The Cure To All Life's Problems

I cured these wonderful pig products last week and boy did they turn out well. The bacon was dry cured and then hot smoked until it became the beautiful, and tasty, masterpiece that you see before you.

And the ham was brined with herbs for eight days and then very slowly hot smoked for sixteen hours. I could barely keep it in one piece when I cared it, it was so tender and juicy.

Sausagefest

These are some lovely Italian sausages, hand made by me of course or they wouldn't be here. I served them with a sweet cranberry relish that made them absolutely sing.

At Long Last, Actual Food

And it happens to be quite appropriate that we will be starting with some hors d'oeuvres.

These are shrimp and rice deep fried wantons with a sweet orange glaze and a tiny sprig of chervil for a nice anise flavor. For this event I played with spoons that had a small amount of fried rice at the bottom to stabilize them and also add a soft texture to balance out the crispy wantons
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I made these wonderful apple/mint gelee oyster shooters with a spicy horseradish mignonette as a garnish. It goes down smooth with a sweet yet salty kick that refreshes your palate, but after a moment you'll receive a very brief moment of spicy from the mignonette and then immediately be returned to the flavors of the cool apple gelee.

Pictures and blog posts should be relatively regular from now on as i'll be producing almost constantly.