Shoutout


Honey's traveling a bunch lately: nine weeks out of 11. Since his work starts at 6 AM and mine ends at 11 PM, actual talking can be haphazard. When I got out of work at 11 and saw that his last call was 40 minutes prior, I assumed that Honey was asleep.


When I was at GSU, we didn't get to spend much time together. My decision to work in the kitchen rather than the newsroom meant that our catch-as-catch-can lifestyle didn't end with my graduation. I wasn't exactly evasive about this: every time Honey praised my cooking, my ambition, or my dedication I was quick to remind him that we wouldn't have Friday date nights, I wouldn't be home to make a hot meal during the week, and I'd probably become a work-obsessed, insufferable grinch. And yet we're still together.


About two years ago, we decided to go modest with our birthday gifts for each other: we went to Borders, and he gave me a choice between On Cooking and On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee. I can't remember exactly why, but I picked OFaC, and have been calling it the Bible ever since. And for 18 months, he patiently put aside what he was doing so I could read him whatever excerpt was enlightening me at the time.


I read it cover to cover. The knowledge demystified so much of cooking for me, and I'm occasionally surprised by how much I can recall. When I posted the link to the Menu for Hope 4 earlier today, I was thinking of wine, Vosges chocolates, salumi, and other hedonistic little things. I saw the lunch with Harold McGee, and dinner with Heston Blumenthal, but figured the demand would be so great for prizes like those that my paltry $10 ticket stood next to no chance of winning. I figured I'd give myself a day or two to think it over, and see what I still wanted.


When I got home, I saw this message in my inbox:

"I saw your blog post on my Google Reader. I donated $100 - and all of the raffle tickets were to get you to lunch with Mr McGee. If you win I'll worry about the plane ticket to San Francisco then (I want to go too) :) We'll see January 9th. Otherwise, the UN World Food Programme has an extra hundred dollars on our account."

Then he called, and we got to chat for 30 whole minutes.

So I'm giving a shoutout to Honey, who puts up with this insanity and encourages it, apparently just because it makes me happy. I couldn't ask for anyone better.

Choices...

So I don't have much money today, but this is a worthy cause, and there are so many awesome prizes. Maybe today's paycheck will be extra big...

This is what happens when the NYT Food & Dining section comes out every week.

I stay up till 3 in the morning, like I have nothing better to do, and read.
Cheese
I ate this. I think it's reason #1 that we nearly needed a sedative to get Epicure on the flight home.
I really want to be interested in this. But I don't drink liquor that much.
Sigh. Raciones.
So I read the ham story before the front page. And it's three in the morning. I miss Spain. But I have something to say here. Perhaps in New York City, there are entirely too many restaurants that offer entirely too few entrees. That's fair. NYC has long been an arbiter of trends.

This afternoon at about 4:45, I ate dinner in the kitchen before service. I'd already had a cookie; for dinner I had a salad, some pasta, and a few pieces of garlic bread. And then another cookie (ginger this time, the first was chocolate-toffee). An hour or so later, I got to drink a latte from the bar.

I'm making two points here: one, I love my job. Did you just check that list out? I got dessert twice and coffee.
My second point is that this was a meal that allowed me to work through the night, drive home, and drink a few beers until 3 in the morning with no problems. It was supremely functional. Perhaps if I worked in an office, I'd want to have this meal for lunch. But there was no entree for me tonight. I had some pasta, but not much more than I had salad.

When news gets slow, or the restaurant industry keeps chugging along inexplicably while the rest of the economy is faltering, pundits are apt to point out two facts: Americans eat out more than ever before, and restaurants keep serving fat Americans far more food than said Americans should eat. Has it occurred to anyone that perhaps Americans have been reading the press about their eating habits and waistlines, and have chosen to at least attempt smaller meals that provide more variety and less filler? I can assure you, as someone who's worked in restaurants that were a la carte, and those that serve all-inclusive dishes, that starches are seen in both kitchens as a great way to make up food costs. And as a consumer, I don't necessarily want to pay for mashed potatoes when I've already had bread, a fried appetizer, and may be tempted to order dessert. Entrees, like it or not, are often seen as one "star" dish surrounded by supporting players that the diner may or may not be interested in. And if I want the greens, but not the fish? I appreciate a place that lets me order a small plate of them.

Finally, small plates sell, and restaurants make money off of them. Honey is wise in the ways of the economics, and has pointed out many times as a server boxes our food, that we'd both be perfectly happy to pay 3/4 of the price for 1/2 the food; the leftovers don't get eaten anyway. We'd have a little more money, we'd enjoy our appetizers and main courses more, and we might even think about a cheese plate and some after-dinner drinks.

Restaurants, particularly the big chains, are terrified that a customer will leave hungry and never return, and portion size has been ratcheted up accordingly, to the extent that many, many entrees at the restaurants that most Americans patronize feature at least half the calories that an adult should advisably eat in a single day.

At The Big Chain Italian Place where I used to work, we were told in training where we could find nutritional information for diners. One employee bought her wedding dress early in her engagement, and knowing that she'd eat most of her meals at a place famous for big portions, she looked up the information. I still remember my disbelief when she informed me that one meatball had 1.5 times the fat that a human is supposed to consume in a day. Never mind the spaghetti, let alone the sauce. One meatball. But no one ever left hungry, and a few months later, I asked for the binder with the nutritional information and was told that we didn't have one.

I just don't believe that I'm the only person who goes out for convenience and still wants the functionality provided by my meals at work: enough energy to get me through the day, and enough flavor to make it worth my money. Restaurants have been slow to meet this demand with entrees, and many of us are happy with small plates. If I'm dining out, and I mean all-out: blow my money on four glasses (not a sensible bottle, I want variety) of wine, take three or four hours, soak up the ambience, I want to taste everything. I don't do this often, and I want my palate begging for mercy. I want to know, intimately, what the chef is proud of, what's good, and what will bring me back. I don't get much time off; if I'm going to dinner, I want to make it worth the dollars I'm not earning. Entrees don't always do it.

