Food item found!

I mentioned a while back that Niman Ranch sells lardo, that glorious cured lard that everyone should try at least once in their life. At the farmer's market on Saturday they were selling it at their booth. The first time we went by I noticed that they only had it in five and a half pound slabs. Could be dangerous. Walked by, bought vegetables, but could not get the thought out of my head.

We had tacos for lunch, and had to pass by the Niman Ranch booth again on our way to the table. I asked the fellow about preservation issues of a slab that size. He said, "well, it freezes well." That settled it, and I am now the proud owner of five and a half pounds of cured lard. Since that is a lot of lardo, I will be using it for cooking as well as for putting on toasted bread. I will report on the successes and failures, although I really don't anticipate failures, as this stuff is amazing.

I also picked up some lovely cardoni, so I think that tomorrow we will be having cardoni sauteed with lardo and topped with anchovies and garlic bread crumbs. This is sort of stolen from a dish I had at Tra Vigne, but the lardo is my own touch. Full report tomorrow or Tuesday.

I am also going to experiment with pumpkin panna cotta, which was going to happen earlier, but I have been busy with assignments from the paper (speaking of which, I really should be working on one now, rather than writing this, but you know how it goes). This is the plan: pumpkin puree with a cup of cream, sugar and gelatin, cooked together. Another cup of cream is whipped and folded into the mixture. It is allowed to set in a mold. I might add some spices, I might add some dark rum, I might add some marsala. I am not sure. I will probably serve it with toasted pecans and maybe poached quince.

Another food item for West Coast folks to be on the lookout for: Oregon white truffles. They are not as strong as the Italian ones, but at $6 for a large one, you can use a lot more. Italian white truffles keep getting more and more outrageously expensive, so it is good that folks are making serious efforts at raising them here in the States. If more people can have access to this wonderful flavor, so much the better.

Of course one could always get white truffle oil, but we all know the dark secret behind that stuff, don't we? Trader Joe's is selling some good white truffle oil that claims to be made by infusing the oil with actual white truffles. I am giving the the benefit of the doubt, but I am suspicious. It smells too strong and is too cheap. Good stuff, though. Use it to finish a funghi pizza or a risotto and you will be happy, but please use it sparingly. As hard as it is to believe, it actually can ruin a dish if used too liberally.

On other food matters we get to the subject of cassoulet. We added some grilled Mello Brothers linguica and some wood-fire cooked arista to the leftovers (we will be out of town from Tuesday night through Sunday, so all perishables must be consumed). It is an interesting addition, and makes me think that cassoulet could be the ideal large family dish. It is hearty, tasty, and can be doctored up with other meats to make it interesting on day three. Also, with each day, the beans break up more and more, making a different textured dish. For the first time I am not at all sick of cassoulet on the Sunday following Beaujolais Nouveau (there, Ryan, satisfied by the proper order?).

The best basic cassoulet recipe out there is Julia Child's, and I recommend making it once exactly as she suggests, although it is time consuming. Once you have done that, you can experiment with short cuts and other meats (this year I used goat instead of lamb and boudin blanc for the sausage). I think that next time I am going to try to do it in a crock-pot.