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SOME DAYS ARE JUST PORK CHOP DAYS

The Month of Cooking Dangerously trudges forward. To begin, a few updates: Claustrophobia has definitely set in. The walls in my livable areas seem to be closing fast. Spaces are getting smaller and concurrently the various piles of shit (important shit, yes, but piles none the less) seem to be towering higher and higher ...

THRIVING ON NEGLECT

I believe there are a few great points of clarity in a man’s life. Awakenings that make all of the days’ variables fall neatly into clicking patterns, creating a feeling less like drowning in bullshit and more like living in a neatly organized solar system of bullshit. Everything in its place, even the floating turd ...

SO NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN, DOCTOR FATTERSON

I feel like my priorities have been all out of whack lately. The once fertile womb of my curing chamber lies fallow and has for months. My freezer is empty of the homemade bacon that makes summer tomatoes achieve their otherworldly state. My smoker has seen only one brisket this entire season, and even that was a bit of a ...

ONE SEXY BIRD

I’m what you might call a late adopter. Exaltations of new and revolutionary tend to be met with a great deal of suspicion, if not outright derision, in my house. To my mind the tried and true will always win out over the hot and newfangled. Typically, when presented with the latest version of “the greatest thing ...

BURGERZILLA

A couple years back, I remember asking my buddy Skinny what he did with his leftover brisket. Skinny is sort of my good ol’ boy ‘cue mentor and has routinely smoked 6-8 briskets for every Longhorn tailgate since he was about 2 years old. He knows his shit. And his beef. And I figured there would be times when he had ...

THE SMOKE AND THE FURY

I’ve decided that I like the taste of fire. Actually, I think I decided that a long time ago. But only recently have I come to think of it that way—I like rustic smokiness, I like crispy charred burned bits, I like the deep brownish-black sear from just scorching the hell out of something. I like all the things that ...

CHARCUTEPALOOZA’S FINAL CHAPTER: NERO WOULD’VE BEEN PROUD

As Charcutepalooza concluded with a call for showing off all we’ve learned, I couldn’t help but feel a small amount of glee for the bad decisions I was about to make.  Looking at the contest as a whole, there was a lot that went into it: a push to encourage local and more sustainable consumption, an affirmation of home ...