Company Is Coming. Where Are The Ribs???

Today was all about hosts and guests.  We started out the day with a visit to Martha and Margoth's house that they share with their three kids.  Both of these ladies were in Melody's classes and were kind enough to invite us over for lunch with their family at their house.  The two families share the house so they can afford a place to live.  The house is basically two rooms, one of which is a bedroom and the other of which is another bedroom/kitchen, then in the back is a bathroom.  The running water is in a tap in the yard which doubles as their sink area.

When we arrived, they had a nice little carbon fire going with a grate over top.  Down here, they don't use briquettes or wood, they use carbon which is basically pre-burned wood.  It lights really easily and burns nice and hot.  Its perfect for outdoor cooking when you don't really have an oven or a fire pit to contain the wood fires.  We all sat down and chatted for a few minutes (Ken acted as translator), and then they put the meat on the grate.  They cooked up some beef skewers and some sausages over the fire, and when they were almost done, they brought out a lettuce and tomato salad, arroz con queso (rice with cheese in it), and boiled yuca.

Bolivians are a very gracious culture when it comes to having guests, and this was no exception.  The food they put forth is probably the most and best they could afford, and it was all very good, especially the skewered beef.  There weren't enough forks to go around, so I ate my food with a spoon and knife, and we had to share cups.  We have had the cheese rice many times since we got here, and today was the first one that I actually liked.  They also had a fresh batch of chicha to drink.  It was the first opportunity we have had to try it, but unfortunately, it was not to our liking.

After we ate, the kids got a chance to play with the 4 and 5 year old girls and to kick the soccer ball we brought around with the little boy.  We thanked them very much for their kindness after a little conversation, but we had to get going because we were having Tonchi, Jorge, Vivianna and Noelia over for supper tonight at our place.

Our guests for the evening had requested something that they wouldn't get in Bolivia, so we had decided to make lemon potatoes and pork ribs for supper with a spice rub that I use at home.  The only catch is that they don't really eat pork ribs here, so we knew it would be a challenge to find the ribs as well as the spices that I needed for the rub since most of the food here uses next to no spices.  We made our way to the first butcher shop and when we asked for pork back ribs, she held up a strip of some kind of pork meat, so we knew we were not going to find them there.  I am pretty good with my meat cuts, and I think that one may have been something we would have made sausage or dog food out of.

We then tried the supermarket and we managed to find most of the spices I needed except for onion powder which apparently doesn't exist in Bolivia that we are aware of.  We also went to the meat counter to ask about the pork ribs.  First of all, the supermarket here doesn't really carry much pork.  This is a chicken and beef kind of country, but they did have some pork today.  Sure they have ribs.......they are attached to the side of the pig.  They just aren't detached from the side of the pig.  So, that was when Ken remembered his friend whose family runs a pig farm and has their own butchers on site.

Ken called his friend and very carefully explained that we were looking for pork back ribs.  She called the butcher at their place and he said "Sure!!!! I know exactly what they want!!!  Skin off right??"  I had Ken confirm the description again, and we ordered 5 kg of ribs to be picked up later in the day.  Total cost $12.

Ken showed up at our door with a bag in his hand and declared "Here they are."

I brought them into the house where Melody and Lukas were peeling potatoes like crazy, and since we were running short on time, had everything laid out to season the ribs and throw them in the oven.  I opened the bag........now this is the scene in the movie where the camera starts in close on the actors face and his eyes get all wide and then the camera pulls back from the look of astonishment on the actors face.  Then it cuts over to the image of what the actor is looking at.  So to give you that image, I opened the bag and there before me was a 5kg side of pig with one rack of ribs still attached to the side of the pig.  ONE!!!!!  We are having 7 people over for supper and I have ONE rack of ribs and a side of pork meat that is unbutchered.

Has anyone seen the show on Food Network called Dinner Impossible.  Now I know how he feels all the time.  I got the sharpest dull knife I could find out of the drawer, and started to disassemble the different muscle groups from the side of the pig, and carefully removed the rack of ribs so we would have that one pristine rack to be served.  Then I ripped, tore, hacked and darn near gnawed off the silverskin and fat layers from the pork so we had a bunch of nice rib thick pieces of pork.  We threw the spice rub on as fast as we could and threw them in the oven.  Think the fun was over???? Nope.
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Remember that ovens here are propane?  The problem with propane ovens is that the temperatures are very difficult to keep constant, and its almost impossible to have a temperature in the over below about 350.  For ribs in the oven, I want 300 degrees, no more, no less for a good 2 to 2.5 hours.  When I checked them 1.5 hours in, they were done, and the sugars in the rub that were not on the meat had turned to a black caramel that had coated the bottom of the aluminum cookware.  But at least I still had that pristine rack of ribs as my show piece.

Roll the clock back about an hour from where we are and we will now talk about the potatoes.  We made lemon potatoes and had them ready for the oven in the other suite which they said we could use as well.  The time comes to put them in the oven, and we go over to do so and find out that the oven is too small to fit both pans of potatoes in on the same rack, and there is only one rack.  ARGGGGHHHHH.   I managed to wedge in the rack and the broiler pan as a second rack and get the door closed.

Everything finishes up fine just as the guests arrive, and we manage to put out a meal of bbq pork pieces, lemon potatoes, green beans and ONE PRISTINE RACK OF RIBS.

So, whats the moral of the story??

Next time, just cook chicken, yuca, plantains, french fries and rice.

p.s.  I tried to put pictures in, but the internet tubes were all clogged up today so it was taking too long.