The Grail Quest Continues

This blog's Bar-B-Q mania prompted an e-mail tip from an old friend, Jackson, who wrote after a 50 year-hiatus in our contact: "Have you ever had 'cue at Zimmerhanzel's in Smithville?" At one time, Jackson lived in Harris County (exact location unknown) and had made his way some 120 miles west and north to Smithville. The query was intriguing because (1) this blogger had never been to Smithville (pop. 3901) in Bastrop County east and south of Austin and (2) Zimmerhanzel's didn't make the Top 50 in Texas Monthly's most recent (2008) assessment of Texas Bar-B-Q. Not only that, but Zimmerhanzel's is the longest name of any Bar-B-Q joint in the Lone Star State. Most joints are named Bert's or Bingo's or Stubbs' and don't fall into the polysyllabic range of names. The sight upon arriving at Zimmerhanzel's at noon on Saturday was not encouraging: cars and pickups parked everywhere. Inside the (what else for Texas Bar-B-Q joints) red building, the sight was not encouraging. A single line about 20-deep formed from the front door to the opposite end of the building; the tables weren't full so that meant that a lot of the customers were going for the takeout option. Visions of Snow's Bar-B-Q in Lexington where you either called ahead during the week or were out of luck when the meat ran out were dispelled when the line moved and it was obvious that Zimmerhanzel's pit man (or woman) had smoked plenty of meat. None of the compartments were empty. Zimmerhanzel's serves its dine-in customers on plates. Takeout orders are wrapped in butcher paper and wrapped in foil. Zimmerhanzel's goes halfway with plastic: it's OK for tableware but not OK for payment. This place follows the Texas Bar-B-Q financial mantra: "In God we trust, all others pay cash." I left with pork ribs, sausage, and sliced pork roast. Across the street from Zimmerhansel's was the major grocery venue in Smithville. A visit to the beverage section of the market provided the appropriate drink to accompany Texas 'cue: a 6-pack of Silver Bullets. Adjacent to the market, under a large pecan tree, was a picnic table. Judging from the ground under the table, the store employees took smoke breaks at the location. Mercifully, all of the employees were inside the store at noon hour on Saturday and the only smoke to be whiffed was from Zimmerhanzel's across the street. The sausage, in smaller links than the customary Texas Bar-B-Q sausage, was very good. The ribs were on a par with Louis Mueller's in Taylor, Texas. For this blog, that rates as tie for numero uno ribs. The pork roast was killer bee as well. The most amazing thing about Zimmerhansel's serving line was the absence of men. A regiment of women of varying ages and sizes served up the plates and the takeout orders. At the head of the line, was a very efficient lady (possibly Dana Bunte?) who sliced and weighed the meats chosen by the customers. Not quite, "You pick it and I stick it," as the pit man says at Cooper's in Llano, Texas. True to Texas Bar-B-Q form, Dana Bunte's husband, Bert (a classic name in 'cue), was probably tending the fire box and turning the meat as it smoked at the back of the building. All in all, I owe Jackson a big "thank you" and an apology for doubting that a guy from North Denver would know anything about good Texas Bar-B-Q. Jackson knows a helluva lot more than the "Bar-B-Q critics" for Texas Monthly who completely overlooked the Gem of Smithville: Zimmerhansel's Bar-B-Q. If this is (fair & balanced) oak-fired, smoked beef, pork, or chicken, so be it.

[x Austin Alternative Fishwrap]
Day Trips
By Gerald E. McLeod

Zimmerhanzel's BBQ occupies a small, red tin building between the Colorado River and the historic business district of Smithville. Out of this unobtrusive little shop comes the great big flavor of smoked meats fixed with family pride and respect for time-honored Texas traditions.

Smithville's premier barbecue establishment opened on February 13, 1990. "When we first opened we really didn't know what we were doing," says Dana Bunte. She and her husband Bert opened the restaurant with the help of her parents, who own the Smithville Food Locker next door. Grandpa Zimmerhanzel opened the meat processing business in southwestern Bastrop County nearly a century ago, when the town was a regular stop on the railroad.

