A digression: we have a little family game, if it can be called that, of creating a menu for the overly dignified. Imagine your particular hate figure of the day, say a pompous politician: what do you serve them that will bring them down a peg or two? Not nasty foods, but messy. Watermelon slices without cutlery. Spaghetti with a liquid sauce is a good choice; I think a whole crab or lobster takes some beating, cracking claws and sucking meat out of them; a soup I was given (hmm, thinks...) on my first trip to Indonesia, whose main component was fish heads. Pig's trotters. You get the idea. BBQ spare ribs fits that scenario too.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if the Mansion House Speech gathering was given such a menu? Politicians, bankers, media tarts and dignitaries with faces dripping with crab juices, stained with BBQ sauce, their court dress jackets or formal gowns splashed with ragu. Not going to happen sadly. Can you imagine the devastation Nicholas Soames and Eric Pickles could cause during that meal? Eating people is of course wrong, but it's hard not to think of either or both eyeing neighbours covered in sauce and not for a second being a bit tempted.
Tonight we are eating two racks of pork ribs, a reward for Sternest Critic in midst of exams, and for us all as we have managed the two veggie nights and one fish this week. They went into the oven to steam gently at two thirty, the smell of the meat and the spicy dry-rub (cumin, celery salt, fennel seed, two dried chilies, salt, pepper, juniper berries, smoked paprika thanks for asking) now permeating the whole house, and will have in total three hours of such treatment before being finished with a coating of sauce in a hotter oven.
Another hurrah for Morrison's on this too, they always have ribs on their butchery shelves, with Booth's it is about 50/50, Sainsbury's one trip in four or five unless you want to buy ready-processed pre-sauced ones, which I don't. Two substantial racks cost well under £6, the price of one half-decent sirloin steak but they'll make a feast for three of us.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if the Mansion House Speech gathering was given such a menu? Politicians, bankers, media tarts and dignitaries with faces dripping with crab juices, stained with BBQ sauce, their court dress jackets or formal gowns splashed with ragu. Not going to happen sadly. Can you imagine the devastation Nicholas Soames and Eric Pickles could cause during that meal? Eating people is of course wrong, but it's hard not to think of either or both eyeing neighbours covered in sauce and not for a second being a bit tempted.
Tonight we are eating two racks of pork ribs, a reward for Sternest Critic in midst of exams, and for us all as we have managed the two veggie nights and one fish this week. They went into the oven to steam gently at two thirty, the smell of the meat and the spicy dry-rub (cumin, celery salt, fennel seed, two dried chilies, salt, pepper, juniper berries, smoked paprika thanks for asking) now permeating the whole house, and will have in total three hours of such treatment before being finished with a coating of sauce in a hotter oven.
Another hurrah for Morrison's on this too, they always have ribs on their butchery shelves, with Booth's it is about 50/50, Sainsbury's one trip in four or five unless you want to buy ready-processed pre-sauced ones, which I don't. Two substantial racks cost well under £6, the price of one half-decent sirloin steak but they'll make a feast for three of us.
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