Sometimes, you don't have to look at the calendar to have it really soak in, that Summer is gone, and that Fall has arrived. You notice one day that the trees are begining to drop their leaves. It's cooler in the mornings. Kids are back in school. Schools sports have kicked off, and weekend barbeques are mostly for local clubs and not competitions. It's a good time of year.
The cool weather makes for good barbeque. The mellow aroma of hickory smoke lingers just a little before the breeze shares it with the neighborhood. Neighbors bearing bourbon begin stopping by. Hell, strangers bearing bourbon stop by, and suddenly everyone likes my taste in music, loves the Ole Miss Rebels, and adamantly insists that bourbon is a legitimate breakfast drink.
Nothing brings people together quite like bourbon and barbeque. There's something special about a bunch of folks getting together around a huge smoker, sipping bourbon, and singing outlaw country music at the top of their lungs as the sun crawls up over the horizon. You just know it's going to be a great day.
Cheers.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Labor Day Barbeque Advice
Where I grew up, it's still hot. Labor Day was always hot. Hell, it's gonna be hot down there for another month or two. And the skeeters are as big as rabid flying vampire turkeys. They rove in flocks so thick they can blot out the sun and cause a mini-eclipse. I've seen small cars completely demolished simply by driving into a flock of mosquitoes....or rabid vampire turkeys. While skeeters don't officially celebrate labor day the way we do, they do a pretty good impression of Thanksgiving....only we're what's for dinner.
So, the first bit of wisdom for Labor Day is to start the day right. Neither skeeters nor turkey's like the taste of bourbon, so first thing in the morning, have a nice tall bourbon and water to start the day right. If it looks like it might be hot, have two just in case. Keep the bottle handy for emergency application.
Second, get ready for the barbeque. Remember, you don't barbeque burgers, steaks, hotdogs or veggie burgers. Those are grilled and given to the kids. If you are doing a shoulder, drink a lot right now because everyone is goingto be pissed when you tell them the shoulder isn't done. It's not going to get done today. It's too damn late to do a shoulder. You should have started your shoulder yesterday. If you're doing ribs or yardbird, you still ok...for now.
Build a fire, but be careful doing it. Since you've been drinking since dawn, accidental fires are a real threat and generally piss off your wife and the neighbors. After building the fire, you should probably skip marching in any parades. In addition to being drunk, somehow you've probably managed to burn your eyebrows off, and get covered with soot.
Once the fire gets right, check for skeeters, and take more anti-skeeter medicine. Put what ever it is you're barbequing, on the grill in the smoker. Notice that when you put something on the grill in the smoker, you're going to smoke what's on the grill, but you're not going to grill it. To grill it, you'd put it on the grill on the grill. This isn't grill, it's a smoker. Have more bourbon.
It get's easier.
Now, take a nap. It's labor day. It's ok to take a nap before noon on labor day when you're fighing skeeters, rabid vampire turkeys, and barbequing ribs. It's the American way.
So, the first bit of wisdom for Labor Day is to start the day right. Neither skeeters nor turkey's like the taste of bourbon, so first thing in the morning, have a nice tall bourbon and water to start the day right. If it looks like it might be hot, have two just in case. Keep the bottle handy for emergency application.
Second, get ready for the barbeque. Remember, you don't barbeque burgers, steaks, hotdogs or veggie burgers. Those are grilled and given to the kids. If you are doing a shoulder, drink a lot right now because everyone is goingto be pissed when you tell them the shoulder isn't done. It's not going to get done today. It's too damn late to do a shoulder. You should have started your shoulder yesterday. If you're doing ribs or yardbird, you still ok...for now.
Build a fire, but be careful doing it. Since you've been drinking since dawn, accidental fires are a real threat and generally piss off your wife and the neighbors. After building the fire, you should probably skip marching in any parades. In addition to being drunk, somehow you've probably managed to burn your eyebrows off, and get covered with soot.
