in defense of nitrates

Last fall I had the opportunity to meet Armandino Batali at an event here in Portland. He was teaching a class on how to make cooked salami at home and offering tastes of his delicious creations (go out of your way to get your hands on Salumi's mole salami).

I loved listening to Armandino talk about how in Italy, no one would dream of steralizing things like well-worn butcher blocks with bleach, which I was I was surprised when he started discussing the importance of nitrates. If you go to any upscale market these days, you're bound to see some "nitrate free" meats, which has led me, and many consumers, to believe that nitrates should be avoided.

But Armandino thinks consumers have been mislead. Read about his perspective on nitrates and meat curing in this piece I wrote for Culinate.

minor obsessions

It's springtime here in Portland. I know this because I've been obsessing over numbers throughout the winter: average temperatures, minutes of daylight, amounts of precipitation. It started out as a curiosity, but became a minor obsession, and I can tell you that on February 11, the average daily temperature here registers above 50 degrees. And here we are, five whole balmy days later.

In typical Portland style, the high temperature doesn't usually happen until 3 or 4 p.m., which means that this morning, when I left the house for a run, I wore my winter wear to brave 34 degree F. But there was something fantastically unoffensive about today's 34 degrees--I knew it was temporary, a fleeting chill that couldn't stop the crocuses or the hot pink teacup flowers that like to be the first bloomers on every block (I'm forgetting their name) from pushing through soil and shivering open.

In case you're wondering, tomorrow comes with a bit over 3 minutes more of daylight than today did, just one more number that makes me feel hope.