Smoked Venison and Molasses Candy - Back to the Little House

So as I said a while back, I'm re-reading the Little House Books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

One of the first things that occurred to me is that I should build a smokehouse. Quantum and I have been planning to get an elk as soon as hunting season hits, however our biggest challenge is going to be keeping the meat. We barely have a fridge. An acutal freezer is out of the question at the moment. Can't afford to buy one, and don't yet have the wind turbine to run it with anyway.

Little House in the Big Woods gives very exact information on how to build a smoker. That would be an excellent way for us to preserve the majority of the elk. I don't have access to any big hollow logs - most trees on our mountainside don't grow big. But it may be possible to rig the stone oven so that the smoke vents into a smoker. I just need to find the right container to hold the smoke and the venison.

Meanwhile CK has been allegedly building a solar dehydrator for several weeks now. All I see thus far are a bunch of black-painted beer cans. That would be another great way to preserve the meat, if that bugger would get off his butt and finish it.

I laughed when I got to the part of the story where they described making candy with molasses and snow. I tried this when I was about 12 and it was a blatant failure. I ended up with a mass of gooey gloppy brown snow. What I didn't realize at the time, but was made clear when I read it today, was that I needed to heat the molasses to the upward point of "soft ball" stage. Looking at the Little House Cookbook suggests that this was exactly the problem.

So much else is making me horribly jealous as I read this book. The description of the hogs, fresh eggs, cheesemaking. It'll be at least 4 to 6 months before I can get a couple milk goats and some chickens. No sense getting them just as we're moving into winter. And oh how I wish we'd gotten onto our land in time to have had a garden.

Ah well, I've got lots of recipes for beans!

Parsley Pesto

One of the problems with having a tiny refrigerator that needs to be run on ice, is that I can't stock up on fresh veggies when I go into town. Yes, eventually I'll dig a root cellar, and eventually I'll have room for a real fridge and electric to run it. But for the moment we've got other priorities. So for the last couple nights we had a bean and chicken chili soup. It was absolutely delicious, but right now I'm craving something fresh and green. No chance that the dinky store in town has fresh basil, but they might carry parsley, so I think I'll make some of that next time I go into town.

Parsley Pesto

2 packed cups fresh parsley stems and all (about 2 bunches)
1/2 cup fresh grated Parmesan, Romano or Asiago cheese
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts, walnuts or almonds
3 cloves garlic
Grated rind of one lemon
Salt and fresh-cracked black pepper to taste.
1 tablespoon lemon juice (or to taste)

With a blender:

Whirl the nuts in your blender till they create a fine "sand". Dump the nut-flour into a seperate bowl. Chop the garlic, parsley and lemon rind, in your blender. With the blender running, pour in the oil in a fine stream. Add the parsley mixture to the nut flour and stir in your cheese. Season with salt and pepper, then add lemon juice to taste. Salt will make the the lemon juice taste more lemony, so add the lemon juice last.

Makes about 1 cup.

Spoon onto pasta, or eat on toasted bread. Or stuff the pesto under the skin of a chicken, then roast.

If you have leftovers (I rarely do) you can put it in a jar, cover it with a light film of olive oil and keep it in the fridge for a week.

No Reservations about Medium Raw

One of my favorite TV shows is Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations, so when I saw his book, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook on the shelf, I just had to read it.

It's funny, irreverent, thoughtful and utterly fascinating. And it "does not suck." Behind-the-scenes views of the chef scene and the cooking world are rendered with a snarky and vivid light. He addresses his career, food purity, addiction and recovery, his disgust with the Food Network and his admiration for his culinary heroes with gut-wrenching honesty and passion. If this is medium raw, I wonder how raw "really raw" could be.

As a dedicated foodie, I'm thrilled at the glimpses I get into Top Chef, Jamie Oliver, Mario Batali, the Food Network folks, and into some of the most exalted kitchens in America and Europe. I'm both jealous of his access and glad he's taken me there, to see and smell and taste in places I could never go.

Perhaps my favorite chapter is "Lower Education," in which he shamelessly wages psychological warfare to inoculate his daughter against fast food. I can barely contain my giggles as he and his wife whisper outside the little girl's door:

    We're talking about Ronald McDonald again. Bringing up the possibility of his being implicated in the disappearance of yet another small child.
    "Not another one?!" gasps my wife with feigned incredulity.
    "I'm afraid so," I say with concern. "Stepped inside to get some fries and a Happy Meal and hasn't been seen since..."

"Meat" was another excellent chapter, where he addresses the great American hamburger and his outright fury at the fact that our food supply has been tainted by slaughter houses that "process fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria." Ammonia? Now granted I sort-of knew this stuff but...its the kind of thing that makes me shudder and shut my ears until I can locate a local free-range ranch to buy my meat from.

"My Aim Is True" introduces the reader to a man who scales and cleans and fillets the fish for one of the top restaurant's in the country, but can't afford to eat at the place he works. Justo is inspiring, an ode to dedication and work ethic. I am humbled both by his seemingly magical power of organization and by the simple joy he takes in doing his job to perfection; without much money, without much recognition outside of his own restaurant except the knowledge that he's making his chefs look good.

And the food...oh gods can Bourdain talk about food! You can taste the sweet flavor of sizzling buttery fat, feel the heat of chiles and spice, smell the sharpness of lemongrass and salty sea brine, feel the crunch of gristle and bones as they emanate from his writing.

Fans of No Reservations will be gladdened (and enthralled) to know that Anthony Bourdain writes much like he speaks. His voice is lilting and expressive. The gravely strains of tobacco and vodka mixed with the soft tones of buerre blanc. A voice that is poetic, stopping just on the good side of singsong. Cynical and hopeful. Seamy and transcendent.

Medium Raw is a tasty read and I'm hungry for Bourdain's next book.