At the end of a tough day, there is nothing quite like a home-cooked meal to help make everything a bit better, especially if that meal happens to be brisket that’s been in a smoker for seven hours.
Christian Dornhorst, a veteran who works at Dow Chemical, began thinking about the healing powers of BBQ early Monday and requested the day off to cook for Baton Rouge flood victims.
After his request was granted, the 35-year-old headed to Sam’s Club with his wife and daughter and spent $850 purchasing every piece of brisket in the store. Dornhorst fired up his smoker, loaded it into his truck, and drove toward the flood relief area, arriving around noon.
Once at the Celtic Media Centre — a production facility that’s become a temporary shelter — Dornhorst began serving chicken, sausage and pot roasts with other volunteers while his brisket cooked and the scent of fresh BBQ filled the air.
In #BatonRouge, volunteer buys and cooks 108 pounds of brisket for #flood victimshttps://t.co/1XcAkU2YqG pic.twitter.com/ZKBKpUPjup
— Breaking911 Weather (@B911Weather) August 16, 2016
Finally, after seven hours of smoking, Dornhorst served up the brisket — it was gone in 20 minutes.
When the last bit of food had been devoured, a sweaty and exhausted Dornhorst began cleaning off his smoker and utensils while already planning how to come cook and serve food again. “The Lord blessed us with all of these things,” he told The Washington Post. “There are enough people suffering here that I can do this to help.”
Maybe his boss will give him the whole week off.
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