The Cage Free Tomato

Eggs with Dinner

2012-02-08T21:37:00.003-05:00

After seeing a NY Post article bagging on putting eggs on everything I suddenly had a real craving for the stuff. Reading the quotes from a Bon Appetit (the hoi polloi Gourmet) face man calling eggs things like "the Ugg boots of food" just stoked the hunger. So when it was time for quick dinner tonight going breakfast style just made sense.

The breakfast potatoes are pretty standard--peeled diced potatoes cooked on a medium flame in pork fat in a cast iron pan. Tossed occasionally and seasoned with just salt and pepper, they were crisp on the outside and creamy within. Sometimes simple is best.

When the potatoes were done they were removed from the pan and it was time for the pork. The pork comes from a pig raised in Ashatabula at Millgate Farm--now available at the Shaker Farmers Mkt. (full disclosure, Tod, who owns the farm, is a friend. fuller disclosure, if his pork/beef wasn't great I wouldn't eat it and we'd probably still be friends. it's seriously high quality and the way it's raised is beyond reproach. go the market. ask Tod about his pork.). I split a pig with some friends, and this piece was strangely labeled "picnic ham." Since we didn't get any of our meat cured or smoked (and miss all the fun of doing it ourselves?!?), this was a fresh, bone in slice from part of the pig's shoulder. Rumor has it this cut is good bbqed, but it's also very good cooked quickly on the stove, and boned and pounded it makes great schnitzel or just a super fast cooking tender piece of meat. That's what's pictured above. Pounding boneless meat is where it's at--I don't even miss the bone.

While the pork was cooking (total time about 6 minutes over high heat) I dropped two quail eggs to cook sunny side up in the same pan. Sauce making ingredients were limited, and as noted in the aforementioned Post article runny egg yolks make a simple dressing. Sure, eggs can be abused, but there's the baby and then there's the bathwater. Quail eggs just sitting in the fridge are babies. I got these from Irene Dever at the West Side Market. They're also available all over AsiaTown.

It may not be beautiful (I hadn't planned on taking a picture), but it's an easy one pan dinner that would satisfy just about anyone (barring any dietary restrictions) without being particularly expensive or fussy. And when I saw that the folks from Quarry Lane Farms were heading out for brinner at maybe not one of Cleveland's finest establishments, I just had to speak up. There is an alternative.

Dutch Oven Chicken

2012-02-07T18:55:00.002-05:00

Roasted chicken may get all the love, but I've been addicted to Poulet en Cocotte this winter. It's easy, quick enough, low maintenance, and never sets off the smoke detector. As a bonus, root vegetables are easily cooked in the pot. It's perfect. You won't even be sad about the lack of crispy skin.

For the pictured dish I preheated the oven to 350 while I trussed and salted a small chicken. The chicken got seared on its front, back, and sides in lard in a dutch oven, and then placed on it back while halved turnips, carrots, and whole garlic cloves were scattered in the pot and mixed around to get a light coating in the fat. The veggies got a little salt and pepper, and some herbs de provence was scattered on the top of the chicken. Once that was all set, the dutch oven got covered and placed in the oven for the short side of an hour.

After about an hour the chicken was tender and smelled delicious, and the veggies were fully cooked and soft. The chicken and veg got removed from the pot, and the accumulated juices were set aside in a measuring cup. The pot was set over high heat and some shallots got sauteed in olive oil along with some yellow oyster mushrooms. Once the mushrooms were cooked, some white wine was added and reduced, and then the chicken juices got mixed in and reduced with the onion, mushrooms, and wine. Vinegar got added to taste (butter or cream would have been a great addition, but wasn't necessary).

While the sauce was reducing the well cooked and incredibly moist, and still pretty hot, chicken was easily cut into pieces for serving. This was the perfect time to eat the chicken oysters before the whole mess of chix, veg, and sauce was brought out to the table with a side of lightly dressed watercress.

This is a terrific seasonal dish, and nearly all the ingredients can still be found from local producers. The chix was from Tea Hills, mushrooms from Killbuck Valley, and the turnips from another vendor at the Shaker Square Indoor Winter Market. Garlic from Urban Growth. Seriously life changing one pot chicken dinner.

For a classic version of this see a Julia Child recipe here.

The 12 Gravlax of Christmas

2011-12-23T17:17:00.001-05:00

Quickly becoming a holiday tradition around here. Decidedly not local, but if Hawaiians can have lomi-lomi salmon in the middle of the Pacific we can have this in the Midwest. Below is one link I use and 11 ideas (sometimes with untested links).

(1) My go to (with some changes: coriander for fennel and an addition of star anise)

(2) Modern Mexican: Mezcal cured salmon

(3) The Brooklyn: Bourbon gravad laks

(4) The Dated Trend: Bacon cured salmon

(5) The Scandinavian: Beet cured salmon (Darina Allen has a nice looking recipe in Forgotten Skills of Cooking)

(6) The New Scandinavian: Local salmon cured with foraged herbs, home distilled aquavit, and something you didn't know was edible

(7) The New New Yorker: pastrami cured salmon

(8) The Modernist: regular gravlax started in a tumbler and then vacuum sealed prior to being cured, thoroughly blended, and formed back into "gravlax" with the help of hydrocolloids; possibly served on a trapeze

(9) Moroccan Style: get some preserved lemons in there

(10) Japanese Style: sake and miso, add yuzu and it sounds pretty good

(11) The Portland: Columbia River salmon cured with barrel aged cocktails while wearing plaid (see also The Brooklyn)

(12) The Cleveland: Salmon cured with fish from Kate's

More Seasonal Eating

2011-12-08T13:08:00.003-05:00

Because it's hard to garden in the winter.

Is this local?

2011-10-31T20:14:00.002-04:00

Walleye

Brussels Sprouts

Parsley

Capers

Olives

Olive Oil

Lemon

Espelette Pepper

Salt

First three ingredients are from here. Remaining six are not. Thoughts?

A Priceless Lesson in Cooking

2011-10-17T21:42:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to sully this up with too much text. The short of it is that recipes, in note form, for a traditional American lard crust apple pie and a traditional French tarte Normande are below (thanks VA), and Parker Bosley knows how to give a cooking class. Totally hands on, super educational, and just a really good time. And sorry Karen, for drinking you out of house and home.

Parker came with two completed doughs so we'd
have pies baking while we made doughs to take home.

We were a little light on the almond mixture

All in all, pretty redic.

Look at that man supervising the ladies.

Karen Small and Parker Bosley. Local Food 4 Life.

And for all of us Clevelanders, at least those who like to eat the good food, it doesn't get much more amazing than that last picture. Two of the most passionate people I've ever met.

Pawpaw Pondering

2011-10-04T19:06:00.005-04:00

It has been a while and there’s been much cooking without much photographing, as I’m relearning the pleasures of eating hot food fresh off the stove/out of the oven.

There’s been a Bouchon brandade wrapped up in some smuggled/imported piquillo peppers. Pawpaw ice cream. A southern breakfast feast with fresh, thin picnic chops, ¼" bone in chops (Millgate is selling whole and half pigs--I got half of one), biscuits (thanks Pete) and jam, redeye and sawmill gravies, fried green tomatoes with sriracha remulade, and some eggs. And a ridiculously simple and satisfying dinner of roasted/braised chicken in vermouth with quartered carrots and baby turnips. The next night it was sake braised pork cheeks over polenta with the braising liquid and vegetables. Add to that, just this past Saturday the backyard looked like an urban version of The Killing Fields as we thinned out the CSA's flock..

We’ve been curing a bit too. Bertolli’s tesa, a standard guanciale recipe (See Batali and Allen for nearly identical recipes), bacon (Ruhlman via NYT). Also some headcheese/souse/brawn/whatever seasoned like Bertolli's coppa di testa. Leftover red wine vinegar and cabbage are fermenting. Naturally fermented hard cider in the basement is on it’s way too (fingers crossed). It's been busy.

It’s hard to motivate to post recipes that are already posted about so well (or even not so well) all around the web. For example, NPR can handle the pawpaw posts better than I can. And there are some great photographers (although how people find the time to take day-it pics and still afford the food is a trick I’d like to know; and lightboxes just are not going to happen here), and plenty of beautiful writers.

The point here has never really been about saying “look at how cool this is!” or "where can this blog go?" or "here's the new hot thing." It’s more about the tons of great food around here (and elsewhere), how we’re eating it at home, and most importantly where it’s available in and around Cleveland. I still think there are tons of people in Northeast Ohio that don't realize how good we have it in terms of availability of ingredients.

So it may continue to be slow around here. Hard to say. While there’s no doubt that the summer in NEO is hard to beat in terms of fresh, healthful food, winter tends to be my time for hunkering down and giving more thought to meals, maybe precisely because there’s not so much fresh stuff around, and that's what usually leads to posts. In the meantime, the archives run deep.

Happy Dog at Home

2011-09-21T19:50:00.004-04:00

Kind of. Homemade hot dogs. Ruhlman Charcuterie recipe via these earnest looking fellows.

Couple changes from the linked recipe but not too much deviation. I skipped the second grind thinking making a heaping meat emulsion in the food processor would absolve all sins--it kind of did but next time I'd double grind just to see what happens. Also I didn't have mustard powder so it's not in there. And for some reason the corn syrup in the house was flavored with "real vanilla," but with the smoke and spice it wasn't noticeable at all.

Applewood was used for smoking. I had to rush that part and smoked at 225 but but next time I'd probably smoke at 180 with very little in the way of wood chips--it doesn't take much. While these things smelled like hot dogs once the blended meat came out of the processor, after a trip to the smoker there was no mistaking what was going on here.

Being that making these seemed like a good opportunity to clean out the freezer, instead of using just short rib as called for in the recipe these kosher style wieners combined some grassfed Millgate short rib and shank. That shank bone is where last post's marrow came from. My humble opinion--beef shank is way underrated.

Bertman's mustard, of course. And some of the last of last year's sauerkraut. Wonderbread buns.

Marrow Toast

2011-09-18T11:49:00.000-04:00

Toast, roasted marrow, parsley, cipollini onion, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, diced green apple, good salt.

Great lunch. If that reddish color in the marrow is offensive, an overnight soak in saltwater reduces it significantly.

It's fall fare time.

Fish Dinner

2011-09-11T20:53:00.000-04:00

I've been sick of squash all summer--now I'm craving it. Here, sauteed in olive oil with some sliced onion and a little thyme it was a perfect way to remember that winter isn't here yet.

The salad is some roasted beets from the Tremont Farmers Mkt dressed in a vinaigrette with pistachios and goat cheese.

The fish was great. Super fresh Bream from Kate's, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a healthy coating of crushed coriander on the flesh side.

Pretty simple stuff. But that's the end of squash. And now we're well on our way to stewing season, which isn't such a bad thing.

Concord Grapes

2011-09-06T21:43:00.002-04:00

Been making jam. Be back soon. (In the meantime, I've been Tweeting and Instagramming like it's going out of style)

Piperade

2011-08-21T21:25:00.007-04:00

The sauce to be making right now. Onions (sweated in olive oil), the always underrated green peppers (sweated with the onion), and a touch of garlic, cooked with roughly diced tomatoes (skin, seeds, and all) and seasoned with Spanish paprika a very nice piperade makes. I stirred in some parsley at the end too. It's so sweet, so good, and so simple. Really, this is like garden crack and possibly the highest use of overripe tomatoes.

The fish is black bass seasoned with a little salt and pepper. For cooking it got placed on the sauce in a covered pan and left to steam/braise for about five minutes. That's possibly the most foolproof way to make super moist yet thoroughly cooked fish. And it suits the delicate black bass perfectly. The sauce and fish were made for each other.

Seriously, if that sign was in Euskara, and I squinted a bit, someone could convince me that I was looking out from La Concha, not Edgewater Park.

Label Rouge

2011-08-16T21:58:00.000-04:00

Red Ranger chicken via Tea Hills. Nice and crispy (despite how that drumstick may have photographed) and a great tasting breed--just loaded with flavor and a perfect texture. Firefly greens with a tarragon vinaigrette. Roasted sweet potato.

Look at her, fresh out of a 450 oven. Just salt and basted once or twice with the fat that rendered in the pan. A little thyme went in with the juices a la Keller. That parson's nose sticking out the back was the best part. Yeah, yeah, I could truss better.

And the young ladies, adjusting well to their new home.

Kaplan v. Waxman

2011-08-13T11:33:00.001-04:00

Should be interesting. I got an offer to go eat some competition food and couldn't pass it up. Here are the deets. Spectators get to eat free too from what I gather.

Date: Saturday August 13th and Sunday August 14th (11:30 - 4 each day)
Location: Legacy Village

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/cadillac?sk=app_205400926161062
Microsite: http://www.cadillacchallenge.com/

Marlin Kaplan videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVJktMWRvxI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK0LNHIv5fY&feature=relmfu

I figured if the Sandwich Board folks were in, who am I to pass it up.

Portland and Wine Country

2011-08-09T23:17:00.003-04:00

The Wine:

Adelsheim. Good pinots. Kind of douchy tasting experience. Spendy for what it is.

Erath. What happened to this place--it used to be so nice. Not horrible and certainly affordable, but I don't think selling to Chateau Ste Michelle/Altria (aka Phillip Morris) really helped the juice. Sad. But it's a fun drive up there.

WillaKenzie. Very good and affordable compared to many of its neighbors.

Domaine Serene. Napa bling in the Pac Northwest. Great wine. Super elegant tasting room. Scary prices.

Vinopolis. My advice--enjoy a tasting out in wine country then come here back in Portland to buy your juice. Great selection, service, and prices.

The Food:

Red Hills Market in Dundee. An amazing spot in wine country. Perfect thin crust pizzas (who would have thought bresaola and peaches would work so well together), Olympic Provisions charcuterie, nice drink selection, and solid sandwiches. Just a real gem of a place.

Clyde Common. Was thinking that most of its popularity was due to the location by the Ace Hotel, but my meal there was ridiculously good. Fideo stew with squid and squid ink may have been the best thing consumed on the trip, and the roasted sturgeon with clams and potatoes was prepared flawlessly. Cocktails were good but not life changing, and considering all the local competition for food and drink business the staff hubris got tired fast, but overall a fair value in a city filled with good, reasonably priced food. And judging by the menus around there, fideo is the new pork belly.

Navarre. Dollar for dollar I challenge anyone to find a better meal. And beyond the value, it's just awesome.

Carts around Alder and 10th. My one plate of Thai food was tasty and only $5. It would have a been a bargain at three times the price. Good luck finding a place to sit with your food though.

Little Bird. Made it there for happy hour and cocktails. $2 Oregon oysters and mind blowing shrimp soup. Didn't love the Parisian gnocchi in the soup, but overall some great tastes and a really nice dining experience. And the cocktails . . . best I had out there, and only $6 at happy hour. A Van Cleef (bourbon, scotch rinse, smoked orange, rocks) and French Cola (Pernod, Averna, soda, lemon, rocks), not in that order. Wish I had more time and stomach space there.

Escape from New York Pizza. What can I say--I grew up on this style of pizza and this spot makes a great rendition of it.

Helvetia Tavern. Out in Hillsboro. If you're in the area I highly recommend it for burgers and beers. Really classic place that's been doing burgers, fries, and onion rings perfectly for just about ever. Now has a patio.

Olympic Provisions. Stopped by the NW location for a pickled egg, terrine, and some wine. Not bad by any means, but man the salt.

La Petite Provence. On Alberta. Quite the amazing bakery, and the breakfasts looked legit too.

