Lawmakers reveal whether Americans should pick up the Medicaid tab for illegals
California has a $6.2 billion budget deficit for Medicaid services, and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest budget proposal projects the state will spend a staggering $8.4 billion to cover Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid, for illegal immigrants in 2024-2025.
Two new reports by the Bureau of Economic Analysis found the U.S. economy has become increasingly reliant on government handouts. Entitlements are growing faster than tax receipts and wages. Private wages grew by $67 billion in early 2025, while government payments to recipients surged by $162 billion.
In North Carolina and California, growth in Medicaid benefits was the leading contributor to increased personal income. Coverage for undocumented immigrants under California’s $6.2 billion budget gap for Medi-Cal is contributing to the surge in personal income.
Fox News Digital asked lawmakers on Capitol Hill if taxpayers should have to pick up the Medicaid tab for illegal immigrants. Popular progressive senators Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; Michael Bennett, D-Colo.; and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., refused to say whether illegal immigrants are entitled to Medicaid benefits funded by U.S. taxpayers.
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Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, who was tapped by moderate Republican Gov. Mike DeWine to replace Vice President JD Vance in the Senate this year, told Fox News Digital it should be illegal for Americans to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants.
NEWSOM CONCEDES SKYROCKETING HEALTHCARE COSTS FOR ILLEGALS ARE ‘PARTIAL’ CONTRIBUTOR TO MEDICAID PROBLEM
“That cost should be transferred back to the state of California if that’s the decision that they made. If people are here illegally, the taxpayers of this country should not be footing the bill for their healthcare when we can barely pay our own bills here in this country and people are going without. So, this is an astonishing thing that California would decide to do. Clearly, the leaders of that state are tone deaf because that’s not what the American public wants,” Husted said.
Rep. Maria Salazar, R-Fla., who serves on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and on Small Business, said she doesn’t support any federal funding for federal programs for illegal immigrants.
“We need to see those numbers,” Salazar said. “I’m not in favor of any undocumented migrants in the United States using any type of federal funding or federal programs, because if you are not documented, you cannot be using any of the government or the federal government services.
“But I need to know what are the numbers. I do believe that in construction, hospitality and agriculture, the illegals, the undocumented are giving a lot to the economy.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a fiscal conservative who serves on economic and commerce committees, said programs like Medicaid are solely for U.S. citizens.
They’re certainly not there for illegal aliens. And this is costing the American people a lot of money. So, yeah, that is a problem, and it’s one we need to fix,” Lee said.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he has questions about the policy and wants to know more about the substance of Medicaid benefits for undocumented immigrants and “whether it applies in emergency situations where somebody’s life may be at stake.”
Another Northeast Democrat, Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., said he is more concerned “we’re not taking away Medicaid from people with disabilities, seniors that need long-term care” before discussions begin on expanding resources.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said it could “threaten the benefits for disabled children.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., a Trump loyalist, said California made a “conscious decision” to allow taxpayers to pick up the tab on healthcare for illegal immigrants.
“They fully realize and appreciate that the federal government does not have one single penny to spend until the taxpayer sends that penny into the treasury,” Blackburn said.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., said California needs to realize the impact its policies have on other states.
“A lot of people in Wyoming are living paycheck to paycheck. They’re struggling to pay for things they used to be able to take for granted, like food and gasoline. And it’s absolutely wrong that one state can expand its benefits to illegals, and my state has to pay for it,” Lummis said.
“Cost increases to the Medicaid program are driven by multiple factors, including expansion, increased enrollment for all populations and pharmacy costs,” a spokesperson for Newsom said when reached by Fox News Digital for comment.
Newsom’s office emphasized that Medi-Cal covers approximately 15 million Californians, which accounts for more than one-third of the state’s population. Program costs have more than doubled in the past decade, according to the governor’s office.
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Given Medi-Cal’s size, Newsom’s office said even a 1-2% increase in drug prices or hospital visits could mean billions of dollars in additional costs for the program, and states across the country and political spectrum are facing their own rising Medicaid expenses, specifically Pennsylvania and Indiana.
Doomed NYC helicopter appeared in company’s own safety promo
The ill-fated New York City tour helicopter that crashed into the Hudson River on Thursday features in a now-eerie video touting the firm’s purported safety record.
