Maple-Glazed Ribs

The first cutting of hay is two weeks out and the grass in the home pasture stands as tall as I have seen it in five years. We had a wet May. The Musselshell ran high until last Tuesday and you could see the silt line on the cottonwoods two feet up the trunk. The water has dropped now and the river is clear enough at the rocky stretch below the corral that I watched a brown trout finning in the shadow of a willow on Monday morning before breakfast.

The book has been out almost a month. I do not check sales. Sarah sends me a number once a week — a small number, in publishing terms, a respectable number for regional nonfiction by a first-time author from a press most people have never heard of. I do not know what to do with the number so I do nothing with it. The book is on shelves. The book is in some hands. The book is not, somehow, the thing I thought it would be when I was writing it. When I was writing it the book was the work. Now the book is finished and the work is something else, and the something else is what it always was — cattle, fence, horses, fire, the day in front of you, the next thing.

Patrick rode out with me Tuesday morning. He has not done that since April. The medication is in a good rhythm right now and he wanted to see the south fence where the elk had pushed through last fall. We rode slow. He sat his horse the way he has sat a horse for sixty years — square shoulders, light hand, the looseness that comes from a body that knows what to do without consulting the mind. The tremor was there but the horse does not care about the tremor. The horse cares about the rider, and the rider, on the back of an animal he has known for eleven years, becomes the man he was at fifty before any of this started. We rode for two hours. He did not say much. He never says much. When we got back he sat on the porch for a long time looking at the mountains and I made coffee and we drank it without speaking and that was the morning.

I cooked a pork shoulder over the firepit on Saturday for a small gathering — two of the Roundup AA guys, Tom Whelan, Cole down from Bozeman with Tara. Eight pounds of shoulder, dry-rubbed Friday night, on the grate at six in the morning, off at four in the afternoon. Ten hours. I was up most of the night anyway and by four I was tired in the bones but the pork was right — that black bark you get from a slow fire and a forgiving cut, the meat pulling apart with a fork, the smell carrying across the yard so that Patrick said from the porch, the only sentence he said all afternoon, that it smelled like a wedding. I do not know whose wedding. I did not ask.

Cole brought me a copy of the book to sign. He had bought it at the Bozeman co-op with his own money even though I had given him a copy in May. He said he wanted one he had paid for. I signed it on the porch. I do not know what to write in books and I have signed maybe forty now and the inscriptions all sound stupid to me. To Cole — keep cooking. R. He said it was perfect. Cole says everything is perfect and means most of it.

The strawberry patch in Mom's garden came in this week. Tiny, intense berries, the kind you cannot buy because they do not ship, the kind that make the watery red things in the grocery store seem like a different fruit entirely. Mom made shortcakes — biscuit-style shortcakes, not the spongy kind, the proper kind — and we ate them on the porch with cream Sarah Whelan churned and brought over Wednesday. Patrick had two. He had to use both hands on the spoon but he had two and he ate the cream off the plate at the end with a kind of dignity I do not have words for.

I am thirty in five months. I notice that. I notice it the way I notice the grass — quietly, without commentary, as a fact about the land I am standing on. Thirty is not anything except a number. Thirty is more years than Derek had. Thirty is fewer than half of what Patrick has. Thirty is whatever I make of it which is probably this — cattle, fence, horses, fire, and the next morning, and the morning after that.

Sleep was four hours Tuesday. Six hours Wednesday. Three hours Thursday. The book has stirred something up I did not expect — the fact of it being out in the world has made me feel watched, and watched is a feeling I am working on. The therapist says watched is just a memory — I am not actually being watched, I am remembering being watched, and the memory is being triggered by the very real fact of having published something. I told her thanks for the explanation. I told her the explanation does not make it stop. She said, no, but knowing what it is gives you something to do with it. I went home and built a fire and grilled a steak in the dark and watched the stars come up over the Bull Mountains and that was something to do with it. The fire helped. The fire always helps.

The pork shoulder I described above was not a recipe so much as a ritual — ten hours, a slow fire, and the kind of waiting that asks nothing of you except to be present. These maple-glazed ribs come from the same instinct: a forgiving cut, low heat, time doing the work a person cannot rush. If you do not have a full day and a firepit, a slow oven or a low grill will get you somewhere close. The glaze is the same kind of thing the maple trees are — patient, sweet, understated, and better than anything you planned.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 3 hours 30 minutes | Total Time: 3 hours 50 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 racks pork baby back ribs (about 4 to 5 lbs total)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
Maple Glaze:
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Instructions

Prepare the ribs. Remove the membrane from the back of each rack by sliding a butter knife under it at one end, gripping it with a paper towel, and pulling it away in one steady motion. Pat the ribs dry with paper towels.
Apply the dry rub. Combine brown sugar, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, kosher salt, black pepper, and cayenne in a small bowl. Rub the mixture evenly over both sides of each rack. For best results, wrap and refrigerate overnight or for at least 2 hours before cooking.
Set up your heat. Preheat your oven to 275°F, or set a grill or firepit for indirect heat at a low, steady temperature. Low and slow is the only way through this.
Cook the ribs low and slow. Wrap each rack tightly in heavy-duty foil and cook meat-side down for 2 hours 30 minutes to 3 hours, until the meat has pulled back from the bone tips and the racks bend easily when lifted at one end. Do not rush this.
Make the maple glaze. While the ribs cook, combine maple syrup, soy sauce, apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, minced garlic, and red pepper flakes in a small saucepan over medium heat. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened. Remove from heat and set aside.
Glaze and finish. Carefully unwrap the ribs and transfer them to a grill grate or a foil-lined baking sheet. Brush generously with maple glaze on both sides. Return to high direct heat on the grill (or broil in the oven) for 5 to 8 minutes per side, brushing with additional glaze once or twice, until the exterior is caramelized and dark at the edges.
Rest before cutting. Let the finished racks rest uncovered for 10 minutes before slicing between the bones. This is not optional.

Nutrition (per serving)

Maple-Glazed Ribs — The Fire Always Helps