Thanksgiving Week, Day 4 (and 5, 6, 7): I Am Thankful for Family

Thanksgiving day at the Reinhardt's isn't what you would call normal. For one, we go to work. Eric started about 4:30am. I followed after dropping off the kids to our village - grandma and grandpa. Then we proceed to shell out turkeys and complete dinners to the masses.

The kids know the drill. They know we'll arrive about 3pm, laden with food to add to the feast already in progress. Our kids love their grandparents, and the rest of their village at Thanksgiving. Uncle Boone and Aunt Mimi were there early, cooking dinner as early as 6am. As soon as I told our baby girl she was going to see her uncle and aunt, she joyfully exclaimed,

"Me, up, weedoo, bo bo Boon!"

Literally translated, that means, "Me up (on) Uncle Boone's shoulders!"

Uncle Boone has big, broad shoulders. Baby girl rates every guy she meets based on how good his shoulders are. After Da Da, Uncle Boone, our neighbor across the street, and Grandpa are her favorites.

Before we showed up, my other local brother Mark arrived with his son, big kid cousin Zach, who played chase and picked up baby girl till she giggled, and blocked our son's Tae Kwon Do moves without complaint. Long time friends joined us, as did Aunt Mimi's parents. Everyone brought a dish and a smile. E-mails from Eric's family connected us from afar.

I am so thankful for our family. We couldn't do this without them, both literally (try finding a babysitter on Thanksgiving!), and emotionally, with their constant support and love and laughter.

Thank you family. I feel up high, right there on your big, broad Weedoos.

Thanksgiving Week, Day 3: I Am Thankful for Turkey!

What can I say? Thanksgiving dinner is my favorite meal. You would think that after managing over 100 turkey orders, many of which are complete dinners for 6-12, that I might be sick of turkey. I know Eric is. He eats steak on Thanksgiving. But I love turkey with all the trimmings.

I also am truly thankful that we have such wonderful customers that order turkeys from us. Otherwise November would be a bit of a bust. It's just not the month that screams "BARBECUE" to most folks, and without our Thanksgiving orders, we'd be better off staying at home.

So thank you. To all of you who ordered this year, or in past years.

We're smokin' in the snow for you.  Now cross your fingers it doesn't snow on Thanksgiving day.

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!


Thanksgiving Week, Day 1: I Am Thankful For Salt

I'm thankful for so much, that I thought I'd put a few of them down this week. To start, since we have vats of turkeys in the brine right now, I am thankful for salt.

It's just a little thing. I should put down family and love and all the big stuff. And I will. But tonight as I was putting the kids down to bed, this idea of salt popped into my mind. There are worlds crammed inside each little grain of salt.

Salt is pretty amazing when you think about it. It almost seems conscious the way it equalizes itself. That's why brines work. As long as your salt solution is saltier than the turkey or other meat is naturally, the meat will draw in the salt around it until it's all even Steven. The water and other liquids in your brine just piggy back on the salt.

Salt is essential for life on this planet, yet too much can kill ya. We all know that it's a pinch of salt, and a pound of prevention, right?

Humans have been using salt to preserve foods and mining salt as far back as 6000 BC. It's our first spice, our first flavor enhancer, and it indubitably has saved lives and helped civilization advance because of our ability to preserve of meats and other foods.

Salt water makes up over 97% of the earth's water. Less than 3% of the earth's water is drinkable. But that means 97% of the earth's water is perfect for brining Thanksgiving turkeys! OK, not really, but speaking of that....

If you are smoking your turkey, I highly recommend brining it first. The extra water will help the turkey stay moist during the smoking process. The salt will add flavor. Don't worry about adding a bunch of other ingredients to your brine. Too much fuss can spoil the broth. Keep it simple.

I'll leave this salt ramble with some quotes I found browsing the ol' internet. I've verified none of these, but even if they aren't totally correct, I like the sentiment.

