Merry Barbecue!!!

The Bride arrived back home from her trip to North Carolina Monday morning at about 2am. She was supposed to land at the Denver airport at about 10pm on Sunday night but because of the snow storm on the East Coast, her flight was delayed. It was delayed not because of the weather at the airport but because not enough service personnel could make it in to work at Dulles airport to keep the planes flying on-time. In spite of the weather and delays she had a good time with her mother and I got a special gift out of the trip too!

Long time readers will remember that I have an affinity, a yen, a sweet tooth as it were for barbeque. Not just any barbecue mind you but the best barbecue in the land…..North Carolina pork barbecue. Not Texas cow and ketchup not grilled yard bird but honest to God North Carolina chopped pork barbecue. One of my favorite places to get a barbecue fix…when I’m in the area, is Mr. Barbecue in Winston-Salem, NC. I have been going to this fantastic little barbecue place for over 30 years now but it’s been about two years since my last visit and I’ve got to admit that I have thought of that barbecue more than once in that time.

To paraphrase a saying, “if his-self can’t go to the barbecue, bring the barbecue to his-self!” and that’s exactly what The Bride did. The Bride, bless her little heart, put a whole barbecued pork leg, from Mr. Barbecue, in her luggage and brought it to me as a Christmas present. This is no little task as the pork leg is a bulky item and probably weighs 5 or 6 pounds. She had it frozen, wrapped in tin foil and then wrapped in a plastic bag. From experience I can tell you that a whole leg is by far the most efficient way to transport barbecue. Carrying it in a chopped state is way too bulky and reduces the amount of this culinary gold that will fit in a suitcase.

Since I prefer my barbecue chopped, my task this morning was to reduce the leg to chopped ‘cue. While the process is pretty simple, great care must be taken to ensure that nothing gets wasted. After all this manna from heaven doesn’t fall in Colorado very often!

The meat is carefully carved off the bones of the leg ensuring that nothing edible is left behind. In my case the bones are so clean that even ants refuse to waste their time foraging for a meal!

After the meat is stripped from the bones it’s chopped into the desired consistency. I prefer a variety of sizes to the chopped meat and chop it so there are small and medium sized pieces.

The barbecue is then packaged in quart sized freezer bags and stored away. Each freezer bag has enough of this redneck caviar to serve about four normal people or two and a half North Carolina barbecue aficionados.

I now have five quart sized bags of Mr. Barbecue, barbecue in my freezer just waiting to please my palate and stomach at the right moment. Life is good!

Thanks for visiting.

Happy Thanksgiving

A very meaningful Happy Thanksgiving to all readers. I have an awful lot to be thankful for and I realize it this day...

Some more pics from my recent trip............











































































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Blessings and Profanities!

It's amazing how these two things can go so closely together...

Readers will know that The Emmer got her driver's license last week after many years of trying. Back in the recesses of my mind, I was preparing myself for the inevitable "learning experience" that every new driver has. In other words, I was prepared to suffer the loss of a vehicle somewhere along the line. For that reason I have been babying a 1995 Ford Contour for the last 11 years. My older daughter took that car to college and had her own "learning experience" on it which resulted in an unrepaired dent on the front hood. It was great basic transportation and was beloved by the family.

You will note the past tense verb "was". My loss was not exactly the way I pictured it.

Yesterday afternoon The Emmer and The Bride were headed to a hair appointment. The Emmer was driving and made a legal left turn...with a green turn arrow...and got broadsided on the passenger side by a young seventeen year old who ran a red light.

Blessings are that no one was hurt. This is truly a blessing because the Contour appears to be a total loss. The passenger side was pushed in over 12", windows broken, frame bent. The Bride was in the passenger seat and the impact shoved her into the center console. The emergency crew had to take her out the driver's door. She was sent to the emergency room of the local hospital as a precaution and fortunately all scans were negative for internal injuries. The Emmer was also unharmed. She walked away with a couple of bruises on her left side from being jammed against the driver's door.

Profanities are that in any U.S. metropolitan area now driving is DANGEROUS. It's the I attitude of people when they get behind the wheel. I..I should be first in line. I should not have to wait on anyone. I don't care about the other guy.

If you can believe this....As I was watching the tow truck winch my car out of the intersection a young woman in an SUV was clearly agitated at being delayed at getting around the accident. She glared at us, honked her horn, and as soon as she was by the broken glass...floored the accelerator and squealed by! Unfortunately by this time the police had already left the scene.

Profanities are, that even though I have good insurance, nothing can make me whole. I have to replace that vehicle with something and even if I replace it with a similar make and model the difference between insurance value and retail value will be several thousand dollars...And then I'll have to pay sales and licensing taxes too.

When I really stop and think however, blessings always trump profanities and in the game of life, this time, I had the winning hand. My family is safe.

Thanks for visiting.