JR Love Houston - The Cowboy Yacht Club
The Houston Rodeo stands as a monumental spectacle, characterized by its extensive barbecue competition that has evolved significantly since its inception in 1974. In this enlightening episode, we engage with Junior Love, the guiding spirit of the Cowboy Yacht Club, who shares his profound insights on the intricacies of barbecue culture in Texas. With the competition expanding from merely a handful of teams to over 250, the event now draws an impressive 250,000 attendees within a mere three days. We delve into Junior's illustrious journey in barbecue, from his formative years cooking alongside his stepfather to his current status as a seasoned competitor. Furthermore, we explore the essential elements that contribute to the distinctiveness of Texas brisket, emphasizing the importance of dry rubs and slow smoking techniques that define this culinary tradition.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Cowboy Yacht Club
- Turn It Go Burn it studios
- Heritage Steel
- Painterdale's Natural beef
- Oregon Dungeness crab
- Syndicate Smoke
- Pinkerton's
- Camp Hope
- Mark Chestnut
- Texas Tech
- Hammerstahl
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
It's time for Barbecue Nation with jt so fire up your grill, light the charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.
Speaker A:Now from the Turn It Go Burn it studios in Portland, here's jt.
Speaker B:Hey, everybody.
Speaker B:Welcome to Barbecue Nation.
Speaker B:I'm JT along with leann Whippen, hall of Famer.
Speaker B:As you know, this is the show where we talk about all kinds of barbecue and food stuff, and occasionally we get somebody from Texas on, which is one of my favorite states.
Speaker B:And today we've got JR Love.
Speaker B:Junior hangs out in Houston.
Speaker B:That's where he hangs his hat, as you can see, over his right shoulder there.
Speaker B:And Junior is the guiding spirit of the Cowboy yacht club.
Speaker B:Hey, J.R.
Speaker B:how are you?
Speaker C:Fantastic.
Speaker C:Thanks for having me.
Speaker B:Yeah, you know, I've been to the Houston Rodeo, but not to the barbecue competition back when I.
Speaker B:Yeah, back when I was covering rodeo stuff.
Speaker B:I mean, that was, you know, a different deal.
Speaker B:Tell us about that.
Speaker B:I mean, we hear lots of stories, we see lots of pictures, but it's a big freaking deal.
Speaker D:It is a big one.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's.
Speaker C:It's the largest from my understanding.
Speaker C: So it started about: Speaker C: I started cooking there in: Speaker C:It's grown from about 20 teams the first couple years to 250 teams, a thousand tents, and 250,000 people in three days.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:Now, how does that stack up, Leanne, to, like, the Royal, The Royal in.
Speaker D:The Open, they have about 400 teams.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker D:But I've not been to the Houston Rodeo, which is shocking to me.
Speaker D:Actually.
Speaker D:It's on my hit list.
Speaker D:But I understand it's like a totally different vibe there than the Royal.
Speaker C:It's Mardi Gras.
Speaker D:Yeah, it's Mardi Gras.
Speaker C:The cowboy has some barbecue.
Speaker C:Yeah, that's best way to describe it.
Speaker B:Is that why you're drinking ice water now?
Speaker C:We'll say it's ice water.
Speaker C:The rodeo goes on.
Speaker C:So after the barbecue, the rodeo starts two days after and goes through about 20 plus days of rodeo, and we're in day 15.
Speaker C:I've been to the rodeo almost every night because there's a concert after the rodeo and take guests and clients and friends, and it's.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:Houston shuts down.
Speaker C:It really is an event.
Speaker B:I'm gonna have to come to that one of these days.
Speaker C:That's a lot of fun.
Speaker B:To the barbecue part and the start of the rodeo.
Speaker B:What kind of.
Speaker B:What kind of concerts?
Speaker B:I know George Strait and Clint Black and those guys have played there a few times.
Speaker C:So let's See I got my list over here.
Speaker C:Okay, tonight's Post Malone, then Old Dominion.
Speaker C:Cody Jinx, Parker McCallum, Brooks and Dunn.
Speaker C:And Luke Bryan ends the show.
Speaker C:We had Reba open up.
Speaker C:Reba McIntyre open the show.
Speaker C:Brad Paisley.
Speaker C:I mean, it's just been.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker C:It's been a lot of fun.
Speaker B:That's cool.
Speaker B:So tell us about how did you get started, junior in barbecue and cooking in general.
Speaker B:And take us through your progression there.
Speaker C:I don't want to get too far back, but my mom was, she worked retail so she really didn't get home at night till 10 o'clock at night.
Speaker C:And if I wanted to eat dinner, I had to learn how to cook.
Speaker C:So I was a latchkey kid.
Speaker C:Get off the bus, you know, go home, do my homework, open up, you know, cook my own dinner.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And my wife jokes and calls me a MacGyver in the kitchen because I've never looked at a cookbook.
Speaker C:Trial and error, you know, just different spices with different meats and different way of cooking stuff.
Speaker C:And some of it was absolutely horrible and some was really good.
Speaker C:So that's kind of how I got started cooking.
Speaker C:And then in college, same group I cook with in cowboy yacht club, but really a bunch of my fraternity brothers, we started cooking for the, you know, the, the weekends and for the, the dad's weekend.
Speaker C:And that morphed into me starting an outdoor catering company for deer hunting and things for our fraternities.
Speaker C:Dads, they would take, take me down to South Texas and I'd cook for a bunch of older men, you know, the dads, and cook barbecue while they deer hunted.
Speaker C:And I get to hunt for free and they'd pay me and that was awesome.
