This little piggy

This year, Thanksgiving included mouthwatering spit-roasted turkey and suckling pig, whose golden, crispy skin I’m still dreaming about. The short version is this: We build an outdoor fire pit, and on two large, loose stumps, attached a $50 Char-Broil rotisserie—the kind you’d use on a charcoal drill. The pig and the turkey were each in the 15-pound range (we roasted them separately), and the hardest part was keeping their weight balanced on the rotisserie rod, which took several tries in both cases. A lesson in physics, I tell ya.

The bird cooked four hours, the pig about six, and after all that slow turning over a crackling fire, they were marvelously tender and crisp. Other details: two feet separated the spit from the fire. Also, I basted the pig with vegetable oil and the turkey with a combo of Worcestershire, butter and lemon juice. A note on the pig: After calling a handful of local Cajun butchers, all I could find was pigs in the 30-pound range, which was too big for this type of spit-roasting, I finally found smaller sucking pigs at Pete’s Fine Meats in Houston (5509 Richmond Ave., (713) 782.3470). This size was big enough to marinate overnight in an ice chest, had enough meat for 10-12, but was small enough to butterfly and cook on a large grill if you had to. See pictures here.