Tastes of Home A Thousand Miles Away

Had an absolute blast these last few weeks, topped by the last 7 days on a family vacation in the Rockies where we stay in a resort-y/timeshare condo unit. It has three “community” gas grills around the pool. The grills have always been well-maintained, but a bunch of like-minded guys turn dinnertimes into a crapshoot as the line starts forming around 5. In charge of cooking/providing dinner for 6, I took a leap of faith this year and smoked enough meat for 4 meals in the 10 days leading up to departure before vac-sealing, freezing and transporting it 1,060 miles from the Chicago burbs to Vail, CO. I smoked 2 9-pound pork shoulders, each rubbed and braised for different recipes; a 13-pound brisket (vac-sealed whole after an 8-hour rest); and 2 pounds of smoked Andouille sausage (rubbed with THE BBQ Rub). All that protein produced meals + next-day lunch leftovers of: BBQ Pulled Pork Sandwiches, “Shrimp Foil Boil,” Brisket Street Tacos, and Carnitas. I brought a steamer basket to reheat brisket slices, gently warmed up the two batches of pulled pork with a resort-provided slow cooker, and the sausage got the natural warm-up with the rest of the stuff in the foil packets. I made one 20-mile roundtrip at the beginning of the week to the Walmart in Avon to pick up everything for modest sides with each meal. I don’t know how much loot I saved during the week but for context, 85/15 ground beef at the local Vail Safeway was $9.79/lb. (Not a typo.) One thing I do know is that everything worked beautifully and the fam got meals that tasted fresh outta the Egg. We have a large-ish knockoff Yeti cooler that did a helluva job keeping everything frozen for 48 hours in the back of a Santa Fe through scorching Midwest temps. Everything thawed naturally in the condo fridge and the vac seal held like a champ. Pretty awesome feeling to pull this off. Thanks for reading.