Pulled Pork for Paul

My nephew Paul was hosting a bachelor party on Friday July 22 and needed to provide dinner. I was sooo touched that he wanted to work with me to cook up some pulled pork. Best compliment of my cooking ever.

 told him to pick up a couple of pork butts and come on over. He made up some barbecue sauce earlier in the week. The plan was to cook them overnight Thursday and have them ready for the faux cambro Friday morning to be pulled in the afternoon. I figured if we were firing up the grill anyway, I might as well cook one as well. Three pork shoulders; most I've ever done at one time.

I mixed up some Chris Lily rub

We injected with some Chris Lily injection (apple juice, water, brown sugar, salt, lemon juice, worcestershire sauce). Then we slapped them on the MAK

 Here's Paul

That water pan really sucks up the heat. After a couple of hours I took out the pan and moved the butts to the bottom rack.

I had to go to work Friday morning so I didn't get "after" pictures.

My first beef brisket

I've finally gained the courage to try my first brisket. I went to Gartner's Meat Market out at 74th and Killingsworth to picke it up. I also picked up a 7 lb pork shoulder I'll be cooking along with a couple my nephew Paul is bringing over to prepare for a bachelor party he is hosting.

The butcher was a big help, showing me the difference between a flat and a full packer. I wanted the full packer so bought a 9.5 pounder. Here it is in the wrapper. It is "choice" grade.

First task is to trim it; it has a thick layer of fat.

Trimming one has been a stumbling block. Oh well, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. The goal was to leave a 1/4" layer. Well, in some places that worked and in others, not so much.

I trimmed some of the silverskin from he underside:

I trimmed off that bit on the lower left side after taking the picture.

I put it back in the refrigerator to rest and mixed up some of Meathead's Big Bad Beef Rub.

Around 7:00 Saturday night I'll inject the brisket with some beef broth, rub it and slap it on the MAK's upper rack over a water pan. It will cook at 225* overnight.

Here it is after it's been injected with beef broth.

Then a light film of vegetable oil and the rub is put on

On the smoker. That's a chunk of lemon with a smoker probe plugged through it. Two temp probes; I'll probably get confused. Like Lewis Carroll said "a man with 1 watch knows what time it is; a man with 2 watches is never really sure".  

OMG. That took a long time to cook. 7:30 at night until noon  Sunday. The temp was 15 - 20 degrees cooler on the upper grate than the built in probe measure. 

Here it is about 8:30 after I removed the water pan and moved the brisket ot the lower grill. I don't think I'll be making lemonade with that lemon.

at 10:00 in the morning it hit 181 so I put it in a pan with some beer; then covered with foil to let it steam a bit.

Out of the cooker at noon. Wrapped it in a double layer of foil and put in a towel filled cooler where it will sit a few hours.

Remember that little nub I trimmed off yesterday; I just ate it and its like buttah.

After sitting in the cooler for about 4 hours, I busted it out.

I split the point from the flat as best I could and sliced up the changes

The flat is on the far right; it's a bit tough. But the slices from the point and the thicker part of the brisket were like butter. I was pretty worried about this cook, but I'm pretty satisfied.

Dinner is served. Carla is up in Victoria with her sisters so I dined alone.

Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand

The complete title is:
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

A tremendous biography of Louis Zamperini a young man who ran in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, then joined the Army Air Force at the start of World War II. His plane crashed in the South Pacific in May 1943 and he and two crew mates spent over a month in two rafts in open water beset by hunger, thirst, sharks, exposure, and a strafing. He was then taken prisoner by the Japanese and lived (if that's the word for it) in prison camps until the war was over.

This isn't one of the great works of literature or biography but it is a fascinating glimpse into the POW experience under Japanese control. I couldn't wait to get home from work every day to read until bed time.

