The Nighttime of the Year

I live in Georgia
so this is not at all
what February looks like,
but spiritually, we're there.

February is a great month.  I didn’t used to think so, because it’s cold and grey and barren.  But now I love it; I love that the world is sleeping.  I love the darkness and the stillness and even the crappy weather, because I love the idea that there is a “night” of the year, where everything is tucked in bed so it can get up again in the spring.  It’s a time that the whole world (hemisphere, whatever) is pulling back, pulling in, reflecting, resting.  I know the weather is garbage, and I really do mean that so severely—I hate being cold more than I hate being hungry.  But I love the whole dark, huddled concept of it. 

Plus it’s Black History Month, which is amazing.  Harriet Tubman has long been my personal hero and if I ever poop a baby out, I will name it Harriet, and pray that I raise it in the spirit of courage, integrity, and beauty that that soul was on this earth.  The list of people that are celebrated this month is deeply, profoundly inspiring, and should remind us of how many people are still overlooked.

Which is why it is so weird that here we are in February, but the yard is blooming, the mosquitoes are out, it’s light til 8:30 pm, and it’s May.  Wtf.

Like, no kidding, what the eff, how is it May, because it’s not.  It’s NOT. 

And yet it is!

I understand the concept of “the days are long but the years are short,” but this is patently ridiculous. 

I use an alarm on my phone that sounds
 like birds chirping and now that the
birds are back in town, I do constant
 double takes wondering why my
phone is waking me up.
This does not help with the
"knowing where you are in time and space"
 situation.  (It's a situation.)

I was there when the time change happened, I hear the birds chirping literally as I type this, I even went on a beach vacation.  But it doesn’t make any sense.  

I have been busy, Reader, very busy, doing important things like growing my biome army and going to nerd LARPs and pretending I was getting my diet in order and basically trying to get through my weeks in the hopes that I actually might get enough sleep on the weekend, and the whole time, TIME has been happening.  Just willy-nilly!  Very as-you-like-it, and washing brazenly forward while I have been too busy to notice!

This is ridiculous!

My plants have noticed.  The seedlings that are living under the grow light in the guest room are very clear that on their timeline, they are no longer seedlings and are too big for their nursery-britches.  Which is rude, since I’m pretty sure I planted them, like, yesterday.   (On my to do list for this

To be clear, I am the fuzzy one in the back.

evening was to put them in the ground finally butttttttttt liiiiike I’m so tired of moving and so happy to sit still on this one unscheduled night, surely they can wait?  Except tomorrow night I am babysitting, and the next night is a nerd meeting, and so maybe Thursday, but Friday and Saturday there are both things, plus I’m babysitting again Saturday and Sunday, so they’re probably going to have to be smothered by my motherly inability to let them grow up for another week.  Then they’re going to want to get their driver’s license or bring a crush over and I will absolutely lose my mind.)

I mean, tax day happened, right?  I was there, I know.  And like a true adult I actually did them at the very most last minute instead of filing for an extension like I usually do, not because I have complicated taxes but because I just figured I would get it done on time and then, I just didn't.  But this year I did!  I actually did the thing when the thing was supposed to be done (barely)!  All together that just leaves me feeling very much ahead of the game, since tax day is in the middle of April and it is DEFINITELY STILL FEBRUARY. 

Yup.

People have said that this is a common side effect of getting old—time feels like it’s going faster.  But that doesn’t make sense either since even though I am turning 38 in like…hours….I am definitely still about 32, and that’s not really very old.  Old enough to be adult, but not some sort of “I have the wisdom of ages” adult.  I don’t.  I don’t have the wisdom of ages and I don’t like this slippery slope of time-rushing we seem to be on. 

I think I’ve done a perfectly reasonable job of filling my days with things I am happy of doing, and maaaaaybe overfilling a few of them, plus the weekends, plus I don’t go to bed on time, but that’s just good time management—YOLO, etc.  But the idea that time has actually been passing while I’ve been at all this it is disorienting and abrasive. 

So.  Rude.

I feel like I woke up from a dream that I was awake.  You’ve done that, right Reader?  Where when you actually wake up it’s super disappointing because that wasn’t real sleep, that was some sort of pre-sleep, and in your dream you were low key really looking forward to going to actual sleep and getting good rest?  Then suddenly the alarm is going off and your crappy unsatisfying sleep is just all you get?  

That is what realizing it is May is like. 

There have been periods of my life where I have wished time away.  I don’t recommend it, but everything isn’t sunny and kittens all the time.  Even the year gets dark for a whole season.  So there have been stretches where I just wanted it to be later, and as it turns out, I always knew where we were on the calendar during those times.  And now that I have the energy to enjoy my days I have no idea where they went or how it is actually spring, really early summer, what is going on. 

These are not the protest sweaters of my resistance.

