Sunday, January 25, 2009

A Few Party Pictures

Early morning and the pork butts (4 of them) go on the smoker.


I like to use old barrels to smoke with. By the time we cut up a barrel, it's about 9 years old. I put the cut up pieces with the wine section facing up so it creates a wine steam in the smoker.


Getting the line up ready for everyone to arrive. A couple of the highlights we opened were a 2005 Sea Smoke Ten. The first bottle was corked, so we went to a back up. A 2004 Modus, 2005 Match Cabernet, Betz and Lewis Syrah, and a bottle of our 2006 Santa Cruz Mountains Cabernet. In all it looks like about 35 bottles where opened, including a late night run into the cellar for a 2003 Girardin Echezeaux.
There was also a fair amount of port, brandy and Scotch opened to go with cigars after dinner.


Stef ready for everyone to arrive.


The pork hits the counter. I did 4 racks of ribs also, and there was pigs blood, pig's ears, and bacon. About 35 pounds of pork total I'd guess. I'm having salad all day today!




This morning will be clean up and a trip to the gym :)



5 comments:

Anonymous said...

all that and no info on how the pork turned out? did the wine barrel staves work well with the pork? If so, got any extra? I'll promise to fire up the smoker while you are in TN....

Gerard

Paul Romero said...

I think it was damn good. We're graveyarding about 25 barrels! Stef's been trying to figure out the best way to get one to Nashville!

Anonymous said...

I'll send you a fedex number!

Gerard

Paul Romero said...

Here's our IM's from the past 20 minutes:

stefania: how much does an empty barrel weigh?
stefania: like, I'm thinking if tix to nashville one way are $99, that's the absolute cheapest way to get a barrel thee
stefania:send it first class.
Paul: 104 pounds
stefania: serious? I think sw cargo might be the way to go
Paul: yeah 104 pounds
stefania: well crud. It's $50 just to set up an account. Do we know anyone with a shipping account at SouthWest?
stefania: ok, well the "quick" rate quote for southwest is somewhere between 121 dollars and 175 dollars, plus a 50 inspection fee at our business location.
Paul: do they pick it up?
stefania: no.
Paul: I wonder if you could even get it on a plane
Paul: it smells like sulfur and alcohol
Paul: both explosive
stefania: checking fedex
stefania: fedex won't let me get a quote w/out an account. hm
Paul: go read the latest blog comment....

Stefania said...

UPS Ground $167
FedEx Ground $166

I could put staves in my luggage. TSA would have a cow with that I'm sure.