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Introduction by Steven Raichlen:

Visitors to this website—and Barbecue University®—are no strangers to journalist and travel and food writer Larry Olmsted. Larry wrote the must-read exposé Real Food, Fake Food (Algonquin) and his numerous articles about Barbecue University in publications like Forbes.com make you feel like you’re right in the front row of the class.

So when Larry told me about his new book, Fans: How Watching Sports Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Understanding from Algonquin Books, it reminded me of the intimate and enduring connection between sports and barbecue. For me, that connection starts with the seminal book, Alice Let’s Eat, in which Calvin Trillin introduced the world to the burnt ends at Arthur Bryant’s in Kansas City, and continues today with the extravagant tailgating that has become such an essential part of the football experience across the U.S.

I asked Larry if he’d be willing to write a guest blog for barbecuebible.com and he graciously obliged with this fascinating article called Sports and Smoke. So fire up your smokers: game on!

Sports and Smoke

Gates BBQ is not only a Kansas City classic, but one of America’s most famous slow smoking eateries, since 1946. Three quarters of a century later, it stands out among the city’s many great BBQ joints for one unique claim – crafting the only pulled pork sandwich to have been sold at both Royals baseball and Chiefs football games, in Kauffman and Arrowhead stadiums respectively.

Gates’ story is hardly unique, and increasingly, fans can enjoy local barbecue – often from the city’s top joints – while watching live sports. Lion’s fans can partake in Detroit’s home grown Slow’s BBQ, Cincinnati Reds fans the Montgomery Inn, Braves supporters Atlanta’s beloved Fox Brothers BBQ and Houston Texans fans Goode & Co. brisket and sausages. In baseball season, the Houston Astros go one better with outposts of two different local faves, Killen’s and Jackson Street BBQ. While the Big Apple recently lost its flagship Blue Smoke, one of the pioneers of the modern barbecue renaissance, the concept lives on at the Mets’ Citi Field. And as if Yankees fans didn’t have enough going right for them, they now get Mighty Quinn’s excellent smoked brisket, pork, wings and ribs. National chains are represented as well, with Coors Field offering Famous Dave’s and LA Angels stadium Dickeys BBQ.

But it’s not just slow smoked meat – all kinds of fiery cooking are adored by sports fans, some of whom happen to be celebrity chefs. TV food star Andrew Zimmern’s planned Canteen Rotisserie for Minneapolis’ new Bank of America stadium, will be serving rotisserie beef, lamb, poultry, pork and goat. Zimmern’s stadium spot in Kansas City offers his take on Montreal smoked beef, aka Canadian pastrami.

But arguably the most famous pit master in all of sports has a niche specialty, Baltimore Pit Beef. At the old Memorial Field, Orioles MVP first baseman Boog Powell become revered by teammates for his post-game backyard-style grills after games and practices, and when Camden Yards was built, he went public with a dedicated open air fire pit take out stand. Camden Yards was the groundbreaker that ushered in the modern stadium concept 30 years ago, and Boog’s BBQ was there when it opened. It has long been a rite of passage for fans – and athletes – to eat there, and in his late seventies, Powell still often mans it himself. In 2016, Orioles star Adam Jones walked up and ordered smoked turkey, only to find himself chastised by the legend, who exclaimed, “You can’t hit no damn home runs on turkey! I’m gonna give you some beef.”

Most nights the visiting team orders enough from Boog’s to feed the starting lineup, and its success spawned a genre of retired players turned fiery cooks, including Pittsburgh Pirates Manny Sanguillen, San Francisco Giants Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda, and legendary Philadelphia Phillies slugger Greg Luzinski, whose Bull’s BBQ serves pulled pork, chicken, ribs, turkey legs, and kielbasa.

Current BYU star Quarterback Zach Wilson is projected to be the first or second pick in the NFL Draft, but he didn’t wait to go pro to sign a multi-year partnership with Traeger Grills, known for popularizing the now burgeoning pellet smoker category. Wilson was born and raised in Salt Lake County, where the company is based, and comes from a large, close-knit family where backyard cookouts around a Traeger were an integral part of his youth.

