National BBQ Association Conference coming up

Hey fellow West coasters, the NBBQA conference and trade show is in San Diego, CA this year. It's coming right up - February 22-25. I'm tempted to go, but don't know if I can get away. Restaurants and young 'uns tend to tie one down a bit. Still, looks like they will have some excellent sessions, like getting your sauces and rubs to the market, and how to keep profitable during this recession. Good no matter where one is in the process, plus plenty of fun.

Anyone going? Anyone been in the past? I think my desire to go is in part for some sunshine, but also for some face to face barbecue community time. You all know, if you've paid attention, that I am wishy washy about the social media business. I take breaks, to my "brands" detriment perhaps, but life's too short to worry too much about that. I'll choose real time contact over on-line contact just about any time. 

So...any chance any of y'all I gab with on facebook and twitter going?

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?

Thanksgiving Week, Day 2: I Am Thankful For Neighbors (and their homemade chutney!)

I have some wonderful neighbors in our little hood. We have an interesting street. It's kind of the intersection of many parts of Fremont. Part arty/funky, part 20's somethings/apartment dwellers, part families with young kids, and part...downright sketchy.

It's the sketchy part that has brought the neighbors together. Banding against the crime literally happening in front of us, we've developed a pretty vigilant neighborhood watch without getting vigilante.

We've fought the crime around us by getting to know our law officers, speaking with city council members, and by banding together at barbecues.

Yep, I even fight crime with barbecue.

At the heart and soul of this group are two folks named Sally and Robert. They are our block watch captains, and two of the nicest people you could meet. While they keep us together by the e-mail loop, they create a sense of neighborhood just by walking their dog and saying hi.

A few weeks back, Sally and Robert brought me over a jar of Robert's homemade chutney. Just 'cause. I've been meaning to post it as a recipe with lentils that I made with it, but thought I'd share the recipe today.

As we bustle around getting ready for Thanksgiving day, hopefully we'll all have the opportunity to stop and say hello to our neighbors, at the grocery store or on the street. I know these two have taught me that you can stop crime, and build incredible connections just by being neighborly.

Here is Robert's chutney recipe. He adapted it from a Mango Chutney recipe from their South Florida days, and believes the recipe is originally from the Beach County Extension Home Economics office in West Palm Beach.

MANGO CHUTNEY NO. 1


2 cups vinegar

5-1/2 cups sugar (Robert substituted brown sugar for half of this amount)

10 cups green mango slices (Robert substituted about 12 cups of green tomatoes figuring they're more watery than mangoes)

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chopped green ginger root (Robert used regular ginger root)

1 clove garlic chopped fine (Robert added the equivalent of an extra 2 or more cloves)

3 cups seedless raisins

1 large onion sliced

1/4 cup fresh orange peel

2/3 cup blanched chopped almonds if desired (we did
4 red chili peppers w/ seeds removed -- Robert did *not* use chili peppers in his batch

This chutney is good by itself, but I used about half of a jar with lentils and it made a delicious and seasonal side dish.

Chutney Lentils
8oz fresh chutney (above)
1 cup lentils, rinsed
2 12 cups water
1 tsp. kosher salt

Put lentils and chutney in water and boil for 3 minutes. Turn down to simmer for about 45 minutes, or until lentils are soft.

(I added this after I first posted).

Incidentally, both Sally and Robert are journalists and free lance writers.

Robert writes for InvestigateWest (invw.org). His long bio is here: http://invw.org/team. You can follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/robertmcclure.

He is a "veteran journalist exploring new frontiers in investigative reporting, particularly on the environment. Board member, Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ)."

Sally is a freelance writer for numerous publications. Her AOL Green Police column is here: http://www.walletpop.com/blog/bloggers/sally-deneen, and she's on Twitter at twitter.com/sdeneen.

She also volunteers for a nonprofit news site started by laid-off staffers of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: http://www.seattlepostglobe.org/

Check out their work and say howdy to your neighbor. With the web, we're all neighbors now!


Talking with Pork Barrel BBQ

I loved meeting Heath Hall of Pork Barrel BBQ at Memphis in May. I could have interviewed him, but he lost the coin toss (just kidding), and interviewed me. Heath and Pork Barrel BBQ have over 25,000 followers on twitter, he was on the reality TV show Shark Tank, and they make great sauces (and barbecue)!

Here is a video of his interview with me.

Dreaming awake, tweaming asleep, and memories of Tetris

It's been a strange week for me. So many factors have robbed me of sleep that I've spent most days in a near-hallucinogenic state of rummy bumbling.

Today, a lady selling Girl Scout cookies with her daughter, just outside the grocery store, said, "If you are wondering why your stroller is moved, it's because it started to roll in the street. We nabbed it in time."

"Thanks," I said. "I hadn't even noticed." She said that it was not only in a different spot than I'd left it, but turned the other way.

"You wouldn't make a very good eye-witness," she joked.

True. I nearly wore two different shoes on Tuesday.

