A veggie posting today on The Meat, and a bit late, but I had a rough week of work. In fact, this past week, besides my wife and kids, pretty much only three things made me feel good about the world:
A single Friday night martini.
A birthday cake I made in the shape of a fish for my daughter.
Homemade chana masala.
You can figure out the martini on your own, and the "fish-cake" is a state secret I cannot share, but here's my take on number three.
CHANA MASALA
2 15.5 oz cans chick peas 1 tsp cumin seeds 1 medium onion, chopped 2 tsp ground coriander 1/2 tsp ground turmeric 1 tsp garam masala 1/2 tsp salt 2 toes garlic, minced 1" nub of ginger, minced 1-1/2 cups water (or beer) 3 tbsp tomato paste 1 tbsp lemon juice 1/4 tsp cayenne
Rinse beans in cold water and drain. In a saucepan, toast cumin seeds, stirring, several minutes till fragrant. Add onion with a splash of oil and saute till translucent. Lower heat and add garlic, ginger, coriander, turmeric, garam masala, and salt. Cook/stir for 30 seconds. Add water/beer, and tomato paste. Mix and bring to a boil. Add beans, lemon juice, and cayenne. Stir, cover, and cook over medium for 15–20 minutes, or until beans are soft. Stir occasionally. If too dry, add a little more water/beer.
My recent rant against The New Mixology notwithstanding — and with holiday feasting and revelry soon upon us — I thought it important to pass along the single greatest party drink recipe of all time. I sincerely hope you do enjoy... the Bourbon Slush...
Ingredients:
7 cups water 3 cups bourbon 12 oz frozen lemonade (concentrate) 6 oz frozen orange juice (concentrate) 1 cup sugar 2 cups strong tea (4 regular or decaf tea bags steeped in 2 cups water)
Mix:
Mix all ingredients a day ahead and place in freezer. Stir every 6–8 hours. The booze will keep the mixture from freezing solid, and the stirring breaks up the slow-to-form ice to create a slush.
Serve:
Scoop some slush into a glass and top with ginger ale. Dig.
A Martini is a simple drink that features a splash of dry vermouth and a jigger of gin. It's made in a cocktail shaker with ice, and served either up or on the rocks, garnished with olives. If specified, a twist of lemon can be substituted or added as garnish. A Martini that substitutes a cocktail onion as garnish is called a Gibson. That's what a Martini is; end of story.
And yet.
Since, say, the mid-'90s, cocktail joints all around the world would have you believe that a Martini is anything served "up" in a Martini glass. So, onto the scene came countless "Appletinis" and "Chocotinis" and Idiotinis ad infinitum, with booze producers lending plenty of encouragement, ginning up countless flavored vodkas and the like. Thus began The New Mixology.
Nowadays, cocktails have their own menus, ingredients upwards of
five and six, and prices upwards of $10. What, with the free-flowing, easy money gone, it's not enough anymore to
serve those fruitily vacant late-'90s so-called 'tinis. We
have moved on to subtlety and supposed mixological artistry, in an
effort to justify the high-priced cocktail in a down economy. Bars worth their fleur de sel now stock multiple bottles of flavored bitters, special house infusions, unmarked essences, and tinctures of all types.
Bygone mid-shelf mixers like Chartreuse, Dubonnet, and Bénédictine are back in
vogue. And with them, a veritable witch's cauldron-like miasma of
ingredients both flowery and savory: agave, hibiscus, elderflower,
cucumber, pomegranate, peach nectar, blueberries, mocha, cinnamon, eye of
newt, ear of toad, etc.
Everyone's gotta be an artistchef molecular chemist these days?
If such new drink menu results were universally spectacular, I might not have a bad word to say about this thing, but I tasted an unironic cocktail recently that strongly reminded me of Yoo-Hoo. Only $9 more expensive. Might as well stay home and make yourself a Laverne DiFazio milkshake for that kind of cheddar.
Back in the late '80s and early '90s, I spent a few summers tending bar at an upscale Italian place in an upscale summer destination town. I came from a school of no-fuss bartending (call it the Don Draper school). Ice, booze, possibly a mixer; end of story. That's the way my family drank — and still does — and that's the way I worked the bar, serving up mainly Martinis, Manhattans, Bloody Marys, the occasional Gimlet or Old Fashioned.
