Strawberries, and Carolina BBQ Pork

Two successes for the day. One, I bought a strawberry plant at the farmer's market this morning. I think if you had asked me to describe how strawberries grew, I'd have fumbled around trying to remember if they were a bush, or creeping thorny plant, or if the berries grew in clusters, or what exactly. But I know what a strawberry looks like, and when I saw a plant full of them, in various stages of development, I bought it.
Five bucks! The farmer who sold it to me promised it would produce continually until about June, or whenever it starts getting really hot. Then, he said, it sends out daughter plants! So I buy one plant for five bucks, get all its strawberries, plus the little baby plants it'll make. All I do is win.
Second success: pork! Specifically, Carolina-style pulled pork. I used this recipe, and a three-pound Boston butt roast I had in the freezer from Windy Hill Farms.
I covered the pork with its dry rub on Thursday night, Saran-ed it and left it in the fridge until this morning. I took it out, let it rest an hour, seared it, and threw it in a low oven for the long haul. So, while I graded students' work, ate a leisurely lunch (reading Omnivore's Dilemma), and took a nap in the grass outside my apartment, my pork cooked slowly into a mass of soft, flavorful shreds of meat. It was beyond falling-off-the-bone. The whole thing was so tender the bone actually fell out of the meat, and not the other way around.
Gorgeous. Generously doused in vinegar-based bbq sauce....mmm.


In other news, there are 13 school days left in the third quarter. And tomorrow I get an extra hour of daylight to enjoy after teaching every day. Summer is getting achingly close. Eight weeks of total freedom! I am so much more excited about the summer as a high school teacher than I ever was as a high school student.