It’s been nearly 5 hours and I’m still sucking on my fingertips. Generally business travel, especially with this job, means: get there, get it done and get on to the next assignment. No time to hang out and fool around. No sight seeing and lolly gaging. Which is usually a shame as there is often interesting things at or near my destination that is not related to my subject. This time I got lucky. Few business travelers want to hear that their returning flight has been bumped. In my case it was a dream come true.
Ya see I’m in Kansas City – one of the greatest places on earth for Barbecue. The kind of "Cue" that makes a man weep. The kind of thing that everyone here has strong opinions about and if you ask any local you had better be ready for a twenty minute dissertation on what that person feels is the gospel of Cue.
You practically trip over BBQ places here. That’s a good thing. Whenever I travel I always research places to transmit from and places to eat. Going to Kansas City meant only one thing: a quest for Cue. I hit a few highly regarded joints with my extra time and I may have found the holy grail of KC style cue if not my "Best of": Oklahoma Joe’s on 47th Street. Man-oh-man. It’s that good. The place is inside a gas station but don’t let that fool you. This is top notch in every way. I mean drop to your knees thank the lawd tears in your eyes momma I’m comin home goodness. The smokiness is perfect, the meat falls off the bone but still has texture, the "bark" is lovely and the sauce although scrumptious doesn’t get in the way of the the flavor of the meat. So I still have bits of the sauce and dry rub under my fingernails and I don’t want it to go away. Yeah!
This is also one of the great things about traveling, not touring mind you but being a traveler: diving into what the locals know is wonderful about where they live and the tourism board doesn’t recognize. As a photographer I’m supposed to go beyond the surface and find the hidden special things but what ideal shouldn’t stop at the end of the work day; it should be a way of life. For me it is.
(When I die I’ll know that there is a god if I can dine on this every day for eternity )
This folks is a joint. Yes those are rolls of paper towels on the tables. Anything fancy like cloth napkins would spoil the essence of it all.
