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He’s a creative and technical chef, as well as a dedicated and insistent teacher. Not only did he make pig’s head terrine for everyone present at the FCI demonstration, he provided us all with detailed copies of the recipe (complete with faux blood splatter marks) and begged us for questions.  He is a chef excited about what he does and eager to share it with the rest of the world.  (I say “world,” rather than “city,” because of an impressive profile piece in the May issue of Men’s Journal).  And as a cook who excels on a meaty, bloody, messy, fatty platform, he really is a man’s man.  Perhaps that’s why I liked him so much – and why I was so quickly swooned by his blood sausage.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, because before he made the boudin noir, he fed us pig liver. Pig Liver Creme Caramel with Roasted Grapes and Crispy Bacon, to be exact.  Of course, he started making the dish by he passing around a plate of raw pig’s liver. (“Have a look – don’t have a taste.”)  I was surprised first at the size – so large! – and then at the bright red hue.  It was really vibrant.  He then puréed it in a Robot Coupe with milk, cream, seaweed, soy sauce and … well, I’m not going to give away all of his secrets! He brushed the interiors of small ramekins with a caramel sauce, taking great pains to describe the logic behind the addition of maple syrup (it stops the caramel from overcooking), then filled them with the liver.  After a trip to the oven, they were inverted and served with tart, tangy roasted grapes and a piece of bacon.  If you’re not a fan of liver, I think you should try this plate.  As Farmerie colloquially explained: “You want to develop layers of flavor instead of just – liver.”  Layers indeed – not only was I enjoying savory-sweet-sour, I was having a grand time alternately letting the liver dissolve on my tongue and crackling the bacon under my teeth.  

After placing a few grapes and a sprig of watercress on the liver, Farmerie presented the finished product.  ”And that’s my … numero uno,” he said, sliding it across the countertop and wiping his hands on his apron.  I’m certain he meant to dub it the first dish he’d prepare, but for me, it was my numero uno, dos and tres.  I loved it.

We were next thrown headfirst (hee) into the world of offal with an offering of … pig’s head.  As Chris Rendell lifted the head from the pot, he wore a boyish grin.  It was very tender, though, and it immediately started to break down.  The two worked together quickly to bring it over to a carving board, where Farmerie began explaining the different meaty bits of the thing.  I leaned forward in my seat to inspect – the snout was split on the upper, and there the skin looked tough and leathery.  Elsewhere, though, the skin had given way to tender, fatty strips of meat that looked not unlike an extremely rich brisket.

“When you get a pig’s head, you’re looking for fat, jiggly cheeks,” Farmerie explained, running his first two fingers up the jawline.  The light pressure he exerted made the meat quiver for a moment, then drop in ribbons onto the board.  He transferred it to a pan.  ”So basically,” he said, chuckling, “It should fall off the bone.”  

The majority of the meat in the head comes from the cheeks, but there is also prize meat to be found in the temple and snout.  That’s not to say you have to eat it all – if it looks like something you wouldn’t want to put in your mouth, then certainly don’t put it in a terrine.  But when a head has been poached in aggressively flavored water (lemongrass, fennel, ginger, cardamom, star anise, cumin, soy sauce, sage – to name a fraction) for as lingeringly long as this one had, it won’t just fall off the bone – it’ll dive onto your plate.

Although the head meat looked decadent and rich, I was in the half of the class that didn’t particularly enjoy the terrine.  I’d be much more inclined to eat the meat between slices of thick sourdough bread, slathered in sauce.  If you’ve never had terrine, I’m afraid to say you’re not missing much.  It wasn’t Farmerie’s version that turned me off; there is just something about gelatin in meat dishes that makes me (and many others, I presume) uneasy.  Sure, it looked pretty – tiny triangles of perfectly cubed meat – but it was just too slippery for my taste.  The deviled-style eggs served alongside, though, were something I could really get behind.  They were bitty, one-bite things, but utterly packed with cornichons, capers, and chilis.  Tangy, briny, delicious.

If pig’s head terrine and liver creme caramel make you want to cover your mouth and hide, stick around.  Perhaps you’d like some House Cured Streaky Ham with Whole Grain Mustard and Glazed Figs?  Yes, I thought you might.

The cure is made with four different varieties of salt and sugar and, notably, lavender.  Before one can apply the cure, though, one must ready a big slab of fatty, streaky pork.  ”Brush the belly with honey and water,” Rendell said.  I sat up a little straighter – that sounded like fun!  He then rolled the belly around in a sheet pan, coating it with cure.  The curing process isn’t, of course, instantaneous, so the men were kind enough to have prepared some beforehand.  We were served thinly sliced strips on a rectangle of brioche that’d been slathered with both mustard and fig purée, then garnished with celery leaves.  Also included on the plate was a heaping of pork rillette (deliciously creamy and fatty) and crisp bread, and one particularly special bit: cured wild boar.  It’s hard to believe, but at this time last year, I was refusing wild boar at a party.  I’ll have you know that this bad boy was nicely chewy and salty, with just the slightest hint of gamey taste.  Not offensive in the least.

The demo was far from over, though, because Farmerie and Rendell had yet to make a dish from start to finish in front of us.  And they’d promised.  They’d promised boudin noir.  

A tray of ingredients was brought out.  I noticed the pig’s blood right away – it was screaming red, after all – but there were also quieter, pleasanter things: double cream, porcini powder, spices, green apple, pork scraps and fat.  Farmerie bemoaned the fact that pig’s blood is hard to come by, and he’s had to resort to buying it frozen (I don’t imagine it’s something one can pick up at Wegmans), but the blood he had that day seemed to be sufficient.

After deglazing a pan of apples with dark rum (Rendell and Farmerie both yelled “Shazam!” as the flames leapt up and we ooh’d), everything, including the blood, got dumped into a large bowl.  Refrigerating the mixture for 10 or so minutes thickens it considerably, so that’s what they did.  Afterward, they worked as a team to pipe the sausage into casing – which is inverted intestines, but totally looks like condoms.  As Farmerie pumped the meat through the bag, his hands became slick with blood – it was dripping from his fingers, making him look more like a butcher than chef.  Rendell painstakingly curled the meat around itself, “Like a snake!” then twisted the casing to create individual sausages.  After a gentle poach in chicken stock and quick pan-fry in duck fat, the sausage was sliced and served to us with toast, a perfectly poached egg and, for a bit of much-needed acidity, round, roasted cherry tomatoes.  And you know what?  I liked it.  Farmerie had first described the sausage as pillowy and soft, and I sort of snorted.  But it was pillowy and soft, and meltingly smooth, to boot.

As he cleaned his board and packed away his supplies, Farmerie wrapped up the presentation.  ”Questions?  Questions, comments, fears, aspirations?”  No one responded, but he didn’t seem to mind, nor did he seem surprised when a rush of eager students approached him quietly, individually.  In fact, as he chatted with a young woman about liver and pushed his sleeves further up his arms, he looked right at home.