You may have heard about the fact that I bought a smoker because I won’t ever shut the fuck up about it. Not even for a second. There you were, peacefully settling into a screening of Avengers: Infinity War, and suddenly there’s a doofy-looking asshole rampaging into the auditorium brandishing an entire photo album on his phone of DIY smoked meats. LOOK, EVERYONE! I MADE BEEF RIBS! DROOL! DROOL FOR ME NOW! I genuinely post photos of shit I cook more often than I post photos of my own children, and for that I should be shamed and exiled.

But until that day comes, when I am formally punished for all my Dad Crimes, I will keep smoking. You can’t stop me! YOU CAN’T STOP ANY SMOKEBOY! Such is the Smokeboy Fever that thousands of other grown men like me have abandoned all other hobbies in the pursuit of owning manly kitchen utensils and fucking up a brisket once a summer. Am I better at barbecue than I was a year ago? Reader, I am not. I have had my fire die. I still routinely struggle with temperature control. I overcook and undercook meats and then hide them under a wash of forgiving sauces to blunt any criticism of handiwork. But one day, by God, I shall TAME THE FIRE and seize every last barbecue trophy in the land, and then I’ll be HOG GOD of the people and rule you with an iron grill brush.

In the meantime, I have catalogued some of the things I have tried to smoke over the past year for your reference. This is because I’ll smoke anything, because I am both curious and bored. Rather than play with my children, or read, or see a licensed therapist, I instead choose to wander the aisles of the grocery store, scanning for items that I have yet to subject to a hickory blaze. “Oh wow, goat hooves! Those might be interesting!” I even smoked weird crap like eggs because it’s only common sense to assume everything tastes better if it tastes like meat.

So, since it is Memorial Day weekend, and since there’s no better way to honor our fallen than to slow cook the entire side of an antelope for 16 hours, I present my findings below for your cooking reference. Grab your chimney starters, because it's about to literally get lit.

CHICKEN

Can you smoke it: YES.

Should you smoke it: YES. Hell yes. Jesus H. Fuck, yes. Go smoke yourself some dark meat chicken because it’s easy and it’s good and it’s faster than standing over a jumbo pork butt and having a nervous breakdown every fifteen minutes because the thing doesn’t look like it came out of an Aaron Franklin cookbook yet. The one thing you should know about smoking chicken is that if you smoke it too low, the fat in the skin doesn’t render and you’re left with saddle leather, which I eat regardless but still. If you want nice and crispy skin, there’s no shame in smoking that shit at, like 325 or so for a couple hours. I really like the side of the chicken thigh, where it’s all fatty and then it kinda smokes in its own schmaltz? I rub that part on my nippies.

POTATO CHIPS

Can you smoke them: YES. Two hours at 300 degrees and they come out looking like potato chips, only darker!

Should you smoke them: PROBABLY NOT. I smoked a bunch of sour cream and onion chips, because I am weird. They came out of the smoker all nice and crunchy, which would be cool if potato chips were not ALREADY nice and crunchy when you purchase them. If potato chips were only sold as wet, raw potato rounds, we’d have a problem in need of a solution. Also, I couldn’t taste the sour cream and onion dust anymore. Bummer.

EGGS

Can you smoke them: YES. You gotta soft boil them first, then put them tucked in open foil for 1-2 hours at 300 degrees.