The chopper, a Bell 206L-4 LongRanger IV, came apart midair Thursday afternoon and plummeted into the water upside down near the shoreline of Jersey City, New Jersey, killing a Spanish family of five and the aircraft’s Navy SEAL veteran pilot.
The helicopter’s main and tail rotor detached from the body of the aircraft and could be seen splashing into the water separately, eyewitness video shows. The exact cause of the crash has yet to be determined.
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The helicopter, registration number N216MH, was operated by New York Helicopters and the firm’s website still features a video of the doomed helicopter being checked ahead of a takeoff.
The video is embedded into the company’s home page under a section titled “Why Choose Us,” and advertises the company’s experience, affordability and safety record, among other reasons.
“We have an industry-leading safety record,” the website states alongside the video.
The soundless video shows a worker walking toward the black and white colored chopper that has its main rotor blade tied to a dolly.
He then unties the rope from the dolly and walks around the aircraft pulling the main rotor via the rope.
Next, the worker climbs onto the side of the chopper and inspects the engine and drive shaft of the aircraft before hopping into the cockpit where he carries out more checks before starting the engine and taking off.
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The Bell 206 was manufactured in 2004 and had already logged 12,728 hours of flight time when it was forced into repair back in September for a mechanical issue with its transmission assembly, the New York Post reports, citing FAA data.
In April 2023, the FAA issued two safety a for all Bell 206L model helicopters.
The FAA said it had identified a risk of tail rotor drive (TRDS) failure caused by a faulty bonded joint in the segmented drive shaft. The FAA recommended replacing any failed tail rotor drive with a compliant, serviceable part and prohibited the installation of non-compliant TRDS parts.
In one chilling video of Thursday’s crash, it appears as though the tail rotor had detached before the main rotor.
Michael Roth, the CEO of New York Helicopter Tours, told the New York Post he had not seen anything like it in his 30 years being in the helicopter business.
“The only thing I could guess — I got no clue — is that it either had a bird strike or the main rotor blades failed. I have no clue. I don’t know,” he told the outlet. “This is horrific,” Roth added. “But you gotta remember something, these are machines and they break.”
The company released a statement saying it is “profoundly saddened by the tragic accident and loss of life.”
“At New York Helicopter Tours, the safety and well-being of our passengers and crew has always been the cornerstone of our operations,” the statement on the firm’s website reads. “Our immediate focus is supporting the families and their loved ones affected by this tragedy, as well as fully cooperating with the FAA and NTSB investigations.”
It’s not the first time a helicopter operated by Roth’s company has experienced mechanical problems.
In 2015, another Bell 206 operated by the company was forced to make a hard landing while hovering 20 feet off the ground after taking off in northern New Jersey. In that incident, the chopper experienced a tail rotor driveshaft failure due to the reuse of a faulty part, according to the NTSB.
The part had been painted by a previous owner, making it impossible to tell whether it had been part of the helicopter during the earlier hard landing, the The New York Times reported.
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Two years earlier, a Bell 206 operated by the company lost power and made an emergency landing on the water while carrying four Swedish tourists. The pilot deployed the aircraft’s pontoons and safely landed on the river.
Thursday’s tragedy has prompted Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., to call for the flights to be reined in or stopped altogether.
The crash followed a 2018 fatal incident when a tour helicopter tragically slammed into the East River, killing five passengers. That flight was operated by Liberty Helicopters for FlyNYON.
Social media erupts after report of Harris considering ‘policy and ideas’ institute
Social media commentators had a field day after a report that former Vice President Kamala Harris was considering starting a center for “policy and ideas.”
The New York Times released a piece on Thursday, headlined, “Sidelined and Still Processing Her Defeat, Harris Looks for a Way Back In.” The article observed how Harris and her husband are“weighing each new opportunity with the potential political blowback in mind” as they chart a course for the future.
“One possibility: establishing an institute for policy and ideas,” The Times reported. “Brian Nelson, an adviser to Ms. Harris since she was California’s attorney general, has broached the idea with several universities, including Howard and Stanford. But some allies have noted that raising money for such a center could, depending on the donors, create liabilities in future races.”
