Because of this, I’ve decided to break the laws of man and god.

I’m curing my own meats in my little one-bedroom apartment.

Helping me is the book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing.

I’ve already made bacon following a variation of their recipe from the New York Times. This bacon has been the hit on both sides of the U.S. / Canadian border.

It was now time for something more complex.

Read on for how I made the splender you see before you.

Pancetta is an Italian form of bacon that is more savory than commonplace U.S. bacon and not smoked. It requires air drying to complete it’s formation.

Following the recipe in Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing I applied a dry cure to a slab of pork belly I bought from a local Asian grocery store.

After letting this cure in my fridge for a solid week. I rinsed, dried, and rolled the pork belly into a log shape.

Rolling a raw pork belly is not easy. Greasy hands, trichinosis, and no skill in culinary roping left me a slimey carrier of disease with nasty string.

It was time to apply novel approaches to my problem.

The solution: zip ties.

Zip ties strung together can be long enough to fit around a rolled up pork belly. Even better, they can be tightened to make sure the rolled slab is a tight as possible.

After rolling and securing the belly, I wrapped in it cheesecloth and hung it in my coat closet for a week.

One week later, the unwrapped pancetta looked a little worse for wear.

Once I cut into the pancetta roll, I saw a lovely marbled goodness that can not be resisted.

I immediately thought of all the uses of round bacon. Pancake sandwiches! The pancake bacon stacker!

Dialing back the bacon craziness, I sliced and diced up some pancetta.

The fried pancetta was tossed with raw egg, boiled angel hair pasta, ground parmesan cheese, parsley, and fresh-ground pepper to make spaghetti alla carbonara.

It was delicious. The pancetta has a tangy flavor and a texture like a country ham.

Note: that ring of pancetta in the bowl is going onto the best chicken club sandwich for lunch tomorrow.

Even I cannot each that much bacon in one sitting.

So as the winter progresses, I’m planning other health code violations I can undergo in the name of cooking and entertainment.

I’m glad you stopped by.  This website is updated randomly, so I apologize for the lack of content. Please feel free to browse, I’m especially proud of some of the pictures in the Galleries

Amy and I have used IKEA extensively in her apartment.

Our biggest additions are three double-wide GORM bookcases, one of which has been hacked to serve as an open liquor cabinet / pantry.

Here’s a picture of one of our bookcases and I put up the liquor cabinet one next week.

Neither have I.

But, I happened to find out. It all began with a trip to our favorite Asian grocery store…

I grabbed another bag of roasted pork from T and T Supermarket.

You have to realize, that these bags are roasted pork are wrapped in multiple, opaque plastic bags. You can’t really see what is in them in great detail.

This time, I had the choice of two bags of differing size. Both were the same price of $3.63 Canadian.

I grabbed the bigger of the two bags as it was larger and felt the fleshiest.

Imagine my surprise when I opened it at home and it contained a whole pig’s head!

Not to be deterred by a little unexpected snout action, I broke out the carving board and knives.

Here are some roasted pig head fun facts:

• A slender, flexible knife is required for getting the most meat off the head. Being flexible is especially important for slicing the meat under the cheek bones and around the ear sockets.
• A serrated knife works best for slicing the tough pig skin.
• Roasted pig’s heads do not come with eyeballs, but you feel like it’s staring at you anyway.
• Pig lips are tasty.
• Some of the meat will be fatty. I recommend using these in soups or stews for added flavor. (I’ll be adding some of mine to black-eyed peas.)
• I have no desire to eat snout.
• You can get 6-8 serving portions of meat off of a small pig’s head.
  
• When stripped of meat, a pig’s head will look like this.
  
  The whole process will take about a half hour.

This was not the way I planned to spend my evening, but it was interesting nonetheless.

With her wooden sword and row boat, she terrorized the merchant fleets that sailed the Great Lakes.

She always took the merchant’s best toys and candy.

