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United States, North Carolina, Carrboro, English, Paul, Male, 56-60, All Music, All Food.

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Saturday, January 08, 2005

On Top Of Old Smoker   Two thermometers, one for external temperature and the other for the temperature inside the pea meal bacon. Rytek Kutas, bless his soul, said to keep it in the smoker at 130º for 4 hours, gradually raise the temperature to 150º over the next three hours, then apply smoke until the internal temperature reaches 142º. So that’s what I’m doing, here in Carrboro as the temperature outside the smoker lingers at a balmy January 50º. We’ve had this weather, up to the low 70s mid day and not much below 50 at night, for about a week – and there is a weatherman’s promise it will continue for another. Makes it a good time to cook up pea meal bacon real slow - though I prefer the romance of a chilly evening for firing up the Bradley smoker. A chill in the air goes good with smoke in the air. Smoke is not easy to photograph. This shot is as good as I’ve gotten, with a big assist from the flash.     11:43:53 PM    comment []

I think I’ve dug an oil well in my kitchen.   They way I see it, what I believe, is that if I dig deep enough and persevere without wavering, eventually I just have to strike it rich. It’s down there, deep enough.   Now, the real reason, some of you may remember, that I started cutting holes in the linoleum was that that I was convinced there were Martians hiding there. We all know how dangerous Martians can be, especially after we’ve seen War Of The Worlds – the 1953 version starring Gene Barry as Dr. Clayton Forrester, of course, and not one of those crappy remakes. Not to ruin it for you, but in the end ordinary earhly bacteria is what done the Martians in and Gene Barry went on to become Bat Masterson on TV – but not until after those soulless Martians had destroyed most of civilization, stopping magically outside a church where “Bat” and Ann Robinson, as the voluptuous Sylvia Van Buren, had stopped by a church to pray just like the Mamas and the Papas in “California Dreamin’.”   You remember that? Yeah, so do I.   Anyway, the hole in my floor kept getting bigger and I still didn’t find any Martians. Yet, because I believed, I knew it was just because I hadn’t dug deep enough. After I’d dug a sizeable hole, I ran across a bunch of bugs, rats, and bacteria – kinda like the kind Tom DeLay used to exterminate before he became House Majority Leader. Not my house, I mean, that big house in Washington where all the people who’ve never dug a real hole themselves go to govern us.   It turned out that the bugs and stuff weren’t nearly all that bad, but that was no good to my reckoning - because if they didn’t threaten me, how could they stop the Martians? I had to keep digging.   I went through Carolina red clay, barely missing a water main or two, when it suddenly occurred to me why I was really digging. The threat from Martians no longer existed or I would have found them by now, obviously. Therefore, if there is nothing bad in my hole there must be something good. It might be oil, then again it might be gold, but if I keep digging I am certain I will find something of great value. If it’s oil, then the reason I am digging is to strike oil. Black gold. Texas tea.     5:10:37 PM    comment []

This is a cured pork loin. I ground up some juniper berries and threw them in the cure because I liked what that did for previous longer term (like 4 days or more) cures. You know, juniper is what gives gin its distinctive flavor and, if you go sparingly on the vermouth, it makes a pretty good ham too.   I’ve made lots of Canadian bacon and even the worst is better than any you can buy in the store – at a fraction of the price. It’s less bothersome than regular bacon to cure. My mouth waters just thinking about it holding up the foundation of eggs benedict, this is the bacon kings would eat if we still had any (not wishing any more bad luck on QEII). This one is different in another way from previous recipes I’ve made – that corn meal dusting. Technically, it becomes “pea meal bacon” when you do that and I’ve not quite figured out what the reason for it is. Maybe it is supposed to keep moisture inside or let it wick slowly through the corn meal to give it a tasty edge. Maybe I’ll know after I’ve tasted it.     3:26:12 PM    comment []