Page 37 - FEB 2020 Digital

bbq romance
Ardie Davis
aka Remus Powers BBQ Hall of Famer ardiedavis@kc.rr.com
It’s the Romantic Love Month Again
Here we are in the Love Month again, this time in a Leap Year with a 29 day February instead of 28 days. Happy Birthday to everyone born on February 29! Since February 29 only hap- pens every four years, I hope you and your loved ones make your 2020 Leap Year birthday celebration extra special.
Although we make a big deal of love on Valentine’s Day, everybody knows that love is too enormous to be limited to one day of the year. Valentine’s Day does, however give a wel- come boost to purveyors of candies, flowers, teddy bears, pa- jamas, jewelry and Valentine cards well as dine-in restaurants.
Barbecuers are as romantic as everyone else—maybe even more so, due to how smoke from a meat fire stirs our passions. Yet, although barbecue is wildly popular these days, it is not a major player in mainstream popular culture. We’ll know bar- becue has entered mainstream popular culture when:
-Barbecue-themed pop music, emoticons and social media posts proliferate, especially among pre-teens, teens and mil- lennials.
-Barbecue lingo is commonly used as metaphors and allusions in everyday speech, with more than the usual “butt” talk. -Perfumers develop and market perfumes with aromas that will arouse barbecue hunger and passion.
-Food product manufacturers properly label “BBQ” potato chips, snack foods and other foods as flavored with barbecue seasonings. Nothing against such products. They just
shouldn’t be represented as BBQ unless they truly taste like barbecue.
-Barbecue contests grow significantly in numbers and diver- sity of contestant and public participation, especially with re- spect to age, gender and race.
-Accredited trade schools, community colleges, colleges and universities offer comprehensive barbecue curricula and de- grees, granting credits to accredited high school culinary school graduates.
-Major motion pictures and documentaries feature barbecue characters with engaging, entertaining plots.
-Romance and thriller novels feature barbecue characters as protagonists. There are several such mystery novels. We need more.
Regarding the latter, I’d wager a grilled vegan hot dog against a pecan-smoked slab of pork loin ribs that when the right bar- becue romance novel comes along, sales will go through the roof, and readers—including male and female barbecuers— will demand more!
Someone has to take the leap and write the first Barbecue Ro- mance novel. How about this for a start:
Passion in the Pines
Bubba and his best buddy Frank, both recently divorced, take a broken hearts road trip in search of the best undiscovered bar- becue joints in America. They find dozens in Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and other states. But at a roadside bbq shack near York, Maine, they find the unlikeliest best joint of all, run by no bull, super intelligent, super strong, knock-down gorgeous proprietor Nora Mae, who knows more about barbecue than anyone
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they’ve ever met. Trouble starts when Bubba and Frank fall in love with Nora Mae. Nora Mae has no time or desire for ro- mance until she decides otherwise.
Start writing, or come up some other ideas.
Whether you celebrate Valentine’s Day in a favorite barbecue restaurant or at home with a special barbecue meal from Chef Paul Kirk, Ray Sheehan and Meathead recipes in this or previ- ous editions of the National Barbecue News, Happy February and Happy Valentine’s Day!