Mother's Bistro. Classic for a reason. Really good. Not really inexpensive, but solid value for really well prepared food downtown. Good coffee situation.

Kenny and Zuke's. Not bad for breakfast. One can do better, one could do worse.

The Espresso (if you're a coffee geek seeing the machines out there alone is worth the trip):

Sterling Roasters. Perfect espresso. What more could one ask for? Maybe an indoor spot, but even so I wouldn't change a thing. I was really getting used the places out there where you had a choice of multiple espressos--that's a trend I'd like to see make its way out here.

Stumptown. Location by Ace Hotel. Consistently really good.

Barista. Pearl location. Perfect pour. Sparkling water back--another enjoyable trend, and most places out there were doing it. And being able to choose espressos from different roasters was a real treat.

Public Domain. Right downtown. Perfectly serviceable if you're on Broadway.

Chix + Honey + Wild Mushrooms + Corn

2011-08-01T22:10:00.002-04:00

Broiled chicken leg & thigh, brushed with honey and left to cook for a few more seconds. Veg medley is is chanterelles, blewits, yellow crooked neck squash, and corn. The mushrooms were cooked with butter and a little shallot, the corn with just butter, and the squash with olive oil. All the veg/fungi were cooked separately and combined at the end. Ratatouille like, but very American. No wine. No herbs. No cream. And the squash, although young, got seeded--I like it much better that way.

Really simple and perfect for right now. Corn from Woolf Farms, mushrooms from Killbuck (but really, they're all over the place right now), shallot from Urban Growth, and I grew the squash. Those salad greens are from Firefly (that season is just about over). And the chix is from Tea Hills.

Why the Midwest is Underrated

2011-07-30T12:59:00.001-04:00

ohio chanterelles

Seriously. The northwest has nothing on these.

ohio blewits

From Killbuck Valley Mushrooms.

And lest one forget, we have plenty of these too.

Staying Busy

2011-07-24T15:49:00.004-04:00

Sexy little Berkshire from New Creation.

Poached Salmon

2011-07-13T20:59:00.005-04:00

Great way to eat Sockeye. Recipe poached too, from here, at least more or less for the court bouillon. The creamless creamy dill and tarragon sauce, from here (except no whole grain mustard, lemon juice not zest, and Greek yogurt instead of sour cream), was ridiculously good and infinitely tweakable.

The yellow is my first little crooked neck squash of the season, diced kind of big and sauteed in olive oil with salt and pepper. It was like vegetable candy.

Firefly greens salad, dressed with lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

My frequent dining companion swore she hated salmon for years, and insisted that it'd never make a suitable dinner for her. Now she wants to eat this all the time for lunch and dinner. For me it's surprisingly delicious way to enjoy this bargain of the wild salmon world, which is undeservedly under appreciated. This may even better than Sockeye fish and chips -- it's the kind of simple and healthful meal that keeps us eating in throughout the summer.
Fish from Kate's, of course.

And in other news, homemade maraschino cherries. A work in progress. NYT consulted. Sours from Woolf Farms. Good luck finding maraschino liquor in Cleveland (hint: Zagara's has it).

Breakfast of Champions

2011-07-09T11:16:00.000-04:00

New Brunswick oysters. Flawless. Via Kate's.

Defending the Chicken Breast

2011-07-07T22:02:00.003-04:00

Good North American food. Chicken with yellow mole, black beans seasoned with cumin and epazote, sweet potato, and sauteed spinach. A little cilantro garnish. The epazote is growing in the yard. Just a really solid dinner.

When I was making this I kept thinking about an exchange a while back on the Cleveland Food and Wine Forum (remember that thing?). One of the more experienced members was bashing a "lesser" foodie for being interested in eating a chicken breast sandwich at B Spot. The experienced person mocked the other user, and based her position on the immutable fact that boneless, skinless chicken breasts were tasteless, and furthermore they must be awful because the chefs she knows (who are many) hate cooking them.

I didn't jump in on the FWF, as my internet soapbox is here. However, that exchange stuck with me. After all, putting aside the childish nature of the online spat, I was left thinking: do boneless, skinless chicken breasts really suck? For sure they're not what I usually purchase--anyone who reads here knows I love the wings and am generally a dark meat, bone in, skin on kind of guy. But tasteless? That's just not true. Maybe the flavor is more subtle than a deli meat topped burger, but really breasts just require a bit more work to bring our their best is all.

Plus have you been to B Spot? The majority of the clientele the one time I was there were not models of health and nutrition. Nor did they appear to be gourmands, but that's harder to judge. Perhaps a comparatively healthy non-fried boneless, skinless chicken breast would at least provide some of those folks with an option to not eat themselves sick.

Which gets to the second part of that argument, that chefs hate cooking the naked breasts, so they can't be good. Chicken breasts are supposed to be boring--right, everyone says that, we need fat, skin, pork, butter, celebrity endorsement. . . the breasts are too pedestrian . . . Anthony Bourdain would never eat them . . . . But they're not boring, and they don't have to be pedestrian, and you're not Anthony Bourdain. It just takes work to get them where they ought to be flavor wise. Sure, they can be dull and even tasteless (when inferior birds are used), but they can also be the perfect foil for other flavors and contribute in their own right.

I think a big part of why professional folks hate cooking the breasts is because they take a fair amount of work to make taste good and any screw up (dryness, rawness, lack of quality bird, improper seasoning) is easily detectable. There's no hiding with a boneless, skinless chicken breast. It's analogous to why Sockeye salmon doesn't make the rounds on restaurant menus the same way Atlantic salmon does. Sockeye gets screwed up easily and leaves little room for error. With Atlantic you can throw the thing on a grill or in the oven, take a smoke break, and come back to piece of fish that will be passable. Atlantic salmon is bulletproof. Like chicken thighs. Although I'd argue that much Atlantic salmon is flabby and gross to begin with while well raised chicken thighs are inherently wonderful, but I digress . . . .

What I'm trying to say is that I feel that all chicken parts equally wonderful in their own special way.

So enough about the protein. What about the sauce?

Some straight from Oaxaca (by way of long rest in the freezer) mole amarillo. Mixed with chicken stock that got extra chickeny after being used poach a few of the aforementioned chicken breasts. The moles from Oaxaca are so ridiculously delicious and complex I don't even know where to being talking about them. If you or someone you know is going down there, grabbing these powders is a must. Especially with poultry, there is no better sauce. (and here's what looks to be a nice local recipe if you're interested in doing it the hard way) It tastes like Mexico.

Pictured below is more of the boneless skinless stuff, this time seasoned with cumin and served with salad (Urban Growth), baby beets (Por-Bar via Tremont Farmers Mkt), and carrots (Urban Growth via Heart of the City CSA).

I don't know why some peeps always be hatin' on healthy food. This stuff tastes really good. Really, those beets are redic. And how many of those meat topped burgers does one really need?

I'm not saying the boneless chicken breast is the be all end all--in all fairness it's probably my least favorite cut from the bird--I'm just saying that folks could lay off it a bit. If it comes from a good animal and is prepared right it can be as good as just about anything else out there.

The Lowcountry

2011-07-03T15:09:00.003-04:00

Perhaps technically the Grand Strand or Pee Dee, but Pawleys Island and the surrounding area is as Lowcountry-like as any place I've ever been before. To follow, a picture heavy post that sums up my eating in the area, including the drive down from the CLE and back up. Most meals were eaten in, but we got out a bit and just about everything down there, including the food, was excellent.

First up, after eleven hours of driving, a bbq legend: Scott's Bar-B-Q. NYT summary of the place here. This place is the real deal, serving locals and tourists alike. If you're ever anywhere near the place, I'd urge you to check it out. Perfect pulled pork. I've never had any bbq even close to as good. ~~My money says that~~ Scott's secret ingredient is Ac'cent (i.e. msg). ~~It's got to be something like that,~~ not that I care--I just couldn't stop eating the stuff. And at $9 a pound it was consistent with most the food we had down there--completely reasonably priced.

idyllic, no?

Litchfield Restaurant. Excellent diner food. Cheap, quick, and friendly. And the sweet tea never stops flowing.

sweetest chicken coop ever (pic doesn't do it justice--it's one big western town)

Hog Heaven. The phone number is 237-PIGG. Southern lunch buffet for like $7. Not mind blowing, but very good bbq and southern sides. Also very good local seafood (little neck clams and shrimp were in season)--sadly, we were too late in the summer for oysters. Pretty short on atmosphere and service (I think they overcharged us on purpose). Great place to stuff yourself on the cheap. The food tastes better than it looks sitting there on a steam table.

Carolina Country Cafe. Set back behind a gas station, this place was one of the best surprises of the trip. It was the home of both the pictured crab sign and chicken coop. We saw the crab sign and had to stop. No atmosphere--great food. Super fresh and hyper local. If the fish wasn't from the dock about a mile away, it wasn't on the menu. We had a plate of those crabs (pretty small, very messy, and incredibly tasty) and some fried flounder sandwiches. The biggest mystery during the meal was why the tomatoes on the sandwiches were so good. A quick walk outside revealed the secret--they don't have to walk far to harvest super ripe red tomatoes. No pretension at all, and you'd need a pretty cool partner to go here on a first date, but the food can't be beat.

only fish i caught (we did get lots of blue crabs though)--kate's need another filleter?

We stopped at Carolina Country Cafe after going to Independent Seafood Market in Georgetown. They had some good fish, but for me the best spots to get shrimp were all over the place on the side of the road.

If you're not into buying your seafood out of back of a pickup, another nice fish store is Murrells Inlet Seafood, located in the seafood capital of South Carolina. Great stuff, local or otherwise.

too hot in the creek to do much damage with the pole. didn't stop us from trying though.

Two other local spots were Sam's Corner and Chive Blossom. Need clam strips at 3 am, try Sam's. Chive Blossom--good she crab soup, but otherwise kind of overrated. Wonderful atmosphere and service though.

good morning creek

After eating our fill of fresh seafood, tomatoes, pork, and peaches, it was, sadly, time to go. But, during a twelve hour drive home one must stop to eat.

Keaton's Original BBQ in North Carolina was the perfect place to stop. Perfect bbq fried chicken. Kind of weird hours, a bit out of the way, and long lines just add to the enjoyment. Get there early--rumor has it they run out. The food goes great with Cheerwine. Likely the best chicken I've ever had. And there's some nice green space to stretch your legs for the long drive ahead.

good night creek

Like New Orleans, the Pawleys Island area of South Carolina was filled with fantastic regional cuisine. There was a real sense of place to just about everything, whether it be the sweet tea, seafood, or bbq. It wasn't just "farm to table" or "nose to tail." It wasn't a fad or marketing or hype. The food was filled with pride and history and even a sense of celebration. Besides being ruined for select seafood and southern staples for a long time coming, I'm stuck longing for that sense of place in cuisine back here. I am, however, optimistic that we'll come up with something in Cleveland. I just hope it's soon.

The Soo

2011-06-23T22:41:00.001-04:00

Too much work travel. But at least it was scenic. Sault Sainte Marie, USA.

West Pier Drive-In. Great, huge burgers. Fries could use some work. Definitely worth checking out if in the area.

Lockview. Great location with views of boats going through the locks. Decent whitefish.

Cozy Inn, just down the road in Brimley. Very good whitefish. Even better pork rinds--$2 for more than our table for four could handle. Pictured above.

Soo Brewing Company. Solid beer. Not life changing, but for sure legitimate.

Frank's Place. Pretty solid fried chicken. Broasted?

Speaking of chicken . . . As for the lack of food posts, there's been cooking, just not much writing. That's about 10% of some chicken wings we made for a buffet on Saturday. Sometimes I wonder why people even bother with the rest of the bird. Thanks Plum Creek.

The Most Food-Centric City in the U.S.

2011-06-16T22:53:00.006-04:00

New Orleans. Without a doubt. And I'm fresh back from my second trip down there (trip 1 here).

Jesus, pictured above, would surely agree.

First stop, right of the bat, Felix's for oysters with mix-your-own cocktail sauce and some Abita. I'd agree that the local oysters down there aren't the most complex in the world, but sometimes there's just no need to contemplate your food--they're super fresh, super clean, and flow like water over a busted levy. I ordered a dozen at the stand up bar and was served two at a time until I called uncle. Like lots of the great things down there, these were easy to enjoy and pretty inexpensive. Truly a simple luxury.

I love oysters from both coasts, whether briny, citrusy, or both, and these weren't like them. These were just plump, cold, and had the slightest refreshing cucumber taste. The perfect breakfast or snack food. So I can't completly disagree with those who say the southern bivalves are not as heady or profound as their northern brethren, but they are perfect for what they are.

So what to do post oysters and beer? Cocktails, naturally. Some spots in the city have been known to make good ones, and a relative newcomer, The Green Goddess, was no outlier. A bit off the beaten path in the French Quarter, the place had some ridiculously good innovative cocktails. After my first, gin and super high quality vermouth based, things started getting fuzzy. All I remember is that I had another drink that was just as good as the first. Both pure alcohol, and both delicious. And the food that was flying by looked really nice too.

future home of the cft?

After the snacks and drinks it was time to wait for my friend at the hotel, which just happened to have one of this guy's restaurants downstairs. Dominica. Another cocktail, another Abita, and a fantastic little lardo pizza for the low low happy hour price of $6.50. Everything at the place looked good, but we had plans for the evening.

Dinner at Cochon, preceded by drinks and boudin next door at Cochon Butcher. Cochon Butcher was closer in in spirit to a Spanish tapas place than anywhere I've been in the States. Several sandwiches to choose from, but even better were the cured meat plates and palate friendly drinks. And like so much else in New Orleans, both Cochon and the Butcher were super reasonably priced.

At Chochon it was ham hocks, an interesting take on pulled pork, insanely good mac and cheese, very good charcuterie, and solid eggplant and shrimp dressing. Really nice, really busy place.

Then back to the hotel for a sazerac at Sazerac Bar, and it was lights out.

frenchman street, pictured above wasn't the best place there, but what a cool neighborhood

The next day was more madness. Coffee and bignets at Cafe du Monde (how can you not?) followed by a seafood feast at the French Market. Boiled shrimp (excellent), crawfish (equally excellent), and crab (very good). Hyper local, hyper fresh. On one side of the Market was the Creole Tomato Festival (good tomatoes before they're good here) and on the other was the Louisiana Seafood Festival (soft shell crab po boy with remoulade and shrimp dressing? sure.)

Then to the Garden District for a gin fizz at the Columns Hotel and dinner at Brigtsen's (with a stop for some quality coffee on Magazine Street between). I love Brigtsen's. Classic and white tableclothed, but by no means pretentious. Flawless rabbit and snapper. Equally perfect apps and dessert too. We were surrounded by locals--those folks drink.

Without a doubt New Orleans is the most food-centric city I've ever been to. Eating and drinking is a lifestyle, and it's done well but not taken obnoxiously seriously (I'm looking at you, Portland). They use what they've got and make the best of what's around. It's not "hey we're local, we're awesome." It's all largely local (not all all, but you know what I'm saying). It was a given. Fish was from the gulf. Berries were from nearby farms. A conversation I eavesdropped on outside of Domenica between a chef and his farmer was eye opening--everyone wanted things to be the best they could be and they were willing to work hard at it. They just loved the good food and wouldn't accept anything else.