I don’t regret how I’ve sent my time. I do resent that it is spent.  2018 is clearly a make-believe year but the rest of the world won’t get on that tip, and it’s too warm to wear protest-sweaters.  Maybe I resent that it was spent and I wasn’t paying close enough attention.  But how are you supposed to pay attention when you’re busy living, and also you have to work and babysit tomorrow?  Why aren’t days 36 hours long so there is some built in introspection time?  What is even happening?

Dear Ancient Wizards of the Earth,

I’m so flattered you’re reading my blog, thanks, love-you-mean-it.  Sorry if my brisket post was a little fast and loose with your innate esteem.  I am but a mere mortal, who surely isn’t fast approaching 40, so how could I know better?  Also I took my cues from the internet. 

If you, or perhaps Dr. Strange,

No spoilers, Reader.

could just swing by and explain time to me, that would be great.  I will, in return, fill your afternoon with my youthful exuberance, which stereotypes have taught me fills old people with some sort of exhausted joy.  Don't look at my grey hairs.  I will also happily pour you some kefir- you are wise (old?) enough to be concerned with your mortal coil, so I assume that kind of thing matters to you.  Plus it’s delicious once you get used to it.  Anyway, do come by—I will expect you early March, which honestly could be whenever, none of this makes sense to me anymore.

Hugs and kisses,

Me

I think it'll work, Reader,  I'll let you know.

 

Welcome to Paradise

Well, I went to the beach.  I am really, in my heart, a mountain person.  Lush green forests and misty mornings and woodland creatures and all that; it lets my soul breathe.  Heals the heart.

 

Don't you feel better?

But when we’re talking about people’s happy places, most folks seem to pick the beach.  This includes my mother, and more specifically her bosses, who have a beach condo down on the gulf shore in Florida that they very generously let us use.  It’s a lovely place and you can look right at the water and hear the waves crashing and all that.  It’s pretty, and time with my mom is priceless.  Being on vacation where I get enough sleep and don’t have any pressing things to do is also priceless, and it was great.

But it’s still the beach.

I was a fat kid with what my grandfather called thin skin, meaning I escalated from freckles to blister burn in about two minutes (I got this from his side of the family).  I was also fully equipped with the utter impatience necessary to properly misapply sun tan lotion.  My parents were from an era where spf 4 tanning oil counted as sun protection, and no one knew anything about skin cancer.  (To paint a picture, my mom still wears nylons, even under long pants in the heat of summer, if she hasn’t had any sun, so her toes look tan in her high heel sandals.  Her toes, Reader.)   I love to get messy, so I’d go dig around and make drip castles and stuff, but I’d rather have mud all over me than sand.  And sure, the ocean is right there but…then you get all wet.  But, fine, there’s a sand situation, so you go in and splash around and

Plus, sharks.

handle it but…it’s all salty.  So then you get out and the sand all sticks to you again because you’re still wet.  My mom and sister are thicker skinned than me, they can tan like it’s a sport, and they did….so there wasn’t much for me to do besides hide under a towel being hot, sticky, sandy, and burnt, in my fat kid bathing suit.

  

As an adult, I have much higher level sun screen application skills, but the essence of the beach is the sand and the salt water and I still have a fat kid bathing suit.  The beach is not my favorite.

Those dolphins are pooping.

All you beach fanatics just calm down, you’re allowed to have your soul sing when you’re standing in the surf and I’m allowed to have better things to do.  I like being near the beach just fine, it’s very pretty sometimes, and it’s fun to think that there are just big ole fish out there, living their fishy lives, while I get to listen to the calming sounds of God’s toilet continually flushing.   

I also have a better idea of things to do there than I did as a child.  Here’s my adult-person list of what to do at the beach: 

     - Not go to the beach  

     - Wonder if those people are swimming or drowning  

     - Listen to the white people in the house band at the beach bar down the street sing Purple Rain 

     - Decide to go to the grocery store later  

     - Eat another Heath Bar mini  

     - Feed the crows leftover french fries, creating a crow/seagull turf war (also all birds have high cholesterol now)  

     - Vaguely remember having ever had a tan at any point in the past, then immediately Google skin cancer  

     - Take an after-breakfast nap

Mom would add to this list, “watch a Nicolas Cage movie on network TV” and “fully commit to the pursuit of fried shrimp unless—is that an Italian restaurant?”  Our vacationing life is just exhausting.

Be safe, Reader.
But don't google-image "skin cancer,"
it's terrifying.

Ground Control to Major Tom

I have, in the last few weeks, become aware a a number of new and exciting things.  We have already talked about our microbiome, which still blows my mind.  Also I just watched the Deadpool 2 trailer and it’s ammmmmmazing.  I recently rediscovered “The Edge of Seventeen” by Stevie Nicks, and I only assume I let that fade from my life to increase the impact its reemergence has had.  But perhaps my most favorite new discovery is the following:

Bubbles knows how I feel.

