CSI: Cucumber Salad Investigation...

The Trader Joe's is open for business. If they were open twenty four hours, it would be more exciting. Because then I could shop with fewer people around, preferably no one. And then I could check myself out and leave. It's small in there, close quarters. Swine Flu is somewhere in there walking around, looking at cheap wine, or buying hearthealthy faux snacks. Trying to make sense of words like 'organic' and 'free trade'. Discovering soybeans anew. Its too busy for me, with people shumbling around, trying to figure out why the place is so popular, why the aisles so small, why the olive oil, so cheap. Bread I'd never heard of before. Its also loud. People are still obnoxious, even or especially the devotees, acknowledging each other smugly, because the food is 'healthy', nodding to one another. I bet there is a hand signal they use. It is deceptively pricey in there, because everything is hand written to look honest, and homespun. Everyday is Black Friday at this place. And I leave having spent much more than I intended to. Now that my expectations have somewhat aligned, it seems reasonable. I go there for specialty items, like roasted red peppers, olive oil(s), sun dried tomatoes, pasta, cheeses (best cheese section in the galaxy, most crowded also), and snacks. Incredible deals maybe. I just know I want and need that stuff frequently. Any weekend draws in flow traffic from the Books & Coffee, and the scene devolves into something evoking remembrances of war torn Kosovo, without the human right atrocities, albeit with very little dignity. Waiting in queue is beyond reason somedays, and this cheap wine isn't going to drink itself.

My favorite item there is tahini. Which is what I used to make this cucumber salad. It just made sense to me. Eureka. This is why I run that gauntlet. I can't find the stuff anywhere really, and when I do, it always seems to amount to more than I wanted to surrender, and I am not about to employ a mortar and pestle to concoct my own. Sesame seeds are for buns. Convenience wins here everytime.

Cucumber salad tastes fresh and terrific and is ubiquitous nowadays. But, it makes for a mighty fine destiny for those ingredients I tend to have lazing around the refrigerator, or in the pantry, just passing the time, being ignored, maybe sad about it. It is quick and easy and never disappointing. It has a coolness to it, and I mean figuratively; its the Arthur Fonzarelli of non-leafy, grocerystoredeli, cold fare. There is a certain malleability to the dish, because the base ingredient of cucumber is willing to embrace many flavors in the flavor kingdom.

Cucumber salad ingredient scribe:

--Red onion, big one, sliced real fine
--Cucumbers, many many. It doesn't matter. Or not.
--Salt & Pepper
--Tahini (I used the whole container, several ounces, or several several ounces)
--Lemon squeezin's
--Flat leaf parsley
--Garlic
--Garbonzo beans
--Extra virgin olive oil
--Red Wine vinegar (not much at all, maybe a spoonsful). I don't know why. Because.
--Cheese. Feta is the standard. Goat cheese could work. Even a member of the bleu
family of cheeses would suffice.
--Fruity Pebbles or ground snickerbar.

That whole mess is then combined until the salad is well coated with the creamy tahini and salt & pepper. Less moisture is good because the cucumbers and onions add some during mixing. But it is a good recipe, really tasty. Off of the bone. Best to get rid of it before it becomes soupy, preferably in the immediate future. If you traveled back in time, it wouldn't be around anyway, because you hadn't yet made it, but I suppose that much should be obvious for most people not familiar with time travel. For those who would like to travel back in time and eat the salad, and then all over again, if you go too far back and haven't made the salad, use that time to make a substantial main dish that would pair well with these flavors. It doesn't feel like dinner, but maybe like a lunch, I could see that. But only with soup.

Smoked Chicken Thighs. Potato Leek Mash.

It is mash potato weather outside, and the atmashphere is doing, wacky, nutty things today. Sometimes, I just want to eat mash potatoes. They make us feel less miserable and cold, as we begrudgingly plod toward winter. Acorn squash serves a similar purpose. I had that special feeling this week, arriving with the early onslaught of seasonal affective disorder (SAD). I used to think it was depression, the normal kind. Predictably, the doctor prescribed heavy intake of mashed potato, a known cure for SAD, and chicken noodle soup. But I had a serious hankering to do some else with chicken, ever since I purchased the smoker. And my flatmate (that's what the British say!) recently retrieved me a lovely gift from Kansas, a bottle of pleasure sauce. There are so many power ingredients listed in the pleasure sauce, that perhaps it should have a more aggressive name, like steven segal sauce, or charles norris catsup, or deranged grizzly bear saliva, or beast essence. Simple math really. Smoker, plus chicken thighs plus pleasure paste = off the bone.

I found some spuds from across the state, near home. They were irish yellow potatoes, from the potato belt of washington, with exactly nothing irish about them. I purchased some organic leeks, because I love the earth, myself, and sasquatch. Leeks are doing it for me lately. So a leek and potato mash is not a new concept, but I wanted make this a food you might serve to visiting alien ambassadors, so I added a bunch of other stuff that make me feel warm, secure, and optimistic about life and the future of the human race. So I added some butter, some heavy cream, some Parmesan cheese, some rosemary, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper and more butter, and then some brie that was hiding in the refrigerators cheese enclave. It was a stick and a half of the butter, and the entire pint of cream. The whole dish was excessive, but if you are going to take the time to boil, saute, and mash, you might as well go over the top, just snapping arms off at the elbow, and adding garlic repeatedly, as if it simply disappears. And I used the whole bag of spuds, but it was still barely a balanced ratio of potato to everything else. Perfect, in other words. Filthy rich, whole ingredients, plenty of dairy, a three headed hydra of dairy products. The whole thing was satisfying, if not embarrassing, to eat. I made so much that I have had many subsequent bowlfuls, two days out. The leeks saute in the butter forever, then the velvety yellow potatoes (skin on) get a rough mashing before the cream and the oil is added. Then the cheese and the salt and pepper get mashed in. The core of the potatoes is still warm enough to integrate the shaved parmesan and the dollops of brie quickly into mixture. And it is a lot of smashing after that. The leeks provide what they normally provide, making this simple potato mash so much better and more interesting that it would have been without them. They are not very egalitarian. A dish without discrimination, traditionally served to the common folk, available to all, cheap, fortifying, and delicious, everyone in this country eats them on holiday (i think the british say that too, say holiday. Ha.) The ingredients for this mash remove it from the lower rung of the socio-gastronomic-economic strata. Brie? Leeks? The luxury of butter, heavy cream, and parmesan arregiano? Well, nearly all of these can be found on a farm, I suppose. They are fantastic, and have a tang from the leeks, which also adds to the naturally rich yellow of the potato.

The chicken was brined in brown sugar and salt for around four and a half hours. I buy thighs because they have the softest, tastiest meat. Thighs are the yin and yang of chicken meat, not quite dark meat, not quite white meat. Basically grey meat. They are also great for stock because they drip so much of themselves when cooked. The thigh meat is secretful, full of chicken flavor secrets. These came from local chickens. After the quick brine, I put them in the preheated smoker, for the ceremonial sweatlodge visit, during which they have a savory revelation, and the future of they're bleak yet delicious afterlife is foretold. I used three pans of cherrywood chips, enough to slightly color, not nearly enough to cook or preserve. Then, they went into the preheated oven, on 325 degrees. I drizzled the pleasure sauce all over them, until they were blanketed in love and fear. I gradually increased the heat over about 45 minutes, hoping to crisp up the skin. The aroma of smoke and bird juices permeates the kitchen, and my clothes. When they looked like the picture on this post, I shut off the oven and let them sit in the chicken thigh's own precious juices, to continue cooking. I made sure to add more pleasure sauce before closing the oven. So wise.

