Surprise. Surprise. Thirteen hours to roast a pig!
Surprise. Surprise. Thirteen hours to roast a pig!
" Hey you, I invited a few people over tomorrow for a pig roast. See what you can come up with for munchies and drinks."
"Stop calling me, Hey you, I got a name and don't you forget it, you ass! How many, is a "few" people that are coming? Your idea of few and mine are not the same. Are they bringing their own bottles?"
No comment from the Jerk who shuffled off to his channel changer and TV dropping his large bulk into a heavily stained chair that stunk up the whole house even though it had been treated with Woolite cleaner often.
Very early the next morning, a little after six, three men showed up to set up the humongous homemade rebar spit. They hoisted the pig up onto it before starting the fire in the three foot deep pit.
I started the day by going through three pots of coffee, a few pans of Huevos Rancheros , using fresh eggs from our hens and a nice fresh salsa with homemade flour tortillas.
Carrie cleans up the kitchen while the men go out to inspect the pig, smoke, lie to each other and bull shit in general.
The other women in the house get up and breakfast is served to them also. One is Carrie's elderly Ma and the other Carrie's daughter. They both want to help with the festivities right after breakfast dishes are done. This day was going to have a lot of dish washing and cleaning up!
While Ma tends to put away the clean dishes Carrie and her daughter start looking through the refrigerator seeing what they could come up with in a short time. Lots of bits and pieces of vegetables, a couple of cans of crushed tomatoes and a nice piece of barbecued steak will make a lovely large pot of soup. There is also half a loaf of Italian bread that they spruce up with more butter, Parmesan cheese, chopped fresh garlic and sprinkled with fresh chives from the herb garden right outside the back door. Carrie figures after the soup is done she can broil the bread then cut it up into small triangles to go with the soup.
Three more people arrive from the Seattle area, then another two from Yakima. Soon another four from Okanogan and another five from Mallot. Damn now there are twenty-one to feed!
Carrie goes back to the fridge and inspects what else there is to feed them. At least some brought beer and chips but that pot of soup will not feed everyone. Two of the women guests come in to say hi to Ma then both say they brought a big container of chocolate chip cookies, salad and rolls so they went out to the car and brought them into the house placing them on the big long dining room table.
You could hear the men laughing and telling stories at the pit while they were drinking beer. The jerk comes in and calls up a few people telling them to come over for the roast. Carrie overhears and groans to herself, isn't twenty-one enough! Everyone goes outside to look at the pig starting to get a shine on its hide from the grease leaking out. The men all take turns turning the 400 pound beast on the spit.
Carrie leaves to go back inside to tend to the soup and hunt for more goodies. A knock on the door reveals 3 trucks have arrived with
nine more people and a car with five, two which are small children. They did bring more beer, booze and also food with them, yippee!
Ma has now come in and sits for a while and watches the goings on saying how are you going to feed all these people? Carrie is inventive and gets out all the packages of open crackers and starts making up platters of finger foods using peanut butter, cheese, smoked oysters and anything else she can muster up. Te celery is stuffed either with peanut butter or cream cheese with raisins on top. Red and green peppers are stuffed with cream cheese rolled in black pepper. Olives and homemade dill pickles go on the platters also. What a great way to get rid of leftovers.
People start walking in to pick up a plastic cup of soup and a hunk of bread then go back outside to the roast that is now making the pigs in the pen squeal because of the smoke from the grease dripping on the burning logs below the spit. Carrie sets up a trash can lined with a big plastic bag over on the side for everyone to toss the trash into instead of the well manicured grass.
To counteract the sounds of the live pig squeals Stevie Ray Vaughan and Creedence Clearwater are singing as loud as the music will go. Soon five local cowboys come moseying in bringing more beer, sodas and more food. They all come in to pay respects to Ma because they all love her and her stories so much.
Well, at least the trash is in the can outside and the only thing dirty in the house is the white floor in the kitchen from so much traffic.
The neighbor from down the road, his wife and three grandchildren come walking up to the door and wonder what the great smell was coming through the apple orchard. They are invited to stay and join the festivities which they do.
The neighbors from across the ravine call to see if their is a fire, I say no a pig roasting party is going on and to come on over. They, their son and two children come over. These people knew there was no fire because they are overly inquisitive of other peoples goings on and I swear once I saw the sun shine their binoculars when they were looking over at us.
Oh well it is nice to be neighborly anyway and invite them over because there are a lot of people here and they may meet some they actually do like.
Finally John and Tanya pull on the side road. John brought in a basket of fried smelt but no one ate any because I heard one uncouth person say he wasn't eating any fish bait …he'd rather wait for the pig.
The pig was pretty much roasted after thirteen hours and we only had two small mishaps…Georgio was drunk and fell in the fire pit but only singed his jacked and John came into the house and flopped on a chair and broke it right in front of Ma who immediately said
"Is that old fool drunk?"
I told her yes he is but at least he wasn't tossing up on the carpet!
The party really was fun and it wasn't hard to feed sixty people.
© Julia A Knaake