Once the fire gets right, check for skeeters, and take more anti-skeeter medicine. Put what ever it is you're barbequing, on the grill in the smoker. Notice that when you put something on the grill in the smoker, you're going to smoke what's on the grill, but you're not going to grill it. To grill it, you'd put it on the grill on the grill. This isn't grill, it's a smoker. Have more bourbon.
It get's easier.
Now, take a nap. It's labor day. It's ok to take a nap before noon on labor day when you're fighing skeeters, rabid vampire turkeys, and barbequing ribs. It's the American way.
Friday, August 8, 2008
The Ghost of Henry Hudson meets Murphy
The year before last, a sudden monsoon swept throught the Hudson Valley Ribfest, but it couldn't dampen the spirits of the 50 some odd teams who were barbequing through the night.
Last year at the contest, a microburst storm blew half the tents into Canada, and flash!bang! lightening blinded and deafened the survivors.
This year the Ghost of Henry Hudson went all out. No rain could stop us. No wind could stop us. No lightening! No thunder! Nope. None of that. Henry Hudson's Ghost sought help. Help in the form of Murphy.
One stinking 300 gig disk in a half million dollar highly avaialble, high performance disk array sitting in a data center in New Jersey screwed me to the wall. It didn't fail. It degraded. A disk failure would have been zero impact. The array would have handled it without problem. Degradation is another matter.
It's impact caused a two day application move to morph into a 16 day night of the living dead.
Needless to say, When the Ghost of Henry Hudson involks Murphy's Law, the Memphis Barbeque Company is screwed. We didn't go to Hudson Valley this year. Not to worry, friends and neighbors, we'll be back next year.
Last year at the contest, a microburst storm blew half the tents into Canada, and flash!bang! lightening blinded and deafened the survivors.
This year the Ghost of Henry Hudson went all out. No rain could stop us. No wind could stop us. No lightening! No thunder! Nope. None of that. Henry Hudson's Ghost sought help. Help in the form of Murphy.
One stinking 300 gig disk in a half million dollar highly avaialble, high performance disk array sitting in a data center in New Jersey screwed me to the wall. It didn't fail. It degraded. A disk failure would have been zero impact. The array would have handled it without problem. Degradation is another matter.
It's impact caused a two day application move to morph into a 16 day night of the living dead.
Needless to say, When the Ghost of Henry Hudson involks Murphy's Law, the Memphis Barbeque Company is screwed. We didn't go to Hudson Valley this year. Not to worry, friends and neighbors, we'll be back next year.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
How to barbeque ribs: Part One
When you set out to barbeque, the very first thing you got to do, is get your head to the right place. If you are not happy, at peace, and calm, your barbequed ribs are not going to be happy. So, take 4 cubes of Ice, place them in a tall glass, fill with four fingers of Maker's Mark, or Knob Creek, and spash with water. Wine snobs swerle wine in a glass. True conissoures of fine bourbon just smile real big, give them the finger and sip the bourbon.
To get your head right, frequently it takes music. Music soothes the beast. It soothes me, too. Your selection of tunes is critical. It is a scientific fact that you can not barbeue while listening to Disco. The meat sours and the fire goes out. Polkas are out, too, but only because it drives all your friends away. Rap music isn't good because it draws gunfire.
Yep, the very best barbeque music is Outlaw Country. No...not that crap by Kenny Chesney, or Garth Brooks. That's not country, that's just crap. I'm talking Jerry Jeff Walker, David Allen Coe, and Delbert. Put that stuff on, and your fire will damn near light itself.
So, thus ends lesson one in the fine art of the barbequing of ribs.
Key points...Drink good bourbon and listen to good country music.
Lesson Two to follow....
To get your head right, frequently it takes music. Music soothes the beast. It soothes me, too. Your selection of tunes is critical. It is a scientific fact that you can not barbeue while listening to Disco. The meat sours and the fire goes out. Polkas are out, too, but only because it drives all your friends away. Rap music isn't good because it draws gunfire.
