Well that was hard

Today was something else. The short version: we didn’t eat enough and probably didn’t have enough water. All things that can be fixed (former cyclist Taylor is judging current Taylor for making such a rookie mistake). The views were amazing, however. And honestly, I felt pretty great other than the last hour.

The internet isn’t great here, so this will be text only. The hotel we are at is super cute and supper was included which was nice.

This trail is no joke. Tomorrow is more climbing, but more refuges and the last 40% is actually all downhill. I am also going to switch my watch to kilometers instead of miles so that we can have a more accurate notion of where we are using our directions. I will say, the GPS course on the Garmin was great to have. Also, the signage really is amazing. There are times when you are like, really, we go over here? But yes, you do.

I’m also hoping we’ll get a little more acclimated to the altitude every day. Things that looked like nothing hill-wise had us both huffing and puffing.

But with that, I’m going to drink more water, use the theragun to hopefully get my muscles recovering, and get to sleep. Bon nuit!

Here we are...

Well, today is the last day of 2019, and it appears that I didn’t write anything here all year. It was an interesting year for various reasons. Some good, some bad.

I always used to put a picture of Pierre on these posts, but unfortunately we had finally say goodbye to our little old man this year. It was tough - I had had him for 17 years. That’s 17 years of coming home and having him run up to me and say hello. That’s a long time to all of a sudden not see him.

There were good things this year as well. I got glasses. We had a great time going back to Mardi Gras for the first time in years. I went to Kentucky and visited some awesome distilleries with my best friends. We had a wonderful vacation to Sonoma. I am at my lowest weight since 2013, and feel in really good shape to drop below 200lbs in 2020. Carrie and I also ran two half marathons, and I’ve enjoyed running more than I ever have. Lastly, I’ve continued to get better at golf, which has always been a goal of mine.

So while there was sadness this year, there was also joy and hope. Here’s to a great 2020!

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My Introduction to the World of Smoking Meat

One of my goals for the year was to learn how to smoke a brisket. True, wood-fired barbecue is one of the main culinary traditions of Central Texas, especially barbecuing beef brisket. The time had finally come for me to get an offset smoker, a "stick-burner" as they are called, and start this journey into a new cooking genre. Three weeks ago, I (along with some help getting it home from my fellow National Instruments Meat Guild members) acquired an Old Country BBQ Pits Pecos:

 
 

I was very excited this about purchase. Given the fact that we got rid of our pickup truck last year, getting a 220 lb 6 ft long smoker home from the store isn't something you can do on a whim.

Heeding the advice from several people, instead of jumping right into brisket, I decided to start with pork shoulder as it is much more forgiving. I was not exactly sure how easy the temperature control would be, and so I didn't want to ruin a quality brisket. So on a Friday I hit up Costco to get a pork shoulder. A few notes: 1) they only come in a two pack, because Costco, and 2) Costco only sells boneless shoulders, which is not the usual. I also picked up a 3-pack of St. Louis style ribs to complete the porky adventure.

Before I could cook in it, however, I wanted to burn off the industrial gunk they coat the inside with, and then reseason the entire thing. 

After letting it burn really hot for a few hours (as well as then practicing my temperature control), I went to sleep decently confident that I could maintain a temperature revolving around 275 for the 8-10 hours this shoulder was going to take. 

The next morning, after getting up early to watch the royal wedding with some friends, it was time to get this pork smoking. I first tied up the shoulder, as the the fact that it is boneless made it somewhat unwieldy and "flappy." I made the rub, which was a simple combination of 2:2:1:1 ratio of Ground Black Pepper:Kosher Salt:Paprika:Garlic Powder. I also gave the shoulder a yellow mustard slather before I put the rub on. On the shoulder went at 9:30 AM:

 
 

I set up the smoker according to what seems to be accepted best practice. Started the fire with a chimney of lump charcoal, then through my logs on and got the fire going and the smoker nice and hot. Finally, when I put the pork on I added an aluminum foil pan full of water to help keep the inside of the cooker nice and moist.

I had my remote temperature probe set on the rack right by the shoulder to get a good idea of the air temp right by the meat. I then inserted the second probe into the center of the shoulder. My target was 190° F for the meat. I started the fire with oak, and then used cherry for a while, before switching back to oak eventually. 

There's not much to do while the meat is cooking except sit back, relax, stay out of the sun, and enjoy a beverage.

The pork was coming along nicely, but it wasn't quite ready to wrap in foil. A little while later, I noticed the sheet of fat on top split, and according to Aaron Franklin, that's when it's time to wrap it up (not pictured, as a big foil rectangle didn't seem that interesting). Around this time I did notice the temperature stall as well, which is expected. The foil helps to push through that stall. Around the time I wrapped the shoulder, I through the ribs on. I used a similar rub, but cut down on the salt to get a 2:1:1:1 ratio. The plan was to sauce the ribs after about 2 hours, so I had to make a sauce.

