beer: victory v-saison

man, what a gyp. i love saisons - the drinkability of a pale ale but with a nice earthy/funky layer. too bad that victory, a brewery i generally think pretty highly of, left all the funk out of theirs. staggeringly effervescent and prickly, too sweet on the opening, and limp on the finish. just not much doing. don't waste your time, get a bottle of dupont instead. oh, and the cork was so badly stuck that i had to pry it off with pliers. kabammo.

beer tasting: cantillon

the fine folks at nikki's liquors finally twisted my arm into going to one of their beer tastings, and i have to admit it was more than worth the price of admission ($0). cantillon, as i'm sure you're aware, is a belgian brewery specializing in really, really old-school lambics. the consensus:

classic gueuze: a pretty sturdy mild gueuze - not enough funk to really satisfy
iris: an entirely barley-malt lambic, hoppier than is traditional - certainly more hop impact, but not enough to drastically change the character of the beer
vigneronne: lambic laid on muscat grapes - a strong twiggy/woody opening, with a greater degree of funk - pretty good
kriek: one of the better krieks i've had, assertively dry and without a bit of cough syrup
st. lamvinus: lambic laid on merlot and cab franc grapes - really impressive, big and beefy and funky - the kind of thing i'd be happy to drink pretty regularly (so of course it's $30+ a bottle)

i also bought a bottle of victory's saison to take home - update as the situation develops.

beer: sam smith oatmeal stout

i have to confess that i'm not a huge stout drinker. it's not that i'm opposed to the style, it's just that there are so many other styles i like more. it's like ordering udon at a sushi restaurant. you can, but...

that said, sam smith oatmeal stout is the first choice around here. most american microbrews tend towards chocolate or coffee flavors in their stouts which, coupled with overmalting in general, leaves them tasting like those effete espresso drinks that lamewads drink. the oatmeal stout is much better balanced and the oatmeal notes make it a lot more drinkable with savory foods. the abv isn't absurdly high, either - a few pints would be more than acceptable on a cold winter night. and a few bonus points for their subdued label design - i was going to point out how much i hated stone's copy in the ruination post, but forgot. i don't need to read your life story on the back of the bottle.

recipe: hamburgers

readers, i am awfully embarrassed to admit that 24 years into my life i'd never made a hamburger at home. does this reveal some sort of deep-seated flaw? so tonight was a brand-new experience here at the homestead. all thanks to mama, who knows how to do everything.

assembly:
1lb ground beef, as fatty as you can find - i used 85% lean from whofo
a whole lot of salt and pepper
worcestershire sauce (or if you're like me and don't have any, just use tonkatsu sauce and fish sauce, heavier on the tonkatsu - i'm sure you have both of those kicking around)

mix all the above together into a nicely homogeneous mass. now go and find your smoke detector and take the batteries out. then rip it out of the wall. open all your windows. turn a fan on. several fans, if you have them. or, you know, turn on the fantastically efficient hood over your stove. either way. close your closet doors unless you want your wardrobe to smell like burning meat. should i point out that this is not something to make to impress your date? also, should i point out that cats can't stand the sound of an angry smoke detector?

anyhow. preheat a cast iron skillet to somewhere around "roaring hot". have your ground meat mix divided into squash-ball-sized balls. pat a ball in your hands into a very very thin patty. the thinner the better. really. as thin as you can without tearing. now smack it into the skillet and watch the column of smoke billow out. cook until done on one side, flip, and cook until done on the other. i'd say maybe a minute or less per side. i'd aim closer to raw than cardboard, but maybe that's just me. if you like cheese on yours, throw it on when you flip it. i think people use processed cheese for this because it melts so quickly - real cheddar, even grated, takes too long. try to ignore the growing cloud of smoke descending from the ceiling.

finish:
you know what you like on your hamburgers better than i do
toasted buns

put your hamburgers together and serve. these are the kind of thing where the cook eats last, or eats with one hand while cooking with the other.

makes a lot of little burgers.

bonus! secret sauce recipe!

cornichons
shallots
ketchup
mayonnaise
sriracha
honey
salt
pepper

buzz the cornichons and shallots in a food processor until coarsely chopped. fold in the rest of the ingredients. tastes just like mcdonalds but nicer.

recipe: polenta

at first glance, it might seem kind of silly that i'm posting a recipe for polenta. doesn't everyone know how to make polenta? but, not too long ago, i was converted to a completely different technique that i'm really keen on. the gist of it is that amylase (the enzyme responsible for breaking down long-chain carbohydrates) is deactivated above around 180*. if you immediately heat your polenta to a boil, as most people do, almost all of the starch remains complex and you don't get much sweetness out of your corn. this method, though much lengthier, is also a lot tastier. my thanks go to paul bertolli and his book 'cooking by hand', the best contemporary slightly-more-talky-than-marcella-hazan italian book out there.

