Like father, like daughter

If there’s any question as to where I get my anti-vegan proclivities from, bear in mind I grew up on a ranch, the daughter of a large animal veterinarian/former wrangler from the Southwest.

Why yes, I did help butcher this.

That said, big, honkin’ hunks of raw meat aren’t necessarily the best diet for your beloved dog or cat. My dad and I give you the, uh, skinny, on OrganicAuthority.com.

Happy belated Father’s Day, Dad!

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Bourbon, bacon, and badass ski towns

Ryan Dunfee, the editor at Curbed Ski, has made my week, because he’s left town. No offense, Ryan–you seem like a decent guy. But I’m happy you’re out on assignment, because you made me your fill-in.

Photo love: Flickr user gregor_y

That’s right, folks. I’m putting out this week, on behalf of the “Insider Intelligence for the Great North American Ski Towns.” I’m honored, and having a blast. Think drinking bourbon in the name of research, and dissing frat boys. Tune in throughout the week for more ski-tastic news, tips, gossip, crazy-expensive real estate listings , and lifestyle reports.

P.S. Congrats to Jason Harrison (Flame, Four Seasons Vail), Cochon 555 Vail’s newly-crowned Prince of Porc. I was fortunate enough to be one of the judges last night, and my arteries and liver (see aforementioned bourbon) will never be the same. Countdown to the Grand Cochon June 16, at the FOOD & WINE Classic in Aspen! Get your tix here.

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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.

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Enter the “Goat Man”

You just can’t make this shit up.

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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.

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Calgon, take me away…

Raw foodists really have it tough.

Too soon?

Photo love: zombiesurvivalcourse.com

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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]

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Give it up for the geoduck: a clamming adventure

Ever had the urge to eat a sea creature that resembles a giant, uncircumcised penis?* No? You have no idea what you’re missing out on.

Read all about my day digging for geoduck clams on Seattle’s Olympic Peninsula right here!

*At a recent dinner with friends, my friend Laura, who was deep into a bottle of wine, said, “Hey, tell Maryann about, whaddaya call it? Digging for dicks! That’s a great story.”

[Photo love: Langdon Cook]

Got geodick…er, duck?

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“Everything but the squeal”

Here’s a groovy little video of butcher Tom Mylan breaking down a side of pork into various subprimal cuts, aka “slab bacon, ham, chops, tenderloin…”  The clip is a promo for the iPad guide, The Better Bacon Book: Make, Cook, and Eat Your Way to Cured Pork Greatness (Open Air Publishing).

Photo love: Flickr user johnmuk

I haven’t seen said book because I’m a modern-day Luddite. But I do know that bacon makes everything better, and far be it from me to withhold such information from the masses.

If you’ve never seen a side of meat broken down, I also recommend checking out Mylan at work: he’s more methodical than what you’ll see at your average pig comp butchery showdown, so you can really get an idea of how half a swine becomes your dinner. Happy cracklin’s!

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A horse is a horse…

My mom and I were reminiscing the other day when I mentioned Cocoa, a Shetland pony we briefly had when I was four.

“You remember Cocoa?” she asked.

“Sure. We sold her to the Olafssen’s.”

This was my best friend Ingrid’s family down the street. Her dad Leif was a jolly, strapping fellow and Swedish immigrant; they had about a million kids.

Mom: Yes, well, we gave her to them. She was permanently lame, so that’s why we had to get rid of her. And then, of course, Leif was going to eat her.”

Me (incredulous): Say what?

Mom: He was planning to feed her to the family. Dad didn’t know that when they took her. He just thought they wanted a pet.

Me: Mr. Olafssen was going to cook Cocoa?

Mom: Well, he asked Dad how long it would take to fatten her up enough to feed the family.

Me: Oh, come on. Leif was always kidding around. I’m sure he was joking.

Mom: Nooo…he grew up eating horse meat, and he had a lot of kids, so he was just being practical. Dad told him, “I think you’d better talk to your family about that idea, first.”

This, of course, led me to wonder what would have happened if Mr. Olafssen had actually carried out his unholy plan. I’d burst in their front door, as I did every afternoon. “Hey Ingrid! Let’s go visit Cocoa!”

“Um…..how ’bout a ’roast beef’ sandwich?”

The first time I realized that horses may be something other than beloved family pets/forms of transportation occurred when I was ten. My dad—equine vet, breeder of Quarter horses and mules—had taken a sabbatical and my mom, brother, and I were spending the summer in Europe, traveling around in a borrowed, pea-green VW camper van.

We had just arrived in Paris, and were wandering the Left Bank in search of a suitable place for dinner (meaning, an establishment that served french fries, because that’s one of the few foods I deemed acceptable at the time).

I was dawdling behind my family, taking in the strange Parisian sights, sounds, and smells. I heard a racket coming from a brightly-lit shop with a wide glass window and open doorway. And that’s when I saw it. I was looking straight into the back room of a boucherie chevaline, where a freshly-dispatched bay horse–hide, mane, tail, and all–dangled by its right hind leg from a hook on the ceiling. It was so big, its velvety nose nearly scraped the ground. A portly man in a white apron and rubber boots stood next to the carcass with a large knife, ready to do unspeakable things.

