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Every time I search for a recipe online, I get someone’s life story without asking for it. It’s like a receptionist just trying to make an appointment for Grandpa Jake and having to endure his entire life summary before he even tells her his name. “I was born in Cocksblood with a gangly father and a mother who only knew how to cook weeds.” Jacob (aka Jake) was always in some kind of military and now he wants to check to see if Viagra is the right choice for him and his new wife at the age of 79 and 50 respectively.

Before online food blogs and the Internet, we had cookbooks and recipe cards, traditions from our relatives. Now the convenience of technology has made us lazy. Why would I go sift through a book that may not have a recipe I’m looking for when I can talk to text and Señor Google can do the rest? But how far am I willing to go for a free recipe? Would I read the full biography of a stranger and chance a possible computer virus just to find out how much sugar to use in a simple sugar cookie?

Part of me misses pressing myself up against an industrial size bookshelf while reading a cookbook I might purchase at a Half Price Books. If that cookbook didn’t have pictures, then I was out completely. DING! My phone would alert me to @StayHOMEJenny and her recipe for #LifeChangingPulledPork. I leave the store empty handed in search of a grocery store selling a nicely priced piece of pork.

While I sit in the parking lot at Festival Foods, I take about 10 minutes to read that @StayHOMEJenny has been divorced twice and now lives with her mother and sister in Santa Clarita where she enters data at home for sixteen dollars an hour with okay insurance benefits. Her company does profit sharing, but she hasn’t been there long enough to partake in that program. It seems that Jenny switches jobs quite often and didn’t have much of an anchor keeping her in place until she recently found cooking.

I turn the car back on as the air has gotten stagnant. Where are the ingredients? Fan on, I continue scrolling down. Jenny has offered a few pictures of her kitchen and favorite cutlery. She even shares an old photo of her mom and her baking biscuits before she left the house for the first time. She looks so happy. How many does this recipe feed!? I start to lose patience, scrolling down further.

Jenny’s first husband was a columnist for a local newspaper. Once the newspaper stopped printing, he started drinking and lost his opportunity to write freelance for the online version of the paper. He would come home as drunk as a 21-year-old frat boy and demand that she listened to the Alabama Christmas album with him. He would fall asleep sobbing in her lap to “Thistle Hair the Christmas Bear” every time. Starting to get annoyed, I scrolled way down until I saw another picture, this time of the actual pulled pork recipe! I have to be close! What makes this pork recipe life changing!?

Jenny starts to write about her obsession with pork. But first, of her love of the childhood classic “Charlotte’s Web” where the pig was about to get slaughtered, but the clever spider called Charlotte saved his life each time by weaving key words into her web, like “Some Pig”. My eye starts to stress twitch. I scroll down about twenty more seconds until I’m almost ready to give up and get something from the deli for dinner.

Suddenly, there it is! The ingredients and how-to of the recipe! Tabbing over to my grocery list, I made sure I was ready to record the ingredients of the supposedly life changing pulled pork. I tabbed back to Jenny’s page and was met with a pop-up that asked for a donation and email address to continue. But why? I was right there! I almost had the recipe in my hands! I could taste the pork in my mouth! I had now spent at least 40 minutes on this. Would I give up now?

Entering my email address, my adrenaline had hit an angry high. I was led to a beauty shot of @StayHOMEJenny with three pies and the happiest face I’ve ever seen. Sure, she was missing teeth and appeared a bit sweaty, but she was holding the thing I needed the most. WHERE WAS THE RECIPE!? I searched the site but was not able to find the recipe. So, I went back to Google the way I had entered the site before. This time, back on the site, I scrolled down (which seemed like 30 minutes) until I found the recipe. I quickly took a screenshot of the recipe and the how-to before I was again redirected to a spot for donation and annual subscription to Jenny’s stay at home genius.

Out of breath and feeling like a victor, I closed all the tabs and went to the screenshots I had taken. It’s time to go shopping for dinner!

Recipe: Jenny’s Life Changing Pulled Pork

Time: 7 hours, 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 3-4 pound pork shoulder

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon white ground pepper

1 tablespoon cayenne pepper

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 teaspoon cracked black pepper

6 cloves garlic or ½ tablespoon garlic powder

1 large onion, chopped

Sauce:

This is a sauceless recipe, but if you’re so inclined, please add whichever is your favorite after you’ve drained the oil in the slow cooker.

How-To:

1. Combine the spices and rub onto the pork shoulder, setting your slow cooker to High.
2. Into the slow-cooker, add the oil, onions and garlic and let them cook until you can smell them.
3. Then add the decorated pork shoulder and cover for 5 hours on High.
4. After 5 hours, turn the dial to Low. Continue to cook for 1-2 additional hours or until fork tender.
5. Bring the pork out of the pan or drain the fat out of the slow-cooker insert bowl. Use two forks to shred the meat and add any additional salt and pepper to taste. This is also when you would add your sauce (optional).

We like to serve this pulled pork with fresh pretzel buns, coleslaw or homemade pickles and chips and baked beans on the side. If we’re feeling really hungry, we make sweet corn on the cob for a side as well! For my homemade pickle recipe, click HERE.

I knew better than to click on the homemade pickle recipe, if only to avoid another 30-minute story about the life of Jenny that I didn’t need to know. I bought the ingredients and some other groceries and headed for home. By this point in the day, it was too late to indulge in a seven-hour recipe so I had to push this recipe back in our calendar several days until time allowed.

We ordered pizza that night.