Pig Tastes Good

My friends are shocked to know that I watch “Hell’s Kitchen” over “ America’s Top Chef.” I get it: “Top Chef” entails actual culinary skill whereas “Hell’s Kitchen” is more about how to be a glorified line cook. But that’s kind of the appeal; these people are unstable and uncreative which somehow makes me feel better about my own cooking. Does that make sense? It's kind of like how watching “The Biggest Loser” makes you think, “Damn, I ain't that fat.” And I also do like Gordon Ramsay’s cooking philosophy. He’s all about simplicity and quality of ingredients over presentation. Such a philosophy demands less skill. The clip in question comes at around 32:10 But in last week’s episode, one of the contestants blasted another over serving undercooked pork. She said something to the effect of, “if you serve raw pork, it will make you seriously ill,” and Ramsay agreed. This made me choke on my screwtop sauvignon blanc. This is utter pigshit. Pork is happy to be served medium rare. It’s true, growing up we were told that we shouldn’t eat raw pork and that it will lead to trichinosis. So here’s the down-low on trichinosis, a.k.a., trichinellosis: It’s a parasite caused by eating the eggs of the Trichinella worm. They’re found in pork, horse, bears and whatnot and once they incubate inside you, symptoms include nausea, diarrhea and other icky stuff. It sounds awful except for that over the past couple decades there have been around a dozen instances of trichinosis per year and most of those cases were related to wild game and not farmed meats. Meanwhile Americans suffer from around 30,000 incidences of salmonella and 70,000 incidences of E. coli food poisonings annually. But salmonella occurs more frequently in poultry and E. coli occurs more frequently in beef. So why does pork get a bad rap? My guess is that it’s just a pervasive old wives’ tale like how searing meat seals in the juices. The bottom line is that I’ve been eating medium and medium rare pork for my entire adult life and have never had any resulting illnesses. And most importantly, it tastes better. I have fond memories of my mother’s pork chops that were marinated in soy sauce and honey but the truth is, they were broiled to a crisp and dry like particle board. But when I had a medium rare pork tenderloin at Café Bizou, it was a revelation. How could this be the same meat as that brittle, dusty chop I had as a child? I’ve been resistant to buying pork after seeing that special on HBO where they showed sick pigs being shoved around by a forklift and Food, Inc., where they showed other ovine abuses, but over at Harmony Farms they sell Beeler pork. It’s not organic or wholly sustainable, but the pigs are raised in the open and piglets nurse with their mothers so I feel I can eat it a couple times a month without crippling guilt. They even have a movie to demonstrate the happiness of their pigs. I appreciate this isn’t an ideal situation, but it’s not completely barbaric. Relatively happy Beeler pigs So I bought a couple pork chops and marinated them in a manner that my mother would have approved of – ¼ cup of sugar (or honey), 1 clove of garlic, ¼ cup low-sodium soy sauce, 2 tbsp. dry sherry, some green onions and ginger, blended together. After an hour I brushed them off and grilled them at high heat for a couple minutes a side so that it was medium rare in the middle. Still pretty yummy To be fair, they did better when they were medium in the middle (while the tenderloin is better rare to medium-rare as it's more tender), but they suck when they’re cooked anything beyond that. And if you have a tenderloin, don’t be a sucker – keep it medium rare. Unless you’re Ted Nugent and killed a wild pig with a blow dart.

