WTF OMFG WV BBQ LOL!!!

The weather this spring has been absolute horseshit, but that hasn’t stopped Gluttons from hitting the road like Kerouac. When the days get long, we get hungry for other people’s food. So we decided last weekend to head East for a minute.  We flew into Dulles Airport early, picked up a Mazda 6 (that ain’t no 3, son), rolled the windows down, and headed to Berkeley Springs, West Virginia for some nap time.

Now, I look for road food like Yogi Bear looks for picnic baskets. There’s a long list of shit I need to eat: lobster and corn on the cob on a paper plate at a picnic table in Maine, pastrami sandwich and pickle from an old-school New York deli, ceviche cooked on a beach in Mexico, cat sandwich in a dirty Beijing alley–all the good stuff. But this time around I had no idea what to look for. ‘The hell do they eat in West Virginia? Squirrell? I was just happy I’d be eating off a grill all weekend long. But fuck if I didn’t accidentally stumble into my ultimate BBQ experience. I wound up eating some roadside BBQ outside Berkeley Springs that I thought only existed in my dome. Dreams do come true, kids. And sometimes they involve BBQ sauce that’s so good you want to drop 10K on a sex change and run out to Frederick’s of Hollywood for some red satin panties just so you can cream them. Delightful shit.

I mean, the food we ate was so unexpected we stopped at a shopping center-Quiznos on the way in instead of looking for something local. And eff Quizno’s. I ate some bullshit steak sub there that came with a paper cup of au jus that tasted like liquid salt and made the sandwich look like Bea Arthur’s afterbirth. Give me Potbelly any day of the week.

Thank God we eventually left the shopping center clusterfuck behind and hit more open roads. We made a quick stop so I could have my picture snapped with a sign for English Muffin Way, the greatest return address in the world. Then a rainstorm like Niagra Falls that had us parked under a tree while locals blew by in their 4-bys. And finally, in the evening, when the sun stepped out again, as we drove through the middle of nowhere, we passed two smokers going full bore outside a little two-story general store. My brother actually spotted them first–like smoke signals that said GET. THIS. BBQ. IN. YOUR. BELLY.–and called us to arms. We rolled in with the whole family, three carloads full, and got to business. When real BBQ is on the line, you don’t fiddle fuck around. You get after that like Carl Lewis with the wind at his back.

Worms cost as much as the BBQ.

Smokers.

The joint is called Timber Ridge Grocery, but it’s a grocery only in name. Inside, half the store is dedicated to antiques, Redskins football cards from the ’80s, and taxidermy. A few half-full coolers and a couple bags of noodles are the only things that qualify it as a grocer. The main draw is behind the counter, where two steaming black cauldrons house the BBQ.

There are two options here: smoked chicken or pulled pork, in sandwich form or by the pound. There are also the requisite sides (slaw, potato salad) but beyond that nothing. Just Mike, the owner, who smokes the meat, slices and pulls it, and serves it. Mike is extremely friendly and extremely serious about his bbq. He learned how to cook it from his aunt in West Tennessee and uses a family bbq sauce recipe that’s won sauce contests in Memphis. He likes to talk, but is concise. It should also be noted that Mike was packing heat. Dude wears an apron, plastic gloves, and .45 on his belt. You want to know if this guy’s serious? Look at his waist. There’s a fucking gun on it.

Do not fuck with this guy.

Naturally, I went in first for the pulled pork. Only a fool or a Communist would do differently. I was rewarded for my choice with pulled pork that had me grunting aloud. It was shredded perfectly into stringy meat slivers. Spoonfuls clumped together like patties on plain white buns. I added a spoonful of Mike’s sauce, which falls somewhere between tomato- and vinegar-based, and of course cole slaw. I put a death grip on the sandwich and barely breathed until it sat deep inside me.

The poultry was on the table cuz some of us are less gluttonous than others. Personally, I’m no chicken hawk. Unless it’s fried or dripping wing sauce, I rarely order chicken when I’m out. It’s good and all, but who hell wants chicken breast when there are goats and ducks and pigs lining up to get in your mouth hole? I like chicken like Ike likes Tina: occasionally. But dear God, I’ve been wrong. The smoked chicken at Timber Ridge is hands down one of the best things I’ve eaten since we started this site. It was moist and smoky, thin-sliced with charred edges, almost melting it was so tender. Mike served it with a simple golden bun. I added BBQ sauce. My first instinct was to build it a nest. I kept biting it and saying, “This is chicken. Fucking chicken!” The smoky flavor in that bird will stay with me long after I’ve switched from briefs to diapers.

The kind of pulled pork you trade your sister for.

Smoked chicken sandwich

And then we went back the next day, full from breakfast, and grew immediately hungry when we stepped out of the car. We got sandwiches this time around. They came wrapped tight in wax paper. Anyone who knows sandwiches will tell you wax paper makes any sandwich taste better. Wax paper is the sandwich’s womb, where it becomes what it was meant to be. They emerge from them slightly pressed, with flavors extra-mingled like Jewish 30-somethings at a J-Date luncheon.

We give a lot of love to BBQ on ths site, and with good reason: BBQ is some of the most delicious food on the planet. But, really, in this town, we don’t have that many BBQ  joints that punch you in the balls. Timber Ridge is the kind of place we need: Dude with a gun smoking two types of meat in front of his store and serving it in sandwich form. Vouch.