Wash ribs thoroughly and pat dry with paper towels.  Remove membrane from the back of the ribs. Brine overnight.

Prepare a double recipe of Dry Rub.  Brush the ribs lightly with oil on all sides.  Sprinkle each side generously with the rub.  Pat the dry rub into the meat.  Refrigerate the ribs for a minimum of 1 hour.

Heat smoker to ~250° and add wood chips.  Place a drip pan under the ribs and fill with approximately ½” of water or beer (add fresh herbs if desired).  Place ribs on a v-rack over indirect heat and close the lid to the smoker.  Allow to smoke at ~250° for two hours.

After two hours on the smoker, individually place the rib racks on a sheet of heavy duty foil and create a “pouch” of foil around each.  If desired, pour approximately ¼ C of Braising Liquid into each foil packet.  Wrap tightly and place the ribs back on the smoker or in an oven and allow to braise for at least one hour (two is better) at 200° – 250°.

Once cooked through remove the ribs and allow to rest, wrapped in a towel, in an insulated cooler for a minimum of one hour. If desired, you can finish them on the grill with BBQ Sauce.  Coat the ribs with sauce and cook them over direct high-heat (grill or broiler) until the sauce is thoroughly cooked in to the meat.

Like all of the outdoor furniture we built, it was a heavy, solid, sturdy, beastly monstrosity — anything worth building, was worth overbuilding. Made from pressure treated 2x lumber, it would withstand the elements and insects. It was coated with more than five layers of outdoor polyurethane to help protect it from the crawfish, and us from the chemicals used to treat the wood. Our little furniture “company” was known as Hurricane Furniture (prophetic, I know!), on the premise that come a hurricane or tornado, you should abandon your home and seatbelt yourself into our outdoor furniture — you’d be safer (“tornadoes just bounce right off of our shit”).  It was branded with our signature logo — literally branded — burnt right into the wood.

This table saw eleven years of life in the sun, rain, heat, humidity and cold. Eleven crawfish seasons this table was put to use, occasionally hauled from house to house as needed. It stood the test of time. It was damn near indestructible.

Damn near.

It didn’t give up without a fight.  Oh no. When I evacuated for Katrina, I put it in front of my garage door to ensure the wind wouldn’t blow it open. It was a silent sentinel, a guardian of my tools. The storm hit and I was the lucky recipient of 9′ of water on my street. That foul, acidic water didn’t recede for more than a week, and the table was beneath it the whole time. Upon my return I found it, just about where I left it in front of my garage door and still holding it closed, only it had tipped over onto it’s side and turned 90 degrees. It was still intact, but the table-top had warped and twisted and it was fouled with dirt, the borderline bulletproof polyurethane coating eroding away from the wood. Sadly, the table was ruined beyond future use.

After the storm I moved to Austin, carting my meager surviving possessions with me. Among them was my crawfish boiling pot and burner… they were in the garage attic, and had survived high and dry. I vowed to return to my duties as boil-master some day, but unfortunately that was hard to do in an apartment.

It took a few years, but eventually I got back into the groove — there are live crawfish to be had in Austin, the best ones being trucked in from Lake Charles for pickup on Saturdays during the season. I host a boil a year now, and generally act as boil-master for at least one other hosted by friends, sometimes two. I missed it, dearly. It’s a lot of work, but it’s in my very bones. It calls to me. It reminds me of home, family, and good times. It allows me to make more good times, and carry on healing bits and pieces of my soul.

But, there has been a big, overbuilt table-shaped hole these last seven years. The absence of the crawfish table has not gone unnoticed, or unlamented. I’ve had a yard of my own for it to live in for many years, but hadn’t had the opportunity to build a new table.

Until now.

I knuckled down, and made a new one this year. It took a little digging to find the original designs I had, and some CSI-like action — oh yes, I was a clever motherfucker, for the original designs were done in CorelDraw v3, and nothing opens those any more, not even CorelDraw. Using a hex editor I was able to extract the shopping list and some basic notes I had jotted down. I was also able to see the postage-stamp sized preview to determine that I used five boards for the table-top, giving me the overall dimensions — 3′x5”.

