I know we've probably got one last blast of winter left here in Michigan, but as far as I'm concerned today is the official start of spring. Why? Because the first rack of ribs is in the smoker. It's been in there about an hour and I just put in a second load of applewood chips, flipped and basted the ribs. I'm trying a different rub than I usually use and I'm basting with coke instead of my usual apple cider. It's about 60 degrees and the sun is shining. I washed my car earlier. And the conference championships in basketball are on TV. Welcome back, Spring. You don't know how much you were missed.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
Spring is a trick of the light - it should be, after all, since ultimately the shift of seasons is about angles and sun. At some point in March the light changes - a new "certain slant of light" and thus, spring is here. It will be a while most years before the green and the daffodils or even…
I'm doing the laundry! - The Tick
A new reader, Karen, (yay, new readers!) writes:
I really want to use less energy because my husband is out of work and I care about the planet - can you write about how you do it? We try and conserve, but our utility bills tell me we're not doing that great a…
I wrote a little bit about this earlier today, but I was a little too angry at the time to write anything meaningful or coherent. I'm still pretty angry, but I'm going to take another swing at it anyway.
Last night, around this time, I wrote a little rant venting my frustration at the way that…
Some time back, I offered the right to pick a post topic to anyone who managed to name one of the Physics Nobel laureates for 2006. Tom Renbarger won, and picked his topic:
OK, with Midnight Madness on the horizon, I've decided to request a sort of season preview of two (trying to press my…
MMmmmmmmmmmmmm baby back ribs (drooool)
These were spare ribs, actually, which I generally prefer to babyback ribs. Not as tidy, but more flavor.
It sure is nice now. I predict it will be six weeks before we all start complaining about how hot it is.
Spare ribs are far superior to babybacks, IMO. I did a leg of lamb in my smoker the weekend before last; marinated it in olive oil, garlic and the usual Italian herbal suspects and smoked it with pecan wood.
I don't baste my ribs, as I use a wet smoker, and I cook 'em in a rack that holds them vertical; with the two levels of grill I can cook two entire slabs that way, and if you put the fatty end up they're self-basting.
Pieter B wrote:
Oh, I did one of those last fall. Like you, I did a mint and rosemary pesto as a wet rub and let it marinate overnight. I served it with a green olive tapenade. It turned out perfect. I had my doubts about smoking lamb, but it was just delicious.
If there's any meat that doesn't take well to smoking, I don't know what it is. My only caveat is to never use hickory with fowl; just a little too much and it tastes like you marinated it in turpentine.
Back in my mountaineering days, there was a place I used to stop in on California Route 395 (eastern slope of the Sierras) that did beef jerky smoked with mahogany wood; I think he must have been getting scraps from a furniture factory. I don't remember the name of the place, but he had a great marketing display; the various packs of jerky that you'd get at convenience stores with the price per pound calculated next to them, showing how his price of ~$15 per pound was a bargain in comparison.