En retard Jour de Valentines

When one travels to a different city, or country even, there are expectations, like the kind of cuisine, the types of people, the landmarks, and so on. There is inevitability that there will be things that no one can expect, my favorite includes smells. The smell or combination of smells of a place is not only related to what's going on in the city (construction, landscaping) but also to the food that is cooking on the street corners, in bakeries or chocolate shops, BBQ and chicken shacks.

France to me has one of the greatest smells, of course, depending on where you are you get different facets. You get stinky cheese, and sweet grapes, the smell of fresh bread (which is not easy to make - entry to follow regarding), olives, meat roasting, fish being sold. These are things I miss when I walk around Chicago - unless, however, you find yourself walking downtown on a day when the wind has strewn about the smell of baking chocolate confections from near by candy and cookie emporiums.

The husband told me the other day, said he, "We live in the Paris of the US."

I had to think about it for a second. I mean, yes, I live within a large pool of minorities, just like where I would be able to afford to live in Paris. There are frequent street vendors. The mid-eastern cuisine in this town is amazing, just like the gaye-olde. And the Trump town is just like dear Eiffel... well maybe not quite.

On valentine's day the husband and I went to one of our favorite French spots in town. Bistro Campagne to me is so French it hurts. Not only does it smell great both inside and outside, but I ache to be back in la belle F. after sitting in this place for 10 minutes. My favorite time to go is in the winter - when the seasonal menu includes Cassoulet, a spanker to make (3 Days), but well worth the effort I'm sure. I'd rather just get it from these chefs, it's so much easier and you get a whole duck confit leg on top too! What's not to love?

We started out with a great bottle of vin rouge, their Chinon 2005, yummy. Then we ordered something I now know cannot live without.

Roasted bone marrow.

This stuff is like beef butter, scooped out of the bones, spread on toast with a little sea salt shavings. So good, so rich. I know some of you might be like, "dear baby jesus, no, she can't be serious." This dish is other-worldly. I love now that where Anthony Bourdain talks about it I can say to myself "Preach it, Tony. Amen."

Then I did something unorthodox (because the marrow wasn't enough). I ordered the chicken.

A good friend of our always gets the chicken here. He's a chef and foodie, and makes a great one himself. But he says B.C. has the best in the city. I am inclined to agree. The husband, who in the past has only ordered the chicken here, requests my beloved Cassoulet and though I was ethereally happy with my chicken...I was jealous. Beaucoup.

We ended the night ordering dessert, I a lush 4 tablespoons of Chocolate sabayon and cookies. Mmmm! tiny desserts!

Then something a bit odd happened...

The table next to us became full of that certain kind of person that goes out on Vday, you know that one I mean. The people that come to a fancy restaurant and order a house salad...only. Two couples, nice enough people, I'm sure, but would have been much happier at a bar. (there is nothing wrong with a good bar, I love bar food)

One of the guys told our waiter "I don't eat anything with butter or cream. Oh, and I don't eat bacon."

Hold Up.

You're in a froofy frog shop and you don't eat butter, cream or... bacon?

I might have asked them to leave, or at least questioned their aims of the evening....and I think any Frenchy would have too. I am happy they tried a new place to dine, the experience is everything. But they will need to develop that butter-fetish before making the leap across the pond.

Vegetarians are odd ducks, they baffle me. Someone somewhere gave this definition : VEGETARIAN. ANCIENT TRIBAL SLANG FOR THE VILLAGE IDIOT WHO CAN'T HUNT, FISH, OR RIDE

It seems to me that the gods gave us brains, and those brains said "here's how you make a tool to stab things," and so we did. Granted, it eventually led to war and such, but that's beside the point.

The point is meat is good! And we should eat it. At least I think so.

The art of vegetarian cooking is an unknown to me. I world of mystery and adventure, because let's face it, if you don't have succulent meat juices to liven thing up it's going to be an adventure getting people to eat it and enjoy. And yet I am becoming antsy with my meaty ingredients and wish to broaden my horizons.