Speaker C:And my stepdad really taught me how to cook barbecue starting at the rodeo when I was about 10 years old.
Speaker C: We won it in: Speaker C:So been doing it now for 48 years at the rodeo.
Speaker C:Had a blast.
Speaker C:I do about four to five competitions a year, mainly veteran driven and charity driven competitions.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:And you know, at home all the time.
Speaker C:Then do a lot of wild game as well.
Speaker B:How do they run it there at.
Speaker E:At Houston?
Speaker B:I mean, is it the same like as a KCBS event where categories and calls at the end or is that very similar or what?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So you have brisket, ribs and chicken as you three and then you have Dutch oven and you have an open competition and those are all turned in on Saturday, the last day they tag your meat.
Speaker C:They, you know, you get to cook two pieces of meat for each category.
Speaker C:And then you have.
Speaker C:It's a blind turn in, and they've got rotating judges of about.
Speaker C:I think it's 10 to 15 judges per hour because we've got, like I said, 250 teams, and they're judging all this meat all day long.
Speaker C:And it's a blind.
Speaker C:A blind draw, and you have a turn in time and a window, and that's.
Speaker C:That's how it works.
Speaker B:Have you won it since?
Speaker C:No.
Speaker C:So I think there's a little politicking involved when it gets in the upper echelon.
Speaker C:But for this year, we got 24th in ribs, which is top 10%, which is pretty good.
Speaker C:Last year I got 26 and brisket.
Speaker C:So we're always up there on one of the categories or not.
Speaker C:We have not won the overall, except for when I was a kid.
Speaker B:Leanne, you wouldn't say there's ever any politics in barbecue, would you?
Speaker D:No.
Speaker C:I'll give you an example, and I won't name names, but if a title sponsor of the rodeo also has a barbecue team, they happen to win, you know.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:It makes you kind of wonder a little bit.
Speaker B:Oh, it's just one of those, you.
Speaker D:Know, it's just coincidence.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm sure it's one of those life coincidences.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Now, I did go to lunch with one of judges last week after the barbecue, and he's been judging brisket for 10 or 15 years, and he said this year's turn in was probably the best brisket he's ever had.
Speaker D:Wow.
Speaker C:So it, The, The.
Speaker C:The.
Speaker C:The game has been upped every year.
Speaker C:It used to be just a big drinking party, and you happened to turn in some.
Speaker C:Some competition.
Speaker C:Now it's pretty serious.
Speaker C:The last five to 10 years, been real serious.
Speaker B:It's still a big drinking party, though, isn't it?
Speaker B:That didn't go away.
Speaker C:It's Mardi Gras.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:With barbecue.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So, you know, brisket being of divine providence in Texas, how I say that?
Speaker B:Because I can't tell you how many people we've talked to, and everybody from Texas thinks that they're brisket, and rightly so, in a lot of cases is absolute best.
Speaker B:And then, you know how it spreads out across the country.
Speaker B:What's the secret, jr, to Texas brisket?
Speaker C:Well, you gotta look at the history of that.
Speaker C:I mean, that's.
Speaker C:We were a cattle state, and brisket was a cheap cut of meat, and it fed a lot of people.
Speaker C:And there.
Speaker C:We just perfected it over the last Hundred something years.
Speaker C:And I've read brisket a lot of other places and it doesn't compare to, in my opinion, yeah, Texas brisket.
Speaker C:The secret is dry rub.
Speaker C:It's a dry rub, slow and low smoked, a little bit of hickory, post oak and, and mesquite wood, which I think gives it a good pop.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker B:So, Leanne, you've judged all over the place as a professional judge, which you are, among other things.
Speaker B:How can you always tell if there's a team like let's say at the Royal or the Jack?
Speaker B:Can you always tell if it's a team from Texas?
Speaker B:You don't know who they are, but the way they season and the way.
Speaker D:It'S cooked, not really.
Speaker D:I'm headed down to Texas in the middle of April.
Speaker D:Have you ever heard of the Syndicate Smoke down in Fort Worth?
Speaker D:I have, yeah.
Speaker D:So I'll be judging there and I look forward to that because it's Texas brisket.
Speaker D:I mean, in most of the contests that I judge it's kcbs and a lot of the guys are just following the KCBS tried and true method in rubs.
Speaker D:So I can't say I can really tell the difference because it's usually like KCBS style.
Speaker D:We'll call it the best brisket that I've had has been down in Texas for sure.
Speaker C:You know, speaking the rubs, a Texas rub, I think we, especially in Houston, we're really blessed with some great barbecue places.
Speaker C:I think there is a Cajun and a little bit of Spanish, Mexican, Tex Mex hint to the brubs.
Speaker C:Like I put cumin in my rub.
Speaker C:I put Tony Sachere in my rub.
Speaker C:So there's, I think there's a little bit of nuance there compared to other places.
Speaker C:Even North Texas doesn't really do the, the Tex Mex kind of spices, but we tend to do that here in Houston, in my opinion at least.
Speaker C:I do and I like.
Speaker C:But you know, it's weird going from what we used to cook back at the rodeo.
Speaker C:Thirty years ago, you wouldn't even, it wouldn't even score.
Speaker C:Now it's a, it was a wet mopped and it had vinegar and all kinds of different things.
Speaker C:Nowadays it's a dry rub, simple.
Speaker C:You better have a good smoke ring and a good, you know, good bark to it or you're not going to score well.
Speaker B:Well, I know Leanne likes to eat good brisket because I do.
Speaker B:She may be little, but she knows what she's talking about with a, with a fork in her hand.
Speaker D:It seems like a Lot of the brisket that I have down there is just really kind of salt and pepper.
