This blog needs a "slaughtering and butchering things" tag.

I am not a big birthday celebrator. Or rather, I tend not to celebrate my own birthdays. I love to gather people and food and cake for other people's big days, but my own birthdays have been fairly quiet, tame affairs since I burned out on hosting my own large birthday parties at the ripe old age of 12. And that was back when my parents were doing all of the actual work.

But I'm no birthday hater. Rather, I consider birthdays a lovely excuse to take some time and do absolutely ridiculous things with it.

For instance, on my birthday this year I went kayaking!

 

 

And went out to dinner at the always-phenomenal Bay Wolf!

And in between I slaughtered a rooster!  

Which was all pretty amazing. And I would have been completely satisfied with all that, and spent the next month bragging about it all. But here's the thing about having friends who share your amazement at the same weird shit: they don't need much encouragement to buy you an expensive ticket to a pig butchering event for your birthday, because it means that they have an excuse to go too. And that's why birthdays and my dear friend Robyn are awesome, and also how we ended up at an event entitled "Meat Locker" at a bar named Bloodhound, where the main feature was the dismantling of an entire pig. 

Oh yes.

As soon as we walked in, we were handed pork sticks. How could you not love it?

And with a bar hosting, there were also some interesting drinks being served up. This friendly fellow is making us a "Kentucky Breakfast," featuring bacon-infused bourbon (the bacon was, sadly, not evident), maple syrup, lemon, and egg whites. The lemon was the distinguishing flavor, which made me a fan! 

The "Smoke Em if ya Hallam" did not go down so easily, and featured bourbon, maraschino liqueur, carpano antica formula, and fernet branca. I don't know what those last two things are, but I didn't get another one.

Actually, two bourbon drinks was enough for the rest of the evening. Apologies to those who happened to talk to me after the second drink and were greeted with an enthusiastic monologue on pork that made no sense.

The people who I talked to at the event, though, they knew what I was talking about. It was so cool to be in a room surrounded by people who talk food as much as I do, or actually, even more. And not just any food, but pork food. And all these people were so friendly and so excited and so lovely! Yay people!

The pig was dissected by a fellow named Taylor Boetticher, of his own Fatted Calf Charcuterie. And it was really fun to watch - I can't even cut up a chicken very neatly, and this fellow was just tearing this pig up into beautiful pieces, occasionally with a saw.

I sort of really want a meat saw.

And then it went outside to the grill, which, after a couple of strong drinks and a lot of little pork bites, is where we went too. Standing next to a hot grill on one of SF's hottest days of the summer was more pleasant than the hot, sweaty room inside.

And at the grill we met a wonderful, wonderful man who talked to me for ages about how to roast a pig and was so incredibly encouraging. Sante Salvoni, Master Food Guru, kept apologizing for not knowing any good websites or books for my pig roasting project, all the while giving me all sorts of advice and information that would have been impossible to find on the internet - like showing me how hot the coals ought to be at pig-level.

I, of course, took notes. They are the notes of an insane illiterate who's had a little too much to drink.










He gave me tips on charcoal, which I wrote down.

He recommended I baste the pig with lemon, or at least I assume that's what that note means. The lemon is clearly important. 

At some point in the conversation, he mentioned a friend of his who plays drums, possibly in Philadelphia. I wrote that down too.

And then I got distracted by these amazing bacon shortbread cookies (seriously, so good) and, obviously afraid that I would forget the very complicated, involved bacon-to-butter ratio that makes them different from your average shortbread cookie, I wrote that down too. With lots of exclamation marks.

In my defense, they were AMAZING. I ate them before I could get a photograph. They looked like shortbread cookies, but with more bacon.

Anyway, I got to eat pork on a stick, pork in a bun, and pork under sauce; got to drink bourbon with pork and lemon, and bourbon with rat poison; got to talk to several pork lovers and a couple of pork gurus; and had great many opportunities to photograph a pig's severed head. What more could a girl ask for?

Happy birthday to me!

...and sometimes monsters from another dimension try to crawl out of your sponge cake.

