Suburban Redneck

With Ash Wednesday rapidly approaching, Cajuns are getting ready with pork-filled festivities. The annual “grand boucherie,” or pig slaughter, is taking place all over Louisiana. Read Cajuns fete Carnival with pig slaughter for all the yummy details. Speaking of the annual “greased pig” contest, the winner said:
‘This was my first time, and I’m so excited,’ [...]

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We had great hopes when we first read about the Texas Smokehouse BBQ in east San Jose. Reviews were generally good, and comments were encouraging. The location was a bit out of the way, but, since my wife now teaches school in that part of town, it became an option for picking something up on [...]

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It’s always difficult when you get a hankering for a certain savory something, and it’s just not available. For example, just yesterday I called my brother as he was driving through the local Chick-Fil-A to pick up his lunch. A Chick-Fil-A, for you of the untutored masses, is one of the world’s best fast food [...]

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The pigs were back this evening: a momma and her two little ones. Here’s the best picture I could get of the mother.
The two little ones were brown, but the sow was a full-blown black-haired razorback.

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No, I’m not talking about the movie. I’m talking about feral pigs.
In Southeast Texas, where I grew up, we call them javelinas. In much of the south, they’re called razorbacks. They were popular among hunters because the quality of the meat as well as the fact that they could be pretty dangerous in a fight.
Whatever [...]

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Our neighbors are rather quiet and unassuming. You see them and their kids all over the neighborhood, sometimes even sleeping underneath the trees in the back of the house. Here’s one of them inspecting our car.
In Texas, we would have suspected that she would dress out to only about 40lbs. of meat, and thus [...]

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We had lunch at Armadillo Willy’s Roadhouse Café in Gilroy yesterday. When I first moved to Silicon Valley in 2000, Armadillo Willy’s served as the “most acceptable” substitute for real (i.e., Texas-style) barbecue available. The focus is on beef, not pork; they serve brisket, not tri-tip (a peculiarly Californian cut of meat); and they smoke [...]

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