“Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.” – Benjamin Franklin

Also apparently the youtube thing won’t work in Internet Explorer when I try. If you use IE, my condolences.

Labor Day BBQ at the Melita’s. Grillmaster Brandon Knox prepared some kick ass wings while I made Pulled Pork sangwiches. Couldn’t have asked for a better way to close out the summer.

witty banter

i like pulled pork

lets see what happens when i insert a few other photos into the text

Behind us.

View from the road to Queenstown

Mount Aspiring, Wanaka

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So two things have happened recently that resulted in today’s culinary experiment. I’ve really taken a liking to pulled pork sandwiches and I’ve also been very inspired in the kitchen the last few weeks. I decided that to celebrate anti-valentine’s day (albeit a day early), I would make some pulled pork sandwiches slathered in homemade BBQ sauce, grab a cold beer, and watch a manly movie with gratuitous violence and lots of explosions.

I typically scour the internet for recipes and then modify them to suit my tastes, cooking style, and personal desire to limit my intake of processed crap like high fructose corn syrup. This proved to be quite a challenge to figure out how to make pulled pork in my Le Creuset dutch oven as most recipes called for using a slow cooker and mixing in copious amounts of store bought BBQ sauce loaded with sugar and HFCS. No dice. Over the course of several days I conferred with a friend who has made pulled pork in the past, found a few interesting dry rubs, some tips on how to use my Le Creuset in a regular oven and maybe most important of all, some homemade BBQ sauce recipes. Time to mix and match!

I purchased 4 lbs of Pork Shoulder at a farmer’s market yesterday. Chatted with the farmer for a bit about pulled pork and his animal raising methods. I’m much more satisfied than if I had gone to the supermarket. Taking a lesson from a video I saw about Kobe Beef, I proceeded to massage the crap out of the slab of meat with a dry rub. Once it was coated and tenderized to my satisfaction, I threw it in a ziploc bag and into the fridge overnight.

DRY RUB:

This morning it went into the dutch oven, poured in a liquid mixture (1/2 cup OJ, 1/2 cup Apple Cider, wee bit of Worcestershire sauce), and into a 300 degree preheated oven. 5 hours and 30 minutes on the timer. GO! (P.S. the house started smelling awesome about 30 minutes into cooking.)

I’ve become very intrigued lately by the “Paleo Diet” and though I don’t think I could do it 100% because of my love affair with bread and potatoes (I have no shame blaming my Russian roots), there are a lot of great cooking ideas that exclude all the crap that I don’t want to put into my body. The BBQ sauce recipe that I decided to try (and slightly modify) comes from one of many blogs dedicated to the Paleo Lifestyle, Son of Grok.

My version of the BBQ sauce from scratch:

Finely chopped the garlic and onion and sauteed them up a little. Added the remaining ingredients, brought to a boil, and then dropped the heat and let it simmer for a couple of hours, stirring/tasting occasionally. I shredded the pork once it was done and discarded the fat. Took the remaining liquid in the dutch oven, removed the fat, and combined with the BBQ sauce to simmer for another half an hour. I think the sauce turned out pretty good but the tomato taste was a little overpowering. Next time will try to dilute it some more or just exclude the tomato paste altogether in favor of sweeter crushed tomatoes. And more garlic. <3 garlic.

Anyway, put the meat back into the dutch oven, mixed in the BBQ sauce, and back into the oven it went for another ~20 minutes. End result was very delicious.

Before we head out, we chat a bit with the owner of the B&B (Cheaper than a hostel and included breakfast. Supply and Demand certainly has its benefits.) where we were staying. The view off of the deck in the back of the house is amazing and when we commented on how beautiful it was, he asked us what we see when we look out our window in the morning. I chuckle to myself and reply “a parking lot”. The owner went on to say that the house was still under construction when they were looking to buy and when he opened the “front door” and saw the view that was out the back it didn’t matter what the rest of the house looked like. He said “you can always change the interior of the house, but you can’t change a view like that.” What a life that would be to wake up and be able to enjoy breakfast overlooking the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks mountain range instead of waking up and looking out the window and seeing nothing but a sea of asphalt littered with cars.