The smokey flavor was perfect, not overwhelming, just a nice complement. The bones fell right out of the bird legs, effortlessly. The baked-in, glazed pleasure sauce was all these delites would ever need. The gustatory experience was religious, as each thigh represented a sacrifice to my own exalted happiness and gluttony. It was also very powerful in that the combination of flavors and spices, the taste of concentrated effort, was all over my fingers and clothes, and mustache. To whom much is given, much is expected. Supply me with chicken thighs and have great expectations. I would not have cooked these differently. It was a testament to time, process, and faith, and I lead a richer spiritual life because of this meal. Hyperbole. But, there were some radical moments of savoriness. Slow cooked meat worship. It was an excellent, insightful dinner, and the perfect cure for barbecue lust, seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, an acronym for gustatory ambivalence.

Anchovies. Jon Bon Jovies.

I read about a recipe the other day involving popeye, superheated olive oil, garlic, and anchovies. It is for bread. It was a snack for early morning harvesters of grapes, a dip or sauce type condiment. The hot olive oil, over time, dissovles the anchovies and melts the mashed garlic. Why don't I ever think about anchovies? This is something that had to get done. I went searching for anchovies. I bought a brand packed in oil, sold by a regional importer whose goods I have trusted. Curious micro filets, pinkish. Not necessarily cheap either. This was all very exciting for me. Trying new ingredients is essential to the gustatory journey. For me, that is also partially how entertainment is derived from cooking. Also useful for expanding the culinary repetoire, unlocking the flavor secrets.

Precisely al dente linguine is a significant pleasure to consume, and a frquent and favorite pasta of mine. I wanted to recreate a dish I watched Giada prepare some months ago, but I wanted to use the anchovies. Pasta is easy, so I went mostly from memory.

Linguine
Lemon
butter
garlic
bon jovies
parsely
salt
pepper
parmesan
shrimp
scallions
capers (why wouldn't you)

I heated the olive about medium, and added the garlic and the anchovies. I turned down after stirring. I chopped the garlic extra fine (Goodfellas style), to speed up the process. Turning the heat down slightly, I added about half of the parsely and scallions, and later, some real lemon juice, about 3/4 of a small lemon.
Then I added a small amount of butter, two or three thin pads off of the knife. By this time, the garlic and the anchovies had completely infused the oil; lemon, light butter sauce.

I added the shrimp last, ensuring that they were relatively dry and completely thawed. They cooked quickly, and lent a distinct shellfish taste to counter the smokey, dense, intense, flavor of the anchovies, and what been a sizable quantity of freshly chopped garlic. Just before the perfectly cooked pasta was going into the pan, I seasoned it heavy with black pepper and very light on the salt.

Having already shaved and showered the parmesan, making it rain all over the place, like I didn't even care, like a sultan, like Edward Scissorhands sculpting cheese, I added the pasta to the moongravy, and turned off the heat. I added capers, parm, and the remainder of the parsely and scallions and very small amount of fresh garlic, and squeezed the quarter of lemon leftover directly onto the mixture. I then mixed it up as thouroughly as possible. Had to ensure that there would no naked strands of linguine. I wanted everything coated, or ensconced in velvety moongravy.

The smell of the pasta was unquestionably funky, distinct, but not necessarily unpleasant, as the garlic remains the heaviest smell, the goliath of kitchen of smells, andre the giant of food perfumes (r.i.p. 'dre; sweet lou). It smelled like something I wanted to enjoy.

The gustatory gospel was again revealed to me, and the prophet was anchovies. If this dish had four ingredients, and those ingredients were linguine, olive oil, anchovies, and garlic, it would still be fantaste-ic. The anchovies give the pasta what pasta needs, what pasta has been missing, a reunion of sorts, with flavors that kick ass. They provide a very deep and heavy flavor, but this sauce is still as light as you want it to be. I didn't really need capers or scallions, or lemon juice for matter, or butter. I would say it didn't need cheese, but that's sacriligious here. And the decisions to include these items have seen no regret. I could not stop eating the stuff, and tried unsuccesfully to graft a fork onto my person just to make things more convenient. Really very delicious, and something that will be revised many times in the near future. I am going to try spinning off of that base sauce of anchovy and garlic.

Anchovies rock and bon jovi also still does something like that, I suppose. Bon jovies. I like the theme from young guns deux. This is the ingredient that, if wielded correctly, has the capacity to create joy. I am looking forward to seeing where the bon jovies will take me in the future. Moongravy is off of the bone delectable.

Chicken Stock, Cold Soup of Potato & Leek, with bacon crumble

Leeks are our friends more often than not. There was a time when I had no notion of leeks whatsoever, who they were, or what they were about. I am not too far removed from that time. But, this year I tried to grow my own, with some success. My dietary habits have drastically changed.
I was thinking about how much fast food I used to eat. In college, I would eat hamburgers from the all-night Zip's, evading what could be have quickly become a series of DUI related incidents, to secure a bathtub of french fries and world renown tarter sauce, and a bag of five cheese burgers. More often than not I was soomehow able to consume the entire purchse, and usually did, with the gnashing nirvana of starving serengeti jackals. For lunch the next day, if I wasn't asleep, I would reinvent the experience at Jerk in the Box with a double jalapeno cheeseburger. These were dark and boring times. But given the chance, I passed on the vernerable Big Tom cheeseburger the other night. This is to say that I have traveled some distance from where I used to be in terms of important health decisions. Not that far. It is both bittersweet & bittersour and sadly, as I age further away from the undergraduate days, though dark and boring they were at times, I will mourn the absence of hamburgers in my life just as I would mourn the death of a well loved family pet. I've almost forgotten about them, as they have been replaced by so many elevated gustatory delights (I'm brining all night with the young Amercians, and cherrywood smoking chicken drumlets and spider pig cutlets tomorrow morning) that I think of burgers now as pedestrian, boring, and daresay it...kind of nasty. I used to enjoy them as the food of the everyman, the people's sandwich, and they are. But even the everyman should not be eating burgers everyday. But, isn't that part of what makes the everyman the everyman, and not the extrodinary man? If I can eat fewer hamburgers, anything is possible. We live in exciting times. The White House lawn has a kitchen garden now that actually gets incorporated into the foodstream. People are hoping stuff and changing things, and I count myself amongst them now. The Dill Clinton hamburger fast is a progressive reversal of policy, yet I still have mustard on my face. I'll give you irreverent:



The picture of chickenstock on this post is included simply to show that I actually made chickenstock just for the potato leek soup. But it was off of the bone, and eventually became the risotto that dares not speak its name. Chickenstock requires another posting altogether.

Well, I saw a recipe whilst trolling the web for recipes, and I saw several interesting meal ideas, but none more so than this potato & leek soup. It was the color of the soup that caught my eye, a bright light green that reminded my of glo-sticks, the contents of which I believe to be poisonous. Bright colors are a defense mechanism in some of nature's creatures, a warning sign to would-be predators, usually saying that yes, I am quite a poisonous thing, and you would not be well served by ingesting me. But, instead of being repelled I took a closer look (another natural impulse), and after examining the ingredients and the instructions, I set about the day's hunting and gathering, and bartering.

