buffalo wings

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Like players emerging from the tunnel out onto the field, all jacked up on anticipation for game time, Super Bowl munchies are gathering in kitchens around the world. Bar food becomes enshrined each year on this sacrament to testosterone. A special time on Earth where cholesterol worship, shaving team initials in chest hair (or back hair) and being done up in warpaint is your Constitutional duty. As you well know, the 29th Amendment states: On this Super Day of glut, you will serve mankind excess foodstuffs in multitudinous facets, creating states of exponential satiety, which unto will proffer prolonged permagrin and eventual hibernation. Serve your country well. Do what is right People.

Anyhow, the other day I was thinking about buffalo wings and chips as a bar food and had a visual. I followed through, and it actually worked out. Ground buffalo was mixed with water and pureed to ultra smoothness. A little salt and enough flour to bind the meat was mixed in, just enough to be able to roll the mixture out with a rolling pin. Shapes were cut and then fried. And voilà...buffalo wings or buffalo chips, if you will. Your venue will choose the name for you! Sprinkle with hot sauce salt and let'r rip...

Happy Super Bowl Y'all!

tongue pastrami steam bun

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Tongues make me happy. Underutilized, scorned and tossed to the side, they provide the underdog turned champ flavors and textures that no other cut can. When on the road, one of my professional jobs is to seek and enjoy the different roles it plays. Just getting back from Dallas, we hit up a carniceria on the east side, having a lingua taco that still has me floating a few inches off the ground. This thing had a halo on it, glowing supernaturally, as tongue hit my tongue.

Now back home, my friend Dr. Farkas hooked me up with some all natural, grass fed, organic, pasture raised beef tongue and cheeks from Essex Farm. Just looking at the goodies, you can tell they had a life far from a factory life. The energy effused from these gifts, keep you on your toes as to not mess them up. And so...I hope I was able to do them justice. Thank you small farm for coming back to the community!

beef tongue pastrami

crock fermented jalapeno sauerkraut

pumpernickle steam bun

smoked hoisin mayo

8-4-11 tomato day

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You have your birthdays, anniversaries, last day of school, payday and so on. Days you're really looking forward to. Then...then, there's the big day. Swimming in the swoon, the sweat ring o'plenty dog days of summer, the proffer comes. The big pay off. Months of anticipation. The Carley Simon/Heinz anticipatory moment. The gestation, is done. It's time. Let's do this...

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1st tomato of the season, 10 seconds off the vine
adirondack sweet corn biscuit, about 2 minutes out-the-oven
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shave the clams

Picked up some razor clams, or more appropriately, Atlantic jackknife's, the other day at the local Asian market. By local, I mean I had a two hour ride home to daydream about how to play with my new bounty, the ensis directus. These are a different genus than their name sharing Pacific cousins, the larger, more eliptically shaped shelled clam the siliqua patula. Jackknife's are also known as bamboo clams, so by the time we got back to our mountain kitchen, I guess it's legal to say we went bamboo.

First the clams were chilled in salted water and Thai basil for an hour. Next they were vacuum sealed with more basil and a red chile.

Having razors/jackknifes in front of me, it wasn't a far journey to go with a shaving theme. I had also picked up a banana blossom at the market. To make "hair", the blossom was shaved thinly and pickled with rice vinegar, fish sauce, palm sugar and star anise. For the shaving cream, kaffir lime leaf was added to coconut milk, shaken silly, allowed to infuse, and then added to an isi.

The clams were cooked sous vide at 65 C for 8 minutes. Then we opened the doors to our new Asian barber shop...

thai basil sous vide razor clam

pickled banana blossom hair

coconut-kaffir shaving cream

shaved pop's ham

pandan oil

zilla sighting

There comes a tide in the affairs of man, where that one, enigmatic wave, unique from the lot, comes rolling in. Recently, after years of chatting it up cyberly, I finally got to meet said wave face to face.

Chadzilla is a blog known for being a leader of the food blog pack. His hook is telling it like it is, as a chef from deep within the guts of the industry, that is, within the hotel kitchen industry. Which is a whole other beast unto itself.

Generally speaking. I repeat, generally speaking, the majority of FoodBloggersville's residents can be found on one street. Yummy Potato Sprinkle Cupcake Here's My Favorite Color Street. A diary of sorts, a slumber party chronicle, with a Martha-tron embodiment at the helm, exposing emotional details of today's supermarket trip. Kind of a blog form of day time soaps. This is all good. The world needs and enjoys different flavors.

As an industry man, in an outpost in the middle of nowhere, I need my dose of the trenches. Frontline action, changing the food scene, not pushing the envelope, but inventing new concepts of what an envelope can be. Chadzilla is the one who develops that envelope.





