IFBC here I come!

I can't believe it's almost here - the International Food Bloggers Conference! When I heard that it would be in Seattle, it was of course a no-brainer to sign up, but that seemed ages ago. A summer season of catering ago. Now it's less that one week away and I can't wait.

A few highlights that I'm looking forward to, or curious about:

Live Food Blogging with Amazon Grocery. We'll be tasting foods and blogging "speed dating-style." With only 2.5 minutes to taste and 2.5 minutes to blog, it should be a good exercise for someone like me who holds on to posts for months without publishing.

A session on Food Photography with New York Times photographer Andrew Scrivani. He's also doing a session on post-production photo editing that I will have to miss as I'm catering a wedding that night. Se la vie!  As you may know, I've vowed to step up my photography this year. I think I've made progress, but have a long way to go.

A number of technical sessions that I need on building traffic and whether or not to switch to Wordpress. I know not having a designated URL and staying in the .blogspot group greatly lessens my exposure in the blogsphere. I haven't had, or haven't made the swaths of time that is required for me to do big technological changes. (Right now I have to get my laptop to recognize wi-fi, and fix my darn camera. I've been hamstrung all summer by technical difficulties). So these sessions will be good for me and kick my butt into making all this technology work together.

And though I'll miss a number of sessions on Saturday evening because of our catering, it's probably for the best: I usually get overwhelmed by the amount of information at a conference. A little break will do this girl some good.

I'll be doing some "live blogging" or nearly live during the conference to give my thoughts on various sessions. What I'm really excited is to see my good friends Barry Martin, of Our Community Table and Welcome to the Cookout! and Jane Bonacci of The Heritage Cook. Both are way beyond me in food blogging and wonderful people. I met them via the Char-Broil All-Stars.

If you are one of the 320 attendees, say howdy!

Live on Barn Goddess BBQ Radio tonight!

I'll be talking live with Lori Frazee, the host of the blog radio show Barn Goddess BBQ & More. Lori interviews barbecue personalities all over the US. She is also a pitmaster and barbecue caterer so I'm sure we'll have lots to gab about.

The show goes live at 5 pm PST, so have a listen, and call in with questions if you can!

My husband will be on a catering tonight so my original plan of sneaking off to do the interview while he minded the home front has been foiled. I'll be picking up a video for the kids today as a result so they can stay occupied during the interview. Wish me luck they don't join us!

Labor Day Menu: Grill Roasted Chicken with Sage, Butter & Wine Sauce

I cannot believe it's almost Labor Day. No way is it almost Labor Day. I still haven't posted the promised whole pig smoke bonanza promised in July! Sigh. I want to show it in part via video and I'm slow at these things. And, I know you've heard the whine before, but I'm a barbecue caterer, people! Summer is the Superbowl. A really really long Superbowl before we all blow out our knees and fall back to the B leagues or whatever it is in football.

I really shouldn't speak in football analogies. I'll only embarrass myself.

Lucky for you, you get this TIMELY post for Labor Day. I wrote it for Char-broil a while ago. They are smart and give me deadlines well ahead of the actual publish date.

An even though I cooked it months ago, I'm still thinking about this chicken. Chicken on the grill, slathered in sage and drizzled with a shallot, butter white wine sauce. Mmm. Finished indirectly on my grill, it stayed so moist that it melted in my mouth. I'm just going to have to make it again. For Labor Day! Read the recipe here.

Heavenly Halloumi - True Grilled Cheese

Grilled cheese is a staple at our house. If the cobbler’s children have no shoes, then the caterer’s kids have a sorry selection in the refrigerator. During the busy times it’s often down to a few questionable gallon Ziplock bags of leftovers, a plethora of strange condiments, and the ever staple brick of Tillamook cheddar cheese. The cheese is the refrigerator’s saving grace, really.

But of course that grilled cheese isn’t really grilled, is it? Sure, you can grill bread and cheese with some success, but I’ve found our flat top cast iron pan gives better results than any outdoor grill.

That’s why I love Halloumi. It’s the cheese you grill! Hailing from Cypress, it requires no preparation. No oil, no salt, and with so much flavor you really need not fuss it up with spices. Just slice and throw it on the grill. Serve it warm with a spritz of lemon, or top a summer salad like I’ve done here. 

I added our first-of-the-season red pepper from the garden (that’s a big deal in Seattle!), avocado and arugula. A simple balsamic vinaigrette or yogurt dressing pairs nicely with it.