There is Adult Space Camp.

I never went to space camp.  I was a nerd, mind you, and I can still recite every line from Willow and every character from She-Ra.  My friends and I deciphered, memorized, and then wrote each other secret notes in the runes from the

I still make that face.

Hobbit.  I was that kind of nerd.  My family was supportive but in more of a “it’s great that she reads so much but when is too young for Jenny Craig?” way, not in a “Let’s get this girl in the Mathletes!” way.  Anyway, point is, I never even knew what space camp was until wayyyy later in my life.

And now, I have learned, there is Adult Space Camp.  Space Camp, but for adults.

The reviews include such warm endorsements as, “I thought this would be stupid but it actually is okay,” and “My 18 year old man-boy-child loved it!”  I’m not totally sure I am their target market.  But I am totally sure that I’m going.

Exciting things you get to do: build and shoot a rocket (presumably all the way into the stratosphere, creating a bit of an international practical joke when it comes back down); design some sort of thermal heat protection; ride on the whirly-spin.  I have been asking friends I think might share my enthusiasm if they want to go with me…so far no takers.  One friend, let’s call him “Stephen,” pointed out that for the monies it would cost us both to go, we could probably build our own whirly-spin.  But I don’t want my own whirly-spin. 

I want to go to Space Camp.

This girl is like half as excited as I am.

I want official Space Camp pajamas.  I want fond memories of bonding with my team through the stress of a rocket launch.  I want us all to walk out from the cafeteria (where they obviously have soft serve space ice cream dispensers available 24/7, because that exists, because NASA.) in slo-mo like that scene in Independence Day.  I want us all to have nick names based on our particular personality quirks and roles in the group dynamic.  I want a long weekend that consumes my hard-earned and sparse paid time off for a completely ridiculous reason.  I want Space Camp.

I was not a child that was super into space stuff, but as an adult, it has all gotten more and more fascinating.  When the full lunar eclipse came through my region, I took a day off of work, insisted my boyf did the same, and we drove into the Path of Totality.  It was…amazing. 

When deciding where in the Path of Totality to go,
we heard of a place advertising
their "Total Eclipse of the Park" event
and despite it being WAY further out of the way
we obviously went to see it there.

It was such a visceral, physical reminder of how much bigger everything is than everything you can even think is the biggest most important thing. 

I have paid more attention to the gorgeous pictures of planets I only knew of before because “my very eager mother just sent us nine pizzas” was how I learned the planets.  (Pluto still counted then.)  I have paid more attention to the Mars endeavors.   If you weren’t watching Tesla send a car into space, I sincerely hope everyone is okay now— because I assume you or a loved one was in the hospital, preventing you from being inspired by the making of history.

Look, planetary life in America has been pretty rough and tumble lately, so read Seveneves and watch an overwhelming number of white bros cheer stuff into space to the dulcet tones of David Bowie sometimes.  There’s only so much alcohol, Reader.  We’ve got to survive this.

Anyway, point is, Adult Space Camp.  I’m a little nervous because, as I said, I am struggling to find anyone to go with me.  Not that I’m some hot commodity, but being alone as a single woman anywhere but a garden party or a Bath and Body Works Bonanza has its question marks attached to it.  Add in there that it seems to be a thing that parents take their over-18 kids to, and…well, I’d like to not come off as some sort of predator. 

But, Reader, I am totally going to SPACE CAMP?!?!?!?!  RIGHT??  For GROWNUPS?!?  For me, who is down to learn and willing to pay you for it, Hunstville AL???  I have not yet reserved my tickets, but I am as in as I can be.  If you’re interested, pls message me.

 

It's going to be just like this.

Poop, the Animal Within.

As previously discussed, I started growing all these friendly colonies of bacteria and yeast in my house.  I think real fermenters call them cultures, but I think of them more like neighborhood communities.  This makes me giggle because I imagine all their little community lives. 

This guy lives in a jar in my kitchen.

On Kombucha Circle, Cindy Bacteria is spending a lot of time with Tommy Yeast and her parents don’t know how they feel about it.  In Kefir Town, all the little kefir seeds are mad at the bigger kefir seeds because they throw their milk curds all over the neighborhood, which is against HOA regulations.  If you go down Ginger Bug Lane, everyone gets along fine because they get to be called a “ginger bug,” they have a true community identity and that gives them pride, plus they’re going to turn into ginger beer—doesn’t that make everyone happy?

We have many various friend communities going, and they finally got to the point where I could, like a good friend, eat them.  So with great anticipation I had a cup of kefir milk, and put lactofermented pickles in my salad, and sipped on my grape-infused kombucha….and then had a particularly uncomfortable day, gastrointestinally. 

A true to life representation of my gastrointestinal tract,
which was *not* sorry for Party Rocking.

