So did you notice that the 4th of July has slid right by now, patron to the swift-ebbing current of time? It has indeed, along with the weeks and months that tally the years. Just like that, they have all slipped into our rear view mirrors. But this is life I’ve noticed; the further you get along in it, the faster it seems to go. Like a good movie, or a bowl of your favorite ice cream. Yup, and suddenly your baby is two. You know how it goes. And maybe this is why I’ve always liked BBQ so much, because of the time it takes to make it. It makes you slow down and take your time. The purposeful sort of time that one must set aside to render succulence from the fires. And therein lies the secret. Because there are faster ways, after all, that you can procure yourself some supper in this world, but none of which so poignantly affix themselves to the scenic path of life, like that of good and abiding BBQ.
So come with us now on a little meat parade and see for yourselves some of the things we’ve cooked up at the pit over this last 4th of July. Starting first with a rack of baby backs.
Day 1
Here is a pit classic sure to let up on the accelerator pedal of life. Good ribs take 4 to 5 hours to smoke, which most days, is just right to get yourself out of that hurried mode of the city life. It is good therapy in the human condition to smoke ribs at least twice a month we’d wager. Maybe more depending on how fast your life is bouncing by. By golly you hurried soul, what’s your haste made of anyhow? You’re in a hurry and don’t even know why! So get yourself pit-side, and kick up your feet for a few hours and watch the smoke curl there, in your own private meatopia! Just watch how relaxed you get, and let the world spin on with out you by and by. You’ll be just fine, by this fire, where the smoke curls thinly into a blue and yonder sky. We started our extended weekend with just such an event, seasoned with our favorite rib rub from the great folks at Miners Mix. Did the ribs on the kettle grill via the snake method. If you’ve not tried the snake method before, we recommend it. Here’s a link to more of how it works in detail.
Snake Method for the Weber Kettle
Day 2
On our second day of the BBQ parade, I favored the good company of the Santa Maria Grill Attachment for the Weber kettle. Wings were the order of the hour, and the Santa Maria frankly rocked the pants off of it. Santa Maria style cooking is like a dance, and your partner, the fire, always leads. Fires are moody by nature, and the heat fluctuates, but the Santa Maria grill lets you raise and lower your meats with a commanding control in accordance to fires. It’s dancing with the flames, and a fabulous way to grill. If you’re new to the Santa Maria style, below is a link to a write up we did on it a couple years ago. It’ll tell you everything you need to know. And some probably some stuff you didn’t want to know.
Day 3
By the third day of continuous grilling, I was getting a little fish hungry, so I picked up some sockeye salmon at the local market, marinaded it for 15 minutes in Miners Mix Salmon marinade, and grilled the fillets skin side down on the freshly oil Craycort grates. Yes, Miners Mix even has salmon marinade. It ended up being more of a paste tho, which really lent a great flavor to the fish. Wasn’t sure if I was supposed to scrap it off or leave it on. Obviously I went with the latter. Burp!
Day 4 Meat Lust
By lunch time on the 4th day of continuous BBQ I had only one thing on my mind – steak! And when steak is your chief quarry of the day, as any man knows, only one species will do. Rib eye! I remember little of this event as meat lust was in high form. There was salt and cracked pepper involved. A baked potato, I remember. And a Minnesota Twins baseball game up on the flat screen. Then there was a nap, belly-up, with steak juices not even dry yet on my chin. It was a good time, people, and we’ll just leave it at that.
Day 4 / Part II
By supper time of the fourth day of continuous BBQ, and after a commodious bit of “quality time ” in the little pit boys room, I was ready to embark on the 5th grilled meal in 4 days. This time it would be a pile of chicken thighs. As an experiment, I seasoned half in just salt and pepper, and the other half with Miners Mix Steak and Veggie rub. Both my wife and I concurred, the Steak and Veggie rub beat out the salt and pepper hands down. I know you must get tired of hearing this from us, but dang it, if you don’t have some Miners Mix in your spice rack, well you’re just missing out.
Thus we see the terminus of the meat parade as it comes sadly to an end. It did it’s job tho. It fed us primarily. Fed us really well in point of fact. But in quiet undertones it also slowed us down, which is the natural by product of any good meal. For when we take time to cook, especially outside, where we must kindle our own fires, we also say to ourselves and to the rest of the world that we’re in no hurry right now. That for a while at least, we will be putting meat to flame, and be doing very little else. No instant gratification here. This will take some time. And the longer it takes the better, because this is what we love to do. And why would we want to rush something that which we love to do. And by slowing down, we may also trick the hands of time for to hold the sun aloft just a few hours more, that which we would have missed out on otherwise being in a rush. That’s the kind of stuff you can pull off when you slow down and cook. That’s what we’re privy to every day, here, patron to the pit. Amen.
As I tarry now in my writing room, with stereophonic music in play, the wind driven sleet of an April blizzard raps against the window pane like a house guest no longer welcome. It was 60 degrees the other day here in Minnesota. 60 degrees. That’s like Miami beach around here. People were gleefully expelling their breath into pool noodles and slapping on last year’s sun tan lotion. My but it was lovely then. All the snow save for the deepest recesses of shade had melted into the grass. The nice cars of the world were back on the roads. And joy had returned to the eyes again of the mass captive audience that is the north-land. Indeed, our spirits lept in proportion with the mercury. But today all of that is gone now- humbled under a half-foot of wet snow. Like a sucker punch to the gut. Like the candy bar of summer dangled in front of thee, and then yanked from your outreached and trembling hands.
