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Sunday, Feb 05th

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In My Words

Site co-creator, Ryan Sloane, eyeing his work
Dine & Cook founders, John Kunza (right) and Ryan Sloane (left), preparing the shoulder
Smoking meat is hard, dangerous work
The end product, a perfectly grilled/smoke pork shoulder and a plan for a new food site

It was probably two years ago John and I first realized our eyes were a little bigger than our stomachs. He and his wife were kind enough to invite me to her parent’s place in the mountains one weekend, and he said we were going to barbecue.

Being from the Northeast, when someone says barbecue, I think burgers and hot dogs. But John had something different in mind. He wanted to smoke a pork shoulder. And it was up to me to find it.

So after a couple of days of researching the subject online, I found a butcher shop on the other side of town that could accommodate me. I phoned ahead and the guy I spoke to helped me out when I got there. He was a nice guy. He answered my questions. He didn’t rush me out the door. And when I paid him in cash, he didn’t charge me sales tax. So not only did I walk out of there with a 25-pound pork shoulder that looked like it would tip over Fred Flinstone’s car, I just found my new “meat guy.”

After a couple hours of just admiring the excessive nature of what we were about to do, we got to work on preparing this thing. We only had a vague idea of what we should be doing, but we were confident in our abilities... confident or cocky. Whatever faith in ourselves we had, it was entirely undeserved, since the biggest problem we ran into was the size of the grill we were using to smoke the meat. That's right. We used a charcoal kettle grill as a smoker.

It was that day we first toyed around with the idea of launching a food site that took a different approach to food.  It's been a long road filled with many challenges but we're both proud of the product we're launching with.  Like in the kitchen, there is always room for improvement and we just ask for your patience and understanding.

 

GoingGrannola.com

 

DamnFineEating.com