Vegetarians, You Have Been Warned

August 3, 2010

This post better viewed at it’s original location at The Passionate Plate.

This is the little piggy that went to market…and then was devoured by a hungry horde in the shadowy depths of a forest of redwoods. The plot for a blood and guts slasher movie? Perhaps. Or a Slow Travelers picnic in the Oakland hills?  All the better.

But first, let’s go back to a time before the little piggy. . .

Last Saturday a number of us who’ve met online in the Slow Talk Community gathered together for their annual picnic. Now, I’m not sure how many years they’ve been meeting without me but now that I know all about their clandestine pork-fueled, wine-drenched summertime soirees just try to keep me and mine away. Seriously. Just try. Dare you!

L’amore della mia vita and I had a wonderful time meeting and greeting with folks who love traveling, food, photography, and iCrap as much as we do, and who apparently love all things fermented, bottled, and corked even more. I’m estimating the ratio of wine bottles to attendees was approximately 1:1, excluding small children and people like myself for whom all wine, whether domestic or foreign, poured from a tinted bottle or tipped from cardboard box tastes like red wine vinegar. Cheap red wine vinegar. And here we are, planning to spend two weeks on a vineyard in Tuscany. Go figga.

But let’s return to our shared appreciation for the culinary arts. Blest be the tie that binds. Amen. Just how much do I love a cheese platter with name tags? “Hola! I’m Buenalba from España.” “Well Hola yourself Buenalba! I’m Camellia from America!” Happy cheese. Happy me.

.

And don’t even get me started on Mark’s World Famous Zucchini and Cheese Red Peppers, which I’m reasonably certain were never considered a finger food until I was set loose on them. Heaven calling, God wants his vegetables back.

.

But who are we kidding?  Let’s get back to the real heaven….hog heaven that is, where pig is king and Eden (the pig bearer) is the saint who crowned him! Indulge me while I recount King Pig’s entrance. There we were, gathered in the dewy shade of a grove of redwood trees when a uniformed park ranger comes driving up in a golf cart with the pig laying in the back of the open bed, the sun breaking through the trees casting a brilliant glimmering light on his crispy-skinned goodness. I weep at the remembrance. Give me a moment to collect myself.

I now have an admission to make. More than eating the pig and a tasty little swine he was, I loved tearing that bad boy apart. I don’t know. Maybe it’s one too many viewings of “Chainsaw Massacre” but I had a blast! It was like carving the Thanksgiving turkey only bigger and porkier.

And no sooner did I finish up and wander away than a gaggle of people even more disturbed than I swarmed in and picked Porky clean. How clean you ask?

.

.

.d

Just try to find a morsel of meat on those rib bones. Dare you. Double dare you.

What can I say other than these are my kind of people. Each and every one. Thank you Judy for organizing a fantastic event.  Thank you Chris for the most divinely-inspired salted chocolate chip cookies known to exist on this earth (I’ll share her recipe in the next week when I bake them for church). And thank you Susie for sharing your gadget geek husband with me.

A wonderful report and more photos of the day and the pig can be found over at Eden’s Wanderings and Wonderings. Eden. The Pig Provider. The Saint of Pork. The Lady of the Lechon.

There I go. Getting all teary-eyed again.

Posted in Food, Food Finds