Don’t lose hope dear internetting ones, we still have every intention of launching the full Outsider’s Almanac website in the near future, it just won’t be quite as soon as we had hoped. We’re pretty insanely busy these days, between writing projects, client needs, body/mind/spirit rehabbing and the pursuit of winter in it’s many splendered and distracting forms, but you should expect to see the site live by around April 1st, 2010.

We’ve got our sites on making Outsider’s Almanac the most exhaustive and user friendly site for all Outsider activities by combining tutorials with expert articles, videos, web based and mobile communication apps, up-to-the-minute live and critical information on sites and conditions, gear reviews, site reviews, events, and so much more.

Like you, we love the Outside, it’s beautiful out here, and boy is it easy to get distracted. We wouldn’t want it any other way.

Jim Baldridge was a man of many talents and, before his untimely passing, a good friend of my fathers. I remember him from boyhood, traveling through the empty dust of dirt roads to attend livestock sales with my father. Jim would auctioneer as dad worked the ring and I sat in the stands reading through the program trying to guess what each lot would go for and wishing I could bid on one. As I recall he always had a ready smile and contagious laugh but my most concrete memory of Jim is a vision from the ubiquitous diner that is often connected to sale barns.

It’s a surprising memory and I’m not sure why it stuck with me but I can still see him, sitting across from me, joking playfully with the waitress and eventually getting around to ordering a hamburger without the top bun or maybe he took the top bun off, either way he didn’t eat it.   Then a little while later, he would call the waitress over agian and order another hamburger, doing the same thing with the top bun. I was never sure if he did this because he thought if he skipped the bun it was fine to have two hamburgers or if he just liked less between him and the flavor of the beef. I’ve decided, whether it’s true or not, to believe that it was the latter of my two concocted possibilities. Which I think stands to reason given his great contribution to humanity and deliciousness, Jim Baldridge’s Secret Seasoning.

It was around this seasoning which the legend of Jim Baldridge grew in my head, ever since I was a young boy, probably eleven or twelve, a piece of beef never struck the Shirley table without first being generously bathed in Jim’ Baldridge’s Secret Seasoning.  We even took it with us on the Lake Vermillion fishing trip.  Here’s a visual testimonial of how Bucky feels about Baldridge’s:

So Good We Still Ate Them!

To this day, I don’t make steaks, burgers or chops without it and ever since I can remember anyone who tastes it asks me to get them some. Well, stop asking me and get it here: Buy Jim Baldridge’s Secret Seasoning, just make sure to tell them OA sent ya.

This here’s my Dad, Jim Shirley, just retired VP of The American Angus Association and man of many meats. He’s been a good father and as such made sure that our table was never hurting for delicious cuts.

To show our appreciation and congratulate him on his retirement we recently bought him a Char-Griller – Outlaw Smoker, complete with the side fire box for proper Texas style smoking with indirect heat.  Seemed right and natural to get a fella with some time to kill a smoker.  I was also  secretly counting on him coming up with some recipes which we could try – lo and behold here is the first.

Here then in his own words are the results:

“I started with three racks of baby back ribs.  I removed the membrane on the bone side of the ribs by peeling it back at one corner with a knife until I could get a grasp of it and then pulled it back. A pair of pliers might work well to grasp the membrane but it can easily be done with your fingers.

After removing the membrane I coated the ribs with this rub:

½ cup brown sugar

½ cup paprika

2 tbsp sea salt

2 tbsp garlic

1 tbsp crushed red pepper

1 tbsp onion powder

1 tbsp black pepper

I mixed the rub and coated the ribs very generously then wrapped them in cling wrap and kept them in the refrigerator over night.

The next morning I took the ribs out and allowed them to reach room temperature while the smoker was readied and reached 200 degrees. The smoker was fired by Kingsford charcoal and dry hickory chunks were added around the coals.

I placed the ribs on the grill bone side down and smoked them for two and one half hours at a pretty constant temp of 200 degrees adding coals and hickory chips as needed. I opened the cooking chamber once to rotate the ribs end for end but did not turn them over.

After the two and half hours I prepared an aluminum foil pouch for the ribs. In the bottom of the pouch I placed a layer of applesauce, not so much for flavor but more for moisture. Once the ribs we’re in the pouch I completely sealed the pouch taking care not to puncture the pouch intending that all of the moisture stay inside.