While they're blessed with quite the bounty of seafood and produce, and steeped in history and technique, there's something more than that there. I felt like the Acadians could have settled anywhere and made just as tasty a lifestyle. That's where I'm hoping things go here in the Cle. We need to stop tossing those sheepshead--we need to eat them and make them tasty. Same with our black walnuts, our mushrooms, our game . . . . Those folks looked at mud bugs and owned them. Same with red fish and things like eggplant. We've got tons of great stuff here, we just have to make it work. So what if we're not French.

And that's my idealized version of New Orleans.

Just add lime

2011-06-09T22:08:00.001-04:00

It's a great time to be eating in the Midwest. I love rhubarb and ramps as much as the next guy, and I wouldn't trade those morels for anything, but now we're really getting somewhere.

Skirt steak marinated for a short time in olive oil, salt, pepper, winter savory, thyme, and spring garlic. The marinade got brushed off and it got reseasoned before going on a grill. Some more minced garlic was thrown on top of the steak after it was turned. Millgate beef. CA olive oil. Urban Growth garlic.

Grilled asparagus. Somehow they're still at the farmers mkt. Olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Grilled spring onions. Any questions, see this link at about 4:31 (not the same thing exactly but close enough). Standard accompaniment to grilled meat down here too. It's like eating summer. Olive oil, salt, and pepper. From Urban Growth. I can't recommend these enough--standard scallions should be ashamed of themselves.

Chard w/ stems hiding underneath the meat. Finely chopped stems got cooked before the roughly chopped leaves were added to the pan. Same treatment as the other stuff--olive oil, salt, and pepper (and some more of that garlic). Urban Growth FTW.

And salad with a standard vinaigrette. Greens from Firefly, radishes Urban Growth.

It's just getting really easy to eat really well.

Season's Greetings

2011-06-08T21:57:00.004-04:00

Seared and roasted chicken leg and thigh. Chix stock/winter savory/parsley/lemon juice/mushroom sauce. Chard w/ early garlic. Mixed greens with radishes. Summer's on.

Chix from Plum Creek. Yard savory. Oyster mushrooms from Killbuck Valley. Chard from Firefly. Salad greens, radishes, parsley, and garlic from Urban Growth (via CSA).

My only thought on the cooking of this meal relates to cutting the radishes. I have a Japanese mandolin. Food bloggers/writers love Japanese mandolins. Those things are great at slicing radishes and all sorts of stuff. And they feel super cheffy. I didn't use it here. Radish slices don't have to be perfect. Home ≠ The French Laundry. The knife was already dirty. The mandolin was happy in the drawer. Slightly uneven or even horribly mangled radishes ≠ a bad meal, it often just equals home cooking.

Death in the Family

2011-06-01T22:14:00.001-04:00

First, word of warning: one very graphic image below.

After slipping out for an hour after work, I came home and knew something was wrong. There were feathers by the hose. The feathers looked familiar. They looked like my chickens' feathers. They were my chickens' feathers. They were everywhere.

A quick look left and there was the first one. Completely dead and left in the middle of the yard. It looked like her neck had been broken.

Then to the coop and run. The chicken wire was all broken and torn up. There were multiple points of entry and exit. Feathers were everywhere and the waterer was on its side. No sign of the other two.

So I opened the door to the coop. There was the second one, killed in front of the nesting boxes. Deep gashes all over.

Then there was a flicker of life from the bottom of the two nesting boxes. The girls never went into that one. A little prodding and the lone survivor came out into the war torn run. She went right to the corner where there was some semi-intact fencing. They used to love their run--I could leave the door open all day and they'd just as soon hang out there snacking on the previous evening's leftovers.

That's her below.

Will probably put her down tomorrow.

I wouldn't have known for sure what had happened, even though the total destruction of the run seemed to point to something other than a cat and the time of day ruled out a possum or raccoon. Then while I was making dinner over came the two pictured dogs. Right back through the yard and right back to the coop. Some shouting scared them away. The cohabitant talked me out of getting the gun. Probably for the best. Double-ought buckshot may have been excessive.

What a waste. Because some asshole can't keep track of his (or her) fucking dogs. They both have collars. We followed them to about West 74th and Detroit, and then they kept walking west on the street.

Photo by Bob Perkoski/Freshwater Cleveland

We'll miss you girls. You won't be forgotten.

Chautauqua Institution

2011-05-25T20:44:00.000-04:00

Southern Tier 15 minutes away. Obviously one of the Institution's greatest assets. I heart SW NY.

Dear Itinerant Community Gardeners

2011-05-18T23:40:00.001-04:00

I thank you for not digging up your carrots last year, or leaving seeds to overwinter and sprout early this spring. Either way, thanks for the carrots.

Pretty Classic Fare

2011-05-16T21:47:00.002-04:00

Duck breast seasoned with salt and pepper, and five spice on the fat side. Sauce is reduced balsamic and honey cooked in the same pan that held the breasts (they were out resting). Plum Creek duck, Ohio honey.

The sweet potatoes are okay, even if they appear to have a bit of a char. Slices of potato, skin on, olive oiled and placed on a baking sheet before being slid into a 375 oven for a while. They were seasoned with salt and savory, and flipped about halfway through cooking.

Reduced balsamic. I'm bringing it back.

Standard bolognese. Blurry. Fresh coarsely ground meat (Miller beef chuck, a little Plum Creek veal) browned in olive oil and removed from the pot. Then in went diced onion, celery, carrot, and homemade guanciale (no pancetta in the house). Then some tomato paste. Then a good pour of some nice French wine with a braille label and the meat went back in. Wine reduced, then in went a can of tomatoes. More reduction, then milk, and from then on more milk as the thing simmered away on the stove for the short side of 2 hrs (could have gone all day, just keep adding milk). A little oregano made its way in there too at some point. And some pasta water. (also a splash of vinegar just cause things weren't acidic enough)

Homemade pasta. Such a treat. 3.5 cups of 00 flour to 5 backyard eggs and a few drops of water (could have just added some more egg or just yolk, but water was fine) plus a pinch of salt. Knead. Then half an hour resting in cling film in the fridge before going through a hand-crank pasta machine (which was invented in Cleveland--for real. eat it other little italys). Perfect. Cooks in less than 2 minutes.

This is one of the rare times I don't toss the pasta with the sauce in a pan. The pasta is too delicate and sauce too meaty. It's not the prettiest thing to look at, but it beats Skyline Chili. Barely. An nice job on those carrots Krissie.

Fish. Ribs.

2011-05-13T17:11:00.000-04:00

Nettles

2011-05-09T07:27:00.003-04:00

Stinging nettle pesto. A bunch of nettles, blanched and squeezed dry, equal amounts almonds (unpeeled) and Parmesan, and olive oil. Done with a food processor. Thinned with chicken broth. Help from here.

And for an unpictured recipe that started with the last post: Poached Chicken with Morels. Pretty heavily based on a Jacques Pepin Complete Techniques recipe and an oddly hypnotizing Gordon Ramsey video. First a terrific whole Tea Hills chicken was poached for around 50 minutes in water flavored with half an onion, some carrot, celery, peppercorns, coriander, thyme, bay leaf, and salt. After poaching, covered, the skin was removed and the thighs, drumsticks, and breast(s) were ready to go in the morel sauce.

For the sauce, it was 1/2 a cup white wine and minced shallot cooked down until pretty dry, then 1/3 cup of sherry cooked until really dry, then halved, rinsed morels with some chicken broth and a cup a cream cooked down until the sauce would easily coat the chicken. A little salt and pepper and sauce was super rich and heady with morel flavor. Minced tarragon garnish.

I'm not a cream sauce nut, but here it just captures the flavor of the morel so well. And the sherry complements the heady mushroom flavor perfectly. A real nice treat.

Found

2011-05-06T21:28:00.005-04:00

Morels. Hopefully. Don't want to wind up like this guy. Still trying to identify that one up there. Kinda looks like a verpa bohemica (scroll down), i.e a false morel, but the inside is different--either way, this one isn't deadly.

A Grey or Black I think.

And a Spike or Half Free. Again, I think.

A book, a botanically aware friend, and this webpage have all been very helpful, but there's a bit more research to be done, especially for the top and bottom ones.

Also in the woods were ramps (get them while you can), flowering trilliums, jewel weed, mustards, spring beauties, and an owl. Spring in NE Ohio.

P.S. If you know any of those pictured mushrooms to be poisonous please let me know ASAP. TIA.

* Upon consulting with this expert, the top and bottom ones are both Half Frees at different maturities, and the middle one is a young Yellow. Sweet.

Brinner

2011-05-04T21:37:00.001-04:00

Duck fat fried potato, Toulouse sausage cooked with chard and garlic, sunny side up egg, and radish microgreens w/ sliced radish coated with a vinaigrette.

Chard and radish from Firefly, micros from Muddy Fork (they were more pristine on Saturday, but perfectly okay four days later). The vegetables are coming . . . .

Pretty Alsatian

2011-05-03T18:34:00.002-04:00

Choucroute garnie, cobbled together from what was in the fridge and these two recipes. Basically, the following:

(1) Toulouse Sausages (made with New Creation pork and Urban Growth garlic) got seared in duck fat (Plum Creek for the duck);

(2) Sausages were pulled and set aside and onion, garlic (Firefly), and largely diced homemade guanciale (Tea Hills pork) were cooked in the fat that remained in the pan until the onions were soft;

(3) In went some chix stock (also from Plum Creek birds) over the onion and garlic--white wine would have gone in too if I had some around--along with some homemade sauerkraut (got to start using that stuff up), peeled and rough diced Ohio apples (Nature's Bin--sorry Buster), a few bay leaves, and some juniper berries;

(4) The sausages got nestled in the mix and the whole thing got covered and placed in a 300 degree oven for about 45 minutes--until the sausages were cooked through and the guanciale was tender as could be;

(5) While the sausages and kraut were slowly cooking away in the oven some small peeled potatoes (Save a Lot--desperate times . . .) were boiled until tender;

(6) When the potatoes were soft they got buttered and salted and were served along with the choucroute garnie, a simply dressed salad, and some good mustards (Honsa Haus).

All washed down with one of those Greenhouse Tavern Oregon pinot noirs (which the Greenhouse people gave to me through this blog--it was a classic Oregon pinot, not sure what it costs and the price/value, but I really enjoyed it), the whole thing felt pretty French.

Fried Chix and Fuzzy Fiddleheads

2011-05-01T22:00:00.000-04:00

Fried Plum Creek chicken, fiddleheads (great even not defuzzed), asparagus, and fried lemon. Drizzled with Ohio Honey. The chix, honey, and fiddleheads were all from the Shaker Market.

Standard fry-job on the chicken. For the veg, just a quick saute in olive oil with salt and pepper. First in the pan was the straight from the yard asparagus, and after about 2 minutes the rinsed fiddleheads joined. All said, the whole veg saute took about 5 minutes.

Now to find some local morels . . . .

First of the Season

2011-04-28T17:19:00.001-04:00

Asparagus from the yard, blanched, shocked, dried, and heated back up in butter. Up there with a monster of a New Creation pork chop. Thin sauce of chix stock, mustard, cider vinegar, butter, and yard chives. The chop was seasoned with salt, pepper, Spanish paprika, and olive oil and left to sit a bit before being seared on the stove and finished in a 450 oven.

If nothing else, perennial fruits and vegetables may be one of the greatest benefits of a steady garden plot or a nice yard. And strawberries are right around the corner.

Ersatz Fish Tacos

2011-04-19T21:01:00.000-04:00

Halibut tacos. The fish was seared and roasted, not fried. Some leafy greens, not cabbage. Yogurt thinned with lime juice, no mayo. And some avocado, cilantro, and hot sauce just because. Quick, healthy enough, and delicious. They just weren't these.

Of particular note to those in the Cle, even if I appear to be the last person to have discovered the place, La Plaza in Lakewood is for real. Tacos made to order on the weekends, and a ridiculous selection of tortillas brought in from Chicago. No knock on our local place, but some random paper bagged tortillas picked up at La Plaza were unbelievable good--super pliable and corny with a perfect texture.

And thanks Megan, for cutting that fish.

Local Fish Dinner

2011-04-18T21:56:00.000-04:00

And it's not even deep fried. Some pan fried Lake Erie yellow perch with a brown butter/ramp green/cilantro/lemon juice sauce. The greens are chard with finely chopped ramp whites and garlic cooked in olive oil.

The perch was incredibly clean tasting, but I think the fillets benefit from some type of coating, if even a light dredge in flour, before cooking. Whole perch may be a different story. Still, a very mild and pleasant fish.

The local greens were a nice change of pace. From Firefly Farms at Shaker, as were the garlic and ramps. The fish, of course, was from Kate's.

Next up is asparagus. There's almost enough in the yard to justify some cutting. Spring. Finally.

Pork w/ Red Wine Sauce

2011-04-09T23:03:00.002-04:00

Broiled pork chop and broccolini. The pork was seasoned with salt, pepper, Spanish paprika, and olive oil and left to sit on the counter for about .5 hrs. For the broccolini, it was a quick blanch in salted water, a shock in ice water (while interesting, I'm not going to let what this dude says about shocking maybe not being so effective change the way I do things--it seems to work okay in my world), a shake dry, and then into a pan of hot olive oil with salt, pepper, and some diced shallot to finish cooking.

The sauce is a reduced veal stock red wine mix that had some thyme steeped in it. Some butter was whirled in there to finish. It's no duck press sauce, but whatever, it was quick and tasted really nice.

Broiling the room temp chops takes around 5 min, and leaves just enough time to finish the broccolini and the sauce, and maybe even make a quick salad. A real simple, elegant dinner.

More Randoms

2011-04-06T21:05:00.003-04:00

Polenta, oyster mushrooms cooked in veal stock, and egg.

Chicken w/ chimichurri sauce (salsa verde?) (this recipe + shallot and lemon juice) and sauteed chard w/ garlic.

Couple of Randoms

2011-03-25T10:57:00.000-04:00

Pork tenderloin with quinoa w/ cranberries and a leaf/bibb lettuce salad with mandarin orange segments.

Tenderloins of all sorts have been getting a bad rap for a while now, and often for good reason . They can be expensive and boring. But prepared well, there's no reason they can't be really enjoyable. And regarding cost, eating out I've seen some pretty expensive short rib, offal, and the like, so it's not like that stuff is exactly free. Anyway, you can now get your very own New Creation pork in Ohio City at Market at the Fig. Just across the street from the West Side Mkt. They've got Miller beef too. A major void has been filled.

Spaghetti alla puttanesca. Or at least pretty close. Anchovy, garlic, chili flakes, capers, canned tomato, and some parsley rounded out the sauce. No olives. It was fine that way. I heart simple pastas.

Curried Fish

2011-03-21T20:36:00.002-04:00

More Lenten goodness, in what I imagine to be a kind of South Indian style.

The fish is bronzini coated in mixture of curry powder, turmeric, fenugreek, cumin, ginger powder, coriander, salt, pepper, and a little canola oil to make all those spices into a thick paste. I never cook fish this way--it's always seemed to me that this kind of treatment was somewhat disrespectful to a nice piece of fresh seafood. Normally it's just salt and pepper and maybe a bit of coriander--I figured heavy spicing was for the less fresh stuff--but it's clear I've been missing out on a really good thing. The spice mixture formed an almost breading like crust that complimented the flavor from the super fresh fillet (from Kate's . . . always from Kate's) while makings things texturally interesting and keeping it all kind of healthy.

For cooking it was pretty simple too. Super hot pan with some canola oil (a generous amount) and a pat of butter. The fish went in skin side down while the flesh side got pressed down with a flat pot lid to crisp up the skin (the sizzling oil made it tough to press down on the fish with bare hands). About two minutes on the skin side and another maybe two minutes on the flesh side and the fish was perfect. The spice paste protected the fish from the intense heat while frying the ground spices at the same time.