Laura Hillenbrand also wrote the book Seabiscuit that was turned into a movie. Her writing isn't like Richard Russo, or David Halberstam, or Larry McMurtry where my first thought upon finishing is "I've got to find another book by this author" But it is very enjoyable. I imagine it will be turned into a movie in the next year or so.

I've got it if you want to borrow it.

Friends over for a BBQ

Sunday July 10, 2011

Summer, beautiful summer. The day was gorgeous. We invited our friends/neighbors the Watsons and Lees over for dinner and I thought I'd do some baby back ribs, potato salad, and corn on the cob. It was a chance to bust out all 3 of my grills: the MAK smoker, the Weber kettle (for the corn), and the Weber gasser (for finishing the ribs).

It's best to have the barbecue sauce made a day ahead of time so the ingredients can meld. I made some Kansas City sauce which is a little sweet, but people love it.

I haven't blogged about this sauce before, so I'll go through the process. First line up the ingredients.

The wet stuff goes together, the onion is diced fine, and the chili powder and garlic are held aside for later in the sauté

 Sauté the onions in a little oil for about 5 minutes; then add the garlic for a minute, then add the chili sauce for about 2 minutes. A nice aroma is emanating from the kitchen.

Add the wet ingredients, whisk and bring to a boil. Simmer for about 15 minutes. Then pass through a fine mesh strainer to remove the onion bits; we just want the onion essence. Some people like the chunks o' onion in the sauce. I like it a bit smoother. I forgot the tamarind paste today. If you make this sauce,use the tamarind paste. It's delicious as is, but the tamarind takes it to another level.

I've been pretty happy with my ability to turn out consistent ribs. The night before Carla and I unwrapped 2 packets of 3 ribs each she  picked up from Costco and rubbed them down with Meathead's Magical Meat Dust then wrapped in plastic wrap. After a walk Sunday morning, I unwrapped the ribs and let them come up to room temperature while the MAK warmed up.

Onto the smoker. The smoker was set to "Smoke"for 30 minutes then raised up to 250* for about 5 hours. I've used a water pan the past couple of smokes and I'm happy with the results. I also did a new thing this time and spritzed them with apple juice a few times.

Then the 2nd best part of barbecue. I sat down on the deck and read a book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. This is a fantastic book about a guy in WWII who... well, read the book or wait until my book report on it. It has 5 stars on Amazon with over 1,400 reviews.

Sitting on the deck watching the MAK do its thing.

Five hours later, more or less. This picture makes them look much redder than they were. At this point, I've removed the water pan and am preparing to grill them. 

To finish, I turn on the Weber gasser to medium high, slather some of my sauce on the ribs and grill them, monitoring them closing to make sure they don't burn. This gets a nice crust on them.

Smelling good in the neighborhood.

Ready for cutting. 

Meanwhile, the Lees (Karen and John on the left) and Maryann and Jay came over with beers and wine.

They had a busy day. Karen and Mary Ann spent the morning in a triathlon up in Federal Way, Washington benefiting Ovarian Cancer research. I hope one of them comments on this page giving the link. Then the Watsons went to the Timbers soccer game. A full day for them.

Dinner is served

 I totally messed up and didn't get pictures of grilling the corn. Doing the corn like this was fantastic. After grilling a few minutes, we brushed them with a little melted butter. The sauce is served on the side.

After dinner we had ice cream and strawberries on the deck (well on a table on the deck)

Radical Grace

I recently finished reading Rob Bell's Love Wins and Marcus Borg's Speaking Christian. My understanding of and belief in the concept of radical grace grows stronger and stronger. Simply stated, radical grace is the idea that God loves us wholeheartedly and has no intention of letting us go to hell.

The problem over the past 50 or so years, as Borg points out, is that our scientific, western culture expects everything to be factual and provable by the scientific method. A literal, factual interpretation of the bible was never expected; the notion would have been very foreign to the first century Christians who wrote the books that became the New Testament. They had a rich use of metaphorical language.

