via flickr.
Jan 12, 2010
Jan 10, 2010
pork belly and fat elvis
what, you ask, is this slightly out-of-focus cube of meat? it is the brain child of kevin rafferty and mimi rancatore: a block of pork belly cooked in a low oven for many hours, crosshatched (alas, not visible here), then crisped on a hot griddle, and served with a hash of fingerling potatoes and sundried tomatoes, a poached egg, and chimichurri sauce. the photo is out of focus due to low light and the minor vibrations occasioned by the proximity of intense deliciousness. since it is now sunday night, you have missed the opportunity to satisfy your weekly saturated fat quota at toscanini's. there's always next weekend.
they may also have available the fat elvis ice cream flavour: peanut butter, cashew butter, almond butter, and butter-caramelised bananas that i may or may not have helped to peel.
i understand from people who know these things that excessively high cholesterol levels can be addressed with the judicious application of aerobic exercise and orally-administered statins.
inadvertent gelatin clarification
long, slow cooking has many virtues, not the least of which is gelatin extraction. having accidentally left a pot of assorted chicken bones on the flame for many hours, i came back not to smoking ruin and insurance claims but to a large quantity of stock. i put this in a large ball jar, then into the freezer, with predictable results. the next morning, the stock had frozen and expanded, rending the jar in twain. it didn't look like there were glass shards embedded anywhere, but i left the frozen stock in a sieve to gradually defrost anyway, just in case. many hours later, there was a mass of deflated still-icy gelatin in the sieve, grey with trapped particulates, fat, and other untasty things. in the bowl below, an intensely-flavoured and pellucid stock. not complicated at all (on this matter, also see the cooking issues primer)
Jan 9, 2010
boiled
there are few things better than a broth made of long-simmered meat of quality. whole foods has a special on large pieces of shoulder steak that are indivisible because ludicrously inexpensive. at $2.99 a pound, this stuff is cheaper than strawberries--which is wrong on many levels but ultimately quite nice for me. i cut it into large chunks so that it would stay intact, discarded the first boil to remove assorted bad-tasting impurities that are the legacy of a fleshly existence, covered it in water again, then started cooking it in a tightly covered le creuset last night at 6.30pm on the lowest flame the stove will sustain without going out (not a bubble broke the surface, and the thermometer read 200F).
risking asphyxiation and household catastrophe, i left the thing going overnight. i was careful to put the battery back into our over-eager smoke detector before going back to bed. when i woke up this morning, the tiny flame was still burning, the building had not burned down, and the beef fell apart at the mildest provocation. the broth, which is perhaps the more important part (like the scabbard, which was worth ten of the etc) was limpid, pearled with fat, and the gold of an aged tequila. the late-stage contribution of large carrot batons (chamfered at the edges to preserve clarity) and quartered vidalia onions must also be acknowledged.
Jan 7, 2010
lentils of generosity and contentment
in the atlantic food channel today, a slightly modified version of the first recipe for the best lentils in the world. the full story here.
and, previously, a short ramble on kaiseki.
a cambridge and boston food map
a work in progress, but currently not so bad.
View Good Eats, Greater Boston (but mostly Cambridge) in a larger map
Jan 6, 2010
Jan 5, 2010
huang shan
from 21st editions. huang shan is an illustrated book of tang poems and platinum prints in a limited edition, designed by mike russem at kat ran press. yours for a mere $8500.
Jan 4, 2010
backlog
the city block that makes you either yearn to live in ny or run screaming from it
a happy new year to you. the inbox is back down to fewer than 10 emails and i am wearing a clean shirt. these two are not insignificant achievements.
- new year's resolution: spend holidays doing only uninteresting and restful things. the presence of small animals and spirituous beverages of high quality are permitted.
- jewish weddings: congratulations to the kaplammers, and particularly to david hammer for using the word oikos in his tisch lecture! the wedding involved plenty of food and dancing in circles. the renegade california contingent (table 2) tried and failed to introduce hexagonality into the proceedings.
