Here is the Pig Roast Orchestra standing in front of the horse barn
Listen And Download China Cat Here: China Cat
Listen And Download Mr. Charlie Here: Mr Charlie
Here I am playing China Cat during the rehearsal
To my left is Jetta, to my right is Nick - Lead Vocalist and Rhythm Guitar
Christopher Kimball Blog 
That is one smokin’ China Cat! Nick does a nice job singing Pig Pen’s part. I’ve followed you, esp. through Cook’s Illustrated, and never knew your were an undercover deadhead! Love your work (mag, show, site, and twitter). Thank you.
Thanks for bringing the music into my home. Am 63 and this reminds me of my band days and playing the Greatful Dead. 25 years ago but seems like yesterday. It’s true “The Music Never Dies”. And just love your pics of the farm, parades, maple syrup run etc. Makes me wish I were there.
Paul Howes
Boston
Wish YOU were there? I live way down here in Florida! I’d love to be there also, but wondered if you knew of any good b&bs to go to where they have sleighrides, rooms with fireplaces etc during the winter in Mass,NH,etc?
Christopher…..I enjoy your messages so very much! Although your life is probably very hectic, you make it seem like it’s a slow, lovely way of life. While I live in California, I visited New England a couple of times and each time felt like I had come home. Thanks for including me in your notes.
Nice to see Chris out of the kitchen! Thanks for the pix, Cook’s Illustrated, America’s Test Kitchen, and bringing a down-home feel to your letters from Vermont!
Christine
HI CHRIS, THANK YOU FOR THE NEWS LETTERS. I LOVE READING AND THEY ARE AMONG MY FAVORITES. I USUALLY EMAIL THE LETTERS TO MY ENTIRE FAMILY AND THEY ENJOY THEM AS WELL. BORN AND BREED IN BROOKLYN N.Y. I AM WHAT THEY CALL A CITY GIRL YET I ALWAYS IMAGINED LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND. I HAVE NEVER TRAVELLED THERE AND YOUR LETTERS MAKE ME FEEL AS IF I AM IN THE POOL CATCHING THAT BIG TROUT. I CAN EVEN IMAGINE SCRAPPING THE MUD OUT OF MY SHOES BEFORE ENTERING MY HOME. I LIVE IN BELLPORT L.I. FOR YEARS NOW BUT STILL YEARN FOR THE NORTH BREEZE AND COLORS. THANK YOU FOR GIVING A BIT OF IT TO ME.
Chris, your talents amaze me. Keep up the good work.
Looks like one pig is in a Caja China, the Chinesse Box favored in Cuban Cooking. I purchase one several years ago as my own B-Day present and use it several times a year. It appears you’ve removed the head, my favorite part. Love the ears when they are chrispy.
My dream would be to work as a test cook for Cook’s Illustrated. I have always wanted to go to Vermont. That is where my grandfather’s family is from. I am a graduate from Le Cordon Bleu in Portland 1991 and have been in the food industry for a long time. Taught classes, had my own Personal Chef Business, food & bev director, and District Sales Rep for a food distributor. Currently my husband and I live in Colorado outside Durango. I think you are wonderful and what a life you live. To the fullest and with passionate energy. I envy you and respect you! Thank you for all of your hard work and ideas. Maybe someday I will be able to take a trip to Vermont and meet you and your staff. I would be in heaven. Oh, I like your music too!
Having spent 9 years in VT and a fair amount of time in Durango, I can assure you you’re in the better place. The only problem with Durango is not enough water. Have you ridden the Durango Silverton train, gone skiing, mountain biking, driven 550 through Silverton, Ouray and Telluride, gone to Mesa Verde, or gone to Moab, UT to see Arches and Canyonlands? The hike in Canyonlands to the confluence of Green and Colorado Rivers is amazing as is mountain biking the Slickrock and Rim Trail on the BLM land outside Moab.
We just got back from a visit to the New England area, and I wouldn’t trade what we have here in NW New Mexico for any of it. I love Christopher’s newsletters and watch the TV shows, but the West is our home. We used to live in Durango and moved here in retirement but are happy in the Four Corners area.
