Mmmmmm. Smoke.

I’ve been trying to cook slow-carb recipes to support my wife’s dietary interests, it’s pretty much like low-carb but with the addition of legumes, especially lentils and beans. A lot of the time, I’m right along with her, I don’t mind eating that way even though I’m not officially trying to diet or anything. Our point of reference is Tim Ferris’s Four Hour Body diet, but I haven’t discovered any important differences between his setup and other various slow-carb diets. At the end of the day, our diet has eliminated most bad carbs, has effectively reduced fat intake (unlike various Atkins permutations) and guarantees inclusion of lots of made-from-scratch vegetable dishes. Can’t be all bad.

Mostly, we do it because it works for us; for me as the person who does most of the cooking because it’s basically nutritious and offers some flexibility that low-carb diets restrict. For my wife, it’s because the diet works. The Girl doesn’t really care; she’s not very invested in food other than the normal feast or famine habits of a growing kid. And we don’t hold back carbs from her; she can have toast for breakfast if she wants or whatever. As I said, it works for us.

(I do most of the cooking because I really enjoy it and not because my wife can’t or won’t cook. She’s actually a great cook and doesn’t mind the work; I’ve just quietly taken over more and more of it over the years because it’s such a great way for me to unwind after work.)

I won’t call it a slow-carb recipe because of the added sugar and honey. The monitoring my wife does on her diet indicates it didn’t harm her efforts though; if we ate like this daily, I’m sure it would so it doesn’t happen often. Some crafty soul may spot ways to cut way back on the sweeteners without harming the recipe; as I’ve said, we just don’t use artificial sweeteners any more, but for people who are OK with artificial sweeteners there are some obvious and easy substitutions to make.

So here’s my semi-serious attempt at documenting the recipe. I’m kind of informal about measurements when I’m making things up, so definitely adjust stuff to taste. It’s meant to be cooked on a grill, and although it doesn’t take a ton of work, there are fairly specific stages that need a bit of attention.

Lemonade chicken
Serves: 3-4 people
Total cooking time: 90-120 minutes
Prep time: 10-15 minutes

2-3 pounds of chicken parts; we leave the skin on but follow your preference. I personally prefer to cook with the skin on and remove it when I eat, it seems to prevent the chicken from drying out.

Rub
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup  paprika
scant 1/4 cup sea salt
2 tablespoons onion powder (more or less to taste)
optional: 1-2 tbsp of Chimayo chile powder

Sauce
1 cup lemonade
1 cup white wine
2/3 cup honey or agave nectar
3 tablespoons Dijon mustard (more or less to taste)
1 tablespoon lemon salt
2 or 3 tablespoons of butter

Get your grill heated up while you’re preparing the other stuff. Set it up for direct heat – if you’re a charcoal griller, leave the charcoal in the middle and you’re good. If you’re on a 2+ burner gas grill, light one side and leave the other off or very low. You’re going to grill the chicken directly, so a good hot fire, but not volcanic, will be appropriate. However you’d normally do it to grill chicken pieces.

Next, mix the rub ingredients in a bowl with your fingers. If the brown sugar is fresh it ought to be slightly moist. It’s not vital to have it blended 100%, but you won’t want lumps of paprika or onion powder.

To start with, wash the chicken and gently pat it dry with paper towels. (You want to remove excess water, not get it bone dry.) Cover a baking pan or other convenient surface with 2 layers of paper towels and spread the chicken pieces out on top. Generously sprinkle the rub on the outside of the chicken, flip the pieces and coat the other side. You shouldn’t have a ton of rub left; you can discard the remainder or use it in the sauce.

The charcoal is in the center and the chicken is right on top.

Next, you’re going to put the chicken on the grill. If you like to add wood chunks, this is the perfect first time to do it. I add big wood chunks directly to the charcoal, not soaked or anything. Whatever you normally do will be fine. Some people brush the grill with olive oil first, I didn’t bother in this case, and as long as the chicken is cooked hot enough and long enough, it seems to release from the grill just fine without. My own preference in this case would be for milder wood smokes, so I didn’t use hickory or mesquite. I used some applewood and some cherry wood (generously) and it was pretty perfect. I imagine pecan would be at least as good. Oak too.

