One late September evening, my husband and I finally got around to bottling the sour cherry mead, mead I’d started mid-June and racked at the end of August. 

We washed and sanitized the bottles, briefly soaked the corks in Star San, and then my husband began filling bottles.

Getting them filled to the correct level was a little touch-and-go at first, but we eventually got the hang of it. There was one major hose-down-the-kitchen-with-mead event, but we had spread a bath towel on the floor ahead of time so that soaked up the worst of it (and since our kitchen floor is perpetually in a state of Please Wash Me, it’s always grateful for an excuse to get a good scrubbing — there are worse things).

The corker thingy is an absolute must because there is no way we could’ve gotten the corks into the bottles without it. It’s not great for big bottling projects, though — it’s a little scarily wobbly, and my husband said it made his hands hurt after a while — but for our little outfit, it got the job done. I think we ended up with 22 bottles, or 25…can’t remember.

The mead is drinkable at any point though it should be aged a full year for best results. At that point, the flavor should become more mellow, they say. But I actually really like it as it is now. Like, really, really like it. I don’t know what the flavor compares to. I’m no wine expert, and I was a little shy about sharing the mead with people at first because one) I didn’t want anyone to have to pretend they liked it, and two) I didn’t want to suffer the giant soul crushing of a negative review. But then one girlfriend had some and requested to buy a bottle, and I took another bottle to a gathering and it got all drunk up that very night, and when I have guests over, I notice people helping themselves to seconds, so . . . all good signs, I guess? 

I do have one problem, though: where to store it? Our old farmhouse is skimpy on storage space, and what with all my cheesemaking and now mead making, my projects are eating into our living space something fierce. (And I thought I’d have all this extra space once the kids left, ha!)

I guess we’ll figure something out eventually, considering necessity is the mother of invention and all…

This same time, years previous: making the bed, menopause: seven stories, curbing the technology addiction, practical and beautiful, where the furry things are, the quotidian (10.19.15), rich, no special skills, how to have a doughnut party, part 1.

One evening a few weeks ago, my husband loaded Fern and Petunia onto the trailer, and the next morning, he dropped them off at the butcher shop, along with my cut sheet detailing a dreamy variety of deliciousness. Since we were getting some smoked cuts, it’d be about two weeks, they said. 

For the next fourteen days, I thought about that pork daily. Maybe they’ll call today? I’d think, and a happy buzz would zip right through my brain. I thought about it so much that one night I even dreamed about bacon. Since this was the first time we’d raised New Guinea Hogs (the other time or two, we’d raised just the standard fast-growing variety of pig), I was itching to see if we could detect a noticeable flavor improvement. Was the smaller, slower-growing, lardier breed actually worth the extra months of feeding? The promise of a new flavor adventure made me positively giddy with excitement.

Two weeks and one day after my husband dropped off the pigs, we got the call: our order was ready. 

$845 for a truckload of meat, fat, and bones

As the kids and I sorted the boxes between freezers — bones and fat in one and all the meaty cuts in another — I pulled out various packages for thawing and sampling: two kinds of bacon, some sausage, a ham. 

what I call “Little Red Henning It”:
homemade sourdough, homemade cheese, homegrown ham, CLUCK-CLUCK

For the smoked products, we got Canadian bacon (from one pig), regular bacon (from one pig), and smoked hams (in quarters, and from one pig). We did the celery powder version of smoking (uncured), and it’s quite good, though the traditional bacon has a sweetness to it that I wasn’t expecting, and I’m not sure I like.

We also got boneless Boston butts (from one pig), all the fat (divided between kidney fat and regular fat), and the bones for broth. I discovered a bunch of packs of short ribs that I didn’t order which is kinda fun. And as for the sausage, we got it all ground: 50 pounds of Classic, 50 pounds of Italian, 50 pounds of Breakfast, and 16 pounds plain ground pork. Yes, that’s correct: we got zero pork chops, an omission which apparently horrifies people in the pig-butchering world, but listen: we like sausage. 

to go with our Einkorn and whole wheat pancakes and yogurt smoothies

I spent that first week frying up bacon, slicing ham for sandwiches, making spaghetti sauce and breakfast sausage patties, simmering broth, and rendering lard.

an outdoor broth-making station to keep the porky smells out of the house

I’ve tried a variety of methods for rendering the lard — stove top, oven, hand-chopped, ground — as I attempt to streamline my system. Chopping my way through mountains of semi-frozen fat is a blister-inducing feat of sheer madness, which caused me to kick myself for neglecting to ask the butcher to grind it for me, o woe! 

But then my husband dug our (never before used) hand-crank meat grinder from the attic and I worked up a wicked sweat grinding up all that fat (which is only a small fraction of what we have in the freezer), which was still very miserable but way better than chopping it by hand.

Some of the lard got a little too cooked, which gave it a porky flavor, but it turns out that the porky lard is sublime for roasting potatoes and making lard-butter crusts for quiche. The good lard, the snow white stuff, is as smooth as an Italian Meringue buttercream and an absolute dream to use. I plan to put it in cookies, biscuits, pancakes, bread, and on and on. (Thus far, I’ve only made lard from the back fat — I can’t wait to see how the fancy kidney fat turns out!)

Lard rendered from one box of fat. I think we have eight.

