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Sausages and Charcuterie

CHARCUTEPALOOZA CHALLENGE #8: SOMEWHERE, BECAUSE OF ME, THERE’S A PIG WALKING AROUND WITH A PEG LEG

I like pig’s feet. I eat pig’s feet. I have never made pig’s feet. Now that I have, I may no longer like pig’s feet. I was excited about the idea of making a terrine out of pig trotters for Charcutepalooza for this month’s challenge. I called a great local farm to table place in Houston to source some pig’s ...

IT’S LIKE BACON, ONLY MORE DRAMATIC AND WITH EXTRA SYLLABLES

There’s something really outstanding about a pig’s belly. The short of it is probably that it’s outstanding because it’s mostly pork fat, which in and of itself is an inarguable point of greatness. The longer answer though, is a study in versatility. Cured and smoked, pork belly makes bacon, one of the Earth’s ...

CHARCUTEPALOOZA CHALLENGE #7: THE ART OF MAKING HOT DOGS, IN WHICH I BATTLE A DEAD POSSUM

A brief primer: I am a writer at an ad agency. That means I’m one of the people who makes up and writes the TV ads, billboards and magazine pages that people do their best to ignore. I work with a variety of clients, and over the years, the people I’ve written ads for have included a few food and/or beverage companies. To ...

CHARCUTEPALOOZA CHALLENGE #6: THIS LITTLE PIGGY AVOIDED THE GRINDER (THIS TIME)

Charcutepalooza’s June challenge brings us to stuffing. Which, if you’re used to making encased sausages, shouldn’t be that much of a challenge. But for myself, the stickier part of the assignment was to build a poultry forcemeat to stuff into it. In other words, a bird sausage. Now, I realize that chicken sausages ...

CHARCUTEPALOOZA CHALLENGE #5: SALSICCE, BY ANY OTHER NAME

There’s a picture of my grandfather, I think it’s probably taken in the 1970s, standing in a friend’s basement, smiling with a sausage grinder by his side and many, many links of tubed meat hanging from the rafters around him. I’ve always loved this picture of him, and when he died my mother found his old sausage ...

CHARCUTEPALOOZA CHALLENGE #4: THE PIGANATOR HAS LANDED

For Charcutepalooza challenge #4 we confronted hot smoking, and I got to spend some time with an old friend, my New Braunfels style vertical smoker. When my wife gave it to me as birthday present years ago, I can’t imagine she realized the Faustian bargain she had entered into. Sure she enjoys the quality eats with ...

DUCK PROSCIUTTO AND THE GRAND PLAN: REASSEMBLING ONE DUCK INTO ONE MEAL. OR, FRANKENDUCK: THE RESSURECTION. OR. SON OF FRANKENDUCK: THE LIQUID BONES.

So my last post was part of the 1st challenge for Charcutepalooza, at least the duck prosciutto part of it (as is this one). After feeling pretty good about dissecting the critter, I said something along the lines of “Meat plus salt equals good.” Which I probably should have worded more thoroughly, something like ...