How to be a douchebag, for dummies

Photo love: Flickr user Sarah Deer

Just order this and present to your server. Et voila! You are now officially a total asshat, just like “entrepreneur” Brad Newman. Real food and travel journalists thank you for continuing to make our livelihood more difficult.

Thanks to Eater for the story.

Read Full Post »

A fungal fall salad

A major haul in Colorado’s Lizard Head Wilderness. Those are not my hands…I may have eczema, but not man-hands.

Ever since I wrote a report on mushrooms in the fourth grade, I’ve been obsessed with fungi in all its glorious permutations. I spent many childhood hours tromping around after a rainfall, searching for elusive species. Yet, typical of my finicky palate at that age, I refused to even consider actually eating a mushroom. The horror.

Thankfully, things change, and some gluttons are made, not born.  I now enjoy eating wild mushrooms as much as I love foraging for them.

Although this recipe long predates an epic chanterelle harvest I did in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, it’s still my favorite way to showcase these meaty, woodsy-tasting golden mushrooms.  Hello, autumn.

WARM FINGERLING POTATO & CHANTERELLE SALAD

serves four as a starter

1 tablespoon + 1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 lb. fingerling potatoes, parboiled and drained, and cut into 1/2-inch slices

3/4 lb. chanterelle mushrooms, wiped clean and quartered if large, halved if smaller

1 medium shallot, minced

1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

1 tablespoon Champagne vinegar

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Parmigiano-Reggiano, for garnish

Heat a sauté pan over medium-high heat, then add 1 tablespoon unsalted butter and the olive oil.  When butter is foamy, add chanterelles and cook until golden and fragrant, about 5 minutes. Important: the first few minutes of cooking, the mushrooms will release their liquid- you must keep cooking until the liquid has absorbed and mushrooms begin to brown.

Add remaining half tablespoon butter, and sauté shallots and thyme with chanterelles for 1 minute.  Add potatoes to heat through, being careful not to break them up as you stir. Remove from heat.

Allow salad to cool in large bowl for several minutes, then add Champagne vinegar, more  olive oil, if needed, and salt and pepper to taste.  Garnish with shavings of Parmigiano-Reggiano. Serve warm.

©The Sustainable Kitchen 2001®

Read Full Post »

Attention foodies: “long pig” hottest new trend in fine dining

Do you pride yourself on being the first among your circle of foodie friends to eat at the hippest new eatery in town? Possess no less than 100 different opinions on “the right way” to prepare coffee? Hoard different varieties of sea salt?

“I’ll have the toddler tartare…”
Photo love: Flickr user WoogyChuck

Then you should know that, according to no less a culinary authority than Nancy Grace, homo sapiens is the next big thing to hit the restaurant radar.

Allegedly, David Viens, a “well-known” California chef and the owner of a “fine dining” establishment, murdered his wife (and hostess) and “slow-cooked” her for four days in a “human crockpot.”

Viens then discarded his wife’s remains in the restaurant’s grease pit. I wonder how he determined whether a braise was preferable over pit-roasting (the ancient Polynesians were, of course, masters at this).

A heartwarming tale of love, passion, and highly efficient cost-control.

Read Full Post »

Dear Diary…

Tony is thinking, “You should all buy this book.” Probably.

A conversation between myself and Anthony Bourdain:

Me: Tony? Would it be possible to take a picture with you?

Him: Of course.

Me: (shyly holding up my book) Um, would it be okay if I held this? I mean, it’s not like I’m asking you to endorse it or anything.

Him: Hey, as long as you hold it, man, that’s cool.

Me: Thank you so much, I really love your work.  I hope Seattle shows you a good time.

Him: (with sly smile) It always does.

Fin.

Update, Feb. 1, 2013: Click here to view Melrose Market segment. My ass makes a guest appearance in seconds 25-27, perusing the cheese counter at my former work, The Calf & Kid.

