Eating in a box

I took a mini stay-cation and on day two I set out to Lockhart Texas for the legendary big three bbq joints. Kreuz Market, Black's Barbecue and Smitty's have been around for a long time each have their own unique history, Black's claims oldest continuously opened bbq, Smitty's and Kreuz have a contentious history of it's own all lay some sort of claim of being oldest. I'll let you read up on the history and you can judge for yourself. The bottom line is: in Lockhart, they are hardcore bbq fans. If you haven't made the pilgrimage it's worth it just to check out the history in stores. I know I'm about to open myself up to all sorts of bbq religious zealot-ism in the comments with this post, but please keep in mind this is my opinion of what I ate and I'm actually not much of a griller so you're basic grill fanatic will probably detect more subtleties than I will and will have differing opinions on sauce/no sauce and cooking methods. Anyway,...

So I figure since it's the holiday season I'd take the time to pick a related theme. Hanukkah is a great excuse for me to do more research into the Jewish cuisine, I loved my dip into Rosh Hashanah bento and I enjoyed learning the history of the cuisine. I think I spent a week reading up on the Hanukkah food trying (in vain) to design a healthy Hanukkah bento. I think I learned a few things and my diners so far seemed to have enjoyed themselves. The picture at the right is the brisket, but I neglected to put in the veggies and the final sauce you see in the bento box in the title picture. It's a braised brisket with a red wine reduction. Hanukkah cooking is mostly about preparations the day before so that no work is happening while the Menora is lit. I think the brisket could have done with a few more hours of cooking for my taste but every recipe I saw called for a three our cook time and since I like to at least try things the traditional way once we have what we have. T...