Pole-d Pork

I missed the Big Apple BBQ this year. Of course, considering how well it went last year, I’m really not all that broken up about it. A Yankees stadium hot dog is just about as good as a Southside Market Elgin hot sausage anyway, right?

I thought I had wallowed only briefly in pork-deprivation misery. A co-worker who was also going to miss the event and I wasted some quality time by toying with the idea of going on the ultimate NYC BBQ crawl; starting in Harlem at Dinosaur, hitting Hill Country and finishing up in the borough of Kings at Fette Sau with sundry other stops in between. It would be a crawl for the ages, for science, for culinary infamy!

Those 15 minutes were the last time I thought about barbecue (I thought).

We’ve had a 2 pound chunk of smoked pork loin lurking in the refrigerator since last weekend. The Boy bought it last weekend for our aborted dinner of rhubard and roasted carrots, but instead it just sat and waited for it’s ultimate calling.

We had no plans for it other than sandwiches. We’d picked up some Jalapeno Sauerkraut from those freaky, fun Hawthorne Valley kids, impulse purchased some lovage and bought a loaf of bread, that was it.

Yesterday was really hot. Finally. It’s been raining like summer here. Most evenings have been punctuated by massive, roiling thunderstorms that have drowned my radishes and ripped my basil to shreds, and yet the temperature has been struggling to stay above 70°.

The tomatoes look miserable. You can tell they want some heat. Maybe not day after day of near 100° heat wave heat, but something. I think they’ve finally gotten what they wanted. One day of near 90°s and they look happier already.

I’m happier, too. We finally found a fourth chair and can begin having people over for dinner, like real adults. We pushed ourselves through the Park Slope throngs and summer sunshine to haunt stoop sales to no avail. Just as I and my legs were about to give up, we found one and were able to take a seat on the subway platform and return home triumphant.

The Boy assumed the sandwiches would be a thrown together affair; sliced pork and kraut straight from the fridge. But despite the heat I felt a little warming up was called for. Ibroiled the pork for a few minutes and then kept it warm in the oven. The kraut got mixed in with sautéed onions and simmered with sherry vinegar and a few lovage leaves to provide a counterpoint to the piquancy of the chiles.

Two slices of bread, a slick of slightly-sweet Colorado mustard, a mound of kraut and a few slices of pork all mooshed together and the meal was complete. Pure heaven. We contentedly munched away, oohing and aahing over how something so simple could taste so good. I think I used the term “taste symphony” to describe my culinary happiness.

The Boy had other ideas. “You know, if you closed your eyes, this could easily be an Eastern European precursor to a North Carolina pulled pork sandwich,” he said. “I don’t think you’d ever actually see a sandwich like this in Poland,” I replied with a sniff. He sat there, looking at me, munching and contemplating and then an idea struck him and he laughed. “Maybe you could call your post about this Pole-d Pork!”

Apparently I hadn’t forgotten about the barbecue after all.

Head below the jump for the recipe for Pole-d Pork Sandwiches.