I then returned the ribs in the pouch to the smoker. The temperature was retained at about 180 to 200 degrees (hickory chips were not used once the ribs were in the aluminum foil). After a little over an hour and one half (actually closer to two hours) I opened the top of the pouch and exposed the ribs still in the pouch much like in a pan. I then lightly brushed two racks of the ribs with OA recommended Captain Curt’s Shazaam Boss Sauce and left the third rack dry. I left them all on the smoker in that manner for about one half hour.

The ribs were served with Captain Curt’s Boss Sauce on the side and in minutes the table looked as if a pack of coyotes had eaten. Every bone was clean and we were all smiles The drinks perhaps had some effect on the smiles but I really believe it was the ribs.

One thing that you might want to vary is the cooking time, The ribs were so tender that they fell of the bones when I removed them from the aluminum foil pouch for serving. Experiment with the cooking time but I believe that they would have been great with two and one half hours smoking and one and a half hours in the sealed pouch.”

Happy Eating!!!

Wandering through the super market the other day looking for a BBQ sauce to flavor up my already moist and tasty smoked pork butt, I stumbled across a real treasure in both BBQ sauces and Chicago culture.

I was immediately struck by the bottle, a color saturated photo of Curtis Briggs, no-doubt the bottle’s namesake, smiling back at me. The Captain’s got a red cape thrown over one shoulder and, on the other breast of the cape, the words ‘cooking genious’ are stitched. Turning the bottle over you’re given a quick bio on Curtis and his aptly named ‘Boss Sauces’ and, I guess in case you have any questions, Curtis Brigg’s phone number. Seriously, the 773 prefix and all. I have every intention of calling this number one of these days, most likely at the end of a decent smoke when I can appropriately extrapolate on my enthusiasm for my man Capt. Curtis’ amazing Boss Sauce.

I bought his Hickory flavor and was pleasantly surprised in the richness of the sauce, so much more flavorful than the other 2 store bought brands I picked up (Open Pitt and Sweet Baby Ray’s). The folks over at BBQ Sauce Review agree with my enthusiasm for the sauce, though they seem to be less fond of the packaging than I was.

A quick googling the following day turned me on, not only to the video below, but also to the fact that Curtis has a restaurant on Chicago’s south side, the aptly named Captain Curtis’ Shazaam Restaurant located at 8210 S. Cottage Grove Ave., where his famed BBQ is dished up with live Jazz and R&B until 1am every morning. My trips to the south side are far too infrequent, but every time I head down to our richest source of Chicago history I am fed well and plenty and left rejuvenated having engaged again with so much of my city’s rich historical roots. The Captain’s restaurant is next on my hit list and I promise to offer a full review after my visit.

The name of our site, Outsider’s Almanac, has several important meanings to me not the least of which is the effort to get outside of one’s comfort zones, one’s home and one’s neighborhood. In Chicago it can at times be as hard to find an event outside – like biking or hiking or snowboarding – as it is to find the motivation get outside of your own 4 block confine. Every part of Chicago is so rich with great food, great people and amazing history that it’s often too easy to become rote in well-worn tracks. But, as the Captain now stands testament to in my mind, there are too many riches outside of what I know to stay comfortable or predictable for too long and, so, it’s time once again for me to get down to the south side and try some of Captain Curtis’ Shazaam BBQ.

We’re trying an experiment this weekend with a couple pork butts in an effort to see which approach is better for flavor; either brining the hog and then applying a dry rub or just applying the rub without a brine.

The reason we’re trying this is that, although we’ve had some great results the past few times we’ve smoked our hog butt, the majority of the flavor tends to stay towards the bark. We’re going to try a couple different experiments on how to get a full flavor penetration, the first of which is this week’s experiment with the Brine.

Here’s the basics of the experiment:

1. 2x 6lb bone-in, super fatty pork butts
2. 1 of the butts sat in a brine solution of 1 gallon water and 1/2 cup kosher salt. 12 hours before the smoking we’ll apply the rub with a significant reduction in salt (recipe for the rub is below).
3. The other butt will only have the rub applied to it with full salt content, applied 12 hours before smoking.

I got the recipe for the rub from Beer Advocate’s July issue where they featured some recipes for beer-b-queing.

3/4 Cup Paprika
1/2 Cup Kosher Salt
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
3 Tblspns Ground Cumin
3 Tblspns Ground Coriander
3 Tblspns Mustard Powder
2 Tspns Dried Ground Sage
2 Tspns Dried Thyme
2 Tspns Mixed Ground Peppercorns
1 Tspns Ground Cayenne

I’ll be smoking these monsters tomorrow AM, so I should have a full report up in the next few days.