Yesterday, a foodie companion graciously treated me to lunch at a Mediterranean joint, Sultan's Market. Now, I know you think I might have slipped on a piece of bacon and hit my head; but one of the things I love most in the culinary world is falafel. It's great! and it's usually completely veg solid. I love this stuff, and can't get enough. And at this place they put this great cucumber salad on the falafel sandwich. Yum... Another (and I think, frankly, better) place to get falafel in the city is taste of Lebanon. Oh man I crave that place on at least a bi-weekly basis.

Then we get home last night and what is waiting for us, but a divine box from my mother (Thanks Mom!) And in it among other lovely treats is a cookbook. A really amazing cookbook, Moosewood Restaurant, new classics. I mean, I've eaten I eaten things made from this book and they are all pretty fantastic. And it's based on the concept of cooking for those with food allergies and sensitivities. So only a few of the recipes have non-vegetarian inclusions, usually fish based. If memory serves, their tapenad is very tasty. I think I will make it soon.

So will I become vegetarian friendly? I hope so. All this animosity I have for their lack of bacon eating needs to end. As someone once asked me, "Where's the love?"

Only time will tell, and then I'll let you know.

 

Porky Publican

The Publican. Chicago.

One of the places the husband and I have been itching to visit. We had been given several chances to go in the past and when they fell through we sadly cried ourselves through dinner in front of our plates at home.

Not this time. This time we went. Post Schubert concertings, it was the obvious choice to go. We were on a budget but the choice of eatery tipped us into it. None of us had been and all of us had it on our lists. And this is what happened.

We waited in the bar for our table of 6 - though it might have well been 8 or 12. This joint has communal long table seating that extends around the room in front of their pen-like booths (complete with swinging doors). Ordering our beers, we chose frites with garlic a., a sliced ham sampling, and house made pork rinds. You heard right. And they were, as one diner put it, "lovely fat popcorns," sprinkled with cayenne or some other spicy red spice combo.

Here's where we should have seen the soon to come challenge. Pork rinds, ham, fatty fried frites. Getting the picture??

Once seated at the table, we get a heads up that one in our dining party, let's call him OC, had a connection with members of the restaurant's team and we might get a few perks. Briefly after fanny met chair, what arrived at our table? Why, more pork rinds and frites. A lot more. So we're already porked up and we get more. Awesome, we think, this is going to be awesome.

Note: this is the kind of place you share everything, so we ordered for the table and shared like good little first graders.

OC ordered wisely some apps.: Grilled octopus, beet salad and yellow fin tuna. These were great. The tuna was a little tough for my tastes, especially for how thin it was cut, but it had good flavor with diced kohlrabi on top - though I thought something like a granny smith apple would have been a more interesting flavor with the same texture element.

Grilled octopus was pretty standard, everyone seems to be doing the same thing with some kind of white bean variant, pretty standard. Yet really, really great. I wonder if there's any other way to have octopus other than grilled that would be just as interesting...

The beet salad. Okay. This was amazing. The chef used golden beets, grapefruit, avocado, red onion, red watercress, and something else I cant remember because the beets were too good, and they have blocked out my memory. Those of you who were there, please remember and tell me. Soon. So I can recreate it at home.

OC expertly ordered a couple of bottles of wine to follow our beers (I had drunk a Matilda, as it is so tasty). Then things got crazy.

Pork. Hmmm. This place has giant pictures on the wall of the fattest pigs you've ever seen. Looking at the menu you see a lot of non-vegetarian choices. In fact, there are no. vegetarian. choices. I think even the beet salad uses pork fat in the dressing.

We ordered the lamb curry, pork belly, sardines (actually an app), and the country ribs for the table.

This was THE fattiest meal I've had eaten.

The pork belly was really well cooked, except the crust was a bit to sweet for me. It was kind of like candied bacon. Still very tender, and had a really nice accomp of roasted cauliflower. The sardines were very good, looked like they were roasted whole...mmmmm. The ribs were HUGE. and very good, though with a thematically large amount of fat present with the meat.

The lamb curry was also made with belly. Lamb belly. And only lamb belly. These lambs were the fattiest little buggers ever created by the maker. At one point, with still three pieces of lamb in the bowl, no actual lamb meat was present. It was all fat. I mean, this was delicious fat, if you could get past the point of it being fat and actually put it in your mouth. And the curry was fine, I guess. Not really a curry, kind of a curry-like infused broth. It did have Jerusalem artichokes in it, which were great and totally complimented the lamb-fattiness.

