Welcome to Not Your Dad's Jerky

Not your dad's jerky...

My dad's.

My dad went through a beef jerky phase when I was a kid. A white, multilayered dehydrator held a place of honor on one corner of the kitchen counter for years, and he even purchased a deli slicer. 

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The lunch meat drawer or tangential shelves in the fridge often held Ziploc bags of thin strips of round roast soaking in various marinades that smelled like vinegar, pepper, and A-1 sauce.

Once the jerky was made, the long strips of meat—ranging in color from almost black to light brown to reddish-maroon, depending on the makeup of the marinade and whether Dad used beef or venison—would go into fresh Ziploc bags, each lined with a folded paper towel, and back into the fridge: the original protein bars.

Dad doesn't make jerky very often these days, but he indulged me when I asked him for some for my birthday. He made me a batch each of what we call Dad's Original and First Born—then told me I really ought to try making it myself.

And here we are.