Yep, the very best barbeque music is Outlaw Country. No...not that crap by Kenny Chesney, or Garth Brooks. That's not country, that's just crap. I'm talking Jerry Jeff Walker, David Allen Coe, and Delbert. Put that stuff on, and your fire will damn near light itself.
So, thus ends lesson one in the fine art of the barbequing of ribs.
Key points...Drink good bourbon and listen to good country music.
Lesson Two to follow....
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
The First Barbeque
I've been asked a number of times about how I got started doing barbeque. As best as I can remember, this is how it happened. I'm not saying this is 100% accurate, but this is my story, and I'm sticking to it.
When I was about 16 or 17, the man who took care of my dad's cattle had a stroke and died. Dad took advantage of this opportunity to exile me to a cattle farm located 16 miles north on Jonesboro Arkansas, on highway 141. I was responsible for 200 head of registered Brangus cattle.
So, I'm living in a trailer on a hill in the boondocks of Arkansas with 200 expensive ass cattle, and the county line beer joint is only two miles away byway of my pastures. No a bad setup, if I do say so my self. I used to ride my horse to the beer joint, but that's a whole other story.
So, late one night I was driving back to the farm when something ran out of the woods and I hit it. What ever it was flew up and over my truck, and I skidded to a stop. I got out and ran back to see what I had hit. It was a deer...a doe. She wasn't dead, so I went back to my truck and got my pistol, and I shot her to put her out of her misery. I made a call on my CB radio and asked whoever answsered me to call the State Police so I could get an accident report.
It wasn't long before an Arkansas State Trooper pulled up. He was a big guy. He first looked at my truck, and asked if I was hurt. I told him I wasn't. He went over to the deer. He looked down at her, and then he looked at me and said "This deer has a gunshot wound."
I had to explain that the deer wasn't killed by the impact, so I shot her to put her out of her misery. He was cool with that. After that, we got down to business. I gave him my licenses, and he looked at it, and said "Boy, are you Doc's boy?"
I said 'Yes sir.'
Nothing much else was said until the trooper asked me what I was going to do with the deer. I told him that I was going to have a party. I told him I figured I'd cook it the next day. With that, he gave me my accident report. I loaded the deer in the back of my truck, and the trooper drove off.
The next morning, I called a few friends, and invited them over for a barbeque. Johnny made a run to the line and got a quarter keg of beer. Barry showed up with some tequila. Slater arrived with bourbon. I got the backhoe and dug us a pit. We built a fire, and used the headache rack of the dozer to hold the deer. We settled in for some serious drinking and shooting. Did I mention that we had a bunch of guns?
Living out in the boonies and having access to a bulldozer provides certain opportunities. One of these is the ability to construct a shooting range. I had cleared a shooting range down a draw with barrels set at 100, 150 and 300 yards. I had some short targets at 25 and 50 feet for pistols. Let me say now, that there is nothing in this world that is more fun than handguns and tequila. We shot for a while, and then went back to the fire and the keg.
Me, Johnny, Barry and Slater are setting there talking and drinking, and reflecting on how life just doesn't get any better than this when suddenly, with not a word of explaination, they all jumped up, and sprinted across the corral, jumped the fence, and disappeared into the woods. Even being drunk, I knew this was odd behavior, so I looked behind me.
Three Arkansas State Police cars were pulling into the drive.
I was 16 or 17 years old, in possession of a keg of beer, a couple bottles of whiskey and tequila, about a dozen weapons, an untaged deer on the grill....and I was drunk.
So, I figured it was a pretty sure thing that I was going to jail.
