At 8:32 am on April 4th, 2005 in a small city in Germany, I gave birth to my first daughter after an easy four hours of labor. Aside for her penchant for spitting up Exorcist style, she was darn near perfect. As her birthday generally falls on or close to Easter, the hubby and I have a double excuse for putting together an amazing party menu. This year Pepper asked for brisket as the main course.
I love a bbq. My grandpa used to have this old #10 can that he would get the coals going in, then pop them in the tabletop grill, but we upgraded to a pellet smoker seven years ago for another one of Pepper’s parties (medieval tournaments need a whole hog). Your average brisket needs to be cooked low and slow for 12-14 hours to come out right and a pellet smoker is a great way to avoid sitting up all night tending coals.
Pepper doesn’t love super spicy food, so when building the menu for the day I went for an apple city bbq sauce. Apple cider, vinegar, grated apples with onions and green peppers, and some light chili powdering gives a lot of flavor without the heat.
Sides can be the trickiest part of a menu. There should be a balance of flavor options, but using seasonal ingredients; family favorites and heritage recipes are important, but they can’t overwhelm the table; and while the south considers corndog nuggets a vegetable (yep, at many a bbq joint that’s where you find them on the menu) something actually green should be available.
The best vegetable side for an early spring bbq is coleslaw. Now this is me saying that in Northern Washington state where early spring might hold as much snow as sunshine and a collard green is hard to find in June. This year I tried a new slaw recipe and it was…fine. I prefer a red slaw which is a ketchup/vinegar based dish that keeps better in the sun than its slimy white cousin. This time around I used a yellow slaw which omits the ketchup. There was a lack of flavor in the final dish and I wouldn’t want to pile it on a chopped sandwich, but it tasted fine on the plate.
Potatoes came in the form of German potato salad this year. This both celebrates Pepper’s history, and means my husband will eat some—the guy does not like mayo. German potato salad has a hot broth marinade that is poured over the cooked and sliced potatoes, bacon, and onions and left to soak. For a more casual protein I would have gone with a couple bags of potato chips and maybe a carton of Costco potato salad, but brisket calls for a little more effort on the cook’s part.
Baked beans are essentially a dessert, but they are generally a low maintenance dish after the overnight soaking when everything lands in the crockpot for eight hours. With as many vinegar based dishes as were on the table, the beans acted as a palate cleanser that bridged the flavor divide.
Pepper is a Mac and cheese super fan and generally I would have made up a casserole for her, except that I hadn’t added any of my grandma’s recipes to the menu yet. My grandma had a rotating set of hits for every occasion, but picnics and bbqs usually involved her crab pasta salad, potato salad, a veggie platter, and one of her fantastic cakes. For nostalgia’s sake—and because it is my favorite—I went with the crab pasta salad.
Crab Pasta Salad Recipe of Billie DeSpain
Box of shell pasta, cooked and drained
Tomato and celery, diced to fit in a well balanced bite
Mayo to preferred consistency
Salt and pepper to taste
1 package artificial crab (Trader Joe’s has one with no shellfish for us allergic folks), diced
Mix all ingredients and chill until serving.
It was a hit as always, especially with my mom and auntie, and I made enough to have leftovers. I did make Pepper that Mac and cheese today for lunch, with cut up brisket mixed in.
Speaking of my mother, she made some fantastic deviled eggs—a staple—and oversaw the set up of the party between our houses.
Because it was Pepper’s 21st birthday we also added sangria to the menu, which was an adventure in itself. And of course I made a cake.
While I am perfectly capable of making a cake from scratch—and do on occasion—generally I just doctor up a box cake. One of my go to recipes is for a lemonade drizzle cake. Box yellow cake, lemon and sugar reduction spooned over and basted on while the cake is cooling. Top it with powdered sugar and you are good to go. Some days I’ll make a lemon curd to go with, but not on a brisket day. Lemonade cake, or any pound cake is a nice option to a menu that is already really rich. A pudding is also another tasty choice, but doesn’t hold candles well.
The party went well. It was low key with lots of sitting around in the sun that showed up, and leftovers enough to send home. Pepper found out a couple days before her birthday that she’s been accepted into the Peace Corps and is heading to Africa for the next couple years, so we won’t get to celebrate her birthday in person next year, but I hope that this one was good enough to tide her over until she comes home.
Happy Birthday to my Girl! Happy Easter to all of you! And Happy Spring to all of us!
Mamasquatch the Writer 
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