Meat Parade: 4 Days of BBQ
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.
Here’s to You Mrs Sturminator!
To the time-lapsed eye, a golden sun arced like a fiery pendulum across a blue summer sky. And the cumulus clouds hung puffy and white like heavenly mobiles on high. Songs birds bellowed their stoic harmonies from yonder dogwoods and cattails softly bent in the summer breeze. Such lovely times of it here on the 45th parallel, or summertime in Minnesota. Everything is so alive and vital. So green and so plentiful. The earth spins swiftly here too, and the weeds in the garden grow like babies in the evening’s long shadows.
On the pit tonight, a big birthday steak, for yours truly! In these archives, she will go by the name Mrs Sturminator. No, not the steak, but a person we know. Mrs Sturminator is a long time friend, and frequenter of the pit, and when your birthday comes along, she tends to set a chap up rather well, so-to-speak. She’s been doing such things for years. So this year she gave me a steak. And not just any steak. A grass fed top sirloin steak, so thick I do believe it should have come with it’s own pair of suspenders! Mercy! No sir, Mrs Sturminator never is one for giving wimpy gifts.
I had some yard bird thighs handy, so I tossed those on the pit too. Along with some foiled potatoes, and of course, thy beloved and highly esteem sirloin. Of which I discovered was actually pair of steaks, which if course, was even better. The thighs were seasoned in miners mix XXX Garlic, and the potatoes were wrapped in foil along with olive oil and some Miners Mix Steak and Veggie. Yes, more Miners mix. Sorry, it’s just when you find something that’s better than most, well, you eat it! Then we also sauteed up some mushrooms in butter and more steak and veggie seasoning on the Craycort cast iron griddle insert. A modular grate affair that just keeps getting better. Love those Craycort grates!
For seasoning the steak, as always, I like to keep it simple. Steaks are too precious to screw around with. Just onion and garlic salt on this one, grilled to a modest medium over hardwood lump coal. Quite possibly my favorite thing to eat in all the known world. Happy Birthday indeed, and patron to the pit.
Think we’ll just leave it at that this week. Let the photo of this perfectly seared top sirloin topped with sauteed mushrooms do the talking. Boy did my belly wrap rightly around this one, people. Man! A special thanks to cows that eat only grass, and to Mrs Sturminator for sending a portion of one my way. Your talent for giving is one of quiet legend. But your heart measures even more so. To good people and good food.
Many thanks, and Amen.
In the Waning Light: When Steak and Potatoes Are More Than Enough
Such is light’s brief serenade for the sun which has dipped below the roof tops now, at an hour profoundly prior from which the supper bell tolls. The cool wind rustles up the neighborhood streets and across the backyards freshly mulched and pampered and smelling of a sleepy earth. The old pond dapples in the moonlight as the mallards and stately drakes cavort in it’s still, liquid waters. All the leaves have all fallen now, once resplendent and grand, and the geese are in constant formation it seems, bugging out for the promised land, of…well, I don’t know where the geese go actually. Probably to you guys down in Florida, I suppose. Texas too.
It’s November in Minnesota. Outdoor life is shutting down. Most folk have wheeled their BBQ’s inside for the winter now. We Patrons of the Pit, however, and Comrades of the Coals, well, we stoically march onward still, trimming our collars to the tempest of night, and manning our pits in stalwart fashion, for to bandy some rather keen moments still, in the waning, pale moon light.
On the pit tonight, probably the first head chiseled on to my personal Mount Rushmore of Things You Can Grill…Steak! A nice big one for me, and a slightly smaller one for the little lady. It always amazes me, as the resident grill jockey that I am, from all the umpteen dozens if not hundreds of recipes I’ve tried over the years, my favorite things to grill still are usually of the most simpleton in kind. For example, I enjoy a good steak, like this, lightly seasoned in just garlic and onion salt, as much as I enjoy, say, an elaborate, 12-hour, pecan smoked brisket flat, or even a rack of spare ribs perfectly executed to the nearest square inch. These things are quite lovely, and they are satisfying to do. But there’s also just something pleasantly perfect about a simple fare of meat and potatoes. About steak on the grill. And more over, there is a magic in grilling it there, amid a November night.
I flipped the steaks, tongs in hand, and listened to them sizzle on the hot cast iron grate. Orange flames licked up from below, searing the beef, as I pulled my patio chair up aside the old kettle grill. I sat there with the lid off watching the steaks cook, and enjoying the flicker of the flame and the radiant heat bellowing out of the Weber’s steely bosom. It felt warm on my face, as I looked up and noted how the moonbeams dropped like angel kisses through the pit-side spruce trees. This was nice, I thought. Much better than most people think when they think of November grilling. I was not cold. Nor did the darkness matter. In point of fact, the darkness just seem to make the fire all the better. Something poignant and lovely to bandy by. And so by fire and by moonlight I sailed the culinary seas there, however briefly to the shores of edible succulence from whence I’ve longed. It didn’t take much effort either. Steaks are like that. And I already had the potatoes done in the kitchen, so… I plated up the spoils, turned heel as any man would, and sidled inside for the night.
