Beauty 365 … Stories of Love and Life for Everyday
Lock-down journey Day 38… When pulled pork is the highlight of your day.
On Day 38 we were kept indoors for most of the day, the weather cold and rainy. Fuelled by a beautiful online Mass, we pottered and dabbled in various projects, lazed around, read by the fire, pretended to keep busy actually, while we waited and anticipated. Something was stirring in the background, a quiet foreshadowing, a tantalising promise.
It started around 9am. The smell. Actually, first the sound, and then the smell. And I’m honestly starting to salivate as I recall it. A generous piece of rolled pork had settled on the skillet, and our senses went into overdrive. My daughter had initialised her plan for dinner; pulled pork sliders, a broadening of our culinary cache.
After a quick sear on the pan and a brief rub with oil and a mix of sweet and salty spices, it basically sat in the pan on a bed of chopped onions, and called for no attention until dinner.
At some point in the afternoon, fears were entertained. The pork was still quite firm, and nowhere near ‘pulling’. (Perhaps the cooking had been slowed by the number of times the lid had been lifted for a peek or a prod? I’m sure we were all guilty, at least a couple of times each!) But we put our faith in the slow cooker magic.
I won’t keep you wanting for details. Tender, juicy shreds of mouth-watering meat; the pork was the stuff of dreams.(The photo does no justice!) My daughter who is in the habit of going the extra mile when it comes to food, when it comes to everything actually, made a dreamy dressing for the coleslaw. Some combination of mustard, apple cider vinegar, and I don’t know what else, but the bun, slaw and pork saw us eating in almost complete silence, broken only by satisfied sighs and groans of gratitude.
I have been tossing up whether I should disclose the fact that we finished our meal with an incredible chocolate soufflé. OMG! I’ll spare you the details, at least, until another blog, another day.
