Getcha Some Goat, Mike

What's Micheal Essien's secret to outside-the-18 bombs and sick volleys? Probably a good work ethic, lots of practice, and a little luck. But I'd like to think that someway somehow, his wanting a goat for Christmas is relevant to the matter.

And, if he's lucky, he might be able to snag one of the 21,000 goats the Ghanaian government is handing out to "increase meat production reducing importation, increase the income of farmers, and provide employment."

"Welp. That about does her. Wraps her all up."

Monday was the big day. One of those start early and finish late kind of days. But it couldn't have gone much better. Here's a brief recap:

The Secret Ingredients

As usual, I got too excited during the preparation process and forgot to keep taking pictures. Above is just about everything used during the roast. Salt, pepper, and dry rub (orange tint tupperware) went on first. I'll admit, the mustard rub that was supposed to follow next never actually happened. (No big deal, though. It was added later.) The cider vinegar baste was generously drizzled over the meat for the first 2 hours before dumping the remaining liquid into a aluminum foil mummy bag with celery, onions, garlic, bell peppers, brown sugar, and lemon juice.

Slow Roastin'

From about 12 until 4, this was the scene in the backyard: a couple of friends and I standing around, watching these two guys cook with our mouths watering. Other than the initial difficulty of getting a bunch of wet wood to start, the fire burned nice and hot all day long. All that was required of us was to flip after a little over an hour.

Who Dat Goat?

After those first 2 hours of cooking had come and gone, it was time to wrap the bad boys up. I had a little miscalculation when purchasing aluminum foil: only had enough to wrap one goat, so we threw the other on top while Willy made a heroic Kroger run. The timing worked out well. By the time the first goat was ready to eat, the second was on its last 45 minutes of cooking.

Come Getcha Some Goat

The unwrapping of the first goat was a little nerve racking. No one had seen the meat since we covered it in aluminum foil 2.5 hours earlier, so we were clueless as to how everything would turn out. Luckily, we peeled back the foil and a cloud of delicious steam burst out. The meat was already falling off of the rib cage and everything was tender enough to pull apart with fingers alone. We waited a few minutes to let things cool off, then several pairs of hands pulled the meat and divvied it up into 2 large pans, one on each side of the table.

Whatever hamburger buns Willy picked up at the grocery store were gone within minutes, and the rest was piled up onto some paper plates. I could be wrong, but I don't think we dirtied any silverware the entire night. Guys and gals alike showed their inner carnivores, diving in hands first and reducing the goat to nothing but bones. Even the vegetables disappeared. (Some might argue they were the best part.)

As soon as Goat #1 was entirely consumed, Goat #2 was hoisted off the flames and moved to the table as well. Again, it was gone in no time at all. In fact, I heard several times that the second goat was better than the first. Must have been the extra brown sugar Sous Chefs Mark and Gibbs tossed in at the last minute.

Here's a link to a few more pictures of Monday's goings on. Thanks to everyone that showed up and tried a bite. Seeing that many people gathered around a big hunk of slow-roasted meat and having a grand ol' time was the goal from the get-go. What little time I had to stand on my tip toes and survey the crowd enjoying the goat meat was very rewarding. Made all that early morning goat wrangling and poison ivy worth it...

"Does he still write?"

I was a little too ambitious shooting for a Friday afternoon tipoff for this goat roast. Between exams and limited daylight, we made the executive decision to postpone the event for Monday. The weather man's predicting 65 and sunny, so I'm calling it an upgrade. And it gives me time to clean up the yard a little and prepare these goats.

With the newfound down time, I enlisted the help of two friends, Reid and Mark, in quartering and splitting one goat to be frozen and eaten later. I didn't think about pictures until too late, but here are two starring our guest butchers:

Also, I got another perspective on the art of goat cooking yesterday while shopping at the local Piggly Wiggly. I only intended to get directions to the butt rub aisle - you can laugh - but, as it turns out, the head butcher happens to be an avid goat barbecuer. I filled him in on my situation was immediately bombarded with helpful advice. He loaded me up with all his favorite spices as well as instructions on mixing and coating. Basically, any trade secrets left out by Alton were filled in with this guy's personal favorites. By the end of the conversation, we had covered vegetables, spices, herbs, vinegars, and sauces. I checked out $32 poorer, but 10x more excited and confident.

"I dig the way you do business, Jackie."

Pre-goat

Post Goat

The backyard's going to get one last makeover before the final roast. I'll post more pictures after I've got it looking extra sharp. For now, clicking the top picture should refresh some memories of the jungle that used to be the yard.

"And yes, we'll be near the In-&-Out Burger."

Alright, glad that's out of the way. On to the more enjoyable activity of cooking and eating our landscaping crew.

There's a lot of meat - much more than my immediate family could fit in their freezers. So we're dusting off the original Couchon de Lait roaster and launching a spur of the moment goat roast for tomorrow night. Since those goats hit the ice on Saturday, I've been digging for some advice on how to best cook these guys. I hit the jackpot at about 6:30 this evening.

Google came up with the link to Brady, TX's annual Goat BBQ Cook Off. Took me right to the city's governmental webpage. At the bottom is a link to their Facebook page. (Check out the most recent post.) From there, I found a lone telephone number, apparently Brady, TX's phone. Elaine picked up. After hearing my story, she gave me the names and numbers of two of the competition's most well-known local cooks. Cha ching. (Well, I got Alton's number. She couldn't find Charlie's, so she gave me his mom's number. Never could get a hold of her, though.)

