Atlanta Food and Wine Festival

Whooo Boy! Did we have fun at the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival! It really was great. We were there for less than 48 hours,  but Alice and I went to about a dozen classes and demonstrations, catching the tail ends of 4 or 5 more. All the presenters were award winning experts in their fields, and (the best part) were incredibly welcoming to all! Folks asked lots questions, and everyone got a great answer. The events were filled with wonderful information and most had more than just a smidgeon of humor! Or a dollop, as John Besh says. Besh ordered tequila shots. . . . about 4 times. . . . .for the whole audience (50-60 folks). . .about a case and half.

The Tasting tents had just about everything good and Southern: Bourbon, Tequila, Crooks Corner, Shrimp, Peanuts, Jim ‘N’ Nicks, Cheeses, Bourbon, Pork Belly(lots and lots of pork belly!)*, Deconstructed Low Country Boil, Moonshine, Soft Shell Crabs, Co-Cola, Bourbon, Lamb, Beets, Sweet Potato Ice Cream, Deviled Eggs, Beer, Wine, and Bourbon. Did I mention Bourbon? They had some Bourbon, too, I think.

Here are some random names and thoughts:

Tim Love, Meat on the Grill and I volunteered for canola oil/Crown Royal shot roulette,  I lost, (or won, as the case may be!)

Vishwesh Bhatt, Indian riff on shrimp & grits 

Hillary White, beautiful pickles!

Three James Beard Winners breaking down a whole pig: Sean Brock, preaching the Southern Gospel of Cornbread, Country Ham and Bourbon.  Tyler Brown, created “SOCK” sausage! And, from Linton Hopkins: Pork belly is the gateway drug to offal!

Kevin Ouzts had some amazing pepperonis, salamis, etc!

Will Harris, burgers on the Viking Grill

Karen & Ben Barker, could it be any better than collards, peas & cornbread?

Chris Hastings, (pickled)shrimp & grits with Benton’s Ham

Greg Best, a wonderfully light Coke-tail called . . . .wait for it . . . The Pause that Refreshes!

Michelle Bernstein Ceviche with Lime. “If it’s got citrus in it, it’s cooked!”

David Guas Hot Pepper Jelly, Vidalia Onion Marmalade and Lemon Curd

Bill Smith carving famous North Carolina corned hams, topped with Green Tomato Relish

and probably my favorite of the weekend: Best Chef Southeast Andrea Reusing, Headcheese 3 ways: Vietnamese, Southern, and French! With Wine! Incredible! Awe inspiring, She made me want to buy a pig’s head on the way home! (But Alice was with me, and Stewart had all our big coolers)

In terms of culinary education and access to wonderfully friendly experts, this experience was phenomenal. There’s just soooooooooo much of it! Next time we might do all 3 days! Really, y'all should think about going next year.  They have all kinds of different packages.  We can't tell you how nice everyone was. . . . It makes you proud,  it .. . . almost makes you want to cry, it . . . makes you want to avoid your cardiologist for a while!

*and by lots, I mean a whole bunch, . . .really! Cubits? Oh wait, you wouldn't measure pork in cubits, would you?

Makin' Bacon!

Short Version: We made bacon.

Long Version: Two years ago while in New Orleans for the ELCA National Youth Gathering, we went to Chef Donald Link’s Cochon restaurant, which was incredible. Next door to the restaurant was Cochon Butcher, where they make a great deal of really awesome products, most of the porcine variety. It too was incredible, so much so that  I brought back a whole cooler full of tasso,  andouille, boudin, and pâté.

    Last year Chef Link came out with an award winning cookbook,  Real Cajun.  The award was the James Beard Award, which is like the Pulitzer Prize of Food. I got the book for Christmas, and one day in March Alice discovered that it had a recipe for bacon.  She suggested we should make our own. After about a week doing some research, we decided to give it a try, although our version would be the “wet” version endorsed by Alton Brown rather than Chef Link’s “dry” cure.  We also decided that we would use “cold” (70-80 degrees) smoke rather than “hot” (140 degrees).

7 lbs of pork belly from Caughman's Meats

Marinating in the brine for 4 days

Drying out so the pellicles can form.  Pellicles are kind of thin skin or membrane.  Think of the skin on Jello or pudding if you don't cover it in the fridge.  The smoke sticks to the pellicles. Without adequate pellicles, you get sooty meat.

The Hardware (Yes that's duct tape, but HIGH TEMPERATURE duct tape!)

The Hot Box

The Cold Box

The Smoke Pipe

Smokin'!

After 5 hours.

    It took less than a hour to put all this together. The boxes I got from work, and they were perfect, but it was a very windy day, so we really couldn't see how much smoke was being produced.  Next time I'll shoot for a calm day and hopefully be able to judge the smokiness better.  We thought the computer fan would work well, but it ate 9 volt batteries very quickly, so we wound up with a 4 inch personal fan plugged in. 

    How'd it turn out?  It was very good! It was not near as salty as regular bacon (maybe only 25%?) which is good, and it doesn't have nitrites in it, which is also good.  (Side note, when Alice was pregnant with the chaps, she had to give up nitrites, so she had to make do with sausage only, no bacon or ham!) We made excellent BLTs with it that night, and had it for breakfast the next day. We've since used it to make praline bacon with, which turned out very well. The only real drawback to me, was that it is impossible to slice bacon well and truly and hemingwayesque unless it is mostly frozen.  If it is totally frozen, you can still do it, but it takes a while!

    We will definitely do this again, but probably not right now, at least not this way. You really should not let the meat get over 80 degrees during the smoking, unless you're going all the way up to 140-150.  By the time I get around to trying it again, I think it will be too warm for that.