An Occasional Carnivore

My favorite cut of beef is the ribeye. It’s tender and it has the most marbling of any of the steak cuts. And marbling = fat = decadence. When you get a ribeye from a Wagyu cow, it’s uber decadent. Of course, this is the breed used for the famous Kobe beef, which is massaged with sake and fed beer (though this may be superfluous). The real deal can cost several hundred dollars per steak but I managed to procure some Australian stuff at Harmony Farms for under 20 bucks a pound. Here they call you "Ma'am" and "Sir" Of course grain fed beef from halfway around the world is not very carbon friendly – it takes 11,000 pounds of grain on the feedlot for the cow to add another 700 pounds of cow flesh, not to mention the diesel used on the freight journey. But I’ve already admitted to being a hypocrite in the previous entry and I had a tough day. Most of all, I’ve never actually cooked Wagyu before and I thought it was my duty to give it a whirl. So how to do it proper(ly)? Aussie Wagyu @ $20/lbTrue Kobe @ $135/lb If I were in Japan, I’d slice it super thin and dip in boiling water shabu-shabu style. But what is more uninteresting than boiled beef? There is a reason that Ruth’s Chris cooks their steaks at 1800 degrees and not 212. My sister insists that shabu-shabu is worth it for the sauces to which I say, gimme the sauces but grill the meat. Win-win. But slapping my steak on the Weber isn’t necessarily the best choice, either. Wagyu has a lot of unsaturated fats which means that they melt at a lower temperature. I don’t want to drain out all the good stuff so I had to figure out a way to cook it at a low temperature while still getting all the caramelized goodness of a well cooked steak. It is heat-safe. Enter sous-vide. Basically, it’s the fancy pants version of boil-in-a-bag. You take your food, dump it in a plastic bag and cook it for a long time at a low temperature. Though it’s exploded into the culinary zeitgeist over the past few years, it’s been in use in haute cuisine since the 1970s. It’s great because it cooks food while giving it a very tender, luscious texture. If I were to do it like food nerd/consultant, Dave Arnold, I would get a vacuum sealing machine and then comb eBay for a thermal circulator that some lab is trying to get rid of. But since I’m cheap and lazy, I use a Ziploc bag and a big pot of tepid water. The goal is to bring your meat to around 125 degrees internally, so my thought was to sous vide-ify my beef at around 110 degrees and sear it in a hot pan afterwards for a minute a side. I lightly seasoned my beef with salt, pepper and mustard powder out of reverence to my carnivorous grandfather. I popped it into the pot for around 15 minutes. At this stage there is no real fear of overcooking it since you’re cooking it basically at the temperature of a cow with a fever. A NOTE: Sous-vide translates from French to be “under vacuum,” meaning that there is no air in the plastic bag that holds your food. Vacuum sealers have air pumps that do the job for you but humans have a God-given air pump that works just as well. Just use a decent zip lock bag, close it 90% and, too paraphrase Lauren Bacall, you just put your lips together and suck. If the seal is good, you should get all of the air out and you won’t suck in any beef juice.No air bubble via sucking So after pulling my sack of beef out of the McGuyver-esque sous-vide set-up, I slapped the beef on a hot, dry pan and seared it for two and a half minutes on one side, a minute on the other. It still felt pretty soft pulling it off but after letting it rest for a few minutes, it was clear that I screwed up and overcooked my precious Wagyu. Good but not great Don’t get me wrong. It was still delicious and luscious and tender – almost to the point that it had the soft texture of liver – but the meat was medium and I, like any rational, respectful beef eaters, am a medium rare kind of guy. After my tears dried, I had a cursory self-debriefing where I determined that my method was correct (duh) but my meat was cut too thin. For a half inch thick piece of steak, either I should have done it sous-vide and eaten it all lukewarm and unbrowned, which is weird, or I should have just grilled it without that hoity-toity sous-vide business. Next time, I’m keeping the technique the same and doubling the thickness. Sorry, cow.

I Am a Big Fat Hypocrite

It turns out I’m completely full of crap. After all my talk about organic this and sustainable that, I’m just a big glutton destined to be a future pity contestant on The Biggest Loser. This weekend I went on a little outdoor excursion and when I reached civilization again, it was necessary to refuel. After eating two days of freeze-dried crap, I deserved, nay required, real food. While on the return trail, I had fantasies of poaching some wild salmon with chopped fresh tomatoes or defrosting a grass-fed ribeye. But once we got to the parking lot, hunger overwhelmed me and I manhandled our caravan to the nearest Black Bear Diner, one of a growing chain of restaurants on the West Coast. They specialize in comfort food in large quantities and do it well. So well that we decided that they must be owned by the same foreign conglomerate that started The Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Chang’s – just one more cog in the international conspiracy to make Americans even more obese. But what could I do about it? Once my eyes settled on the menu, I couldn't help but focus on the appetizer sampler platter, the one with the quesadillas, chili cheese nachos, garlic fries, chicken tenders (yes, chicken), and onion rings. What wasn’t deep fried was covered in cheese. Wait, everything was deep fried and covered in cheese. Anyhow, the point is, the seductiveness of their offerings eclipsed my political correctness. When the platter arrived, I took the prison posture where I protected my plate with my left hand while shoveling food into my mouth with the right. It was impressive. But what earned me true hypocrite/glutton status was my ordering a side of macaroni and cheese on top of the appetizers. Who cares that it was mediocre? My calories per dollar ratio was off the charts. Thus, I feel it’s my responsibility to blog this great shame. All my talk of boycotting poultry means nothing. And I’m sure there was nothing on that plate that didn’t involve genetically modified crops and/or high fructose corn syrup. So you should stop reading this blog, toot sweet. I can’t be trusted.

