Pork Butt III

I don't even know where to start. Pork butt continues to follow me; this morning my spouse announced that he wanted to spend the afternoon watching the Master's on a TV he rigged up in the backyard while slow-cooking a big piece of meat on the grill. My stepson points out that it was the most redneck afternoon ever passed in this household, not that any of us minded that. When the spouse further announced that the meat in question would be pork butt, I was outwardly supportive but inwardly aloof. Two butts in two months later, what did I really have left to learn about this meat?

What didn't I? The intense, crisp, deeply caramelized exterior, hiding the rosy pink halo of a properly smoked piece of meat; the toothsome, juicy lean meat with its untertone of mellow sweetness; the luscious fat, like the most delicate, yet mouth-filling, bacon you've ever tasted. I mean it: this meat was perfect. There is not one way it could have been better, and nothing that could have been simpler in the prepartion. A little salt rub to start, then four hours in a covered outdoor grill along with a wet log to smoke the place up.

We had it with sauteed red cabbage, onions, and apples, brown rice, and corn on the cob.

The picture does the meal no justice, but is the best I have.