HOME COOKING CONVERSATION: PORK BUTT

Home cooking usually means there’s a cook involved.

You know, a chef.

With no cook or chef around you do what everyone else does:

Get into that kitchen and rattle those pots and pans.

Part One:

When I was a single man living the single man life on NW 21st and Lovejoy I couldn’t imagine how anyone could live in the suburbs, or why anyone could call an extended strip mall running beside a once vibrant highway home.

‘What were they even doing with their lives,’ I thought?

Eventually I f’d around and found out, as one does.

After raising a family in Portland’s southern suburbs I know exactly what they’re doing, what I’m doing:

I’m going to Costco!

Why? Because I’m hooked; I’m a Costco junkie. And that’s not a bad thing.

I can get in and get out for under $500 on a good day. And I resist the low-hanging fruit.

Instead of the famous Costco chicken, I get the two pack of raw Kirkland chickens from the cooler; instead of the delicious Costco hotdog, I get the three pack of Aidells’s Chicken & Apple sausage.

The reason is simple: I like to cook, although the recent crock pot chicken needed help.

Part 2:

I’ve cooked unusual things. I boiled a beef heart that coated the kitchen in slime, steamed broccoli and forgot the water.

My mother in-law once microwaved a yam so long it caught on fire. Who knew one potato could fill a room with thick smoke.

I saw the cloud coming up from downstairs and rushed down to find mummy in the bathroom reading.

Smoke was boiling out of the countertop microwave oven.

Instead of taking the box out on the porch, I opened the door and flames shot out. Yikes, right?

It was a home cooking nightmare. At least I didn’t find anyone on the floor.

I’ve never thought to cook large hunks of meat. After all, there’s not an army at the door waiting for a side of beef, or a giant fish.

But if there were, wouldn’t it be a good idea to practice and not screw up with hungry people waiting?

After loading up in Costco, wife and I crossed 99 to the old Cash & Carry with the big meat cooler.

Big meat?

Not that big, but big enough.

We wanted Pork Butt and left with a shoulder.

Back at the ranch we unloaded Costco and got ready to smoke pork butt.

Yes, it’s a shoulder but it’s more fun to say “Pork Butt.”

I turned on the Traeger while wife scanned recipes.

This is the pork butt recipe from A Grill For All Seasons.

This is the one she used.

Home Cooking Part 3

My wife got inspired from someone at work who smoked pork butt all the time.

How inspired?

‘Grilled Pineapple Salsa’ inspired.

If you invite people over, start with smoked pork butt.

Even better if they are your adult kids and their friends and their toddler.

Once the kitchen is set for pulled pork tacos, take baby for a walk and let the harried parents take a break.

Harried?

“feeling strained as a result of having demands persistently made on one”

(You’re smiling right now thinking about toddlers you’ve known, like the man with the toddler?)

Something feels right with cruising the home cooking kitchen watching the dog and kids all together.

Is it baby boomer bliss?

Is it homemade margaritas with Jimmy Buffett playing?

Sometimes things hit just right.

Next up is sharing that home cooking with DKG+.