About a month ago I decided to jump into the world of smoked meats. Little did I know I would discover a new means of penetrating the numinous as well as preparing some of the finest meals I have tasted in this world. Seriously folks, if you have any acquaintances suffering from vegetarianism, a properly smoked brisket cooked lovingly and longingly over the better course of a long summer day will bring your wayward friend back from the brink of boredom like no other salve I can recommend. Knees will buckle, eyes will heave into the back of the head and tongues will take on the ravenous, dancing posture of a starry-eyed lunatics upon tasting these carbonized cullinary creations.

But when I began my journey I was not certain how vastly my life would be altered by this discipline, though I knew I wanted to experiment in it’s corridors. Being the reasonably minded human that I am I thought it would be best to begin my experiments on a budget and, if properly swayed by the siren songs of smoked sirloin, than, perhaps, next season I would indulge in a more compelling and complex tool for my adventures.

After some light stalking of the internets and tapping of mind’s of friends who smoke I narrowed my search down to the Brinkman Square Vertical Smoker. I chose this for several reasons:

1. The price was right at $69.00
2. There was much more space than the r2-d2 looking smokers in the same price range
3. With the 2 doors on the side access was much easier as well as containment of smoke was much better than said r2-d2 garbage can looking smokers
4. 4 vents is much better than 1 vent

Now, I’m sure, anyone that has done any research on these smokers will be itching to mention the fact that some people can’t seem to get the Brinkman over about 150*.  Left unmodded this is true, I’ve tested it and sure enough my heat would hover around 150*.  The solution to this problem is incredibly easy, however.  Simply buy a Weber Replacement Charcoal Grates and place that on top of your charcoal pan.  This puts your coals right about level with the 2 bottom vents and gives you plenty of air passage to bring your heat up as high as 325* if you want.

This issue is the only one I’ve really had with this grill and, frankly, it strikes me as pretty much a non-issue.  Aside from that assembly was incredibly easy – far easier than the mind numbing cartwheels demanded upon you by the Char-Griller family (which I’ll review at a later date) and peformance has been totally satisfactory for a $70 piece of equipment.  The grates are easy to remove which makes cleaning and mopping and adding coals, wood and water extremely easy.  And the look is deceptively sharp (it is not a cast iron smoker, though you might fool some people into thinking it is). Make sure to start up your coals with a Chimney Starter and the hardest part of your day is taken care of in minutes.

The only other thing I might add to this is that we’ve been propping up the smoker for easier access during smoking.  I’ve been putting down 4 paint buckets and placing a piece of concrete board on top of that.  This brings the smoker up a few feet which really limits the amount of bending needed to maintain your smoker and also gives you a nice, flame-retardent work space to start up your coals or keep gloves and tools while you are working.

The Brinkman Square Vertical Smoker is a totally servicable grill that will get you great results for your smoked meals. It’s design places your food and coals in separate compartments to limit heat loss and come as close to displaced heat as you’re going to get until you actually move to a smoker with a firebox. It does require a little more attention than a larger, professional smoker, but, for me that is actually a plus, I love to fiddle and monkeying with the vents to properly manage my heat over a 14 hour smoke only adds to the pleasure I derive from this highest and holiest act of carnage.

I was chatting with a friend of mine the other day over several pints of Surly Furious about the many virtues of smoking dead animal. Whether it be the subversion of time, the hours of anticipation, the communal properties of fire, or the ability to offer friends and family religious epiphany by means of properly tended food, smoking meat is, hands down, one of the finest methods of escaping the death march of the daily routine.

As we discussed the finer points of the carrion call my friend mentioned a new fad in artisan cooking, smoked salt. Apparently, people have been purchasing or producing smoked salt as of late to add a quick smoked flavor to meats and veggies, punching up home made caramel and bloody marys, or otherwise twisting a pasta dish or dessert into a new, compelling direction.

The basic method of making the stuff is as you would guess:

1. Make a flat tray from tinfoil or take a cookie sheet
2. Cover the sheet with a thin layer of kosher salt or sea salt
3. Put it in your smoker for 3-4 hours (@225*) or until a nice shade of brown

This weekend I’ll be adding it to home made pretzels I’m covering in chocolate and bacon.  I’ll post about the results next week.