These days we see a renewed respect for humanely produced food, animal and vegetable alike. The questions of when, how and where did this come from are no longer smudged lines in a product’s history. And though it may seem like extra work to find out such details, I have full faith that some day soon it will become as commonplace as checking the date on milk. Whole, organic, grass fed, hormone free, non-antibiotic milk, of course.

So sometimes when I want the skinny on what I am putting in the oven, I wind up making fingerprints on the glass cases at Dickson’s Farmstand, located in the Chelsea Market. I started out as a neighbor, working a few doors down from these serious meat men and now we are friends, taking time to discuss dishes, the best cuts for the job as well as the various methods of getting a great product to the table. But this is not special treatment. When the lines queue up at Dickson’s, everyone is regarded as a friend and all of these fine points are regularly discussed with great care.

That is how I ended up with these two lovely top sirloin roasts, I needed a well-priced and flavorful cut of beef for an event I was catering. The beef was to be sliced, sauced (recipe below) and served over a bit of leek veloute, a roasted potato cake by its side. For portioning, I allow at least 1/2 pound per person, especially for a fancier dinner where not every slice is going to be gorgeous and plate-worthy (but definitely perfectly mouth-worthy). Several steps go into cooking a great roast. They are not complicated but should be followed well, decisions are best made in advance so there is no second guessing when time is precious.

It is important to take the meat from the fridge at least one hour before cooking to come  to room temp. This helps it cook faster, more evenly and more precisely but don’t sweat it if there isn’t time for that to happen, especially if you have a meat thermometer. That will really keep you from going wrong even if the timing is a little off. It’s the ticket.

Then sear. Do not be timid, get hot, get smoky and brown it up on all sides. After browning I use a spice rub, since the best method for this cut is a ‘dry roast’ and you want to get all the flavor you can onto the meat. I never remember exactly what I use but I am pretty sure it was a mild mixture of garlic powder, mustard, thyme, cumin, ancho powder, salt and pepper. That is my loose outline for a basic rub in addition to whatever is laying around and/or catches my fancy. Maybe a drop of cayenne, a dash of  Tony’s? Use your creative license.

From there, the following irreverant method works out great! A simple trick of cooking the roast high and mightily at 500F for 5-6 minutes per pound and then turning the oven off for two hours. Do not open the oven door, don’t even think about it. The beef will be a perfect medium rare when you take it out of the undisturbed oven two hours later. I really liked this style and it yielded buttery, tender pink beef. You can always flash cook it a little more at the end if it’s too rare but you can never un-cook it… so might as well err to the side of less-done.

More traditional methods (for medium rare boneless beef roasts) are quite varied, some cooks favor high temperatures for less time (400F / 10 minutes per pound) and others go for lower temps for longer periods of time (300F / 20-22 minutes per pound). The most important step is to consult an instant read thermometer after the first 45 minutes of cooking and every 20 or so thereafter to get the temperature spot on. There are so many variations to be had, it really is best to use the thermometer in combination with your intuition because who knows how wacky your oven is, how the shape of the meat cooks, the starting temp…etcetera. The following chart from themeatsource.com is very helpful for getting it right, an excerpt from a post dedicated to top sirloin. Dickson’s offers this chart representing a variety of animals.

Below is a cooking chart for top sirloin roast recipe. Remember you should always use an instant-read thermometer to check the doneness of a roast. The internal temperature will rise about 5-10 degrees during resting time, remove the roast 5-10 degrees before desired doneness. themeatsource.com

When cooked to desired doneness (accounting for the 5-10 degrees of carryover cooking), it is mandatory to let the meat rest for about 15 minutes before carving. This allows the juices to be reabsorbed and redistributed into the meat and not be lost with the first cut. Ok! Now you have the earned the right to slice up your materpiece and enjoy. The following recipe is an awesome and easy sauce. Marchand de Vin (Winemerchant’s Sauce) goes exceptionally well almost any grilled or roasted beef, a great acidic kick to cut through the rich flavors of well-raised meat.

SAUCE MARCHAND DE VIN

(adapted from The Cook’s Companion by Stephanie Alexander)

1/2 cup shallots, minced

1 tablespoon sherry or sherry vinegar

1/2 cup red wine

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped

juice of 1 lemon

pan juices from cooked meat (optional)

6 tablespoons of butter, cut into pieces

salt and cracked black pepper

• Place first four ingredients in a pan and reduce liquids until the almost gone, but shallots are still moist.
• Add parsley, lemon juice and meat juices, if using. And stir in butter until just melted.
• Season with salt and pepper.

