Ranch House Barbecue

It’s a little late for lunch – after 2pm – but I pull off Route 67 in Glen Rose into the Ranch House Barbecue. It’s a typical Texas barbecue roadhouse: a plain building, set right at the roadside, with parking in back.

The waitress suggests I sit inside, where it’s cooler (it’s around 90°F, or 32°C), but I decide on a table outside, where it’s quieter. She leads me to the table, hands me a menu, tells me that soda is inside, iced tea outside by the entrance, onions and pickles behind me. Before I sit down, I walk round the corner, and pick a huge polystyrene cup from the pile by the entrance. As usual, they have two urns of tea: one sweetened, the other unsweetened. I half fill the cup with ice from the cooler chest between the two urns, and top it off with sweetened tea.

My table is on the porch, on the side shaded by a huge old pecan tree. Every now and then a puff of wind causes the pink-flowering hanging baskets to sway gently, and is a brief respite from the heat. The table is covered with a plastic red checkered tablecloth, adorned only with salt and pepper shakers, a bottle of ketchup, and a roll of kitchen towel. A small speaker attached to the roof above my head broadcasts a local country music station: “I’m gonna hate myself in the morning, but I’m gonna love you tonight.”

The waitress returns to take my order, and I settle back, sipping my iced tea, and listening to the throaty exhausts of passing Harleys. A little later in the year, it will be too hot for all but the most stalwart bikers. At the edge of the porch, a banana tree is in its first exuberant flush of life, and at its base, a somewhat scrawny white cat is lazily sprawled.

My food arrives on a plastic plate – the kind that’s divided into three compartments. One compartment has a generous portion of sliced brisket, slathered with barbecue sauce; one contains pinto beans; and the other, a large dome of potato salad, served with an ice-cream scoop. The cutlery is plastic. You will understand by now that Texas barbecue is all about taste, and not presentation. And I know I will not be disappointed.

As the waitress leaves, I am joined on the other side of the table by the white cat, miraculously spurred into action. It stares cautiously at me while I unpack my cutlery, sniffing occasionally at the air. As soon as I start to eat, it puts two front paws on the table. Gently, I ease it back into the seat. This happens several more times, with a few minutes interval between each attempt, until the cunning cat changes its approach. Edging down the bench seat to the other end of the table, it crosses the tabletop and sidles up to me. Now that this relationship has been established, it tries to sneak under my arms to get to the plate. Needless to say, I don’t allow it; also needless to say, I save a small piece of meat until the end of the meal. The cat devours it gratefully!