For the Love of Meat

The blog returns! The staff at 'Adventures of Mitch' apologize for our blogging sabbatical. It seems the rearing of a child has interrupted the blog nation. I hope that my fan base (roughly estimated between 2 and 6 people) have not all passed away or found other things to do with their wasted heartbeats.

For those that know me it's well known that I embrace, celebrate and consume all things about meat. The vegetarian lifestyle is certainly not my 'modus operandi.' As a consummation of my love for the flesh of, farm raised and potentially inhumanely slaughtered, animals I was given a meat smoker for my birthday this year.

It's likely that with a new baby the last thing I needed was a way to make meals that takes 5-10 hours to complete. However, I find myself in a carnivorous version of heaven as I gaze over the freshly mowed yard sipping a cold beer as the luscious hickory smoke wafts peacefully among my senses. I restrain myself from taking off my shirt so the smoke can seep into my skin as if I were a giant brisket wearing a hat and shoes. Additionally, it's very likely I would be divorced and shunned from the neighborhood for such actions. It has already been frowned upon that I considered swapping out my deodorant in the mornings for my favorite pork dry rub.

While I am merely a bat boy in the game of barbecue with my little smoker, (size supposedly doesn't matter, right?) I feel a part of a cult-like community of the most masculine of all food preparation methods. My lovely wife, whom could care less about eating meat at all, somehow dropped off the holy meat ship even though she was raised on a farm in Iowa where to be considered a meal there needs to be a dead animal on the table. Amen. So now, not only does it take me the better part of the day to prepare a smoked delicacy, but I am usually cooking for myself and any friends or passers by I can wrangle in from the smell and trade animal flesh for beer. How sweet the simplicity of the barter system is.