The Yum Yum Factor

Whenever I find fresh poblano chilis at the market, I choose to see it as a sign from the cosmos, telling me that I need to make a batch of chili verde STAT. I am not one to ignore such signs but was seriously considering just taking them home to toast and freeze for a later date when I then turned the corner to see that pork shoulders were on sale. At that point it occurred to me that I would bring a pox on my house if I kept walking. It's like the universe wants us to eat more pork. Add to that the fact that I am working on a recipe that would require some sort of pulled pork and two pork roasts were in my cart before you could say Tha-tha-tha-that's all folks! Chili verde, a soupy stew of pork, tomatillos and green chilis, is more Southwestern than straight up Mexican and if we are going to be all hung up on authenticity, we should be using hatch chilis. I have been told, much like Texans refuse to call anything with beans in it chili, the fine people of the south...

There is a small grocery store near my house that marks meat down every day so that they can make room for the day's new shipment. Most of the time the meat is still a good day or three from it's best by date and there is ALWAYS a pork shoulder or pork butt marked down. Every time I go in there it's like they crawled into my brain to see what kind of meat I want to find on sale that day. Last week I got some lamb stew meat for half price and chicken thighs for a song.  This particular pork butt was marked $5 off so how could I not buy it? I am unable to walk past a discounted chunk of pig. It is what it is. It's also gotten really cold and stupid out there so suddenly I find that my crock pot is calling to me. It also helps that my kitchen is STILL not all put back together so I can't get really exited about making anything that involves too many appliances or surface prep area. I feel like we are living in a dorm and relying on nothing but a rice cooker, a cro...