Pulled pork in PA

“How large is the large?” I ask, peering up toward the aluminum framed sliding order window.
“It’s about the size of a softball,” the proprietess says, showing me with her two hands. She’s squinting at me in the late afternoon sunlight. Her deeply-lined skin has freckles on it. A young man with a shaved head and a crisp, white apron—maybe related to her—tends the grill all the way on the back porch of the double-wide trailer covered in cedar shingles; I inhale down to my diaphragm, previewing the goods.
“Okay, I’ll take one large and two small sandwiches to go.” My nine-year-old dance campers are eating pork tonight. This is probably not on the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet diet, but they’ve each had five hours of class so far today. Substantial food is needed. I wouldn’t call pork a staple food in my household, but I can’t resist sampling the various BBQs I cross paths with. These sandwiches did not disappoint.
When I first arrived in Carlisle, Pennsylvania four weeks ago, my friend Laura from Missouri reminded me that Pennsylvania is the Alabama of the North. Well, I disagree. Judging from this BBQ, it’s more like the Kansas City. Sweet-hot and Smoky.

Fours hours later, I can still smell smoke on my fingertips.