New Gig

I’ve been a busy cook these past few weeks and hope to be a lot busier. In no small part inspired by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polycyn’s excellent book “Charcuterie” my passion for the craft that used to be my specialty back in the ’80’s when fear of animal fat amongst the dining public quickly limited my repertoire to confited duck legs and emulsified sausage, is reborn.

A few weeks ago I reached an agreement with Trent Hendricks of Hendricks Farms and Dairy to help him produce a line of American, Italian and French style charcuterie products. I’ve got to split out for the farm now, so I don’t have a lot of time to blog about this now. But here are a few photos of some of our output. There’s a lot more stuff working that I have not photographed. We’ve got legs of lamb brining (for air dried “lamb ham”) and beef eye rounds in cure for Bresaola. After I took these photos I hung 8 more rolls of pork pancetta and 4 versions made from lamb bellies.

Until we build out a special room for air drying we are doing it in the cheese room.

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

New Gig

I’ve been a busy cook these past few weeks and hope to be a lot busier. In no small part inspired by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polycyn’s excellent book “Charcuterie” my passion for the craft that used to be my specialty back in the ’80’s when fear of animal fat amongst the dining public quickly limited my repertoire to confited duck legs and emulsified sausage, is reborn.

A few weeks ago I reached an agreement with Trent Hendricks of Hendricks Farms and Dairy to help him produce a line of American, Italian and French style charcuterie products. I’ve got to split out for the farm now, so I don’t have a lot of time to blog about this now. But here are a few photos of some of our output. There’s a lot more stuff working that I have not photographed. We’ve got legs of lamb brining (for air dried “lamb ham”) and beef eye rounds in cure for Bresaola. After I took these photos I hung 8 more rolls of pork pancetta and 4 versions made from lamb bellies.

Until we build out a special room for air drying we are doing it in the cheese room.

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Blame the Chef

According to this fascinating piece, chefs are at least partially to blame for the fact that many people eat too much. How’s that, you might ask? Well, by serving too much food, of course.

The article cites a study done by Clemson University and published in the journal Obesity that found that many chefs are ignoring USDA guidelines for portion sizes and, for example, dishing out 6-8 ounce servings of pasta instead of the recommended (Are you sitting?) 1 ounce serving.

Ahem, if you are overweight and you order a bowl of pasta that looks too big, don’t eat all of it. Duh.

The study also discovered that 59 % of the chefs interviewed were actually idiots who knew nothing about human physiology and nutrition, to wit

Surprisingly, only 41 percent said calories consumed were the biggest influence on a person’s weight. The majority of chefs believed fat content and carbohydrates matter more. [Emphasis mine]

So there you go. If you eat out a lot and are overweight, blame the chef. Why not, given that there may be a better than even chance that he or she is a dope anyway?

Oversized Portions? Blame the Chef

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Blame the Chef

According to this fascinating piece, chefs are at least partially to blame for the fact that many people eat too much. How’s that, you might ask? Well, by serving too much food, of course.

The article cites a study done by Clemson University and published in the journal Obesity that found that many chefs are ignoring USDA guidelines for portion sizes and, for example, dishing out 6-8 ounce servings of pasta instead of the recommended (Are you sitting?) 1 ounce serving.

Ahem, if you are overweight and you order a bowl of pasta that looks too big, don’t eat all of it. Duh.

The study also discovered that 59 % of the chefs interviewed were actually idiots who knew nothing about human physiology and nutrition, to wit

Surprisingly, only 41 percent said calories consumed were the biggest influence on a person’s weight. The majority of chefs believed fat content and carbohydrates matter more. [Emphasis mine]

So there you go. If you eat out a lot and are overweight, blame the chef. Why not, given that there may be a better than even chance that he or she is a dope anyway?

Oversized Portions? Blame the Chef

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Shave this on your risotto

Truffle-loving tycoons to bid for giant fungus in Macau – Yahoo! News

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Shave this on your risotto

Truffle-loving tycoons to bid for giant fungus in Macau – Yahoo! News

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Milk Dud

The hypocrisy of Heather Mills is matched only by her vanity and vacuity. She does not drink milk so she is against the practice of people drinking milk because it contributes to global warming. However she supports the airline industry despite the fact that it contributes to global warming because (I assume) she likes to fly a lot.

She’s not bad-looking though. As someone once wrote (Anthony Trollope, I think) about the writing of HG Wells [she’s] like miles of shimmering water, one inch deep.

Heather says

When (Viva!) told me it [effects of livestock on global warming] was 18%, that’s more than all global transport, I was in shock. Airplanes only bring 3%, while they are being picked on with taxes,” she said Monday.

“We are the only species that drinks another person’s milk, so why aren’t we drinking rat’s milk, or dog’s milk, or cat’s milk, that’s how crazy it is,” she said.

