Month: December 2009

December 3, 2009

It’s been a year; my twelfth article for Chronogram is now out. photo by Jennifer May

December 2, 2009

So I got a deli slicer for my birthday. Which I sort of asked for, in that not-exactly-asking-but-making-it-pretty-obvious-way that my expert wife has figured out over the years. It was a tough call, since I really want a new juicer (the old one suffered a child-related mishap, rendering it useless) but the one I want is three times more money than the slicer. So I got a slicer. It was win/win, really, since she knew that the minute I opened it I’d rush out and buy hunks of meat to cure, hang, and then slice into glistening tissues of salty splendor for us all to enjoy.

And that is pretty much exactly what happened.

December 1, 2009

First, some things cassoulet is not. Fussy. Difficult. Complicated. Intimidating. Very good for you. Some things it is? Very good to eat. Peasant food. Food for people who really should have spent most of the day chopping wood with their bare hands in order to work up a need for the caloriffic ordnance that this dish also happily happens to be. Cassoulet- notwithstanding the sputtering, indignant protestations of traditionalists- is beans slow-cooked with a shitload…