I'm also a devil's advocate. Check back for my argument in favor of the entree.

The Wheels of Justice Turn, Sometimes, not so Slowly.

The Georgia Department of Agriculture moved the public hearing on coloring raw milk from downtown Atlanta to Forest Park two days before the event to accommodate a larger-than-average crowd. Apparently there wasn't a room in downtown Atlanta that could hold the 150 people packed into the meeting room in the back of the Georgia State Farmers Market Exhibit Hall.

I was expecting to see a crowd of mostly urban, mostly young liberals, with a smattering of governmental conservatives, and some of the farmers who would be shut down by the rules change. The people who spoke were nurses, a doctor, lots of pet lovers, farmers of pigs, goats, chickens and cattle, and parents. Lots of parents with shockingly well-behaved children. I arrived 20 minutes after the hearing started, and at 11, people were still talking. Technically, the hearing was over, but tell that to the doctor who'd had the microphone for five minutes. He opened with "I can't believe that we're here giving you people a free education..."

Some, like the doctor, were angry and vented their frustrations on the three members of the Department of Agriculture, who furiously took notes and occasionally grimaced or chuckled at the comments. Others were polite and logical. Animal-lovers made personal appeals, and the Christians cited raw milk as a perfect creation of the "great architect."

The farmers were probably the most persuasive, and with good reason: the rule would have been a severe blow to a young movement. Farmers producing meat or eggs of any quality in Georgia feed raw milk to their animals. They're "small" farmers by today's standards, and Georgia know something about losing small farms. According to Chad Carlton of Carlton Farms in Rockmart, 3,729 Georgia dairies have closed in the past three decades. Carlton also criticized the Department of Agriculture for changing the rules, making it difficult for small farmers to sell. "You encouraged us to find value-added products like this," he reminded them.

Nobody wanted to talk about human consumption of raw milk. "For our animals" seemed to be the mantra, and it's probably best that way till Tommy Irvin moves on. He's been doing what he can to limit or end the sale of raw milk in Georgia since the 1980's, and he's unlikely to stop doing so anytime soon.

Four minutes before the start of service that night, chef tapped me on the shoulder and showed me an e-mail of the AJC story: Irvin had dropped the proposed rule change that afternoon, and the issue was dead for another year. Score one for civic participation.

Fingers Crossed


I'm driving down to Forest Park in eight hours for the Agriculture Department's public hearing on a rules change that would dye raw milk gray in order to discourage human consumption. It's a hard rule to protest rationally: The dye won't change the flavor or nutrition profile, but seriously, who would ever want to drink gray milk?

There are a few things in our favor: the Commissioner of Agriculture's comments to the press suggest that he might be open to more stringent warnings rather than dye, and the General Mills pizza recall comes as an auspicious reminder that industrial food sickens us far more frequently than raw milk.

Since most in favor of the rules change and further moves to make raw milk inaccessible view its consumption by people as a peccadillo of affluent highly-educated hippies, the argument that consumers are unaware of the inherent risks in consuming unpasteurized milk is ridiculous. Further, Georgia farmers getting Georgia dollars should appeal to anyone with an appreciation for basic economics. And the inverse: Georgia farmers suddenly losing a chunk of spendable capital should appeal to the supply-siders who lack such an appreciation. And since Georgia is a red state, down to the very dirt, I hope that the phrase "nanny state" will induce rabid cuts in governmental involvement, as it usually does in good conservatives, for at least the next few weeks until the newsmedia latches onto the teat of the recent study that finds higher instances of cancer in obese people.

Unfortunately, I've lived in Atlanta my whole life, so I've watched public officials ignore reason before. Are you there, Atlanta sewers? No? Blue laws, can you hear me?

I'm aware that I will likely leave Forest Park disappointed. But I hear that there's a great Oaxacan place with tlayuda down there. And maybe I can find a diner or truck stop with some good eggs and coffee. So hopefully the food with first fortify, and then cheer me.

Wish me luck!


Also:
AJC story by Kessler
Pizza Recall Story
It says they serve breakfast. Pero ellos tienen cafe?

E-mail the Commissioner of Agriculture at tirvin@agr.state.ga.us

Five Pounds of Fatback

There was only so long that I could be expected to watch the chef, sous chef, and various cooks making sausage, and tasting the results, before making it myself. In true epicure style, I went big. I sent an e-mail to 42 of my closest friends: the first six to reply could make sausage, eat sausage, and divide up the results. I had a party (expanded for extra demand) within a few hours.

My day off was Thursday, the party was Monday. I come home Sunday to an empty apartment, send out a shopping list for my guests, begin making a mis en place list, hyperventilate--five pounds of fatback?!--, pour some cava, clean the kitchen, and measure what ingredients I have. I listen to the Pretenders on Radio Paradise, which soothes the mood while measuring salt. I remember that people will need entertainment while their meat chills, and leave certain tasks for the guests. I make my shopping lists for party day and tell myself that I have enough time to sleep. I send off some last-minute e-mails, sure to be interpreted as drunken due to the hour. I write out a detailed schedule, and spill cava on my Spanish cookbook, thankfully missing Chef's copy of The Chez Panisse Café Cookbook. I write my shopping list and hope I can find cheap spices. I smirk at my naiveté. I remember that I'm making side dishes, look up the base for my collard recipe, and curse the amount of cheap sparkling wine required. I realize that I have no idea what the weight of my market-bought local collards is. I'm buying a scale in the morning, I tell myself.

I put dirty clothes in the hamper and vow to find a way to lock the messy bedroom shut. I shake out the table cloth that's been protecting the counters and ready it for the next day. I realize that it's 2:30 and the hour/cava have destroyed my ability to think cogently. I'm vaguely pleased to remember the word "cogently." I doubt my ability to wake up early enough, and pour one last glass of cava before bed. I stare at my unfinished schedule.

I wake up surprised at my lack of headache and queasiness, discouraged by the fatigue that keeps me in bed ten minutes later than I planned, fifteen minutes after I woke up. I shower, realize that I'm dehydrated--hello Cava--pack the car and hit the road.