Summer Surplus

I’m harvesting way more tomatoes than I can eat (unless I wanted to do that awesome tomato diet). But it’s been my pleasure to give them away. I’m rather proud of my tomatoes; they’re all flavorful and sweet. All except for the Romas, which are mealy and characterless. Romas are a paste tomato whose high pectin content makes it good for cooking. In a sauce they come alive and you can really taste their tomato-y goodness. My ego prevents me from letting people eat the Romas I give them raw. God forbid they think I grow bland tomatoes. And I only would be giving them enough for a half cup of marinara. What's the point? So I’ve been keeping them, which leads to another dilemma: My one Roma plant has yielded a dozen or so every days which is substantial but not enough to start canning. What to do? From the first harvest I made a salsa, which, while not cooked, tastes amazing.

Salsa Fresca (adapted from Two Hot Tamales) 6 paste tomatoes, halved (around a pound?) ½ medium onion 2 cloves garlic 2 tbsp cider vinegar 1 handful of cilantro ½ dried chipotle chile (or to your heat tolerance) A healthy dose of salt and pepper Put everything in a blender and blast it. FYI, using canned chipotle is fine but they can get super hot. Also, slicing tomatoes can be used but your salsa will be more watery.

maybe enough for a few cups of sauce With the next harvest I had a lot more tomatoes, but still not enough for sauce. I seemed to remember Mario Batali roasting tomatoes so I tried it. I sliced them lengthwise and sprinkled them with salt and sugar and olive oil, added a couple cloves of garlic and put them in a 275 degree oven for a few hours. I guess the sugar might be considered cheating, but whatever. It's only a couple teaspoons and it tastes better. Some people add herbs but I just want pure tomato flavor. Your results may vary – oven fluctuations, tomato size – so after a couple hours, it’s best to check on them periodically. You’re looking for something that’s dried but pliant with just a tiny bit of juice. You don’t want a sun-dried tomato. Pack them in olive oil and store them in the fridge. Put them in pasta, salad, sauces, sandwiches, or whatever. At least, that’s what I read. So far mine haven't made it beyond the antipasto plate.

Skinny Monkeys Susceptible to Fatal Gastric Bloat

On Thursday I went to Birds, a rotisserie place in Hollywood where I broke my poultry boycott to get their chicken chili cheese fries. The dish arrived so smothered in cheese that the only evidence that fries were on the plate were the vague contours of the shiny yellow blanket of melted cheddar. That there was chili underneath was a complete assumption. G'day coronary artery disease The dish even looked more artery clogging than Outback Steakhouse’s 2,900 calorie cheese fries, considered by some to be worst food in America. Nonetheless I gamely dug into my chili cheese fries but I couldn’t finish them. I was doubly ashamed: 1) That I couldn’t eat them all. Twenty years ago I would have polished off a dish like that in between gulps of Milwaukee’s Best. And 2) That I ate so much of said dish. Alone I ate what would have been a barely acceptable portion for half a dozen normal people. I disgust myself. Meanwhile there is a growing movement of “calorie restrictors.” For decades, research has repeatedly shown that if you restrict the calories of some lab animals by a third, you can extend their lifespan by 30-40%. I don’t know if it’s because everyone’s metabolism has a finite number of calories they can burn or whether it’s an insulin thing but this phenomenon has been replicated in rats, fruit flies, yeast, fish and dogs, among others. It should come as no surprise that some wacky humans have latched onto to this trick and have reduced their food intake so that they can live a few precious more years. There are books and websites based around this diet. 6’ tall, 135 pounds and 103 years old. I have poo-pooed these crazies with the rationale that if you eat less to live longer, you aren’t necessarily living better. But still, these guys could eat half a bite of foie gras or a tiny hunk of brie – so long as they adhered to their sub-1,300 daily calories – for decades after I was gone. That might not be all that bad. A recent study at the University of Wisconsin found that monkeys on a reduced calorie diet outlived their gluttonous counterparts and had lower incidences of age-related diseases such as cancer, diabetes, brain dysfunction and cardiovascular disease. Study leader Richard Weindruch says, “There is a major effect of caloric restriction in increasing survival if you look at deaths due to the diseases of aging.” The only one I distrust more than a skinny monkey is a skinny human It’s the last part of that quote that threw up a red flag. What the press release and subsequent articles failed to mention was that there were sixteen skinny monkeys who died during the study from “non-age-associated causes” who weren’t included in the data analysis. Buried deep in the New York Times article on this study was this illuminating nugget:

