Christine | May 15, 2011
You just gotta hate when you pull in kitchen reinforcements to help you get through a project and they just kick you culinary butt up and down the island. I have to admit I was hurtling toward the deadline, and I hadn’t attempted this month’s Charcutepalooza bulk sausage challenge. Not only did my friend and [...]
Christine | April 15, 2011
Hello, my name is Christine. And I have a problem. I will smoke anything. Well anything that fits into the Burton stove top smoker, anyway. I bought it in order to participate in this month’s Charcutepalooza challenge. But I wound up smoking so much in the last 30 days that my kids no longer blink [...]
Christine | March 15, 2011
Brined is better. For everything. Therein lies my lesson learned from this month’s Charcutepalooza challenge for which 300+ food bloggers and Louis François Drone wannabes (he’s the French pork butcher largely credited with elevating charcuterie from the peasantry to the upper-classes’ gala menus in 19th century France) submerged all sorts of meat into mixtures of [...]
Christine | March 2, 2011
It’s bed time. My nine-year-old daughter is wrapped in my arms which are wrapped in her hot pink Snuggie because I know that if I slide completely under the purple leopard print duvet cover with her I will be down for the night. And my brisket for Charcutepalooza has two more hours to simmer, the [...]
Christine | February 15, 2011
My demure — if overly salty — goat pancetta The exterior door on the side porch was open. But the interior one was locked. Pulling on the piece of rope tied to the clapper, I rang the brass bell and waited for Sandy – the farmer supplying me with some of the raw material necessary for [...]
Christine | January 30, 2011
There are too many sausages in Lyon to count. I had my fill of the Rosette Lyonnaise (dry pork sausage with a course stuffing which gets its name from its pink tail). I licked my chops at the thought of Cervelas – a fresh sausage that used to be made with brains, but now more [...]
Christine | January 28, 2011
My father-in-law has got my goat – and my pork. Bellies that is, on their way to fresh bacon and cured pancetta. While I am traveling in France, he’s tending to the every other daily turning process – know as overhauling – occurring in my cellar fridge. I have two one-pound pieces of slender goat [...]
Christine | January 15, 2011
I am not afraid duck fat. I adore duck fat. I just had my hubby bring me several jars off it from England where it’s a grocery store staple commonly used for fabulously crispy roasted potatoes. But the amount of fat attached to my duck prosciutto, I must admit, caught me off guard. On Day [...]
Christine | January 5, 2011
My breast is wrapped in cheese cloth, hanging in the dark, damp side of the cellar on a hook directly in front of a bear’s bum sticking out of a honey tree. Should I have been clearer about my imagery here? Ok, for those of you with overactive sexual imaginations, let me explain. The bear’s [...]
