After nearly a decade and a half of constant use, it was with a heavy heart that at the end of this accursed summer I retired my trusty and now very rusty charcoal BBQ. Night after night of white hot coals had eroded The bottom of the barrel to a wafer thin bit of carbon. Another couple of grill sessions and I could easily see the whole burning payload dropping through the bottom and setting our back yard alight… And so, it was time to say goodbye.
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I think just about every household has a “default sausage”. You know, the one you or your loved one buys from the store every couple of weeks. The one type everyone can agree on. It’s usually some mild Italian-job that’s just innocuous enough to sneak into both omelettes and pasta sauce. I know some people who swear by the little breakfast patties as their go-to… Weirdos.
Our default sausage has always been chorizo, and I don’t really know why. Neither my wife or I were ever spice fiends and it’s sometimes hard to get a really good fresh chorizo in Canada. Regardless, we hunted the bright red, coarsely ground and piercingly spicy/smokey tubes of meat wherever we could and stocked up whenever we hit Victoria or the little artisan markets around Coombs.
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It took me about a year to get all the gear, source the pork and casings then carve out enough time – A weekend here and there – to really get into fresh sausage making. Now I’ve done over a dozen batches and experimented with many different recipes and techniques and I think I’m almost to the point where I now know exactly how much I don’t actually know. *Laughs*
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Thanks to the dynamic duo of Cara and Karlee I’m suddenly inundated with a cupboard full of very familiar liquors, so it’s finally time to bust out my favourite cocktail recipe. This is the big one kids; the aperitif to rule them all, the perfect summer sip, the ayatollah of alcoholla. This is my personal favourite cocktail.
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Call it “lockdown”, “Isolation”, “Self-Quarantine” or whatever else the fact is just about everyone is home right now with quite a bit of free time. Those with families are now coping with a lot of mouths to feed more frequently and a dwindling supply of recipes to keep them happy.
Although I am not among those bunkering down I do have a few suggestions for anyone looking to start a new kitchen-related project and I also know quite a few industry folk who are using this time to hone their skills while hey wait for the food service world to start spinning again.
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