A Not List for the New Year

Today I finally finished baby proofing the upstairs. There is nothing like crossing off something from the "Big List of All Things", eh? Of course my children are two and five, but if someone visits with a crawling baby, boy oh boy, that baby is safe upstairs.

I hope my family doesn't mind pureed foods, because I am now ready for the next thing on the list: canning homemade organic baby food.

Maybe I missed the boat on that one. Besides, the first child hated (still does) pureed foods, and the second went from rice cereal to gumming steak in mere months. I cooked a few yams, stewed some apples, so I think that counts.

I have multiple lists swirling in my brain at all times. I think most women do, but for some of us, it is almost an affliction. Besides the Big List of All Things, there is the immediate list. The immediate list is the one that makes me feel like an insane robot left alone on a planet for centuries (the anti-Wall-E, if you will).

I have this thing about wasting no steps. It's something that stuck from my waitress days: Never return to the kitchen empty handed. Bring hot food out, clear dirty dishes back. Only now, instead of dishes, it's all housework, and I don't get tipped. As I walk down the hall I fish out the puzzle piece from my pocket that I picked up earlier and, in a single motion, swing open the toy cupboard, shoot it like a basket ball into the puzzle shelf, and re-latch the cupboard as I go.

It sounds efficient and mom-like, right? But today I needed to pee. I went to the bathroom and found the toilet less than pleasing. I have a five year old boy, need I say more? So I cleaned it first. I keep a stack of what I call "pee rags" in the cupboard handy. Then I took the rag, along with the pile of clothes "someone" left on the bathroom floor, to the adjacent laundry room.

Here's the problem. A normal person would just go pee first. I on the other hand, upon finding myself in the laundry room, felt the urge to "swap out the laundry" i.e., put a load in the dryer, and start a new load in the washer, before I returned, clean towels in hand, to the bathroom. No wasted steps, see? By the time I'd loaded the washer though, I'd forgotten my original bodily need. The moment I heard the Whoosh of the washer, though, I remembered that I really had to go.

I made it, and as I had more than a few moments to reflect, I decided that this immediate list, and the Big List of All Things, both needed to chill.

My husband would laugh if he read that last sentence. He would say, "You can't do it," not in a mean way, but as a way to challenge me. This, from the man that says every New Year, "I resolve to not make any New Year's resolutions," and thinks it's funny. Every year. He and I have a difference of opinion of what a "day off" means, but the truth is, I need to learn how to do nothing. When you are travelling at light speed, you miss the rainbows.

So instead of New Year's Resolutions, I'm making a Not List.

#1 is an easy one: I am not going to feel pressured "as an author" to twitter or facebook. If I want to say something or respond to someone, I will, but I haven't found any of this glorious social media to have an impact on my supposed "platform" or to make many meaningful connections. A few, sure, but mostly it takes away time I need for writing, sleeping, or relaxing, all things that are better for my health and well being than tweeting about brisket.

#2  I am not going to nurse my daughter for much longer. That is a tough one for me, but it's disturbing my sleep too much. It hit me on the night of her second birthday this week (yeah, I'm one of those la leche mamas). While she was nursing, she paused, and with the boobie still in her mouth said, "Back kick." Assuming I heard wrong, I repeated, "Back kick?" She then nodded and proceeded to show me her back kick.

Apparently, while nursing, she was mulling over how to perfect her Tae Kwon Do. While I say 'Kudos to you, my martial arts baby', it does make it perfectly clear that nursing is no longer food, nor even comfort at this point: it's a coffee break, hold the coffee, stet the milk.

#3 I am not going to post on this blog more than once a week. Ooh. Another tough one. In part because I feel like I have so many things I want to post about, and also because "they" always say that you must post at least three times a week, if not five, to have a successful blog. I'm not sure how "success" is measured, but I do know that I have other projects I want to put energy into, and would rather make one good post each week and have fun with it.

#4 I can't say I am not going to make lists. I'd need years of therapy to throw out my legal pad, but I am going to mellow out on both the immediate list and the Big List of All Things. I probably should start by changing the name of the Big List.

I know, that last one wasn't a "Not". In fact I've sat here for 15 minutes and everything I tried to write was an "I am" instead of an "I'm not". The moment I say no to a few things, a world of possibilities opens. Think of what I can accomplish when I master doing nothing?

What do you say, are you with me? What's on your Not List this year?

New things shakin' at She-Smoke

I've been shakin' things up here at the She-Smoke blog. Part of why I posted so little last month, aside from us being freakin' busy at the restaurant with catering, was that I need some time to ponder the direction of this little corner of mine.

I know I overthink things. Just put up a damn recipe, Julie, you say. And you're right. But now that the book has been out for over a year, and the initial promotional frenzy has settled. I want to expand this blog to have more resources in terms of links to other sites, equipment, and news.

To start this, I've added some pages to this blog. The link-o-rama page will take me awhile, but I've started adding equipment and books I like to the BBQ Store page. I chose to "monetize" with Amazon, not for the money, but because it makes it easy to find what I'm talking about. I don't have to go track down links. If I make a six pack of beer at the end of the year, I'll be thrilled.

Please check in the next few months and tell me what YOU would like to see here. I have a ton of resources I know I want to add, it's just a question of time, so I'll add things slowly.

How does she do it all? She doesn't.

A while back a woman in a grocery store asked me if I knew anything about meat. She was looking for pork to make pulled pork.