Sam’s BBQ. 2000 E 12th St (Poquito Street) Austin, TX

Straight from the airport, we are welcomed by Brian the proud proprietor, a mac-and-cheese rectangular-table discussion and this plate of ribs, sausage and brisket (hiding underneath). Chef makes all the desserts to… in fact Brian is too formal. Call him Sweetie.

Polvos. 2004 South 1st Street Austin, TX

A jovial Austin staple, Polvos is ready for you at brunch with giant bloody marys and music on full blast for a total sensory overload in the best way possible. I sat next to this burrito (above), but ordered an enchilada (below). I wanted to learn what is the hype about the unassuming Tex Mex enchilada. It was damn fine, but fonder still is the memory of the amazing salsa bar with escabeche pickles.

Casino El Camino. 517 East 6th Street Austin, TX

Stylistically it reminded me of New Orleans. Casino El Camino serves big, big burgers and foot long hot dogs covered in all kinds of cheese, chili, bacon, hot peppers, etc. in fantastically raunchy combos. It was a perfect way to end the debauching weekend. After all the sunny friendliness, it’s kinda nice to pig out in a dark cave. I think they make some kind of chicken sandwich or something too.

Go.

First morning of the year I made something I had been thinking hilarious for a while. A king-sized, over the top power brekkie I referred to in my head as the Elvis Popover. A popover is somewhat half biscuit, half inflated pancake. The eggy batter gets huge in the oven, full of nothing but its own hot air. Elvis enters the kitchen with his legendary love of the peanut butter, banana and bacon combo, a square meal if I’ve ever seen one and maybe the perfect candidate to fill the void (and cure the hangover) on this festive morning, 2010. Trashy though it may sound, with the ingredients upgraded to a food snobbery quality, it was pretty fantastic. I would do it all again even if one short week later wasn’t the King’s 75th birthday.

The base was inspired by my friend Megz, who had recently made a batch of gluten-free popovers for an afternoon gathering. Quite impressively, she took this recipe, plain as day, and swapped out all-purpose flour for spelt flour (1:1) to excellent results, pleasing immensely the guest who didn’t go that way. The melting butter and honey over the airy and dense pastry was ridiculously good and got me thinking of all the things one can put in the empty space that is the heart of a popover.

For this version, homemade peanut butter* consisted of honey roasted peanuts and almonds, the first layer on the split popover. Piled on top was bacon acquired from the kind, meat-loving hands of friends at Dickson’s Farmstand, which I like to cook -mess free- in the oven, intertwined with your everyday unlocal bananas. This heap was coated in raw honey from Clermont, NY. The jar reads ‘produced by the bees of Ray Tousey’ and every time I eat it I feel like I am being introduced to the honey and it is awesome. We can be friends with food.

Happy New Year! …it’s still new.

POPOVERS

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

• Preheat oven to 450 F. With butter, grease a muffin pan that makes (6) large muffins.
• In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together all ingredients until smooth.
• Pour batter into muffin cups filling 1/2 – 1/3 of the way up.
• Bake at 450 F for 20 minutes, then lower the temp to 350 F for another 20 minutes.
• When the popovers come out of the oven, make a small slit the top to let off some steam.
• Make an Elvis special out of them or don’t! Enjoy.

Though they are best straight from the oven, remaining popovers can be reheated at any hour for days to come. They won’t do any  science magic like swell up again but keep them in the oven until crisp on the outside and heated through. They will have great flavor and texture, just about begging for your jam and butter, or savory stuff like cheese or ham. Teatime!

* Process the nuts until smooth and peanut-buttery, you can fold in some coarsely chopped nuts afterwards if you are feeling chunky. I kept it smooth like Elvis’ early years.

Before holiday baking kicks off, I see this recipe’s success as a beacon of good fortune in this year’s endeavors. One of those things everyone has eaten but me, monkey bread seems to be a popular type of treat people remember from grandmas or bakeries. I have no such memory but having heard of it so many times and after seeing this fine old recipe, I decided it was time to get acquainted. Not to mention it was snowy outside and what is more awesome than a fresh baked bread-something in all that wintry glitter. Plus all of the ingredients were on hand so, no one had to go trudging.