assembly:
1C good polenta (i love the stuff from anson mills but it's not cheap)
4C water
1tsp salt

preheat your oven to about 180*, though 200* may produce better results. ovens don't seem very happy to be kept so low. rinse the polenta in your cooking pot, exactly as you would with rice. throw off all the starchy water. refill with the 4C water, add your salt, cover, and throw into the oven. let it sit in there for hours and hours. stir occasionally. three, maybe four hours later it'll be ready.

finish:
a giant knob of butter
fresh cheese, maybe?

add more butter than you might think prudent. stir in and serve.

makes a good bit - and few things are as filling as polenta. if you pour it into a pan and chill it for awhile, you can fry or grill the firmed polenta to very nice results.

beer: stone ruination IPA

hey, look, a post. amazing, you're saying to yourself. i thought he'd lost interest. but no, i just got myself off to much-too-fast of a start. pace myself, that's the key.

anyhow, stone ruination. this is a perennial favorite of high-alpha american beer snobs - i definitely don't count myself a member of that group. like everything else about american microbrew, more is "better" and pushing the limits often supercedes technical skill. that being said, this is a really well-made beer. it shows a lot of control and balance, which is vital when you're at 8%abv and over 100IBU. the malt hit is almost instantaneous, but it's followed by a really vibrant herbaceous hop middle and finish. it manages the feat of being neither cloying nor (too) bitter after the finish, both of which tend to be the failing of this style. thankfully, too, campus was selling it in 12oz format instead of bombers. 22 ounces would just be too much. $17 is steep for a six, but it's worth it once in awhile.

beer: morland tanner's jack

i bought a six of morland tanner's jack the other week at yankee spirits up in attleboro - going through a bit of an english thing here at the homestead. unfortunately, despite the cool story behind the name and logo the beer itself was a bit wan - it's the kind of thing generously described on the beergeek websites as a "session beer". this, i think, means that you can drink a lot of it without much effect on your palate or psyche. it doesn't ask much of you. low ABV - somewhere in the mid 4s, if i remember correctly. don't get me wrong, it was better than a lot of the junk micros available here. but i wouldn't buy it again.

recipe: not-really-north-african sauce

like many things prepared in the US by well-meaning white folks, this is a dish that bears little resemblance to anything really ethnic. but it's still tasty. and who knows? it may be the specialty of some grandma in some souk in tunisia. but i doubt it.

assembly:
1 medium onion, diced fine
1 little knob ginger, peeled and diced fine
a few cloves garlic, same dice
olive oil
1T coriander seed
1T cumin
1/2T fennel seed
a handful of thai hot peppers, if they happen to be in your fridge
1 28oz can tomatoes, cleaned up and mushed with their juice
maybe 1/3C dried fruit - i use golden raisins, but i have a feeling diced apricots would be nice too
a squirt of honey

...make a sauce. saute the onion in the olive oil for a few minutes, throw in the ginger and garlic for another minute or two, then the whole spices and hot peppers...give them another minute more, dump in the tomatoes, add the dried fruit, and stir in the honey. cover mostly and let simmer on low heat. the usual 45 minutes or so.

finish:
a little fresh mint
a little fresh basil
a handful of oil cured olives, chopped coarse
salt
pepper

when everything looks good and saucy, add all the above and let the olives warm up. no more than a minute or so. you don't want the herbs to get all cooked and sad.

serves 2 nicely, over pasta or couscous.

i'll mention that i had the end of some sausages from the other day kicking around, so i threw those in too. totally optional, though i could see some merguez tasting pretty good in here. if you can get merguez where you live. i don't think i can.

observation: food urges

i just had a terrible, split-second, overwhelming urge for some very specific thing to eat and i don't know what it was. the flavor was there, but by the time i could put it together, it was gone. is there a word for this feeling? perhaps in german?

weird drink: mangosteen juice

i'm a sucker for, among other things, exotic juice drinks. today's impulse purchase, at the lao market, was a can of "ice cool" brand mangosteen beverage. for those of you not immediately familiar with the mangosteen, they are one of any number of southeast asian fruits currently illegal for import into the US - worries about various insect pests, apparently. i wasn't expecting much out of this can, to tell the truth - my thai cookbook guy finds mangosteens "insipid", and he has access to the real thing. but remarkably, it was very tasty - sort of a peach-grape-apple thing, very floral. and not too cloying. i'd drink it again, and it beats the hell out of a $3.50 juice from whofo.