Speaker D:Maybe it's a place that I'm going.
Speaker D:I'm not picking up the Mexican influence.
Speaker D:But again, it could be where I eat.
Speaker C:So I like to make mine a little spicier, a little more flavor.
Speaker C:That's just me.
Speaker C:I like spicy, and it's not spicy.
Speaker C:And we don't use a lot of sauce, and we don't actually put no sauce on the meat.
Speaker C:I really don't ever put sauce even after it's done.
Speaker D:So when you're a brisket, are you picking prime or does it matter what competition we're using?
Speaker C:Either prime or wagyu.
Speaker D:Okay, same thing.
Speaker D:Okay.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And then, you know, we, we tend to.
Speaker C:We have a big hickory rotisserie for our team for Cavalry Yacht Club.
Speaker C:And we, we do about 30 to 40 briskets a night.
Speaker C:For our, our tent, you know, to serve our people.
Speaker C: ght on Friday night and about: Speaker C:And that's just one tent.
Speaker C:Just one little tent in the hole.
Speaker D:That's awesome.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's.
Speaker C:It's crazy how many people are up there.
Speaker C:But we tend to, you know, pull them at about 180 and then put them in a.
Speaker C:I'll give a shout out to our head.
Speaker C:Our head cook is named Reed Johnson, who I went to A and M with, and so did our friend from Oregon.
Speaker C:He invented a liner that goes down into the igloo coolers that seals it even better.
Speaker C:And we, we steam them in those coolers for about three hours.
Speaker C:They get up to 200, 205 while they're sitting in those coolers.
Speaker C:And it makes it really tender.
Speaker C:It doesn't make them mushy.
Speaker C:Keeps the juices in.
Speaker C:It works really well, and it's easy to do.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker B:Okay, we're going to take a break.
Speaker B:We're going to be back with JR Love from the Cowboy Yacht Club fame in Houston right after this.
Speaker E:Everybody.
Speaker E:Is Jeff here?
Speaker E:I want to tell you about something really cool.
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Speaker E:I just got mine.
Speaker E:I do a lot of cooking, and it's got five ply construction, stay cool handles.
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Speaker E:It's got all the great stuff.
Speaker E:Just go to heritage steel.us and find out more.
Speaker E:You'll love it.
Speaker E:I guarantee it.
Speaker B:Welcome back to the nation.
Speaker B:I'm J.T.
Speaker B:we want to thank the folks at Painterdale's Natural beef.
Speaker B:Beef the way nature intended.
Speaker B:And it's good beef in Fact, I gotta tell you this, Junior, they, their son left eastern Oregon and went to school in Lubbock.
Speaker B:And he, and he also went to work in a meat plant there on, you know, after school to earn money and stuff.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:Out there.
Speaker C:Texas Tech.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:I won't say it's the redhead stepchild because I'm an Aggie, so.
Speaker B:Well, of course you are.
Speaker B:So before I want to talk some more about the Cowboy Yacht Club, but before we do, I want to ask about your cowboy hat there.
Speaker B:Your hat.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah, yeah, that's, that's, this is.
Speaker C:So there's all my pins for being a cook the last 15 years.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker C:It's my cooking hat.
Speaker C:It's fairly old.
Speaker C:It's about a 40 year old Stetson I've had and I cooking it and it's nice.
Speaker C:It's, it, it, it's, it smells like barbecue.
Speaker D:Well, it looks relatively clean, I must say, for it being the color that it is.
Speaker C:If you saw it up close, like those are grease stains.
Speaker D:There you go.
Speaker B:If you look at, look inside the liner there, you can see the sweat stains and stuff.
Speaker C:It's pretty.
Speaker C:It's old.
Speaker B:I like it.
Speaker C:I've got rodeo tonight.
Speaker C:After, after our podcast is finished, I'm going out to the rodeo, so I have to have my hat.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker B:Okay, let's talk about the Cowboy Yacht Club.
Speaker B:Who came up with the name?
Speaker C:So that's, that's kind of interesting too.
Speaker C: it with a group of friends in: Speaker C:We have the same spot in the parking lot.
Speaker C:We've always been there and I'm not quite sure who came up with the name, but I'm going to credit my wife for that.
Speaker B:And I mean, and how, I mean, you don't think of cowboys and yachts.
Speaker C:Although we're only 50 miles from Galveston and yeah, her, her dad always had a boat and a lot of our buddies have boats and so.
Speaker C:And I believe there was an old country song about a Cowboy yacht club.
Speaker C:So that's where it came from is they would, you know, you're down on the coast wearing cowboy hats and fishing on the coast and, you know.
Speaker B:Absolutely, I get it.
Speaker D:Does everyone on the team have to have a boat in order to get into the group?
Speaker D:Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker C:Or have a friend that has a boat, which is even better.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's kind of like USA Insurance.
Speaker B:If somebody in your heritage was in the military, you're in.
Speaker C:Exactly.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I like that.
Speaker B:Out of all the stuff you do, Junior, I was going to call you Robert, but then that would tip my hand to Andy, so I'm going to call you Junior.
Speaker B:All right.
Speaker B:Of all the stuff you do, what gives you probably the biggest smile when you're done with cooking in Houston?
Speaker B:I know you do a few other ones, but not.
Speaker B:You're not on the circuit in that.
Speaker B:But I just.
Speaker B:Houston to me really is, with my background.
Speaker B:It is the, the big deal in barbecue.
Speaker C:You know, the, the rodeo itself.
Speaker C:The world cook.
Speaker C:The world barbecue cook off at the Houston rodeo.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:It's having all your friends there and it's a lot of fun.
