December 9th A Day That Will Live In BBQ Infamy

I'm not sure how many folks read this blog, but in case there's anyone out there who does, we've cleared our final hurdle in securing a location. Not only did we secure a location, we got the green light from the city of Nixa to locate at highways 160 and 14. Whew! It was nip and tuck for a while today, but everything came together at the last minute.

We've finalized our final version of our menu. Our serving trailer is 99.999% complete, I'm picking up charcoal and wood this week and an obscene amount of meat next week from Bichelmeyer's in Kansas City.

We're shooting for December 9th as Opening Day. A Nixa Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting December 21 and who knows what else.

By the way, as an addition to the Smoky Footprints post, here's a shot of my Granddad, Bob Henry tossing me, a little Pitmaster into the air in 1956. Sorry, had I known this would've been on the web 53 years later, I would've dressed better. See what good BBQ does for a smile!

Smoky Footprints

I was talking with my Uncle Bob via email the other day. He had written me to say that how proud my Granddad, his Dad, would be of me by following what he called, "his smoky footprints." You know, sometimes someone will tell you something that gives you pause. That comment did.

Years ago my grandparents lived on North Douglas; it was a modest home but it did have something no one in Springfield had: a BBQ pit in the backyard. It was a screened in BBQ pit with a firebox to the side, a big lid and tons of room to barbeque anything. I remember him cooking half-chickens and to this day, if I do yardbird, it's a half chicken even in KCBS competitions. And even though he passed away long before anything like barbeque cook-offs were thought of, he would've been on those contests like white on rice. Guaranteed.

So, after having pondering this "smoky footprints" comment for a few weeks, I began digging through old family photos. I knew there wasn't any photos of him at the pit, but I did remember shots that had been taken at a big family reunion, not long after Granddad had passed away. Well, I found one of them.

This reunion was the "mother" of all reunions. I can't remember how many family members came that day, but it was a crowd. So, my Dad, pictured on the left and other members of the family like my Granddad's bother, Paul Henry on the right, developed a huge make-shift pit. They used concrete blocks, sheet metal and handmade racks that were secured and their handles allowed for all the chickens to be rotated all at once. Corn was on the pit too as well as other smoked goodies that filled every square inch of that pit.

So maybe these smoky footprints are taking me on a journey I was meant to take. BBQ is actually soul food when you stop and think about it; Mac n' Cheese, Ribs, Slaw and the whole nine yards. So, if BBQ is in the soul, through such a thing as "smoky footprints" then our BBQ can't be equalled because when you cook from the heart and the soul, that is what will make all the difference. You can taste it.