Those following my blog will know The Mister discovered pulled pork while living in New York. We made it once, on the hottest day of our time in New York at Cousin Grant’s house, using a ready-made pulled pork starter from Williams & Sonoma.

The challenge was to see if we could make it back here and after not being able to find pork shoulder at Moore Wilson’s on our first trip there when we got back we thought we’d not be able to. However, I had another look when we were there yesterday and there was 1. Yes ONE. Must be something rare, or very popular here. However, no pulled pork starter so we had to make that bit up – we knew that we needed about 600ml of reddy-brown sauce of a particular consistency involving smoke and a bit of spice.

So we assembled a bunch of things from Moore Wilson’s and home

I felt like a kid in a garage in the 70’s making feijoa ‘jam’ out of feijoas and water (Mother you know what I mean) as I just poured and glugged random amounts of stuff into a jug and stirred it up until it looked the right consistency and colour

The Mister browned some vegies and the pork like he did in Cousin Grant’s kitchen and we poured the sauce over and popped it in the oven for 4 hours.

The house smelled very smokey and restaurant-like and when we finally got it out of the oven (look away vegetarians) it was ready and pulled apart very easily.

Assembled the burgers with a bit of the left over sauce concoction and YUM – a great winter meal. Would’ve been perfect if we’d had buns with potato in them (seems most burger buns do in the States) but they were fresh enough so went well. The pork wasn’t as spicy as our first attempt (a good thing), just tasted smokey and tomato-y. Very good.

And here’s what I think I put into the pulled pork starter (for a 1.35kg boned pork shoulder):

300 ml tomato sauce (bottled pasta sauce of just tomatoes & salt)
250 ml smokey bbq sauce
150 ml ginger beer
3 large tsp plum jam
half dozen glugs balsamic vinegar

Make a vegie base of onions, celery, carrot and sweat down until well cooked; brown the pork on both sides which will also caramelise the vegies. Put the pork and vegies into the bottom of  a casserole and pour the starter over. Cover and cook in a slow oven (about 150*C) for 4 hours. We turned the pork over half way but not sure if that’s necessary.

Well, this is belated … got so caught up in the real 4th of July that I forgot to acknowledge another year of blogging – 6 years since my first tentative (smaller) posts in July 2006. Last year I’d done 1230 posts, this year it’s up to 1514 so as I say every year, can’t believe how much I ramble on! Mind you 4 months of this year I’ve had plenty to ramble about – my ‘travel’ category is full of New York!

In all my raving about great coffees in New York I haven’t actually written specifically about Ninth Street Espresso, the one that tops our list of coffee favourites. We’ve mostly had their coffee in Chelsea Market but started out at the original cafe on 9th Street in November 2008.

The coffee is always good, the milk a great consistency, and it’s known all over New York as a benchmark and often other baristas train there. It got to the point at Chelsea Market that The Mister always ordered 2 coffees because they were so good! I have a Ninth Street Espresso pin I wear in my jacket and one time when I was ordering coffee the barista was very concerned that I wanted it in a takeaway cup, wouldn’t I prefer the experience of a real cup … I wasn’t sure why his concern that I get the best possible coffee until he pointed to my t-shirt! It was my Supreme shirt that used to be the official Supreme shirt worn by Supreme-qualified baristas in cafes in Wellington – it has a coffee handle on it so he figured I was some kind of expert. He also spotted my Ninth Street Espresso badge (only available at the 9th Street cafe) and was impressed to hear that we often went there to Chelsea Market from Murray Hill just for the coffee!

We have a bit of a history with them, having gone there on most of our visits to New York so I’ve dug out some photos.

Our first visit to the 9th Street cafe (November 2008)

Our first visit to Chelsea Market (November 2008)

Taking friends there for the first time (June 2009)

Some of the many visits to Chelsea Market this year

Ninth Street Espresso: 700 East 9th Street (Between Ave C & D) or 341 East 10th Street (Between Ave A & B) or Chelsea Market 75 9th Avenue, New York