1/1000 of a League under the Sea

Here are few pictures of restaurant Ithaa at the Hilton Maldives Resort and Spa, Rangali Island. It is 16 feet (or 0.0009 leagues) underwater, seats 12 and seems pretty pricey (187-220 dollars per person in ’05) for a place that does not have a kitchen on premises.

And I don’t think I like the idea of a restaurant that forces you to contemplate your place in the food web with quite this much authority.

I mean, you just know that some of those fish are wishing the glass would break.

[Source]

Thanks to Claudia G for the letting me know about this.

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

1/1000 of a League under the Sea

Here are few pictures of restaurant Ithaa at the Hilton Maldives Resort and Spa, Rangali Island. It is 16 feet (or 0.0009 leagues) underwater, seats 12 and seems pretty pricey (187-220 dollars per person in ’05) for a place that does not have a kitchen on premises.

And I don’t think I like the idea of a restaurant that forces you to contemplate your place in the food web with quite this much authority.

I mean, you just know that some of those fish are wishing the glass would break.

[Source]

Thanks to Claudia G for the letting me know about this.

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Briefly Noted

This may just be the first time I have agreed with Jessica Simpson about anything.

[Source]

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Briefly Noted

This may just be the first time I have agreed with Jessica Simpson about anything.

[Source]

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Will these Loins bear Fruit?

A couple of weeks ago I came into possession of two factory-farm produced loins of pork. For reasons that should be obvious to regular readers of my blog, I could not market them to my regular customers who come to the farm specifically because it is NOT a factory farm.

So, after knocking heads with Trent Hendricks, the farm’s owner and prime mover, we decided to use them to test a question that has been bothering us for a long time: What would happen if we cured and air-dried pork loins in the same manner that one might cure a ham or beef (e.g. bresaola)?

On it’s face the question seems pretty easy to answer. Unlike ham, the loin is skinny and has not got much intramuscular fat, so it should dry out fast, be a bit tough to chew. And, forgive me for suggesting the obvious, but if loins of pork were fit to air dry, then why is it that we’ve never seen them before? Could it be that air dried loin of pork has been tried many times before and rejected because it always sucks?

Although my gut tells me that that an affirmative answer to the last question is -despite it’s reductive nature- the right answer. I decided to try air-drying the pork loins anyway.

In the slide show below you will see two loins of pork that have been cured for ten days (until they were very firm) in a mixture of salt, sugar, garlic, sodium nitrate and lots of thyme. They were amazingly fragrant when I took them out of the cure box yesterday and rinsed them off under cold water. Then, after seeing again how skinny and lean they were, and worrying anew that they would dry so fast that they would not have time to develop the kind of flavor that I have learned to lust for in meat that has been cured and aged for a long time, I decided to sheath one of them in a beef casing, age both for the same amount of time under the same conditions, and compare the results.

Update: A few of you have pointed out that loin of pork is indeed air-dried in Italy. That it escaped my attention is probably a a function of the fact that the practice does not seem to be widespread. As of this writing I’m not sure that it is very common anywhere but in Sardinia. In any case, my bad, for not doing my homework before writing this up.

In additioned to be slightly chastened I am also, thanks to your comments, a lot more optimisitc about the outcome.

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Will these Loins bear Fruit?

A couple of weeks ago I came into possession of two factory-farm produced loins of pork. For reasons that should be obvious to regular readers of my blog, I could not market them to my regular customers who come to the farm specifically because it is NOT a factory farm.

So, after knocking heads with Trent Hendricks, the farm’s owner and prime mover, we decided to use them to test a question that has been bothering us for a long time: What would happen if we cured and air-dried pork loins in the same manner that one might cure a ham or beef (e.g. bresaola)?

On it’s face the question seems pretty easy to answer. Unlike ham, the loin is skinny and has not got much intramuscular fat, so it should dry out fast, be a bit tough to chew. And, forgive me for suggesting the obvious, but if loins of pork were fit to air dry, then why is it that we’ve never seen them before? Could it be that air dried loin of pork has been tried many times before and rejected because it always sucks?

Although my gut tells me that that an affirmative answer to the last question is -despite it’s reductive nature- the right answer. I decided to try air-drying the pork loins anyway.

