Page 16 - April 2021 Barbecue News Digital

baum it
When life gives you a Tornado, Baum it!
Ardie Davis
aka Remus Powers BBQ Hall of Famer ardiedavis@kc.rr.com
Springtime officially ar- rived last month in the af- termath of a tragic Arctic Blast over a wide swath of the US. Now we’re getting Mother Nature’s spring- time joys and woes full force as she plays her tra- ditional April Trickster role with a sprinkling of weather disasters and April showers. Migratory birds are returning from their tropical vacations, just in time for the annual reruns of Hollywood’s ver- sion of “The Wizard of Oz.” Meat fire and spring flower aromas tickle our nostrils with the refresh- ing scent of renewal.
Detail from “American Montage” by Adam Cvijanovic, as seen at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City (Photo by A. Davis)
sandwiches, entrees, sides, drinks and presen- tations. Since competi- tion barbecue requires strict conformity to con- test rules, avoiding a DQ is a greater challenge to your creativity than when you’re barbecuing at home or for customers.
When you’re cooking out- side the contest box, you are in charge, limited only by your imagination and common sense.
Every barbecuer is as in- terested in the latest new fad, gimmick or trend as anyone else. Then too, we still use a thing or two from the old tried and
April is not too late to
sharpen your cooking skills, test some new gadgets, fuels, cookers, rubs, mops and sauces, and dream up some new
true. We’ve been around the pit enough times to recognize when something packaged as “new” is simply a variation on something old with a new twist and a new name. For exam- ple, we went along with calling smoked meatloaf a “fatty,” and we thought covering or wrapping barbecue with a bacon lattice was new until we learned that “outdoor sup- pers” featuring grilled steaks topped with a bacon lattice were popular in the 1930s. The old saw, “There’s nothing new under the sun” may not be entirely true, yet “new” in- stantly commands attention in our temporocentric culture.
Although pandemics are not new to our planet, now is the first time most of the world’s population has experienced such a massive attack on our lives and well-being. Add out- of-control fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wars, terror- ism, political unrest, climate change, Arctic blasts, droughts, power outages, food shortages, contaminated
BarbecueNews.com - 16
APRIL 2021