Father's Day Weekend

Back in March, my husband received a smoker for his birthday. It was something that he saw the neighbors doing, and it made him jealous. Jealous to the point that he would make comments like, "There's Ben out there smoking. He's smoking every damn weekend. I (expletive removed) hate him." The kids and I had been talking about getting him a smoker since Christmas, but decided to wait until his birthday so he could use it right away. As it stands now, I think he would have smoked the next day no matter when he got it. But we couldn't have known that then. 

My husband is a perfectionist. He has to be the best at everything. If he can't win, he won't play. He won't play Trivial Pursuit with me. He won't have a lightsaber fight with our oldest son. He won't play Mario with our youngest. He won't do cartwheels on the lawn with our gymnast. He strategizes everything. Before he HAS to do something new, he absorbs as much information as he can about it. He reads about the success of others. He spends hours on the failures of others. What went wrong? Why did this not work? I won't lie, there has been some trial and error, alright, a lot of trial and error, in our commercial kitchen, but, for the most part, once he figures something out, it's over. Don't even try to be better than he is. 

Smoking meat is no different. He has spent hours and hours pouring over articles about how to make the best *insert smoked meat here*. He talks about it constantly. How to get a perfect bark on your pork shoulder. What should be the internal temperature of pork (spoiler alert; it's lower than you think). The Texas crutch. He has gone as far as to ask me how I have survived cooking meat for all these years without using the internal temp of the meat to determine when it is done. Good cooks don't set timers, they use a thermometer. 

The good news is that I have not had to cook on the weekends, well, since March. We have had ribs, pulled pork, pork tenderloin, corned beef, brats, burgers, pork shoulder, beef brisket, beef tenderloin, chicken breasts...you name it, he has smoked it. And it has all been delicious. Except the corned beef. That was a big mistake. Corned beef is perfect the way it is. Leave it alone. 

On Friday, my husband announced that he was going to spend the entire weekend outside; cleaning up the yard and the garage, and, of course, smoking. On the menu? BBQ ribs for Saturday and pulled pork (both shoulder and butt), for Sunday. The ribs were amazing. I wanted more sauce, but I am sure that is not the competitive cook's concern. Last night's pulled pork was the best I had ever had. It pulled apart simply by you looking at it and thinking about it puling apart. It was that perfect. We topped it with the bbq sauce that we make exclusively for the Eau Claire Express. Did I mention that it was perfect? 

After devouring three servings of the pulled pork on a pretzel bun, veggies and dip (you know, for good measure), and a bowl of banana peppers, I couldn't eat another bite. But I did. 

We ended the evening with a delicious slice of red velvet cake. First time I had ever made it. It was good. Really good. But not as good as my mom's, by a long shot. 

What I loved most about the entire weekend? The phone conversation I overheard between my husband and his mother. She must have asked him what he was going to do all weekend; to which he replied, "I am going to work outside and smoke." She must have been taken aback because the next thing my husband said was, "Because that is what I enjoy doing."

Oh. And the Cubbies swept the Pirates.