One of Texoma’s underappreciated gems is the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge in the west central part of Grayson County along the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma. Regardless of the season, the refuge is either home or a waypoint for hundreds of species of wildlife and migratory birds.
The pirate is former Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach, the soldiers are the members of the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M, and the fat little girlfriends—well, we’ll let Leach explain that one. “I worked with a guy from Louisiana in a camp one time—he used to say at the end of drills—he used to say—‘All right, that was a good job, man.’
While you can order a brisket or pulled pork sandwich or a barbecue plate, what sets Denison’s Old Mining Camp apart are the innovative things Darrell and Rebecca Harris come up with to utilize their smoked meats.
After what seemed an exceedingly long winter, Texoma Living! decided to celebrate spring with a picnic. The time, the menu, and the guests came together in a perfect location for an outing to be remembered.
In the wide world of barbecue, the spoon vittles that come along side the main attraction depend on where you are. In the South, there is usually a cup of Brunswick stew, the everything-in-a-pot concoction originally made with rabbit, squirrel, chicken, beef, pork, corn, potatoes, lima beans, tomatoes, and whatever, and claimed by both Virginia and Georgia. The other staples are coleslaw, and crackers—for the stew— and cornbread, well larded with cracklin’s if you’re lucky.
Nick Williams at Williams Old Style BBQ in Colbert, Oklahoma is the hands down choice for the POSam Memorial Brown Gravy Sauce Award for the second year running.
His smoker is hitched behind his truck, and he takes it home every evening when he closes up his stand just east of the Interstate. The work space in the stand he had built and then mounted on a homemade trailer is tight—submarine galley tight. “It so small, I just about reached the point where I can’t add anything else to the menu,” he said. He prepares an order when it’s ordered and not before. “I make real food, not fast food,” he tells customers who get impatient.
We would be remiss if we didn’t mention Edd’s potato salad. It’s way more than just good. “I can’t take credit for that,” Fleming said. “My mom makes the potato salad, and I’m not quite sure everything she puts in it.” Oh well, even the closest of families have a few secrets.
In Texoma recently, a baker’s dozen of serious barbecue students spent a Saturday afternoon looking for something good to eat. What follows are the notes from the road, a consolidation of their opinions, as they went looking for barbecue, looking for meat, and finding Texoma’s Favorite BBQ Joints, Shacks & Stands.
One of the things that set Texoma Living! apart is the inclusion in each issue of a long-form profile, usually three thousand words or more, on someone who brings something special to our community. From the beginning, the goal was to offer the reader something more than a superficial glance at the subject. We wanted the reader to finish the story and say, “I never knew that.” This is a very short retrospective of some of those stories.