I like to think that if the butchers at the Dekalb County Farmer's Market saw me frequently enough, they would have the sense to run. As it is, I only show up every few months, wanting fifteen pounds of london broil or five pounds of fatback. But every time it's the same sad routine: the butcher weighs all of his cut meat, which comes to roughly half of what I need. He looks at me, looks at the pounds of uncut meat on the counter, and I cheerfully proclaim that I'll wait. I've got other things on my list.

I buy. I don't get paid till tomorrow, and I've got a long list driven by guilt at sending out shopping lists so late, and unexpected needs like three kinds of wine, herbs, and ham hocks--which aren't expensive at Kroger but I was already at Whole Foods. I go to Tuesday Morning for a scale, but theirs isn't accurate enough. I go to Target. They've got one, but it's ten dollars more than I have. I trudge across the lot to the Bed Bath and Beyond, and muse on the bleak landscapes provided by big boxes, the mediocre products they deal in--neither cheap nor valuable--and the culture of consumption, the cancer in our economy that their whole business model promotes. Inside I find the scale I need for $10 cheaper than Target. I curse myself for not remembering an expired 20% off coupon and leave with six dollars to my name.

At home I find that my knives are locked inside the (closed)restaurant, and turn to my Chinese cleaver, which has attained notoriety for the time that I stored it blade-side-up and discovered, with my knuckles, that Chinese cleavers are sent from the factory sharp. Surprisingly, it works well. Not as well as My Knife, which doesn't have a stainless steel handle that gets slippery when wet or covered in a thin layer of pork fat, but well enough. I look at my list, the messy apartment, the bags of raw ingredients and the cold stove, and consider hyperventilating again. I remember what I've been told at the restaurant, when staring at an endless line of tickets: one thing at a time. And each one thing takes less time, is less messy, and somehow less monumental that I thought it would be. Suddenly, I find myself doing all the things I'd marked as "optional" on my list.

I clean, lay out butcher paper on the IKEA island and dining room table, cover the counter with a tablecloth folded so that it looks clean. My first guest, the only one who's made sausage before, arrives and hooks up his grinder attachment to my kitchenaid. He makes sausage and grinds it. We set up my manual grinder to stuff on the island. More guests arrive with cheese, crackers, and a giant bottle of wine.

Nothing throws off careful planning like guests. They eschew working in the dining room, the kitchen gets crowded. People don't know what to do or where to go, and in the middle of making and stuffing sausage, start demanding to be fed. Someone asks if we can grill some sausage now. I desperately want extra bodies out of the kitchen, but grilling requires hauling the grill through the (now-packed) apartment to the cement pad across the lot, lighting it, sitting with it while the coals burn down, and generally making sure it's not stolen. The sausage guru points out that it's way faster to poach sausage in beer. Plus there's the great bogeyman of professional cooks everywhere: the possibility that cooked food will end up in the proximity of raw. This is how food-borne illnesses make their way onto people's plates, and the specter of someone's pork being contaminated takes years off my life. I say no, but we've got cries for sausage coming from the couch, the grill is way manlier (and thus more sausage-appropriate) than beer poaching, and after an hour of being asked repeatedly, I give in. The kitchen and living room are cleared out, the grill is hauled outside and started up, and there's at least some extra room.

Someone else asks if it's OK to turn on the TV for Heroes. Sure. As could have been predicted, all activity ceases once the TV's on. At 11, the sausage guru puts my sausage in the stuffer on the kitchenaid, to show me how it works, and we finish. As soon as we finish, someone is drunk and needs to go; is it OK to get their sausage right now, and leave the grill outside? Sure. We divide the sausage, hand it out, say goodbye, and the guru and a couple of saintlike friends actually clean my kitchen for me. I sit down, open a beer, and realize my shoes were quite possibly the worst choice for a day on my feet. After a minute, the kitchen is clear enough to bring the grill back in, and I find that it was set up not on the safe concrete pad, but behind Honey's car, marked by a pile of ash. At least it's closer. I keep my friends here till 12:30, completely oblivious to the fact that they have normal jobs to wake up for.

What have I learned?

1) I need to stop calling educational evenings in which we make food "parties." They're pleasant, they involve friends, but they also take more work, and frankly, partying at these things is a bad idea.

2) Nine people do not fit into our apartment.

3) Making restaurant-quantities of sausage is best left to restaurants. There's a fine coat of grease on my kitchen floor and I suspect that to get it really clean, I'll actually have to do some hands-and-knees scrubbing.


4) My friends are not stupid, and they can mix their own recipes at home the night before. This will actually result in better sausage.


I threatened, if this went well, to hold another evening like it in a few months. I think I might, but I'll take up my friends' generous offer to use their more spacious house, I'll actually stick to my guest limit, and we'll make three batches of sausage. That's it. I figure it's better to be in demand than to satisfy everyone's half-cocked desire to make their own sausage. But my chef was impressed. That's something, right? He also demanded that I bring some in to try. Honey's out of town though, so I have to save some, and frankly, after all the effort that went into it, I'm hoarding this sausage like gold.

You Know What They Say About Four-Letter F-Words...

A loving God would not allow this. We are (apparently; I found out from the site) in the year of the pig. The Southern Foodways Alliance is holding its annual symposium in Oxford, MS. With a focus on the pig. Because it's the year of the pig, get it? It's October 25-28, with a Delta Divertissment (pre-symposium bus ride and bonuses) that includes a whole-pig demo. And I've asked off for the prior weekend because I have a wedding in the family.

Of course it isn't financially feasible, and the Divertissement is really small, so it's probably sold out, and Honey would not be pleased to see me go away for the long weekend, what with the conflicting hours and all. And I could show up early at work one Pig Day (they happen every couple of weeks or so) and piss off chef with a thousand questions and petulant demands for cut-by-cut commentary. But Alice Waters will be there (More on the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook later). And Anne Quatrano. And Shirley Corriher. And Eddie Hernandez. And other names and profiles that make me stomp my foot like a child and declare, at two in the morning in a full apartment building, "It's not fair!"

