Lard

Cooking with lard is another activity recommended by the Weston Price Foundation. I have to admit, I've never really had much of a desire to cook with lard. But I have had a desire to make awesome pie crust and I've been told more than once that good pie crust requires lard. Our Amish farmer sells lard, but I never remember to order it from him. We were at our local farmer's market recently buying cheese and I noticed that the cheese man also sold lard. I asked the little girl helping him for a quart of lard and she gave me a blank look. Apparently lard wasn't flying out of the refrigerated truck that Saturday. I was also getting scrapple and pudding (scrapple without the cornmeal) for my husband, so I should be glad she didn't just shoo me away. The actual farmer came to my rescue and fetched the food out of his truck for me.

I tried some pie crust with the lard a couple weeks ago. It was pretty underwhelming, but not bad. I love to cook and I love to perfect recipes, especially baked goods. Scones were my last project and I think I make pretty awesome scones, now. The new project: pie crust. Today I'm making a quiche for dinner, so I decided to double the crust recipe and make some cinnamon raisin tarts for tea time. Today, the internal temperature of our apartment dropped below eighty for the first time this summer, and I feel like fall is coming. We're celebrating with cinnamon.


Why, you might ask, do my tarts look like blobs? Partly because I have crummy photography skills, but also because my daughter was shrieking at the top of her longs for the duration of the tart exercise. Also because I really lack food presentation skills. Maybe after I've conquered pie crust I'll make presentation and arrangement my next culinary project. If Mrs. T every gets a camera, maybe I can get some tips from her.