And guess what? The kids loved it. Things are looking up for our refrigerator. And fall is just around the corner. That’s when this mama really starts cooking. No really. In summertime, when we are cooking for hundreds to thousands of people each week, it means at home we allow a fair amount of take out or ready- made foods from our local PCC deli, but come fall this caterer remembers just how much she likes to cook. Especially at home.

Seafood Fest Recipe: Eric's Mussels in Smoked Tomato Sauce with Fennel Relish

Ballard Seafood Fest, where we've had a booth the past two years, has one opportunity for bragging rights - the seafood entry. It's not blind like barbecue competitions. 2-3 judges from the Chamber walk around and taste each booth's seafood entry. You get to talk to them about it and hope for that prize - Best of the Fest.

I really thought Eric's entry was going to win this year, He did local mussels, served with a smoked tomato sauce and shaved fennel. Not only did everyone who ate it love it, the judges were licking their plates and kept asking questions. I don't know who won, only that we didn't get a ribbon. We were so slammed with caterings in addition to the fest, that none of us made it to the awards.

Many have asked for the recipe, and I noodled it out of Eric. You know how tight lipped he can be! The key is to smoke the tomatoes. Mmmm.

Eric's Mussels in Smoked Tomato Sauce, topped with Fennel Relish

Ingredients:
6 Roma tomatoes, cut in half, lengthwise
Kosher salt
1 fennel bulb, 1/4 shaved thin, rest of bulb diced.
1 small onion
1/2 cup olive oil
2 lbs mussels, cleaned
lemon zest from 2 lemons
Salt & pepper

Step-by-step

1) Shave a portion of fennel bulb and save some of the fennel greens. Set aside.

2) Cut Roma tomatoes in half, lengthwise, and salt. Place on rack face up and smoke for 3 hours. Any mild wood will do.

3) Saute onions, olive oil and diced fennel bulb. Add smoked tomatoes and simmer for 2 hours.

4) Make fennel relish with shaved fennel, fennel greens, lemon zest, fresh lemon juice, olive oil and salt & pepper.

5) Add mussels to tomato sauce and steam for 5 minutes until they open. Top mussels with fennel relish.

Coming up: Chef Eric's Secret to Smoking a Suckling Pig and Seafood Fest!

Next week I'll post a tutorial on smoking a whole pig. Not a big ol' hog, but a suckling pig under 35 lbs. My husband Eric has a pretty unique way of doing whole pigs. He says someone surely has done it his way, but I've never seen it, so I'm calling it a secret until proven otherwise.

Before that post, we have a huge weekend coming up which includes the Ballard Seafood Fest! Smokin' Pete's will be in booth F22. We'll serve pulled pork & chicken sliders, plus Mussels in a Smoked Tomato & Fennel Sauce and a new seafood item this year - New England Clam Cakes. I won't be posting that recipe. That one really is secret. But I will post the mussel recipe. I'll sneak that in before the pig tutorial.

But don't just read about it, if you are local, come to Seafood Fest and try it. F22, on Leary Way off Market Street, between the Kiwanis and the cranky New Orleans Cookery guys. Hope to see you this weekend!

And the winner is....

Happy 4th of July! Well, happy day after. It's 11 am and I'm still in jammies. Not that we had a "rager" last night, just a busy day. While Eric slung ribs at the restaurant, I grilled veggies, made slaw, slathered chicken, and picked up socks. He came back earlier than I thought he could and clean up and weed-whacked the backyard.

It was our first backyard barbecue with guests since we moved! Both the Char-broil Infrared and the Big Green Egg were used, so we covered the charcoal and gas bases.

On the menu was grilled chicken, burgers, steaks, grilled veggies, plus all the other accompaniments. Not a speck of smoked meats, potato salad, or traditional coleslaw (mine had golden raisins, almonds, collards, and was dressed with a mustard vinaigrette). What can I say, we get enough of that on a daily basis.

What did you all cook for the 4th? How about YOU, Shane Conrad? Because you are our winner! My daughter blindly picked your name out of a bowl. Congratulations!

Seven Secrets of a BBQ Restaurateur and One Not-secret BBQ Sauce Recipe

If you know me, you know I'm a talker. My report cards in school without fail said, "Julie is a good student but she talks to much in class."

I still am a good student and I still talk too much. That's just who I am. So in my latest post for Char-broil, as a Char-broil All-Star, I got to dish up secrets of of running a BBQ restaurant. I wanted to go to eleven, so I could say it. You know. These go to eleven*. But they stopped me at seven. Something about the fact that most people won't read past three paragraphs.

