Four Thought

Day 61

Bacon and sausage and foie gras! Oh my!

Today I learned charcuterie will be a big part of Level 4 as I walked into the kitchen and spotted duck livers and a giant veal head. Sorry, my vegetarian friends. This is a time you might need to look away.

We began with a duck terrine by breaking down several birds, grinding its meat, combining it with pistachios, fatback and port-soaked cherries, and then layering it in a ceramic vessel with ham and seared duck breasts. We vacuum-sealed the terrines and popped them in an immersion circulator for low-temperature cooking. It was a lot of work, but I'm confident it will be worth it.

Tomorrow, we're curing pork belly for maple bacon and we'll start making head cheese. Good stuff.

In addition to the lesson in charcuterie, our group—approximately one-third of the class—discussed our ideas for the buffet we'll put out on Friday for the school. Our theme is Caribbean, so we narrowed down related recipes, including suckling pig, lamb curry and oxtail stew. We'll have until Thursday to prep.

It was nice to get back into the learning groove, but it was equally nice to rest my brain this weekend. Ryan and I headed upstate to Rhinebeck, N.Y., located in Dutchess County about two hours north of the city, to pick apples, pumpkins and fall raspberries.

We visited Rhinebeck for the first time last fall and fell in love. It's a quaint town with not much to do besides eat (well, I might add) and visit the surrounding farms and farmer's market. It reminds me of growing up in the Midwest, so there's something comforting about the whole experience.

Rhinebeck is the apple of my eye in New York.