On Saturday, I pulled the last of my White Front Cafe tamales from the freezer and thought about Joe Pope’s delicious legacy… see item below. The man from Rosedale never shared his recipe… a mix of slow-braised beef blended with enough seasoning to make it interesting, but not so much that it burns. The meat was rolled with a pinch of cornmeal and rolled into a husk about the size of a fat cigar. It wasn’t a challenge to eat a half a dozen or more in one seating.

Those tamales were as good as I remembered from the first time I tried them. We drank a toast to Mr. Pope and savored the last bites of a Delta tradition that had endured for more than 30 years.

PHOTO BY DAVE DARNELL/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL

You get to meet a lot of characters doing this job, and Joe Pope was on the top of my memorable interviews. A real icon in the Mississippi Delta, he made wonderful tamales that people would make special trips to eat. He died last Friday.

Here’s a tribute from Dr. Luther Brown from Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss.:

With great sadness, I report the passing of Joe Pope, owner of The White Front Café in Rosedale, Mississippi, and tamale chef par excellence. Joe was 80 years old. He died of heart failure last Friday, and his funeral will be held this Saturday, December 11, at noon in the Riverside Baptist Church in Rosedale. There will be a wake from 5-7 on Friday at the same church.

Joe Pope’s death marks the passing of another icon of the Delta, and is mourned by all who knew him, visited his store, or sampled his work.

My BBQ guru, CA photographer Dave Darnell, brought me some sauce from Armstrong’s in Helena, Ark. This was a spot we sniffed out during a recent swing through that town.

I grilled some pork loin chops — sprinkled with Wild Hog dry rub — and had the ever-so-slightly cinnamon-spiked sauce with them. It was a great combo.

One of the most surprising things I’ve learned since I started looking more deeply into the mysteries of BBQ is that most restaurants make their signature sauce by doctoring up a commercial base… like a Cattleman’s. Take a look at the ingredients: most sauces use liquid smoke. Isn’t that cheating?

It’s not even January, but I’m already thinking about the story I’m going to write for next May’s World Championship BBQ contest. Any burning questions you want answered about slow smoking meats??

CA columnist Wendi C. Thomas asked me: “Now that RU What You Eat on Highland has closed, where can you get Jamaican food? She would even settle for the frozen version of some of her favorite dishes… sorrell, rice and peas, patties, fried plantains, oxtail.

Is there any Jamaican cafe in/around Memphis??

After gym time this morning, Mr. Slim/Trim and I had breakfast at Grill 83 in the Madison Hotel. I ordered the Spa Breakfast, which sounded harmless enough… I even asked for oatmeal instead of granola.

The Spa Breakfast also had a banana nut muffin that was served with not one, but two mega-gumball size pieces of butter. Got to spend a whole lotta time on the treadmill to make that one pencil out, calorie wise.

Kind of reminds me of the diet plates of old… you know, the cottage cheese and hamburger patty? Any place still serve that? Or, is there any restaurant that offers something “lite” that’s far from it?

The Food Network is looking for a photogenic foodie to be the focus of a new show (can you say reality TV?) that will air next fall…

I realize this is late notice, but you’ve still got a week to get your audition tape together… check the details by clicking here.

Went on an afternoon of burger tasting yesterday… read more about it in next Wednesday’s food section. My favorite was from Alex’s Tavern on Jackson, fried up in an old skillet by a man who’s been cooking there since the 1950s…

It was everything that a burger should be, juicy, well-seasoned and served by the cook/bartender named Sonny. We were the only customers, beating the lunch rush at this neighborhood venue.

After stops at four burger spots, I still managed to squeeze in some dinner last night!

Went to a pierogi party last night… think Polish potstickers… and got into a discussion about gummy guilty pleasures. Dirt pie was on the menu… crushed chocolate cookies with gummy worms.

A couple grown women started listing some of their favorite candy… available at fine gas stations everywhere: Peachy-O’s. Strawberry straws. Gummy worms, but only the sour kind.

Ick!

Chewy candy has just never been my thing. I’d rather have seconds of mashed potatoes or pasta or pizza than almost any kind of candy.

What’s your weakness when it comes to obscure sweets that are sticky and chewy?

Razor sharp blog watcher who goes by the handle familiargrace pointed out that two restaurants are poised to open with virtually the same name: Blue Fin downtown and Blue Fish in Cooper Young.

That’s bound to cause some confusion… “Meet you at Blue Fin, I mean Blue Fish…” Maybe there’s some wiggle room with the name for these seafood-oriented restaurants, but who’s going to blink first?

Any alternative suggestions I can pass along to interested parties??

This is the 8th grade class from Lausanne Collegiate School, visiting the newspaper on a field trip this morning.