Where in the hell have I been?
Y’know, I sometimes ask myself that very same question. There are several blogs that I frequent, and most of them seem to be able to scrap together posts on an almost daily basis. So what’s up with the Haven? Why isn’t this one updating on an at least a semi-regular basis?
I guess it all comes down to not really being entranced by this whole writing thing. It’s fun sometimes, but at other times it seems too much like work. When I haven’t updated in a while it’s doubly tough to get myself to sit down and write about: 1 – a lot more stuff, and 2 - stuff that is not really fresh in my mind. I inevitably end up forgetting about stuff that I should have written down.
And I’m a bit lazy…
Anyhoo… I’ll try to get you all up to speed with as few words as I can possibly muster.
Late last month I got a hankerin’ to do some confit. I purchased the pork fat and went about rendering the fat that would be needed…
I had decided to make some tongue confit, and had purchased 4 pork tongues. They came four to a package, or I probably would have only cooked one or two. Here are the tongues after they had been seasoned and cured a bit overnight...
Here they are in the pork fat with a little garlic getting ready for the long simmer…
Once cooked I peeled the skin from the tongues and placed them back into the fat.
The whole container was then placed in the refrigerator where the fat solidified. They have been there ever since. Just ripening up a bit. I plan to pull one out soon to try it.
July 4th I had a party at my place. A bunch of people were out of town for the holiday weekend, but we still had a decent turnout. Only one of my beer glasses was broken (…thanks Andy!), and I actually had some leftover meat to freeze.
I smoked two briskets, a pork shoulder, and two chickens.
Every time I’d check the meat, or add a log I sprayed the meat with an apple juice and water mixture.
It turned out OK, but I could not taste any apple. The fresh spray each time may have et the meat capture a little bit more smokiness, but I’m not sure of that either. I’ll have to run a test while smoking two pieces of meat. I’ll just spray one each time and see if there is any difference.
It certainly did not make it any easier to pull, but two forks, a little muscle, and several beers later yielded a 5 quart Dutch oven overflowing with porky goodness…
The day after the party, I had to go to Stuttgart for a week. The following week I was in Bernkastel-Kues for a training class. The class was very good, and the surroundings were a bit better.
Bernkastel-Kues straddles the Mosel River, which is a big wine area. Both towns are pretty small, but are very picturesque. They are both very tourist oriented, so there are a fair share of restaurants around. There are also plenty of neat old half-timbered houses…
I returned to Wiesbaden on Friday, only to fly out again on Sunday. This time the destination was Estonia.
Where?
Estonia. It’s north of Latvia, which is north of Lithuania, which is north of Belarus and northeast of Poland. Just west of Russia, about 150 clicks from St. Petersburg. We touched down in Tallinn, and immediately drove across the county to the city of Narva. Now the country is only about three hours wide, but Narva is the easternmost city in the European Union, and is directly across the river from Russia.
There are castles on either side of the river. The bigger one is, of course, in Russia.
After a meeting and site visit, we drove south to Värska. Värska is damn near the southeastern most point in the country. Not a lot going on there. We had to drive about 25km to get find a restaurant besides the cafeteria style one at the hotel. After another meeting and site visit we drove back to Tallinn. In three days we managed to drive to 3 corners of the country. It is a pretty country. Very rural, lots of trees, but very flat.
Tallinn is a pretty big city, it’s right on the Baltic Sea, just across the Gulf from Finland. Nice place, but I’ll have to tell you about that next time. I’ve got a couple of things going right now that need my attention…
As always, more pics on my flickr page HERE
