A Tale of Two Sausages

With the industrialization of the Eastern world and what Tom Friedman calls the Triple Convergence in his book The World is Flat, a significant amount of craft jobs where workers actually created products have gone away to countries where production costs are significantly much lower; therefore, in America there are fewer opportunities to buy products made a by a true master of his/her craft. It used to be you would buy a barrel from a cooper, leather goods from a tanner, and meat from a butcher.  Now a days you can get your leather and meat in a barrel size quantity at your one stop shop big box store (Wal-Mart, Costo, Target).  So in light of this, I find it extra special when you find true craftsman offering a chance to buy a quality product made by hand in small batches.  So using the rhetoric that you would buy a barrel from a cooper, in my mind it makes sense to buy sausage from a man who's last name is Link.

Donald Link is the Samuel L. Jackson of the culinary world; in short, he's a BAMF (if you have to ask, you don't want to know; if you know, wallets available here for $9.99).  Chef Link is the owner/co-owner of 4 New Orleans restaurants-Cochon, focused on traditional Cajun food with a masterful twist, Herbsaint, Link's upscale restaurant, Calcasieu, a private dining space named for Link's home Parish (aka County), and Cochon Butcher, a space adjacent to Cochon where Link sells homemade sausages, sauces, and sandwiches.  

Whether or not you respect the James Beard Foundation (I'm looking at you Tony Bourdain), it's hard to deny that their awards are typically bestowed upon on powerhouse, deserving chefs.  Link is no exception.  

Link won the James Beard Award for Best Chef South in 2007, his co-owner Steven Steyjewski won the James Beard for Best Cook South Award in 2011, and Link's Real Cajun cookbook won the James Beard Cookbook Award in 2010.  All that is fine and dandy, but what sets this Louisiana native aside from others is how as soon as the Government would let people enter Post-Katrina New Orleans, Link came back and began serving meals to those in need while keeping his staff on the payroll despite not being open for business.  While this seems trivial, ponder that while today there are 300 more restaurants in NOLA Post-Katrina, directly after the storm very few came back right away while it took others years to re-open.  If you're a TV series fan, Treme, an HBO drama,  is an entertaining and accurate piece on Post-Katrina New Orleans.

Elizabeth and my "last meal" in New Orleans after a long day of work and packing was at Cochon Butcher, and as I munched on my sandwich, kettle chips, and Diet Coke in a bottle, my eyes were drawn predominately to my beautiful wife, but occasionally they caught a glimpse of the meat cooler next to our table.  Needless to say, we walked out with one pound of smoked deer sausage, 4 pounds of boudin, a cooked Cajun pork & rice sausage, 2 jars of Cochon mustard, made with Abita beer, a bottle of Cochon hot sauce, and just over one pound of Chef Link's newest creation-hot dogs.  

As we waited at the bar of Cochon to buy a t-shirt, a guy next to us chatted us up about Cochon and Donald Link and mentioned how Link's hot dogs were the subject of a negotiation with a Major League Baseball team in regards to featuring them at their ball park.  While that's yet to be seen, anything sausage by Donald Link peaked my interest.  

Growing up 60 miles south of Chicago, the "correct way" to order a hot dog is "steam dog (boiled) Chicago Style"aka diced tomato, diced onion, neon green relish, pickle, celery salt, Polchman's mustard, pickle, sport peppers (for some of us)."  So as a matter of habit, we placed 2 hot dogs in a sauce pan, covered them with water, and brought them to a boil before boiling them for approx. 5 minutes.  

The end product was crisp yet juicy, with distinct flavors of meaty pork and earthy seasonings.  We covered our dogs with tomato, onion, Polchman's yellow mustard (Manteno, IL's pride & joy); admittedly, we forgot the relish & pickle, and didn't have access to sport peppers.   The hot dogs were unusually long, so here's to hoping Link comes out with a bun-length dog soon!

Always on the look out for interesting items at the grocery store, we picked up a couple of turkey-cilantro sausages at Central Market last week, and saw them not only as good choice for a dinner entree, but also a way to use up a couple bottles of Budweiser we inherited from a friend who brought an array of leftover beer from his housewarming party to a dinner party we had.

We emptied two King of Beers into our deep cast iron skillet and turned the burner to medium-high heat to create a hot tub for our sausage; we added the sausage, brought the liquid to a boil, and cooked the meat for approx. 30 minutes (about the time it took for us to get a temperature reading of 160 degrees with a meat thermometer).

We enjoyed our sausage accompanied by a salad with red onions and oranges and black quiona tossed with cilantro, diced onion, tomato, mushrooms, and garlic.  I missed a little on the quiona by not sauteing the garlic and mushrooms, a move that would have mellowed the garlic and softened the mushrooms.  The turkey-cilantro mix was a nice change from traditional pork and beef sausage and provided a for a quick & easy week night dinner!