You’ll cook the chicken 8 minutes, flip it, and cook it another 8 minutes. If  you check at 4 minutes and find the chicken getting black already, cut the time back. (I accidentally cooked one side for 16 minutes yesterday and it was quite black, but that was all sugar caramelizing so it still tasted great. I let the burnt side cook in the sauce to compensate and I might not have needed to.)

While the chicken is grilling, get the sauce ready. In a 12″ cast iron skillet, pour the sauce ingredients and whisk them until they’re reasonably well blended. Do a sneaky finger-tasting of it. If it’s not slightly sweet and tart from the lemonade, add more lemonade. If you can’t detect the bite of the wine or the mustard in your nose, add a bit more wine or mustard. If it’s basically savory and nothing sticks out, you’re there. You probably won’t need to add any salt, but if a vague something is missing, cautiously add a bit more salt or lemon salt and you may find it magically falls into place. Don’t worry about melting or chopping the butter or even mixing too thoroughly; avoid big lumps of anything (especially the honey) and the heat and time will take care of the rest.

Getting it into a 12" skillet is easier if you don't have too much chicken like I do here. It still worked out great though.

After you’ve flipped the chicken the first time, bring out the pan of sauce and keep it handy next to the grill. After the second side of the chicken has been grilled, the skin should be dark and slightly charred – the sugar in the rub should have burnt a bit, it’s perfect that way and adds flavor. (Mine was quite black on one side because I lost track of the time and it was still great.) After the second side has cooked, gently remove the chicken with tongs and place it directly into the pan of sauce you have on the side of the grill.

This would be a great time to add some wood chips if you’re into that kind of thing, it’ll be cooking in the sauce for a while and it’s a chance to add a lot of flavor.  After the grill’s been emptied of chicken, do a quick scrape again and then put the cast iron skillet directly over the fire. If you’re controlling your vents or watching the temperature, you should have a temperature of 300 or so; if it’s much higher than 350, try to pull it gently back until it’s between 250-300. If the temperature is much below 250, try to get it a bit hotter. (

Since you’re going to cook for a while, and since the chicken is basically cooked already, and since you’re cooking in liquid, it’s not crucial. Aim for a little too cool rather than a little too hot though.

Cook it for a while, at least 30 and probably 45 minutes, but the heat in your grill will ultimately decide. As long as the temperature allows simmering, 200+, you’re fine. Don’t open the lid too often, but do flip the chicken every 15 minutes or so (the sauce probably doesn’t cover the parts all the way so it’s necessary). Cook it until the sauce has reduced by at least 50% and less than 2/3; it will have started quite thin and clear, but by the time you’re done it should be a rich amber color and have a consistency like pancake syrup – that’s how you’ll know it’s time to take it off. (The consistency will end up more like honey once it cools a bit. If it’s not slightly thickened when you’re considering taking it off, just cook it longer to reduce it more. If it’s not noticeably thicker by the time it’s been on for 30-45 minutes, you’ll probably want to get the heat higher.)

Update: Having cooked it twice in two nights, you really need to keep it hot enough to ensure the sauce can reduce. It was more windy today so it was hard to keep the heat high enough – on a charcoal grill like mine if you leave the vents open while there’s 25-35mph winds, it’ll blow the heat right through it and cool off, and if you close the vents up the fire won’t get quite enough air to really heat up. You do what you can… The sauce didn’t reduce nearly as much though.  It was still good. Like, “Hey, this is pretty OK.” But if you can reduce the sauce by 66% instead of 45%, the difference is magical. Like, “Hey, this is the only food I want to eat from now on.” My grill’s temperature hovered around 200-210 degrees, and it just wasn’t enough.

Take the skillet off the grill and let the food cool on a trivet for 3-5 minutes before serving. The sauce ought to thicken a bit while cooling, so give each piece a quick turn in the sauce so it’s coated all over. Serve it in the skillet but warn people about the handle – it’s tempting to grab it!

Enjoy! (I’m cooking it again tonight and with a little luck I’ll have a decent picture or two to add.)

