Hello there. First thing's first: Drew Linky is not my real name, it's just an online handle. I go into some details about my online life in the introduction to SPAT, this page will be a very brief overture about my real life.
I was born in Kansas City, Missouri and have largely lived near it for most of my life. I spent my first ten years in a nearby suburb and then finished my public schooling in a rural farm community. I acquired a bachelor's degree in molecular biology from a nearby university.
After this I moved to Virginia to acquire a graduate degree. I was originally in a Ph.D program but grew disillusioned with science as a career. Because of this and other personal reasons, I moved down to graduate with a Master of Science in Horticulture just before the COVID pandemic hit in early 2020.
I moved back near to Kansas City after this and have largely been trying to figure out my life since. It's a work in progress.
My interests are far too many: sometimes I think of myself as a bargain bin Renaissance man, intermittently dabbling between art, music, and scholarly pursuits in various topics like literature, history, and language (especially Latin, recently). Writing seems to be by far my most consistent pursuit. I also engage in other hobbies like knitting, through which I've developed the habit of making scarves for people I meet in real life that I know from the internet.
Being from Kansas City, I'm also something of a snob about BBQ. The Kansas City style of BBQ is credited to Henry Perry. Part of the reason I was inspired to make this "about me" page was because of a conversation I had with some friends on the HSD about BBQ. While the Kansas City style incorporates a large variety of meats, I shall specifically explain beef brisket and burnt ends.
Beef brisket, referring to the cut of meat, is a mainstay of Kansas City style BBQ, though some argue that we are best known for pork ribs (Arthur Bryant's is my preferred local BBQ shop, and Bryant himself is called the "King of Ribs."). A whole beef brisket is actually composed of two distinct parts: a thinner, squarish portion called the "flat" and a thicker, fattier section called the "point." These two pieces of beef are connected by a thin membrane of fat called the "deckle."
Uncooked brisket is generally rather fatty, and is cheaper when bought "untrimmed," but it is very common to purchase trimmed brisket. Local butcheries will generally allow you to specify whether you want the flat, point, or both, and the cut comes in sizes anywhere from a couple of pounds to easily over ten pounds. The flat is the portion which is used to create the actual dish of "beef brisket," but the point is more often used in the creation of burnt ends.Burnt ends are a sore spot for me. As the name would suggest, a proper burnt end is a piece of meat on the outermost part of the cut and thus exposed to the most direct heat. The resultant meat is drier and a little harder to chew due to greater caramelization. This may sound unpalatable but the overall effect is a more baked in flavor, and a unique mouth feel compared to more conventional BBQ. You may think of it as a particularly rich and sumptuous piece of jerky.
However: it has become very common for restaurants to sell a dish called "burnt ends" which is in reality not burnt nor an end. To achieve the proper degree of caramelization, the point usually needs to be left in the grill or smoker for a longer duration than one does with beef brisket. Instead, BBQ joints not worth their salt will simply take the point out at the same time as the flat, and cube the meat. This is inauthentic, as the result is simply beef brisket in cubic form. The increased fat content of the point compounds the issue, and in extreme cases you may find that you have purchased literal cubes of fat, which while still flavorful have a revolting mouthfeel.
I'll probably fill in more details on this page later, or write about other inane stuff no one cares about probably. Thank you for reading my stuff.