That just makes me want to put the really good stuff at the bottom where only those listening get a chance for a prize. Hey, there's an idea.

Click here to read the entire post, and all seven secrets of a BBQ Restaurateur. One of my secrets involves cleaning smelly grease traps.. And yes, I always have to check the spelling of restaurateur.

If you simply want a BBQ Sauce Recipe that rocks and can be changed according to what is in YOUR refrigerator, right now, then...no, not that. Nothing moldy. You should really throw it out, but that other thing, yeah that bit of jam and the Thai chili sauce next to it would work.

Right. The barbecue sauce recipe. Just one click away. Right in time for the 4th of July. Barbecue sauce is one of the easiest things in the whole barbecue world to make. It cracks me up how people guard their sauce recipes with such ferocity. Totally smoke and mirrors, pun intended. It's the one thing about owning a BBQ restaurant that, once you have a sauce you like, really doesn't give you trouble. It doesn't show up late to work, it doesn't require a permit, it doesn't even clog up the grease trap. Sauce graciously accompanies your smoked meats each and every day without complaint. I really love barbecue sauce.

My next post will be a series on smoking a whole pig so come back soon!

Pssst. Down here. If you were listening, you know that by reading to the very very end of this blabbering post, you get a chance to win something. Here is the contest: In the comments below, mention what the * indicates in this post, and say something that you liked about either the "Seven Secrets" post or the "Barbecue Sauce" post on Char-broil to show me you've read one of them. That will enter you into the contest, and let me tell you, it will be a small pool of contestants so you have an excellent chance of winning. I will draw out of a hat one name of one entrant who will win (drum roll please): 1 rib rack, a tin of Smokin' Pete's BBQ Rib Rub, a signed copy of She-Smoke, a Smokin' Pete's BBQ T-shirt and one action figure or creature from my kids' toy bin. That's quite a haul. Don't tell my kids about that last bit. Contest ends on midnight, July 4th. Good luck!

Three tips for grilling fish

It's definitely fish grilling season because the salmon have started to run! I love grilling fish, but it's definitely the protein that causes the most anxiety for people. For one, it's expensive and (hopefully) wild. There is a certain pressure to perform when handling $15/lb fillet that has a limited availablity, right?

Fish is also more delicate than a big thick steak or hamburger, so people are afraid to grill it. Here are three of my top tips to success on the grill with fish.

1) Buy good, wild fish. When purchasing, make sure the eye is not cloudy, nor should the flesh feel overly tacky. Check that the bones aren't pulling away from the flesh in spots - that's an indicator that it's been sitting for awhile. Starting out with a good product means much less work in the cooking process. You don't need a ton of seasoning or sauces because the fish is good on its own.

2) Oil the fish, not the grates. That said, make sure your grill is well-seasoned and well pre-heated before starting. Give your fish a light coating of high-heat oil like canola.

3) Grill flesh side down first and let the fish tell you when to flip. Really. The fish will tell you when it's ready. Place the fish, flesh side down and leave it. When the fish gently releases from the grill it means the collogen has started to release, and the fish will release from the grilll. Too early and it will stick.

Enjoy the tips, and if you want more or have a question about grilling fish, just ask me in the comments. I answer back.

Smokin' on my Big Easy: a video post

I'm having a lot of fun with my Char-Broil electric smoker named The Big Easy, so much so that I was inspired to make a video. When it first arrived at my doorstep, I harbored doubts of The Big Easy's smokability. It was, after all, electric. But as you will witness in my goofball video, this baby brings it. I've decided she's a she. As for names, I'm thinking Bertha or Betty or She-easy. I'll take suggestions. You do all name your grills and smokers, right?

I'm writing a full post about smoking a whole picnic pork shoulder for Char-broil, but until then, check this out!

Come see Lynnae Oxley before her britches get too big

We've got a great class coming up this Sunday at Smokin' Pete's BBQ. Two of my favorite west coast barbecue people are joining me for a Backyard BBQ & Grilling Class. There still are a few spots open in the afternoon class, by the way, so if you are interested, sign up, why don't ya! It's only $100 for a fun-filled four hours of instruction, including dinner. You won't walk away hungry for food or inspiration, I promise you.

My fellow instructors are far beyond me but I'll enjoy basking in their limelight while humbly talking about rubs, meat prep, and mops. Barry "CB" Martin, aka Chef Barry is an amazing outdoor grillmaster. He's not too shabby cooking indoors either when the wife lets him in, but he's known for his outdoor chops on the barbie. He can grill and talk at the same time, for one, which is hard enough for me to do, but Barry can actually entertain you while grilling, on a TV show in a hurricane, for instance. He's that kind of guy.