What I thought was cool was that the inaugural staff has not only posted the menu itself, probably as expected, but also the recipes! I’m probably not going to make me any pheasant any time soon – you really ought to hunt your own if you’re going to eat pheasant, and I’m not going to hunt my own –  but I’m pretty tempted to scale down that seafood stew/puff pastry recipe my damn self. (The recipe calls for 6 Maine Lobster tails. I’m thinking of a quantity that is more in the zero-to-one lobster tail range.) My kid will probably make “that face” at me if I offer her some, she’s not big on seafood or creamy soups, but if it’s good enough for the leader of the free world (am I supposed to capitalize some of that?), it’s durned well good enough for my family. No matter. More for the grownups.

As far as the article went, it was followed by the expected “Obama’s so cool for invoking Abraham Lincoln, I can’t wait until he’s in office and fixes everything!” and “Obama’s such a phony for invoking Lincoln, I can’t wait until he’s in office and shows everyone what a big, Lincoln-invoking phony he is!” blog comments. Almost totally polar, just like everything political over the last 8 years and beyond. Oh, well. 

Meanwhile, in the midst of the expected Tastes Great/Less Filling blog comments, there was a rational, non-partisan comment: a person pointed out what should have occurred to every reader right away – basically, what they ate in Lincoln’s time wasn’t really a matter of fashion, in Lincoln’s day, they ate what was local, and they ate what was seasonal.

(I guess you could say it was partisan in the sense that the post was about sustainability and eating local, stuff that is usually attributed to the left, so the person who wrote the post was probably a so-called liberal, but the whole left/right thing has gotten so twisted these days that I hesitate to use the terms to label actual values, and without the blog commenter either praising Obama or slamming Bush, I’d be guessing anyway.)

I can’t say Lincoln wouldn’t have loved him some kiwifruit, but we’ll probably never know. Meanwhile, in the brave new world we live in, the whole localvore movement is preaching the same thing: eat what’s local, and eat what’s in season. I can dig it. Not just foodwise and nutritionwise and environmentwise, but local-economywise. And personally, I can dig the localvore thing a lot more than the organic movement, well intentioned though the organic movement may be. Those organically grown strawberries from California aren’t helping the environment too much if  they have to be transported to New York City, not to mention the nutritional wrinkles that long distance transportation of food introduces. I’m not anti-organic, don’t get me wrong, but I like organic stuff for easily debatable health reasons more than anything related to sustainability. Free trade goods? All for it. Local? Fantastic. Organic? Well, maybe. That’s a whole ‘nother area to explore. Please note that I didn’t use this as an opportunity to make a single milk-hormone/breast size joke. I’m all sensitive about stuff like that now that I have a daughter, so you’re welcome.

Another aside: I’d feel a whole lot more enthusiastic about embracing the localvore thing if I didn’t live in New Mexico. New York City is surrounded by verdant farm states that provide endless variety. Portland, Oregon residents could “buy local” until the cows come home. Here in New Mexico, I’d have to pare whole limbs off the FDA food tree if I stuck to eating what was grown within 50 miles. My wife has had pocket gophers literally pull plants out of her hand and into the ground, so there aren’t a whole lot of gardeners in our immediate area, and living in a mountainous/rocky/high desert area takes care of some of the rest. We do what we can, of course, but you can’t live off piñon nuts, honey, organic soy candles and green chile forever. (“I’m on the Santa Fe diet – please pass the smudge sticks. “) I exaggerate, of course. We also have red chile. (“Nurse, this man has the worst turquoise deficiency I’ve ever seen – get me 20ccs of Cerillos Green, and fast!” I’ll stop now.)

Anywhoo… This inaugural dinner was not crafted in a vacuum. OF COURSE they were aware that the Lincoln tie-in has solid PR value. And why not? They’re very aware that fans and enemies alike will be reading meaning into his hat choices and what kind of Blackberry he carries and what kind of shirts he appeared in in college photos. And his menu choices at inaugural dinners and such.  Haven’t come across too many anti-Lincolnites in my travels, so it seems to be a pretty safe gesture, and the naysayers always were going to say nay to whatever got picked anyway. 

Obama’s decisions are more closely scrutinized than any other single person on the planet right now. If these decisions have to be made, why not make them with some thought, and when they’re made with some thought, why pick on him for it? His choices continue to be encouraging to me for the most part. His campaign won largely because he assembled a strong team and let them do their thing, and it seems like he still has a good team and they’re still doing their perspective things. If I was him, however, I would have been tempted to add some lamb shawarma or basmati rice or hummus or something to the menu just to let the “He’s an Arab” types squirm a little. But then again, I can be kind of a prick.

