There's a Hog in the Bog

Alright...I'm sitting in my garage, watching the rain come down in buckets, trying to have a garage sale to rid our lives of old toys we don't use anymore. Morning was OK, but things are really slowing down. I guess it has something to do with people really don't like walking through rain storms.

Thought for a moment that the best thing to do was to crack open a beer and just chill for awhile...then I remember, we're driving to Peoria today. Why...christen our new hog roaster.

My competition partner retired back in February. We decided it was best to wait until the spring to have his retirement gathering. Also knew by then we'd have our hog cooker. Well one thing leads to another and now we're staring down the barrel of about a 120 - 140 person party tomorrow afternoon. What's for dinner...hog of course!!!

Here's the problem(s)

1) I've cooked one hog in my life. Turned out fine, but ended up having to quarter that swine and foil cause the cooker I was using was terrible. The meat got rave reviews that day, but I knew I could do better.

2) I'm going to use a cooker I've never used, matter of fact, the cooker has only been seasoned and cooked one pork loin. That's it.

3) Its been raining for what seems like 40 days. The yard is a bog. It'll be nice tomorrow, but all the work that needs to happen tonight is going to be very interesting. Its going to be messy.

And here's the kicker...I'm looking forward to this. It should be a blast. Sure might get a little sloppy (that's muddy not drunk) tonight, and storms are supposed to finally blow through about 2am or so. I've got to put food on the table at 3:00pm tomorrow. Expectations are high, margin for error is narrow. Sort of like a competition.

Will update over the next couple hours to catalogue this event.