Fearless Football Forecast

Barman, on occasion, expresses his opinion about upcoming football games that are of interest to him. Most notably he predicted that Miami would beat the Jets in the last game of last year's season. Despite being accurate, it won him no accolades with his many friends who are Jets fans.

Here, however, are my fearless picks for today.

The Jets will prevail and the Vikings are going down (unless a Viking runs a kickoff back over 100 yards and Favre throws the game-winning touchdown with just seconds left to play, but c'mon, lets get real, like that is ever going to happen).

I am about to make my pulled pork sauce this morning, the pork turned out falling off the bone tender again. I will post a couple of pictures later on or tomorrow. My buddy Bernie will be swinging by at 10:00 A.M. so we can head out to Bob and Loretta's to catch the game.

It is Bob and Loretta's anniversary so the Mysterious Chinese Woman baked a chocolate cake from scratch to help them celebrate. To my knowledge this is the first cake she has ever baked. From the "little taste" that I had it is pretty good. Once she has it decorated I will snap a picture of it and post it.

I talked to Sam at Pete's Waterfront Ale House yesterday about the pork. When I told him how I cooked it he kind of laughed. He said I was supposed to cook the pork butt until it had an internal temperature of 185 degrees, not cook it with the oven set at 185 degrees. He was thinking the oven should be at 225 degrees. When I told him how well it turned out he said if it works, keep doing it. My philosophy is that if the oven is set at 185 degrees eventually the pork butt will get to be that temperature as well and you have no chance to overcook it.

Of course Sam said he usually cooks about 30 pork butts at a time, so his method would be a bit different than mine. And he keeps an eye on his meat while it is cooking. I just go to bed.

He did give me a tip for ribs. He says he marinates his ribs with apple cider overnight, then pats them dry and applies the rub. He also said he keeps a spray bottle of apple cider handy and peridoically gives them a spritz while they are cooking.

"Edible Brooklyn," a free magazine that has food-related articles featuring Brooklyn establishments and residents has a full page article about Sam's Famous Hot Sauce. If you ever stop into Pete's Waterfront Ale House be sure to try some. But be careful, it is hot, hot, hot.

Just a reminder, next Sunday is the Atlantic Antic, the best street fair in New York. Sam will have both pulled pork and pulled beef brisket sandwiches available for your pleasure.