Let’s face it: it would never, in a million years, have occurred to me and Michelle and Shane that this past Saturday was the start to Ramadan when we decided that the best way to welcome the new academic year in was to have a pig-pickin’ as the department welcome back party. In hindsight, that may have been a little off-color given that we have a Muslim colleague, but aside from letting us Infidels know that we were definitely going to hell, followed by a loud laugh, our colleague wasn’t really bothered at all that the main dish was an incredibly-well-roasted pig. Next year, we’ll just throw some chickens on, too, have BBQ chicken AND pork … can you get closer to heaven?
Saturday was, in many ways, the perfect day for an outside party. At least, it was until about 5:00 p.m., when the bottom fell out and the rain came and sat over the party all evening with just small moments of reprieve. But I get ahead of myself.
By 8:00 a.m., Gwennie JC, Max, and I were packed in the car and headed to Michelle and Shane’s to get a pig on the grill. They had gone to Piggly Wiggly to fetch the 100-pound monster (minus head and feet, of course, though the Hoggly Woggly sent those along in a bag, too, in case we wanted them …), and by 9:00 a.m., we had a hog well seasoned with a dry rub (recipe to follow in my new cookbook) slung on the grill. I’m here to tell you, in case you’re wondering, a 100-pound hot is NOT light: it is 100 pounds of dead weight (pun intended), and it slips and slides through your hands. There is nothing to grab on to!
But once we got Babe on the pit, we had 5 hours free to drink beer, which Ron, the new interim department chair, supplied: Bud Lite in purple and gold cans! Go Pirates! Ron also brought hot dogs for us to slip in next to Babe for lunch. Is there anything better than a slow-roasted hot dog? I think not … those babies sat on the 250 degree grill for an hour and were scrumptious! At two, we cut slits in the pig skin, which is thicker than you might think, doused it in Carolina BBQ sauce, and flipped Babe on his back, exposing some already-luscious-looking ribs, butts, and shoulders. More sauce and three more hours @ 350 and we had a meal.
Also, Michelle and Shane rented a bouncy castle … these are the “Ride Rules”, all of which we broke fairly quickly both on Friday night when we tested it and on Saturday when the kids got in it after the rain had already soaked it good.
People began filtering in around 4:00 and had a little bit of cool time before the wind and rain kicked in. But my colleagues didn’t let the rain bother them too much. Michelle and Shane had rented a bouncy castle and it turns out that kids enjoy those things even if they have puddles of water in them. We had about 6 kids who were completely soaked from head to toe; it’s a good thing that Michelle had told all the parents to bring a change of clothes or two with them. One set of girls even had their bathing suits in the car. As one little girl (pictured below) pointed out, next year, if it doesn’t rain, we can just use the hose … I like how she thinks.
Good food, good friends, good keg … great party! I wish I had more pictures but I didn’t want to drag the camera out in the rain … maybe next year …
It begins fairly slowly, the first morning walking the dogs and the humidity has been dialed back a bit, and even though it’s still in the mid-70s, you can feel that this 75 is different from the one you got at 6:00 a.m. a few weeks ago. And turning a corner, as you click the lock on the retractable leash, which provides all the instruction they’ll need to take off and perform their own morning rituals, you get just the faintest crisp-chill smell that says, unmistakably, “Autumn is coming …”
