Choose Two

Last nite, my friend Jim came over for dinner. He brought his guitar and a couple of bottles of wine. Jane took care of everything except the meat.  My responsibility was the meat - only the meat.  So, I put two racks of short ribs on the grill to slow smoke them.

Slow smoking means to cook them at basically the desired end temperature. That is, if you want the pork to be 180° at the end, you cook it at 180°... with lots of smoke, and for a long time. I have been very successful with this technique. Until last nite.

Last nite, there were the additional distractions:

• we got to playing guitars,
• and there was the aforementioned wine.

Let's just say that after 2½ hours, I remembered that I was supposed to be cooking dinner.  The ribs were done.

I mean they were clearly done.  They were black on top (which they should be), but...  they were not glossy black - they were a kind of flat black.  And they were crunchy.  I had trouble sticking in the meat fork to belatedly take them off the grill.

Jim was a gracious guest.  He ate 2 or 3, as did Jane and I (what else were we to do?  There wasn't any other meat...).  They were horrible.  I was terribly embarrassed.  And Jim left early - probably to go eat dinner somewhere - I wouldn't blame him - I would have if I could have.

So:  Two resolutions:

1. Between wine, guitars and cooking, from now on choose two.
2. We got some more ribs.  Tomorrow I will do them up properly, and deliver them to Jim's house.
   

Choose Two