I'll start with a quote from a very early cookbook, dated around 350 BC. Archestratus nailed it right here:

"Many are the ways and many the recipes for dressing hares; but this is the best of all, to place before a hungry set of guests a slice of roasted meat fresh from the spit, hot, season'd only with plain, simple salt....All other ways are quite superfluous, such as when cooks pour a lot of sticky, clammy sauce upon it." - Archestratus

So true, Archestratus. Here are a few more words from wise folks around the world.

"Salt is born of the purest of parents: the sun and the sea." Pythagoras

"The cure for anything is salt water - sweat, tears, or the sea." Isak Dineson

"Don't slaughter more pigs than you can salt." French Proverb

"If there are two cooks in one house, the soup is either too salty or too cold." Iranian Proverb

"Bread and salt never quarrel." Russian Proverb

And finally, from the father of the American foodie himself,

"Where would we be without salt?"
James Beard

Recipe: Faux Burnt Ends

As promised after my rant about our trainee at the restaurant that cut off the burnt ends of the brisket and put them in the scrap pile (breathe, Julie, that's it, inhale, hold it, exhale....), here is a recipe for "faux" burnt ends.

If you see burnt ends listed on a restaurant's menu, by the way, I'll betcha ten bucks they aren't the real deal. Do the math. Giant 8-12 pound brisket, with two bitty ends that everybody wants. Well, many of us do. There is a reason why we don't offer brisket burnt ends at Smokin' Pete's. I regularly steal them for my lunch.

There has to be a perk for all this, right?

Faux ends are quite tasty, and a great way to use the fattier part of the brisket, the point, or deckle.

The process is simple. Cut up a chilled brisket, or the deckle portion of one into end-sized chunks. If you smoke the whole packer, separate the deckle or point to chill fully before you cut up into pieces. Trim the larger channels and caps of fat. (If what I just said doesn't make sense to you, here's a review of brisket terminology).

The shot below is of a half chilled brisket, right at the midway where grain of the point runs opposite the flat. If you have difficulty carving a brisket, try practicing on a chilled brisket. The meat grains and fat channels are so much clearer when it's cold, that it can be a great learning tool.

Lightly re-season the pieces with a rub of your choice. Let me repeat, lightly, and I would suggest you use no salt in your rub, especially if there was salt in the rub from the first round. The first time I tried to make faux ends, they were way too salty. Toss in a thin barbecue sauce. Again, go light on the sauce. Otherwise the pieces won't get a crispy crust like the real deal.

Put the brisket pieces in a foil pan and put back in the smoker for about 2+ hours. Stir once after about an hour. Keep the smoker on the low side of slow- about 180 degrees, but get it good and smoky.
 

Remove once the bits are a little bit crispy like the ends you love.

 
Burnt ends are excellent with slaw on a sandwich, or a perfect flavor punch to chili and stews.
 
I prefer to snitch at them with my fingers.

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving week at Smokin' Pete's means we are drowning in gravy and are up to our elbows in brining turkeys. I'm working on a post about turkey this year, but thought I'd stall a bit and share my posts from last year.

The first post is about Brining. I highly recommend brining your turkey, especially for smoked turkey.

Here is a Sage-Rubbed Smoked Turkey with a Maple Glaze recipe we did last year that was lick your fingers good.

This post is about how to plan for feeding a crowd. There is math in this post, but don't worry, I walk you through it.

I also talked turkey with Diva Q pitmaster Danielle Dimovski. That was before she became the superstar she is today, competing on the BBQ Pitmasters show among other TV appearances.

A final post last year was a list of further resources for preparing Thanksgiving dinner. Enjoy the posts. Since I covered a lot of bases last Thanksgiving, I may just mix it up a little 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.

Brisket Burnt Ends

I need to rant tonight. I left the restaurant earlier and our new cook trainee did something that still has my jaw dropped down. Not in a good way. I noticed he sent out a brisket plate and that there was a pile of the brisket burnt ends on his cutting board.

"What's this?" I asked him. "Why didn't you put this on the plate?"

"Um, well, I..." he began.

Turns out this wasn't the first time dude CUT OFF THE BURNT ENDS AND PUT THEM IN THE SCAP PILE.  The burnt ends. The best freakin' part of the brisket, in my opinion. Wasted.

