This morning I got up at 6:30 and saw that the brisket was not completely done yet and that it was approaching the proper temperature. At 7:30 Xavier was up and showered and we went outside and moved the roasting pit to the back yard and set it up. We filled it with briquettes and with charcoal lumps. It took a whole bag to fill in the boxes. At 8am we went and picked up the pig and then we removed the brisket and the baked beans from the smoker. I was surprised at how much of the fat from the brisket had dripped into the baked beans and skimmed most of the fat out of the container. We started lighting up the pit and eventually put the pig on at 9:30, even though the people at Tarini’s said that the pig would only take 3 hours max. My plan was to cook it low and slow and then crank up the heat at the end to crisp up the skin. My probes worked well and were actually quite accurate as we were able to easily pull the meat at the front of the pig, but the meat at the rear was a bit more tougher. I spent the whole day doing things between making a chimichurri, cowboy butter and all of the other prep work I had to do. I managed to do most of the cutting of the brisket and the pig and then I was too tired and let someone else do that portion of it. It was great to have so much help throughout the day as people helped us out quite a bit. The only thing that were missing were Agnes and Patty who bailed at the last minute when we had planned a big introduction for the two of them. They are friends of my sister who were going to come and then did not, so I figured that I would mention it in my blog. Agnes was awesome enough to bring me back a rosary from the holy land. It will not be included in my collection and it is quite a nice rosary. It is easily in the top 100 of my favorite rosaries that I have. The dinner went well and everyone enjoyed all of the food. There were quite a lot of leftovers and they handed out take out containers for everyone. We should have bought the 500 pack of take out containers from Costco for events like this, but Mel did not want to have so many containers in the house. Whenever we have get togethers we end up handing out quite a lot of things for people. During our cuttting the meat and clean up, one of my meat probes were lost. Mel and her family went through the recycling and green bin looking for it but could not find it. I eventually found it in the garbage mixed with a bunch of strings that we threw out. I think that it was totally worth the cost of hosting such a party, and we could have easily fed so many more people. There ere so much left overs.
Tomorrow we will have a bit of a lax day I think and we will need to deal with the rest of the cleanup of the house. One of my cast iron pans that I had used was not dried right away and has some rust on it from being left out to air dry. I will fix it tomorrow and will season the wok so that Xavier can then use the single small wok to make his own fried rice. Our family gave us some awesome gifts and my sister-in-law got me my 4oz ice cream scoop much to the dismay of Mel. She does not think we need 4 different ice cream scoops, but now we have a 2.5oz, 3oz, 3.5oz and a 4oz scoop. The 2.5oz and 4oz are Zeroll ice cream scoops which are professional ice cream scoops and very important when scooping out ice cream. I also got the Lego McLaren helmet for one driver so obviously I got the other one ordered and should get it tomorrow. Mel’s aunt asked if I was going to build them and Mel said that I would probably leave them in the boxes. She is right as I have a bunch that I have not built. When we rebuild the office, if I get a display case for them then I will build them.
Growing up there were not a lot of Asians in town, and I did not necessarily try and socialize with many. Every Saturday morning we use to go to Sudbury Secondary School where we took Chinese lessons. They were rather boring and I did not enjoy attending them at all. As per usual I was never much of a rule follower and would disrupt the class often, much to the dismay of the teacher. When we had recess we were supposed to stay in one part of the school, but I would take the students and wander into the forbidden areas. We would often not get back in time and classes would be disrupted. At the end of the year or when we took breaks I am sure that the teacher would make some sort of comment to my parents, but they did not seem to care too much because I never got in trouble. We would have weekly homework and I did not ever do the homework, while the perfect student my sister would do it. I can not even remember how to write my name now as anything that I had learned at that time I am pretty sure I have forgotten. I do regret not taking more effort to learn more about it as it would be useful now. Years later we saw the teacher again and she made comments about how wonderful my sister was and how not wonderful I was. Poor teachers who had to put up with my ridiculousness and my disruptions to the class. I wonder now how I would put up with a student like myself. I think that it would annoy the hell out of me and I would most likely not pay attention to them. When I taught at the University I remembered the top students and the bottom students. All of the one in between I would not know. I would have been one of the bottom ones. I know that one of the comments that I have had from students was that I had a lot of untapped potential. It was not until years later where teachers knew how to push me and I had more success. I appreciate those teachers a lot more now, knowing how difficult I was.
Q