For veg, it's a cauliflower curry. First some onions got sweated in olive oil with salt and pepper, then in went curry powder, cumin seeds, ground cumin, ground coriander, and a bit of minced garlic. Then in went some crushed canned tomatoes and fresh cauliflower with a little more salt. That got covered and simmered for about 15 minutes while being stirred every now and again to break things up.

Really nice, healthy, quick meal. Could have used a squeeze of lime, but it wasn't worth a trip to the store. All in all, a whole new way to cook fish over here, and not disrespectful at all.

Just in time for Lent

2011-03-15T21:10:00.003-04:00

British style fish and chips. Beer battered Lake Erie perch and french fries with a homemade tartar sauce.

I love fried fish, but generally shy away from frying things dipped in batter. Usually it's just a dredge in flour or cornstarch, a dip in egg wash, and another dip in flour, cornstarch, cornmeal, or some mixture of those things. Safe, tasty, and consistent. With batters I'm always fearing looking down at bubbling oil with big clumps of floating wet flour and naked fish or whatever sadly drowning and burning away under the surface. But it had a been a while, and St. Patrick's Day is coming up, so why not?

For the recipe I googled around and checked out the usual go-to sites. More helpful, at least for peace of mind, was watching YouTube. After viewing lots of videos--this one was key--I figured it was time to give it a shot. I also realized I really like British cooking videos on YouTube.

For batter I wound up going with 2 cups flour, 1 tbs baking powder, salt, pepper, 1 bottle Sapporo, and some seltzer to thin things to a lump free pancake batter like consistency (the seltzer wouldn't have been necessary if less flour was used). I left the batter to chill in the fridge while I made a sort of tartar sauce and cooked off the fries. Double fried, always. The oil temp hovered between 325-350 for both the fish and potatoes. When the fries were done I kept them warm in the oven (note to self: no sense trying to keep cooked fries hot, it's a waste of good fries--better just to make good skillet potatoes or suck it up and get two fryers going, or to just eat the fries while the fish is cooking).

Once the fries were done the fish went into the batter and then into the oil (peanut--so clean) to fry. No need to dredge. And nearly no stray batter floating in the oil. A true Lenten miracle.

Great pub style fish and chips with local fish from Kate's. Super simple. And invented by my people.

The 512

2011-03-03T21:22:00.007-05:00

Back from a quick trip to visit an old friend in his hometown, Austin, TX. Those goats live in his front yard--great for getting rid of table scraps.

It was my first trip down there, and after a few days I'm ready to pick up and move. For health reasons though, I think I'll stay up here--while my buddy is in pretty good shape, our reunions tend to be hard on the liver. This trip was more to see a buddy than to eat myself sick looking for the best taco or trying to find the perfect Tex-Mex breakfast. So even though I heard great things about the food scene in Austin I tried not to over research the visit. That said, we ate pretty well.

A rare CFT pic from inside a restaurant right there. No hate to the restaurant bloggers, it's just that when I'm out I'm more of an eater than a recorder. Also I just feel goofy taking pics of food in front of people. It's my cross to bear. Regardless, that lovely assortment is from Curra's, a great spot pretty close to my friend's house. We had chips and queso, breakfast tacos, a carnitas plate, and shrimp and octopus ceviche. Margaritas too.

The food at Curra's was very good and the atmosphere perfect for a first morning out after a way too long day of trying to fly out of a snowed in Hopkins Airport (a trip that should have taken around 5 hrs took 22, and involved renting a car and driving a few hours to another airport) and a long night of catching up over Lone Stars. The place was cool, serving food from Mexico's different regions. I'm not saying Diana Kennedy was manning the grill, but it was a real treat.

Other breakfast spots included Magnolia Cafe and Jo's, both on South Congress, and the flagship Whole Foods. The vibe in Magnolia kind of summed up the whole Austin experience for me--unpretentious, enjoyable, and diverse (as long as you're white or Mexican). Jo's was also pretty par for the course, with simple ready to go little breakfast burrios, and quality hot and cold coffee drinks, which is great because during the trip it went from near freezing to oven hot about fifty times. My macchiato order got me some odd looks, but that's fair enough. I'm a snob and they're not.

We also checked out some farmers markets we spotted while driving around.

Watch out for hipsters on bikes. Wait, they might be punk. Either way, watch out. Bikes are everywhere down there.

On Saturday it was the SFC Farmers Market in Republic Square. And HOPE, by some train tracks and pictured above, on Sunday. Apparently winter in Austin is like fall in Cleveland, or maybe we just got to the markets late, because there was mostly Brussels sprouts, beets, carrots, and the like. But what they also had was Gulf seafood (at Republic Square), kombucha on tap, a variety of ethnic foods, and a few charcuterie vendors.

This place (Kocurek) didn't have much left by the time we got there, but Dai Due, right near the pictured stand, had some salt pork and chicken stock that looked pretty good. I had already picked up provisions for our meal in--a stew with local grassfed beef shank (great, inexpensive cut), red wine, local carrots, canned tomatoes, and onion--at Whole Foods while my friend and my cohabitant were practicing yoga before spotting the market. It was nice to get the stock (I was going to use water), and the salt pork, which seemed really fresh/wet compared to other stuff I've seen labeled as such, to add to what we had. The stuff wasn't cheap, but the stock was rich and and salt pork cooked up well.

Not sure how things are regulated down there, but if it's not near impossible, I can't figure out why we don't have artisanal charcuterie at the Cleveland farmers markets. No knock on the WSM or places like The Sausage Shoppe, but the places named above used great meat in their products. It makes a difference, because those folks in Austin were putting out great charcuterie (based on my limited sampling), and judging by the websites it looks like they don't have near the history as the spots around here.

And the famed Austin food truck scene . . . .

The Local Yolk. Rumor has it they make a mean fried egg sandwich--but they were out of deviled eggs.

Pueblo Viejo. Very good tacos. Trouble staying stocked. Their gorditas, the last order of which I saw the person in front of me get, looked particularly good. There were tons of classic taco trucks scattered throughout the city, but sadly I didn't have a chance to do comparisons. Most of our truck eating was at food cart parking lots that were in the different neighborhoods.

Food truck art.

#19 Bus. Closed Sundays best as I could tell.

Ugly Banjos. Didn't get to try that one either.

Pig Vicious. Bacon everything. Also trouble staying stocked.

We also stopped at The Mighty Cone and enjoyed fried food in tortilla cones.

Gotta say, as the food cart trend is going full blast, this food was really more novelty for a decent price than super good food. And they seem to always run out of stuff. We definitely missed some of the "can't miss" Austin trucks, and I'm not denying that these things are great for people looking to serve food at good prices with low overhead, but I think this link best sums it up for me. For late night eats, I loved the food trucks. During the day, in the heat, I'll just as soon take my meals indoors with a beer.

We also ate a dinner at Uchiko. That place is for real. It was like Shuzio Tsuji came to Austin and opened a spot. Great food, great service, and a reasonable price for the quality. One of my favorite meals in a long time.

Other stops included Allens Boots, The Continental Club, Barton Springs, The Alamo (get there early), Thom's Market, Hole in the Wall, The Horseshoe, and countless other little bars, dive and otherwise. We also stopped at Central Market. Cleveland grocery stores could learn a lot from that place.

All in all, Austin gets my vote for best city in the U.S. As cool as anywhere with just about no cynicism, except at East Side Showroom. That place wouldn't let our drunk asses in--feis kontrol at its finest.

Real Good Tacos

2011-02-21T17:35:00.005-05:00

Lengua. Tongue. We've done pig. We've done veal. This is beef. From Millgate.

For me, tacos de lengua are enjoyable, but definitely not my favorite. All the times I've had them the tongue was in little chunks, kind of like this. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just that given the choice I'll usually go with al pastor or carnitas if they're available. So when I made these I simmered the tongue for a real long time, resulting in meat with a pulled/rillette texture. Not by the book tacos de lengua, but it's preferable to me.

Everyone that tried these loved them. It's like a really rich brisket taco. And there's no funkiness--more muscle meat with no organ meat thing going on.

I loosely followed this recipe, but simmered for way longer than instructed. I also watched this video (cute little couple right there), and this one (a little too earnest for my liking). Toppings were onion, cilantro, and nice hecho en Mexico jarred salsa from Narrin's.

Great nose to tail eating with a super inexpensive cut of meat. As for the grossness factor, I don't see how tongue is any grosser than any other part of the animal. At least once the taste buds are peeled off.

Tortillas were from La Bamba Tortilleria. I'd love to love them, but it's hard. Starting with maseca isn't helping anyone. Can we get some nixtamal going on? Please? In the meantime, they're better than what's in most grocery stores around here.

Chicken Under a Cast Iron Pan

2011-02-18T17:34:00.004-05:00

Because I didn't have a foil covered brick handy. Cast iron skillet on the stove with a cast iron chicken fryer weighing down the chicken from the top. The skin over the breast shrunk back a bit on this half during cooking. No big deal.

For the bird the back bone got cut out with decent sizzors. Then the keel bone, wish bone, ribs, and wing to the first joint were removed (nice little tutorial here). What was left was easily sliced in two halves and seasoned liberaly with Berbere seasoning, salt,and pepper before being cooked in lard with a bit of butter, and unpeeled garlic clove, and some thyme. Short of 10 min skin side down under weight on the stove, then flipped and cooked until done in a 450 oven.

Potatoes sarladaise style. Peeled, sliced, and rinsed Russets. They got dried and cooked in lard that came about halfway up the slices until crispy. After cooking they were seasoned with salt and a mixture of chopped thyme and garlic (not too much, as evidenced by the no trace of seasoning in the pix). Really nice side.

Sauce is veal stock reduced in the chicken cooking pan with some more salt and a pat of butter. Nice little gravy for the potatoes.

Pretty enjoyable meal. Simple, rustic, and all that. Chix from Plum Creek.

Wyngz

2011-02-16T21:20:00.001-05:00

Hopefully that spelling isn't copyrighted. And while that link is nice, what it addresses is pretty messed up.

Anyway, these are pretty much the same as the ones posted about here, but garnished with cilantro and enjoyed with a yogurt (Greek style)/lime juice/cilantro dipping sauce. So easy, and so good.

One week later.

2011-02-13T22:38:00.000-05:00

River Cottage style corned beef, French lentils, and baby bok choy. German mustard off to the side.

There was this post. Then a work trip. Then a day of soaking post brine. And in what seemed like no time at all, there was corned beef bubbling away on the stove. Despite the kind of long cure, it was the three hours of poaching that felt like an eternity.

The sides are green lentils cooked in water, drained, and mixed with some sauteed carrot and onion, mustard, great local cider vinegar picked up at the Shaker Winter Market, and olive oil. Also a side of baby bok choy braised for about 5 min in veal stock. Good sub for cabbage.

Next to corn: tongue.

And I got that mustard at Hansa Haus. I'm really trying to look past the second world war, because that store is ridiculous.

Dayton (area) Dining

2011-02-12T11:40:00.001-05:00

Rue Dumaine. Classic brasserie in a strip mall. Somehow it works, well. Nice food, wine, and cocktails. Picture above from their website.

Taqueria Mixteca. Legit Mexican food. Bathrooms located on the exterior of the restaurant. What more can you ask for?

One Eyed Jacks. Good beer list, on the cheap. Pretty solid pub food. Potentially loud music. Not bad when stuck in Fairborn hotel land.

That's all to say, one can do worse than eating in the Dayton area. And this didn't even include a side trip to the fabled Yellow Springs.

Sushi Bowl Sunday

2011-02-10T18:02:00.004-05:00

Just about a week late. We were hard at work. Check out the ass on the guy by the window.

Communal prep, plating, and eating table. Non-fish ingredients included egg, daikon, carrot, cucumber, enoki mushrooms, cream cheese, avocado, sprouts, and seaweed. Seafood was queen snapper, yellowfin tuna, and scallop. Accoutrements included wasabi from powder, pickled ginger, Kentucky soy sauce, furikake, sriracha, and kewpie mayo. Rice was white and brown (brown was arborio--it worked just okay) and seasoned the way sushi rice is seasoned.

Not bad on those queen snapper nigiri pieces. Tuna could use some work. The rolls were hit or miss, but mostly pretty good. Note for future: use discretion with rice. There were many rice bombs.

Mmmm . . . tamago. Also some spicy scallop up there (scallop + kewpie + sriracha). The scallop nigiri can use improvement--bigger scallops does not equal better sushi.

All the fish was from Kate's and we couldn't have asked for better. Purchased on Sat, on Sun everything was still great. The queen snapper was super mild and had good texture. Tuna was what you'd expect.

Not pictured is a bbq eel picked up in Asiatown. After thawing I forgot about it in the oven. The resulting charred eel wasn't pretty, which is a shame because it smelled great and we had eel sauce and everything. All in all, washed down with some Sapporos, these were quality super bowl eats.

And then we wait . . . .

2011-02-07T15:47:00.002-05:00

One raw chunk of brisket from Millgate (waiting on a tongue too).

One batch of brine River Cottage style. Only sub was 1 tbs of pink salt instead of 3 of saltpeter and some white sugar when I ran out of brown. It takes a while to cool. Frigid outdoor temps provide unlimited cooling space.

Tucked away in the fridge for a few days and I'll see it again soon. I heart corned beef.

Schnitzn'

2011-02-04T18:01:00.003-05:00

Veal schnitzel with a yogurt, mustard, lemon juice, paprika, and parsley sauce.

The sauce was thinned with water. It could have used a little bit more, but was fine with the tartar sauce like consistency. Still a step up from the usual squeeze of lemon juice, although that's not bad either.

For the schintz it was veal scaloppine from Plum Creek. The thin veal was seasoned with salt and pepper and dredged in flour, then egg, and then fresh whole wheat breadcrumbs. They chilled for little bit and then were fried up in some lard.

Real winter fare. (and sorry for the noise in the photo--as has been said here many times, this isn't a photo blog)

A Light Winter Meal

2011-02-02T21:23:00.001-05:00

Tilefish, parsnip, and lettuce. Pretty simple, and pretty bright due to a bunch of olive oil and citrus.

For the tilefish it was just salt and pepper on both sides of a fillet with some coarsely ground coriander added on the flesh side. Sauteed skin side down until the skin was crispy, then on the flesh side until it got some color. To finish the cooking, the saute pan with the fillets still in them went into a 450 oven for a minute or two just to even everything out. It got dressed with the clementine vinaigrette that was also used on the salad. Nice fresh fish from Kate's. Sustainable best as I can tell.

Parsnip puree. Just peeled and boiled parsnips flavored with salt, pepper, and a generous amount of olive oil. It was tempting to dairy up the parsnips while smashing them, but in the end the dairy wasn't missed.

And the standard bibb lettuce salad, here dressed with clementine segments and a vinaigrette made of honey, clementine juice, rice vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. The dressing was just as good on the salad as it was on the fish.

Olive oil and orange. A bright note in an otherwise blustery winter week.

Respect the Cockles

2011-01-31T18:54:00.004-05:00

From New Zealand. Pretty simple prep. Shallot sauteed in a generous pat of butter, the addition of a healthy pour of beer, and when the beer was boiling in the went the cockles and a cover went on the pan. A little shake or two and in around 3 minutes they opened. Every single one.

Really, really good. Better than any clams I've ever had. Not exactly harvested on the shores of Lake Erie, but what are you going to do?