Teaser: The Chez Panisse Café Cookbook is good. Real good. Come back in 24 hours to find out how good. Also, I have milk in my fridge. Raw milk. How ever shall I use it?

Resources:
1. Southern Foodways Alliance.
2. Blindly trust me, and buy it before I tell you how good it is.

Ugh.


I ache right now; I'm too tired to move enough to change out of my nasty clothes, much less bathe. I haven't even finished a beer in the hour since I've been home. And tomorrow, I work from three to ten one more time, before a relaxed and productive Monday of...laundry. I'm working six long, high-pressure days--a completely different set menu daily plus a limited menu for the bar--to celebrate the restaurant's fifth anniversary. Last night I watched my chef literally press his nose against a piece of pork belly that hadn't cured properly before abruptly straightening up with this terrible grimace. Somehow, this combination drives home the magnitude of the "glamorous restaurant" myth.


And of course there was the disparity between me and the rest of the world as I drove home through Buckhead and Virginia Highlands. I watched happy, enthusiastic people get down with their music and convertibles, groups of friends meeting on the sidewalk, bikers outside Belly General, while sweating in my chef's jacket, unable to do more than inch through traffic, pray that I'd make it to Buddy's before midnight, and more than a little resentful that anyone else wasn't in the kind of funk I am.


I'm hoping that this beer, radio paradise, and the vegetable chapter in The Chez Pannise Café Cookbook will restore a positive attitude. And that failing all else, sleep and vegetables will set me right by morning.

Correction


This article in the AJC quotes a Coca-Cola spokeswoman who tells us that caffeine is largely used as a flavoring.


What does the Bible tell us about caffeine? Page 434 informs us that "[c]affeine is the most widely consumed behavior-modifying chemical in the world. It is an alkaloid ." No mention is made of caffeine as a flavoring. Page 258 answers the alkaloid flavor question: "Alkaloids are bitter-tasting toxins that appeared in plants about the time that mammals evolved and seem especially effective at deterring our branch of the animal family by both taste and aftereffects. Almost all known alkaloids are poisonous at high doses, and most alter animal metabolism at lower doses: hence the attractions of caffeine and nicotine."


Long quotes aside, anyone who has consumed crystalline caffeine or Water Joe knows that caffeine is bitter. The Coca-Cola spokeswoman says that this bitterness is detectable and a selling point in sodas like Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Mountain Dew. But has anyone who's ever drunk these beverages been able to detect the soupçon of caffeine under the calories, acids (for "bite") and various other flavorings? I doubt it.


Coke and other beverage manufacturers put caffeine in drinks because it kicks up people's metabolisms, and there's nothing wrong with that; it's why most people start their days with a cup of coffee or tea. They take it out when their drinkers, having developed an addiction, seek to cut back or quit caffeine entirely. And while some people seek out the bitter flavors in coffee and tea--which have more caffeine, the major source of that bitterness--it's unlikely that young children and habitual soda drinkers are looking for bitterness. In fact, sodas are often seen as more drinkable forms of caffeine.


So let's be honest now Coca-Cola. As one caffeine-freak to another, there's nothing wrong with wanting a buzz, or selling it to someone else.

Chipotle, FarmAid, and FoodRoutes

Honey and I went to Chipotle for lunch today. I've liked Chipotle since I first read in a trade magazine that, though owned by McDonald's Chipotle uses humanely raised meats, supports worthy causes, and is all-around a responsible corporate citizen. After reading the article, which took the view that fast food was about to become more healthy for people, communities, and the economies in which they and their workers operated--a bit optimistic, in hindsight--I went to Chipotle and was appropriately blown away. I go about once a month now, and the barbacoa and carnitas are my favorites.

August, however, will be a two-burrito month, because I saw a sign in our local Chipotle that all proceeds from meat-burrito sales THIS WEDNESDAY will go to FarmAid, an organization that seeks to preserve family farming in America. For the unfamiliar, the alternative is industrialized farming, which has given us such greatest hits as E. Coli in our spinach, "Blue Baby" alerts¹ in those unfortunate towns downstream of major corn farming centers in the Midwest, and the pink baseballs masquerading as tomatoes in January².
FarmAid also maintains FoodRoutes, an incredibly helpful tool for finding local food without spending more time than most PhD candidates do on their dissertations. I had a conversation with my Chef the other night about the possibility of finding local food for a large party in February and was assured that although farmers' markets are shut down in the winter and CSAs don't usually start till March or April, there is plenty of bounty here in the exceedingly warm South. So now that I can't go to the East Atlanta Farmer's market, and never seem to make it out of bed for the Saturday markets, I'm getting ready to look into local food sources that are more flexible. I even found an apiary (bee farm) nearby. How cool is that?

I know that most people won't donate directly, so I'll reiterate: GET THEE TO CHIPOTLE WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29TH, and order a meat burrito. Then go to the websites below, and find a nearby farm, farmer's market or apiary to patronize. The food you eat will be far more unique and flavorful than what you'll get at your local supermarket, and you won't have to deal with long lines after work, surly or incompetent cashiers, or the vague sense that you're just one more cog in the machine. You may lose track of which celebrities are having plastic surgery, babies, or breakdowns, so look up a good gossip site while you're at it.

GO HERE:

FarmAid

FoodRoutes

What in the heck is:

1."Blue Baby" alerts: As explained in The Omnivore's Dilemna by Michael Pollan, Blue Baby Alerts are issued in the spring in corn farming states. Every spring farmers who farm monocultures like commodity corn fertilize their fields, and in many cases, desperate for even the chance of a productivity boost, overfertilize. When the spring rains come, they wash the fertilizers, composed of synthetic nitrogen into drainage ditches, and then into the rivers. The nitrates in the water bind to hemoglobin and prevent the blood from delivering oxygen to the brain, an effect that can be fatal for small creatures, like infants.

