Greenstorm's Journal

I was in the office today; one day a week when I'm in the office I allow myself the treat of eating out, though there is really only subway in town (and two pizza places, and a chinese place or two, but they're not work-lunch-shaped). I went into the grocery store for a ready-made lunch there instead, and while I was there I saw both the buns I like that they've been out of for a couple months, and a very very very marked down very expensive steak. I got both of those.

When I got home I heated up my cast iron, even though I wasn't hungry, because I wanted to cook the steak immediately. The nearest fat to hand was duck fat from roasting that duck yesterday so I blobbed a bunch into the hot pan, tossed in the steak, and flipped it a couple times. I'd forgotten how lovely a brown crust duck fat makes on things. When the steak came out I had some broccoli ready to go in. I tossed it in with some Maggi like you do, but hesitated; there was such a lovely fond in the pan and I 1) didn't want to scrub the pan and 2) didn't want to waste the flavour. So I rooted around in the fridge and found the last of a bit of expired-but-still-ok whipping cream and poured that in too. By the time the cream had boiled down to a thick sauce the broccoli was cooked the way I wanted it. I sliced the steak, put it into a medium-small mixing bowl, poured the broccoli on top of it, tucked a couple buns in, and came downstairs to eat. Instead I guess I'm writing?

Alright, mom & brother are coming up tomorrow sometime. They are bringing an order of fun sausage casings: I currently have a very practical set of hog casings sized for what most people think of as "normal" sausage, sort of hot dog to smoky size.

I've been wanting to make some nduja and some larger diameter sausages, maybe a mortadella or a bologna (yes, I know that's not necessarily the best size to start at for an emulsified sausage) and some more standard coarse fermented dried sausages like that. So I've picked up some sizes of beef middles and caps, as well as some artificial collagen middles and a round of umai snack-stick sizes for some fully dry sausage (I've had trouble with oxidization on these before so I'll be smoking them I think).

Also got some starter culture and external mold culture since my current stuff is Very Old and I'm wanting more certainty than just adding a bit of sauerkraut water to the sausage for lactobacteria.

Now I need to look up some recipes. I have lots of pork belly to use up especially, but I'd like to do a long low pasteurization on it if that's possible without breaking the fat. Easy on an emulsified sausage, I'm not so sure about a spreadable sausage. It will be exciting to use up my hoarded jar of calabrian peppers. It would be nice to do a sausage that contains some of my tomatillo/pepper ferment too, maybe the dried snack sticks.

I wish I hadn't packed my sausage book. It's unhelpful not to be able to get at it. Anyhow, methods needed for:

Emulsified sausage for cold cuts: grind then food processor method with crushed ice, smoking, sous vide poaching (what temp, and do I poach before or after coldsmoking). How much liquid? Do I need a binder? I know everything needs to stay painfully cold. What are typical mortadella spices? Do I bloom it after poaching? Do I want to see if I can find an all-pork hotdog recipe while I'm at it?

Spreadable sausage: multigrind, do I use a food processor? Ferment during and after smoking, at what temp? Can I pasteurize in the sous vide, and what's the lowest temp I can do that at for trich, and for how long? Does playing with casing size matter? What's the difference between belly and backfat on the finished product, and what's the difference between 50 and 70% fat content?

Dry-cured sausage: These are pretty straightforward, I need to max out the antioxidant ingredients. Maybe a pepperoni, something with sichuan peppercorn, and a fennel? Smoke everything for the antioxidant properties, then put into umai bags.

Snack sticks: What grind and meat to fat ratio is optimal? What % of fermented solids? Do these need a ferment before drying? Can I dry them in a cool room, will they go fast enough, or do I need to fridge them?

It might be fun to try a composed sausage, like a capicolla, but I won't do that this round.

I also tried a round of soap with cranberry seeds (bought) rather than ground apricot pits; they're a much larger size and rounder, so we'll see how comfortable they are in the final soap. If they work I'd like to use them; while apricot is a lesser allergen than walnut shells, I believe cranberry seeds are likely to be even less so. They do take more volume for the same effect though. This soap also contains my newly acquired "muscle and joint" essential oil mix, which smells very eucalyptus/menthol-y (not birch/wintergreeny). I should make myself some lotion with that oil mix too, I am very achy this fall, especially my fingers.