Here's a lesson no one needs to learn: sometimes life fails at being awesome. And it's bad when it's happening to you, but watching someone else go through it is no picnic either. When stupid things happen, often the only real solution is time. Wait. Eventually life will feel less worse. Although that doesn't mean it's not still a little bitch.

In the meantime, there's not much you can do to help someone who's dealing with their shit. But if they call you from bart and need a not-stupid person to hang out with, you can invite them over to take it out on the sponge cake you're making for a trifle.

There may be casualties.

Actually, I'm going to take full credit for the sponge cake disaster, and offer some more advice: don't overbeat your eggs. If they get bigger and bigger and bigger and then get smaller, it's too late.

Monsters from another dimension will warp your poor, innocent sponge cake, trying to get into this world by way of your kitchen. There is nothing you can do. You will have to buy store-made cake for your trifle.


On the other hand, the sponge cake will be so desperately hilarious that life will seem a little less ridiculous.

And the trifle will have enough fresh fruit and Grand Marnier that no one will notice the absence of homemade sponge cake, and will start eating it before you can take a nice photograph.

And then your friend, who is a very talented, intelligent, beautiful lady, will give you a lovely blog award, and while you won't understand exactly what that is and have to call her during her work hours to figure it out, it's still quite lovely and much appreciated.

To recap:

=

And apparently this One Lovely Blog Award requires me to tell you seven things about me that you may not know and, ideally, aren't entirely uninteresting. And then I'm supposed to pass it to the next lovely blogger, who will look like an asshole if they don't do the same.

One. I was a very picky eater when I was a kid, which was mostly about texture, but I also really hated peanut butter. Once I took a nap with gum in my mouth, and it got in my hair, and my daycare teacher had to use peanut butter to remove it, and my hair smelled like peanut butter, and it was the worst thing ever. Way worse than gummy hair. I grew out of my pickiness, and now I think peanut butter is a-okay, although I don't have the same attachment to it that others do.

Two. The only thing I still refuse to eat is kimchi, which it cabbage that has been left out, rotted, and then is stuffed into small jars with large amounts of spicy. I witnessed an explosive kimchi incident as a young girl and it left deep scars.

Three. My mom always made my birthday cakes and I was never jealous of other kids and their fancy store-bought ones.

Four. The most amazing thing I've ever eaten is an olallieberry (or a loganberry or a boysenberry - some sort of blackberry relative. I can't find the menu.) from Alice Water's Chez Panisse.

Five. My grandpa used to count the peanuts in the little packets they give you on airplanes. I believe the average was 21.5 per packet. Now I count peanuts. Delta's average on my last trip was 16.5. Peanut packets these days, they just aren't the same value as they used to be.

Six. I really enjoy reading cookbooks from the 1950s. The recipes are so funny! My favorite is "Frozen Salad." I don't have it in front of me, but as I recall, it has the cook combine crushed pineapple, cream cheese, marshmallow mix, and whipping cream, freezing the mixture, and then spreading mayonnaise over everything. White and frigid, just like a good fifties housewife.

Seven. I used to live in a house with a lot of potheads (UCSC like what!) which was fantastic, because whenever I messed up a cooking project (like bread that didn't rise enough and was dense and almost soggy on the inside) I could just leave it out on the counter and it would disappear overnight. And the next morning everyone would be raving about the delicious thing they ate when they got the munchies at 3am.

There! Seven things! And the next sucker is Robyn, who is an amazing cook, baker, writer, tweeter, friend, and all-around bad-ass lady, and who needs to update her blog more because I like to read it.

It's not about the boats.

Despite living in the Bay Area for over twenty years, extolling the amazing local food scene, and being an avid eater, I'd never been to one of the most lauded places in the foodie world - The San Francisco Ferry Building. I've got plenty of excuses - the primary one being that their infamous farmer's market happens at the same time as my local one, and I've got my loyalties - but honestly, with the Ferry Building being a few blocks away from the first SF bart stop, making it about a 15 minute trip from Oakland, I really should have been here sooner.

