It's Time To Normalize Telling Friends And Family That They Can't Cook
So this tweet came across my timeline yesterday and let me just go ahead and say it--this brisket looks about as bad as I've ever seen a brisket before. And no offense Glenny Balls, but I've seen some rough looking briskets in my time.
Now as you can read in the aforementioned tweet, this brisket didn't just come from some regular ol' Barbecue Bobby in his backyard smoking a brisket for the first time. This was from a "new barbecue place downtown". Which means that somebody somewhere expects to charge other people some US legal tender for a slice of this brisket. Which is crazy, to say the least, but let's just talk about how we could have possibly gotten to this point. Because somewhere along the line, somebody had to have known that something was wrong here. Somewhere along the line, somebody could have stepped in and said to this person "ya know, I think there are a few adjustments you could make here".
But no. Clearly nobody in this person's life--neither friends nor family--had the courage to step in here and say something before it was too late. Clearly nobody wanted to tell the truth here before this person then sunk their hard earned money into starting up a barbecue restaurant which puts out brisket that looks like its been put in the microwave for 45 minutes. And that right there, my friends, is the issue. It's time to normalize being able to tell our friends and family that they can't cook, because this is what happens when you constantly tell them that their food is great just because you're too much of a coward to hurt their feelings.
That right there is some photographic evidence of the first brisket I ever smoked. It was terrible. I knew it was terrible. And I felt terrible for serving it to people. But thankfully I have a decent amount of self-awareness that comes from having an overabundance of self-doubt. So when friends and family said it was great, I knew they were just blowing some smoke up my ass.
That's not the case with everybody, though. Some people here it's great, and all of a sudden that is their reality. Now they think they've got it all figured out right away. And next thing you know, everybody keeps lying to their face and saying that their microwaved brisket is so great that they go out and sink all of their money into opening up a BBQ joint. A BBQ joint which, if that is truly what they plan on serving, should be open for no more than 3 months. Again, all because everybody would rather lie to them than hurt their feelings.
I'm not saying you need to taste your buddy's brisket and immediately tell him that it's fucking dogshit. There are ways you can lighten the blow. But the time is now to stop the charade. Friends don't let friends think they can operate a business based on microwaved brisket.