Photo Essay: The Meat Club – Sausage Making Party

*Warning: For vegetarians, vegans or those who are meat averse, you might want to skip this post,
as there are graphic images of raw meat.*

“I think we’ve made every single sausage joke that anyone can possible think of…” mumbled one of my fellow sausage making party attendees. I had been invited by my friend Sean (of the fabulous blog Hedonia) to attend their Meat Club, a group of fellow meat enthusiasts that were making various meat products. The previous party had them making a charcuterie item that I can’t pronounce but that’s OK since I didn’t attend it. This time round, I joined in on the grinding of over 25 lbs of pork and lamb to make andouille pork sausage, merguez lamb sausage and a specialty Thai sausage called Sai Oua filled with fragrant kaffir lime leaves, fresh lemongrass, fresh galangal and tumeric root. Sean had even gone to great length to get decent shrimp paste, buying a jar from Pim of Chez Pim, who had declared that there WAS no edible shrimp paste to be found in the SF Bay Area (after tasting every single one she could get her hands one, she finally resorted to sourcing it from a store in Los Angeles). Leaving the party with 3 1/2 lbs of homemade sausage, I couldn’t wait to find a recipe to use it all in. And, just for the record, Sean and I were the only males at the sausage party. #rimshot!