Alton, it turns out, is like the Gandalf of goat roasting. A cabrito Olympian. He's competed in each and every cook off in the event's 36 year history. 175 teams of serious goat cooks, and Alton's hoisted the 1st place trophy on several occasions, including last year's "Super Bowl," a separate event only for previous winners. On Cook Off weekend, next to his RV setup is prime real estate. He and his teammates, the "Three B Company" collectively, feed the neighbors all through the night - 5 goats, 60 lb pork ribs, brisket, sausage, 8 lbs of beans. I thought our two pigs was a big deal. "Ha. Laughable, man!" These guys are Hall of Famers.

These people are crazy about roasting goats.

And he was generous with his advice, too! Family recipes, blue ribbon winners, traditional methods, mesquite versus oak firewood. I was schooled on bbq goat for a solid 20 minutes, scribbling away the whole time. After hearing about and approving our exiting pig roaster situation, he recommended the following:

1. Flatten the goat's bulk by splitting in half or quartering.
2. Add a dry rub seasoning, salt, pepper, and garlic. Be generous with the salt.
3. Add a wet mustard rub.
4. Prepare a baste with following: cider vinegar, mustard, butter, Worchestershire sauce, and plenty of salt.
5. Roast for an hour over 275 degree heat, adding baste. Then flip.
6. Roast for another hour, adding baste.
7. Wrap meat in foil. Before sealing, generously baste.
8. Let it do its thing for another 2 - 3 hours.
9. "Done when it pulls apart and you can't stop eating it."

I'll be sure to take pictures before, during, and after this whole fiesta. Once everyone present has eaten their fill, the rest will be bagged up and sent home with friends to recreate the event with a microwave.

"Donny was a good bowler..."

I woke up Saturday morning to a voicemail from Miss Charlie with the name and number of her neighbor, the expert goat killer that would show me the ropes. Rodney picked up the phone and told me to get on out there to get started. Within a half hour, I had a big cooler from the Dougie House loaded up and I headed out.

Got to the farm at the same time Rodney pulled up in his truck. Big white pickup with an ATV in the bed. He backed it right up to on an open space by the barn. After introductions, he showed me his homemade ATV hitch accessory: a 2-piece pulley system to hoist antelopes up off the ground in Wyoming, where there aren't any trees. Yeah, antelope. Wyoming. But he's hunted, killed, and butchered anything that moves short of humans - farm and game animals alike. Bear, moose, elk, deer, pigs, cows, goats, turkey. You name it, he's killed and eaten it. So if I was ever going to learn from somebody, it would be this guy, the tip top of the food chain.

And learn something, I did. Rodney was very patient and instructive, not to mention a big fan of experiential learning. I drove off the property having done a lot more than I had anticipated upon first arriving. Definitely an afternoon I won't soon forget. But what an experience. And a valuable skill to be familiar with.

I've thought a lot about which details to share publicly and which to withhold. There are parts of the story that probably wouldn't be appropriate in most circles, so I'll let you ask me about them in person.

I will say, however, that the goats died a very quick, clean death. Instantaneous. Rodney's preferred method is shooting the goats with a .22 rifle (in the head), then hanging and skinning much like you would a deer. If you're interested - and it sounds like several people are - here are a couple of pictures from the afternoon. Be aware there are, in fact, dead goats in the pictures. Any particularly bloody or disturbing pictures were not included, so don't be too hesitant to click. Looks just like your grocery store meat would. The captions are somewhat instructional, you know, just in case 2012 rolls around and you've gotta feed some mouths.

In the end, all three carcasses fit inside one jumbo cooler, where they've been since. Rodney recommended keeping the meat on ice and water for a few days, changing it every so often to flush the blood out of the meat. Consider it an expedited, home scale equivalent of the 2-week hanging, or "aging," of your everyday cut of beef. Now, after 4 or 5 days, nearly all the blood has been drawn out, and we've got some seriously tasty looking meat on our hands....

Getcha Some Goat Pics

Stonewall: half goat, half Minotaur.

Abby: Head of Security.

Cutest of all time.

I got plenty of pictures of the farm this weekend. There are 14 baby goats out there right now. Most entertaining 2 pounds of fur I've ever encountered. Click here, Grooveshark your favorite Lion King song, and put the "slideshow" function to work. Just try to be in a bad mood.

"Dude, tomorrow's already the tenth..."

Here's the sparknotes recap of the past few weeks:

• Guerrilla Goat Herding: That was the last time you heard from me. On a Tuesday. No real developments since. Word's spreading onto the 6th floor about some "goat kid" two floors below. Well, probably more like "goat kid with poison ivy."
• Poison Ivy: Apparently, the goats got into some poison ivy while on the 5 Acre Woods property. After picking them up, carrying them, etc., I must have got the oils all over my hands. Then I got in the Jeep, played with my weak excuse for facial hair, and proceeded to get the evil ivy oil all over my mug. Went to bed Wednesday an average homo sapiens; woke up on Thursday morning Quasimodo. It was bad. Eyes swollen shut. Neck, ears, cheeks, lips. Everything irritated and huge. Stumbled to the health center and freaked out the nurses. They gave me shots and pills, creams and sprays, shook a medicine bag around my head and chanted counter curses. It still sucked for a solid 72 hours. But I'm healed now. And you better believe I won't ever make that mistake again. Now you know too.
• Thanksgiving Break: That Friday, Harvey Dent face and all, I took the goats out to Miss Charlie's farm to hang out with the old herd so we could all enjoy our turkeys back home. They've been out at the farm since. All according to plan.

Not to toot my own horn, but when dropping off the goats, my three were noticeably fatter than any other goats on the farm. Like, Biggest Loser fatter. I was proud.