nitpick: za'atar

sorry for the hiatus, readers. mama and papa were here this weekend, and i just got lazy. so, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

in the new yorker i received today i (as i always do) immediately turned to the "tables for two" writeup - does that come as any surprise? the restaurant, a high-minded israeli joint, sounds fine. no complaints there. what gets me is this: "Admony brushes [the pitas] with olive oil and a mixture of sesame, salt, and zatar, an herb that grows on a mountain near Jerusalem". this triggered a pretty strong reaction, because i've only ever seen zatar sold as a blend of (some combination of) sesame, sumac, and wild thyme or oregano. it's an herb now? before i sent off an angry email to the new yorker fact-checkers, i did some due diligence. here's the full story: za'atar, traditionally, is unblended syrian hyssop - so maybe i was wrong. maybe they're using the real thing. but, it's also a protected plant in israel (most websites argue that this was done just to give checkpoint guards yet another reason to fuck with palestinians, but i'm not wading into that part) - so if they're using syrian hyssop at this place, it's certainly not from a "mountain near jerusalem". the blended non-hyssop za'atar just sort of tastes like the real thing, apparently.

so what gives? have i out-checked a venerable magazine? or is this whole thing just silly?

recipe: chocolate pudding

i don't make weak chocolate pudding. this is amazingly high-test, and a little bit goes a long way. it's basically stabilized fat and sugar.

to anyone who actually attempts this recipe (kudos to you!): it's not easy. it's not starched, meaning the only thickening action you'll get is from the yolks. and it's really, really easy to end up with chocolate scrambled eggs. i wish i could tell you when to add your eggs and when to pull the whole thing off the stove. but i can't. it's kind of a feel-sight thing. it'll go from thickish to thick-and-glossy to, i presume, coagulated. pull it right when it goes thick-and-glossy. does that help? 150-155* F, no higher.

assembly & finish
1&1/3C light cream
5oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped - i used barry callebaut because it was on sale at whofo, but you could use valrhona or scharffen-berger with equal success. don't bother with cheap chocolate.
1/2tsp salt
1/3C sugar
2 egg yolks, whisked in a small bowl

heat all ingredients except the yolks in a small pot over medium-low heat. stir constantly. when it looks right, add a little to the yolks and then dump them into the pot. stir like hell. remove when it's just barely done, as it'll heat a little residually. pour into whatever containers you prefer, and chill until cold. don't forget to lick the spatula.

serves four very greedy people.

not a food post: prairie home companion

to the horror of those who know me, i have started listening to prairie home companion each and every weekend at work - what could be nicer than listening to garrison keillor while you laminate croissant dough? nothing, that's what. and i've come to a startling conclusion, one that i need to share with the internet world-at-large so that when it happens, i can say "you read it here first". when garrison keillor has come to the end of his tenure - as he must, at some point - he can, should, and in a fair world will be replaced by colin meloy, lead singer of the decemberists. even though i think colin is a pretentious, smug man, isn't that a part of keillor's charm? mr meloy already has a proven sophisticated accent, and his stage banter is just the right tone. listen to it in your mind's ear - you know it'd work.

so here you have it - American Public Media execs take note.

recipe: black beans

if i had to pick a recipe for a foodstamp challenge, this'd be it. the cheapest, tastiest calories money can buy. they also turn into refried beans beautifully, if you're into that kind of thing. even better, they provide a good rationale for buying and eating most of a bag of tortilla chips. most recipes call for soaking your beans overnight, but i don't plan menus that far ahead. and anyway, diana kennedy says that mexicans cook them as is. so there you have it.

assembly:
2C dried black beans
8C water
1/4C oil (i like lard for this, or any rendered hog fat, but feel free to use whatever you want)
1 medium onion, chopped fine
a few larger mildly hot peppers, chopped fine
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1T coriander seed
1T cumin
1T oregano

heat the oil or rendered fat over medium-high heat in a dutch oven. add the onion and pepper and brown for a few minutes. add your garlic and spices (either whole or ground; as you prefer) and cook for another minute. dump in your beans, add the water, turn the heat to medium low, cover, and walk away. the longer you give these the better. at least three hours. you may have to add more water if they begin to stick - it's not a big deal. some beans soften way faster than others. so your mileage may vary.

finish:
salt
pepper
sriracha
tortillas, wheat or corn, heated and browned on a comal

season a little with pepper and pretty liberally with salt. nobody likes undersalted beans. provide a bottle of sriracha for communal use, and warm up more tortillas than you think you need.

serves (heartily) two with leftovers or four as part of a full meal.