Read Full Post »

A brown butter cake that’s the bomb

I am so not a baker. I’m also of the school of thought that it’s either in your DNA or it isn’t, unlike cooking, which can be learned. Don’t believe me? A culinary arts degree, pastry internship at Chez Panisse, two years of employment at an Oakland bakery, and a brief stint filling in on pastry at The Providores & Tapa Room in London speak otherwise.

Raspberry Brown Butter Cake from “The Preservation Kitchen.”

Sure, I can make pretty decent quickbreads and cookies; I’ve even made a good cake or two. But when it comes to anything more complex that sifting and measuring, forget it. I can’t even ice a cake to save my life, despite the Nazi-like anal retentiveness of my European pastry instructor in culinary school.

At Chez Panisse, I managed to gain enough trust to be allowed to prep fruit and make truffles, but my tart-making privileges were quickly revoked. The last attempt I made at bread was nothing short of pathetic (I was also distraught after discovering that the 100-year-old sourdough starter I’d been given had exploded in my refrigerator…I’d killed history).

So I’m always in awe of people who can deftly crimp pie shells or turn out flaky croissants. When I first met my friend Kate Leahy, it was while working at aforementioned bakery. I was just a counterperson, which meant that I had to scale out cookie dough, make sandwiches, and fold tart boxes in my spare time (having failed at tasks that involved actual baking talent).

I would watch Kate–all five-foot-one of her–hucking around 10-quart mixing bowls for the standing Hobart mixer nearly as tall as she, or blithely crafting wedding cake roses out of fondant. She learned to bake “the old-fashioned way, through trial and error, but my parents were very kind, especially when I got carried away with the baking soda.”

On a totally random, but incredibly awesome side note, Kate lived in the Philippines as a young child, because of her dad’s job. She once told me about the time a sewer rat came up out of their home toilet, an incident that would leave me permanently constipated. In fact, that’s my worst nightmare, right after a cockroach nesting in my ear.

Apologies for interrupting a heartwarming food story with this image.
Photo love: Flickr user Rosebud23

After the bakery, Kate went on to culinary school, and has worked as a line cook at some of the nation’s most prestigious restaurants, including Radius (Boston), Terra (St. Helena), and A 16 (San Francisco). Then, not satisfied with conquering the savory side of things, she got an MS in Journalism at Northwestern.

After working as a food editor and freelancer for a number of years in Chicago, she co-wrote 2008′s IACP-winning A 16 Food + Wine cookbook (don’t let the other names on the cover tell you otherwise) and on April 3, her latest book, written with acclaimed Chicago chef Paul Virant (Vie), The Preservation Kitchen: The Craft of Making and Cooking with Pickles, Preserves, and Aigre-doux, was released.

Kate–I swear I’m not her publicist–also has another major cookbook coming out, SPQR: Modern Italian Food and Wine (SPQR is A 16′s sister restaurant), written in collaboration with co-owner Shelley Lindgren and executive chef Matthew Accarino; release date October 16.

Anyway. The point of all this is that Kate is awesome and talented and you should buy her book. What’s it about, you ask? I’ll let her describe it:

The premise behind the book is giving people a fresh way to think about preserves. We weren’t just concerned with providing recipes that challenge cooks to think beyond strawberry jam, but also giving readers ways to use the preserves in meals. When you can turn a pickle into a sauce or vinaigrette, it becomes much more than just a condiment. Paul summarizes his strategy like this: ‘I eat what I can and what I can’t, I can.’”

I asked Kate for a summery recipe and she generously provided me with a cake that even I can’t screw up. Now let’s see if she can solve my sewer rat issues.

To order Paul and Kate’s book, click here. For more about Kate, go to her website, A Modern Meal Maker.

 RASPBERRY BROWN BUTTER CAKE

Recipe from The Preservation Kitchen: The Craft of Making and Cooking with Pickles, Preserves, and Aigre-doux, by Paul Virant with Kate Leahy (Random House, 2012).