If I had my head on straight I would have sauteed up some chorizo that's hanging in the basement along with the shallot. Still, at around $7 a pound at Kate's, these things are hard to beat.

And the winner from that contest a few days back:

True Random Number Generator

Min: 1

Max: 13

Result: 12

Ben, that's you. I think I have your e-mail and will be in touch. Congratulations.

There were a lot of comments about rice cookers. I'm not a gadget freak, but for me it was $30 well spent. Bittman says otherwise, but, without looking for a cite, I'm pretty sure these are the most owned kitchen applicances in the world (NYT always be hatin'). The man formerly known as The Minimalist says only if you cook rice 2X a day. I say why's it gotta be rice--this thing is good for all sorts of stuff? And yes, the stove works. But the stove doesn't have hot and absolutely perfect steel cut oats ready for me when I wake up. Plus minimal cleanup polenta, no brainer rice and quinoa that can be held for hours, and who knows what else. Definitely not absolutly necessary by any means, but there are plenty of worse ways to spend money in the kitchen.

Child Labor

2011-01-30T16:44:00.003-05:00

Marshmallows, from this recipe (some with a little pink food coloring). I also looked here, which pretty much just copies (with citation) the previously linked Epicurious/Gourmet recipe, but includes pictures and makes the whole thing seem a bit more daunting than it really is.

The process requires a number of bowls.

If you just have one stand or hand mixer I'd suggest whipping the egg whites right off the bat and setting them aside. I did the heavy mixing/whipping in the Kitchenaid, and used an old, inexpensive handheld mixer for the egg whites. This project would have gone fine with only one of the mixers, but having the two definitely sped things up, especially because we did a double batch.

Cleanup was a bit of a chore, but we enlisted the help of some marshmallow eaters.

An added bonus was the chilly weather. The recipe calls for 3 hrs to a day of chilling. Can you picture kids waiting a day for these things? We just covered the the glass baking dishes of the molten marshmallow mix and placed them on back steps. A little lunch, relaxation, and cleanup, and 1.5 hrs later they were ready to cut.

Overall, big thumbs up to making marshmallows. Limitless possibilities on flavors, and gluten free to boot.

Finally, last reminder: you've got until midnight tonight to enter last post's giveaway.

Pork & Giveaway

2011-01-26T21:07:00.002-05:00

Simple meal and quick post for someone to get a $65 gift certificate. Here I'm pimping modern decor, and the certificate is for CSN stores, which sell all sorts of stuff. Nothing in it for me this time, but I figure none of the handful of people reading here would mind a chance for some free credit. Just comment with your name and current city of residence and I'll randomly pick a winner. You could add more to the comment, but unless it's super moving I'm probably just going to random number it.

The dish above is a pork chop of quasi-Flintstone proportions over polenta topped with tomato sauce. For the polenta, I used a rice cooker (recent purchase to aid with the boudin referenced in the last post), and I couldn't be happier with the result. Looking for recipes on the internet, it seemed like a 3 or 4 to 1 ratio of liquid to polenta was the sweet spot. I went 3.5 cups duck stock to 1 cup polenta and wouldn't change a thing. Finished with a little salt, pepper, and butter, and, so long as the rice cooker doesn't break or the electricity go out, I'm never going to make this stuff on the stove again.

Rice cooker polenta. It's where it's at. Pork from New Creation. Good luck to the commenters.

Contest ends Sunday night.

Crispy Skinned Sea Bream

2011-01-24T21:57:00.006-05:00

After two days of making and casing a sort of venison boudin (more on that later), a dinner of red meat, or even poultry, was out of the question. So off to the market to deal with the surly fishmonger for some never-frozen Florida shrimp and super fresh sea bream. The bream fillets are everything trout can be only better--somewhat mild, just a bit of texture, and an affinity to just about any flavor.

This was cooked with the standard winter prep--heat fat (here 1/2 butter 1/2 olive oil), season fish with salt, pepper, and some coriander on the flesh side, cook skin side down until crispy, and then flesh side down to finish.

The sauce is was standard too. Drain pan of fat, add some butter and brown it up, add some rinsed capers, some parsley (stand back--that stuff can go airborne), and a squeeze of lemon juice. Simple and perfect.

The rice is brown rice cooked with some raisins and a bit of salt. When it was done it got more salt to taste and some olive oil. A Mediterranean would be proud. As for that crusty bit of rice on the left side of the pile, I'm still learning to use a newly acquired rice cooker.

And that crispy skin (minus a bite or two):

I swear you could shatter that thing. Prior to this the crispy skinned fish fillet had been pretty elusive for me. In the past, before to cooking I've tried the following: super drying the skin, slashing the skin in diagonal lines, slashing the skin in a hatch pattern, coating the fillet in corn starch or flour, and god knows what else. So finally I just asked a trusted person how to do it. While I don't remember as much from the evening as I should Mr. Lambert, I remember what you said about the crispy skin. And so simple--just press down on the raw flesh side of the fish while the skin is down on a hot pan. Hold for a few seconds and it's good to go. No more curled up fish or flaccid skin around here. It was a revelation.

Last thing--next post = $65 gift certificate giveaway. Give me a day or two to get it up. Stay tuned.

Semi-Family Style

2011-01-21T17:59:00.002-05:00

Dinner for four on one big plate. Maybe not as elegant as the ones at this place, but it worked out pretty well. The salads would have been served communally too, but sadly when I pass around a bowl of salad with citrus segments everyone seems to wind up with greens and all those painstakingly removed segments get left at the behind.

What's under that mess of mushrooms (sauteed oysters from Killbuck Valley)? Pork, of course. What else would it possibly be? That's some of it below:

Two big pork chops from New Creation. Seasoned simply with salt, pepper, and Spanish paprika, seared in bacon fat, and finished up in a 425 oven. Taken off the bone and sliced thickly for easy grabbing at the table.

And there's risotto. Here's the rice is Vialone Nano (available locally at Gallucci's). Better than carnaroli? Not sure, but definitely better than the arborio I've gotten around here. Made in the standard manner (sweated onion, rice added and briefly sauteed that with the onion, mix got drowned and boiled with a few glugs of wine, then cooked through with additions of hot chix stock). In addition to a little butter and some parmesan, the risotto got finished with roasted acorn squash (still available from Covered Bridge at winter farmers markets). Sweet and almost creamy, the addition of squash worked well and the color was nice to look at. I think I liked the rice made with acorn squash more than the ubiquitous butternut variety.

Regarding that salad . . . . Local hydro bib lettuce and non-local blood orange segments. Dressed with a vinaigrette of blood orange juice, rice vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, and honey. The mustardless vinaigrette was pleasant change from the mustard bound stuff we usually eat around here.

Family style. It's the new small plate.

Good Local Cheese

2011-01-16T13:56:00.004-05:00

Lake Erie Blomma. The truth.

So good, if not a little spendy. Available at The Cheese Shop.

Sausage Fest '11

2011-01-10T20:22:00.013-05:00

Toulouse Sausage via Paula Wolfert via Chow (above), venison with bay and garlic via Hank Shaw (below right), chorizo for aging via Darina Allen (below center). Good looking recipes. No pink salt.

Hog casings for the Toulouse and venison, lamb casing for the chorizo.

We used a Kitchenaid attachment grinder with pretty good success. As for that caulk looking gun on the right up there, not so hot. Broke after a few pounds of links. But, it came with stuffer tubes that fit the Kitchenaid perfectly, so it wasn't a total loss. I've heard mixed things about using the Kitchenaid as a stuffer. With the caulk gun tubes it worked out really well.

Venison from Ashtabula. Pork and back fat from New Creation. Spices from Urban Herbs. Hog casings from Pinzone's.

Easy Oven Ribs

2011-01-06T21:31:00.004-05:00

Finding a good recipe for oven baked ribs isn't easy. At least it wasn't for me. Cover in foil, don't cover, 225 for 4 hrs, 325 for 4 hrs, all sorts of things. So I chose what I figured were three somewhat reliable sources and started blending. I mean, could Emeril, TFlo, and the wise folks of Epicurious all be wrong? Not likely.

These baby backs were seasoned with salt, pepper, 5 spice, and Spanish paprika and greased up with some olive oil before being placed in a 325 oven for 1.5 hrs on a cookie sheet that was placed on top of a 1/2 sheet pan. Bones up for the first hour, down for the next 30 min. While that was cooking I worked on the sauce.

Homemade bbq sauce. Not my forte, but it worked out fairly well. I once again consulted Emeril and another website. I also looked at that TFlo recipe cited above. Wound up with this, in approximate order of amount: ketchup, sauteed onion, molasses, rice wine vinegar, peach jam, honey, maple syrup, minced garlic, Worcestershire, sriracha, cumin, mustard powder, salt, pepper, and ginger. That was pureed and then I got all Alabama with it and added mayo. The much enjoyed Kewpie, specifically. What doesn't msg mayo make better?

After an hour and a half the ribs came out of the oven and the bone/concave side got painted with the sauce. The oven was turned up to broil, and in went the ribs, sauce up, until the sauce was sizzling (about 5 min). Then out came the ribs, the meaty side got painted with more of the sauce, and they were placed back under the broiler until the sauce blistered up (about another 5 min--it's a sweet sauce and can burn quick).

That was it--slice, optional squeeze of lime, and enjoy. Not mushy fall-off-the-bone, but still super tender and easy to eat the bones clean.

The greens were just kale sauteed with minced garlic and then braised in chicken stock until the stems were tender and the liquid was all cooked off (had to add a bit of water half way through).

Nice little rib dinner that doesn't take much time and incorporates a sauce that uses lots of leftovers in the fridge. Also, I love smoked ribs, but there are ribs beyond smoking.

New Creation pork.

It's on.

2011-01-05T18:28:00.004-05:00

It's kind of sketchy, but it's still on. (I just hope my intestines are domestic . . . or at least from that vaguely defined area known as "Europe". Even more so, I hope they're not from all three places.)

Resolute Eating

2011-01-04T21:50:00.006-05:00

Sort of lame, very inauthentic, but perfect for a post New Year's resolution meal. Piccata inspired. And except for the pictures, it's really no worse than this one, and that blog is crazy popular.

Super simple. Thin sliced chicken breast pieces(chix breasts have been breeding in the fridge as of late--I'll cook one and it's like two more take its place) get seasoned and just barely dredged in flour before being sauteed in olive oil to get a little color and just cook through. The meat then gets thrown in a 200 degree oven while the sauce comes together.

This sauce is tomato based. I'm sure that makes the dish called something other than piccata, but as an unedited and pretty much anonymous food blog, it's not like this is really a trustworthy source for anything anyway.

So, while the chix is in the warm oven into the pan goes diced onion and a little stock and/or white wine to scrape up the fond leftover from cooking the chix. Once the pan is clean and the onions are soft into the pan goes some crushed canned tomato plus salt, pepper, and rinsed capers to taste. Red pepper flakes would be a nice addition too (plus anchovy . . . puttanesca style). Once that's all melded and reduced in goes some chopped parsley and a small pat of butter (optional, very optional). Then back in the pan goes the chicken. Look at that top one--it kinda looks like a chicken leg. Weird.

I won't talk about those sad looking boxed salad greens (hopefully there'll be something good at the Shaker Winter Mkt, opening this weekend), except to say they were dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. One of the best dressings ever. For now, just please imagine a side of braised chard or something.

NYE '11

2011-01-01T14:12:00.009-05:00

Shown in no particular order.

Pudding with whipped cream in a depression era glass. Classy. Pudding recipe from here (slightly lighter on the chocolate than suggested and skipped the double boiler suggestion), w/ a pinch (just a small pinch) of garam masala. CFT prediction for 2011 food trends -- Indian spices in dessert.

Whipped cream made with a little powdered sugar and vanilla. The whole thing really looked like a poorly made cappuccino, which was kind of neat.

Surf. Sliced scallop, just warmed through in a 450 oven, over a butternut squash puree (flavored with salt, pepper, butter, ginger, and vinegar). I thought the sauce would serve two purposes. First, be all trompe l'oeil scallop roe, cause if scallop roe, that delicious sauce maker, is available in Cle I haven't been able to find it. And second, mask my weak ass non-coin shape making knife skills. It did neither, but it tasted pretty good.

Scallops from Kate's. Squash from Covered Bridge. French butter from The Cheese Shop.

And the turf. Short rib how the cohabitant likes it, braised in aromatics, red wine, and a can of tomatoes served with the defatted (mostly) braising liquid. I was told "we need a vegetable with the meal," so I steamed some carrots, sliced them in half, and heated them up in a little butter enriched water. They were nice.

Beef from Millgate.

Not pictured is a simple leaf lettuce salad with a traditional vinaigrette. That and a traditional blanc de blancs champagne to go with the whole meal.

Oysters

2010-12-30T12:45:00.001-05:00

All Wellfleets are not created equal.

Thanks Tom.

Con-Fusion

2010-12-27T20:38:00.003-05:00

Vaguely Japanese style chicken meatballs (basic recipe here), brown rice, salad w/ Japanese restaurant style carrot/ginger dressing & cucumbers that had marinated in vinegar, and green chard stir fried with garlic. The sauce at the top left is almond butter based like this one.

I'm convinced soaking skewers prior to broiling is worthless. Want the sticks to look pretty? Cover exposed areas with foil. The rest of us can enjoy the char broiled goodness. [Plum Creek chicken, Firefly chard, Urban Growth garlic]

I'm coming to the realization that if I want to eat a healthy, complete meal, I've pretty much got to eat at home (or at limited ethnic restaurants). Maybe it's just the season, but it seems like some of the better menus around here compete for who could use the richest offal, the fattiest cuts, and/or deep fry the most. There's huge risotto and pasta mains, burger mania, offal fetishism (I'm not immune) . . . . Farm-to-table and nose-to-tail appear to be synonymous with "cook everything in animal fat of varying temperature." And that's just locally. When I turn on my super-limited cable Man v. Food is like The Making of a Heart Attack (or at least a diabetic), and I'm pretty sure Lipitor is sponsoring No Reservations.

I'm no health nut. I eat everything. But sometimes it's just too much. Which isn't to say I'm for salt bans or any real initiatives. It'd just be nice to be able to go out and get some good food that's not internally punishing. Sure, it's possible to piece together a meal at some quality spots, but couldn't it be a little easier?

Cleveland in general is not a model of health. Wouldn't it be kind of a public service if a place offered something like a non-ass kicking prix fixe? At least once a week? I'd order it. Just something like "No Heart Attack Wednesdays" or "Confit Free Fridays."

And until then, if you have the time, might I suggest this recipe for cured salmon. It's awesome, if not a bit high in salt and sugar. Pic of cure below.

Good for X-Mas or Hanukkah, or anything else, really.

The Nuge Would be Proud

2010-12-21T20:04:00.003-05:00

Venison backstrap. Shot and hung on Saturday, butchered by yours truly on Sunday, left to mellow in the fridge for two days, and enjoyed Tuesday evening. Really great stuff.

For the backstrap (loin), it was just some salt, pepper, and a healthy dose of five-spice powder. Then it got seared on both sides in a super hot pan in canola oil with a little butter before resting for a few minutes in a 200 degree oven. It was as rare as it looks, and it was perfect that way. The young white-tailed doe was from Jefferson, OH, where, based on the contents of its stomach, it enjoyed some left behind field corn and soy in addition to its regular diet. She was just super tender and clean tasting.

