On a picturesque 65 acres in east central Ohio, there lies Jorgensen Farms, a biodynamic animal and vegetable operation. Proprietor Val (pictured below in blue) works the land guided by her distinguishing palette and eye for pleasing design. She builds vibrant soil through careful crop rotation and pasturing. Perhaps the most recognized crop is her mint grown especially for central Ohio based Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream’s Backyard Mint flavor. You may click on pictures to [...]

If you home cure meat, this might be a familiar site: Five pounds of saucisson sec and a fifteen pound serrano-style salted air-dryed ham hanging in our basement.   Both are made from the meat of Red, the hog we slaughtered in April.  The saucisson sec will hang for three to four weeks and be taken on our long back country canoe trip in July.  The ham will dry until the fall at the earliest. Curing [...]

You may have read Devie the hound dog’s version of making sausage.  Here’s my version of the basics. I received the book Charcuterie by Michael Ruhlman last Christmas.  Since then I experimented with making my own bacon, smoking various meats and cooking confit of all sorts.  Until recently, I had not attempted to make any sort of sausage. Sausage is the heart of charcuterie, whether it is fresh breakfast sausage or a fine aged peperone.  [...]

I was writing this basic sausage making post and looking at pictures I took.  I noticed Devie in every.single.picture!  She has been an integral witness to all sausage making events so I thought it would be fun to narrate from her perspective. Sausage making is awesome.  Every time the bald guy (Alex) brings the meat grinder up from the basement, I rise from my day long nap to watch the happenings and wait for the [...]