I find casing a beautiful blank canvas. The art created? Sausage.
It’s a gorgeous medium, one as old as time. Every country offers its own take: endless combinations of meats and spices, encased in a link. A satisfying snap.
Sausage-making is a craft that’s not so much in vogue, but I’ll support any artisan who still makes it.
In August, a new butcher shop opened in Highland Park. Located at 1954 1st St. is Katy the Butcher, and the name should offer a few clues.
First, it’s run by a woman named Katy Wilhelmi. If you know anything about the butchery industry, you know it’s almost all male.
Second, the fact that the shop is named Katy the Butcher means the products and services are offered through the worldview of one person. For Wilhelmi, that means dry-aged steaks, heirloom beans, seafood from Native American fishers, and flavors reflecting her time spent in the Pacific Northwest and the desert Southwest.
But Wilhelmi was born in Joliet, and she spent the last few years at Al’s Meat Market in Wilmette, before the shop closed in January. That means there’s a Midwestern streak in her butchering philosophy.
She’s a butcher with a knack for great sausage.
Wilhelmi makes her sausages the old-school way: mixed by hand, stuffed manually, hand-cranked through the extruder.
One of her bestsellers is an Old Style beer bratwurst. She enjoys simmering it in Old Style (a.k.a. the brat bath) and frying it in a pan with beef tallow (which she renders from beef trimmings at the shop).