I made drinks properly, but I was old school. When I called myself a "mixologist," I did so tongue in cheek. I was willing to muddle an Old Fashioned, but if some chirpy young thing wanted a "frozen" Daquiri, even on a dead night, I would apologize that "Sorry, the blender's broken." A Daquiri is a basic drink (lime, rum, sour, as I made it), and I made it simply and quickly, without dirtying a blender I would later have to clean.
There's an old saying that a drink should have no more than two ingredients; ice is an ingredient.
There's another old saying that Martinis are like breasts (one's not enough; three is too many). But I digress.
It was the end of the '80s after all, so I was faced with the occasional order for a Long Island Iced Tea — which, in fact, is a fantastic drink to make. Drinking it's another story. But it's a bartender's drink. Five liquors in it, and yet it can be mixed faster than a simple Martini. Because those five clear liquors live right in the "well" behind the bar — all within reach, all right next to each other — in bottles with pourers, and along with the sour mix can be poured two at a time in three easy installments.
For me, bartending was about a certain amount of style and finesse, but it was more about professionalism and efficiency. People at a bar are thirsty people. And people at a restaurant bar are thirsty, hungry people. Yet, it would seem that we present-day bar-sitters are presumed to be patient patrons of the meditative arts.
Slow Food? Sure. But what we're now seeing amounts to a Slow Booze movement. Because it takes precious time to hand-crush ice to order, use middle- and top-shelf bottles without pourers, add extracts with eyedroppers, singe the peels of organic blood oranges, and so on.
Sure, this could all be a fad. But restaurant fads can linger for ages. The faux-Polynesian influx of the '50s and '60s stuck around well into my 1970s youth — and, arguably, still has a hand in today's nonsense. And even with fading fads, certain details stick around, undead. Out went the mid-'90s swing-dance moment, but the shiny, happy cocktails stuck with us, and spawned offspring.
And now we're in the era of celebrity drink consultants who get paid to revamp cocktail menus. Please. Spare me. Call a spade a spade. And don't overcharge me for it.
Hey bartender! I've done your job and prided myself on it. But it's neither rocket (nor food) science. Now get your ass down to my end of the bar. My glass is empty.
Shortly after food became not about nutrients but nutritionism, food became about chefs, and restaurants became about not the diners themselves, but the dining experience. Blame it on globalization, the excess of the '90s, cable TV and the Food Network, the advent of the chef as celebrity, but this food moment is here to stay awhile. Needless to say, a pox is upon us.
With all due feigned humility, the menu...
ABOUT THE CHEF
The chef is youngish, but old enough; good-looking, but not too good-looking — camera-ready in a working kitchen sort of way. The chef has a food Philosophy. The chef uses only fresh, seasonal ingredients, sown and reaped by hydroponically-grown local virgins. Relax. The chef and staff will take care of you for the next hour and forty-five minutes until our next reservation; enjoy our soul-free "housemade" delicacies, exquisitely-chosen modifiers, and gratis italics Française e Italiano. You, dear friend, are in the hands of a maestro.
Chef's Whim 12-Course Seasonal Tasting Experience
Available Monday through Tuesday, for groups of ten or more; please book two weeks in advance
SALADS AND SMALL PLATES
Deconstructed Caesar Salad We supply the head of Romaine, croutons du hier soir, anchovies, raw egg, olive oil, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and garlic; you do the rest
Simple Salad Mesclun greens with fresh market figs, macerated pomegranate seeds, applewood-smoked bacon, and spiced nuts in a champagne balsalmic mignonette with toasted elephant garlic chips and a three-cheese (cow, sheep, goat) foam
House Charcuterie Plate (Because these days, how can we not?) With herb-infused-then-salt-cured olives stuffed with pickled smoked pimientos, candied mustard fruit, and house giardiniera
Poor Country Street Food Cultural food-slumming po' boy du jour with house-pickled red herring
Bohemian Bacalao Sliders Salted fish that has subsequently been soaked in water to de-salinate it (since preservation by salt is no longer necessary in this age of refrigeration) and served in ironic White Castle fashion
Rillettes des Vegetables With toast points and artful shmears of jus de quelque choses
Deviled Eggs Flight Tastes of the world meet American Midwest family picnic
Shrimp Mousseline With crême fraiche on hand-carved spoons of Belgian endive
House Signature Confit of Thusandsuch It is the chef's Philosophy to honor the farm-raised animals that give their lives for our pleasure by using as much of them as we can; with hand-cut liquid nitrogen potato chips