Now, we had all been waiting to come to this place since its inception. And what did we think? Well. It was good. It was alright. Okay, as one of our fellow diners Lance Manyon said, "It's...it's not worth it." I think Lance was referring to the fact that not only was he gypped on his portion of the octopus being served last, but also that after only a few bites of the lamb, there was no actual lamb meat on the plate. I have to concur on the lamb bit. Though my piece of octopus was great.

So, what did we have for finishings? What else, a waffle. And what was on top? A big, luscious scoop of butter.

Are your arteries hard yet?

I think most eating adventures are better with a friend. Or two, or 7. You know, the more the merrier, unless that means that everyone finishes off the delectables before you get your share. So, sharing in moderation. But sharing none the less.


We love dinner parties. We love giving them, and we love going to them. The husband and I make a point to have them at our home as often as we can. There is something really interesting when you bring people together to eat. It can be the simplest menu possible, if you add a couple extra places, it becomes more fun, more interesting, overall a much better time than you would have on your own. Don't get me wrong a romantic dinner for two is great, but it means something entirely different.

We recently had a few friends over for a dinner using heavily the excuse that it was because a friend was coming from out of town, though we would have had these friends over regardless of travel plans. Making a classic french meal consisting of mushroom soup, frisee salad, Bœuf bourguignon (which I'm realizing we make way too often), and a lemon tart. It was decadent, and lush, and would have meant nothing if not for the people that were at the table.

I think this is why people eating alone is such a sad thing. Having coffee by one's self, or watching a movie, there are activities that are reflective, meditative. They can be done alone and still deliver the same result. But you see someone sitting in a restaurant alone and you automatically get some kind of pit at the bottom of your stomach. That person has no one there to share this ritual experience with.

Gor, that's depressing. Makes me want to want to eat more. Maybe this is why all of America is considered obese, except for stick figured Paris Hiltons. The European communities relish the chance to eat in groups, large family meals are a weekly if not daily, if not every meal occurrence. Conversation is plentiful and the food is too. And yet, we're the country that has the weight problems. All fast and processed food aside, I think this is a cultural community issue.

So go out there and eat with people! Go on, you heard me! Eat a lot, and make it meaningful!

I'll be true to you, ragu

I told someone today I was going to make ragu tonight. He seemed surprised and asked if I really eat that stuff. Yes, he was confusing a ragu with Ragu, the pasta-sauce impostor, which is fine if you're in college and poor and have no taste buds. The former is a completely different thing all together.

The Wiki world defines a ragu as a meat sauce, the word it self coming from French word, ragoût, which is from ragoûte, meaning to retrieve taste. I don't know if that's in reference to cooking things for a long time (the fact you get so hungry waiting for it you just want to "retrieve" it from the stove and chow down), or, that usually in the way you make a ragu, you layer so many flavors you have to make an effort to retrieve their individual flavors.

My ragu usually is a mix of the tradish veg combo, (onion, celery, and carrot) with a couple of garlic cloves, tonight it also includes mushrooms, finely diced; normally I use a mix of ground lamb and ground pork. The wee-sheep was not to be found at the local mart, so I settled for the crude beef instead. Basically you cook the you-know-what out of everything browning little lovely brown bits in the pan. I, then, add a crap load of white wine and chicken stock. Why not beef stock? I really don't know....hmmm. I have not one iota, but that's what I use. And it rocks.

If I'm feeling sassy, I add bacon first and cook the veg in the golden goodness.

The husband loves this meal. It's perfect on a neg degree night (like the -30 winds we have tonight). Like the afore mentioned Irish Stew, it is comfort food through and through.

The first time I had a real ragu was from the source. I was in Italy for multiple weeks and several friends and I had been wanting to try this hole in the wall place that was supposed to be fantastic. Forgive that I can't remember the name, but it was in Lucca near Cafe Leo, but maybe a little north; south of the hostle almost directly. VERY small and their lunch was less expensive than dinner. So we went.

