I love Fleisher’s with an unholy passion that I reserve for few other things in my life: my wok, my cast-iron skillets, my Foot Buddy (which, for those of you who haven’t seen a lot of late-night Infomercials, is a cheap plastic electric heating board that warms my feet when I’m sitting at my desk.)

I don’t deserve half the love and attention I get from the good folks at the shop. Mostly, when I’m there I’m futzing around on a pig or ranting about gizzards. Josh will come up to me every hour or so and tell me that I’m doing it all wrong. So I try again.

Last week the only thing I managed to do correctly was learn how to skin. A lot of the skin on the shoulder and back needs to be separated from fat and flesh if you’re breaking down meat for the chop bin, or preparing to tie up a roast. The standard procedure is to cut the skin into strips; then, holding your boning knife so that the blade is parallel to the table, make a smooth, long cut underneath the fat – as close to the skin as you can get it. My own cutting was more of a jagged, wrist-turning movement than an steady slash.

“See, you’re shying away from the edge of the blade too soon,” Josh said. “Ever shot a gun?”

I shook my head.

“Well, it’s like shooting a gun. A lot of people are scared by the sound of a gun. So when they’re aiming at something they move the barrel away too soon as an overcorrection. You’re doing the same thing with the blade of your knife.”

“But if I keep cutting, then it feels like my knife will go right through the skin,” I replied.

“No it won’t,” Bryan chimed in. “Ever start a lawn mower?”

I shook my head again. There aren’t too many well-manicured lawns in New Mexico. And so continued the well-meaning though entirely unhelpful analogies.

What finally got through to me was long, hard practice. For three hours I stood at the table doing nothing but skinning the sections of fatback Bryan tossed my way. Finally the fingers on my left hand were covered in grease from pulling at the base of the skin and my right hand twitched uncontrollably from the constant pressure applied to the blade. But the two separate piles of fat and skin were a sight to behold.

Today’s post is really more of a suggestion than a recipe. I’ve been cooking a lot of heads in my kitchen. I get such pleasure from sifting through a cooked head, from pulling off the meat and skin and arranging my yield into different piles. The prime pile is the meat and skin pile, the second-best pile contains extremely fatty meat, and the third-best pile is mostly fat. The reject pile is small – as I’ve mentioned before, it contains items like bones and the lining inside the mouth. I use the first and second pile for ramen soup and headcheese; for the third pile, I put it into a jar to keep on hand for sauteing.

I don’t know if the excitement of digging through the head will ever wane with time and more heads. I really hope not.

Headcheese is a treat when it’s sliced cold and served with pickles and toasts, but it can be the whole meal if you cook it. Pan-fried headcheese with potatoes is my ideal meat-and-potatoes dish. The fat in the headcheese will melt down and crisp up the meat and skin. Sections of skin will get so browned in the process that they’ll end up as cracklings. And since the meat was chilled prior to being cooked, by the time you pull it off the pan, it’ll be warmed throughout. In other words, pan-fried headcheese is an extremely fancy, perfect meat hash. And depending on whether you’re in the mood for something composed or something broken up, you can take your fork and mash the slice down into the pan to produce more of the crispy, porky shards.

For an even greater contrast between crisp crust and warm interior, you can bread the headcheese in eggs and panko crumbs and pan-fry or deep-fry the whole thing. But I tend not to deep-fry headcheese. Usually, when I come home I’ll heat up the cast iron and toss in the potatoes. A little fat from pile number three goes into the pan. When the potatoes are nearly ready, I’ll put in my judiciously large slice of headcheese, and pan-fry for a minute on each side. Dinner in 10 minutes. (Plus the eight hours it took you to stew the head.)

If you’ve never pan-fried or deep-fried headcheese after it’s been molded and chilled, then a word to the wise: Apply the same rule for portioning headcheese as you would a delicious cake. If you start with just a small slice, you’re going to end up taking “just a sliver,” and then another a sliver. But if you start with a rationally indulgent portion of the headcheese, you may be able to refrain from seconds.

I want to preface this post with the disclaimer that I don’t eat like this all the time. Currently my favorite snacks are, in no particular order: candy crisp apples, toasted mochi sweetened with honey, roasted beets dressed in vinegar, and kale chips. So it’s not as if I’m having lard biscuits for breakfast, lard pies for dessert, and lard snacks in between. Because I really only do that once or twice a week, and even then, I share. Sharing is key.

