Making BBQ Sauce With My Mother

Last week I went north, to the cute, quaint, lovely little shithole town I was stuck in when I went to what really was "high" school.

I spent most of my last three years bored, miserable and stoned in that tiny little school, one of thirty two who started senior year and 26 who actually cared enough to graduate.

Now, 33 years later, nearly everybody I went to school with has either fled, become dead from logging and drunk driving mayhem, or a catholic.

I thank god every day I'm no longer a believer in that whole suckitude that organized church life brings. I do however, enjoy the thrift stores run by mean, bored, petty little women who would hate my guts if they knew about my shocking lifestyle and disgusting habits.

I am still a dirty hippie, although they mess with you less when your fifty than they did when you were 15.

I hated a lot about Three Lakes then, still don't care for it now.

It's full of thugs and rednecks and retired swine who hate anybody not

white, straight and a dullard.

It's a great place to move to if you want to die old, and bitching about things.

I prefer Madison. People up north say Madison is a bubble outside reality.

I think at least bubbles rise up to the top of things instead of staying inbred, obtuse and bellicose. Not that most of the people living in my mom's town would even know what those last two words mean.

But I digress. My main reason for going up was to see mom, who lives across the street from the school I went to, a block from where her mother spent the last decade of her life.

Mom's a damn fine cook. She and I made a gallon of BBQ sauce, which we canned. Here's some photos of the process.

I made mine with lots more hot pepper, added jalapenos and a few more cloves and vinegar, but it's the same basic recipe, catsup, sugar, vinegar, spices, peppers and liquid smoke.

It turned out damn fine.