First, I’m no barbecue expert. While I’ve been cooking & grilling for many years, I’ve only recently started to learn the art of making real Texas barbecue, hot smoking, and indirect grilling. As a ‘born & raised’ Texas boy, I grew up eating great barbecue. I remember my grandpa made an amazing brisket at family gatherings, but I was too young to pay attention to his technique & approach.
My connection to cooking goes way back. In 1989, I graduated high school with the passion to become a chef. This was well before the ‘celebrity chef’ craze began. While there are now culinary schools in almost every major city, at the time your choices were the majors like CIA or Johnson & Wales. Instead, I chose the apprentice approach and worked under an amazing chef in Austin, TX for a number of years.
Eventually I went on to open a restaurant in Brenham, TX with my family. It was an amazing experience – but man did we lose a lot of money!! Even so, it is very fondly remembered by our family – at least most of the time! 
Back to Texas Barbecue… I’m no longer on the restaurant side of the world – I’ve gone on to other entrepreneurial pursuits. (You can take a look at our Austin, Texas Internet Marketing company by clicking here.) But, I still love great food, and especially great barbecue. It was time to learn from the masters and to create my own techniques, mops and dry rubs. But first I had to graduate from a gas grill to a large charcoal barbecue.
Over the past year, I battled with that damn grill – trying to learn how to light a good fire in this beast of a pit. I tried lighter fluid, match light charcoal (awful!), lump coal, chimney starters, etc. Finally, with the help & guidance of my brother, I won the battle with the beast pit and made some damn good barbecued chicken thighs. I know, sounds simple, but it was my first real success with charcoal and my passion was ignited.
Apart from all the aspects of my crazy business life, this site is just for fun – and to share my newfound passion for great Texas Barbecue. The goal of this site is to share my barbecue experiences. And hopefully to create a conversation with others passionate about (and hopefully more experienced with) making great barbecue. I’ll share what works, what doesn’t, great recipes I’ve found, products & tools I’ve found to be invaluable and pictures of the process.
Tell me your thoughts and ideas. What you would do differently and give me feedback. More than anything, get involved with me through this forum so we can share the great culture and experience that surrounds making great food and sharing it with friends.
