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I have eyed this recipe up for a couple of years now. A few years ago my good friend Marc gave me a bunch of suggestions for cookbooks. I had reached a rut in what I was cooking, and wanted an out. Marc is a total hoarder (honestly, his habit redefines the term hoarding) of [...]
My wife introduced me to Pastrami a while ago. It was something I never had back in the UK. My mum would make a spiced beef round every year, which I guess is somewhat similar (only not smoked). That was as close as I ever got to Pastrami. Back Then. Then Michael Ruhlman’s charcuterie book [...]
It sure is nice to get back into the swing of blogging again. As I was editing the images for my last post, I thought it might be rather fun to make a video of my editing process inside of Lightroom. I have been a photoshop user for over 10 years, and have found myself [...]
It is funny, I just joked on Facebook that it has been so long since I have blogged that I have forgotten my wordpress password. Funny at first, sure, but somewhat sad too. These last 6months have been an upheaval for my family – some large changes in our life that have come to be [...]
Hello, have you missed me? You see, my dog ate my computer so all of those 20 posts I have backed up and ready to hit “publish” on disappeared down fido’s esophagus. To tell the truth this has been a crazy start to the year. Some health stuff, starting a new job, a remodel. Lots [...]
Things have been quiet around here recently. The last couple of months have been quite an unexpected roller coaster here in the Wrightfood household, and frankly I haven’t had much interest in blogging to be honest. Thankfully, things are starting to look exceedingly good for us, which has also meant that thankfully my passion for [...]
I don’t do a lot of smoking. I won a smoker a few years back for a photo of some meat, and guess what – I never used it. It stayed in garage, unopened in the box. Well, honestly, that was mainly because it was one of those that used these dicey pellets of reformed [...]
Many months ago I got en email from a bloke at a new online magazine startup called Spenser. He was looking for a story. Apparently he likes the stuff I do on my blog here and wanted an article about how I got started in charcuterie, the stories of the successes and failures, and just [...]
Beets are my favorite root vegetable. My favorite to grow in our back yard, and my favorite to chow down on come the cooler months. They have, I have to say, been one of our great successes in the yard. We aren’t experienced gardeners, especially when it comes to vegetables. Many things have died from [...]
It is about this time of year that I start doing quite a lot with locally grown peppers. They crop up at the farmers markets everywhere and it is pretty much impossible to walk through without picking up at least one bag. Over the years I have started to stray away from the usual red [...]
As I start getting old in my years, I am starting to realize there are two things that you shouldn’t mess with. The first is your mother-in-law, and the second is a pot beans. I am not even going to go there with the first - I happen to have a great MIL, so no [...]
This blog has been a little quiet of late, and I apologize for that. Things have been busy, really busy. Here is one of the reasons why - Food and Light 2011. Jen Yu of UseRealButter fame emailed me a while ago and asked if I wanted to be an instructor along with her and Todd [...]
It has taken us nearly a year to perfect this gluten free flatbread dough. The “we” part is my wife and I. For the last couple of years she has had to be gluten-free and that might well never change, so we decided to try and develop a fantastic pizza and flatbread gluten free dough. [...]
It was about a year ago that I met David Pearlstein. He had a charcuterie blog back then, and was making some very decent looking (and tasting) product in his basement. He came over, we shared some of our cured meat (he makes the best duck proscuitto I have ever tasted) and chatted for a [...]
“You need to eat more protein” said my naturopath, “preferably at breakfast” she added. Being honest, I wasn’t totally surprised. My breakfasts recently had been cereal mixed with nuts and apples, covered in yogurt (Grace Harbor Farms for the world!). Looks like there is less protein in yogurt than I figured. To some readers of this [...]
If I was to get all swanky on ya, I would call this salami “finocchiona salami”, however whenever I use some authentic name I seem to get emails from twerps telling me that it isn’t in fact XYZ because of this this and this. So I am not going to. To be a true finocchiona it [...]
OK folks, gonna make this one short and sweet. Lots and lots of people have asked for a digital version of the Wrightfood Food Photography manual that I have started selling last week to raise money for Japan. The original hardback book is available through blurb for $44.44. With the profit that Blurb takes, this leaves [...]