Ms. Lynnae Oxley is the pitmaster of Sugar's Barbecue in OR, a competition team with plenty of ribbons and ridiculously large trophies. Seriously, the trophies barbecue comps are huge. They look like some male pre-teen with a lego fantasy designed them. I think there is some sort of formula in which the size of the trophy increases by a factor of 2.0795 to the average gut size of the competitors. But I digress...

Lynnae and I met through the writing of She-Smoke. I asked the president of the PNWBA what women BBQ'ers I should talk to for some of my She's Smokin' side bars, and he immediately said, "You have to talk to Lynnae!" So I tracked her down and did. She tells a great story of her very first Weber kettle that she bought at a garage sale for $10.

Over the years we've met, kept in touch and do the usual of "liking" things each other says on facebook. But beyond that I have a true respect for this woman and what she does. She's a pitmaster for her competition barbecue team and a caterer dedicated to quality barbecue. Her hard work has paid off because she just got filming for the upcoming season of BBQ Pitmasters! I can't wait to see her on the show.

This class might be the last time we get her, seeing as how her britches might be getting mighty big with all that TV fame. For those of you still sitting on the fence, you could say, "I knew her when..."

Coming up next: Barbecue Sauce and 7 Secrets

Two Char-broil posts of mine will be up soon. The first is an easy barbecue sauce you can customize according to your pantry and fridge. The next is 7 secrets of a Barbecue Restaurateur. Yep, I'm giving away all my secrets! Stay tuned for those two posts.

In the meantime, if you haven't signed up for our Grilling & Barbecue Class at Smokin' Pete's BBQ on June 2, do it now! It's a great class to take with a friend, or buy as an early father's day present (or a late mother's day present).You won't find any other class for four hours, three instructors, and lunch for $100. It's going to be a blast. To register click here.

Cinco de Mayo Skirt Steak Adobo

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Here's an easy, healthy recipe that is a snap on the grill.

Skirt steak became the darling of the beef world in recent years because of its affordability and full flavor. Not the most tender of cuts because it is so lean, it is important to cook it hot and fast to seal in what juices it has.

Recipe: Cinco de Mayo Skirt Steak Adobo


Adobo PasteEvery family makes their Adobo a little differently. It really can be any spice mixture and oil, sometimes vinegar, to marinate a piece of meat. This paste is made of olive oil, 1 tablespoon each cumin, coriander, and chili powder, plus 1 teaspoon each of dried ground garlic, kosher salt and turmeric.

Step-by-step

1. Generously rub paste all over skirt steak. Let sit at room temperature for 45 minutes to an hour to let paste set into the meat.

2. Pre-heat gas grill on high, or make a hot charcoal fire with three layers of charcoal.

3. Once grill is fully hot, place skirt steak in center for about five minutes, then flip for another five minutes, then flip again for 1-2 minutes on each side. I know I often say "flip only once!" but skirt steak and other really hot and fast grilled meats are the exception.

4. Pull skirt steak while it is still rare or just a shade past and let it rest a good 10 minutes to medium rare. An easy way to rest meat on a gas grill is to simply turn off the heat and rest meat on the upper rack, if you have one.

5. Slice on the diagonal and serve with Mexican Rice (recipe follows), a simple salad, tortillas and your favorite salsa.
Mexican Rice
1/2 cup olive oil
1 small or 1/2 large onion, diced
2 cups of rice
3 cups chicken stock
1 cup salsa
Additional spices if you like it hot
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Get your pot hot, add oil (hot pan, cold oil!). Once hot, saute onion until clear. Add rice and stir a few times. Add chicken stock and salsa, stir.

Turn down to simmer and put a tight fitting lid. If your lid isn't tight, you can wrap a towel around it and tie it on top. Right before you serve, sprinkle in some Parmesan.

Tip: Get rice really close to done before you grill the skirt steak so it can all come up at once for dinner.

Backyard Barbecue Class, June 2

Want to hone your barbecue skills? Come join me and two amazing teachers - Barry Martin and Lynnae Oxley - on June 2 at Smokin' Pete's BBQ. 

Chef Barry is a grilling master, long time grill spokesman, and has been on myriad cooking shows, most recently a series of spots on the Weather Channel. Lynnae is the pitmaster of Sugars Barbecue and will be on the upcoming Barbecue Pitmaster's television show.