Pro tip, all these new cultures are v happy to be in your guts…but the existing gut-bugs minding their own inside you have some opinions on that.  I looked it up and baaaasically all these sweet, goofy communities happily raising their families and borrowing sugar from the neighbors on the counter (and the shelves…and under the sink upstairs…and on the top of the refrigerator…sorry, “Andy”…) are very war-like cultures when they get inside you.  They are colonizers, sweeping through your guts like the white man coming to...anywhere, leaving death and disease in their wake. 

Unlike the Europeans and their ancestors, these are the good guys.  They are absolutely reigning hell

Not this guy.

down on the existing, entrenched colonies—but in terms of your body chemistry, that’s probably

This guy.
(Look it up, the history is intoxicating.)

 good, and in fact why you eat them in the first place.  The gut-bugs that happen in modern life in the USA, with our processed foods and our antibiotics, are not ideal.  So these fierce little bastards come in with guns blazing and ruin their world—but it’s less like expansionist, greedy globalization, and more like an avenging, righteous revolution.  Still bloody, still deadly--- but they’re on the right side of history.

Or so the internet says.  Let me just tell you, when I started looking

This is not the right choice.

this up, it was easy to find out what was happening to me (it’s called a Die Off and that is metal af).  Turns out, don’t go hard, to start.  Ease in—your body needs time to adjust, but adjust it will, and actually just carpet bombing your existing biological balance, even with good intentions, is not the best way to reach your goals.  So I know what happened, but trying to figure out why, and what all this was about, was a little harder.

All the websites that are like, “Here’s how to ferment!” are also like, “Because fermenting is awesome!”  Presumably this is because people who are interested in fermenting already know why to do it—I am not that person.  I just wanted to do it, and then was like, umyeahalso I guess it’s good for you or whatever.  Full disclosure and with all due respect to my friends who are all into the fad diets of today, I don’t truck with a lot of that mess.  Sure, your ancient ancestors didn’t harvest

wheat, but they also didn’t live past 30.  You have decided to live on only fats, cool, live your best life, but the reason oranges are bright orange is to catch your eye and make you pick them because we have been eating them long enough that we created the biological trend that they are named for.  When I was young, everything “healthy” was fat free but full of sugar.  That was the number one best health wisdom of the time, and a few years later it is anathema.  Also bottles of water are labeled “gluten free” now and it’s dumb.

You can't really read this but it basically relives the
back and forth of the health benefits of eggs, which
have been alternatively a miracle food, or worse than
cigarettes, since the 80s.
Nutritional science doesn't know beans.

Not that there isn’t real nutritional science out there, but what I am saying is, it is often hard to get to, and I feel like not all the people who buy in know why.  Everyone suddenly has a food intolerance, and I know people with REAL food intolerances, and it’s not always the same thing.  I have friends that are like, all organic everything, I will die on this hill because health!  But then you say, well this isn’t remotely organic but it’s local…and they’re like, great I’ll take two!

I also like to support local farms and businesses, that’s not my point.  My point is, there are a lot of social pressures today to eat healthy or “clean” but, again, not always a lot of science defining the what or why.  Plus there’s a whole army of marketers trying to convince you that their product is the thing that food fashion says you should want, and they bank (literally) on the consumer not really even knowing themselves what they want, or why.   Gluten free water, Reader.

Do not trust this man; this man is not a real doctor.

So I have heard that fermented food is good for you, I am familiar with the term probiotic, I have heard stories of people saying fermented foods cured their cancer, and I’ve always put all that in the same mental compartment as, “No I really DID see a ghost!” and “Elvis was in the CIA!” 

But my guts poop-sploded, so I figured I’d look it up.  When I started Googling (Googleing?  Google-ing?  Sigh…), I was ending up on web pages like hippydippylovemama.com and noreallyimadoctor.happypoops.edu and this was not helping me learn more about anything.

Then I got my keywords right, and omg, Reader, this stuff is so effing cool. 

So, news flash, like 7,000% of your immune system lives in your guts.  So THAT is why healthy guts are important.  Our guts, however, are not our own.  Our poop is alive, but the life it is teeming with is not you.  You walk around, every day, thinking you’re a

Seriously we think we're cool but they are just
waiting for us to take them to Mars.

human being, a self-contained entity, your own person, separate from the beasts and the plants of the field, and the whooooole time your internal community of living creatures that outnumber the cells of your body just laugh, and think it’s cute, in much the same way I think it’s cute when the cats act like they’re in charge here.  This community is your biome, and without it you would die.  

Let me be clear how much we rely on out biome for life.  Human mothers produce breast milk.  Biologically speaking, this is an expensive process.  It takes a lot of energy, requires a lot of resources (food) to do, and btw new mothers are already weakened significantly with the whole building-a-baby-and-pushing-it-out process, so they need all the energy and nutrients they can get. 