Some monkeys died under the anesthesia given while taking blood samples. Some died from gastric bloat, a disease that can strike at any age, others from endometriosis. When the deaths judged not due to aging are excluded, the dieting monkeys lived significantly longer.

In fact, when you include deaths not due to aging, mortality rate differences between the two groups were not statistically significant. But I guess “Skinny Monkeys Live Longer” is a sexier headline than, “Skinny Monkeys Susceptible to Fatal Gastric Bloat.” Thankfully, there are shrewd and skeptical eyes out there who can see through the hype.

Another Veiled Excuse for Insobriety

precursor to a Technicolor yawn I’m a beer and wine kind of guy but I love the idea of the mixed drink. It’s kind of a flavor/math brain teaser. When I’m not thinking about what I’m eating for my next meal, I’ll frequently fantasize about some elaborate concoction involving dashes of bitters and twists of citrus zests. But I couldn’t care less about your [insert cloying flavor] martini, or your double entendre shot. I mean, isn’t a Screaming Orgasm just a single entendre? I sneer at these libations not just because I’m a condescending snob. There’s a tiny part of me that doesn’t drink them because they’re disgusting. somehow more civilized than a ___-tini The three types of cocktails that interest me begin with the classics: Manhattan, martini – gin only (snob), side car, etc. These are the potent potables I imagine businessmen from the 1950s drank in the smoky Metro North bar car on their way from Grand Central Station to Greenwich. A single rye Manhattan (neat, of course) can transport you to a more refined emotional state. Subsequent refills can transport you to different place entirely. I should know. The second kind of cocktail are the forgotten ones. The ones from Edwardian times that use some obscure liquor like crème de violette, pernod, or absinthe. These drinks are frequently mixed in some ritualistic fashion involving the backs of spoons and sugar lumps which makes them all the more pretentious (yay!). Take for instance, this delicious looking apple jack concoction mixed by my lesbian crush and cocktail historian, Rachel Maddow: How is this drink not cool? The third kind of distilled liquor-based beverage that interests me is the sort of nouveau artisanal (I’m starting to sound super-douchy) cocktail that eschews factory flavored syrups in favor of pure essences. The Hungry Cat broke new ground for me when their bar insisted on making their own herb-infused simple syrups and juicing their fruit to order. You'd think it would slow them down and maybe it does, but there's the giant Vegematic juicer on the bar that makes it all worth it. With drink names like “Peach Pit” and “Root Beer Float,” you’d think they’d be completely sissified girl drinks, but in fact all their drinks are restrained (unlike sissified girls) while still tasting exactly like they’re described. My favorites is the cucumber martini, the one exception to my flavored martini ban. It is one of the most refreshing intoxicants I’ve ever had. not part of the DeKuypers product line At home I’ve had mixed success in creating my own flavored cocktails. I’d experiment more but I can’t really handle the hangovers. My interest has been on vodka infusions, a focus driven by the fact that most mass-market infused vodkas tend to taste like liquid Jolly Ranchers. First, I start with a decent, neutral vodka – Smirnoff has been both rated highly and it’s relatively cheap when it’s at Trader Joe’s. I pour a fifth in a decanter with the flavor component and stick it in the refrigerator for a spell. I’ve had success with raspberries (12 ounce sack of frozen ones) and ginger (a few ounces of fresh peeled slices). You let them soak for a few days and then decant them back into the original bottle. The raspberry creates a lot of cloudy sediment so you have to be really careful decanting and then you have to filter the last few ounces (or drink the murky stuff separately). It’s worth the hassle; pure ginger and raspberry flavors shine through without any high fructose corn syrup getting in the way. You can always add sweetness later.

