Rhode Island 100 mile

…go ahead, you can have a field day with this post! …so tonight we had our first foray into making our own sausage. Ingrid had received a meat grinder attachment for her mixer a while ago and we vowed to make use of it as a sort of little new year’s resolution. Last weekend we decided that we’ll try to make some sausage…Ingrid found a recipe in the Joy of Cooking that looked feasible…the hard part was obtaining the casings. I tried a couple of places up on Atwells Street in Providence who both directed me to the supermarket. I needed some other stuff anyways, so I headed over to Eastside Marketplace in Providence and talked to the butcher. He gladly gave me some casings, gratis! Newly armed with some casings, we decided that we should first try a test batch of sausage in patty form to see how they tasted. We ground one pound of pork, one pound of veal and a little bit of pork fatback we got at the Farmer’s Market. For spices we added some sage, thyme, nutmeg and for a little more filler, some breadcrumbs. The patties cooked up nicely, but were a little dry, so for the “official” sausage run we subtracted a little breadcrumbs, added some more fatback and a little Worcestershire sauce…we’ll give you an update on how they cook up!

Loading the casings…

Filling the casings…Ingrid had to stand on a stool to operate the plunger…

We have a lot of sausage!

Final product…two of the links burst when twisting the casings…

-Josh

There was a very nice article about Matunuck Oysters in today’s Boston Globe. We have purchased some of these at the various local farmer’s markets we frequent…I now have a new respect on how hard of an industry it is…

-Josh

In my last post (yes – it is weird that I have posted so many in a row but I’m on a roll!) I wrote about Track 84 - Josh’s new favorite bar in good old Warwick RI. I forgot to mention that the corned beef sandwich we split had no frills but really good. The guy sitting next to me shared his cinnamon-brown sugar almonds with Josh and I too. They were good but not as good as the corned beef.

Anyway – one of the beers he had while we were at Track 84 was Rapscallion – the Rapscallion Premier . Rapscallion saw my post from yesterday and posted a comment. It led me to head over to the Rapscallion website and I’m glad I did. Rapscallion Brewery is owned by Peter and Cedric Daniel and their operations are located in Milford NH and Holyoke MA. Their motto is “Reducing our dependency on foreign ale One pint at a time”. I love it! Their website says they support local business and sustainability – music to my ears (and great beer to Josh’s mouth!)! Josh looks forward to having more Rapscallion and I look forward to support another business that believes in supporting a local food economy.

Josh and I were lucky this weekend and got to visit an old favorite and found a new favorite. On Friday night we went to Music Friday as the RISD Museum. You can wander around the museum and they have music (it’s the second Friday of every month). This past Friday, it was Latin music – Carlos de Leon – they were really good. They played up on the top floor in a huge room that was covered in pictures. There were some tables and chairs but it was mostly standing. People were dancing – I was very impressed with some of the dancers – there were a few that must have gone to the Elaine Benes School of Dance. Josh and I will head back in February as it’s one of our new favorites.

After Music Friday we went over to La Laiterie at Farmstead for drinks and dessert. We sat at the bar and I had a nice white wine (I don’t remember the name) and Josh had Blue Point Hoptical Illusion. For dessert we had chocolate waffles (they were small, light, and chocolatey) with peppermint stick ice cream with chocolate sauce – soooo good! We love eating and drinking at La Laiterie – since we’ve moved to RI it has become an old favorite!

One more new favorite – especially for Josh – Track 84, a bar in Warwick. I don’t drink beer but Josh was in heaven with the beers on tap and the prices. Josh is already planning on going back with Tubby and Grace and I plan on being the DD! The beers Josh tried were Rapscallion, Blue Point barley wine, Poperings, and Dogfish Head Forte (2006)

The more we get to know the state we’re living in, the more we like it!! And to have so many cool things so close is great!

I had a realization this past weekend. Even though Josh and I did the 100 mile diet for two months – I still need to remind myself to buy local sometimes. It’s kind of like when I started using canvas bags for groceries and such – it took me a while to remember I had them in the car and to bring them into the stores. There are some groceries I don’t even think about – such as milk from Rhody Fresh and Josh always buys Rhody Eggs. But other items? I’m a little quick to go beyond those 100 miles – even when the local food is so delicious! We’re not trying to do 100% 100 miles right now not but we support our local food economy as much as possible.

This is what happened. I was shopping at Dave’s (a small, independent supermarket chain in RI) before Charlotte arrived. We were having some friends from CT for dinner on Saturday night so we could all catch up with Charlotte. While I was winding my way through the supermarket, I absentmindedly put potato chips (for snacks) and ice cream for dessert into the basket. Before I checked out, I looked down and thought that there wasn’t much local in the basket. I think because we did the challenge in the summer, I associate those foods with being available during the summer. However, I then remembered one of our favorite desserts – slightly sweetened ricotta cheese from Narragansett Creamery with fruit. I could get the ricotta at the Winter’s Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning and we had sliced strawberries and whole blackberries in the freezer. I promptly put away the ice cream – but I did keep the potato chips. We served the ricotta with the fruit and everyone really enjoyed it. We also had some of Louella’s (the cheese wizard of Narragansett Creamery) mozzerella for an appetizer and some of her blue cheese in the salad. Local – local – local – especially when it tastes soooooo good – soon I won’t need to remind myself!

~Ingrid