A Bone to Pick or a Gesture?

A middle school friend of mine named Teri came to visit me this week. And as can be expected at this time of year, the weather in Richmond has been hot and sticky.

I wanted to play tour guide and show my friend Teri all the wonderful things I love about this town. But due to the heat, I knew we would enjoy a driving tour in my air-conditioned car much more than a walking tour in the blistering heat. But where could we go?

Richmond is a wonderful place for art and history lovers. And one stop all tourists really should consider making is a place that combines both history and art.

No, I am not talking about our world-renowned Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. While the VMFA is a wonderful place, the place I am referring to is Hollywood Cemetery.

Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond VA

Now, visiting a cemetery might not be the first thing on your list when planning a vacation. But if you are lucky enough to have a chance come to Richmond, Hollywood Cemetery is certainly a stop you will want to consider making.

Towering 50 feet tall, this Monument serves

as a collective tombstone for over 18,000 Confederate dead

I refer to Hollywood Cemetery as a sculpture garden where all the finest people in Richmond reside. Well-known residents of Hollywood include presidents James Monroe, John Tyler and Jefferson Davis.

The tomb of James Monroe

It is a neighborhood filled with the Who’s Who of Richmond from the past 200 years.

And, sure enough, people are still dying to get in. (Surely you did not think for a minute I was going to let that joke go unsaid.) Truthfully, Hollywood Cemetery is a place where burials still occur.

Hollywood Cemetery is so much more than just a place filled with the bones of our ancestors. It serves as a tribute to all who have made it their final resting place and it is filled with gestures of love and devotion.

This dog, once a store advertisement, guards the grave of the girl who loved it.

Touring the grounds, you will see some truly beautiful statues and monuments. I feel that enjoying the beauty of the cemetery landscape and gazing upon the wonderful sculptures pays homage to those who died and the love of those they left behind. These monuments were created so that others would not forget those who have died. For this reason, I feel compelled to share some of the images from our visit with you.

The Loyd family tree?

Notice all the Loyd markers are tree trunks

So how do I tie a visit to a cemetery into a post about food? Stay with me and I will tell you.

Tonight is the last night I will be visiting with my friend Teri before she goes off to Washington be an Advocate for Pancreatic Cancer awareness and funding. Before she leaves I wanted to cook her a special “southern meal” (she is, like me, a Yankee). This is to be my parting gift to her. I tried to think of what I could make and then it hit me. I will make barbecued pork ribs! They are not only tasty; they are something that I have really come to enjoy as a summer meal.

Some people like dry ribs, but I prefer wet ribs. So, today I offer you my take on how to make wet pork ribs. I hope you and Teri enjoy them.

Southern Pork Ribs

Ingredients:

4 to 5 Pounds of Pork Ribs

1 19-ounce bottles of Jack Daniel’s Honey Smoke House Barbecue Sauce

1 6-ounce can of Orange Juice Concentrate

½ White Onion (cut and separated into ringlets)

Salt and Pepper

Directions:

Line a large baking pan with two sheets of foil. Allow foil to extend beyond all sides of the pan.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Wash Pork Ribs with cool water and then pat dry with a paper towel.

Salt and Pepper both sides of the Ribs.

Make Sauce

Pour the bottle of the Barbecue sauce and the 6-ounce can of frozen Orange juice concentrate in a bowl and whisk together.

Coat the bottom sides of the Pork Ribs with the sauce mixture and then lay them, sauce side down in the foil lined baking pan.

Next coat the topside of the Pork Ribs with sauce. Cover the Ribs with the Onion ringlets.

Cover the Ribs and Onions with two sheets of foil. Join the foil from the top of the ribs with the foil overhanging from the bottom of the ribs and then crimp the foil closed on all sides.

Bake the Ribs in an oven set at 300 degrees for 1 to 1 ½ hours. Unwrap the ribs, flip them over in the pan, coat with them with additional sauce and bake for 1 more hour or until the meat is tender and pulls away from the bone.

Remove the ribs from the baking pan and place on a cutting board. Allow them to rest and cool.

Remove and discard any bits of the onions, meat or bone that might have been left in the baking pan liquid. I place a sieve over a large bowl and strain it that way. But you can also use a slotted spoon to do the job. Pour the strained liquid into a saucepan. Place the saucepan in the refrigerator to cool in order to make removing the fat easier. The fat will congeal and rise to the top of the saucepan. Use a spoon to skim it off the fat and discard it.

The remaining liquid will be a combination of barbeque sauce and water. Reduce and thicken this sauce by allowing it to boil for about 10 minutes. Be certain to stir it while it is reducing down to prevent it from burning.

Once the ribs have rested and cooled, cut them into 2 to 3 ribs sections.

To brown them up and to caramelize the barbecue sauce, coat theRibs once again with the reduced and thickened barbeque sauce mixture and then either broil them in the oven or grill them.

These Ribs are great served either hot or cold.

Tonight, once our meal has been eaten, I hope that Teri looks down at her plate filled with picked over pork rib bones and sees more than just a collection of bones. I hope that she sees that pile of bones for what they really represent: the remains of a gesture of love.

And, if you are every fortunate enough to look upon the monuments of Hollywood cemetery as we did, I hope you see what we saw: gestures of love.