The accompanying sweet potato fries were fine, but not special. I soaked mandolin cut sweet potatoes (Firefly) in water, dried them, and then dredged them in cornstarch before frying them in lard (I read about the dredging here). Thing was, I didn't really take my time knocking the extra cornstarch from the fries, and some of it didn't really cook off. Not terrible, but there's room for improvement. Sauce is Kewpie blended with garlic and a little oil.

Maybe it was the msg in the mayo, but this was the best steak frites I've had in a while. I'm feeling the venison. And more deer dishes to come, so if anyone has recipe suggestions I'm all ears.

Little Macs

2010-12-17T14:49:00.008-05:00

Made pretty much using a Martha recipe (although she has others). Apparently this is the macaron bible, but Martha treated us right.

Swiss meringue buttercream (read the comments for clarity) for the pistachios, and strawberry jam for the others. Never have I enjoyed the use of food coloring more.

This may not be Pierre Herme, but they were very good and required less voodoo than research would lead one to believe. And they're gluten free.

Pork Shank

2010-12-15T23:01:00.004-05:00

Pork shank, chard, and some polenta/grits under that mess.

The Fig used to serve pork shank osso bucco (and hopefully will again). While this may not have been quite as good as theirs, it was a nice easy dish for a dinner at home on a cold day.

The pork (New Creation) was seasoned and floured and then seared on all surfaces in some lard. When they were done in went diced onion and carrot and minced garlic. Once that softened up some wine was added to the pot and reduced. Then a light poultry broth was added along with a bay leaf, rosemary, and some thyme (still hanging in there in the yard under the snow). Once that was simmering the pork went back in, the surface just peeking above the simmering liquid. The pot got covered and placed in a 375 oven for 2 hrs (the pork got flipped every .5 hrs or so).

After the pork was tender it was pulled from the braising liquid. The liquid got rapidly reduced for a bit, then some stemmed and chopped chard (Firefly--great greens of all sorts) was thrown into the porkless, somewhat reduced braising liquid and simmered covered on the stove top. The taste was classic, fresh soul food greens.

When it was time to eat, the pork got added back to the reduced braising liquid and greens, and the pot was covered over medium heat just to get everything hot. Some runny polenta got placed in the bowl, the pork and chard on top of that, and then a nice ladleful of the braising liquid (with braising veg and all--the rosemary and thyme stems were removed). A quick top off of parsley and it was good to go. A fair amount of time in the oven, but all in all not too much active work made this a pretty good weeknight meal.

The polenta (Country Gristmill/Stutzman--at NUFM) was just some cornmeal cooked with water and stock.

For reference, I glanced at these two recipes. I heart shank.

Waste Not

2010-12-13T21:13:00.006-05:00

Turkey innards and teeth marks. Turkey giblet mousseline.

That stuff in the turkey carcass is good for more than just gravy, but finding good instructions that utilize the liver, heart, and gizzards isn't easy. I checked the archives, and found something to work off of in a typoed, quasi-misindexed (but otherwise seemingly excellent) Forgotten Skills of Cooking recipe. Still, there was much improvisation.

To begin, I soaked the giblets in milk over night. The next day I dried them and started the cooking by softening some shallots in butter. Once that was going I added the trimmed and very roughly chopped gizzards. After the gizzards were about med rare I added the trimmed and very roughly chopped heart. Then in went the trimmed liver. Things were salted and peppered as they were added to the pan.

Once the liver was warmed through the whole mess into a little food processor. The pan had some remaining butter and fond, and I deglazed with some amarone grappa (2 or 3 tbs) and threw in a sprig of thyme. I flamed the grappa, and after nearly setting the house on fire the grappa got poured into the processor with the giblets. A little allspice, a little nutmeg, and then everything got pureed until smooth. Once smooth about 3/4 a stick of cubed butter got buzzed in.

The mixture got put into jars that were topped with about 1/8" of melted duck fat (you can see some of that fat on the lower right side of the pictured cracker), and by the next day the mousseline really came into its own. Nothing was off because of the heart and gizzard. There was no need for copious amounts of heavy cream (although I wasn't exactly shy with the butter). This is was what the chopped liver of my youth could have been if wasn't for Deuteronomy.

Turkey from Fresh Fork Market.

Not Quite Grilled

2010-12-12T21:49:00.003-05:00

Ever since scoring Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art at the local thrift shop meat on a stick has been occupying an unhealthy amount of my thoughts. That pic above was my first real attempt at it.

On the left facing north/south is some skin (close, but needs improvement), the skewers with the smaller chunks (like the top left one) have wing and miscellaneous meat including the oysters (great), the skewers with the bigger chunks have leg and thigh meat (also great), at the bottom right is neck sans skin (awesome, if not a bit difficult to eat), and the two flatter pieces on the middle right are the tenders from the chicken breast (didn't try them, but heard they were good). The main portions of the chix breast were used elsewhere.

All the meat was marinated in a mix of soy, mirin, vinegar, oil, sriracha, ginger, and garlic for about an hour. It got cooked on the grill side of a griddle (like this one) right under the broiler. They cooked pretty quick.

The sauce is similar to what was on the soba noodles in the last post. Here it was almond butter, soy, vinegar, sriracha, ginger, garlic, a little oil, and just a few tablespoons of chix stock to thin things out.

Not proper yakitori by any means, but good nonetheless. I mean, I just can't justify picking up one of these things no matter how cool they seem. Plus it's snowing, and I'm not that hardcore.

Chix from Plum Creek. This was a great way to get all the meat for a few meals and have clean bones for stock.

Meat Break

2010-12-11T17:37:00.002-05:00

Vegan even. Soba noodles in a sauce that's almond butter (chunky), soy sauce, sriracha, vinegar, and a touch of the pasta water. Veggies are julienned carrot, roasted cauliflower, and blanched and sliced snow peas. Cilantro garnish. Good hot or cold.

More Red Meat

2010-12-09T20:25:00.004-05:00

Millgate flank steak with Killbuck Valley shiitakes that were seared (barely) then cooked down in a veal/chix demi with a sprig of thyme. Side of mashed sweet potatoes. Portions of flank makes for nice little steaks. And there's always trim for tacos.

Millgate brisket braised in a mix that started with a little mirepoix, a can of tomatoes, and some red wine alongside some more sweet potato. The salad is raw food processor sliced Brussels sprouts dressed generously with lemon juice, a little s & p, toasted walnuts, and Manchego cheese. The sliced sprouts marinated in the lemon juice for about and hour, which almost kind of ceviched them.

It's the meat overload time of the year for the loca-curious in Northeast Ohio. B sprouts, cauliflower, sweet potatoes, and winter squash are still around, but even that's starting to dwindle. And sadly, as far as the green goes, my freezer's nearly empty.

Take Away - Good Cheap Fish

2010-12-03T15:26:00.008-05:00

Possibly the most memorable thing I ate during a recent trip to Spain was a plate of fresh sardines at La Boqueria. There wasn't much to it. Fresh sardines cooked on a flat top with olive oil and a little salt. The fish was cooked perfectly and served with lemon and a slice of bread slathered with tomato water and olive oil. It wasn't fancy or expensive. It was simple and perfect. I wanted to make it at home.

So a week or two later and back in Cleveland I took a trip to Kate's. No fresh sardines to be found, but a box of whiting (hake) had just come in. I got them gutted and took them home.

Once home I just snipped the fins with a pair of scissors, rinsed and dried the fish, lubed them with olive oil, and placed them in a hot, oiled pan. Some salt was added as they cooked and a little more after they were flipped.

I didn't much know what to expect, but I just did what I thought I saw done with the sardines, which is to say not much. Just left them to cook and flipped them once after the first side seemed done.

After they looked just cooked though I put them on a plate, squeezed some lemon juice over them, added a bit of parsley, and poured some Spanish olive oil on a piece of toast.

The fish was great. The top fillet just slid right off the bones, and bones came off the bottom fillet in one solid piece. Super easy to eat compared to larger fish cooked bone in (here there weren't any little bones to contend with). It was almost elegant.

Look at the fresh little guys below.

It's good stuff. $4 a pound fish that I couldn't imagine besting even with something significantly more expensive. It's too bad I didn't see how more of the food out there was prepared.

Donostia

2010-11-30T17:59:00.032-05:00

San Sebastian. I'll leave the description of the food scene to Mr. Adria, who described it the following way:

It's the best in Europe. The best in the West. No doubt about that at all. And if you push me, in terms of the average quality of the food, in terms of what you can get at any place you happen to walk into, maybe it is - probably it is, yes - the best in the world.

That's high praise. I don't think my experience was that good, but the purpose of the trip was to enjoy the town and the food--there was no Michelin star collecting (and now that Chicago's been reviewed some of that guide's magic may have been lost for me). We stuck to bars and generally low key restaurants. We tried not to over-research it.

There are many San Sebastian reviews out there, so I'll try to keep this somewhat short. First, it's worth noting that even the average pintxos spots (and there were lots of them) have what seemed like at least 40 hams hanging from the ceiling, That's not an exaggeration. The amount of incredible cured hams in a town that size was mind blowing. So if all else fails, one can always grab a ham plate.

Most the places in the old town seemed to follow a similar form--pintxos in front (with a bar full of pretty, cold, premade tapas and bocadillos that no one ever seemed to eat), and semi-fine dining in the back or below. The hot pintxos that had to be ordered were where it was at. Some places were seafood-centric while others appeared to focus on meat. In general, the offerings appeared somewhat consistent from place to place. Some form of foie gras was on nearly every menu.

First meal was at Restaurante Egosari's subterranean restaurant. Cod Pil Pil for me, Galician T-bone steak for L. I wanted to try cod pil pil ever since reading this book about eight years ago. Eating it here, made with ridiculously fresh cod (local here seemed very important, sustainable seafood . . . not so sure), did not disappoint. The sauce, emulsified, garlicky, and like a warm olive oil mayonnaise was just perfect. The meal also started with a nice little mushroom croquette as an amuse bouche. Not a bad maiden meal (and their hot pintxos upstairs, coming out of the same kitchen via dumbwaiter, were pretty good too).

After that most the food I consumed in the city was in the form of pintxos. Bernardo Etxea (pintxos in front, fine dining in rear) for seafood (shrimps and a cigala). Casa Urola (same thing with the pintxos up front and a serious restaurant in the back and maybe downstairs--the website makes it look fancier than it is, although it looked very nice) for some beef cheeks, foie, and some other stuff. Gandarias Taberna (twice) for more foie, more croquettes, and some goat cheese wrapped in something that was great (and that I can remember). Gandarias was great and always seemed to be open. They also did serious business in the restaurant portion, and had some of the nicest beef I've ever seen just sitting out by the bar in sub-primal cuts for everyone to see--kind of weird. Bar La Cepa, a ham Mecca (that just doesn't sound right), for some morcilla (blood sausage), meatballs, and a first try of the local beer (my opinion: stick to the cider and txakoli; more on that later).

We had some more avant garde/trendy pintxos too. We found La Cuchara de San Telmo, despite it being located on a street perpendicular to the street it was supposed to be on according to address we had. It had what was agreed to be the favorite hot foie of the trip, a pretty solid risotto, and super rich braised lamb (the lamb throughout Basque country was no joke--it was lamby, good, but lamby). It was also the first place on the trip that was filled with obvious food tourists, but that didn't make it bad or anything--the whole town seems geared for food tourisim. Standing room only inside.

And there was A Fuego Negro. Redic pictures here. This place won the hip award. Pintxos in front, seating in the rear, but definitely not like any of the other places we went. Kobe slider with chips (banana chips); craziest version of roast beef I've ever seen; cappuccino (almond "coffee" w/ some foam) w/ fried sweetbreads; an amazing combination with a ball of crab, ball of avocado ice cream, and a ball of licorice ice cream; a disgusting combination of pickled pork and mole ice cream, a decent piece of fish, and desserts. 2.50 euro each. A very cool experience at a really reasonable price. We just kept ordering. We think it was named after the smoke monster.

And finally, two other restaurant experiences that I'll keep super short mostly because I'm being harassed by two cats temporarily residing on my lap. We ate the small set lunch at Guggenheim in Bilbao. Some of the best turkey I've ever tasted, and more of the amazing Spanish ice creams. I don't think the ice creams were custard based, and the flavors and textures were amazing.

Also Urepel. Highly recommended by the guy who rented us an apartment, this somewhat fancy restaurant looked like the interior hadn't been updated in about 40 years. The food however, was not stuck in the past (as promised). After looking at the menu and feeling overwhelmed with the choices (even though the menu wasn't huge by any means) I asked if there was a menu of the day (or night, in this case). There was, and for 50 euro a person it would be hard to have eaten better. Perfectly braised meat, super fresh scallop with a bright orange sauce made from its roe, a fish course that for the life of me I can't remember, lamb, and probably the best dessert of the trip. All in all it was about 6 courses, each with appropriate flatware and accompanied by a rose wine that was included in the price (red or white were available too). It was great dining experience.

That's it. There were other places too, and I went to the Bretxa Market (which was a bit disappointing except for the pretty neat fish portion) and surrounding shops (which were amazing), but I think that's enough.

One last thing: Drinking. Sidra and Txakoli. Dry local cider and dry local white wine, respectively. They were inexpensive and very enjoyable. The cider may have been around 1 euro for a small pour, and the txakoli about 1.50. Those drinks were some of the biggest treats of the trip.

Barcelona Quick Stops

2010-11-22T20:39:00.009-05:00

A wise man told me it wouldn't be hard to find good food in Barcelona. That's true, but it's not hard to find some pretty crappy food there too. Here are some places enjoyed over 2.5 days in BCN.

First, tapas in La Boqueria. I just looked for the most crowded place (I think it was El Quim, but not sure), waited for a seat to open up, grabbed it, ordered a beer, and tried to make sense of what was going on. The fast pace and crowd, combined with my nearly non-existent Spanish and the local preference for Catalan, made for a pretty intimidating experience. But everything looked so good. Wiggling razor clams, heaps of fresh wild mushrooms, and just tons of great looking plates of food. Prices were high but portions were generous. I went with oysters (pretty good but not special), a traditional omelet with some bread that was topped with the ubiquitous tomato water and olive oil (okay), and a couple of fresh sardines (ridiculous). The sardines were cooked on a flat top with some olive oil and salt. They were truly excellent.

I also learned about the cortado, which would remain a running theme throughout the vacation.

For a first dinner, Casa Delfin. I'm sure the raved about Cal Pep, in the same neighborhood, is good, but waiting 2 hrs for tapas seems very un-tapa. So Casa Delfin it was for a serviceable shrimp and avocado salad, amazing tomato water olive oil toast, a pretty good rioja, potentially excellent sausage with beans (unfortunate smell and aftertaste of burnt oil kind of ruined it), and terrific brandade stuffed baby artichokes. Service and dessert were very good too.

Non-hipster butchers.

And last, but by far the best, was the upstairs tapa bar at Coure. We tried to walk into Embat right before they opened for dinner at 8, but apparently people in Europe are really into making dinner reservations and they were fully booked for the night. Even at the bar. We asked for a suggestion of where to go, and after first pointing us to a decent looking place across the street, some guy from inside the restaurant had us wait so the hostess could get us a card for a place he liked. That place was Coure.

We started with chicken and ham croquettes. The downstairs of this place was for super modern food 2.0 stuff. The upstairs was the antithesis. Same high quality ingredients, same care, but old school tapas with occasional twists. These were perfect croquettes, and we tried lots of them on the trip. Then wine and feasting. A perfect little piece of braised Galician beef cheek over celeriac puree, beef tartare with a quenelle of mascarpone cheese standing in for an egg yolk, seared tuna belly with figs and a ponzu like sauce, cheese cake, and a pear tart with pear ice cream (the first of many of the fantastic ice creams we had in Spain). There was an oyster in there and something else too (an Asianish ravioli with pesto--many of the modern Spanish places visited seemed to really be enamored with pesto). Also, a heaping plate of razor clams.

