Snow? What Snow?

I woke this morning to the strange sight of all the windows in the living room frosted over. It turns out that when I re-closed the shut-off section of the house and left through the outside door of that area, I failed to close it securely against the intense wind. It had blown open and the house had the leaking pressure of 30+ mph winds blasting into that section and into the regular house. Somehow that must have pushed heat and moisture into the living room in a different manner which led to the frosted windows.

After coffee and checking the news, I went out to check on the animals, check on the driveway, and close that blown open door. Outside I found almost no snow. By the house, largely protected from the NE winds, we had barely a 1/2" of snow. Up around the crest of the drive, along the straight section that follows the fence line, there was some drifting, but nowhere near what I had expected from the forecasts. At the crest itself, which represents the furthest SW corner of Kita's corn field, the snow had piled deepest, but even there, with the whole length of the bare field to run, only about 1' of snow had collected. It ran in a razor straight line about 4' wide across the curving turn of the drive. Beyond that the snow had barely drifted in at all and, in many sections, I could see the gravel from which the snow had melted in last week's sudden warmth.

I got in the truck and drove out to the road, turned around, and drove back in just to make sure I'd have no problems.

Jen still had a nasty cough, so I drove down to Sturgeon Bay by myself to run errands. I needed to make it down today both since it is the only week day the store is closed, but also because I had 5 pounds of beef brisket waiting for me. If you don't have access to a good butcher, make it a priority to find one. Also, make sure you know where a good cheese factory is. To my mind these are some of the basics of making good food in Wisconsin. Fortunately, in our area we have both.

In this case the brisket is for corning. My mom used to make a corned beef which would hide in the mouse-room of our farmhouse when I was a kid. The smell was amazing and the taste indescribable but what I actually remember best is pulling long strands of muscle from the cold slab of corned beef the next day. The brisket comes from the front chest of the cow and is essentially a large band of muscle that holds the front legs together with the neck. It's purpose makes it a tougher cut of beef but with a high percentage of muscle. A long corning process softens and flavors the meat and, with the effort, transforms it into an exceptional gastronomic experience. Fortunately, my mom sent me her recipe.

Once home I put away the groceries and started on the corned beef. I stirred potassium nitrate into some warm water and added that to a few quarts of fresh water into which I had stirred salt, paprika, canning spices, brown sugar, and sliced garlic. Stirring in the salt was interesting. I have become a fan of real salt as opposed to the bleached, processed, white salt. However, when stirring it into the corning water, I found that some of the natural minerals in real salt don't dissolve and there remained a grit at the bottom of the corning jar to the very end. I cut the slab of brisket into 4 pieces and put everything into a large glass jar. I then put a glass bowl on top of the meat to hold it below the top of the brine and put 1/2 a brick into the bowl for a little added weight. I then moved it into the shut off part of the house since that temperature stays around 35 degrees. 

One of the most difficult parts of the process was finding potassium nitrate. It is also known as saltpeter and, while it can be used as a meat preservative, is most commonly found in connection with things like fireworks, gunpowder, pyrotechnics, and other things that go boom. I called everywhere trying to find it. I called the grocery store, a specialty cooking store, Nelson's Hardware, and Dunham's Sporting Goods. I finally struck gold when I called Bayshore Pharmacy and spoke to the manager of the health and wellness center. She knew immediately what I was talking about and, after taking my number, called me 5 minutes later to let me know it would be in as a special order in two business days. Possibly the funniest part was walking into the grocery store a few days after my call (when I was looking for saltpeter in the first place) and having three different staff ask me if I had found a supply. I love living in a small community but sometimes I forget how small small is.

This evening I ran out to practice for the Doormen, a men's double quarter vocal group that I was recently asked to join. Unfortunately we spent most of the evening taking care of some business details and organizing a huge pile of collected music from years past. At the end I couldn't take it any more and cajoled the pianist and the last three remaining singers to sing. I didn't care what, but we had to sing something. Gladys, the pianist, grabbed a book of choral arrangements which ranged from Southern Gospel to a funky, almost barbershop arrangement of Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus" (done in English) and we sang our way through most of the book. Now I just need to get all the burrs out of Sean's tail.