My turn to play with my shiny new toy

Tags

Christmas present, dinner, dry rub, pork shoulder, postaday2013, pulled pork, slow cooker

Have you ever received a present, say a new pot or pan, and you opened it on Christmas Day but you kept it off to the side because it was so shiny, so clean and so new, that you didn’t want to use it; it was just too beautiful. That is how I treated my Christmas slow cooker present. Today is January 20th, almost a full month since Christmas and I have finally broken down and baptized my slow cooker with a dry rubbed pork shoulder. As I am writing this, it is still running on low with another hour or so until the pork is finished. It smells nice in the kitchen but I am dying to see how the pork turns out. I have made pulled pork often in the oven using an ordinary roasting pan so it will be interesting to see how it turns out this time. The only modification that I made with the slow cooker is that I put the pork shoulder on a bed of sliced onions and garlic with a cup of chicken broth. I venture to think that the sauce will be quite flavorful after it is all said and done. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. 🙂

Religion or politics?

“It’s never a good idea to discuss religion or politics with people you don’t really know.” Agree or disagree?

I agree, at least for myself. I abhor conflict and those two topics are potential landmines because mostly everyone has an opinion and the possibility of disagreement is fairly high. Moreover, politics and religion produce such strong emotional responses that for almost strangers, a disagreement can produce itself quickly and diffusing it can be tricky.

These two subjects are emotional powder kegs. I don't know why. I know that within my own family, I have an uncle who is a devout catholic, ultra conservative and I do not discuss many subjects with him because I love him and I don't want to have him angry with me, especially over a subject such as homosexuality. I believe that a person's sexuality has nothing to do with his or her character; we are all sexual beings and I don't care if you like boys or girls or both, do not care. My uncle sees homosexuality as an abomination against God, end of discussion. That is why we don't discuss.

If I encountered someone who I didn't really know and they felt that way; I wouldn't be so inclined to censor my feelings on the subject and conflict would ensue. Because my statement would be if your God is a loving God, how can he deprive his creatures love? If your God is perfect than how can he have made these people, as you say, imperfect? I could go on and on but that would result in ugliness I am sure and I don't want that.

So I keep my political opinions to myself; I write about them often, which is much safer and my feelings on religion are kept to myself as well. It is private and I don't feel the need to justify how I feel about religion to anyone; that is between myself and the universe.