In the olden days, before tobacco became Politically Incorrect, the post title above might have referred to ciggies...but this weekend, it was all about meat.
We had enough Smoked Meat this weekend to cause PETA’s board of directors to have spontaneous brain hemorrhages. (At least we tried.)
It started Saturday evening at the home of our friends Bart and Rosalie, who hosted a pleasant get-together that turned out to be a birthday party for Bart. Good thing we had come prepared with a gift...a fancy-pants grill spatula with the Georgia Tech logo cut right into the metal. When SWMBO had seen it earlier in the day. she knew immediately that it was the perfect gift for Bart - regardless of the occasion. He’s the kind of guy who would be perfectly happy to get a human turd in a box as long as it had a Georgia Tech logo stamped into it. Go Jackets!
Bart had given his huge-ass drum smoker a workout all day, with racks upon racks of ribs and braces of chickens. (The dark meat parts, anyway.) And the results were impressive. Those ribs were perfect: tender, fall-off-the-bone meat, with just the right balance of smoke, sweetness, and char. We ate until the point of physical pain before going home to toss and turn with our bloated kishkes.
But that was not all. Oh, no.
Today, we went to the home of “After Dinner” Mintz, who, along with Minyan buddy Irwin, was throwing a pool party to celebrate the graduation of Irwin’s younger son Danny from UGA. Not just UGA the regular way: he had spent the last year in Paris, studying at Sciences Po and learning how to eat stinky cheese.
(L to R) Irwin, SWMBO, and newly-graduated Danny.
Well, there was no stinky cheese in evidence this afternoon. But there was lots of other stuff.
First off, plenty of Adult Beverages. I had brought the necessaries for making Pomegranate Pile Drivers, which turned out to be the Sleeper Hit of the day. But there were lots of other cold libations...and you do not want to be out of doors on a summer Sunday in Georgia without adequate hydration. Even if that hydration brings with it a hefty load of Vitamin “A.”
Then there was the meat. Oh, the meat. Enough to provide the protein requirements for a battalion...and all jammed into an enormous trailer-sized smoker.
Jeff the Chef and his Monster Smoker.
There was an entire flock of chickens. Huge homemade sausages, jacked up with hot peppers. Racks upon racks of ribs. Wait: there was more. A whole beef tenderloin, tucked away on the top rack. And, in the center of the middle rack, the pièce de résistance...a turducken. What Steve H. refers to as “The Hindenbird.”
Turducken, AKA “The Hindenbird.”
A turducken, for those who are unfamiliar with this Most Perverse of Meats, is a deboned chicken shoved into a deboned duck shoved into a partially deboned turkey. As if that were not enough, in amongst all this Bird-Meat are layers of dressing.
The nice thing about a turducken is that you have something that resembles a turkey but which is solid meat, with the exception of the dressing (which functions as a sort of spackle, filling in the gaps). It is massive.
But Jeff the Chef could’ve accommodated an even larger version with his Portable Meat Smoker and Blast Furnace. You know: the Osmu-Turducken, where you stuff the turkey into an emu, which is then, in turn, stuffed into an ostrich.
Accompanying all this meat were the traditional sides: corn on the cob (boiled in a hot tub-size cauldron that sounded like a jet aircraft on takeoff), jambalaya, green beans with sausage, boiled new potatoes. Good Gawd.
The Missus and I split before the desserts were trundled out. Who could think of eating slabs of apple pie and chocolate cake after all that meat, anyway? (OK, OK, I could.) And for some strange reason, we felt no need to raid the fridge when we got home.
More pics below the fold, if you need to look at more Meat-Porn.
We had enough Smoked Meat this weekend to cause PETA’s board of directors to have spontaneous brain hemorrhages. (At least we tried.)
It started Saturday evening at the home of our friends Bart and Rosalie, who hosted a pleasant get-together that turned out to be a birthday party for Bart. Good thing we had come prepared with a gift...a fancy-pants grill spatula with the Georgia Tech logo cut right into the metal. When SWMBO had seen it earlier in the day. she knew immediately that it was the perfect gift for Bart - regardless of the occasion. He’s the kind of guy who would be perfectly happy to get a human turd in a box as long as it had a Georgia Tech logo stamped into it. Go Jackets!
Bart had given his huge-ass drum smoker a workout all day, with racks upon racks of ribs and braces of chickens. (The dark meat parts, anyway.) And the results were impressive. Those ribs were perfect: tender, fall-off-the-bone meat, with just the right balance of smoke, sweetness, and char. We ate until the point of physical pain before going home to toss and turn with our bloated kishkes.
But that was not all. Oh, no.
Today, we went to the home of “After Dinner” Mintz, who, along with Minyan buddy Irwin, was throwing a pool party to celebrate the graduation of Irwin’s younger son Danny from UGA. Not just UGA the regular way: he had spent the last year in Paris, studying at Sciences Po and learning how to eat stinky cheese.
(L to R) Irwin, SWMBO, and newly-graduated Danny.
Well, there was no stinky cheese in evidence this afternoon. But there was lots of other stuff.
First off, plenty of Adult Beverages. I had brought the necessaries for making Pomegranate Pile Drivers, which turned out to be the Sleeper Hit of the day. But there were lots of other cold libations...and you do not want to be out of doors on a summer Sunday in Georgia without adequate hydration. Even if that hydration brings with it a hefty load of Vitamin “A.”
Then there was the meat. Oh, the meat. Enough to provide the protein requirements for a battalion...and all jammed into an enormous trailer-sized smoker.
Jeff the Chef and his Monster Smoker.
There was an entire flock of chickens. Huge homemade sausages, jacked up with hot peppers. Racks upon racks of ribs. Wait: there was more. A whole beef tenderloin, tucked away on the top rack. And, in the center of the middle rack, the pièce de résistance...a turducken. What Steve H. refers to as “The Hindenbird.”
Turducken, AKA “The Hindenbird.”
A turducken, for those who are unfamiliar with this Most Perverse of Meats, is a deboned chicken shoved into a deboned duck shoved into a partially deboned turkey. As if that were not enough, in amongst all this Bird-Meat are layers of dressing.
The nice thing about a turducken is that you have something that resembles a turkey but which is solid meat, with the exception of the dressing (which functions as a sort of spackle, filling in the gaps). It is massive.
But Jeff the Chef could’ve accommodated an even larger version with his Portable Meat Smoker and Blast Furnace. You know: the Osmu-Turducken, where you stuff the turkey into an emu, which is then, in turn, stuffed into an ostrich.
Accompanying all this meat were the traditional sides: corn on the cob (boiled in a hot tub-size cauldron that sounded like a jet aircraft on takeoff), jambalaya, green beans with sausage, boiled new potatoes. Good Gawd.
The Missus and I split before the desserts were trundled out. Who could think of eating slabs of apple pie and chocolate cake after all that meat, anyway? (OK, OK, I could.) And for some strange reason, we felt no need to raid the fridge when we got home.
More pics below the fold, if you need to look at more Meat-Porn.
Chicken, sausage, and ribs.
Nadine looks on as Chef Jeff carves up the turducken.
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