trayf grillin'

you know what's tasty, lean, and much cheaper than steak? no, not the baby white girls that obama eats for breakfast. pork chops!

i've never really been a big eater of pork. well, that's not true. when i was saying that 2 years ago that was true. but that was before i discovered carnitas at chuck's. so now i eat lots of pork. also i ate pork in georgia. did i mention i liked it?

anyhow, despite increasing my pork intake lately, i have not ever cooked much pork. i think i pan seared a pork chop once right out of college. pretty sure i never ever grilled any pork.

until last night. three pork chops (mixup at the grocery store, my fault. meant to get two, went a little hypoglycemic, ended up with three) with rub and sauce straight out of one of weber's grilling books.

weber's grilling books: i think i have to recommend them. the sauce was freakin great (side note: we used annie's organic ketchup. not because i'm pro-organic or enjoy paying 4 bucks for a small amount of ketchup, but because i'm sick and tired of getting HFCS not only in places where it's unhealthy, but in places where it's simply not necessary. it's a cheap filler and it's a clear message from heinz and hunts that we don't care about you even remotely, so we'll replace real food with this industrial byproduct. anyhow, that was yesterday's reason for buying annie's: it was the only one with no hfcs (well, heinz' organic also had no hfcs, but annie's is made relatively locally). today's reason for buying annie's ketchup: it tastes fuckin' awesome. guess what happens when you can no longer fill bottle volume with HFCS? that's right: you have to use real tomato to get your bottle volume. so, to the extent that the sauce was great last night, i think i have annie's to thank, in large part.). the rub was pretty good though the chop didn't come out as pretty as the picture (close!). i overcooked it a little but i am entirely unsurprised: grilling is an art not a science and i need to get my skills down.

speaking of art and skills, i learned something last night: the only thing i was grilling was my three pork chops. i have a huge amount of grill space. i got really nice grill marks on side #1, but side #2 was lackluster. why? because i flipped them in place. i could have flipped them to a hotter part of the grill and gotten nice sear marks on both sides. lesson learned.

however, this raises a question: how would i get good sear marks in a crowded grill? e.g., there is no hotter place to flip them to, because there's ribs or squash in the way?

anyhow, i'm a pork fan now. though slightly overcooked they were damned tasty (oh crap, now i'm swearing in addition to not keeping kosher!), super quick to make (the rub took me a good while to make but i'll get faster and make bigger portions of it) and the sauce hid any cooking defects.

tonight i'm smoking a salmon fillet with a jerk rub and jerk dipping sauce. it'll be my first attempt at smoking in my grill. aye, some say it can't be done but i am confident that a man of science such as myself can make it happen.