recipe from Dave Lieberman on the Food Network

For the dry rub:
2 tablespoons salt
about 40 grinds black pepper
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons ground coriander

12 ounces good ale or dark beer, such as Bass
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 5-pound pork butt (shoulder)

Combine rub ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Rub all over pork butt. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour and as long as overnight.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees F.

Unwrap pork and place in a roasting pan with sides about 2 inches high. Cook 45 minutes until dark browned and even blackening in places. Remove from oven.

Lower oven to 325 degrees F.

Pour beer over the top and add chopped garlic around the pork.

Cover tightly with heavy duty aluminum foil or twice with regular foil. Poke about 10 holes all over the top of the foil. Cook pork butt 2 1/2 hours longer until so tender that it comes away very easily from center bone.

Place the meat on a plate and pour the pan juice (there will be plenty) into a saucepan.

To the pan juices add:
1/2 cup ketchup
3 tablespoons Worchestershire sauce
1/3 cup dark brown sugar

Bring to a simmer until reduced by half and thick, about 20 minutes.

While the sauce is boiling down, pull apart the pork with 2 forks.

The original recipe has you pouring the sauce over the pulled pork before serving but we kept it separate and added as much as we wanted.

This pork butt was only $1.99 a pound, so we got a ton of tasty pulled pork for a great price. Delicious!

Pup really enjoyed the bone! :)

My recent San Diego trip was busy, but since I brought my rollerblades with me I was still able to see a good bit of the beach area around the hotel. 14 miles of inline skating lead to the evidence below:

The Catamaran resort on Mission Bay - though a bit overpriced, it was pleasant and it has a nice location.

Just east of the resort on the Mission Bay walk. This was a great place to rollerblade with smaller crowds and less sand on the sidewalk.

Taken from the oceanside walk just a block from the hotel. The Crystal Pier can be seen in the distance.

The other side of the Crystal Pier (and taken on Monday, the cloudy day)

Also taken from the ocean-side walk.

I only ate out three times, all along the beach. World Famous was the closest, with a great location looking out on the Pacific, and reasonably good food. I posted earlier about JRDN and I hope to bring Leandra back the next time I visit. Last, and not least, The Mission Cafe, was great for breakfast on my last morning.

Last night after picking Eric up at the airport at 1 o’clock in the morning, I walked up the stairs of our front porch and tripped.

Want to know why I tripped?

Granted, these Old Navy flip-flops cost me all of $3, but I wore my previous pair for two years and finally retired them when the foam started to wear through.

I only started wearing these a few months ago. I guess they don’t make $3 sandals like they used to.

Now I have to find another pair. Hopefully one that won’t maim me.

While I wouldn’t entirely credit “Mr. Wizard’s World” with influencing me to major in biology years later, I watched that show religiously on Nickelodeon. Cool experiments that could be done with ordinary items—I loved that show.

RIP Don Herbert, and thanks for giving us an entertaining look at science.

Dinner @ JRDN in San Diego - pork chop in a bernaise sauce with risotto and maui onion rings. Delish!

postscript - The whole meal was amazing, including the chocolate soup dessert!

I’m at a conference in San Diego for the next few days, and luckily, the hotel is on the bay and across the street from the ocean. Rough life…

Eric captured this moment of pup and I napping yesterday afternoon. For the record, I laid down first, then pup crawled up against me.

Riesling had a busy morning, a 2 mile rollerblade followed by the gutter cleaning service “attacking” the house, and then a hour at Petco with the NC Schnauzer Rescue (NCSR). She was exhausted…

I just like to take naps. :)

New photos from our backyard are now up!

• May
• June

One of the big US news items today was the postponement from enforcing some relatively new passport regulations. Basically, a recent change was made such that if you are traveling from anywhere outside the US by air, a driver’s license is no longer be acceptable for re-entry. You need to have a passport. This has caused an enormous surge in applications and subsequent delays in issuing passports, which lead to a lot of complaining to Congress. The AP news release quoted a great comment:

“To say people must have a passport to travel and not give people a passport is right up there in the stupid column,” said Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., who urged the State Department to lift the rule last month.

Personally, I like the idea of a stupid column, but I digress. While it was reasonably well publicized that this change was coming, most people procrastinate, so it’s pretty obvious to expect a surge in applications. The State Department should have been better prepared. Thankfully our passports are up to date and won’t need renewal for several years. We can only hope that this will have been cleared up by then.

Edited (by Leandra) to add: Mine is actually up for renewal soon, in 2009. I certainly hope this isn’t still going on two years from now.

I saw this blog post today titled, “The Disneyland Price Comparison for Park Fees” and a few of the comments got me stirred up again about a recent experience at Zion National Park.

We received a 2007 National Parks pass as a Christmas gift last year and the nice thing was that it only cost $50 (because it was purchased in 2006), instead of the $80 it would cost today after the recent price hike. In fact, we took this trip because of this gift and we plan to use it again in August when we visit Glacier National Park.

The first time we used the parks pass was in Shenandoah NP in early May and the guy simply swiped the card and we were on our way. We had no idea that procedures were more strict out west.

We arrive at the Zion NP gate and hand over the card and the woman immediately asked for an ID.

No problem.

Then she asks if this is the first time we’ve used the card.

No, we used it about two weeks ago.

Her next move is to punch the “May” month on the card, effectively expiring our card then and there.

When she handed the card back to me, I (thankfully) noticed this mistake and asked her about it, letting her know that our card was supposed to be good until the end of the calendar year.

She stared at me for a second, and left the booth to go ask someone else. When she returned she told us that because our card was now expired (thanks to her mistake), she was giving us the option of “upgrading” to the current parks pass for an extra $30.

I almost lost my mind.

And this is where Eric jumped in.

After much back and forth, including her never admitting that she screwed up and telling me that “she was in charge here and knew what she was doing,” (when she clearly didn’t) we were finally told to drive over to the parks office and they would issue us a new 2007 pass—which is the result we should have gotten in the first place. This time we had “Dec” punched out immediately to prevent further mishaps.

I get it. She didn’t read that the pass was for “2007″ and made a mistake, but at least APOLOGIZE and certainly don’t act like you are doing us a favor by allowing us to pay more for a replacement pass!

For the record, we never had another problem the entire trip, including on our way back through Zion, entering from another gate. It’s a beautiful place, it would be nice if the people at the front lines were a little more helpful and a little less bitchy.