LONDON, Ont. — Gary Fordham is more than a mechanic who likes to cook. He studies recipes, deconstructing them to look at their individual components, much like he might tear down a truck engine, then puts them back together again to create dishes even better than the originals or with his unique mark.

Fordham, 59, and his wife Cheryl live in Dorchester, Ont., and own a truck repair firm about 20 minutes west in London. He has loved cooking since he was a kid and even considered a career in it, but figured the odds of getting to the elite level he would want were too remote. But he never lost his passion for food.

He has close to 500 cookbooks and reference works. He watches cooking shows on television when he can but says he had to give up the Internet because he was staying up half the night reading recipes.

“I can almost tell by looking at a recipe whether I would like it and whether it’s going to turn out,” Fordham says.

He would like to be able to bake bread and make desserts, but there just isn’t enough time. So he concentrates on meat and vegetables, particularly dishes he can make on the barbecue or using a smoker.

One of his specialties is pigtails.

“People just don’t know about them, but I like them better than ribs because they’re tenderer and sweeter.”

Another is stuffed peppers, what he calls “a work in progress.”

“A lot of people just don’t seem to have the proper technique for cooking them; they’re all mushy. Mine are solid, firm.”

And there’s no end to the variety of stuffing. One might have shredded pigtail meat with various vegetables, another layered with smoked sausage, rice and three cheeses. “I can make an Italian-flavoured stuffed pepper, a sweet-and-sour stuffed pepper.”

Fordham considers flavour, texture and leanness (of meat) when he’s creating a dish and what he strives for is a complexity of taste, meaning “you can taste a bit of everything the deeper you taste it.”

His quest for better barbecue sauce led to what he calls his biggest disaster when he and his daughter tried to incorporate cauliflower into their concoction. “We worked at it for four hours and we didn’t use very much, but it was overpowering. We just couldn’t get that cauliflower taste out. It was terrible.” They finally tossed a whole gallon of sauce.

Fordham loves to experiment with different recipes and enjoys using a smoker or barbecue as much as possible. Here are some of his favourite dishes to try.

SMOKED PIGTAILS

Once you try these, ribs will never taste quite as good, says Gary Fordham. He advises that when buying pigtails, choose 10- to 13-centimetre-long (4- to 5-inch-long) pieces from the large end of the tail, with skin removed. He also says they’re great served with cabbage rolls.

Combine ingredients for barbecue sauce and set aside. If preferred, use your favourite barbecue sauce.

Remove most of the visible fat from pigtails. Combine celery powder, garlic powder and black pepper; season pigtails with mixture.

Place pigtails in a smoker for about 2 hours at 93 to 102 C (200 to 215 F). If you don’t have a smoker, you can use a barbecue. Remove 1 grate and turn burner on that side to high. Wrap a couple of handfuls of woodchips in tinfoil and poke some holes in the top of the foil. Place package of woodchips directly over burner, then place pigtails directly on grate on opposite side, away from direct heat. Close the lid.

Make up 3 more pouches of woodchips so you have replacements when the smoke dies down.

Baste pigtails 2 or 3 times with barbecue sauce while they’re being smoked. After 2 hours remove pigtails from smoker or barbecue. They do not have to be fully cooked.

Meanwhile, cut green peppers and onions into 4-cm (1 1/2-inch) square pieces and set aside.

Heat oven to 150 C (300 F).

In a roasting pan with a tight-fitting lid, place pigtails; mix in peppers and onions and coat with more barbecue sauce, reserving some for the final step. Cover roasting pan and bake meat and vegetables for about 1 hour. Remove lid, baste with more barbecue sauce and cook ribs for another half-hour without the lid to let sauce caramelize.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Note: Do not substitute celery salt or garlic salt for the powder. If you can’t find celery powder, use a mortar and pestle or coffee grinder to grind celery seeds.