James J. Conner

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Sixty years on one pit in Marshall, Texas. Fire, wood, meat, beans, and the things nobody tells you. I'm James J. Conner. I cook on the old Highway Eighty, east of town, on a pit I welded myself in 1988. My grandmother put me on the fire when I was nine. She never taught me a recipe. She taught me wood. Nineteen years on second shift at the tire plant, selling plates out the front yard on weekends. Forty-one pits built for other people. The shop burned in 2003 and I cooked out of a trailer nine years. Every week, how this actually works. Brisket and ribs, and what goes beside them: beans, greens, cornbread, the pot and the fire under it. I'll tell you when I'm certain and when I'm guessing, and which tricks I don't use myself. East Texas. Chopped beef, sauce on it, hickory and sweet gum. Sauce is not an apology. Use a thermometer. I go by hand. You shouldn't. The man you see and hear is generated with AI. The cooking is not. Every method is real and yours to try tonight.