To buy a fat pig

I went to the University District Farmers Market and came home with two choice porky specimens.

The first was bacon from Wooly Pigs, a local producer of extremely high-quality pork from strange-looking Mangalitsa hogs [edit: not yet; see the owner’s comment below]. They had free bacon samples cooking in an electric skillet, and the proprietor practically forced me and another customer to try dipping a crust of bread in the bacon fat, which was predictably fabulous. (I guess I didn’t require much forcing.) Wooly Pigs supplies pork to the French Laundry and a number of top Seattle restaurants. Their prices are about five times what you’d pay for supermarket pork, so today I just picked up a pound of bacon, but I will try a couple of chops next time they have them in stock.

Then I stopped at Pies by Jenny and bought a small pork pie. This was made with a chile verde filling–tomatillos, green chiles, chunks of pork, and hominy. The pie was frozen, unbaked, and it took about 75 minutes in the oven, but it was a great lunch–sturdy but flaky pastry, tart stew of a filling.

Pies by Jenny also has sweet pies, but I was shopping alone, and I could never choose a sweet pie over a pork pie.

Not so smaht

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

SmartShopper: A Real Yo-Yo of a Device

> It’s an electronic shopping list, and catalogs like Sur La Table and The Sharper Image are pushing it this holiday season. And if your idea of fun is getting into a screaming fight with your fridge, I highly recommend you pick one up.

SmartShopper did many other funny things that I didn’t mention in this short piece. Like, at one point it suggested I wanted to buy LIQUID TEA. Is this an actual phrase people use?

I was going to mention that a good prank would be to go to the house of someone who uses SmartShopper and program funny or obscene things into it, but that assumes that you know someone who uses SmartShopper, and I felt bad about accusing my readers of this. It’s like if I told you to sabotage your buddy’s Segway.

Iris Test #1: Chocolate

As you may know, I write a monthly taste-test column for Seattle Magazine. For a long time it wasn’t available online, but now they’re posting some of them on the magazine’s web site. For example:

* [Ethan Stowell on Olive Oil](http://seattlemag.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=3E1DA341B2834604B64A1EB3BA74CCFB&tier=4&id=21AC832EFED74B3DA8AAB450F804F2F2&AudID=42BFF54AF0444B8F92E1C3E1A324650E)
* [Joseba Jiménez de Jiménez on Sherry Vinegar](http://seattlemag.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=3E1DA341B2834604B64A1EB3BA74CCFB&tier=4&id=C34FF58152D1471DB91624E4A55AA226&AudID=42BFF54AF0444B8F92E1C3E1A324650E)
* [Tamara Murphy on Bacon](http://www.seattlemag.com/ME2/Audiences/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=3E1DA341B2834604B64A1EB3BA74CCFB&tier=4&id=D4392AE0CACB44F482930394D4EFD3E0&AudID=42BFF54AF0444B8F92E1C3E1A324650E)

You get the idea. Iris has long wanted to come along to a Chef Test, but the timing hasn’t worked out. She suggested the Iris Test after this incident involving canned tomatoes:

> **Iris:** I don’t like these tomatoes.

> **Me:** But they won a Chef Test.

> **Iris:** Well, not with me!

(The winning canned tomatoes, as tested by Jordi Viladas of Cafe Lago, were Del Monte Organic, which you should totally buy regardless of what Iris says.)

So we conducted the first-ever Iris Test, and Iris selected chocolate for the debut. I wanted to include a mix of bittersweet, semisweet, and milk chocolates, including some I hadn’t tried before, so here’s what I came up with, in the order we tasted:

1. Valrhona Le Noir 56% ($3/100g at Trader Joe’s)
3. Hersheys Milk Chocolate, (/1.55 oz at QFC)
2. Valrhona Guanaja ($4.49/75g @ Delaurenti)
4. Hersheys Special Dark, (33 cents/1.45 oz at QFC)
1. Valrhona Jivara Lait ($4.49/75g at Delaurenti)

Trader Joe’s was out of my two favorites of theirs, Valrhona Le Noir Amer and Chocovic Ocumare. But whatever.

Want to know whose chocolate reigns supreme? Listen to the podcast:

[Iris Test #1: Chocolate](https://www.rootsandgrubs.com/podcasts/IrisTest1-Chocolate.m4a) (2.3MB AAC)

Golden starches

Iris and I went for a ride on the monorail this afternoon and stopped for fries at the McDonald’s at Westlake Center. While we were in line, Iris looked up at the big M, turned to me, and asked:

“Dada, how do you know this place has fries?”