But sometimes, lard just begs to be made into a snack. Once all that beautiful, ambrosial liquid fat has been rendered from leaf lard, you’re left with several hefty handfuls of cracklings: little indigestible bits – crunchy, porky and irresistible. Dressed in your choice of seasonings, cracklings are wonderful as snacks or mashed up and spread on toast. In the fall or winter when I’m more likely to have roasted or confited garlic on hand, I mix the cracklings with the garlic for a classic Southwestern French treat. The softened, sweet garlic blends easily with the crispy bits of fat.

Lately, I’ve been tossing cracklings with cayenne and salt. Before serving, I’l drizzle a bit maple syrup on top. If I’m short on fine quality maple syrup, then I’ll use brown sugar or chesnut honey, which has a smokiness that pairs especially well with the pork. You get the picture: a little heat, something sweet, and a savory element to anchor the flavors.

The idea of joining popcorn and pork comes from a friend, who makes bacon popcorn for our movie nights far more frequently than we care to admit. So it wasn’t a very far leap, from bacon popcorn to the idea of caramel-crackling popcorn. The method is pretty standard: you take plain, freshly popped popcorn, coat it in a caramel sauce, and bake the coated clumps with other additions like peanuts until the popcorn is crisp. In this twist on the classic, little bits of cracklings, seasoned beforehand with salt and cayenne pepper, add a porky depth that trumps a roasted peanut anyday. The caramel sauce binds together the popcorn with the cracklings, which retain their crispiness after being baked.

Finally, a warning: for extremely delicious things like this caramel-crackling popcorn, the law of diminishing marginal utility does not apply. My fifth handful of the popcorn was just as pleasurable as the first, as was, oh, the tenth handful.

Caramel Crackling Popcorn

Ingredients

1/2 cup pork cracklings, rendered until golden brown and crisp
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cayenne pepper, or to taste

10 cups fresh popcorn, microwave or home popped
1 cup packed light brown sugar
¼ cup light corn syrup
6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
¼ tsp. salt
½ tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. vanilla extract

Instructions

While the cracklings are still slightly warm, toss with the salt and cayenne pepper. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 250°F.

In a medium saucepan, place the brown sugar, corn syrup, butter, salt, and 2 tablespoons of water. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Continue to simmer, whisking often, until the mixture reads 250°F on a candy thermometer, about 3 to 4 minutes. If you are not using a candy thermometer, you want to look for small bubbles that haven’t yet reached the true bubbling point. (If you’re not sure, err on the safe side and remove the pot from the heat when the mixture is golden brown rather than dark brown.) Quickly remove the pot from the heat and stir in the baking soda and vanilla.

Pour the hot caramel over the popcorn. Use a spatula or a wooden spon to gently fold the caramel into the popcorn, taking care to distribute it evenly. Stir in the seasoned cracklings, and transfer the mixture to the baking sheet. Bake for 1 hour, stirring and turning the popcorn with a spatula after half an hour. Remove from the oven, and place on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. Gently break up the popcorn if the clumps are too large, and serve.

Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

When you’re looking to bake a batch of cookies for friends who are butchers, it is generally advisable that the cookies be a) made from lard and b) fashioned like pigs. It is, in my opinion the gift for the butcher who has everything.

When I first bought this cookie cutter, I tried cutting everything into the shape of a pig: biscuits, blocks of cotton tofu, premade squares of mochi – you name it, I tried to piggify it. Really, though, a cookie cutter shaped like a pig is good for one thing only: cookies. The nooks and crannies in the cutter can only keep their shape if the material is thin and relatively solid, like that of a rolled out cookie dough.

Being from the land of enchantment, I’ve tried just about every kind of bizcochito recipe from every home cook in my Northern New Mexican network, but it’s this recipe, adapted from David Tanis’s excellent cookbook A Platter of Figs, that has produced reliably delicious results. The only change I’ve made is to reduce the sugar by twenty-five percent – a significant adjustment that allows the slightly porky, slightly savory flavor of the lard to come through.

And if, for whatever reason, you’re not in possession of a mammalia-inspired cookie cutter or simply don’t care to make rolled out cookies, the dough may be shaped into a cylinder and quickly cut into perfectly round cookies.

Biscochitos

- makes about 5 dozen cookies -

Adapted from A Platter of Figs by David Tanis.