Speaker C:It does go to charity.
Speaker C:It does go to scholarships.
Speaker C:Honestly, one of my favorite things I do is the PTSD barbecue here in Houston.
Speaker C:It's for Camp Hope.
Speaker C:Camp Hope is a facility for PTSD sufferers and they don't just treat the veteran.
Speaker C:They bring in the whole family and they live there.
Speaker C:And that barbecue raises money to build more facilities.
Speaker C:We do it every year on Veterans weekend or Veterans Day, and that one is about 40 teams.
Speaker C:We usually have a really good country artists come in.
Speaker C:Like last year we had marchesnut.
Speaker C:We've had some really good talent.
Speaker C:It brings in a lot of money.
Speaker C:I'm really proud of that one.
Speaker C:It's a lot of fun.
Speaker C:I do several other charity cook offs that I like to cook, but also like it to have a purpose, not just to win a trophy.
Speaker C:So we, we do four or five charitable cook offs a year and then we'll do a couple of different competitions as well.
Speaker B:Cool.
Speaker B:Very cool.
Speaker B:I like, I like Mark Chestnut, by the way.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:Great guy.
Speaker B:Is he okay?
Speaker B:He had a heart, heart problem or something earlier.
Speaker C:You know what?
Speaker C:He's.
Speaker C:He sat on a stool and banged out for an hour and a half on stage.
Speaker C:He was great last year.
Speaker B:Oh, good, good.
Speaker B:So what's the favorite thing you cook?
Speaker B:I know you do brisket that's.
Speaker B:You've got to.
Speaker B:Or you can't be considered a barbecue guy in Texas.
Speaker B:But, but you know, you do ribs and chicken and then when you're not competing, you do other stuff.
Speaker B:What's your.
Speaker B:What's your favorite to do?
Speaker C:Brisk is probably my favorite.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:It's probably what I'm best at.
Speaker C:But I think I mentioned earlier, I do a lot of wild game cooking as well.
Speaker C:I love sandhill crane ribeye in the sky.
Speaker C:We hunt those quite a bit down here on the coast and they are absolutely delicious.
Speaker C:If they're.
Speaker C:If they're reverse smoked, seared.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Do a lot of white tail deer, do a lot of elk, you name it.
Speaker C:If it's wild game, we cook it.
Speaker C:But brisket's probably my best.
Speaker C:We have a.
Speaker C:We have.
Speaker C:So our team is kind of split up in divisions.
Speaker C:We have eight guys that cook, and I think six of us are all fraternity brothers from 30 years ago.
Speaker C:35 years ago.
Speaker C:And so we have one guy, John Benton, that does a great job on the ribs.
Speaker C:Reed Johnson's really good on chicken.
Speaker C:Tyler Gurney, who is on our team, he's a new addition.
Speaker C:He's a pit boss at Pinkerton's here in Houston.
Speaker C:So he's really good at overall, and he's also a classically trained chef.
Speaker C:So we all have kind of a specialty, and we lean on those guys to do what they do best for the competition.
Speaker D:When you do chicken, do you have to turn in a half chicken?
Speaker C:Correct.
Speaker D:Okay.
Speaker D:So it's different than kcbs.
Speaker C:That's.
Speaker C:Yeah, I like that one half chicken.
Speaker C:It's not quarter nine.
Speaker C:It's a half a chicken.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:I wonder how the chicken feels about that.
Speaker C:Probably not very good.
Speaker B:By the way, I'm going to reach out to Tyler after the rodeo's over.
Speaker C:Oh, good.
Speaker B:Yeah, I will get to him.
Speaker B:We're in the middle of a bunch of stuff up here.
Speaker C:So he does 60 to 80 briskets a day.
Speaker D:Wow.
Speaker C:Every day.
Speaker B:That's a lot of brisket, man.
Speaker B:A lot of brisket.
Speaker C:Pinkerton's is a great restaurant.
Speaker C:Great, great barbecue place here in Houston.
Speaker B:One of the first shows I ever did in Texas was in Beaumont, Okay.
Speaker B:And I went to Downtown Browns over there in the Holiday Inn because I.
Speaker B:I heard the George Jones song.
Speaker B:So I had to go see Downtown Browns, right?
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:And I had a friend, he lives up here now, actually.
Speaker B:He takes me way out in the boondocks out there somewhere in this little, like, gas station type thing.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:That really.
Speaker B: And that was in, like,: Speaker B:It really made me change my thinking about.
Speaker B:Because, you know, we're Yankees up here, right?
Speaker B:And so all the barbecue has a lot of sauce on it and all that stuff, but it really changed the way I was thinking about it.
Speaker B:Anyway, we got to take another break.
Speaker B:We're going to be back with JR from the Cowboy Yacht Club in Houston right after this.
Speaker E:Hey, everybody, it's JT And I have eaten.
Speaker E:If you've ever looked at me, you know that.
Speaker E:But I have eaten seafood all over the world.
Speaker E:And I can tell you there's no place better than here in Oregon and our Dungeness crab.
Speaker E:If you want to learn more about Oregon Dungeness crab, just go to oregondungeness.org find out how to cook it, how to catch it, where to buy it, and the sustainability of what they're doing there in the Oregon Crab Commission.
Speaker B:Check it out.
Speaker B:Welcome back to the Nation.
Speaker B:One of the people that always supports this show because she is on the show is Ms.
Speaker B:Whippen right there.
Speaker B:And she's got stuff.
Speaker B:She's got a lot of stuff.
Speaker D:Yes.
Speaker D:My dad's award winning, and it really is.
Speaker D:It won the best.