I might have mentioned before that I don’t love baking but once in a while, when distractions are few, I’ll flour up. This day I did not surprise myself by immediately adding too much water to the dough, followed by a great deal of swearing, also a part of my baking ritual. To remedy this problem, I added extra tablespoons of flour until the dough was just manageable. I was careful about the additions since the recipe did describe it as a sticky dough. Anyway, I floured recklessly while kneading and it was okay.

Kneading, traditionally done with one’s hands, is often replaced in recipes by food processors and/or standing mixers. Not having a piece of machinery should not discourage one from trying a recipe. Especially in the case of making doughs, there is always a way to to it without being plugged in. It usually involves a few more minutes of effort but it will always work, and sometimes the results will be even better since your hands get to witness all of the changes the dough will go through. A good example of this is making pasta. Pasta dough will always come out better by hand because you will know exactly when it goes from just a basic dough to actually silky and soft, with a faint sheen on it (this takes  about 15 minutes of real work). In a mixer you would never see this change happen and either stop too early or blow straight past this little miracle and overmix completely. For monkey bread, the dough only gets worked for about 5-10 minutes until it is smooth and cohesive but make sure you give it a good workout anyhow.

When making (yeasted) bread, kneading is important but the crucial thing is the rise. In my experience, recipes often underestimate the time it will take for the dough to truly double in size. So my big advice is…wait. Wait not until it is almost-maybe-double-but-definitely-bigger, no. Wait for it to be definitely doubled, alot bigger, puffy and alive looking. Sometimes it is only a matter of an extra ten minutes, but it might be an extra hour. There are so many factors that could cause your yeast to take more time than the yeast in the recipe. Just. Wait. It will make all the difference in the final product. Promise.

To make my monkey bread work I also had to rig a bundt pan. Since I don’t have one, the solution was a regular cake pan (10 inches) with a ceramic ramekin placed in the center. Any sort of round vessel than can stand the heat would work, a tin can, little clay pot, etc. just make sure you grease it along with the rest of the surface. Butter or some non-stick baking spray will do the job well.

With so much technical blah-blah, I almost don’t mention how awesome this stuff is. A wreath of bread that is made up of little breads! Each ball of dough personally dipped in cinnamon butter and rolled in brown sugar, then plopped into the pan. The pieces rise and bake together into a fragrant, caramelized work of art. As forgiving as it is delicious, if all of my opposable thumbs can bake it, you can too.

MONKEY BREAD

(adapted from America’s Best Lost Recipes)

1 stick + 2 tablespoons butter

1 cup milk

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 package rapid rise (instant) yeast

3 1/4 cups flour + extra for kneading

2 teaspoons salt

1 cup light brown or raw turbinado sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

• Grease a bundt pan or something similar. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees F and turn it off when it comes to temp. This is the perfect environment for the dough to rise.
• Start the dough by melting the 2 tablespoons of butter in a small pot.
• Add the milk and water and heat gently to about 110 degrees F.
• Place the warm milk mixture in a measuring cup and add the 1/4 cup granulated sugar and the yeast. Within a few minutes the yeast should bloom, making floury looking bubbles on the surface. (If it does not….start over with new yeast!!)
• In a large bowl, mix the flour and the salt. Make a well in the center of the flour and pour in the liquid ingredients.
• Stir until ingredients are incorporated and the mixture becomes heavy to stir. Stop.
• Flour your hands and the workspace. Gather the dough and turn it out onto the workspace, kneading until a smooth ball forms (adding touches of flour as necessary), about 5-10 minutes.
• Place the ball of dough into a greased bowl and lightly coat the top of the dough with non-stick spray. Wrap the bowl with plastic and place it in the 200 degree oven that has been turned off!!!
• Allow to double in size, at least one hour.
• While the dough is rising, melt remaining stick of butter in a small pot. Stir in cinnamon. Place brown (or raw) sugar in a shallow dish.
• When the dough is ready, remove it from the oven and pat into an 8 inch square. Cut the square into quarters and each quarter into 16 pieces for a total of 64 small dough pieces.
• Dip each piece in the cinnamon butter followed by a quick roll in the sugar and place in the prepared bundt. Stagger the coated balls somewhat evenly around the center of the pan in layers.
• Cover the pan with plastic wrap and place it in the ’still turned off’ oven for a second rise, about one hour or until puffy and risen 1-2 inches above the rim of the pan (see photo above).
• Remove pan from oven, and turn it up to 350 degrees F. Take the plastic wrap from the bread and bake until the top is deep brown and bubbling around the edges, 30-35 minutes.
• When done, cool only 5 minutes in the pan or else it will stick. Turn it out onto a platter and enjoy. Wrap in plastic for overnight storage.