After sliding the patio door shut, and locking it, I took another glance out at the grill, like pit keepers do. There it sat in the dark, quietly puffing away as if it didn’t have a care in the world. No, it didn’t mind doing its duty in November. In fact, it was just doing what it was born to do. And for a while at least, come to think of it, so was I. Amen.
Meat and potatoes. Some days I tell you, people, it’s all you need. Well, and a piece of coconut cream pie for dessert wouldn’t hurt none either.
Mark of the Pit Master: How to Get Perfect Char Marks Everytime
There is nothing quite so fine on a cold November’s eve, than the sound of a thick porterhouse steak sizzling prostrate over a beautiful bed of 
coals. It’s ample portions of a cow well-pampered, searing to perfection on a hot cast iron grate. We often praise the method of in-direct cooking here, putting your meat opposite the hot coals for to cook there out of harms way. It is a good and reliable technique. But there are also times in the BBQ arts where it is appropriate to throw caution to the cowards, and plunk your plunder straight over the inferno. The char mark is just such an occasion.
It’s pretty much for cosmetic flare alone, tho there is some flavor in char I suppose. Nay, this is more like chrome on your bumper rather than a finely tuned transmission. You don’t need it to get where you’re going, but it sure looks good when you pull into your destination. A lovingly seared steak, branded with a crisp diamond hatch pattern, is one of the higher pleasures to grace our dinner plates, and men and women folk alike and around the world will openly weep in its presence. It’s pretty easy to do too, and just takes a few minutes over direct heat.
Now a char mark is rather simple to achieve if you have a good cast iron grate to work with. The standard steel grates that come with a Weber kettle can do an OK job, but it’s a whole lot easier, better, and a might more fun, with grates from the likes of Craycort Cast Iron Grates. We got our Craycort grate last year, and it has been a love affair ever since. If you haven’t bothered to get yourself one of these yet for your Weber Kettle grill, well, you’re missing out!
Anyways, a good way to get a perfect char mark every time is to first oil the grate. Use an oil with a high flash point, such as peanut oil, and paint it on good and liberal. Let the grate get piping hot. Now if you’re so inclined, and really want to swing for the fences, brush some oil over your steak too. This will all but guarantee you some killer grill marks. When everything is good and hot and oily, plunk your meat right down over ground zero, and listen to it sizzle and sing. Flames will shoot up, and seemingly appear to savage your steak, but fear not. You have things well under control. After 90 seconds or so, and with tongs in hand, adeptly clasp your beloved protein and rotate it a minimum of 45 degrees or so, for the oft coveted diamond hatch pattern. Let your pit master instincts be your guide here.
Flip steak. Oil grate again if you like, and repeat the process. The perfect char marks are yours for the taking. After a fashion, tuck the steaks in-direct now, to finish cooking with a little mesquite wood added to the coals for good measure. Season as you see fit, and serve alongside a good potato. Man! Good eating at the pit. And shoot, kinda looks pretty too!
Grill on, people!
-PotP
Mesquite Tinted Porterhouse Steak and Garlic Mashed Potatoes. Man! A feller could eat this every day, only he probably shouldn’t!
At The Tail Of A Tempest: Steak!
The first major snowfall of the winter hit the Twin Cities a little while ago, and it was the usual commute scene, by and far. With little cars spinning their
aluminum wheels in vain, across unruly intersections, with all the get-up-and-go, it seemed, of hamster balls in peanut butter. And if they got through that, they generally were OK, until they got home that is, and found themselves at once mired at the end of the driveway. It was that kind of day. Most folk were able to make their way along well enough, slow and steady, like smoking a good brisket. Except, I suppose, those over-eager souls who stared glumly at their steering wheels from the bottom of ditches, cell phone in hand. Suffice it was a crummy day to drive around in Minnesota, but dare I say a glorious one in which to light the BBQ, and toss on a couple of steaks! That is what we did anyways. And if you have a moment, and a hot chocolate handy, I’ll tell you a little more about it.
By suppertime, the snow which had been falling all the day long, seasoning the land so beautifully, had also conveniently tapered off into a scattered few serenely falling flakes. And the usual Alberta clipper, fraught with bone-penetrating cold, and icy gales, had not yet descended from what frosty latitudes once conceived. Hence a moment of grace in the blizzard time line had presented itself, and given enough time and wit, a patron of the pit will usually muckle onto such windows of opportunity, and exploit it. Like a lab monkey to the happy button, we exploit it indeed.
