The following is an excerpt taken from the spring 2000 issue of Dish Magazine.

Pass straight through downtown Highway 35, bearing right at the steel jawed and spring-loaded tourist trap Alabama Museum and Gift Shop, and follow it towards Rainsville to Highway 75 to find regionally-renowned Barry's Barbecue.  The discerning traveler will have noted an establishment called Barry's Barbecue does occupy the shell of a former fast food haunt just past Ft. Payne's welcome sign.  While the establishment is directly related to the one you're searching for, it's in the slightly cheapened manner of an outlet store.  When it comes to barbecue, seconds and factory rejects just won't do.  You want retail, baby.

In the likely event that you become lost on your way to Barry's, just look for an AMC Eagle with wheels of monster truck proportions employed as a conspicuously odd lawn ornament.  It'll be just up the road from the alarmingly titled Blood Covenant Church.  Just ahead, you'll see the small, ribbon-festooned sign that points the way to Barry's.  The low brick ranch house surrounded by blissfully ignorant cows is where you're heading.  Before you even open the car doors, the rich, mouth-watering scent of slow-roasting meat will be wafting through the vents.

The restaurant proper is a squat, whitewashed cinderblock building located just behind the house.  As one of several framed newspaper clippings hanging on the walls inside informs, the unique arrangement at Barry Owens' farm came about after a tornado struck it in 1994.  The family had maintained a popular neighborhood barbecue pit in the back yard, and, in the storm's financial aftermath, decided to make a business venture out of it.  Smart move.  These days, nearly 800 people make the drive each week for a taste of Barry's finest - and he's only open Thursday through Saturday.

The bizarre country classic, Broasted (AKA oil broiled) Chicken, does make a brief appearance, but barbecue is the real dish du jour at Barry's.  Pork and beef ribs, half-chicken fryers, or pulled varieties of all three - there's even a barbecue-topped salad on the menu.  The Owens roast their meats (up to 2800 pounds at a time) to absolute perfection for nearly 16 hours before pulling it, piling it high on the plate, and topping it off with one of three sauces: a thick, almost black molasses-and mustard tinged variety; smokey vinegar-based; or a thin, spicy and sour one.  Our mountainous plates of tender pork and deliciously rangy-flavored farm-raised beef were lightened by a side of the wonderful mayo-based potato salad, made fresh each day with luscious little new red-skinned potatoes and a liberal dose of springy dill.  In a flash, it was gone, leaving only a trace of sauce in the corner of my mouth to prove that it ever even existed.

At all costs, save room for dessert.  How can I begin to describe Mrs. Owens' cobbler?  Domino labeled it "foot-twitchingly good," in that it's so divine that you may lose control of your physical faculties.  After one savory bite, I wondered why that tall, spongy white cake had gotten away with calling itself angel food after all this time.  Although a temporary power outage had ruined the batch of real vanilla bean ice cream prepared the day before we arrived, the cobbler crust more than made up for the lack of dairy intake - there must be a pound of real butter in each one.  Inc fact, the ambrosial, silken peach version nearly did me in; if Domino hadn't been there to hold my tongue down with a spoon, I'm sure I would've died on the spot in a fit of fat-induced bliss.  Seriously - I could see the white light coming for' to carry me home.  But, if you'd prefer to avoid the risk of seizure, try the blackberry instead for a knockout one-two punch of decadent sweet and fruity tart.