Leftover barbecue ribs? How is that even possible?!

Short answer: I blame Shirley.

Shirley is my next-door-neighbor. She's widowed, I'd guess somewhere in her 70s-going-on-30. Throughout the spring and fall and on pleasant summer days, her usual pastime is sitting on the porch and watching the world go by, and if you wander by, feel free to stop and sit a spell, she's quick to offer a glass of tea or mug of coffee. She's an excellent neighbor. We get together fairly often.

It all began when I was out getting sunburned yesterday. I'd just bolted a new stereo into Squeaky (which may turn out to be worth another blog post), and decided to go for a drive to test it out and quest for some lunch. So I slapped on some sunscreen (apparently not enough), put the top down, and headed out to points unknown. After lunch, I wandered back to this neck of the woods-- usually my 'put the top down and go for a drive' drives leave Prince George's county quickly--  we have speed cameras here. I'm not going all that fast, but spending half my drive looking at the speedometer rather than the world around me is somewhat contrary to the purpose of the drive. 

But I digress.

I had a few things on my grocery list and my path was going to take me by the Giant on the way home, so I stopped off for some groceries. As I crested the hill before I turned to go toward the parking lot, I could see smoke come up from over near the gas station, and I was reminded that there's a barbecue truck there I'd been meaning to try. But really, lunch was only about an hour ago.

The grocery run took longer than expected. Well, one part was completely expected: the coupons I had wouldn't scan. They'd only come out of the very same register, after all. As I was standing there waiting for the checkstand operator to finish giving a tutorial to the person in the lane next to me so I could finish up my transaction, I got a text message from Amy: If there's a convenient place to stop, can I get her some clothespins?

Now, this is something of a running gag between us, or it would be, if it actually were intended. She is spectacular at asking me to pick things up when I'm in the middle of checking out of a store that would sell what she wants. I don't know how she does it, but if she were five minutes faster in deciding what she needed, I'd make many fewer trips through grocery checkstands.

So I took my first round of groceries back to the car and went back for her clothespins. As we all know, one cannot make a grocery store visit in less than thirty minutes, even if it's simply, "walk in, go to the laundry section, identify clothespins, decide on plastic or wood, check out." I mean, that's five minutes, tops, right? I'd just been through the check-out. There weren't more than a single person in each line. This will be quick.

Right.

So two half-hour grocery trips later, I'm getting back in the car, and as I come down that hill, I see the smoke is still billowing out of the trailer. I'm gonna stop in for a snack. Maybe he does a small sandwich. Who knows?

The menu is a jumble of printouts posted in the truck's window, but from the chaotic mass of paper, some partly obscured by others, I determine that the smallest option, not counting side dishes like pico de gallo, is a half a rack of ribs. And I'm thinking that the fact that there's a line at the window at 3:30 in the afternoon may well be a good sign. It gives me time to wonder just what a Hispanic take on barbecue ribs would be. It also gives me time to notice that my timing may well have been good: his mobile food vending permit expires today. He might not be there next weekend.

I decide on just a half rack and no sides. As the guy in the truck is slicing my ribs apart, I ask, "Is that hickory you're working with?" It looked like it, but honestly, even barbecue themed botany is not my strong suit. In a fairly thick accent, he told me that it was hickory, then launched into a diatribe where he assured me he only ever cooks over real wood. No charcoal-- "Chemicals," he says. Same about the gas. "Chemicals." I didn't point out that, natural or otherwise, everything is made of chemicals. Partly that was because while his English was better than my Spanish, I wasn't sure between the two languages that I could get the point across. But mostly it's because I didn't want to be That Guy. Nobody likes That Guy.

A spare-cut rib. Note the "knuckle" on the left side, where
the rib bone is sliced through on the right. The other
common rib cut,"St. Louis" style, omits the knuckle and
doesn't slice through the rib. I'm not sure why they call
that a St. Louis style rib-- in St. Louis, if you ask for a St.
Louis style rib, they look at you funny. If you just order
ribs, you get spare ribs.

