My Brotherly Advice

My mom and brother are in town for a couple days, and yesterday I taught my brother the finer points of grilling. More specifically, I walked him through the joys of smoking ribs for 4 hours and the goodness that comes from making your own barbecue sauce from scratch.

This was big for me, because you see, I don't get to impart brotherly wisdom upon him often. I get broken-hearted and little misty when I think about the fact that he was born just a few years too late. This created the situation that while we had a lot of fun when he was young, it meant I left for college and professional life during some of those formative years, where I could have been there to talk to him about school, chicks, sports and more things about sports and chicks. You think it doesn't matter, but as the big brother, it does rip your heart out even 15 years later when you think about all the years he needed to talk to someone and I was stuck down in shitty Murray, Ky.

But this is a happy post, so forgive me the moment of soft, gooey introspection. Yesterday was about men. Men making fire. Men drinking beer. Men cooking ribs. Making Sauce. Working temperature and flavor until it hits just the right spot. And then you consume it. Heartily. We cooked those ribs so well four of us ate three racks all by ourselves. Rib overload and a heavy case of the itis? You betcha.

My brother has a girlfriend, and he doesn't need my help in that department (or he's certainly not asking for it since I'm married so he probably would consider my advice a lure into those trappings!) so I have to hang my hat wherever I can. And if grilling be that place, then so be it and I shall claim it.

ps - In the greatness of the ribs, I never got a pic of us cooking them or enjoying a beer over the smoker, so instead I'm running a pic of the delicious apple pie the wife made for dessert.