I am a slacker, but I come bearing news!

     Where to start???  So I made it 8 days in to the juice fast.  I was an interesting experience and I will try it again in the new year.  

Now that the Veggie talk is over, we can get down to the real business,  Meat!!!  Heather Irwin from Bite Club posted a challenge on facebook a few weeks ago, she wanted to see if anyone could finish the "The Legend"  This is a full pound of brisket, a pound of pulled pork, half a chicken, a rack of ribs, 2 pieces of corn bread and 2 large sides, oh and it has to be finished in an hour by one person.  I did not think was doable, but I wanted to watch whoever tried it.  John Lyle stepped up to the challenge!!!  When I arrived at KJST to watch the challenge I was surprised to see that the guy stepping up weighed in at 125 Lbs soaking wet.  The food was placed in front of him, and he commenced to impressing me!  This guy put a serious hurting on the food.  At the end of the hour, he had killed all of the meat and most of the sides.  Alas he did not finish in time, but I do believe that he could have gotten all the food down given a little more time.  After eating all this great BBQ, he jumped on his bicycle and headed off to meet his friends for breakfast.  

John seams to be a pivital part of this story, as a few days later he announced he would be makeing christmas pies.  I like pie!  So I ordered a pecan pie, and waited.  Today the pies were ready for pick up and I headed over to Victorian Farmstead to pick up my pie.   I ended up meeting the owner Adam Parks.  We talked about all things meat, the other local meet producers, and other Sonoma County food news.  I ended up buying a package of bacon, a package of ground beef, and a whole chicken.  He said this is the best way to get a feel for his meats.  So as I type this, the chicken is in the rotisserie, and the bacon is set for breakfast.  I will do hamburgers sometime soon, as I think this is the only real way to get a sense of how good beef is.  I will post about the chicken tomorrow, and the beef as we get it done.  I am happy to live in an area where access to fresh farm raised meats are plentiful.  

Lastly, I have decided to take my home brewing hobby to the next level!  With the help of a few great guys, we are in the startup process of “Old Redwood Brewing Company”.  We tentatively have a location about one block off the square in Windsor, and will be applying for our permits this coming week!  I am excited to be a part of the process, and look forward to sharing the brews with the world. 

Can a meat lover give it all up for 15 days?

I am the biggest pork lover that I know, and I am thinking of giving up pork, meat, or solid food for that matter.  I recently watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead and really related to some of the things talked about in the movie.  So I decided that I will give it a go starting Monday Sept, 19th. as soon as I get off work.  I will follow the plan on http://jointhereboot.com/.  I have no doubt that this will be one of the hardest things I have ever done.  The two things that worry me the most is that I have to make about 20lbs of bacon next week for some friends, and I am in a rib cookoff on Oct 1.  I made a big thing of juice today to see how hard it will be to make, and more importantly how hard it is to drink.  So although this is normally a pork based blog, I will be keeping track of my progress on here as well.  Oh and if this works out and I feel better, I will attempt to do the 60 challenge in the future.  I am trying to see when the best time for that is, and I am thinking of the first of the new year because there is no way I can do juice on Thanksgiving, and Christmas.   Thoughts?

Fair Food

I have the wonderful opportunity to go to the fair this week with Bite Club from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.  I was picked by them to judge the different fair foods and as a group we came up with the fair favorites.  As you can see by the picture above, I love me some BBQ.  And it was a good rib, a bit to much sauce for my taste, but a good rib. And you can see below the table of food we had to work with that day.  There was everything from BBQ to funnel cake.  I will say that the food from the Guy Fereri booths we a little weak this year, small portions, and a bit over cooked.  I tried the Pazole for the first time, and really enjoyed it.  Need to try it at a real Mexican place soon.  Lastly, I must say.  The Elvis funnel cake was amazing.  Funnel cake with peanut butter and bananas, ohhhhhhhh so good!

Food Table

Been a while

So I have been a total blog slacker much to the dismay of John Corippo . So what have I been up to when it comes to the world of porky goodness? Same as ever. Been in a creative slump with this project. But yesterday I had an epiphany. I was talking to my good friend from Sally Tomatoes, Gerard, and we got on the subject of filet of beef. Now this is normally sliced in to steaks, wrapped in bacon and grilled to a medium rare perfection. My idea was to wrap the whole filet in a pork belly, and slow roast it over potatoes and veggies. We will see if we can pull this off. On another food related note, I have been chosen by bite club eats to be part of the fair food scramble. Basically I get to go to the Sonoma County Fair, eat fair food, and then write about it! Sounds like a great day. I will be blogging and facebooking from the fair so be on the lookout!

