Well I have to apologize to everybody, I have not had sufficient time to devote to the blog, we have been cooking and taking lots of photos but have not been following through. Funny, it's a comment you might hear in the bedroom, but I have not seen my spouse in a week. Her job has been very demanding with meetings in Toronto and being on call, she actually worked about 50 hours of overtime Friday night to Sunday. She is very upset, as Saturday night was the last of the Berkshire hog tasting nights. She missed out on an orgy of gastronomic delight that the ancient Romans would have been proud of. There was so much food I thought I was going to die.

As usual, the afternoon started with micro brews and nicely aged red wines. When Steve and Mac bring the wine it usually has a thick layer of dust on it; this usually means it is either very, very good or very, very bad. It was divine, a beautiful full body with incredible depth. I had to switch from Wit beer to the wine. At this point i have to say I love beer, beer beer beer, yum. I have made my own beer and gone to the usual U-brew outlets in order to maximize flavour minimize costs. Time has taken it's toll on me, my liver and pancreas, so I am now rationed to how much I can have, so I have become very particular on what I am drinking. Mill Street is a micro-brewery in Ontario and I am impressed with all of their products. We will have to look to them for a sponsorship deal one day.

Onward about the night, first up was a Caribbean Chicken. We are working on this dish for a competition, so no details, only that I will tell you that it is very different and very WOW; smoked chicken and steamed in banana leaves.  Next up was the star of the night, "Pork Confit". We tasted this right out the pan and while the look was somewhat undesirable the taste was amazing. The herbs that we infused prior to poaching were prevalent and turned this simple pork sirloin into something magic. It was like being a child on your first trip to Disneyland. The grandeur of the moment was captured in my mind forever. I don't know if it was the process, the herbs, or the Berkshire or the lard but I had a moment in time. So we were not about to just be carnivores and hack at this treasure. We grilled the pork lightly with just a lite hit of specialty Himalayan pink salt. We used a cherry balsamic reduction sauce with port. Sides included some Steve's fresh 'bread salad',  white asparagus with garlic and lemon and Mac’s amazing mushrooms. This was a easily a $50 plate and to be honest there was no conversation during this serving , nothing but moaning.

We then ventured to another grilled chicken wrap, again not details, one was deep fried and the other grilled. While they were fantastic each in their own rights, it had the WOW we were looking for, but, unfortunately,  the chicken was lost in the harmony. Since we are researching for the Perdue chicken competition at our first ever competition together, the chicken has to stand out. We will post this recipe late April after we place in Maryland.

The side of salmon was next, again no details, no pictures. You will have to wait until the end of the month, or at least pending the results of Maryland in three weeks.

Last were competition ribs, we wanted to fine-tune a sauce and some rub changes. I can’t tell you what we are doing, but I can tell you that it is amazing... Unfortunately the ribs came off at 9:30 and were not appropriately attended to. YIKES, there are only minutes from glazing to carbon rods and I need not describe our disappointment. This all goes to say that if you are not right on your game even the best of us can become distracted and turn out a flub. We are cooking with fire here and sometimes things get burnt. Nothing was said, nothing needed to be said, but it will come out a few weeks later; a guy can never let it go completely...