I redesigned the table digitally (in a format that is more universal and likely to stand the test of time). I kept the same basic design and expanded the table-top to 4′x6′. I tweaked the height a bit. I also changed the way the inside rail fastens to the table — from pegs in holes, to a routed recessed area. I’ve also added a removable second tier table made of PVC that can be used to put drinks, paper towels, etc, replacing the paper towel rods drilled into the outside rail, and the car-window drink holders as well.

All the while I was cutting and assembling the lumber, my brain kept whiplashing back to 1994, and building the original table with my brothers. It made me smile for the connection to the past and to my family, and a little melancholy to think of the distance between us now, both physical and emotional — one more thing to thank Katrina for. All the while I was sitting underneath the giant wooden hulk, brushing on polyurethane, I was reminded of how much I despised getting that lovely crick in my neck the last time, and how much — after five days — I was getting damned tired of the smell of it.

But most of all, through all of the table construction, the thoughts looming largest in my mind were: I hope I do this justice, I hope this lives up to what we had created before… I hope I do my brothers proud.

They taught me well, those knuckleheads did. We didn’t always get along, and we never quite knew how to show healthy affection for one another other than through incessant teasing and verbal sparring, but they knew how to create, and they passed that on to me. When there was sawdust in the air, all was right with the world.

Here are the fruits of my labors, and I can’t wait to put it to the test in a few weeks time. I was even sent our brand so that I could properly mark anything I build, proclaiming it properly built in the finest tradition of Hurricane Furniture.

And here are three of the jackasses that helped make me the jackass that I am today. Love you all.

To make the chicken paprikash, season (generously) the chicken with salt, pepper, and the paprika. Brown the chicken over medium heat on all sides. Add the onions and allow to soften and go translucent.

Add the chicken stock and deglaze the pan. Add water to just cover the chicken and onions. Bring to a simmer and reduce the heat to low. Cover, and simmer for 30 minutes, or until the chicken is tender. Remove the chicken and allow to cool.

Put the flour in a medium bowl and slowly add small amounts of the broth until you form a thick paste. Keep mixing and adding more broth until the paste is thin enough to pour directly back to the pot. Return to a simmer, whisking the mixture constantly, and cook until thickened. If the mixture doesn’t thicken sufficiently, you can mix cornstarch with cold water to form a slurry and add small amounts at a time until the desired consistency is obtained.

Once the chicken has cooled a bit, remove any bones, chop coarsley, then return to the pot. Add the yogurt or sour cream. Serve over pasta or rice. Sprinkle with paprika and enjoy.

Another option is to add dumplings to the gravy after returning the chicken to the pot and adding the sour cream. Serve over the dumplings.

Prepare an ice bath in a large bowl filled with ice water. Bring a small saucepan of lightly salted water to a boil. Add peas and cook for ~2 minutes (this leaves them with a bit of structure). Drain peas then add them to the ice bath and allow to cool, then drain again.

Whirl the peas in a food processor with garlic, pine nuts, parmesan, salt and pepper until smooth — ~2 to 3 minutes — scraping down the bowl as necessary. With the processor running, drizzle in olive oil and blend until consistently creamy.

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (~1½ pounds) (cut into 1-inch pieces)
1 TBS vegetable oil
4 garlic cloves (minced)
2 TBS grated fresh ginger
½ TSP crushed red pepper flakes

Batter & Frying:
3 egg whites
1½ C cornstarch
½ C all-purpose flour
½ TSP baking soda
1 TSP salt
4 C vegetable oil

Prep Time: 1 hour 15 minutes – Cook Time: ~10 minutes

To make the marinade, whisk the hoisin sauce, vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, cornstarch, and water in a bowl. Of this mixture, place 6 TBS into a ziplock bag and add the chicken. Seal and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Set aside the remaining marinade in the bowl.

