Rooted in Alabama. Inspired by family. Shared with you.
I started Joy of Grilling for a simple, deeply personal reason: I wanted to keep my family’s recipes alive.
I wanted a place where I could always find the dishes my grandmothers made. A place where, even after they were gone, I could return to their recipes, cook them again, and share those traditions with the people I love.
My name is Chris McCarley, and that story begins in Alabama.
Both of my parents are from Hamilton, Alabama, and my family’s roots run deep in the farmland there. My dad, Hugh McCarley, grew up farming and even rode a horse to school. It’s a part of our family history I’m proud of.
Growing up, we went “back home” to Alabama for nearly every holiday. Those visits meant time with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, riding horses and four-wheelers, and spending days on the farm. My Uncle Robert’s farm equipment, fields of corn and soybeans, and gardens full of vegetables were all part of that world.
We would take big plastic bags out to gather collard greens, turnip greens, and mustard greens. There were pink-eyed peas—a personal favorite—and sheds lined with Mason jars filled with vegetables, jams, and the things our family had grown and preserved.
But the memories at the heart of Joy of Grilling come from the kitchen.
My Granny Pearl and Granny Holloway brought our family together through their cooking. I watched them prepare holiday meals, learned from them, and grew up loving the food and traditions they passed down to my parents and to me. So many of the recipes I first wanted to preserve were theirs.
That love of cooking followed me to the University of Georgia. My best friend and I grilled or smoked something practically every weekend. We cooked everything we could think of, invented recipes, and used our grills so much that we burned through the bottoms of several of them.
Cooking has been part of my life ever since.
Over time, what began as a way to preserve family recipes grew into something bigger: a place to share my love of grilling, Southern cooking, and the pleasure of making a meal for other people.
That’s what I hope you find here at Joy of Grilling—a recipe you’re excited to try, a reason to fire up the grill, or a dish that becomes part of your own family’s traditions.
At its heart, this website will always come back to those Alabama roots, my grandmothers’ kitchens, and the recipes I wanted to make sure we never lost.
Welcome to Joy of Grilling. I’m glad you’re here.
Chris McCarley
Founder, Joy of Grilling