The smoky revolution in the new generation of stadiums is just a microcosm of the larger connection between smoke, fire and sports fans, which go together like – well like baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet. The heroes of Homeric Epics regularly feasted on roast lamb, pigs and goats, and when the Olympics rolled around, whole animal sacrifices were often followed by the Ancient Greek equivalent of a luau. One story recounts two prominent Olympic athletes devouring an entire bull in a single day, and the options for sports related dining have only gotten better since.

Tailgating, which has been given a big upgrade by better portable grills, smokers and high-efficiency coolers like YETI, revolves around live fire cooking, and so do Game Day backyard cookouts across America. Consider the humble chicken wing, perhaps the most iconic sports bar menu item. The true Buffalo original is deep fried, fine for restaurant kitchens, but less user friendly at home, so most home sports fans make wings – millions annually – on the grill or smoker. Ditto for the most ubiquitous stadium food item, the blasé boiled water hot dog, which almost no one enjoys that way at home – whether you prefer Nathans or Fenway Franks or any of the other Big League brands, a touch of fire is as necessary a condiment as ketchup or mustard. And for sports fans cooking at home there is virtually no limit to the pro or college team logo accessories you can ensconce yourself in, from vinyl grill covers to aprons to laser engraved spatulas.

I have spent the past few years studying sports fans around the country, and few are as passionate as followers of college football. This history and decades of alumni traditions is inseparably wrapped up in food. There are few more ardent examples of fandom than the followers of the University of Alabama, and no food more closely associated with “Roll Tide,” than the uniquely superlative grilled-not-smoked ribs at Tuscaloosa’s Dreamland BBQ, a gameday tradition that goes back six decades. Generations of UT fans have flashed the “Hook ‘em Horns,” symbol while lining up for the wagon-train inspired open pit cooked brisket, sausages and signature jumbo beef ribs at the Salt Lick, and lucky LSU supports hit the Baton Rouge outpost of 110-year-old legend Acme Oyster for its famous chargrilled bivalves.

Everyone loves good food, but not everyone is a sports fan, so the eating, cooking and socializing is as big a part of the festivities as the game. More than the sum of their parts, these combine to create excuses for gatherings and fiery indulgence.

Where there’s sports, there’s smoke!

Larry Olmsted is an award-winning journalist, TEDx speaker, New York Times bestselling author, and BBQ enthusiast who has written USA Today’s regional food column, Great American Bites, for many years. His newest book, Fans: How Watching Sports Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Understanding, examines the many surprising benefits of sports fandom to us as individuals and to society, was released in March 2021.

The post Sports and Smoke appeared first on Barbecuebible.com.

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That’s not great… Via NY Post: A former Pentagon investigator who claims to have ran a hush-hush UFO program has warned that an upcoming blockbuster report about “unidentified aerial phenomena” could reveal a failure by US intelligence agencies on par with 9/11. Luis “Lue” Elizondo, the former head of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program, […]

Via NY Post: The Pentagon has admitted that a US Navy destroyer captured this eerie night-vision footage of mysterious flashing objects flying above it and another warship. The green-tinged video was gathered by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force and leaked to filmmaker Jeremy Corbell, who made the documentary “Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying […]

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Via DailyMail: The U.S. has evidence of UFOs breaking the sound barrier without a sonic boom and making maneuvers impossible with known technology, the former Director of National Intelligence has revealed. The revelations increased excitement about a forthcoming report detailing what the U.S. government has observed. John Ratcliffe, who served as Donald Trump’s Director of […]

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With our archives now 3,500+ articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each Sunday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in April 2008.

Whether for warmth, cooking, or signaling, fire is a survival essential. As is the knowledge of how to make one without matches. You never know when you’ll find yourself without those convenient little red-tipped tools. Maybe your single engine plane goes down while you’re flying over the Alaskan wilderness, like the kid in Hatchet. Or perhaps you’re out camping and you lose your backpack in a tussle with a bear. It needn’t even be something so dramatic — even extremely windy or wet conditions can render matches virtually useless.

Fortunately, if you need to make fire and don’t have matches, you’re not at all out of luck; a wide variety of other options remain for catalyzing a flame.  Below, we go over nine of them, from those which utilize items you might scrounge in an urban environment to ones which only require the natural leavings of the wilderness. 

Friction-Based Fire Making

Friction-based fire making is not for the faint of heart, and represents the most difficult of the non-match methods. There are different techniques you can use to make a fire with friction, but the most important aspect is the type of wood you use for the fireboard and spindle.

