Back to my old stomping grounds...

I'm heading out to Oakland for a quick visit. I can't wait to see my friends, and I'm looking forward to stopping by Adesso and Boccalone for some excellent cured meats. I also plan on drinking lots of coffee. Blue Bottle, Four Barrel, Dynamo, and of course the old standby Peet's. I will probably have a caffiene buzz that will last for a couple of weeks, which is good, because March is going to be a big month. Keep an eye on the site for a bunch of announcements including new farmers that we'll be working with, events were you can taste our products, and most importantly where you can buy our products!

p.s. I already spilled the beans about one of our new suppliers on the twitter feed over there -->

Buddy & Waylon

Before Willie & Waylon, there was Buddy & Waylon. Another great post from the Selvedge Yard.

Two weeks and counting

Two weeks into production and things are going well. It's been cold and wet, which has made humidity control a little challenging, but we figured it out and are plugging along. Here are some photos of salume in progress.

Genoa on the left, Lonzino on the right.

Pancetta

And, for good measure, some Copa di Testa.

Musical Interlude

Whiskey River

Crazy George | MySpace Video

Salume is in bloom...

Another cold snap here in central Texas, but our first batch of salume is undeterred. I was very happy to walk into the shop on Saturday and see this lovely mold bloom. The whole shop was filled with a wonderful porky mustiness, the aroma of sausage slowly fermenting. These guys are now off to the drying room for a couple of months.

We have pork!

I picked up a half pig from Richardson Farms this morning, and now its in much smaller pieces.

The Home Stretch...

We're in the home stretch here at Salt & Time. Last week, my dad and I drove down to Houston to pick up a bunch of supplies at Allied Kenco. Whether you're a home sausage maker or producing commercially, Allied Kenco can hook you up with everything you need. Cody and the staff there are super friendly and helpful and a pleasure to work with. They do mail order, but since I was ordering a couple hundred pounds of curing salts and casings, I figured I'd save on shipping costs and pick them up. Plus, I've never been to Houston, and I've been hearing great things about Feast. Feast lived up to the hype with its menu. We were still full from lunch, and we needed to get back on the road, so we had a light dinner. The highlight for me was definitely chicken hearts on toast. I have to admit, that I'm not much for chicken liver, but chicken hearts are yummy. I did have flashbacks to my days at Marin Sun Farms when I would sort through chicken offal to separate out the hearts from the livers for the farmers market.

With the pantry now full of supplies, we finished up the last major work on the shop this week, and are ready to start production. Next week, I'm picking up my first batch of pork from Richardson Farms and we will be off and running. I'll have some pictures up of the first batch, but in the mean time, here are some photos of the shop.