I was AWOL from the internet yesterday due to excessive BBQ consumption.
The only truly outstanding food from the Memphis area - the thing we do better than ANYBODY else, and if you wanna fight about it, bring it on - is barbeque. Memphis, like every other city its size, has a bunch of good restaurants and wonderful local twists on regional and international classics, but we're really most proud of our BBQ. I will be polite about anybody's well cooked 'cue - my momma raised me right. But my husband and I miss Memphis BBQ so much that we will have it Fedexed to us. His mom sent us two racks of ribs and two pounds of pulled pork from Central BBQ for Christmas! I get the ribs; he gets the pork. Two of each so we can dive in the day it arrives, and save the rest for the actual holiday. Yesterday was Cue Day, so I ate a whole rack of absolutely perfect ribs and then sat on the couch in a blissed-out daze all afternoon.
Pre-Fedex, I met the trimmer at S's and got Dixie's feet fixed up. He, like Aarene, has a horse that paddles on one foot and wears toe unevenly on that foot. And he saw the bruising, but agreed that if she's not lame not to worry too much about it. I volunteered to trim her in between his visits. I still want him to come balance her up perfectly every six weeks, but I'm going to work on the obvious stuff.
I did learn something cool - he said overgrown bars were making her back lateral quarters and heels flare out, and I could see what he was talking about when I looked at the sole.
Dixie is a pretty nicely put together TWH. I was noticing yesterday and today how she naturally tracks up perfectly - you can really see it in fresh snow. Just at a normal, uncollected, slow walk, her back feet land perfectly in the tracks left by her front feet. Usually, that means that at a faster gait, if she's "tucking her butt" correctly, her back feet will overstride where her front feet were by a couple of inches. Not that I would know - I don't have a very good view of her back feet from on top ;)
Today we made a bold expedition down to the end of the road and about a quarter mile in the snow. She kept a close watch for yetis. When we turned around for home, we had a fight about how fast she'd zoom home. Then I managed to quit fighting and relax and half-halt over and over again until she slowed down. And she actually did! Yay us! I was still in the "don't fight with her" mindset when we got back to the driveway, and I did not tense up and anticipate her falling down the slope on her forehand and breaking in to a trot. I stayed loose and asked her to go slowly, and she did.
One day we'll actually condition again. For now, we'll just do mental conditioning. It's all good.
The sun went down behind the western mountains today at 3:51 pm. It didn't get really dark for an hour after that, but still! I can't wait for the solstice.
how cool you got it shipped to you!!!
ReplyDeletereal bbq? i'm not sure i've ever had it, but i know that since i left seattle, bbq places have opened, and pulled pork sandwiches have become popular. i have no idea..
but i do remember being in san francisco with my friend from texas, and we went to a bbq place. he was so angry about it! he said "they seriously cannot call this bbq!"
i have no idea.
i'm in germany now, so of course i have no way of experiencing it. the best thing for me is, i can actually find the hickory smoke flavored bbq sauce if i go to the right store in the right city.
how i wish i had an idea.
~lytha
ZOMG--- BBQ..... If I could girl, I'd ship ya some of my FIL's. Funder, I have NEVER had anything like it..... Foodgasm. Thats all I can say. FOODGASM. Course, you had one w/ yours too! LOL
ReplyDeleteYeti... lmao.... oh geesh...lol love it!
Lytha, the sauce is just bonus. The secret is in slow smoking the meat over a cool fire for hours upon hours - I think it's 6-8 for ribs, and 18-24 for a pork shoulder. That's where most people go wrong - they pull the meat when it tastes done, but you need to wait til it's falling apart tender.
ReplyDeleteThat's one reason I like ribs, actually - I can instantly tell how tender they are. Pulled pork sandwiches can be shredded off a not-quite-tender shoulder and they taste pretty good but not quite right. My life is too short to waste on bad cue!
Anyway, cook meat over smoke til amazingly tender, then add your sauce of choice. I am a sauce agnostic; I admit that other types of sauce are also tasty.
Mrs Mom - BBQ makes the South much more bearable, doesn't it?!
No yetis yesterday, but I will try to get a pic if we see one today ;)
Funder, we once travelled to Tennessee and Georgia with a Texan, who gave us an in-depth tour of barbeque.
ReplyDeleteO. M. G. I have never eaten so well in my life!
In Tennessee and Georgia, he taught us, you choose a BBQ place based on the number and size of the pig trophies displayed in the window. (In Texas, the trophies have cows).
Here in the Swamp, bbq=salmon. But we don't have fish trophies.
RE: feet, my farrier balances Fiddle's feet, but also recognizes that God made her with a funky foot, and that OVERcorrecting the Almighty's handiwork can make a horse lame.
I hope my farrier lives forever. I learn so much from him!
I know what you mean about REAL bbq.
ReplyDeleteWhen my niece from Texas comes to the Pacific Northwest for Christmas, she brings a suitcase full of REAL frozen Mexican tamales - ahhhhhhh!
- The Equestrian Vagabond