The spindle is the stick you’ll spin in order to create friction between it and the fireboard. If you create enough friction between the spindle and the fireboard, you can create an ember that can be used to create a fire. Cottonwood, juniper, aspen, willow, cedar, cypress, and walnut make the best fireboard and spindle sets.

Before you can use wood to start a friction-based fire, the wood must be bone dry. If the wood isn’t dry, you’ll have to dry it out first.

1. The Hand Drill

The hand drill method is the most primeval, and the most difficult to do. All you need is wood, tireless hands, and some gritty determination. Here’s how it’s done:

Build a tinder nest. Your tinder nest will be used to turn the ember you create into a flame. Make a tinder nest out of anything that catches fire easily, like dry grass, leaves, and bark.

Make your notch. Cut a v-shaped notch into your fireboard and make a small depression adjacent to it.

Place bark underneath the notch. The bark will be used to catch an ember from the friction between the spindle and fireboard.

Start spinning. Place the spindle into the depression on your fireboard. Your spindle should be about 2 feet long for this to work properly. Maintain pressure on the board and start rolling the spindle between your hands, running them quickly down the spindle. Keep doing this until an ember is formed on the fireboard.

Start a fire! Once you see a glowing ember, tap the fireboard to drop your ember onto the piece of bark. Transfer the bark to your nest of tinder. Gently blow on it to start your flame.

2. Fire Plough

Prepare your fireboard. Cut a groove in the fireboard. This will be your track for the spindle.

Rub! Take the tip of your spindle and place it in the groove of your fireboard. Start rubbing the tip of the spindle up and down the groove.

Start a fire. Have your tinder nest at the end of the fireboard, so that you’ll plow embers into as you’re rubbing. Once you catch one, blow the nest gently and get that fire going.

3. Bow Drill

The bow drill is probably the most effective friction-based method to use because it’s easier to maintain the speed and pressure you need to create enough friction to start a fire. In addition to the spindle and fireboard, you’ll also need a socket and a bow.

Get a socket. The socket is used to put pressure on the other end of the spindle as you’re rotating it with the bow. The socket can be a stone or another piece of wood. If you use another piece of wood, try to find a harder piece than what you’re using for the spindle. Wood with sap and oil is good as it creates a lubricant between the spindle and the socket.

Make your bow. The bow should be about as long as your arm. Use a flexible piece of wood that has a slight curve. The string of the bow can be anything: a shoelace, rope, strip of rawhide, etc. Just find something that won’t break. String up your bow and you’re ready to go.

Prepare the fireboard. Cut a v-shaped notch and create a depression adjacent to it in the fireboard. Underneath the notch, place your tinder.

String up the spindle. Catch the spindle in a loop of the bow string. Place one end of the spindle in the fireboard and apply pressure on the other end with your socket.

Start sawing. Using your bow, start sawing back and forth. You’ve basically created a rudimentary mechanical drill. The spindle should be rotating quickly. Keep sawing until you create an ember.

Make your fire. Drop the ember into the tinder nest and blow on it gently. You’ve got yourself a fire.

4. Flint and Steel

This is an old standby. It’s always a good idea to carry around a good flint and steel set with you on a camping trip. Matches can get wet and be become pretty much useless, but you can still get a spark from putting steel to a good piece of flint.

If you’re caught without a flint and steel set, you can always improvise by using quartzite and the steel blade of your pocketknife (you are carrying your pocketknife, aren’t you?). You’ll also need char cloth. Char cloth is cloth that has been turned into charcoal. It catches a spark and keeps it smoldering without bursting into flames. If you don’t have char cloth, a piece of fungus or birch will do.

Grip the rock and char cloth. Take hold of the piece of rock between your thumb and forefinger. Make sure an edge is hanging out about 2 or 3 inches. Grasp the char between your thumb and the flint.

Strike! Grasp the back of the steel striker or use the back of your knife blade. Strike the steel against the flint several times. Sparks from the steel will fly off and land on the char cloth, causing a glow.

Start a fire. Fold up your char cloth into a tinder nest and gently blow on it to start a flame.

Lens-Based Methods

Using a lens to start a fire is an easy matchless method. Any boy who has melted green plastic army men with a magnifying glass will know how to do it. If you have by chance never melted green plastic army men, here’s the technique.

