After a year, I finally made it back to Atlanta, Georgia, where my parents live. I had some fantastic culinary adventures, but the best one was the home-cooked meal that greeted me the day I got in! My dad is the master of the grill, and his famous ribs are the pinnacle of that mastery. I crave them every time I come home and my mom always makes sure he makes them.
He starts with baby back pork ribs, a pressure cooker, and at some point KC Masterpiece bbq sauce, and that's about all I know about his secret recipe. He has all of his other additions, spices, and tricks that I don't even think he could write down if asked. He just starts making the ribs and recites the process from memory. And they come out looking like this:
He also made a batch that he slow cooked for hours, and he tried a new sauce on them- a little bit thinner and spicier. I loved the tenderness of the meat on the slow-cooked ribs, but nothing beats the familiar flavor of the ribs I've been eating as long as I can remember.
And nothing beats eating those ribs with a huge side of my dad's potato salad:
He loads the potato salad with raw onions, celery, and pepper and tops it all with his signature layer of paprika and "fancy" fork spirals. I can't imagine this dish being served any other way, or really in any other dish than this one, which I believe my mom has had since they were first married in the 70's.
I am going to have to add both of these dishes to my list of things that I must learn how to cook, so that these food traditions can continue. It always amazes me, when I eat a meal like this, how many great memories come flooding back!
we enjoyed making the ribs and sharing them with our daughter!
Posted by: Cheryl Magner | September 26, 2007 at 06:50 PM