(I also tried crackins — both plain and in biscuits — and they’re pretty terrible, we all think. Maybe I’m doing them wrong? But I can’t really bother myself to care. I mean, the chickens are huge fans and it’s not like we don’t have enough fat already.) 

a bandage-wrapped cheddar: the lard is so silky-soft, I didn’t even need to melt it before applying

And as for the answer to my big question: is this variety of pig worth it? YES. Absolutely and unequivically.

This pork is freaking amazing.
Like, ridiculously flavorful. 
Like, absolutely-worth-the-long-growing-time delicious.
Like, we need to get two more pigs STAT. 

To that last point, my husband is dragging his feet WHICH MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER, especially considering that we’re about to have TWO cows in milk, so while he dilly-dallies about, I passive aggressively punish him by making him dump the buckets of whey on the raspberries and asparagus, whey which, I point out sweetly, we could be feeding to a pair of snuffly little piggies…

This same time, years previous: simplest sourdough bagels, my travails as a self-proclaimed kid environmentalist, three things, kitchen notes, practical and beautiful, the quotidian (10.17.16), a list, the adjustment, grab and go: help wanted, that thing we do.

As promised, let’s talk about the gingerbread part of that cake. 

I’d never constructed anything with homemade gingerbread, and I did zero recipe testing ahead of time, so I was feeling pretty nervous at the start. However, the process soon started to feel like old hat — mostly because I got lots of practice because I kept messing up (dang math!), but also because the recipe was so darn fantastic.

Here, let me count the ways:

• It’s a snap to make.
• It’s easy to roll and cut.
• It holds its shape while baking.
• It’s tasty. 
• It’s sturdy.
• It has a great shelf-life.
• It’s fun to use!

The dough is super simple — no eggs or leavening agents — and once mixed, it gets stored at room temperature. In other words, there’s no finicky chilling/warming to mess with the dough’s usability. Once made, it’s ready to go.

Thanks to all the spices, the gingerbread is pretty yummy, and while it’s baking it makes the house smell like Christmas, but the texture is wonky — a weird tacky snappy that’s probably a result of all the corn syrup. But that didn’t stop me from dipping countless bits of the crispy gingerbread into the bowl of cream cheese frosting!

To shape, roll the dough out on floured parchment, cut the shapes you want (templates makes this step a breeze), making sure to leave a little dough around the outside edges to prevent the cut pieces from spreading. And then — this is the important part — immediately after pulling the gingerbread from the oven, re-cut along the scored lines with a knife or pizza cutter.

If you don’t, the dough will quickly harden into a rock, making any tidy last-minute trimmings an absolute impossibility. 

Trust me. This I know.

Once baked, cut, and cooled, the pieces can sit out at room temperature, uncovered, for days. I noticed a slight softening after a few days, but it was still firm enough to be absolutely trustworthy. 

Now that I’ve jumped into the world of gingerbread construction, I keep thinking of other things I might build: mainly, pimped-out gingerbread models of actual structures I know and love. Now that might be a baking project my husband and I could do together. 

No, I take that back. We don’t work well together so we’d each have to build our own structure. Ooo, how about a merry marital Christmas Construction Competition?

hot caramel is sticky and messy. . . and scary

Though considering he’s an actual builder, he’d have an unfair advantage. 

random ginger-beam supports because fondant is heavy

Gingerbread To Build With
Adapted from Serious Eats.

A single batch makes a very small amount of dough — enough to fill one cookie sheet. I recommend making at least a double batch, and maybe a quadruple or more, depending on the size of your structure. 

A half teaspoon of black pepper would be a nice addition.

175 grams all-purpose flour
56 grams brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 ¼ teaspoons ginger
1 ¼ teaspoons ground cloves
⅛ teaspoon salt
45 grams butter, room temperature
115 grams corn syrup
7 grams vanilla

Mix all the ingredients together. Cover with plastic and store at room temperature

shaping:
Lightly flour a piece of parchment paper that fits the cookie sheet you’ll be using. Put the parchment on the table and the dough on the paper. Flour the top of the dough. Roll it to a ¼ inch thickness (or thinner), adding more flour as needed. 

Place the templates on the dough. Using a paring knife or pizza cutter, cut around them. Peel away the extra dough, leaving a small amount around the cut shapes so they don’t spread while baking. Scraps of dough can be re-rolled or mixed with a little water to make it pipe-able and then piped onto parchment in a variety of finicky shapes, like for porch railings and fancy curlicues and window frames, etc, and then baked. 

baking:
Transfer the parchment paper to the cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 12-20 minutes, depending on the thickness of your dough, until the gingerbread is golden brown and firm to the touch.

As soon as the gingerbread is done baking, cut along all the pre-cut lines (they will be faint, since the gingerbread puffed a little while baking). Cool completely. Remove the pieces from the pan and store on a tray, loosely covered with a towel, at room temperature.

building:
Adhere shapes together with sugar caramel: melt sugar over medium head until runny, and then dip the ends/edges of gingerbread into the caramel and then to each other. OR, use royal icing (or so they say — I haven’t tried it). To adhere fondant to gingerbread, use piping gel. To adhere gingerbread to foil base, use sugar caramel, and lots of it.

This same time, years previous: after two years, show and tell, the quotidian (10.12.20), the relief sale doughnuts of 2019, English muffins, the relief sale doughnuts of 2017, home, roasted red pepper soup, old-fashioned brown sugar cookies.