My highlight reel of ‘From Local Farms‘ videos was just chosen by Daniel and Mirra of The Perennial Plate as a top-four contender in their recent video competition. I’m honored to be on the list, to say the least. The very reason I started a video series at all was directly because of Daniel and Mirra’s earliest episodes – inspiring me … Read More
Celebrating Spring Thyme
Irvings Farm Fresh Berk Loin Chop, Garden Thyme, Garlic + Lola Canola Honey mustard GEH Potatoes, Onions, Mo-Na Mushroms, Garden Thyme
Saucisson Sec, Two Ways
These batches were put up on Tuesday [Mar 29]. I find I have to write about this kind of thing or I simply lose track of when they were made, which makes it a bit hard to remember how long they’ve been aging and how they’ve responded to temp, humidity, etc. Both are essentially Ruhlman’s recipes, with two major exceptions. … Read More
Guanciale – Final Product
We put up 20 Irvings Farm Fresh pork jowls December 11, and it’s finally at a place I’d hope it would get – nearly 2 months later. Dense, with a light high-toned loveliness imparted by dry curing pork. The verdict? Sliced thinly and fried is a bacon-like experience that is lovely indeed. It fried up extremely fast [low moisture?], and … Read More
Guanciale Project: Day 8. Hang Day and Innovation
Today was the day the plethora of guanciale was due to hang. They’d cured for a week, had released a couple tbsp maybe of fluid per, and a fry-up proved salty enough to proceed – not wanting to risk oversalting if we left them longer. So into a big clean sink of water they went, got a solid rub-down-rinse, then … Read More
From Local Farms – Irvings Farm Fresh
It’s hard to believe it was only 2008 when I butchered my first side of Berkshire pig from the Irvings’ farm. It was the beginning of an adventure in charcuterie, and as I sit here about to make another batch of saucisson sec, I can’t help but feel grateful. Since that first side, we’ve done 18 – most from their … Read More
Saucisson Sec Follow Up
It’s been 3 weeks since I put up this batch, and the thinnest of them are just starting to become ready to go. The thicker ones – the game ones being especially thick, won’t be ready for another week or two at least. My first successful batch is all but a memory, now long gone. It was lovely. This second … Read More
Guanciale Project: Day 1
Today was day 1 of a pretty major charcuterie project – the dry curing of pork jowl. Not that jowl is tricky to cure, what makes this a big project is that we did not one jowl, not a pair of jowls, but 20. Yep. 20 pig jowls. Why? A friend wanted to do some R&D on having the cured … Read More
Pig Butchering, Round 3
First pig of the year was from Nature’s Green Acres. Second from Peck N Berry Acres. This third round was from Irvings Farm Fresh – this time 2 pigs. This is decidedly my last pig butchering of the year because quite frankly, I’m tired of butchering pigs. Thankfully, it went extremely quickly – nearly twice as quickly as expected thanks … Read More
BBQ Oven Action
I’ve posted about this setup before. But then in all my wisdom, I nearly deleted all of my new wordpress blog-post-blogger-transition. I don’t recommend it. So some of the content from that post, well, died. Permanently. No matter. I had a good friend coming over for lunch today as I live close to his new City TV gig downtown, and … Read More