Gone shopping

I was leaving the grocery store the other day and took a photo of what my cart looked like. I swear, I don't go anywhere without my copy of Cooking Wild in Missouri these days.

Speaking of shopping, in skimming the book for any recipes I might have missed that I can make with the ingredients I have, I was looking at a gumbo recipe. It calls for tasso and andouille sausage as well as wild meats, so I thought I'd call my mom and ask her to pick me up some good sausage while she was in St. Louis at Global Market. Then, I read the second page of the recipe and it says, "If you live in Boone County, then you might take advantage of the opportunity to purchase locally made tasso and andouille. Students in the Culinary Arts porgram at Columbia Area Career Center cure meats and offer them for sale several times a year. The meats are produced under the guidance of instructor Brook Harlan, whose culinary career includes impressive experience with Cajun cured meats."

It's like I was being spoken to right off the pages of the book. Zoinks.

The Columbia Area Career Center is part of the high school. It's for real world classes like the horticulture program, nursing, etc. So, I drove down to the high school today, walked in a side door, and bought locally made, Cajun sausage  from a locally raised pig. How cool is that! When I was leaving a boy held the door open for me, saying "Have a nice day." Wow. I will.

The kitchen for the culinary arts program smelled wonderful, like a small Italian grocery store. The tasso and andouille look great. I don't know of any other place to go for good Cajun sausage in Columbia, so I'm hopeful about this sausage. Bernadette has guided me to yet another culinary discovery right here in town.