In the 20th and 21st centuries we've become very rigid on what is truth and knowledge. We come to understand truth as "facts",  as things that could be videotaped or otherwise documented as really happening in the physical world. This leads us to take the bible as a literal, factual transcribing of events and speeches. This literal/factual interpretation ends up making it difficult to compare different stories on the same topic in different books of the New Testament.

The other trend that springs from this tenet over the past 50 or so years is that God will turn his back on us if don't think and say and believe the right words. If we do wrong we go to hell, forever: one trip, no return. My problem with this heaven-and-hell dichotomy  is that it puts the emphasis on the wrong part of our relationship with God and Jesus. We end up in a one-on-one relationship, worried so much about believing the right things and spending all our time on this one topic. Jesus really had a lot to say about this. The Pharisees are the ones who spent time trying to follow God's rules spending their lives worrying about not associating with the wrong (non Jews) rather than on distributing justice in the world. This takes their minds and hearts away from the work that needs to be done in this world to make it a better place: feed the hungry, heal the sick, clothe the naked.

I've been thinking of two bible verses when considering this topic

The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37)
Jesus tells the parable of the man walking between towns who was beaten and robbed. A Jewish priest and a Jewish lay associate both crossed the road to pass him by. It was an unclean, hated, foreigner; a Samaritan who helped the beaten man.

This means, to me, that Jesus is rejecting the notion that we need to spend all our effort focusing on the supposed rules God has set out for us. What is important is helping others; actually doing the work of God in the world.

Over and over again we see the key story of Jesus. He rejects the teachings and lifestyle of the hyper-religious Pharisees to work with the needy people of the world. He works to bring about distributive justice which will bring peace (rather than peace through military force). He is focusing on morality, not theology.  He consistently associates with and dines with the very people the Pharisees (leading religious leaders of the day) had to connection to.

Spending your time following God's supposed rules in order to get to a future promised land later takes us out of the world of need today. I don't see this as God's will

The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32)


This story answers the question of whether God ever gives up on us and consigns us to hell. A man's son takes the unusually bold step of asking for his part of his inheritance and strikes off on a life of his own. Eventually he squanders all that his father gave him and is reduced to living with pigs (not a great thing if you are a Jew). He sees the error of his ways and sets his mind and heart on reconnecting with this father. As he comes back it is evident that his father has been faithfully looking for his wayward son every day since he left. It isn't as though the son left and the father forgot him and let him go. He was always there on the lookout waiting for the son to return.

The son gives up on the father just as we may give up on God. We consign ourselves to our own hell But God's love is steadfast, neverending, always watching. Who is to say once we die that God gives up on us? When we are ready to see God, God will be there for us.

Literal Factual Stories?
A note on the two parables. If we are to believe that the Bible is literal and factual, then are we to believe that Jesus was just relating two interesting events here? Did these two events actually take place? Could we have videotaped it if we had the recording equipment? I don't think so; if Jesus is just relating a couple of stories from the news, these stories have nothing to tell us. If they are stories crafted to give us a bigger, richer meaning of life and our connection to God, they mean so much more.

Demoting sin as the dominant metaphor for our relationship with God (Borg p 140)
Borg argues that sin is but one of several images for the human condition. Other images are the release from bondage in Egypt and their return from exile in Babylon.
"The ancestors of the Jewish people were not in slavery because they had sinned. As slaves, what they needed was not forgiveness, but liberation. Imagine that the story offered them forgiveness, but left them in bondage. That would be a very different story"(Borg p 140)

Similarly the story of exile in Babylon shows the primary image used for their predicament was exile, not sin.  Though sin may have played a part, What they needed was not forgiveness, but a path out of exile. (Borg p 140)

I think sin is not the primary problem of many people today. I think of people who were victims of abuse as children or in relationships. When they go to church where the focus is on sin rather than rescue, they take that problem and put it on themselves making them feel unworthy of love. They need liberation from bondage, not just forgiveness of sins (Borg p 151).  No wonder so many churches are dying away.

