I snagged this recipe from Blackbird Wine Shop’s newsletter.

When it comes to BBQ, I look to Billy Stubbs Texas Pit Master. He is my own mentor when it comes to grillin’, smokin’, chillin’. Stubbs schooled me in the way of the sauce like the Black Obi Wan Kenobi. I went with it. On faith. It works.

Traditionally, Texas barbecue is served with a homemade barbecue sauce, usually served warm. Below is a simple recipe for a Texas style barbecue sauce. This type sauce is usually a table condiment as opposed to a sauce used to baste the meat while cooking.

Ingredients

• 16 oz can tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup (4 oz) water
• 1/4 cup (2 oz) vinegar
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 1/2 fresh onion - pureed or 2 tbs onion powder
• 2-4 fresh garlic pods or 1 tbs minced garlic-pureed, or 1 tbs garlic powder

• 2 tbs Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbs coarse black pepper
• 1 tbs Paprika
• 1 tsp Tobasco sauce
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp dry mustard
• 1 tsp liquid smoke
• 1 tsp salt or cajun seasoning

 

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Mix and Simmer:

• Puree the fresh onion and garlic, if using fresh.
• Add all ingredients to a thick walled pot.
• Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
• Add water or simmer longer to achieve the desired thickness; I do not like it too thick.
• Makes a little over a pint , depending on how much you cook it down.
• Keep refrigerated. The sauce is acid enough to store for several weeks in the refrigerator.

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Comments:

• The sauce is best served warm for either dipping or poured over the meat.
• The sauce is also good to mix with diced brisket to make chopped brisket sandwiches.
• It is best to make the sauce a day early, cool in the refrigerator, then re-warmed the next day. It seems like cooling and storing the sauce smoothes out the flavors.

For an sub-excellent “Mopping and Dipping Sauce” check these neanderthals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyHP1uzurxk

Jack Spicer woke my wanderlust soul this morning with a poem. I appreciate the almost beat while staying off the beaten path. I think John Mayer read Jack Spicer. And I think mornings are suitable for thinking and elegies, for  mourning. Jack Spicer is dead.

Here is a snippet. Get the whole thing on poets.org.

Psychoanalysis: An Elegy

What are you thinking?

I think that I would like to write a poem that is slow as a summer
As slow getting started
As 4th of July somewhere around the middle of the second stanza
After a lot of unusual rain
California seems long in the summer.
I would like to write a poem as long as California
And as slow as a summer.
Do you get me, Doctor? It would have to be as slow
As the very tip of summer.
As slow as the summer seems
On a hot day drinking beer outside Riverside
Or standing in the middle of a white-hot road
Between Bakersfield and Hell
Waiting for Santa Claus.

What are you thinking now?

I’m thinking that she is very much like California.
When she is still her dress is like a roadmap. Highways
Traveling up and down her skin
Long empty highways
With the moon chasing jackrabbits across them
On hot summer nights.
I am thinking that her body could be California
And I a rich Eastern tourist
Lost somewhere between Hell and Texas

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