We have two sessions, a morning and afternoon, both of which will serve a meal at the restaurant. We'll go over all the basics of hot and fast grilling and slow and low barbecue to help you wow your friends and family at your next barbecue. 

Please check out the full website with bios, class info, and the registration form. It's only $100 for a four hour class with three instructors and lunch! We wanted to make it easy for you to sign up. So sign up! If you can't come, do tell your friends in the greater Seattle area about it. We're smokin' for ya!

Shrimp on the Grill

Having come back from a trip to Jacksonville, Florida, communing with the folks at Char-broil, this week was all about catching up on sleep. I had early flights both ways and lost nearly two full nights of shut eye. I'm not someone who can go to bed early on command, nor am I disciplined enough to get my work done ahead. It's 2 am or bust for me the night before any trip.

Suffice it to say, some of the household chores didn't get done this week. I needed an easy dinner and what better inspiration than Florida! We ate so well there, but my favorite meal was grilled shrimp served with cheesy grits at a local seafood restaurant. So after playing in the park late, because it was sunny, and you have to maximize your exposure to the sun when it shows up in Seattle, I bought a mess of shrimp at one of my favorite local fish stores, Wild Salmon Seafood Market. My kids were thrilled as they love pretty much anything from the sea  - even octopus and eel - so shrimp on the grill needed no upselling.

I cleaned them, but left the shell on because my kids think peeling shrimp is fun. I then doused them with a little of Girard's Champagne dressing. Love the stuff. I am usually a make-your-own-dressing girl, but I always have a bottle of Girard's in the fridge for a quick salad or marinade.

I fired up my TRU-Infrared Char-broil grill, given to me because I blog for them, but also a grill I truly love. It's just too easy and with the infrared design, nothing falls through the grill grates. These shrimp can be grilled on a skewer, but really, it's just an extra step.

Go ahead if you like the aesthetics of a skewer, but my family eats shrimp so fast, skewers just get in the way. Three minutes or so on each side and dinner's ready.

Squid Sausage: One of many takeaways from the Char-Broil gathering

You might wonder why there is a bowl of lemons at the start of this post, when I've teased you with squid sausage in the title. The reality is that my photo of the squid sausage wasn't up to par. It's a new par, a far higher bar than my previous one in selecting what photos are worthy of posting. And this bowl of lemons is about the only photo that passes from my two-day Char-broil All-Star gathering in Jacksonville, Florida. Barely.

I do so love lemonade. And while the reality that my photography wasn't cutting it in this image heavy brave new world produced a fair amount of uncomfortable stomach acid, I know that good lemonade is a mixture of acidic lemon and lot's of sugar.

There was plenty of sugar at the Char-broil All-Star gathering this year. We meet with the Char-broil team to learn from each other, discuss the new product line, and to grow as bloggers. The sugar is we do all of the above with lots of amazing food, a good deal of colorful liquids to wash it down, and belly laughs through every meeting. I come away with inspiration and both new items in my toolbox, and sharper tools.

"Sharper" is a key word, because this year's gathering focused primarily on photography and being on camera. We all have different talents - angles from which we come to this place of food blogging. Mine is writing and being in the barbecue food business. Others are amazing photographers who are also talented home cooks, or award-winning barbecue competitors. But let's face it, the web is a noisy place -  a buzzing hive, an ocean of fish - and one of the best ways for a writer to be heard is to wave a big pretty image flag to catch the hive's attention, a visual hook to reel in the fish.

So my first takeaway this year was going to a "Photo 101" class with some of the best photographers in our group. I can't wait to put all that I've learned into some photo practice. Just the simple instruction of lowering my camera from where I was previously holding is huge, but I also got tips on setting up a mini food "studio." Nothing fancy. A few lights with a white board to diffuse reflections when taking night shots. Doh!

What about the squid sausage? We have a little cooking competition each year too. A mini "Chopped" with mystery ingredients and a time limit. This year it was naturally seafood-heavy with squid, shrimp, Grouper, sun dried tomatoes, a blood orange, collard greens and chocolate. Lemon, oil, seasonings and assorted herbs were stocked at all stations. I was lucky to be teamed with Christo of Chez What? He's the only real chef among us and won by a landslide last year.

The squid sausage, 100% Christo, should have won. It was amazing. I intend to recreate it in a blog post. Stuffed with grilled shrimp, shaved chocolate, finely chopped sun dried tomato, thyme and Italian parsley with a white wine and blood orange vinaigrette, we finished it off on the grill (a Tru-Infrared grill, of course). But the competition this year was also weighted with the name of our dish, the final photo, the team name...in other words, all the parts that go into a good blog post. And the victors, who name themselves Diva Q and The Dame, knew how to sell the whole package.