Whilst the neighborhood softly bustled under a gray sky, with the sounds of snow blowers and shovels grinding over iced concrete, I placed a lovely rib eye steak over the coals, followed by a thick porterhouse. Nothing like putting meat to flame to greet the winter, meeting it halfway, as they say. A sort of gesture unto the thrones of ice, stating to yourself I suppose, that tho the wintry tiers may be advancing, long be it before you hang up your tongs. Besides, I like steak. And I liked how they sizzled in the relative hush of a snowy night, and how good the heat felt bellowing out of the pit amid a world where snowy spruce bows gently bent. I flipped the steaks, searing the other sides over the pit’s fiery bosom. Tossed on another chunk of cherry wood, then hit the beef with a little garlic and onion salt. I know we keepers of the pit are known for our fancy rubs and intricate marinades, but with a good steak people, this is about as clever as we get. There is something very satisfying, and primal, about keeping it simple where steak is concerned. And at the tail of a tempest, simple seemed the way to go.
Tucking the old cow indirect, and putting the lid on, I slipped my hands into the familiar pockets of the smoking jacket, and watched the evening transpire. I enjoyed the warm light peeking out through grill damper, and how the wood smoke accompanied it, in soft, aromatic tendrils. And tho the tweety birds were all hunkered down, a small squadron of Canadian geese honked and chortled overhead, southbound, their feathery wings stroking through the still, night air like paint brushes to canvas. I liked that. I fancied greatly the way a sound wave traveled this eve, hushed and intimate, and with great touch, the way it always does after a fresh snow fall. There is a serenity found at the end of a snow storm, whence the last flakes have waned. A golden hour of acoustic magic, and a white splendor to tug the soul. A giddy expanse of time where even a grown man will recoil into a youthful state again, and for a moment, when the neighbors aren’t so much looking, frolic as if he were ten again.
And the wood smoke gently curled.
Cherry Smoked, Grilled Rib Eye and Porterhouse, sided with a lovely vegetable medley for to please the lady folk. Man! If you find a better way to usher in the winter, you let us know about it!
How To BBQ For A Baby: Chicken, Steak, and Tin Foil Potatoes
Repairing in the BBQ chair, legs crossed like a gentleman of leisure, I spied them from afar, ambling head-long through the
steely grass. A half-dozen little yellow-green fuzz balls, escorted under the watchful wing of ma and pa. Bumbling creatures, but terribly cute, looking only at the ground, pecking about for what wonders may reside there. It was good to see new families like this. Triumps of unconditional love, and a feathery nurture. They seem to do this every year about this time, along with every one else. They wandered right up close to my BBQ chair, as if to address me in some formal manner reserved for goose ideology or the like. I adjusted my posture some, and noted how once again, these feathered blokes have ambled by precisely when the first plumes of smoke curl from my old kettle grill. More times than I have counted they have come to share supper with me like this, babies and all. I’d like to think it’s because they like me, and appreciate the ambiance of the pit I strive so hard for. But the truth of the matter is that I’m only being used. For I usually toss them some crusty old bread if I have any, and that seems well enough for them to at least fake a friendship out by the pit. And I’m OK with that.
Spring time. New life. Turns out one of our close friends this week, had a baby too. A wee little thing, neither yellow-green nor fuzzy, and pert near about as cute as they come in baby land. My bride suggested we do something nice for them, because she’s rather thoughtful like that, and being the fire-lighting, meat-eating man that I am, naturally the only logical course of action I could come up with, was to have a BBQ. What better way to introduce a new soul to this ever-spinning world, I thought, than a plate of tin foiled potatoes, BBQ chicken, and sirloin steak! Everything a wee pup needs to make a lasting, first impression. And besides that, it’s never too soon to draft another into the BBQ arts. I don’t know if they make little Weber grills for babies, but they should. I would set one down in front of the kid, just so they could imprint on each other. And it would be a better world because of it, somewhere on down the line.
The baby feast started with the potatoes naturally, because they take the longest. Diced up and seasoned tonight with a dash or two of Lipton Onion soup mix. Cause that stuff ain’t just for soup you know. Over the seasoned and diced potatoes, I added a lovely melody of vegetables for to please the lady folk, along with a few dollops of butter, and wrapped it all up in foil. This in turn placed over direct heat for 20 minutes or so, flipped over once mid-way for even cooking. Whilst the spuds did their thing, the chicken legs were then placed opposite the hot coals, and a small piece of hickory wood added to the fire for some smokey goodness. The legs previous were rubbed down in McCormick’s Chicken Rub, and later, at the end of the cook, painted with a generous layer of Sweet Baby Rays. Now what infant wouldn’t want to suck on one of them!
