Friday Night STEAK Night
Friday nights at DWR, we get our steak on. On the grill, on an open fire, and probably
some on our shirts too. Justin’s been
grilling up tri-tip steaks for the final dinner at the ranch each week for a
few years now. The steaks are
mouth-watering good and something we’re proud to serve and happy to enjoy each
Friday night while we sit and visit with our guests in the cool mountain air.
Steak on Friday is no news at DWR, we’ve served multiple
varieties of steak for years. But the
Tri-
tip, I’m proud to say, are a little product from my roots. My mom’s family still operates the Bar-7
ranch, homesteaded by my ancestors near Meeker, Colorado. Meeker
is one heck of a cowboy town. Everywhere
you go, you see trucks, cowboy hats, and livestock of one kind or another. The
White River that runs through Meeker breathes life into the valley and is home
to some of the best fishing and hunting in the state, not to mention some of
the best scenery. Meeker breeds rodeo
stars and athletes; it’s a town of hard-working men, women, and children and,
usually, you can count on them to play as hard as they work. Lucky for me, the town is chalk-full of folks
I am related to.
As a kid, we’d load in the Astro van and head to Meeker a
few times a year for weddings, funerals, family parties, and the annual
branding of the calves on the Bar-7.
Throughout my childhood, the small town was synonymous with livestock,
beautiful scenery, family gatherings and really darn good food.
My stomach growls as I think about all the delicious things
I associate with Meeker: there’s my Aunt Annie’s kitchen full of homemade
breads, rolls, and her famous popcorn balls at Christmas. I can smell the warm,
savory scent of eggs fried in bacon grease that enveloped my cold nose walking
into my Aunt Gretta’s kitchen after helping Uncle Mark feed his cows early in
the morning and I can taste the crispy edges of the egg white crunch in my
mouth and the creamy yolk that followed. I can see our smiles and feel our relief as we
sit down to a family picnic and the slow cooked ribs that filled our growling
tummies after branding close to 200 calves each spring. There is Granny
Pauline’s Pecan pie and date cake with lemon sauce, and Papa Jim’s pantry of home-canned Palisade peaches and snack size
Baby-Ruth candy bars.
While many of those traditional meals and treats still
welcome me back when I visit, a new tradition has emerged at family gatherings
in Meeker: Ben Rogers, his grill, and his grill’s world famous tri-tip. Ben, a long time friend of the family, built
a grill trailer that he can hitch to a pick up and haul to different
sites. It’s a magnificent invention of
welded metal. He can grill all sorts of
meats on the awesome machine, and my family’s meat of choice is his melt-in-your-mouth,
full of flavor tri-tip.
Watching Ben and his crew (usually a handful of my cousins) on
his grill is just as entertaining and educational as the meat is
delicious. The grill team dons cowboy
hats and aprons as they carefully watch, turn, and slice the meat. Before the meat every touches the grill, Ben marinates
it in a rub and gets the charcoals burning hot, The secret to the best flavor,
Ben told me himself, is the oak he uses in the grill. I asked Ben how he came up with this whole meat-and-rolling-grill-rig
and he told me about his college years at Cal Poly and the amazing flavor and
character the outdoor meals had there. He
said when he moved back to Colorado, he wanted to bring the feeling and flavor
with him and add his own Colorado twist. Needless to say, he is on to something.
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