About three months ago Danika turned to me and suggested we do more for charity. That is something that you can never just say “meh..” to. So we got thinking. She is a very accomplished artist so we are planning on selling some of her works for charity. We also thought about setting up a [...]
Some things are so classic, so perfectly right as they are that it seems like a total disgrace to “reinvent” them. There is a reason some dishes have been around for a long time, on and off restaurant menu’s, but always there. There is a tricky knife edge here though. You can fall one way [...]
Some of you might know that I am one of the judges for the rather large, rather viral #charcutpalooza challenge. I am in great company there I have to say, and the challenges are shaping up to be very interesting. Michael Ruhlman does a great job in his Charcuterie book to go in to some [...]
Well folks, this is quite an honor to announce this. Every year there is a very special food photography workshop in Boulder Colorado setup by the lovely Jen Yu and Todd Porter and Diane Cu. You might know them better by their blogs - Jen Yu is UseRealButter and Todd and Diane from WhiteonRiceCouple. I [...]
This blood sausage sort of just happened. It wasn’t long ago when I was flicking through the River Cottage Cookbook I happened to see a blood sausage recipe or three. My first thought was “wow, I haven’t had blood sausage in ages”. My second was “yep, there was a reason for that”. As with almost everything [...]
The poor old turnip gets a bad rap. It always seems to get out classed by other winter root vegetables (back off rutabaga’s..) and never quite ever gets seen as the star of the show. Half of the problem I think for us Brit’s was its association with Baldrick (NOTHING is ever going to be [...]
Well folks, this stuff has been hanging a while now. It seems to have done really quite well. It even survived the great International disaster of 2010 - “the humidifier is out of water for 3 days catastrophe” which I am sure you read about in a variety of international newspapers… About two months ago I [...]
Post production often seems like a dirty little secret. I know some photographers that don’t like to talk about it. Others swear it is the devils work, and only for those photographers that cannot take good shots. I call bullshit to that last statement. Post Production should be considered any work you do to a photograph after [...]
I love lamb. Absolutely love it. I will take a lamb chop over a steak any day of the week and don’t even get me started talking about legs of lamb. Oh, wait. Gonna have to, since this is a post all about curing them. I have been wondering about curing lamb for a while now. [...]
This blog is fast becoming a mix of salted dried meat and vegetarian recipes by the looks of what I have posted recently - and frankly I am rather enjoying it! This is the latest in my meat curing expedition, and whilst I have most likely only eaten 15 slices of it, I would consider it [...]
There are some dishes, quite a lot of dishes in fact, that I cook and never think twice about blogging the recipe for. In my mind they are too simple, too “everyday” and have no cured meat element to them! Sod I thought one day however. This is how I like to eat. Simple food, quality [...]
Raise your hand if you have a problem taking food photography in the winter? If you could see me now, I would have my hand raised (with an alocholic bevy in it too, most likely). Heck, I would most likely be pouring one out for all the fallen photos I have tried to take in the [...]
Bresaola is the salumi that got me started in to meat curing at home a couple of years ago now. Some of you might remember the story of rat cage and the thing eventually ending up in the trash. Since then I have got far more obsessive (some might say that isn’t possible), and a [...]
Something a little different today folks. A full on video post. Well, almost full on. I recently put a pork loin in to cure, and air dry and thought it might be rather fun to video the making of it. Turns out it was fun, and I now feel the need to inflict the video [...]
I had this post almost typed up and for some reason Wordpress thought it would be funny not to save it. Quite frankly, and being honest with myself, that isn’t such a bad thing - it was a little dry. Lets see if it, like everything else, is better the second time around.. Sofrito is a [...]
Some things automatically go against the grain. Dumping two bottles of half decent olive oil in to a pan, and then loading it up with fish and herbs for instance. However, 20 minutes later and it all becomes understandable. Tender, flaky moist fish with such a delicate flavor and texture. If you get it right, [...]
