I’m very excited about a call I got yesterday. The good folks from Awesome Farm called to say our lamb was ready to head to the butcher. And they’d like to know how we’d like it butchered….legs: half or whole, rack: chops or whole, sholder: roast or stew, etc. etc. Ahhh, the possiblities. We ordered this lamb last spring and I’d almost forgotten about it. Now my only regret is that we only ordered half a lamb and not a whole. I’ll post back after we pick it up and let you know how it tastes.
I’ve made this dessert three times in three weeks, I love it so much. This time we added raspberries! Bittman rules!
Mom sent me a link to this recipe for a porchetta inspired pork shoulder. We cooked it in the Big Green Egg for about 8 hours without any wood chips and it was the tastiest, juciest roast pork I’ve had in a long while.
After years of trying to keep my kitchen knives sharp and not being satisfied with the results I discovered the solution was just 2 miles away from me. Sharpening knives on a whetstone has always seemed like a black art to me. I must have missed that night during Boy Scouts. But a web search revealed NJ Grinding in nearby Belleville. Literally a hole in the wall behind a non-descript brick building. What a difference! I’m ready to dice mirepoix all night long. Night of the long knives, indeed!
And, the best part is, all of you around the country can enjoy fine work and get your knives back up to snuff. Through their website, CutleryMania, the folks at NJ Grinding offer a service whereby they mail you a shipping container for your knives, you send your knives to them and Presto! within a couple of days your knives are returned sharpened and ready for battle with that mound of onions.
These guys are so sharp good they even fixed an old paring knife with a broken tip. Ground a new one right on to it.
After Friday, Wednesday is my favorite weekday. Why, you ask? Well, because that’s the universal day for newpapers to run their food sections. Most of these sections are pretty lame, “10 New Ways to Use Canned Mushroom Soup” et. al. But, the grandaddy of all food sections is the New York Times. Because I work an overnight shift, I’m constantly clicking on “refresh” starting at midnight on Wednesday to see what this week’s offerings are. I usually buy the paper on the way home anyway to have a hard copy but sometimes the online perusal can save me a buck and a quarter.
Once upon a time, in the dark ages of the internets there was a website called SauteWednesday which collated all the food sections from around the country onto one website. But, alas, the blogger who put that together turned pro and abandoned it.
In other food publishing news, my latest edition of Meatpaper arrived yesterday. My subscription was a Christmas gift from my sister and one of the better gifts I received this year. This quarterly publication has fascinating articles on “the culture of meat”. Some even written by vegatarians! This month’s issue includes articles Israel’s clandestine pork market, and Tunisian goat testicles, among others.
JerzeeTomato 