After becoming quickly aquainted and subsequently enamored with leeks, each leek is a personal hero of mine, a martyr of flavor, and I respect them. They are all that is right about all things onionesque, a true gift to us all. I shouldn't have to sell it, but it seems to me that leeks are grossly underrated. Leeks are great with anything. Peanut butter & leek sandwich? Perhaps not. Leeks & potato cakes? Served on another planet, absolutely wild. They do what shallots do to food, neatly underlining and creatively supprting ingredients, making a dish stand out. It is that certain something you've been missing in your life. And potatos? What do I know about those potatoes. I am potatoes. I put them in lamb fat. I mash them up with butter and rosemary and heavy cream and salt and pepper, and I always try and use russets from eastern washington. I did for this soup along with big organic leeks from the grocer.
This recipe is not mine, but not really anyone's. I never really measure anyway, and this soup is a forgotten classic. Which partially explains why it takes me so long to make stuff. 'Cause I dropped this, and I dropped that.

The soup is off the bone:

2 cups finely diced raw potatoes
4 tablespoons butter (the real stuff)
6 leeks, cleaned and cut into 1 inch pieces (it all gets blended anyway)
3 cups chicken bouillon (so insulted, I made stock)
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshy ground black pepper
a dash of nutmeg
11/2 to 2 cups sour cream or heavy cream (sour cream would dominate this. I tried. No. Better still, do 1/2 & 1/2 if worried about about the richness. But that's dumb, why deny the richness?)
Chopped chives (or whatever. I put parsely in the soup when I blended it, and used green onion for garnish. Maybe dill would be right for this too, or tarragon)

Then something like this, but really all you have to do is not burn anything in the pan. Again, not my recipe, but:

Cook the potatoes in salted water to cover until just tender. Melt the butter in a skillet and cool the leeks gently, tossing them lightly, for a few minutes. Add the chicken bouillon and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer the leeks until tender. Add the potatoes to the leeks and the broth and season to taste with salt, papper and nutmeg. Put this mixture in the blender (you will need to blend it in two lots) and blend for 1 minute, or until smooth. Chill. When ready to serve, mix in sour cream or heavy cream. Garnish with chopped chives.

It says chill, but I tried it warm first out of my hungerlust. Incredible. It is a cold soup and a hot soup, and it tastes lusterous no matter how you enoy it. Imagine a seasonal harvest unraveling its collective bounty on your tastebuds. It has a smoove and excellent mouthfeel, thick, a definite moustache painter. The nutmeg extracts the sweetness of the leek, and does wonderous things for the potato, manufacturing a happyness that would be less evident without it. The most appealing aspect is the color, and if ever the was a testament to a less is more appraoch, a call for simpler cuisine, this is the phone ringing. Entirely french in the classic celebrated style; the bright alfalfa color green, the flavor, the pairings of the ingredients are perfect and undisputed. The cream and butter provide the soul, and the simplicity make this dish the most logical soup, the only soup that matters. Or whatever...its just soup, I don't know.

And the following clip is very important. This is youtube's, this is not mine, this is totally random and this explains...so...much...except for why his acting hasn't improved. He's a nebulous emotionless neverbeing from history's chaotic birth. Perhaps he is the cause of history's birth, godfather of time, midwife to the cosmos:

In Praise of Stallone Cuts & Power Cheeses...

The origin of Stallone Cuts:



October 31st Feastival. Lost my mind and my stomach at Trader Joe's, bought an irresponsible quantity of mediterranean delites. The place was so packed, I shared empathy with the peppers forced into the jar of roasted red peppers that I was holding. It reminded me of why I enjoy shopping late at night, in secret, when I make the best decisions and harness the creativity of the night, in a frosty dairy section somewhere at some local food purveyor. Or not. They don't seem keep the vampire business hours I am accustomed to. Does anything good ever happen to anyone between the hours of nine am and five pm?

I was preparing an appetizer of prosciutto, herb'ed groat cheese, roasted red peppers, basil, and capers. These are the modfied Stallone Cuts. They looked fantastic and tasted of what Italy must taste like. Every single one of them was consumed. The pairing of goat cheese and prosciutto was the perfect contrast. Goat cheese is a power cheese, grassy, brite, and generally overwhelming. Can't get enough of it myself. I am not going to stop eating goat cheese until I get enough of it. But, the sweet and subtle, salty prosciutto countered and deliciously subdued the power cheese, the ideal counterpart. Add the capers and fresh basil and roasted pepper, subtract weakness, and you have the simple equation for a unique and ponderous gustatory experience. It left me stammering foodcentric haiku all evening long, dumbstruck. But it was a large affluvial spectrum of flavors, big and expansive, and thus the modified Stallone Cuts seemed to catch people by surprise...methinks it was the goat cheese awakening the non-believers. Cheesus flavor riot. The best part is that the prosciutto is self-adhesive, so there is no need to harpoon the Stallone Cuts with dangerous and wildly expensive toothpicks, the scourge of finger foods, friend of gums.

While I refer to my pesto as

pesto deluxe de speciale

my pesto is always a little different, but still very basic and rudimentary. There are of course the requisite pesto ingredients, namely basil, usually Thai basil. This is an asian deli classic good buy, and tastes more of basil than basil, out basiling other basils. Cheapest pinenuts I can find. I figure little is won or lost on the battlefieled of love and pinenuts. Olive oil, usualy takes me twenty minutes to select a bottle, because is it such an important ingredient in my diet. Salt,cracked pepper (heavy on both), and some parmesan areggiano, best I can afford. From here, I have a list of additonal participants that I usually invite:

--Roasted Red Pepper.
--Sundried tomatoes. Because they are amazing, and taste of the sun.
--Parsely, the original.
--Italian parsely, chopped rough and and thrown in
--Feta cheese. Another power cheese. It is such a strong complement with the herb
flavors, and very satisfying contrast to the basil.
--Scallions provide an undeniable freshness, and another shade of green.
--Shallots. Nothing is too onionesque for me, but I do one or the other (shallots).
--Jalapeno, seeded. Haven't tried that, but why not? Especially with some feta.
--Extra parmesan shaved on top. So nice.
--Cilantro. Undoubtedly my favoite herb. Cilantro makes any pasta better tasting
and more dynamic.
--Little rosemary.
--Kale, thin chop. A greatway to add a crisp to balance the pasta, which should not
be crisp.

I grow parsely, scallions, rosemary, cilantro, kale (pictured above), and basil, all growing adjacent to my taco plantation. An herb garden is an absolute necessity for a gustatory jedi. Herb gardens are culinary tool sheds, and pesto is a prime example of why they exist. Classic is great for basil. I like it simple too. But any of these premutations added at the end of the show are sure to provide you with the change we can believe in feeling.

The last item is hard to even discuss. It reflects my willingness to expand or broaden my skill set, and my mission of administering relentless beatdowns to bland meals. It is all about having an intersting diet where I am more familiar and in control of the food I consume, ideally making my life and diet more interesting, and thus transorming my life and mind into more pleasureable places to inhabit. This dish is very emblematic of why I enjoy doing what I do. Born out of necessity for another pasta dish for the feastival, I recalled how much I enjoy my cousin's wife's baked ziti, and decide to give it a chance with a different approach. Feeling cavalier, I made a power cheese sauce of gorgonzola, half & half, butter and flour and minced garlic. Melting and stirring, smooving, repeatedly, I had it where I wanted it after about thirty minutes. I had placed the drained al dente ziti in a large dish for mixing, along with olive oil, mozzarella cheese, plenty of spicy italian sausage (half cooked, drained mostly), rosemary, salt, cracked pepper, chopped purple kale and parsely from the garden, and some basil, mixing all thoroughly. AT a bubbling temperture, with the sauce at the right consistentcy, it leaves the stove and is poured atop of the pasta. Th intention is to evenly coat each piece of the ziti, but not so that the sauce ends up pooled in the bottom of the dish. If anything, more on top means that a fine, bubbling golden crust can develop on the top of the dish, a dome of power cheese.

