I suppose I’ve fiddled around with the idea of doing something more with food than just cooking it for family and friends for about as long as I can remember. I’ve done just about every job there is in the foodservice industry—washed dishes, served, cooked, tended bar. For a while I thought about a restaurant, but that was a lot of risk in a high turnover industry, and I had kids arriving on the scene. I’ve thought about food trucks, catering, pop-up dinners, but time… things were never just right. I was beginning to feel a little like Uncle Jed (no, not the Clampetts from the Beverly Hillbillies, the Barbershop…Uncle Jed’s Barbershop). Uncle Jed’s Barbershop was one of my daughter’s favorite books for me to read to her when she was little. In the book, 
Uncle Jed had saved up his money a lifetime to be able to open his own barbershop. Fighting segregation and the Great Depression, Uncle Jed ended up giving his money away to help others in need. Finally, at age 79, Jed opened his barbershop. “He opened his shop to such a crowd of well-wishers that `’he cut hair all night’…That man was so glad to have that shop, he didn’t need any sleep.”
It was about that same time that I “published” my first “cookbook.” As young parents we didn’t have two nickels to rub together to give fancy Christmas presents that year, so my wife said why don’t we make Baby’s First Cookbook? “You know, write down all the recipes for the food you make all the time.” Recipes? Write down? Uh… Recipes for me are “apron string recipes.” My first experience of cooking was attached to my grandmother and mother’s apron strings watching what they did. Then it was watching Justin Wilson, Emeril, or Bobby Flay. I watch, then I do it myself by feel and taste. Okay though, let’s give this a try. Of all my “original” recipes, my first recipe ever was actually completely original, “Black Bean Dip.” Any time my wife and I would go to a party… “Is Stan going to bring his Black Bean Dip?” But again, write it down? The 
cookbook forced me to marry the art of cooking with the science of cooking. To me, sooo much of cooking is art… the sixth sense of what goes together, aroma, aesthetics. However, when you are trying to share a precise recipe, “a little of this, and a little of that doesn’t cut it.” Before the invention of blogs, we “published” Baby’s First Cookbook with 20 “original” recipes. Many were purloined recipes with this chef’s own twist added to make it my own (who doesn’t do that)? With maybe an exception or two, I still use all of those recipes.
Fast forward to today. It has been a disruptive event like the Great Depression in Uncle Jed’s Barbershop that reconnected and reengaged me to the passionate side of cooking. In March 2020 when the Coronavirus began to shut down businesses, communities, and we were asked to shelter at home, like a lot of folks I found myself working from home. Kind of stir crazy from being cooped up all day, grilling, smoking, cooking, and working out became my outlet for sanity. Fashioning a garage gym with what I had around, I would work out, and then cook something…usually grilling because there is a certain serenity that comes with the disciplined, methodical process of grilling. With all this in mind, there are a couple of 
related “firsts” that got Brisket & Brawn off the ground. First, in all my years of smoking and grilling, I had never done a beef brisket. For whatever reason, beef brisket has always intimidated me. All the pros talk about 12-18 hours of cooking. Well, okay, time I now have…let’s do this! I put my favorite dry rub on the brisket overnight, and of course as luck would have it the morning of my brisket breakthrough, rain. Undaunted, my son and I dragged the Oklahoma Joe through the house (not yet lit!) and set it up under the eave of my garage adjacent to the gym, As I was working out with the brisket smoking away in the background, I chuckled to myself, “Well here is a genius idea…open a smokehouse and gym!” Guilt-free indulgence. Smoke it. Eat it. Work it off. Haha, Brisket and Brawn. Now wait a minute, that has a ring, and I always like a good alliteration…
As it turns out the brisket, to use my parlance for “was good,” did not suck. I gave it my own TV review… “Look at that nice smoke ring. Nice bark. Not over smoked, tender.” Then, the next “first.” Brisket Stuffed, Bacon Wrapped, Smoked Jalapenos, aka “Texas 
Twinkies.” Shut the front door, really? Yessir! So I shredded some of the leftover brisket and mixed it with the cheesy goodness, stuffed the Jalapenos, and smoked them. They… did not suck, not even a little. Then, kind of like the epic battle between biscuit and gravy, I had a little extra stuffing. If it was biscuits and gravy, you get another biscuit. With brisket no way I’m wasting this culinary gold. Then it hit me, the last of the “firsts.” “Brisket Empanadas.” My son has been after me for years to make empanadas. I made the mistake a few years back of telling him I could make a better empanada than the one from Whole Foods. Game on. I started by making my own dough, used the leftover brisket and cheese stuffing from the stuffed jalapenos, and eureka, “Brisket Empanadas.” 
Honestly, for my own benefit, I decided to write this down as a formal recipe and put it all together. From the dry rub, to the brisket (and pork also used), to the dough, to the final product, I created the first original recipe for Brisket & Brawn, “Brisket Empanadas.”
Oh, and it wasn’t just a recipe on a piece of paper (or computer screen), I did it up, full-on desktop publishing, pictures and all. It was pretty, and I was pretty proud of myself. Then… “Dad, what are you doing to do with that?” Ah, the inquisitive, chiding voice of my daughter. What indeed? After sitting on it for a few weeks, I did what most everyone does in life’s trying times, a prayer of petition. “Dear domain.com, if brisketandbrawn.com is still available, I will buy it and I promise I will start my blog.” You can probably guess the answer. Brisket and Brawn was officially born on May12th, 2020 at approximately 10:30am.
Brisket & Brawn 