As soon as my glasses defogged and I could read the numbers on the telephone keypad, I called John at work.
“So, honey,” I said. “I was just in the guest room.”
“I know,” he sprang back, as if he’d been waiting for the boom to drop. “I’ve gone a little too far, haven’t I?”
Out of the original band, only John and The Poet carried on, becoming close friends and curing compatriots. The Poet, born and raised in Mexico, introduced John to subtle distinctions between peppers, and suddenly our spice cabinet and our sausages featured carefully calibrated blends of ancho and poblano, chipotle and serrano and habañero. The men found they spoke a common language, debating the virtues of Thomas Keller’s dry rub, discussing massive shopping lists for the local restaurant wholesale market and poring over Sausagemaker.com.
On a side note, this enthusiasm was a boon to me in terms of spousal gifting opportunities. I had not quite married the man who has everything, but he still didn’t want more crap cluttering up his aesthetic or his life. And yet, now, for a good two- to three-year run, I hit it out of the park on every holiday.
Valentine’s Day? A vintage Hobart deli slicer. His birthday? A 1-HP grinder to call his own. Then there was the canon, a core library of must-have reference books that quickly showed signs of usefulness: dog-eared pages, food matter smears of unknown origin, Post-its sticking out in every direction.
John and The Poet ventured deep into the world of pancetta and prosciutto, salamis and the hams that John had grown to love during his North Carolina childhood. When the local parks system began a deer cull to control overpopulation, John brought home a young buck, a giveaway from a volunteer bow hunter who was only interested in sport, not consumption.
Complete inexperience in butchering did not intimidate John, and on an ad hoc plywood table set up in the driveway, he took to the carcass with every saw and knife he had. The Poet took his turn, as did The Instigator, who discovered that a Sawzall is not the best method for detaching a deer’s head from its body (another gifting opportunity! I thought as I watched from a safe distance).
We had venison steak and venison stew, seared venison loin and pork fat–infused venison sausage. John roasted the entire skeleton, boiled the bones to make a stock and then reduced the stock. Yield: one cup venison demi-glace.
The deer, it turned out, was merely practice.
“I need to butcher my own hog,” my husband announced one day. Several new books and one sleek, arced butcher’s knife later, John found a nearby Mennonite farmer who raised heirloom pigs known to have good ratios of fat to meat.
John picked up the 200-pound pig from the farmer at a designated rendezvous. With its higher per-pound valuation, the pig got to be broken down indoors, on the kitchen counter. With The Poet again in attendance, the two men took turns: John had enthusiasm, The Poet had kickass knife skills. No one lost fingers.
Hocks were smoked, sausages were ground, and the pig’s head was stored away to be roasted as the grand finale to a garden barbecue. The Poet’s four-year-old daughter was seen lifting the lid on the cooler that held the pig’s head. “Don’t be sad, Mr. Pig,” she was heard to say. She wants to be an animal rescuer when she grows up.
Not every foray into curing has had a happy ending. John bound the pig’s liver with plastic zip ties, wrapped it in a tea towel and left it to sit on the back porch for months. The result, which resembled a sinister and desiccated insect, would most kindly be described as “intense.” On another occasion, John had to chuck an entire batch of salamis, garlic sausages and soppressata that he’d hung on our back porch when they developed mold. It’s not that he was against mold, but he wanted the white, powdery kind, not the greens and blacks that are long and hairy and wave at you as you walk by. Those, apparently, can kill you.
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