Salami

I made some venison salami over the weekend.  It turned out well.  It looks amazing and tastes great.  The texture is not quite perfect, but I can’t quite think of what might make it better.  Maybe it’s simply the use of venison instead of beef that makes it not quite like good deli salami.  I use about ½ venison and ½ fatty pork butt.  I adapt a recipe from Rytek Kutas’s book Great Sausage Recipes and Meat Curing.  It is sort of the sausage maker’s bible. 

I’m going goose hunting in the pasture in a little bit.  It’s 4:00 am now and I’ll probably go out there at about dawn.  It’s just so peaceful to sit in my blind and watch the sun rise.  The goose don’t really begin flying until an hour or more after the sun rises, but I just enjoy sitting out there.  There’s a little snow on the ground and the temperature has warmed up to about 30 degrees.  The last time I went out goose hunting the beef cow decided to get all friendly and cuddly with me.  Not actually such a good thing.  Cuddling with a 900 pound beef cow is kind of scary.  I eventually had to fire the shotgun into the air to get her to give me some space.  She was definitely invading my space.  I’ll make sure to feed the cows before I walk to the back of the pasture.

My wife read Psalm 139 to me last night before bed.  “O Lord, you have searched me and known me.”  The context of our conversation was that God knows us and loves us anyway.  I liked the verse, “I praise you , for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”  We are indeed wonderfully made.  I need to remember that.  I was feeling a little down on myself because I didn’t spend my time alone, while Jenny and the kids were gone, as productively as I would have liked.  I had imagined that I might spend my time in work and contemplation.  It didn’t really turn out that way.

Maybe I’ll take my camera out with me this morning.  I’ve been meaning to take some pictures of the farm in winter.  I’ve been a little remiss in the photograph department.