Wrong! The Trooper who did my accident report had come over and brought a couple of frinds to the barbeque. As they made a bee line to the keg, I realized that they had come to party, so I started showing off the attractions. First, I showed them the horses. We had six, and I figured they might want to ride. Then I showed them my shooting range. I was a little nervous about showing them the weapons, because a few of them may not have been legal. One of the troopers, took a great deal of interest in the weapons. I was nervous. I didn't want to lose a weapon, so I took a 30-30, and started demonstrating my shooting ability. I thought I was pretty impressive. Apparently, I wasn't.
One of the troopers went back to his car. He came back with a very impressive rifle, equiped with a very impressive scope, and the fun began.
While all this shooting was going on, one by one, Johnny, Barry and Slater all came back in from the woods. I guess all the gunfire was a good sign to them. So, they came back, and I introduced them to my new friends the State Troopers. We all shot weapons all afternoon while the deer cooked. When we finally ate, we were out of ammo, and damn near out of beer, so Barry and one of the State Troopers made a beer run. It was clear to all of us that if you have to make a beer run after you've been drinking for about 7 or 8 hours, it's best if you have a State Trooper drive. They rarely get pulled over.
It was a couple of days later that I realized that barbequing was a lot of fun. Hell, it's fun even if you don't drink heavily and play with guns.
So, that was the very first barbeque that I was responsible for.
When I was about 16 or 17, the man who took care of my dad's cattle had a stroke and died. Dad took advantage of this opportunity to exile me to a cattle farm located 16 miles north on Jonesboro Arkansas, on highway 141. I was responsible for 200 head of registered Brangus cattle.
So, I'm living in a trailer on a hill in the boondocks of Arkansas with 200 expensive ass cattle, and the county line beer joint is only two miles away byway of my pastures. No a bad setup, if I do say so my self. I used to ride my horse to the beer joint, but that's a whole other story.
So, late one night I was driving back to the farm when something ran out of the woods and I hit it. What ever it was flew up and over my truck, and I skidded to a stop. I got out and ran back to see what I had hit. It was a deer...a doe. She wasn't dead, so I went back to my truck and got my pistol, and I shot her to put her out of her misery. I made a call on my CB radio and asked whoever answsered me to call the State Police so I could get an accident report.
It wasn't long before an Arkansas State Trooper pulled up. He was a big guy. He first looked at my truck, and asked if I was hurt. I told him I wasn't. He went over to the deer. He looked down at her, and then he looked at me and said "This deer has a gunshot wound."
I had to explain that the deer wasn't killed by the impact, so I shot her to put her out of her misery. He was cool with that. After that, we got down to business. I gave him my licenses, and he looked at it, and said "Boy, are you Doc's boy?"
I said 'Yes sir.'
Nothing much else was said until the trooper asked me what I was going to do with the deer. I told him that I was going to have a party. I told him I figured I'd cook it the next day. With that, he gave me my accident report. I loaded the deer in the back of my truck, and the trooper drove off.
The next morning, I called a few friends, and invited them over for a barbeque. Johnny made a run to the line and got a quarter keg of beer. Barry showed up with some tequila. Slater arrived with bourbon. I got the backhoe and dug us a pit. We built a fire, and used the headache rack of the dozer to hold the deer. We settled in for some serious drinking and shooting. Did I mention that we had a bunch of guns?
Living out in the boonies and having access to a bulldozer provides certain opportunities. One of these is the ability to construct a shooting range. I had cleared a shooting range down a draw with barrels set at 100, 150 and 300 yards. I had some short targets at 25 and 50 feet for pistols. Let me say now, that there is nothing in this world that is more fun than handguns and tequila. We shot for a while, and then went back to the fire and the keg.
Me, Johnny, Barry and Slater are setting there talking and drinking, and reflecting on how life just doesn't get any better than this when suddenly, with not a word of explaination, they all jumped up, and sprinted across the corral, jumped the fence, and disappeared into the woods. Even being drunk, I knew this was odd behavior, so I looked behind me.
Three Arkansas State Police cars were pulling into the drive.