What separates this cake from similar creations is the brown butter, which gives it an almost savory edge, and the vanilla bean, which is infused into the hot butter. While delicious with tart, fresh raspberries, you also can make this cake with frozen cranberries and lemon zest in the fall and winter. A spoonful of summer berry jam added to the batter also works as a stand-in for fresh fruit.

Makes 1 cake

6 ounces salted butter

1 vanilla bean

1 cup sugar

½ cup all-purpose flour

3 eggs

1½ cup raspberries

1. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan or small rectangular pan.

2. Melt the butter in a pot over medium heat. Split the vanilla bean in half and scrape out the seeds with the tip of a spoon. Mix in the seeds and bean and continue to cook the butter until it browns. (It will turn amber in color and smell like toasting nuts.) Immediately take off the heat to prevent the butter from scorching. Remove the bean and reserve for another use. Cool the butter to room temperature.

3. In a medium bowl mix the sugar and flour together. Whisk in the eggs, and then drizzle in the butter. Scatter half of the raspberries in the bottom of the cake pan and pour the batter on top. Scatter the remaining raspberries on top. Bake for 35 minutesor until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean and the top no longer looks raw.

Read Full Post »

Building a better tomato: the logic according to BigAg

So today, the international team of scientists on the Tomato Gene Consortium (yes, that’s a real thing) have made headlines for what Reuters calls, cracking “the genetic code of the domesticated tomato and its wild ancestor, an achievement which should help breeders identify the genes needed to develop tastier and more nutritious varieties.”

“Nooo, not the gene-splicer!”

The article goes on to state that, “Tomatoes represent a $2 billion market in the United States alone, while in Britain the market for tomatoes is worth around 625 million pounds ($980 million) a year.”

Meanwhile, a similar think-tank at the University of Florida believes that the secret to a great-tasting tomato lies in “a dozen or so volatile compounds,” according to ABC Science. The scientific team “examined 152 types of ‘heirloom’ varieties to determine what makes the best-tasting tomato.”

The result findings are that a specific type of apocarotenoid (geek-speak for “organic compound”) makes tomatoes taste sweeter, rather than higher levels of sugar, as previously thought.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that “the team are now breeding tomatoes that produce more apocarotenoids to look for a genetic link to flavor. Explained one of the researchers, “Consumers care deeply about tomatoes. One could do worse than to be known as the person who helped fix flavor.”

Yes, one could do worse. Like be a scientist trying to justify needlessly fucking with our food supply in order to fulfill demand from BigAg, and wholesalers and retailers unconcerned with the effects of unnecessary GMO foods. Or do pointless things like genetically engineer hybrid tomatoes to taste like heirloom tomatoes.

The irony behind these statements and studies is that heirloom tomatoes–as well as other antique varieties of produce–first made a reappearance in the marketplace (aka farmers markets) because consumers longed for fruit that tasted like “the real thing,” and were increasingly accepting of the fact that out-of-season produce isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

In the last decade, heirloom tomatoes have gone about as mainstream as an heirloom crop–one that hasn’t been genetically altered with to withstand the rigors of long-distance transport and is bred for durability and shelf-life, rather than flavor–possibly can. Once found only at farmers markets, they now populate the produce department of even some mainstream grocery chains, for a premium price, of course (I’m not saying this is a bad thing).

Heirloom crops fell by the wayside in the early to mid-20th century, because they were bred for flavor, not looks or longevity. With the backlash in GMO foods came a revival of heirloom foods. This is in part due to the concern amongst small-scale farmers and savvy consumers that relying upon a handful of hybridized crops is a great way to destroy genetic diversity, and set us up for a global famine should disease or pesticide-resistance (thanks, Monsanto) result in widespread crop failure.

Why are scientists receiving funding that’s ultimately about destroying the progress small farms and the marketplace have made over the last decade?  There are many ways to use GMO”s for the good of humanity (increasing specific nutrient contents in crops grown in regions plagued by deficient soil, creating crops more resistant to drought, etc.), not wallet-padding.

