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Despite the assumption of one of our judges that this would be Battle: F*cking Salad our competitors brought an array of dishes to the table that were remarkably varied. Sure, salad made an appearance, but it was as an accompaniment for a larger vision, and there was not bowl of steamed collards anywhere. In order of appearance: First-time competitor Nora brought a cold soup of mixed greens served with a twist of yellow pepper, a play on the assumption that greens necessarily make for heavy cold-weather fare. V- kept with her mini-food theme begun in Battle: Tapas and plated an inverted mini quiche made with fresh goat cheese, shallots and roasted garlic bacon with arugula tossed with vine-ripe raisins and vinaigrette. Perpetual runner-up Noah gave us green-as-kryptonite spinach bread cross atop a not-so-purple-as-intended cabbage crème anglais and raspberry coulis. Returning from his win last go with tea-smoked duck, Justin brought his take on beef wellington substituting chard for the traditional duxelles, with veal demi-glace and fluted mushrooms fired with calvados. Cynthia came off a week of experimenting with recipes from southern France to bring us a sweet chard tart flavored with golden raisins, nuts, and a hint of orange which was plated with hand whipped cream and honeyed pine-nuts. It was a strong field, but after the flames had died, the knives were sheathed, and the silly hats put away, Noah was our ultimate winner. The judges felt that although the bread was not necessarily the most original thing presented, it was a highly original approach to the theme. As someone put it, "I have never had anything that looked so verdant taste so sweet." In the aftermath, Chuck suggested that it may be time to do a battle of champions, the rumor of which spread quickly enough that by the time I hit the next room, guests were already talking as though it was a done deal. The idea has some promise, but the first thing that went through my head was, "Have I really done this seven times already?" It’s an interesting and unexpected bit of continuity in my otherwise dillettantish approach to my interests. In case it needs be said, I’m grateful to all of you who have participated, whether at the head table, in the kitchen, or in the spaces between. I even love all of you following at home. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to the next seven and more. I know there were cameras out, and I will let you know as I become aware of available photosets. Early in are here and here.
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The first questions concerning the theme for Nov. 15 have arrived and have been run by the head table. As was said in that discussion: "I think your initial announcement implied things that are green, growing now, and possess edible leaves as the only qualification -- that does open up broccoli raab, late lettuces, herbs, brussels sprouts, all cabbages, cress, endive, radicchio, escarole, chicory, dandelion, arugula, chard, kale, spinach, beet greens, etc." I'm happy to run with this unless there is a popular cry against it.
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So, you know how you occasionally slice open a beautiful cucumber only to find that its cool, sweet flesh has an inexplicable bitter taste that's a little like licking the inside of an old tailpipe you found in a roadside snow drift? That's got nothing on a kabocha squash afflicted with the same problem.
The plan was to use one for a mock-Thai vegetable curry. As I was prepping it, I popped a cube in my mouth just to get an idea of its taste and texture, and I realized as soon as it hit my tongue that it was just wrong. I got pretty much the same results after having roasted it for 30 minutes thinking that I might get some of the starches to convert to sugars, and then pretty much gave up. Trouble was, those two bites had so wrecked my palate that I could not taste anything else but the bitter for the rest of the day. Constructing a curry on sight and feel is nerve-wracking.
~~*~~
In other news, I've completed the first steps for a batch of calvados and sage pork sausage. I had originally planned on using wine, but decided on the brandy at the last minute because it seemed more compelling. The cubed meat has been marinating since last night, and at some point tonight I'll grind it and stuff some casings. I'm currently soliciting ideas for the resulting eight feet of links. You're on notice.
~~*~~
Iron Chef will, in fact, be occurring on November 15th. Our current line-up will be:
Head Table: Diana, Meg, Mike & Ry
Competitors: Cynthia, Justin, Nora, Noah, (possibly) V & two Fletcher School students
If you want either in or out, please let me know as soon as possible. We'll be using the IC:A scoring we experimented with at the last event, and per usual, you will be competing for the right be be bugged by me to defend your title some months down the road. The theme (ingredient this time) will be announced on the morning of November 1, so please watch this space. Guidance for judges will follow in a private email.
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After a few months unsuccessfully seeking pork belly from the folks at Stillman's, I finally broke down and bought a couple of slabs in C-Town. It's not that I've given up hope that Stillman's will come up with something for me. I have just been missing the experimentation, and it's been a very long time since we've had fresh bacon in the house. I think the last time I was able to use the cut was in preparation for our trip to PDX, and it still kills me knowing that something crafted with such care was left with folks who won’t eat it unless it’s been burned to a crisp rather than browned lightly. That, however, is a different story.
While the C-Town belly (“bellie”) doesn’t have the heft of the ones from the farm, it’s just as versatile and is more likely to get a uniform cure throughout the cut. For this go, I ran with a variation of a braised pork belly I ran across in a Spanish cookbook at one point. I went sweet and used a whole vanilla bean along with a liberal sprinkling of red pepper flakes. Once the cure was done, I smoked the slab over a combination of corn cob and longan branches.
