Death by Consumption

Today, Sunday, I just wrapped up a six-week job that sent me all around this crazy city. And it just so happened that I was able to turn a lot of it to my dining advantage. For instance, a trip to Mid-Wilshire might facilitate a lunch at Koreatown Plaza or my trek to Arcadia happened to coincide with me jonesing for Din Tai Fung.

So on Friday, my penultimate job visit led me to North Hollywood. The site happened to be a quarter mile from my favorite Thai place, Sri Siam (newly renovated). I dragged two co-workers there and gorged myself. We began with crispy rice salad, a mélange of crunchy deep-fried rice, crisp roasted peanuts, fiery red ground chiles and small cubes of Spam-like sausage that has been marinating in a vinegary pepper brine for three days. You eat scoops of it on leaves of lettuce with several hand-torn sprigs of mint and cilantro. It’s one of my favorite dishes of all time and I normally hate peanuts in my food. It’s such a perfect blend of flavors and textures – spicy, sour, crunchy, crispy, etc.

After that, we had the Tom Yum Gai, a citrusy chicken soup I’m not normally crazy about, but their recipe is so rich and perfect, I’m sure to order it again (should I survive past today). For an entrée, I ordered the green curry catfish, but due to some language barrier, was delivered the green curry soft shelled crab instead. When I saw the world’s largest soft-shelled crab coated in golden batter and rich curry sauce, there was no way I was going to send it back. It was a little over-battered, but it was still delicious. It was the first time I’d had crab Thai style and I must give it a hearty thumbs up. After polishing off some sweet sticky rice with sliced mango for dessert, I had trouble breathing for the rest of the day.

But that did not stop me from my continuing weekend bingeing. Next stop was Saturday at noon where I feasted on a borrego (lamb) quesadilla and a chile rojo burrito at My Taco. I’ve written about that place previously, so I won’t go into too much detail. The chile rojo, though, is glorious. Small chunks of pork stewed in a spicy red sauce stuffed into a tortilla with luscious refried beans. I went with a friend and his sons, 2 and 4. The little ones obliterated two borrego quesadillas almost as quickly as I did. My order left me completely satisfied but it didn’t stop my friend from giving me an extra taco al pastor he had. Of course I had to eat it. I left with a feeling of overstuffedness I hadn’t felt since…the day before.

I managed to keep food out of my mouth for the next several hours, but after babysitting for my friends’ kid, I was driving home at 11PM when I felt a feeling in my gut akin to hunger, except that my stomach was still full from lunch. So what did I do? I called up Casa Bianca and ordered a medium pizza with (homemade) sausage, eggplant and fresh chopped garlic. As far as I’m concerned, this is the only pizza worth ordering there, as I’m not a fan of their cardboard-like crust. But the sausage is chunky and fennel-y and generally great as is the eggplant. Cut to 25 minutes later when I was staring at an empty pizza box and a half-drunk bottle of cabernet franc. Oh, the humanity.

Sunday morning, eight hours later, I was getting ready for the last site visit of this job – this time in Alhambra. Two friends visited me there and after the job I convinced them to join me for lunch at the restaurant that has one of my other favorite dishes, 101 Noodle Express. They have 20-ish different types of steamed dumplings - everthing from scallops and yellow leek to shrimp, pork and pumpkin - and various soup noodles done in the Shandong style (don’t ask me where that is – somewhere delicious in China). They’re fine; we had some very juicy lamb dumplings and some others with pork and chopped vegetables. They also have noodles with beef tendon, which one of my friends loves. But the only real reason to go is for the beef rolls. It’s like a thin, fried flour tortilla shell slathered with a thin layer of hoisin sauce (homemade), cilantro and thin slices of slow-cooked brisket, all rolled up into a tube of heavenly goodness, especially when topped with their zesty sesame oil/green relishy stuff.

You think all that consumption would be enough for one weekend, but I came home tonight and made myself a pizza with Italian black kale and oyster mushrooms, both of which I grew at home. Which brings my weekend calorie intake to somewhere in the mid-five digits.

I feel a little guilty. And more than a little stuffed. There was also a wine tasting, a donut and half a maple bar I neglected to include in my weekend calorie count. And the sake I’m drinking now. I feel like I've eaten what one would eat if they knew they only had one weekend left to live. Thank goodness this job is over.

On the Beef Soapbox...

First of all, my apologies for my blog silence. John, as the only reader of the blog, I am truly sorry. But I haven’t stopped eating or cooking or thinking about food. A couple weeks ago, I went to hear Michael Pollan speak. He has a new book out that’s a primer for sustainable eating called In Defense of Food, a companion to his acclaimed The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The book’s mantra is, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” Basically, he means that we should eat things that we recognize as food (sorry, Gogurt) in moderation. He’s not completely anti-meat, but he suggests that industrial farming has created a glut of artificially cheap meat at the expense of the environment, fossil fuel consumption and our own personal health. Sure. I’m two-thirds with you there, Mikey. But I can’t help but eat a lot. It’s not my fault food is so damned tasty.

My big criticism with his manifesto is that he says we’re not paying enough money for our food. That there are hidden costs that are paid through farm subsidies and in incalculable environmental damage (there is an dead zone the size of New Jersey in the Gulf of Mexico that cannot sustain fish because of fertilizer runoff from Iowa cornfields via the Mississippi River). And of course, he’s right, but how do you justify telling a low income family of five that they have no business buying $1.29/pound hamburger from Wal-Mart?

He acknowledges that the sustainable food movement is elitist but then he also cites women’s suffrage and environmentalism as movements that were started by the rich and privileged. The food thing is a little different because you can be environmentally aware and support women’s rights without spending extra money. The fact is grass fed ground beef can cost $8.75/pound (plus shipping). No matter what techniques they employ, it’s never going to come close to Wal-Mart prices. In fairness, it’s not so much that he’s saying that we should spend more on food, but as the hidden costs of industrial farming are realized, rising food prices are inevitable. Brace yourselves.

Speaking of beef, last night, I cooked a couple pounds of beef filet into a beef stroganoff which turned out really well. The beef was from Harris Ranch, the largest beef processor in California. It’s no Niman Ranch – it’s a basic feedlot – but at least they don’t feed the cows animal products. And it’s tasty stuff. Hm. What’s my point? I guess that it’s hard to adhere to Pollan’s lifestyle without spending a lot of money. The same beef I purchased at Harmony Farms meat market for thirty bucks would have cost a hundred from a grassfed beef supplier. It’s not like I eat that way every day. Or every week, for that matter. (On a side note, Harmony Farms also sells alligator, kangaroo, pheasant, caribou, bison, wild duck, etc. It's a trip.)

Trader Joe’s occasionally has some frozen grassfed steaks for $11/pound or so. They’re actually very good except that they’re carted in from Australia, so factor that into the carbon footprint equation. I just can’t win. A quick note on grassfed beef: because they generally have less fat of a different quality, they tend to cook more quickly and aren't usually as tender as cornfed beef. So keep that in mind when you're cooking them and consider using a Jaccard tenderizer. I do.

I will try to be better. But whether my next steak is from a grassfed bovine from Polyface Farms or if it’s defrosted from Trader Joe’s, I’m going to try Mark Bittman’s method of getting a meaty crust. It basically involved drying it out for a day or so in the fridge to concentrate some of the flavors – a poor man’s dry aging, as it were. But John, as my only reader and the one who introduced me to this method, you already know this. I’m basically wasting valuable digital space. So on that note…