2. January tomatoes: Honey has informed me that not everyone is aware of the phenomena represented by the January tomato, so a quick explanation: I use January tomatoes as an example of food that is available to use wildly out of season. Usually the quality of the food is compromised; tomatoes aren't meant to grow in January, so in order to make them grow in January, you have to breed them for traits other than flavor, or ship them from far away, and tomatoes are not a food that, at their best, ship well. They're fragile, prone to over-ripening and fermenting at room temperature, and cease ripening altogether the moment they're refrigerated. When you see tomatoes in winter, fragile greens like arugula in the heat of summer, cherries in November, etc. you can rest assured that whatever you're being sold, it doesn't taste like the real thing, and probably traveled far, burning fossil fuels all the way, to get to you.

"What's 'Hell' in Spanish?"

I didn't have Hot Appetizer. For 3 days, Hot App showed me around the cold station. He'd taught me how to read the menu to find my mise en place¹ for the day. He'd given me a good idea of what quantities I'd need for a shift, and what I needed to do around the kitchen to close down for the night and get the restaurant set up for the next day. He'd worked cold station-salads and desserts, including a cheese plate-for three months and was moving over to Hot Appetizers, the station with the fryers and cold meat dishes. Most importantly, he followed me those three days, cleaning up when I got messy, and finding everything I forgot--and I forgot everything at least once--before an absence became a crisis.

I showed up early for my first solo day, forgetting that Hot App and I prepped so much the night before that there was very little to do. I putzed around, taking my time in an attempt to remember everything I needed. About an hour after I got there, the saute and fry cooks walked in and turned on the hood. Nothing. They flicked the switches a couple of times, and stood with the sous chef under the hood, listening for some sign of life. They checked the breakers. Nothing there. They called the hood guy, who flicked the switches, checked the breakers, and got up on a ladder for a better view of the hoods not working. He informed the fry cook and me-the people who matter, you know-that he couldn't fix the hoods until the next morning, because it was "burn-your-hands hot" on the roof. We decided not to tell him that at 92° F before turning on the equipment, it was "lose-a-cook-to-heatstroke hot" in the kitchen. Not that it would have mattered.

Hoods, or exhaust hoods, are required in kitchens to ventilate "heat, smoke, and grease-laden vapors" produced by equipment. While working in my pampered, seated, air-conditioned office job I'd occasionally heard of hoods going down, and coordinated their repair. But like first-class passengers being loaded onto lifeboats while the Titanic sank, I didn't give much thought to what was happening to the poor schmucks down in steerage.

Here's what: we found fans-initially two, then four-and turned them on the cooks. At least the hot air would be moving. The servers came in to get their helpings of family meal and brought us each a pitcher of ice water. One of them asked the fry cook "What's 'Hell' in Spanish?" Once service started, the servers would dart in and out, get their food, and refill our pitchers, while we spent the slow night sweating, bitching, and chugging water, going back to the prep line where the hood worked when we had nothing to do. Our ice creams, normally soft, were a sick joke, and I considered scooping in the walk-in, till I remembered that the walk through the kitchen would undo any progress I made. Then about an hour and a half before close, the utterly predictable happened: a compressor on a cooler overheated and shut down. We turned fans on the machine, as though a blast of 100ºF air would revive the motor, and packed all of the meat in ice. By the time I got home, I smelled like something that had been dead for days, and my illusions of the glamorous restaurant life were effectively shattered.

What in the heck is:

1. mise en place: "setting in place" in French, or "Everything in place" at the CIA. Or "mess in place" in the American South. Includes all ingredients for assembling an item, plus supplies like portioning utensils, pans and other preparation utensils, and plates. Source

Epicure's Latest Homework Assignment:


I de-stemmed a box of Filet beans yesterday, and wanting to get more than a sore neck out of the deal, decided to find out exactly what filet beans were.

I couldn't find out what inspired the name, but filet beans are haricots vert, or French green beans. They're skinny, generally short (4" or less) have little seed or string development, and a sweet flavor. Every site that I went to revered them as the "best" green bean.

Good to know that I spent an hour with the best green beans.


My sources:

http://www.kitchengardenseeds.com/cgi-bin/catview.cgi?_fn=Product&_category=3

http://www.deliciousorganics.com/recipes/beans.htm

Pig Day!

This week I staged twice at a restaurant which specializes in local and organic product. The menu changes daily, the chef has cultivated impressive relationships with myriad local farmers, and the food is treated carefully, and from everything that I've tasted, thoughtfully; the dishes are simple and calculated to the ingredients. The night that I was introduced to the chef, I ordered a dish of fregola sarda¹ with shrimp, fresh garlic, basil, chili oil, and Sungold tomatoes². I ordered the dish for the tomatoes, which I'd been eating for two weeks straight, and which had spoiled me for all other cherry tomatoes. It was like a brothy rice dish with a savory, slightly winey sauce playing well with the other ingredients.


One notable part of my stage was brushing mushrooms, a task I'd never done before; it was slow, frustrating, and left my neck sore. But we suffer to learn, and I think that there's absolutely nothing wrong with forcing a novice to spend a some time handling an unfamiliar ingredient. I also got to make fresh pasta, and core and chop old tomatoes for stewing. That gave me a great appreciation for the restaurant; nothing was wasted.


When I was introduced to the chef, he mentioned that they'd broken down a whole pig earlier that week, another clue that I really wanted to work in this kitchen. Well, stage two happened to fall on pig day. I spent the morning doing the usual prep work, and only got to glance over my shoulder as Chef did the hard work. But later that night he gave me the bony carcass pieces and told me to clean the bones for stock, and save the meat for sausage. I learned the importance of glove-wearing, not to protect me from the pig, but from my boning knife, which slipped in my amateur's hands. Glove on, I managed to draw blood only once or twice more. My left hand now looks like I dueled with a woodchipper. But on the plus side, I got the job.


What in the heck is...

1. Fregola Sarda is made with a semolina-water dough that is rubbed through a sieve to make little nuggets of dough which are then toasted and cooked like rice. Info from here.