My Conclusion
God loves us and wills us to lead lives where we take this notion of love and put it in place throughout the world. Instead of spending our lives worrying and trying to believe the right words, believe in God's love and go out and spread some of it around, like Jesus did. "If the Christian life is not about measuring up [sin], then what is it about? It is about liberation from that concern so we can particiapte in God's passion for transformation - of ourselves and the world"(Borg p. 156)

One paragraph in Borg's Speaking Christian gets to the heart of the matter of the problem I see today with evangelical Christian churches.

"Heaven-and-hell Christianity with its focus on the afterlife and its individualism obscures the dream of God for this world. God's Word became flesh in Jesus not to take us out of this world, but to redeem this world. Recall that redeem means to liberate from slavery - to liberate the world from its bondage to the powers that obstruct God's dream of a transformed world""

Tri-tip

I love tri-tip; like I said last summer it brings back memories of growing up. I tried it once before grilling it on the Mak 2 Star and wasn't delighted with the results. This time I was going to go for a "reverse sear".
Start out low and slow until the internal temp comes up to 120, then bring the heat, grilling it just for a few minutes on high to get the outside crust.

Much better this time. You can see my cooking log here
This is sooo easy to do on a charcoal or gas grill. Just build a two-level fire (charcoal on one side only or just one gas burner going). Start the tri-tip on the cool side and finish directly over the hot side.

My recipe starts from Food Network; a sample recipe can be found here

The classic SoCal Santa Maria rub:

A mop sauce of red wine vinegar, olive oil, and a big clove of garlic, all whirlled together in the food processor.

30 minutes before starting the cook, take the 2 lb tri-tip out of the refrigerator and rub it liberally.

When the grill reaches 225, throw the meat on the cool side of the grill along side some baby potatoes. Mop and flip every 10 minutes

Once it reads 120, move it to the warmer box while the grill cranks up to 425

About 5 minutes of searing; then tent under foil for 10 minutes. Unveil; slice against the grain..

...and serve. YEAH WE GOT TO EAT OUTSIDE

A beautiful summer day at Arcadia Beach

When the kids were little we'd go to Arcadia Beach; a little wayside just south of Canon Beach. There is a little path down from the parking lot about 100 feet down to the beach. We've found it to be a nice area somewhat protected from the wind.

It was only the 2nd or 3rd day this summer when the thermometer would hit 80 and we thought it might be a good beach day. It was beautiful. Practically no wind and the clouds were all out to sea.

We set down our chairs and went for a walk down the beach. You can cover the entire beach north to south in about 1 hour round trip.

 It wasn't long before the jackets came off.

The water had some real nice green tints to it.

Down at the far south end we saw a group setting up tents with their backs up against the cliff and a handmade dike to hold off the water. I don't think they spent a dry night last night.

After a walk we came back and hung out in our lounge chairs. I read another chapter from "The Rebirth of a Nation", a history of the United States between Reconstruction and the World War I. A fascinating time; a terrible book. 

I didn't take our camera on our 2nd walk. Up on the top of a tree on top of the bluff was a raptor of some sort. I grabbed a picture from my iPhone but it doesn't do it justice.

 

We had dinner at Mo's then headed home. 

It's been so cool and cloudy this spummer (wet spring + summer) sun screen was the last thing on my mind. Um, bad news. I had covered up my legs while sitting but the tops of my feet got a nice burn.

As we were close to home the McD's called and asked if we wanted to go grab some yogurt at the new store nearby. YES. What a hot spot. We saw 3 different groups of people we know. Amy Gin, who went to school with Andrew and Jeff and is now a pharmacist at Safeway. Karen Dyx, the youth pastor of our church, Murray Hills Christian Church, and then Karen and Ron Murray. We visited for a good long while then walked back home. It's really summer; I spent the whole day in shorts, a t-shirt, and flip flops.