It was great to hook up after so long, to finally meet the man. It didn't hurt, that he busted out my favorite meal on the planet, fried chicken. Not to mention, he graced us with his c-ass gumbo, complete with his folk's DNA signature of adding potato salad to it. Louisianan roots honoring my Texas roots. Now that I'm living 45 minutes from Canada, it was a blessing to be in a Southern aura, getting my needed fix.

We rapped about our own coming up in the biz and where that biz is now, and where it's headed. We were fortunate to work while the economy's wild spending and opulent habits garnered us to push exotic into galactic, restaurant-scene-wise. Now that the economy has tanked, we've watched how the restaurant scene has dug in further to remember its origins. We've gone womb-ing and emerged spiritually better, I think. From over the top decadence and formal service, to passionate food lover's growing, harvesting, networking, sharing, butchering, honoring-reawakening fermentaion, aging, smoking and curing again. Going back. Using our formal training and going guerilla. Using our chops, to deliver a message to more of the public, so that "we can all eat amazingly and feel completely nourished, together".

Now that you can get liquid nitrogen easier than sinus medicine, what was once lab food, can now be enjoyed to enhance a braised tongue taco. I'm watching my chef friends evolve their craft over the years, from once a year/lifetime dining institutions to more casual experiences, to even lunch counter/food hawker incarnations. It seems the lack of money, or I should say, the redistribution of money, has brought us closer to our hearts again.

Soul food is what we align to naturally, from wherever it comes from on this juicy planet. It only takes so many reality tv shows to break you, to be really real again. To go back home and cook what makes you happy. To ride in and experience the culinary frontier and come back to enhance our own roots. Gastronomic astronauts. Gastronauts. Whatever you call it, we can take the knowledge from bona fide astronauts, who've unanimously conveyed, you appreciate Earth much more after a few orbits around it.

Even our blogs have changed. From luxury reports to more of a culinary commune. Let me share so that you can become better. We've come a long way from that one trick pony chefism, that was the dogma of the industry. We've gone from, look at me, to, look at us. Now stir in your talent, to make this better.

Hanging out with Chad has given me insight in where to go in my own cooking vortex. The foodies where I live, are literally in the woodwork. Tucked away, off road, in the woods. When I do my thing, we attract them, like buck bait attracting a doe. You see it happening all over America. Rogue chefs gathering people to support great food, instead of egos. Building food communities instead of institutions.

So tune into Chadzilla to find out what is happening in the belly of the food scene.

Chad, it was an honor to be with you and your family. (Sorry it took so long to git this out!) Looking forward to evolving together and more importantly, as Hendrix reminds us to do, "Play on brother, play on."

from russia with love

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There’s a czar that runs our famed Olympic mountain community. Not of the autocratic nature that you’re used to hearing about, but a different flavor of a person exercising great authority or power in a particular field. This brilliant soul is the czar of compassion. The most loveable leader you’ll ever meet.

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He doesn’t have his finger on the pulse, he is the pulse incarnate. The rhythmic undulation of vitality. Like Oprah, Prince and Sting, he is represented by a mono-moniker. Of course, I’m speaking of our beloved Dmitry.

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His story is the epitome of all things oppressive gone mainline freedom. From excessive poverty, tyrannical political strife, years of a bean diet (which would drive the average person to an asylum), serving in the Soviet military, defecting through a fissure in the Iron Curtain, to liberation. Liberation not just from imperious surveillance, but that of the heart. Not just his, but those who are graced enough to be near his luster. If compassion happens in this community, it’s happening because D has shone in that direction.

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Heck, I could solely love the guy just for being the one who single handedly inspired, and currently curates, the perennial international BBQ festival here. Not only is it staged in a culinary void, but smack dab in the center of Yankee territory, by a Russian! Two, maybe three, Universal laws are broken here, in the name to promote world class BBQ. This is what a hero looks like.

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When he’s not at his day job as the heart, soul and voice of our USA Olympic luge team, he’s my personal dealer of ethnic food obscurities. To this day I still can’t pronounce any of the global foodstuffs he’s unconditionally gifted me. Recently he materialized a locally grown, organic bone-in leg of lamb and 2 liters of kvass.

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What in the spanky spangler is kvass? Like a true dealer, he kept hounding me to drink this concoction. I’m thinking he must want to watch me trip out or something, with all his unrelenting pressure for me to imbibe some.

Turns out, it tastes as ancient as its malt beverage roots get. The actual trip came from the flavor and not from the low alcohol content. Kvass is the people’s beverage. It’s made most oft from black, rye or whole wheat bread, water and a little help from passer-by yeasts. This means anyone can partake, no matter how under the thumb regimed your government is. Bread and water are the global staples. This meant that peasants could join in the fun of imbibing. Once monks got wind of the beverage, they began to stylize kvass back in the 800’s.

