Baby It's Cold Outside!

Back in the Spring of 2007 when we were busy packing the household preparing for our relocation to The Land of Palm Trees we methodically seperated our belongings into two groups. The one group, items that we would no longer need moving to a more temperate climate was not a large pile, but it gave us some degree of comfort knowing that snow sleds and the such would not be needed where we were headed. There were other "cold-weather" related items that we deliberated over, coats, scarves, wool-caps, ski-gloves, boots and the such. For the most part, we packed most of those items and loaded them onto the truck, just in case. Last evening, as I bundled up to head out the door for my nightly drive to the hospital, I was glad that I had not only packed my Columbia ski-parka, but also my wool scarf and warm ski-gloves. This morning, I was uber happy to have those cold weather garments at the ready for the chilly walk to my car and the drive home.


Maybe my friends "up-there" would consider me a wimp, they may even surmise that since moving South my blood has gotten thin, that's what happens to us transplants, No? But seriously folks, 19 degrees is cold, no matter where you are, especially in the Lowcountry. During our first Autumn as Lowcountry Transplants my wife coined a phrase that was not only clever and appropriate at the time but has been the source of some degree of comic relief to us occasionally when the outside air carries a chill. Not long after moving to Charleston during the hottest and most humid summer on record, our son began his high-school football season at Summerville High School playing football for the legendary John McKissic. It was August, and it was steamy. The opening game of the regular season was scheduled for Saturday afternoon, August 29th and would be televised nationwide on ESPN. The high temperature that day would hover in the upper 90's. At one point during the game, I was genuinely concerned that my wife was about to have a heat stroke. Less than two months later, in early November we sat huddled together in the bleachers on a clear and crisp full moon Friday night, shivering. The temperature by the end of the game had fallen into the mid-fifties and we were cold. Now, you are probably saying to yourself, "cmon, fifty degrees isn't cold." I don't know how to explain it, some say that it is due to the moisture laden air being so close to the ocean, but fifty degrees here doesn't feel like fifty degrees "up-there". At any rate, as we hurried to the warmth of the heated leather seats in the car, my wife says, "how can any place with all of this sand and palm trees be this darn damn cold?"

It does get cold here, at times it gets down right frigid. This morning was one of those times. And when it happens, it gets our attention. But the good thing is, when a really cold snap occurs, it doesn't last long, a good example is this morning when the mercury hovered around nineteen degrees, this afternoon it is pushing fifty. In fact, the temperatures are forecast to be in the upper sixties by the weekend. Also, our coldest days and nights are cold due to the absolute crystal clear sky overhead, that means sunshine and that means NO GREY SKIES OVERHEAD AND ALL AROUND.


I know that most of my northern friends really have lost their patience with us when it comes to boasting about our weather. I also know that I spent the better part of forty-five years of my life living in a place where winter comes early and stays late, and we are talking about dark winter, no green trees, over-cast and dreary days, can you say UGGGH? As much as I love my family and friends, as proud as I am to be a West Virginian, as much as I enjoyed the changing of seasons and the excitement of a winter storm warning, I just can't imagine myself ever enduring one of those winters again. It is somewhat humorous to watch the progression of attitudes towards the bleek cold winter weather as it develops. Facebook in addition to being a great tool to keep connected to friends all over the world, through it's status update feature provides a strikingly accurate glimpse into the effects of the seemingly constant battering by Mother Nature. The early part of winter arrives with the excitement and anticipation of "snow days," a rare phenomenon here in the Lowcountry (rare but not entirely unheard of). Gleeful cries of bliss quickly transition though into various pleas for mercy. "I hate winter!" "Really, another winter storm." "I miss Summer."I need a vacation!" "Will the sun ever shine again?" I think you get the picture. Fortunately, for us that is no longer a part of our daily toil. After spending forty-five years of my life where Winter was like that, I guess you might say, I have seen the light. And because of that, I just can't understand why people continue to endure those types of winters, especially those who are already looking forward to the end, when it is really just beginning. Except of course, I was one of those people until one cold January day in 2007 when I decided, enough is enough. So, I will continue to bundle up when the temps drop below fifty, knowing all the while that before long my coat and scarf will return to the back of the closet. No matter where you are today, or what kind of weather you are experiencing I hope you have a great day, and to my West Virginia University Mountaineer Football Team, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE beat Clemson tonite in the Orange Bowl. Let's Go Mountaineers, From The Land of Palm Trees.

The Perfect Butt For New Years

Nothing sends delicious aromas circulating through the house on New Years Day like a Barbecued Boston Butt slow roasting in the oven. Especially when the roasting process combines the pork with the trifecta of onion, celery and carrots. Add a little red wine to the mix and the result is heaven in a dutch oven. After roasting the pork, I will let it cool down to the point that I can comfortably work with it, and within hours we will be enjoying some Lowcountry Pulled Pork sandwiches paired with homemade cole slaw, hoppin' john and angel biscuits. Yum!

I actually prefer to use my outdoor smoker to cook my pork barbecue, but this morning for convenience sake (the smoker method is a little bit more high maintenance than the oven) I decided to use the oven and use celery, carrot and onion along with some red wine to impart the flavor to the pork instead of applewood smoke.

I start by dicing up an onion, a couple of stalks of celery and a peeled carrot.

Next I heat just enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of a dutch oven and brown the butt on all 4 sides.

With the roast browned and resting on a tray, I add the vegetable trifecta to the oil and cook for a minute or two, then blend in a 1/4 cup of red wine and simmer for another minute. Finally, I finish the ragout with 1/2 cup of chicken stock and let the blend simmer for about 5 minutes flushing out all inhabitants from every nook and corner of the house as they scurry to the kitchen to see what I am cooking.