The ribs were spectacular. He uses a spare cut instead of the more popular St. Louis cut, which is fine by me-- there's some excellent meat up in that knuckle. It's tougher to get at, but it's tasty stuff.

Anyhow, I wasn't up for an entire half a rack, so I took them back home, and as I drove by, I saw Shirley out on the porch. I took the groceries in and offered Amy some ribs. Not surprisingly, she passed-- she's not a rib person. So I took the ribs next door. Shirley's son Scott was over, but he'd just eaten lunch and was not interested (so maybe I should blame Scott...), but Shirley dug in with me.

They were excellent ribs. People make a huge deal over a pork rib rub, but this was anything beyond simple salt and pepper, I'd be surprised-- and I'm just fine with that, as it was well executed. He'd done an good job trimming the ribs before cooking, they were cooked perfectly-- the meat came easily from the bone but you still could bite through it. Plenty of good hickory flavor, and a smoke ring that didn't come out well in the picture at all. I'd gone all the way to Pennsylvania for a decent rib last weekend, but it turns out they were right here all along.

I asked for the sauce on the side (as it should be), and I'm glad I got some. I've not had a sauce quite like it, and I'm guessing this is what I meant earlier by the "hispanic take on barbecue ribs"-- the ribs were simple, but if you wanted spice, there was plenty in the sauce. It's kinda what would happen if a traditional ketchupy barbecue sauce hooked up with a pepper-laden bowl of taco sauce and had a love child. It was very good. And yet, the ribs were so good I didn't want the sauce on my ribs.

Shirley and I each had three or four ribs, leaving two leftovers. I didn't want to ruin my dinner (I was making Larb in a few hours), and she was full. I offered Shirley the leftovers (I usually do when we get together, since I know she hates cooking for one), but she declined. So I blame her for leftovers.

As it turns out, that's not a horrendous felony or anything. Turns out there are things one can do with leftover ribs. Some went in my omelet this morning. And it was quite tasty. As was the barbecue sauce on top of it...

The modern fuel-efficient automobile.

Unrelated, but still on the subject of test driving, BMW invited me out to their "Ultimate Drive Event", where they have a number of their cars and some of their competitors' cars-- in this case, four different Mercedes-Benz models-- available to test drive. 

It seems I treated this completely incorrectly. Most folks were interested in driving the big V-8 powered $100,000 cars. I was interested in the other end of the spectrum. BMW's recently changed their low-end models from a naturally aspirated inline-six engine to a turbocharged four cylinder, and I was interested in driving that. I drove three different varieties, plus the lowest-end Mercedes they had, which had a 3.5L V6 under the hood.

I'll preface this by noting that I've never been a big fan of four-cylinder engines, and I really don't like "big" four-cylinders, up above two liters displacement or so. One might think this is because a four-cylinder is a small engine and doesn't make much power, but that's got very little to do with it. My problem with the four-cylinder engine is all in what automotive engineers call "NVH", Noise, Vibration, and Harshness.

An inline four cylinder engine (as opposed to a "boxer" or H-4 engine, like you might find in a Volkswagen or a Subaru) isn't mechanically balanced. This means they need a balancing shaft to cancel out vibrations that are caused by the motion of the pistons. They (along with their boxer cousins) also have the problem that the power pulses don't overlap-- four cylinders and four strokes means that each cylinder is doing one of the four phases of engine operation at any given time, unlike a 6 or 8 cylinder where there's some overlap. Both of these contribute to annoying vibrations.

Why I-6 engines (red) are rare: when you put the cylinders next
to each other (yellow) , you can fit the engine in more places. 

This is the big reason why I wanted to try BMW's new four-cylinder. BMW's one of the few companies left building inline-six motors instead of V-6s, because inline 6s are in both primary and secondary mechanical balance inherently, where V-6s require balancing shafts.  If they'd managed to get a four-cylinder to behave politely enough to replace their I-6, that's saying something, right?

