Borders: Thanks for the hard work, and pass the burgers

Tag : Wood Boring Bits
I grilled hamburgers and chicken recently for my employees. I dothis a couple of times a year wherever I've published a newspaper,to say thanks for their hard work. Plus, we all like to eat. When Isuggested at a managers' meeting that I should cook for everyone inthe mid-July heat, my cohorts were skeptical.
"You sure you want to do this?" I was asked. "Do you know how tocook for that many people?" someone else asked. I'm new here, sothey don't know my ways.
One of my favorite quotations comes from country newspaper editorWilliam Allen White, who once wrote, "There are three things everyman thinks he can do better than any other man: Make love to awoman. Poke a fire. And edit a newspaper."
In East Texas, I would add barbecue to that trio of truisms. I amno exception to this prideful feeling, though grilling burgers andwarming pre-cooked chicken isn't exactly barbecuing.
I couldn't find a large gas-fired pit to borrow in Longview. Tryingto quickly cook 250 pieces of meat on charcoal or wood is riskybusiness. So I drove 85 miles south to Lufkin to borrow a friend'spit, the kind you hook to a trailer hitch. This is a by-gosh manlypit that I've used several times cooking down that way. It's asweet rig.
I'm sure it made for an incongruous sight, this big-honking pitpulled by a Ford Escape hybrid. Good ol' boy pit meets thegreenmobile. It took about 10 minutes to get up to 60 mph with myfour-cylinder gas-sipper.
One of the items I gave away when moving here was a wood-fired pitI bought on the side of the highway about five years ago, made outof a hot-water heater. It wasn't nearly as big as the pit Iborrowed, but I could smoke two briskets on it, which I did a fewtimes a year. It didn't make much sense to haul the pit toLongview, since my forced healthy heart diet means brisket —indeed all red meat — is verboten.
So I gave it to one of the moving men as a tip. I eat turkey atBodacious when I feel the urge for smoked meat.
I cut my teeth on East Texas barbecuing half a lifetime ago, whenrunning a weekly paper in San Augustine. I was a gofer for thecounty's Go-Texan barbecue team. We competed at the HoustonLivestock Show & Rodeo for several years, never winning anythingbut having a large time.
Enough beer was consumed to float the nearby Astrodome, usuallystarting about 8 a.m. and lasting well into the night — forthree days. By the time the event was over, I would swear off bothbeer and barbecue for a month. Usually giving up beer would last afew days, but I didn't want to even see barbecue for at least onemoon cycle.
A few years later I ended up running the Nacogdoches newspaper.Part of my duties included heading up the huge charity barbecuestarted and sponsored by the newspaper. For a decade, I spent aweek each September practically living at the Expo Center,coordinating a contest that at its peak had nearly 80 teams andmore than 5,000 attendees. I used to say that Christmas for me wasthe day after the Do Dat Barbecue. Talk about not wanting to evensee a piece of red meat for a while.
I guess that's what prompted me to buy my own pit, when I moved toLufkin and turned over the Do Dat duties to my successor. I enjoyedthe process of barbecuing: doctoring the meat with the recipe Ilearned from the then-county judge in San Augustine. Slow-cookingit at the lowest possible oven temperature overnight (myadaptation. Likely he would blanche at this heresy.) Getting up at5 a.m. to fire up the pit with a combination of dry red oak and afew pieces of green pecan. Smoking it on that grill at 160 degreesfor another seven or eight hours. Cutting the brisket into thinpieces with most of the fat trimmed off. Listening to my guests,usually family members, moan with
delight while chowing down on the brisket, broccoli cole slaw andbaked beans. By then I'd filched enough meat off the pit that Iwouldn't even be hungry.
Dang. I just had a rare jones for brisket. It will pass.
I wasn't even tempted to sneak a hamburger the other day, thoughthey smelled great. I made a grilled chicken sandwich instead.These days, my grilling at home is confined to chicken and salmon,mainly the latter.
That heart-healthy thing again. It's a bit boring.