Ingredients

3/4 cup sugar
1 cup rendered lard
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup brandy, sherry, or rum
2 teaspoons anise seeds
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon, mixed with 3/4 cup sugar

Directions

Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the sugar and lard in a large bowl until the lard is very fluffy. Over low speed, beat in the egg, vanilla extract, and brandy. Add the anise seeds.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix the flour mixture into the lard mixture and knead for a few minutes (by machine or hand). Add a few tablespoons water if necessary to make the dough come together.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

If you want to make rounds of biscochitos, divide the dough in half and roll the dough into logs about 2 inches in diameter. Wrap each log in plastic and refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour. At this point, the dough may also be kept in the refrigerator for up to a week, or frozen for several months. Slice the dough into 1/4-inch rounds and place on parchment-lined baking sheets. Sprinkle each cookie lightly with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake for 12 or so minutes, until lightly golden brown. Cool on a rack.

If you want to roll out the dough, refrigerate until firm. On a lightly floured surface (it helps if you have a sleeve for the rolling pin), roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thickness and cut to size. Sprinkle each cookie lightly with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake for 6 or so minutes, until lightly golden brown. Cool on a rack.

The cookies, when cooled, will keep in an airtight container between sheets of parchment paper for 3 to 5 days.

It was my birthday.

I baked this cake.

Or rather, I baked myself this birthday liver pâté.

To celebrate, I took a train out of the city to spend the day with a close friend who lives in Princeton. I greeted her at the train station with a sheepish grin on my face. Our birthdays are usually cause for part-reflection, part-lamentation over the state of our lives. Year after year, we never seem to accomplish as much as we’d like or visit enough of the wondrous places in this wide world. Still, we almost always try our best, and that has to count for something.

The night was dark and snowy. Ample flakes fell relentlessly as the evening progressed. Inside, we cranked up the thermostat to a toasty eighty degrees and lit a few candles to mark the occasion. A good crusty loaf accompanied the birthday pâté, and a glass or two of wine made the evening considerably more celebratory.

The pâté was, if I do say so myself, the best birthday cake I’ve ever made. It’s a mixture of liver, butter, and cream set in a bain marie, which in itself isn’t altogether novel. But in lieu of salt or other flavors, I added a very large scoop of shiro miso (white miso) to the mixture; then, tasting a bit of the raw, smoothie-like concoction on my tongue, I added another nub of brown miso for good measure.

Volumes could and have been written about the deliciousness of the miso-butter combination. Miso is already described as buttery, though the adjective is used in reference to the texture of the miso paste rather than its flavor. Describing the taste of miso is difficult: it’s salty; it’s sweet, it’s winey because of the fermented soybeans, rice, and barley from which it’s made.

Shiro miso is especially sweet and less salty because it’s made with more rice, and it’s aged for a much shorter period of time than brown miso. (Hence the extra nub of brown miso at the end.) If you make this pâté, play around with the taste until you get a miso combination that suits your palate. Decrease the paste by half if you’re working with a stronger, darker miso.

Over the years I’ve made this pâté with chicken, duck, and calf’s liver, or a combination thereof. Chicken is the mildest and lightest of the three, but I always use duck liver, richer in texture and deeper in flavor, when I save up enough in the freezer from having confited a lot of ducks. (This particular pâté was made with chicken and calf’s liver.) Whatever liver you end up choosing, make sure that it is impeccably fresh and sweet-smelling. Like sea urchin, fresh liver smells so sweet that I’m always tempted to eat it raw.

Miso-Butter Liver Pâté

- makes 3 four-ounce ramekins of pâté, enough to serve six to eight as an appetizer-

Ingredients

1/2 cup finely chopped onions or shallots (about one small onion)
1 stick unsalted butter, softened, cut into 1-inch cubes
a few garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup miso paste (a combination of white shiro miso and brown miso)
1/2 pound chicken, duck, or calf livers, or a combination thereof, trimmed of fat and sinews

Procedure

Place the oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 300ºF.

Saute the onions or shallots in a small pat of butter in a saucepan set over medium-low heat, covered. Lift the lid to stir occasionally, until the onions are softened and translucent, about 5 minutes minutes. Stir in the garlic and cream and simmer, covered, until onion is tender, about 2 minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the remaining butter, stirring slowly to melt the butter. Set the pan over low heat if needed to completely melt the butter.