SLIGHTLY BIGGER PLATES
Locally-Raised Obscure Heritage Fowl (say, Happy Farms West African Pearl Guinea Hen) Served with further unnecessary adjectives and young vegetables
Steak Frites Grass-fed hanger steak with pink and green peppercorns, just-so demi-glace drizzle, and ubiquitous duck fat pommes de terre
Perfunctory Vegetarian Option Terrine of roasted farm-fresh petites vegetables de saison with farro and adjective adjective local dairy producer cheese
Dayboat Fish of the Moment This year's hip fish (Chilean Sea Bass, Bigeye Tuna, ad nauseum), crusted with toasted Central American whole grains and served rare with a splash of house-infused spirit of the moment
Hand-Rolled Pasta Lightly pan-toasted vegetable spice tagliatelle with salt-cured meat and foraged mushrooms, topped with a gently poached organic egg, and shaved herb cheese
OVERPRICED SIDES
White asparagus with chlorophyll foam Roasted root vegetables with house-candied nuts Seared small leaves with smoked pork fat Twice-buttered tubers (with crustacean, add Market Price) Duck fat pommes de terre
DESSERT PLATES
Hyperbole by Chocolate Seriously, you will "die" if you eat this
Market Tarte Tatin de Saison Butter-fed fruits du chef du monde
Housemade Ice Cream Two flavors, like blood orange and rosewater, or cumin seed and green tea, that are individually somewhat interesting but do not actually taste good together
Artisanal Farmhouse Fromagerie Plate Surprisingly small amounts of perfect, hand-selected cheese, served with minute housemade crackers and fruit paste de España
My tastes in booze are fairly well established. I like wine, I like beer, I like liquor.
But only certain varieties of each, and I like my drinks to compliment both
whatever food I'm having, as well as the weather.
Just as we in New England don't drink much lemonade past September, so too does our gin and tonic consumption dwindle. As the weather turns from not-quite-summer to fall, our tastes follow — from light to heavier (or in the case of beer, from light to dark). Gone are the hot and humid days of lime and roses, and in are the crisp, substantial days of Octoberfest beers and such.
I'm not angling for TWM readers to buy me drinks (though I'm certainly not against it either), but my personal preferences are shown below. I started the chart as a way of exploring the premise that the year had two distinct drinking seasons, with "summer" being roughly from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and "not summer" being the rest of the year. Maybe the change is a bit more subtle than that, but there is arguably a shift in places that have clearly-defined (by the weather, if not the calendar) seasons.
In the summer, we add smoky, wood-fueled flavor to our meals in the form of outdoor grilling. In the winter, we do so in the form of whiskey — shifting the bottles around our fridge and liquor cabinet. At the moment, gin and vodka to the back, scotch and bourbon to the front.
I have my guilty pleasures: The simple but delicious rum and orange
juice I sometimes fix myself — seasons be damned (in the summer, it fits, and during not summer, I justify it as vitamin C); and while Jimmy McNulty might not like my choice of Irish whiskey, it holds a cherished place on my shelf during the
cold and flu season.
I don't list wine, because it doesn't seem to change quite so seasonally. I try to pair it well with food, and often succeed, but it would take more knowledge and a more discerning palate for me to notice or even plan any change from one season to the next.
In any case, I know what I like. I don't drink light beer for the same reason I don't eat light cheese — because neither tastes like the real thing. I don't drink tequila for a wholy different reason; one that has to do with being young, and, well, puking.
There's a lot of list-making happening over on the Facebook these days, some of which has carried over to the blogosphere — occasionally, to good effect. Along those lines, and in any case, the following are ten foods that changed my life — in order.
1. Applesauce — Until I was embarrassingly old to be doing so, I used applesauce as salad dressing. My mom was big on us eating greens every night, and we kids weren't exactly veggie crazy, so the salads. But I never liked dressing — not even fat-laden "Russian" or "Thousand Island" that Wishbone was so fond of in the '70s. I did like applesauce though, and it turned iceberg lettuce into something not quite "salad," which I liked.
Finally, on a long backwoods canoeing trip when I was 16, I was sufficiently hungry enough to eat anything, and I discovered "Zesty Italian" dressing did the trick and that salad wasn't all bad. I've since branched out to a myriad of dressings (still no fan of "Russian" or "Thousand Island" though), and never have gone back to the 'sauce. Still like it on its own though.