(that's tonight, seven-pm-ish for you west coasters, ten-ish for ESTers, if you're in-between you can figure it out)

Yesterday was so wonderful. It's spring- really, truly, honest-to-goodness spring. Monday afternoon and all yesterday I did my first landscaping work of the year (yes, I know I've said it before) and it was tank-top weather for most of it (well, tank-top, jeans, and long underwear, but c'mon). I didn't sunburn, I must have enough of a tan from last year.

The air was very clear and full of a suspended haze of particles that glowed golden. It's funny, that sentence seems contradictory, but the haze was always in the distance, and the sunlight brought out close-up detail like you just don't see indoors or when it's gloomy. Things were edged and sharp to the eye. The air was cool like water when you slide into a lake on a hot day on my arms. I wrestled with overplanted california lilac and bought hedge shears and took spirea back and tidied up birch drop and cleared out winter die-back. My arms have scratches on them, I was dirty, and when I went for lunch I walked down the hill and I was almost crying because I was so so happy.

That's work, folks. That's what it's supposed to be like. It won't always be like this, I know, but still.

The snowdrops are fully up; the witch hazel is out and the air is pure perfume if there are a couple around; the hellebores are open and a few still unfurling in those intense purple-black-white patterns of theirs, though there were no green ones on this property. Where I was working, in middle Granville there, all the properties are huge estates and there are three options: let them go all to grass, keep them mowed, and hire a lawn service; do a forest garden which requires less maintenance; or hire a fleet of gardeners. Most people do 1 or 2, so there are many trees with leaves still crunchy on the ground and bulbs poking up through. It smells like last years' leaves, and like dry-rot under the ceanothus. That's one of my favourite smells this time of year, it reminds me of being out under the leafless bushes where they arched into a kind of hallway and watching for things to come up. I bet there are stinging nettles up at UBC. I should go pick some-- stinging nettle tofu scramble, anyone? Help me pick and I'll cook.

I had a bit of a hunt for my shears. I went to one hardware store and they had none. I went to the next and tried them all-- there was only one pair with blades that met down the full length and that was also fully disassembleable. Shows that things made in China have variable quality, who knew? You definitely can't buy hand tools based just on brand. Anyhow, these guys worked like a dream and they had a hard break-in. My arms will be sore when they realise what hit them.

The squirrels dug up and ate every single bulb I planted at this place last year, finding the holes with surgical precision and leaving crocus bulb-casings as evidence. Chalk one up on the 'suck' side for forest gardens. ;)

I roasted some purple yams for dinner, roasted some cherry tomatoes and served them over baked potatoes, and made lamb burgers (trick: flaxseed, mint, garlic and black pepper in the blender for a minute before you mix the green goo that results in with the meat). Purple yams with green burgers was a surreal eating experience. Good, though. I realise that because cooking is both a hobby for me and a necessity, I'll go into the kitchen and start from necessity, and then because I'm having fun I'll stay and tinker and cook more until all of my time's been sucked up. I focus pretty intently on the things I'm doing, and so normally a hobby will eat one or two full days per week. Something that I start every day, though...

I need to get my garden dug, dammit. I want to get a bunch of planters up on my deck, too, since it's the sunniest part of the yard. I should trial all my tomatoes in planters vs in the ground, that would be super-interesting. I just need three dozen five-gallon buckets to grow 'em in. Anyone? I'll give you tomatoes later.

I've started beating up my boy again, which has made him worlds happier. It's so strange to balance that tension between loving someone and wanting to keep them well and happy, and wanting to hurt them. I mean, it's strange when certain kinds of hurting them keep you both well and happy. Social norms and habit and communication in a young relationship don't help much. It's another reminder to ask out loud for what I want, because that dispells a lot of weird around things, and also makes an open environment to speak to each other in. It's good.

So, uh-- food, garden, relationships, is there more to me? Rat show coming up on the 8th of March in Port Townsend, Washington. That's exciting. Two big landscaping projects on the horizon this coming week. I may have money to my name again if that actually happens. If I pay off all my bills and the people who I owe money, I am SO throwing a party.

I need to make more time to call back the people who call me asking if I want to work for them, and ask them some questions: hours, rate-of-pay, location, flexibility, maintenance or installation, is there heavy equipment on site or mostly hand tools, size of company, benefits?

It's good to remember that feeling in my body of being completely, madly, desperately, insanely in love with the world. Sunshine, trees, and dirty hands-- that's what it takes. Here's to a summer full of it.