My wife and I really appreciate Cooks Country Kitchen show. I especially like the detail into the cooking of the product. Thanks Chris
We live in Canada (and had our first snowfall two days ago). We wish we could take a drive to see your part of the country, but unfortunately my husband’s health prevents this. However we thorougly enjoy your newsletters and recipes. Keep up the good work!
Amazing, my favourite TV cooking show and favourite cookbooks are brought to us by erstwhile Deadheads. Actually I guess you’re still Deadheads. What’s even more amazing is that Nick is almost a carbon-copy of a very old friend, Neil, who was the biggest Deadhead I knew growing up in North Vancouver, B.C. Nice job by all, you really captured the Grateful Dead feel and sound for China Cat. Not that I’m going anywhere but you just gave me one more reason to stay tuned.
Thanks,
Jim
What type if pig roaster did you use
I look forward every Saturday morning watching America’s test kitchen. I am so busy on Saturday but I manage to sit down at 11:00 am on Saturday and then watch Cook’s Country after that. I love public television. You Guy’s Rock!
It’s always nice to get a letter from Vt. We miss our stays at Lake C in Ferrisburg and explorations of the Vt. countryside, getting your letters just whets our appetite to come visit soon again. I think that buck is just teasing you, bet you can’t find him come hunting season !! Best Regards, see you on the TV.
Larry
Love your letters from Vermont and pictures of the farm and the animals. very nice looking pig, I wish I could have been there to taste and eat some of the wonderful food. would love to visit Cooks Ill. to see first hand all the cooking and taste testing that goes on there.
hi Chris! love both shows. love everything i get from your work. i actually use the information you provide on the shows. someone dream of working in the cook’s kitchen…i wish to work as a taster products tester for your shows! chris, why not have a big annual get together for your viewers/shoppers/buyers/onlookers with a pig roast too? 🙂 ok, you don’t want all of us ruining the environ so you can have a lottery! *L* Thanks, Chris and adam and julia and becky and bridget and jack and everybody behind the camara for all your work. Kathy
looks like a great party..how long did it take you to cook in that type container???I have roasted pig this way by digging a hole and using hot wood coles and cooked thru the night for eating next afternoon…assume your setup did not take as long!!thanks
There’s a music festival in Peecham next Aug, 2011 – the first. You really should get in on it! You wouldn’t have to cook, just play. But, cooking would be good too.
Bobbe
Anchorage Alaska – we’ll be there
Chris is that you playing lead? If so, you’re damn good! I’m not a fan of the Dead, having spent 4 years (76-80)in Burlington going to college, to gain very little knowledge. I got Dead overkill at the Chicken Bone, the Sheik and 4 years of partys. All my friends were Deadheads. There were 2 brothers (real, not frat) that blew off a fall semester to follow a Dead tour and all they took with them were backpacks and a 50 lb. bag of potatoes to eat, (no soap, would’ve weighed them down) good thing they were Irish. I did see them play at UVM, 79 I think , Terrapin Station had just come out, and in Jamaica in 81, wow what a crowd, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a girl wrapped in muslin doing the Dead twirl!
I love the magazines and the shows, but I do have one beef, having been a subscriber to Cook’s and a charter subscriber to Cook’s Illustrated I don’t think it’s fair to charge print subscribers full price for internet content and we should get full access to all 3 sites.
Whoa! Only the first few bars of China Cat. Please repost; must be a broken link or something.
Thanks,
TD
Chris: What is a pig roast? Is it a local affair? Is it for special people? Is it a fund-raiser? How does one get invited to such an event? I love your recipes and videos on line. I have learned a lot and my family and friends think I am becoming a gourmet cook. Thanks for the website. It is awesome.
Chris, Really enjoy your newsletter as it makes me feel like I’m there experiencing the small town life in VT. Also love your cookbook from ATK show. All the recipes I’ve made so far are winners and big hits with my friends! Keep you the good work.
Raised my three kids on a small farm in New Hampshire. We had it all – pigs, chickens, steers, horses, cats, dogs, geese, lambs and lots of vegetables – veg garden was bigger than my present house lot in MD. Love to read about your place and what your kids are doing. What a great life for a kid!!!
Hazardous driving conditions…..in late September, while traveling from Dorset to West Pawlet, at the junction of VT 315 / 153, I had swerve to miss a flying frisbee..it must have been a lunch break at the Rupert studio? Keep up the good work but watch out for traffic!!
