what was your first cook?

[bardsleyque]

My mom used to leave the ingredients out for hot cereal when I was in grade school.(Oatmeal, Ralston, Cream of Wheat)
She slept in us, kids had hot breakfast.You learned quick that you had to stir to avoid lumps!
My dad taught me to scramble eggs around nine or ten years old.
First grilling was probably in my teens,burgers and such. I used to do chicken marinated in beer, honey, garlic, onions, and spices that was pretty tastey.
BBQ was baby backs on a 26" weber in '92 I didn't know what I was doing, just grilled them up. I can't remember any seasoning details. I had my neighbor over to share, "Bardsley, Bardsley, Bardsley..." was my review.
That started me down the path.
I still have and use that weber!

[smokin fool]

I watched my father absolutely torture meat on a habachi for years but really learned how to BBQ at a buddies cottage on his Webber back in the early 70’s.
At his place it was Porterhouses, and big ones to boot. His father owned a steakhouse at one point and knew how to prepare and Q a steak

[Bogy]

I've been cooking since I was a boy. My parents and grandparents were very supportive and even ate what I made, from homemade pizza to stuffed burgers. When I was a sr. in high school I bought my parents a gas grill for their anniversary so I could cook on it. Did a lot of chuckies on it, along with many burgers. Since then I've had a series of cookers, tabletop propane, charcoal, electric smokers, gas grills, gas smokers, and now pellet burners. Going back to that tabletop propane grill I have grilled myself a t-bone or ribeye for my birthday for 40 years. On Feb. 8. Living in South Dakota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Iowa. Some years in a t-shirt, and other years in a parka, huddled in the garage (town cop stopped to see if the garage was on fire that year). Most memorable early smoke on my gas cabinet smoker was 80 lbs. of pork loin for my son's wedding reception. If I only had known then what I know now...

[Huskee]

Please remember the Off Topic channel is not for food talk. I have moved this topic.

[RonB]

spoilsport

[rickgregory]

I remember my first cook. It was right after the last Ice Age and we were all tired of the cave.

I ventured outside and up comes Ogg, my neighbor. Kicking something oblong, tells me he invented a game called 'football'. Why football? "Because you can only use your feet" he says. I thought this was silly as the ball was oblong and hard to control with your feet so I grabbed it and we started tossing it back and forth. Could never get him to rename the game, so it's still 'football'. Ogg...

Anyway, after tossing the ball around and running past each other to get to the edge of our land for about 3 hours, we got hungry. Ogg mentioned that he'd smelled a pterodactyl that had gotten caught in the fire next forest over and while it looked kind of bad it smelled GREAT. That was too far to go for food, so we caught some small ground squirrels and a thing that looked like a chicken. Built a fire. Ogg just wanted to toss everything on the fire, but the smoke from the fire smelled good, so we took a few and set them near the fire but more in the smoke.

Tasty stuff. Anyway, that was my first cook.

[Troutman]

You know I once dated Mrs. Ogg. She was a honey !!! ❤️😜

[Huskee]

I grew up grilling hot dogs and burgers and chicken pieces as a kid so I won;'t count that.

My first smoke when I got a charcoal smoker was ribs. Big fail! I took them to 165 (I had a dial meat thermometer). They were the toughest nastiest ribs, but tasted sooo good. I thought I overcooked them, as many first-timers think. So I tried them again, and was careful to not take them one tick above 165. Same result. Tried pork butt, same, in no way was it shreddable. I was so irritated that I was failing and didn't know why. I was trying, I was using a meat thermometer for Pete's sake!

This is what led me to Google how to make amazing ribs...and well you see where this is going. This is when AR was in its infancy and all Meathead had, if memory serves, was a ribs recipe, but that's all I needed. It blew my mind that I wasn't overcooking my ribs, that i was, in fact, under cooking them.

[mrteddyprincess]

Thanks Huskee, you did all the typing for me. Our experiences couldn't be more similar.

[FireMan]

And here I thought you was goin to say you got yer first kitchen magnet thingie.

[Bogy]

So nice to hear that an administrator had the same experience as I did!

[GolfGeezer]

I ben cooking since early childhood - was a classic nuke 'em griller using cheap charcoal grills I think my dad got with Green Stamps. I got into smoking with a Camp Chef DLX pellet pooper in 2016 when the only decent rib place around here closed. Of course, my first smoke was a rack of ribs followed shortly by a pork butt. I joined The Pit after spending time on a couple of forums dedicated to pellet grills/smokers. One of those "smack your head and wonder why it took so long" decisions, but a great place to learn/share and pick on Panhead John!

[bbqLuv]

I forgot, pick in Pantie-Head

[Attjack]

Hamburgers on a grill I made in high school out of a trashcan before I knew not to cook with galvanized metal.

[DeusDingo]

my wife got me a smoker for christmas and it took me a while to build up the courage to use it. i didn't have much experience in cooking in general so when i started to look how to do this i felt like a goldfish in the ocean. i made a pork butt. i put *some* kind of rub on it, i think i might have made it but i didn't know what i was doing. i just followed a time and didn't have any thermometers to test with. it turned out...ok. not really smokey, kind of like making it in the crock pot (it was a gas smoker and i didn't know how much to put on for wood).

and then i found this place and i started reading and reading and realizing how little i knew. i was obsessed with it but i hit a brick wall a year back or so with what i make so now it's just a hobby that i only took *this* far but not much further.

[BFlynn]

Pulled pork - on my gasser - following directions for set up and recipe from the free side.


It was my first step into a larger world.

[DavidNorcross]

At this point, I am struggling to remember what I did yesterday.

[bbqLuv]

If you know what you do today, you know tomorrow's yesterday.

[CaptainMike]

Haha! After lunch today I caught myself about to toss my plate in the trash can and put my paper napkin in the sink! I'm feeling a little under the weather, but still....

[Stuey1515]

Same!! I recall incinerating perfectly innocent meat more than once, until I found this place.
Maybe I need to move the COS further away from the beer fridge haha

[Troutman]

My earliest brain cell recalls Christmas 1959. My sister got an Easy Bake oven and with my help, we cooked a 4” diameter cake all from the power of a light bulb!! It wasn’t Michelin star quality but it set me on the trajectory I’m currently on today 👍👍

[DavidNorcross]

Well I feel a little better. I was not born!

[Bogy]

Earlier than me. I was born in 1954, but my sister wasn't born until 1963, and it was a few years after that before she got her Easy Bake Oven.

[bbqLuv]

Pellet Grill the Easy Bake Oven of BBQ.

[WI Bubba]

All us kids were taught to fend for ourselves in the kitchen from a very young age. I don't recall how old I was, but I do know I couldn't see the top of the stove without standing on a milk crate. Eggs and pancakes are what I remember making the most.

First real grilling was burgers and Polish sausage in high school. I was the king of burgers back then, but looking back, I don't think you could actually taste the meat with all seasoning I put on, and in them.

First low and slow was a pork roast of some sort on the Brinkman COS my inlaws gave us as a wedding present. It was a disaster. After many long hours of chasing temps all over the place, I took the meat in, and found out it was still mostly raw. A few more attempts at smoking on that COS were enough to turn me off of it for many years. The COS did make a pretty good grill, and I used it until the legs finally rusted off it.

Like so many others, the awakening started with a search on that new to me interweb thing for a better way to make ribs. Now I have two smokers, with another on the way, a kettle with a SnS, and a flat top. The price of membership here is a great bargain, but it is also one of the most expensive places I have ever hung out.

[Texas Larry]

Lost in the fog of so many decades, but probably burnt burgers on a cheapie $20 K-Mart charcoal grill.