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The notion that Harris’ next political move could involve starting a think tank — despite a presidential campaign often criticized for gaffes — resulted in many jokes on social media outlets like X.
Washington Free Beacon senior writer Andrew Stiles summarized the report as “NYT: Kamala Harris, known for her deep knowledge and ability to articulate complex issues, is thinking about launching ‘an institute for policy and ideas.'”
He joked the institute would be called, “The Kamala D. Harris Institute for Examining the Importance of Understanding What Needs to Be Done,” appearing to mock Harris’ so-called “word salads.”
“Job 1: Finding some ideas and learning what policy is,” PJ Media’s Stephen Green quipped.
Republican communicator Matt Whitlock said, “The ‘Kamala Harris Institute for Policies and Ideas’ sounds a little bit like a Babylon Bee headline. Sort of like if the Kardashians opened a think tank.”
Twitchy’s Doug Powers posted, “The Kamala Harris Center for the Unburdening of What Has Been should provide a bottomless well of material.”
“[The Babylon Bee] can’t compete with this,” communications professional and political advisor Nathan Brand wrote.
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Republican Party deputy communications director Abigail Jackson suggested the center be called “The Coconut Tree Institute,” referring to an often-mocked quote from Harris.
“I can only imagine the type of deep thinkers that will be affiliated with this venture,” Senator Cynthia Lummis’ communications director, Joe Jackson, said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Harris’ office and did not receive an immediate reply.
Garth Brooks found Nashville ‘gutted’ after returning to country music
In 2014, when Garth Brooks made the decision to return to country music after leaving the industry for 14 years to raise his children, he found a remarkably different world than the one he’d known.
The singer-songwriter announced his retirement in 2000 when he was at the top of his game, having released mega-hits like “Friends in Low Places” and “The River” during the ’90s. After several years out of the spotlight spent taking care of his three daughters in his home state of Oklahoma, Brooks moved to Nashville after his youngest child made the decision to attend Belmont University in the city.
When he arrived, he found that Music City had turned into a “gutted town.”
GARTH BROOKS GAVE UP BEING ‘BIGGEST SUPERSTAR ON PLANET’ TO RAISE KIDS IN OKLAHOMA
As Brooks wrote in his new book, “The Anthology Part V,” after he and his wife, fellow country superstar Trisha Yearwood, made the move back to Nashville, “I saw that we’d lost over 80 percent of our songwriters. They were gone.”
He continued, “It was a gutted town when it came to songwriters. And, I’m sorry, try and feed the world without farmers. The songwriters? They’re the farmers that feed music, and they were gone. So you kind of said, okay, you’re getting back into this thing. But there’s a lot I am not happy about that’s happened in the last fourteen years. … It created a mood. Things got darker.”
“As much as I love songwriting, and as much as I love the publishers that independently push their songs, what’s happened to the songwriter is technology.”
Brooks touched on the same topic again in another portion of the book, once again saying that Nashville had been “gutted” when he returned from Oklahoma. He wrote that he’d seen before “how songwriters made a living and how dreams come true,” but in 2014, all he could see “was all we had lost.”
Later in the book, when discussing his comeback album and its title track, “Man Against Machine,” Brooks explained more about what had changed in the 14 years he’d been gone: technology.
“As much as I love songwriting, and as much as I love the publishers that independently push their songs, what’s happened to the songwriter is technology,” the singer-songwriter explained. “For fourteen years I watched from the sidelines as music fell a victim to technology.”
“The iPod comes out, which leads to the smartphone. And music made the mistake of backing down to technology, because the threat that technology made to music was this: ‘If you’re not going to play our game, then all the iPods and smartphones will be filled with illegally downloaded stuff. And there’s nothing we can do about that.'”
He added, “Music blinked, and bam!, they let technology price their product. And all I can say is, can you believe ‘Hotel California’ is worth only 99 cents? … We understood that technology was taking over music, would eventually choke and damn near kill music while the technology prospered.”
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Brooks struggled with navigating the change in the music industry as he also dealt with all the changes in his personal life — the move from Oklahoma to Tennessee and his last child leaving home (he admitted that “the empty nest hit me a lot harder than I ever dreamed it would”) — but he said that the idea of streaming music “might have been the hardest to get my head around.”
