As I struggled to pull together my June Charcutepalooza post this week, trying to force some personality to show through the words, I knew what fed my blogger’s block. My mother, my original kitchen mentor, died last week. It happened quickly, as she sat down to a dinner she had prepared for my dad and his friend. She was in her 87th year, and remained active to the end, playing, and winning, duplicate bridge the day before. These are all things to…
I don’t know for certain that I don’t like chicken sausage, but I assume I don’t because I really don’t like chicken all that much. So, faced with the task of producing a poultry based sausage, I immediately went looking for alternatives to chicken. One simple Google search later I was overjoyed to find several mentions of an Italian sausage made with duck and pancetta- whoo hoo! Fat, flavor and spiciness! The first step in the process had to…
As anyone who read my bacon blog knows, I was a bit frenetic at the beginning of this challange, flying through the bacon curing process with little creative input. Even my final production of a Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado and Tomato sandwich was to say the least, uninspired. I hoped to do better with this one, taking a deep breath after placing the bacon belly in the refrigerator. Not yet a true believer in the magical process since, at this point,…