I gave him my standard lecture about waste, walked away, and then came back after a few moments of reflection.

"This is the gold! People ask specifically for these little bits of heaven. You scrapped the best part of the brisket!"

I wish I knew whether any of it sunk in. It's one of the greatest challenges of running a restaurant: you are only as good as your weakest employee. I'm not saying he's weak, he's a good guy actually, but he's a greenhorn.

As business owners, we can't do everything. If we are always working in the business, we can never work on the business to grow it and improve it. It's a constant challenge to find that balance between the two.It's also really really difficult to give up control. Especially from a control freak (husband's term) like me.

We are blessed with great employees who care about our business. Seeing someone chuck out the gold tonight made me think I have a false sense of security. But then I reel myself back in from my doom and gloom cliff edge, and remember it was just a few burnt ends on a hunk of meat. It's correctible. Crisis averted.

That said, I think the next post will be how to make burnt ends. Make burnt ends? I know, there are only two ends to a brisket that get extra rub and smoke and a crunch that then melts in your mouth. But there is a way to fake burnt ends. We don't do it at Smokin' Pete's, but many joints out there do. And even though anyone thinking about it would know you can't keep burnt ends in stock, really, their customers don't care as long as they get them.

Mmmm. It is going to be a post I'll enjoy.

Volcano Cake with Dinosaurs

For a barbecue blog, I sure post about cake a lot. Perhaps it's because food is a celebration to me, and many celebrations involve cake. Or perhaps it's because my husband, Eric, has a way with cakes. His aren't delecate cakes, or even pretty cakes, but they are the kind of cake that make you say "No Way!" when you see them, and then "Oh my freakin' god!" when you eat them.

For his first birthday, my son requested, and I quote, "A chocolate volcano cake with red lava coming out, and dinosaurs climbing it with a T-Rex on top." You see, he is under the impression that all kids can simply describe their fantasy cake, and a parent produces it.

Perhaps it is because, for his 4th birthday, his daddy made him a monster-sized monster cake.

Or because he remembers this Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Bacon Frosting.

Or his mommy's grilled birthday cake or her Harvest Cake in celebration of not cleaning the house.

Or the special She-Cake that kind of started it all.

Eric's volcano cake was loved by the kids and hated by the parents at the party. Not that the adults didn't chow down on the double chocolate cake with butter cream frosting. But we heard a few grumbles of the ilk that he'd just upped the cake ante way too far and that any store-bought would now pale considerably. Sorry.

So how did he do it? Pro novelty cake makers would layer up a sheet cake and then carve out the shape. But this requires a certain skill and it wastes a lot of cake. Eric instead thought of the volcano scape like a topographical map. He cut out a shape on restaurant-size parchment paper, then made smaller shapes that layered up. He then baked two sheet pan cakes. Once fully cool, he placed the parchement on the cake and cut out the shapes. Then he layered each with frosting in between and iced the entire cake.

For the lava he used red jello and for the tar pit surrounding the cake, green jello.

This was enough cake to feed about 60 people, so scaling it to a home-sized sheet pan and parchment would be plenty big enough.

Oh dear. I just smeared frosting from cake left-overs on my keyboard. Hazard of the job.

Next post: Back to barbecue, wherein I blog about having to stop myself from whacking a trainee upside the head at the restaurant for CUTTING OFF THE BURNT ENDS OF THE BRISKET AND PUTTING THEM IN THE SCRAP PILE.  I know. I'm still shaking my head. I'll devote at least one post to brisket burnt ends as a way of dealing with it.

Camera Found!

For two months, I have been hobbled without my camera. I kept holding off buying a new camera because I knew wasn't truly lost. It was underneath the car seat, in my office in a box, or...where it was finally found...in a demo box kit I'd put in the catering room at work.

Truth be told, I want a better camera, but I don't want to rush into a purchase. My phone camera has been so poor a substitue, that I've actually posted far less than these past two months. I have loads of posts I could put up here, but without a good picture, I can't make myself do it.

The minute I had my camera in hand, I took a picture of  Eric's bounty of chanterelles and oyster mushrooms picked on an incredibly sunny November day up at Index.

