It’s been a busy old time of late, there has been a lot of sorting out to do and an awful lot of planning. A few days ago my brother came to stay, the new smoker arrived, modifications were made to the existing fire pit and a dead goat arrived in the back of little Miss Sunshine’s car. This was all in one day, oh and my mate the Traveller arrived for the weekend. So where to start?
The day I heard that goat was being delivered to my house, no one least of all me knew whether it would be walking into the house or carried in. There was the faint possibility that it would be walking around my garden for a few days munching flowers and all and sundry before I managed to bring myself to dispatch it. It was with some sense of relief that when it did arrive it was in two bags and had been butchered and skinned and guttered. There was no head on it but it still had its hooves attached. As I said it was in two bags, I should have said it was in two pieces, it had been cleaved completely down the middle of its backbone. This gave me a problem, how was I going to fix it onto a spit and secondly it was rather larger than I had anticipated, it must have weighed 60 pounds so where was I going to store it hygienically? Also, how do you marinate something so big?
By the day of my mums birthday which has become known as Ghastanbury (cos its held at the same time as Glastonbury, get it?) I had managed to overcome all of these problems with some help from my friends. A dry rub was mixed up and the goat was coated, placed in several large bags and stored in a garden shed packed with ice and tins of very cold beer. I had also defrosted 6 pieces of beef brisket, one leg of lamb and a rolled pork shoulder and given them all the same treatment. I managed to fill the two smokers with charcoal and fill the new fire pit with the same. The plan was that early in the morning I would be able to pour fire lighter fluid over all of the charcoal, throw some matches at it and then stand back until it glowed, place the meat in situ and then sit back and drink beer till the guests arrived. All in all Friday the 22nd was hectic but it went smoothly. I finally got to bed at around one am dreaming of the great plan.