Quitting music feels big, but in reality the number of people who are even aware of it wouldn’t fill  into an average Starbucks. (The number of people who actually care or are affected by it would be the number of people in that Starbucks drinking an herbal tea.) And it’s still not a change, in a way; I’ve made something “official,” but if I’m honest about it, I’ve been pulling away for years. The difference is sitting at home and feeling guilty about it or sitting at home and being comfortable with it. Not that I sit around or remain at home during my free time, but whatever.

This marks a rough first year of me regularly practicing meditation. That’s a change, and it’s been nothing but good. The only bad thing about it is that it’s easy to let it drop. Fortunately, it’s easy to pick back up again. It’s not gigantic “soul has been saved” good, it’s more along the lines of “I regularly drink 8 glasses of water during the day” good. Nothing revolutionary, but it feels like the right thing to do and it has a small but cumulative effect. It’s like taking a Vitamin C tablet after eating a Happy Meal and somehow thinking it balances out your deeds, this is the same deal; cutting back on Happy meals, and/or taking that Vitamin C tablet more often is more important than a single day’s activity. Heck, I haven’t even dreaded the holidays very much this year; something’s changing.

Anyway, I won’t list and explain every asinine little change. But I’ve started cooking a lot again. I feel like music took the space of “doing something I should enjoy” without actually providing much enjoyment. So I’d used the time and energy I’d save up for “enjoying things,” and there’s no way to get that back, it creates a weird enjoyment deficit by creating less spare time and filling that reduced spare time with lower quality activities. By stepping away from music, suddenly other things I actually do enjoy have been getting a little attention again. I won’t list all those, either. But I’ve found myself cooking a whole bunch, and the change isn’t that I’m cooking a lot, or cooking again, but rather that I’m fitting things I enjoy into my schedule, intentionally and actively, and not at the expense of any of my real responsibilities.

I feel like music always came at a cost; my weekend, my evenings, my family time outside work, my sleepless nights worrying about specific situations I was dreading, and my sleepless nights worrying about the big picture. I feel like cooking comes at the expense of dirty dishes, and not only will I pay that small price willingly, I usually get some help. One thing I’d always do after a busy period of music is cook a bunch. I never really noticed, but cooking ended up being one of the things I’d really do to unwind after I’d done things I thought I was doing to unwind. Funny.

Since last weekend, I’ve made clam chowder, bagels, slow cooked spare ribs with homemade barbecue sauce, sweet and sour chicken (twice, The Girl(TM) loved it and asked for it, and if she’ll eat it, hey…), fudge, shortbread, flatbread, felafel from scratch, gingersnaps, lentil soup in the slow cooker, and I can’t remember what else. Oh, there was ice cream, too, but that didn’t work out perfectly; I tried to use this “ice cream maker” that Anette has, but I used a recipe off the internet instead of out of the “ice cream maker” instruction manual. I either need to stick to “ice cream maker” recipes, or I didn’t let the main part of it freeze long enough. Live and learn. But I’ve cooked a lot of stuff, just sayin’.

(I sometimes wonder if I shouldn’t move toward some kind of food employment, but I think it’s a false path. I really enjoy cooking and learning about food and getting better at it, but there’s a pretty big difference between making cookies with your daughter on a lazy Sunday and getting up at 5:00am for minimum wage to stand in front of a vat doing the same thing. But that’s an oversimplification. My biggest and oldest client is a culinary school, and their 2 main programs focus on regular culinary arts and pastry arts. You’d figure that’d result in a lot of pastry chefs and regular chefs, and you’d be right. But it also sends people in all sorts of crazy directions. In addition to the expected, there are the professional food stylists, the flavor consultants for food manufacturers, the people who go onto Food Network either behind or in front of the camera, the entrepreneurs who start their own little things, food writers for blogs and websites and newspapers, sommeliers, restaurateurs, cruise ship and resort chefs, private nutritionists, I can’t even list them all. So to tell myself I shouldn’t learn more about food because I don’t want to flip burgers is a pretty gross  - and common – for me) oversimplification.)