You may be asking why are you making a sauce when there are many, many quality BBQ sauces out there. One word: sugar. I'm not eating sugar and severely limiting my carbs right now (that's water in that Yeti, above, in case you were wondering), and almost all store bought BBQ sauces have a ton of sugar. The sauce was simple. First, chop some onion and saute in about 1 T of butter. Next, add a can of tomato paste and stir until it becomes fragrant and darkens. Finally add 1 cup of apple cider vinegar, and 3/4 cup of water. Now, I did add 2 T of brown sugar, as I was going to be ingesting a very small amount of the sauce (just the amount I put on while cooking), so I figured this little bit of sugar would be insignificant for the actual serving size. I let all that simmer down for a little while, but it never really was thick. I was going for a slightly thinner sauce that would spread nicely when I applied it to the ribs.

I hit my goal temp on the pork at around 8:45 minutes, and pulled it off. I then pulled the ribs off about 30 minutes later. I was pretty impressed with the results:

The pork pulled really easily, and was super juicy. The ribs had a perfect smoke ring, and left clean bones, but they didn't fall off the bone, so it was exactly was I shooting for. I did cook the other two racks the next weekend, and they didn't come out as tender, so I need to keep working on it. But overall, I was happy with the experience.

My temperature control was good, and I learned a lot that first day about keeping the temperature more consistent. I did use full size logs, and most of the people I talk to recommend cutting them in half first, so I will probably try the second shoulder with half logs to try and see if I get even more consistency.

Brisket, here I come!

 
Pierre asks, "So when are you going to smoke some fish, human?"

Baby Back Ribs in the sous vide

I have had good success with the pork shoulder in the sous vide, and I was curious how baby back ribs would turn out. It seemed like it would work without requiring as much time in the sous vide (the shoulder takes a 24 hour dip in the bath). So I used the pork shoulder recipe at chef steps.com as a starting point. (Funny side note, in just looking this up I saw that they actually have a baby back rib recipe. It varies slightly from what I did, so I may have to give this another try.)

I started the rack off with a thick coat of glaze that's a 1:2:4 ration of liquid aminos:liquid smoke:molasses. I do like this rub as it is full of umami and gives it that good smoky flavor without having to own a smoker. (Funny side note 2: liquid smoke isn't creepy. It's an amazingly straightforward product. Alton Brown did an episode of Good Eats where he explained it, so please–no shade.)

I did cut some slices into the ribs to help the glaze penetrate a little more. I had not brined these ribs at all, so I wanted to try and get some seasoning into the meat.

After the ribs were nicely soaked in the glaze, they got bagged up and dunked in the sous vide. (The bigger graduated tub I bought in January came in very handy here.) I put it at 70˚C (158˚F) for 6 hours. It isn't pictured here, but I did cover the water bath with plastic wrap. For a period of that long, and especially with water at that temperature, you are going to get a ton of evaporation if you don't cover the bath.

After their 6 hour stint in the bath, I removed from the bag and dried the ribs off. I put on another coat of glaze. The rub was pretty simple: kosher salt, ground mustard seed, garlic powder, smoked paprika, and black pepper.

Carrie had mentioned that mac and cheese would be perfect with this, so I whipped up a quick batch of that as well. I will do a post about the mac and cheese recipe I came up with soon. It does come out really tasty. To round out the meal I roasted some broccoli. We also opened a 2013 Toulouse Pinot Noir from Anderson Valley. The pinot stood up to the pork perfectly, and it turned out to be a great pairing.

All-in-all it was a great meal with my lovely wife. Eating at restaurants is awesome, but there is something amazingly satisfying about cooking an excellent meal at home. :)

Writing, exercise, and what the heck happened to the country?

It's been a while since I fired up the ol'blog. November of 2015, in fact. Ah, those were simpler times. I had just discovered that you can sous vide a pork shoulder and make it taste like it came out of a smoker. I had just started singing in the choir at church. Oh, and the president wasn't a fascist narcissist with a white supremacist as one of his main advisors. Good times.

But alas, things have changed, and every piece of news coming from the new administration causes me more anxiety. I can't ignore it, but I have to do what I can to not let it consume me. I can try and make my little part of the world a better place. So on to the nice things.

First off: Pens! Nice Paper! Writing things by hand! I have always had an interest in fountain pens. In fact, Carrie gave me a pen for our wedding. I loved that pen–it unfortunately got stolen. But there is something so pleasant about writing with a fountain pen on high-quality paper. You don't have to use much pressure, and the pen just glides across the paper. 

And the inks. I love the thoughtfulness that comes from filling your pen and writing with that new color. It's deliberate, it's intentional. Plus, there are colors for days.

But alas, while I had written a good bit while I was a postdoc, I had not done much lately. The pens sat on my desk at work, with my few bottles of ink, but I rarely used them. Honestly, I felt like I spent more time cleaning out the crusty ink every six months when I would decide I wanted to write something than I did actually writing. 

However, in December, we went to visit some of our Meg and Harry in California. Harry mentioned to me that he had gotten into fountain pens lately, and thought it was something I'd like. I told him it was absolutely something I liked. Then the pens started coming out, all with different wonderful inks. When I noticed that his little daughter was scribbling on torn out Rhodia paper, I knew, yes, he had truly gotten into this. The interest in me was awoken!

