Pork, Meet Dork

I woke up this morning, assessed my pre-shave beard scruffage in the bathroom mirror, then quickly noticed I had a shit-eating grin on my face.

I looked around the corner and confirmed Sandra Lee was not in my bedroom. 

Then I quickly realized the cause of my pure, uncompromised joy.

As I applied my shaving cream, I confirmed the events of last night's activities.

A few minutes after walking by Molto Mario's table on my way to our seats at Momofuku Ssam, a guy from his party came over with a plate of pork ribs they couldn't finish.  Mario looked right over at me (not unintentionally, I assure you.  He is obviously addicted to Foodie NYC and reads this blog obsessively.  It wasn't like I was the only member of our table in his line of sight at the time) and said something about the ribs being delicious. Curiously, there were Daisy May's wet naps on the plate (?). Our server refused to comment on such matters after further inquiry.  Impromptu, fall-off-the-bone BBQ goodness is how I would describe the start of the night at Ssam.

Next, we proceed to have the 'fuku pork buns.  You know how I feel about them.

At this point, I looked at myself in the mirror and realized I cut myself shaving.  Chin = bleeding.

Many other deliciously excellent things followed, but that's for another post.

Ah, right.  The reason for the excursion to Ssam - (not like you need one) - was the Bo Ssam, a.k.a. Ridiculous Berkshire Pork Butt Extravaganza.  I lost sense of time and Mario at this point, as I could only concentrate on the combination of pork butt wrapped in bibb lettuce and dosed with a truly excellent ginger scallion sauce.  A bit of hot sauce sometimes topped these seemingly endless bites of heaven. (Pork Butt photography courtesy of pork aficionado Laren).

I then thought about my preposterous activities upon leaving the restaurant.  I came home and anxiously unwrapped two little gems Laren brought back from Salumi, the pork haven in Seattle.  I recall  thinking that eating a slice of this salumi after the above feast was unwise and possibly even unhuman.  Yet I couldn't turn down the bizarre coincidence of eating leftover ribs from Mario and salumi from Pappa Batali in the same night.  At this point, I wondered whether I'd reached pork dorkiness.  I looked down at my protruding stomach and the multiple gashes on my shaven face and realized that why yes, I am a pork dork.

But after all those highlights, all I can think about is the cardamom-orange salumi I had from Pappa Batali's Salumi.  The intoxicating earthy flavor of the cardamom and the distinct pop of orange zest/rind was unusual, captivating and just insane - I can't get over how much I loved the combination of these flavors.  Truly inspirational.

By this point, I'm done with my shave and despite all this pork dorkiness, I somehow managed to escape with only two chin wounds.  Damn, I better not shave the day after I convince Sandra to finally stay over.  One would consider that a risk to my health, right?

Comments

[ليبيا]

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