2. Sungolds are orange cherry tomatoes with a great flavor, which most guides say are sweet, but I personally think that they've got a great sweet-acid balance. Info from here.

Work has a subscription to USA Today which published 3, count 'em 3, stories about this:

Consumer Reports has found a growing level of concern among Americans about the safety of our food and the veracity of what's in it, as one food scandal after another rockets out of China.


Rather than taking this moment of public dialog to discover where our food comes from and what it goes through to get to us, 83% of us have, in true American fashion, found an easier way around the problem: We'll only eat American!


Except. Except until we realize that junior will have to give up her bananas, senior his January tomatoes, and sis her beloved Mexican avocados. Oh well. Perhaps we'll limit ourselves to the Americas.


But what of our Italian risotto, our imported cheese? Most of us have forgiven the French enough to eat Brie and drink wine, after all. Maybe we can limit ourselves to the Western Hemisphere. Europeans put so much stock into their Denominations of Origin that surely they're careful about their safety practices.


Then someone informs us that most of our shrimp is from Vietnam and Thailand, that 16% of our ground beef--our hamburger meat, for crying out loud!--comes from China, and we're back where we started.


If American politicians can be frequently and justifiably accused of abusing the slippery slope fallacy in their arguments, perhaps it's because their constituents are comfortably familiar with the process through reductionist solutions like the one above. We're particularly adept at employing simplistic, exclusionary methods when it comes to our diets. In the 1980s, we shunned fats, in the '90s it was sugar, and the new millennium saw Americans abandon carbohydrates, one of four basic food molecules, and a time-honored energy powerhouse, particularly for the poor, who couldn't afford the average American's meat- and fat-rich diet.


This crisis has activists calling for country-of-origin labels on all food, a good idea that's already in practice in multiple other markets, including the EU. Unfortunately for us, many of these markets operate with the ethos that businesses exist to provide something of value to a community, where we in America are an unenviable circumstance: the private citizen has less power over his or her representatives than a company that has its headquarters and the vast majority of its fiscal contribution in someone else's jurisdiction. Indeed, even private groups of citizens dream of holding the kind of influence that corporations have, especially at the federal level. We live in a society where we are expected to provide something of value to business, be it cheap labor, money that we can't afford to spend, or captive audiences of future consumers.


If either house of Congress were to consider a bill requiring country-of-origin labels, it would almost definitely pass, get signed into law, and trumpeted in the media. It would probably also undergo the requisite gutting of standards that we witnessed in the assignment of organic labels. We can assume that manufactured food would be exempt from any labeling standards for many reasons. First, much of this food is produced with commodities, which are grown or made all over the globe and are indistinguishable from one country to the next. Second, no marketer worth his or her MBA wants to admit this to the public. Third, no accountant wants to change this practice, as it makes manufactured food vastly cheaper than less-processed food.


A more realistic solution for the individual American is to do precisely what we tell our children not to: become picky eaters. We can insist on knowing not only where our food came from, but how it was grown, by whom, when vegetables were picked and fish caught, and any of a host of other variables that may be important to a given consumer at a given time. We will undoubtedly run into resistance, but particularly in and around urban areas, it's more than feasible for consumers to refuse to do business with any purveyor who won't research or supply whatever information they want.


An obvious place to start is a local farmers' market; not only can we find fresh, often certified-organic produce, we can meet farmers and learn more about what the local ecosystem produces from season to season, but we can learn what is available in the off-seasons, when farmers' markets close. Those of us with children can demonstrate the links between food and farming, making the process of choosing what to eat more concrete and less bewildering for the next generation.


Much of the environment that we live in has the potential to be toxic in ways beyond our control. I cannot insist that someone clean up the Chattahoochee or any of Atlanta's other water sources, nor can I force my fellow drivers to use biodiesel to clear the smog over my city. I can't rid the old building I live in of lead paint, or asbestos, if it were a problem. But three times a day or more, I can make a conscious decision to ingest something that can help my body or hurt it, something that has been produced in such a way that it adds value to the local community through increased topsoil, a family's income, cleaner water, more available resources--the whole host of benefits that come from sustainable agriculture.


Many times, when I eat out or at work, I fail to do this. But at home, I cook for myself, for Honey, for friends and family who I love and cherish, and it's these meals that I insist give back rather than deplete. When we eat, we have the potential to nourish far more than ourselves, and we should insist that our food give us the chance to do so at every opportunity.

To market, to market...
I've left the CSA fold. What happened? Last year I said that I was about to become a street preacher on the fineness of the CSA, but the short version of the story is that picking up the box and splitting it was inconvenient, I wasn't cooking enough, and Honey and the couple we were splitting were baffled by some of the produce, so lots of great vegetables went to rot. More than that, though, I decided not to sign up for year three because someone in Atlanta was finally smart enough to organize a farmer's market on a weekday evening; I've been attending the East Atlanta Village farmer's market for almost all of my produce for the past three weeks.

I like the farmer's market. I get to choose what I buy, and how much. I can cruise the produce from multiple farms, so I get access to more variety. I also get to talk to farmers and farm managers about what they're growing and why. Plus, unlike the CSA, I have access to meat and eggs every week. That's a big plus, as I'd never had farm-raised eggs before. Now if only I could find cow shares in Georgia.

For those in the Atlanta area interested in buying local and organic, the EAV farmer's market is convenient, approachable, and affordable; Food for two adults for one week (4-5 dinners per week) costs me about $25 for vegetables, eggs, and sometimes cheese. The week that I bought meat, bread and cheese, I paid $34. To help first-timers navigate the market comfortably, I've put together some pointers.

