After spending the morning at the KCBS West Coast Championships,
I got fired-up to Q at home, so I stopped and grabbed something
at Safeway (Costco wasn't open yet ;-) ) The KCBS competition
was great - just a lot of smoke, meat, good fellowship.

A 4 lbs cross rib roast was the star of the show; about 2.5
hours at 250Fish, and smoke was from two quarters of a French
Oak stave. Rub was something I'm starting to call 'Napa Q'
style, easy on heat, looking for a little more complexity.
Took it off at 145F internal.

In the Napa Q theme, I mixed a bottle of Central Coast
Sangiovese, a minced onion and a couple of minced carrots,
a tsp or two of sea salt and then cooked it down about 2/3.
Then I strained out the solids, squeezing them a bit, added
1/3 cup of brown sugar and cooked it down until thickened and
used it as a glaze when I took the roast off. Great smoke
ring, I probably sliced off half of the damn thing as samples
of family that came over...

Picture is on a.b.f

Neighbor came over to complain that I hadn't told him
I was Qing, so I told him to stop complaining and bring
over some meat; so a while later he showed up with a
smallish tri-tip rubbed with S&P and garlic, brushed with
oil. It took about 45 minutes or so, maybe longer, and two
or three beers, to take it up to 145F internal. It cooked
up like butter.

Meanwhile my pal Don in North Carolina called to say
that Charley's eye was about to pass over him; sure enough,
it went from dark and torrential rain to nearly sunny with
light broken clouds as we talked.

I hope my friends here in FL all weathered OK - so far it
sounds good.

Cheers,
Dana