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BANH MI

Unless you live next door to a Vietnamese gorcery, just assembling the components for this classic sandwich is drudgery. For a single banh mi you want meat—sweet barbecued pork, spiced liver pâté, Vietnamese cold cuts, maybe even all three. You need some freshly pickled daikon; freshly pickled carrots; a crusty French roll, preferably made by a Vietnamese bakery; cilantro; sliced chiles. It is, probably, easier to find a Vietnamese deli and buy a $3 banh mi, and the deli will appreciate your business.

Make it or buy it? Buy it.

BARBECUE

In the first draft of this manuscript I wrote that the only place to eat proper Southern barbecue is in the American South. That you can drop your “g’s” and play with your Big Green Egg and debate the merits of ketchup-based sauce versus mustard-based sauce till the cows come home, but no barbecue you produce in your suburban backyard north of the Mason-Dixon Line will ever match what you might find in, say, Holly Hill, South Carolina. Even if the meat is succulent and perfectly spiced, it will lack mystique.

And yet it weighed on my mind. I hadn’t ever actually tried to make barbecue.

So I did. I spent a day poking coals, mixing sauce, worrying over my first attempt at Carolina-style pulled pork. It was the middle of the week and I took a child to the oral surgeon and ran to the bank and to the supermarket and all the while, there was pig smoking in my yard. We had people over for that pork. A crowd. There was coleslaw, and there were drinks, and there was onion dip and there were kids running around and I realized that no matter where you are, barbecue becomes an occasion. The meat was succulent and perfectly spiced and it also had mystique.

So I take it all back. Make your barbecue. It’s cheaper than flying to South Carolina, though you should do that too. Go to Sweatman’s and be sure to try the hash.

To make this pulled pork, you’ll need wood chunks, which are like wood chips, but bigger, each chunk about the size of a lemon. You can find them at a well-stocked hardware store. I’ve done a few pulled porks and I recommend using “natural” charcoal briquettes. Barbecue is supposed to be smoky, but I think standard commercial briquettes make it a little too smoky.

Two 4- to 6-pound pork butts

FOR THE SPICE RUB

2 tablespoons paprika

2 teaspoons cayenne pepper

2 tablespoons garlic powder

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon ground coriander

1 tablespoon dried mustard

1 tablespoon dried oregano

3 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper

⅓ cup kosher salt

FOR THE VINEGAR SAUCE

1½ cups cider vinegar

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon sugar

2 teaspoons freshly ground pepper

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Barbecue sauce, on the side

1. The night before you plan to serve the barbecue, mix the ingredients for the spice rub in a small bowl. Unwrap the pork, pat it dry, and then coat with the spices, working them into every crevice. Place the pork in a large bowl, cover with foil, and refrigerate.

2. It’s a good idea to prepare for smoking the night before, as you will have to start at 5 or 6 in the morning to have barbecue in time for dinner. If you’re going to use a smoker, follow the instructions that came with your equipment. I use an ordinary charcoal kettle grill, and here’s how it works: Put the wood chunks in a large bowl of water to soak overnight. If you’re using a chimney to start the fire, prepare it now so you’ll have less to do in the morning. Fill the chimney with your charcoal and stuff balled-up newspaper underneath to help it light. Make a drip pan out of two layers of aluminum foil and place on the lower rack of your grill. Locate your matches or lighter.

3. Early the next morning, about 12 hours before you want to eat, light the chimney and take the pork out of the refrigerator. When the coals have all ignited and are smoking and gray, put them on the lower rack of