The meal upstairs at Coure was the most enjoyable food we had in Barcelona, and the price was totally reasonable. Plus I think they take reservations at the tapas bar (also very un-tapa) as well as their sit down place, which makes the experience much more pleasant dining than the elbow dropping zoo-like atmosphere at some other spots.

Next up, San Sebastian. Those hams in the top pic are nothing compared to what was hanging in the average Donostia pintxos spot.

More Duck Breast

2010-11-10T20:53:00.002-05:00

Fall vegetables too--orange cauliflower and b sprouts. Not much to say about all of this, except that a good duck breast is like a great steak, with the bonus of leaving behind a carcass perfect for stock, fat and skin for cracklings (best salad garnish ever) and rendered fat, and legs for confit or whatever. I don't know why the poultry is reminiscent of red meat, but I'm pleased about it. Here the meat got seasoned with salt, pepper, a little bit of allspice and seared--a while on the scored fatty side, and not long at all on flesh side--in a blazing hot pan.

The veg was really enjoyable too. Brussels sprouts and cauliflower from a vendor on the south (read: JV) side of the Shaker Farmers Market. Amazing stuff. Here it was coated with olive oil, salt, and pepper and cooked in a super hot oven. I thought about adding bacon, but why? Instead I just basted the veg halfway though cooking with some of the fat that rendered from breast.

The sauce is cooked down cherry wine, chix/veal demi, and some mustard whisked in at the end. Nice to have a dairy free sauce now and again. Cherry and duck. Classic for a reason.

The duck came from Plum Creek, my standard source for poultry. And while I think their chicken is really good, their duck is over the top. It seems like most things at farmers markets are better than what's available from places that trade in volume, but with some things the difference is really evident. Eggs are one of those things. Plum Creek's duck is another. Seriously, it's like crack.

More Fall Fare

2010-11-08T22:18:00.002-05:00

(broccoli + onion + chicken broth + s + p) + (OTR bread) = satisfying cool weather lunch.

Broccoli soup is one of my most favorite things, especially with sweet fall broccoli. No need for cheese. No dairy at all for that matter.

This was a simple one pot (+ blender) soup, that started with caramelizing onions in a pot. Some broccoli was added to the onions along with a few ladlefulls of chicken broth (veg broth would have worked too). The pot, on high heat now, was covered until the broccoli was steamed until just tender. Then into the blender went the pot's contents along with some more broth (made from an almost, kind of, meaty chicken carcass, from a roasted chicken, simmered for an hour or so in water with some onion). It got blended for about a minute, then reheated in the rinsed out pot. Salt and pepper to taste and it was done.

The cooked onions bound and fortified the soup as well as cream or butter would have, but without the dulling richness either would have brought. And it wasn't oniony. The soup was bright. Not even a squeeze a lemon was needed.

Chix from Plum Creek. Broc from FarmShare. That's all it took.

Vacation Inquiry

2010-11-07T11:02:00.002-05:00

Barcelona (3 days), San Sebastian (4), and Bordeaux (2). In November. Limited access to a rental car in Bordeaux. Any suggestions (re food: 1 Michelin star or fewer)? TIA.

Fall Salad

2010-11-05T11:46:00.002-04:00

Arugula, vinaigrette, roasted cauliflower, pear, Marcona almonds.

Some wings barely pictured in the background. With homemade ranch. Kinda like this recipe, but with the addition of some sour cream and the mayo was Kewpie. Also, milk curdled with lemon juice was subbed for buttermilk. It was good, if pretty unhealthy, dip.

Standard Fish Prep

2010-10-28T19:36:00.004-04:00

Lake Erie perch with a parsley/caper/butter/lemon sauce. Over cauliflower posing as couscous. By far one of my favorite ways to eat fish.

The perch was seasoned with salt and pepper, lightly dredged in flour, and quickly sauteed in olive oil. A quick wipe of the pan, and in went some butter. Once the butter just started to brown the capers and parsley got tossed in. The capers popped, the parsley kind of fried. Once off the heat some lemon juice was squeezed in. The universe was right.

Served with some "cauliflower couscous." I certainly didn't invent the treatment, but I get it. Some shallot softened in butter while the cauliflower got buzzed in the food processor. Then the chopped up cauliflower joined the shallot to warm through. I really didn't need too much cooking. Some salt, pepper, and olive oil and this was really just a better version of the ubiquitous little balls of pasta. At the very least a really pleasant alternative.

I really liked this. Clean perch flavor, buttery citrus, nice caper and herb flavor, all over a veg that was happy to compliment anything placed on top of it.

Fish from Kate's, shallot from Muddy Fork, parsley from FarmShare, cauliflower picked up at NUFM at Shaker.

Even More Breakfast

2010-10-25T21:30:00.003-04:00

I'm really not a huge breakfast guy. Espresso, maybe a bagel or banana, and I'm good to go. However, sometimes there's more.

First, some sausage got browned up and set aside. Then diced regular and sweet potatoes were sauteed for a while in less butter than you'd think. When the taters were just about cooked through some green pepper got softened up, and then some onion. Salt, pepper, cumin, and paprika rounded out the spices.

After the veg was sorted back in went the sausage and little nests were made for 4 eggs. Some olive oil got drizzled in the depressions, and the eggs were cracked into place. A minute or two under the broiler, some parsley, salt, and pepper, and it was time to eat. A nice little breakfast skillet at home.

Housekeeping II

2010-10-22T14:17:00.004-04:00

Just some fall cleaning. Bumping out some inactive blogs or ones that I don't read anymore and adding some new ones.

Linking is no way an endorsement just as not linking is no way an indictment. If there's a regularly updated Cle food blog I'll generally link it.

Little crab and mushroom omelet up there with some sweet potato/reg potato hash, in case you were wondering.

And the Giveaway Winner is . . .

2010-10-18T21:58:00.003-04:00

Cio and Mike. Chosen via Google's first link for a random (pseudo) number generator. Actually, Lizzie A. won first, but as she's a household member I had to choose again. We were too lazy to put the names in an actual hat.

Cio, aka Rosy Girl, and Mike, aka Cleveland's hottest bartender, are friends, but personally I was pulling for tattgiff and her poem. No offense to everyone else of course. Congrats guys, I think I have your contact info somewhere.

In other news, pictured is a Plum Creek duck breast spiced with star anise, coriander, cumin, salt, and pepper with a cherry wine/duck stock sauce. That side is acorn squash, cooked in a 450 oven with the same spices (minus coriander) and drenched with some Snake Hill Farm maple syrup for the last 5+ min of cooking. Squash via FarmShare.

The 4 lb duck yielded perfect sized breasts, and the legs are getting a quick cure and will be confited tomorrow before being stashed away for cooler weather. Which may not be too far away--outside my breath was showing for the first time this year.

Jumping on the Bandwagon

2010-10-16T16:19:00.004-04:00

My attempt and minimalist Korean fried chicken (a little background here). As far as fried chicken of any sort goes, these might have the highest taste to effort ratio ever.

Pot of lard (around 350/375 degrees). Chicken wings (seasoned with salt and pepper). Wings go into hot lard. Wings get nice color (maybe short side of 15 min, maybe a bit longer). Wings come out of lard and go in a bowl with just a little butter (doesn't have to be melted) and some sriracha (to taste). Wings, butter, and sriracha (or any chili/garlic paste type thing) get tossed to melt butter and coat wings. Bit more salt. Mmmmm.

Also, don't forget, one day left to try to win $65 to spend on anything here. See post below for details.

Wings from Plum Creek. If shopping the Cleveland area farmer's markets, Tea Hills has some nice ones too. I think the reason this worked so well without any real fuss is because of the quality the chicken. Factory chix may require more sophisticated treatment.

Giveaway, Meal, and Review

2010-10-11T21:55:00.012-04:00

Warning: Long post below.

First the giveaway. $65 dollar credit to CSN stores, an online place selling everything from dining tables and furniture to frying pans (check out these sweet ones) and other cookware. How to get it? I agonized for about 10 min over what I should ask for in exchange for the credit. But really, just leave your first name, last initial, and current city of residence and we'll go from there. Feel free to say more if you'd like--I'm certainly curious to know who is reading (there are at least a few of you) and what you like about this blog or don't--but I'm just going to pick a name from the comments out of a hat. That is unless someone says something really good--then that person will win. Most likely it will be the hat method though.

Second, the meal. Pictured above is farfalle with sausage, broccoli rabe (rapini), chard, garlic, the tiniest amount of anchovy, red pepper flakes, and parmesan cheese. The rabe was blanched whole (in boiling water that would eventually cook the pasta), cooled in ice water, chopped up, and set aside. Between the high quality rabe and the blanching, there was not even the slightest amount of unpleasant bitterness.

For the chard, the stalks were lightly peeled, chopped pretty fine, and sauteed in olive oil with salt, pepper, and an anchovy fillet. The cooked chard stems got set aside and replacing them in the pan went some Italian sausage that had been removed from its casing and some red pepper flakes. That got chopped and browned. Once the pork was cooked back in went the chard stems along with the leaves and some minced garlic. The chard cooked down and its still damp leaves added some extra moisture to the pan which kept the garlic from burning.

By the time the chard leaves had wilted and were tender the pasta was cooking away. About 3 min before the pasta was done, the blanched and tender crisp rabe got heated up with the pork-veg mixture awaiting the pasta. Once cooked, the drained but wet pasta went in with everything else, cooked for a few seconds, and the heat got turned off. In went a generous handful of parm, a check for salt and pepper, and off to the table it went. I've never found a better way to eat chard or broccoli rabe. Or pasta for that matter.

Most of that stuff was from the Peninsula Farmers Market. Best as I remember pork was from Curly Tail, rapini and garlic from Urban Growth, and the chard from Infinite Garden Farm.

And finally, the review. Here's a link to the Sitram frying pan I did most the cooking in. It was less expensive a month or so ago, and was provided (with the addition of my $8 supplement) by CSN, the same folks giving some lucky commenter $65 ($5 more than I got). Coincidentally, I cooked the pasta in a saucepan from the same brand, but a different line. Bottom line--I really like the pan. I had been wanting to upgrade from a restaurant supply 10" aluminum pan for a while but just couldn't pull the trigger. This was a nice opportunity.

In my mind, there are lots of great options for cookware. The biggest thing is to match the cookware with the cook. I really don't believe there are universals. To that end I wouldn't recommend this for everyone. It's not exactly inexpensive--check out this super adequate set if you're looking for a few pots and pans to get started (or this for a few bucks less)--if you're on a limited budget, and it's not a piece of artwork, if that's your thing (it is kind of pretty though). However, it heats pretty quickly and evenly, and is heavyweight enough that burning things is likely to be due to operator error, not equipment failure. And stainless steel is the only material that's in contact with food, so it's nonreactive, which is nice when cooking with acidic ingredients. Plus the handle never seems to get hot on the stove, which is a bonus, and it's all metal, so you don't have to think twice before throwing the whole thing in the oven (or even under the broiler). Going from the stove to the oven is very important to me--it may not be for you.

Also, I love the absence of rivets attaching the handle to the pan. I know people love rivets and welds are more prone to failure--I've been in a busy restaurant kitchen, waiting impatiently by the window for some food to come up, only see the chef grab a pan off the stove, spin around to start plating, and gasp while the pan and its contents fell to the floor with the chef left holding the pan's delaminated handle and probably thanking god he hadn't been working on a flambe. Yes, welds no doubt fail, and I'm sure when this one does it'll be at the worst time possible. But my other welded handled cookware has been going strong for years in my little residential kitchen, and I'm pretty rough with my cookware. I'm all for well designed stuff, and rivets are certainly no deal breaker, but there is a such thing as over design. This pan is tough. And cleaning around rivets sucks.

So I like the pan, a lot. Claded stuff is nice, as are carbon steel pans like the ones linked way above. But as noted cookware should be matched to cooking style. For me, having a nonreactive pan that heats up quickly, can be banged around, and won't freak out if I let it soak with detergent for a day (or two) fits the bill. I'll save the babying for my chef's knife. And it's just a pan, so dropping a car payment for the thing doesn't make too much sense to me no matter how cool it is. All in all, two thumbs up.

Good luck winning the $65 credit. Contest ends this Sunday at midnight.

Gun Enthusiasm

2010-10-11T15:03:00.003-04:00

I think that's a miss.

Fire in the country.

Here's hoping for a few more weekends like this past one.

The CFT in the News

2010-10-08T13:39:00.010-04:00

Profiled in Fresh Water here. There goes any attempt at CFT anonymity.

And if you've read it, here are a few clarifications:

Regarding the garage filled with garlic, that was Urban Growth garlic, farmed in Ohio City and sold at the Fig Market and the Peninsula Farmers Market. They're good friends, have been featured in Crain's, and run a tight ship. That the article mentioned that they grow in Peninsula and sell in the Shoreway was somewhat ironic in that I give Pete and Virgina a hard time for selling at a far off fancy pants market ("pillaging a food desert" might have been uttered). Anyway, sorry about the error, and I'm going to try to visit P & V way out there tomorrow a.m. They've got some great plans for next year as discussed by Pete in the Crain's article.

Rural Oregon. I did work in Oregon for AmeriCorps for the long side of 2 years before settling here. Big ups to IHAD Oregon. However I lived in Portland (N & NE) and commuted about 30 min each way to work in Forest Grove, which could be considered rural. City by night, country by day (with huge Nike and Intel campuses between). It was there I developed my love for Mexican and Hawaiian food, mushrooms, and not using an umbrella no matter how hard it rains. It was also there that that I honed my disdain for homeless people with very expensive rain jackets and dogs and cities that shit on their minority populations. Most notably, I really miss the filberts.

Friendships with vendors. That's always been tricky for me, as I think the distinction between friend and acquaintance is a huge one. I sometimes find it hard to figure out when there's an actual friendship or simply a friendly business relationship with vendors and folks at restaurants. Maybe that's part of the charm of farmers markets and restaurants where the chef comes out to give patrons a high five or the staff is particularly cool--there's some type of relationship there. But I sometimes find it confusing, and as such my bright line for determining friendship is . . . non-business home visits. If there's been a non-transactional home visit I tend to think there's a friendship, or at least a burgeoning one. If not then it's a friendly customer relationship, which isn't bad and is quite nice for what it is.

Conversation is a good thing I think, and it makes sense to at least know a little about the people that are growing/making what you're eating and drinking. Are they honest? Is everyone on the same page? Do the profits go to support causes you find abhorrent? Please though, there's not much worse than waiting behind someone in line while he or she is performing psycho analysis on a busy vendor before buying $5 of veggies or a dozen eggs. Maybe we should limit ourselves to one friendly convo topic per visit?

"Libertarian gun enthusiast." I like Tod, count him as a friend, and stand by that statement. What's not mentioned is that I took him up on that skeet shooting offer, and have done so on numerous occasions--he's a much better shot than me. The guy has great meat, and it's raised in a very thoughtful way. While I don't subscribe to all of his political views, I find his thoughts on subjects well considered to the point where reasonable minds may differ. I wish more people gave as much though to their political stances as he does.

