Well, it finally happened. The cold that has gone through my house caught me. I felt its effects in the middle of last week and thought I had it beat. Then I overdid it a bit yesterday and was out for the count today.

Fortunately, my plan for today was to smoke a pork butt and have pulled pork for supper (and leftovers for lunch tomorrow). During the evening yesterday, I mixed up my standard BBQ rub and applied it liberally to the pork butt I had recently bought from a local farmer. The actual procurement of said pork butt is probably worthy of its own post, so I’ll leave the details for later.

When I finally succeeded in getting out of bed, I set the rubbed pork butt out to warm up a bit and got the fire started in my smoker. Once the smoker was up to my preferred smoking temperature (225 degrees) with several chunks of hickory added to the glowing coals, I put the pork butt on and began the waiting process. Many people would probably be wondering why I would want to do this while feeling under the weather, but having a thermometer with a remote, so I could monitor the temperature of both the fire and the food on the smoker allowed me to rest as much as I needed throughout the cooking time. The added bonus was the slight congestion that prevented the smoke from causing me grief when I did have to open the smoker to check on the progress.

Although it is not what I would typically regard as food to help cure a cold, to me, BBQ is the epitome of comfort food. Furthermore, with minimal intervention and physical activity, I succeeded in making a tasty meal for me and my wife. I guess BBQ is the perfect meal to help deal with a cold.

Freshly pulled pork on a Zingerman’s Bakehouse roll with a few slices of red onion

Same sandwich, with homemade BBQ sauce