As the white clouds idled in a blue sky, and bird song rang from the Alders, I pulled the foiled potatoes over indirect heat. They were done, and so was the chicken. Lastly, and to bring a sense of closure to the meat fest, we seared a nice sirloin steak over a hot bed of orange-glowing coals, and then finished it off indirect. When you set up your grill like this, with the coals banked to one side, you will be afforded much control this way. You will have established in your grill’s fiery bosom, three distinct temperature zones. One for direct heat right over the coals, one for indirect cooking opposite the hot coals, and something of a Switzerland affair, right smack in the middle. The thermal trifecta of modern grilling. Anyways.
I plated up the meats and taters, and bid a farewell to my feathery friends, still pecking through the green grass. Not to be rude to the little geese, nor to point out the shallow nature of our relationship, but it was time to go show the newborn some of the finer things worth looking forward to in this world. Something far removed from a crusty old piece of moldy bread. Amen.
Hickory Tinted BBQ Chicken Legs, Sirloin Steak, and Tin Foiled Potatoes. Man! And so what if a baby doesn’t have teeth. The parents do!
Man Fuel: T-Bone Steak & Potatoes
We are men, and we eat meat. Not that that we require meat every day or anything, but when we do, we want it to be worthy of the wages that beset our colon, not to mention our pocket book. When the day has ebbed long, evening shadows breaking, and we waddle through the kitchen door, pekid and of trembling legs from a day’s long labor, are we not secretly hoping for a big, thick, and decidedly juicy steak, plopped on a platter, juices oozing, sided with a plentiful allotment of potatoes? You’re darn right we are. We are men! We will never turn down a steak, so long as as our doctor is not in the room. Even women get this way from time to time, deliriously entombed in the heady thralls of meat lust. And we are not to analyze why, but instead to procure a succulent T-Bone or the like in short fashion. Yes indeed, there are some days in a pit keeper’s life menu where he must at once, and savagely so maybe, abandon all fanciful marinades and intricate rubs, and get down to the primal business of just putting meat to flame, and worry of nothing else. On days like this, and your body will tell you when, nothing quite so hits the spot better, than a big steak, and a lovely side of potatoes. That is all we need. Man fuel at its most basic. And hunger shall be our spice.
With meager fanfare, let us then lay meat to flame, and declare that it is good. An appetizer of chicken wings to start, just because. Then a thick T-Bone perfectly seared ought to do, surrounded in love by a starchy congregation of potatoes. Spuds rubbed first in olive oil, and seasoned lightly with a little salt, and a little pepper. Placed in kindly order over direct heat. And the steak, oh that beloved cut of beef that we have longed for so long, of all the things we cook on the pit here, this one holds a special place. I shall not regale you with a litany of promising spice and marinade, because in point of fact, there are none. Not for steak. Oh people do, and have a dear old time I know. But of all the meats in the grilling arts, I think I like to keep steak the simplest. Just a dash of garlic and and a touch of onion salt, and nothing more, seared in smokey perfection over a hardwood fire. Dang! Good meat will do the talking, by and far, if we would just get out of its way.
You could get a whole lot fancier, but nothing will hit the spot more keenly, nor lobby for a man’s fuel so feverishly, than fire grilled T-bone steak and potatoes. We are men you see. And if this is all we had, it would be alright. Amen.
How To Win Over A Man: Steak!
We are men. And we are moved by meat. Don’t ask us why. We don’t know. Difficult perhaps to articulate, but easy to appreciate, whence our incisors have pierced the hallowed surface of that perfectly seared steak. Ah yes, steak. A good one will settle a restless man’s soul, and in turn draw him closer to thee, and unto his meatiest ideal. Hark, the world and it’s cares fairly ebb to a faint hush, and the pendulum of the sun at once holds stalwart in the sky, when at last we lay big meat to flame, and simply cook it there amid the rising smoke. Oh how we favor a good steak, abiding in it’s juices, sizzling quietly over a beautiful bed of coals. It moves us.
It was one of those vintage winter afternoons, under skies of sleet and falling snow, where the call of the grill was at it’s most primal. It’s most basic, I should wager. Nothing fancy today, as fancy would only ruin it. Nay, when bridled in the heady thralls of meat lust, let there just be meat on flame, and let hunger be our spice. The rest will sort itself out, by and by. For today, as in days past, we are smitten for the rib eye. The bone-in succulent sort known to send grown men into slobbering fits of idiocy. Plunk one of these down on a man’s plate, and plop a potato along side it, and he is at once and for all the world, a contented species. Gobbling quietly by himself, with no apparent no need for conversation. Like a pacifier to a new born, for a time anyways, he will require little else. Indeed, for a few fleeting minutes, and maybe even more than that, all the world is right. For let it be said, nothing is quite so efficient at setting a man straight, than grilled meat on the bone, and a fashionable side of potatoes.
So next time your looking for something simple off the grill, or have a restless man on your hands, well, ain’t too many things better suited for both, than a perfectly grilled Rib Eye, and the space in time to devour it.
Patrons of the Pit 