As I sit to write, the knot in my stomach tightens. The aroma still lingers on my hands, in my beard, I fear not wash. Dear Sugo, do not leave.
You and I met summers ago, at a market, at a stand. This container of careful meat stewing. Your master, ever smiling knew it would entice, steer me back for more. You Sugo, are my crack. Week after week, year after year your flavors never wandered. Warmed on toast? With fresh ‘maters added? You even replaced my meat sauce, never looked back. The delight in the eyes of the children each week, guaranteed dinner splendor. Tiny E never tried, but he knew the lineage and was calmed by your presence.
Everyone loves you, everyone cares. Dear Sugo, do not leave.
I leave you today in tears. Farewell to thee dear Sugo.
Biggles
A tale of the quail and the fig – A Fatted Calf Newsletter
Image above would be the Fatted Calf’s brined and cold smoked pork chops!
This, right here is hands down the best Fatted Calf Newsletter ever. This one. Today. Right now. I have nothing to add or blabber about. Toponia, you are the queen.
Please read on to poetic meaty love.
Smoked Chicken Cordon Bleu from Dittmer’s Wurst Haus
I have several friends that have the name Paul. One drives to Oregon for bacon and one I’ve known since 2nd grade. Let’s call him Uncle Paul, mmm kay?
Uncle Paul has recently purchased a home near Dittmer’s Wurst Haus. 2 weeks ago the boys and I drove down and helped him move the large items, umph. We had a great time checking out the new digs and later in the day we did some cold beers with grilled tasty pork. No time for poor Dittmer.
“What to do !?! What to do !?” cried the engineer.
Berkshire Pork Brochettes with Herbes de Provence, Pork Crepinettes with Chard, Lemon and Pine Nuts – Fatted Calf Newsletter
Here is the opening slices of the smoked & stuffed lamb leg from the 4th. Yes, it was that good.
I feel funny. Like I had 2 Monday’s this week. Work Monday, eat Tuesday, back to work on Wednesday. Yup, 2 Mondays, this can’t possibly be a good thing. So, when the Fatted Calf Newsletter rolled in, I felt a little better and it grounded me as to where I am in the day.
This week’s menu steers towards ease of prep and no fuss. I had the lamb brochettes (meat on sticks) a few weeks ago and now they gots pork brochettes. Damned they were good, and easy. Not that grilling a crepinette is all that tough in itself. But you don’t even have to put the meat on the sticks, just my style. Open package and insert to fire, turn, eat. They good, you get.
The pork crepinettes this week is stuffed with chard, lemon and pine nuts. Heeeee, it makes my toes curl when I even remotely consider seeing them lay on my grill. Cook carefully my peoples, they tender. Do not over cook, dry pork sucks.
The newsletter mentions Ciccioli. I googled it and it seems kinda like a creamy pate deal. I’ve clearly never had it, but I’d like to stick my face in and wooly it about a little to see what the scoop is. Maybe this weekend?
I see something else looming out of the meat pile, Salami Cotto. While I know we’ve all had some of this at one time or another, I’d like to see what Fatted Calf does with it. The stuff we find at our local grocery store is usually just a bland & fatty piece of nothin’. I can’t imagine Taylor doing anything remotely like that. I’m going to try some, fer sure.
As my eyes wander around, I notice clear down there at the bottom I see something about Beef Jerky. Eh? That’s new too. What’s that about? Beef Jerky?
Ooo Ooo Ooo, hey! I nearly missed it but they’ve got the Sicilian al’ Arancia this week. This is still my favorite meat stick. It’s a little bright and happy Sicillian salami with orange zest in it. Not sure why, but it really makes my day to bite in to a little slice. MmmMmMm, citrus zest.
I can hardly wait for Satuday, I’ve got all kinds of great things planned for the day. I hope to see you at the market!
Biggles
ps – If you want to have any near remote chance of picked up the brochettes this week, I would strongly suggest you pre-order your needs today.
What’s in the smoker right now – Stuffed Lamb Leg
Ah, what’s in the smoker right now? A 7 pound lamb leg. Bone removed and butterflyed open. Stuffed with extra virgin, s&p, fresh cilantro, toasted corriander & cumin seeds, special spices (curry like), fresh crushed garlic and lemon zest. Reinstall bone, tie up roast and put way down in the smoker for hours.
This is what it looks like right now. As it happens. You’re seeing it. No lie.
xo
Planning on grilling tomorrow? Are you sure?
Ah yes, the July 4th grilling holiday. Oh sure we have Memorial Day as well, but you have to admit, there’s something about July 4th that just screams mesquited meat nuptials. As with Thanksgiving Day meals, this day brings out the home chef that may be better off attending someone else’s party. Oh no, not you. You figure you can handle it. How tough could it be? All you have to do is prepare/season/marinade the meat, build & maintain a fire, cook to perfection and serve. What could possibly go wrong?
Blooming Cactus
Ith pretty.
Meathenge wins Meatiest Entry at Does My Blog Look Good in This?
Cool! I thought for sure I was the only meat related entry. Apparently not and I win Meatiest Category at this version of Does my blog look good in this?
What is this happening? It’s a contest where you are asked to choose a post with the best image out of a specific month. You send this url to the hosting food blog and then at some point they judge it. Cool, eh?