Tomorrow's picture will also be from the hands of Eric. It will be about cake. If you've followed this blog at all, you know Eric makes some pretty fantastic cakes. I think this one, erm, took the cake.

Recipe: Bundt Cake Pan Chicken

The other day I wanted to make Beer Can Chicken. One of my favorite grocery stores, Ballard Market, had two-for-one organic chickens so they were almost the price of, um, un-organic chickens. Score!

By now you've heard of Beer Can Chicken. It's a popular and easy way to smoke chicken on the grill: Open a tall boy beer, take a few gulps and poke a few holes in the can, then stick the can up the chicken cavity and place on grill. The steam from the beer keeps the chicken nice and juicy, while the chicken, in an upright stance, smokes evenly.

Only I didn't have a beer. No problem, I said to myself, rummaging in my messy bottom kitchen cupboard. I know I have one of those beer can chicken stands around here. Clanking around and throwing various kitchen and baking equipment around, my hand landed on part of Grandma Helen's bundt cake pan. Grandma Helen was Eric's grandma, and we have hordes of cast iron pans and ancient but useful baking pans from her.

I held it up and realized it would be a perfect "beer can chicken" stand. Not only would it hold up the chicken and be sturdier than a beer can, the bottom part would catch the drippings so I could baste the chicken along the way.

And it's downright girly, I thought, me being the kind of feminist who finds no offense in the idea of being a girl.

So here it is, my recipe for Bundt Cake Pan Chicken. Incidentally, if you don't have a bundt pan, you may substitute a tall boy can of beer.

Ingredients
Spice rub of your choice
kosher salt (if rub has no salt in it)
1 whole chicken
Olive oil

Step-by-Step
1) Prep your chicken: Remove giblets. Rinse chicken and pat dry with paper towels. Rub generously with olive oil, followed by kosher salt. Pat rub all over chicken.

2) Place chicken upright on bundt pan.

3) While chicken is sittin' pretty and getting her rub on, go get your smoke on: Make fire in grill for indirect, medium heat. Shoot for 300 degrees. You can smoke it slow and low, but I like my chicken skin crispy, and the higher temperature will do that. Once pre-heated (charcoal or gas), add wood to fire.

4) Cook chicken for one hour without peeking. Use your vents to control and stabilize the heat. After one hour, baste chicken with juices collecting at base of bundt pan. Continue to baste every 30 minutes for about 2 to 2 1/2hours until chicken reads 165 degrees in the meaty part of the thigh.

5) The trickiest part is taking the bundt pan with chicken off the grill without spilling all the juices on the fire. I removed some of the drippings first, then picked it up carefully with a hot pad and tongs on to a plate. Let the bird sit about 5 minutes before pulling off the bundt pan. Remember that the pan will be hot! Let sit for another 10 minutes before cutting and serving.



You may notice that the rub is light, and a little uneven. What can I say? The baby woke up from her nap right as I was applying the rub, and I needed to hurry up and get and get the bird on so I could pick up son from pre-school. You know what? It was delicious! This method of cooking chicken makes it so tender and juice, that it requires very little fuss.



Mmmm.



Ballard Author Event

You are invited to a one-of-a-kind event on October 19: Ballard Authors & Neighbors. For the locals reading this post, you know that Ballardites stick together. It has the feel of a small town inside a big city. What has changed since I was a child is that Ballard has become a diverse quilt of art, music, hip shops and restaurants.

Mixed in, quietly among the stitches, are those of us that work with words. We wallflowers will come out of the Norwegian wood, so to speak, for an evening roundtable with 30 authors talking about writing, playing bingo, and signing books. Ballard's own Secret Garden Bookstore will sell books.

Come on out to Sunset Hill Community Club, 7-9pm, and join in the fun. Read the Ballard News Tribune article for more information and a peek at some of the authors that will be there.

Food Poetry Friday: October Berries

I haven't participated in Poetry Friday for awhile, but today, looking out at the grey, this poem I wrote a few years ago seems right. This week Poetry Friday is hosted by Carol's Corner.