Being British I am genetically disposed to Indian food. I am also ridiculously snooty about Indian food. Outside of India, I reckon that England could quite possibly be the best place to pick up some fantastic authentic Indian nosh. Being this snooty about it doesn’t make eating out in Seattle for Indian food fun. Not that [...]
Mustard. I love the stuff. Especially because it goes so brilliantly with charcuterie. I had never given one second of a thought however to making the stuff, until last week. I was sitting around, eating some rillette and salad, and thought “some bloody lovely mustard would go so nicely with this”, and opened the fridge. You [...]
Ever since I made the salt cod a few weeks ago, I had this dish brooding in the back of my head. It was honestly the real reason I made the salt cod in the first place. Each spring I always look forward to fresh English (shelling) peas and fava beans. Here in Seattle the [...]
I thought I might just pop in a photography post this week - a few shots of our little vegetable garden, which I reckon is coming along nicely. Course, that all seems a little too nice, polite and pretty.. so lets through in some fire too (grilled gluten free pizza). Jolly good show. Happy summer everyone!
There has to be something said for a recipe that combines the two big culinary focuses in my life - seafood and charcuterie (curing, preserving). Salt cod takes care of that. Salt cod is one of those ingredients that I hardly ever use. In fact, come to think of it I have never done anything with [...]
Blame this post on some Twitter friends that assured me it would be interesting. When you cure meat you have to learn a thing or two about ingredients that don’t come up much in regular cooking. I don’t know about you, but I never cooked much with dry milk powder, dextrose, or peculiar sections of beef [...]
I have a somewhat recent love affair on buckwheat. It seems like savory crepes (galettes) are all the rage here in Seattle, and almost all of them have a proportion of buckwheat in them. This is traditional to the area of France where they were apparently first developed - Brittany. Buckwheat has this lovely rich [...]
When you say “Chorizo” to someone, you hear back a lot of different meanings. Here, in my second home of the USofA most people think of Mexican chorizo, when you throw out the C word. Mexican chorizo is a fresh sausage, heavily spiced that needs to be cooked. Mexican chorizo is usually made with chile [...]
Sometimes we don’t get to work with our lovely little setup in our home or studio for food photography. Sometimes we walk in to a job not knowing what to expect, and hoping that the gear you have crammed in to your car is going to be what is needed to do it right. I figured [...]
I will admit it now. I know nothing about wine and food pairing. Thankfully I have a friend who does, and has a lovely business selling wine to local Seattle people. I first met Catherine over a year ago when I hosted and cooked a Seattle Food Bloggers Meat Party. The food had some high’s and [...]
Spring is a time of soups for me. Here in Seattle we are lucky enough to have a ridiculous amount of farmers markets. If you go out for a walk on the weekend, you are pretty much guaranteed to trip over one. Or two. What is more, they are considerably cheaper than those organic natural [...]
When you talk to most people about cured meat, it is only a matter of time before “coppa” is talked about. Next to prosciutto, I think this certain cut is everyone’s favorite, and it is easy to see why. On a properly raised hog, you get what I consider a perfect fat-to-meat ratio for cured [...]
A couple of weeks ago now I was lucky enough to score a ticket to a class. This was honestly the class I had been waiting for. Waiting for a very long time. Ron Zimmerman (Herbguy on twitter, owner of Herbfarm Restaurant) posted something about a “French Pig” class. Well, that was one link I had [...]
Yes folks, it’s time for another video post! What does this mean? Well, for me it means that a day or so after this post goes live, it goes around my office, and I get ridiculed for a week or so…. Ever wondered why I don’t do more video posts? Nah, but seriously - I want to [...]
As anyone that reads this blog knows, I have a certain something for rustic, French cooking. The kind of food that gets cooked in houses and small restaurants throughout France. The food that has honestly made France what it is culinary-wise, and I am sure will continue to do so well after I have put [...]
Six weeks ago Becky Selengut and I started another batch of salami. You may remember, dear reader, that we threw the last batch we made in trash, because I considered the salt percentage too low to be safe. Well, I am proud to say that this salami cured pretty much perfectly, and quite frankly is one [...]