Like all good Texas barbecue purveyors, the Buntes have experimented along the way to find the perfect combination of flavor, texture, and aroma for their foods. In the beginning they enlisted the assistance of W.B. Brazil. A legendary smoked meat maestro who once owned a famous eatery on Smithville's Main Street, Brazil was persuaded to come out of retirement to help the Buntes get established. The result was the continuation of some of the most time-honored barbecuing traditions.

Repeat customers are the backbone of any business, and that is especially true of country barbecue establishments. Once a Texan, native or transplant, finds a barbecue that they really enjoy, they will make any excuse to travel the roads in the general direction of their favorite smokehouse. "On Saturdays, 75% of our business is off of the highway (TX 71)," Dana says. Saturdays are also the day they are most liable to sell out of some items before the 5pm closing time.

Folks from Houston, Austin, and San Antonio will call in orders to pick up on their way to somewhere else. Of course, Zimmerhanzel's is also popular with Smithville residents. "Our customers tell us that we have better prices and quality than some of the more famous places," Dana says.

But it is the consistency of the product that keeps folks coming back. Once the Buntes found a perfect way to make their meats and side dishes, they stuck with it. "Bert is a real perfectionist when it comes to consistency," Dana says. In order to maintain the quality of their food, they have kept the recipes simple. She points to the sausage as a prime example. It doesn't have much filler or spices to alter the flavor.

Side dishes are meant to complement the meal, not wrestle your taste buds for dominance. The beans are another item that has a simple but honest flavor. Almost like ranch-style beans, Dana says they have a minimum of spiciness, just enough to give them a good country flavor.

Zimmerhanzel's serves the usual assortment of sandwiches and meat by the pound. They have brisket, sausage, pork ribs, and chicken, and on Saturdays they add a tender pork roast to the menu. The full meal deals are the plate lunches served with choices of meat and a choice of beans, three different salads, pickles, and onions.

Because the cafe opens early, 8am on six days of the week, the coffee is always fresh, and a section of tables is often taken up by local farmers and ranchers with a few minutes to kill in town. "You'd be surprised how many people like barbecue for breakfast," Dana says. Usually it's the sausage, she adds.

The food is served cafeteria-style with a menu on the board behind the serving line. To give the place a true Texas ambiance, one wall is filled with mounted deer heads collected from the processing plant next door. They even have a buffalo head from a herd that was raised on a local ranch. Before the owner died, the ranch once supplied the entire University of Texas football team with a buffalo barbecue. Another wall is lined with photos of the little league teams that the Buntes have sponsored almost since they opened.

Homey and friendly, Zimmerhanzel's BBQ makes no pretentious brags. The Buntes let their flavorful and tender meats, backed up by traditional side dishes, do the talking for them. At the south side of the bridge over the Colorado River, the unassuming little tin building is at the gateway to a scenic region of Central Texas. Stop in for a fill-up of good grub, then explore the shops on Main Street before heading back home by way of the back roads through the fertile ranch lands.

Zimmerhanzel's BBQ opens Monday-Friday 8am-5pm and Saturday 8am-4pm. The Buntes can be persuaded to do an occasional catering job, but consistency of quality is important, so they use the same crew that operates the restaurant.

Zimmerhanzel's BBQ
307 Royston Drive (State Highway 95)
Smithville, TX 78957
512-237-4244

[Gerald E. McLeod is an Austin Chronicle contributing writer and its "Day Trips" columnist. More than 770 of Gerald E. McLeod’s travel stories have appeared in The Austin Chronicle since the weekly column, “Day Trips,” began in 1991. While most of his articles are about Texas and Texans, McLeod has also written on national and international topics. His travel stories have appeared in Texas Highways Magazine, The Texas Observer, The San Antonio Current, The Fort Worth Weekly, The Bryan-College Station Eagle and other publications.]