If you are a berry picker, as I am, you know about October berries. Most left on the vines are shrivelled, bug-eaten, or moldy. But some look plump and ripe like August berries. You pick one, peer at it closely to make sure you didn't miss a nasty bit, and if it checks out, you pop it in your mouth.

How sour it is! October berries were green in August, and never really ripened properly. Still. This will be the last berry you pick until next summer.

October Berries
by Julie Reinhardt

August is the time to find
Juicy berries on the vine
Until your mouth is purple and
You’ve red stained fingers on each hand

But now it is October, yet
I hunt for berries, cold and wet
I pick as if they were like gold
These left behind, fruit not sold

For though they are not plump and sweet
As August berries that I eat
October berries are the last
Until next August comes to pass

Dish Up Literacy Tonight

Come eat out at Smokin' Pete's or other participating restaurants for a good cause! Page Ahead, Washington State's leading provider of children's books and literacy programs gets over 160,000 new books into kids' hands each year.

Tonight restaurants will donate 20% of sales to Page Ahead for their annual "Dish Up Literacy" night.  At Pete's also have live music tonight by Dysfunction Junction! So whether you come for the bluegrass, or the books, it's going to be a great night.

One last extra special perk: Secret Garden Bookstore will give you a 10% discount on book purchased for Page Ahead. We will have a book drop at Pete's all week, or you can purchase books and leave them there.

Redhook Ale Sausage Fest 2010

You may have noticed I missed posting last week. Between running around getting everything ready for Sausage Fest, starting a new co-op pre-school, which had some 3-hour thing I needed to do almost every day, and attending a 4-hour writing workshop (yay!), I never caught my breath.

Then the weekend hit. Besides preparing "bites" for 2000 at an outdoor beer, meat, and music festival on the Redhook Ale Brewery grounds, we also had a wedding for over 200 the next day, another catering, and a ton of large pick up orders for the big football weekend.

Poor Eric. Friday night I saw him between the hours of 2:45 am 5:45am, the time he went to bed, and the time he got up to go back to work. I know of no other person than my husband that can time hundreds of pounds of meat for multiple functions with a demeanor so calm, he makes others nervous. You see, he is most comfortable in the eye of chaos. Give him a 12-item menu for a complicated wedding, and he's fine. Throw in a hail storm and 30 mph winds and he's downright chipper.

For Sausagefest we decided to make pulled pork sliders, chopped jerk beef sliders, and MOINK balls (Me: What do think of this menu, honey? Him: Whatever. You're going to do it no matter what I say). The festival expected 2000 guests minimum, so each of the 11 vendors were instructed to provide 2000 tastes of each item.

I do a lot of catering math, so I knew that it wasn't possible for one person to eat one of each menu item from 11 vendors. Most vendors served 3 items, so 33 times 2-4 oz of meat per person would be about 6 pounds of meat per person.

Still, I knew the MOINK balls, a steal at only a buck each, were going to fly out the tent. We soon learned just how much labor it takes to make 2000 bacon-wrapped meatballs. I'm glad we did, because we sold at least 1500 of them in about 6 hours.

I was on the ball station for a long stretch. It was relentless. All day I heard, "Double ball! Combo with a ball! Pork slider with a ball! Nine meatballs!" I kept trying to find a bottle of water, but the ball orders wouldn't stop. We traded food with the great folks at Salumi, and I only had time to eat one delicious slice of cured pork. I don't know what happened to the other plates they sent over, but hope someone on our staff was able to eat it.

Molly Moon's Ice cream was right next door. I'd had visions of trading tastes with them throughout the day. We both had lines 30 people deep that didn't let up for 4 hours or more. At one point I couldn't hear the orders anymore. I'd repeat it, then the order would float away from my brain.

That's when I begged some icecream from the two people scooping like machines in their spiffy ice cream truck. We traded protein for dairy and that little bit of maple-bacon ice cream I savored in a 2-minute break, saved me. Yep, I can say I've been saved by Molly Moon's ice cream, gosh bless 'em.