In that breast milk is an enzyme that babies cannot digest.  It is totally useless to the babies themselves.  But millions of years of evolution has had us make it—even though it is expensive—because bacteria in baby’s gut eats it.  If that bacterial colony is thriving, babies do better—so mothers make it.

How do clean new fresh babies get that bacteria?  WELL.  When mom poops the baby out, the baby gets covered-in-and-a-mouthful-of all the va-goo in the vagina, plus some poop probably (because OF COURSE there is an evolutionary reason you poop during birth), and it immediately sets up shop.  You got bacterial colonies all through you (for funsies, look up what lives in people’s belly buttons, it’s awesome) but the most concentrated and important ones are on your skin and in your mouth—but mostly in your guts.  So vaginal births give little Mini-Bean a healthy dose of all of those, and mother’s milk keeps the party rolling. 

(Side note, C-section babies do fine but they start at a disadvantage that medical science has proven.  C-sections are sometimes the best and only solution for keeping mama and baby alive, so def do that if you need to, or want to!  And maybe then just rub some va-goo on the lil’ princess and everyone lives their lives, right?  But modern doctors are like, nooooooo, va-goo is all gross and stuff, that’s crazy talk, we’re much better at giving birth than your body, meanwhile let me cut this baby out of your stomach, that’s totally safe and convenient and expensive and on the rise in America.  To be clear, my beef is not with C-section-choosing mothers.  It is with a medical system that didn’t figure this crap out already because, meh, American medical science doesn’t care very much about mothers, and that’s a rant for another day.)

That was all one sentence.
I am a very good writer.

That is how much we rely on our biome- we have been symbiotically cohabiting for long enough that the most dangerous thing in our evolution, birth, was made more dangerous to the new mom, which means more dangerous to the new baby and the continuation of the species, because it was biologically worth it to feed a foreign gut bacteria. 

Holy crap.  

Also—ALSO, READER—now they’re studying this (for real science, not Dr. Give Me Your Money, I Am A Hippy Too) and guess what?  Lab mice in ridiculously clean sterile environments where the makeup of their gut biomes can be closely monitored can change their personality based on their biomes.  Skittish, anxious mice get a poop-transfer from chill or adventurous mice…and they become more chill or adventurous.  What kind of witchcraft is that.

I know, I know, I hear you Reader.  “Poop transfer”?  But it’s totally a thing.  See, once your biome is up and running, it’s hard to turn the boat.  (See my above gastrointestinal distress, taken to a much more extreme level.)  You can change your diet or eat more yogurt, but the reality is, all the things

That is what you think it is.

already living inside you—they want to keep living there, they are dug in, and they are a war culture too.  Much of the bacteria and yeast you ingest passes through until some gut-fermenting tipping point.  All the real estate is already spoken for, and there’s a hell of an old-boys club.  So it’s hard for new agents to break through.  Possible, but you gotta commit.  For people (and mice) who seriously need an internal culture shift, one of the best ways to do it is by poop-transfer.  I guess it puts enough ready-to-go bacteria in the works that you quickly go from “dissent” to “out and out revolution.”  It crosses the threshold, creates a leverage point, and also other phrases that make this sound like a business market and not a fecal indoctrination thing.

I...What?

People with serious health situations already know this, it’s not actually a super huge deal (except sourcing the poop can be awkward), but can we go back to THE MICE CHANGE THEIR PERSONALITY AND ANXIETY LEVEL WHEN THEY GET HEALTHIER BIOMES.  That. That right there.  What the ever-loving mystical ridonkulousness is that. 

If ever you felt less like you were at the wheel in your own life, you still get to decide what to feed your buggers.  Having said that, they will, in addition to apparently affecting how happy you are about being alive, give you cravings when the little freeloaders get hungry.  They are basically the ghost in our machine.  The good ones like vegetables, and I always thought the veggies had all this good stuff in them like the B Vitamins, which sure, they do, but also good gut bacteria eat veggies and then they poop out the B Vitamins. 

WHAT KIND OF CRAZY MICROBIOME VOODOO IS THIS?!

Mind.  Blown.

In summary, nature is smarter than us.  Not always; medical science is a blessing; take your pills.  But also—give the body the ingredients it needs, and it will body better than you can body for it.  The actual science that I could find on this is relatively new, so no one had a definitive “def eat this and

To contribute your own poop to science,
go to humanfoodproject.com!
Seriously they could use some more poop.

not that,” or “this is for sure the thing you need alive inside you”.  However, common wisdom seems to be, a more diverse gut-ecology is better than a less diverse one.  You’re aiming for a rainforest, not a lawn. 

Other things, just anecdotally: I was bloated and gaseous when I started eating all my friends too exuberantly, then I slowed down but didn’t stop, and the discomfort quickly went away but I have almost instantly gotten thinner?  Not like I am thinner—not like there is less body there.  But the body is, I guess, deflated?  I mean I wasn’t walking around feeling like I had massive gas inside me just waiting to burst free, but suddenly I have less belly-that-looks-pregnant and just regular jiggly-belly-that-looks-like-I-eat-too-much-and-don’t-exercise-cuz-that’s-true. 

