How do you spell busy? S_A_U_S_A_G_E

So my cute stoner client asked me for more the katsup (berber and blackberry added), plus he wanted to try my bratwurst and needed 5# of andouille. We said we thought we could do a 3 ounce dog, so he asked for a 3 ounce, 7 inch dog. We made them, they looked really sad. I almost didn't want to give them to him, but they were what he asked for so we did.

Yesterday he said they were great and he wants more, only bigger (thank god), plus more katsup. I think he will be selling them next weekend on his sausage truck?

Stein and I also got started on the charc for Montrio. We already have Nduja and Finocciona in the queue but we needed to make Testa*, hot coppa, capicolla, hot smoked Andouille in the beef middles (vs the one for the sausage truck which are in sheep casings). We got some killer Neiman Ranch back fat and started more lardo as well.

The trick right now is to supply our clients, plus have a good stock of items on hand for our opening, whenever that happens. I know we will have a Bresaola on our first specials menu (in a salad), and we will always have Finocciona on the menu... we are making more the Tuscan salami as well. I think we can serve 3-4 restaurants with a Charc platter, in addition to the fresh sausages for our friend in the city, plus T-Rex.

Stein is trying to temper my tendency to over extend myself... but I am so proud of my product that it is hard not to want to show it off. He is completely right, of course. We are very limited on storage and while fresh sausages are pretty easy for us to do, all of the dry cured stuff will need to be judiciously managed.

I was talking to my friends Stacey and Anthony the other day (they are looking to start some product in the Sacramento area) and commenting that I am surprised at how much demand there is for artisan-locally made meats! It is highly unusual to be getting as much business as I am via word of mouth, with almost no formal marketing. I could probably have a thriving business of just supplying restaurants with hand made Salumi.

I am so grateful for the work, and I am hoping it will help to tide me over until the restaurant is open, but I cannot wait to get back in a kitchen. Between the restaurant business and my catering I think I will be ok through September. God, I hope my landlord figures out how to fix all of the problems before then.

I just put in a bunch of capicolla that I am really excited about. I used the smoked sea salt that my friend Gislane gave me, plus just a tiny bit of Juniper. I am going for a very earthy subtle flavor like a speck I tried recently. We have about 100 pounds of sausage we need to make, and soon. We cut and froze the fat on Wed, today we cut the flesh from the pigs heads and put them in brine, plus started some pastrami, a pig head stock, ground 31 pounds of lean, put the capicolla into cure... and... and... cleaned up the stuff from Stephan's party. Tomorrow we need to kit out our spices and grind the fat in the buffalo chopper.

I think we should get our casings so we can case all the small stuff by Thursday. I ordered a new Sous Vide circulator and I hope it comes in the next week so I can finish up the testa. I saw an inexpensive cold smoke gun that I need to remember to pick up. I could really use it for the Nduja and some of the other cold smoked items (bacon).

Anyway, we are very busy and I think we will need to start planning our pacing a little better. Thank goodness Stein and I get along very well!

*Testa is head cheese. We take a whole pigs head and remove the skin and meat in one piece, then put it in the wet brine for 5-6 days. Then it get sous vide cooked for 36 hours at 160 degrees. Then it get hung until it is nice a solid. We also took the skeletons and I am boiling them down fora more traditional head cheese as well.