In a blender or food processor, purée the livers with the onion mixture and the miso paste, scraping down the sides, until the mixture is smooth. Force the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a medium sized bowl.

Meanwhile, bring a teakettle or pot of water to a boil.

Divide the liver mixture among the ramekins; then cover each ramekin with foil and place them into a roasting pan. The ramekins should be spaced about one inch apart. Pour enough boiling water into the pan to fill it halfway. Bake until the pâté is just set, about 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer ramekins to a rack to cool to room temperature, about 1 hour. Then chill the pâtés, covered, for at least 2 hours.

The pâtés can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. To freeze, wrap tightly in saran wrap.

Two weekends ago I took a train from the city to the south shore of Long Island lugging four pounds of lamb’s neck and a bottle of Pinot Noir in my bag. Navigating from the subway to the hub in Penn Station where the trains leave eastward bound is considerably more taxing with all that meat and booze tucked away. Still, I like to arrive at someone’s house prepared to cook.

The moment I got to the house I headed straight for the kitchen, where I found a stainless steel pot that was wide and shallow. I lay the pieces of neck evenly inside the pot and poured in the entire bottle of wine.

I love recipes that use whole bottles of wine. Poured with abandon, the bottle takes heaving, baritone gulps. The wine mingles with the bones; little streaks of red – the blood, the marrow – muddy the juice.

This recipe is a simple one as far as stew recipes go. The pieces of neck soak in their bacchanalian bath for a full day, after which the meat is browned, then braised gently in the marinating wine. You can add carrots and onions if you’d like, and I always put in large sprigs of rosemary, but the important relationship here is between the lamb and the wine. Potatoes or crusty bread should be nearby to balance the heady rush of the broth.

The lamb necks were a real crowd pleaser. Over the course of a day I served it on three separate occasions – four, really, counting myself. The stew was late breakfast for two girls, barely thirteen but already exhibiting all the symptoms of teenager-dom. One of the girls had recently become a vegetarian. The night before she’d eaten chocolate chip pancakes while the rest of us dined on meat.

When the aroma of the lamb wafted out of the pot, I could sense her resolve ebb away.

“One piece of lamb or two?” I asked casually as I stirred the broth. In conversations with thirteen-year-olds, sometimes it’s best when you don’t look them straight in the eye.

“Oh, I guess I’ll have two pieces,” she replied.

I won’t say I’m proud that I corrupted a budding vegetarian, but it was so satisfying to see the girls using their fingers and teeth to pull the tender meat off the bones. Their meal was over in all of ten minutes, but the brevity of their experience was just as it should be for two young people.

The second meal was meant as dinner for two octogenarians who were considerably less inclined to gnaw at bones. In preparation for their meal, I deboned the sections of neck, a task easily accomplished since the tender pockets of meat slipped right off the bone. By the end I had accumulated an entire pile of lamb neck bones on one plate – what else was there to do, but finish them off myself?

In the quiet of the afternoon, I stood over the sink and gnawed on bone after bone. Each section came with tendons and bits of marrow. Without the bother of flesh, there was more of everything else to enjoy. By the end my fingers were sticky with the gelatin of the bones and tendons; my lips, covered in remnant lamb broth. The measured tick of the clock in the hallway carried throughout the quiet house; as I gnawed, I gazed at the pond outside, frozen around the edges. I saw no reason to be more civilized; no one else was there to witness the denuding of the lamb neck.

The house itself is one of my favorite spaces, and the long hallway, the central nerve of the house, taps into every corner. On holidays, the hall is noisy with pounding footsteps and the clatter of canine paws.

I served the last portion to an old friend who’s largely responsible for who I am today. A bowl of lamb’s neck doesn’t begin to repay his kindness and support over the years, but it’s not a bad start, either.

Lamb Necks Braised in Pinot Noir

Adapted from The Paley’s Place Cookbook by Vitaly Paley and Kimberly Paley.
- serves six to eight-

Ingredients

4 to 5 pounds lamb neck, cut into 2 inch chunks
1 large onion
1 bottle Pinot Noir
salt and pepper to taste
extra virgin olive oil
3 bay leaves
2 sprigs rosemary

The Night Before:

Lay the lamb necks flat in a container. Coarsely chop the onion and add it to the pot. Pour in the wine so that the necks are completely submerged, cover the container, and let the meat marinate in the refrigerator for 18 to 24 hours.