It was intense, a blast, and I saw a number of friends there. I didn't get to roam, like I'd hoped, but as you can see, we took our new smoker on her maiden voyage, and she smoked like a champ. I'm already booking caterings with her, so she's off and running.

Pre-school is settling down, as is the summer, so I hope to post more frequently. Fall is my favorite season. Creative juices flow more readily, and the rainy months in our little corner of the country beg for blog posts about stews, smoked turkey, and squash on the grill.

It's also time to take a long, deep breath. Did you breath deeply just now? Good. So did I.

Recipe: Smoked Meatloaf (Not your mama's)

The other day I whipped together dinner using a little of this and a little of that in the refrigerator. I was happy to use up odd bits that were still good, but on their way out.

My four-year old took one bite and spit it out. "Blech!"

I took a taste and though it was edible, I kinda had to agree with him. That night my facebook status update read, "It was not my best work. More cleaning out the fridge than cooking, really."

That inspired me to create something really good using what I had on hand in the refrigerator. I had 2 carrots, 3 mushrooms, 2 stalks of celery, half an onion, a hard end of bread, half a package of bacon, and some ground beef in the freezer. All I needed was some pork sausage and I had everything I needed for meatloaf.

Not your mama's meatloaf

At least not my mama's.

My mom basically added a few dried herbs and an egg to a hunk of ground beef, shaped it into a loaf, poured over a bottle of ketchup and cooked until well done. I was programmed to think I hated meatloaf, until one day while babysitting when I was about 14. Before leaving, the mother of the child I was sitting pulled out a meatloaf and gave me reheating instructions for dinner.

I looked at it with suspicion, but heated it in the microwave like she said. I cut off a slice and to my surprise, it had cheese and salami in the middle of it. What's more, the red sauce on it wasn't ketchup, it was a delicious marinara.

Ever since that day I learned that meatloaf can be a place of creativity and self expression....and no place for ketchup.

This meatloaf is smoked, and really, once you cook meatloaf on the grill, I swear you won't cook it in the oven again. I won't. This is based on my recipe in She-Smoke (Not Your Mama's Meatloaf, pg. 164), but of course I changed it to use what I had on hand, which is what we do when we are cooking. We use the ingredients in the larder and only buy what we absolutely have to. I encourage you to do the same with this recipe.

Ingredients
1 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup milk
4-6 slices bacon
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 large onion, diced
1 carrot, finely diced
3-4 large mushrooms, finely diced
2 stalks celery, sliced thin and down the middle
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons pepper
2 pounds ground all-natural beef, 90/10

1 pound pork sausage (ground, not in casings)
1/2 cup salsa (I used up the tomatillo salsa in my fridge. Any salsa will do)

2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons dried basil or finely chopped fresh basil (or herbs of your choice)
2 teaspoon ground dried sage
2 eggs

Step-by-Step
1. Cook bacon on low until brown but not crispy. Set aside. Pour out half the fat, but leave the pan nicely coated.

2. Add olive oil and saute onion until almost clear. Add carrots, mushrooms, celery, garlic salt and pepper. Cook until beginning to soften.

3. Chop bacon and add to vegetable mixture. Set aside and make a fire in charcoal grill, smoker, or gas grill. Once hot, get your smoke on with wood chunks or chips. Target temperature should be 225-250 degrees.

4. While fire is getting hot, gently mix the ground beef and pork sausage. Add the bacon-veg mixture. Whip egg, herbs and Worcestershire sauce together and pour over meat. Gently mix until ingredients are incorporated.

5. Shape into 3-4 small loaves. Place on a cookie cooling rack, perpendicular to bars.

6. Place entire rack with loaves on an indirect grill with a drip pan underneath. Smoke meatloaves for 2 hours, or until internal temperature reaches 160. For a faster cook, 300 degrees at 1.5 hours.

7. Cool for 10 minutes and slide loaves off racks onto plate. Cool another 10 minutes before slicing. (I've found that if they cool too much, they start to stick on the racks. 10 minutes is still warm enough to slide, but they'll still need a little setting time before you eat).
Incidentally, I made four small loaves and gave two to a friend who had twins only a month ago. She said it was the best they'd ever had. Of course, she's sleep deprived and probably living off cereal and church casseroles, but it was still nice to hear.

