the whole way down, the weather people said it would rain.
"oh, that's just for LA, redlands, beaumont, and sich," i said. "it never rains in palm springs, and when it does, it's just for a couple minutes."
bleh. it's downright soggy out there and we both left all our bike foulies at home. well, hops brought her long gloves and forgot the knuckle scrapers, so i guess that worked out for her. me, i coulda used my booties. alas: cold feets await me.
didnt i already admit to not being able to properly employ baseball analogies? whelp, anyhow, i had a barbecue disappointment last night. i adapted a babyback rib recipe to use short ribs. i don't think i care much for the rub (too much celery seed) and i cooked at too low a temp for not enough time. additionally, i mopped, which i think is not really what i want for dry ribs.
the ribs came out edible but mediocre, which is frustrating after so much anticipation, prep, and work. but from frustration comes learning. and i hope i learned something: i have promised to make the same ribs for a whole lot of people in just a couple more days. yikes!
it's Frobuary 3, YOMHC 0x35!
clippers: best thing i ever bought, even though i have personally never used them.
the weirdest thing about shaving off a non-trivial beard (and i've done it enough times to speak with some authority) is looking at yourself in the mirror and not recognizing your chin.
"hey, what the heck is that thing there under my mouth?"
"oh, my chin."
or, if you've recently begun barbecuing and going to weekly beer festivals,
"oh, my chins."
bah. i knew i had a spare one there some place, i just didn't realize how well the beards hid it.
the memphis-style dry ribs: WIN. sauce was provided but untouched. the ribs were tender, juicy, bacony, and chewy. burnt in some areas where they were not over a water pan. easy fix for that: bigger water pan.
the cornbread: the canned trader joe's corns were not so great. i thought the recipe needed honey. room for improvement but still very, very good.
the greens: meh. my own improvised recipe was better. these needed more hot sauce. i have a leftover portion of ham hock which i can use for next attempt, but i also have a ton of leftovers to defer me.
fried pickles: sliced too thick as per recipe. needed to be thinner slices and maybe a milder pickle.
anyhow, next time i make ribs we'll have a simpler menu. even with two hungry large guys we didn't finish a single slab of spareribs.
the real deal:
mint juleps
skillet cornbread
fried pickles
southern greens
memphis style hickory smoked "dry" ribs
if it all works out: hell yeah!
if it doesn't: the cornbread will, the juleps are already downed, oh well.
i found out that in california, they call a ham hock a ham shank. i also found out that a smoked ham shank is one ugly sonofabitch.
i'm not really "smoking" the ribs. i'm using a hybrid recipe out of my weber book that calls for heat quite a lot higher than "smoking" temps, with a whole lot of hickory, which is smoking nicely.
the recipe called for indirect medium but the spareribs are so huge (i was planning 2 slabs until i saw what a sparerib slab was...) i can't really do indirect medium -- part of the slab is over the flame. so i'm more like indirect low. also, i may not have enough water pan coverage. meh.
we'll see!
to my mohawk! in honor of its one year birthday, i convinced hops to spike it. in honor of my coworkers, i cut the styling session short so i wouldn't miss lunch. hence, 4 liberty spikes instead of 5. still, a most excellent and impressive job for her first spiking:
secret ingredient: egg whites.
we did it with my shirt off, so i was forced to wear a collared shirt. with a collared shirt on, i figured i may as well wear my tie. so i did.
coworkers took more pics, and some of my coworkers are tall enough that you can't see my double chin. i'll post those when i get them.
the pics, not my chins.
due to time constraints, i took a short ride today. now, by short, i don't mean easy: i picked a reasonably tough stretch of road, about 5km, and did a nice little time trial, wherein i found that my LT is about 5-7bpm higher than it was (or i thought it was): bottom of crystal springs all the way to the speed bump at the golf course. on the way back i took a couple nice hills at (my) full speed, and took an out-of-the-saddle ride up ascension drive (which, as usual, drove my HR up to 173, yow!)
anyhow, at the bottom of bunker hill i reached down to enjoy a swig from my 2nd water bottle and was greeted with an unspeakable horror from beyond. i don't know what in the world was in that bottle, but it was uncouth. was it remnants of one of hops' girly sports drinks? was it chain lube? was it wild yeast? i don't know, but it was one of the most awful things i've tasted all day.
bllllleeeeeaaaaagh.
fortunately, the other water bottle, while low, was clean. hooray for redundancy.
last night i was tormented in my sleep by a demon. he masqueraded as a french language professor, kidnapped me, my wife, a whole group of friends and strangers, and spirited us away to be captives in his farming complex deep beneath the dirtiest streets of san francisco.
i was able to break free, find out his name (it was not azazel, but it was close), free some of the surviving captives, and recover my stolen bike.
when i got back to my home, i was distraught to find that the fackin demon had removed my curly handlebars and given me straight ones.
aaaaarrrrrgggghhhh!!!!
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