Pig Day, Part 1

Pig day, as a coincedence, happened to also be my wife's birthday. She was in Wisconsin on a job interview, and wouldn't be back until early evening. My kids were at their Grandparents house. So I woke up, made my homemade pizza dough recipe, prepping for dinner, and got ready to go pick up the pig. A nice layer of fresh snow had covered most of eastern Iowa, so I was going to have a beautiful drive. As I was pulling out of Iowa City, I pulled behind a car displaying a bumper sticker that seemed quite appropriate.


As to "know your farmer" was really the main motivating factor in buying the pig. Sure it's economical, sure I want to make sausagey experiments, but I wanted to know more about the source of my foods. The pig that I am cooking (as much as I can of, except for head cheese, next time my friends, next time) was raised in a humane fashion by farmers that live 20 minutes from my house. Farmers named Lois and Bill.


The rest of the roughly 80 mile drive from Iowa City to Edgewood, IA was rather uneventful. The Iowa farmland and rolling hills covered in a fresh coating of dusty white snow was achingly goregous. Hazy and dreamy as I cruised by lots of rolling cornfields and Iowa farms. It went well with the dreamy Galaxie 500 I was cranking on the stereo.