When I picked up some bison cheeks from the Union Square Farmers Market, the guy responded to my question about how to cook bison cheek with “low heat, long time. Braise it.”

Ingredients:
- bison cheek
- onion chopped
- carrot chopped
- garlic finely chopped
- celery stalk sliced
- can of whole peeled tomatoes
- red wine
Directions:

Pickle fest was a couple of weeks ago in the Lower East Side and I got to try some natural / lacto fermented pickles. Lots of pickles today are made with vinegar (and spices, flavorings) and this provides consistency and doesn’t require immediate refrigeration.

Lacto fermentation or natural pickling on the other hand is pickling using wild fermentation – think yogurt culture, natural wine…As you can see from the photo, there’s living things in there.

The taste? Less obvious upfront acidity, a more mellow pickling if you will. It’s almost as if there’s a yogurt type flavor in there. Very interesting and definitely worth trying. Try Adamah pickles.

Here’s a more detailed explanation of natural pickling from Sandor Katz:

“Wild fermentation involves creating conditions in which naturally occurring organisms thrive and proliferate. Fermentation can be low-tech. These are ancient rituals that humans have been performing for many generations. They are a powerful connection to the magic of the natural world, and to our ancestors, whose clever observations enable us to enjoy the benefits of these transformations.

By eating a variety of live fermented foods, you promote diversity among microbial cultures in your body. Biodiversity, increasingly recognized as critical to the survival of larger-scale ecosystems, is just as important at the micro level. Call it microbiodiversity. Your body is an ecosystem that can function most effectively when populated by diverse species of microorganisms. By fermenting foods and drinks with wild microorganisms present in your home environment, you become more interconnected with the life forces of the world around you. Your environment becomes you, as you invite the microbial populations you share the earth with to enter your diet and your intestinal ecology.”

— Sandor Katz, www.wildfermentation.com

Pork loin roast with Dijon regular and whole grain mustards and ground fennel salt. Based on a recipe from epicurious.com.

There’s lots of chatter in the wine geek circles about Equipo Navazos – so I thought it was time to try a bottle of the fino. Fino and Manzanilla are one of the great ways to start an evening and fortunately (from a cost perspective), sherry is still unpopular and can be relatively inexpensive. Why is that? Do the oxidative notes scare people? Is it too confusing? Or is it just that it’s an “old” persons drink? Whatever the reasons, people should get over their preconceived notions and drink a drop of sherry.

The La Bota de Fino #15 is definitely a good sherry, but at $40 for a bottle, it’s pretty expensive. Upon first opening, the nose seemed pretty closed, but on the second day, it was much more expressive. Lots of nuts, minerals, citrus, salt – like a sea breeze. The second evening, I drank it with pan fried sardines – and it was an excellent pairing.