The last farm-to-table dinner I attended was a resounding success, and I’m not surprised Blair and his crew have done a few of these since then. By happenstance we ran into each other at the farmers’ market a couple weeks ago and I ended up involved with his upcoming dinner at Riverbend Gardens. He ended up buying the last half … Read More
Smoke-Day and My Current Smoking Setup
I’ve mentioned that on Pig Day I was slipping ham cuts and hocks into a big stock pot of prepped brine. Turns out that was a good idea. Just finished smoking those items, and they turned out really, really well. Heavily smoky, nice and salty with the classic pink-salt flavor and high-quality pork. Pretty much can’t go wrong there. Turns … Read More
Bacon Deserves Some Respect
I know, I write about bacon a lot. And I know, bacon’s so last year, right? Wrong. Putting bacon in all kinds of stupid stuff – that’s so last year. But top-shelf bacon is, and will be so long as man and pork collide, a force of awesomeness to be reckoned with. For those of you who have been paying … Read More
Dry Stacked Wood Fired Oven & Grill
I think I’m going to be sore tomorrow morning. This morning, inspired by my recent temp masonry grill setup which still pleased me greatly, I thought ‘how could I use the masonry I have been collecting to build a temp oven‘. If you ever have that thought, just know in advance that if you act on it, you will be … Read More
The Temp
I was doing dishes. Thinking, ‘it would be nice to have a fire this evening‘. I’d spent the morning knocking down some excess trees and dead wood on our lot. Wood was on the brain. But my usual setup [a re-purposed bbq], albeit sufficiently functional for cookery, is far from romantic to sit around for the evening. ‘If only I … Read More
Saucisson Sec d’Orignal
Moose sausage typically doesn’t get me excited. It’s generally made by local meat shops with pre-fabbed 5-gallon-bucketed mixes of ‘cure’ and ‘seasoning’, jacked up with pork to tame the flavor and add fat, resulting in a sausage that tastes like non-game something-or-other akin to a factory produced sausage item from a box store. Not always bad, just rarely that good … Read More
Apple Pruning
Normally I tackle this when the first hints of mild weather hit in February, but having had my nose buried in seed catalogs for a while, it was nice to get out in the garden buried in snow [see below] and do a job that needed doing for the coming growing season. My objective with my apple is to clear … Read More
Jerky – Some Recipe Refinement
I got an email this morning from Throwback at Trapper Creek regarding my previously posted jerky recipe, which led me to responding with a couple recipe tweaks – one of which is pretty key in my mind, so I figured I should post those thoughts here as well. First. On my first elk jerky batch of the winter, I had … Read More
Jerky Pleasing All Parties
Jerky has become a repertoire item around our home – something that reappears over, and over, and over – like bacon. At risk of offending all parties, jerky pleases food snobs, picky eaters, and red necks equally – and I actually don’t quite understand why. Not many foods can transcend those gaping holes in preference, so why does dried raw … Read More