Coming from a time when fans had to buy physical copies of albums and singles and entering into a new era when so much was focused on digital products was something that he admitted he “wasn’t seeing a way through.”
To combat the issues he saw with digital music, Brooks launched GhostTunes in September 2014, his own digital music store, with the intent of giving a greater portion of money from the sales of the music to songwriters and artists. In 2017, GhostTunes was absorbed into Amazon Music, but as he wrote in “The Anthology Part V,” he doesn’t consider it a failed business venture.
“Anybody that calls GhostTunes a mistake can’t see the writing on the wall, that technology is f—ing music over. The genie is so far out of the bottle at this point. I never want to offend anyone. With that said, my opinion is technology has no love for art. None whatsoever. It just has a love for something that can sell its hardware and software,” he explained.
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Also in September 2014, Brooks kicked off The Garth Brooks World Tour — his first since his previous world tour wrapped in 1998. He recalled being “scared s—less that no one would show up” when he first announced new concerts, and when a ticket queue was set up for the first show, which took place in Chicago, he told his team that he’d be happy to see 100,000 people waiting online to buy tickets.
By the time the tickets went on sale, there were over 300,000 in line.
Brooks added shows to meet the demand, eventually performing 11 concerts in Chicago alone. As for the decision to kick off the tour in the city, Marci Braun, a program director for US99, a Chicago radio station that helped promote the tour, explained, “Put Garth’s first comeback show in Nashville, and it’s a country story. Put it in Oklahoma, it’s a Garth story. Put it in Chicago? It’s an American story.”
In the end, the comeback tour went on for three years, concluding with seven Nashville shows in December 2017. Randy Bernard, one of Brooks’ managers, said, “Garth came back bigger than when he left. It made a difference for country music as a whole, just like what he did in the ’90s made a difference. … There was no one in the world doing the numbers he was doing.”
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In 2016, Brooks won the Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year award — something he’d won four times before in the ’90s, but that he pushed for in 2016 for the sake of his band and crew, who he said “were doing something nobody had done before. They were killing it. I mean killing it. Three-hundred-ninenty-one shows in something like seventy-two cities. It was absolutely nuts.”
Brooks won the award again in 2017 and 2019. In 2020, he announced that he no longer wanted to be considered for the honor.
Brooks believes that, being an entertainer, the work he and his team did during that lengthy comeback tour is what ultimately made his return to music such a big success story.
“The one thing that no one can take away, that nobody rules but you, is ,” he shared. “The live show, that’s when it’s just you and the people that determine whether your stuff is a success or a failure. … It’s about passion. It’s all on the line every time. You’re just going straight to the people.”
Brooks continued: “Live music was there before radio, before records, probably goes back further than any of us might even believe. One person throwing down a melody and rhythm for another: I’m guessing that if there was love — and surely if there was sex! — there had to have been music. Something like the age of streaming will never be powerful enough to take that away. Live music will win every time. When I think about this, really think about it, I stop worrying about the future of the music business.”
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Best BBQ spots in the American South — chefs share the secrets
Barbecue is an American cuisine that offers an array of styles and flavors depending on its origin.
Starting this weekend, they’ll all be represented at the new Museum of BBQ in Kansas City, Missouri, which celebrates its grand opening on Saturday.
The best choices for barbecue in every state in the South were revealed recently in a survey by Southern Living. The survey yielded over 10,000 responses.
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Fox News Digital spoke to three Southern chefs and a barbecue expert to get their thoughts about the standout pit stops.
Here’s a list of the best barbecue stops, in alphabetical order by state.
Alabama
Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q is celebrating 100 years of business in 2025. Founded in Decatur in 1925, Big Bob’s barbecue “is like no other you’re going to find anywhere,” Florida chef Jason Smith told Fox News Digital.
“Big Bob’s has been burning for so many years that they’ve got it down to perfection,” Smith said. “But the thing that makes it outstanding is their sauce,” he added. “Their sauce is totally different than any other sauce you’re going to find anywhere.”
Fifth-generation pitmaster Chris Lilly and his crew still cook on wood-fired brick pits. The legendary Alabama white sauce was created by the restaurant’s founder and namesake to dress his smoked chicken, Southern Living reported.
