Late to the Party: The Final Charcutepalooza Challenge

Photo by Peter Nilsen

I’ve mentioned before about the challenges of 2011 for me, and how those challenges threatened to render me more cynical in a not-funny-cynical way*.

(*At this point, my husband, if he is reading, will say, “When did your cynicism EVER take the form of the funny?” And he would have a point. Except I’m pretty sure there was that one time in 1997 when I was hilarious.)

But, I also learned a lot, especially about how to take the bits (of life, of animals) that we generally consider undesirable and make them into something something glorious. Pigs feet, Florence & the Machine B-sides, and countless hours in hospitals and nursing homes have all left their marks on me this year.

Lamb neck confit with Zaytinya style gigande beans; Smoked cod chowder with homemade bacon. Photos by Peter Nilsen.

Today’s post is all about the meat; about finding greater joy in the jowls—or the feet or the liver—than in the tenderloin; about using the lens of charcuterie to see THE POSSIBLE in every piece of an animal. That lens is an effing gift.

Charcuterie’s first rules are patience and precision. Keep everything cold*. Measure carefully. With a scale**.

(*And I hate being cold! My fingers and toes—prone as they are to Reynaud’s—turn into greenish-white lifeless stumps, still capable, however, of registering pain…and even more pain as they thaw out.
**Yes: 2 grams one way or the other really will make difference.)

But after the constriction of the initial rules, delight reveals itself. Why not go with your gut? Ugly can still taste good. Every now and then say, “What the fuck.” “What the fuck” gives you freedom.*

(*Props to “Risky Business.”)

So: Charcutepalooza. I had eleven successful months. Not bad, right? It’s a low A. In truth, though, I grieved over that failure. July. Binding. Ugh. I’m still ashamed that emulsifying kicked my butt: I still cringe over that weisswurst. I feel like I’m graduating high school having failed the seventh grade. If there is such a thing as a “permanent record” in the world of sausage, mine will have a big grey overpoached mark on it.

(*Can a singular version of this please be my epitaph?)

Pumpkin bread pudding, sausage, egg; Brioche bun with duck confit; Soppressata, duck proscuitto, grouse rillettes, Headcheese tamale. Photos by Peter Nilsen

CHARCUTEPALOOZA: The Final Challenge

Charcuterie platter
Grouse rillettes, duck prosciutto, soppressata

Smoked cod chowder
Hot smoked cod, bacon

Lamb-n-Beans
Lamb neck confit and Zaytinya-style gigande beans

Tamales
Headcheese

Pumpkin bread pudding with chicken sausage and soft-cooked egg
Homemade chicken sausage with preserved lemon & capers

Brioche buns
Duck confit, orange marmalade

Caramel corn
Guinciale

Caramel corn with guanciale, photo by Peter Nilsen

Don’t trust this animal around guanciale!