Also I make *perfect* poops now.

Also also, I am less hungry all day.  There are reasons for this that go back to, which bacteria are you feeding and what are they releasing, and what does that mean for your body, but if you want scientific detail, you’re going to have to look it up.  Use keywords like “biome” and not keywords like “healthy fermentation.”

My poops are perfect.

Becoming a Man.

Y’ALL I SMOKED A BRISKET.

Lemme walk you through it because it is a lot. 

You exist, Reader.  Right? 
RIGHT?

Ok, so.  Last weekend we did Passover at my house, which I’m sure you know about, Reader, because you totally actually exist and care very deeply about my life and my posts.  

20 people coming over for a big involved dinner, and I decided smoked brisket made sense as a life choice even though I have never smoked anything, I don’t have the equipment, and I could totally have just baked chicken thighs…or honestly scrambled eggs, or ordered take out; so long as people eat they’re happy; the world was my oyster.  And in the oyster of my world, I decided smoking a brisket was definitely the most best choice and also probably going to be fine.

Step one here is that brisket is a traditional Passover dish, but I didn’t want the traditional brisket I’ve eaten at other Passovers.  Smoked brisket is super delicious and for me, there really is no comparison. 

So step two, I turn to the internet.

The internet, it turns out, has a lot of respect for a smoked brisket.  There are upwards of one thousand million website shrines dedicated to the art and science, the spiritual journey, the rite of passage, the magic and mystery of smoking The Perfect Brisket.  Most of them revolve around how manly it is…or at least how part of the pay off is how much of a man you get to feel like when your 

Brisket is the Axe Body Spray
 of the culinary world

tender, juicy brisket melts in the mouths of, I can only assume, hordes of adoring ladies and their suddenly jealous, shaken men.  It appears to be the food of all foods by which your depths of strength, virility, and resolve are tested and found true—or lacking.  It is the culinary equivalent of being calm in a burning house; it is menfolks’s equivalent to the perfect dessert or just hosting the party in the first place.

So the internet told me.  Again, I don’t know how to smoke things.  My grilling experience is limited to the first food service job I had at 14, Nick’s Charcoal Grill, which used a real grill, and….nope, we’re done, really that’s it.  But every time I pan cook a steak I set the fire alarm off, and that’s smoke, so I figured I’m half way there. 

For the second half, as I said, I went to the internet, and v quickly learned of the importance of proper equipment.  This consists of a grill thermometer, which you should buy because apparently built-in ones are garbage.  Also you should have a bad ass grill, which men around the nation already know is as important to have in your house as toilet paper.

 

Garbage                                       Money                              Wizard

We do not have that grill.  We have _a_ grill.  It is not that that grill.  

It is…I think the technical term is dinky, but certainly fine and has been the centerpiece of countless backyard burger frenzies (I mean our grill doesn’t even have a built-in thermometer but I promise you Reader, no one has died yet at a cookout here).  The internet informed me that this lack was surmountable and if successful, my character would def level up, but I’d be at a -5 and I might not make it back from this adventure.

And wood chips and charcoal, and OBVIOUSLY a charcoal chimney, WHO DOESN’T USE A CHARCOAL CHIMNEY, that shouldn’t even need to be listed in equipment because if you’ve made it this far you have 

Are you taking this seriously?

OBVIOUSLY ALREADY GOT A CHARCOAL CHIMNEY.  Also, you shouldn’t even be using charcoal, except to start, because wood smoke tastes better.  But wood chips are fine in a pinch if you really insist on not taking any of this seriously.

And, of course, the brisket itself.  So I go to the Kroger, and, as I mentioned I’m doing all this for Passover, so I need to hit the butcher up anyway because I need a lamb shank bone (if you’re not Jewish, Google it.).  My Kroger, as I have never noticed before, has a really pithy butcher.  I mean, there’s a meat section, but the butcher is more of a suggestion than a practical accessory, and that butcher’s suggestion is, “why don’t you go buy some of our other prepackaged meat?”.

So I go to Publix, and they have a better butcher.  I say, as I have said to every chain grocery butcher since time immemorial except when I was on the remote, rural farm, or in Madagascar, “hey, I need a lamb shank bone.”  Every other grocer has said, “M’kay, cool, here,” and handed me a packaged bone left over from, I assume, deboning a lamb shank and saving the bone because Passover is coming up and for Passover, having a lamb shank bone is totally a thing (Did you Google it?).  The cost has been no monies. 

But this guy, he says, “….What?” 

He tried to sell me these.
These are not what I want.