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Florida political consultant Josh Cooper, who moonlights as a “world champion pitmaster,” knows Lilly from the competition circuit. “When you think Alabama barbecue, you think Big Bob Gibson for sure,” Cooper said.
Arkansas
Jordan Wright left a corporate job at Tyson Foods in 2017 to pursue his dream of opening a barbecue restaurant. Wright’s Barbecue became a reality when the original location opened outside of Fayetteville that same year.
“Each cut of meat is carefully selected, seasoned with our special blend of spices, and smoked low and slow over real wood to achieve the perfect balance of flavor and tenderness,” according to its website. “From our signature brisket to our melt-in-your-mouth bacon burnt ends, every bite is a taste of tradition and craftsmanship.”
Wright’s Barbecue has four locations in Bentonville, Johnson, Little Rock and Rogers.
Florida
In 1968, the late Rev. John A. “Big John” Stephens opened Big John’s Alabama BBQ in Tampa after moving to Florida from Eufaula, Alabama. Stephens operated the business until his death in 1994; his grandchildren took it over and Big John’s is still smoking to this day.
Although Cooper hasn’t been there himself, the Florida chef admitted Big John’s has “a good reputation” among pitmasters.
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Smith called Big John’s “super good” but said that in his view, the “sauce is masking” the flavor of the barbecue. “You don’t necessarily need the sauce to have great barbecue,” said Smith.
Georgia
Southern Soul Barbecue in St. Simon’s Island is Georgia’s No. 1 spot, according to the magazine survey.
“I go to Southern Soul every single time I’m in St. Simon’s,” Cooper said.
First opened in 2006, Southern Soul then “started from scratch” after a fire burned it down in 2010, owner Kitty Sapp told Fox News Digital.
Cooper said Southern Soul is “famous” for its Brunswick stew.
Erica Blaire Roby, an award-winning pitmaster in Texas, called Southern Soul “amazing.”
Kentucky
Moonlite Bar-B-Q Inn is “the epitome of a Southern barbecue that is known all over,” Smith said.
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Smith, who grew up in Kentucky, said Moonlite offers a wide variety of meats and combines the best of all styles of barbecue. “They take all those barbecues and put them into one place, so that when you’re eating from the buffet at Moonlite, you’re getting a taste of all of the South, not just one place.”
Smith’s favorite is Moonlite’s brisket. “I love their brisket,” he said.
Moonlite is famous for its Worcestershire dip, Smith said. “Just a little bit of that with that brisket makes it all worthwhile to take the trip to Moonlight Bar-B-Q.”
Louisiana
The Joint in New Orleans “is a prime example of a modern neighborhood barbecue joint,” according to Southern Living.
“Spend a whole day and order all of the sides,” Roby of Texas recommended to anyone planning a visit.
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The Joint’s barbecue meats, said Southern Living, “are cooked low-and-slow on big metal pits and served on paper-lined platters or piled atop locally baked Gendusa French bread buns. They’re joined by rotating specials like pastrami sandwiches and barbecue tacos on housemade flour tortillas.”
Mississippi
The Shed, located in Ocean Springs, began in 2001 as a barbecue shack and has grown into one of the best-known barbecue spots in the South. Smith said The Shed is probably best known for its sandwiches.
“It is messy, but it’s delicious,” he said.
Cooper complimented The Shed’s cooks for being great at barbecue competitions and the restaurant service industry. They’ve “figured out how to do both and do both really well,” he said.
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“Their whole hog is their specialty,” Cooper said. “It’s absolutely incredible.”
The Shed also doubles as a live blues venue, providing an electric atmosphere. “It’s the place to be,” Cooper said.
Missouri
It was once written that Arthur Bryant’s Barbecue is “the single best restaurant in the world,” so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it ranks high among barbecue establishments.
Arthur Bryant’s has been serving barbecue lovers at the same location since 1949, but its roots can be traced to Henry Perry – dubbed the “father of Kansas City barbecue.”
After Perry died in 1940, his protégé Charlie Bryant ran the business before brother Arthur Bryant took ownership, relocated it and sweetened the sauce — attracting such former presidents as Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, according to the restaurant’s site.