Browse first: The first thing that you'll notice is that at any given time, most of the farmers are selling the same types of vegetables. In the summer, for example, most stalls will have tomatoes, summer squash, cucumbers, corn, and beans. Before you rush to buy, look around at each stall. Which squash look the best? Do you want smaller specimens, like cherry tomatoes, tiny plums, and baby squash, or will you eat slicing tomatoes on sandwiches and larger squash for grilling more quickly? Think about what you like to eat, what you'll take the time to prepare, and what will go well with the food you've bought or have at home. Most importantly, think about what you need, and what you use; I've discovered that now that I'm out of school, I go through 2 heads of garlic a week, as opposed to half a head previously. Don't be afraid to eschew the corn from one stand only to go to the next and buy their corn either. You're at a farmer's market to buy the best, freshest ingredients, and it's perfectly reasonable for one farm to be a week behind another when it comes to ripeness. Feel free to compare prices as well, which leads to the next point:

Talk to your farmers: And not just about prices, either. Ask if they grow the food in front of you, or sell it for other farmers. Compliment the exceptional-looking tomatoes, and learn as much as you can about the food you want to buy. What is the variety? Does it have a unique flavor profile or an amazing shelf life? When was it picked? Be especially aware of unfamiliar items, and ask about them. Since you'll often find heirloom, rare, or highly regional fruits and vegetables at the farmer's market, a certain lack of familiarity is expected. And some farmers will let you taste a sample, particularly if they're in the midst of the peak season and have a bumper crop to unload. Also ask about items you don't see, like meat, cheese, and eggs, all of which will be kept in coolers if the farmers carry them.

Don't get intimidated by unfamiliar items: Recently, the Moore Farms booth at the East Atlanta Village farmers' market had what looked like very small tomatillos. Upon inquiry, Collins Davis, the farm manager, lit up. "They're ground cherries. Do you want to try one?" The flavor is reminiscent of a pina colada, and On Food and Cooking, the bible of all things culinary, explains that they're relatives of tomatoes and tomatillos, possess "caramelly" flavors, and are often made into pies and preserves. Eating them out of hand, like any berry, is fine too. When you come across something unfamiliar, learn what you can about it, and when you cook and eat it, approach it generally. You won't think of many uses for that black-skinned Russian radish if that's how you think of it. But if you see a large root vegetable, you'll realize it's made to be roasted, and when you do, you'll find a surprising sweetness and mild mustard kick. Imagine what would have happened if, paralyzed by ignorance and a sense of certain doom, you'd just passed it over.

Bring a cooler: This is a good rule for any food shopping that you do. A cooler with some ice (not enough for a deep freeze, just to keep things crisp) gives you the flexibility to search obsessively for wine to complement your grilled Berkshire pork chops with fresh tomato-corn salsa, stop and chat with friends, run other errands, or just avoid traffic for an hour or so. The only caveat is to layer your food, keeping egg cartons, meat, cheese, and cold-tolerant produce like onions and cucumbers on the bottom with the ice, and fragile and heat tolerant items like herbs, tomatoes and lettuce on top.

Bring your own bags: Most of us have the bag of bags of bags in the kitchen or laundry room; the more advanced have those oh-so-attractive bag sausages that make the obscene quantity of single-use bags easier to ignore. Go ahead and bring them to reuse at the farmers market. Most farmers don't provide bags, and the ones that do could surely use the money elsewhere. Many farmers also prefer to keep and reuse their pint containers and baskets, so be prepared, and do everything you can to help them out. They aren't getting rich selling organic produce, and would probably rather invest their container money in their farms. It's also wasteful to use such durable products only once. By reusing bags and cartons, you're reducing demand for products that are produced in factories that pollute and where workers are poorly paid for unskilled labor. The truly advanced among us will invest in reusable cloth bags, but for the immediate future, reusing your old plastic bags until they give out is a responsible option.

Finally, a crop calendar.

James Beard Nominees I'm Rooting for, and Why

The Omnivore's Dilemna by Michael Pollan; Category: Books, Writing on Food

This book was a journalist's exploration of our food chains, and it finally brought together all the damning evidence for the indictment against industrial food. It encouraged the reader to consider whether he or she should really feel all that responsible for shopping at Whole Foods, and provided an extensive description of what a local farm is, what it can grow and provide, how it might help the local community and ecology, and the obstacles that it faces from government and business. The section on the hunter-gatherer meal was fun and highly personal, and provided a great ending to a very journalistic work of nonfiction.

"2006 Food Issue: From the Farm to Your Table" by Besha Rodell, Creative Loafing Atlanta
Category: Journalism, Newspaper Feature Writing About Restaurants and/or Chefs, With or Without Feature Writing

This nominee, like all the ones that follow, is from Atlanta, and I have a ton of local pride. This article discussed various options for local food in Atlanta, and interviewed four chefs and a farmer. You can read it here.

"SUSHI USA; What does Chinese food have in common with tomatoes, pizza, parmesan cheese, peas and also sushi? Umami" by John Kessler, AJC
Category: Journalism, Newspaper Feature Writing with Recipes

I've been reading Kessler for at least the past eight years, first his reviews, then his food writing after every restaurant in Atlanta had identified him. This is the man whose words first got me to thinking about food as something beyond good or bad, but as something infinitely diverse, complex, individualistic, and vested with significant personal meaning. When he was a reviewer and found himself at a Vietnamese place, he would explain to the reader what pho was, what bun was, what they should taste like, and then compare this ideal to the restaurant. It was invaluable for a teenager who really wasn't that familiar with food, and his reviews and columns are the reasons that I have cravings as specific as "I need Nau Num Tuk from Little Bangkok right now." This piece is part of a five part series about Japanese food. Unfortunately, the AJC is bolstering Atlanta's provincial reputation; they've published multiple articles about the nominations, and have other Kessler articles back to 2003. They have not republished the original series on the site, and there's no sign on the AJC's site that the series ever existed. Idiots.

"The Pit and the Pendulum", "Roadside Renaissance", "Where Coconut Cake meets Sweet Tea Pie" by John T. Edge, AJC
Category: Journalism, Newspaper, Newsletter or Magazine Columns

One thing the AJC has done right in the past twelve months is this: they've introduced a weekly feature that explores traditional Southern food. It's always a quick, interesting read, and Edge manages to update some very old, very traditional recipes, in the hopes that our modern Southerners will one day welcome ingredients like sorghum syrup back into the pantry.
Edge is also the director of the Southern Foodways Alliance, which has worked with multiple local writers to produce some very good Southern Food articles and series. The alliance's work has become more important in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
They've also decided that these articles were published, which is a plus.