I went with one of my favorite foodie/cat ladies, Robyn, with whom I spent all last summer attending street food gatherings, apricot and peach picking, and stuffing sausage. This summer our time together has been truncated by my Philadelphia residency, so we've been trying to fit all our gorging into this scant two-week period. We made a lot of headway at the Ferry Building.

One of our first stops was Cowgirl Creamery's permanent stand. Cowgirl Creamery is the creator of some of my favorite cheese, including the intensely creamy, rich Mt. Tam, their triple-cream. I'll probably do an entire post about cheese later, since it's been such a huge part of this trip, but our Cowgirl Creamery cheese monger (in the red hat) was fantastic and very patient with us as we took photos, sampled cheeses, and discussed the benefits of dating a cheese man.

The Ferry Building, in its most recent incarnation, is less of a ferry terminal and more of a marketplace for elite, Bay Area foodie shops. It's on the tourist circuit, because of its location, but it clearly caters to those educated about the local food scene. Most of the restaurants and cafés use ingredients from the other market vendors, which is a lovely form of mutuality, advertising, and deliciousness.

We bought some walnut-cranberry bread from Acme, which has stores and distributors all over the Bay Area, but originate from Berkeley. We each got a truffle (by which I mean, a small piece of chocolate) from Recchiutti, which seemed to be fairly standard high-quality chocolates. We agonized over beans at the Village Market, a grocer that sells canned, dried, and preserved things. We admired the truffles (by which I mean, a small piece of fungus) at Far West Fungi, and discussed the local mushrooming scene, which has been around at least since my father first arrived in San Francisco, went camping with his friends, ran out of food, and were taught mushroom hunting by a strange man in the woods who turned out to be a major deal in the wild mushroom collecting circles.

By this time, all the food we were eating was making us hungry, so we stopped by Frog Hollow Farm to get some of their notorious peaches in the form of a small lunch.

These peaches, really, they were amazing. The Cal Reds particularly. The best peaches I have ever eaten. The best texture, the best taste, the best juiciness, the best color, the best fuzz. All of it.

 Frog Hollow's market stand has a selection of pastries, fruits, coffee, and small lunch items to choose from. We, of course, got a bag of peaches for later, and then were tempted by the pastries and lunch menu.

I ordered the peach bruschetta, which is the best bruschetta I've ever had, and a strong contender for the best foodthing ever.

Their fromage blanc is from Cowgirl Creamery (I identified it just by taste, which made me feel sort of awesome and a lot dorky. I am a supreme cheese nerd.) and is a mild, fresh, creamy cheese. For some additional flavor, they whip in some of their Frog Hollow olive oil and chopped walnuts to make a really fantastic spread that they put over toasted bread (I think from Acme). They top it with thick slices of fresh peach, with a little pepper over the top.

Here, just look at it. It's delightful.

This wasn't just the best part of the Ferry Building, it might be the best part of my life.

As delicious as the peach bruschetta was, it wasn't quite an entire meal. So we found the empanada guy, and each got a flaky, wonderful pocket of goodness. Mine was filled with mushrooms from Far West Fungi; Robyn's had grass-fed beef from Prather Ranch, another Ferry Building vendor.

One of the primary reasons for our visit was to check out Boccalone, specifically to get some of their nduja - a spreadable sausage.

There's just something about pork that's so photogenic.

I bought a cone full of thinly sliced meats to snack on, which was beautiful and tasty. It's a little funny to see meat served in such a manner, but well worth the novelty.

After the cone of meat, we headed back to the East Bay with our bounty. Along the way we picked up another foodie/cat lady friend, then we sat in the sun in my parents' backyard and had a late lunch/tea/pre-dinner.

The spread:

Walnut-cranberry bread from Acme; Cowgirl Creamery's Pierce Pt. and Bijou, both cheeses bought from Cowgirl Creamery; nduja from Boccalone Salumeria; Cal Red peaches from Frog Hollow; Sicilian pistachios in honey, purchased from the Village Market; and Early Girl tomatoes from Robyn's fridge.

A perfect day of foodie decadence.