If you take the time to check out the entries, they’re pretty darned good. I like the chicken stock ice cube one, neat.
Congratulations to me.
Biggles
Collectible Restaurant Ware Tepco Pottery Beach
Which one of those words don’t belong? Which one of those words don’t quite fit? You guessed it Sherlock, the word Beach is what I was looking for.
Have you ever been sitting at your desk and said to yourself, “Okay, I’ve had enough of this. I need a breather.” Today was that day.
Creepy E mentioned on Thursday that low tide would be at 9:45 this morning, Friday. So, with buckets and gloves in tow, we made our way (it took 6 minutes to get there) to Point Isabel. Or more commonly known as Tepco Beach.
Wachu talkin’ ’bout Willis? I’m talking about Tepco Beach. The place where a local China Ware company over 50 years ago would dump all their imperfect or damaged plates, platters, mugs, bowls and whatever else needed to go. Tepco’s deal was they made heavy duty restaurant ware and put fancy patterns on it. They even made china for our armed forces. So, the variantions are immense and fun and very collectible. Well, at least their collectible when they aren’t in a million little pieces.
Wanna come play at the beach?
Knife Skills Class comin’ – Join now!
I was just flipping through Shuna’s Eggbeater and noticed she’s got Knife Skills class coming up. The location is in San Francisco, so if you’re even remotely close, sign up now. It’s a small class so space will go.
I attended Shuna’s first knife skills class back in February of 2005. I learned enough to find myself supreming sectioned fruit like a madman. I still do it on a regular basis today and love every minute of it. I find myself now inspecting my fruits or veggies to see if I can get the skin off somehow and make it even nicer. It usually ends up looking like a beaver had its way with it, but it’s nice to try and see.
A note to ya’ll who wait. Shuna does this as she see’s fit. You may not get another chance this year or it could happen twice next month. So, if you’re on the wall waiting to see? You lose.
Sign up now for Shuna’s Knife Skills Class in SF.
Saturday July 22nd
$53**
1-3pm Bernal Heights, San Francisco
Romancing the Chateaubriand – Eat Steak
We don’t eat much beef steak or fancy beef roasts around these parts (Meathenge Labs). Why? For several reasons. One of which being it costs too much. The other is that I find beef is really quite quirky as to its cooking times. One minute you have perfection and in five? A stinky ol’ boot. While this isn’t a problem for skilled meat craftsman, I’ve got 2 small boys and their neighborhood friends about my feet at most times. I need a meat that will give me a few minutes of leeway.
That being said, I had my Highland Hills Farm Chateaubriand from the farmer’s market last Saturday and Monday night seemed a perfect moment for me and my meat.
Today I’d like to offer up a few pictures and meat technology that might help some of you getting a good steak from your range in your kitchen. I didn’t have time for the grill and I hate my broiler. So, off we go!
Highland Hills Farm – Bacon discovered
Sheeyit that’s good bacon. And I don’t mean just good bacon. No sir, that’s good bacon. Wanna know how I know? Cause I probably had 1/3 of that pound I bought, that’s how. Interested to know why I ate so much?
Fatted Calf hits the mother lode of mushrooms this week! Fatted Calf Newsletter
This here is last week’s Cattail Creek Lamb Brochettes marinated in Harissa. We grilled them nicely until done. Then we stood around and ate them. And then, we sat down.
Ick. We’re smack dab in the middle of a heat wave around these parts. I imagine we’ll see 90s here and it’ll hit triple digits inland. My fresh flower garden gets a watering twice a day and we mostly just sit around and sweat. But as the sun starts to dip, as the ocean breezes kick in about 5pm, Biggles hits the grill and it’s sausage time!
Good thing too cause this week Fatted Calf scored bigtime on some fancy porcini and morel murshrooms. The porcini are going in the quail. And brother, I can tell you these stuffed quail were built for the grill or smoker. They don’t take long and please be gentle. You will be rewarded. The morel murshrooms are going in links. Oh man I’ll bet those are rich and juicy. Get your mesquite going, toss on a handful of hickory chips and lay out your links. If the heat is blistering, let it burn down for 10 minutes or so before you install your food.
Oh man, this week are the Devil’s Gulch Rabbit Crepinettes with Roasted Shallots. Those shallots are so creamy perfect for rabbit, it’s like their sisters or something. Sister Shallot and Sister Rabbit, HAHAHAHaahhah. I think I’ve just come up wtih my first children’s book.
This is an excellent week for a visit. The weather will be nice, the sausage is fresh and I’ll bet you could find a nice salumi to fit the need. See you at the market!
Biggles
Happy Father’s Day 2006
What’s in the smoker right now?
How is this Saturday treatin’ ya’ll? Doing really well here, for sure. We’ve got a nice tri-tip beef roast with a curry based dry rub with a tad of dried herbies and a little hot cajun sprinkled over. The grass fed organic beef chuck roast is more of a cajun rub and both are topped with bacon rosettes.
And where we have a nice chicky all trussed up with a lemon herb action going and I sprinkled a little hot spicy cajun on this one as well. This would be the Tony Chachere’s action.
All said meats are on the low level, low heat track to goodness in a handful of hours. I expect the skin of the chicken to be crispy, yet juice will run when sliced. The beefs will be smoked to maybe 135 and pulled to rest.
Cheers to you all on a wonderful day!
Biggles