Tie Dye Travels with Kat Robinson - Author, Arkansas Food Historian, TV Host and Best Loved Traveler

The Arkansas Barbecue Traveler's Travels: 3 Heethens BBQ in Monticello.

2026-04-13T16:30:00.008-05:00

I saw the smoke rising from a trailer tucked beneath an awning next door to the Arby's in Monticello and - even though I 'd already eaten twice that morning and was ready to hit the road, I pulled into the lot. It wasn't on my list - but 3 Heethens BBQ had that barbecue moniker and that barbecue scent, so I pulled on in.Keep reading the story »

Following the Smoke: Biscuit Row in Helena-West Helena.

2026-04-10T15:11:00.009-05:00

I tend to follow my nose when it comes to barbecue. During the summer of 2024, I spent several weeks in the Arkansas Delta. I was heading to one barbecue restaurant on the 8th of June - a restaurant that wasn't open (I'd find out later the owner was on vacation). But a sniff of the air told me there was barbecue to be found nearby.Keep reading the story »

Almost Famous BBQ Ties Cajun Spice to Arkansas Barbecue.

2026-04-03T00:08:00.000-05:00

By the time you get to Almost Famous BBQ, you're about out of Conway and well on your way to the edges of Vilonia. The scent of hickory and cherry smoke lures drivers into the parking lot along the south side of US Highway 64, smoke often tinged with a little Cajun spice.

It's not the first place that comes to mind when you mention the words "Conway" and "barbecue" in the same query. Alan “Al” Meyer understands that better than anyone. “You have to know where you’re going,” he says, explaining that Almost Famous has never relied on traffic or convenience. It has relied on people making the decision to come. More than 16 years in, they still do.

Al has spent more than four decades in the restaurant business, though he's tried to escape the lifestyle more than once. “You get out of it,” he says, “and you get sucked back in.” Food has a way of doing that, especially when it becomes part of who you are.

Barbecue entered his life more than thirty years ago through competition cooking and catering. Before that, he worked across the industry, from seafood to Cajun kitchens, learning how flavor, timing, and volume intersect. Barbecue pulled those lessons together. It required patience, repetition, and a willingness to fail before getting it right.

Almost Famous BBQ began small. When Al first opened the doors, it was primarily a to go operation focused on catering. He cooked for oil and gas fields, feeding crews who needed substantial meals and needed them consistently. Those years shaped the way he still thinks about barbecue today. "It should be portable. It should feed a lot of people. It should be something you can count on," he shares.

Sandwiches came first, then Al added a few tables. Over time, the dining room grew. What started as a smoke shop slowly became a gathering place. Today there are more than twenty tables, a steady flow of regulars, and a rhythm that feels settled without ever becoming stale.

The pits are the backbone of Almost Famous. Pork butts smoke for about sixteen hours, started early one morning and ready the next. Brisket, notoriously unforgiving, gets equal attention. “You can really screw that up,” Al says, laughing, before adding, “Trust me, I’ve screwed it up every way you can.” Experience, he believes, comes from those mistakes.

Wood matters here. Almost Famous burns hickory and cherry, using a combination of traditional stick burners and a commercial smoker that still relies on wood for flavor. There are no shortcuts. Pork is pulled by hand every day. Brisket is sliced instead of chopped, trimmed lean before it ever hits the pit. The goal is consistency, not spectacle.

Pork is the biggest seller, but brisket runs a close second, especially among customers who understand how hard it is to do well. Ribs follow a Memphis leaning approach, seasoned with a dry rub and cooked until they hold together with just enough resistance. “I like a little tug,” Al says. He is not interested in ribs that collapse under their own weight.

Sausage reflects his Cajun roots. It is lightly spiced, without the heavy fennel notes found in andouille, and shows up on plates and sandwiches alike. Catfish, another staple, rounds out a menu that reflects both Arkansas tradition and Al’s long path through the food world.

Slaw is not an afterthought here. Almost Famous offers both a mayonnaise based slaw and a vinegar slaw they call simmer slaw. Al’s personal favorite is even simpler. Plain shredded cabbage. “That little bit of crunch, that bite,” he says, explaining that he prefers it straight on the sandwich. It is a quiet nod to older Arkansas barbecue traditions, when cabbage showed up long before arguments over sauce took hold.

One of the unexpected standouts on the menu is the brisket burger. Instead of smoking a whole brisket and grinding it later, the meat is cubed raw, ground in house, mixed with cheese and seasonings, then partially smoked before finishing on the flat top. The result is a burger that stays juicy and does not shrink much. It has become one of the restaurant’s top sellers.

Al still experiments, often coming in on days the restaurant is closed. “How can we make this better,” he asks himself, testing new ideas. Customers become willing guinea pigs, and they are honest. “It’s not about what I like,” he says. “It’s about what they like.”

