Weird weather in NoVA

It was 70 degrees yesterday. Kids were out in t-shirts and shorts, riding bikes.

Two weeks ago (around the time I skidded out on ice, hit another person's car and got mine put in the shop AND STILL DON'T HAVE BACK YET!!) it looked like this:





Before anyone goes off on "women drivers" or "snow sheep," I'll let you in on what happened. I learned to drive in the suburbs of Chicago and also lived in Michigan for a while. I can handle driving in snow. My car has new tires and is a well-known model for safe driving in poor weather. The morning of the collision (around 7:30 a.m.) it had started to snow, the first snow of the season. I drove to Dash's daycare, dropped him off, and by the time I left the building, the snow was sticking and it was getting colder. I saw a snow plow drive by with its plow up, heading somewhere more important. When I turned off on a side street, I was thinking about the coffee I was going to purchase before I met Rosie's kindergarten teacher for our conference. The speed limit on the road was 25 mph and there was a Jeep ahead of me by a few car lengths, stopped at a stop sign. I was decelerating and braked, but my car kept moving forward as if the brakes weren't there at all! It had already iced over! When I realized that my brakes weren't making any difference and I was going to hit the Jeep, I checked to see if there were any pedestrians on the sidewalk and pulled up onto the curb. I still grazed the Jeep and rammed the stop sign.

One saving grace? Since I haven't had a collision on my insurance policy in at least 10 years (probably more), I get amnesty and the premium won't be going up. Whew.

Food porn—Jan 31 BBQ

Monkeyrotica's back at the grill again! He just told me that the three slabs (pictured below) will be NC pulled pork, Memphis ribs, and TX brisket. Will be taking more pics as we go along. Stay tuned. Pics are here!

Backstory: A friend of ours has been teaching in Korea this past year. He came into town last week and mentioned that, even though Korean barbecue is fabulous, he's been craving the American variety. Monkeyrotica decided to step in and give the man a cross section of southern BBQ. All the recipes were pulled/modified from Raichlen's BBQ USA book, which is heartily recommended by the Strings. Our friend seemed to have brought his Korean weather to DC as the temps barely rose above 28°F and there was still a sheet of ice on the deck.

On the menu: Carolina pulled pork with Lexington vinegar pepper slaw, Memphis wet ribs, and Texas brisket. Sides were Mexican charros beans cooked with jalapenos and bacon, mac and cheese, and collard and turnip greens cooked in chardonnay.

Monkeyrotica's preparation narrative: The 8lb pork shoulder was seasoned only with salt and pepper. This went on the WSM at 6pm Friday over applewood and some generic Homelife briquettes from the local Target. Not much ash production, but it burns a little faster than Royal Oak briquettes but not as fast as Kingsford. This hit 190 internal around noon Saturday. Left to cool for an hour, pulled half, chopped the other half.

Twelve pounds of brisket went on at midnight, seasoned just with salt, fresh pepper, and cayenne. Since the applewood chunks had burned down, I threw some soaked hickory on, so the brisket would get full hickory, but the pork shoulder would get half hickory, half applewood. Wrapped at 9am, pulled at 1pm. Cooled and sliced.

The two full, untrimmed racks of ribs were seasoned with brown sugar, kosher salt, black and chipotle pepper, garlic powder, and half a cup of Old Bay. They hit WSM #2 around 9am over applewood chunks: 3 hours smoke, two hours wrapped. After five hours, I pulled the water pan, stoked some more coals, and sauced them for about an hour at 325 dome temp. Everything (barely) fit in a warming oven until guests arrived around 3ish. There were no survivors, by which I mean leftovers.

I've cooked in snow many times before, but it was a little unusual to have to crack open my soaking wood chunks with an icepick (it was cold!). Still, it was worth watching the inevitable meat coma feeding slowdown an hour after everyone started eating. We sent everyone waddling home with their own Ziploc bag packed with meat.

Photo gallery from the party:

Monkeyrotica's haikus

AJS wrote these in the Winter of 2001, when we were still living in DC. Northern Virginia hasn't moved him to poetry as yet...

Grey, icy snow drifts
over a pile of garbage
An empty forty

Snow shovels on cement
Down, Push, Over the shoulder
My back is, like, fucked

Smoke rings on the breeze
nicotine stink on fingers
my last cigarette

Crazy Bitch shovels
Morning traffic drifts downtown
her prescription works

Moonlight through treetops
ice cracks, falls, smashes on porch
a car alarm wails

Dash tells knock-knock jokes! And the snowlady.

Well, almost. We were trying to get him to tell us his name for Rosie this weekend, but he just kept saying "na--na". Before committing to this as his name for Rosie, I remembered that Rosie and James Michael, a neighbor, were telling each other knock-knock jokes and Dash may have overheard. AJS investigated this theory, asking, "Who's there?" to get the satisfying answer of "Dad-da!"

Rosie and I made a snow-lady yesterday! Dash almost helped, but really mostly stood there crying to be picked up. Rosie and I had a great time, though. The lady had the traditionally tri-segmented snowball body, with oatmeal-raisin cookies for eyes (thanks to AJS for repurposing those tasty cookies, Kelly!) and a carrot for a nose. I gave her stick arms, a red berry scarf, and a black wool hat; AJS gave her a curved-stick smile. And Rosie didn't want to go back inside, despite the wetness, a thoroughly chilled mother, and dwindling light. Fun times.

I LOVE SNOW!!

This morning was a wonderful change from most mornings with Rosie. The usual scene is: I wake Rosie up, she whines about wanting more sleep, she whines about wanting to wear a different outfit; outright cries about not being able to bring favorite toy X to school; you get the picture. Also, put in mind that we wake her at 6:30 a.m. which, in a perfect world, is much too early.

I woke her up today by saying, "Rosie, it snowed last night! You wanna go and see?" She popped right up, smiling, and said, "I LOVE SNOW!!" She hopped out of her room and happily greeted AJS, who was shoveling outside the front door.