I randomly dropped an e-mail to Jamie Stachowskiyesterday, wondering if the chef might have made enough charcuterie to peddle to the public during the holidays. I wasn’t ready for his response:

The Jamie Stachowski Holiday Charcuterie Board, which for $95 provides enough pâté, sausage, salame, and bresaola to feed 10 hungry carnivores. Here’s what you get for your money:

Read More “Just in Time for the Holidays II: Stachowski Charcuterie” »

Despite a name that makes you think of eyeballs, meat, and contact lenses — always an appetizing trio, yes? — MeatCrafters was a promising partnership between one of the best charcuterie makers and one of the most successful distributors in the D.C. area.

The partnership is no more.

Y&H contacted Jamie Stachowski yesterday evening who confirmed that he and Mitch Berliner have parted company — at least as partners in the charcuterie business. Stachowski’s name has already been scrubbed from the MeatCrafters‘ Web site, but he will still have a role in the company. Berliner is still selling and distributing some of Stachowski’s sausages.

“I’m trying to pursue a full line of charcuterie, and he is focusing on the [farmers] markets,” Stachowski tells Y&H. “Who knows? We might come together again at some point.”

Read More “Jamie Stachowski Parts with MeatCrafters” »

Note: An occasional feature in which Y&H revisits a previously reviewed restaurant.

It’s Friday night, and the regulars at Thirsty Bernie Sports Bar & Grill have settled onto their usual barstools to toast the end of the week with a few drafts and another ninth-inning meltdown by the Nats. The atmosphere is unlike most sports bars: No one here has that thousand-yard stare, lost in the competition on the telly.

There are reasons, of course, for their lack of interest. The Nationals have become the Branson, Mo., of baseball franchises: Only old-timers in love with the “game” and their youth follow the team. The Caps are between contests, and the other hockey playoff has all the appeal of a tax audit. No, Thirsty Bernie is a neighborhood sports bar that emphasizes the first descriptor. Locals mostly gather around the bar to bitch, flirt, and gossip. One woman greets everyone with the same sentence: “Oh, I’ve missed you!”

Read More “Spot Check: Thirsty Bernie Sports Bar & Grill” »

Suddenly, it seems that our region is awash with artisanal charcuterie makers. We’ve already told you about the stuff at Restaurant Eve, the cured meat plate at PS 7’s, and the hand-crafted meats that Jamie Stachowski is peddling practically everywhere, even from the back of his 1988 Trooper. (Oh, by the way, Stachowski finally settled on a name for his product line, MeatCrafters, which sounds like a shop at the mall where they stuff your sausage in an hour. So to speak.)

Two more players have recently entered the cured meat market.

Read More “Meat Your (Charcuterie) Makers” »

That was the question I put to the celebrated meat man when he called up out of the blue this afternoon, asking me what he should call his forthcoming charcuterie line. (For the record, I told him he should just name the stuff after himself, no matter how difficult “Stachowski” is to pronounce for people who spend all their damn time silently working a computer; the Eastern European surname would lend the meats instant credibility, at least for those who haven’t already sampled Jamie Stachowski’s sausage, pates, and cured products.)

Read More “So Where the Hell Can You Find Jamie Stachowski Charcuterie in This Town?” »

After his unceremonious departure last month at Thirsty Bernie Sports Bar & Grill, Jamie Stachowski has been working to launch his own name-brand charcuterie company. Well, maybe not a name-brand company. It seems the chef’s partner in this venture, Mitch Berliner, is afraid nobody can pronounce Stachowski.

Stachowski’s not buying that argument. To him, a number of commercial makers of cured meats and pates, companies like D’Artagnan’s to Les Trois Petits Cochons (which incidentally just means “three little pigs,” folks), have “difficult names that are hard to pronounce.”

Whatever the final name, Stachowski and Berliner, owner of Berliner Specialty Distributors, are currently searching for a USDA-approved processing-and-packaging facility. Berliner, the man who essentially introduced D.C. to gourmet ice cream, is the bringing the marketing muscle to this partnership, Stachowski says. Read More “Stachowski Plans to Launch Name-Brand Charcuterie Line” »