Speaker D:I think it's one of the biggest awards, best robe on the planet.
Speaker D:And it is sweet with a little bit of heat, and you can use it on multiple things.
Speaker D:As you know you've done it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker D:And I won awards with it.
Speaker D:And there are teams out there right now winning lots of awards with it.
Speaker D:And it's available@pigpowder.com There you go.
Speaker B:And you got some spicy, spicy pig powders coming out.
Speaker D:Yes, I keep saying that, but it's getting closer and closer.
Speaker D:I'm thinking the delivery will be mid April, to be realistic.
Speaker B:I'll be expecting some up here in Yankeeville.
Speaker D:We'll get some for sure.
Speaker B:You got to try some of hers, J.R.
Speaker B:just for fun.
Speaker D:It really is good.
Speaker B:It's very.
Speaker C:What kind of heat are we talking about?
Speaker D:Well, it's got a little chili pattern, cayenne, and it's subtle back heat.
Speaker D:But the rub itself is a beautiful rub because it, you know, when it caramelizes, it's, you know, really gives your meat.
Speaker D:The mahogany.
Speaker D:It's best on pork and chicken, in my opinion.
Speaker D:It's.
Speaker D:I mix it with more of a salt and pepper rub when I'm doing brisket, but it's veggies, seafood.
Speaker D:Yeah, it's great.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:To try it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I use it on green beans, scallops, eggs, the whole thing.
Speaker B:It's really good.
Speaker B:There's, you know, a unsolicited pitch there for me, but I'm telling you, it's.
Speaker B:It's really good stuff.
Speaker B:Anyway, Junior, back to, back to your cooking there.
Speaker B:One of the things that sold me on having you on the show was you do a lot.
Speaker B:You touched on it the last segment.
Speaker B:I do a lot for charity and, and I'm big on helping veterans, as Leanne knows.
Speaker B:And also, you know, trade school scholarships for kids.
Speaker B:They don't all have to go to law school or get a degree.
Speaker B:In science, you know, whatever it is like that.
Speaker B:But I want to reach or pick your mind a little bit.
Speaker B:Excuse me.
Speaker B:About what made you decide to start supporting, like, the PTSD camps and that type of thing.
Speaker C:So my.
Speaker C:My former in laws were all military, and, you know, even though they're my former in laws, I got divorced.
Speaker C:But I still love them, and they're great people, and I got to see a lot.
Speaker C:I got to see a lot of PTSD survivors that were friends with my family.
Speaker B:Sure.
Speaker C:So that really got me thinking, how can I do something towards that with something I like to love to do as well?
Speaker C:So another fraternity brother, I have a pretty strong network of fraternity brothers here in Houston, was on the board at the ptsd, and he said, hey, we're thinking about starting this barbecue.
Speaker C:What do you think?
Speaker C:I said, great idea.
Speaker C:I'm in.
Speaker C:So I was the first team that joined that was, I think, 15 years ago.
Speaker C:So it's grown from five or six teams now to 40 or 50 teams.
Speaker C:Like I said, Mark Chestnut came out last year.
Speaker C:They donate back their money usually.
Speaker C:So it's.
Speaker C:It's a really good cause.
Speaker C:You get to see.
Speaker C:Here's some really great success stories.
Speaker C:It just makes you feel good, you know, and to give back to those guys, it's worth it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Do they ever get a chance at the camp to actually, like, cook with you guys?
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:They have their own teams now.
Speaker C:They'll.
Speaker C:They'll.
Speaker C:The.
Speaker C:A lot of the PTS guys that live at the camp, at Camp Hope will put together their own teams to compete.
Speaker C:And that's.
Speaker C:That's a lot of fun to see that.
Speaker C:And then, you know, we also.
Speaker C:We donate the meat that we're cooking at that barbecue.
Speaker C:We turn in some for competition, but the rest of the rest of it, the teams have to cook a certain amount that no donate to the public food booth.
Speaker C:So friends and family of all these people that live there, I mean, there's several thousand people there.
Speaker C:We're cooking for all of them.
Speaker C:And just to see the group get together, get to see those families together and friends, and then they have testimonials of these people that were, you know, near suicide on the street, living on the street, things like that, to see them stand up and testify and talk about what Camp Hope's done for them, it's just.
Speaker C:I'm getting choked up thinking about it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Do they live there?
Speaker B:Did the families live there for.
Speaker B:I mean, does it go on for a long time?
Speaker B:Or are they there for a month or two?
Speaker C:Or what they usually rotate them out in between six and six weeks and six months.
Speaker C:It just depends on the veteran.
Speaker C:But the whole family moves in and they have, I think over 60 therapy sessions a week.
Speaker C:They have guidance, counsel, career counseling.
Speaker C:They have, you know, if you need to help write a resume, they help do that.
Speaker C:It's really all immersive and getting that person out of that mindset of, I've been in Iraq for five years, back to the real world.
Speaker C:Because these young kids didn't know anything else other than going in there and kicking indoors, you know?
Speaker B:Right, right.
Speaker B:It was very similar in a lot of respects to what we did in Vietnam.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker B:Different side of the world, but a.
Speaker C:Lot of young, they just.
Speaker C:The rules of engagement there were completely different.
Speaker C:What they're used to the normal world over here, and they just got to get a reset.
Speaker C:And helping them do that, that's great.
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker B:I absolutely love that.
Speaker B:When you're cooking, is it just a party atmosphere for you guys the whole time?
Speaker B:Pretty much.
Speaker C:90% of the time, yes.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:I mean, let's say we take an hour out of the day to trim the briskets, rub them down and put them on the pit.
