Charcutepalooza, and Why I’m Breaking My New Year’s Resolution

Last year, before I had my own food blog, I watched the Tigress have an amazing Can Jam with a group of really talented cooks and jam makers.  Each month she suggested a new fruit, and all the participants made up their own recipes and posted them for the world to see.  Fantastically creative!  Now that I have my own blog like a real grown up, I was hoping to find something similar to participate in.  About a day after I quit eating meat for one of my new year’s resolutions, I found the challenge that called out to me: Chartcutepalooza, in which every month offers a new project resolving entirely around meat.

Homemade fresh bacon.

Sorry, those three words, I can’t argue with that, it’s too exciting, I’m in.  As a way of honoring my resolution, I will try to use only animals that were wild or raised by someone I know, and as little from conventional grocery stores as possible.

So far I have wild duck prosciutto hanging to cure, and with any luck I’ll have some pork belly to work with tomorrow

I’m excited for this challenge, but nervous too; I have literally no experience with charcuterie, but I guess you have to start somewhere.  All the participants purchased a copy of Michael Ruhlman’s book Charcuterie, so I have a good set of instructions to work with.  Wish me luck! I’ll post duck proscuitto results and recipes in a week or so.