So I leave you with a two photos of the squid sausage. They were taken in almost dark, with a Droid. They are blurry. But you can see the original photo, and how through cropping and post editing, I've at least improved them.

Earth Day: 12 Ways to be a Locavore

I remember when Earth Day meant bouncing a huge earth ball around a circle of barefoot college students. Today, it's more of a sober concept because we all know that only by changing our daily habits will we be able to create the kind of change we need to sustain our planet.

Here is a post I wrote for Char-broil about 12 ways we can help planet earth as locavores. I love writing posts like this because I am reminded of how I want to be. I don't always walk the walk. Life gets pretty busy around here and sometimes convenience rules the day. But the act of writing it down helps me steer down the road I want to travel.

What about you? What does Earth Day mean to you?

How much food? Planning for a party.

By the intensified volume of the Smokin' Pete's e-mail inbox, I know that this is one of the key times when people work on their summer party plans. It's after Easter, right before spring break and Mother's Day, so there is a window, right? A little window of time to work on your family reunion, graduation party, or more casual wedding.

We sell a lot of barbecue by the pound for pick up in our restaurant and the number one question I get asked by people is how much food to order for their group. You don't all plan huge parties every day, and it can be very overwhelming, and somewhat mysterious, figuring out how much food to make or purchase.

Because of this, I recently wrote a post on Char-broil that breaks it all down. After all, it's just math. Get our your calculator and read the full post here. I promise it won't be difficult, overwhelming or mysterious.

New Meat Labels - Meathead's said it all

Yesterday, while flying through the grocery aisles with one of those monstrous car carts, the kids content with "driving" the front end of the racing striped beast I had to maneuver through hordes of shoppers, I was shocked at seeing a pork roast labeled "pork brisket."

'Oh dear,' I thought, 'someone is new at the label machine. Don't they know? If I had a dollar every time I had to explain to customers that brisket is beef, not pork...'

But that flash of a thought was interrupted by the kids arguing about who had more room, and a major traffic jam in the yogurt section. I didn't have time to alert the store of their error; I needed to get home with the groceries before everyone imploded from low blood sugar.

Later I read the announcement that pork cuts were being re-labeled to be more "consumer-friendly." Names like "Pork Rib-eye chop" and "Pork New York Chop" are coming/have come to your grocer, as well as gawd forbid, pork brisket. While I might find a way to work the Pork New York into a haiku, it all seems like a way to make pork fancier, which translates to more expensive.

Before I could muster much more hubris than that, Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn's post about the subject showed up on my blog roll stream. As usual, he's said it all on the subject on his most excellent website, Amazing Ribs. Go read his agitated post about the new meat labels, and put your two cents in here or there as you see fit.

Baaa-rbecue Lamb Repost

I'm reposting this from 2009 because Easter is upon us. Lamb posts for some reason get the most hits here at She-Smoke headquarters. I have no idea why, but I love lamb and think it is the most underrated protein in the pasture. Go forth and baaa-rbecue.

I've been on a lamb kick ever since I was interviewed about lamb for the Tri-City Herald. That's that way it is with me and lamb - I go on a baa baa binge and then stop cold turkey for long periods. So we are in a lamb phase presently. Last night I smoked a small boneless leg of lamb. I picked one with a nice fat cap covering it. Lamb is pretty lean meat, with pockets of fat inside and on top that add moisture and flavor.

Lamb begs to be smoked, in my opinion. I prepared this one simply, as I always do lamb. The meat is so flavorful, I don't like a lot of ingredients to compete with it.

Rub it first with olive oil and kosher salt. Chop 4 cloves of garlic and rub into all the folds of the lamb. Pour a cup or so of red wine over it and let sit while you make your fire. Turn it once in the wine before putting on the grill.

Make a low fire; I like to keep it right at 200 degrees. Place meat indirectly from the fire. Smoke for about 3-4 hours. I used hickory because that's what I had. Fruit woods and grapevines are my preference for lamb. This leg was small, only about 2 pounds, so it took 3 hours. Most take 4.

Baste with wine every 45 minutes to an hour when you add your already-hot coals to the fire.

Let rest at least 10 minutes before slicing. Notice the nice smoke ring on this leg. The meat was perfectly tender.

A final note: Lamb is great for kids. Often beef and pork are too hard for them to eat, but lamb chews easily. My son kids loves lamb.