Growing up with Aaron Franklin and other Posse tales that deserve a second look

There have been many meals & just as many stories to tell since our first BBQ tour in November 2009. (Photo ©Gary Barber)

In the past, we've told you about our most popular blog posts and offered a readers' guide to all the tours we've written about in our Barbecue Chronicles.

Now, we're going to give you a short guide to the other end of the Posse blog spectrum. These aren't our least popular posts. We'll keep those buried to protect the innocent.

But for whatever reason, these posts didn't receive the attention we thought they would. Maybe the headlines were boring. Maybe you were busy and didn't check the blog that day. So, here's a second chance:

Posse winner talks about growing up with Aaron Franklin and the future of barbecue in Texas

Aaron Franklin, right, and his bandmates in Those Peabodys.
(Photo courtesy of Post-Parlo Records)

Please pardon our tardiness, we're a bit late with this post.

Neil Gallagher of Bryan won last month's Texas barbecue giveaway offered by FoodyDirect in partnership with the Posse. FoodyDirect, an online food marketplace, randomly selected his name from among more than 200 entries.

When I contacted Gallagher, 35, to congratulate him, the conversation ranged widely, from his win to even pondering the future of barbecue in Texas.

He said he grew up in Bryan with Aaron Franklin, now the reigning barbecue baron of the state. Franklin runs Franklin Barbecue in Austin.

Gallagher is an accountant at St. Joseph Catholic Church. He said his wife, Jenny, lived next door to the Franklin family in Bryan, where Aaron's father ran a barbecue place.

"I would have never guessed that he was going to be a barbecue mogul," Gallagher said of Franklin. "I always figured that if he was ever going to make it in something, it would be in the music industry. I guess he found something else he loved."

Before barbecue, Franklin played drums for a band called Those Peabodys.