND AT SNOWS?!! A LITTLE BABY COW!!!!!!!

I GOT TO PET HIM!!!! AND HE LIKED ME!! he even licked my hand!! and then i washed it.

yeah yeah, i know, insert all of yr “eating babies” and “sarah, you’ll see that cow again… on yr plate!” jokes here. i don’t mind. esp. cos this little calf was pretty sick, so i don’t think he’ll make it to the slaughter house. which is… good? i guess?

after demolishing all of the meat, it was time to head back to the wagon, er, bus…

and drive to elgin, where we stopped at the southside market:

now, i know that this tour is all about the meat, but i have to take a moment and appreciate the interior design unique to texas bbq joints. because, you guys, it’s awesome.

what? you want a close-up of that bobcat for future decor reference? no problem.

nothing spices up the feng shui of a room like an animal baring fangs!

and here’s a new twist on an old classic: a bear skin rug… on the wall!

ok, enough with the decorating tips. let’s get back to the meat!

southside was good, but i think it was the weakest stop of the day. of course, that didn’t stop everyone from stuffing their faces with more meaty goodness. i mean, we’re pioneers. we must constantly focus on survival, i.e. eating whenever we can.

i know tim looks angry, but i think he was just chewing really intently when i took the picture. i mean, it wasn’t THAT bad.

oh! and guess who else was on the trail? martin starr! you may know him from “freaks and geeks” and “adventureland.”

props for some excellent picture banditing by henri.

martin was super nice and a really good sport. in fact, he let me take a lot of ridiculous pictures for le blog, which these days is pretty much the main requirement to be my friend. oh and he tolerated, nay *appreciated*, henri’s ridiculousness. i guess that’s another requirement.

i really liked martin, but guess who was even COOLER? MARTIN’S DAD!!!!!

jim is AWESOME. we met when he offered to cut a piece of sausage in half for me, and it was like, instant BFFs!!! he lives in florida (he literally said, “i moved there to be with my sweetheart,” AWWW!!) and teaches a class on transitioning into college, so we ended up totally dorking out on freshmen development, college issues, etc.

anyway! our third stop was also in elgin at meyer’s, a place i’ve passed a thousand times (it’s on 290) but never visited.

i really liked meyer’s, solely based on the fact that they provided me with an excellent photo opportunity:

do i look like a hardcore pioneer lady or what?!

jim also took a picture!! i mean, after i asked him to.

the rest of the decor was what you would call Texas Traditional, aka lots of wood, a tv with sports playing and some deer heads.

here’s a photo of my plate so you can see how AMAZING i was at pacing myself.

i did it for my pants, y’all. i did it for my pants.

our last stop for the day was totally my favorite: mueller’s bbq in taylor, tx:

first of all, i LOVED the atmosphere of the place. it was open and airy and antiquey and comfy– the perfect watering hole after a long hard day on the trail.

second, the third generation owner of the place stood behind the food and chatted all of us up. he was the nicest guy! he even answered all of papa g’s questions (which were numerous).

i mean, you don’t get this kind service at the county line, you know what i’m saying?

on top of fantastic service and atmosphere, the bbq was AMAZING. seriously. the brisket, like, melted in my mouth.

that plate may look empty to you, but trust me, this is how professionals like me make it through a whole day of carnivorosity.

and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, here’s how the henris of the world handle it:

both erica and papa g. successfully made it through the day without breaking into meat sweats. i’m not surprised, though– whether they’re on the bbq trail or the beaches of cancun, the greenhouses do NOT mess around.

i decided to walk off a little bit of the bbq in my tummy and took a little tour of “downtown” taylor, which is mainly composed of boarded up storefronts (according to mr. mueller, the nearby wal-mart drove out local business after it opened in the 1980s). there are, however, a few tiny stores still clinging to life, one of them being “paperbacks.”

that’s the owner (on the right), and here is the magic you will find inside his establishment:

i know, right?! this guy needs to become a seller on amazon, asap. i mean, he had loads of sweet valley high, and those are hard to find nowadays! the romance novels, well, not so much.

the town of taylor can be pretty much summed up by the front of the newspaper:

STORM DOWNS TREE!!! STOP THE PRESSES!!!!

before we boarded the bus to return to the alamo, we got together for a v. patriotic group shot.

take a good look at these meat pioneers, folks. see their faces hardened by hours of meat consumption, the deep lines etched by copious amounts of bud light. the bbq trail ain’t for the weak, lil’ pardners.

back at the alamo, i took a picture with jim to seal our new friendship and document our completion of the trail. WE DID IT!

he even came to my office the following monday so we could meet and discuss college stuff, all professional pants like! cos friendships forged on the trail last forever!

but wait! the tour’s not over yet! hold up!

so, we watched “blazing saddles” (complete with cap guns and LOTS of ammo, which i highly recommend adding to any and all movies in the future) and then… the grand finale: a pie fight!!!!!!

no, i did not participate. first, cos i hate getting messy. second, and most importantly, i cannot condone wasting perfectly good pie.*

but you know, i think observing a pie fight is *almost* as awesome as being in one:

(sorry the video cuts off– flossie ran out of memory!)

as you can imagine, the aftermath was not pretty. it was also v. v. sticky.

i just realized that that picture looks less like the consequences of a pie fight and more like people got pooped on by a flock of birds. GROSS!

not to worry, though. these are pioneers, not pansies! they just ate a hundred pounds of meat! a little whipped cream in the ear is NOTHING!

and so we reach the end of the trail, the closing of the day. we ate, we drank, we got pied in the face, we survived to live another day of horrifying vegetarians. such is the life of a texas bbq pioneer.

*so, it wasn’t actually real pie. it was just whipped cream. so my second reason is a lie. but, you know, i like to sound principled.

LINKS

squee of the day: friendly new yorkers help a little robot out! oh man! i love this!!!

© 2009 Poshdeluxe.