PORK

My buddy Patrick who stayed with us last week left us a book: Pig Perfect: Encounters With some Remarkable Swine And Some Great Ways To Cook Them. I started reading it over the weekend and haven't been able to put it down. It's basically charts the author's search for great ham, a pilgrimage that takes him through the boonies of Greenville, NC and Princeton, KY across the Atlantic to Burgundy and into western Andalucia, home of the greatest of all hams, jamon iberico. Made from the pata negra pig, it's unavailable here in the States (USDA has issues w/ its production) so you've got to go to Spain to try it which might just have to happen given how transcendent an experience it seems like, that is, sinking your teeth into flesh that's been rotting, oops I mean curing for 2 years. The greatest foods---Korean, wine, cheese, and pork---all share that essential rottenness. Go figure. Anyway, in between chapters, the author provides some awesome sounding pork recipes that I hope to execute at some point this week. He also points out some interesting nutritional facts about pata negra, which are Iberian black pigs finished on a diet of acorns: the pork is high in monounsaturated fat which is the good kind that promotes good cholesterol, LDL, and lowers bad cholesterol, HDL. But it's only artisanal pork that has this odd quality about it. I read that Saturday afternoon. Saturday evening, Eric, Hil, Lebo, and I went out to Santa Monica to a great Italian very Batali joint, Rocca. They've got a great salumi selection and of course having just read Pig Perfect, I had to order the lardo, which is straight up cured pork backfat. It's thinly sliced sheets of offwhite fat. Very salty. Very lovely. Throw a slice of fat onto a piece of bread and there you have it: heaven at your fingertips. SO GOOD.

LOVE
ALEX