Smoking Out a Turkey; Grilling Parts of Beef

It's a kind of raw poetry that comes from the above title of this article, one that makes me remember the sweeeeet smell of smoke emanating from all of my clothes and bare skin, and especially hair, after any summer evening cooking adventure on the grill. Actually, that smell usually made me sick after I was done eating the food and was just relaxing. I'd keep smelling it and smelling it, and finally I'd give up, biohazard my clothes and take a shower. But those moments leading up to that meal, waiting for the grill to be perfectly heated, the meat to be perfectly seasoned and the sweet chemical reactions that occur from placing various parts of dead animals on a grate of lifeless steel in a bath of infrared radiation that emanates from the burning of refined liquid dinosaurs or from a cloud of CO2 released from the ignited methane from pieces of chopped up, dried out, old-growth forests.... ah...

The reality of barbecue and smoking isn't too pretty sounding all of a sudden, isn't it? If you couldn't tell from the above passage, this reality has never stopped me from expressing myself in the form of one of Ireland's greatest contributions to all of cooking, other than the potato (once considered the devil's food thanks to Ireland's less-than-reputable reputation): barbecue and smoking.

See, Ireland is called the Emerald Isle because it is green. What makes it green? The faces of the many tourists who spend a night at a local pub. Just kidding, lame joke, let's move on, stay with me. Ireland is covered in turf. And peat. Thick, rough, beautiful turf and peat. In fact, it wasn't long before living on all of this turf and peat that the Irish let some dry out... and then burned it. Don't ask me what they were thinking when they decided to burn dried green plant life, but they found its purpose to be better suited towards the production of easy heat anywhere. This led the Irish to be able to cook food portably for lunch in the working fields. In traditional European fashion, they wanted cooked meat for lunch, so they developed a system where they would take a stack of meat, a stack of turf, and combine the two in a marriage of open-fire-roasted goodness. What we have were was modern barbecuing as we have all come to know it.

Yes, we can all thank the Irish (myself included in this populous) for the all-American way of cooking. I love patriotism.

Two summers ago I found myself at a conundrum: barbecue sauce sucks. Well, the stuff at all the stores did to me. I needed something sweet, tangy, and savory. So I did what any respectable chef would do: I made some. Making my own barbecue sauce in 18 bottle batches that my mom and I would cook with, and slowly sell and give out to close friends, taught me that if I apply my passion to a field where there is none I can create a truly awesome product that people will want. I never got around to selling my sauce full time, or even part time, but it did lead me down the road to barbecuing. It is a world full of superstition, guarded secrets (like my sauce recipe), and true personalization.

I encourage you to find the flavors you enjoy the most. If you like an Italian chicken, marinate in an Italian salad dressing or create your own custom French herbs du provence dry rub. You really cannot go wrong with seasoning the meat, unless you branch off into one-off custom crave flavors like Red-Bull Beef (yes, I tried it at request of my friend and it sucked) or coffee-marinated beef (which is good at dinner but would make the ultimate, ULTIMATE country friend steak breakfast. Imagine it after your initial repulsion fades away... oh yeah.) Try anything and try everything.

Cooking. If you have an oven, I highly recommend trying rib and pot roasts. Get a high-quality digital readout meat thermometer and it will be physically impossible for you to overcook any meat that goes in the oven. If you have thinner meat and chicken, get a grill-pan.This will make it so you don't have to pan fry your foods and keeps them above the fat without needing to get an entire barbecue. I never used one, but it's always an option if I need it. Lastly, the grill. There are many who believe only in charcoal. Many who lay their faith in natural gas, and others who love propane. It's just one of those necessity/personal preference things. I had a grill that had a ground line to our natural gas line, so that was what I used. However, the difficulty and messiness and savageness of using charcoal and mesquite led me back to my Irish heritage and was always a load of fun. The natural gas does not need refilling like propane, and both offer insanely fast heating times and cleaning times. (TIP: To avoid having to scrape your grill at the start of every session, leave your grill on high heat for fifteen minutes after you take the food off. This will burn off enough food for it to never become a problem. It also keeps the ants away.) (ANOTHER TIP: when grilling beef, here's a really easy way to check its level of "doneness". Face your non-dominate hand palm up towards your face. See the part of your palm in between your thumb's base and where your hand meets your wrist? It's that thick part that protects your metatarsals when you fall forward. Not the whole bottom of your palm, just on the thumb side. Okay, take your dominant hand pointer finger and poke that square in the middle. Feel the give and texture? That's "rare" beef. Okay, now touch your non-dominate pointer to your non-dominate thumb. Poke the palm area again. That's "medium-rare". Now put back your pointer finger and touch your non-dominate thumb and middle finger. That's "medium". Starting to get it? Keep going with it. This test works by using the tension in the muscle of that part of your hand as a reference. Open = rare; pointer-thumb = medium-rare; middle-thumb = medium; ring-thumb = medium-well; pinky-thumb = well. Remember this, you'll thank me one day off in the distant future.) Cooking your own meat your way, even if you mess up, is incredibly rewarding after eating only "Flame-kissed Black Angus Burgers" from all of the dining halls for so long. And it's way better than fast food or microwave dinners. Try it and feast.

I hope you've had fun reading this, and I recommend always trying everything for yourself. Get out there and cook a dead something already!