Speaker C:And after that it's, you know, it's pretty much game on time to crack.
Speaker B:Open some beverage there, I think.
Speaker C:See our tent?
Speaker C:It's like I said, we have a very small tent compared to some of the others.
Speaker C:I mean, some of these tents spend a million dollars in three days.
Speaker D:Wow.
Speaker C:I mean, it's insane.
Speaker C:Open bar, live music, dance floors, you name it.
Speaker C:We're very basic.
Speaker C:We're one of the few non corporately owned are funded tents.
Speaker C:We're members only.
Speaker C:There's anywhere from 55 to 75 members every year.
Speaker C:Everybody chips in their, their quota and we have a little $35,000 party.
Speaker C:It's great.
Speaker B:How big's the tent, Junior?
Speaker C:40 by 40.
Speaker D:That's decent.
Speaker C:Big white, you know, Big white, you know.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Ours, I think it's 40 by 40.
Speaker B:Where do you put all the people, though?
Speaker B:I mean, so you said that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:So what we do is we.
Speaker C:We have a corner spot and so we have cocktail tables on the outside of the tent also.
Speaker C:But we serve from seven to nine.
Speaker C:And we serve a thousand people from seven to nine.
Speaker C:And as you eat, you get up and give up your seat to somebody else.
Speaker C:And at 9 o'clock, food's gone.
Speaker C:We fold up the chairs and all the tables and we have a DJ and we turn into a dance floor and we, we hit the Party going.
Speaker B:I gotta come hang out there.
Speaker D:They have it down to a science.
Speaker D:It sounds.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, it does.
Speaker C:We've got it down.
Speaker C:It's, it's really, I mean, you know, like I said, our team is all volunteers.
Speaker C:We don't have any corporate sponsorship.
Speaker C:So we have a tear down team, we have a setup team, we have a cook team, we have a trash team, we have the beer team, we have, you know, everybody has a job in the tent, so it runs very smoothly.
Speaker B:And do people, you said it's members only.
Speaker B:Do they.
Speaker B:Is there an admission fee or a fee to come eat?
Speaker C:So roughly it's $500 per member.
Speaker C:And then for that Friday and Saturday night you get eight wristbands to give the guests.
Speaker C:That's how you get about 750 to 1,000 people.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:The other tents, it's, I mean, we're, we're cheap.
Speaker C:We're.
Speaker C:We just.
Speaker C:It's a basic party, have a good time.
Speaker C:A lot of these other tents are, like I said, they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and it's, it's insane what, what they, what they do.
Speaker C:But it's, it's all part of the experience.
Speaker C:You know, you've got the carnival going on in between the rodeo.
Speaker C:It's just, it's like I said, There's 250,000 people in three days there.
Speaker B:How, how do people do that?
Speaker B:Back up a second.
Speaker B:Do people ever, you know, bow out and give up their space?
Speaker B:I wouldn't seem like the guys that are really rare.
Speaker C:Yeah, unfortunately, we had a big dropout this year.
Speaker C:Jack Daniels withdrew.
Speaker C:They've been a big sponsor of a big tent for 25, 30 years.
Speaker C:They weren't there this year.
Speaker C:I heard they withdrew from the Vegas rodeo and from Dallas or Fort Worth barbecues.
Speaker B:Wow, I didn't know that.
Speaker C:That was a big shock to us.
Speaker C:But like my tents, two, two down from United, United Airlines.
Speaker C:I mean, there's some big sponsors out there.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker C:But once when someone does drop out, they get snatched up quick by the tent next to them to expand their tent because there's a finite, there's finite room.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker B:So you like kind of give us a visual here, junior.
Speaker B:Is it, you know, the serving area?
Speaker B:But are the, are your pits out back?
Speaker C:No, your pit's got to be contained in your space.
Speaker B:Really?
Speaker C:Really.
Speaker C:So we have a, we have a nice little old hickory rotisserie smoker.
Speaker B:Right, you said that 8 by 8.
Speaker C:By 8 foot by 8 foot box on a 12 foot trailer.
Speaker C:And it's, it's.
Speaker C:It's basically the front side of our kitchen.
Speaker C:And the kitchen goes behind the pit on the, on the long side of the.
Speaker C:Of the tent.
Speaker C:And then the rest of the tent is.
Speaker C:We have some restrooms in one corner.
Speaker C:We have the beer in the back and tables out in the, in the main area.
Speaker C:I mean, a friend of mine has a pit on his tent.
Speaker C:He has six spaces and his.
Speaker C:His pits.
Speaker C:43ft long on a gooseneck trailer.
Speaker C:It holds 100 briskets at a time.
Speaker C:200 racks to ribs at one time.
Speaker C:On.
Speaker C:On one in a fire by.
Speaker C:It's an offset firebox.
Speaker C:It.
Speaker C:It holds almost a half a quart of wood.
Speaker C:It's the biggest darn thing you've ever seen.
Speaker D:Wow.
Speaker C:It's just.
Speaker C:It's insane.
Speaker B:That's incredible.
Speaker C:Yeah, there's.
Speaker C:And they serve, I don't know, I think 3,000 people a night.
Speaker B:That's a lot of wristbands.
Speaker C:It's a lot of wristbands.
Speaker B:No, it's all good.
Speaker B:But it just, you know, not being campy here.
Speaker B:But everything's bigger in Texas and I.
Speaker B:It doesn't surprise.
Speaker B:It doesn't surprise me to hear you describe your friends pit coming in on a gooseneck and, you know, I mean.
Speaker C:40Ft long, triple axle.
Speaker C:It's huge.
