'Cause I Want It All or Nothing At All

Excerpt from our dinner conversation last Friday night:

L: "I remembered what I want to get up early tomorrow morning and do: go to the gym"

Me: "That's fine.  I was already planning going to yoga."

L: "Okay good"

Me: "The other thing we need to do is get that wedding gift and 2 baby gifts for your friends.  We HAVE to do that this weekend.  The babies are both like a month old and the wedding already happened."

L: "Whose wedding gift is this?"

Me (said with an eye roll): "Adam's!!"

L: "Oh yeah.  (brief pause)  Where do we need to go for all these?"

Me: "Bed, Bath, & Beyond for the wedding gift.  I'll have to look up store locations for the baby gifts"

L: "Then we'll have to get up super early to do all that."

Me: "Really?  Why?"

L: "Because I'm going to use the smoker like we'd talked about a few days ago and I'm starting it at 11 because it needs to go all day."

Me, bewildered: "11!  What are you smoking?!?!"

L: "The pork shoulder and the ribs we bought on Sunday"
Me, in a very alarmed/panicked tone (I couldn't help it): "What?!  Why are you smoking ALL of it??"

L: "It takes SO LONG to smoke anything.  It's so annoying to set it up AND you have to be there the whole time the thing is going.  If I'm going to have to be at the house all day, I just want to do it all at once and get it overwith."

Me: "But L, WHO IS GOING TO EAT ALL THAT?  We are TWO PEOPLE.  There is NO. WAY. we need that much food OR that we can eat that much food."

L: "We'll eat the ribs tomorrow night and then figure it out with the shoulder.  We'll just eat it for the whole week."

Me, thinking: There is no way I want this much pork.  How am I here again dealing with the mass meat fetish???  How did I honestly not see this coming?  Doesn't he realize we STILL have leftovers in the fridge from THIS week even though I've been eating them for lunch every day?  So many thoughts.  So many thoughts RIGHT NOW about how much I dislike this plan.

L: "Fine.  FINE.  Whatever."

Me: "Oh my gosh, don't be mad about this.  We do not need to make this. much. food.  Definitely use the smoker, but this just seems ridiculous!"

Scene.

Yeah.  L's plan for Saturday was to go work out and then come home and smoke everything in the freezer (okay not everything, just everything that we'd bought for future use with the smoker).  We bought a pork shoulder and ribs last weekend at the store, but I was still so thrown off by the broccoli attack that it literally NEVER occurred to me that he would think about making both items at the same time.  NEVER.  I had a small hand in selecting the meat, but again, I was so thrown off by the broccoli incident that of course we came home with a 5-pound shoulder.  I remember making a point to tell him at the store that when we smoked the shoulder, we should have people over and hang out.  Like, during football season.  Because we'd already be home all day anyway watching games and people like to eat while they watch.  He was on board at the time.  I woke up earlier than him on Saturday morning and looked at how much the pork shoulder weighed (5 1/2 pounds) and resolved that a multi-meat smoking session just would not happen.  Especially since he wouldn't be here this week to eat whatever leftovers we had because he had to go to Phoenix for work.  Luckily, once L got up he recognized the error of his ways and agreed to hold off on the should and just do ribs and 4 chicken wings that were in the freezer.  This was extra good because the ribs were much bigger than either of us remembered.

The end result: L has stumbled into a dry rub recipe that can only be described as magical.  We're talking freaking DE.LISH.OUS.  The smoked chicken was just so good.  I wanted a whole meal of just the chicken, but unfortunately we only had 4 wings, so that was really more of a hint of the future chickens we'll smoke.  It was all so good that it didn't need sauce.  And best of all: I wasn't left to eat pulled pork all by myself for the entire week.  WOO HOO!!!