• smoking

    What with all our beef, I got it into my head that I ought to try smoking some of it. So I messaged the people — all men — in the little corner of my universe who were most likely to mess around with large hunks of meat. They all had smokers and they all said I could borrow them, sweet guys.

    I decided it’d be easiest to borrow from the two guys who lived closest to us, so I messaged the third guy to let him know that I’d found two smokers closer to home and that I’d not be needing his smoker after all. He messaged me right back. “Hmm…but are they good smokers though? I can tell you that my smoker is fantastic.”

    Well, alrighty then! 

    So on Saturday, my husband went to pick up the smoker and now the made-to-order monstrosity sits in the shed.

    For the past two days, I have been obsessively watching youtube videos, reading recipes, and taking notes. Which kind of wood chip for which type of meat? Best dry rubs! Solutions for injecting the meat! (I need to get a meat injector. Wait, will one of my daughter’s hypodermic syringes work?) Glazes! (Do I even need to glaze?) Meat temps and when (if) to wrap and how long to rest, and so on and so on.

    We have the smoker for a couple weeks, so I want to make the most of it. My plan is to smoke a brisket one day this week — it feels extravagant to run the enormous smoker with just one piece of meat in it, but I need to start somewhere, right? — and then, if all goes as planned, this weekend we’ll load up the smoker with stew meat and short ribs and roasts and another brisket or two. (Also, it occurred to me that we still have some piggy stashed in the freezer — smoking might be the perfect solution to large cuts of pork that bake up unbearably dry!) Afterward, I’ll have a whole bunch of ready-to-eat meat to stash in the freezer for future stews and curries and sandwiches. (Don’t worry, Mom. After this week, we’ll limit our carcinogenic intake. Moderation, moderation…)

    I AM SO EXCITED.

    Mildly terrified, too. This foreign world of smoked protein is intimidating!

    Now tell me this: Have any of you ever tried smoking meat? What are your cautionary tales-of-woe, must-make recipes, and crucial how-to tips? I’m all ears!

    PS. Oh, cheese! I COULD SMOKE A CHEESE. And flour! To add to pizza dough! And onions and peppers and, and, and..! FORGET MODERATION.

    This same time, years previous: the quotidian (10.21.16), listening, watching, reading, stuffed peppers, apples schmapples, light-as-air hamburger buns and sloppy joes, how to roast squash.

  • the quotidian (10.30.17)

    Quotidian: daily, usual or customary; 
    everyday; ordinary; commonplace



    Experiment: Almond braid. 
    Verdict: Too much almond paste.

    Lemon and sugar: to counteract the Sunday slump.

    Collaboration.

    Hooded.

    Caution: makeshift riding ring.

    Worn-out toys end up in the oddest places…
    Frosted.

    A dehydrated, malnurished, and motherless calf: ours for free if we could keep her alive.  

    Girls’ night out.
    (Despite around-the-clock feedings, and an all-nighter by my older daughter, 
    the sweet little thing was dead in less than 48 hours.)

    Making jerky.

    (NOT THE CALF.)

    Wind-whipped.

    This same time, years previous: reading-and-ice cream evenings, apple farro salad, the quotidian (10.19.12), quiche soup, under the grape arbor, dichotomies, applesauce cake.

  • the young adult child

    On Sunday, we celebrated (one day early) my son’s eighteenth birthday.

    Also, he got baptized.

    One day he came home from church and said that he’d decided to get baptized and would be taking the catechism classes. Okay, we said.

    Photo credit: Jim Bishop

    And so he did.

    For his birthday breakfast, he requested day-old apple pies (for some reason, they got weirdly saucy). Lunch was waffles with all the fixings, and my parents joined us, as well as my brother’s family. I’d told my son that we wouldn’t be having cake — too much sweet — but then I went and bought an Oreo Blizzard Dairy Queen Ice Cream, I mean Chemical, cake to surprise him (we never buy DQ chems)…though I kind of think he might have preferred a homemade cake? Oh well. And supper, since I’m being all nitty-gritty about the food, was pesto torte and crackers and raw veggies and dip. Then we sat around reading all his birthday surveys, from age 7 to 18, for the very last time.

    On Monday, my son made an appointment with an investment advisor, and then the two of us had an exciting date at the bank where we spent an hour discussing stock and looking at charts and learning about The 30-30 Rule and The Rule of 72 and a lot of other things that boggled our brains.

    We really know how to tear it up.

    My son is pretty tickled about all the privileges that come with turning 18. Now my money is all mine, FOR REAL, and I can get a tattoo! and If I get pulled over for driving a 100 miles an hour, I don’t automatically lose my license. I just get a hefty fine or go to prison.

    Also on the list: drive an ambulance, go skydiving, begin paramedic training, vote, be the accompanying adult when his sister drives, see R-rated movies at the theater, join dating websites, take out a loan from the bank, get a motorcycle license, walk into Verizon and set up an account, legally kiss a girl who is over eighteen, get married, buy a lottery ticket, donate blood, go into bars, watch explicit content on youtube, sue someone.

    But make no mistake — in many ways he’s still a child. Also, my husband and I are still king and queen of this roost. It’s just that now that my son is getting older and wiser, he both knows and appreciates this.

    And that, if you ask me, is one of the very best parts of having a (somewhat) mature, young adult child.

    This same time, years previous: cilantro lime ricethe quotidian (10.26.15), the quotidian (10.27.14), the quotidian (10.28.13), the details, sweet potato pie, the morning kitchen, 2009 garden stats and notes.