[Photo love: Flickr user tankgirls]

Read Full Post »

Hunka hunka burger love

In honor of National Grilling Memorial Day, I’ve decided to rerun this post on how to make the most kickass burgers you’ll ever taste. Really. Happy holiday weekend!

I have Depression-era parents. That’s why I grew up eating freezer-burned heels of bread, and why there are spices in my mother’s pantry older than I am. One useful culinary thing Mom did teach me, besides making braising liquid for pot roast with Lipton’s Onion Soup mix (totally trailer, but so good), is to stretch my pennies by mixing egg and breadcrumbs into ground meat when I make hamburgers. Not only does this make for a lighter, juicier burger, but they taste pretty kick-ass when you liven up the grind with minced shallots, garlic, and chopped fresh herbs.

So, now that summer is finally here (yes, I realize it’s September but I live in Seattle), I thought I’d celebrate by firing up my metaphorical barbecue (I also live in an apartment at the moment), and share with you my tips for making a better burger.

*Remove your ground meat of choice from the fridge half an hour before you plan to make your burgers. You’re going to be adding stuff to it, and it will bind better if the meat isn’t too cold. Allow about one-and-a-half pounds for four people, depending upon what else you plan to serve. It’s always better to prepare too much than too little, and leftover burgers are great crumbled into stir-fries, pasta sauce, or scrambled eggs.

*Open a beer (personally, I prefer cocktails or wine but raw meat flecks and smeary fingerprints on glasseware is just not sexy).

*Dump the meat into a large bowl. Add one egg and one or two largish handfuls of panko or breadcrumbs; make them yourself with leftover bread or score some discounted day-old stuff from a bakery or local dumpster. Storebought stuff works, too. Add another egg if the mixture seems too dry. The point of these two ingredients is two-fold. The egg adds moisture and acts as a binding agent, while the breadcrumbs increase your yield and ensure your burger won’t end up festering in your colon for the next several months.

*Be sure to wash your hands after handling the egg and raw meat, and keep them separate from any utensils or ingredients you plan to use on raw food. E. coli is also not sexy.

*Add to meat one large shallot, minced, and at least three cloves of garlic, also finely minced. I always add a dash or four of soy sauce or Worcestershire, for added flavor. Throw in a handful of chopped Italian parsley or chives. Ground lamb with mint is also wonderful.

*Season to taste with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper and mix well using your hands until all the ingredients are fully incorporated. To determine if your seasoning is right on, fry up a pinch of the mixture. Form into one-and-a-quarter-inch-thick patties by scooping the meat into your hands and gently! patting them into shape. Resist the urge to fondle too much, as it will compact the meat, making for a dry, tough burger. If you make them slider-sized, you’ll be able to double fist, clutching burger in one hand and beer in the other. I may not like greasy glasses, but I’m a huge advocate of eating and drinking ambidextrously.

I always make a slight indentation in the center of each patty, because that’s what my mom did to prevent “shrinkage.” I have no idea if this is true or not, but it does make you look like a wise old kitchen sage. You can make the burgers up to a day ahead; if you’ve got a crowd, place a sheet of parchment paper or plastic wrap between layers to prevent them from glomming on to one another. Bring up to room temperature before grilling.

*Preheat your grill or flat-top. Have another drink while you’re waiting.

*When coals are ashy and white and you’ve got some flame going, lightly oil the grill using a damp rag dipped in cooking oil. If you’re using a pan, get it smoking hot and brown both sides of the meat for better flavor. Try to refrain from cooking past medium rare if you’ve thrown down cash for good meat.

*Toast your buns. Artisan or Wonder Bread, they’ll taste better and it will help prevent the condiments from making them soggy.

*One more drink. Eat. Enjoy. Make friends or significant other clean up.

Lamb makes great burgers, too!