With each raid, the merchants became more and more fearful. Eventually, they stopped sailing altogether. They waited out at the docks, watching as Emilee rowed back and forth - daring them to come closer.

One day, Emilee was rowing her boat about the bay watching the distant merchant fleet. Suddenly, a goose landed right on the bow of her boat! It was a huge goose with wings that cast a shadow over the entire boat.

Emilee looked at the goose in amazement. Never had such a large bird been in her little boat.

Emilee went to shoo the bird away.

As she got close, the goose stretched out its long neck and bit her arm with is strong beak!

Emilee looked at her arm. Already a red mark was forming where the goose pecked her.

Angry, Emilee turned to the bird and hit hard on the beak.

‘That’s for biting me!’ she cried.

Instead of flying away, the goose looked angry. It lifted a wing and hit Emilee on the head, knocking off her pirate hat.

Emilee was mad. She and the goose fought all over her little boat. They bit, and punched, and kicked, and pushed.

The fight rage on and on.

Tired, Emilee and the goose sank down on opposite sides of the boat. Both were sore and exhausted. Emilee was bruised and the goose was missing feathers.

Suddenly Emilee noticed that the merchant ships were no longer at the docks. While she was fighting the goose, the merchants had hurriedly sailed past her into open waters.

They were escaping and Emilee’s little boat would be too slow to catch them.

It was the goose’s fault. The goose must work for the merchants!

Emilee started at the bird, anger clear on her face.

Scared, the goose sprung into the air to fly away.

Emilee caught the goose by it’s feet and quickly tied a rope from the boat to it’s feet.

Trapped, the goose still tried to fly away. It flapped its mighty wings harder and harder.

Soon, the large goose was pulling the tiny row boat across the waves.

Emilee pulled hard on the rope, steering the goose like a kite. Her little boat headed out across the water to the merchant fleet.

They would not escape the pirate princess Emilee!

Canadians use certain constructions that are unique to their British heritage. These are phrases that are not used in American English.

The one that stands out every time it cross my ears is the phrase “to hospital.” An example would be, “He was taken to hospital for treatment.”

In American English, we would throw in an article to create the phrase, “to the hospital.”

It’s a small, but constant reminder that I’m visiting another country.

Even better, I cooked the best steak I’ve ever eaten.

I found another bargain at T&T Grocery Store. I found two filet mignon steaks for $3.

I prepared them following a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. You can read the recipe here. There’s also a video on Youtube telling you the recipe.

I often rely on recicpe’s from America’s Test Kitchen. Their thorough testing and incredibly helpful tips may make the preparation a little more complex, but the results are always worth it.

For this dish, I simmered cracked peppercorns in olive oil, mixed that with salt, and marinated the steaks for an hour. Then I seared both sides of the steak and finished them to our preferred state in the oven. (Amy likes hers well-done. I’m a medium-rare guy myself.)

The steaks turned out tender and buttery. The pepper complemented the taste of the steak and eat morsel seemed to collapse in a wave of flavor when you took a bite.

I cannot recommend this recipe enough for those who want to cook the perfect steak.

I’ve done a number of things to Amy’s apartment. I like to think that I’m making it more livable.

I’ve installed a Grundtal Magnetic Knife Strip in the kitchen. Amy keeps her knives loose in a drawer. I always feared for my fingers when reaching in there. With this knife rack, I keep the knives I use the most (Chef, bread, and generic utility) in arm’s reach but without all the lost-thumb danger.

I’ve also installed the Grundtal Spice Rack in the gap next to the stove. This opened up some cabinet space.

Our latest installation is my favorite. We’re using a set of IKEA things in a manner in which they were not intended.

One of the things Amy misses from her apartment in the Plaza Frontenac was the coat rack I installed near the entrance. It was a small thing, but made things more convenient as we entered and exited.

Here in Toronto, we’ve been searching for a coat rack that could also double as a shelf for gloves, scarves, and hats. All of which are necessary for living in a frozen wasteland. The problem was that all the coat racks that also had shelves were either too expensive or too large for her tiny apartment. They just couldn’t fit.