64 cinnamon-butter-sugar coated balls in a makeshift bundt pan.

Oven landslide….what, me worry? Those were the tastiest bits.

Oh yeah, read some of my golden baking rules here.

PARIS:

A villainous cheese plate:

The cheese that looks like a flower is some incredible stuff called tête de moine. It is cut horizontally with a special apparatus that shaves a thin layer  from the top of the cheese. As it is sliced in a circular direction, the cheese curls around itself. Then it melts in your mouth.

An adventurous charcuterie:

The light pinkish sausage at the top is French andouille… that lovely pattern is created by pig intestines and stomach. A little goes a long way.

BELGIUM:

Beeeeeeeeer!:

I guess I ate some stuff during the days in Belgian, but the beer! The beer is special. In this photo is a golden, delicious Tongerlo. Also among my favorites were the Westmalle beers and the rare and fantastic Wechelse Tripel. Locals say not to drink more than three. Decent advice, I guess.

AMSTERDAM:

Applecake:

Never again will I accept the expression ‘as American as apple pie’. We need to simply give up and let the Dutch have this one. Here is a photo of Dutch apple pie from a cute little eatery called Winkel that specializes in the stuff. This inexplicable pie will have me chasing the dragon until I get to try it again. (Noordermarkt 43)

Sorry France, sorry Belgium:

And here we have the little corner shop where I innocently bought some fries. I thought I would walk around and eat them but they were so so so good, I had to sit down on the nearest bench to believe what was going on in that little paper cone. When I looked up, everyone around me was eating them, all in devout silence. I got spicy mayo as my saus but i heard that peanut sauce is also a popular choice. Later still, I discovered the real people’s choice is a mix of mayo AND peanut sauce. Must immerse in local culture. Must. (Voetboogstraat 31)

1158 McDonald Ave, Brooklyn

First of all, thanks so much for always hosting a great party. We think you are the best banya deal in town and we totally appreciate the long tables reserved for us, the sweet little group discounts and the fresh towels always stocked! Is there a keener way to celebrate with a pile of friends than a leisurely sauna and soak, a recline on the balcony (skin steaming in the chilled air), an awesome snack? And then do it all over again!

To make the most of this experience, it’s mandatory to observe the regulars. They come prepared with snacks, beverages, flip flops, hair masks, etc. The spa-goers claim a spot, set up shop and spend a day lounging. In and out of hot rooms and pools, snapping each other with leafy branches (platza). They read and play cards, eat a few meals with plenty of fine drinks, beer and vodka among the favorites.

Though guests may bring their own, it is the amazing quality of the food in the banya’s restaurant that is such a fantastic surprise. With well-priced house specialties like smoked salmon, borscht, pickled vegetables (including chayote and lettuce), whole prawns, and garlicy potatoes, we are transformed from a group of temporarily de-stressed and exfoliated New Yorkers into a hearty, red-nosed, robe-clad clan of Eastern blockers. The menu is extensive, everyone eats, and it doesn’t take long to get used to the idea of dining in a tiled room alongside a pool in a bathing suit. In fact, relaxed comfort might make the food taste that much better.

Though it is not fancy, everything is served with great pride and flourish. Food shaped into flowers (Sandoony is the only place this is acceptable), served with extra lemon, bright herbs, two kinds of bread and heaps of butter. The fish is perfectly cured and the soups restorative, each plate a meal in itself. Even an order of tea is accompanied by lemon, honey, sugar, milk and these fabulously sweet sour cherries. It is honest, well-done and downright delicious. No one bats an eye when a bunch of girls eat cupcakes and sip vodka. They just want to know whose birthday it is…

It’s kind of a steamy dream. Thank you.

Love,

Ori

Photos by Jean Naté.

Peppers. Acrylic on wood. 18 x 18 inches. ©ocosentino

(All varieties MG grew in our garden this summer.)