After breakfast we embark in an anti-clockwise direction, as the Irish like to say. Weather is still a bit “eh” but we forge ahead hoping for the clouds to clear. Along the way we got off our original route to explore Valentia Island and were rewarded with some cool shots at a slate quarry, we stopped by the Skelligs Chocolate Company for a delicious snack and some souvenir shopping, intentionally got lost along some narrow little roadways to see what we could find, and had a delicious late lunch of Seafood Chowder and Irish Stew (I wasn’t kidding about this) at the Blue Bull Pub in Sneem. By the time we were finished with lunch the weather had turned to crap and we head back to the B&B for some rest and relaxation before going into town to get dinner at Milano. I know, I know… it’s not Irish Stew but I had a craving for pizza.

Photos are up on Facebook and will be incorporated into the blog eventually.

This amount of activity obviously will make any man thirsty so we go back down into town and head to Bollard’s Pub. They have a Kilkenny beer sign hanging outside and seeing as we had yet to see it offered anywhere AND we were in the actual town of Kilkenny, it made sense to stop there… except that it was around 11am. The publican extended a warm greeting when we got in probably assuming we wanted to get some coffee. “Is it too early for a pint?” I ask. “It’s never too early for a pint. This is Ireland.” Awesome. So Eugene and I have a pint of Kilkenny before noon and kill some time by chatting for a bit with the Publican. It doesn’t taste the same as we’ve had abroad and after asking why we haven’t seen it served anywhere, we are told that Kilkenny beer is not very popular with the locals and compared with the Smithwick’s and Guinness that we’ve had so far, it really is nothing special. Still very delicious, but not the same Kilkenny beer that I’ve grown to love on my trips out of the US. It’s interesting how they brew different beers for their domestic and export markets despite marketing it under the same name.

We leave Bollard’s a little past noon and head over to the Smithwick’s Brewery for their plant tour. The tour starts at 12:30 and took us through a history of the Smithwick’s family, the founding of the brewery and brand, a walk through the St. Francis Abbey which is on the grounds of the brewery, the brewing process itself, the brewery’s stringent quality controls, and finally ending with a taste test. And by taste test I mean the tour guide (who worked as a brewmaster at Smithwick’s for almost 30 years) poured us several perfect glasses of Smithwick’s in the cellar bar. Ireland at its finest. Sláinte!

After getting hammered at the taste test we felt that a meal was in order prior to the long drive down to Killarney. Back we went to Bollard’s for some Irish Stew which I will never ever get sick of. The trek to Killarney takes about 3 hours and we get to our stop in the evening hours, just in time to drop off our things and go into town for some dinner. It’s a bit late for food at some of the crowded pubs so we end up at a restaurant named Salvador where we eat, drink, and plan our attack for the next day.

Though the scenery is beautiful, there are not many photo opportunities due to rain so we push on to Kilkenny stopping for some food on the way. We grabbed lunch at the Wicklow Heather, a fine eating establishment recommended by Mary the night before, our hostel owner the morning of, and also by my Let’s Go travel book. Had my first of what I expect to be many Irish Stews and was very pleased. I don’t see how anyone could go wrong with eating meat and potatoes for the rest of their life. It’s the perfect marriage of flavors, textures, and nutrients. Everything a growing boy, such as myself, needs.

The drive to Kilkenny doesn’t take too long and reminds me a lot of our drives in New Zealand. Lots of one lane roads with farms on either side of you. Plenty of sheep, cows, and horses grazing in the fields. Mountains in the background peeking through the clouds and fog. Even in the rain it’s just pleasant to be here.

