Bigly Carnitas

I want to talk about carnitas. Bigly carnitas. The greatest carnitas to ever come out of a Dutch oven — and I've eaten more pork than anyone alive, probably more than anyone in recorded history, the receipts are out there if you know where to look.

The best carnitas of my life? Gas station in Albuquerque. True story. A man named Ramón made them. He didn't speak much. He just looked at me, nodded once like he KNEW, and handed me a paper tray of pork that changed me as a person. I sat on a curb outside the gas station for forty minutes just thinking about it. Cars came and went. I didn't move. The carnitas you are about to make are ALMOST as good as Ramón's. Almost. Nobody's are as good as Ramón's. But these get you within reach, and that's the closest a non-Ramón human has ever come. Hand on heart.

The secret is the orange. A whole orange. Cut in half, thrown in the pot, peel and all. The orange does something. Food chemists agree — I had a guy explain it to me, took 90 minutes, something about pectin and citrus oils breaking down the connective tissue and waking up the fat, I don't know, I was eating a sandwich while he talked — but it makes the pork TREMENDOUS. And milk. A splash of milk. Don't ask. Ramón did it, I do it, you'll do it. Trust the combover. Believe me.

Three hours of doing nothing. That's the price of admission. Three hours of watching a game, doing laundry, calling your mother — you should call your mother more, she doesn't call enough, sad — and at the end you have a baking sheet of golden brown crispy pork that makes your kitchen smell like the BEST taco truck in Los Angeles. Build the tacos right at the counter. Two tortillas per taco — yes, two, this is the law, one tortilla can't handle this much pork, structural issue — onion, cilantro, lime, salsa. Eat standing up. Make eye contact with no one. This is a moment between you and the pork. Now go eat.