Brisket, paint techniques, and more

I know can I be a little more precise with my titles.......NO.  But let's get to the brisket first......

This was a very small piece of brisket according to my husband G2.  The rub he made was a combination of paprika,cumin,sugar,salt,pepper,thyme,cumin and cayenne pepper.  I have made a similar rub and the recipes are all over the web.  Be very generous when you rub it down.  Anyway it was on the smoker for about 6 hours, I turned it up to 250 degrees and kept it on the smoker for 3 more hours.  We have a pellet smoker called a Treager.  If you don't have a smoker you can use a grill and turn it as low as it will go and put wood chips off to the side and set the meat on indirect heat. ( Honestly though, if you like smoked meat go out and get yourself one for your upcoming birthday.)  Then I placed it in foil and apple juice in the oven for a few hours on 300 degrees.

It was pull-apart tender with a great flavor. I served it on a roll with Stubbs BBQ sauce,but really the flavor was so good the sauce is optional.  Made about 8 good sized sammies.

Next.................

My daughter wanted her bedroom redone last year, she was sick of the lavender and girly colors and she picked a mocha and beige color scheme.  We picked out sheers to go over her blinds.  The pattern was lilies or some flowery design.  I made a template out of mylar from the curtain design and put four of the flowers on each side of the window for a custom touch.

Ok enough of  my cooking and design tips, here's some photos I took today while out and about for the paper.

I really didn't meet this guy since he blew by me at an intersection doing 30 mph, but i like the frame.

I stopped and met this lady after I saw her pull into the 7-11.  She lives in her truck with her dog Precious Ann.  She told me how the Manitou police held her down as the Humane Society took her other dog, ill with cancer, and gave her a ticket for animal abuse.  She said the dog was to get his leg amputated and the cancer only had effected his leg but they took the dog and put him to sleep.  She was crying her eyes out.  I felt so bad.  She said the incident left her with a dead dog and  a court date.

 She said she dumpster dives and I could have anything I wanted that was on her truck.

She said Precious Ann is a red tick heeler that came out blue???? This dog must of pissed for a full 5 minutes after it got out of the truck.  Wish I could help but something tells me there's more to the story.  Good luck.

When we used to use film cameras,we shot off a few frames to make sure the film was advancing and sometimes this would make for some good art, we called leader art.  Well gone are the days of film so this is my digital leader art from yesterday just checking exposure I suppose.

Ok, let's check on the cat..........

Whoops, she looks pretty mad, never mind, she must of smelled the blue-red tick heeler on me.

Have a good one.  C.

Soup Kitchen Diaries

      I got about 4 hours of sleep before the alarm rang at 5:40 this morning.  I had a case of the racing brain and could not fall off into the never-land slumber. Mags, her BFF and I showed up at the newly built Catholic Charities building at 7 am and quickly made about 50 lbs of green salad mixed in large bins.  The guy supervising us was about 100 years old and couldn't hear so communication was well, limited.  After that the girls went to cut cakes and pies and I stayed to work with this busy-body gray-hair from Houston.  I mentioned the girls were only 13 and she quickly ran out as if she was gonna announce a fire, to tell the pastry supervisor not to let them use knives, as they needed to be over 16 to use a knife.  Had I not said anything would would of cared?  They let these community service morons use a knife I think that' s a bigger liability.  Anyway the old dude had me cutting up fruit with the gabby gray hair.  The fruit was beyond ripe and had mold on the berries.  I swear if I wasn't there they would have mixed it all in.  They had no sense of smell so they could not smell the bad watermelon.  I  pitched all mine but others mixed it all in.  Next I helped drain  about 200 cans of tuna for tuna salad.  Mrs Houston kept saying that the tuna salad must have mustard and apples mixed in with the mayo and pickle relish.  Everyone she said it to said, "well never heard of that"' but that didn't keep her from adding it anyhow.  This one lady on community service kept coming up to me and asking questions like I ran the place.  I started making like I did.  "Oh go ahead and take your break", "put that right over there"  ect......Tell you what if I did run it it would be a better place and their would be composting and a bin for the old fruits and and rotten shit would not make it in the salads.
       When it came time to serving, the girls handed out pastries and buttered bread.  I shared the plate scrub station with a very nice high ranking ex-military guy.  I haven't worked that physically hard in a long time. Most patrons were really helpful, appreciative and cordial.  Some were major fuck-ups handing you a plate stacked with garbage and uneaten food, not bothering to dump the garbage.  This one guy pointed out a hair in his cinnamon roll, although his hands looked like he was a car mechanic/cave man.  I can't say this any other way but it was all very fucking gross.  When we emptied the liquids, coffee, juice, soup, into the bucket I called the spurge bucket, it splattered on my Keens, and looked like vomit.  When I scraped the food with this brush it came back up to my face and I realized I quite possibly had the worse job there.
  Anyhow, yes, I feel like we did a good thing.  I came home took a half hour shower and took a three hour nap.  My knees hurt so I popped a percacet and I am mellowing out in bed with my cat, and I am thanking my lucky stars or higher power or whoever is listening not that I don't have to eat there but that the kitchen is there for those who need it.