It is Saturday, March 10, 2007. I decided to slow cook a beef brisket. I have been grilling for a long time and one of my favorite meals is good mesquite smoked brisket. I don’t have a smoker and you have to smoke brisket for a long time at low temps. I can’t control the temp on my grill like I would like to, and it would get too hot for a brisket. The only good brisket I have had was purchased at a Famous Dave’s BBQ. So then I remembered that I bought a gigantic roaster oven for when my family was here at Christmas and never used it. I do a dry southwest rub on the brisket and put it in the roaster at 200 degrees. I make some moppin’ sauce and add a packet of smoking mesquite chips to smoke the meat. After six hours I have beautiful southwest flavored rubber. Moral of the story…. You can’t rush the good stuff… especially brisket.
This week I go to Tallahassee to talk to the legislature about tourism in Florida and in particular, lighthouse preservation. Sometimes I get impatient because I have so many things I need to do to the tower, and I know so many other lighthouse groups who are struggling to preserve their towers. I hope the state legislature will back the Governor’s new funding for lighthouse preservation. But then I remember that preservation started on our tower in the late 1980’s. We are seen as one of the premier lighthouses in the U.S. and it took a lot of time and love and sweat to get this lighthouse to where it is today. You can’t rush historic preservation just like you can’t rush brisket. It takes lots of time, care, and patience… like most worthwhile things in life. Oh for a real smoker… in Tallahassee and in my backyard!
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