Winter Walk, Waldo County (Maine) Independent, 1992

With five-hour goat on my mind, I bought a 3 1/4 pound Goat Leg at the Saturday Farmers Market from Marin Sun Farms [$26]. I’d been looking since the Five-Hour Goat story appeared in the New York Times the first of April.

Monday, I took the fine looking goat leg out of the refrigerator at 12:30 and, still wrapped, checked to see if it would fit in one of my Dutch ovens; wouldn’t. The leg had a four-inch Frenched bone protruding out of the meat. What to do? I could take it to Whole Food and have the butcher there whack off the bone. That would be uncool. Better idea… go to Cole Hardware and buy a small hacksaw.

The Palestinian convenience store is a few doors down from Cole; intimidated by the 26 cloves of garlic, I walked over and bought two heads, just in case. Six bucks for the hacksaw, two bucks for the garlic, $26 for the leg; enough for two or three meals, pretty good.

I sawed off the bone and the leg fit nicely in my blue oval Le Creuset pot. Continue reading →

Panel on the Art of the Butcher
The Society for Agriculture and Food Ecology (SAFE) and Meatpaper present a panel discussion highlighting the stark contrast between animals delivered from local slaughterhouses and plastic-wrapped grocery store steak. They will talk about the retail component of the local meat system and how this can change the relationships that chefs, home cooks, and diners have with their meat. “We want to show how animals can be part of a vibrant and diverse agricultural system and some part of our diet as responsible omnivores.” The discussion will be followed by a demonstration by Chef Ryan Farr on how a whole carcass is broken down into cuts of meat. 7:00pm, 105 North Gate Hall, UC Berkeley Campus.

I took the opportunity to attend The Art of the Butcher on a balmy Thursday evening. Geez Louise, I hadn’t been in a college lecture hall for a long time. North Gate Hall is the Journalism building at Berkeley, an excellent Arts and Crafts building with steps inside meandering up through the building, mirroring the topography outside.

the hall

I entered Room 105 at the top of a stepped hall with loose, “writing-arm” wooden chairs on the risers. I was there for the panel on good meat practices and to see a pig butchered.

The panel, left to right:
Melanie Eisemann (Avedano’s),
David Budworth (Marina Meats, Avedano’s),
moderator Marissa Guggiana (Sonoma Direct,  Meatpaper)
Mark Pasternak (Devil’s Gulch Ranch),
Nate Appleman (A16, SPQR, Urbino),
Ryan Farr (Ivy Elegance)

Some notes from the panel discussion –

Butchers David, Nate and Ryan were chosen because they break down whole carcasses at their respective establishments, rather than buy meat by the box. A16 buys two pigs a week on Wednesday, Nate Appleman breaks them down in the restaurant, and they use every bit, including the skin. A16 is “based on Southern Italy, which is based on poverty.” While they serve all the familiar cuts, they also serve those you probably won’t find in your supermarket. Continue reading →

Bacon Explosion

I got this recipe from the NY Times just in time to make it for my 10th annual Super Bowl Party. When I mentioned to Carol – who sent me the link – that I wanted to make it, she said, “Oh no, the guests will explode!”

“What better time,” I said, “we’ll have 15 people here, the perfect opportunity.”

The Times story, by Damon Darlin, was entitled, “Take Bacon. Add Sausage. Blog.” They did it in a smoker; I don’t have a smoker and Super Sunday turned out to be a beautiful day, so I did it on my Weber Q grill.

So, here’s my story, dedicated to my brother, Tom, who was in Atlanta, weeping. Continue reading →

Stuffed Pork Chops

I got so hungry writing the review of Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Cooking that I just had to cook something from that book.As luck would have it, a colleague of Carol’s was coming over for dinner the following Sunday to watch the Academy Awards. Good timing.

I went through the book carefully to find something appropriate. I wasn’t in the mood for fish or seafood, so that limited the possibilities. Pork Chops stuffed with a spiced up sausage-apple mixture looked good. It can be prepped ahead and it spends over an hour in the oven so that once Sarah arrives, the cooking would be virtually completed. I wanted to roast some beets, as well, so they could share the 400-degree oven with the chops.

Saturday at the Farmers Market, I stopped by Golden Gate Meat and got 4 Frenched pork chops. I had the butcher cut a pocket in each for stuffing – not a difficult task, I could do it myself, but he’s a pro. Looking at the chops in the meat case, they didn’t look extra big, so instead of 3 folks, 3 chops, I got four. Besides, the recipe is for six chops and can’t readily be halved… leftovers of any K-Paul dish are good. I got some mild Italian sausages to use as the ground pork ingredient.

Sunday was chilly and rainy, a perfect day for cooking. I started the mise en place mid-afternoon. Once the “meez” (as Anthony Bourdain calls it) is done, the cooking is a breeze, K-Paul writes very explicit instructions. Continue reading →

A few weeks ago, the Chronicle Food Section ran a story by James Temple called Loving Lard. While noting the bad rep of lard, it focused on top restaurants that are using lard for its nutrition and flavor. It included a detailed history of cooking fat, as well, from lard to Crisco, to “the other white meat” and back to the present yearning for flavor, moist, flavorful pork and yes, lard.This came at an appropriate time, as there have been enough murmurings in the foodie community to raise my curiosity and desire to cook with lard myself; but I didn’t know where to start. Viola! The article, as well as educating me, told me where to go.At the Golden Gate Meat counter at the Ferry Building on Saturday morning, I asked a butcher if they had lard. “Do you want the leaf lard?” he asked. Remembering something about leaf lard being the best, I said yes, and he handed me a shrink-wrapped packet of white matter, about two pounds.When I got home, I whacked off a bit and melted it to fry some potatoes for breakfast. Yum.I re-read the article and learned that my leaf lard needed to be rendered, a simple, but two-day process. This is what it looks like.

leaf lard comes from the area around the abdomen and kidneys

my meat grinder handed down from my mother… or perhaps her mother

Continue reading →