Copyright © 2008 Austin Chronicle Corp.

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A Modest (Attack Ad) Proposal For The Hopester

Here's what the Obama campaign needs: a commercial featuring The Geezer. A white-haired actor, wearing nothing but Depends, pushes a walker down the street asking people, "Will you vote for me? I'm lost and I don't know where I am." If The Geezer and his slimeball campaign advisors (Turd Blossom wannabes) want to play the race card, The Hopester and his team ought to play the age card. The Geezer can probably hide his own Easter eggs right now. Saint Dutch (for the Righties) didn't achieve that until his second term when "Mommy" (his super-bitch wife) was the acting POTUS and found his Easter eggs for him. If this is (fair & balanced) political savagery, so be it.

[x NY Fishwrap]
Running While Black
By Bob Herbert

Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.

Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”

There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us — the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.

Since then, Senator McCain has only upped the ante, smearing Mr. Obama every which way from sundown. On Wednesday, The Washington Post ran an extraordinary front-page article that began:

“For four days, Senator John McCain and his allies have accused Senator Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.”

Evidence? John McCain needs no evidence. His campaign is about trashing the opposition, Karl Rove-style. Not satisfied with calling his opponent’s patriotism into question, Mr. McCain added what amounted to a charge of treason, insisting that Senator Obama would actually prefer that the United States lose a war if that would mean that he — Senator Obama — would not have to lose an election.

Now, from the hapless but increasingly venomous McCain campaign, comes the slimy Britney Spears and Paris Hilton ad. The two highly sexualized women (both notorious for displaying themselves to the paparazzi while not wearing underwear) are shown briefly and incongruously at the beginning of a commercial critical of Mr. Obama.

The Republican National Committee targeted Harold Ford with a similarly disgusting ad in 2006 when Mr. Ford, then a congressman, was running a strong race for a U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee. The ad, which the committee described as a parody, showed a scantily clad woman whispering, “Harold, call me.”

Both ads were foul, poisonous and emanated from the upper reaches of the Republican Party. (What a surprise.) Both were designed to exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of the many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women.

The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control. It was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir. (Mr. Obama in Muslim garb with the American flag burning in the fireplace.) It’s driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches — a man who obviously does not know his place.

Mr. Obama has to endure these grotesque insults with a smile and heroic levels of equanimity. The reason he has to do this — the sole reason — is that he is black.

So there he was this week speaking evenly, and with a touch of humor, to a nearly all-white audience in Missouri. His goal was to reassure his listeners, to let them know he’s not some kind of unpatriotic ogre.

Mr. Obama told them: “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills, you know. He’s risky.”

The audience seemed to appreciate his comments. Mr. Obama was well-received.

But John McCain didn’t appreciate them. RACE CARD! RACE CARD! The McCain camp started bellowing, and it hasn’t stopped since. With great glee bursting through their feigned outrage, the campaign’s operatives and the candidate himself accused Senator Obama of introducing race into the campaign — playing the race card, as they put it, from the very bottom of the deck.

Whatever you think about Barack Obama, he does not want the race issue to be front and center in this campaign. Every day that the campaign is about race is a good day for John McCain. So I guess we understand Mr. McCain’s motivation.

Nevertheless, it’s frustrating to watch John McCain calling out Barack Obama on race. Senator Obama has spoken more honestly and thoughtfully about race than any other politician in many years. Senator McCain is the head of a party that has viciously exploited race for political gain for decades.

He’s obviously more than willing to continue that nauseating tradition.

[Bob Herbert is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times. His column is syndicated to other newspapers around the country. He is distinguished by his frequent columns on poverty and criticism of the war in Iraq. He has written many works attacking racism and American political apathy towards race issues. Herbert received a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from the State University of New York (Empire State College) in 1988.]

Copyright© 2008 The New York Times Company

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