• How Gran’daddy’s Came to Be

• > ||

  Slideshow Slides (Drop Images In This Box)

  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
  • 
    5
    appear
• As a child I spent my summers on my gran’daddy’s farm in Tennessee. That’s Gran’daddy Tillman pictured on the back, along with my Gran’mommy and my mother, sitting on the steps of that big ol’ covered porch that’s so much a part of Southern culture. Food is also a big part of Southern culture and barbecued and smoked foods were everywhere. Some of my first, and fondest, memories of food are of seeing my grandfather working with my Uncle Brown hanging hams over an old well to cure them. Then there were the turkeys smoked over a little old homemade brick smoker. I still remember his hands, knuckles gnarled with age, as he fed perfectly dried hickory into that old smoker. “Low and slow” he’d say. “Low and slow, that’s the way to smoke it right.” Perhaps it’s the wonder of being a child and the fact that everything, even taste, is larger than life when you’re so small, but those incredibly tender, melt in your mouth, morsels produced there in that old smoker have been improved upon with a few  new  smoking technique’s added.
  Now we’ve decided to turn our long-time dream into a plan – a business plan. Gran’daddy’s Smokehouse and BBQ has been LLC’d. We’re a business with tax numbers and a $25,000 smoker that will fill all the tummies in the area. You can see me unwrapping it in the picture below. Notice it’s on wheels! There’s a year’s worth of hickory in the yard. Gran’daddy’s looking down, and he’s smiling.
• My second serious brush with smoked and barbecued meats came twenty years later. I was a full-on adult, married, and stationed in Fort Benning, Georgia. One night my wife and I decided to go to a little place called Country’s BBQ. All it took was one bite to make those memories came flooding back. We ate there every chance we got. The problems of the world seemed to melt away like the platters of ribs placed before us. We’d dream dreams and make plans. I don’t know if you’d call it a dream or a plan but we often talked of opening a place just like Country’s back in Connecticut one day. I guess I’d have to call it a dream because plans have goals and timetables and to-do lists. We didn’t. We just said “someday”.
• Well, we got back here and forgot our dreams. Country’s was a long ways away and life was here, now, and very demanding. I didn’t forget entirely, though. We still loved and wanted that meaty Southern comfort. I started small at first. I smoked the Thanksgiving turkey and the Christmas ham and the Sunday ribs and I perfected my baked bean recipe. Then I started practicing on cheese and nuts. I shared them with our friends and they told their friends. I cooked for the Boy Scouts, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, firemen, and other non-profit groups. Pretty soon my little smoker, and my time, was filled to capacity.
• Now we’ve decided to turn our long-time dream into a plan – a business plan. Gran’daddy’s Smokehouse and BBQ has been LLC’d. We’re a business with tax numbers and a $25,000 smoker that will fill all the tummies in the area. You can see me unwrapping it in the picture to the right. Notice it’s on wheels! There’s a year’s worth of hickory in the yard. Gran’daddy’s looking down, and he’s smiling.
• I want to thank all of you who have supported me, believed in me, and helped me on my way. I deeply appreciate the fact that you appreciate my food. I promise I’ll keep making the very best smoked meats and barbecues you’ve ever eaten as I keep earning your continued support.

  Sincerely yours,

  Ralph E. Lechausse

Copyright © 2012 Gran Daddys Smokehouse and BBQ. Powered by Webbersaur.us.