Monsoon

We saw our first big Monsoon lightning storm tonight. I managed to get this shot of the lightning in front of our house - it was a spectacular show!

What's that, Lassie? BBQ is afoot and target temperature has been reached?

To the smoker!

My my, doesn't that look tasty.

It was difficult to get back in the house in one piece.

HAVE AT THEE!

Now for some slaw and bunnage!

Mmm...

So when we moved away from St. Louis, we decided that instead of putting our offset smoker into storage with all of the rest of our belongings for 2+ months in the Arizona sun, we would gift the mighty implement of BBQ goodness to Karl and Britni. So there we were, without proper BBQ for several months out here.

Finally, as of about a month ago, we picked up the lazy man's way to smoke: a Bradley Digital 6 rack electric smoker. As you can see from the shots, it basically looks like a mini fridge. The cooking chamber is about 3.5 feet tall and at our estimate we can probably do 30-50lbs of food in it at once, depending on the cut(s) of meat, etc...

The specimen of choice was a 10lb pork shoulder from the local megamart. It went into a kosher salt and brown sugar brine for about 8 hours, then into the smoker with apple wood at 250F for another 22 hours.

Yes, you read that right. This thing cooks quite a bit differently than the offset smoker: way... way slower. It took 22 hours for the shoulder to hit 200F, which is the target temperature for getting a pork shoulder to truly fall apart. Once it's there, all you need is a couple forks to turn it into a mound of BBQ goodness.

Quail

Just for Doris - more pictures of our quail family. The babies are really growing up fast.

Mt. Lemmon

Looking out over the Catalina mountains.

Saguaro's blooming on the mountain. After the flowers bloom they are replaced by very red fruit, that can be eaten.

Erika in the parking lot on Mt. Lemmon. Notice Pauline in the background, taking more pictures of cactus.

Our new Ford Escape, used for driving up the mountain. Thanks Ryan for the A-Z plan!

In honor of Mom and Dad Eggers visit in June we drove up Mt. Lemmon - the tallest mountain around Tucson. This is a view from the side of the mountain.