A friend of mine asked me today about why I go to "all that trouble" to cook bbq. Besides the obvious reason--bbq tastes good--it's also a pursuit that offers me a lot of personal satisfaction.I'm reminded of the opening sequence to ABC's Wide World of Sports that I watched every Saturday afternoon from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. as a kid where the skier is flying down the snow covered ramp and then, just before leaving the end of the ramp, loses his balance and tumbles off the side of the ramp and into the spectators. I was a sports nut and where we lived we could only access the network channels close enough to be picked up on the antenna, so it was something I looked forward to all week.
Similarly, after a stressful week of working my day job, weekends spent barbecuing are relaxing. I look forward to it all week long. Whether it's cooking bbq in the backyard or competing in a sanctioned bbq contest all weekend, it's all good.
Learning to cook barbecue is a challenging pursuit that takes some effort. You have to be able to regulate the cooker temperature, choose right bbq spice rub, bbq sauce, wood for smoke flavor, charcoal, marinades, etc.
When it's done right, there's few things more fulfilling to eat for lunch or supper than a bbq pork sandwich sauced with just the right amount of sweet bbq sauce. Some people go fishing, some do wood working, some play golf--I cook barbecue.
Likewise, it's dissapointing when the cooking process doesn't turn out as expected. The agony is short lived though, because there's always next weekend.
Most of the time the worst cooked bbq is better than the best hamburger anyway.
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