So anyway, I’m thinking of starting some kind of food blog. Nothing fancy, and it’s not like there aren’t a billion already, but it’ll be a good excuse to write and it’s something I care about. It’s not that I think I have secret powers or extraordinary skill – if anything, that’s what I love about it a lot of the time; find a decent recipe, follow the recipe reasonably well, and most people are on a pretty level playing field. I do feel a little pride when I unearth a good recipe or accidentally learn about some food trend I can try out, but even that’s just a matter of luck and spending a little time, nothing special about that. I’ve gotten a lot more into cooking since I had a kid and have become more aware of issues of nutrition, food supply in general, sustainability, all that stuff, and even if I’m going to cook total crap, I love knowing what goes into it as far back the chain as I can go. I’m probably not going to make my own ketchup regularly, there’s only so much time, but as I’ve mentioned before, I really feel like I’m doing something for my family when I feed them. Literally feed them, not earn some money or even just go shopping, I mean warm food on a plate. I love that my daughter Sydney wants to help so much of the time, and I seek out stuff that she’ll either eat or can help with (or occasionally both).

If I can come up with something, maybe I’ll change the world with some new and fresh idea. If I don’t come up with any paradigm-shattering content models, I’m going to start anyway. It’s not the only writing I intend to do this year, but it’s a foothold. And it should be fun.

1. Wind makes grilling hard. It’s always windy here. I’ve learned pretty good vent control, and it’s a fine line to walk; if you let too much air through, it not only makes your charcoal burn faster, but it can simultaneously take more time to cook because the wind fanning the flames also blows the hot air out. In a perfect world, you’d never grill in windy conditions. It’s not a perfect world.

2. Indirect heat – this was a revelation. You don’t have to cook right on top of the fire. It’s great and ideal for some things, but for other things, it’s not great and not ideal. Or something. I use a charcoal grill, so I can move the charcoal away from the food or the food away from the charcoal. I’ve also done it on gas grills; the easiest way is to turn on one side and cook the food on the other. It takes time to cook this way, and some food is best when it cooks this way. For ribs or for a whole chicken, there’s no other way to do it that makes sense. I’ve also had pleasing results for things like hamburgers – rather than just searing them directly over the fire for 8 minutes or so, I’ll smoke them for 45 minutes. They get cooked all the way through, and they’re juicy and great. Hot dogs are interesting cooked indirectly, too.

Indirect cooking works great in conjunction with:

3. Smoke. I use big chunks of wood right in the fire. There are “chefs” who want their smoke to be subtle, but I love good smoke and the more the better. I want stinging, pungent clouds to billow out, and anyone not sufficiently hardcore will be driven away from the food preparation area. You will smell like bacon the next day. And not just any smoke; some meats are better with some smokes:

Hickory: I’d use it for anything except seafood. Ideal for beef, pork or chicken. Burgers and smoked sausages, including hot dogs, are great.
Mesquite: Same thing; it’s also too strong for seafood, even moreso.
Apple: Best for pork and chicken, it’s not quite as strong as hickory but still pairs Ok with beef
Pecan: Like a light version of hickory, it’s great with almost anything. I’d use it gently with seafood still, but it’s even great with vegetables. (Peppers, potatoes, vidalia onions).
Cherry: A unique smoke, almost has an “almond” aftertaste. Pairs great with chicken and pork. Beef is questionable, but that’s up to the individual.

I get the charcoal going, and once I’m about to put the food on, I put the chunks on and let them burn for 2-5 minutes. With enough smoke for enough time, your meat usually takes on a “smoke ring,” a pink layer around the outside. I love the pink layer. The longer and slower you cook with the smoke, the bigger the smoke ring gets, but I don’t know if this is a case where bigger is automatically better, it’s no more an ideal than super dark or super light toast would be – get it how you like it. If your food ends up with one, it’s been smoked well, if it doesn’t, that indicates you’ve done a lighter smoking, and that may be what you want. You can use the presence of a smoke ring to gauge the amount of smoke that gets into your food and fine tune from there. (“Fine tuning” is probably the wrong term; in my world, I find I usually have way too little or way too much smoke, so I’m not personally worried about the small increments.)

If you’re a gas griller, I’ve tried smoke boxes with mixed success, the thing I’ve had work best for me is to soak wood pieces (smaller the better) in water for at least an hour, or very hot water for 30 minutes if you’re caught unprepared, and make a satchel with tinfoil. Poke many small holes in it and toss it basically on top of the burners where it’s not going to block anything important but get lots of direct heat. There’s probably a better way, but in my recent gas grill experiences, it’s been the way to go.

