Smokin’ Hot

For someone who loves to cook, Trent doesn’t do very much cooking.  He likes to watch America’s Test Kitchen on PBS and talk about how to make the most complicated chicken pot pie ever without actually producing a pot pie.  A generous estimate is that he cooks something once a month.  And based on my memory, he skipped both August and September.

I say this not to make him feel bad, but to encourage him to get in the kitchen and cook more often.  Do it!  We all win!  When he steps into the kitchen, he typically produces something precise and delicious: a layered cheesecake, a perfect Tex-Joy cheese omelet, a heaping mountain of pulled pork.

He recently spent a Saturday smoking a pork shoulder.  This is a man who recently said would probably never get into smoking because he has no desire to spend all day tending a fire.  I think it was a classic case of saying you will never do something only to find yourself doing it by the end of the week.  As soon as he decided to do it, it was an all consuming period of soaking woodchips and devising the perfect spice blends.

I think he’s found his new calling.  I envision the fall of 2012 spent in the backyard with the soothing smells of smoking meat wafting through our neighborhood, the boys playing and Trent tending the flames to the sounds of college football.  And I’ll be enjoying my free time, doing whatever I want and taking a break from constantly figuring out what everyone is going to eat.

That spidery hand is mine, caught in the act.  While we ate a large portion standing over the stove while we thought about putting it into the fridge, perhaps the finest moment was eating it on fresh tortillas with guacamole, pico de gallo and freshly squeezed limes.  We thought we would have a freezer filled with pulled pork, but we finished all of it by Wednesday. 

My public message to my husband:  PLEASE KEEP COOKING.