I find myself searcing the internet for the same things over and over (because I convince myself I'll remember what I found, but I never do) so I thought I'd share just a couple of things I've learned:
A vertical bullet-type smoker works perfectly well. Competition barbecue people will likely 'pshaw' that, but I use mine all the time. Frankly I love the thing. I've made food-a-plenty on it for the outrageous price of $50. I also had a couple of people tell me that my brisket was the best brisket they've ever had. Suck on that, Cadillac smoker people!
A rack of ribs takes approximately 5 to 6 hours. You can have them technically done in 4, but they won't be tender (smoker, again). You can also cook ribs in the oven but the results are completely different than your back yard barbecue version. In the oven - 350 degrees, season ribs well, slice an onion into rings, slice a bell pepper into... rings? Scatter over the top of the seasoned ribs, bake for about an hour or until ribs fall off the bone. Again - backyard smoker (or pit) best: winter time desperation? = oven.
A thin layer of cooking oil on your stainless steel barbecue pit will help keep any rusting to a minumum. Every site I've found suggests cleaning with naval jelly, or using oil and then burning it off, but if you just use the very thin layer and buff the excess oil off you will have the shinest grill on the block with little to no trouble.
Grass always grows the best whereever you don't want it. You know that's true.
Amish friendship starter can be contained. A few very nice internet people have posted this already, but here we go again: instead of feeding your starter such large quantities of milk, sugar & flour just do this: if baking friendship bread add 1/3 c. each of sugar, flour and milk and sugar, take your cup for your bread and save the balance of what you don't use aside in a clean glass jar with a loose fitting lid in the fridge. If not baking - stir, dump half of the starter down the drain, then feed it with 1/3 c. sugar/flour/milk. You can keep this alive indefinitely - just feed at least once per month. If you don't have any starter there are plenty of recipes on the 'net. Allrecipes.com has the friendship starter, or you can search for sourdough bread. One of the first sites that comes up has a recipe for simple sourdough starter. I used this, then once it came Alive (eat your yeart out, Peter Frampton!) I added milk & sugar and so on and so sorth.
Speaking of sourdough, there are snobs a-plenty out there on the innertubes. Feel free to completely ignore these people. Perhaps they turn out the best loaf ever, but even so, big farking deal. Once a person has sucked the fun out of baking then why care what they have to say? Bake on, rockstars.
Kosher salt does taste better than table salt, Miracle Whip is not a miracle and is in fact the devil, margarine blows and since life is short anyway why not use real butter?
Truffle oil is worth the money as long as a small bottle doesn't cost more than $8 or so. Drizzle over mashed potatoes, risotto, grilled asparagus/greenbeans/zucchini, mac & cheese, Captain Crunch (just kidding about that last one). Be adventurous.
If you don't do anything else at least use fresh cracked pepper. This tastes absolutely nothing like it's already ground-in-the-can counterpart.
Last thing: laugh loud and often even if its at your own self. It really is the best medicine.
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