Smoked prime rib deserves sit-down treatment

Personally, I don’t get it. Turkey? Ham?

For the holidays?

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Look, I have nothing against either of those predictable choices. Some of my best friends serve turkey and ham between now and New Year’s.

But this is the season to do something special, to go all out. This is the season to grill a prime rib. It is a kingly meat, made all the more glorious when smoked. You not only get the glistening crust; you also get the magnificent aroma of wood-smoked beef. And gasps of admiration from around the table.

Catch that? Table.

There comes a time when it’s good to celebrate the holidays like a grown-up. The table is key to that transition. Unlike, say, pizza-and-beer parties or even cocktails-and-canapes soirees, you can’t be standing around while eating prime rib. You must sit.

That sitting is essential to adulthood because it signals that you choose to take your time, and the time you choose to take is for an appreciation of those things that age teaches us to truly cherish: family, friends and really expensive cuts of meat.

By taking the extra step to place the prime rib on the grill where it will bathe in smoke, rather than simply shove it in the oven, you honor both it and your guests.

It isn’t solely that grilling beef does something wondrous to it; grilling prime rib adds an element of risk that demonstrates you are willing to take a chance. For love.

See, if you overcook a burger on the grill, so what? It’s a burger, for cryin’ out loud. You overcook prime rib on the grill and you’ve ruined an occasion. No matter what has been served to that point — cream of chestnut soup, perfectly blanched asparagus in a velvety hollandaise, whatever — a messed-up prime rib can send you spiraling into a funk that leaves you with two bad choices: seethe in silence or bemoan out loud.

You might as well have served turkey.

I’m not trying to scare you. I am saying that, as with anything special, you want to handle this undertaking with care. That means an instant-read meat thermometer.

It’s that simple. All the fear-mongering of the last couple of paragraphs was intended to get your attention, so that you treat the process with a little more respect than is customarily accorded the grill.

Generally, cooking outdoors is a pretty carefree endeavor. It’s so breezy that you can drink beer the whole time and still get it right. Prime rib requires a bit more seriousness.

Before I tell you how to prepare this glorious meat, I’d like to tell you why you should.

It was New Year’s Eve six years ago that my wife and I finally made the holiday transition to adulthood. In magazine terms, we went from musicians splayed on ratty backstage couches in a Rolling Stone photograph to characters in one of those famously droll New Yorker cartoons.

We chose, wittingly or not, to be grown-ups.

No wings or glugs of whiskey that year. Instead, we dined with a small group of friends on a feast that began with deviled quail eggs with wasabi and white truffle filling topped with sturgeon caviar, peaking six courses later with beef tenderloin and foie gras-stuffed morels in a Bordeaux reduction. After a midnight toast and a cheese course, the meal ended with a sampling of three desserts, my favorite being the hot chocolate shot infused with cinnamon and a hint of ancho and chipotle chilies.