In the slide show below you will see two loins of pork that have been cured for ten days (until they were very firm) in a mixture of salt, sugar, garlic, sodium nitrate and lots of thyme. They were amazingly fragrant when I took them out of the cure box yesterday and rinsed them off under cold water. Then, after seeing again how skinny and lean they were, and worrying anew that they would dry so fast that they would not have time to develop the kind of flavor that I have learned to lust for in meat that has been cured and aged for a long time, I decided to sheath one of them in a beef casing, age both for the same amount of time under the same conditions, and compare the results.

Update: A few of you have pointed out that loin of pork is indeed air-dried in Italy. That it escaped my attention is probably a a function of the fact that the practice does not seem to be widespread. As of this writing I’m not sure that it is very common anywhere but in Sardinia. In any case, my bad, for not doing my homework before writing this up.

In additioned to be slightly chastened I am also, thanks to your comments, a lot more optimisitc about the outcome.

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Duroc Nursery

Check out the photos of the latest additions to the farm! A brood of Duroc (red) piglets born to two of our sows on Sunday night. They are all exhausted and sleep most of the day inside the two quonset hut-like pig shelters. We did not anticipate that two sows would movie into one hut and nurse they piglets communally but there they are.

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Last Night’s Dinner

From the moment I read Michael Ruhlman’s inspired post, Staple Meals, wherein he asked what his readers prepared for dinner at home on a regular basis, I wanted to respond but because I thought that he was asking too much decided I’d just not bother. But then tonight, after a glass of wine, I decided to pull out the camera and shoot some of the construction of a meal that is very typical at my home. It’s nothing especially complicated. Just some artichokes from California, a chicken from a local Chester County farmer that my wife bought at the farmer’s market, and some fried potatoes.

The artichokes were parboiled, salted and oiled and finished on the grill prior to being slopped around in garlic, lemon and more olive oil. The Chicken was pre-salted for three hours, seasoend with fresh sage under the skin, black pepper on the surface before being grilled. And the potatoes are skin on, cut on a mandolin and blanched at 350 and finished at 375.

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

Salt this

A few weeks ago a guy stopped by the kitchen while I was making sausage to ask me if there was any salt in one of the dishes I prepared. I told him that, yes, I used a type of sea salt that was pure sodium chloride and occasionally, Kosher salt. The sea salt I used was the same stuff that was used for making brine for cheese. It contained nothing other that sodium chloride.
Ironically, the Kosher salt, which by my limited understanding of the Kosher laws is supposed to be pure and unadulterated, contains an anticaking agent to keep it from clumping up when it becomes humid. I wasn’t sure which one I used, but either way I was very sure that both salts were mostly pure sodium chloride and had no iodine or any other adulterants.

“Oh,” he said “ I can only sea salt. I’m allergic to regular salt .”

I then explained that regular salt or table salt is sea salt that has been mined from areas formerly covered by saltwater. When the sea water evaporated, the salt -and everything else in the water- precipitated, crystallized and formed what are called evaporite deposits. After the salt is mined, the impurities are removed and what’s left is pure sodium chloride. Then I said that since one can only be truly allergic to proteins and that, unlike many of the salts that are made by people who evaporate sea water in cave or tidal flats, there are no proteins in table salt, it is pure sodium chloride, so he should feel safe.

By now the man’s eyes were glazed over as he said “But sea salt is more natural than sodium chloride, right? I mean, sodium chloride is a chemical, isn’t it?”

Obviously, there was nothing more I could or should say other than Yup, I reckin, or what I actually said which was “Yes.”

Afterwards, when he had gone, and I was alone with my sausage, I realized that while he may have been more allergic to one conception of salt than salt itself, he was not at all unusual in one key measure: he was suspicious of ingredients that are described by their chemical names.

I think that a lot of people assume that if an ingredient is described by it’s chemical name that it must be man made and therefore dangerous to consume. So, for many folks sea salt is good because it comes from the sea, but sodium chloride or table salt is bad because they think it is produced by pinheads in lab coats working side-by-side with dweebs who are cooking up dioxin.

There are some larger points to be made here and some big conclusions to be drawn. If you’re up for it, do it. Me, I’m going to cook dinner.

The best sauce in the world is hunger.

This may be about making food

I discovered this video via the comments section on the blog of Ulla who writes about cooking and farming at Goldilocks Find Manhattan. I like the video a lot, even though it is virtually incomprehensible. I’d love to look and sound this cool while no obvious sense.

I’ve always wanted to be able to talk and write like Bob Dylan and have everyone think they understand me. But I’ll never be that cool, ever. Whatever, I’m giving too much away.

The best sauce in the world is hunger.