Our solution was to hang a Grundtal Rail and use the Grundtal S-Hooks for coats and hats. This just fit in the space behind out door. For hats and gloves, we hung a Grundtal Dish Drainer from the rail and put a Komplement Storage Box on there to hold the loose stuff.

It looks pretty good for being scrounged from random IKEA stuff.

Appearance: Haley is a 21 year old, white female with shoulder-length brown hair and green eyes. She is 5′5″. Her costume consists of a combination of workout clothes and mail-order armor. Her armor includes a bulletproof vest, shin and forearm guards, elbow and knee pads, & a pair of steel-toed work boots. Her one customized addition is a tinted-visored, close-fitting hockey helmet that she has covered in a thin layer of stone.

Known Talent Abilities: Cascade has the ability to create and control viscous pseudopods of stone and earth. She is able to use this power in a variety of manners.

Cascade can cause stone to rise up and bind a person in place or strike them.

Stone pillars also rise out to protect Cascade, blocking incoming attacks.

Cascade also uses her control of stone to propel herself rapidly from place to place. She does this by causing a pillar to rise suddenly underneath her, throwing her in her desired direction. From her landing point, another pseudopod will rise up and catch Cascade and lower her to the ground or propel her further. Using this method, Cascade has been clocked moving at speeds of 60 mph. The drawback of this method is that it leaves a clear trail of pillars and dents in the stone.

One of Cascade’s favorite tricks is to project stone out from a skyscraper and ride it like a private elevator to the top of the building.

History: Haley Greer grew up in the prosperous suburbs of Chicago. She was an only child of successful parents that expected great things of her. Haley expected great things from herself too. Unfortunately, her Bachelors Degree in Art History from a state school did not lead to the success for which she was looking. Her job as an assistant manager at a local branch of a multi-national chain of coffee shops did not fulfill her or her parents plans.

So Haley had to resort to her backup plan.

Ever since Haley was a child she could mentally manipulate stone and earth. As she grew older, her abilities grew alongside her.

Haley kept these abilities secret out of fear about how people would react to her unexplained powers. Now feeling a desperate need to make her mark on the world, Haley has actively sought to improve her control and power. She’s going to become a costumed hero.

Equipment: Cascade understands that being a costumed hero is dangerous work. She has decided not to just rely on her abilities. To this end, Cascade carries a mix of useful gear while in costume.

Protective Gear:

Offensive Gear:

Useful Gear:

Mechanics: Cascades powers are part of a Power Theme Permission. All of her powers revolve around the ability to animate and control stone. To this end, Cascade has Control: Mineral. Attached to Control, she has Telekinesis, Block, and Unconventional Movement. Unconventional Movement also has the Flaws of Clear Trail and Straight Line.

Appearance: Hewn is an animated statue. His appearance is that of a 7′0″ roughly carved humanoid made of granite. His facial features are crudely shaped, but his hands appear to be finely crafted. He has a voice that sounds like the grinding of gravel.

Known Talent Abilities: Hewn is superhumanly strong, having demonstrated the ability to lift 1,600 lbs. Hewn’s strength appears to be somewhat uncontrollable. He is unable to perform fine manipulations or use less than his full strength when required.

His body is also incredibly resistant to damage. Small arms fire at the most takes off chips of rock and leaves scratches. Hewn appears to need neither air nor food.

Finally, Hewn has been observed to have some type of remote viewing or precognitive abilities. Usually this occurs after Hewn has entered a stasis or rest period. During these periods he is unable to be roused by outside stimuli, but when he comes awake he often has knowledge of events far distant to his current location.

History: Florida politics are a mean and dirty business, but a man can make a small fortune if he’s willing to sell his soul. Mark Firberg was such a man. Utilizing connections he made in business school, Mark served as an operative for the Republican Party. He was a part of every quasi-legal fund raiser and dirty trick pulled by the party to control the Sunshine State.

