CincyEats

What a day we have had! It all stared earlier than we would have liked this morning.  But, when you’re working on other people’s time, sometimes it happens. We headed out to the compound ( I have no idea when, or why, we started calling my parents’ house the compound.) a little after nine to meet my maintenance guys to get the tent set up. Was the tent a necessity?  Probably not.  It does look pretty in the yard.

After setting up the tent, it was time to get the pig. I was an hour drive and we had to be there by 3. After some car flipping, we were in procession of a truck. I wish I had some incredibly entertaining slaughter house story, but I don’t. We pulled up to a group of people smoking outside. They asked our name and gave us a price. We gave them cash. The next thing we knew, the pig was in a garbage bag and was plunked in the bed of the truck. That was the whole of it.

At this point in time, we were feeling a little lazy and who wouldn’t want to go through a drive thru with a pig. So, I pulled in and ordered 5 bags of ice and warned the kid about the pig in the back. I was a little disappointed that he seemed unfazed, but  what you going to do.

We got back to the house and had to get the marinade going. My mom warned me that her food processor wasn’t working and that I was going to have to do all the chopping by hand. I was relieved to figure out that she was just putting it together wrong, which was my suspicion to begin with.

The marinade is what the Three Guys from Miami call mojo sauce. They never actually tell you their recipe.
They just use vague ratios. The story goes that they use 5 heads of garlic, oregano, orange juice, salt and pepper. 10 cloves of garlic to 1/2 tsp. of salt to 6 peppercorns and some oregano. It  only took us about 30 minutes to peel all the garlic.  Since there was no real direction on the oregano, we used 2 heaping tablespoons to the 10 cloves of garlic. It seemed like a good consistancy for its intended use.. then  we stirred in some orange juice and called it done.

With all the prep work complete it was time to move the pig its resting place for the night, dad’s old canoe. Why a canoe? It is big, easy to lift the pig in and out, and why not? Two big bags of ice went on the bottom followed by a layer of plastic sheeting. Finally dad and Jess placed the pig in the canoe. I rubbed the marinade all over the inside of the pig and cut a couple of slits in the hams in hopes of getting the marinade to penetrate the meat more.  The pig got wrapped up like a present and two more bags of ice topped it all off.

We are all very greatful for a little rest too. The only thing left to do tonight is build a fire in the pit to clean it out. At least during that we can have a beer!