The first weekend of June Dana and I decided to smoke some ribs. We wanted to break out Grandpa A’s horizontal barrel smoker before the true test of pork shoulder and beef brisket the next weekend. We learned some invaluable lessons about temperature variances in the smoker, but at the cost of some really bad (ok, terrible) ribs. Wanting to redeem ourselves, we decided to smoke some pork loin ribs for Father’s Day. We corrected our previous mistakes quite nicely and ended up with some very delicious, falling-off-the-bone tender ribs.

But the real story is our TV shopping. Dana and I have never purchased a television: both sets in our house were inherited from our parents. Both sets are at least 15 years old. The one in our family room is starting to go: the inputs on the back are pretty much fried and there is constant diagonal static across the normal cable channels. So we started looking for a new television.

We found a 65″ JVC rear-projection DLP at Best Buy for a great price. It’s full 1080p, which will be good when I buy my PS3 (assuming I can hide that kind of money from Dana :)) Being “Rewards Zone” members, we get discount coupons once a month for 12% off, so we’re waiting until we get one of those before we buy. But I really can’t wait to get that thing home.

We had a birthday party for Deuce last weekend, and Dana and I decided to utilize Grandpa A’s seldom-used horizontal offset smoker to smoke some beef brisket and pork shoulder. Now, I was a little nervous because our last attempt at using the smoker produced terrible ribs. I’m pretty sure the reason for that is the fact that I was reading the stock thermometer on the Brinkmann Smoke N Pit, which is located near the top of the smoker. After reading some online reviews, I discovered that temperature gauge can be as much as 50 degrees higher than the temperature at the cooking grates. That’s not a good thing.

So, armed with two probe thermometers to monitor the temperature, Dana and I set out to smoke 16 pounds of pork and 7 pounds of beef brisket. We woke up at 3 a.m. on Saturday morning to start the fire. The meat was cooking by 4 a.m. Dana went in to try and get some sleep while I tended the smoker. After some trial and error with the firebox to maintain a constant temperature, things were smoking nicely at about 260° at the hot end and 220° at the cool end.

From 5 a.m. to 10 a.m., my job was simple: keep the fire going and mop the meat. At 10 a.m., we wrapped the meat in aluminum foil and threw some more lit charcoal in the firebox for another good hour of slow cooking. I promptly took a nap. At 11:30 a.m., Dana took the meat out of the smoker to let it rest before we started pulling.

The majority of the pork shoulder was easily pulled apart with two forks. Some of the meat closer to the bone wasn’t as easy to pull, but a cleaver took care of that part. The brisket sliced nicely, but it dried out a little after being left out. The pork was simply delicious. Dana had prepared a barbecue sauce from scratch to go with the pork, and it was equally tasty. We had very little in the way of leftovers, so I’m assuming that everyone else liked the barbecue as well.

Lessons learned? It takes a lot of time and a little effort to make good barbecue. But it’s definitely worth the price of admission.

It’s like someone put the clock on fast forward. Dana and I have been nothing but busy over the past few weeks, although looking back, it’s hard to pinpoint activities, which a little scary.

Work has kept me rather busy, and I’ve also taken on a small side project that’s kept me occupied in the evenings. We’re celebrating Deuce’s birthday with a party this weekend, so we’ve been planning for that. The beach is rapidly approaching, and we’ve been trying to get the house straightened up so that we don’t have to do a mass cleaning the week before the beach.

In an effort to golf a little more, I went out last Friday with Johnny (my brother, not my son) and we are going out again on Sunday with my dad and my sister’s fiance, Sean. I re-gripped my golf clubs this week, which took a little more time than I thought, but was worth it.

The postings have been few and far between, but that’s what happens in the summer. One day, maybe, I’ll get the pictures of our digital camera and post them here. Maybe.