I spent a day with Frank "The Sodfather" Balestri as he cranked out 60 pounds of homemade sopressata. more ›

What started out in a bar five years ago has grown into an event that drew nearly 700 people yesterday. more ›

Last week, City Provisions (our favorite charcuterie maker and all-around great local food emporium) announced that they would start serving brunch. CP already makes its own bacon, corned beef, pates and sandwiches, and starting this Sunday, June 26th, City Provisions will be serving an expanded menu from 10-2. The menu, which looks drool-worthy, will include latkes, whiskey-glazed ham, fresh biscuits and donuts, duck fat home fries and house-cured salmon. more ›

When last we visited City Provisions, the north side temple of all things local and/or meaty, we heard whispers about a forthcoming Meat CSA or farm share program. The program is official, the details are here, and you can buy it now. Based on the meat we ate there and the skills of the people in the kitchen, it's going to be a heck of a deal. more ›

If a genie was to come out of a magic lamp and grant a Chicago locavore 3 wishes, what would they ask for? "I'll take a more sustainable food network and a ban on GMO alfalfa, please. Oh, and put a place like City Provisions in my neighborhood!" City Provisions is a paradise for local eaters. Every local product you can think of (including many we've profiled on this site) is stocked, and the number grows every week. Anything they can't buy, they make in-house. The owner and founder, Cleetus Friedman, opened a retail location for his catering business in September of 2010, and he agreed to teach us a few things about making charcuterie. In fact, the headline really should read "Making Sausages, Chopped Liver and Headcheese at City Provisions, all while having a darn good time," but the box is just too small. Fair Warning: The pictures are meaty, and involve a skull. more ›

The Butcher & Larder, the whole-animal butcher shop created by the team behind the dear, departed Mado is just about ready to go. We got a sneak peek inside of January's most-anticipated opening yesterday and talked with Rob Levitt, the driving force behind the new temple of meat. We've been a big fan of Levitt's work for years, so it was exiting to meet him and talk about the new space - and trust us, it's going to be something special. more ›

Tribune "Cheap Eater" Kevin Pang reports that Paul Kahan, owner/operator of Blackbird, avec, the Publican, and Big Star, is getting on board with the butcher shop trend. Hot on the heels of the announcement of the Butcher and Larder and the September opening of City Provisions Deli, Kahan told Pang that they signed a lease today on the building across the street from the Publican and are planning to open a whole-animal butcher shop. The shop will have retail space, sell sandwiches and supply the meats for the Publican, and all of your favorites (including their amazing sausages and charcuterie) will be available for sale. We can't wait to get inside when it opens in 6-10 months! more ›

The Chicago food world was confused, then depressed, then excited, then confused again by the Mado saga of the past two months. Rumors swirled, the chefs, Rob and Allie Levitt, announced their sudden departure (taking their recipes with them), then the pair announced they were opening an amazing-sounding butcher shop, and then the restaurant rapidly reopened with a new chef and a new menu. Confused yet? It's been a roller-coaster ride of emotions, especially since we absolutely loved the old Mado. more ›

Rick Tramonto has a new cookbook coming out next week. Steak With Friends compiles 150 recipes for entertaining friends in the backyard or in the kitchen. As a charcuterie enthusiast, one recipe that caught our eye was a for salmon pastrami with cucumber dill salad. Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn have a few salmon curing recipe in Charcuterie, including one for salmon pastrami, and a quick search on epicurious for gravlax turns up some interesting recipes. But we never tried it. So we took the Tramonto recipe, then smoked it later. more ›

I'm a big proponent of the social aspects of dining in groups: talking, breaking bread together, sharing plates and laughs with both friends and strangers. It's no coincidence that some of my favorite restaurants encourage communal or family-style dining — the Publican, mado, the Bristol and Urban Belly, to name a few. All these restaurants tap into an emotional well that make me feel better about myself and the world around me, if just for an evening. It's probably naive to feel that way, but it is sincere. more ›

Isn't that pretty? After two weeks of curing, dry aging, smoking and slicing we now have 8 pounds of pancetta and bacon. The pancetta (pictured above), was ready for slicing and cooking. Here's something we discovered: For the bacon we had considered doing an applewood smoking of the bacon. Instead we went with hickory. For that, we set up our bullet smoker (a Weber Smoky mountain is ideal, we have a Brinkman bullet smoker) to reach a temperature of 120 degrees and smoked the bacon for 2 hours. You don't want the bacon to cook during the process, so try to keep the temperature constant. more ›