That relationship with the community runs deep. During the pandemic, Almost Famous survived not because it was large, but because it was flexible. Family packs, bulk meat, and steady support from churches and regular customers kept the doors open. “If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t be here,” Al says.

He talks about watching children grow up in the dining room, about customers becoming friends and friends becoming family. Time passes differently in places like this. You realize it when the kids who once needed booster seats are suddenly ordering for themselves.

And then there is the blue crawfish.

Inside Almost Famous is a tank that stops people in their tracks. A brilliant blue crawfish lives there, electric in color and impossible to ignore. “One in a million,” Al says. He had received an order of crawfish and noticed the blue crustacean wiggling amongst all the red ones in the batch, plucked it out, and dropped it into an aquarium. That crawfish, rather than becoming dinner, became a mascot.

The name Almost Famous reflects Al’s sense of humor and his perspective on success. “Most famous people are either dead or in prison,” he says. “So we’re good with number two.”

Al keeps doing what he has done for decades, feeding people food that matters in a restaurant that's more living room than showcase. It's worth a drive.

Ode to Rice.

2026-04-02T23:01:00.004-05:00

It is a staple that graces the tables of young and old, wealthy and thrifty, across every demographic. Its place in our culinary history goes back two centuries, and today it puts us on the global map. It is the world's most popular grain, and we are blessed to have so many cultivated acres of it every year.

It is rice.

Oryza sativa has been cultivated for more than six thousand years, and has spread from Asia to Europe and Africa. It made its first appearance in North America, in South Carolina at the turn of the 18th Century. The crop was first recorded seen at Arkansas Post by the great naturalist and field researcher Thomas Nuttall, just over 200 years ago. Farmers in the area gave rice a shot, but without adequate irrigation and the technology to both flood and completely drain the fields, it didn't much catch on at that time.

W.H. Fuller is recorded as having made that first attempt at growing a crop on the Grand Prairie in 1897. A dry well cost him the effort, but the idea had been planted. In 1901, John and Emma Morris would dig an irrigation well, seed a plot and tend it, and harvest five acres. Though John died the next spring, Emma Morris and her two sons would continue with the 1902 crop and 20 acres of planted land, establishing the viability of rice in our state. The fourth and fifth generation of the Morris Family still operates the farm, Arkansas's oldest rice farm near Carlisle today.

1902 was also the year Bill Hope decided to try out a plot of his own, right in Stuttgart. He had trouble keeping the hands of the curious out of his acreage - everyone wanted to try this new staple in their own home. But he still managed to harvest 139 bushels an acre from it.

Agriculture soon boomed around this grain. The Stuttgart Rice Company completed its first mill in 1907. The Arkansas Rice Growers Cooperative would band together in 1921, eventually growing to 9000 member farms across five states, and becoming the world's largest miller and marketer of rice. Today we know it as Riceland Foods.

Each year Arkansas plants more than one million acres of rice, averaging nearly 165 bushels that's about 74-hundred pounds for every acre. It's grown in 40 of our 75 counties - all across the Delta, and along the Arkansas River Valley as well. Our state produces more rice than any and all of the other states in the union, combined.

Those of us who have always called Arkansas home, have found it so very often on our tables. As a child I fondly remember bowls of buttered and sugared rice for breakfast. As an adult, I still find it alongside plate lunches served with an ample portion of brown gravy. Rice pudding is a common, friendly dessert known well amongst our population. Its presence in casseroles and goulash and soups and yes, even salads is felt and devoured. Generations have documented its many uses in church cookbooks and served it at our various events.

Few restaurants lack the ingredient. It can be found in a tempura batter, under a curry, packed in a spring roll or simmered with spices and vegetables. Its versatility has made it a wonder of the new food movement, and its availability as a milk, cheese, cracker, and even bread -- has become popular for those who cannot consume dairy or digest wheat gluten. Our catfish is often fried these days in rice oil, and rice bran is cited for its health benefits.

Innovation continues, from farm to fork, with enterprises leaning into new varietals past the long grain and extra long grain versions long associated with our production. Ralston Farms of Atkins harvests purple, red, brown and golden rices and brings them to a market eager to add this spectrum to the table. Della Specialty Rice of Brinkley offers arborio, basmati, jasmine and wild rices, many flavored in mixes with garlic, onion, sesame and ginger.

Whichever way you try it, rice is one of those staples that's integral to the diet of Arkansas folks. Sure glad it grows here so well,

Eunice's in Fort Smith - 50 Years of Great Cooking!

2026-02-09T10:48:00.004-06:00

The era of the country lunchroom may be dwindling away, but in Fort Smith, it's being revitalized for the next decade at Eunice's. This long-standing eatery, originally opened in 1976, is still putting out goulash, beef over rice, homemade meatloaf and a beautiful selection of pies every weekday at lunch.Keep reading the story »