Seems like everybody claims their Moms are the best meatloaf cooks or the best country fried steak cooks.  And my mother was good at both those things.  But her real claim to fame was her Bar-B-Que.  She was known far and wide for her bar-b-que.  And it wasn't even her recipe. She may have stolen it.  We don't know how she got it but it came from one of the best bar-b-que places in North Carolina.
 
When we moved from N.C. to Washington, D.C., my mother said she wasn't going if she couldn't get the bar-b-que recipe from RJ's Cafe.  We figured we would have to leave her behind because RJ guarded it like it was the secret to the atom bomb.
 
She said she would do anything to get that recipe.  After a couple of trips to the cafe, she finally came home with her note paper and the recipe.
 
"Did you get the coleslaw recipe, too?" my Father asked.  "Bar-b-que isn't the same without the special coleslaw."  He didn't even ask how she got the recipe.  But she got the coleslaw recipe as well because he's right...at least if you are from North Carolina.  Coleslaw goes ON the bar-b-que and they both go on a bun.
 
So with the recipes hidden in my mother's purse, we were packed and ready to go to Washington, D.C.  She had promised the cafe owner that she would never under any circumstance reveal the ingredients or how to cook the slaw or the bar-b-que.  And she stuck to her promise.  She wouldn't even tell us, her own family.
 
Like others that came to Washington, we moved to North Carolina Avenue.  We thought that's where we were suppose to live since we came from North Carolina.  And like good Christians, we joined the North Carolina Methodist Church.  The women's group usually did a fund raising dinner once or twice a year.  When the time rolled around, my mother suggested they do a bar-b-que and she would do the cooking.  They usually fried fish so this was a new twist.  They took her up on her offer.
 
She cooked a pile of bar-b-que and buckets of slaw.  She wanted no help from the other women other than serving since she was guarding her recipe.  The dinner was a huge success and my mother was a star.  Every year she would be named to cook her bar-b-que, and she was elated to do it.  People begged for the recipe but she would only roll her eyes and say, "If you had any idea what I had to do to get these recipes, you wouldn't ask for them."  That always made my father and me nervous but the food was too good to worry about it.
 
When my Mother cooked her bar-b-que, people lined up around the block waiting to get in and served.  She made herself a red and white checkered blouse and a pair of pedal pushers out of denim colored material.  She felt that kept with the theme.  Once people were served and eating, she would walk among the crowd, smiling like a queen.  If she saw anyone that had taken the slaw off the meat, she would chastise them and explain that they had to go together.  Some people still believe it but only in North Carolina.
 
My mother kept her annual bar-b-que event going for years.  Finally the church was sold because members were moving to the suburbs.  
 
The congregation that bought the church had heard of the bar-b-que dinners and tried to get my mother to come back.  But she only wanted to cook for Methodists.
 
When my Mom passed on, we seriously considered putting Bar-B-Que Queen on her headstone.  But since she was a Methodist and they aren't showy, we decided it would be inappropriate.
 
I'm happy to say that when we went through her stuff, the recipe was in a little cedar chest.  So I have it and once a year I cook it.  I do it for my family and friends....usually on the 4th of July which also happens to be my birthday.
 

Joe Adams
  
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BUTTER BEANS FOR THE SOUL, a funny book by Joe Adams about growing up in the South is available at the Pace General Store in Saluda.
 

If you enjoy Joe's column in Saluda Lifestyles, please let him know. You can email him at americaohyes@gmail.com.