In the year 2000, Mark was one of the ‘consultants’ paid to remove thousands of African-Americans and low-income voters from the rolls under bogus pretenses. These voting blocs tended to vote Democratic. Denying them the ability to vote was seen as a way to insure a Republican victory in a tightly contested election. No one could predict the chaos that followed the voting in Florida.

The media and court circus that followed the 2000 election also created a lot of work for Mark. From creating phony protests to circulating spurious slander to the press, Mark’s work took him all over the contested state.

When one of Mark’s phony protests met real demonstrators - enraged by the illegal stripping of their votes - Mark got to see the effects of his actions up close. Riot police were sent in by the local Republican mayor to quell the legitimate demonstrators who were violently clashing with Mark’s hired actors and political staffers. During the ensuing confrontation, Mark was attacked by a riot cop who clubbed Mark repeatedly on the head.

Mark’s skull was fractured and he died when his comatose body was left handcuffed in the gutter. The riot cops had more protestors to club.

While Mark’s body died, his soul stayed on for some reason. For years, his consciousness wandered as an invisible and intangible spirit. Mark was unable to affect or communicate with the world. His anguished cries and ravings echoed in a space untouched by the real world.

Taking his cues from bad movies, Mark tried to find his killer and wrap up his life’s affairs. His intangible wanderings did reveal that his death was no accident. It appears that someone in his political circle was covering their tracks before the media scrutiny grew too much. This person paid several cops to kill Mark in a seemingly accidental manner. To this day, Mark has no idea who actually ordered his death.

Two years ago, Mark was wiling away eternity visiting a museum. His quest for vengeance had been halted by his inability to actually use a computer or turn pages in a file. He raged about his lack of a body when all around him, sculptures perched like ancient guardians. When Mark screamed his silent cry to the heavens for a thousandth time, a statute turned its head, stood, and look right at Mark.

This was the first thing to look at Mark in over six years.

Mark soon found he could order the statue about. Through the statue, he cantouch the real world. The statue could touch, speak, and interact in ways that Mark no longer could.

The statue soon became known as a local hero. Already, Hewn has exposed corrupt police throughout Florida.

Mechanics: Hewn is a character with a unique Custom Stat (Body) that accounts for his actual spirit status. He has no body.

All of Hewn’s powers are attached to his focus: the statue. It is an easily replaced Focus; when destroyed Mark can possess another statue.

Mark controls the statue through the Sidekick Miracle; with Hyper-Body and Ablative Heaver Armor attached to the Sidekick Miracle.

Hewn’s precognitive abilities are not additional powers, but merely Mark’s bodiless wanderings when he is away from the statue.

One of these places is T&T Supermarket.

T&T is a supermarket that specializes in catering to the Asian population. Announcements are made in Chinese. All the labels are in both English and Chinese. Of course, the goods are mostly Asian foods shipped from the Far East.

Shopping here is interesting for me. Here are some of the things that really stand out.

First, the music piped throughout the stores is Asian covers of Western songs. My favorite was the Mandarin version of ‘O Susana’ complete with melodic flute solos.

Secondly, we keep finding amazingly good deals. My favorites tend to involve meat. The last couple of times we shopped there, we found 4 pounds of beef roast for $2 and 6.5 pounds of roasted pork for $3.70. So far, I’ve made a pot roast from the beef and still have 2 pounds left. We haven’t even touched the pork yet.

How do we get such great deals? We tend to visit the store late in the afternoon. T&T will mark down lots of their perishable items in the evenings to clear them out. That’s how we got the roast pork. They literally set a giant plastic bag of roast pork on a folding table in front of us as we browsed by the deli section. When I grabbed it, there were several elderly Asian women circling like sharks - waiting for me to drop my guard and the bag of pork

T&T - it’s a great market, but watch out for elbows. Those old ladies can be mean.