If you ever get a recipe for venison ribs that is edible,please e-mail it to me.I hate to just throw them out,But don’t know how to make the fat taste good. Look’s like you already got all the good comments show,cooking,playing,etc. KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY. Good luck this season. stewing in Wappingers Falls JOE C
I’m a 68 yr old country-girl from Colorado but for the last 35 years have lived in the great Mojave Desert. I’ve never been to Vermont, but your letters connect with me and I feel like I’m one of you. I guess country is country, huh? I send your letters on to others who also enjoy them as if they were letters from home. Vermont is on my “bucket list” by the way. Love your show!
Boulder City, NV
Chris,
Your letters fom Vermont are the first things I open when it arrives in my email.. Have met you in person a couple of times in Mountain View… Love everything about Cooks….
glenda
Nice China-Rider. Love the newsletter and magazine too. I got every one since the first issue. Keep up the good work.
Why aren’t you on the cooking channel? Than I could watch the shows more than once. Just a thought. Love your newsletter. Joy
[…] Cook’s Illustrated Annual and Save 23%! Order Soups, Stews, & Chilis Cookbook and Save 30%! View Photos from my Annual Pig Roast Listen to and Download Pig Roast Orchestra Songs Look at Game-Camera Photo from Kimball Farm (Fox!) […]
I always enjoy seeing the pictures of your farm and life in Vermont–a real change from our desert area here. Ironically, we live in one of the seven largest agricultural producing counties in the country. It is Kern County in the Central Valley of California. If you like almonds, carrots, pistachios, pomegranates, peaches, plums, prunes, grapes, raisins and more, chances are that what you eat comes from here! I look forward to each issue of Cook’s and to your newsy letters on line. Thanks.
Bee
I forgot one very important commodity; Citrus. We raise lots of oranges here plus those wonderful little mandarin (Cuties) that everyone loves these days.
Bee
What a treat! Just think, your music will be brightening the days in California for many years to come. Thank you.
Delayed gratification . . . like enjoying a favorite item on my plate last, I read all my other mail first so I can relax and savor the letters from Vermont. To be momentarily transported by the imagery created by your words…masterfully spun!
Aren’t you full of surprises, too! Who would have thought you and the Test Kitchen ROCK! Thank you for sharing the music, and another delightful peek into who you are. Love the Pig Roast Orchestra!
Thanks very much for your updates. Really enjoy your human stories – like the fact that life is not always perfect and your down to earth stories and presentations are always believable.
We also like the detail you put into your cooking so someone can actually duplicate (at least try) .
Thanks very much for being “real”.
I’d never think Chris could jam like that!
Thank you for sharing your party. I enjoy seeing and hearing the fun!
Love both Cook’s Country and America’s Test Kitchen. I started out watching cooking on TV because my mother was a Julia Child fan and had on the French Chef every day in the afternoon. What’s great about your shows and magazines is the fact that I can duplicate exactly the recipe with great results! I also love the newsletter from Vermont you send and enjoy the pictures and videos. Being from the East End of Long Island, which is a very rural farming community, I can really relate with the goings on in Vermont. It’s a place I would love to visit at some time in my life, and it reminds me of home. Thanks for sharing it with all of us! Keep up the great work!
I’ve loved the “Letters from Vermont” for some time and am frequently amazed at the crossroads where I feel a kinship with Christopher and the Cooks Illustrated crew. I grew up on a cattle ranch in Oklahoma where we had a big vegetable garden and pigs and chickens roamed free. Coyotes, racoons, and skunks were predators we defended the chickens against. Deer were not present in NW Oklahoma in the 1950’s and 1960’s when I was a boy at home, but now they are numerous enough to be pests. Same with wild turkeys. I left after college when Uncle Sam needed my services during Vietnam and ended up in California after discharge. There I discovered the Grateful Dead and yet another crossroads intersects with Christopher. Great rendition of China Cat!
music good but could not understand most of the words – that’s how music is these days, the sounds drown out the words – but i love you guys and your newsletters – don’t stop doing what you do so well!
Hey Chris.
I think it’s time that your viewing public, indeed the entire world, is ready to see a pic of you from your Dead days, maybe posed in front of your ’61 Bus, or burnin’ one with your pals at a show….