Sherri Gallentine: Making a BLT from Scratch

My husband, Rich, and I were given a piece of wild pig that our friend Bob had taken near his home in Fresno, California. We put it in the freezer for a while until we could decide what to do with it. Fast forward to this summer, when we accepted the BLT Challenge offered by Michael Ruhlman on his blog. The challenge was to make a BLT entirely from scratch, which we did. During the BLT experiment, we learned how to cure bacon, and Rich decided this was the best technique to apply to our piece of frozen pig.

Now, Rich is an avid griller and BBQ aficionado (he is equipped with a smoker and a meat slicer), so he was ready to try curing his own ham. After two weeks of curing in the refrigerator, the pig was ready to be smoked. What came out of the smoker was the most delicious ham either of us has ever tasted. My only part in all of this was to assemble the sandwiches we had for dinner after the ham had cooled down from the smoking process, and they were really tasty!

Now we have a quarter of a pig on order from a farmer about an hour and a half from our home, which we are going to pick up next week. We will get chops, belly meat (more bacon), a roast, ribs, and more. This is our first time buying a significant amount of an animal directly from a farmer, and we’re really excited to taste the difference in the meat. With all the meat we will get, we’ll have some big sausage-making and bacon-curing projects coming up — we can’t wait!

Also, Rich is an excellent photographer, as you can see from these photos and from any subsequent photos in my posts. I hope to report next month on some seriously tasty pork products!

Sherri Gallentine is a buyer at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, California. Her hobbies (besides chickens) include cooking, embroidery, and reading. Sherri lives in Altadena, California, and is writing a guest post for Inside Storey once a month. You can catch up on all of her posts here.