Springtime dreaming

Mushroom dreams

While we wait, shameless plug for Earthy.com

Mushrooms Fill in the Blanks for the Meat-Free - Temporary Vegetarian - NYTimes.com:

"“The morels smell like fresh moss in the spring,” said Mr. Vongerichten, an owner of 28 restaurants in New York and around the world. “The chanterelles, for me, are like the field, like fresh grass, and slightly sweet. The shiitake, I would say, the bark of the woods. That’s where they grow.”

“Mushrooms have memories for me,” he said.

For vegetarians, mushrooms provide something much more substantial, a meaty succulence and satisfying texture that can be missing from a meat-free diet. They have a remarkable variety of forms and tastes, and take on deeper, richer flavors when saut�ed, steamed, roasted or grilled."

Yum

I try not to tout Earthy Products too much, but this one is great

Our standard sunday breakfast - bacon&eggs shredded potatoes, but this time a drizzle of

BLiS Tahitian Vanilla Maple Syrup on the potatoes

So nice

Trattoria Stella, Myles and pigs

Myles Anton: I'd like to do a shout out. Basically, I had this idea that I wanted to do this whole animal thing this winter. And then Cherry Capitol Foods-which supplies local produce to restaurants-they had a class called "Pigstock" to teach local chefs about butchering. I was like, "Wow! This is perfect. That's what I want to do at the restaurant this winter." It was a three-day seminar this November. We went to a farm in Marion, which is where I got my first pig. We actually slaughtered the pig ourselves and cleaned them and processed them and learned how to do all these things with them. That kind of got me going. It was perfect timing. My first pig was a Mangalitsa heritage pig from that farm in Marion. The pig I got this past week: it was a different pig, a cross breed of Duroc and Yorkshire from Land of Goshen farms in Kaleva, near Arcadia in Benzie County.

Charcuterie

Brian was one of the presenters last Nov at PigStockTC

High on the Hog - Hour Detroit - January 2011 - Detroit, MI:

"In France, charcutiers have plied their trade since the 1400s, and salumi is a cornerstone of Italian cuisine. Only recently has it become a trend among American chefs. Offal offerings are now de rigueur for some of metro Detroit’s creative menus, with such spots as Detroit’s Angelina Italian Bistro and Novi’s Toasted Oak Grill & Market offering diners daily selections of in-house cured meats. At Forest Grill in Birmingham, chef-owner Brian Polcyn’s charcuterie expertise is evident in the offering of a Charcuterie Assortment Du Jour. Polcyn, who co-wrote Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, teaches charcuterie at Schoolcraft College."