This begins a whole back and forth where I realize how nonexistent the Jewish population is in the area of town where I live, and also that I’m going to have to buy a lamb shank.  Like, a real one, that you would get for dinner.  They have a $23 version but I don’t need a leg of lamb, I need a bone. So I get the $5 version and honestly, I don’t know or care enough to tell you if it is like more of a lamb ankle?  Or maybe the shank is the ankle?  Or maybe it’s like a sad disabled lamb?  Or whatever.  Five bucks.  I’ll eat some lamb, I think I’ll make it.

Then I say, I need a brisket.  The briskets that they have are only the flat, not the point.  (If you don’t know what that means, Reader, I will explain: It means “go google how to smoke a brisket and you will learn an amount of meat lore you were not prepared for that will enrich your life in ways you can’t even imagine or in fact care very much about.)  So I have to buy 2 because I need ten pounds of meat to feed the absurd number of people I am having over, plus a lamb….something, it has a bone in it…and I’m ready to go.

This post is so long.
I mean seriously, Reader, we're not even half way there.

Ten pounds of flat brisket is large, and I have a passing thought for how big the grill itself actually is and if this is even feasible, but I basically decide we’ve gone too far so we are just going to have to figure this out, I’m sure you can stack them, it’s fine.  I buy all of the meat.

So the day before Passover, I’m looking at all my spoils.  I need to eat that lamb, because I need that bone.  I am going to smoke two square feet of brisket on a two-and-a-liiiiiitle square foot grill.  “Andy” is gone, I’m in this by myself, and everyone arrives in about 30 hours.  Deep breath time.

I decide to practice run smoking something in our grill- and I mean, I gotta cook that lamb so—smoked lamb it is!  I have, by this time, purchased the wood chips, the charcoal (boooo, hisssss, use wooooood) and the grill thermometer.  Smoking the lamb seemed like a good choice for the day before my brisket event—and it was.  I will not run you though all the steps, because if you are here, you also have the internet, but I will highlight some important learning moments. 

...the internal temperature
....is declining....

First, everything takes forever longer than it should.  I assume once you are a Wizard, your built up wisdom and lore helps you to truly know your grill, fire, and meat on a molecular level I can only begin to imagine.  But seriously, if you ever do this, give yourself more time than you think—like allll the more time.

Second, def get the grill thermometer, I am not a wizard, how else could mere mortal people know what temp the inside of their smokey, smokey grill is?

Third, I apologize for my snide tone about the charcoal chimney—I get it now.  The fire needs to burn, as mentioned above, foreeeeevvvvvver.  That means your charcoal burns out way before the meat is done and you need to add more to maintain the heat.  All the websites (that I 

Science!

assume you have open in other tabs by this point) are very loud about how your Grill Integrity is critical, you keep it closed as much as possible to retain the heat and smoke.  The temp needs to be as consistent as possible (so leave it closed) and throwing new charcoal on it is bad.  New charcoal catches fire, which is necessary for getting from the charcoal you start with to the charcoal you want.  But the fire process creates more immediate heat, and much higher temperatures.  So it’s bad.  It takes like 15-20 minutes to get to the ashy red delicious charcoal of your dreams (more consistent heat). 

Enter the charcoal chimney—you can just make the charcoal you want, before you need it and more efficiently, in a contained space, and add it when it should go in.  You should do this.  It’s better.

It's better!

I do not own a charcoal chimney, and did not buy one in my prep—but in my practice run, I came to respect it’s value.

However.  I’m not going to buy a charcoal chimney, because I am a stubborn jerk and I don’t understand why I can’t build one out of tin foil.  I Googled—no one else had uploaded a successful aluminum foil chimney project, or even a failed project, or a 'lessons learned', or a 'reasons why not'….apparently it just is not done.  This is probably related to how easy it is to just go buy the thing itself.  Ok, not foil, fine (though I am still sure it would work if you really committed…).  But there were many posts on how it’s really just a tin can and those are cheap.

(Reader, YES, I know chimneys themselves are also cheap.  I know!  I KNOW.  They’re not expensive…but that’s dumb.  Idk, it just is.  It’s just a tin can.  Sure, it’s got a fancy handle and a lever and there are probably simple ones, but not at my local Home Depot day-of-my-disastrous-delicious-idea, and also it feels like buying an ergonomic $20 bagel slicer when you already have one, it’s called a knife.  Anyway, I didn’t buy one.) 

So I, in my infinite wisdom, went to Food Depot to find the biggest tin can I could find, for the least monies.  This turned out to be full of field peas, fine, who doesn’t want a side of canned field peas at their fancy brisket dinner?  Nobody.  Everyone agrees canned field peas and brisket go together like bananas and peanut butter.  Perfect.  I take that home, can-open the ends off, and get my drill.  It’s not just a tin can I need to create, it’s a tin can with ventilation holes.   (This is the point that you remind me yet again that I could also just buy this thing for, again, not very many monies, and also by the way why don’t we just own a church key can opener that can put the holes I need in the bottom of the tin can?  But we don’t.  So the drill.  Plus then I get to use a power tool, extra points for me.)