The Day of Cooking:

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Drain the lamb and the onions, reserving the wine marinade. Pour the marinade in a small saucepan and cook over high heat until reduced by half, about 10 minutes. Skim off the scum that rises to the surface.

Season the lamb with salt and pepper. Place a skillet or ovenproof braising pan over high heat. Heat a few tablespoons of oil in the pan and add the pieces of lamb neck, taking care not to crowd the pan. Brown on all sides, about 3 minutes per side, and set aside. Once all of the lamb is browned, sauté the onions from the marinade. Then deglaze the pan with the wine.

Return the pieces of neck to the pan. Add enough water to come up halfway to the pieces of lamb. Add the bay leaves and rosemary. Cover the pan and braise for 2 hours, until the meat is fork tender.

When the lamb is done, remove the pieces of lamb from the pot and de-fat the broth. Return the lamb to the broth and serve immediately with plenty of bread and potatoes.

I don’t visit New Mexico often, but when I do, I know I’m home. During the winter the landscape in Northern New Mexico is white and pure, like clotted cream undisturbed. Hardy shrubs peek out from under and dot the snowy canyons with bits of green. On a good day everything is set against the backdrop of profoundly blue skies. This is what azure looks like, I always think to myself.

The beauty is enough to make you pause and wonder if what you’re doing is worth the little time you have on earth. Long after you’ve lived the canyons will still be there and in the meantime, there are so many delicious things, edible and otherwise, to be taken in.

This picture was taken on a hike with two people I love and two extremely happy dogs. We were walking off a large feast in which, like most New Mexican meals, chile was the main attraction.

The chiles of Chimayó in Northern New Mexico are distinctive. Wrinkled and slighter darker in hue, Chimayó chiles are about three-quarters the size of the smooth-skinned ones grown further south. There’s a degree of sweetness about the Chimayó chile that’s special: try it once and you’ll notice the difference, a taste that somehow calls to mind the flavor of a fresh tomato that’s ripe and dripping with juice.

Ristras, hanging strings of dried red chiles, are everywhere. Ristras have so pervaded New Mexican culture that everyone has a story about them. My favorite involves one particular ristra that was stolen from the house of a close friend.

“So did you catch the ristra thief in the end?” I asked.

“Well, yeah,” he replied. “It wasn’t that hard. There was fresh snow on the ground that day so I just followed the tracks from the missing ristra. Turns out the thief was my neighbor.”

Chimayó chiles are the feature of my adobo marinade, a pungent mixture of the toasted and pureed chiles with roasted garlic and vinegar. In a pinch I’ll use chiles anchos or guajillos, but the sauce is never quite as good without the Chimayó chile. Then again, I suppose that even if the marinade contained other types of chile, it would still be spectacular.

The making of the marinade is both ritual and routine: cloves of unpeeled garlic are slowly toasted on a cast iron skillet, during which time the pods of dried chile are quickly scorched on the remaining surface area of the skillet. Scorching the chiles is a satisfying exercise: the moment you press your spatula down upon the pod, the skin blisters and bubbles. Wait only one second in between flips. By the time the garlic cloves have been burnished into a dark brown, caramel-like interior, you’ll have finished toasting the chiles.

Though the adobo marinade is composed primarily of the chile, garlic, and vinegar, a host of other ground herbs and spices add layers of flavor. I use oregano, thyme, cumin, cinnamon, peppercorns, but I imagine that a sprinkling of anise seeds or majoram would be welcome. Versatile and virtually imperishable when kept in the fridge, this marinade breaks down just about any form of protein and imparts a spicy and smoky flavor in the process.

Lately I’ve been smothering this adobo sauce all over pork neck bones. I know I’m always talking about neck bones, and for good reason. That I was essentially raised on pork neck is only part of the reason why I hoard the cut. Objectively speaking, it makes a lot of sense for the thrifty but discerning cook to embrace the neck: dirt-cheap, the cut also has plenty of meat, not to mention all the streaks of fat marbled throughout. The segments of bone are connected by plenty of tendons and sinews, which, when broken down by cooking, are flavorful and fun to chew.

While neck takes well to simmering in soup, the low and slow heat of the oven really concentrates the flavor of the meat. Even in the oven, the adobo marinade will cling to the surface of the pork, keeping those parts of neck not immersed in liquid perfectly moist throughout the entire cooking time. Instead of water, braise the neck bones in a combination of water and wine (perhaps from the bottle you’re planning to drink with the meal) for an even deeper flavor.