4. Charcoal: I’m not a charcoal snob, but there are different uses for different kinds. If you haven’t been exposed to them, there are people – many of whom I love dearly – who refuse to cook with good old fashioned briquettes. “Too bitter, too much filler, too much ash, not enough heat,” the list is totally true and valid and longer than what I’ve listed. But I don’t mind traditional briquettes, and I often pick them up when preparing to grill if I don’t have time to chase down the good stuff. Lump charcoal has gotten common enough that I have fewer excuses. My main resistance to lump charcoal is uneven quality. I can get a bag home, and it’s mostly useless black dust. A bag of briquettes is very predictable, and therefore a reasonable choice, their filler is strong enough that the briquettes rarely break to the point of unusability. And if you’re going to get your flavor from wood chunks later anyway, the difference is narrower. I will say that if you’re cooking for a long time and will have to re-load your fuel, lump charcoal is generally better. Pressed briquettes have a tendancy to burn with a bitter smoke until they’re covered with white ash, so if you have to reload halfway through you’ll subject your food to the bitter smoke for a little while and the last thing you want to impart to something you’re cooking for 2 hours is a bitter flavor, even if it’s subtle.

I’m not dogmatic about charcoal in the sense that I debate people who choose gas grills, or that I’ll get beat up by a lump-charcoal chooser. I get it. Gas grills start easier, they burn more evenly, there’s less cleanup, and you have really easy control over the temperature. Cheap briquettes are widely available, cheap, and easy to work with. Whatever. I like charcoal, and the fuss is worth the extra effort for me. To each their own, as long as you enjoy the process and the food you get from it.

5. The rub. I use a rub on most meats I cook these days, and I usually make it myself. I may use a mop or a sauce or something later, but I almost always start with a rub. I make my own more often than not, and it’s usually some version of the “classic” barbecue rub: basically equal parts of brown sugar, paprika, and salt. I actually cut the salt in half as I use rock salt, kosher salt or sea salt, all of which comes across stronger than table salt. (Don’t use table salt. Kosher salt is cheap and works much better.) Brown sugar is imperative for a rub for pork or chicken, especially if you’re cooking it “dry.” (No sauce or mop later.) The sugar caramelizes and provides flavor, texture, aroma, and character. 

You can augment the classic rub as you see fit: I’ll flavor that basic mix depending on what I’m using it with, and even if the difference is subtle, I enjoy the difference. If it’s steak, I’ll add black pepper and garlic (and cut down or eliminate the sugar), for example, for pork, it may be fennel seed, onion powder, and rosemary. Celery salt is cool, too. So is Chinese 5-spice powder. Whatever herbs you’d cook a meat with work great for that meat in the classic rub.

I also use MSG; some people freak out, but if you called salt “sodium chloride,” there are people who would stop eating it. I don’t use pounds of it or anything, but I like it and use it. Nobody in my household is sensitive to it, it tenderizes meat, and Japanese wine tasters even have a name for the flavor – umami. If it’s one of the basic flavors in Japanese cuisine, I’m open to including it in my cooking. Again, not tons. It’s made with mangos, for Pete’s sake. I sympathize with anyone who has a sensativity, and I wouldn’t sneak it in any more than I would shrimp or peanuts. I’ll also adjust the amount of sugar in the rub; a steak doesn’t need any, like in a classic Montreal steak rub. It seldom needs more salt, and paprika is a subtler factor regardless of how much you put in.

Anyway, since I have at least some salt in my rubs, I put them on the meat when it’s at room temperature and about 30 minutes before I’m going to put it on the grill. If I were not using salt, I’d consider putting it on as much earlier as I wanted, but the salt changes the meat and more than 30 minutes is too much in my experience and opinion.

No rubs for most seafood, it’s too heavy and too quick-acting. Most good seafood doesn’t need it and can be affected for the worse with one; that’s not to say there’s one out there that’s not great, but I don’t have the confidence to use one on that tuna steak I just spent so much for.

