Everything long.
This past weekend was May Long. As the name suggests, we get an extra day – Victoria Day. May Long is usually our official kick off of summer activities like gardening and camping throughout the country. We really try to stretch it out here in Canada. Winters are really long.
But here in Alberta, May Long is unfortunately notorious for its unpredictability of weather. We can see snow, hail, freezing temps, tornadoes you name it. You never know what you are going to get that weekend. Plans need to be flexible. I’m sure by now, you’ve gathered that I am a bit of a Type A personality, so flexible plans aren’t really a thing in my world. I’m probably more like “come hell or high water”. Luckily this year, we avoided all that drama because we had picture perfect weather. Woohoo!
I was so pumped for fun in the sun. 20C all weekend. For my relatives in much warmer parts of the world, that is warm for this time of year. I know it’s not really warm, but it is for the land of igloos and polar bears.
The Peanut and I kicked the weekend off by going for a long walk. We did 16kms out at Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park. One of my personal favs. It took us 2h38mins. We kept a pretty decent pace going. 10m7s a kilometre. Yes. I’m bragging 🙂
You’d think after that long walk I would have slept like a baby but I did not. It was a long night that night. I did not sleep well at all. Instead, I kept waking up because my legs were walking in their sleep. The hubby also didn’t get much sleep apparently, because in the morning I was greeted with less than a sunshine and lollipops personality. I wonder if all that horizontal walking added to my steps?
Bring on Saturday! Our neighbours happen to have a smoker. And I happened to have some smoking’ meat e.g. brisket and ribs. And like the geniuses we are, we put these things together on this fab Saturday. We started out early in the morning. We knew it was going to be a long day of standing around and watching the smoker. But we were ready with our bottle of tequila.
Of course, smoking meat is not something that can be rushed. You just have to be patient. Great. That is also not one of my talents… I’ve never smoked meat before so I did some research to make sure I had a plan. Everything I read told me that the brisket would be about 8-10hrs. The ribs would need 6hrs. But, as I mentioned, we were ready. To keep us from looking in at the meat too often (lets all the heat out), we established that there would be a price of admission. A shot of tequila for every opening. Not sure we thought this through. This could go either way. My money is on the wrong way.
Since the tequila shot at 8am did nothing for my brain, I thought that some gardening might put me back on track. I planted all my veggie plants. This is risky business at this time of year here. As mentioned, we often get killing frosts until the first week of June. But the tequila shot gave me courage to proceed. I’ll let you know in a week or two if the tequila made the right decision.
While I was busy trying not to look at the meat, the hubby was busy building a table for the back deck. We have a window well back there which most people refer to as the death pit. Figured we should put a table over it to reduce the amount of incidents.
We got the ribs off after 6 hours. And they were delicious. We nailed it! Corn on the cob, coleslaw, and potatoes. What a feast! But where is the brisket?
The brisket had a mind of its own. Since we started at the butt crack of dawn that day, we thought the timing for ribs and brisket would align. We did the smart thing and put the brisket on a few hours before the ribs. We were thinking. No tequila yet. We had to get the brisket to 202-204F before it was ready. When the ribs were ready, the brisket was at 130F. So…. that’s a problem. But being smart still, we decided that at least we would eat the ribs and all the other goodies now. We would not rush the brisket. Besides, how much longer could it really take. Had been 10 hours already. Surely this would now kick into high gear.
We waited. And waited. We sat outside with the kids by the fire for a few hours. We laughed we cried and we kept checking on the meat. Finally, we got too cold to sit out there any longer. We sent the kids to bed and the hubby and I went to wait inside. Still waiting. How long was this going to take?
When they look this cute, makes you want to keep them.
2am! It took until 2am to get that damn brisket to temp. It better be good. I have been up way too long and drank way too many shots of tequila not to have this succeed.
Once it came out of the smoker, we left it to rest overnight. We needed to rest overnight as well. Luckily, it was tasty. Really, really tasty. I don’t think my mental health could have handled any other outcome.
With all the outdoor time and fun in the sun, mojitos came to mind as a perfect cocktail for this week. And who better to do this with than my buddy the Chef. He came by to do a social distance guest appearance for this one. The weather unfortunately, did not cooperate and we ended up with a month’s worth of rain in 4 days. Not really mojito weather anymore. But I’m glad we had the garage to film in. And, it turned into a long, fun night of laughs. Even the Monkey got in on the fun. Enjoy this longer than usual video.