5. Traditional Lenses

To create a fire, all you need is some sort of lens in order to focus sunlight on a specific spot. A magnifying glass, eyeglasses, or binocular lenses all work. If you add some water to the lens, you can intensify the beam. Angle the lens towards the sun in order to focus the beam into as small an area as possible. Put your tinder nest under this spot and you’ll soon have yourself a fire.

The only drawback to the lens-based method is that it only works when you have sun. So if it’s nighttime or overcast, you won’t have any luck.

In addition to the typical lens method, there are three odd, but effective, lens-based methods to start a fire as well.

6. Balloons and Condoms

By filling a balloon or condom with water, you can transform these ordinary objects into fire-creating lenses.

Fill the condom or balloon with water and tie off the end. You’ll want to make it as spherical as possible. Don’t make the inflated balloon or condom too big or it will distort the sunlight’s focal point. Squeeze the balloon to find a shape that gives you a sharp circle of light. Try squeezing the condom in the middle to form two smaller lenses.

Condoms and balloons both have a shorter focal length than an ordinary lens. Hold them 1 to 2 inches from your tinder.

7. Fire From Ice

Fire from ice isn’t just some dumb cliché used for high school prom themes. You can actually make fire from a piece of ice. All you need to do is form the ice into a lens shape and then use it as you would when starting a fire with any other lens. This method can be particularly handy for wintertime camping.

Get clear water. For this to work, the ice must be clear. If it’s cloudy or has other impurities, it’s not going to work. The best way to get a clear ice block is to fill up a bowl, cup, or a container made out of foil with clear lake or pond water or melted snow. Let it freeze until it forms ice. Your block should be about 2 inches thick for this to work.

Form your lens. Use your knife to shape the ice into a lens. Remember a lens shape is thicker in the middle and narrower near the edges.

Polish your lens. After you get the rough shape of a lens, finish the shaping of it by polishing it with your hands. The heat from your hands will melt the ice enough so you get a nice smooth surface.

Start a fire. Angle your ice lens towards the sun just as you would any other lens. Focus the light on your tinder nest and watch as you make a once stupid cliché come to life.

8. Soda Can and Chocolate Bar

A weird one that’s just cool to know.

Polish the bottom of the soda can with the chocolate. Open up your bar of chocolate and start rubbing it on the bottom of the soda can. The chocolate acts as a polish and will make the bottom of the can shine like a mirror. If you don’t have chocolate with you, toothpaste also works.

Make your fire. After polishing the bottom of your can, what you have is essentially a parabolic mirror. Sunlight will reflect off the bottom of the can, forming a single focal point. It’s kind of like how a mirror telescope works.

Point the bottom of the can towards the sun. You’ll have created a highly focused ray of light aimed directly at your tinder. Place the tinder about an inch from the reflecting light’s focal point. In a few seconds you should have a flame.

9. Batteries and Steel Wool

This one is quite easy and is fun to try at home, especially with kids. 

Stretch out the steel wool. You want it to be about 6 inches long and a ½-inch wide.

Rub the battery on the steel wool. Hold the steel wool in one hand and the battery in the other. Any battery will do, but 9-volt batteries work best. Rub the side of the battery with the “contacts” on the wool. The wool will begin to glow and burn. Gently blow on it.

Transfer the burning wool to your tinder nest. The wool’s flame will extinguish quickly, so don’t waste any time.

The post 9 Ways to Start a Fire Without Matches appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

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I see mountains! It’s Thursday, somewhere west of Anton, Colorado, and after four-and-a-half days and 1,600 miles, the snowcapped Rockies appear on the horizon. My riding buddy Jay and I left our home state of West Virginia on Sunday. Now midday, we see the jagged peaks we’ve been longing for. The Great Plains were beautiful and adventurous, but we’re anxious to ride into some elevation.

In Aurora, Jay makes the required pilgrimage to a Harley shop and buys yet another T-shirt while I get a long overdue full-face helmet. Then we climb up, up, up. West Virginia, known as the Mountain State, has great riding, but its mountains are mere hills compared to the Rockies. West of Denver significant climbing and a diversion onto U.S. Route 6 leads to 11,990-foot Loveland Pass on the Western Continental Divide. Beyond that the road winds through scenic towns like Dillon and Frisco until we stop for two nights in Edwards.