nonsense: zero-calorie calories

yahoo would like to save you from yourself by pointing out that zero-calorie sweeteners are actually full of calories. let's stop and think for a second. five calories in a packet of splenda...if you eat only a hundred packets of splenda at a sitting, you've blown your diet to the tune of five hundred calories. shame on you, eating all that splenda.

champagne: veuve cliquot

i can't believe i am brand-loyal. i like to think that i'm above such things - and perhaps if i had the money to drink champagne regularly, i could overcome this crippling reliance. but for now, veuve cliquot is the best thing going. $35 is exactly the right amount to pay for a bottle that promises so much yeasty satisfaction.

and it pairs beautifully with sloppy joes and tater tots. cuts right through the grease like a scalpel. you should try it.

recipe: sloppy joes

readers, for most of my young life i'd never had a sloppy joe. i think this is probably because i didn't take to sandwiches at all until later in life, and so mama just never bothered making them. or perhaps she just doesn't like them. who knows? whatever the case may be, i've only started making this particular thing pretty recently and it bears only passing resemblance to any other sloppy joe recipe i've ever seen. so if you're expecting hamburger helper, proceed at your own risk. it's probably more like bizarro-world greek chili, if that helps.

spice mix:
cloves
cinnamon
allspice
nutmeg
fennel
coriander
cumin
paprika

quantities QS. i'd say a little lighter on the cumin and coriander, a little heavier on the sweet spices. don't bother roasting anything unless you really are going artisan-sloppy-joe. grind them all up. you should have a few tablespoons of powder.

assembly:
1T olive oil
1/4lb bacon, diced fine
3/4lb ground meat, your choice - pork? veal? horse?
1 large onion, chopped
a few stalks of celery, chopped
a cubanelle pepper or two, chopped - or any other vaguely spicy not-bell pepper
2-3T brown sugar
1 28oz can whole plum tomatoes, cleaned up and pureed or picked apart with fingers
3T ketchup
sriracha
1-2T vinegar
salt
pepper

heat your olive oil in a dutch oven or equivalent over medium heat. render the bacon until beginning to crisp. pull the bacon out and set aside, crank the heat up a bit, and add the diced vegetables. brown for a few minutes until softening. throw in your spice blend and the brown sugar. cook a few more minutes - don't let the sugar scorch. add your ground meat, and stir until broken up. dump in your tomatoes, and add the ketchup, vinegar and sriracha to taste. i think this stuff is supposed to be rather sweet, but you may prefer to add more vinegar to keep it from seeming candied. turn down the heat to low and simmer, covered, for at least 45 minutes - probably the longer the better. you want the sauce to be thick but not dry. season at the end with salt and pepper.

finish:
cheap ghetto-puffy hamburger buns, toasted
mayo
tater tots

serve your joe on the buns, slathered liberally with mayo. the tots are, culturally, a traditional accompaniment. i think they resemble pre-chewed potato that has been spat, in small mouthfuls, into a deep fryer. some people love 'em. you decide.

makes a lot. serves two for two meals, or four with no leftovers.

restaurant: phở horn's

eating well is a terrible trap. for any specific food, one's best experience becomes a baseline against which all other examples are measured. northern virginia has now effectively ruined me for indian, pakistani, pollo a la brasa, korean, and vietnamese - specifically, phở. that said, i went out for phở today for the first time since the move to rhode island. the place - phở horn's (50 ann mary st, pawtucket ri) had looked pretty promising on my previous reconnaissance visit - they had durian shakes on the menu; the clientèle was split down the middle viet - latino. in the interest of further research, i went today for lunch. the cà phê sữa đá was pre-mixed in the back of the house. this is a serious deduction of points, bordering on a disqualification. half the pleasure of vietnamese iced coffee is watching it slowly drip throughout your meal, so that you can mix it yourself as a small and perfect dessert. getting it premixed forces you to either drink it prior to the phở (too weird) or wait and watch the ice melt (too watery). the phở xe lừa (locomotive style, the viet version of "kitchen sink") contained way too much mediocre steak and way too little tripe or tendon. the broth was okay, the garnishes were skimpy - not enough basil, no ngò gai. when i mentioned the lack of interesting meats to the owner, he seemed taken aback - this is the white man's dilemma. i'll write about it in another post. all things considered, it was a good lunch but nowhere near my NoVa baseline.

observation: a "horn" is the little hook sticking out of the o in the word "phở". did the owner of this restaurant really name it after a diacritic mark? because that's fucking awesome.

booze: plymouth gin

plymouth is an excellent gin for disinfecting small cuts, scrapes, and other wounds.

