Today was my last day at the farm. Everyone will be going to the market or is on holiday and so no one is cutting, and the abbatoir is closed for cleaning and so….
I took all the chiles J made Kate buy and roasted them in the fireplace and made “french” hot sauce
Also: I boned out a hock/jarre for stuffing, poaching and preserving tomorrow, cured some duck breasts (we’re doing it wrong), made tarte de vollaille, cleaned the kitchen
Found 1 gift, out of the 10 I am sposed to be looking for: an absinthe spoon for T
Thought a lot about salt box, and curing (since I did a lot of work with cured meat today) and how everyone that works on the farm does something with a force of skill that would knock the eight ball in the corner pocket unequivocally. Dominique: the teacher makes all the saucisse cuit and sells at the market and goes to the US to tell people about the farm. Bruno: the expert in salaison went to Lyon and studied dry curing. He knows the science of things; humidity, fermentation, time and was shocked when I told him about Monsanto, and eating habits in the US. Cecile and Mark are the steadies, like middle children and sous chefs they will watch for the gaps, pull more than their share and with a half smirk and a shrug tell you youre aight. Jacques knows more in his pinkie about pigs than anyone I have ever met. The energy on the farm when the pigs are eating, or he is running around is palpable. Quiet & smart, he can cut with the rest of them, but instead makes sure they have pigs to work with. Mssr & Madame Chapolard did not have to show the silly american how to cure, tie, and hang but they did all while cracking wise about each other and all of their grandkids.
And so, I feel as though I have a picture in my mind and hands of what the wheel could look like, or rather what my dream of producing cured meats could look like and for the first time in a long time, I do not feel restless, disastified, less than capable or unready.
The wheel you see is what we have been doing all along, and sometimes we forget that it is what carries us forward from where we once came. You forget to look down, notice the road passing by, what the terrain looks like, what the wheel feels like – the one in your hands and under your feet. We strain against reinvention constantly, in a way that defies all that created us, or sometimes in a way that mimics a coming of age.
Vous prenez le temps de passer le temps – If you dont stop to reflect upon what you are doing, all is lost. The things we do can be beautiful and well crafted or hasty and good enough. Good enough is not…good enough. I can feel the salt on my palm and it speaks to me in a way that only a purity of ingredient can. Focus, minimize a lack of precision, act with intention. Breathe fully and move carefully as if we have forever, as if we only have now.
grrlchef13
amazing. it almost makes me jealous – only that is not the right word. not “i want what you have,” only just that it seems so perfect for you in a way that makes me happy (and wish i could find out what is so perfect for me). simply amazing
LB – I feel as though you are quite possibly where I was nine months ago…which is not to say I am more evolved, only that the emotional turnstile goes….in a circle. You work towards something, and you find it is not quite what you want….easy….begin again. Find the thing that thrills you and think about how to minimize your risks and jump. Yes, jump. I am a virgo….no one would be more hesitant to jump more than me. There is a balance you can find between pleasure and what the french call “le travailler.” The comment I made about passing the time to pass the time, is more important than ever. Don’t concede to being a hamster, seek your bliss.
“minimize your risks and jump.”
that, i think, is why i’ve never felt particularly rash.