I was 16 or 17 years old, in possession of a keg of beer, a couple bottles of whiskey and tequila, about a dozen weapons, an untaged deer on the grill....and I was drunk.
So, I figured it was a pretty sure thing that I was going to jail.
Wrong! The Trooper who did my accident report had come over and brought a couple of frinds to the barbeque. As they made a bee line to the keg, I realized that they had come to party, so I started showing off the attractions. First, I showed them the horses. We had six, and I figured they might want to ride. Then I showed them my shooting range. I was a little nervous about showing them the weapons, because a few of them may not have been legal. One of the troopers, took a great deal of interest in the weapons. I was nervous. I didn't want to lose a weapon, so I took a 30-30, and started demonstrating my shooting ability. I thought I was pretty impressive. Apparently, I wasn't.
One of the troopers went back to his car. He came back with a very impressive rifle, equiped with a very impressive scope, and the fun began.
While all this shooting was going on, one by one, Johnny, Barry and Slater all came back in from the woods. I guess all the gunfire was a good sign to them. So, they came back, and I introduced them to my new friends the State Troopers. We all shot weapons all afternoon while the deer cooked. When we finally ate, we were out of ammo, and damn near out of beer, so Barry and one of the State Troopers made a beer run. It was clear to all of us that if you have to make a beer run after you've been drinking for about 7 or 8 hours, it's best if you have a State Trooper drive. They rarely get pulled over.
It was a couple of days later that I realized that barbequing was a lot of fun. Hell, it's fun even if you don't drink heavily and play with guns.
So, that was the very first barbeque that I was responsible for.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Dead Cow?
OK, gentleman. You all (or is it all y'all?) wanted this blog. But there's a serious deficiency of contributions from all but Bill and myself.
So PLEASE - feel free to jump on in!
It was suggested we book another Dead Cow Night. I couldn't agree more. I thought we might get a review of Front Street Smokehouse and Saloon up here, but we haven't gotten to that yet. But let's figure our next rendezvous. How about the place that Gerard suggested...RUB hut? In Manville? They were down in Yardley, too. (And they whipped us like a dead mule, like almost everyone else did.)
By the way...are we a cult? One must wonder. Do we qualify? Check out this site... http://www.cultdeadcow.com/
(Wikipedia says they're a hacker.)
So - let's figure a date, before our next contest. Please - do chip in, here.
Bob
So PLEASE - feel free to jump on in!
It was suggested we book another Dead Cow Night. I couldn't agree more. I thought we might get a review of Front Street Smokehouse and Saloon up here, but we haven't gotten to that yet. But let's figure our next rendezvous. How about the place that Gerard suggested...RUB hut? In Manville? They were down in Yardley, too. (And they whipped us like a dead mule, like almost everyone else did.)
By the way...are we a cult? One must wonder. Do we qualify? Check out this site... http://www.cultdeadcow.com/
(Wikipedia says they're a hacker.)
So - let's figure a date, before our next contest. Please - do chip in, here.
Bob
Monday, June 9, 2008
A Hot Day in Yardley
Dateline: South Plainfield....air conditioned
Not to be redundant, but it was hot. Just before dawn on Sunday, I looked down at the dusty road beside our site, and the rocks were sweating. That's a bad sign.
I knew that once the sun got fully above the horizon, and daylight hit us, we'd feel like lettuce under a heat lamp. I knew it would be important to keep our bodily fluids replentished. I realized that though we had plenty of water and ice, I had grossly underestimated the amount of bourbon I would need this hot, hot morning. If I managed my supply carefully, I might make it to noon, but after that, it was going to get..dusty. I looked at my bourbon and water sweating in my glass, and realized that this competition was really getting deadly serious.
It was time to get out the long knives. As usual, during prep and turn-in, we worked like crack addled squirrels searching for nutts in a mid winter jicker. Wirlwinds of motion, followed by surgical precision, the presentations were ballets. From a distance, I imagine activity surrounding the assemblage of the entries resembles the graceful, and strange beauty of a tornado chewing threw a forrest when view from afar, when viewed from afar. Maybe not. Up close, kinda like it to...lot's of 'Holy S*it!' moments. I realize that maybe I'd better slow up on the bourbon, or I may not make it to noon.