Turns out the answer is, "Well sort of." Don't get me wrong-- it's not bad. Honestly, most modern I-4s and V-6s aren't. It wasn't the nice smooth experience you get out of an I-6 or a crossplane V-8 though. The turbocharger does mean they get adequate power out of a lower-displacement engine, which means it's not as harsh as a bigger engine, which is good. 

Overall, I like the new 2L turbo-- even in the de-tuned version they have in the 320i. But it is still a 4-cylinder. I was a little disappointed that this engine isn't a case of, "Look what we can do!". It's more, "This is what we're stuck with so we can meet the EPA's goals by 2015." 

Which is where the real NVH problem was with three of these (and more and more modern) cars. When a car's engine isn't spinning quite fast enough to make enough power to do what you're asking it to in a given gear, it "lugs". Unfortunately, right on the edge of this is where you'll get the best mileage out of a car; the slower the engine is turning for a given speed, the less gas it's using (generally).

The sound a car makes when it's doing this is like nails on a chalkboard to me. We grew up being taught not to lug the engine. We know it can lead to bearing failures, piston slap, all manner of nasty engine trouble. Sure, engines are better now... but it sounds horrendous nonetheless. 

This is the biggest problem with the tendency toward more and more forward gears on automatic transmissions-- The E350 I drove had a six-speed transmission, the BMWs I drove yesterday had 8 speeds. Chrysler and GM have teamed up to build 9 and 10 speed gearboxes. Eventually the sum of human endeavor will be put into building gearboxes with more and more gearsets in them-- or at least everyone who isn't putting more and more razor blades on a razor will be building these transmissions,

This just means that for any chunk of road in any given conditions, there are now 6 or 8 (or soon, 9 or 10) different velocities you can travel that will have you on that fuel-efficient but nerve-grating edge of lugging the engine.  And continuously-variable transmissions can always be there. Ugh. 

The three cars that did this  got much nicer to drive in "Sport" mode-- or, as Amy puts it, "When you push the JD button." (She's incorrect. The JD button is the one between the windshield and the sunroof-- the one that opens that sunroof.) The engine spun about 500 RPM faster and never felt like it wanted to lug. But when I put each transmission in manual mode, it was even better-- I didn't need 500 RPM to keep the engine happy, I only needed around half that. As long as I could get past the eons it takes an automatic transmission to shift (and they're SO much better than they used to be!), they all drove quite nicely. 

This seems to be a developing trend as we try to add more and more fuel efficiency to cars. It seems like just about every thing I've rented in the past few years also wants to ride on that edge of lugging the engine. 

Two exceptions were the BMW 328i I drove yesterday and Amy's RAV4. Neither lugs significantly unless you push the button that puts the car in "Eco" mode. I consider this a reasonable middle ground: If you don't mind that noise, you can have the extra half a mile per gallon (or however much it is.) If you do, leave it in standard mode and it'll sound fine. Hopefully more cars will begin to do this. 

Thoughts on test-driving a car

A friend of mine is in the unfortunate position of needing a new car-- unfortunate because when you're not a petrolhead, generally you don't want a new car. I was originally putting thoughts on how to test drive a car into her Facebook page, but it got awfully large, and I migrated it over here.

I think the first piece of the puzzle is to narrow down what you're looking for. We get annoyed at the office when someone wanders in and asks for something incredibly broad. "Hey, can you make me a web page?", they might ask. "Sure, what kind?" "Like you'd get to in Explorer. A web page." So I have to imagine that car salespeople get the same way. "I want to buy a car." "Great! What kind of car?" "One with wheels. And maybe seats." 

The other thing you need to do before you show up at a dealership is to be prepared to take notes. I made a little crib sheet to jot notes down on. There's a lot of stuff to take in, don't trust your brain to remember all of it.  I put space for each of the vehicles I was interested in on my crib sheet. When the salesman sees it, he knows you're considering other vehicles.

