‘Pig Day‘ as it’s known around here is the big day we cut pigs to supply us for the year. We buy no other pork. If we run out, we wait for the next pig day. And we pretty much had run out, so I was particularly excited to get my hands on a whole hog again. And it was … Read More
Farm to Table w/ RGE RD & Nature’s Green Acres
Farm-to-table dining, while commonplace elsewhere, is still an extremely progressive concept in our restaurant scene. When one of the most well-respected chefs in the city, Blair Lebsack, mentioned he was going to tackle serving a multi-course dinner to 30-40 guests out in the cow pasture at Nature’s Green Acres, I wanted to be there. I find in the food service … 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
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
My 3 Year Old Can Cure Bacon. So Can You.
May the following serve as evidence for all those that say, ‘but I don’t know how’ and perhaps ‘but I don’t have the time’. The following is a series of photos of how to cure bacon – by a 3 year old. Yes. That’s right. A 3 year old can cure bacon. And it took her 5 minutes or so. … Read More
Meat Law
I am not a lawyer. Did I mention I’m not a lawyer? Sadly, I feel apprehensive to discuss law as it implies somebody will misinterpret this, act upon it [ie, do something stupid], and point to me as the source of their lack of awesomeness. Yeah, don’t do that please. I’m addressing this topic to try to share some of … Read More
Investigated by AARD re: Butchering At Home
I just got an interesting phone call. It was a very nice guy from Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development Regulatory Services Division investigating my home butchering practices. Apparently my home butchering has gained enough public attention to draw some question as to the legalities of what I’ve been doing? Interesting. I thought I’d share the content and outcome of the … 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