So on that front, this month is InCoWriMo, or International Correspondence Writing Month. The goal is to write to somebody every day of February. So that's what I'm going to do, share the joy of writing with people by writing letters. I may not get a letter out every day, but I do intend to write 28 of them.

I'll post more specifics about pens and inks and papers and all the fun associated with it later. I know everybody is thrilled! ;)

So on to exercise. I had known for a while that I was getting bigger. After I hurt my back while we were in France, I basically stopped exercising. That was the beginning of October. To be honest, after the election, I used the ample amounts of holiday treats to try and not think about the terrible situation we had just gotten ourselves into.

So, the day after my birthday, I needed to know how bad it had gotten. I stepped on the scale and saw 249.8. That's the heaviest I have ever weighed in my entire life. I couldn't believe it. I decided enough was enough–I had to take action.

What was that action? To be honest, nothing drastic. Drastic doesn't stick, drastic isn't sustainable, drastic doesn't become habit. During the week I cut out starches. My body responds well to this, so this seemed like an easy start. I still feel satiated, but I'm trying to be more mindful of when I'm hungry versus when I'm just stuffing food in my face. On the weekends, I let myself cheat some, but I'm trying to be mindful about that. Do I really want this–is this really worth it. And if it is, I enjoy it without guilt. I also cut out drinking during the week. And lastly, sweets. This I had to do full on. I allow myself some dark chocolate after supper, but that's where I draw the line.

Unlike my previous stint of weight loss in 2015, this time I'm also exercising. I've only gotten in 1.5 weeks of consistent exercise, but I already feel better (and if it's placebo effect, I'll take it). Nothing crazy–a little bit of running and some weight workouts. I'm trying to keep the time in check to maximize my chance of success and consistency. I'm currently down over 12 pounds, and that makes me happy and makes me want to keep going. I have a long way to go, and it won't happen overnight, but that's ok.

So that's where I'm at. When I look out and see so much hate, so much fear, and policies and actions that make my stomach turn, I can either crumple under the anxiety, or I can try to improve my world. I'm not trying to humble brag here either. There are many people actually out their fighting in the streets, out there protesting, out there working hard to change people's minds and affect real change. But I have to start somewhere. I wasn't happy with myself, so exercise and food mindfulness are the first step there. And I need something joyful, and writing letters helps to spread that joy (and maybe some of those letters will go to my elected officials in Washington, D.C.).

Spread love - Whitebread

 

Pork Shoulder

As anybody who has read my blog knows, I'm a big fan of cooking things sous vide. It's one of the best ways to get meat to be tender and juicy. Another place on the internet that loves sous vide is chefsteps.com. I have been very intrigued by their Smokerless Smoked Pork Shoulder for a while (they also do a brisket, but the pork butt seemed like a safer first step).

I basically followed their steps exactly. Their webpage is really nice because you can change one of the ingredients, and it scales all the rest to match. My pork butt was only about 2kg so I scaled the entire recipe down 50%. 

The first step was brining the shoulder. They recommended an injection brine given the size of the meat. I injected it about 8 times around the shoulder and then let it sit in the brine in the fridge for 24 hours. I think I will do more injecting next time I do this.

Now it was time for the glaze, getting vacuum-sealed, and then into the sous vide at 70˚C for 24 hours.

The rub was surprising. It had no pepper in it, which I thought was interesting. Looking at their brisket rub, it's very similar, but I think I will go for a much simpler salt and pepper. But for the pork, this was a great rub. Lots of depth of flavor. You stick it in a 255˚F oven to crust up the rub and second coat of glaze.

When it came out it had that dark and crusty outside that I was looking for. I think I left it in a little too long as the very outside was a little over cooked in a few places, but the inside was just fall apart, pulled-pork tender. Great recipe! 

It's impressive how much smoked flavor you can get from the smoked salt and the liquid smoke. While it takes a long time, it was really tasty. I will definitely try this again, and I'm looking forward to giving the brisket a try as well.

Getting Healthy Update

So it's been about a month since I first posted about this. Good progress was made. While that first week was brutal, I felt much better the second week and the weight continued to fall off. I was at 211 going into the wedding, and my tux and vest fit. The pants were a little snug, but nothing uncomfortable. 

I decided the wedding weekend and the week after would be a cheat week to give myself a mental break and try to squash some of the cravings. Though, to be honest, I was ready to get back to meat and veggies by the end of it. We have been eating so many vegetables that I quickly started craving vegetables during the cheat week. 

I've gained a few lbs over that week, but that's probably just water weight from the starches. It's already started to shed off. My goal is to get back in my green pants for Christmas, so we'll see how that goes.

I'm also seriously considering doing the Spartan race again in the Spring. The thought of doing that race at a much lower weight is kind of exciting. 

The current plan is to stay very much on plan until the weekend before Thanksgiving when we have a wedding to travel to, and then try to stay on as much as possible in December leading up until our trip home for Christmas. The one thing I am going to try to bring in leading up to Thanksgiving is more exercise. I've been very excited about sticking to the food plan, but I just have not gotten enough exercise. I think the combination will really start to make things happen.

But I will say, all that cake during the wedding was delicious.