Hooray! Hooray! The first of May!

I started the hot side of the grill on high for about 10 minutes, with the smoker pan on it, until things started smelling of smoking hickory goodness. Then, I turned the heat down and put the meat and drip pan in place, and used a wad of foil to block the hot-side lid vent. After 20 minutes, I added some damp shavings to the smoker pan, just to keep things going. I figure I'll check every 20-30 minutes for a few hours. It's smelling pretty amazing at the moment.

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I never wait 'til May anyway, but did less winter bbqing this year than usual (nothing after Christmas, when I did my smoked bacon and egg bagel sammiches) because of health and master's thesis issues. But beautiful weather today, and it was time, so: had a bunch of char (freshwater fish similar to trout but a little finer in flavor and bigger as well) and stuffed them with chopped up bacon that I had fried with the Scarborough Fair herbs (in a 3-3-1-1 ratio), some Old Bay and butter; coated them with the herby butter and bacon grease mixture, and smoked them with a mixture of oak and plum wood at 250F for a little over a half hour (basting with the herb buttergrease once at the halfway point). Oh man. Ohmanohmanohman. Will do this again, especially as I erred on the side of caution and took the fish off maybe 5 minutes too early (better than 5 minutes too late!)