We get to Kilkenny in the afternoon, check in at our hostel (Rose Cottages) and go off in search of adventure. And By adventure, I mean food. And by food, I mean Irish Stew. Kilkenny is not a large town and everything is in walking distance. As we walk through town we pass the Smithwick’s Brewery (where we will stop for a tour tomorrow), numerous pubs and restaurants, and lots of little shops. Pubs in Ireland don’t really serve food in the middle of the afternoon so we settled for a late lunch/early dinner at Ripley’s Steakhouse where I proceeded to have a “Hot Pot” which was basically just Irish Stew with a useless flaky crust on top. I wasn’t joking about the Irish Stew. It’s going to be very hard not to get it every time I see it on the menu. A delicious Murphy’s Stout helps the meal go down and all of a sudden I am very ready for a siesta. Apparently beer and beef make people sleepy. Who knew?

We get back to the hostel, lie down to take a nap and next thing we know it is past 11pm. Well shite. Seeing as most pubs close around 11:30 or midnight, we figure we may as well sleep until then….

Finally get some decent weather in New Jersey and I decide to leave and come to a land where “30% chance of light rain” actually means “100% chance of downpour”. No matter. Come children, gather around and I will tell ye a story filled with dangers around every turn, adventures abound, and pubs filled with fine people who are not ashamed of their “gift of gab”.

Our journey starts like most epic tales – at JFK International Airport where in true American fashion, we leave the gate right on time, but then proceed to sit on the tarmac for almost 2 hours because of a sensor error in the baggage hold. It was pretty funny when they had to reboot the plane. More of a GROAN THIS IS THE WORST THING EVER kind of funny. Not so much a haha funny. Eventually we lift off and about 6 hours later land in Dublin where there happens to be quite a bit of rain outside. Can’t say it was unexpected but would have been nice if the weather gods gave us sun for 2 weeks. Or at the very least on our first day there.

Anywho, off we go to the car rental desk where we get screwed with some bullshit insurance scam by the Eastern European broad behind the counter. Apparently credit card companies won’t extend car insurance in Ireland because it is considered “high risk”. This honor is extended to only one other country in the world – Jamaica. For a mandatory extra fee of 26 Euros a day, we are covered. Fantastic. Time to pick up the car and it’s a Ford Mondeo. After I am done giggling about how ridiculous the name of this car is, we get ourselves acquainted with the Irish way of driving on the wrong side of the road. Good thing we practiced in New Zealand. It’s actually pretty remarkable how quickly you adapt. Just gotta stay alive to get to that point.

With Eugene behind the wheel and my expert navigating skills at work, we pass endless fields of sheep, cows, and horses to arrive at our first destination – Mountain Ventures Hostel in the town of Donard in County Wicklow. We drop off our stuff and the first order of business is finding food and taking a nap. The owner recommends heading to the Hollywood Inn in the next town over where we are rewarded with a delicious first meal in Ireland. Mad cows be damned, I had myself an awesome burger and chips. Chips as in fries. Not as in chips. No beer yet as we were both exhausted and had to drive ourselves back to the hostel in the rain. Nap first. Beer later.

Napping was an awesome idea and we woke up around 10pm feeling refreshed and very thirsty so we headed to the local watering hole – Toomey’s Bar. Wasn’t much going on here but we ended up chatting with the bartender and a female regular until about 2 in the morning. Turns out that this rain was the worst they have had all year. Figures that when two Jews go on vacation, they leave good weather behind and arrive to complete shite. Our discussions ranged from politics, farming, family history, economics, the local way of life, our itinerary, and of course beer. Cold, delicious beer. It was everything I could have hoped and dreamed for, and then some. Tried a couple pints of Smithwick’s and also a pint of Guinness. Tasted completely different from what is available in the United States. The Smithwick’s wasn’t as heavy and tasted much fresher. You could taste the different elements much better. Supposedly there is less alcohol in it in Ireland which may explain it. The Guinness had much less of that chocolate taste which made me a very happy camper. I rarely order Guinness in the States because I’m not really a big fan of the taste but here in Ireland it’s another story. Very smooth, very delicious, not as heavy as you would expect. After parting ways with Paddy and Mary much later than we expected, we head back to the hostel for some much needed sleep and the hope that the weather would clear up the next day.

[PHOTOS TO COME SOON]