Food stuff

Last Saturday I smoked a turkey. This was only my second time. I am one of those purists who believes that "sauce" is just something you use to cover poorly-smoked meat. I put nothing on the turkey. I told some people at work about this. They kept asking me, "But wasn't it dry?" Nope. "You didn't baste it at all?" Nope. "And it wasn't dry?" Nope.

I gave it a pure diet of mesquite wood, holding the temperature steady between 230-250 for five hours. It was succulent.

The guy who I whipped up some venison jerky for really liked it, so he gave me a deer ham to make some traditional jerky with. So I sliced it up and I've got it marinating right now. I haven't made "real" jerky like this in a long time, but I think it will be okay. As a result of a stroke, this man has lost most of his sense of taste (so I was told--I didn't know a stroke could affect your taste). So he requested habanero, and "make it as hot as possible." I don't know if I got it "as hot as possible," but it's going to be pretty hot. I was mixing up some new sauce and got a little more "spike" in the sauce that I usually do. I sampled a little straight and it made my scalp sweat, so it's just about right.

As payment, he's going to give me some venison to keep for myself instead of paying me money. That was actually my suggestion.

Since the weather is supposed to turn a little colder and nastier than usual this coming weekend, I plan on Saturday being homemade chili day! I haven't made chili in a while, and I'm really looking forward to it.