Apologies... make up for absence with pic of bacon :D

so... I need to apologize to the 3 followers of this blog, and several people who have been asking my about this blog.... soooooo sorry for neglecting it. Wes and I have been crazy busy lately, but the pig has basically come through, we broke it down, made tons of shit out of it, and we will now tell the story of this wonderful animal. there were many successes and some failings and we will document where we can, and upload photographic evidence like the gorgeous bacon i have posted. sorry for the photo quality I'm not a photographer, and most of my pictures were taken using my phone :(
Hopefully this will be a good enough taste for now... i will post more next week when exams are done.

Chris

Coming Soon!

I am pleased to announce that despite our lack of posts recently (Wes has been busy at the restaurant, and I have been slammed with non-pig related homework and exams n shit like that) our pig will be in our grubby little paws by next weekend, we think. It is going to be a beautiful Berkshire pig from Perth Pork Products and i believe it goes to slaughter this weekend. More details to come, but now i must finish writing 5000 words of human resources shit just so i will have time to breakdown the pig

Chris

Guidelines

Man it's been a while. Well not really, but longer than I would have liked and I've felt lazy. Got a bottle of La Fin Du Monde and a itch to finish an entry.

So I've a told a few people about what Chris and I were going to be doing. I should have kept my mouth shut. What is happening now is that people keep on asking me how it's going with the pig. What I should have done is have people try our food then tell them what we've done. Now I have people bugging me when we're in a stage of stagnancy because it's December and we're fucking busy.

But

What I hate even more is people who complain. And now I hate me right now. I've always known that what we hate about people is rooted in what we hate about ourselves. So enough self loathing and let's get to business.

Like I said I've told people about this little (well not really little) project. It has been suggested that we get some advice from a butcher about getting a pig and go to him for a little guidance in this pig matter. and that would be the smart thing to do. Well, we're not that smart. One of use carries a knife around while the other loses cell phones like loose change.

This project was meant to be very DIY. I mean we both went to school for cooking and we pride ourselves in the fact that we will be doing this project justice. This blog in essence is not really to let people know what we are doing but to be a note taking exercise. Still, if people are reading this it should entice (more like force) us to continue what must be done to keep stuff organized. Maybe it's not so bad that people keep asking use how things are going.

I've been thinking about finalizing our product list. It's hard to decide what parts will be what food and I think to help narrow it down we should start from the outside going in.

Feet. We can stuff the hoofs like they do at Au Pied Du Cochon. They can be pickled but I'm not really down for the idea. With such a rich playground of cartilage, brine is not what I'd like to join it. Sour/salt and pork can friends just not in this juncture. Braised feet Chinese style would be good too. We could do both being we have four feet.

Head. terrine or crispy head torchon.

Um well I finished the bottle of La Fin du Monde and I'm pretty drunk. will continue tomorrow.

wwelsey

Popping The Question

I got down on one knee, and asked my friend Wesley..... will you get a pig with me?

he said yes!!!

He actually got really fuckin' excited about it, vastly more excited then i thought he would. We started immediately making lists of the things that we wanted to make (see previous post). We still need to figure out where we want to get this beast from, but we have it narrowed down to a couple of different places.

We are pretty picky when it comes to spending money because we are so broke ass, so we are looking for the most pig for the buck.

The primary use for this blog if for us to articulate what we actually want to do with porky once he arrives, we don't want to waste anything so planning is kind of important especially since this stuff is for home use, which is why we will be curing a whole shitpile of it.


This is the first time I'm weighing in, but i will be posting more as time goes by and scheduling allows

-Chris

PS. i found 2 pounds of belly in my freezer last night, gonna do something with it, probably will post it up if i have the time and energy but don't hold your breath (im looking at you, Wes)

PPS. We are professional cooks, not writers, our grammar sucks... deal with it.

pork shaped thought bubbles

Here's a list of ideas of what Chris and I want to make.

Mortadella
Rillettes
pig trotters
lardo
blood sausage (aka boudin noir)
bacon
blood pudding (filipino stylie)
terrine en croute
head cheese
ham
longganisa(a filipino sausage)
crispy pata (deep fried pork shank)
American ribs
pork bone soup (aka gamjatang)
Cantonese BBQ pork

what I'm starting to think something is more important than deciding what will be made.
It need to be decide what MUST be done. By this I mean what technique must be used.

I'm sure Chris will agree that we must do most of the following:

Hot smoking
Cold smoking
curing
terrine
pate
sausage making
braising

Another aspect that needs some organization is how much of what will be made. I will only figure
that out when I know how much of what (eg. how many pounds of pork belly) will we have. An educated
guess may be made if I study some pig anatomy and talk with a butcher. Hopefully it will be possible to
calculate how much of say pork shoulder will I have from a pig's total weight.

New steps seems to appear as we proceed. Each step being different carries with it a different, shall we say,
thought process. Each of which accumulates my worry.

That's how I know we should continue. I say myself 'Are you fucking nuts? We better be.'

Is there a word to describe having fun with one's growing insanity?

Now to finish of this post, may I present the following fucked up idea (and the inspiration of our URL)

Carpaccio of pork tenderloin.

wesley

This is where we start

Right. This is a blog that has been created because Chris asked me a question.

'Do you want to buy a pig?'

We'd buy the pig from a reputable source, break down ( butcher and vac-pack) the beast and cook what ever the hell we want.

I said yes.

And this blog will chronicle what happens next.

So why create a blog about it? Part of the reason will be to help Chris and I organize what we will want/need to do. This is going to be a lot of work and proper preparation prevents piss poor performance. I think that's how that goes.

Secondly, we are going to embark on something big. Trust me. I could explain, but it take very long to FULLY do it justice. So we are going to take our time, work accordingly and reveal the wonder of this project. We must be nuts.

wesley

PS. this is your first and last warning. this blog may contain mature language and subject matter with may not be suitable for most readers. Reader discretion is advised. In a nutshell, fuck off.