While the chicken is chilling in the marinade, heat the 1 TBS of vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium heat until shimmering. Sauté the garlic, ginger and red pepper flakes until fragrant. Add 2 C of the marinade to the skillet and simmer, whisking constantly, until the mixture is dark brown and thickened. Remove from heat, cover and keep the sauce warm.

To prepare the chicken for coating and frying, whisk the egg whites in a shallow dish until foamy, set aside. Combine the cornstarch, flour, salt and baking soda in a ziplock bag and combine well. Drizzle the remaining marinade mix in, seal the bag, and rub into the dry components until it is fully combined and resembles coarse meal.

Remove the chicken from the refrigerator and from the marinade. Pat the marinated chicken dry with paper towels. Toss half the chicken into the foamy egg whites until well coated, then dredge the chicken in the cornstarch mixture, shaking the bag to coat thoroughly. Transfer the coated chicken to a plate and repeat with the remaining chicken.

Heat the oil to 350° in a 5 QT dutch oven over high heat. Fry the chicken in thirds until golden brown, ~3½ minutes. Transfer the cooked chicken onto a rack to drain. Return the oil to 350 degrees before frying again. Repeat with the remaining chicken.

Warm the sauce over medium heat until simmering. Turn off the heat and add the fried chicken pieces. Toss to coat and serve.

If so desired, garnish with 1 – 2 green onions, thinly sliced.

Yield: 4 servings

Mix all of the dry and wet ingredients together. Add the raw meat and mix well. Refrigerate until needed.

Hot Tamale Sauce (prepare ahead of time!)
You will need ~3 C of sauce for traditional wrapped tamales, ~4C for tamale balls.

Time provided, it is recommended to use the chili sauce (just the sauce part!) from the following recipe – Chili (Beef), ½ Alarm — Lutz. It is powerfully flavorful, and worth the extra prep time. That recipe will yield ~3¼ C of sauce, so scale accordingly.

For a quicker option, you can use the following recipe:

3 8 OZ cans tomato sauce
1½ TBS onion powder
1 TBS garlic powder
3 TBS chili powder
1 TSP cayenne
½ TSP salt
1 TBS sugar
2 C water

Mix ingredients well.

You can either follow the traditional wrapping method outlined further down or you can simply make ‘hot tamale balls’.

Hot Tamale Balls
Corn meal
Salt
Pepper
Greased baking dish or lined sheet pan

Oven: 350°

Roll the meat into balls (1½ – 2 TBS each), roll in corn meal, place in dish or on pan, bake for 20 minutes. Place into a pot, cover with sauce and water (approximate ratio of 2 parts sauce to 1 part water), and simmer for an hour.  If possible, allow to rest 30-60 minutes before consuming.

Hot Tamale Wrapping
Corn meal
Salt
Pepper
48+ 5″x5″ sheets of kitchen parchment paper (you can order tamale papers online, but standard kitchen parchment works just fine)

Prepare your work space. You should have the following within reach:

• A bowl with water to submerge the papers in and allow to soak for a minute or two. This will allow the papers to “relax” to make wrapping easier.
• A wide, flat bottom cooking pot, deep enough to contain all of the tamales and be able to just cover them with liquid.
• A shallow baking or casserole dish (2″-3″ deep) to dredge the tamales before wrapping. Fill ¼ of the way with corn meal, add a pinch of salt and pepper and combine.
• A plate or other flat surface to roll the tamales on.

Take one sheet of paper from the water bowl and place it on your rolling surface. Scoop slightly more than 2 TBS of the filling from the bowl (a slightly rounded coffee scoop) and form it into a tube ~3½” long. Roll it in the corn meal dredge then place it on the paper, the top end of the tamale lined up with the top edge of the paper (you will be leaving one end of the tamale open to allow the sauce to enter). Fold the bottom edge of the paper over the bottom end of the tamale. Roll the tamale firmly, eliminating as much air as possible (which will cause the tamale to float), but without squeezing it out of the paper. Place it in the pot on its side (not standing up!). Build a layer of tamales a row at a time in the pot, placing the next layer at a cross angle to the one below.