Because all of the ingredient are partially cooked, I slow baked it at about 325 to 350 degrees for about 45 minutes to an hour, or until the cheese dome forms. It was one of the better dishes I have ever served to anyone. There is a strong gustatory portfolio in this dish. Blue cheese power cheese sauce, smokey and deep, with a cache of tanginess. Off of the bone. Copious amount of rosemary, blue cheese, and savory italian sausage, proved to be an irresistable siren song. It was loud, large, mouthwatering and indulgent, filthy rich and flagrant with flavor. I would not have changed anything. The leftovers were decimated because of the magnetism of the combination of flavors, which pulled me back to the refrigerator repeatedly and with invisible, unsettling force. I'm thinking about how I want more of that and need to make it this weekend. But I have a great recipe for a roasted red pepper soups, and some fresh tomatoes resembling lemons (panzanella), and I wanted to brine and smoked some pork chops. And make pork stock.

All told, there was an interesting tapestry of flavors woven into my moustache.

SeaBacon, Fried Jalapeno's, and the Lamb Fat & Russet Potato Adventure...

Found a recipe for a french sauce, emulsion, of hard boiled egg yolk, olive oil, garlic and something else. Exciting stuff. I'll probably add some tarragon and call it a bearnaze. I am fascinated with mayonnaise alternatives, and this sounds like the replacement that I have been searching for. Put it on everything. It's off the bone.

Bringing two things for sharing tonight, both articles in appearing in today's Times online eating section:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/magazine/01food-t-000.html?_r=1&hpw

Interesting piece on a Northern California family, former restauranteurs, chutney enthusiasts, living together on a large apple orchard, and just doing amazing things with food. On the vanguard of organic certification after purchasing the place, the gentleman later began grafting heirloom varities of apples (over eighty resurrected varieties) to the trees he hadn't out right replaced. Had about 2,000 trees, mostly red delicious which are subject to the marketplace and widely consumed. Wisely developed and filled a market niche. I'd have to eat the apple.

And this one:

http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/travel/01journeys.html?hpw

The other is a story on a writers experience at the lone north american Cordon Bleu School, in Ottawa. If you've ever wondered about Cordon Bleu, this is some real shiz. It details her experience, and the draw for me was the writer's early mention of striding out of the school with a sizable portion of lobster and sauce, playing quite specifically to a reoccurring fantasy of mine. Let's about real shiz for minute. I've considered burgling lobster trucks and seafood shops, walking quickly away into the shadows doublefisting some fat fresh canadian superclawed steamers. Astonishingly, I had to defend killing them last night. No problem there, as there is no logical argument to be made, save for overfishing. Go local if you can. Put the meat in butter. It's off the bone. Lobster Lobbying.

But I want to talk about the squid I fried in a light crispy coating of flour (and nothing else, too easy. It's off the bone), and how I came upon it at sea. I was charter fishing for salmon, chasing the mighty Chinook. What happened was, the boat hit a cabal of renegade Humboldt squid, and we started hoisting them aboard studily for about five minutes, something that has never happened to any one on any boat that I have ever been on. They're legal. I couldn't believe my good fortune, to be rolling back home with and entire squid on ice. And they're almost easier to clean fish; the head is seperated from the tentacles and the propulsion cone head, and the flute is simply a tube that is gutted vertical. And then you have steaks about 3/4 inch thick. Too easy, right out of the ocean. And it was huge, probably 12 pounds of meat. They are aliens. When we got them aboard, it was sad for a split second, and it reminded me of E.T., because are unimaginably awesome. They gnash, writhe about, and change colors with a freaky alien skin. It is as if the skin is hypercolor tee-shirt that is hyperventilating. Astounding...Everyone aboard came over to examine the defeated sea monster. Make no mistake, they are extrordinarily adroit predeators, and after I encounterd this curious lifeform, I support harpooning the larger ones. I can't believe that giant squid exist, because maybe the pictures of them ensnaring large merchant ships with those spiked tentacles are arccurate depictions of eaarlier marit-times. I'm especially worried that they will continue to adapt to this planet and eventually establish a social hierarchy alongside of the sexual hierarchy. We should be as worried about this as we are about climate change. They are not from this planet. Which goes to show you, that I will eat everything in this dimension, and perhaps even other space demons. Because this was so delectable. Off the bone.

Seabacon. So, I smoked some of it. Brined some fillets with extra Old Bay seasoning. It was good and I made a marinated squid salad. But then I had the crazy epiphany over the stove when I was about the fry some other regular squid meat. So I added just a few strips of the smoked seabacon, in with the other stuff (fried rather quickly in vegetable oil, dusted only in flour). It immediately petitoned to have the flavor added to the periodic table of elements. Really rich, deep, unique. The crunchy, perectly cooked seabacon was born. No seasoning needed out of the pan, just let drain and momentarily cool. Probably the most intuitive and creative meal related improve I have ever attempted. Off the bone. This is some real shiz.

The other stuff that I caught when destiny attacked my line tasted great too. I got a good tip from Bittman, a video tip in the online Times. I never thought I could do it until that video demystified it for me. Easily far superior to any restaurant calamari I have ever had. The tender tentacles and portions off of the filet were both softer, less rubbery, than any $11 dollar appetizer prepared the same way. Just better, fresher quality product. I had several meals off of the seamonster, and a good amount of the seabacon, an excellent deal given market prices for this particuklar seafood.

The jalapenos get fried the same way. This pairing just makes incredible sense when you taste the flover togerther. The squid is sweet and the jalapeno's earthy complex flavor profile and heat (which cooks out, largly, especially if stripped of the seeds - big mistake though) are nicely juxtaposed, and inviting to the eye. I cannot see eating the same preparation without them. Of course lime, salt, and pepper are favored seasonings for this. I suspect that an overnight marination in tequila, along with these other flavors, would be an interesting take. It could also be terrifying.

About the potatos: the come from my home in the columbia basin, where potatos raise themselves, and the symbiotic miracles of the Columbia River and irrigation, open skies and heavy sun and heat, ensure prodigious growth. They can be found all over the state, as russets are known as bakers and mashers. When I think of potato, it is this variety that comes to mind, because it is the most potatoiest of them all, very starchy, even dry, unlike the yukons and the reds. So, they are local and quite familiar to me, and I always buy a bag to send the cash back home. The perfect potato for frying, as well.

The lamb fat was siphoned into a coffee mug and left in the fridge for two weeks or so. A cup of animal lard. On the blackmarket, lamb fat trades higher than ore, wood, wheat, an is required for settlement building and drawing of development cards. It was as though it belonged in the skillet, melting slowly, spiced with garem masala and rosemary, from a lamb kakob feast. Potatos in lamb fat.

