the mountain pub

hot, stone enclosure seething with smoke…blazing flames reaching up to lick splattered grease off the walls.. barely visible are dark, sweaty figures moving in the thickness … no light anywhere except that provided by millions of stars and the cloudy milky way reaching across the expanse of the sky…and in front of you, with what little bit of dim is broken by the firelight, rests a plate of the most celestial fried pork. Mouth-size pieces of ribs from the cut of your choosing, chopped by machete on the hollowed out bowl of an old tree trunk, are sent swimming into a bubbling cauldron bath, steeped in the juices of all the pieces that came before it…crisped inside and out by the boiling oil, but made tender by the shock of heat…bone, fat, flesh…all merge in a blissful sensory confluence…

…and that, my friends, is the mountain pub. jealous?