“It’s mad that we are having cow’s milk. Even cows don’t drink it after one year but we continue forever. [Source]

We are the only species that drinks another PERSON’S milk? Wow, that’s deep. I assume that since a cow is a person and I am a person, I am drinking another person’s milk when I drink cow’s milk. Cool, I did not know that. What’s more I think I am experiencing a true paradigm shift. Now I realize that when I eat cheese, I am eating another person’s cheese that is not my own cheese. Whew, and that butter is another person’s butter. I get it, totally.

But rat’s milk Heather? WTF are you smoking? The fact is that humans can drink rat milk, dog’s milk, even got-damned whale’s milk. But dear god girl, how many rats would you have to breed and milk to meet the needs of even a small city? And who are you going to hire to do the job of milking rats? You are too funny baby.

I do fancy the idea a bit. And how cool would it be if say one dairy farmer raised rats while an adjacent farmer raised cats?

OMG, I cannot wait for the mothership to come and take me back to earth, this planet is much too weird for me.

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Milk Dud

The hypocrisy of Heather Mills is matched only by her vanity and vacuity. She does not drink milk so she is against the practice of people drinking milk because it contributes to global warming. However she supports the airline industry despite the fact that it contributes to global warming because (I assume) she likes to fly a lot.

She’s not bad-looking though. As someone once wrote (Anthony Trollope, I think) about the writing of HG Wells [she’s] like miles of shimmering water, one inch deep.

Heather says

When (Viva!) told me it [effects of livestock on global warming] was 18%, that’s more than all global transport, I was in shock. Airplanes only bring 3%, while they are being picked on with taxes,” she said Monday.

“We are the only species that drinks another person’s milk, so why aren’t we drinking rat’s milk, or dog’s milk, or cat’s milk, that’s how crazy it is,” she said.

“It’s mad that we are having cow’s milk. Even cows don’t drink it after one year but we continue forever. [Source]

We are the only species that drinks another PERSON’S milk? Wow, that’s deep. I assume that since a cow is a person and I am a person, I am drinking another person’s milk when I drink cow’s milk. Cool, I did not know that. What’s more I think I am experiencing a true paradigm shift. Now I realize that when I eat cheese, I am eating another person’s cheese that is not my own cheese. Whew, and that butter is another person’s butter. I get it, totally.

But rat’s milk Heather? WTF are you smoking? The fact is that humans can drink rat milk, dog’s milk, even got-damned whale’s milk. But dear god girl, how many rats would you have to breed and milk to meet the needs of even a small city? And who are you going to hire to do the job of milking rats? You are too funny baby.

I do fancy the idea a bit. And how cool would it be if say one dairy farmer raised rats while an adjacent farmer raised cats?

OMG, I cannot wait for the mothership to come and take me back to earth, this planet is much too weird for me.

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

YES CHEF!

Liz Hurley is totally hot and guess what? She is a god-damned chef AND, according to this article, she’s going to go toe-to-toe against the lip-smacking-give-that-dog-a-bone Nigella Lawson by taking the culinary skills she developed by running her own 400 ACRE ORGANIC FARM to the boob food tube.

Now why she seems to have chosen to teach cooking and not farming on TV is beyond me at the moment. I mean, if she’s like an expert farmer, wouldn’t it make more sense for her to teach things like how to turn a manure pile or plow a field with an ox? And while food cooked on a farm can be pretty darned good, the skills that one develops in a farm kitchen aren’t the ones that most people want to learn. I mean, is there really that much pent up demand among urban and suburban audiences for knowledge about how to slaughter a hog and make blood sausage?

But what the heck do I know about what people who watch food TV really want? Maybe there is a lot of audience demand for a hot looking English actress whose real skill is organic farming, but who wants to share her knowledge about cooking. I’d never know. But I’ll tell you what, if Ms. Hurley’s chef’s uniform looks anything like that farmer’s outfit she’s wearing in that photo in the corner of this post, she might just have a shot at convincing the TV foodies that she really is the next Nigella Lawson.

Right buddy?

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

YES CHEF!

Liz Hurley is totally hot and guess what? She is a god-damned chef AND, according to this article, she’s going to go toe-to-toe against the lip-smacking-give-that-dog-a-bone Nigella Lawson by taking the culinary skills she developed by running her own 400 ACRE ORGANIC FARM to the boob food tube.

Now why she seems to have chosen to teach cooking and not farming on TV is beyond me at the moment. I mean, if she’s like an expert farmer, wouldn’t it make more sense for her to teach things like how to turn a manure pile or plow a field with an ox? And while food cooked on a farm can be pretty darned good, the skills that one develops in a farm kitchen aren’t the ones that most people want to learn. I mean, is there really that much pent up demand among urban and suburban audiences for knowledge about how to slaughter a hog and make blood sausage?

But what the heck do I know about what people who watch food TV really want? Maybe there is a lot of audience demand for a hot looking English actress whose real skill is organic farming, but who wants to share her knowledge about cooking. I’d never know. But I’ll tell you what, if Ms. Hurley’s chef’s uniform looks anything like that farmer’s outfit she’s wearing in that photo in the corner of this post, she might just have a shot at convincing the TV foodies that she really is the next Nigella Lawson.

Right buddy?

The best sauce in the world is hunger.