Sourcing

Depending upon your budget and the state of your arteries, you can opt for lean ground beef (around the eight- to ten-percent fat range), or go big on something 20- to 25-percent fat. Hamburgers are not the place to skimp on fat–it’s a necessary component, whether you use ground chuck, sirloin, or round. I recommend grassfed- and -finished beef for health, humanity, and flavor reasons, but bear in mind it’s lower in fat and shouldn’t be cooked past medium-rare.
Chuck is the most popular and economical, and provides a good fat and flavor balance. When purchasing, look for a bright, pinky-red color, and if cellophane-wrapped, avoid anything gray, leaky, smelly, or otherwise bio-hazardous. Tempting as it may be to purchase the preformed, opaque-packaged, phallic “chubs,” refrain. Saving a few bucks isn’t worth eating gussied up pet food.

If you’re on a tight budget, however, even if you buy the $2.99/lb. ghetto
grind, it will be vastly improved by the addition of a truly great egg. Pasture-raised chickens snack on foraged bugs and decaying vegetation (Those of you with McNugget crumbs around your mouths shouldn’t look so horrified) and the results are exceptionally rich, orangey-yellow yolks packed full of all kinds of that healthy antioxidant crap. They’re a great, inexpensive protein source on their own, and so much better than pale, watery, flavorless commercial eggs that are god knows how old.

Bon appetit!

[Photo love: burger, Flickr user Adam Kuban]

Read Full Post »

Me, me, me.

Holy crap.  I wrote a book.

Or, as I like to call it, “Dairy Treats for ‘tards.”

It’s been a long journey and an incredible experience. I had no idea when I started this project that writing a cheese book would enable me to ace “Jeopardy” in my lazier moments. “What are Visigoths, Alex.”

Many thanks to my kick-ass co-author, Lassa Skinner, who helped save my sanity many, many times over, our star editor, Tracy Barr, and to culture magazine for presenting me this opportunity.

Buy now, and I’ll send you a personalized, signed copy. Woo! I’ll continue to post book tour info. here and on Twitter.

BOOK  EVENT SCHEDULE

August 4: American Cheese Society conference; Raleigh, NC, 10:30am

August 18: Boulder Wine Merchant; Wine and cheese pairing, book signing, 5-7pm.

September 16: Justice Snow’s Restaurant + Bar, Aspen; wine, cocktail and cheese pairing,  6pm.

October 3:  Book Passage, San Francisco; reading, artisan cheese tasting, and signing, 6pm.

October 11: Boulder Bookstore, Boulder, CO; reading, local artisan cheese tasting, and signing, 7:30pm.

Read Full Post »

Goat girl

People often ask what inspired me to become a food writer and cooking instructor. I think they expect to hear heartwarming recollections of a childhood spent beside my mother at the stove, and reminiscences of glorious holiday repasts, table groaning with the bounty from our garden. They anticipate my memories of milking goats, and tangy chevre on homemade bread for an after-school snack. They imagine my Russian grandmother frying latkes for breakfast (using eggs I’d collected from our flock of Rhode Island Reds).

And, to a certain degree, there is truth in these examples. Looking back, I’m quite certain my formative experiences with food are what shaped my career. But the reality is that, while I grew up on a small ranch, the daughter of a large animal veterinarian and a former barrel-racing-champion-turned-homemaker, my own culinary education had a few…inconsistencies.

I did watch my mom cook sometimes; she still has a way with instant mashed potatoes and cracks open a mean jar of Prego. Our neighbors had a garden, and at the age of ten, I established a roadside produce stand, yet Birds-Eye was still a staple at my own dinner table. The eggs I gathered each morning (when I wasn’t being held hostage in the henhouse by our sadistic asshole of a rooster) my mother whisked in a microwave-proof bowl, before being nuking them into rubbery oblivion. I was in college before I learned that scrambled eggs aren’t traditionally made in a microwave.

My paternal grandmother was the daughter of a Russian émigré. Grandma Miller possessed a heavy New York accent, and she was—my dad will agree—the worst cook this side of Minsk. The (real, not instant) potatoes in her latkes were an oxidized grey, the resulting pancakes flabby and greasy from improperly heated oil. Small wonder I was the pickiest eater on the planet, utterly exasperating my Depression-era parents who, let’s face it, were only trying to embrace the advent of convenience foods.

