The name of this food blog, The Mighty Rib, has no special meaning or profoundly deep backstory. It’s just a stupid name I came up with at 5 a.m. on a Monday morning back in 2010.

My wife and I had just returned home from a weekend trip to Kansas City. I was a high school teacher at the time, but looking for a new hobby, one in which I could harken back to my college days and write about sports.

Kansas City was a quick, romantic getaway, that, to no one’s surprise, ended up centering around food. We went to several outstanding eateries that weekend, but once we walked into Oklahoma Joe’s (now called Joe’s Kansas Bar-B-Que) and ordered the pork ribs, my thoughts of writing about sports were over.

Fast forward seven years.

A couple weeks ago, I returned to Joe’s with my buddies Daniel Walker and Ken Dempsey. I’ve taken several food road trips with these two morons. They are pretty tough food critics. Daniel loves BBQ more than his children and Ken, as many of you already know, is a damn expert at smoking ‘cue. Truth be told, I was a little nervous about what would think of the ribs at Joe’s.

Would these ribs live up to the hype?

We got to Joe’s at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday morning and were the first people in line. A manager immediately came over and asked if we’d like something to drink (on the house). It was a kind gesture on his part. Five minutes later, I turned around and the man came around with a sample rib for each of us. One bite and it was as amazing as I’d remember. Tender, juicy, not fall-off-the-bone or over-seasoned or too smoky … the beauty was in the simplicity. We ended up splitting a rack with some burnt ends and a side of fries. It was a joyous food moment … and still the mightiest of pork ribs.

I think Dan and Ken would agreed.