6. The membrane. With ribs, an often-skipped step is removing the membrane from the boney side. It takes 30 seconds and makes the ribs more tender. (Conversely, leaving it on makes them subtly tougher for no reason you’d think of.) It makes all the difference in the world, and there’s no reason not to do it. You just feel around on a corner like you’re trying to find the backing on a sticker, and pull. Some people have reportedly found a paper towel helpful in gripping the membrane, but I usually don’t do anything like that.

7. The beer can. My favorite way of cooking a chicken is to jam a half-full beer can up its ass and use its legs as a tripod. A nice rub on the outside and some indirect heat results in a chicken with a crisp outside and a thoroughly cooked, but tender and most, inside. Some people use vegetable oil or nothing on the skin, then a nice spice rub. (Anything works. The classic rub, bouquet garni herbs suitably crushed, even cinnamon.) I actually use things like maple syrup or yellow prepared mustard, anything I can think of to add flavor during the process. Or whatever I have around. I never use just oil, though. And the beer can doesn’t have to be beer. Ginger ale, 7up, peach or apricot nectar, even Coke. Whatever you can think of. I think the amount that the beverage affects the overall flavor is overrated. It’s real, but not crucial, so whatever is handy.

8. The sauce. I make my own barbecue sauces almost every time. Sometimes I use a recipe, sometimes I don’t, but I definitely have tendencies. I love Asian sauces, and hoisin sauce from a jar makes a great baste. But for my real barbecue stuff, I have just a couple basic combinations I fall back on.

A perfect sauce, for me, has 2 main parts and your extras. You’ve got tang, usually from vinegar, and in my case, usually from cider vinegar (but occasionally white, and never balsamic), yellow or dijon mustard, or Worcestershire sauce. Some sugar, which could come from honey, fruit preserves, Coke, or my favorite, molasses. Then the extras; that could include a second sweetener, for example molasses and then peach nectar, tomato paste, Red Devil sauce for vinegar and heat, butter (no kidding), liquid smoke like Stubbe’s, that kind of thing. And spices. I’ll adjust the spices I use for the meat and the rest of the meal, but I like fennel seeds, oregano, garlic and onion powder, mild red Chimayo chile powder, rosemary, a little sage or thyme, definitely chile powder and/or cumin, and possibly something aromatic, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, or allspice, but sparingly with the aromatics. Black pepper or cayenne as you prefer.

Equal parts of your sweet part and your tang to start with, and everything else to taste. I bring things to a boil at the beginning, especially with fruit preserves like apricot or peach jam, and then I let it almost simmer for as long as I cook, stirring occasionally and tasting as it reduces down. Favorite combinations include:

• molasses, coke, cider vinegar
• molasses, apricot nectar, cider or white vinegar
• molasses, tomato paste, butter, Worcestershire, soy, and cider vinegar
• mayonnaise and white vinegar in equal parts, plus sugar (for pork and chicken)

It’s surprisingly hard to go wrong; you know what you like, and you add it. It usually adds up just fine unless you love obviously disparate flavors, but nobody was going to make tuna and marshmallow in the same sauce anyway. And your own sauce just brushed on grilled chicken pieces while they’re smoking ends up better than most other food you could prepare. Knowing you made your own sauce is really fun, knowing you didn’t use any recipe is even better. Just use the Force.

9. Marinades. I don’t use them as much as I did 8 years ago, I find that I overuse them, but they’re still useful for some things. A classic marinade has an acid and and oil in it, and I often add sugar and/or soy sauce. There’s some smart scientific reason for it that I’ve let go of, and I just believe it and do it. So a classic oil-and-vinegar salad dressing is pretty ideal. I find myself using marinades mostly for vegetables that I grill and for teriyaki type stuff. For bell peppers, I might use olive oil, key lime juice and balsamic vinegar. (A pinch of ginger or mint if it’s handy.) I’d marinate them for maybe 30 minutes, and then use the marinade to brush as I grill. For vidalias, I like something with mustard, so maybe mustard and olive oil and maple syrup to make it thicker. 

I like both Japanese and Hawaiian teriyakis, you can roll your own pretty easily, and even when it’s not quite right, it’s often better than anything you’d get in a store. For a Japanese or Korean style marinade, I’d pick from:

• sake or mirin, good soy sauce (ideally low sodium, as it can add way too much salt when it’s a marinade), white sugar, and green onions. Optional flavors include chopped garlic, powdered or chopped ginger, sesame oil, even a dash of rice vinegar. (Not too much, though.)