After simmering the ragout, I put the seared pork back into the pot, seal with a tight fitting lid and pop it into the pre-heated oven (250 degrees) and let it roast for 2-3 hours, until the meat falls apart.

Once the roast is done I set it aside for a couple of hours to cool then simply "pull" the pork apart shredding it into flavorful strands of pork barbecue. At that point, you can either toss the pork with your favorite barbecue sauce or leave it "un-sauced" and serve various sauces on the side. I prefer to leave it "un-sauced" because in my house, some like traditional sweet and tangy 'cue sauce and some like a golden mustard/vinegar based sauce. I happen to like both, so it just makes since to serve the barbecue naked (the pork not the server) and let each person decide how to dress the 'cue.

Before enjoying our New Years Day dinner of pulled pork, slaw, hoppin' john and some tasty little angel biscuits with honey-butter we hung out on the back patio reading for a bit. You have to love life From The Land of Palm Trees, while my friends up in the mountains are prepping for 3 days of wind, snow and frigid we are enjoying a mild New Years Day by the fireside.

Happy New Year! Are You Ready For Some Football?

It's New Years Day, a day rich with tradition. Pork, Hoppin' John, Sauerkraut, Champagne Toasts and FOOTBALL. In fact, other than Super Bowl Sunday, New Years Day used to be the pinnacle of the football season for most of us. Sadly, in my opinion, over the past 10-15 years changes have occurred within the political world of college football, and wouldn't you know it, politics has college football all pooched up. Back in the day, all of the "big bowls", the important ones, were played on New Years Day. Your day of football viewing would start early in the morning with the Cotton and Rose Bowl Parades, and usually at about 1030am you would begin your vigil in front of the television with the kick-off of New Years Day football games. About 13 or 14 hours later, you would peel yourself off of the couch, turn the TV off and head for bed. The only problem, we finished the entire college football season and had no idea who the national champion actually was. Oh yes, there were opinions, but there was no definitive system in place to determine a true national champion. But all of that has changed for the better today, or has it?

Oh sure it has, for instance, now the big bowls are called "BCS Bowls" and there is a clear-cut and non-controversial system in place that insures that the "best" teams go to the "big bowls." Yeah, right, sorry Hokie and Wolverine fans. Also, from a "viewer friendly" standpoint, what is better than having the Orange Bowl on television in "prime time" on a Wednesday night after we have all gone back to work and school? I mean you can even see that by having the game played mid-week on January 4th, that thousands of fans from both teams have elected to stay home and watch on television, no big deal there. Now that things are better the schools involved measure there seasons success by how much money they lose on ticket sales. But boy how nice, no more channel switching or planning out our New Years Day football menu in order to see bits and pieces of all of the big games.

Of course the current "BCS System" and the unbelievable control over the world of college football that the executives at ESPN currently brandish like a steel saber have made things better by guaranteeing that we now have a National Championship Game between, unequivocally, the two best teams in the nation. Right? I mean finally, a game, where regardless of which team wins we will have a CLEAR National Champion, Right? Hmmm, ask an LSU fan that question in the event that Alabama wins the repeat version. And after all, a full week between the other "big bowls" and this mythical, albeit official, National Title game for the network to hype and hype again the big event. A week for all of the other, un-worthy teams to recover from their insignificant seasons accomplishments in order to gather and watch "The Game Of The Century; Part II."

Now, don't all of you SEC fans bristle here and assume that I am attacking the SEC, because that is not true. I acknowledge that in as accurate a manner in which two teams can be deemed the best of the best in a system devoid of a tool that involves a tournament style format, LSU unquestionably should be included and Alabama has at least an equal claim as any team other than LSU to play in "the game." There is no question, your conference is the strongest, especially at the top. Although, I will also say that there is a bit of amnesia clouding your perception through those Crimson colored glasses. Throughout history, football conferences ebb and flow in the greatness category, just ask the Big 10, the PAC 10 and the Big 12. Having said that, if a format with characteristics similar to those used to determine a champion in the NCAA basketball tournament were in place for football, chances are the final game may very well not include both LSU and Alabama.

Let me talk about a playoff system for a moment. The naysayers claim "it wouldn't work." OK, yeah you are probably right, it fails miserably in the two systems on both sides chronologically of NCAA football, right?(insert sarcasm here) High school football which produces the talent pool for NCAA Football uses various playoff systems to determine their champions in each state, and it works. On the other end, the NFL where the best college football players land after college has a playoff system that works, so obviously it just wouldn't work in college football. Wow, I am not making this up folks. And after all, the bowls would never allow it to happen. Hmmmm, each year the bowl games other than the Mythical National Championship game lose more of their luster, as more focus and glory gets shifted to the mythical Championship Game, and how many years of losing money for participating in a post season BCS bowl game will it take before some of the University Presidents and Athletic Directors and Conference Officials begin to realize, while the bowl games provide a venue and some nice cocktail parties and meet and greets, it is the schools and the conferences that own the product, the attraction, the talented players. And the conference executives and university presidents have proven themselves to be shrewd operators with creative minds. I wouldn't be surprised if they couldn't devise a system that would generate more money for the participating schools, could you imagine that instead of a month of practice time between Thanksgiving and January 9th you had an Alabama vs. Oklahoma State game or a South Carolina vs. Boise State matchup. I can only imagine the excitement if on New Years Day, the football version of the final four looked like this: LSU vs. Oklahoma State and Alabama vs. insert name of Cinderella opponent who through the proper mix of luck, destiny and heart elevated itself to the final four. But no, things are much better as is, sure they are.

So enjoy your New Years Day traditions, hopefully the food and fun will fill the void left by the lack of a New Years Day filled with bowl after bowl of college football. Hopefully 2012 will be the best year, so far, of your lives. Happy New Year, From The Land of Palm Trees.