That's it. Overall I really enjoyed the article and was flattered by it. The vendors and restaurateur mentioned are beyond reproach, and it's great that there's another periodical covering these types of things. They could use a snazzier webpage though, but I'm really in no place to criticize.

Twofer

2010-10-06T21:53:00.004-04:00

Pardon the skanky looking cilantro. I cut it before it was dry. I knew better. Moving on . . . .

Beef brisket. One cut of meat. Two + meals. The pictures are, however, in reverse order of the meals. But the tacos were better than the not-quite-braised-long-enough thing going on below. The slices pictured down there weren't terrible by any means, but the pulled stuff the next day was great.

The braise was pretty standard. First the meat was seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin, and chili powder and seared in some lard. Then it was removed in went diced onion, celery, and carrot to soften with some salt and pepper. Once those were good in went minced garlic and tomato paste. Then some thyme, bay leaf, and a bunch of leftover red wine simmered with the veg. The veg-wine mix got put in a casserole with the brisket, and some room temp stock (veal/chix) was added to make the liquid come halfway up the meat, the casserole got covered with foil, and it went in a 325 oven for 1.5 hrs. It could have used another hr for max tenderness, but it was really quite good as is.

Before serving both sides of the meat got charred under the broiler--it took about 2.5 minutes per side. The liquid was strained from the veg and got mixed with a tiny amount of roux to make a thin gravy. The sauce went well with the mashed sweet potatoes and the green beans that had been blanched and then sauteed with some garlic.

It felt like an old-school Sunday night supper.

The tacos began when the first brisket dinner was over. The leftover half of the brisket and all the leftover sauce (with a little extra water) got put in a covered pan that went into a 250 oven for about 3 hrs. That cooled overnight in the off and slowly cooling oven, was refrigerated for a day, and reheated on the stove for a second brisket dinner.

The brisket was easy the pull apart, and the sauce got reduced to a super thick syrup that was added to the pulled meat. Also added was some more salt, pepper, Mexican oregano, and chipotle powder. It was pretty awesome.

That side salad that's barely visible in the taco pic--arugula, lettuce, watermelon, and feta. Simple vinegar (lemon juice is better), oil, salt, and pepper dressing. That salad is classic for a reason.

Tacos served with cilantro, diced onion, lime, sour cream, and hot sauce.

Beef from Millgate. Lettuce and arugula from Firefly Farm (Shaker Mkt). Watermelon from a cool urban farm on 30th and Cedar. Feta from Lucky Penny (via FarmShare).

Oh, and stay tuned. It appears that I've been offered the opportunity to give away a $65 credit to an online store that has tons of things to choose from. In the next few posts I plan to review a thing I got from them and offer up the gift cert. Just fyi. And there's going to be some linkage. Seems like a fair price to pay.

Steaked

2010-09-30T21:30:00.004-04:00

Flank steak, tons of veg, sweet potatoes. A sauce would just ruin it.

Beautiful flank steak from Millgate Farm. Legit grassfed beef, and a great selection of cuts. Not cheap, but not over the top either. Plus, the guy who runs the joint is a great shot. It was seasoned with salt and pepper and seared in super hot cast iron pan slicked with olive oil. A small pat of butter, split skin-on clove of garlic, and sprig of rosemary were thrown in the pan during the searing/cooking to add some extra flavor and make the kitchen smell all nice. About 4 min on each side and it was set to rest. Just before serving the sliced steak got hit with just a bit of salt.

To the right of the steak is some mashed sweet potato (With a little regular potato mixed in--I stupidly grew some red skinned potatoes right next to my row of sweet potatoes, so when I went to peel one of the presumed sweet potatoes I was surprised to find to some nice white flesh. The whitey just went in the with the sweet stuff.) The boiled and drained tubers got mashed with just a little salt, pepper, and butter. It would have been fine with no addition. I don't know how sweet potatoes do it, but it's one of the few foods that are just perfect as is. Especially right out of the ground.

Under the meat is some more good stuff. A mix of green beans, sweet peppers, oyster mushrooms, shallot, corn, and tomato. Just about everything was cooked separately, set aside, then heated back up together. The green beans were blanched, shocked, and sauteed in olive oil with salt and pepper. The peppers sweated in olive oil with salt and pepper until they were soft. The mushrooms seared in olive oil with some shallot, salt, and pepper. The corn just sauteed really fast in oil. And the tomatoes were heated up with everything else right before dinner was served. It was ratatouille inspired, and a real pleasant way to eat some good vegetables.

Green beans picked up at Shaker Mkt, peppers and corn from FarmShare, mushrooms from Killbuck, shallot (and garlic for cooking the steak) from Urban Growth, and tomatoes from Nature's Bin.

All in all a pretty good and healthy meal. The summer bounty will be sorely missed.

[cutting across the grain on a cluttered cutting board]

Stuffed Again

2010-09-23T20:24:00.004-04:00

Chile Relleno. Not the truest, but not bad. Stuffed with a mix of muenster cheese, black beans, and raw corn. The mix was like 2:1:1 beans, cheese, corn. Next time I'd probably go closer to 1:1:1. Generally I'm skeptical of things other than traditional cheese stuffed deep fried chiles masquerading as rellenos--I still have nightmares of an abomination I had around here that was stuffed with what looked like a previously frozen diced vegetable medley--but this worked out fine.

First the poblanos were roasted under the broiler until well charred all over, then left to steam from their own heat in a bowl covered with cling wrap. They were pretty easy to peel after that. Then they got a slit cut in them, had the seed pod removed, and were stuffed.

The stuffed peppers were cooked in a tomato sauce that was just canned tomatoes, cumin, salt, and pepper. A little olive oil too. The peppers on the sauce were put in a 450 oven for about 20 min.

Toppings are toasted pumpkin seeds, cotija cheese, and cilantro. The pumpkin seeds were cool. You crunch on them and it's like "shit, a pepper seed, really?" But then it's all "sweet, these seeds are much better than pumpkin seeds, and all the cool people in Mexico have been eating them forever."

Peppers from Covered Bridge, cheese from cheese people at Tremont Farmers Mkt (they're at tons of mkts), corn from FarmShare. Fresh roasted pepitas scored at The Peanut Shoppe of Akron. Not much pedigree on the other stuff.

Morning Routine

2010-09-21T22:48:00.008-04:00

Metropolis Redline espresso. I go with Phoenix blonde generally, but a recent trip to Chi-town yielded the other stuff. Also stopped at Intelli for some single origin spro and a clover mugful of some blend. I like the Black Cat, but as far as single origin espresso goes, never again. The Redline was a revelation, and the trip to the Metropolis shop a worthwhile excursion.

Pretty standard stuff right above. Whole wheat pancakes by L., the last of this seasons wonderful melon, local syrup, and New Creation bacon.

Breakfast tacos. They're so good. Eggs, tomato, avocado, cheese, and eventually some cilantro, hot sauce, and sour cream.

Eggs, naan, cilantro, hot sauce. Naan from TJ's. Whatever, sometimes I'm in Westlake.

Crab Stuffed

2010-09-13T19:13:00.006-04:00

Sea Bream, East Coast crab, broccoli couscous, and cilantro. Pretty nice for a quick dinner.

After taking a quick walk in Cuyahoga Valley National Park and being unable (unwilling?) to pull the trigger on some tasty looking seafood options at a nearby restaurant (that I really enjoyed), a salt water dinner in order.

Standard prep for bream fillets--salt, pepper, and ground coriander on the flesh side. This time I also cut the small bones out of the fillets because the missing flesh was going to get covered in crab. They got seared flesh side down in olive, then flipped, covered with crab, dusted with bread crumbs, drizzled with some more olive oil, and then thrown under the broiler just until there was a little color on the crumbs. Solid, crispy skinned fillets.

The crab. Some MSC certified Atlantic red crab. Legit crab. A nice change in pace from AK stuff. All the fish was from Kate's, of course.

Couscous was a little different from usual. Made with the usual 3 parts H2O to 1 part cous, I added a bunch of food processor shredded broccoli to the pasta as it steeped. I added about 1/3 of a cup veg to 1 cup cous. Next time I think I'd go 50/50 veg to pasta. It got drizzled with more olive oil when it was dished out onto the plate. Pleasant enough, but who'd turn down more broccoli?

Garnished with cilantro and lemon. It made me feel a little less bad about shying away from the crab stuffed lobster special in Peninsula.

Taco Nite

2010-09-09T18:38:00.002-04:00

It was a nice spread. Starting at 9 o'clock, leftover elk meat tacos, smashed cumin flavored black beans, something kind of like or at least inspired by chile rellenos, and something kind of like or at least inspired by elote (similar version here). Condiments are lime, red onion, feta (feta??? it was in the elote), clilantro, and sour cream.

The knockoff rellenos started with beautiful poblanos picked up at the Shaker Market. Flamed on the stove and peeled, they then got stuffed with some leftover chunks of rindless brie and shredded gouda (edam is popular in Mex, so why not gouda?). While the peppers were being stuffed, a pan of fresh tomatoes (skin and all) pureed with a chunk of serrano was brought to a simmer with some finely minced cilantro stems. The skinned and stuffed peppers went into the fresh sauce, and the whole mess went into a 450 oven for the cheese to melt and start oozing out into the tomato puree. It wasn't a proper chile relleno, but it was very enjoyable.

Until we get a proper taco place closer than Painesville, this will do fine. Still, I want that taco place (and some place serving traditional Mexican food).

Elk Salad

2010-09-06T10:32:00.006-04:00

Elk, cauliflower, cucumber, cilantro, and dressed lettuce. All over a piece of warm naan--it was a dinner salad.

The elk was from the Bonnie Brae Elk Farm via NUFM @ Shaker. It was a sirloin strip, salt and peppered and seared in olive oil. Some rosemary was thrown in the searing pan to infuse the oil during the short time it took to cook the elk to rare. The herby scent complimented the elk's slight gamey flavor. The meat is lean. Cooking beyond medium rare would destroy it. Just about black and blue is where it's at.

Cauliflower. Also picked up at the Market. Tossed in olive oil and seasoned with salt and pepper, it was broiled/roasted for few minutes. Nutty and cooked but not mushy, it was a solid veg.

The cucumber was peeled, seeded, and diced. Covered Bridge cuc. It got a little salt before being added to the salad.

The lettuce was from Firefly Farms, a great lettuce vendor at the Market, even in the summer heat. Please don't judge them based on the bruised greens pictured. Those are over a week old and have been subject to much bumping in an overcrowded fridge. They were lightly dressed in olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt, and pepper.

Really good stuff. The elk was a nice change of pace from beef, and it cost about the same. I'll eat it again.

Fried Chix

2010-08-30T21:48:00.006-04:00

One chopped up chicken + Just enough lard to submerge = Chicken bliss.

Not overly thought out. Got home from work and hacked up the chicken. Prepared a quick marinade of milk with lemon juice (fake buttermilk) piqued with Old Bay, onion, smashed garlic, Mexican oregano, bruised winter savory and thyme, bay leaf, cayenne, and some salt and pepper (hmmm . . . should have thrown in some hot/chili-garlic sauce). The chicken parts rested in there for about 1.5 hrs.

After their bath, the chicken pieces were dredged in flour seasoned with salt and pepper, left to sit on a cooling rack, then dipped back in the strained bathing liquid (that got an egg added to it) and recoated in seasoned flour. A quick rest on the cooling rack again, then into some hot pure lard.

Knowing when they were finished cooking wasn't brain surgery either. The color was good and they floated. I took the temp of one piece and it was 170-something. I don't think a few degrees either way on the chicken or in the fat matter too much, as it seems like it'd be hard to dry these things out without burning the flour. As for under cooking them, I think waiting for buoyancy ensures no rawness. Either way, why perfect doneness and crustiness happen at the same time is one of life's most pleasant mysteries. The back pieces were the best parts.

Served with green beans (blanched then sauteed in butter with shallots), and mashed potatoes (with butter, half and half, chives, and sour cream).

Chicken from Plum Creek. Beans picked up at NUFM. Potatoes Ohio grown from . . . Dave's. Garden chives, winter savory, and thyme, and Urban Growth shallot and garlic. Farm Share onion. Snowville milk. Whew. Oh. And the chix got dipped in Ohio Honey.

And tea sandwiches from the weekend, for L's mom's b-day. Some gluten free options for a Swede. Egg salad, tarragon crab salad, dilled cream cheese with cucumber and homemade coho gravlax, and blt. I take no credit for the pretty presentation. I do take credit for pulled pork on Hawaiian buns that were put out later.

And Rosy Girl cupcakes for dessert. Good stuff.

Edamame Risotto

2010-08-26T22:46:00.004-04:00

Duck Stock (Plum Creek), Carnaroli (Urban Herbs), White Wine (Leftovers) Parmesan, Edamame (via Urban Growth), julienned Yellow Squash (Garden), and Basil (Yard). Lettuce(Firefly) salad .

But First, A Word from Our Sponsors . . .

2010-08-24T22:47:00.003-04:00

Cantaloupe, pancetta, and mint above. Sea Bream, mussels, and couscous below. But before we get into that, a brief diversion.

I got an e-mail at the CFT address. A rare occurrence in and of itself. In this e-mail I was offered the opportunity to review (read: get for free) something from CSN Stores. But there's a catch. First, I have to post the following link: dutch oven. Then I get credit to get something to review. I plan on getting this pan. I've had good luck with a different line of cookware from the same company, and have been looking to upgrade an old, pitted restaurant supply store aluminum pan for some time.

I figure I'm not too bad with the advertising and what-not over here, and aim for complete transparency, so I hope my now and again whorishness is tolerated. Any and all reviews have been and will continue to be completely honest. I have a day job. I like my day job. I don't need to lie. Also I won't spread the word about a junk place. A quick review of CSN shows their prices more or less right in line with Amazon. And I love dutch ovens, whether they be in the kitchen or elsewhere.

On to the food. Above is some uber ripe cantaloupe picked up at NUFM. They're plentiful, incredible, and pretty inexpensive right now. It's topped with mint that I can't seem to eliminate from kitchen herb garden, and crisped up rough diced pancetta. Could have been more generous with the mint, but otherwise this is a nice break from the standard prosciutto and melon deal. Sweet, salty, and almost floral.

The wine is not worth discussing.

And this is a piece of pristine Sea Bream from Kate's (we'll miss you this week). It's simply salt and peppered, with some rough ground coriander on the flesh side. It got pan fried in an olive oil/butter combination. It's a fish even a non-fish eater can enjoy. Mussels cooked pretty standard in a butter/wine/shallot liquid, and couscous plumped up with dried cranberries and olive oil. The mussel cooking liquid was poured over the whole thing.

Both these dishes reek of the Mediterranean. I guess that's okay.

Twistitelli?

2010-08-20T21:43:00.002-04:00

When someone named Bones offers you a bag of frozen pasta at a bar, you can't really say "no." You can, but it'd be awkward. So I took the baggie, which included some raviolis along with the pictured pasta, from Ohio City Pasta's new (?) line of fresh extruded pastas.

While I don't think fresh (in this case frozen and never dried) extruded pasta is traditional, it certainly is good. Also nontraditional is the shape, the name and spelling of which I'm sure I butchered in the title of this post. But it works. I'm a pasta fiend, and it was nice to try something different, still kind of familiar, and pretty tasty.

The sauce is carbonara like. Crisped up pancetta and an egg parmesan blend (enough grated cheese to make something like a thick soup when it's mixed with the egg). Also some winter savory for an herby touch.

I'm not giving up dried pasta anytime soon, but for a quick meal made with a substantial noodle, this stuff seems tough to beat.