My nights, on the other hand, have been far too awake. For one, baby girl has been waking up more times than I can count. Every time I'm just about asleep, she wakes up. It would feel like a form of torture if she weren't sweet as strawberry pie.

I've also been worried about one friend, and having a difficult time with another. I'm far too thin-skinned for personal disagreements or criticism. Now politics, philosophy, and barbecue; I love to argue the major and minor points and prefer it if the person opposite me has the opposite opinion. It's more fun that way.

But when it's personal my skin turns tissue-paper thin, and my insides become a bowl of twisty turny worms. Those worms won't let me sleep until they've worked their way out of my head and body.

Then there was the night I thought I'd brewed decaf Earl Grey tea. At 3:45am, eyes wide open, I made a promise to myself to drink less caffeine.

Lastly, we come to Twitter. Many of you know that I have a love/hate relationship with this "platform" of social networking. On one hand it's fun and so easy to meet people with your interests en masse. On the other it can feel so raw and exposed. Who are these people and why are they following me? How can I get to know anyone in 140 characters? It doesn't help that I've recently read Feed and Twitter seems far too near to the apocalyptic future of that novel.

Last night, however, I experienced a whole new level of sleep deprivation. I twittered and e-mailed for about an hour before bed. After a few baby wake ups we finally settled down to sleep. In half-sleep I dreamed in twitter. Tweets rolled past my eyes like a reader board. I never quite felt like I went to sleep.

In the morning I decided to call it Tweaming. Then it hit me. It's just like Tetris. Did you ever play Tetris? I played a lot of Tetris in college (sorry dad). Whenever I had a paper due, or an exam to study for, I'd procrastinate all night by turning and placing those geometric shapes into place, row after row. When I went to sleep, however, the shapes didn't stop. They continued to blip down in my mind, as if there were a screen just inside my eyeballs.

Eventually, I had to quit the game entirely. It became impossible to sleep. I'm not sure whether Twitter is quite as intense as Tetris, but I do know that tonight, no matter how much I want to tweet about tweaming, I'm going to bed.

Oh, the ribs. I did four different rubs, and finished them with a Blackberry-Chipotle barbecue sauce. I'll post the pics, rub review, and recipe tomorrow.

Sweet dreams.

Happy New Year: In a Kierkegaard Frame of Mind

Happy New Year everyone. I always look back more than I look forward at the new year. I had a great year - new baby daughter, new book, great reviews and growth in our business - I can't complain. Yet I found myself feeling a bit ornery on New Year's Eve. I was irritable, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. By New Year's day I had settled into a funk that was, well, Kierkegaardian. What struck me about this year was that I was too busy, as usual, but that much of this business was self-created. One of my favorite quotes from Either/Or by Kierkegaard came to mind.

"What, I wonder, do these busy folks get done? Are they not to be classed with the woman who in her confusion about the house being on fire carried out the firetongs? What things of greater account, do you suppose, will they rescue from life's great conflagration?"

Kierkegaard had this wonderful irritability at all the boring busy bodies of the world. To him, the worse offense was a life not lived with passion and authenticity.

I haven't posted even a nibble on my blog since December 18. I love writing this blog, but I find I need to let life happen sometimes apart from it. I don't want to post something because I have to, but because I want to and have something significant to share. I am not a brand. I can't always stay on message. Heck, this is a barbecue blog and I'm sitting here writing about Kierkegaard. See what I mean?

A big part of why I didn't post was because my brother and his family were visiting from afar. Since we don't get to see them as often, we try to spend every minute possible with them. And we did. After nearly 10 straight days of family gatherings, Eric and I and the kids spent the last two nights at my folks in a pre-teen-like slumber party complete with rounds of Uno, Pictionary, chocolate and talking late into the night.

That's not easy to do with a 1 and a 4 year old. We had the entire Reinhardt clan spread out on a futon and make shift bed of couch cushions and a baby mattress on the floor. Youch.

I had planned to photo document our holiday meals and post pictures, but sometimes I just want to live in the moment without a part of myself thinking about how to describe that moment at a later time. As Kierkegaard wrote,

"The highest and most beautiful things in life are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but, if one will, are to be lived."

My mantra for 2010? Less is More. My need to minimize some of the busy buzz of my life this year means blogging only twice a week and skipping the whole twittering thing. I never really connected with twittering anyway, so that isn't a tough one for me. Kierkegaard would both fear and tremble over twitter.

What I hope is to use that time for 1) more sleep (critical if I want to be more awake) and 2) writing the next book, be it cookbook or novel. Truth be told that since I stopped blogging for a few weeks, I started a novel, but I hate to talk about something so early in its infancy.

I'll be keeping the same headings: Barbecue 101, News, Reviews & Interviews, Food Poetry Friday and Weekend Warrior Recipes, but I'll just pick two of the four categories each week.

My other major resolution is one I may share a little later. Another one of those, "I don't want to talk about it too early, lest I jinx it" sort of things. Until then, smoke on, and may your 2010 be abundant and significant.

I know I ate a double helping of black-eyed peas last night to help bring abundance.

I'll leave you with one more quote from dear cranky Kierkegaard.

"It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important."