Traditions

I was never a sports fan growing up. My mom was a single mother, and like many single parents of the 80’s worked hard to provide shelter, food, and clothing. There was nothing left over for extra curricular activities. Not that it mattered, I really had no interest in sports. My mother is a life long music lover and raised me in the same manner. My earliest memories were of listening to vinyl and 8-tracks. When we finally acquired a TV, we didn’t watch Sunday night football, but Soul Train and American Bandstand instead.

It wasn’t until my son played sports in grade school and high school, mostly at the insistence and encouragement of my ex-wife’s All-American-nuclear-family, that I took any interest. I gladly attended every baseball and basketball game in grade school, every football game in high school, and not to mention the soccer match in preschool when he scored his one and only goal... for the other team. Outside of my son’s games though, I still had little interest except for Superbowl and the Olympics, and Superbowl is just a tradition for me anyway, regardless of who is playing.

Being a Kansas native, it always excites us to see the Chiefs make it to the Superbowl, win or lose, and with the young and promising Patrick Mahomes as Quarterback, even I was excited for this year. But the one thing that excites my son and I more than Mahomes, is my barbecue.

Barbecue was also not a tradition growing up, our strict budget did not allow for it. But a few years ago, I acquired a smoker and gleaned what knowledge I could from Malcolm Reed’s “How to BBQ Right” website. My father was never around to teach me how to grill or barbecue, but I remind my son often, likely to his annoyance, how he can learn anything online. Over the past four years, I have provided barbecue for several family gatherings, birthdays, and even some work functions, mostly to great acclaim.

Smoking meat for a family gathering always includes the obligatory sampling of the finished product while my wife finishes the side dishes and arranges them on the bar to serve. This year, I smoked two slabs of baby back ribs and a pork tenderloin. The ribs finished first, and the meat fell from the bone, held together by the bark. I plucked a small piece complete with the pink smoke ring and seared bark for tasting and then caught my son’s attention with the usual, “Here Mike, try this.” It was sweet and tender, the meat having hints of maple and whiskey, and the bark was savory with its crust of BBQ rub, brown sugar, and whiskey’n’Coke glaze.

When the tenderloin finished, we let it rest on the pan for a half hour before slicing. The mahogany finish of the BBQ glaze captured the eyes and envy of my friends who could only see pictures I texted them. The juice ran in rivulets onto the pan as I sliced the tenderloin for serving, but most of the moisture stayed with the meat after letting it rest off the grill. This too was sampled by my son and I before the rest of the house saw the finished product on the bar.

In 2019, before COVID was a household word and we held proper family gatherings for Thanksgiving, I smoked my yearly turkey and sliced a choice piece of smoked breast for tasting with a nod to my son, “Here Mike, try this.”

My son smiled at his girlfriend after our sampling and said, “That’s my favorite part of the holidays, right there: Dad saying ‘here Mike, try this’.”

I may not have had the luxury of Game Day Traditions or proper barbecue growing up, but what I did have was a mother who taught me the value of family and togetherness. Today, I am fortunate to have a great family, and together we forge our own traditions, like Superbowl Sunday and my son and I sampling the barbecue before delivering it to the bar with the side dishes.

The ribs were prepared and rubbed with a mixture of Weber’s BBQ Rub and TwistedQ Sweet Heat atop a thin layer of mustard and maple syrup. This is the standard rub I use before putting anything on the smoker. As the bark formed, I mixed a whiskey and coke spritz to keep it moist, then wrapped the slabs in foil and put the tenderloin on. After an hour in the foil wrap, I took the ribs off and let them rest before slicing them individually.

I injected the tenderloin that morning with a mixture of apple juice, salt, and brown sugar. Before smoking, it received the same mustard, maple syrup and BBQ Rub mix as the ribs. When smoking the tenderloin, it is advisable to pull it off the smoker at 145 degree Fahrenheit to avoid drying it out. My personal caveat to this is to watch the top portion of the meat if you are basting it as I did, else the glaze may cool it, especially on a cold winter day, and it may take longer to reach the desired temperature in the upper quarter-inch of meat. I glazed the tenderloin with a mixture of BBQ Rub, whiskey, brown sugar, and apple juice. Let the tenderloin rest for a half hour after smoking before you slice it so you don’t lose all the moisture.