Our half-pig also came with a half-head, which fit neatly into a ceramic pan. It was baked whole at 350 F for three to four hours. Turns out it is much easier removing meat from a cooked head than from a raw head:

The richest meat came from the cheeks of the pig head, which tasted like well-raised dark chicken meat (like legs from a chicken that did its windsprints). It got me to thinking about what my cheeks would taste like. There’s not a lot to human cheeks, but there is a lot of fat in baby cheeks, which got me to wondering why everything in baby form tastes so good.

I was guided by Dariya through the various parts of the facial meat, discovering nooks and crannies in a pig skull I never knew existed. Again I couldn’t help but think what sorts of hidden delicacies are in my own skull. I found that I taste pretty good with the leftover barbecue sauce from the grilled ribs.

We successfully picked the head clean of meat, discarding the eye. (The tongue was already removed during butchering and is patiently waiting its turn in the freezer.) I felt good that we have not yet wasted any part of this blessed animal, though the finished result today was a little grim:

I’ve “planted” the skull in the backyard to see how long it will compose. Dariya says it will take years, but I am confident that if I stare at it long enough, it will decompose faster. A time lapse of the process would be cool, but so far it hasn’t really changed. Patience was never my strong suit…

24 oz beer
3 T salt
3 T sugar
2 T seasoning*

After the twelve hours, discard the brine, heat the grill to medium / 350 F, pat the ribs dry, and place them on the rack (bone side down, so they will arch upward). Grill them for 90-100 minutes. You’ll know the meat is done when it feels tender and wiggles a little from the bone.

In the meantime prepare the following sauce:

1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup beer
2 T seasoning*

Of course you need to know the seasoning. I found the original to be a little too pretentious with its diaspora of spices. Simplifying to the following doesn’t hurt one bit.

4 t paprika
2 t each chili powder, salt
1 t each cumin, coriander
1/2 t each garlic powder, curry powder, sugar, black pepper

Brush the ribs with sauce during the last few minutes, and provide the rest of the sauce for dipping. This recipe is good for 4 pounds of ribs.

Turns out there is more to a pig than just pork. While Dariya is the expert in this field of pig butchering, having seen her family do it many times over in Bulgaria, I am a complete novice to all things pig. The extent of my experience is eating ham sandwiches, and buying cuts of meat at the butcher. So as we sliced off various parts I began to connect the dots between what I see at the market and what I see being ripped out of the flesh of this dead animal on my dining table.

It is incredible how much life can be sustained by the death of one animal. This half-pig is expected to provide sustenance for about six months. While some of its mass is its skeleton, the majority of the weight is meat and fat. When you have a dead animal on your dining table, it is immediately clear that you are responsible for its death, and that wasting any part of it is an insult to its life. The bones will be boiled for stock, and the fat will be turned into lard:

I wonder how much less meat we would waste if we met our animals at a farm instead of cut up in a supermarket. I have written earlier about such a powerful experience, but this is the next level. It is easy to purchase a whole chicken and use it up (bones/feet to stock, organs to pâté), but an animal orders of magnitude larger provides context for the simple packaged cuts of meat you get at the store. Purchasing an animal well raised and having it ethically slaughtered adds a dimension to meat-eating that is lost in the 20 McNuggets for $5 special (cheaper than 20 years ago!).

There is much more to write about this porktastic experience. Stay tuned.

I hope you like what you see.

No that is not a typo.

I rented a car for $15/day (highly recommend) and was on my way down the California coast. I purposefully kept the agenda minimal. What would I do when there was nothing to do?

At first the answer was disappointing: I would “work”.

I proceeded to take over 1500 photos throughout 10 days on my Nikon D3000 DSLR, most with the Sigma 10-20 UWA lens. I had always a passing interest in photography, capturing a passing moment of reality mimicking art. With the sudden vacuum in my life, taking pictures turned into a hands-on crash-course series of photography lessons. I spent hours driving, stopping, hiking, setting up, shooting, packing up, and doing it all over again. Almost mindlessly at times, I was fully immersed in my environment, not as the tranquility-seeking vagrant of my dreams, but as a photographer. Working was not my intent, but I was having fun doing it, so why not let it happen?

For the first time I felt rewarded with the product of my work, something I had never really felt before. My old job, my research, even my teaching were all obligations to some degree. Teaching was perhaps the most rewarding of this work since the fruit of the labor was most tangible. I think this taps into something deep within us – we must work, but will only do so if we feel connected to its result. Corporations spend millions trying to convince their employees their work is worthwhile; the most successful ones directly present the employees with the fruits of their labor. (Medtronic was particularly good at this, bringing in diabetics using our insulin pumps to talk about how awesome their lives are now, all thanks to you, etc.)

While I did discover that joy of work is not a myth, I never did find the tranquility I sought while on the road. I was still restless. I only found peace with friends I met, and upon my return home. I always thought of myself as someone who valued “alone time”, but I found that doesn’t really apply when one is alone. I’d always heard that humans were social, but for the first time I felt that truth. After being alone for several days, there is nothing better than meeting with old friends again.

Tragically I took no pictures of them. This probably means I am an asshole.
CA-1
Montana de Oro
Salton Sea
Red Rock Canyon
Death Valley
Mono Lake