Mike


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Invaded By Canada

Ok so I am running a bit behind on the #Charcutepalooza challenge. 


This is my April entry.  I can just hear John calling me a slacker now.  

Anyway, 4 days ago I put 2 pork loins into a brine and placed that in the fridge to work it's brinny magic.  Today I pulled them out. Rinsed them off and left them to sit for four hours to develop a peticile (this helps the smoke stick to the meat.)  Placed them on my smoker for 2.5 hrs at just under 300 deg.  

Here is what came out the other side.  

RIBBBBBBBBBS! and sausage

I suppose we should get this out of the way.

This is not your regularly scheduled program.

I am not Mike, The Cartman, Stewart, Stew or whatever you call him. However,  I am a fan of the "other" white meat and all of it's delectable incarnations. I go by Corippo, Crypt, or Adventure Wannabe and I am very excited and happy to be able to report to on my own Joy of Pork. Now I am a newbie to this whole foodie world and am just beginning to hone my skills. I am attempting to try new things and have put a tremendous amount of effort into improving my cooking in all areas. I will say, flesh is my true passion. I love everything about a great piece of animal. The smells, the textures, crackle of heat transforming it into a toe curling explosion on your tongue...Whoa! Got a little off track there. Now that we are introduced...

Recently I was going through a Men's Health magazine and fell in love with a pic of some Asian BBQ ribs. I had to have them.  Best thing about this was they were not going to be difficult to prepare. I put together a dry rub of Chinese Five Spice, Chipotle powder, Cayenne pepper, garlic powder and salt. Massaged that into a nice rack of St Louie style ribs and let it seep into the rack in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Now I was a bit worried that these ribs called for a slow oven only (I am a HUGE fan of the grilled finish!) But I went ahead and trusted the Men from Men's Health and slow roasted them at 250 for three hours and then dropped the temp to 225 for another two hours. 5 hours of roasting!! My house smelled incredible!! F&$^*#IG INCREDIBLE!!!! Like an angel orgy in my nostrils!
Took the rack out and removed the foil tent that trapped all their wonderfulness and basted them with a Hoisin - Black Bean based sauce. Then placed them back in the oven at 400 for 10 min. The ten minutes turned the sauce into a glaze that transformed my rack into a copy of what I fell in love with in the magazine. When I added the sesame seeds and sliced scallions they looked exactly like the photos, and I have never made a recipe that looked like it was right out of the pages I was inspired by.
Needless to say I was excited and had high expectations for my ribs. Especially as they began to fall off the bone when I lifted them off the roasting sheet. All my expectations were fulfilled. My rack of ribs were simply blessed. It was a great combination of moist tender meat, spicy Asian glaze and spices. The only change I would make would be to cut back a bit on the Chinese Five Spice as the anise was a bit strong for my taste.
Overall I was very pleased with my new creation, one little adjustment and I have an incredible, simple rib recipe whose only real requirement is time. Not a bad trade off really.
Since him can't seem to make the time to get on and update this project that he started. (My reader I must warn you, him good at starting things, not so much at following through and keeping at them...except his boat) I guess I will. I requested a fresh sausage for our morning meal and he was more than willing to provide. So we got some pork fat and a shoulder roast.

Into the grinder it went after a cool down in the fridge. We added a bit of spices from what we had in the kitchen and formed up some patties. Quite easy, but I soon found out worth every bit of the effort. We made a handful of patties for everyone and they barely touched plates before they disappeared into the gullets of the hungry firefighters waiting at the table.
A happy side effect of making this sausage was that we made a few pounds of it and packaged it to freeze for later use. Nothing like having scratch made sausage at your disposal, it will brighten your day at the very least.

As you can see this is one of the happiest times of his life. Few things can make him as smiley as a bowl full of meat getting ready to eat.
Well I don't know if I'll be invited back, but I hope that you enjoyed my take of The Cartman's Porcine Paradise.
If you would like to hear more from my perspective let him know. He can either ask me back, or direct you to one of my blogs. Oh and here is the New School Asian Ribs recipe.

Happy Hog Hunting!!!

I'm back

Ok, so I took a little break from the blog. But dont give up on me yet. I have a few things to talk about.

First: the pancetta that I talked about in previous posts. Long story short, I did something wrong. I sliced myself a little taste and I was most definitely bad. No sure where I went wrong, but I will try again.

Second: I join the #charcutapalooza blogging event. For those not following it, we are working our way through the charcuterie book by Michael Ruhlman. This month's project is a canadian bacon. I love good ol American bacon but I am willing to take it to the great white north. I also found a recipe for English muffins. So I think I see a Benedict in my future!

So sorry for the long break, more to come soon.

Mike