Kimchee Sermon; Vol. 1 -- The Afterschool Special

Microphone check. I did that up there, did it big with the napa cabbage and the bok choy, and grated a Wall street bonus worth of carrot. Also used an obscene amount of ginger, and crab paste, which was not listed in the kimchee gospel sacred text. It suggested shrimp paste, which is purple. I'm fine with that, just sayin' that the stuff is actually purple. But yo check it out the crab paste was dope crizzle essence, and just as tangy as all that. Think about what crab paste is. Crab paste is a concentration of crab force. It is the flavor of that most revered ocean beast (apologies to the white whale) thrown over a cliff into more of itself, and then left to get awesome in the sun, and mixedtaped with spices. The flavor gods have forsaken all others. The rest are heretics, naysayers, soothsayers, false flavor prophets, harlequins, and those left behind when the flavor rapture happens. Don't let that happen to your kimchee.

Kimchee requires time and distance, like the exploratory career of Marcus Whitman, early northwestern pioneer. This makes it more of an activity. Rounding up the traditional ingredients across town, paying for them, and then having to roll an embarrassing six deep with napa cabbage heads back home, and then spending a small eternity shredding stuff, peeling and chopping other stuff, and then slicing and doing many other sharp sounding things. I thought it was a magic secret, something guarded culturally, forbidden flavor knowledge, not for outsiders. I've made many a pilgrimage to the Asian Deli, an inevitable journey of renewal and rejuvenation for the shelves in the refrigerator, a bevy of new conspirators in slow decay, personified whenever I close the door. Its a united nations of flavor in there. Speaking of which, I understand that Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, while on his visit here recently, has been highlighting the worldwide human rights tragedy of the volume of incidences of maternal death, calling for greater awareness and response, and collaborating with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The secretary of the flavor united nations is Dill Clinton, and he's pontificating once again about how reduce our reliance on store bought kimchee. The ghetto dope of kimchee going wop-wop.

The draft resolution reads:

Be it resolved, that you first need to make, produce, or get to the store and buy the following ingredients: Crabpaste, freedom sauce (or fish sauce), baby bok choy, napa cabbage, cucumber (You know), carrot(s) to the 5th power, ginger, one vampire's quota of garlic, a quorum of Sgt. Peppers (red thai chiles, I used pickled ones that I did not pickle, regrettably), salt, and lemons.

Whereas, you first need to render these ingredients, proportionally. There should be considerably more cabbage & choy than anything else.

Whereas, you need to make a brine and and put all of the cabbage & choy into said brine, and leave over night, for whatever. Thenst, you hereby drain and thoroughly rinse the cabbage & choy, reserving some of the brine.

Whereas, if you skip the draining and rinsing step, your kimchee will be nearly inedible for most, nay, all palates. It gets crazy salty, like a spoonful of Morton's.

Whereas, you should respect the heat of the peppers, otherwise people will cry when they taste it. Yeah that really happened. The first response was muffled choke. The salt hijacks your taste buds like a somali pirate, holding them for ransom until you develop stockholm syndrome (like I did), or swill some anything in sight, and then the heat punches you in the throat, like Norris. The flavor secretary's mission is to promote harmony through properly seasoned cuisine. And he's into some other stuff too, like online poker. He's also in a fantasty football league too. But that's when he's not serving in his capacity as flavor delgate and diplomat, dining dignitary, cooker of things, eater of the night, extreme maker of hummus, freelance smoked salmon consultant, sultan of blue cheeses, one man taco testimonial.

Whereas, you combine the ingredients together while offering, softly, a tender memorial for Swayze, singin sweetly she's like the wind, as a blessing signifying the ceremonial commencement of kimchee construction. Proceed to coat everything evenly with the flavor thrillogy of all that spice. Put in a large jar for fermenting, this mixture and some brine, and some water. Taste the bok choy and the mix and make sure that this isn't a throat busting salt shot in every bite. add lemon juice and layer also, and continue mixing until everything is integrated. Make sure the mixture has a small level of holy fluid over it, and seal this hypothetical jar with its corresponding sealing device.

That's pretty much it. It turned out to be strong, but the flavors mellowed with age, and it was arguably consumed prematurely. Traditionally this jar of live culture goodness is thus buried in a yard with the spirits of beloved pets and reptiles, and allowed to ferment for months, or whenever. I'm not trying to google any specifics right now. The process was chopping intensive, and it wasn't that difficult wrangling ingredients. I enjoy the rhythm of chopping vegetables, almost as much as the smooth crooning of Swayze. I wanted to do this, it got done. No one was banished this time.

Aesthetically it is very pleasing. I enjoyed it mostly because I prepared it, because I learned by trial and error, kale and brimstone, that you have to must obey the legend of the salt and the heat. This is a religious flavor edict: just be patient and taste everything. A reoccurring theme in the gustatory gospels. When I bought from the convenience store shelf, I always liked what I was tasting, but it was bitter and not as good as I seemed to remember it tasting years ago (it had been awhile). I wanted to resurrect that mysticism, ascend to another realm of flavor, reach the dimension traveling back through time. Maybe I just wanted it to taste good again.

It was entirely worth the effort to make as much as I did. Tasty food on the cheap, and a good side dish for nearly anything with Asian spices. Dope money with chicken and rice. The longer it sits, the better it gets. Make a fine brine. The things are very comfortable after they have had time to get to know each other, relaxing and conversing in the wavy pale light of the bottom-lit fermentation hot tub. But for me, after eight weeks, it's just now getting to where I had wanted it to go. We learn from the gospel, written by The Rev. Luther Vandross of eating.

Chantrelle

Chantrelle is the name of a lovely autumnal forest mushroom, growing in abundance here on Endor, a lush, richly fertile, magnificently wooded rain forest.
Chantrelle is also the name of the beautiful French village girl.

I found a recipe from Giada. It was for a raw mushroom salad. I asked Chantrelle if she wanted to try it and she said something in French, but I didn't know what she meant by it. She was too busy texting to respond appropriately. I have always been a proponent of mushroom, and over the years, I've come to know many, and I have cultivated an appreciation for all. Here on Endor, with the crisp change of seasons comes the woodsy harvest of these prized mushrooms, flaxen trumpets of fall. I guess people are trufflin' right now this time of year too. I gots to get into that, but I have always thought I needed a pig. But, you don't. Then yesterday I heard about the micro pigs. And that wasn't good, because Chantrelle really wants one or five. And not because she's into truffles. So, I told Chantrelle that with the national economic downturn, things were looking troublesome for me and for the blog, and that we'd have to sell the replica General Lee I had purchased, the one from the television series Dukes of Hazzard. Chantrelle loved that car.

This cold mushroom salad concept has a significant measure of appeal. The flavor of a mushroom is very nuanced for me, and it is difficult to articulate the gustatory experience because of the complexity created, I think most importantly, by the environment in which they grow. How do you describe earthiness? Because these mushrooms taste like anything but dirt. These have rich, subtle, lavish flavors.
Chantrelle enjoys them sauteed in butter and not much else.

I bought button mushrooms, chantrelle mushrooms, Parmesan cheese, a lemon, and used some decent olive oil for this, and some shallots and parsley. I sliced the mushrooms thinly, working to creates sheets out of the stems. And this is too easy, because all you have to do next is finely chop the parsley, ditto for shallots, mix them up with the mushrooms and some lemon juice (to taste), and then shave some Parmesan on the top and salt and pepper the salad. Go lite on the liquid and a little heavy with oil, as it coats the mushroom easier. I was very judicious with my seasoning also because these flavors, are naturally strong, and the salty undertone substance provided by the Parmesan complement this perfectly. Chop really finely, I always work for translucent. Time consuming but worth it every time. It's dual purpose is to allow main ingredients, mushrooms in this case, to stand up. But, I stepped away a moment ago, and have turned my attention completely to vampires right now. Do you have any thoughts on vampires? Because I do, frequently, and always have, and I just watched a funny show this afternoon that kept mentioning vampires. Daywalkers are the spookiest.