2. Fig Newtons — Perhaps my first love. Sweet without being cloying, chewy yet soft, fruity and exotic (I never saw an actual fig until much, much later) yet whitebread and mundane. The perfect cookie.
As a kid, I'd eat six to eight of these a day and wonder why I had stomach trouble. The answer occurred to me while I was doing a play years later in college. There was a milk and cookies scene required and the actress I was working with and I decided that we both liked Fig Newtons. We didn't figure on quite so much rehearsing. Suffice to say, I don't think either of us felt great after splitting a box of Newtons and a half gallon of milk.
3. Pasta —When I was young, I'd tell my mom I wanted to eat pasta every day. Now, as a grown-ass man, I often do. And it's damn satisfying. Comforting and carbolicious at its most basic, but capable of supporting nearly any taste you throw at it.
4. Cheese — Whether on pizza, or solo, cheese is my constant, my love, my weakness, my habit, my addiction. As my tastes have matured, so has the U.S. cheese market, and what's fresh and available locally these days is a far cry from the orange pasteurized process cheese food product of yesteryear (not that the Whiz doesn't have its place).
5. Sliced bread — Oh, sliced bread, let me count the ways. You make possible the mighty sandwich — and without the constant quest for the ultimate sandwich, life would be boring. From peanut butter jelly time to Vietnamese báhn mì, the sandwich reigns supreme. And sliced bread makes it happen.
6. Salsa — There are two kinds of junk food people — those who like sugar, and those who like salt. I like salt. The thought of downing a pint of ice cream, say, sickens me. But put me in front of a bag of tortilla chips and some nice salsa, and it's good night, Irene.
In some ways, salsa and chips were my entrée into the world "ethnic" food — back when "ethnic" meant Chinese, Italian, or — if you lived in the big city, like I did — Mexican. But Mexican expanded my taste horizon by getting me into the capsaicin arena, which led me to insanely hot stir fries, to curries, to hot and sour soups, and on. And as my tastes expanded, so did availability, to the point now where I am an easy walk from excellent Brazilian, Peruvian, Thai, Indian, Korean, Salvadoran. And I frequent them all.
7. Beer — I've posted on beer before, and I'll probably do so again. Like most things on this list, it took a long time to come around to it, and longer still to appreciate the differences between the good, the bad, and the ugly. What I lack in quantity these days I make up for in quality, and there is some damn wonderful stuff to be had out there at the local these days — and not just the Belgian beer emporiums (though I dig them too).
8. Tomatoes — Tomatoes were the first "vegetable" I really learned to love (this, despite the fact that they're technically a fruit). Sad as it is to say, this love affair did not begin until I was halfway through college. I was tending bar in a great northern Italian restaurant, and when the waitstaff and I would get hungry around 10:00, we'd often just butter up some warm bread and top it with a thick slice of ripe tomato. It was the perfect and ever-available snack.
Nowadays, we grow our own, and there is nothing more perfect than plucking a fresh one off the vine in the backyard, and slicing yourself a chunk while it's still warm from the sun. Possibly my favorite thing about summer.
9. Basil — One of the easiest and most useful herbs to grow. Basil has taught me patience in the kitchen, and the tinkering needed to perfect an oft-made dividend-paying recipe like pesto — the mortar and pestling of which was arguably my first foray into the world of slow food.
10. Fish — And finally, the most grown-up food on my list. And damn tasty when done any number of the right ways. The cholesterol-lowering, heart-healthy protein meant to undo a decade of crappy eating and to keep me alive for the second half of my life. But for fish sticks, I hated it as a kid; love it as an adult. From fish and chips at the pub to Cajun catfish to broiled sea bream to grilled bluefish to raw maguro. When it's fresh, it's nearly all good.
"Pizza is like sex," the saying goes. "When it's good, it's very good. And when it's bad, it's still pretty good." To which let's just say a quiet "Amen."
I've written before about my — er — struggle with cheese addiction. And pizza is my near-daily nip.
Hot, melted cheese is pretty much one of the tastiest things that ever met a mouth. And when it melds with a nice, simple red sauce, it gets exponentially better. The salt, the sweet, the heat. Mercy. Put the two atop perfectly crisped yet slightly chewy dough, and a beer to wash it down, well then — simple as it may be — we're not just talking sex, we're talking sex with old school Madonna with a side of Psilocybin.
II. Style
New York — The standard here on the East Coast (pic at right, below). Fold a slice in half. Take a bite. Repeat.
