Curious Hair wrote:
Sometimes I think as I've gotten older, I've kind of gotten over ribs. When I was a kid, our station had big trade packages with Boston Market, IHOP, and Damon's Ribs, so there was like a two-year span where it felt like my family pretty much subsisted on gift certificates from those places. I'm surprised I didn't become the world's first hypertensive 10-year-old. Anyway, I loved ribs (eventually from places better than Damon's), but I've never been that impressed with my own handiwork. I don't have a smoker, I just throw them in the crock pot and then finish them under the broiler, and it's like, they're never bad, there's just nothing magical about them. Dolphin is right, the other side of "fall off the bone" is that they're just kind of gummy, but I've had ribs that were the opposite of that and they were dense and overly cartilaginous. So I figured I needed to try an old-school RESTIRNT to kind of fall back in love with them again.
Brother, Barbecuing... isn’t just grilling burgers on a rusty Weber in the backyard — it’s an experience, a statement about curated taste, social status, and low-key luxury. First, the equipment: I ain't flipping steaks over a basic charcoal grill. I've got a Big Green Egg, a Traeger pellet smoker, and a Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet setup that costs more than your car. It’s all about precision temperature control, smoke profiles, and maybe even a Wi-Fi-enabled grill app that lets you monitor your brisket while you sip on a barrel-aged craft cocktail across the patio. Next, the ingredients: we aint featuring supermarket chuck beef or frozen hot dogs. It’s grass-fed ribeye from a boutique butcher, heritage breed pork, wild-caught salmon planks, and maybe handmade vegan sausages. The wood chips? Not just hickory or mesquite — they’re sourcing applewood from an organic orchard in Vermont or pecan wood aged in bourbon barrels.
The vibe is everything. It’s not a loud, beer-chugging tailgate — it’s soft indie music (think Maggie Rogers or an early playlist of Bon Iver) wafting through discreet Sonos outdoor speakers. Linen shirts, Patagonia shorts, Allbirds or fancy Birkenstocks, and a glass of natural wine in hand are practically required. And of course, the event must be Instagrammable without seeming like you tried too hard. Long picnic tables with handmade ceramic plates, string lights zigzagging through the trees, local farmer’s market salads, and some small-batch BBQ sauce you discovered during your last weekend in Asheville.
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