Our New Rig

For years I've wanted a mobile smoker for our catering. We have big grill, but our smokers are hard wired into the restaurant. Mobile smokers can be pricey, but in the Northwest they are also pretty rare. This isn't Texas. There isn't someone on every corner selling last year's model. It's actually quite tough to find a used one and we are not really the types to buy a brand spankin' new rig. That would be too grown up. Besides, we like a little seasoning to our equipment.

But the other day, I typed in "smoker trailer" to Craigslist and this one came up. It's a custom job, a little funky, but it's a good unit. The indirect smoker section can easily fit a whole pig, plus there is a larger grill section, accessible from both sides, for direct or indirect grilling.

I love it. Eric's been cleaning it out, scraping off some rust spots, and lighting fires in it every day. I've been on kid duty all week so I haven't been able to play with it yet. We'll fire it up next week with meat before its maiden voyage at the RedHook Ale Brewery Sausage Fest on September 18. If you are in the area, come! 11 other vendors and we will be serving up meaty "bites" for a mere $1-$3. I think Molly Moon's ice cream is even doing a bacon ice cream.  Plus there will be beer and music and I think prizes. Did I mention bacon ice cream?

If I haven't found my camera by then, I'm buying one for Sausagefest. I want to get a zillion great shots of our new rig, fully loaded with butts, brisket, and other meaty bites. 

Scenes of Summer

Ah September, are you really here? I remember waaaayyyy back in April thinking about the massive amount of catering we'd have to do before it was fall again. It seemed like an insurmountable task at the time, so I only looked one week ahead at a time.

Then we got so busy I only could look ahead one week at a time. There was too much to do!

I tend to keep this blog and my work life at Smokin' Pete's a little separate. It's challenging, as they are both about barbecue, but this blog is also about the time I'm not in the restaurant. It's about cookin' in the backyard, with kids running around me, and about how I try to sneak in writing time here and there. Hopefully I share a few tips along the way to help you, or at least a story to make you laugh from time to time.

This blog is also a creative break from work for me. I can post what I want; I don't get paid for it and I blog because I like it.

But this week I have to write about work. We had a helluva summer! We did more catering than ever and sort of grew up as a business: we finally bought a catering van after years of delivering in our station wagons (or as one client called it, our "clown cars", because we fit so much in our two wagons), we have a higher caliber crew, and could rely on our staff more than in years past, and yesterday, after over a year of looking, we bought a mobile smoker!
 
I'll show you pictures of it tomorrow. First, I thought I'd share some shots of summer. Enjoy.

Smoked chicken finished off on the grill for a crowd of almost 2000.

Meat. It's what's for dinner.

One of my floral arrangements this summer. I always forget to take pictures!

Biker night at Pete's. This group drives up at least once a month.

Fixin's platter and our Sweet Potato Cornbread.

Not the prettiest pic, but hey, I'm workin' here. CB, if you're reading, note the Char-Broil hat.

We cater a lot of weddings and rehearsal dinners, more than you might think. This wedding was stunning, as was the bride. She wasn't afraid to chow down on some ribs in her dress either, bless her.

I had many visits by old and new friends this summer, including this one by Barry "CB" Martin of Char-broil, Larry "The BBQ Grail" Gaian, and his lovely wife Celeste. Larry and Celeste breezed in between a wedding rehearsal and trip to Pike's Place Market. We ate Eric's Kalbi Beef Ribs, plus a sampling of barbecue.

Smoked Salmon. We smoked these wild Sockeye with a mix of alder and cherry.

And finally, though I have loads of cute pics of my kids this summer, I am reticent to put them out here on the web. I'll instead share one of our two new furry kids. This is Saber (short for Saber tooth Tiger). She's a cuddle bug.

Hope you all had a wonderful summer and that you all remember this: barbecue is good any time of year. Especially February. Don't forget to eat ribs at Pete's in February, y'all. It will beat back the winter blues for both of us.