The most common question i get is what is my favorite thing to cook? People are always expecting my answer to be some fancy dish they have seen on Chopped or some other show on the Food Network. The truth is far and away my favorite thing to do is fire up the smoker and throw a big hunk of red meat on it and just let it cook looooow and sloooooow. During my time in Texas I was exposed to this form of cooking long before I ever saw a smoker. You see Smoking foods is as much a lifestyle as it is a cooking method. Smoking foods originally was a way to preserve meats and fish in the pre-refrigeration era. Over time people figured out that meats with a lot of muscle tissue and collagen tasted much better when cooked for long periods of time. The beauty of this is that those types of meats are always the cheapest. Because of that, smoking has become the key to complete cattle utilization. This method has caught on in places where the method matches the lifestyle. I love the pace of life in Texas and that pace is perfectly reflected sin smoking. One of my favorite things in the world to do is to wake up at 5 am, throw a 16 LB brisket on the smoker, Settle in with a 12 Pack and whatever other vices i may have at my disposal and book and just tend the fire and hang out until that bad boy hits 205 internal.
