I’m so excited I don’t know where to start. I’ll just go this way and see how we do.
I haven’t been out to the Berkeley Farmer’s Market in a few weeks. I miss my pals there, but I’ve been a busy boy. What with smoking meats and all. I finally got a chance to head out today (saturday) and go see what was new. I usually park in this one area that puts me directly in the path of the Fatted Calf’s stall. I had to stop by and see Taylor & Kim and catch up. I met a new friend there, Christine. She and her family have been MeatHenge fans and spend their days cooking as well. She’ll send me her email soon so I can go get those nice cookbooks she mentioned. I’ll post the info as soon as I get it myself.

Onward.
Well, as you can see I made it away from their stall with some REAL treats. First off is the Finocchiona (fe-noh-key-oh-nah), it is a dry-cured salami with fennel seeds. The little darling doesn’t sound interesting. One couldn’t be more wrong. This is Taylor’s secret artisinal meat salami weapon which lays out shrapnel infused with bright flavor yummies (go back and read that one again, eh). First off you notice as you pop a slice into your mouth that it isn’t held together all that well. It rolls to meat pieces in your mouth. Then you can feel the fat coat your mouth and your teeth begin to glisten. Now that you have the meat pieces (shrapnel) the bright happy flavor just jumps out all over the inside of your mouth. It hits every taste bud you have, right now. This makes your chewing slow, slow, slow. After it goes down, the flavor disapears as fast as it bounced in. At first I thought how odd that it came to pieces a bit, but now I know that must be a feature that Taylor has designed into his Finocchiona. Thank you sir for caring so damned much.
As far as the Duck Confit goes, I haven’t tried it yet. I’ll save that for another post.
XO XO