Jun. 9—GREENSBURG — Greensburg Meals on Wheels’s drive-thru pork dinner is scheduled for 4 to six p.m. Saturday, June 11, at Greensburg Group Church, 1427 W. Vandalia Street. The meal is $12 and consists of Dave Ricke’s well-known grilled pork chops, twice baked potatoes, inexperienced beans, cole slaw and dessert.
One cannot stay within the Southeastern Indiana area with out appreciating the delicacy of a well-cooked pork chop, and one native man has the wonderful artwork of making ready pork chops all the way down to a science.
“I’ve all the time loved cooking for big teams,” Agricultural Marketing consultant David Ricke stated. “Truly, I simply take pleasure in cooking.”
To document the story of how Ricke’s well-known pork chops got here to be, one has solely to ask him just a few questions. He is delighted to inform about his smoker and the way he researched the design to construct one to his personal specs. And he enjoys speaking about all of the locations he is traveled to within the title of cooking a great pork chop.
One may say it has been one in every of his lifetime achievements, and his inspiration was fully native.
“I went with some mates out to Energy of the Previous and I seen how soiled and sweaty all of the individuals obtained whereas displaying their steam engines. Once you’re like you can’t go wherever, so I had a captive viewers,” he stated.
He took corn on the cob and some of the distributors helped him boil it with a steam engine.
“That was wonderful, however I wanted a grill,” he stated.
How he put collectively his smoker is an enormous a part of the story.
As a farming marketing consultant for many of his profession, touring the Midwest extensively, Ricke noticed just a few smoker designs he favored however none have been an ideal match. Whereas visiting Tulare, California for a yearly farm present, he seen that the church teams on the present all had grills with grids that could possibly be raised and lowered; they have been good for cooing with a wooden fireplace.
“I fully forgot concerning the present,” he stated. “I might push via the gang simply to take photos of the grills they have been cooking on.”
So, discovering simply the appropriate design for a grid that could possibly be raised and lowered, satisfactory grilling house for chops for a small military and an connected water tank for burns or spills and clean-up, with a big reservoir for the hardwood fireplace, he had a neighborhood enterprise construct it.
Along with his grill full, he was nearly prepared. Now, the sauce!
“That comes from an outfit in Oklahoma,” he stated.
Then comes one other story.
The proprietor of “Head Nation,” the model of barbecue sauce he prefers, was a prepare dinner within the navy. That barbecue, the best-selling barbecue sauce in Illinois, is the one sauce Ricke makes use of.
“I purchase it in bulk,” he stated. “It is a candy barbecue, and that is what I like.”
He then provides a secret seasoning to make it his personal.
“It is like Lowry seasoning on steroids,” he tells those that ask.
So with church teams, sororities, golf equipment, and so forth. all asking for Dave’s pork chops, what does he cost?
Often he solutions questions immediately, however waits a second to answer, considering for simply the appropriate phrases: “Let’s simply say this, if you happen to ask to pay me I will not do it!”
Tickets for the Meals on Wheels drive-thru pork-chop dinner fundraiser can be found at Denim and Honey, 217 N. Broadway Avenue, or by calling 812-663-6099.
Contact Invoice Rethlake at 812-651-0876 or e mail bill.rethlake@greensburgdailynews.com