A lot of Minnesotan’s want to give that ground hog a good burial right now. It weren’t too long ago, yonder in the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where the wily rodent emerged from his earthen hollow and declared for us all an early spring. And spirits leapt. Turns out tho one, Punxsutawney Phil, is full of crap. Yup. Ever since then it’s been one blizzard after another. Up here in Minnesota lately, driveways have been lost for weeks. Squirrels buried and orphaned. Icicles stalactites draw longer from the roof than the Trump administration. And the sun seems like a distant relative of whom you can’t quite remember their face. Welcome to March in Minnesota.
I woke up the other day with a sincere hankering for some good BBQ. Being the Keeper of the Coals that I am, I knew it was within my duty spectrum and skill set to do something about it. Now to get a good BBQ on in this inhospitable parallel, you must first dig out your pit, as shown in the accompanying photo. Some days this is as easy as taking to it with a little whisk broom. A few swipes of your fairy tale wand and you’re good to smoke. Other days not so much, and full-on, shovel action is required. Such was the case this Sunday last. I dug and I dug. And I dug and I dug some more. And eventually, whilst the crisp six below wind swept off the frozen pond, I had myself a pit proper again. I employed the propane assist on my vintage 1997 Weber Performer to get things cracking. I like that feature. Not as poetic, perhaps, as the political section stuff up the aluminum arse of a charcoal chimney, but nay, it is a manly way to light one’s charcoal for sure. And whilst the smoke curled in kind there, I gave a few final finishing touches with the snow shovel and headed inside to assess the pork shoulder. Come with me won’t you. Come check out this butt!
The Black Capped chickadees cavorted outside the tent in the gray, morning light, whilst shafts of cherry and gold began to burst over an endless sea. I looked over at my fellow patron, who was already mentally booted up and gazing out the tent flap at a sunrise fair to tally the ages. We were encamped on the wild shores of Lake Superior, in Minnesota’s famed arrowhead country. The big lake was alive, and pulsing with ice water waves that which rolled against the rugged coastline. We love it up here. It’s what we do. We’ve come not just escape the maddening urban throngs of the city, but more, to embrace the wild side of this planet, on it’s own varied and distinct terms. To live simply. To breathe purely. To sup from the fountain of youth. And if we’re lucky, maybe even cook something tasty here, where the earth meets the sky. And the steaks have no name.
It was a year ago about this time that we made steak sandwiches on our annual November romp in the prettier places. You can read about that write up 
Thus it was merely a matter of slicing up the steaks into bite sized strips, along with some red onions and green bell peppers. Saute all this together over a very hot griddle, lightly coated in oil. The less oil the better the char. The Mojoe doesn’t need much oil either, as it’s near friction-less surface is akin to that of an air hockey table. Griddle up your steak chunks to a nice medium or how ever you like it, salt and pepper to taste, and bring the peppers and onions to an agreeable tenderness as well. We even tossed on some thinly sliced roast beef that we happened to have in the cooler. Why not! Be creative. This is really elementary cooking folks. Anyone can do it. We toasted the lightly buttered baguettes in one accord, and assembled the sandwiches with a fist full of shredded cheddar cheese, and some Mount Olive deli relish. Sided with a scoop of camp chili. Mercy!
Naturally, we went camping. It is half our joy in life it seems, to spend lots of money so that we can go play hobo in the woods. To understand this oddity in depth would take another blog, so let us instead just tell you what we made for supper here, along the beautiful banks of St Croix.
The big day started fairly early, as most pork butts do, loading the fire bowl of the 22″ Weber Smokey Mountain with 20 pounds of charcoal. Yes, the entire bag. It’s a rather big cooker people, reminiscent of a Chevy Suburban and it’s awe inspiring 40 gallon gas tank. I suppose I could have dialed down the fuel costs on this smoke, but I didn’t feel like messing around. You know how it goes. It’s my baby’s birthday!
By 9 am the first sprinkles dappled over the pond and the camouflage tarp I had strung up, just in case. It was lovely in it’s own way. A symphony of rain drops pattering like Beethoven in the key of nylon. I did the most proper thing I could think of, and simply sat in my BBQ chair and listened to the rain for a while, the sounds of pork sizzling in the pit, and watched the apple wood smoke pillar into the humid air.
The days they taper slowly now, pulled by an ebbing sun. The tweety birds have all had their babies. And the green pepper plants are knee-high to a pit jockey’s eye. The cottonwood trees, pond-side, have completed their annual farting of the white fluffy things, which scatter in the summer breeze. The Lilacs have come and gone already, but my they were grand. And just like that, it’s summer time at the pit, and it’s glorious. And in some ways I thought it would never get here. Let’s digress…
It was like a teenage kid learning to drive a manual transmission, stuttering in first gear in the parking lot at Sears. Eager and unashamed at the face of this daunting task, eventually she learned how to get the crawling mechanism going. Well sort of. She looked akin to a wounded puppy, sort of dragging herself along. But it worked. And she got to where she wanted to go. Which is good, I guess, it’s just that the only place she really wanted to go was straight to the fireplace.
As I grilled supper the other night, turning the protein over a beautiful bed of coals, breeze drifting quietly east to west, I thought back through the last year of raising a pup. I need not go into detail of the joys and the trials of such things. You all know that stuff already. But I am rather fond of one line of advice several people have told me over this last year, concerning babies. I think about it often. Perhaps you’ve heard it too.
Patrons of the Pit 