recipe: thai red curry

this is, after way too much trial and error, probably the best thing i'm capable of making these days. it's difficult to get right at first - i had a lot of issues with not getting the oil to separate correctly. as mama says, it is easy when you know how. i should point out that this makes what is, for most people, a staggeringly hot curry. cut the chili numbers in half if you are unsure of your capacity for really, really spicy food. miranda, i hope you try this out - it's leagues better than what i made in asheville.

paste:
2T finely chopped up lemongrass
1 golfball knob galangal, peeled and chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3-4 small shallots, peeled
20 - 30 little fresh thai hot peppers (green or red) destemmed
OR
10 long-ish dried thai hots - deseeded!!! also rehydrated and drained
pinch coarse salt

save galangal and lemongrass offcuts (skins and stems). using a food processor or blender, reduce to a textured pulp. you might need to add ~1T stock - try not to add much liquid.

stock:
1/2 - 1C stock (chicken? vegetable?)
offcuts from the galangal and lemongrass

boil together for ~10 minutes, set aside to steep. strain prior to use.

assembly:
1 ~400ml can unhomogenized coconut milk (chaokoh or mae ploy work great - please avoid american brands, they're vastly overpriced and not oily enough)
1-2T coconut oil
1-2 T palm or brown sugar
2-3 T fish sauce

you absolutely must not shake the coconut milk. in fact, make sure to use a can that's been sitting in one position for awhile. open the "bottom" - pour off the coconut water on top into stock. heat coconut cream - there should be a good amount (1/3 to 1/2 the can) with the coconut oil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly. a wok works best for this process. the amount of coconut oil you add is really to taste - the hotter the curry, the more oil you should add to coat the mouth. the goal is to "crack" the cream - render out the oils from the solids. it'll stick easily, be careful. don't scorch the solids. it should take about 7 - 10 minutes. this step is what separates the real thing from thin and insipid americanized curries. when fully separated - it looks somewhat like a pile of very greasy ricotta sitting in a pool of clear oil - add the paste. cook, still stirring, until nicely fragrant and slightly darker. add 1T sugar and stir for another minute. add 2T fish sauce and, again, stir for a minute. add stock / coconut water mixture until diluted to taste. set heat to medium.

finish:
~1lb deep-fried tofu cubes or ~1/2lb lean animal protein
1 cup vegetable of choice
1 handful thai basil
1/4 of a lime, juiced
two kaffir lime leaves, cut into very very very thin strands

this part is much more free-form. add protein and vegetables to gently simmering curry in such a way that they'll all be cooked at the same time - make sure they're cut in bite-size pieces. you're on your own with this. it shouldn't take long, no matter what. to finish, squeeze in lime juice, add kaffir lime leaves and adjust seasoning. more sugar? fish sauce? etc. garnish with thai basil, artfully torn or cut.

as a variation, add meat during paste-frying process. if it's medium-quick cooking, i like doing it this way. but not with shrimp or anything that barely needs cooked.

serve over rice (i'm working through a 25lb bag of sticky rice) - three regular portions or two and some leftovers.

tonight's curry happens to be tofu and green pepper...

gripe: providence espresso

i'll try to keep this short and sweet. i only really drink one kind of coffee drink, outside of special situations (cà phê sữa đá when i'm eating vietnamese, the very occasional turkish coffee after dinner). i take two shots of espresso, pulled over a cup of ice. it's an iced doppio. the melted ice somewhat mellows the otherwise full-strength espresso. is this a difficult drink to prepare? apparently, the answer is yes. here in providence, when i request my drink - even when i ask for it as a "double espresso over ice" - i receive quite often one of three things:

a) two shots of espresso, properly pulled into the cup of ice, that have then been diluted with several tablespoons of unrequested water

b) four shots of espresso instead of two

c) pre-chilled espresso shots pulled god-knows-when and dumped into a cup of ice

baristas, why is this happening? a "double shot" is not "four shots". and if i wanted water, i'd ask. the third example is inexcusable - espresso deteriorates very, very rapidly. so please - i am a regular customer. and i am not ordering a tall half caf caramel-vanilla macchiato with soy milk. you should be delighted to be making such a simple drink.

restaurant: memphis roadhouse

the south has, culturally speaking, almost nothing to offer the world-wise northerner. "soul food", especially in the north, is either prepared daintily with luxe ingredients (for an affluent, mostly white clientele) or poorly and with too much margarine and salt (for, you know, urban blacks). neither one ever tastes right, which sucks, because it's really cucina povera and it's really very good. but this little review isn't about soul food, it's about barbeque - the other thing, potentially, the south has to offer. as any novice food-eater knows, good barbeque is indicated by confederate flags, fake wood paneling, cheap vinyl seats, sweet tea, and awful white bread. bonus points if the pitmaster is actually a bigot. i fully expect to be given the "oh man, another northern fag" look when i walk into a proper parlor. it reminds me that they're proud of their heritage.