Speaker C:I mean, it's.
Speaker C:And like the barbecue itself, it takes up all of NRG stadium's parking lot.
Speaker C:It's a tent city.
Speaker C:It goes up in a.
Speaker C:On Sunday before we start on Wednesday, and it comes down on Sunday at noon that.
Speaker C:That week.
Speaker C:I mean, it's.
Speaker C:It's amazing how they put this thing up and get everything in and out of there.
Speaker C:It's.
Speaker C:I don't know how they do it.
Speaker B:Wow, that's incredible.
Speaker B:Hey, we're going to take another break, come back and wrap up the show with Junior Love from Houston, the Cowboy Yacht Club.
Speaker B:But Junior is going to stick around for after hours.
Speaker B:I didn't tell him about that.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:We'll be right back.
Speaker E:Hey, everybody, it's jt.
Speaker E:You know, I talk about Painted Hills all the time, and we always say beef the way nature intended.
Speaker E:But it's more than that because each bite of Painted Hills will make your taste buds explode.
Speaker E:Put a big, bright smile on your face, and whoever is at your dinner table will have a big bright smile on their face.
Speaker E:And you can thank me for that later.
Speaker E:Just go to paintedhillsbeef.com and find out more.
Speaker E:You won't regret it.
Speaker E:Hey, everybody, J.T.
Speaker B:Here.
Speaker E:I want to Tell you about Hammerstall knives.
Speaker E:Hammerstall combines German steel with beautiful and functioning designs.
Speaker E:They're part of the Heritage Steel Group, which also does their pots and pans.
Speaker E:So go to heritagesteel US Check out the Hammer Stahl knives.
Speaker E:If you're really into cooking, I think you're really gonna like them.
Speaker B:Welcome back to the nation.
Speaker B:That's Barbecue Nation.
Speaker B:I'm JT along with Ms.
Speaker B:Whippin, who's gonna be in Texas here in about a month, I guess, roughly about a month.
Speaker B:Maybe you can swing down and see J R in Houston on your way home.
Speaker D:April 11th is when I'm headed down there.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker C:Come on, see us.
Speaker D:Yeah, I'll take you on a bar in a day, though.
Speaker D:I do the event, and then I have to come back, so I'll take.
Speaker C:You on a barbecue pub crawl.
Speaker D:Oh, I would love that.
Speaker D:Maybe I will.
Speaker D:Maybe I'll stay longer.
Speaker C:I've got about 10 of my favorite barbecue places in Houston that are famous, that we could just go and taste each one.
Speaker D:It'd be so fun.
Speaker D:It would be my flights.
Speaker D:We'll.
Speaker D:Broadcaster.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So, J.R.
Speaker B:are they, I think, the last.
Speaker B:Well, the guys from grabbing the brisket, they're friends of ours.
Speaker B:And I had told them one time that I said they didn't know this.
Speaker B:I said, back in the early days when I was first starting to go to Texas, the tradition was if there was a dead armadillo, they put a Lone Star beer.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:In this little paws alongside the road.
Speaker B:They thought I was crazy, but I'm not.
Speaker B:And I knew what I was talking about.
Speaker B:They still do that?
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:And I have one taxidermied in my house.
Speaker C:I really do.
Speaker B:Perfect.
Speaker B:Yeah, perfect.
Speaker C:I've actually eaten one of those, and it's absolutely disgusting.
Speaker C:Yeah, I mean, I lost a bet, let's put it that way.
Speaker B:Yeah, we.
Speaker C:We barbecued it, and it was absolutely the worst thing I've ever eaten in my life.
Speaker D:Wow.
Speaker C:That tastes like chicken, let's put it that way.
Speaker B:No, it doesn't taste like.
Speaker B:It doesn't taste like gator or anything like that.
Speaker B:No, no.
Speaker C:It's, like, greasy, stringy, anyway.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, that's kind of like people who, you know, once in a while, I.
Speaker B:I'm sure there's people still in the country that eat possum.
Speaker B:Not this cowboy.
Speaker B:No, I'm not doing that.
Speaker C:Hey, my brother hunts squirrels in Florida.
Speaker C:They're pretty darn good if you cook them right.
Speaker D:Squirrel's good.
Speaker B:Squirrel's not bad, but possum, I just I can't do it.
Speaker C:I just, I have not, I have not had a possum, but I have eaten armadillo and it's absolutely disgusting.
Speaker B:Okay, well, we won't ask you to share that when we come to Texas.
Speaker B:How's that?
Speaker C:Good?
Speaker B:It's all good.
Speaker B:You said you either use prime or wagyu.
Speaker B:Is that readily available?
Speaker B:I'm sure it's the, all the good.
Speaker C:Oh yeah, I mean there's available down there some really good meat, meat purveyors that have their own wagyu stock.
Speaker C:And then there's several good barbecue, barbecue stores that, you know, kind of sell as a loss leader.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Get you in the store to buy a barbecue pit.
Speaker C:So, yeah, there's several places to get really good wagyu.
Speaker B:How, how long does it take you guys to prep?
Speaker B:I mean, when you get it?
Speaker B:Because we talked to a lot of these competitors from time to time and they're, they're prepping before they le home.
Speaker B:You know, they're trimming, some of them are rubbing already, you know, doing those things.
Speaker B:But are you guys more of an on site crew?
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:We, you know, we get, we get our, get our prime brisk.
Speaker C:So we cook prime for the everyday cook for our, for our guests.
Speaker C:And that's we.
Speaker C: hen the party's over at about: Speaker B:What time's your turn in down there?
Speaker C:So they stagger that the turn in for the turn in for the competition, which we, we do on a separate pit, by the way.
