A Feast fit for Future Leaders of America!

Saturday was the second and final session of this business-student-led leadership conference for law students that I somehow got myself signed up for.  During this session, all the future leaders of America gave five minute speeches on topics of our choosing, and I spoke on -- what else? -- unprocessed foods.  After each speech, the floor was opened for questions, and the small group I worked with had an extemporaneous conversation about the politics of food, the privilege of the middle class to choose organic and unprocessed foods, my personal challenges in eating this way, and Pollan's works in general.  (Shout out to Shawn, who looked up my blog after the conference!)

Meanwhile, Matthew was at home, cooking this:

That would be a pork shoulder, rubbed with brown sugar and basted with hard apple cider, slow-roasted for five hours until the meat just fell off the bone.  (A guy in front of me at Crystal's van last week had ordered one; his description of this recipe was enough to sell us on buying one of our very own...)

Matt created a gravy from the drippings and some Trader Joe's whole wheat flour.  Replacing white flour with the whole wheat made it incredibly thick and yeasty, and because the drippings had been roasting for hours in cider, the spicy apple zing carried over into the gravy.  In short: !!!sduiosdfhlsdkj!!!!mmmmmm


Additionally, he whipped up a slow-roasted vegetable medley of zucchini, onion and tomatoes in a spicy garlic-cayenne sauce.


Oh, and a huge pot of purple mashed potatoes.




... And some fresh applesauce, from a few honeycrisps I had in the fridge and a liberal application of cinnamon and sugar.

All of the foregoing simply goes to show Matt's really remarkable quality of character and -- if I do say so myself -- my own superb taste in men.  

I'm just saying.