memphis roadhouse (383 washington ave, attleboro MA) doesn't have any of these indicators. it has crazy crap on the walls - more pictures of heritage cattle breeds than applebee's, at least. it has polite northern waitresses. it is unpleasantly overpriced. and yet, this was my second visit (i'm all-or-nothing when it comes to returning to restaurants). the fact is, i don't understand why they have such - and it pains me to say it - good ribs. their barbeque sauce is inedible, their french fries are skimpy ($5 for a demure pile?) and their cornbread full of sugar ("one day your kids will be eatin' cornbread that's sweet and drinkin' iced tea that ain't and think that's a southern tradition"). but the ribs. dry, mind you, not slathered in that unmentionable sauce. on an absolute scale, i make no claims. but for southern MA they're way better than we deserve. skip everything else on the menu (giant margaritas? jalapeno poppers? wings?) and get a rack of ribs. that's about all you need to know.

i was going to insert some sort of letter grade or forks or nonsense like that but that's not me. i guess i'm not that kind of critic.

recipe: not-really-pad-thai

readers, i am getting lazy already. this was last night's dinner - for some reason, i always imagined pad thai to be out of a white man's reach. it's not. it's very easy to make. if you don't have any nice lao sausages to render the fat out of, just use coconut oil. or, hell, canola oil. but coconut is a lot better.

tamarind paste:
a hunk of tamarind pulp the size of a key lime
3T water

break up the pulp a bit in a bowl with the water. let sit for fifteen minutes, then methodically reduce to a paste with your fingers. throw out all the seedpod and fiber bits.

sauce:
3T sugar
1T kecip manis (you could just use another T of sugar, but your finished dish will look a little wan)
4T fish sauce
2T tamarind paste

heat the sugar, kecip manis, and fish sauce until the sugar is melted. when cool, add the paste.

assembly:
a large handful of pad thai noodles (they're a pretty specific size of rice noodle)
2 little lao sausages, removed from their casings and crumbled
1T coconut oil (or about 2T if you don't use any sausage)
1 small onion, or a handful of shallots, diced
some bean sprouts (a handful?)
a few mustard green stems-and-leaves, separated and chopped
2 eggs

start some water for the noodles. when it's boiling, they'll take about five minutes to cook. meanwhile, heat the oil in your wok until medium-hot. add the sausages and render all the fat out of them. should take about ten minutes. if they stick too much, add a bit of water or stock. once the oil is rendered and they're nicely browned, remove the meat and all but about a tablespoon and a half of oil (save the leftover oil, it's pretty tasty). throw your onion (or shallots), mustard stems, and bean sprouts into the wok, and stir-fry for a few minutes. when they're pleasantly brown (your noodles have to be cooked by now), crack your eggs into the wok and scramble for a few seconds. add your mustard greens, toss in the noodles and do your best to amalgamate them with everything else. i still have trouble with that part. finally, add your sauce and cook for maybe another thirty seconds.

finish:
ground peanuts
lime quarters
bean sprouts
sriracha
those little rendered sausage bits you saved, if you used sausage

serve your faux pad thai with all of those things available as toppings.

serves two, but you'll eat more of it than you expect. probably no leftovers

recipe: sauteed mustard greens

an overwhelmingly simple side dish that i could eat almost every day. fresh, fresh, fresh greens are vital. the lao market was pushing mustard greens very hard, and every other customer was buying a bunch. who am i to say no?

assembly:
1/2 a giant bunch (1 reasonable handful?) greens, stems separated from leaves, all chopped coarse
olive oil
a handful of shallots, or one small onion, chopped fine
1 thai hot red pepper, fresh or dried
salt
pepper

heat the olive oil pretty hot in a wok/karhai/etc. when almost smoking, throw in your shallots, stems, and pepper. saute until stems are just beginning to soften and shallots are starting to brown. shouldn't be more than two or three minutes. add your reserved leaves and stir constantly. season lightly with salt and heavily with pepper. don't overcook your greens! you want these to end up the same color they started, not washed out and drab.

finish:
vermouth? balsamic? sherry?

when your greens are just almost exactly cooked, throw in a splash of your liquid of choice. don't let the steam burn your face. when it's cooked down (twenty seconds?), it's done.

doesn't make a ton. two as a side dish. be careful eating the pepper.