Serve the sections of neck bones as they are, straight from the oven and piping-hot. Since a lot of gnawing will be involved, it’s best to plan the meal around this activity: tortillas are strongly recommended for wrapping around the fork-tender meat, so juicy, spicy, and full of porky flavor.

Pork Neck Adovada

- serves eight-

Ingredients

20 cloves garlic, unpeeled
20 dried red chiles, stemmed and seeded (You can use Chimayó, New Mexican, chiles anchos, or chiles guajillos)
10 black or white peppercorns
2-inch section of cinnamon
3 cloves
5 bay leaves
½ teaspoon cumin seeds
½ teaspoon coriander
1 tablespoon oregano
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon paprika

½ to ¾ cup vinegar (white, cider, rice, sherry, or some combination thereof)

5 pounds pork neck bones, cut into 3 inch sections

To make the marinade:

Roast the unpeeled cloves of garlic on a cast iron skillet set over medium heat, turning occasionally, until the skin has blackened on a few sides and the interior is very soft and brown in color. This will take approximately fifteen minutes. Let cool, then slip the garlic from the blackened skin.

In the meantime, in the same skillet or a separate one, place one whole chile pod at a time down onto the surface of the pan. Use a spatula to press the pod against the skillet for just a second or two until it blisters and begins to bubble. Flip the chile over and do the same for the other side. Repeat this process for the remaining chile pods.

Place the chiles in a bowl and cover with lukewarm water. Submerge the chiles for at least twenty minutes, or until sufficiently softened. Remove from the water and set aside.

In a mortar and pestle or with a spice grinder, finely grind the peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves, cumin, and coriander.

In a blender or food processor, combine the garlic, chile pods, and all of the herbs and ground spices. Puree this mixture until it is smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl as you go along. Cover and refrigerate. This marinade will keep for months in a clean jar.

Makes approximately 1 ½ to 2 cups of chile marinade.

To marinate the neck bones:

Rinse the neck bones under cold water, then drain. Toss the pork neck bones with the marinade, distributing the paste so that it covers the meat evenly. Refrigerate the neck bones for at least eight hours and up to two days.

To braise the neck bones:

Preheat the oven to 350. Place the marinated neck bones in a dutch oven, clay pot, or any other thick-walled vessel. Pour water (and a bit of wine, if you like) so that the liquid comes up to one-third the height of the meat. Cover the pot and place it into the oven. Braise for 2 to 2 ½ hours, until the meat is fork-tender and the liquid is mostly reduced. With a shallow spoon, skim off some of the fat on the surface of the braising liquid. Serve immediately with plenty of tortillas.

The recipes for my column, some of which I’ve developed and others which are adapted from my favorite cookbook authors, are just a few among numerous methods I use for any given nasty bit.  I chose to present a stir-fry dish with fermented black beans for an article about frogs, but I could have written about deep-fried frog breaded in cornmeal and served with grits, or simmered frog legs in a Chinese-style hot pot, fiery with chilies and Sichuan peppercorns.

Last year when I nervously pitched the idea of doing a weekly feature about offal to Ed, he gave me a big thumbs-up.  I couldn’t have asked for a more supportive editorial team, or better friends and loved ones who have helped me along the way.  I certainly never expected to find such a welcoming community of offal enthusiasts.

Two weeks ago I visited a farm in New Jersey.

A calf ambled over and poked its furry head through the wooden fence. I would be lying if I said that I felt nothing for the creature, for the bucolic scene that lay before me. For a long while I stood by the fence and looked down into the calf’s round eyes. The calf opened its mouth. Its tongue, so moist and pink, lapped eagerly at my approaching fingers.

At that moment, the cook in me surfaced. I remembered my devotion to tongue confit, so rich and fatty, crisped to perfection in a cast iron skillet. That’s just one of the many things that offal does to you: it compels you to confront what you eat, to consider your culinary choices within a broader framework.

I hope you’ll continue to accompany me on my journey into the world of offal.  I want to hear from you, nasty bits lovers.  If there’s an incredible offal dish you’ve had, please write to me about it.  If you’ve been itching to find that perfect recipe for intestines, let me know and I’ll try my best.  And as always, thanks for reading.