We have a life long love of gators.

Perhaps this was brought on by old actioners like Alligator [screenplay by John Sayles!], the incredible 80s film wherein a beastly, 36 foot long gator attacks a stretch limo and occasionally erupts out of the Chicago sewer system to devour unwary residents of the Windy City.

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It's Hatch Chile season in Austin Texas which means one thing. Eat as many as you can right now and as the season winds down build a big fire in the backyard and roast 15 pounds to put up in the freezer.

Earlier this year I was passing through Madisonville, Tennessee the home of Benton's Country Hams. Owner Alan Benton doesn't just sell cured hog meat though. He also sells some very fine stone ground grits from Falls Mill in Belvidere Tennessee.

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I love South Carolina.

Although it's been a coon's age since I last visited the Palmetto State, I was fortunate to spend many blissful months there when I was a teenager on vacation from life on the farm in Knox County, Kentucky.

South Carolinians approach food the way folks from Louisiana do. As they're eating one meal they're planning the next and discussing food related side matters all the while.

It's a good life.

On one of my many visits I was fortunate enough to have a native prepare a big kettle of a jambalaya-like stew of chicken, rice, sausage, peppers, onions and bay leaves called chicken bog.

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In the fish camps of west Alabama the good citizens eat like country kings with endless platters of corn meal crusted catfish being trotted out in little rough hewn buildings that dot the forests surrounding the Tombigbee River as it makes it's way to the Port of Mobile.

As you move eastward in the great state, the focus of eating shifts from catfish to barbecue.

Particularly, the eating of the pig.

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Picked up a bag of buckwheat groats for supper tonight.

I smoked some Nunu's [Youngsville, Louisiana] alligator/crawfish sausage and am rummaging around in my recipe archive that I keep in my head for a plan of attack.

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Even after almost 20 years in professional kitchens I'm still picking up tricks and techniques from some of my friends who are skilled home cooks.

Such is the case as I sit to dine at my buddy Ron's house in verdant Pflugerville Texas.

He's a retired insurance adjuster and an enthusiastic home cook who can bang out a top notch smoked pork shoulder and bottles his own righteously fiery Tex Mex table salsa with loads of jalapenos.

We're having a fish fry and he's anxious to show me his rice pilaf recipe and technique.

It's incredible.

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While it's true that in Kentucky you grow up eating lots of pork shoulder, the typical preparation would send an Alabama pit boss to the gun cabinet ready to take dead aim at anybody that treated a glorious chunk of pork in such a fashion.

Unlike the Western part of the state, the Cumberland Highlands region of Eastern Kentucky has no real barbecue culture to speak of so when my family put a pork shoulder on to cook it was done like a beef roast. Browned in a pan then placed in a kettle with potatoes, carrots and onions and braised til it was fork tender.

I loved this style til I moved to Birmingham Alabama and started making trips down to Archibald's barbecue in Northport where you can get the finest pork barbecue ever put out by a restaurant.

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How To Brine and Smoke a 50lb Pig

With the big brick pit under our command our cooking teams swings into action. I dial up Ruffino Meats and place an order for a young shote, am assured of its' delivery and begin making plans for its' denouement.

We take delivery on a Monday morning, I retire to my home and begin building the brine.

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Austin Texas is blessed to have an old school country meat market like Longhorn Meats.

They have anything a body could want or need but I really like the fact you can call them up and specify exactly whatever it is that you're in the mood for.

They will then package it up for you so you can dash in and get out with minimal waiting.

My days of eating fat, juicy steaks 4 or 5 times a week are long gone but I do enjoy a nice fatty ribeye once a month or so and since Longhorn is 5 minutes from my house they typically get my red meat business.

I picked up a 32 ounce ribeye from them awhile back and this is the treatment I gave it to maximize the flavor

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It was a long time coming but I finally scored the major cast irons of the women folks of my mom's side of the family. Serious cooks with names like Nellie, Hazel, Wilma and Mariah's cast iron finally came home to roost in my cupboard out here in Austin Texas. A pretty far piece from where these pans originated in Virginia and Kentucky by way of the old country.

I don't always have time to build a big fire in the backyard to cook my ribeye so I've devised a way to cook a respectable one indoors in the comfort of my tiny kitchen on my old gas cook stove.

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