Tag: charcuterie

Charcuterie plates to go: for you, that means none of the work, all of the cold cuts. (And cheese, pickles, other veggies. Occasionally hummus or lox. Sometimes dessert. Also candy.)

I love giving even the most casual event an exotic flair. Low-slung tables on top of layered Moroccan rugs transported guests to another place. I gathered arty props, including golden Moorish lanterns with delicate filigree cutouts, to decorate the table.

As I listened to Kevin Ouzts, the very affable chef-owner of Krog Street Market’s the Cockentrice, describe how he makes a number of dishes on the menu, I thought what I did during my dinners there: Is this a new form of extreme eating?

Although charcuterie is the passion of young chefs, it’s the professional butchers who salt, smoke, and grind with greater success. To find the best of both worlds—someone with the skills of a butcher and the mind of a chef—you’ll need to meet Jonathan Sellitto, who oversees the charcuterie at Lusca.

I don’t wear a hairnet for just anybody. But when Rusty Bowers, the baby-blue-eyed young owner of Pine Street Market, handed me a white coat and something even more hideous than a shower cap, I suited up without a whimper in order to follow him into the back room where he turns hogs into artisanal sausages. We had just met: him behind the counter; me in front, eyeing the samples fanned out on a carving board in the small store he operates with the help of his wife and a part-time worker named Jose, who is a whiz with the knife.