November 2002

Hello everyone and thank you to all who've been chewing on pork chops recently. Just a short note this time to help you plan your holiday feasts.

I've had a rash of inquiries this week about turkeys so I decided it was time to put together a list of sizes and order some inventory. As of Friday, the 15th I will have the following birds:

Jennie-O Brand (USA) 10 - 12 lbs. (+/- 5 kg)
Jennie-O Brand (USA) 12 - 14 lbs. (+/- 6 kg)
Sadia Brand (Brazil) 2.4 kg.
Sadia Brand (Brazil) 3.0 kg.

Price for everything is 750 yen per kilo and everyone gets a free half kilo of bacon bits with each order. I'll try to keep these all in stock through the end of December. However supplies on turkeys are a bit limited here in Japan and I might have to do some substitutions - so please give me as much notice as possible.

There are a thousand ways to cook a turkey, my first year in Japan I roasted a (very small) turkey in a 1000 yen toaster oven from the second hand store. I had to do a few modifications such as taking out the timer and splicing a light dimmer switch into the cord so I could control the temperature, but it worked. My wife finally threw my ingenious contraption away after it caught fire for the third time - it seems that the dimmer switch wasn't built to handle quite as much power as what a toaster oven pulls. Now I use an oven and I've decided I'm more cut out to be a meat seller than an electrical engineer...

This year my plan is to brine the turkey before I cook it. I've heard lots of good things about this and have also brined a couple briskets to make my own corned beef. Basically you soak the bird in salt water and spices for about 12 hours before you cook it. This supposedly keeps it from getting too dry, reduces the cooking time, and lets you add some flavor. There are plenty of sites on the internet that can give you some pointers. Basically they all recommend 1 cup of salt per 1 gallon of water (about 60 ml of salt per 1 liter).

If you are not a big turkey fan but want to roast a bird. I'll reduce my price on the whole chickens to 400 yen each. I've also got some whole ducks in stock and can get more.

Another item that I'm very excited about is my newest ham. This comes from Austria, the same maker as my bacon and salami, and is called the Royal Ham, however I prefer to call it the Ham Roy-AL because Roy-AL is much more fun to say. It's a smoked, boneless ham with skin on for "cracklin", each one is about 2.5 kgs. The price is 2300 yen per kilo. If you want I can also slice this up for you.

As Christmas draws near I've been getting several requests for something "fancy". If there is enough interest I might have some bone-in ribeye roasts made up for Prime Rib. Or if anyone is looking for something really out of the ordinary I can also get my hands on some whole suckling pigs. These items take a little time so keep that in mind when ordering.

That's all for now.

-jason