Whoa, did I miss three weeks? Geez, what happened there. Guess I got caught up in the excitement. We’ve had visitors, we took a little vacation, we left the house a few times… It’s just mayhem out west! Our KC friends the Martins came out for a week. We all went up to the Celebrity Golf Tournament in Tahoe, which is always a good time. It would probably be even more fun if I liked golf and recognized any of the “celebrities,” but it was a great time all the same. I knew a few, like Patrick Mahomes & Travis Kelce, and Brett Saberhagen always plays in it. For the most part I recognize names but not faces. Golf tourney aside, we had some great meals too, and just general fun.

Before Martin flew out, he threw out the idea that we should try cooking a brisket from Snake River Farms. Hey, I’m game. I’ve heard of them before, but never took the plunge on buying one. The only bad news was, all they had in stock was the 20-pound behemoths when I got around to ordering. Oh well. He smuggled some good KC bbq rub out here with him, and we threw it on my smoker at 5:00 in the morning. Now, the last time I used this cooker was a full year ago. We had a big party and invited everybody up for a house warming of sorts. It went “OK” but honestly I just wasn’t happy with the ‘que. I didn’t think it got enough smoke, I had a bit of trouble with the heat, and was just a bit bummed about the whole thing. This brisket turned it all around. It was just great, and now I can’t wait to fire up the smoker again and try some more stuff. I think the biggest issue was the fancy lump charcoal I’ve been using. It just doesn’t work well in this smoker, I’ve decided. Too big. I bought some regular briquettes, and didn’t stuff it so full, and it ran like a champ. Cooked that whole 20 pound slab of beef on about 1/2 a bag of charcoal. This is excitement in my world.

As for this past weekend, it wasn’t bad either. No bbq and Tahoe, but I can’t hold that pace very long anyway. We went out to a few wineries with some friends on Saturday, and Sunday we tried out a new Mexican restaurant, which was fantastic. Service was a little sketchy, but I don’t get too bent out of shape about that, I’m there for the feed. After dinner we went home and played pool and darts all night, which was fun. While we played games, I ran back and forth upstairs and kept an eye on my exciting beef tallow project. “Uhhhh, your what?” So when I trimmed out the aforementioned brisket, I threw all the fat in a bag and tossed it in the freezer. That’s what I usually do so it doesn’t get all smelly in the trash, then I throw it out on trash day. Well, by our estimation when we got done trimming, there was about $40 worth of trash in that bag. I just couldn’t quite shake that thought out of my cheapskate mind. A little light reading turned up the tallow idea, so I tossed it all in a stock pot and got to renderin’. I guess it came out good? Not entirely sure what it was supposed to turn out like, but it looks good to me. Or as good as five cups of fat can look anyway. I have no earthly idea what I’m going to do with it, but I gave it a try at least. (Chicken fried steak is on the short list.)

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