The Project: Update

Today my friends, I bring you great news from the frontier of culinary excellence:

The Big Baby is done!

Back in June, you'll recall this post, where dreams and excitement overwhelmed reality and I committed to building myself a homemade smoker. Not just any smoker mind you, but a Big Baby, the king of two barreled smoking technology as it exists in the world today. Talk about pure folly, why I've never successfully built anything in my life.

Moving forward with this project required that I forget the ill formed spice rack I made in 6th grade shop class, that wasn't quite square. Not only did it look like the product of some tragically unskilled kid, but it packed all of the functionality too! Spices placed on the rack would slide right off crashing to the floor in a dramatic explosion.

In short, I was the black sheep of the family. My Grandfather, who I never met, was a skilled woodworker and jeweler. My father, when he had the time was also able to produce great things with a couple of sharp tools and some decent quality wood. In a sort of ongoing generational mockery, I have this day, in my house my Grandfather's workbench, and tool drawer which he made himself. All of his tools are in there; files, screwdrivers, drills and other things that I don't even recognize. It just doesn't get much use since I clearly have some mutant gene.

My dad was patient with me too when I was growing up. He'd ask me to assist on some project and I would do the best I could. Yet lack of interest, a desire to work much faster than my dad did, and a severe talent deficit led to the admonishment to "at least look like you know what your doing!" I laugh every time I think of the poor man's frustration with his less than handy offspring.

Today all that changes. I, through the mostly square product of my own unskilled hands, have secured my place in the family tree, for I have built a Big Baby. No more will I suffer the mockery of generations since departed. Never again will I fear their stern admonishment upon my attempted entry into heaven: "yes, but what did you build?"

Because now I have not only an answer, but I have something much more. I will be able to say, "I built a Big Baby, and I used it to produce some mighty fine que". "How about you"?