Once you're in the car, take a moment before you put the car in gear to go over a few things:

• How comfortable is your seat? Would you be okay sitting there for a long road trip? If not, try to adjust it closer to what you'd like. Don't forget to re-adjust the mirrors. Does the seat belt adjust to where it's comfortable and not digging into your neck?
• Listen. You're sitting in the car with the engine running but not moving, just like you would be at a traffic light or commuting on the Beltway. Does the engine sound harsh? Are you going to have to crank the stereo up to Mötley Crüe levels to drown out the noise?
• If you ever drive with the windows down, put them down and listen again. 
• Where's your left foot? Is there a "dead pedal" for it to rest on, or is the seating position high enough that it rests flat?  Or is it going to be dancing the left half of an Irish jig two hours into your next road trip, trying to get comfortable?
• Check your mirrors again. Can you get a good idea of where all four corners of the vehicle are-- you'll want to know next time you're stuck with parallel parking.

The salesman probably has a route he likes to use for test drives. You'll probably want to add to it-- he's not likely to take you to a rough section of road, and he may or may not get you out to the highway. Ask to do these things.

Ideally, he'll hand you the keys and say, "See you in a half hour", but that never seems to happen to me. 

This is kinda the "easy part" of the test drive. Most of how the car drives will be something you'll feel more than think about, but a few things to consciously note:

• When you're on the highway, listen to the car again. Does the exhaust drone? Will you be able to carry on a conversation with the hiker next to you? Do the tires whine?
• Can you see what's going on around you? Do you seem to have huge blind spots that no amount of mirror adjustment can fix? 
• Pay attention to parking the vehicle-- the salesman may offer to do it if you just pull it around front, but you'll want to know how tough it is to see the car next to you and how hard it is to get out of the car when you're parked next to another one.

When you get back to the dealership, sit there and take notes before you get out of the car. Go back over the pre-drive things-- still comfortable? Does the engine sound louder/quieter now that it's warmed up? 

Bring the tickets, genius.

It's around 0315, and The Schnork wakes me again. I'm not sure she's been comfortable all night; seems like every few minutes she's turning around and wedging herself up against me again. I'm not conscious, but I'm edging away from her, once again I'm teetering on the edge of the bed.

I'm wiped. I got in late last night since I was out at DeLee's birthday crab feast, and I was wound up enough that I couldn't fall asleep quickly. I reach over to the phone and tell it to switch to my fallback plan: I sleep 'til 0500 and reconsider my morning run. Reaching for the phone makes Beauty think it's time to rise and shine, but she quickly figures out that it's a false alarm. Somewhat literally.

I doze off again, but the Schnork wakes me a skosh after 4. Dangit. May as well get up.

One benefit to gorging myself at DeLee's is the pile of carbohydrates makes my morning run go by almost a minute faster than Wednesday's-- overall, sadly. A minute faster per mile would've been  nice, but we can't have everything.

I only have five hours left out of my forty at the office, and I've got just enough stuff going on that they go by pretty quickly. It's time to begin my weekend.

I head a bit out of my way over to Glen Burnie for some barbecue. As I order, the clerk paused me, and says "National Anthem." Sure enough, ESPN disappears from the television and a waving flag graphic replaces it. The classic rock on the PA drops out, and after a message noting they do this every day at noon, the national anthem plays.

Everybody in the place, including customers dining at their booths, stands and faces the flag hanging from the rafters in the center of the dining room. I'm not sure where I got so jaded about how people think about national pride that surprises me, but it's good to see. After a short round of applause, I turn back to the clerk. "Uh...", I ask, "Where were we?"

A three-meat platter at Mission BBQ

The brisket (they even ask if I wanted the point or the flat. Well, she asks, "moist" or "lean", but I suss it out.) has an excellent bark, nicely rendered fat, but surprisingly little smoke flavor-- oak, if I'm guessing right, which usually stands up better to beef. The sausage is nicely spicy, and usually I go for cheese bits in my sausage. The turkey keeps my attention-- it's excellent. The light smoke everything got works perfectly on the turkey. The creamed corn isn't bad, but I won't bother next time.

I wind my way up through Baltimore after lunch to pick up the southern end of I-83. It's not often someone drives an entire interstate from one end to the other in one day, and that's my plan. It's a good plan, until I smack my forehead not far from the Pennsylvania line: I've forgotten my concert ticket.

