The Week in Food: Catastrophe!

No, there will be no pics of this one dear blog readers. The Lovely S and I are normally pretty decent cooks-- at least we cook often enough that we are not terribly intimidated by new recipes or techniques. We can usually manage to take a few scraps or leftovers, toss together a quick pasta dish, and end up with something as good or better than a recipe slavish followed and fretted over for hours.

Last week we picked up a copy of Molto Italiano*, one of Mario Batali's cookbooks. We planned to make Salsicia patties and serve them on ciabata with grilled red peppers, onions, and eggplant, just like we had from a street stand in La Porta Portese en Roma, Citta Eterna. I'm sure the recipe would normally be great, as is usual with Mario. But rather than asking the butcher to grind our pork shoulder and fat back, we tried to do it ourselves in a food processor. Pasty, stringy, mashed up raw pork fat is something you do not want in your kitchen, my friends. And pork skin is HARD. I said HARD, not tough, HARD.

Moral: Butcher is its own special profession for a reason. Let them help you. We will be dining out a bit this week. Pho Hot, here we come.

* This is not meant to suggest that Mario's book is anything less than gospel. We screwed it up, not him. I dare not cast aspersions in the direction of the great god of La Cucina Italiana.