The result was more “porky” than I like for my bacon and though the flavor from the pepper is a nice undertone, I didn’t pick up any of the heat. Overall, it’s quite tasty, has a nice, subtle blend of flavors, and will work well for a number of uses.
~*~
For the record, we really do have a tremendous amount of food in the house. As we approach proper harvest season with the CSA, our stocks tend to swell alarmingly. I’m not exactly wringing my hands over it, but it has put me in the mind for responsible use. I’ve been cooking pretty much all week and feel like I’m just scratching the surface of what’s possible. Just as an example, I sat down yesterday and figured that we could make all of the following with relatively few additions and barely touching our stock of meats:
Chipotle Corn Chowder
Vegetable Lasagna
Beet Ravioli with Poppy Brown Butter
Cock-A-Leekie Soup
Thai Curried Fish or Tom Kha
Chard Stalk Scramble
Cucumber & Melon Salad
Dilly Beans
Pancakes with Raspberry-Peach Compote
Duck Confit with Braised Red Cabbage
We had the corn chowder for dinner last night, but I’m still counting at least two breakfasts and five complete dinners in that line-up, and that’s just from the stock I remembered. Factor in the wildcard produce and leftovers, and that makes for a very full part-week before we get our next drop. If you are inclined to pop in, chances are good we’ll be able to feed you. No, really.
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When Bizarre Foods first started to air, I poked my head in a few times because I thought that a food-oriented travelogue built around the assumption that the best way to experience a culture is headfirst would appeal on a pretty visceral level. My hope was that Zimmern would serve as supplement to Anthony Bourdain’s explorations, but initially gave up after a few episodes because he came off (and this after editing for content) as a gluttonous American tourist who chased after shock value rather than genuine experience. Where No Reservations included everything from sublime and beautiful food traditions all the way to snarky social commentary, Bizarre Foods relied primarily on the "food dare." Unfortunately, where Bourdain would get dragged into a backstreet eatery in Tokyo to be fed a still-beating frog’s heart, Zimmern was more likely to hold a piece of braised pork belly or pickled beef tongue up to the camera and suggest that eating them was somehow amazingly weird.
Though I didn’t completely dismiss him as a low-rent Bourdain (that honor was held for Food Network’s Adam Gertler), I did opt to pass on the show because it didn’t really seem to my tastes. When I saw that he had done an episode on Spain, however, I decided to give him another go. I love Spanish food, and V and I have talked about spending some time there within the next couple of years. What could go wrong?
It was unwatchable, and I didn’t reach that conclusion while Zimmern was talking through mouthfuls of his food (even though no one needs to see that), or listening to what sounded like his crunching through a chicken’s rib cage when I knew he was eating meat from a roasted suckling pig (they either need to mic him better or he needs to find a new foley artist... it was just gross). What broke the show for me, what made me ultimately lose any respect I might have had for Zimmern, was when a plate of Chiparones Rellenos En Su Tinta (stuffed squid cooked in its own ink) arrived at his table. He explained that when his father had brought him to Spain as a child, he remembered him ordering this. Then he said that this dish was not for the faint of heart because, "...it probably tastes like it looks, but I love it."
Chiparones Rellenos is served in a sauce that is as dark, luscious and murky as one might expect for having been crafted from squid ink, but it is outrageously delicious and easily one of my favorite tapas. Given that I’ve shared plates with friends not usually into tentacley things who have come away loving it, I would even go so far as to say that it’s not a dish that takes a rarefied palate to enjoy. Zimmern, however, deemed fit to make it utterly alien, suggesting that it was unpalatable to all but those crazy enough to appreciate it in spite of its inherent weirdness. His statement felt disrespectful of his hosts, of the culture he found himself in, and of the food. The worst of it? It was a big fucking lie.
I realized while I was watching him stuff his face – again – that this man’s philosophy on food is entirely antithetical to mine. Food can be a means to bring people together, or to communicate across cultural bounds, but Zimmern uses it to demonstrate how he is some kind of special snowflake because he’s incapable of turning down anything that’s set in front of him. He manages to make what is entirely normal and delicious fare in the cultures he visits appear unappetizing and inaccessible. I can't abide by it.
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If you're looking to ensure that your partner won't eat a common farm share staple she's normally kind of cool to, one of the best things to do is to pair it with something else she's also not terribly fond of and then spike it with too much sage. All the sausage in the world will not convince her to eat it. It wasn't my favorite, either, and as I've seen elsewhere in a lot of "healthy" sources, the recipe was a little wonky. Where they got the idea for 12 cups of kale, I can't fathom. I used maybe 1/4 of that, and there was more than enough greenery. The major problem, though, fell to flavor. One of the commenters said that the dish was kind of bland and grassy., and while I don't think bland is accurate, dropping sage on top of kale outside of a spicy broth seems to have done nothing so much as to make everything taste incredibly floral. This was probably exacerbated by choosing to use a biere de garde in place of the red that was called for, but that kind of substitution usually works for me. V's roast chicken, on the other hand, came out beautifully.
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