Jodi's Blog

First, I'm thankful for all the good friends I've been lucky to have in my life... it's truly a blessing. The bbq went beautifully today, but I need to stop cooking for 50 unless I actually have 50 confirmed attendees :) Everything turned out well -- the turkey was a big hit, and even though I thought the brisket was a little overcooked, I was able to trim it up nicely.

Pictures are here. Someday the house will be completely clean, but we're not quite there yet. Still it wasn't horrible :)

The final menu was:

Appetizers:
Onion dip with potato chips
Jalapeno popper dip with corn chips
Cheese tray with breads
Veggie tray with ranch dip

Mains:
Pulled pork (pecan smoke) with a wide variety of BBQ sauces
Brisket (Jim Beam/oak smoke)
Turkey breast (brief marinade in Williams Sonoma turkey brine with orange juice, then a maple smoke)

Sides:
Macaroni salad
Potato salad
Cole slaw
Corn Salad -- this went over really well
Cheesy potatoes
Cinnamon apple slices

Desserts:
Strawberry Jello Pretzel Salad
Texas sheet cake -- didn't like the recipe or execution, turned out like pecan fudge with a weird spongy base
White chocolate macadamia nut bar cookies
M&M bar cookies

Way too much food, but it's nice to have people fed and happy :)

Well, the meats are all smoked and tucked safely in the fridge. White chocolate macadamia nut bars, M&M bars, and strawberrry pretzel jello salad is stowed in the fridge. Tomorrow morning it's Texas sheet cake, jalapeno popper dip, and corn salad left to prep. Everything else will be washing and drying salad greens, chopping veggies, and blocking drinks in ice. I'm thoroughly exhausted, but today also brought news from my biopsy... the cancer is gone :) We're still doing another three months of treatment (minimum) but if I clear the biopsy in three months, then we get sent over to the fertility doc.

Wiggle your big toe...

Despite my inability to actually publish my blog post last night when I wrote it, today has been good! I got up at 5am to take the rubbed butts out of the fridge to warm up. Around 6am I went out and fired up the smoker, and joy and success! It actually got hot this time! Since the 12lb butt was actually two pieces of meat, one about 5lbs and the other 7lbs, I put them on separate racks and popped them in. This time since we're having so many different smoked meats, I decided I wanted to keep it simple and just do one wood per meat. The pulled pork got pecan wood, which I just love. It's not quite as strong as a hickory or a mesquite, but it gives a good flavor.

I started this so early because I was afraid it was going to take 18 hours to cook. It was mostly hands off -- I did have to change the drip pan around 1:30ish, but other than that, not much to do. The temp held steady, and even went a little on the hot side -- I was aiming for 220ish, but it got up to 250 at times, probably because it was 95 degrees outside. I decided to poke around with instant read thermometer around 5pm. Clearly getting readings up to 200, so it's done! I pulled both of the butts out and they were falling apart. I snuck a taste, and it's wonderful, and moist. Big success!

Tomorrow I'll smoke the two 5 to 6lb briskets that I got. They are currently marinating in an absolutely delicious mix of apple cider vinegar, worcestershire, garlic, paprika, pepper, salt, brown sugar and olive oil. I picked up some Jim Beam oak barrel smoker pucks today at Bass ProShops, and I think that will complement the brisket quite nicely.

Saturday, I'll smoke the turkey that I've yet to procure. That will be brined tonight and be ready to go by Saturday morning. Tomorrow I'll cook the desserts: scotcheroos and a few other things. Saturday morning I'll finish up the dessert offerings and make the corn salad and prep veggies. Then some artful arranging of spaces and a quick shower... then magic!

Sooooo, I'm really hoping a lot of folks show up to the bbq. Why? 12 pounds of brisket, 12 lbs of pork shoulder, and that's before the turkey shows up. We got the smoker fixed tonight, and I've got brisket marinating, and the pork shoulder is sitting with a rub in the fridge. Tomorrow, I'll be smoking the pork shoulder all day.. and that will magically become pulled pork. Friday the brisket will be smoked, and Saturday, the turkey or turkey breast will get its turn in the smoker.

I went to Costco tonight and grabbed some hotdogs and some frozen burger patties -- we used to love those at Globalcenter bbqs. Picked up some Tillamook for the burgers, some chips, lemons and limes and some other stuff.

In brief, the megace is having some effect on the cancer cells, as of the 3/17 biopsy. Today's biopsy did not go so well -- don't go into an endometrial biopsy with a full bladder, a helpful tip from me to you. The doctor wasn't sure she got enough of a sample for pathology to read this time, and holy hell, it hurt like a bitch. The bad news is my doctor is packing up and heading back east at the end of July. The good news is that we'll do a D&C and implant a Mirena IUD to dose localized progesterone, so that we can cut down on my oral dosage of megace... since I'm still packing on pounds :) I'm trying more behavior modification on that front, so hopefully we can actually kick this crap to the curb.

I'm not terribly happy about losing my doc, but hopefully I'll still be in good hands. Fertility-wise, we're going to see how this continues to react to the drug treatment. If I can get rid of the cancer cells and get my weight down, we can skip the whole surrogate process and I can just pop out my own puppies, though not plus 8 style please. Despite being quite sore, I'm pretty happy that we're seeing some progress.

Now, that just leaves me 3 days to clean house and get a big-assed BBQ together. Definitely looking forward to having people out here -- I just hope it's not blisteringly hot or rainy.

Another busy week as we lead up to Nanog, and start hitting stride with summer. We sent out an invite for a larger gathering in two weeks. So far a tepid response, but I know that summer weekends fill up fast, so I'm not personally offended :) Hopefully we'll be doing this on a fairly regular basis throughout the summer so no biggie if people miss this one. I'm looking forward to a new menu, and new challenges with additional folks.

The rest of the week was just planning and organizing for the trip to Philadelphia. Since my crocheting sucks, I've decided to try my hand at quilting again. Luckily Philly has a fair amount of fabric shops and quilt shops... which means I'm packing light and bringing an extra suitcase for any fabric finds.

I'm happy to report that the first BBQ was a success. Good friends and good times (hopefully) were had by all. Per usual, I made way way too much food, but most leftovers either freeze well, or are easy to repurpose. The Jalapeno Popper Dip from Big Red Kitchen was a hit. My only modification there was using 4 ounces of mild jalapeno rings in place of the green chiles. Plenty of heat from the 4 ounces of hot jalapeno rings though, so it was yummy and spicy. To save all of our waistlines, I did trash the leftovers on that one, but I'd definitely make it again for a party. Other items included pulled pork from the broken smoker; various marinated chicken parts (and I apologize for still not quite knowing how to cook chicken well on the Weber :), green salad, potato salad, coleslaw, and au gratin potatoes. Desserts were chocolate chip bars, white chocolate macadamia bars, scotcheroos, and a black forest trifle. I made tea and limeade, and we had a bunch of other drinks. Ron was wise enough to bring a Sam Adams variety pack (who knew they had such things!) which was perfect for those who do beer. I pre-made enough things that I was actually able to relax and enjoy the party and the company, yay! Clean up was also a breeze, so I went to bed happy.