Drilling holes in the side of a tin can is not as easy as one (me) might expect, but it is also perfectly doable when you have gone this far and are a stubborn jerk and are this committed.  It gets done.  I own a charcoal chimney now.

Nailed it.

Also worth mentioning about the practice run on lamb: there are all theses little holes?  In our grill??  All the websites are very clear, you leave your top ventilation holes wide open to let the smoke out, but you closely monitor the vent holes on the side of the grill that let the air in.  They exist so that you can regulate temperature and create meat perfection.  Control of these vent holes is paramount; control of air flow into the grill is paramount.  It is the true test, Grill Integrity itself.  It is how you achieve brisket and prove your value as a man and a person breathing the air of this earth.  You can not low-and-slow without tightly controlled ventilation.

But our (sweet, dinky, pithy) grill was made more for burgers and less for next-level smoking

Nailed it again!

adventures.  There are all these holes in the grill that no one has ever noticed before (because who cares) that are screwing up my capacity to control Grill Integrity (IT TURNS OUT I CARE).  I discovered them over the course of the lamb afternoon, and plugged them very professionally with the aluminum foil I didn’t use to build a charcoal chimney. It works, it’s fine.

So I eat ok lamb (yum), learn a few things, I have a drink to get through the realization of the path I have committed to, and I go to bed.  Wake up, Sat morning, Dinner-minus-ten-hours. 

Eight am I dry rub (don’t you effing yell at me, internet, about not dry rubbing earlier.  Brisket is supposed to be delicious all by itself and an hour is rumored to be fine for dry rubbing.  I’m tired, I also

I refer you to my above picture.

made all the sides and stuff in the midst of trying to smoke lamb yesterday, I cleaned the bathroom so my guests would be happy, I hid the shame of our pile of junk mail, and I dry rubbed at eight am.  If you’re mad, die mad about it). Fire starts at 9 am.  Meat slabs, that I (size-wise) have eyeballed and strategized over how I make it work on our tiny grill without just stacking them, goes on at 10.  My chimney is perfect and I challenge you to say something against it. 

Then begins the all day wrestling match with trying to keep the temperature where it is supposed to be.  This is the part of the struggle that real people who smoke meat can relate to.  Because it is a struggle.  I mean….over 220 is bad, under 200 is also bad.  That is a very specific window.  Then a piece of charcoal or a wood chip flares up, and you don’t know it’s life, you don’t know it’s goals, you don’t (I don’t) know what it’s trying to do, but everything gets hotter in a way that makes you think “the fire is still going” but then actually means “HA HA SCREW YOU I do what I want and then I DIE!!!”.  Then you put more charcoal in cuz the temp is too low …and then it gets way high.  And then you notice the grill leaks smoke (not from the vent holes, from the lid) so you bring a 10 lb barbell out to put on the lid to weigh it down because…Idk, that seems right.  Then you notice there are more tiny holes you didn’t plug because who the hell even puts that many tiny holes in the side of a grill, nothing should be screwed in there, what is happening?  Then there is no smoke because all your plugging put the fire out…so you add your carefully chimneyed charcoal in, but then you realize the charcoal and wood already there wasn’t done it was just sleeping and now everything is at a super high temp so you pour some water on it…and Jesus God are there more tiny holes you didn’t even notice yet?! (There are.)

This went on for a while.

I just...need...to rest.

Then people came over, I decided we were as there as we were going to be, and I wrapped the meat up and put it in the microwave to “rest”.

Resting is this mythic thing that is apparently as necessary as bees to life on earth when it comes to smoking brisket.  It involves keeping the cooked brisket at an almost-but-not cooking temperature for like…no kidding two hours.  But it is different, somehow, from just keeping it cooking for two more hours at the same or slightly lesser temperature.  Why?  Because “rest”.  It is the brisket’s self-care moment, and people who know way more than me say to definitely do it, and it sounds super dumb to me but, sure, fine, whatever.  You were right about the chimney.  I’ll try it.

We ate the brisket.  A brisket I smoked, in my crappy grill, for like one hundred hours.  It was…delicious.  It was not, Reader, a brisket that a True Meat Smoking Apostle would have loved—it was tougher than it should have been.  But not too tough…and the flavor was delicious.  I even had bark (google it, non-smokers). It tasted great, the dry rub was great, the mix of dry rub and vinegar and brown beer I swabbed on it whenever I opened the grill was great.  It was lovely, everyone ate it all and had seconds, and I absolutely leveled up.  I am a wizard and a sage.  A worthy adversary.  A national treasure.  A…novice smoker, who defeated a dragon and knows (just a little bit) more than nothing and now I get to sit at the big kids table and I have Become a Man.  BOOM.

We have so many leftover field peas.

I MADE A BRISKET!!!!