The Southside Advocate 07-09-2025

Pickles star in creamy, crunchy potato salad

BY GRETCHEN McKAY

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)

Nashville is renowned for its music scene. Known as the country music capital of the world, it’s home to the Grand Ole Opry

But we also love the Tennessee city’s eponymous sweet and spicy fried chicken sandwich, which is said to have originated in the 1930s at Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack Brined in pickle juice, slathered in a paste-like sauce made with cayenne, garlic and brown sugar, and served with pickles on white bread, it’s juicy, crunchy and fiery hot.

This potato salad recipe is also worthy of the Nashville name. It combines one of summer’s favorite side dishes, a mayonnaise-based potato salad with the sharp kick of mustard and the bright, acidic burst of pickle juice and vinegar It also includes fresh dill and the crunch of freshly chopped celery.

But the real kicker is the spicy Nashville Hot seasoning that is tossed in the sauce and, if you’re not afraid of the extra heat, also gets sprinkled on top of the salad before serving. The original recipe calls for red-skinned potatoes cut into bite-sized pieces, but I used a 3-pound bag of baby Yukon potatoes I got for $1 (score!)

The salad should be refrigerated for at least two hours before serving to allow the flavors to mingle and the potatoes to absorb the dressing. For an extra punch of flavor and/or texture, you could sprinkle a little chopped cooked bacon on top, add a handful of diced ham or stir in some shredded colby jack or sharp cheddar cheese

However you serve it, it’s perfect for your next family barbecue or late-night nosh

Hot Pickle Potato Salad Recipe adapted from chilesandsmoke.com.

Chocolate angel food cake loves a scoop of ice cream, but pair leftovers with sparkling wine

Liz Williams TIP OF THE TONGUE

Chocolate angel food cake is a great cake choice for summer The cake is light and goes well with ice cream, cold whipped cream or creme fraiche. And leftover angel food cake is easy to repurpose. For example, if your angel food cake is getting slightly stale, it can be transformed into something very sophisticated. Cut the cake into slices like Texas toast. Butter both sides of the slices and lightly toast the slices in a heated dry pan. Get a bit of color from the

ä See CAKE, page 3G

Chocolate Angel

Food Cake

for cake flour, a

3. While the egg whites are beating mix the confectioners sugar, cake flour cocoa powder and espresso powder together and sift twice. Then add it to the beaten whites a little at a time until well incorporated.

4. Pour into an ungreased tube pan with a removable center and bake in the preheated oven for 60 minutes. Remove from the oven and invert on a wine bottle for 45 minutes to an hour

Whip together the egg whites,

and cream of tartar in the bowl of an electric mixer Mix until stiff, but be careful not to overbeat. The mixture should make peaks when the whisk is lifted out of the bowl. Add the vanilla extract. Add the granulated sugar a bit at a time with the beaters going.

5. When the cake is cool, run a knife around the circumference of the pan. The knife should be long enough that it reaches to the bottom of the pan. Then you can remove the cake and the center insert of the pan. Then run the knife along the bottom of the insert and remove it. You can dust the cake with cocoa powder for garnish and cut with a serrated knife or a cake comb.

Enjoy more flavor, less work with summer pork chops and Haitian rice with peas

Recipes

ä Pork

BY LIZ WILLIAMS Contributing writer

Now that school is out and before it gets too hot, this is the time for cooking that gives us maximum flavor and the least amount of work. No matter how much you may enjoy cooking, the call of the pool or boating or the pickleball court

ä See SUMMER, page 3G

Texas barbecue pitmaster behind Buc-ee’s brisket

BY POET WOLFE Staff writer

To Houstonian pitmaster Randy Pauly Texas barbecue is more than food — it’s a sacred craft

His team of novice smokers proved it recently on the opening day of the convenience chain Buc-ee’s in Pass Christian Mississippi. A dozen employees in cowboy hats, trained by Pauly, moved in rhythm. They slid fresh breakfast tacos under a glowing lamp, chopped brisket into messy cubes and occasionally belted, “Fresh brisket on the board!”

Wearing a feathered cowboy hat and a belt buckle featuring the Buc-ee’s mascot outlined in sparkling rhinestones, Pauly often glanced at the employees with the admiration of a proud parent

“Like any artist, you create a product and hope everyone likes it,” he said as customers cleared the shelves of brisket sandwiches and tacos.

The spread of Texas barbecue, particularly smoked brisket, reflects a larger shift in American culinary culture, where regional specialties are no longer bound by their origins Using Pauly’s recipes and methods, the Buc-ee’s chain has played a crucial role in expanding Texas barbecue beyond the state, offering it in 52 stores across the Gulf Coast.

“It’s a blessing to be able to bring Texas barbecue across the U.S.,” Pauly said.

Despite smoked brisket reaching a corporate scale at Buc-ee’s, where employees sell thousands of pounds per day, Pauly remains centered on quality and attention to detail while teaching methods that took him decades to master

The pitmaster’s persistence

His methods caught the eye of Don Wasek — the quiet business partner of Buc-ee’s founder and

CEO Arch “Beaver” Aplin in 2018. At the time, Pauly was a Houston firefighter and leading his team, Holy Cow Cookers, in barbecue cook-offs.

When Pauly accepted Wasek’s offer to be the director of barbecue operations for the chain, he had a resume that began taking form in his teen years.

At age 15, after his father died in a car accident, Pauly was introduced to barbecue by his neighbor and cousin. What started as a distraction from grief was transformed into a passion treated with persistence.

