Greg and Jim's chopped pork barbecue is merely outstanding.  Great smoke, great sauce, plenty of browns (outer pieces).

Their barbecue beans though are the best I've ever had.  I asked the cook, "My mother's recipe," That makes the recipe at least a hundred years old.  A local added, "That recipe is older than all of us."  It's got meat in it - I didn't ask what kind.  And "all sort of other things."   No way I was even going to get a hint of the recipe.

I was staying in Forest City.  Headed to Colt, a few miles away, for diner at a restaurant that looked interesting.  It never happened.  When I pulled into the restaurant's parking lot I smelled barbecue.  Looked across the street, saw the big sign.  Kept going and parked next to a pickup truck with a dog waiting in the bed.

Inside it is mostly a grocery.  There's a deli case and counter on the right, for ordering and a row of booths along the left for sitting and eating.  In between, groceries.

The first three booths were filled with locals.  Seemed like a regular late afternoon get together.  The conversation ranged from squirrel hunting to swamps to tractors leaking oil.  Can't get much deeper into the South.

It is a discovery like Greg and Jim's that keeps me looking.  These places are out there they just have to be found.

April 2009