To Smoke, or Not to Smoke

That question in the title of this post became moot as soon as I tasted my buddy's ribs which he had smoked on his Big Green Egg. As soon as I got home and ordered the cookbook, I started my search for smokers here where we live. It didn't take long. I found the Green Egg and looked the multiple styles and sizes over; then I went home and let that information slosh around in my head for a week or two. Once it began to settle like so much sediment in a dirty, slow moving, river, I asked my wife if she would like to go look at them.

So here we are, checking out the Green Eggs. These smokers originated in China. They have thick porcelain walls that act as perfect insulators so that temperatures can be held at almost perfect settings for hours and hours, by utilizing small amounts of charcoal. They are expensive, but now that I have tasted the milk and honey, I am convinced they would be worth that price and more. I have a model picked out, my wife likes it too.

"Are you guys going to buy a Green Egg?" the tall man said as he approached us.

I looked at him and replied, "Certainly thinking about it."

"Have you seen the Traegers?"

And that's where our plan went askew; and to make a long story short, this guy, who was a customer like ourselves, "sold" us a Traeger smoker. Though I have lamented in earlier posting that I was interested in going back to charcoal, the thing that fascinated me about the Traeger is that it uses no charcoal. It uses wood pellets: pellets made of apple, maple, cherry, hickory, mesquite, etc., trees - all the smoke, none of the potentially harmful chemicals found in briquets.

I have fired it up four and five times now and we have had some delightful ribs, steaks, and chicken.

In future posts I'll be telling you about some of them!!