“What breed of dog am I, you ask?”

The one time my mom tried making yogurt and cheese from our goat’s milk (she was having an early 1970’s back-to-the-land moment), the results were not exactly edible. In retrospect, I don’t think she realized the milk required starter cultures. So we instead drank goat milk by the gallon, and in the process my family became huge caprine aficionados. We bred our Nubian doe, Go-Go, every year, and ended up keeping several of her doelings; the bucks we donated to Heifer Project International. For my part, I adored our goats. Even when I fed Go-Go an uninflated balloon, it was with the best of intentions (it was Easter, and I thought she’d appreciate its pretty pink color).

In sixth grade, I decided to follow in my older brother’s footsteps and raise goats for a 4-H project. I bounced out of bed each morning to milk Rose, a distant relative of the late Go-Go (who died of natural causes, not from ingesting peony-hued rubber). Despite my rural upbringing, our property was located in a peaceful canyon only a couple of miles from what is today a populous, yuppified bedroom community of Los Angeles. There were a few other families with children up the road, but I was the only one living on a ranch.

The rooms at Westlake Elementary School were packed with upper-middle-class, mostly white kids, and it turned out they didn’t share my  goaty enthusiasm. It was Jason Racinelli, a criminal in the making if ever there was one, who dubbed me “Goat Girl.” It was the first week of school, and as part of our “What I Did for Summer Vacation” oral reports, I’d waxed poetic about Rose and the wonders of lactation. If memory serves, I even passed around Dixie cups of her milk for my classmates to taste.

I was waiting for my mom to pick me up from school in our elderly, wood-paneled station wagon, when Jason appeared by my side. He looked me up and down, a sneer on his handsome face. “Hey Goat Girl,” he drawled, leaning in close and taking a long, exaggerated sniff. “You smell like a goat. Why would anyone want a goat, anyway? Why do you even go to this school? Why don’t you go back to your stupid farm?”

Mercifully, my mom arrived at that moment, but before I could escape to the safety of the car and the slobbery kisses of our three dogs, Jason yelled, “’Bye, Goat Girl! Don’t forget to wear your overalls tomorrow!”

I think it’s pretty safe to say that someone, somewhere, eventually kicked Jason Racinelli’s ass to Kingdom Come or incarcerated him. Unfortunately, before that could happen, I essentially became known as Goat Girl for the remainder of the year, and developed several nervous tics that abated only after we sold Rose and I instead concentrated on raising rabbits (fuzzy, rodent-like creatures were apparently on the list of “cool” pets to own). I don’t recall exactly when I allowed my goat obsession to resurface, but suffice it to say, I’m now a contributing editor at culture: the word on cheese and live in Seattle, one of the few cities in the U.S. that allows residents to keep backyard dairy goats.

So, while my somewhat dichotomous culinary upbringing played a large role in my career of choice, I usually opt for a shorter, easier, wholly truthful answer. “I became a food writer because when I was eight years old and walking my brother’s goat at the county fair, a middle-aged man asked me, “What type of dog is that?” It was at that moment I realized: most people don’t have a fucking clue where their food comes from.”

Thanks, Mom and Dad. And yeah, you too, Jason Racinelli.

Read Full Post »

The mysteries of the universe

Jason Kessler of The Nitpicker addresses one of life’s greatest hypocrisies: that vegan food is frequently unhealthy. No word on why it often tastes like crap.

Photo love: Flickr user nyxie

Coming soon: why many vegetarians don’t consider eating real bacon cheating, and the reason vegetarian and vegan restaurants and food producers feel the need to emulate meat products (Exhibits A and B: Tofurkey and Tofu Pups).

P.S. Just to show that I’m open-minded, I once dated a vegan for several months. My sister-in-law wanted to know, “How do they feel about oral sex?”

I kiss, but I never tell…

Read Full Post »