Category: Food

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Adventures in Carnitas

Carnitas, slow-cooked
Carnitas: Pork Shoulder in an orange-cinnamon broth at the Kaj household

In February, though it’s sunny here in northern California, the wind blows down from Alaska and it’s deceptively cold. The dim sun is still low on the horizon and hazy, not the true sun punch that we’ll get in a few months. We wimpy west-coasters need hot food as well as anyone else in the winter. It’s taken me decades, but I have finally learned how to coax magic out of the crock pot, and this seems a good time to share a recipe or two, maybe to brag a little about my carnitas.

Lest I get too full of my own self, I will point out that we have had a lot crock pot failures in this house, so expertise has been hard won. I have made a lot of dried out pork loin and undercooked stew. So I will share what I have learned about equipment and the perils of misunderstanding collagen.

The Context of the Carnitas

The local mice also seem to know that it’s cold. We’ve had a decades-long battle with them, fiddling with traps and bait to figure out how to make them go away without having to cope with hairy details. They’re a reminder that the lovely suburban woods stretching outside our backyard, with the impudent turkeys and sneaky deer, only seem bucolic. Once critters invade the garage and nest in your car– chewing through brake cables to cause damage that was breathtakingly expensive but fortunately covered by insurance–well, it takes a shine off the bucolous, that’s for sure. Continue reading “Adventures in Carnitas”

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Full Confession

Source: Christmas Treats @ Chez Kaj

I confess I did not plan a blog entry.

We have been making rather merry and I have family visiting. I could, perhaps, have planned something ahead of time as I have been known to plan, but I confess I did not feel up to it. I thought perhaps I should cheat and just post pictures of the food we made and have been eating. But that doesn’t seem like an adequate confession.

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I confess to guilt that I am not generous enough, that I do not reach out enough, and that I think of comfort before action.  I am not Catholic, so I don’t know how to classify that sin. Continue reading “Full Confession”

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Wake Up and Smell the Cranberries

Savory? Sour?
Sweet? Mercy me! Please make up
Your mind, Thanksgiving.
–Cranberry haiku

20171122 Kajberries

Last year, I shared a few thoughts about turkey in general at: Spatchcock?Gesundheit!   But cranberries have to get into the picture, too, because that tart little relish is just as much a part of the Thanksgiving tradition as stuffing. Are cranberries American? Are they a cure-all? Which version is better — sauce, jelly, or chutney? Figure it out fast because Turkey Day is tomorrow.

As American as Apple Pie

Actually cranberries are more American than apple pie, since Chaucer referred to a British apple pie recipe way back in the 14th century, and even Dutch apple pie was created before the Pennsylvania Dutch perfected it. Cranberries, native to north America, were in those Massachusetts bogs, wavings their viny flowers at the settlers who cruised in on the Mayflower. The settlers called them craneberries because the expanding head of their flowers resembled the marsh birds. The fruit was also called bearberries since you-know-whats would eat them and mossberries, which is still what they’re called in Canada and Britain. The Alonquin called them Sassamanash and infused the flavoring into pemmican, their variation of jerky, which may seem strange although not necessarily more than jalapeno or teriyaki. Although Sassamanash-juice cocktail doesn’t have quite the right ring to it. Continue reading “Wake Up and Smell the Cranberries”