About Us

Our journey of discovery and passion began in the military. We traveled the world while serving in the U.S. Army (I retired from the Army several years ago) and we sampled food in many countries and much of it was good.

None of it, however, compares to the succulent taste of good southern "Q". Personally, I was introduced to this style of cooking early in my career when I was taken to this little roadside shack near Ft. Bragg, North Carolina where everyone bought ribs.

Those ribs were so good I found myself going there everyday (it's a good thing the Army had lots of physical training to burn those calories off!...

The owner was this old gentleman who prepared just enough meat to sell in one day. He had a home made smoker where he kept a low fire going using hickory wood.

I understood that he used wood smoke to cook his ribs but I had no idea what spices he used, or the temperature in the smoker/cooker, or how long it took to cook.

In those early years of soldiering and raising a family my wife and I were happy with our rib grilling. We prepared them like many people, boiling the ribs first (ugh!) before putting them on the grill.

We smothered them with common supermarket sauce usually ending up with the "blackened" variety because the sauces were loaded with sugar and ,as you know, sugar burns pretty good.

Honestly, we just didn't know any better. In those days our ribs were ok but never tasted like those you got from a true "Q" cook.

We learned the cooking techniques of "low and slow" by watching the good smoker cooks, going to competitions, studying barbeque cook books, and by trial and error. We went through many meat preparation techniques, spice combination experiments, marinades, and smoking methods before we learned to have consistent good results.

Now, when we have a cookout event, it becomes just that, an event because the barbeque is that good. That's been going on for more than 20 years now.

Sincerely,

TC and Andrea