Our brains are truly wonderful. They constantly gather information, categorize it under hundreds of headings and constantly crosscheck it as relevant or irrelevant even while simple conversations are going on.

I have been looking into making my own venison jerky for years, I guess, without even knowing it. When my brother (who makes great jerky) mentioned that most people have enough seasonings in their pantry to make a ton of good jerky, several of my brains catalogue files came together in special session and realigned my priorities while I was sleeping (I guess). I could use up all our seasonings for a worthy cause!

After much rigamarole, wrangling funds and allowing a friend to give me about 40 pounds of venison he or his wife didn’t want to cook; I somehow ended up with a great dehydrator, top of the line jerky shooter and a nice vacuum sealer. 15 pounds of venison was thawing as the UPS guy braved last weeks -60 below wind chills and our blown in driveway to deliver these hot items. “Blasted Superbowl” he muttered. Huh; “I’m not the only one” I thought.

All triggered by something someone said. Scary huh? It’s too bad I didn’t pay a little more attention to a recipe but my brain doesn’t really pay much attention to some of the finer details. I put some of everything in and a lot of a few of them as they would soon expire. I now have 15 lbs of venison reduced to some of the best jerky on the planet with some brilliant aftertaste (it might be the ghost pepper got away from me??)

My wife and daughter say the spices could be cut down by 80% and refuse to participate in the sacred superbowl snack till you drop event tonight. I think they are miffed that I didn’t do this much earlier in life and feel neglected, but I promised to make it up to them. I have 25 more pounds of venison to soak up the rest of the old seasonings.

Hey, it’s still cheaper than buying a ticket and going to the game.

Gary

(ME) Seriously, this jerky is really good! (Daughter) keep telling yourself that!