When you walk into the Spice House in Old Town with 10 pounds of pork belly strapped to your back, you're telegraphing to the employees what you need. What we were looking for was four ounces of sodium nitrate, aka "pink salt." more ›

"Is it true that you have a side of beef hanging in your closet?" more ›

We were explaining the guanciale experiment and process in making it Saturday night to Benjy's lovely wife Ella. Mrs. Lipsman asked all the pertinent questions about making one's own charcuterie, most important among them, "What if you get food poisoning?" more ›

What a difference a week makes. And a lot of salt, pepper, sugar and thyme. The pork jowl has been cured (compare the shot above to how it looked before curing last week) and looks like it's well on its way to becoming rich, savory bacon. more ›

Our Town's better restaurants are constantly adding new dishes to their menus and we found ourselves at Publican staring at some dishes that we hadn't seen before. Saturday night was a good one to fix an organ meat jones and we had a choice between duck heart and beef tongue. We opted for the latter and were faced with an epiphany. more ›

Since Goose Island renewed the lease on its Clybourn brewpub in December, there's been a sense of excitement around the premises. While the emphasis on the brewing has changed from hoppy to sour, the food menu at Goose Island is undergoing an even more radical transformation under the guidance of new Executive Chef John Manion (ex-Mas and Old Oak Tap). Manion is slowly updating the menu to bring it on a par with the Bristol, the Gage and Duchamp. more ›

Looks like we aren't the only ones diving into podcasting. Our pals at Serious Eats have an interview with Stephanie Izard posted where she offers more details on the Drunken Goat (she wants to offer tripe and lots of charcuterie), breaks bad on facebook ("543 friend requests?"), and talks about her recent trip to Madrid. more ›

Between deep fried bacon, smoked meats, cured mulefoot pig dishes, head cheese and rillettes, charcuterie has been a staple of our diet the past month or so. which is why when a reader hipped us to this amazing recipe for rillettes at home, we decided to jump at the opportunity to share it with you. Looks like we're adding something to the to-do list this weekend. We'll let you know how it turns out. [Just Cook It ] more ›

Arguably the most anticipated restaurant of the year, The Publican finally opened its doors before they were torn down by the hungry, excited masses. We were initially surprised there wasn't a wait, being 8:00 on a Saturday, until we saw the space. Eyeballing it, The Publican is about the size of three avecs and although we were seated immediately, the German-style beer hall was full of people at long wooden communal tables, small groups at pig pen-esque private booths, and others just sitting at the bar for a drink. more ›

For those of you asking about when the Publican, Paul Kahan's new beer, seafood and charcuterie palace in the Fulton Street Market (845 W. Fulton Mkt.) helmed by Executive Chef Brian Huston, is finally opening, pencil in Thursday. This definitely trumps "Must See TV." more ›

This has been making the rounds at other blogs, but we still wanted to share it with you. Mike Gebert at Sky Full of Bacon followed around localvore hero Rob Gardner as Gardner acquired a pig's head from the Oak Park Farmer's Market, then took it to Mado, where chef/co-owner Rob Levitt promptly made testa (aka "head cheese") out of it. This video is not for vegans or the queasy, nor should it be. more ›

It is not an uncommon experience to look at a restaurant menu, have a general idea what an item is but not recognize all of the ingredients or methods used in the description of that item. We’re going to look at some Chicago restaurant menus and discuss both common and uncommon terms that will help you become a more knowledgeable consumer at the table. more ›

Someone apparently reads the site: former Chicagoist staffer Lisa Shames attended Sunday's beer and charcuterie seminar at Custom House and e-mailed us to say that there were at least four people in attendance beside her who found out about the seminar via Chicagoist. We ran into at least that many people last night who said the same. more ›

One of our favorite dinners last year was a fixed price dinner at Custom House featuring beer pairings from Unibroue. The dinner was so successful that they're teaming up again on January 20 for a beer and charcuterie seminar from 6-8 p.m. The six-course event will match select Unibroue brands with two different types of charcuterie selections each. The full menu can be read here. more ›