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THE LINKS YOU’VE BEEN MISSING. PHOTO BY LINDA STANSBERRY.
BRITTANY ROSS’ SEASCAPE IN A BOTTLE, PART OF THE “REAL/SURREAL” SHOW AT MCKINLEYVILLE HIGH SCHOOL.
Third Friday McKinleyville Arts Night Friday, March 21, 6-8 p.m.
A celebration of local art and artists, music, food and fun. McKinleyville Art Night is open for all McKinleyville businesses to display work from local artists on the third Friday of each month. For more information, call 834-6460 or visit www.mckinleyvilleartsnight.com. 1) CALIFORNIA REDWOOD COAST AIRPORT 3561 Boeing Ave. “Street Art,” works by Thomas “Sonny Wong” Atwood, Christopher Dmise, Eric Furman, Sam Kagan and Ananda Oliveri. 2) SILVER LINING 3561 Boeing Ave., #D (at the California Redwood Coast Airport). Works by Dow’s Prairie Elementary school students of all grade levels. Music by JD Jeffries. 3) MCKINLEYVILLE HIGH SCHOOL 1300 Murray Rd., in the Library. Senior Portfolio Show: artwork by 11 seniors. “Real/Surreal”: photographs by students. Family Art Night activities include
make-and-take art projects for all ages, an open ceramics lab and refreshments. 4) MCKINLEYVILLE FAMILY RESOURCE CENTER 1450 Hiller Road. A night of art and fun for all ages with special activities from 6:30-7:30 p.m. March’s theme is “Spring is Here!” 5) BLAKE’S BOOKS 2005 Central Ave. Linda Parkinson, paintings. 6) CHURCH OF THE JOYFUL HEALER 1944 Central Ave. Works by Kenyan artists. Music by The Arcata Interfaith Gospel Choir. l
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CALLING ALL HUMBOLDT COUNTY ARTISTS Don’t miss this opportunity to open your studio to the public!
16TH ANNUAL
MAY 31-JUNE 1 & JUNE 7-8
Applications are due March 25th.
DOWNLOAD 2014 APPLICATION PACKET For information on this year’s event, email contact@northcoastopenstudios.com or call The Ink People Center For The Arts (707) 442-8413.
NORTH COAST COAST JOURNAL JOURNAL •• THURSDAY, THURSDAY, MARCH MARCH 20, 20, 2014 2014 •• northcoastjournal.com northcoastjournal.com 24 NORTH
Sausage Party
Hand cranking, stuffing and sizzling By Linda Stansberry tabletalk@northcoastjournal.com
F
at-free sausages are hideous, unnatural creations. They should be corralled and thrown on a pyre. I suspect that if burned, they would give off an eerie blue glow. They are not food. Don’t let one near your mouth. “Fat is what makes sausage wonderful,” says Jamie Bellerman. I’m watching him put pure pork fat through a grinder. It comes out the other end in stringy white chunks. “When you cut into a sausage and there’s that white marbling in it, that’s fat. Fat is what makes a sausage juicy.” Despite what you may have been told, there is no secret to sausage-making. There’s a lot of equipment, chemistry, insider techniques, lore, timing and disinfecting agents involved, but no secret. Bellerman, a local omnivore and home sausage maker, laid it all out on the table for me. Literally. “I grew up in a German family,” he says, “On the weekends, we would go down to the local meat market and get weird German meat. Like, literally, a slab of meat. We’d eat that without vegetables or anything.” When Bellerman developed an interest in making his own sausage, his proud father enrolled him in a German sausage guild. The group sent Jamie a calendar, which now hangs in his kitchen. The proud Teutonic smile of German Prime Minister Angela Merkel beams down approvingly as
we set to work. Today we’re making a sweet Italian sausage. One bowl of pure pork fat and another of ground pork sit waiting in the fridge. All ingredients must be kept cold, otherwise they’ll melt together into a paste and compromise the sausage’s structural integrity. Perfectly chilled, they are mixed together with a handful of spices: toasted fennel seeds, paprika, pepper and garlic. Mixing the meat and fat together is a bit like kneading dough. Bellerman uses a Kitchenaid, and the mixture goes from crumbly to sticky within minutes. Then the fun part begins. Straight from the freezer, the intestines resemble a dish rag that’s gone through the laundry too many times. They are about the width of shoelaces, tangled together in what Bellerman calls a Gordian knot. He gently untangles them under a stream of warm water. Thawed and rehydrated, they regain enough elasticity for him to take the edge of one and roll it over the spout of his sausage stuffer. “Er, the obvious analogy here is putting on a condom,” says Bellerman. Being a lady, I’ll have to take his word for it. (Stop laughing.) He pours the mixed meat and fat into the top of the 2-foot tall, cast-iron stuffer and turns the crank, tamping the mixture gently while monitoring its passage out the spout and into the casing. When the