A New Year Approaches

Good tidings and joy!

We hope this day finds you in an abundance of good spirit.

(Just like Rosemary, our lamb above who could sport a Santa hat for 5 seconds.)

For some the holidays may be over, but I say let the Yuletide vibes continue.

Why not take a page from say, Catalonia, Spain, where the holidays are not even half over as they revel until January 6th for Three Kings Day.

One way that we’re celebrating and practicing some elf-care is by slow cooking. Ya know, actually playing with your food!

Playing with our food

Not for large groups or long table dinners as we sometimes do, but in this case allowing ourselves the time for playing in the kitchen as I made my first lasagna and my first meatballs. (Can you believe that? What took so long…)

I made sausage with pork shoulder from Kate Mountain Farm and we had a campfire outside while I smoked salmon for cream cheese to bring along for our upcoming bagel day at Jambs.

In this manner we of course followed the Julia Child protocols to have a drink or two as you chef it up and the Vinello I spoke about last time is really shining brightly with its fizzy and funky flavors.

Kimmy has been keeping up with her fiber projects: socks, hats, patching my old wool sweater (again) while checking out Game of Wool: Britian’s Best Knitter.

The next Saranac Lake Farmers Market for us will be January 17th, but if you happen to find yourself in the Champlain Valley this New Year’s Eve Day (Wednesday) – we’re making bagels.

Bagel Pop Up @ JAMBS

This Wednesday December 31st, we will be at Jambs on Main Coffee Shop doing a pop up market with sourdough bagels and a whole lot more.

It’s a new location for us in Westport that we are really excited about. We hope to see you there to spread some sourdough cheer in the New Year.

Bagels tend to go fast, so preorder if you can.

Plus we’ll have some new items on offer…

How the sausage got made

I’ve learned many techniques and recipes handed down from family members over the years and my continued curiosity and passion for food was born of their generosity and wisdom.

Although my Uncle Peter gave me a master class a few years ago, I haven’t been able to carve out enough time to practice more making sausage until quite recently.

Like so many things with food, fermentation and fiber, etc… you develop your skills from hours of repetition. You simply have to put the hours in.

Making sourdough breads, after maybe 10,000 loaves, your hands tend to move on auto-pilot as the techniques and steps are embedded in muscle memory.

So it goes with sausage stuffing as well.

The learning for me however lies more in the sum total of the steps involved: the preparation of fresh ingredients, gently freezing the meats and fats for a proper grinding, mixing the grind to the right level of emulsion and protein extraction…

It’s a different process altogether than baking bread, and I’m not quite a sausage Jedi yet, but I do believe these will be delicious: Rosemary & Pecorino Sausages.