Since returning from Europe, I have been waking up really early. It’s cool for me, different from my norm which always included working lots of nights and slumbering through lots of mornings. Now I am all about eating breakfast to get myself geared up for the day. Waking at 8am and eating something before 9 leaves me hungry again by 10:30 or 11am…so, I eat breakfast until it seems time for something more like lunch.

In my recent brekkie explorations, I took this picture for fun. When a few friends saw it in the camera they were full of questions. ‘It’s just breakfast’, I thought,  some of that sinful Fage Greek yogurt with pineapples, shredded (unsweetened) coconut, a drizzle of agave syrup and some chopped up lemon balm which is still growing in the yard. That damn yogurt is versatile, great with anything from fruit and nuts to cucumber and bulgur. I try to by a small container to control my consumption but I eat it so quickly that I just face facts and get a big one. And, by the way, I always buy full fat because the path of life wider than it is long. What?

I do believe eating yogurt regularly is great for your health, digestion, complexion, etc. but this day it was the gorgeous pineapple that stole the show, with the lemon balm making it super bright and fresh. The pineapple-herb combo was so interesting that I later made pineapple-parsley-lemon juice with what was left. It was excellent! I juiced some parsley leaves and lots of stems, about 1/3 cup total. Apparently parsley is one of those fantastical superfoods. It is full of vitamins A and C , plenty of minerals and provides a good supply of chlorophyll. Since it is quite concentrated, just an ounce of parsley juice is perfect mixed in with other juices. Its taste is faint but very fresh, maybe a good alternative for those who can’t take wheatgrass. Into the bright green juice, I juiced one peeled lemon and the rest of the fresh pineapple. Pineapple has all the vitamin C the Flintstones could ever offer, as well as minerals like chlorine and potassium with some extra beneficial enzymes. All that in a sweet, delicious, thirst-quenching beverage. The yield was just about a pint and it started my day off just about perfect.

Next time you go ‘juicing’ ask for a handful of parsley thrown in there. I have a juicer at home, the brand is Elite by Maxi Matic. A gift from some darling friends, it is several years old and still kicks! Look… My cute folding bike’s in the background. I call it Quickie.

This could be a new category on upchefcreek: ‘eating food alone’. As many/most of these entries are directly related to eating with and cooking for others, a constant ritual I am so lucky to partake in, I also take great pleasure in another side of eating, the solo mission. It is different when there is no one around to bend the taste toward, to impress, to please. I am not shy of eating alone. In fact, I hit restaurants by myself somewhat often as a form of relaxation and self indulgence. I cook for myself as needed, it seems I save elaborate meals for collaborative eating experiences, and let ‘quick and satisfying’ be my private mode. I do not skimp on myself, i.e. a box of cereal for dinner, but rather eat what I crave, which is usually (luckily) something pretty healthy. I guess whatever health-food-torture I went through as a kid was worth it because now I take great pleasure in eating nutritious things like green leaves, whole grains, and all that shmazz.

Tonight, dinner was one of those missions. It was just little ole me, there were few ingredients around and nothing prepared. I had two of these fancy organic chicken sausages in the fridge leftover from some sort of sausage, mushroom, dandelion, saute with quinoa. These things are dime(s) a dozen in the bodegas-turned fancymarts that are ubiquitous in Brooklyn. Good in a pinch, the sausages taste okay and, since I read labels as a hobby, I know its list of ingredients is not too scary. I am also usually stocked with this really nice, mysterious, wheat and oat bread labeled ‘Health Bread’ found all over my neighborhood and always very fresh looking. The combination turned out a hand-held meal, balanced with protein (sausage), fruit/veg (apple) and grain (good bread), three basic elements of a solid meal. Once the foil and the napkin were tossed, the only clean-up was the knife and cutting board for the apples. Impressed my damn self.

EASIEST SAUSAGE AND APPLE SANDWICH

1 link of your favorite sausage

1 apple, (gala, braeburn, fiji, jonagold, granny, mac) cored, sliced

1 swipe mustard

1 swipe mayo

a few dashes hot auce

1 piece of bread

• Preheat oven to 400 F.
• On a piece of foil place sausage links with apple slices scattered over.
• Bake until sausage is cooked (or heated through, depending if it is pre-cooked).
• With the bread in your hand, put mayo, mustard and hot sauce on the bread and mix it together with a knife.
• Pile sausages and apples on top and wrap in a napkin for proper eating.

