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In this excerpt from the Smokestack Lightning interview tapes, Lolis Elie talks with Jim and Donna Quessenberry about the Arkansas BBQ joints Jim admired, his mother’s sauce, and the middle-of-the-night dream that inspired Sauce Beautiful.
Lolis Elie [00:00:00]: Any places in Arkansas we got to check out, any like great places in Arkansas? You been to Craig’s in De Valls Bluff?
Quess [00:00:16]: Yeah, they’re good.
Lolis Elie [00:00:18]: They have this sort of a strange thing there, that sauce that they got.
Donna Quessenberry [00:00:22]: With apples in it.
Lolis Elie [00:00:23]: Oh, you’re talking about the coleslaw? I’m talking about the sauce has like cinnamon.
Quess [00:00:29]: Like cinnamon and mustard. Yeah. I’m not real crazy about the sauce, but they’re doing real good with it. And their packaging… they tied me for second place in packaging in the national thing in Kansas City. You know where you guys judged sauce?
Lolis Elie [00:00:45]: Yeah.
Quess [00:00:46]: I send mine every year. You probably tasted mine and didn’t even know it.
Lolis Elie [00:00:50]: Up at the American Royal? Yeah, we were in their office kind of just tasting some sauces…
Quess [00:00:58]: Craig’s and I tied for second place in packaging one year, and I thought that was unique, that we’re both from Arkansas, and not that far apart.
Lolis Elie [00:01:07]: Yeah.
Quess [00:01:09]: But other than them — now there’s a place in Hot Springs called McClard’s. It’s supposed to be pretty good. In fact, there’s a couple that will either be here today or tomorrow, you’ll see them, they know more about that than I do ‘cause they live in Hot Springs. But back in our formative years, as contestants, we used to get a gallon of McClard’s barbecue sauce and take it with us to do contests. They make a mean sauce, a good sauce. Before we started making our own, we’d carry a gallon of theirs to serve with our stuff.
Lolis Elie [00:01:49]: When you were growing up, did your folks make their own sauce?
Quess [00:01:52]: Yeah, my mother always made sauce. She made it kinda on the Kraft barbecue sauce type mode, you know? And yeah, there was always somebody making little homemade do-doodads of sauce. There used to be a guy down here, local — he’s dead now — but he used to be, he got out here in Wynne that had his own sauce, he did quite well in the little local groceries. His name was Johnny Surgeoner. His sauce was kind of a mustard base, heavy on the mustard and molasses, but his recipe died with him, I think. It was pretty decent. There’s always been somebody around making sauce. That really wasn’t my forte. I didn’t get into that at all until that night I was cooking those briskets, had that dream. Donna woke up in the middle of the night smelling all that stuff and thought I had really jumped times.
Donna Quessenberry [00:03:12]: …banging around in the kitchen. I got up, I said, “What are you doing?” He said, “I had this dream and before I forget it, I got to make this sauce.”
Quess [00:03:12]: It turned out fair.
Donna Quessenberry [00:03:13]: We were messing around with sauce anyways because we always made something to go to competitions. So I’d been kind of piddling around doing different things, and Jim had been piddling around doing different things. So it just came to him.
Quess [00:03:26]: Donna makes a good sauce called Whiskey-A-Go-Go. It’s got bourbon whiskey in it. Good stuff.
Lolis Elie [00:03:32]: Hmm. Well, let me…
Donna Quessenberry: It’s got everything. It’s kinda kitchen sink, kitchen refrigerator. Don’t ask.
Quess: Raid the ice box type deal.
Lolis Elie: Tell you what — you got maybe that recipe, a recipe that… we need a couple recipes for the book.
Quess: We’ll fix you up. Yeah, we’ll fix you up.