recipe: macaroni and cheese

another comfort food dinner for an ugly night - dregs of a hurricane moving up the coast. 45 and rainy all day. mama, if she reads this, will be disappointed to see that this is a bechamel mac and cheese. i was raised in a custard-based mac and cheese family, so this is a bit apostate.

assembly:
12oz pasta
1 small onion, chopped fine
2 green cayenne peppers, chopped fine (they were kicking around the fridge; they're not vital)
3 T butter
2 T flour
2 C milk or cream or a mixture (i used up the rest of the light cream in the fridge)
1 T dijon mustard
salt
pepper
1/2lb sharp cheddar, grated (or whatever you have lying around; don't use crappy cheese)

preheat your oven to 450*. start a pot of salted water boiling. cook your pasta while you're making the sauce - cook it a little harder than al dente. anyhow. heat the butter in a medium saucepan. fry the onion and peppers until softened and beginning to caramelize. add the flour and cook a minute or two, until barely beginning to brown. add the milk in two steps, allowing the sauce to thicken slightly between additions. once the bechamel is beginning to thicken add the mustard, followed by the cheese. turn off the the heat - stir until the cheese is fully melted. season to taste. stir in your drained pasta.

finish:
1/4lb sharp cheddar, grated
1/2C panko
salt
pepper

mix your topping together. dump your sauced pasta into whatever oven-safe baking dish you have to hand. top. bake in your preheated oven until nicely browned on top - about 20 minutes, give or take. don't burn your mouth.

serves two, with leftovers.

food bullshit: first date foods

yahoo, it seems, is doing its best to help get this blog off to a running start - they've frontpaged a second very stupid article in as many days. entitled "4 fool-proof date foods", these "foxy" women want to encourage you to show off how amazing your taste is by taking your date out for

a) sushi
b) tapas
c) "pasta"
or
d) moroccan

let's very quickly run down the reasons these are all pathetic ideas

a) sushi is about ten years behind the "adventurous" cutting-edge. it's mall food now, fast food, thoughtless food. and, sad to say, the vast majority of sushi served in the US sucks. cheap rice, listless fish, "spicy" mayo or cream cheese or god knows what else on every gargantuan roll. unless you live in a city with utterly first-rate sushi (oh seattle, i miss you) and are willing to spend at least $150 on your date before drinks or gratuity, don't bother. going out for sushi says "look how wild and crazy i am - can you believe they eat raw fish over there?"

b) "tapas" does not mean what these young women think it means. americans appropriated the word from the spanish because restaurateurs wanted to convince people that they should buy several appetizer portions instead of entrees. customers thought this was a great idea, because it felt like they were eating less. most restaurants in the US that advertise "tapas" offer, relative to the original, gigantic plates of mediocre "spanish" food. the ideal of tapas (or pintxos, which we should rightfully be calling them, as a basque innovation) is a single ingredient at peak flavor, served simply and accompanied by very good cheap red wine or cider (or adjunct-laden shitty spanish beer). going out for "tapas" says "maybe you'll only order a plate or two, and i can try to get you drunk on the house rioja"

c) are there "pasta" restaurants in heartland america? have i missed out on a brave new culinary movement? is ferran adria involved? wait. i think they just mean you should take your date to olive garden. going out for "pasta" says "at least we're not going to wendy's"

d) where in the world do these people think you can reliably find good moroccan food? there hasn't been a meaningful moroccan diaspora to the states, therefore no moroccan restaurants serving food for moroccans, therefore only shitty faux-roccan designed to reassure the skittish american diner that they can eat "brave" "exotic" food and live to tell about it. you want to take your date out for hands-only dining? fine. ethiopian. lao. pakistani. is the clientèle overwhelmingly of that ethnicity? did the server try to dissuade you from ordering something? are you getting stared at by other customers? good. maybe you'll actually impress your date. going out for "moroccan" says "i have no idea where people who aren't white go to eat around here"

thanks, yahoo. glad i got that out of my system.

recipe: tonkatsu with cole slaw

this is one of the least skillful dinners that i ever make, and i'm almost embarrassed to post it online. however, on a cold fall night there is something particularly compelling about postwar japanese comfort food. i'm not even sure i should include a recipe - doesn't everyone know how to cut, flatten, and fry pork cutlets, make cole slaw, and steam rice? the secret ingredient, of course, is bulldog tonkatsu sauce, available at your local asian market. if you're never had tonkatsu, the sauce tastes like a thin steak sauce - maybe a bit more pruney.

nostalgic tangent: as a young child i used to make aspecial dipping sauce for my french fries whenever we'd go to hoss's. half steak sauce and half ketchup. for some reason, it's a very evocative taste.