Speaker C:We use some, we use short barrel smokers for the, for the competition.
Speaker C:They're easier to control.
Speaker C:And you know, I don't have people coming in and out of the big pit, you know, hurting my heat.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker C:So like our brisket turn is usually around 3:00.
Speaker C:You know, chicken's usually the first thing we turn in at 11 and then the ribs usually at 1 o'clock and then brisket at 3.
Speaker B:There you go, there you go.
Speaker C:And that's all, that's all on Saturday.
Speaker C:And beer at 4, at 4am 4pm 4:30, whatever time.
Speaker B:Yeah, well, I like that.
Speaker B:Hey, you want to give a shout out to our old friend Andy Black up here?
Speaker C:I would.
Speaker C:Hey, Andy, love you, brother.
Speaker C:Thanks for Getting me on the show.
Speaker C:Can't wait to see you this summer.
Speaker B:I'll have to meet you when you come up if.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:I think we're going to come back through.
Speaker C:We went halibut fishing last summer up there and really had a good, good time.
Speaker B:That is some fine fish we have.
Speaker B:We have an abundancy of that up here, but it's great.
Speaker C:I cook a lot of fish too, being on the Gulf coast, so it's.
Speaker C:It's fun.
Speaker B:You ever do mud bugs?
Speaker C:Oh, I had them yesterday.
Speaker B:That a boy.
Speaker C:I mean, it's.
Speaker C:It's crawfish season.
Speaker C:We eat them all the time.
Speaker B:I love them once a week.
Speaker B:Man after my own heart, man.
Speaker C:Love it.
Speaker B:I'm telling you, I love mud bugs.
Speaker B:Of course I love seafood because you know where I come from.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:But like I said, the Gulf coast has great, great seafood too.
Speaker C:And Cowboy Yacht Club, we all have boats.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So we go offshore and catch our own stuff and, you know, mahi and all kinds of good stuff.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know them golf prawns?
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:So funny.
Speaker C:Quick story about the shrimp down here.
Speaker C:We go offshore in our boat.
Speaker C:We always take a bottle of Jack Daniels and a carton of smokes.
Speaker C:And you pull up to the shrimp boats and the shrimpers will.
Speaker C:If you give them a bottle of Jack Daniels or a carton of smokes, they'll just pour shrimp into your 120 quart cooler for you.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker C:Fresh, alive and.
Speaker C:And you just spin off from them and keep going.
Speaker C:It's awesome.
Speaker B:I'm really gonna have to come down there.
Speaker B:Not so much.
Speaker B:Not so much for the Jack Daniels, just the, the seafood.
Speaker C:I didn't say we drank it.
Speaker C:I said we traded.
Speaker C:For sure.
Speaker B:I know, I know, I know.
Speaker B:It's all good.
Speaker B:Makes me on the side make.
Speaker B:Yeah, I can do that.
Speaker B:Makes me sad.
Speaker B:I gave up smoking.
Speaker B:So, Robert, is there a place people can find out more about the Cowboy Yacht Club, Facebook or any of the social platforms?
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:Have a Facebook page called Cowboy Yacht Club and it shows.
Speaker C:It's a great place to go look at all our fun pictures and have a great time.
Speaker C:And you want to become a member?
Speaker C:You can direct message the Cowboy Yacht Club and if you live in the Houston area or not, we have people.
Speaker C:We have people come from Napa Valley, California.
Speaker C:We've got people that come from Montana.
Speaker C:We've got people from all over the country that come to our club.
Speaker B:I love that.
Speaker B:See, Leanne, we gotta find another event to meet up in Houston.
Speaker D:This one is the one I can tell already.
Speaker C:Join the club.
Speaker C:Come on, Lynn.
Speaker D:So we have to do.
Speaker D:I don't have a boat, though.
Speaker D:My son in law has a boat.
Speaker C:I live in Florida.
Speaker C:That's perfect.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:She loves around you.
Speaker B:She loves to fish, too, Junior.
Speaker C:We.
Speaker C:We fish a lot.
Speaker B:Yeah, she loves to fish.
Speaker B:You'll see those pictures on her Facebook and stuff.
Speaker B:She's out there.
Speaker D:I haven't done anything recently, though.
Speaker B:Well, you've been busy.
Speaker C:Wait till June.
Speaker C:Wait till June.
Speaker C:It heats up.
Speaker B:There.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker B:J.R.
Speaker B:love from the Cowboy Yacht Club in Houston, barbecue extraordinaire, recovering attorney and just a great guy.
Speaker B:Junior has been.
Speaker B:Great to meet you today.
Speaker D:Yeah, great to meet you.
Speaker C:Fantastic guys.
Speaker C:Great to meet you guys.
Speaker C:And look to see, look to see Leanne in person.
Speaker C:I'm gonna take you on a barbecue pub crawl.
Speaker D:I want to do that.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:I'm gonna see Jeff when I come up to Oregon.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker D:We're gonna get out of here at the same time.
Speaker D:We can have a little powwow.
Speaker B:We can do that.
Speaker B:We got to get out of here.
Speaker B:We're out of time.
Speaker B:But I want to thank Junior and of course, Leanne.
Speaker B:And we'll be back next week with another edition of Barbecue Nation.
Speaker B:And if you do, the podcast version of this after hours will be right up.
Speaker B:Thanks, everybody.
Speaker B:Remember our motto, turn it, don't burn it.
Speaker B:Take care.
Speaker A:Barbecue Nation is produced by JTSD LLC Productions in association with Salem Media Group.
Speaker A:All rights reserved.
