Published October 26, 2005

HOUSTON -- White Sox fans have enough stress here during this World Series, what with the Houston Astros fans on the verge of besmirching Texas hospitality. They spent all Tuesday worrying about their supposed right to slam the roof shut on their Disneyfied ballpark, the better to take unfair home-field advantage and split Sox eardrums with their rebel yells and various high pitched yee-haws, dad-gum-its, whoo-eees and what have yous.

Then there are all the quilters at the international quilting convention, a horde of 35,000 compulsive middle-aged to elderly women armed with needles, making quilts, lunging after fabric, grabbing up all the hotel rooms, devouring every single slice of bundt cake in Texas.

There's not a tin of International Coffee Cafe Vienna mix to be had in this town anymore. And don't think of even asking for Sleepytime Tea. They'll roll you for it if they even suspect you're carrying some.

So with the Series stress, the roof whiners and the quilters, Chicago fans besieged in Houston will feel more like refugees, or is that Soxugees?

At least Thelma's Bar-B-Cue is open.

Thelma's is located at 1020 Live Oak St., a three-minute cab ride from the ballpark near the convention center. It meets my criteria: incredibly tasty and inexpensive. And Thelma tells me all White Sox fans are welcome.

"As long as there's a customer here I'll stay open," said Thelma Williams, who cooks all that food herself over hardwood coals, the way barbecue is supposed to be done.

"So tell the Chicago people, come on in, but they better like real barbecue, ribs and brisket, my sides and my pies. And my catfish too. I make my catfish so you don't have to find it. My parents always told me that. Don't make the catfish so a hungry person has to hunt for it through all that thick breading. You don't have to go find my catfish. You like it?"

Yes, Thelma, I like it fine. If those of you back home reading this have friends or family who rushed out here for the Series, you might tell them about Thelma's. She doesn't spend a dime on marketing. She doesn't need to market--her barbecue is beyond excellent and word is spread from one barbecue lover to another.

"I've got people coming from Canada for my barbecue, I don't need to spend money on commercials," she said. "The best commercial is the word-of-mouth commercial."

Most Astros fans at the ballpark Tuesday night didn't have time to think about barbecue. They were too busy fretting over Major League Baseball's ruling that the park's roof had to stay open.

So I spread word of Thelma's to every Sox fan I could find.

"Thanks," said Tom Kingston, 25, a commodities trader from Chicago. "I could use some barbecue. I'm just so upset with all these quilters that you can't even find a hotel room."

There is nothing glitzy about Thelma's. There are tables and chairs and the smell of barbecue. Outside, a weather-beaten wooden sign with fading red letters says "Thelma's." The screen door creaks, and if I were a public radio reporter, I'd have recorded it for ambient sound.

I give Thelma's a Kass Four-Couch rating, since there were four reporters from Chicago there the other night and each of us required a couch to flop on after that meal.

Thelma's was recommended to me by Gary Wiviott, Chicago's doctor of ribs. Gary said I should visit Thelma's, and as always when it comes to barbecue, the doctor was correct.

I had a "Two Meats" dinner, served with two generous homemade sides--dirty rice and cole slaw--for $8. The Dr Pepper was extra. One meat was ribs. The other meat was beef brisket. It was heaping at first, but then there were no leftovers. The meat contained a perfect smoke ring, the kind that only comes with hours of slow cooking with smoke.

"I had another job, but I always loved to cook," she said. "So about five years ago I found this place and decided to do it. But the people weren't coming in, it was Christmastime, and that day I realized I made only $48 in business.

"People said, `Are you going to quit?' No, I said. Then a man came in--I couldn't tell you what he looked like to this day--and liked my cooking and the next day it was in the local paper. My friend said, `Thelma! You're in the paper!' and I said, `No! I didn't do anything wrong!'

"But that man wrote about my barbecue. That day, I ran out of food. So I think I'll stay with it," she said with a smile.

She took me to her kitchen, to the pit covered with a lid held down by bricks on a pulley. Underneath was a mound of ribs. Off to the side was a pile of brisket she'd started 12 hours before. We went out back to the firebox set into the wall. She opened the iron door so I could see the mixture of hardwoods, ashed and glowing, generating precisely 225 degrees.

There was another cooker near the woodshed, a giant metal drum with an offset firebox. It was full of briskets.

"I'm not going to tell you my wood secret, except that barbecue is about the fire, and you don't use all the same wood. I use a mixture, and I know by the feel of the heat and the look of the meat," she said. "Hey, you can quit your job and come here and work nights for me. I'll teach you."

Maybe after the Sox win the Series.

jskass@tribune.com