anyhow.

tonkatsu:
3/4lb boneless pork, divided into small cutlets and flattened
milk
flour
panko
salt
pepper
neutral oil

dip cutlets into milk, flour, milk, and panko. make sure to press the panko on firmly, as it's not particularly adherent. i don't like using egg on my cutlets, but you're certainly allowed to. fry individually in plenty of hot oil, turning once. don't overcook.

coleslaw:
1/3 of a small head of cabbage
1 large carrot
mayonnaise
cream
sriracha
honey
vinegar
salt
pepper

.........make dressing out of the things that look dressing-y and cut up the things that look vegetable-y. i like my cabbage shredded and my carrot microplaned. it's coleslaw. follow your own personal guidelines.

serve with plenty of rice and tonkatsu sauce. serves two, with a little leftover.

food bullshit: the "red wine headache"

so yahoo has an article up about technology being developed to save drinkers from "red wine headache". i'm adding this to my growing mental file of "ridiculous things people believe about the things they consume". unfortunately, of course, i don't have any evidence to prove that the red wine headache is bullshit. in fact, i'm sure that there are poorly made wines out there that contain various unpleasant or hard to metabolize compounds; i'm equally sure that consuming too much of any wine, lousy or grand cru, will give you not only a raging headache but also all the other signs of excessive alcohol consumption. but i don't think that people have suddenly developed this "sensitivity" to omnipresent compounds, nor do i believe that it's something that we as a culture should be wasting our time on.

let's not be stupid here, people - we don't need "amine content" listed on our wine bottles, we just need a little common sense and moderation.

ingredient: san marzano tomatoes

for someone who gets as snatty about ingredients as i do, i have a terrible confession to make. i've been using lousy canned tomatoes for years now, and i've just recently realized the error of my ways. yes, trader joe's whole canned tomatoes are $0.99 a can. and yes, the can of D.O.P san marzanos i bought today at venda were $2.99. honestly, though, the san marzanos are more than three times better. my previous canned tomatoes were fibrous, often blemished, and sour/insipid. these san marzanos are silky, tender, and a treat for the fingers. they also disintegrate far more readily in a sauce.

i realize i'm about ten years behind the cutting edge on this one, but better late than never. now i can add another picky arrow to my already full quiver. the question remains whether or not i can budget for this sudden increase in cost. you, readers, will be the first to know.

recipe: italian sausage

this is fast becoming a staple meal here in providence, probably due to the exceptionally high-quality fresh sausage available up on federal hill. i'm thrilled to bite into a rustic sausage and actually see recognizable pieces of shoulder muscle. anyhow, this is one of those staggeringly simple dishes that tons of people seem to fuck up. i couldn't explain why. maybe they're just using cheap ingredients.

assembly:
1lb sweet italian sausage, poked to prevent explosion if it's linked particularly tightly, otherwise don't bother
olive oil
a few peppers, coarsely chopped (i've been getting ones from the lao market down the street - they look like green cayennes, i suppose, but i can't be sure. i don't read lao, and the grandma who runs the produce section doesn't speak english)
a handful of shallots, cleaned and chopped a little
a few cloves of garlic
1/2tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp oregano
about 1/4C wine (i used vermouth tonight, just because it was what i had on hand)
1 28oz can of whole tomatoes, cleaned up and mushed up with their accompanying juice

heat up a little olive oil in your wok/karhai/dutch oven over really hot heat. i know you should be using something with a higher flash point, but i don't. smoke's fine, just don't let it turn into a grease fire. once it's good and hot, add your sausage and sear until it's nice and brown on the outside. harold mcgee has debunked the whole "you sear meat to lock in juices" thing, so you're just doing this for flavor. don't let it scorch, but don't cook it slowly or you'll just make the sausage less tender later. once they're nice and brown, pull them out with tongs and set aside. throw a bit more olive oil in the pan, and toss in your peppers and shallots. cook over hight heat until softened and beginning to caramelize. here too, quicker is better. once they're pretty brown, add the garlic and fennel seeds and cook for another minute. don't let the garlic turn into tiny black pellets. deglaze with your wine, dump in the prepped tomatoes, add the sausage back in, let it boil for a few seconds, turn down the heat to very very low, cover with a lid ajar, and walk away. cook for awhile. i don't know, maybe 45 minutes. the sauce should reduce, thicken, and a little oil should rise to the top.

finish:
sugar (only if the tomatoes you used suck)
salt
black pepper
basil or parsley

add your seasonings, garnish, and serve with whatever starch seems appropriate.

serves two, with leftovers.