Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em

On Memorial Day, after poking through the town-wide garage sales here in the Point with our cousins Jan and Sherry, scoring a pair of purple suede gloves and giant American flag, we headed off with Cora to a Greyhound Get-Together in the Oakland back yard of our friend Jeff. All the other six dogs milling around in the yard were rescued greyhounds - Cora was the only exception. They are elegant dogs, graceful, sweet, funny and surprisingly calm. They are also very tall dogs and most of the food at a barbecue is exactly nose height for them.

We spent some time shooing them away from the main course, pulled pork that Jeff had nursed through 17 hours of smoking, getting up every two hours to check the fire. His efforts were well rewarded - this was easily the best pulled pork I have ever eaten and that includes having eaten some of the best in the world down in southern Virginia and North Carolina where they know smoking and they know pork.

He uses a dry rub on his pork butts, then smokes them indirectly on his Weber grill. It's not a fancy setup but the results are heavenly. We built pulled pork sandwiches topped with cole slaw and surrounded by toasted buns, nibbled on corn that had been grilled on the Weber as well, and enjoyed learning more about greyhounds, their lives before and after racing, and the people who love them enough to rescue them once their brief racing careers are over.

Cora spent the entire afternoon listening to her genes (the vet thinks she's half border collie and half German Shepherd) and herding the hounds - she was on the go the entire time. She will sleep all day today as a result, no doubt dreaming of smoked pork.