Chorizo Photo Shoot for Edible Idaho

In the upcoming Summer Issue of Edible Idaho, I wrote a story on Basque chorizo and the highly prized choricero pepper that gives the sausage its signature hue.

Every winter, my stepdad Rex and my husband Alex make Basque chorizo from scratch, a laborious process that involves turning dried choricero peppers into a scarlet pulp and grinding cubes of frozen pork through a hefty sausage mill. Piles of pig casings and a fair amount of liquor later, they've got chorizos.

Food photography badass Laurie Pearman came over to snap some photos of these chorizos for my story in Edible Idaho. Alex fired up the Traeger and cooked the sausages until they were plump with a fatty sheen. In the meantime, I played food stylist and pulled some thrifted dishes from the back recesses of my cabinets and unearthed some patterned napkins from my kitchen drawers.

But the best part was after Laurie finished snapping the photos, we got to snack on the (cold, but still delicious) chorizo with a few of hunks of Petit Basque cheese and a sherry-esque beverage that Alex made. We've colloquially dubbed his fortified, barrel-aged cider-and-riesling concoction "Tammi" because it's Sherry's slightly less classy cousin.

All in a day's work.