Simple Syrup Equal volumes sugar and water, heated and stirred until melted. If you want to infuse it, add flavoring, e.g., a couple rosemary sprigs, mint, etc., during heating process. Keep in the fridge.

My failures include pineapple, wild blueberry and fresh cranberry – all tasted nothing like their original form, i.e., tasted like crap. Lemon zest didn’t yield anything special and split vanilla bean was a total pain (thousands of tiny seeds cloud the mix). It doesn’t end up tasting much different than the stuff at the liquor store and I actually missed the sweetness. I still have a full bottle of chipotle chile infused vodka sitting on a shelf. No one can handle more than a sniff. I’m thinking of bottling it in aerosol form and selling it as a self-defense weapon. my basil failure At my local haunt, The Chalet, one of the bartenders, Gerkin, poured me a shot of his house-made (is that different from homemade?) basil infused vodka. It was a summery revelation with just the right amount of heady green fragrance. Very clean tasting. I tried to make it at home with a handful of pinched-off basil flowers that were going to be tossed anyhow. Four days later it tasted like an overwhelming torrent of resinous, pine-y flavors. Gerkin told me last night that the key is to let the basil macerate for 36 hours tops. Or was it 18? Hm. More experimenting is in order. Hopefully I can take my herbaceous stuff and cut it with some more vodka to make it drinkable. Over-infusion is probably the same problem I had with the pepper vodka; the same shriveled chipotle has been sitting in the bottle for 6 years slowly imparting more and more of its smoky toxicity. why not kaffir lime? Infusions on the horizon: shiso, lemongrass and whatever other foofy herbs I see at the Asian market. I’m talking to you, galanga!

A Short and Lazy Entry

Last night I was feeling rather peckish and lazy so I defrosted some spaghetti and meatballs I had made a couple months back. It was an icy lump that was enough for two meals but I couldn’t well portion it out without a hacksaw so I reheated the whole thing in a pot. Long story short, I ate the entire thing (covered in cheese) in one sitting and complained of stomach pains the rest of the night. It was one of those not-so-rare moments where food made me feel bad about myself. For those guilty times I turn to This Is Why You’re Fat, a collection of reader-submitted photographs of disgusting foods. When you read about The Tobias (a grilled beef sandwich topped with fried pepperoni, salami, provolone cheese, fried onions, tomato and special sauce), suddenly a double helping of spaghetti and meatballs doesn’t seem so bad. Most of the featured dishes are various fast foods stuffed in a bun or on a pizza: The Potluck Burger A burger with sliced hot dogs, potato salad, mac and cheese, tomato, ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise. But every so often there is an inspired entry: Breakfast Cake Two layers of egg, sausage, bacon, cheese quiche with country gravy in between, topped with gravy icing garnished with bacon bits. I’m sad to admit that I’ve eaten more than one of the featured items on multiple occasions. I refuse to say which ones. I know I mentioned them in the previous entry but the Planet Money team just podcasted on the Fancy Food Show. This blog isn’t really meant to pimp out other websites but that’s apparently what today is about. Slow news day, I guess. The podcast is one of their rare food-centric episodes and it's humorous and informative (and I promise, it’s the last time I’ll mention them or NPR for the rest of the year). Lastly, a brief tomato update: All the plants are flourishing, though many of the fruit are afflicted with blossom end rot, a condition that blackens the ends of tomatoes. It’s due to a calcium deficiency so I tossed in a couple Tums into the water. Very scientific of me, I know. The Sweet 100s have been producing consistently, truly living up to their name. A handful a day of super-sweet little tomatoes. The big ‘uns have been slow to mature but I picked the first pretty one yesterday. This Early Girl has a date with the inside of a grilled cheese sandwich Tons of Big Boys and Romas to follow.