Despite our presentations being art, and our Chicken, Ribs, Brisket, and Pork being fantastic, all our scores pretty much sucked. The brisket and chicken were 35th. The ribs and pulled pork were worse. We were all disappointed. I know Brother Bob wasn't happy with the way the Brisket cooked, but I was sure happy with how it turned out. I have to say it again....nobody rubs a brisket quite like Bob. Bob is a Brisket rubber par excellance! I would encourage everyone to ask Bob to rub their brisked for them.
The Chicken was just smoked and covered with sauce, so I was surprised that it did so well. Strange vistiors from another world must have abducted our ribs and replaced them with ribs taken from an abductee because it's just not possible for the ribs we turned in to have placed 47 out of 57 entries. Bob and Landi suggested that perhaps the judges just didn't appreciate Memphis Dry Rubbed Ribs. Seriously, how likely is that?
The Pulled pork wasn't DAL (Dead Ass Last), but when you're in the 50's, you don't have anything to brag about.
I should mention that our Mississippi crew, Casual Smoker, did great in deserts, 3rd in Chicken and 1st for brisket. The big daddy of the team is actually from Kansas City, but obviously has family roots in Mississippi.
Well. It's Monday morning. Work becons. More updates with pictures later.
Not to be redundant, but it was hot. Just before dawn on Sunday, I looked down at the dusty road beside our site, and the rocks were sweating. That's a bad sign.
I knew that once the sun got fully above the horizon, and daylight hit us, we'd feel like lettuce under a heat lamp. I knew it would be important to keep our bodily fluids replentished. I realized that though we had plenty of water and ice, I had grossly underestimated the amount of bourbon I would need this hot, hot morning. If I managed my supply carefully, I might make it to noon, but after that, it was going to get..dusty. I looked at my bourbon and water sweating in my glass, and realized that this competition was really getting deadly serious.
It was time to get out the long knives. As usual, during prep and turn-in, we worked like crack addled squirrels searching for nutts in a mid winter jicker. Wirlwinds of motion, followed by surgical precision, the presentations were ballets. From a distance, I imagine activity surrounding the assemblage of the entries resembles the graceful, and strange beauty of a tornado chewing threw a forrest when view from afar, when viewed from afar. Maybe not. Up close, kinda like it to...lot's of 'Holy S*it!' moments. I realize that maybe I'd better slow up on the bourbon, or I may not make it to noon.
Despite our presentations being art, and our Chicken, Ribs, Brisket, and Pork being fantastic, all our scores pretty much sucked. The brisket and chicken were 35th. The ribs and pulled pork were worse. We were all disappointed. I know Brother Bob wasn't happy with the way the Brisket cooked, but I was sure happy with how it turned out. I have to say it again....nobody rubs a brisket quite like Bob. Bob is a Brisket rubber par excellance! I would encourage everyone to ask Bob to rub their brisked for them.
The Chicken was just smoked and covered with sauce, so I was surprised that it did so well. Strange vistiors from another world must have abducted our ribs and replaced them with ribs taken from an abductee because it's just not possible for the ribs we turned in to have placed 47 out of 57 entries. Bob and Landi suggested that perhaps the judges just didn't appreciate Memphis Dry Rubbed Ribs. Seriously, how likely is that?
The Pulled pork wasn't DAL (Dead Ass Last), but when you're in the 50's, you don't have anything to brag about.
I should mention that our Mississippi crew, Casual Smoker, did great in deserts, 3rd in Chicken and 1st for brisket. The big daddy of the team is actually from Kansas City, but obviously has family roots in Mississippi.
Well. It's Monday morning. Work becons. More updates with pictures later.
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