By Clay comes home January 28th. Two weeks of leave before deployment. Two weeks. Fourteen days. The same countdown I did when he left for Basic, except this time the departure at the end is worse. Basic was Georgia. This is Afghanistan. Basic was training. This is the thing you train for. The real thing.
I'm preparing. I've started a list of every meal Clay has ever requested, ranked by frequency and urgency. The top five: Betty's fried chicken (number one always), soup beans and cornbread, my smoked ribs, chicken and dumplings, and biscuits and gravy. In fourteen days, I will make all five, possibly multiple times, because if my son is going to eat Army food for nine months, the last food he eats in my kitchen is going to be the best food I know how to make.
Travis and Jolene's wedding planning is in full swing. April 20th, 2019. An outdoor ceremony at a farm venue outside Richmond, Jolene's hometown. I'm providing the barbecue for the reception — smoked pork shoulder and brisket for seventy people (they went over fifty, as I predicted, because guest lists are like rivers: they only flow in one direction). This is my contribution: the food. Not a speech, not a toast, not a dance. The food. Because the food is what I do and because the food is how I say everything I can't say with words.
This week I tested the wedding brisket recipe at scale. I smoked two whole briskets — twenty-four pounds of beef — on Saturday, starting at four AM and finishing at eight PM. Sixteen hours of fire management. The first brisket was perfect: bark, smoke ring, tender flat, juicy point. The second was slightly dry in the flat, which means I need to manage the fire more carefully when I'm running two at once. Lesson learned. The test was worth it.
Connie ate brisket for three meals on Sunday. She said "I'm eating your wedding present." I said "It's Travis's wedding present." She said "I'm eating it." She ate it. The brisket is good. The wedding is coming. Clay is coming home. Two weeks of overlap — Clay home, wedding prep, the specific chaos of a family that is simultaneously saying goodbye and saying hello and saying I do. January into February into April. The calendar is a relay race and I'm carrying the food.
The wedding brisket is figured out — sixteen hours of fire management and two test runs say so. But Clay’s homecoming list has ribs on it, and ribs don’t wait on weddings. When I need to guarantee the result without babysitting another smoker all day, I go to the slow cooker: same Memphis flavor profile, same bark-forward dry rub, and enough rendered tenderness that the meat tells you it’s done before you even pick up a fork. Fourteen days isn’t long. I’m not wasting a single one of them fighting a fire when I could be sitting at the table with my son.
Slow-Cooker Memphis-Style Ribs
Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 6 hrs | Total Time: 6 hrs 20 min | Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 2 racks pork baby back ribs (about 4 lbs total), membrane removed
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons smoked paprika
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon dry mustard
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1 cup Memphis-style BBQ sauce (tangy, vinegar-forward), divided
Instructions
- Mix the dry rub. Combine brown sugar, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, dry mustard, black pepper, salt, and cayenne in a small bowl. Stir until evenly blended.
- Season the ribs. Pat ribs dry with paper towels. Coat both sides generously with the dry rub, pressing it into the meat. For best flavor, cover and refrigerate overnight or at least 1 hour before cooking.
- Prep the slow cooker. Pour apple cider vinegar into the bottom of a 6-quart slow cooker. Stand the rib racks upright along the inside walls, curving them to fit. The meat should not be submerged — the vinegar steams from below.
- Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 7 hours, until ribs are fork-tender and pulling back from the bone. Avoid lifting the lid during cooking.
- Sauce and finish. Carefully transfer ribs to a foil-lined baking sheet. Brush both sides with 3/4 of the BBQ sauce. Broil 4 to 5 inches from heat for 3 to 5 minutes, watching closely, until the sauce caramelizes and the edges begin to char slightly.
- Rest and serve. Let ribs rest 5 minutes before cutting into individual ribs. Serve with remaining BBQ sauce on the side.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 520 | Protein: 38g | Fat: 31g | Carbs: 18g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 680mg