I’m late to the [Wooly Pigs](http://www.woolypigs.com/) Mangalitsa pork belly party. Rebekah Denn wrote about it for the P-I:

> I have eaten the pork belly, and suddenly I comprehend the zealot’s gleam in Heath Putnam’s eyes when he implores buyers of his Mangalitsa pigs not to trim the fat. This fat-laden cut — belly with some small ribs — is sinfully rich and salty-sweet. By the time it left its slow braise and joined some glazed turnips and Brussels sprouts on the plate it was practically pork candy, or the pig equivalent of foie gras. It was so tender and moist it fell apart at the touch of a fork.

And more recently, Matt Wright [cooked some up](http://mattikaarts.com/blog/?p=523) and pronounced it “simply un-sodding-believable.” I wish I were English, like Matt, so I could say this without people laughing at me.

Wooly’s Heath Putnam gave me a discounted piece of pork belly a couple weeks ago, and I finally got around to cooking it. It was a small piece, and I wanted to be semi-scientific about it. So rather than cooking the pork in chicken stock and white wine, like Matt and Rebekah, I braised it in salted water. I cooked it for about five hours, which was longer than necessary, but I had to leave it going while I picked Iris up from school. Then I took the pork out of the braising liquid and cranked the oven to 500°F. I salted and peppered the meat and crisped it up for 15 minutes, then sliced it into individual ribs. If this pork is as great as everyone says, I figured, it’ll be good with no help from wine, stock, aromatics, or spices.

It was. Iris was delighted with crispy pork ribs for snack, and so was I.

Now, to say that this is a niche product is an understatement. It’s mostly fat and bone, and it sells for $25/pound. I was all set to launch into an economic analysis, but then I realized: if you’re within the Wooly Pigs area, you’ve probably already decided whether this is the pork for you.

Recently on [Serious Eats](http://www.seriouseats.com/):

A Dispatch from the Old School

> **Pancake parties:** This reminds one that last year pancake parties were all the go at the fashionable seaside places in France. At Étretat especially it became quite a mania. The pancake batter was brought on the beach ready mixed in a jar, and a small portable charcoal stove was erected in a sheltered corner against the rocky shore.

There Will Be Fish Blood

> “Hey Iris,” I called. She was in the living room watching TV. “I’m going to clean this fish. Want to help?”

> “No.”

> “There’ll be fish guts.”

> “I’ll pause!”

There’s chile that is spicy
There’s chili that is pork
There’s chilly that is cold
And chili that’s a fork.

–Iris

This week in [Gourmet](http://www.gourmet.com/):

[Three meatless tacos worth your time](http://www.gourmet.com/food/2008/03/veggietacos)

> Sure, textured vegetable protein is cheap (it’s a byproduct of soybean oil production) and the reconstituted soy flakes are filling. The texture is even reminiscent of ground beef, which is why it’s often used for vegetarian sloppy joes and other meat substitutes. Yes, TVP would make a perfect taco if it didn’t taste like reconstituted soy flakes.

I was making macaroni yesterday, and after the shells were boiling, I realized we were completely out of butter. “We have cream,” said Laurie. “You could put a little of that in instead.”

But I had another idea. “Are you whipping the cream?” asked Laurie when she heard the whir of the hand mixer.

“Not exactly.”

“Are you making butter?”

“Yes.” I’d never done it before. The cream turned into beautiful whipped cream, then grainy overwhipped cream, and then a yellowish sludge. It stayed in the sludge stage for several minutes, when suddenly the beaters began splattering me with whey. I strained off the whey and squeezed the butter in a paper towel.

The homemade butter is good, a little better than supermarket butter and certainly more expensive. But it saved our macaroni, and there’s a small log of it left for other experiments today. I might even run out of butter again in the future, on purpose.