I stood, frozen, on the sidewalk; I probably resembled a midget version of “The Scream.” Then my parents yelled at me to hurry up, and I ran after them, too traumatized to mention what I’d seen. It didn’t help when, while they perused a menu minutes later, I alone noticed a gentleman emerging from yet another boucherie (was Paris nothing but dead animals?). The furry, comically large feet and hind legs of a hare protrouded from a paper bag in his hand (I also raised champion show rabbits–not for the table–at the time, so this added yet another session to my metaphorical therapist’s couch).

Photo love: Flickr user triplexpresso

Allow me to explain: I wasn’t in the least bit disturbed by the concept of eating horse, and I’d actually had rabbit before. What bothered me was seeing these creatures in such a raw, primal (aka dead) state. While a whole lamb carcass wouldn’t have caused me to bat an eye, there’s something very disturbing about seeing a 1,200 pound horse on a hook. Ditto the intact hare; as an American, even one who lived on a ranch, I had a hard time identifying with the purchase of something resembling road kill for dinner.

I’ve always been very matter-of-fact about meat; I think it comes not just from traveling as a child, but from assisting my dad with necropsies of his former patients from the age of about eight on. A good time was Dad and I, dissecting one of my rabbits, trying to figure out what mysterious circumstances had caused her to keel over and die in the night. Boast-worthy was overseeing the necropsy of Lynda “Wonder Woman” Carter’s pet pony (for some reason, my classmates didn’t think it as cool as I did).

No, my issues with meat have and always will lie with the treatment of said animal in life and handling before what should be a quick, merciful death. But that’s a whole other topic altogether.

What I really want to address is horse meat. Viande chevaline, basashi (think horse sashimi ), or lo’i ho’osi (Tongans apparently do have an appetite for meat other than SPAM); whatever you call it in your country of origin, the fact remains that much of the EU, Central Asia, Latin America, and Japan have the good sense to eat horse. It’s delicious, with a slightly sweet flavor and bright red color, lean and low in cholesterol. Why the hell can’t Americans get onboard with the other red meat?

Blame anthropomorphism and our fervent equestrian culture. Horse meat had a brief domestic moment in World War II, when beef prices rose and supply dwindled. By the eighties, however, it was no longer okay, even if purchased for “pet food,” and in 1998, California Proposition 6 outlawed horse meat and slaughter for human consumption.

When I was growing up, however, there was a well-known horse abbatoir in Chino, in Orange County. As with many countries that don’t consume horse meat, the U.S. still slaughtered them (the old and sick, as well as retired racehorses and wild horses and burros) for export to countries that do, although the meat was also used to feed zoo animals. In 2007, the last horse slaugtherhouse in the U.S., in DeKalb, Illinois, was shut down by court order, and that was that–but new legislation suggests that horse slaughter could soon become legal again Stateside.

But hold your horses (sorry). Is this a good thing? The result of these closures means that there’s no outlet–humane or otherwise–for horses that can no longer be used for work or pleasure. Few people can afford to keep horses as pets due to age, illness, or injury, and horse rescues are at capacity or struggling to find funding. It’s also necessary to thin wild horse and burro populations to keep them sustainable (as well as protect their habitat from overgrazing and erosion); starvation and predation are cruel deaths. Fortunately, these animals are protected species and legally can’t be sent to slaughter, so they’re put up for adoption. The downside? What happens to aging and unsound animals, now that rescues and sanctuaries are at capacity and struggling for funding?

I’m not disputing the lack of humanity previously displayed by auctions and transport companies taking horses to slaughter. Fortunately, the 1996 federal Farm Bill mandated more humane conditions. Unfortunately, it didn’t go into effect until 2001.

Humane treatment aside, the loss of horse abbatoirs is a divisive issue. I’m of the opinion that it’s unbeneficial and inhumane to not have an outlet for surplus horses. This, of course, assuming the transport and facility abide by regulations; I’m also not a fan of large abbatoirs, which I believe cause undue stress to the animal.

Isn’t it ultimately more kind to put an end to their suffering, and make good use of the meat? Proponents frequently make the comparison to the millions of dogs and cats that are euthanized daily in the U.S., because their owners were too irresponsible or lazy to spay or neuter. Where do these sad creatures end up? Cremated. What a waste, in all regards.

“Right,” I hear you saying. “As if you would eat dog or cat [assuming it hadn't been euthanized and was fit for human consumption]!”

Actually, I have eaten dog, and it’s really not a big deal…with the glaring exception of how those animals are raised and treated. But as a food and travel journalist, I also have a job to do, and at times, that means your personal ethics need to keep their big fucking mouth shut.

It never fails to amaze me when “food writers” refuse to eat what’s put in front of them simply because they find it personally distasteful. Allergies are one thing, but a refusal to at least taste is a. rude, and b. lacking in journalistic integrity. Have religious limitations? Then you probably shouldn’t be food writing for the general public.

The incident that led me to this opinion occurred on the final night of a very high-end press junket to Parma, Italy. One of the city’s finest restaurants had organized a special dinner for our group, to commemorate the anniversary of the Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano. The chef had prepared a set menu: ten courses of Parmigiano-enhanced regional foods, specifically chosen to impress and show us what Emilia-Romagna was all about.

The seventh course was fileto di giovani cavallo, a rosy filet of young horse. As our trip organizer translated what was being served, an uneasy silence fell over the table.  “My Friend Flicka is on the menu?” asked an editor, her voice trembling. Within minutes, eleven of my twelve tablemates had requested beef as a substitute. I was mortified.

Believe it or not, Seabiscuit tasted pretty damn good.

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