At cook-offs and county fairs in Houston, a teenage Pauly would approach competitive teams and offer to be their bottle washer, aiming to break into the world of Texas barbecue. And by 1993, he was doing just that — scrubbing dirty bottles for a team named Regroup Cookers.

The next year, while the team was competing in the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the chief cook overslept one night, prompting Pauly to take the initiative and make ribs for the contest. His recipe carried the team to the finals.

By 1995, Pauly — a then-college student with a dry bank account

founded Holy Cow Cookers. Using discounted ribs from the grocery store, his team competed in the rodeo and won first place.

“We were living off a dream,” he said. “We weren’t living off of money.”

Holy Cow Cookers spent years taking home awards for their ribs and chicken, but when Wasek sounded his offer he wanted Bucee’s to sell its own brisket — a category that Pauly had yet to compete in.

After their meeting, Pauly spent hundreds of dollars on wagyu brisket, a far more arduous cut of meat to cook due to its high fat content, and competed in the category for the first time.

The next time he met with Wasek, Pauly rolled out a banner that showcased his brisket winning eighth place in the world.

Not a year has gone by in the last three decades without Pauly and his team competing in the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Today, they are eight-time world barbecue champions.

‘It’s the details’

After working opening day at Buc-ee’s in Pass Christian, Pauly boarded a plane that night and flew to Georgia to teach another set of employees, who had 21 days of training ahead of them. Though he was running on less than five hours of sleep, it was hardly noticeable.

“Today is the day you get to rebrand yourself as being the person you wanted to always be,” Pauly recalled saying to some of the employees at the store location in Georgia.

He spoke of Texas barbecue the same way a painter might speak about putting brush to canvas, describing the ideal ratio between bark, fat and meat on a slice of brisket.

“It’s the details where Buc-ee’s wins ...” Pauly said. “It’s those details. Once you lock those details in, you’re gonna have anything and everything you need in life.”

Email Poet Wolfe at poet.wolfe@ theadvocate.com.

Chops with Apples and Onions

SUMMER

Continued from page 1G

is much more compelling that standing in front of the stove. And if you are being pulled in multiple directions by all of the happenings in town, your brain is craving something simple to put together But, of course, we don’t lower our flavor expectations just because we are in a

CAKE

Continued from page 1G

hurry These pork chops are really tasty and easy to make. A short cut is to make a double batch and freeze half of the results. This will give you a pass on a busy day, when you know that there is simply no time for cooking It is worth the extra prep to make the double batch And when you pull it out of the freezer later it will save you a trip to get takeout. And if you don’t want

cooking butter and make sure to toast both sides. Allow to cool for a minute and then cut each slice into about 4 sticks. They are delicious with sparkling wine or a dry Marsala.

pork, this dish is just as de-

licious with an equivalent amount of chicken thighs.

The Haitian Rice and Peas is a gift to any table. Eating black eyed peas or crowder peas or pigeon peas gives you a much more interesting rice as well as an extra punch of protein. You can cook it fresh without breaking out in a sweat and it tastes as though you spent lots of time putting it together

Liz Williams is founder of the Southern Food & Beverage Museum in New Orleans. Listen to “Tip of the Tongue,” Liz’s podcast about food, drink and culture, wherever you hear podcasts. Email Liz at lizwillia@gmail.com.

Neighbor’s wardrobe choices aren’t a problem

Dear Miss Manners: I have an acquaintance who frequently walks her dog at the same time I do. She is a nice person, and we get along well; our dogs even like each other We are both female. The issue is that her skirts or sundresses keep getting shorter I avert my eyes, but I have seen more of her anatomy than I care to. I have also seen a certain male neighbor looking at her in a not-so-nice way Should I say something to her? If so, how do I do so politely?

Judith Martin MISS MANNERS

Gentle reader: Really, as this person is merely an acquaintance, Miss Manners fails to see why you would wish to raise the question of who is sniffing whom at all.

Dear Miss Manners: My husband and I hosted a longtime friend of mine for 10 days at our home. She had told me she enjoys staying with friends for extended periods, finding it an efficient way to travel. She did not bring her own bathroom essentials, vitamins, slippers, etc. We did all the driving and the planning. We cooked and served every breakfast, lunch and dinner, along with providing beer and wine every day (Typically she drinks much more than we do.)

Gentle reader: A longer-term guest is expected to do more, and Miss Manners agrees your friend fell short. But where the line is drawn can be challenging since any equalization of expense is meant to occur by the balancing of invitations — not within a single visit.

Where your friend offended most was when she all but told you she was sticking you with the expenses: joining the shopping expedition and standing at the checkout counter but never offering to pay; joking about staring at the check; the comment about a man’s ego. She would be a much more effective moocher — not to mention a much more pleasant houseguest if she would learn when to keep her thoughts to herself.

Send questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners. com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail. com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Universal Uclick, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City MO 64106.

Often she would ask the menu for the day, and I would prepare a shopping list. She would join me in the shopping and point out items she thought would be helpful. I invited her to purchase items she wanted outside the menu, but her answer always was, “I’ll have whatever you’re having.” She secretly joked with me that if she stares at the check long enough, someone will grab it. We told her we were happy to dine out if she did not mind separate checks. She said yes, but added that a man’s ego usually prevents this, so I should make sure my husband was on the same page. (He was.) We dined out once and included another couple, and everyone received their own check. She took us out to dinner at the end of her stay as a thank-you. My manners taught me to be a generous host, and I believe we were, all the way to the end when I drove her to the airport However, I feel like our generosity was taken advantage of. Where is the line? Is a longer-term guest expected to pitch in? I will definitely think carefully about a future invite.