Legal Halloween

Last year, Mary and I were still legally attached to our apartment. Emotionally, we had already moved into our house even though we were still over two weeks away from receiving the keys. Our solution was to sit on the porch with a blanket, a bowl of candy, and a flask of whiskey, and hopefully not look too sketchy.  This year, we were able to sit inside where it was considerable warmer, and still drink whiskey. 

Festive pumpkins

We hosted a Halloween Par-tay the weekend before Halloween proper. I tied it in with Pork Month by grilling up some baby back ribs for the first time. I glazed the ribs in a tomatillo-green chile BBQ sauce instead of the more typical ketchup/vinegar based BBQ sauce:

Garnished with cilantro and pineapple tomatillos

 The accompanying meat offering was teryaki chicken wings:

Featuring homemade teryaki sauce

Gnawing meat off the bone is good Halloween/zombie food.

I've also heard zombies are big fans of desserts, especially pumpkin pie...

...and pumpkin cupcakes with pumpkin cream cheese frosting:

The Oregon State-University of Washington football game was that night as well. Can you guess which team Luigi is rooting for?

Interception

--Isaac.

Slow Food

It is a strange thing to say that the easiest dinners I've made can take up to eight hours to prepare. I've made really good friends with my slow-cooker during my October pork celebrations, and am a little surprised the butcher down the street doesn't just automatically bring out a seven pound pork shoulder every time I walk in between October 1 and October 31. He tried to sell me a 11.5 pound chuck o' meat recently... and I almost did buy it...

Carnitas is a must when you are going to take the time to slow cook a pork shoulder. I paired the meaty goodness with some hand-pressed corn tortillas, but in true Zoolander/Hansel walk-off style, I had to duplicate and elaborate by adding in a salsa made with tomatoes and jalapenos from my backyard and garlic from my dad's garden.

The slow cooker was back in action a week later for some BBQ pulled pork:

Lastly, the customary pinnacle of pork month is the Halloween chili. Started this pot of goodness at 6am:

I was able to smell it from the driveway seven hours later when I returned home to let the oven repair guy in the house to fix the convention fan. He didn't once comment about how awesome it smelled much to my dismay. He must not have been a fan of chili, or happiness. I'm a fan of both.

--Isaac.
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