My affection for Giada makes Chantrelle jealous, and she makes ridiculous insinuations that I refuse to acknowledge out of respect for myself and dignity, generally. This happens during the few periods of the day when Chantrelle isn't sending these things called text messages, through that handheld space communicator device she uses. I cant figure out what powers the device, but I have reached an understanding that it has multiple capacities, and can meld seamlessly with other channels of communication in the next realm or two. I doubt that they are that powerful. What I enjoy about Giada is that her food is simple and the flavors are large and classic. And she comes strong with the cheese. I want to eat everything served in that kitchen. Here on Endor, we celebrate with extra cheese every night.

This was one of the easiest salads I have ever made, yet it is also the one I think about the most now, when my brain is successfully evading psychic vampires and vampire thoughts. I made it twice in one week. And I want some right now. Its fall, and Chantrelle and I are embarking on a tour of the fall foliage. The leaves will remind me of the color of the mushrooms, of Chantrelle's hair. Foliage is a dumb word and I don't like saying it. Its only a matter of time before I learn how to find the truffle here on Endor. I wished I might of engaged a bit more scholastically the subject of mycology, but I've not always harbored an impulse to forage for mushrooms. Forage, I will. But, I can't afford a micro pig. That, and it don't seem right. Because you could have a macro pig instead, and not a snotty bacon tease scampering round and biting ankles, and eating the Doritos that fall gracefully to the floor, the autumn leaves of nacho cheese. Respect.

Yes we canned!

Gustatory greatness awaits all of those seeking to enter into the convenant of the realm of the fresh and local produce. Give praise to fresh asparagus and it's compatriots of fall...

Years ago, in days of yore, in hundreds of reverse fortnights, I would stand before my grandmother's pantry in wonderment, looking upward at things I could not yet reach, a kodachrome of vivid natural color, an aurora borealis of garden bounty, which beckond me. The reflecting glass of old Ball jars and metallic lids would flash at me as I opened the swinging doors, and light would reflect back onto my face, signaling me to look upward and notice the kalidescope of sweet and sour delights. The impulse was to climb on top of the washing machine and force open these briny secrets, and drain the contents as quickly as possible, and allow consequence to take control shortly thereafter. I was willing to get caught, because I was that hungry. My grandmother's canned peaches were never a waste of time.

One of my foremost goals aimed at expanding my gustatory repertoire was to learn how to can and pickle some of the food I had been growing since early spring. I planted beets and carrots, trusting that the carrots would grow, but worried about the beets intially. Until they became the hardiest crop in the garden. Beets are the Mr. T of the vegetable world. You can eat the entire plant, and it all tastes exactly like dirt tastes, with subtle undertones of Splenda. Yet my appreciation grows. This is a food that colors other foods richly, has incredible texture(s), is a prolific grower, has high sugar content, and vitamin rich greens, and is culturally relevant in Europe, especially if you have seen Eastern Promises, as I have.

The carrots did what they do. It seemed that only a little soul lifting, optimistic, Gun & Roses style patience was required. That means hardcore patience, like super reflective, and burned out from struggles on the road...struggles with strippers and heroin, junkies and gambling debts, and baby mamas and stuff. The ilk. Truth be sold, I enjoy nibbling carrot greens. I decided to pair these with some ginger for the pickling process. I picked 3/4 of the harvest and canned them same day. The brine consisted of vinegar, sugar, and salt. And just carrots and ginger. I sampled the brine to taste, because that is the only way to operate, and even solicted the services of an amateur brine consultant, who gave the requisite parochial blessing. It was determined that the stuff was, "leave it alone tasty".

Back to the beetboxing. I found a recipe online for pickled beets, and secured a pirates ransom in cloves. Whole cloves, in a bag, and not a little bit. They run about $27 a pound in bulk. I thought I would need them all for the beets. I was wrong, big bowl of wrong wrong. I used about a 16th of what I had purchased. The silver lining, is that now I have mad cloves, yo. Very similar to the carrots. I boiled them both for a minute in thyme, a few minutes, in a liquor of vinegar and salt and sugar. The vinegar gave me an instant thizz face. But the beets had that swizz taste, a flavricious lambaste, of lamb paste, a pate part-tay, not a pitty party, or even a pithy party, hearty-har-hare...? Mind you now, that canning is an easy and rythmic process, prone to enjoyment, nay jubilation. Especially when you have a garden from which to draw, full of tasty and nutritious scooby snackz. Like tomatoes, and cucumbers, and fruits and whatever. You can pickle and conserve near anything. Nigh? Nigh anything? Anyhow, my grandmother, and my friend-of-pickled-beets colleague both found them very enjoyable. I detected a twinge of envy, but decided not to exploit those weaknesses. But, being a werewolf can be disconcerting at times. Conflicting emotions, and a sizable amount of catholic liberal orthodox werewolf guilt, do not alleviate my burden by any measure. This is the most complex kind of guilt, of course.

The pepper jelly pictured above should be classified. It is that tasty. I succumbed to a thought planted in my brain, a needy thought, a thought requiring expression. It was talked about in the midst of another canning episode(potentially discussed in another post), that because we were in posssession of some garden fresh peppers, we might as well craft some pepper jelly while the pectin was in abundance. I did, at that suggestion, of course make some pepper jelly. And while it was decent, and will certainly be used, it was 'not the stuff'.

Day two finds me at the store collecting peppers, three of a kind: red bell, green bell, and pablano. I recall that there was recipe at home delineating some rudimentary guidelines, which I had previously ignored. I thought, perhaps this explains the lucklusterness of last night's wine pepper jelly showing. Or, is it as yet to be appreciated? Time will tell indeed. Anyway, a housewarming party on Saturday night evolved into the flavor litmus test for the pepper jelly. Many ate it, few abstained. All were positive, some understandably incredulous, as I could hardly fathom the complexities of flavor myself. It was sweet, nuanced, sour, visually appealing, the latent heat that never shows in mild peppers, dynamic and delicious. I ate half of a jar myself. I have three remaining. All natural and no preservatives, local ingredients, cheap and amazing. Only online poker is more exciting. Or, ALF re-runs.


I wanted to share a great article today on what must be the best tomato sauce. It is certainly the finest looking tomato sauce I've ever seen. The article is in NY Times and was written by Andrew Scrivani - Nice interactive feature there with photos and captions of an old school, super traditional canning sesssion from some old world italians:

http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/

live blogging OYSTERFEST!!

I didn't do it. I was busy having the time of your life, knee deep in oyster shells and garlic butter, and self-satisfaction. I was very pleased with everything. May all of your days be dipped in the bronze of clarified butter. The raw pacific oysters have never tasted so briny. I contend that the best foods in life come from the sea.

Would you believe that Oysterfest is the second seafood specific superbash I have attened this summer? The first was SHRIMPFEST, in Brinnon, up Hood Canal. SHRIMPFEST celebrates the spot shrimp harvest, which sounds like an incredible thing right? I thought so much. After paying for parking and entering the grounds, we walked booth to booth and looked around, and realized that there was one tent selling shrimp, and they were not even cooking it up. That's right. It was the single most disappointing moment in the history of shrimp festivals. What a colossal travesty. No shrimp at SHRIMPFEST. What? I've twisted my brain thinking about how the world does not make sense anymore. Because there were no shrimp at ShrimpFEST. This is three months removed...I remain befuddled.