There is a great book on the subject of what people eat when they are alone. I would have contributed one of my crazy breakfast porridges to it, had I the chance. I think there are forums on the web for people to share what they eat out of a public eye, very interesting, as well as some terrifyingly weird advice for people who don’t like to go out and eat alone. Here is my advice: enjoy yourself, be polite OR stay home and cook! Amaze yourself. Bon ap!

Making pulled pork is an undertaking of time and faith but, really, not all that much work. It starts with the shoulder cut of pork, which may need a minute of explanation. The shoulder is the front leg of the pig and it consists of two halves; the butt or Boston butt, which is the upper section and the lower called picnic shoulder or, worse yet, the picnic ham, though it is not really a ham*, just as the top half is not really a butt. Shoulder (which is the important word to remember when the desire to pull pork arises) can be purchased whole, with these two cuts attached to each other, or separately. On average, the cuts weigh between 6 and 10 pounds each, but in the photos you see here, we are working with 19 pounds of butt and a 16 pound picnic shoulder. The butcher at Dickson’s Farmstand had these enormous and subsequently delicious Berkshire pigs and I did purchase a whole shoulder but asked that he divide it for me since my home oven is only a standard size. Nonetheless, the two pieces were crammed in, touching the top of the oven, almost the bottom and each other in the middle while stacked on the two shelves. This caused no harm/problems when cooking but it was certainly the first leap of faith.

The second leap was trusting my oven to maintain the temperature of 325 degrees for almost 10 hours. I checked in on it every few hours and in the beginning made sure that the meat had enough liquid in the roasting dish so it would not burn. I used two cups of water per pan and then covered each with foil for the duration. I took some advice to use a bit of cider vinegar which was admittedly delicious but made the house smell like hot vinegar for so many hours that I would not like to repeat that experience. Anyway, pretty soon after the cooking starts, the meat releases its own (fat) juices and keeps itself safe and basted and delicious and fantastic.

Once you have figured what kind of seasonings you want to put on your shoulder and how long you’ll need to cook it, it is as good as done. For ‘marinating’ I put 1/2 of my spice rub on the pork the day before, and another coat just before cooking. If there is any to spare I either dump it in the barbecue sauce that accompanies the finished pork, or save it to dump into some other dish. A spice rub is a flexible ingredient and hard to get wrong. For starters, try a tablespoon each of brown sugar, mustard powder, ancho powder, garlic powder, onion powder mixed with two tablespoons each of kosher salt, pepper and paprika. There is no exact formula really, I just add and taste and add and taste. (I would even triple or quadruple this formula so as not to run short.) We have accumulated a great collection of dried spice powders, many from Kalustyan’s, so it is a great opportunity to use them for extra flare. It could be anything from dried Greek oregano to chipotle powder, Creole seasoning or a badass dash of jalapeno powder.

Once dusted up, it really helps to take the meat from the fridge at least 1/2 hour before placing it in the oven for even and accurate cooking. This also gives you a good head start to preheat and make sure your oven will keep a steady temperature. I am a huge fan of an oven thermometer, I keep it in there all the time, just to be sure. An easy formula for timing the pork is approximately 40 minutes per pound at 300 F. I have had success with it, though I am not afraid to creep the oven up to 325 and shave a few hours off of the process, especially when undertaking those giant pieces. In this case I have no neat formula but it is pretty easy to eyeball when the bones pull easily away from meat, perfectly clean, it is ready. If I had to guess I would say something like 30 minutes per pound @ 325 F. The internal temperature (of the meat) will be somewhere between 185 and 195 F but to know that exact info necessitates another type of thermometer, one may or may not have stocked in the kitchen. After removing the entirely cooked meat from the oven, just let it sit there (covered) for an hour or so before pulling it.

The next step is to hand-shred the pork into a clean container (it will fall apart so easily, it practically pulls itself) and then strain a quart or two of the juices to pour over for keeping the meat moist. The liquid is pretty fatty so you may want to cool the strained portions and scoop the fat off of the top before mixing it with the pork. Barbecue sauce would be my next suggestion. It is a subject of controversy with barbecue people all over the country. Everyone has their preferred style whether jarred or home made, sweet or spicy, vinegary or ketchup-based. No need to get pushy here, save it for the ball game and just use your favorite. I go for a spicy, vinegary sauce with a little touch of sweet but either way, it is a good idea to put a light coat over the pork now and drown it later on your plate or sandwich or whatever.

*A ham as we know it is the back leg, by the way.