"The Pit and the Pendulum"

"Roadside Renaissance"

"Where Coconut Cake Meets Sweet Tea Pie"

Finally, while I've read great things about Hugh Acheson and Arnaud Berthelier and their restaurants, I'm rooting for Scott Peacock for Best Chef Southeast. His book with Edna Lewis was so pleasant that I racked up a $20 late fee from the local library, and while I haven't made it to Fried Chicken Tuesday yet (and certainly won't tonight), his food is very good, and very Southern.

Now, off to pen a harangue to the JBF bigwigs about Feasting on Asphalt, and why they're philistines for not nominating it.

Old School

One of my professors gave me a great quote when he said "You're entering one of the last true apprenticeships systems around." This is not as true in America, where I've had to explain even to chefs what an apprenticeship would look like, and it's worth explaining the history and value of the apprenticeship.

For centuries aspiring chefs needing education (and we all need education, even if you father was Escoffier himself) found the best chef that they could, and signed themselves into what amounted to indentured servitude, getting paid little or nothing in exchange for work experience, education at the hands of culinary genius, and all the abuse an old-school French chef could hand out.

That changed in the 1970s with the rise of culinary schools, particularly in the US. Culinary schools had been around, most notably Le Cordon Bleu in France, and the Culinary Institute of America in the States, but by the 70s, interest in food and restaurants, particularly in America, had grown. Plenty of people wanted to be chefs, but few had the desire or means to move to Europe.

The America Culinary Federation now provides an apprenticeship program, and I'm planning on using it, at least as a framework. When I started looking for a job over spring break, I noticed that most chefs were unfamiliar with what I'd need as a first-year apprentice, especially after talking to a chef who used an apprenticeship for his education. He explained that I'd need a restaurant or institution that could teach me, through its regular oprations, butchery, bakery, lots of prep and maybe charcuterie. This isn't difficult to find in places with a long culinary history, where vendors most likely arose meeting restaurants' need for lots of raw product. In the age of restaurant group and providers that are more accustomed to providing bagged lettuce and pre-portioned meat, these sorts of kitchens are few and far between, and Atlanta's a recent arrival on the food scene. We rely on Sysco and United Foodservice for product, even if they go by the names of Buckhead Beef and FreshPoint. Getting beef in anything smaller than a subprimal (roughly 1/9th of a cow) requires special contacts, as does getting anything heirloom that you can legally serve.

An apprenticeship provides a unique opprtunity; aspiring chefs can learn from the best in the business, at the business, since the best chefs rarely have the time to teach at the local community college. Plus, we don't incur massive student loan debt, only to go out and earn ten dollars an hour while we pay our dues. It's practical, but that doesn't make it convenient.

Yet I'm still looking to take an old-fashioned approach to an old-school industry, and this was exemplified by an email that I got while trying to find a job. A local ACF chapter guy told me, of a specific chef who does apprenticeships: "You may not be able to reach him by phone.(but you can try). You could also write him a letter or visit the hotel and apply for a job." No mention was made of email. Talk about old school.

A Tale of Three Restaurants

It's Spring Break again, and while that means a trip to the beach for most college students, it's time for Epicure to find a job. Graduation will happen in May, Honey and I will go to Spain for a couple of weeks, and then I hope to come back to Atlanta, to start my first apprenticeship.

This week I visited three restaurants, equal in dignity, disparate in every other way, to try and pick one that will start me on the road to chefdom. Everyone that I've talked to has told me to find the best chefs I could for my apprenticeship, and this week has shown me that that mantra will not save me from some tough decisions.

Restaurant #1 is a palace of fine dining in Atlanta, built up over many years by two brilliant, dedicated chefs. It has its own farm and a takeout division that makes money and moves product for the restaurant. I staged there on Monday. Because they deemed my skills entry-level, they put my in pastry for my stage. I was pleasantly surprised to find myself more than capable, and frankly a little bored; it was a slow night. I met the legendary Chef Who Started It All, and once I was in my station, I was promptly ignored by all but one line cook who came over to speak to me at the end of the night. I enjoyed pastry more than I expected to, and I didn't get the outright rejection that I was expecting; they've told me to get back in touch closer to my graduation. It all seems vaguely positive, but there's no resolution yet.

Restaurant #2 is one of two restaurants with a leading local group, and was one of the first modern successful restaurants in the city. Its formula has been copied and applied to a number of new restaurants, and the group is very successful because of it. The chef at this place was particularly interesting, because he came up as an apprentice, and he had some great advice for what to look for in a first-year apprenticeship. His advice ended up pushing me toward Restaurant #1, where they bake their own bread, cure their own meat, and where I might learn some butchery, all of which he stressed as valuable skills for a learning chef. He invited me in last night to eat at his restaurant, and get an idea of the place. The food was delicious, the chef, though unexpectedly busy, was nice enough to stop by a couple of times, and I was sufficiently impressed to really want to work there.

I just got back from Restaurant #3, an American bistro, that reminded me of a slightly larger version of Scotty's place. The chef there likes to teach; he spends time working with local high schools' Pro-Start programs, and though he'd never had an apprentice before, he expressed definite enthusiasm for the possibility. He's also justifiably proud of his restaurant. It's consistently busy, and a combination of a neighborhood following, charismatic namesake, and smart updates have kept it in business for 25 years. It's the sort of place that I'd love to open and keep going till I was ready to retire.

I expected that this choosing processs would be easy, but as I've met great chefs with good advice, I'm finding myself at a quandary. I've begun to sketch out a plan to learn as much as I can, but I'm terrified of pulling this off poorly, and offending any one of the people who have been so generous with their time and experience. The truth is, I'd like to work at all of these places, and hate the idea of saying "You'll hear from me next year, or the year after." to anyone. But as honey says, "The real world sucks like that."