While my birthday isn’t until Tuesday, my friends took me out to celebrate last night. Kat reserved us a table for 16 at Daisy May’s BBQ for their “Big Pig Gig”, a whole 30+ lb. pig with a bunch o’ sides. Our special guest of the evening (besides me of course!) was food celebrity David Rosengarten. For those not in the know, David is a wine and food expert who hosted what is arguably the best show the Food Network ever had, called Taste. He was what the Food Network was about back when foodies still watched it and the network knew how to produce quality programming, not like the pop-culture marketing circus it has become. David was old skool Food Network, so I was really thrilled that he came out to celebrate my birthday with us.

The side dishes came out first so we started eating them while waiting for the main event. We started with the “Texas Toast” which tasted to me like beautifully buttered and toasted brioche with an addictive sweetness to it. But talk about addicting, the creamed spinach was ridiculously good; a rich but still vibrantly spinachy thick puree. That was the one side that I just couldn’t stop dipping into even after I was full. The creamed corn was also excellent with its sweet kernels in what appeared to be a cheesy cream sauce. Sort of like a cross between creamed corn and mac and cheese. Nice.

Eventually they brought out what we had all come for, the glorious whole pig, majestically splayed out upon a giant cutting board. The server cut in thru the skin of the back and made flaps which he peeled back to reveal the perfectly cooked meat within. Plastic tongs were handed out and we all went to town on it. The pork meat itself was as tender and juicy/fatty as you could hope for. Really quite a treat. The only downside was that all that pork skin wasn’t crisped at all, so it was all soft and pliable, not really edible at all. A shame to see all the pork skin go unused, but c’est la vie. In addition to the pig, we got several orders of their Memphis dry rub pork ribs and their beef ribs as well. I love beef ribs, and these were very respectable, but the big winner for me were those pork ribs with the dry rub. Big flavor! And the great thing about everything we ate was that every piece of meat was moist. None of those strands of slightly dry meat in between ribs that you’ll get at most places. By the end of all that carnivorous bliss we were all so happily stuffed. And here’s a picture of the aftermath of our handywork:

Ahhh, what a fantastic meal and how appropriate a celebration for a pig like myself. Thanks to everyone who joined me for it, and a special thanks to Kat for organizing it all. I had such a great time!