"I'm going to put it in the slow cooker," she said. I knew telling her she should smoke her pork rather than crock pot it was going to go right over her head. Instead I smiled, and steered her out of the beef section. I showed her that they only had pork chops and pork tenderloin.

"You need pork butt, er that's the shoulder cut," I said, adding that she could get pork shoulder down the street at Cash and Carry. She said, "Maybe I'll just buy this sliced brisket and pass it off as pulled pork." I told her brisket was beef.

"Oh," she said, kind of sadly. She wandered off and I saw her reach for the nasty pre-mixed meat and sauce stuff that comes in a plastic tub.

What I should have done was give her directions to Smokin' Pete's to buy some pulled pork buy the pound, and told her she could have my book FREE, if she'd read it. But I was in a rush. I was working on this blog post about lamb, and while running around buying ingredients for it, baby girl fell asleep in the car. I'd rushed back to Smokin' Pete's, nabbed one of my employees to come with me to wait in the car with the sleeping babe, and had to get him back to finish opening the restaurant. I wish I'd had a moment to chat with the confused meat gal.

It gets complicated trying to raise two kids, run a restaurant, promote a book, and blog about it all. Sometimes people ask me, how do you manage it all?

I will first answer that question photographically. This is my laundry room:

Seriously and it's not that bad right now.

My second answer is quite simply that I don't. I don't make fabulous meals every night. I don't pickle or make jam. It is rare that my socks match or that my shirt is clean. Lately there have been some comments that you like to see my vunerability, my failures, my unbloggable meals. True, at least one of those comments was from my mom, who, by the way, takes bags of laundry from my house and returns them clean and folded. She's going for sainthood. Metta: Patron Saint of Laundry Piles and Pie.

So I'm in a bit of a quandry (which incidentally rhymes with laundry). I need some advice. I have a very special guest coming to cook and photograph with me on Thursday. She's a rock-star blogger, but also a mom and writer and all around busy gal.

How real do I keep my house? My first instinct is to stay up all night the next two nights and scrub the begeebles out of it, plant annuals, and re-caulk the kitchen sink.

But we have a catering every day this week except Thursday, I have to get the February books to the accountant before the excise tax is due, and I'm really stinkin' tired. Even if I wanted to put on a Martha Stewart face, I'm not sure I have the time to pull it off.

My house is very, very real, people. Should I call in professional help? Stop blogging and start cleaning? Or just hope she is fine with taking only close-ups of the food. Really tight close ups.

Sigh. At least most of the cooking will be outside.

Next Week is Turkey Week on the "New" She-Smoke Blog!

Get ready to learn about smoking your own turkey next week. It is also the "unveiling" of my new blog format: Tuesday is Barbecue 101 day. Wednesday is News, Reviews and Interviews day. Thursday is the Weekend Warrior BBQ Recipe, and Friday, just for fun, is Food Poetry Day!!!

So.. for Turkey week, on Tuesday, I will cover the basics of brines, rubs, and smoking a turkey at home for our Barbecue 101 "class". On Wednesday, I'll interview Danielle Dimovski of the competition barbecue team, DivaQ. As a Canadian, she's just celebrated Thanksgiving. We'll see her TV spot on the Canadian version of the Today Show, and, well, talk turkey with her. On Thursday, I'll post a step-by-step smoked turkey recipe, and on Friday I will attempt a poem about turkeys. My hope is that you all will send in your food poems as well.

Can't wait! I just bought my all-natural turkey. I'll be putting it in the brine on Saturday and smoking it on Sunday. By then the pictures will be ready to post next week.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Rethinking the Blog and Social Networking

Today I met with social networking guru, Greg Pincus. He is speaking tonight at our SCBWI-Washington chapter meeting and did individual consultations for those of us who signed up. Basically, I wanted him to answer the question, "Why Twitter?"

He gave me much more than that. My issue with the whole twitter/facebook/blogger communication and writing is that it feels like anytime I'm spending doing that, could be spent on actual creative writing. I also sometimes feel like it is noise and that the communications aren't very "authentic". One thing I loved about our meeting is that he said, "This is your platform. You set the rules as to how much time and energy you put into it." His mantra, one I love, is that these connections can form "happy accidents". I must admit that I've had a happy accident recently. A happy accident that you will hear about in the near future.

He also made a page full of suggestions on how to make it something that is both meaningful to me and to others.

I read my first post for this blog and like what I said I'd do: "My plan is to post at least three times a week: One detailed recipe, one barbecue or food news discussion, and one post dedicated to sides, sweets and fun. I'll plan a guest chef blogger each month as well as sprinkle in book news, Smokin' Pete's BBQ news, and the occasional post about motherhood."


While I do all these things in my blog, they aren't on any particular day. I think it would help me, and hopefully those reading this blog (hi mom), if there was a format. I'm going post regular topics, like weekly columns. Every Wednesday may be Foodie News and Interviews, every Friday may be the Weekend Warrior Barbecue Recipe. I'm still working it out and I'll post the schedule soon.

A Wordle of an Upcoming Guest Blog

My writing friend, Holly Cupala asked her writing friends for recipes to post this fall. I sent her a recipe and here is its wordle. Wordle? you ask. It's a fun program that makes a visual display of your words. They call it a "word cloud". Try it on a story and see what words stand out. Those that you use most frequently are larger than others. You may keep changing the design until you have a world cloud you like, but the same premise applies - the more you use a word, the larger it appears. Here is a screen shot of my wordle:

Can you guess what recipe I sent her?