Crazy Stable

Yes, this family loves pork...but I hate "the other white meat" and everything it represents as the nadir of factory farming. Not even a Komodo dragon would be happy with today's cardboard chops and the animals who provide them after a short, miserable, and pollution-producing life.

So I have done something rash: signed us up for one-quarter of a pig, pieces of which start arriving this Thursday from a bucolic family farm called the Piggery in upstate New York. It's a meat version of CSA: "community-supported agriculture," where you pay a farmer for a chunk of harvest every week. We have to travel to the darkest depths of foodie hipsterdom--a place called the Meat Hook on the fringes of Williamsburg--to carry home our first shipment of the farm's own charcuterie, chops and bacon.

I remain very conflicted about this venture, and not just because I have spent two weeks' marketing money on this quarter-pig. And not because I am ill at ease with eating cute little piggies like this one when they grow up. Sweet as they are, I can gaze in their eyes and see a God-gifted dinner source, despite the current surge in vegan righteousness in the Zeitgeist. (This is one of the Piggery's heritage breed babies, a cross between a Mulefoot and a Gloucester Old Spot.)

No, my qualms are two-fold.

One:  Stop and think about the whole "humanely raised" conundrum. These pigs live upstate in pig paradise. They roam freely, munching on acorns and pumpkins, and are killed respectfully by a charming and articulate chef. Um...isn't it sort of worse to kill happy pigs and end their idyllic lives? Could one not better justify taking some sad, crate-raised hog and putting it out of its warehoused misery? Sort of like Switzerland...for pigs...with the second effect of bacon.

And two (seriously): This whole sustainable-locavore thing is both hyper-trendy, elitist, and a bit absurd. Sensitive urban gourmets will not save the earth by buying $20 organic free-range chickens and $8/pound microgreens and $300 pig-quarters, although we will set a very good example for people who can't possibly afford to do likewise (while supporting some wonderfully idealistic farmers). We will, however, be making progress when this stuff comes down to Wal-Mart range. It helps when a chain like McDonald's kicks out some horrible product or raises the standards for its ingredient providers (as has sometimes happened). I'm splurging on luxury sausage without a side order of guilt, but I can't kid myself that such efforts are changing more than a tiny corner of the big, bad world, and if you hear me lecturing anyone on my virtuous path, poke me in the eye with a locally sourced chorizo.

No, what it's about for me is...marbling. As I've learned from the pricey Flying Pigs pork at the Greenmarket, pork can still be mouth-wateringly juicy and tender, unlike the factory-farmed "lean" chops that cook up like Dr. Scholl inner-soles (and are raised over a toxic "lake of manure"--not a phrase easily forgotten at dinnertime). We seem to be in a curious cultural moment, meat-wise, with carnivorous foodies signing up for butchering courses on the one hand, and vegans lecturing us from the best-seller list and op-eds on the other.

I just want fatty chops from happy pigs. Look for "Pig-Blogging Mondays" between now and February to find out how it goes.

Komodo dragon: American Museum of Natural History

Other images: The Pigger's Flickr stream

Behold the dead oven.* It died last August after 15 years of service, with three half-baked chocolate cake layers inside. (They were rescued and baked in the apartment, with the family racing up and down the stairs wielding oven mitts.) Since the life span of such an appliance is now pegged at 10-12 years, it didn't seem worth trying to fix.

Its new, almost identical replacement stands ready for a 14-pound bird in a few days. I've been roasting and baking like mad in sheer relief (muffins, biscuits, Cornish hens). Both the old one (a Maytag) and this one (Frigidaire) are gas wall ovens so basic (a mere $650, versus fancy ones for $2,000 and up) that the folks at Drimmers seem to hate to sell them. The little electronic keypad on this new one is even more annoyingly primitive than its predecessor's, but I wouldn't know what to do with a hybrid convection/microwave/proton accelerator oven anyway. So far, this one seems to be heating up fine.

Before we haul the old one to the curb* (nobody's recycling these babies into guitar picks or art projects), let us salute the 14 golden turkeys that emerged from this old metal box, along with hundreds of batches of cookies, countless muffins, and the occasional Roast Beast. And speaking of nostalgia, here's a goodie from E-bay: the 1939 Brooklyn Methodist Home Cookbook. It's a quirky volume of facsimile handwriting and assorted sketches (see turkey illustration, above). The page on "apples" lists several varieties now seldom seen, including Kings, Pippins, and Greenings; the uses for apples include "dumplings" and "jelly," two apps that few of us try anymore even with our convection-whatever appliances.

But time changes more than apples. The real shocker 70 years later is to be found in the cookbook's preface. During the home's 56 years, it states, "several hundred old people" from "70 different churches" have entered. "Almost without exception, those who seek the shelter of the Home are driven to such action by loss and bereavement so that ours is a mission of comforting the sorrowing and healing the broken-hearted." (They also listed their annual expenses at $51,750.)

I don't know how successfully the Methodists comforted and healed, but I love their blunt honesty in understanding and expressing their mission. Today's "nursing and rehabilitation centers" lard their mission statements with buzzwords about "quality care" and "wellness," but no one dares acknowledge the brutal truth, or attempt the task.  This Thanksgiving, I will give thanks for apples and turkeys, for comfort, healing and home...and the warmth of an oven.

*Update a day later: Someone has hauled the dead oven off before we could put it out for the trash! Oh, thank you, stranger (and by the way, the igniter is busted)!

A Sunday afternoon of Indian summer in "Victorian Flatbush" starts out looking like a dreamscape of autumnal Main Street, USA.

But on this Brooklyn afternoon, all the colors seemed a little deeper...at the Cortelyou Road farmers' market...

...and along the leafy streets with names like Argyle, Rugby, and Marlborough.

Inside, the second Flatbush Artists Studio Tour unleashed more color, and colorful neighbors. Our houses are like the TARDIS of Dr. Who--bigger on the inside than on the outside--and this weekend, some of the most magical were opened to the public. For those who expect to find artists in dreary garrets or grim industrial lofts, the cognitive dissonance is delightful.

Visitors took in the kaleidoscope of Karen Friedland's lush canvases, and fingered dazzling little beaded necklaces and earrings. (If you missed the FAST event, Karen will be hosting a holiday art and jewelry sale on December 12 from noon to five.)

Very young, very talented Simone VerEecke is currently creating vibrant, exciting abstracts (click on her name to see more), but I was drawn to her huge high-school self-portrait.

As a family friend, I was also allowed an audience with the artist's mother's Russian tortoise, who displays a more moderate temperament. You look at that face and think, "the dude abides"...from the Jurassic era or so.

Down the street, in another rambling house/atelier, five artists live and work. One, Arturo Garcia, lavishes the golden light and shadow of the Old Masters on hams, pomegranites, and even some Italian cookies from the local bakery. Another, Marcelo Pittari, channels Rembrandt in soulful portraits, including one of himself here.

As we kicked along homeward through drifts of leaves, the very teenaged Daughter complained that I was "doing my spiel again about our marvelous neighborhood, blah blah blah." Guilty as charged.