Mae’s BBQ After Mallory graduated from ENMU, she and Arnis moved to Arizona where they ran a landscaping company. Arnis had always wanted to build a meat smoker, so it was during that time that the family started experimenting and selling barbecue one day a week. “We bought a little trailer and set up every Friday just to see how it would go. When we moved to Lubbock to be closer to home, we decided to do barbecue full-time.” And full-time it is. Last year the couple moved from their trailer to a full-sized restaurant, and they work six days most weeks even though they only serve barbecue Wednesday through Saturday. With all meat hand-trimmed and all sides made inhouse, the team starts preparing on Mondays and they fire up the pit on Tuesday to cook food for the following day. Arnis is the head chef, while Mallory, a full-time mother of two, helps at the restaurant when needed and handles all of their social media. “It’s hard and it’s exhausting and my husband works crazy 1620-hour days, but we’re able to feed people high quality food that we literally make with love. It sounds so cheesy, but we want to make sure people are happy. They come stand in line for an hour for our food on a Saturday so they better be super impressed.” With side dishes that are equally as impressive as the meat they offer, what may be the biggest surprise is that the family doesn’t use any special ingredients to make their delicious barbecue. “People ask us all the time if we sell our rubs but we don’t use anything fancy. It’s just salt and pepper, and smoke and time— that’s what my husband says. It takes a long time to get the product that we end up with. And we only use prime-grade beef, so we’re not the cheapest around but everything is homemade.” Never in a million years did Mallory think that they would be where they are now. From starting out in their trailer selling as much barbeque in one day as they felt they could accomplish, it turns out they have accomplished a whole lot. Evie Mae’s is now one of the top barbecue restaurants in Texas. “I just can’t believe we are here when, two years ago, we were on the side of the road in a trailer in a snow storm wondering ‘what were we thinking?’ It’s really cool to see how if you work hard and set your mind to something—it sounds so cliché—that you can do whatever you want to do. But it’s so true.”
By: Tia Urioste and Rachel Forrester
Culinary Arts Program
Provides a Virtual Travel Experience It seems like everyone wants to travel. There are at least two cable channels devoted to nothing but this subject! When you ask someone what they’d do if they won the lottery, inevitably the subject comes up. But what about us regular working stiffs? Is traveling the globe only accessible to the wealthy? Well, I did some research, and I can say with some degree of certainty that, yes, travel really is only for the wealthy! But this doesn’t scare ENMU Culinary Arts students. In fact, several students from the program have been bitten by the travel bug. After doing their own research, they have plans to experience the excitement of travel, tourism, foreign culture and cuisine…and get paid for it! That’s right. There are currently three students (one senior, one junior, and one sophomore) who are seriously investigating careers with cruise lines. In fact, two former students who wanted their fair share of the tourism industry, are currently employed by large themed resorts (I won’t say which, but one rhymes with “Quisney”). Another group has found a welcoming culture at the Four Seasons Santa Fe, a major name in the travel and lodging industry. Of course, you don’t have to work in the hospitality industry just to experience other cultures. The Culinary Arts program has ample opportunities for everyone to come and take a class. You could learn the ancient cooking techniques of the far East in Cuisine of Asia. You could eat your way through Greece, Turkey and Italy in Mediterranean Cuisine. You could even try your hand at recipes of the European master chefs in Classical French Cuisine. It was a wise person who said: “wherever you go, there you are.” But just remember, traveling is a state of mind; and it is never farther away than your plate.
By: Dr. Charles Broz
Assistant Professor, Family and Consumer Science
Green & Silver | May 20172017 13 13 Green & Silver | May
