J.C. Reid

The sign at the entrance to Smoke Queen Barbecue in Garden Grove, Calif., spells out the word “Welcome” in four languages: English, Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese. It’s a nod to both the diversity of this city in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, as well as to the remarkable story of how an Asian American woman became one of the best new barbecue pitmasters in the United States. GUIDE: Houston’s best barbecue joints Winnie Yee-Lakhani was born in Malaysia to a family of Chinese heritage and…

“Do one thing and do it well,” is not a phrase often associated with Texas barbecue. Certainly, Texas is known for doing barbecue spectacularly well. But when it comes to menu choices, there is a lot to choose from. Indeed, the most famous item is the Texas trinity — a three-meat plate featuring brisket, pork ribs and sausage. Furthermore, tradition stipulates a minimum of three side dish options: potato salad, coleslaw and beans. Desserts also come in threes: pecan pie, banana pudding and cobb…

Lately, Texas barbecue joints have been battling the high cost of raw ingredients like brisket, even to the point of possibly replacing it with other cuts of meat. They’re facing other challenges, too — including in labor and staffing. Consider the meat cutter, a sacred tradition in Texas barbecue. At meat market-style joints, we step up to the chopping block and place our order with the person actually cutting the meat, aka the “cutter.” How hard can this job be, you might ask? After all, we…

There are essentially three places to start cooking barbecue in Texas: in your backyard, in a competition, or in a restaurant. Traditionally, backyard and competition venues act as farm teams. Aspiring pitmasters cook for friends, family or judges who act as de facto talent scouts. As these amateurs accumulate praise or trophies at competitions, they may choose to make the leap to commercial barbecue, i.e., open a barbecue joint. Most of the top barbecue joints in the state originated in backy…

Texas barbecue has a math problem. Specifically, with the cost of brisket. Both in how much a pitmaster pays to acquire and cook the raw product and in what the customer pays to consume the finished product. This has resulted in the unthinkable: some barbecue joint pitmasters have considered removing brisket from their menus, if only temporarily. No one is willing to go on the record yet, though. How did we get here? Essentially, it’s due to the stubbornly high cost of beef, specifically brisk…

On a recent drive to Austin, I took note of the many signs along the way pointing to various historical markers. If you grew up in Texas, family vacations often included a stop along the highway and a dutiful recitation of the engraved text describing a battlefield or old homestead. Nowadays, it seems, there is less time for meandering around the state and randomly stopping at a historical marker. Google Maps has made the destination, not the journey, the main goal of travel. Fortunately, for…

Jerry Pizzitola, a long-time barbecue fan and entrepreneur who continued the tradition of Houston’s legendary Shepherd Drive Bar-B-Q stand as Pizzitola’s Bar-B-Cue, died January 19. He was 81. His friend and former business associate Tim Taylor confirmed his death, though declined to say the cause. Pizzitola was born in Houston in 1942 and grew up in Galena Park. He attended St. Thomas High School and Texas A&M University, where he was a notable football player at both schools. Growing up, Piz…

John Brotherton, an influential pitmaster who helped usher in the Texas craft barbecue movement, died Jan. 15 after a brief illness. He was 49. Raised in Liberty, east of Houston, he moved to Austin in 1995 and worked in laser printer sales until 2015. In 2010, he started cooking barbecue for friends in his backyard, which led to catering jobs and several barbecue trailer ventures that gained a cult following on social media. Working out of his house, his popularity often resulted in lines of 3…

There’s something oddly comforting about eating in a replica of a chuckwagon. Also comforting: It’s located in a suburban shopping mall in Katy rather than on a dusty prairie in West Texas. And instead of eating a questionable bean stew from a cast-iron pot, I’m eating great barbecue cooked by owner and pitmaster Waseem Hilal of Chuckwagon BBQ & Burgers. Hilal, 33, grew up in the barbecue business. His dad, Michael, came to Houston from Syria in the 1970s and established Charlie’s BBQ in Green…

If you spent any time in Houston in the late ’90 or ’00s as a student or otherwise underemployed young person, you were well-acquainted with Les Givral’s on Milam. In the beginning, you could order a well-endowed sandwich on freshly baked bread for $1.50, which was even cheaper than the faux-filling sandwiches of chain shops opening at that time. Les Givral’s specialized in the banh mi sandwich, a Vietnamese classic that started popping up in Houston in the late ’70s and ’80s, along with classi…