What's for dinner?

At our daughter’s graduation party, one of our friends was doing the cooking for us. We’d asked him to, since he’s the only one that we know that has a $7,000 smoker that he trails around behind his truck. This smoker is crazy. He had it built in Texas, which, I guess, makes sense, because where else would you get a smoker that’s so large it needs it own trailer.

And the smoker is some weird sort of dude magnet as well. As people showed up for the party, inevitably, as guys walked in to the back yard, they’d look at the smoker and ask “Oh my god, what is that?”. Like clockwork, I’d have to walk them over, introduce them to our friend, Mr. Tucci, and they’d proceed to pester him like little kids for the next half hour. It was kind of the “ooooh-bright-shiny-object” thing that happens to guys, but in this case is was big, rusting, belching smoke and the smells coming out of it made your mouth water.

Mr. Tucci, who’s been a friend of ours for a few years, can cook. I mean, for Upstate NY, as far a barbeque goes, this shit was to die for. Now, Mr. Tucci lived in Texas for a few years, which is where I think he got his barbequing chops from. So, before any of you Southerners “git yer fur all up in a dander” and start mutter things like “y’all damn Yankees don’t know shit ‘bout barbeque”, settle down there Hoss. Tucci had come over to our house the day before, to start marinating all the meat. You know someone is serious about protecting his “recipe” when he takes all of the garbage back home with him, so no one can rummage through it and steal his secrets.

So anyway…

We’re in the back yard with Tucci, before we leave for the graduation ceremony. The dogs are running wild all over the place, the smell of the smoking ribs and chicken driving them crazy. We were telling Tucci that he could put the dogs in while we were gone, if they were too much of a problem. Tucci replied “No, I love animals. They won’t be a problem. Did I ever tell you that I’ve traveled to Korea?”

We looked at him, and the strange turn in the conversation. “No, you never did”

He says to us “Yea, and one day we were traveling from Soule to another city were the customer had a factory. And all along the road, at every little town, there were cages of cats and dogs along the road”

He continued "I said to my guide “Hey, that’s great, you guys have pets everywhere” And my guide turned to me and said (Tucci said this in his best oriental voice) “Oh, no, Mr. Tucci, that’s what’s for dinner”.

Everybody groaned and felt sick. I looked at Tucci and said “you know, I’m counting the pets when I get back, right?”