- the best sandwich of recent months: the restaurant school special at koch's deli, just down the street and around the corner from julian's house in philadelphia. corned beef, honey turkey, brisket of beef, hot pepper cheese, cole slaw and russian dressing or mustard on a hoagie roll. an unholy combination of many meats and cole slaw (which i had previously avoided in sandwiches for introducing unnecessary and unemulsified liquid). no photo, as it was consumed too quickly. perhaps the pulled roast pork sandwich with garlicky greens at dinic's (also in phl) would have been even better, but dinic's was sold out and the comparison thus awaits a future visit.
- single malt scotch: a stellar glass at zuni cafe in 2005 converted me to calvados. julian's ardbeg 10 year did me for single malts. these tasting notes seem to me wildly off-base: this stuff has the scent of syrup made of rock sugar and pandanus leaves.
- old friends: are the easiest ones to grouse with. helps if they have good scotch and live close to a great deli. [thx julian]
- eating prodigiously: i ate with the alpha hound in jackson heights a few days ago. the experience left me nearly prostrate, but also happily stuffed with fried watercress, fresh korean tofu, fenugreek paratha, russian milk chocolate, and a pint of guinness, among many others. the food was good, the conversation was better. this is his contribution to the art of rating food (i think the inclusion of reference OJ is what tips it into brilliance).
- banh mi: have i complained before that cambridge has no (not one) vietnamese sandwich provider? not long ago, there was a small cafe on massachusetts avenue just south of porter which had a beautiful, minimal banh mi for $2.50. i went there once before it closed, to be replaced by a bakery selling undistinguished and overly-sweet cakes and pastries. while in the big apple, i loaded the nyt banh mi map onto my phone* and finally made it to baoguette on murray hill. for $5, the cilantro was wilted, the daikon and carrot pickles were limp, the bread was not crusty, and there was too much stuff inside it. crushed, i slunk back to boston where, at the tail end of a grocery run in chinatown, i accidentally picked up the best banh mi i've had in years: cilantro leaves plucked off the stems, a freshly-toasted baguette with an open crumb, a thin smear of pate and a shaving of ham, crisp pickles, and a scattering of finely-chopped hot chilies ($3 at lu's sandwich shop, on knapp st in boston. you can buy a bangle or some gold bars in the attached jewelers should the mood strike).
- the shake shack: was closed when i went by on new year's eve. smart people. their frozen custard is a riff on ted drewes from st louis, which sometimes i dream about (part 3 of my encounter with ted drewes, part 2 and part 1 are the preamble). this is the shake shack custard calendar: M gianduja, T blood orange, W salted caramel, Th roasted peanut, F carrot cake, Sa mint chocolate chip, Su cinnamon toast. i would go back every day.
- pourovers: newly possessed of a hario burr grinder and pourover cone, and a bag of barismo kagumoini, i fabricated a canvas filter with some scrap #10 and bookbinder's linen this morning and am anticipating good things tomorrow. apparently barismo has become one of the new epicenters of the artisanal coffee roasting movement. this is unsurprising but pleasant.
- precipitation: there is nothing like a persistent snowfall to make you feel good about having lots of oranges in the house, a large mug of coffee, and 200 pages of hermann hesse to go.
* why does the iphone not have native mymaps support?
Jan 3, 2010
Jan 2, 2010
Dec 24, 2009
Dec 23, 2009
Dec 17, 2009
a pune, or a play on words
i post this here at risk of making someone who shall remain nameless even more insufferable about these cunning objects than she already is.
brisk; tasty
two observations:
- took my bike to coffee yesterday at 8am when it was -4F with wind chill (-20C, if you're in a country where the system of measures is rationalized). not a good time to forget gloves or a hat.
