M l mclemore's lone star baste pt 1
1 Servings
Ingredients
| Quantity | Ingredient | |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 6-packs of Lone Star beer; one on ice, the other one doesn't matter | |
| 1 | quart | Cheap vinegar; (better to scrimp on the vinegar than on the beer) |
| 1 | small | Bottle Tabasco; no substitutes |
| 1 | large | Head of garlic; peeled and finely minced |
| 1 | 4-ounce can black pepper | |
| 1 | small | Jar French's yellow mustard; (baby crap, he called it, but he ate it on almost everything - go figure!) |
| 6 | Dried jalepeno peppers; crushed, seeds and all, (firecrackers, he called them) | |
| 1 | pounds | Butter; melted, (none of that greasy margarine, for crissake!) |
| 1 | More 6-pack of Lone Star; on ice | |
| 1 | 50-pound bag of ice | |
| 1 | Side of beef or one helluva big pig | |
| 2 | Young'uns with fly swatters; on rotating shifts, (there were 6 of us at the time) | |
| 1 | Wheel of cheddar; the kind that smells like work socks at the end of the day | |
| 2 | Boxes of crackers | |
| 1 | Case of Pik coils | |
| 2 | Lawn chairs; one for his butt, one for his feet | |
| 1 | Stetson; his cookin' hat; not the one he wore to the rodeo | |
| 1 | Pair of shades; made out of welder's glass | |
| 2 | cartons | Lucky Strikes or Camels; Note 1 |
| 1 | Zippo lighter; circa 1943, extra flints and fluid | |
| 1 | More 6-pack of Lone Star; on ice | |
| 1 | Loud; wind-up alarm clock, the one he called \"The Voice of God\" | |
| 2 | 50-pound bags of mesquite or pecan chips; Note 2 | |
| 1 | 6-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon; ice optional, Note 3 | |
Directions
Note 1: (filters?! Real men don't smoke filtered butts, what's the matter with you, FOOL?!)
Note 2: soaked in water overnight in the dogs' washtub, which was actually one of those galvanized cattle troughs - nothing was too good for his 'dawgs'. (Jealous of his dogs, you say? Damn right, I was! He never hit his dogs and they didn't have to swat flies for him!) Note 3: (Never give the good stuff to the neighbors who wandered over, but always have something to give them! M. L.'s personal Code of the West.) (as remembered by his daughter, Martha) For those of you who like barbecue, I offer one of my late father's concoctions for basting, which I learned today is also called the mop (thanks, Richard Thead).
Empty one 6-pack of Lone Star into a 3 gallon stock pot. Add the vinegar, mustard, Tabasco, butter, peppers, garlic and a fifth of water. Bring to a high, rollin' boil to melt the butter; keep hot on the cool end of the grill.
Fire up the cooker when you get home on Friday night. Burn a couple or three mesquite logs (his preference) to get a foot-thick bed of cherry-red coals. Close the grill to keep in the heat. Add sufficient wet chips to produce enough smoke that the new neighbors call the fire department, but not so much that you put out the fire. (Long-time neighbors just bring in the wash, close their windows and wait him out.) When the smoke dies down so you can get near the grill, unearth the beast of honor from the washtub, rub it dry, sprinkle with the lightest coat of salt and brown sugar, lay the carcass on the grill. Quick, close the lid and prepare for the rest of the event.
Ice down the rest of the beer in the washtub. (Hell, yes, in the same continued in part 2