Happy Friday.
Perhaps more than familiar and old photos, aroma transports Brenda Sloan back in time to her childhood growing up on 20th Street.
A handful of families lived on the block near Thurmond Streets during the ‘40s and ‘‘50s. The adults were neighborly and the kids naturally became friends. People looked out for one another, and a tight-knit community formed around common experiences.
But it was the culinary talent of one man, Adam Scott, a preacher from Goldsboro, that ultimately drew them closer.
“When the Rev. Scott cooked, we could smell it all over the hill,” Sloan said. “You could just about taste it. We all waited to hear him call out ‘It’s ready.’”
Time moved on, the way it always does, and the families mostly scattered. But the memories — especially of that aroma — remained strong.
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Sloan kept in touch with Ava Scott, the youngest of the Scott kids, and a series of recent events in a long friendship led them back to all things barbecue.
As legend — and longtime residents — have it, the Rev. Scott moved to Winston with his family at the behest of some of the city’s most famous residents.
The Reynolds and the Hanes, to be specific.
According to the N.C. African American Heritage Association, the young Rev. Scott operated a restaurant in Goldsboro called Scott’s Barbecue — also known variously as Scott’s Famous Barbeque, Scott’s Cafe or the Scottereta.
He began by selling barbecue slathered in his own secret sauce out of the back door to primarily white customers.
As word of his creation spread, he enclosed the porch and turned it into a restaurant; its reputation grew to the point where Scott’s Barbecue rated a listing in the Green Book — a travel guide that told African Americans where they might stay (and dine) in the segregated South.
As the business was taking off, Scott was lured to Winston-Salem to cook for a few private clients. A son stayed in Goldsboro to run three restaurants and a company that sold sauce.
After settling on 20th Street, Scott and his wife, Adele, a gifted piano teacher, welcomed Ava into the family as he turned his attention to cooking for his clients.
“Daddy always overcooked whenever he was catering,” Ava Scott said.
It was by design. He wanted to take care of his neighbors, too, and not sharing barbecue after the aroma had wafted down the block could have been considered culinary torture.
“That’s just who he was,” Ava Scott said.
Despite an age gap of 20 years, Ava Scott and Sloan built a strong friendship. “Big sister Brenda,” Sloan said with a laugh.
So when Sloan learned that Ava, who’d moved to Florida with her mother, had launched a business selling her father’s sauces, she couldn’t wait to tell others.
“I told her I’d bet there are people in Winston-Salem who remember the Rev. Scott,” Sloan said. “And they need to know that his legacy is living.”
Ava Scott started down the path into the family business when her mom gave her a copy of the Rev. Scott’s secret recipe.
She framed it as a keepsake, and following her mother’s death in 2020 she began thinking about making the sauce herself. She gave it a shot in 2022.
“I don’t know if it was her voice or a higher power, but there I was in the kitchen trying to make it on my own,” Ava Scott said.
After an initial one-batch success, she decided to go one step further. She ordered glass bottles, labels and launched a kitchen table business that she calls her birthright.
She has several different flavors — mango, peach and the like — and barbecue sauces with such names as Adam’s Fire Hot Sauce and A Taste of Carolina.
(Following the death of her older brother, Ava Scott’s nephews remained in the sauce business, too, by selling Scott’s Barbecue Sauce.)
“I just want to carry on my father’s legacy and make sure it’s true to his wishes,” Ava Scott said.
That’s good enough for “Big Sister” Brenda Sloan. She never forgot the aroma and the tastes from her childhood.
“I tried barbecue all over looking for something close,” she said. “I was always disappointed because I was looking for the same taste. His sauces made it (special.)”
Manager saga gets stranger
GREENSBORO — The slow-burning saga involving the resignation of City Manager Taiwo Jaiyeoba took another bizarre twist this Thursday when city officials couldn’t agree about the cause.
One set of elected officials hinted earlier this week that Jaiyeoba had been asked to resign over an unspecified violation of city policy.
On Wednesday, Councilwoman Tammi Thurm told a colleague at The News & Record that Jaiyeoba resigned because of violations of city policy that have cost other employees their jobs. Other media outlets, including YES! Weekly and WXII 12, have reported that Mayor Nancy Vaughan said the same thing.
Smart speculators floated the idea that the manager had sought his own attorney — a prudent move considering the controversy over the city’s handling of a domestic disturbance call at his home in December.
And yet Thursday, the city felt compelled to contradict its own elected officials, saying in writing that officials had not investigated Jaiyeoba for policy violations and could not determine whether he had in fact violated policy — whatever that may be.
The statement, per The News & Record, went on: “Furthermore, the City of Greensboro is bound by strict protocols and state statutes regarding personnel privacy. As such, the City is legally unauthorized to disclose details surrounding the resignation of the City Manager or provide verification on the circumstances prompting his departure.”
Only officialdom knows for sure — and they’re not saying — but that’s the kind of exchange that often results when lawyers wade into a dispute.
The whole affair began when police were summoned to the manager’s house Dec. 28 for a 911 call about domestic disturbance. Police said that Jaiyeoba’s adult daughters were involved and reported minor injuries.
No charges were filed, however, giving the appearance that the manager received preferential (and deferential) treatment.
Vaughan and Police Chief John Thompson swore that wasn’t the case but opposed a judge’s order to release police body-cam footage that could clear that up.
That decision, by the way, has been appealed.
Then came this week’s dispute over Jaiyeoba’s resignation — developments that made a bad look appear worse.
Councilman Zack Matheny waded in Thursday and called for another investigation.
Two lessons can be learned — or relearned — from these developments.
First and foremost, transparency from the outset about the incident at the manager’s home and the unnecessary fight over the release of body cam footage easily could have averted a lot of trouble. Sunlight is the best disinfectant after all.
And second, as anyone who’s ever watched Law & Order can tell you, if city officials were going to talk about Jaiyeoba’s resignation, they perhaps needed to get their story straight first.