My first homemade charcuterie project was a resounding success; thanks, Michael Ruhlman, for your super informative book.  Recently I’ve become pretty intrigued with at-home charcuterie; it all started with the extra refrigerator Jonas brought home a few months ago from the office that sat languishing on our deck.  I hate useless appliances, and I really try to keep my kitchen fairly gadget-free (though I confess to being lured in by promised convenience more than I probably should).  That’s why this refrigerator was bothering me so much just sitting there mocking me from our unused upper deck without so much as a nearby electrical outlet so we could plug it in. 

I finally requested that Jonas make a morning project of rearranging our master bathroom closet to accommodate the refrigerator- how many mismatched Missoni bath towels and pilfered Mondrian soaps does a girl really need?  I’ve had it up and running for a month now- it’s great.  I bring Bentley’s bottle of milk upstairs at night, use the second fridge to house said milk, and take it out for the baby in the morning so I don’t have to make the arduous journey downstairs.  That’s it.  There is not another damn thing that has seen the inside of the spare refrigerator to this day, mainly because I can’t regulate the temperature enough inside it to ensure even curing.  What does this have to do with my luscious duck boobies? Not a thing, since it was my laborious mistake in the first place, but I promise you, you will see home-cured pork belly cum bacon coming out of that refrigerator before the year’s end even if I have to get a refrigeration and humidity degree just to figure out how to regulate the chilly sucker! 

Read more

Next time you find yourself cruising South Genessee Street, stop into Flying Squirrel. If the Herb Alpert Pizza is on the menu that night, don’t hesitate to order it.  Follow it with a Molly Moon’s Salted Caramel Ice Cream Sandwich. You can thank me later!

I’m currently battling a minor fascination with all things duck.  I can trace it back to its origin- the amazing duck egg raviolo I was served at top Seattle restaurant Spring Hill.  Since then I’ve cured duck breast into prosciutto, used duck eggs yolks in pasta dough (amazingly elastic!), poached the eggs to perfection, and even fried an egg up on my slab of pink Himalayan salt.  When I was a child of five, my father got the idea in his head that he wanted to dapple in farming and ranching, so he uprooted our bi-racial family from a happy if crowded existence in southern California and transplanted us to a freshly purchased homestead with acreage in BFE Idaho.  The folks in the small town didn’t quite know what to make of a middle-aged white guy with his dark-skinned bride (my mother), her two black teenagers (my half-siblings) and a four-year-old towhead who thought she was a boy and ran around naked all the time (me).  Consequently, our family was largely left to devise our own elaborate entertainment.  Since my brother and sister were busy fighting with each other and trying to master the art of break-dancing in the pasture, I made friends with the dogs and ducks. 

Read more