I've got plenty of time-- I had figured I'd have a few hours to explore the Hershey area before the show, but instead, I get to make a two hour or so detour back to the house.

I also give up on the thru-driving of I-83. The plan now stands at: head to dinner (more barbecue), then head down to Hershey for the show.

At Shakedown BBQ in Grantville, PA, I notice that they're out of diet Pepsi, but figured I'm in Pennsylvania, I probably ought to have a birch beer. I also made a big mistake: I forgot to ask for sauce on the side.

The Sampler at Shakedown BBQ

This place had fairly rave reviews, but leaves me pretty disappointed in everything but the ribs. The brisket has zero bark, and I suspect spent the afternoon in some au jus under a heat lamp. The sausage might've come from the grocery. The ribs are how I like them, though. This won't win any contests, since I like the ribs more tender than your average barbecue judge. 

The barbecue shack is  next to the local Hollywood Casino, so it turns out forgetting my ticket means I probably just missed out on a few hands of poker. I'm okay with that.

The Giant Center's not bad. After exploring the concourse to find which restroom doesn't have a line out the door (or anybody actually using it), I replace my disintegrating Vapor Trails era ball cap. I notice a moment too late that it's fitted-- it fits, but I usually don't wear fitted caps. 

Not bad seats for Rush's Clockwork Angels

My seat's pretty good, even though we're packed in like sardines. I'm glad I'm taller than most folks, but feel a little bad for whoever is behind me.

The show is good, though a couple of times it shows that the band's been off for a week getting back from Europe. I'm amused when Geddy Lee introduces "The Analog Kid" and notes that they're breaking out the time machine and heading back to the 1980s. I am already in the 1980s at that point, reliving my high-school years-- or I would be, if I'd really started collecting music by then-- since all six songs they'd played before that were also from the 1980s. I suppose it's more really reliving my college years (part II), as these are the albums that I'd bought after I moved out on my own and got something that was almost like a real job.

That time machine makes for an interesting crowd demographic. Many of the people there are my age or older, and there's plenty of energy when Rush is playing songs from that era. There is also a strong contingent of teenage sons and daughters of all the folks my age, and they don't appear to be spinning Mom and Dad's old records, they're downloading the new stuff. Much of the crowd settles down when we finally step out of the '80s and early '90s for "Far Cry" from 2007 but the younger set perks up. The ratio of old to young, though, means the energy in the crowd has ebbed at this point, which explains why the pyrotechnics start up here even though intermission is right around the corner.


Intermission gives me a chance to fire off the unedited version of this blog entry. The big guy next to me, about my age, had ducked out during Far Cry, and I get to spread out a little bit and relax for intermission.  The folks around me chat about the show, and I find myself being surprisingly chatty-- I have very little of my mother's ability to strike up a conversation with a random person.

As the intermission winds down, a group of string musicians files onto a platform at the back of the stage. It seems the orchestral-sounding parts of the new album will not be played using sequencers, which is a new one on me. Most of the Clockwork Angels album precedes some more delving into history. While the strings are live,  a chunk of the drum solo is using the drums themselves as sequencers for a very different electronic kind of sound. I'm guessing they turned off the microphones over the drumstand, because the drum sound isn't as loud as usual. It's obvious they intend to play an encore, since even though Rush is not a "Greatest Hits" band, they pretty much can't do a show without playing Tom Sawyer. We finish up the show finally reaching into in the 1970s with chunks of 2112-- the other song I'm sure they're pretty much required by law to play.

I'd realized about a week previously that if I get up at 0400 on a Friday, leaving a concert and driving two and a half hours home starting at 11:30 or so was probably a bad idea, so I head over to a hotel just outside Harrisburg. My satnav is convinced that the hotel has a driveway off of Interstate 81, so it takes me three tries to actually figure out how to get to the hotel. I'm pretty wiped, but yet, wound up enough that it takes an hour to get to sleep.

Not a bad day, all told, even if it hadn't all gone as planned.