There are “decades of seasoning on the pit and the beef sandwich is the better for it,” Jonathan Bender, a food writer and founder of the Museum of BBQ in Kansas City, told Fox News Digital.
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“Get burnt ends, the crispy, charred edges of the brisket, that were once given away for free to customers waiting in line at this Kansas City classic,” Bender said.
North Carolina
Lexington Barbecue has been serving residents of the North Carolina city since Wayne Monk opened it in 1962.
“Lexington Barbecue carries the mantle of Western-style barbecue in North Carolina for good reason,” Bender said. “You get a plate of roughly chopped pork that gets this great kiss of smoke from oak and hickory coals. The sauce is a piquant blend of tomato and vinegar that complements the pork shoulder.”
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Smith called it a “great place” for barbecue, though one of his favorites are the hush puppies — and “their pork shoulders are the best,” he told Fox News Digital.
Oklahoma
The first Oklahoma Joe’s Bar-B-Que was established in Stillwater in 1995. It has since grown to expand throughout Oklahoma, with one location in Nebraska. Founder Joe Davidson started out participating in barbecue cooking competitions and building smokers as a college student in the 1980s, leading to the creation of Oklahoma Joe’s Smoker and Grill Co.
Davidson eventually sold the smoker company and turned his attention to the restaurants, according to the website.
“Each restaurant combines the best low-heat, slow-cooking techniques with a unique blend of spices and sauces to create a taste that’s world-class,” the site says.
The signature sandwich at Oklahoma Joe’s is the BarbeQulossal, made with sliced brisket, pulled chicken or burnt ends topped with smoked provolone cheese and onion rings.
South Carolina
Lewis Barbecue, with two locations in Charleston and Greenville, is “absolutely insane,” Roby told Fox News Digital. She called Lewis Barbecue the home of “some of the best brisket you’re going to get outside of Texas.”
Maybe that’s because founder John Lewis hails from the Lone Star State. Bender described it as “a little bit of Central Texas barbecue in South Carolina.”
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“They’re the rare spot that offers thick-cut brisket in the Carolinas alongside pulled pork and a green chile cheddar sausage that might be the star of your plate,” Bender said. “Get some tangy coleslaw, slow-cooked collard greens and a bite of banana pudding.”
Tennessee
Charlie Vergos Rendezvous is the birthplace of the Memphis-style dry-rubbed ribs.
“They’re a Memphis institution,” Cooper said of the restaurant that has been in operation since 1948. “I think their rookie servers have only been there about 50 years or so.”
Roby said she once ran down an alley and “fought people with elbows” just to get a spot in the takeout line while she was in Memphis.
“It literally tasted like my grandfather’s barbecue,” she said. “It was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had.”
Smith told Fox News Digital he would recommend it to anyone traveling to Memphis. “It’s a must. You’re going to love the ambiance of the restaurant. You’re going to love their food.“
Texas
Founded by Aaron Franklin and wife Stacy Franklin as a barbecue trailer in 2009, Franklin Barbecue in Austin moved to its current location in 2011 and has since grown to become a dominant force in the Texas restaurant scene.
“Franklin Barbecue is a story of anticipation,” Bender told Fox News Digital. “You wait in line as your excitement and hunger grow. And you hope that the brisket delivers on the hype. But Franklin’s attention to detail and care produces thick slices of brisket that are tender and flavorful.”
Virginia
Pierce’s Pitt Bar-B-Que in Williamsburg has been around since 1971.
Smith said his brother, who lives in Virginia, took him to Pierce’s for the first time. “It’s really good,” said Smith.
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But it’s the sandwiches at Pierce’s that stand out to Smith, who said they accent the tangy tomato sauce that “brings the meat to life.”
“And there is plenty of meat on the sandwich” — so you’ll need a fork to enjoy the “whole other meal” on your tray, Smith said.
West Virginia
Rollin’ Smoke started out as a food truck — hence the name.
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But in 2012, former owners Carl and Marsha Aplin “parked their smoker truck alongside the Elk River and built a barbecue restaurant around it,” Southern Living wrote.
Located in Charleston, Rollin’ Smoke specializes in smoked meats and barbecue-topped nachos and macaroni and cheese bowls, according to the publication.