BBQ 096: My Story

You’re listening to the Best BBQ Show and I’m your host, Yoni Levin. I realized something today. After almost 100 episodes of the show, I’m not sure you all know my story on why this show came to be. I’m not sure you know how I got interested in BBQ to begin with or why I’ve spent two years covering the Texas BBQ scene and all the interesting people in and around it.

It all started when I was a young boy in upstate New York. Now I say upstate because I’m not talking about New York City. I’m talking about way up state. As in almost Canada. I grew up in small city called Rochester, NY. A city that is almost foreign to me now that I’ve been away for two decades.

The only BBQ in Rochester at that time was a place called Dinosaur BBQ. To this day I still like their sauce, but that’s about all that’s good about it. I’ll probably go back the next time I’m up there just to see if they’ve stepped up their game, but I wasn’t impressed back then.

Back then all I had was a weber kettle and a dream. Someone gave me a copy of the BBQ Bible and my interest was peaked. Shout out to Steve Raichlen. I read lots of the recipes, dog eared pages, highlighted, took notes and started my BBQ journey. My favorite method back then was the snake method and it was my foray into slow smoked meat.

I also spent some time on amazing ribs which if you’ve been following bbq long enough is one of the oldest sites on the internet all about bbq and how to cook it. One of my favorite articles is about how the smoke ring is a myth and how you can produce one without any smoke at all.

Now I say slow smoked but I’m embarrassed to admit that I was doing everything wrong. I used cheap charcoal briquettes that didn’t burn very well. I was smart enough not to use lighter fluid back then but I did make some common mistakes. One of them was soaking little piles of wood chips. I soaked those wood chips for hours. I used different kinds, different sizes and I just couldn’t seem to figure out why I wasn’t getting the results I wanted. The one thing I didn’t try was just not soaking the dang wood chips. If hindsight is 2020, my hindsight is clouded with thick white smoke that comes from wet wood.

Luckily, that was merely the beginning of my BBQ journey. After college I traveled the state working for non-profits in politics and the environment. I helped create legislation that saved plastic, encouraged recycling and brought a ton of awareness about homelessness. I also worked in kitchens, bars and served at restaurants between campaigns. I loved the work but it wasn’t the full time gig I had dreamed of.

Then I caught, what I thought back then, was a huge opportunity. There were field organizer positions opening up for a huge new Greenpeace campaign. I would travel the world helping solve major issues on the national and international level. I went to conferences on both coasts and even attended the conference of the parties United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Long story short, after they sent me to Austin in 2008 I realized there was more politics than progressiveness and decided to stay in this amazing city I had discovered almost completely by accident.

Luck would have it that when I moved to Austin I landed in a small neighborhood just south of the river. A small neighborhood that just happened to have a BBQ trailer in it. A BBQ trailer called LA Barbecue. I had luckily found, what was then, one of the only quality BBQ joints in Austin. I know what you’re thinking, not Franklin? Not Lockhart? Nope, my first BBQ in Texas was LA Barbecue. The place where John Lewis worked before he opened Lewis BBQ. Where Esaul Ramos of 2M, Dylan Taylor, and Brendan Lamb of Smiley’s BBQ all worked.

When I first showed up in 2012 they had just opened and I knew it was rare to find a place with good BBQ that didn’t have a line. I had heard of Franklin, but had yet to eat there. I was there early and often. Although, back then early just meant a few minutes before they opened. I would bug the guys in the pits and quickly made friends with Ali Clem who was there every day serving up the good stuff to those of us who patiently waited.

I was a regular. Some weeks I’d show up 3 days in a row. They had free beer and even some old timers playing country music on a very small hand built stage. About a year later, something happened. I showed up at the usual time and I wasn’t the first one there. No big deal, I just got there a little earlier the next time, but that didn’t do for long. Soon I had to come in 30 minutes early, then 45, then an hour. My #1 spot was in constant jeopardy by all the people discovering this delicious place that I wanted to be my secret!

Fast forward a few years and I got my 118 gallon pit. Started cooking my own briskets. Made a list of places I wanted to go and just kept on trying barbecue all over Texas. Then it happened. In May of 2016 I saw a short documentary produced by Yeti about an 81 year old pitmaster named “Tootsie”. She worked all week as a custodian and then woke up early on Saturdays to cook barbecue out in Lexington, Texas. The moment I saw that video I knew I had to go. I rounded up a few friends and we headed out there to try the best BBQ in Texas.

If you haven’t been to Snow’s before, it’s an experience. The cool country air, the small town roads and the friendly people are just part of the experience. We didn’t even bring chairs. We just got in line and waited for that slow smoked goodness we had heard so much about. After that day I was hooked. A couple months later we went again and then again. Before I knew it I was waking up at 5am to be near or at the front of the line every Saturday to eat at Snow’s. After a while the crew started to notice. They were like, weren’t you here last week? And “how many weeks is that in a row now?” I became a regular in a small town where magic was happening.

Clay Cowgill was the first one to start keeping track. We were fast friends and soon I was spending half the time talking to him while my lady, incredibly patiently, held my place in line. We talked about wood, meat, smoke, timing, feel and I started adjusting my home cooks to match some of Snow’s methods.

Almost a year later, we showed up early as planned to see the line was 10 times longer than it had ever been. Our early Saturday ritual was about to take all afternoon. I went and asked Clay what was going on and he told us they had just gotten the #1 spot on the Texas Monthly top 50 for the second time. Til that point I hadn’t even heard of the list, but I was going to find out about it since all these people decided to get between me and my BBQ. A few months later I was talking to some friends about podcasts how to create one and we decided to create one about BBQ. I started calling my friends who owned, operated or cooked BBQ and asked them if they would be on my show. Now, almost 3 years later I’m so happy to share Texas BBQ with you and all the amazing people in it.

The BBQ family has been so generous to me and I can’t wait for what’s next in modern barbecue and this show I have created. Stay tuned. 2019 is going to be an interesting year. We’re on youtube and we have more friends than ever on Instagram. I’m so thankful to have ya’ll as listeners and if it wasn’t for you, there’d be no show. So I’ll make a deal with you. If you keep listening, I’ll keep talking tasting and trying to cook Texas BBQ, the best barbecue in the world. For now, go out there what this amazing bbq scene has to offer. If you need some tips, feel free to message me. If you think I need to cover some places, send them to me and they will be added to my list.

This is your host, Yoni Levin saying “Go eat some meat with the people you love and have a great week."