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The flavor is dependent upon the bread used. Sweeteners such as honey, fruit (dried or fresh) and herbs are added to broaden its flavor profiles. So if you had day old pumpernickel, water, yeast, honey, raisins and mint, you’d be a happy camper in about 15 hours. These days it’s sold like Coca Cola ® all over Russia. In fact, Coke’s now in on the game, producing their own Russian/Slavic model of kvass. From hovels to the Kremlin, kvass is the blood of beverages in Central Asia.

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This version that D gifted me tasted of malt, prunes, German chocolate and strawberry jam.

So with those attributes, I marinated the leg of lamb in kvass, onions, garlic, caraway, coriander and cracked black pepper for 2 days.

It was then warm smoked, along with the kvass marinated prunes , with oak for 7 hours.

I made a stock of potatoes, the bone marrow from the lamb and the smoked prunes, added methocel and aerated it for a “pillowy sauce”. I took some of the lamb drippings, kvass and caraway and reduced it down to a caramel to bring the kvass on the plate into 2 dimensions.

Happiness ensued. And to whom do I owe this pleasure? To the most giving, personable and saintly czar on the planet. Nostrovia!

kvass smoked leg of lamb
aerated potato-bone marrow-smoked prune

borscht

kvass-caraway caramel

dill oil

big patty loves you

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Salud to all folks on the planet on this smashingly glorious St. Patty's Day.

blood sausage, potato and cabbage stuffed brown bread topped with duck fat, cheddar and scallions...and...some beer

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peru: part 3

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ancient wisdom is here. listen.

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alpaca centerfold

agricultural stronghold for the incas

cuy quarters, like a lobster tank, you get to choose

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legendary pisac market

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hands of experience

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the sacred heart






best bread to ever caress your lips






like easter eggs, the tuna (prickly pear fruit) is mesmerizingly beautiful

chile heads rejoice

home sweet home...for 14 hours

heaven

sallqantay peak-20,574ft. -that's where we're headed

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looking north of the summit

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trail summit-15,253ft.

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you see this and wonder why "reality tv" exist

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i thought i knew vast from living in montana, but this is looking across the universe. then again, so is looking at your fingers.

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abandoned glacial abode and stable we commandeered for lunch. notice the veranda butting against the boulder, marking the entrance to a cave dwelling.

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carlito.
he's materializing epic meals on top of the world, out of thin air, with minimal ingredients and even less equipment. while sprinting up and down glaciers, slicing through jungles at 4 times your speed, setting up camps several times a day before you get there, and serving you hot tea in your sleeping bag at 4:30am, his mission is to give you the best experience of your life. a true saint humbles you in his presence. salud my friend.

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riehs...party of two please

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carlito's lunch entree after the sopa andea (peruvian quinoa soup). a stunning feast on this divine alpine trek. remember, we're in the middle of absolute nowhere. who makes grilled chicken with fresh vegetables, pasta salad, papas fritas and boiled eggs at 14,000ft for a quick lunch made in minutes? carlito does. that's who. it was an honor to be in his presence the entire journey!

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the mind blowing segue where glaciers meet the jungle.

machu picchu awaits...

peru: part 2

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the original water purifier

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chifa - cuisine created by 19th century southern chinese immigrants coming to peru using local peruvian ingredients such as aji rocoto, aji panca and aji amarillo chiles, cuy (guinea pig), potatoes, sausages and now peruvian asparagus. this was the best chifa joint we explored.

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alpacas at 13,000 feet on the journey to chivay

best restaurant of the entire peruvian trip...complete native authenticity in the middle of absolutely mars-like nowheresville. this spread would take me a month to put together even if i was surrounded by the best farmers markets. unbelievable!

chicken with rocoto chiles, beans and sausage, alpaca with dried potatoes, cuy with pasta

the spread. an oasis of grace




the hotel in yanque





view from our room. best view from any hotel i've ever stayed in. complete with incan terraces and trout stream.







canyon de colca - from it's high peak, down to the river it's 11,000 feet deep, twice as deep as the grand canyon. just around the corner it's 500 feet deeper, making it the deepest canyon in the world.



andean condor - largest wingspan and heaviest of all land birds

don't move...just keep smiling






canyon de colca

rush hour

another great spread

floating reed islands on lake titicaca

the uros and aymara tribe members who inhabit this man made island of reeds

whipping up some guinea pig raised in the hut behind me

busting out some indigenous folk songs

tequile island on lake titicaca-the highest navigable lake in the world. the mountains in the background are in bolivia.

lunch at an indigenous taquilernos home. look how blue the skies get here.

when's the last time you were greeted to eat with a smile like that?

sopa andena-quinoa, peruvian potatoes, ancient squash

our beloved host showing off her perfect caramelization

lake titicaca pan seared trout, papas fritas, arroz, beet-papaya ariquipa salad cooked with tons of love and one heck of a view. amen.

next stop: the glaciers of salkantay...