Our next two travel days are memorable! Riding through the high plains beyond Steamboat Springs, the spectacular views blew us away. We stopped for gas in Maybell, Colorado, and encountered three dual-sport riders on their fourth day off-road — and they sure looked it. Our lunch break was at the BedRock Depot in Dinosaur, where delicious sandwiches and milkshakes hit the spot. Then on into Utah, climbing up to 8,300 feet on U.S. Route 191, north of Vernal. In Wyoming the land became so dramatic through the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area that I could hardly keep my eyes on the road. When a cold, wet front was forecast and we could see clouds ahead, the flat broadly curved roads allowed for high-speed fun. We beat the storms, passed the 2,000-mile mark and ended the day’s ride in Rock Springs.

Link to Rockies To Mount Rushmore tour route on REVER

Winds were a brutal distraction at the start of the next day, leaning constantly into 30-mph gusts until the wind abated near Cokeville, Wyoming, but soon after lunch in Montpelier, Idaho, the rain started. We climbed into the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest and it began snowing hard, sticking to trees, bushes and my windshield, but fortunately not the road. We were cold, but it made for a memorable photo at Emigration Pass on Idaho Highway 36. Dropping below the snow line, we ended the day’s ride outside of Preston, Idaho, at the Riverdale Resort. It has geothermally heated outdoor pools where we simmered for an hour. Ahhh ….

Two nights and friend farewells later, we headed north through Soda Springs, where many of the roads are posted “Open Range.” Sure enough, we rounded a curve to find a herd of cattle blocking the road. We honked, and they genially ambled aside. Idaho Highway 34 followed Tincup Creek on its way to the Wyoming border, and we paralleled the Snake River on U.S. 89/191 through the Bridger-Teton National Forest, reminiscent of our own West Virginia roads. As the valley opened, we finally entered Jackson.

We continued north on U.S. 191 through the incomparable Grand Teton National Park and into Yellowstone National Park from the south. Twice we crossed the Continental Divide at 8,000-plus feet before descending into the Firehole River valley. We enjoyed lunch and a timely geyser eruption at Old Faithful Village before riding a long circle around the park. East of Yellowstone Lake we cursed in our helmets as traffic halted. Up ahead a bison plodded along in our lane. Awestruck and humbled, we eventually rolled past this massive creature.

We exited via Yellowstone’s east entrance on U.S. Route 14 and rode over 8,524-foot Sylvan Pass, and rolled downhill for 20 long, pleasurable miles. The surroundings turned from pine green to desert brown as we passed between huge sandstone sentinels along the Shoshone River. We reached Cody, a nice thriving western town. At dinner, Jay smiled and ordered Rocky Mountain oysters. About half a bite was all I could manage of fried bull’s balls.

Continuing east on U.S. 14, we crossed a broad valley and began to climb yet again. The view behind us became breathtaking, the temperature dropped to 45 degrees and we crossed the Bighorn Mountains via 9,033-foot Granite Pass. We picked up I-90 at Ranchester, but I foolishly ignored a gas stop. My engine sputtered to a stop and we had to siphon a quart from Jay’s tank. He’ll never let me live it down.

Devils Tower was impressive. No extraterrestrials, just busloads of photo-snapping tourists. Our destination was Keystone, South Dakota, 130 miles away. Signs for Spearfish, Deadwood and Sturgis flashed by, but it was getting dark and drizzling so we roared on. Finally, we reached our hotel. We rode 510 miles over 12 hours and our backsides were numb. What’s half of an Iron Butt — a Wood Butt? An Iron Cheek?

We visited Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial, which is much larger than Rushmore and was the highlight of our visit to the Black Hills. Under construction since 1948, the only recognizable part is Crazy Horse’s face and it won’t be finished in my lifetime.

After 3,300 memorable miles, we became horses headed for the barn. Our tripmeters were just shy of 5,000 miles when we arrived back home in West Virginia four days later. My wife greeted me by asking, “So, where to next year?”

The post Favorite Ride: Rockies to Mount Rushmore first appeared on Rider Magazine.

Periodical cicadas emerge from underground in the spring of their 13th or 17th year. Here, a periodical cicada nymph clings to a tree branch in Greenbelt, Maryland, on May 11. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images. In parts of the eastern US, the long-awaited ...