- the swedish have a baked good called a lussebulle (named for saint lucy, who appears to be its patron saint) that shows up around this time of year, after the feast of saint lucy. the lussebulle is shaped out of yeasted enriched bread spiced with saffron and cardamom, two of the three most expensive spices in the world by weight. the subtle ostentation is very appealing.
more soon,
Dec 14, 2009
not single spies but in battalions
as the semester winds to a close, everything speeds up and slows down at the same time. this year, the end of fall is a little more fraught than usual: everything got bumped up three weeks so that we'd be done with exams and grading and papers before christmas. much better than spending the end of the old year and the start of the new one with many swords of damocles overhead. other benefit: this is the only fall semester i've ever spent here without the prospect of toiling to classes through snowdrifts. we'll still have the snow, but we'll be toiling through it on our way to things that are not class.
meanwhile, everyone has suddenly realized that there are two weeks left to the term and meetings postponed unpostpone themselves, distant papers come due, examinations on long-forgotten content loom, late work approaches its final deadline. and yet, classes are done so the days again stretch into the hazy distance, to be filled with grilled cheese sandwiches and other forms of toasted bread. should be productive, but instead am drinking calvados and canvassing the corners of the internet for parts for an even more improved version of a vacuum distillation device than this.*
* apparently the cooking issues team have a plan for an improved rotovap that dumps at least the rotating bit with the failure-prone, expensive gasket. the real question is: how many moving parts and tubes can you take away and still have it work in principle? the answer, i suspect, is quite a few.
Dec 13, 2009
the moor
It was like a church to me.
I entered it on soft foot,
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God there was made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In a movement of the wind over grass.
There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart's passions – that was praise
Enough; and the mind's cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.
Breath held like a cap in the hand.
It was quiet.
What God there was made himself felt,
Not listened to, in clean colours
That brought a moistening of the eye,
In a movement of the wind over grass.
There were no prayers said. But stillness
Of the heart's passions – that was praise
Enough; and the mind's cession
Of its kingdom. I walked on,
Simple and poor, while the air crumbled
And broke on me generously as bread.
[thx cp]
the last two lines, of course, are killer. the rest of it is mush.
Dec 11, 2009
scott nearing, on the good life
The good life is never stable, never secure, never easy and never ended. It is a series of steps or stages, one leading into the other and all, in their outcome, adding, not subtracting; augmenting, not diminishing; building, not destroying; creating, not annihilating.
unfortunately, not so easy to implement.
Dec 9, 2009
Dec 8, 2009
sand
-- you have sand in your left ear.
-- really.
-- just a grain or two bouncing around in there. nothing to worry about.
-- good to know.
-- couple of grains in this one too. been frolicking in the dunes recently?
silver line
in the bowels of south station, there is a sandwich board that tells you where to stand for the silver line to logan airport. this sandwich board (or one much like it) has been there since the airport extension opened--who can say why don't they replace it with permanent signage? maybe it's a good thing, since the sign is carefully hand-written on both sides, both of which look almost the same. i've failed to notice that they're actually different in four years of encountering the sign from one direction or the other. (look at the S and the H.)
Dec 7, 2009
Dec 6, 2009
ritual, valencia st
sightglass, 7th st
humphrey slocombe, harrison st.Dec 2, 2009
the death of uncool
It’s odd to think back on the time—not so long ago—when there were distinct stylistic trends, such as “this season’s colour” or “abstract expressionism” or “psychedelic music.” It seems we don’t think like that any more. There are just too many styles around, and they keep mutating too fast to assume that kind of dominance.
...The idea that something is uncool because it’s old or foreign has left the collective consciousness.
I think this is good news. As people become increasingly comfortable with drawing their culture from a rich range of sources—cherry-picking whatever makes sense to them—it becomes more natural to do the same thing with their social, political and other cultural ideas. The sharing of art is a precursor to the sharing of other human experiences, for what is pleasurable in art becomes thinkable in life.
from brian eno
Dec 1, 2009
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