Saturday was marked by the celebration of the OYSTERFESTIVAL, my new second birthday and personal anniversary of enlightenment. It was celebrated simply through attendance. The weather was fine, with sun at times, that October crisp was in the air. It was Drizzly Adams. Getting there early was the right decision. It allowed us to beat the crowd and get to the vendors early and quickly. Entering OYSTERFEST was evocative, nostalgic, of a christmas morning, but for the tastebuds. It is all for non-profit and community re-investment. So there is an incentive to drink heavily.

Here is what happened to me this year:

11:20 - Arrive at OYSTERTFEST.
11:23 - Find ATM.
11:30 - Finish the last of 3 grilled oysters, with garlic butter.
11:35 to 11:37 - Eat a cornonthecob with garlic butter and parmesan cheese.
11:42 - Discard empty container of five alarm chili.
11:50 to 11:55 - Annihilate 3 raw Kumamoto. Drain a bottle of Pail Ale.
12:04 - Watch a man shuck a dozen oysters at ludicrous speed, shattering Carl
Lewis's 29 year-old olympic record for Oyster shucking.
12:20 - Oysters Rockafeller, filthy rich flavor, and the right amount of east coast
establishment, preteniousness. Terrifyingly delectable. The good life.
12:27 to 12:26, or 12:27ish - Set my own new world record for fastest bacon wrapped
oyster disappearance. It was a happening. I did about three in what
must've been a mere rift in time. It was so fast that it was either
illusory, a lucid dream, or that I traveled shortly back in time through a
motion vortex of my own creation, and then traveled back and convinced
myself that it didn't happen just so I might repeat the entire experience.
12:39 - Order the local favorite, the pan-seared or other grilled oysters, with the
cracklin's and the spices. I do not know what savory seasoning they put in
the flour, but it does me right every bite. Same as last year, when I had 12
of them.
12:58 - Trudge back to car defiantly, with fist raised, shouting.


Are you hungry for a tasty piece of irony? There was shrimp all over this place. It was a like a coconut shrimp explosion, like they were just giving it away. The line was notiably and considerably longer than any of the others. Here is why: the shrimp were enormous, prolific, and golden fried crunchy. And fairly economical. I doubt they were local, but they may have been frozen spot shrimp from the canal...the ones that were missing at SHRIMPFEST. I have never seen so many people holding shrimp or queing up for fried seafood. It makes crazy sense for me, but I was still somewhat astonished given the variety of tasty options at the bivalve bonanza. All of the oysters were local and donated. But, the best seller of OYSTERFEST was shrimp. It was as if a crazy seafood pinata full of coconut shrimp and cocktail sauce made everybodys day brighter. People were ordering for groups and hauling back these treys piled high. One lady had the nerve to walk right next to me, lifting up her share as she sqeaked past. I almost grabbed one with my teeth. She don't even know about it. See, this is proof that the world is not all that it seems, and possibly that other dimensions and realms exist, places where logic regins and things make sense, simple things. When is the next shrimpment due? Makes me think linguine. Yeah, I'm doing that this week.

I almost talked myself into a hat specifically assigned for OYSTERFEST volunteer staff. It made me want to join the rotary, to be a part of all that gustatory glory.
The band pictured above is from last year. The smoothest electronic keyboard around. Wild stuff. Reminded me that I need to re-kick the smoove jams on my keyboard sometime soon, to retain these naturally smoove rhythms.

What a magnificent thing this festival of oysters is. I swore a sacred oath with myself, and drew up legal documents to sign, that I did then sign, that essentially have me committed for the first Saturday in October for the next several decades, to one purpose and one location only -- celebrating the best food ever at Oysterfest.

Oysters are my favorite food. No hesitation there. Imagine if you liked pizza, and that there was a pizza festival? There almost certainly must be. Or how about a donut fest, or a cotton candy pillowroom, or trees that grew biscuits and gravy? How would you respond, if you found the actual kool-aid man, at an actual kool-aide lake?
Imagine if the sky cried mary, and hailed down peanut butter cups. Peanut butter cups filled with liquor.

Thai Coconut Peanut Curry Sauce Chicken Rice

My Hungerlust is an insatiable beast that must be macerated. This is my favorite discipline tool. Convenient, relatively cheap, and much more satisfying than an evening out at your favorite Thai restaurant. How I would bathe in coconut milk. Folks, this is flavor country, where some of the most robust and powerful tastes in the natural world run free, wild, and easy. After a day of zippity-doo-dah-esque outdoor sheephearding, with stellar jays hopping my shoulders alternatly and humming gin and juice, the embers of my appetite began glowing brighter. I developed the fire down below, a state or condition perhaps necessarily attributed to Bob Seger. I had a fever, in other words, and the only cure was so much more coconut milk. I imagine streams of it, flowing swiftly out of a meadow, the banks of the stream lined with peanut butter mud, studded with rounded halved peanuts. This is all mighty cool and stuff, until a crazyeyes Gene Wilder outcreeps me (admittedly a difficult task), defensive about his coconut milk pipeline. The struggle for precious natural resources continues, even in the candy realm.

Curry paste is the savory hand turning this planet. That, and innumerable other cosmic forces, the nature of which are impossible to describe to you here, and are the reasons we are able to enjoy sunshine and moonshine, and any other words with a -shine -suffix too, I don't know. So, the stuff is the world's flavor maker. I'd say that green is my favorite, but that's like trying to discern which Skittle tastes the best, though much more nuanced. I'm not offering any analogies. Complexity abounds with the curry pastes, inherently...it's paste of many persuasions, joining forces against bland food, forming an unstoppable Voltron of righteousness. A mash up of much, pungent and alarming, almost caustic.

Peanut butter is friend I almost never call. After I get enough subconscious text messages from peanut butter, I inevitably feel guilty, and want to reconnect simply for being so neglectful. And I am almost never disappointed with that decision; in its absence, an unfillable void develops. I ask you, for what substance can be substituted for peanut butter? What else has that unique peanut butteriness? The reason I seem to take it for granted now is because it talks so much, and speaks so loudly. That is to say that it dominates whatever it touches, enveloping, smothering, shy and subtler dance partners, clumsily. I have never been one to eat it out of its jar with a spoon, because I'm human, and am not a monster. People who do that with mayonnaise are not really people at all either, they are shadow people who've withdrawn from life and do not care about anything at all anymore. This is especially true if done whilst alone you are. Its hard to be a Jedi when you've got a mouthful of mayonnaise or peanut butter. Never ever use mayonnaise for anything. Its not real. But it is really gross.

This how I establish the triumvirate of taste:

I make rice, something I can't ever seem to do well. I can't mimic the Thai places yet, but I'm getting better. Of course I don't have a rice cooker. It seems as though I am unable to purchase a kitchen appliance with one sole function. Years of advertising have convinced me to demand more and expect greater new and better things from kitchen appliances, a brave new world or pixar movie or whatever. I am as amazed to find that man put a giant space telescope in the sky, one that takes crazy pictures from far away dimensions of imaginary fake galaxies, as I was to see a device that had the capacity to toast bagels. Truly extraordinary and purposeful objects to be sure.

