First ever rib fest

I thought about doing a July recap blog post, but then I looked back at my pictures and realized that the main thing I did was go to Asheville (which I blogged about already) and buy and drink expensive matcha (not that interesting). Then I remembered that it is okay to blog about the little things. I used to do it all the time actually. Back in the day, I used to blog on a fairly weekly basis. The 2010s man! I had a lot to say back then. Nowadays it seems I just sit in my basement apartment and be sad. (Kidding! Okay, not really but kind of. It's complicated).

But on Friday, we did something out of the ordinary. We smoked ribs on our charcoal grill for the very first time!

A few weeks ago, Levent got it into his head that we should smoke some ribs. I, of course, was totally game, although also totally clueless. I had no real idea you could smoke things in a regular charcoal grill. I thought you had to have a special smoker to do that. And while we were both fairly clueless, but the thing about Levent is that he will watch YouTube videos and he will figure out how to do things. (I sometimes think about watching tutorials on YouTube and that's about as far as it will get). He's amazing! Levent found the recipe and instructions we should try and then we had to wait.

And wait.

And wait for there to be a day that worked in our schedule where it also wasn't raining. And apparently, we've gotten a lot of rain recently. But last Friday, the stars finally aligned and it was time for our first-ever grill fest.

Well, it was not a festival, but somewhere in all that waiting I started calling it rib fest as a quick and easy way to refer to use simply smoking ribs on the grill.

We salt brined and trimmed the spare ribs the night before and then on Friday, Levent set up and got the grill going around 11am. We put a spice rub on the ribs and then put them on the grill around noon. And then we waited. Well, I waited. Levent diligently checked on the temperature of the grill about every 15 minutes for the next 7 hours! (I know!) We had hoped they would be done around 6. (The recipe said it would take 5-7 hours depending on how many pounds it was). But it was around 7 before they were done. But we wanted to put BBQ sauce on the ribs and cook it a bit more. So when all was said and done, it was around 7:30pm by the time we were ready to eat.

My contribution was whipping up the sides. I kept it pretty simple. We had corn on the cob, potato salad (that I had made earlier in the week), cucumber salad and cherries. Turns out, it was a lot of food. But oh so good. The ribs were AMAZING! They were smokey and tender and the special BBQ sauce I brought home from Asheville (from 12 bones - their famous blueberry chipotle sauce) worked perfectly with them. I was so proud of us! Well, mostly Levent. He did most of the ground work and the actual work.

While we probably won't smoke things on the grill very often. (It takes so much time!) It was very fun to do and I look forward to having another fest again. (Maybe this fall? Who knows!)

Levent had to be outside with the grill most of the afternoon. So, of course, Tito had to be out there too.

After the ribs were done, we brought them inside and the critters were very interested in the delicious smell.

So good!