Greek — Growing up in Philly, we used to call this a "Boston-style" pie. The crust has some oil to it, so it crisps up in the pan and the edges have a bit of pastry-like flaky crunchiness. The cheese medley is generally a bit more salty (less mozzarella and more parm/romano), and cooked till slightly browned on top.
Sicilian — Thick crust pizza cooked in rectangular pans.
California — Uppity pie with non-traditional ingredients like barbecued chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese, scallions, arugula, etc. "Not that there's anything wrong with it."
Brick oven — When done well, my favorite. Tends toward irregular-shaped pies, with thinnish, crispy crust, and an emphasis on the high-heat cooking technique.
Chicago deep dish — The lasagna of pizzas. When it's good, it's very good; when it's bad, it's more disappointing than the meh "good" of a traditional pie.
Northern Italian — Very thin crust, so it cooks up quickly and is not as filling as a standard pie. Order one per person, and with no more than one topping.
III. Eyeballing
It can be a delicate thing. The taste from one slice — or even one bite — to another, can be inherently fleeting, as the pizza goes from scalding and soupy to cool and coagulated. One bite perfect, and the next twenty spent trying to recapture that fleeting glory.
I maintain that I can tell what a slice will taste like just by looking at it. Whether a bad cafeteria slice with cardboard crust, cloying sauce, and stratified cheese; a boxed Wolfgang Puck between flights; a perfectly reheated late-night "slab"; a pie made from reserved dough; or grilled sausage nirvana at the bar with a couple of pops.
If you're making your own dough, use fresh yeast (can be in a packet, just not old), and make sure you're mixing it with water that's hot enough (recipe below).
Dust the peel with flour and/or corn meal to allow the raw pie dough to slide off it, onto the stone.
Preheat the oven as hot as it will go (500–550°F).
Take the batteries out of the smoke detector and banish small children from the kitchen.
Lay down mozzarella first, then sauce, then grate a hard cheese (e.g., parmigiano) on top.
Keep "toppings" minimal and construct the pie quickly once you've got the dough on the peel.
V. The Dough
I spent a year or so tinkering with this recipe, trying different ratios of various flours (white, Italian "00", wheat, and rye) to get the right consistency, workability, and taste. You should do the same. Of course, if you want to just try mine, I break up the two cups of flour as follows:
1 C "00"
3/4 C white
1/4 C rye and whole wheat mix
The "00" flour is very fine, and I found it needed a bit more body, so I added some white flour. The rye and whole wheat are in there for taste and tooth.
VI. Rolling
I give you the following piece of celluloid brilliance, via Serious Eats.
Thanks to Dean Clean for steering me to this excellent social exercise in Omnivorous braggadocio cataloging. And not a moment too soon — as I am juggling three meatier posts and was hoping to serve somewhat lighter fare this week....
I’ve eaten 68/100. I’ll skip 4. Looking forward to (most of) the other 28.
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea 3. Huevos rancheros 4. Steak tartare 5. Crocodile[Alligator] 6. Black pudding 7. Cheese fondue 8. Carp 9. Borscht 10. Baba ghanoush 11. Calamari 12. Pho 13. PB&J sandwich 14. Aloo gobi 15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses [possible, but not sure] 17. Black truffle 18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes 19. Steamed pork buns 20. Pistachio ice cream 21. Heirloom tomatoes 22. Fresh wild berries 23. Foie gras 24. Rice and beans 25. Brawn, or head cheese 26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper 27. Dulce de leche 28. Oysters 29. Baklava 30. Bagna cauda 31. Wasabi peas 32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi 34. Sauerkraut 35. Root beer float 36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea 38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O 39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail 41. Curried goat 42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk 45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more 46. Fugu 47. Chicken tikka masala 48. Eel 49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut 50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone 54. Paneer 55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal 56. Spaetzle 57. Dirty gin martini 58. Beer above 8% ABV 59. Poutine
60. Carob chips 61. S’mores 62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst 65. Durian [Okra]
66. Frogs’ legs 67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis 69. Fried plantain 70. Chitterlings, or andouillette 71. Gazpacho 72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie 78. Snail 79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini 81. Tom yum 82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant 85. Kobe beef 86. Hare 87. Goulash 88. Flowers 89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate 91. Spam 92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa 94. Catfish 95. Mole poblano 96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor 98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake
When we refer to the "back 40," at our house, we mean our 40 feet of backyard. Still, it's an oasis in this here city outside of a big city, and we dig it — both figuratively, and literally. We garden, but for roughly half of the year, we also farm some.
