Fascinated by and somewhat jealous of the tradwife movement, Amy McCarthy attempts a weekend experiment: to live life in full tradwife mode for 48 hours, with a scrupulously clean house and food made from scratch.
The first task on my list was driving to a nearby farm, where I could buy raw milk on-site. Like most folks, I’m pretty skeptical of raw milk — pasteurization has literally saved millions of lives — but since raw milk is good for cheesemaking, and tradwives tend to love it, I was willing to risk it this one time. I plunked down $10 for a gallon and also snagged a pint of cream, because I’d need to churn my own butter, just like Smith, to cook my sandwich. Let no one suggest that I was not, at least for now, deeply devoted to tradwife cookery.
As my bread dough continued to rise, I set to work getting my gigantic Ballerina Farm pork roast into the oven. I seasoned it on both sides with lots of salt and pepper, then threw it into my cast-iron Dutch oven to sear. Dutch ovens are an important tool in the world of tradwives — preferably Staub or Le Creuset, in keeping with the subdued modern farmhouse aesthetic. Cast iron doesn’t have any of those freaky chemicals that linger in nonstick pans, and they just look old-fashioned.
Once the roast was browned on all sides, I doused it with a bottle of stout beer and put it in the oven for a low, slow cook. Then I quick-pickled a bunch of thinly sliced red onions with a little chile and dill seed, the perfect acidic foil to my decadent, porky dinner. It was at this point, about an hour in, that I realized that I was going to need that same Dutch oven to bake my bread — unlike Neeleman, my husband’s father didn’t co-found an airline, which means that I am limited to one piece of bougie cast iron at a time — and that wrinkle completely fucked with the timeline I’d planned for lunch.
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