In celebration of seeing V for the first time in two months, I simply had to cook. And because he had detoured on her way home from a conference in barbecue country (Lexington style, iirc), secured transport into the hippie hills in the wee hours, and braved the treacherous path up to the cottage on crutches and in a boot, I wanted it to be ( Read more... )

Between the clunky interface that throws ads at me whenever I try to log in, a home page that I don't believe is customizable and filled with useless crap, and an utter lack of control over spam accounts that seem to respond to everything I post, I am rapidly losing patience with LJ.

As I had been warned by the two gents before me, beef is simultaneously precisely the same and a whole other thing altogether. Four ribs and two loins for me today, and I left for lunch feeling a bit dazed. Tomorrow we'll hit rounds and a chuck if we have the time. I've little doubt that I will be tired and sore ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

Today, Tom Schneller showed me a new way to remove the hock from a ham, and I hung sausages to age on a aged steel bed frame in a move that was deemed "too rustic" by my colleague. Pics of the latter are sure to follow.

I was also put in charge of showing the new apprentice how to break a side of pork. Tomorrow, I'll be taking him through lamb.

The other apprentices in the shop came to the program as steak guys. At the outset they may not have been able to identify where on the animal a steak came from, but they knew about the steak, how best to cook it, and usually a number of accompaniments to serve it to best effect. By contrast, I've been tagged as a pork and offal guy. I don't ( Read more... )

Click to view

I was at the door on my way out of the shop already laden with a bag of stuff for cooking when I heard Rosa (whose name has been changed for purposes of this story) calling after me. I turned around to find her handing me a bag containing a whole, bone-in chicken breast. Rosa is a lovely young woman who is a joy to have around, but she doesn't ( Read more... )

This weekend, driven by an urge to recreate a tagliatelle in trotter ragu I had on a visit to 'The City' last week, I found Nate Appleman's riff on Ragù alla Napoletana and provisioned. I grabbed a couple of trotters and a hock off the pork I started cutting last week, stopped at the grocery store for additional supplies, and had at it ( Read more... )

This past week we were given advanced sausage making basics at the shop. The "advanced" bit included thoughts on equipment, costs, and strategies around large scale production. "Basics" focused a little more on crafting recipes, techniques to use, choice of meats, and just how f&cking simple it is to make sausage. I agree, but only to an extent ( Read more... )