We have two 3.5 x 8.5' raised beds that we built when we moved in, and in that meager 60 square feet of space, we manage to produce a startling amount of food. From early season leaf lettuce and radishes, to enough basil and herbs to keep us in pesto year-round; fresh beans, cukes, squash, and peppers; pounds and pounds of tomatoes; and late season carrots, beets, garlic, and chard. All organic, all as healthy and delicious as you can buy anywhere.
Not to get all Barbara Kingsolver on you, but it's pretty damn cool to be even a little self sufficient in the way of food. We're realistic, and not expecting to feed ourselves entirely on backyard produce and the occasional squirrel. We augment the ongoing harvest with the farmers' market down the street, for pastured beef and chicken, corn, peaches, berries, etc. once the season gets going.
We grow what we like, and we've discovered through trial and error what grows best and yields the most. We have some heirloom varieties from which we'll pull seeds for next year, but we start from seed only what can be sown directly in the early spring soil — no indoor seedlings, grow lamps, or cold frames (at least not yet, but I just found these plans while looking for a cold frame link, and well, I generally can't pass up any project involving my table saw and a mess of wood). Our yearly overhead is $30–40, and from that we save ourselves hundreds of dollars worth of produce.
It's no coincidence too that we eat healthier during the summer, and so do our kids. Young RK — despite all entreaties — is a bit of a fussy eater, but during July and August, she likes nothing more than picking and eating fresh cherry tomatoes right there in the garden. She spills seeds and juice from neck to feet, but you can't tell a kid to stop eating tomatoes.
In addition to our raised veggie beds, we inherited further sustenance (as well as a dog) when we bought our house, in the form of a mature Concord grape arbor, three apple trees, and a well-established bunch of rhubarb. All have taken some effort to keep in check, but all pay dividends. The rhubarb and grapes have been producing year after year since we moved in, and now the still young apple trees — after several seasons of producing small, tart, mealy, green apples — have finally begun cranking out totally edible fruit as well. We've added two blueberry bushes, which give us just enough to make weekly pancakes fun, and, just this year (via Freecycle even), two raspberry bushes as well.
Not so long ago, I used to daydream about quasi-rural subsistence farming: a few acres, a tractor, a couple of laying hens, some lambs, etc. But there's something to be said for our modest middle-urban oasis, where out our front door we can easily walk to dozens
of outstanding restaurants — serving everything from Haitian Creole
dishes to Salvadoran sandwiches, fresh baked scones, Peruvian pollos a
la brasa, and pizza by the slice — and out our back door, we can feed ourselves.
It's not housing bliss, mind you. Most of our neighbors are nice, but we can hear their occasionally bad music, and they can all see into our backyard (which pretty much just means we don't get naked there — but still). That's the price we pay for being close to the culture that grows out of a densely populated city and all it provides.
For the moment at least, it's worth every penny.
P.S. The Man is all up in my business at work lately, so I don't have the energy or patience for no stinking recipes at the moment. So for more info on what to do with bountiful veggie harvests, whether urban or rural, see Rose's Lime. And as always, for the finest commentary on the state of food, god, and country, see the venerable Gurgling Cod.
There's no better time than July 4th to light up the backyard barbecue and singe off your arm hair. This year, let it be some pork shoulder, cooked slow and low, with my loose interpretation (meaning I improved the hell out of it) of the "Rickyard Ribs" recipe from the Jack Daniel's Old Time Barbecue Cookbook. It's a great starting point for further experimentation — a tasty middle of the road sauce, with some tang, some sweet, some bite, some depth, and a little something extra.
BK Kine Cue Sauce
1 C ketchup <1/4 C molasses 1/4 C red wine vinegar 1 oz shot bourbon (so, in fact, not Jack Daniel's) 1 T lemon juice 1 T Worcestershire sauce 1 T soy sauce 2 t brown mustard 1 t horseradish 1 t pepper 1 clove garlic, minced hot sauce to taste
(Big T for tablespoon, small t for teaspoon.)
1. Combine in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Put that sauce to use. (Note: There are hundreds of folks here on The Internets to teach you how to properly cook meat and who provide you with the requisite, crystalline food porn pictures, so go visit them. Some are quite worthwhile. Perhaps the ancient race of Druids over at Meathenge.)