Note: It is advisable to devise a way to place something over the tamales that would prevent them from floating, but still allow you to cover the pot — I have used a flattened pie tin with a shallow glass bowl on top of it.

Gently pour your tamale sauce over the tamales, and add water to cover the tamales ~½” (approximate ratio of 2 parts sauce to 1 part water) . Bring to a simmer over medium heat, reduce heat to low and cover. Cook for 1½ hours. If possible, allow to rest 30-60 minutes before consuming.

This recipe scales up nicely. The tamales freeze well, especially when frozen in the tamale sauce.

Temperature: 225°

Start with a 4 – 5 LB chicken.

Optimally, first brine the chicken for 1 hour per pound. Use ⅓ of the turkey brine recipe for one chicken, ½ if doing two, in an appropriately sized container.

Rinse and pat dry the chicken. Brush lightly with olive oil and apply the rub, both above and below the skin. Allow to sit at room temperature for no more than 30 minutes.

Smoke, breast side down for 1½ – 2 hours, flip and finish (for an approximate total of 1 hour per pound of chicken, or until the breast is 165° and the thigh is 180°). If so desired, you can finish the chicken in the oven at 400° for 5 – 10 minutes to crisp up the skin.

Optionally you can smoke at 275° for 1½ – 3 hours or until the breast is 165° and the thigh is 180°, starting with the breast side down and flipping at the 1 hour mark. This should also yield a crispy skin without the need to finish in an oven.

Allow the chicken to rest for 5 – 10 minutes before serving.

Temperature 275

Bring the stock and bay leaves to a simmer in a small pot.

Chop the oysters finely (a food processor works well for this) and sauté until cooked through and set aside. Brown off the beef and pork and set aside. In the same pot sweat the onions, celery, garlic and chopped parsley in the butter and deglaze the bottom of the pan as you do. Once the onions are translucent, add the oysters, meat, breadcrumbs and oyster water and combine well. Add hot stock and combine until moist, but not wet. You may not use the entire quart.

Transfer to a 9×13″ casserole dish and bake uncovered for 30 minutes or until top is slightly crispy. If the dressing is too wet after 30 minutes, stir and bake more moisture off at upwards of 350º. Garnish with parsley.

Serves 10.

Combine the hot water, kosher salt and brown sugar and stir until the salt and sugar dissolve completely. Add the ice and stir until the mixture is cool. Pour into your brining vessel of choice. Gently lower the turkey into the container. If necessary, weigh down the bird to ensure that it is fully immersed in the brine. Cover and set in a cool dry place for approximately 1 hour per pound of turkey.

Remove the turkey from the brine, rinse and pat dry. Allow to sit at room temperature for at least 1 hour prior to cooking.

Suggestions for brining vessels:

• 5-gallon upright insulated drink cooler or a 5-gallon bucket placed in an ice-chest, surrounded by ice
• Doubled-up disposable turkey oven bags will fit the 5-gallon cooler/bucket perfectly, and avoid the need to scrub and sanitize after.

Prepare the day before.

Combine the dry spices and grind to a very fine texture (an el-cheapo coffee grinder works well for this). Add all of the ingredients to a small saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes. Allow to cool then pour into a sealed container and store in the fridge overnight. If using with a small injector needle, strain the mixture using several layers of cheesecloth. Before using, re-mix the ingredients well, shaking vigorously or using an immersion blender to create a smooth emulsion.

If injecting into a turkey or chicken, use as few injection punctures as possible (6 – 8), instead moving the needle around within the meat to different zones during each puncture. Be sure to at least inject the breast from below, aiming for the cavity between the breast tenderloin and the top of the breast itself.

If possible, inject 2-6 hours before cooking.