Pork is delicious. In all forms. If you're not here for that, you probably should move along to the next post. Or go back to that chicken that you all made so beautifully.
Our friend Samin is secretly teaching us the rewards of patience and thoughtfulness. Don't think I haven't noticed. But these lessons are particularly important right now. If you're 46. If you're 12. If you're living in an election. Pandemic. Finishing high school. Caring for a parent. All of it. Turns out patience and thoughtfulness are life skills that will give you delicious food. Just rewards, right? You're supposed to read the recipe all the way through before you start cooking. Do you actually do this? Or do you just feel superior and clever about in on the occasional times that you do? Yeah. Me too. Good thing we're here together.
Meanwhile. We're doing ok over here. We're tired of all the same things everyone is tired of, we're thankful for all the right things, but mostly I'm glad you are here doing this with me. As Patty said, it's the first thing I've been excited about in a little while. A few of you have asked how it started. Like most good ideas, it happened when a few worlds unintentionally collided. A newish-friend started a little art series about food, a client asked what I was cooking now that it's fall, and then I stumbled across my copy of The Book. I bought some art. I started reading. I started planning. But most importantly, I got help. Why does it take us too long to figure out that help is good thing?
Back to the pork, though. You should probably dig through your basement chest freezer and see what's down there before you head out to buy a cut. Otherwise, but a new pork butt and salt it right when you get home. Let it hang out in the fridge. The next morning (because you want to eat dinner at 5ish, not 9ish) after you've lollygagged over coffee, take it out and get your braise on. You'll mix up some onions and chiles and garlic and cumin and tomatoes and salt and bay leaves (but I forgot to put those in so when I do this again with the 2 pork butts I found in the freezer yesterday I'll get after that) and beer. Yeah. Beer. Dig in. the batch of the fridge and find the stuff you meant to drink but aren't as excited about now.
I've braised before. It's easy, right, no big deal. Brown, turn, burn, turn, remove meat, add aromatics and be patient and let it hang out. Be a dinner super hero. But our friend Samin here has added thoughtfulness to the braise. You turn the meat every 30 minutes. So it gets equally soaked in all that onion chiles garlic cumin tomato salt beer but no bay leaves. It gives you an excuse (reason? such a fine line there, right) to sit in the kitchen with a cup of tea and read the chapter on fat. You know you want to. Plus she's going to save you all sorts of time not peeling garlic. Even if you know the shake it in a jar trick.
We ate this with cornbread and took Samin's advice and made up some bright cabbage slaw (page 224) and Mexican-ish herb salsa (page 363). We were sorry we made a half batch of the slaw and even sorrier that we didn't double the salsa. You could make this tomorrow. There's still time if you start now. I'm not sure why you're still here reading this.
xo-
c.
ps - I'll be bringing you the avocado salad matrix ((page 217) and slow-roasted salmon (page 310) to help us feel maximum flexibility in our thoughtfulness and patience even if salad makes us sad.
pps - the art tho, right? Jill Dryer is an artist, musician, and all around good person. Follow her on Instagram. Be inspired. Buy a print. Art is important. Feed your soul, friends. It's hard times out there and art is what will get us through when we can't find the patience and thoughtfulness we need.
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