Then I get largeish sauce or saute pan, or whatnot, and I heat up a can of coconut milk and a can of coconut creme. I know that you thought that there wasn't anything as desired as coconut milk, bu there is and that's what I'm talking about. Coconut Creme. Believe that shizz. When that's all nice and steamy, get some curry paste out and add that stuff to taste, probably more than usual for a normal curry because peanut butter is conversational vortex, and we don't want it to get too out of hand at the flavor after party. We have to set some ground rules. When that dissolves adequately, answer the door. Its peanut butter time. Go ahead and get chunky with it, because its time to dance. Twirl it around until it develops or sauces out, but don't let its peanutbutteriness enchant you into asking for a second dance.

Chicken. It goes in. Ought be reasonably pieced or shredded. If you don't have some already cooked chicken meat in the fridge, you weren't invited to this party in the first place. Go get a rotisserie bird from the deli, for mad cheap. If you have ethical problems with that meat, I suspect you are guilty of moral relativism in other instances, and are certainly a hypocrite and self-righteous narcissist of Voltronic proportions, but in a negative way. But it is even cooler if you cook your own bird. Both of those topics are different posts though, which have a lot of offspringing ideas each requiring the posting of the blog.

Now throw some brown sugar at me. Yeah. That's right on, and I like it. More. Really any sugar would do, but perhaps not. I wouldn't do it differently, because what's to gain? You're seriously telling me that you are not taking brown sugar to the park to meet up with Mr. Peanut butter? Are you insane? You jest. Those two have so much fun together. But this also may help to slap down a superheated ultra curry, down for public consumption, near tastenothing people. I go strong to the hole with that heat, and typically draw an offensive foul.

I spread out some rice on a plate and I add a double layer of spinach on top of the rice futon that I've created. Then I add the awe inspiring sweetness that has chicken swimming in it right on top of that spinach rice futon. And I garnish with peanuts and cilantro typically. Why spinach? I've seen it done, and its a stand up guy. Ask around.

Then devour with power, gustatory gusto, savor it out load. It's okay to moan and even make all sorts of noises in expression. Cooking is expression, and in many ways, so is eating. You could eat while break dancing interpretively.

Potato Kale Bacon Grease Chard

Everyone needs a skillet, it's true. It is also true that bacon grease should never be dispatched before befriending some potatos.

Kale is in abundance always in this climate, but most especially now. Same with chard. People are giving it away. Whole wheel barrows brimming with kale and chard are slowly pushed around the neighborhood, the people are calling out in desperation, "Please take this kale. It shouldn't be wasted. I would hate to compost all of this, because my family and I can eat it no more." And so friends and aqauintances grudgingly haul off the kale in old grocery bags and by the handful. It gets home and it...it wilts. Because no one can eat that much kale and chard, not that often. Perhaps they had kale and chard as recently as last night.

So what do you do when vegetables began to wilt and get droopy on you, when vegetables get sad? Working in the produce aisle as I once did, you learn that the quality, edibility, of shipped produce must be sustained through refrigeration and repatriation at the store before it hits the shelves, and perhaps during a rotation. Running a produce aisle means never sitting down. Sometimes greens are soaked in water before and after they are put out. This engorges the starving leafy greens such as kale and chard, but also lettuce, endive, whatever. The sad greens become emboldened and crisp once again, like they would be if separated from a backyard garden. While kale is known as the Chuck Norris of greens (maybe nettles would be the Charles Bronson of greens?), it benefits from rehydration and can keep for quite awhile, I don't know...several days? More? Maybe a week. Rainbow chard is the northern lights of the backyard garden. Nevermind.

So I was lucky enough to receive a bale of both kale and yellow chard the other night, right off of the plants, and both were varieties I did not have in my garden stable. I always say yes to backyard greens.

Then it came together as I took inventory of the pantry. Some red potatos. Extra Bacon Grease, and these massive greens. So I fried the potatoes in the skillet first. Then I added the greens. Too easy. Then I added a little salt and pepper, and turned off the stove. As I was wrapping up, I spotted the jar of sun dried tomatos, and added those too. It was tasty before, real tasty, but then it got crazy good. Chewey conssistency provides an extra texture. I imagine basil or fresh oregano and parmesan would be alternate additions, but that isn't new.

Well, it's not exactly better than....

...table tennis. Maybe sometimes, but not on the whole. Yet some days...and I don't even know what it is, some days I would pass up a game of table tennis for this food. Not seriously, here, just prone to subtextual hyperbole. Not there's anything wrong with that. I don't even know what subtextual hyperbole means, but I bet we could arrive at a workable definition. Let's discuss this over dinner. Which reminds me that I don't have a foodblog niche. Perhaps a mexican wrestler theme, like in that fuzzy establishment I've been asked to leave. But, I like to cook and eat and try everything, and most of my favorite foods are not considered home cooking, which I would never knock, but my tastes have changed. I just manhandle the flavor from everything I want to try next, learn, and then move on. What can we draw from that?

I hadn't made a risotto before, mostly because I didn't have chicken stock, but also because it seemed silly and time consuming. I thought: rice porridge, easily construed as peasant food, becoming a gourmet symphony of ricey bullshit in a pan. I saw Giada on TV and was suddenly reinspired to do this whole thing. I see a lot of Giada. I thought that maybe this was beyond my expertise, and I didn't want to evaporate the liquid gold I had been hoarding. But, this was the chicken stock's other natural purpose. The first, of course, is currency. The stuff is hard and fast currency in France, with the underground market for chicken stock recently exploding. Only barter with a vendor you trust, and make sure they weigh it out in front of you. And, never engage in a game of wits with a sicilian. I digress.

So making this risotto, I needed some loose guidance from a recipe that sounded tasty, though I had predetermined and typed out a shopping list with wild rice and mushrooms on it. Now that the chantrelles are back locally, I will have another go at it soon, but I went with some button mushrooms from just outside of the area. This selection was as pedestrian as it was affordable, mind you. And I had parmesan on the list too, so you know it's going down when those three comingle. Since it's three ingredients, would that be thromingle?

-- Butter in the pan on low-medium (like the fuse on a flavor bomb, do it slowly, or the butter explodes). Added shallots too.

-- I par-boiled the wild rice because it is heartier, and needs some extra love. I read to it before bedtime. Yeah. That's what I did. Drained and put in the pan.

-- Rice in the pan, blasters set to medium-high*

Now, the whole thing was trial and error, but I minimized the margin through mitigation of measurables. I controlled the heat, added the cream slowly towards the end, cooked it down. It seemed as if I had ladled more chicken stock into this dish than I would for a soup (but really I just knew I would miss each ladlefull, so it was a bittersavory experience), but it cooked in incredibly well; the homemade chicken stock is a pizza-danceparty of flavor and subtle textures. Tasting along in the process, I realized that I couldn't ruin these ingredients if I wanted to, and I didn't want to, so a little attentiveness was half of the battle. Knowledge.

So when the rice had bathed sufficently in the radiant luxury of majestic sunsplash, and the lifeforce had cooked down, I added a small amount of cream and shredded parmesan cheese, added salt pepper, a little oil, and a smallish square of butter, stirring until the mixture thickend and became creamy for a couple of minutes. They had to meld. Then I added some italian parsely.

It was second best thing ever. The first is Def Leppard. I couldn't believe how mind numbingly easy it all was. It took some attention, but that's how I get down in the kitchen anyway. Wildrice, mushroom risotto with parmesan. It's not better than intercourse yet, but it will be when I get my hands on some chantrelles. And you can watch...a video post? Maybe?