The ravioli with a ragu was one of the specialties. And turns out it's kind of a common thing in the area.

Okay...this stuff was (MAN!) heaven in a bowl. There were only 5 or 6 ravioli, but of course in Italian style, it was the perfect amount.

So, maybe two days later, I'm a lot poorer and having to scrape by, we find a cafeteria style place...what is one of their usual dishes? THE ravioli alla ragu, and it's also amazing, though of course a different recipe. I eat this for like 4 lunches straight when a girlfriend reminds me it's still pasta and no Italian would eat it like that.

So, I stop, and only have it every couple of days.

The trick is you have to let it cook, simmer, bubble away.

Julia Child once said she didn't like Italian cooking because of how few ingredients it includes and how easy it is to make most all of the dishes. She didn't consider it real cooking.

Totally unreal for sure.

Stewing for Grian

It’s winter, and in Chicago the wind blows hard and the temperature drops into the negs, and you feel the depressing nature of how little the sun shines. In these times, comfort food is important; this kind of noshing makes you feel warm and whole, so you can go out and dig your car out from under the 4 feet of snow and ice that has piled around it.

From time in memoriam, and before, people have stewed things. Whether it included meager roots and berries, or wild game and cellar veggies, this form of cooking was a way to make tough meat or the like tender and eatable. In this way, poor peasants were creating the ultimate comfort foods.

Dishes like beef bourguignon, coq au vin, soup de poisson and bouillabaisse (not the same thing), feijoada, and tons of other varieties from various countries have satisfied those of lesser social rankings for hundreds of years before they were seen on Michelin starred restaurant menus. They’ve stayed in existence much longer than the foods of nobility which were costly at the time, but not as creative as those of the serfs.

Creativity out of necessity? New concept? Hmmm.

I have stewed over many a stew. Usually, I go for a bourguignon-type deal with cheap beef cuts and veg, and lots of red wine. (The wine adds acid, and that is mucho importante when cooking, just as important as salt content. Most people add salt when they should really add an acid. In that case you just have really salty still bland food.) The recipe I made last night, an Irish Stew, had not only an entire bottle of wine, but 1/3 cup of vinegar as well. It had huge chunks of carrots and potatoes (hello, it’s Irish), fresh thyme and bay leaf.

One thing though. If I was an Irish peasant, you can bet I wouldn’t have a whole bottle of red wine that I was going to throw into some meat, I would be drinking it. So there must be something else that this recipe was missing for it to be truly Irish. I think it was beer; though beer, also, I would think an Irishman would want to keep to booze on…then again these stews were made by house wives.

Maybe one day, frequently intoxicated Grian O’Bryan came home and is wife Patty had gotten sick of him tipping the bottle while she was trying to cook and raise their 8 children, attempting to find what little variety in her extremely boring child filled existence that she could, and she dumped his entire brew stash into her stock pot. And Grian came home and freaked out, then they sat down to his evening meal and it was an amazing, delicious, unique experience. And Patty never looked back.

I like to think this is how it was. That’s how great recipes get discovered every day.

This stew was really great actually. Next time I am going to try it with a little of Grian’s favorite brew and see what happens.

See Ya' 2008, May You Take Your Troubles With Ya'

So it's been a bit!

What with the holidays and all, things have been busy.

I have been around the block culinarily speaking. Upon returning home to Chicago we had a delish new years.

It all started with an amazing new years eve. I, like probably most of you, joined friends toasting 2008 (even though it was kind of a shoddy year). A friend of ours had us over along with several others. Started off with a cranberry and champagne cocktail, and then proceeded to drink a lot of really bad booze. I mean some of it was fine, and some of it was cheap. Not that there's anything wrong with cheap, but WOW, what cheap bottles we drank. I have to say the prosecco was not bad at all though, oooooh and the rose, man that was good--I have no idea what it was! It probably come to at least 10 empty bottles total...most consumed by the 6 of us that stayed well into the night...

She had lots of yummy snacks. A brie wheel that she covered with a boozed sauce which melted the cheese instantly and it became a lovely goo. And her artichoke spread was great! Though by that point I was too hammered to remember exactly how she made it, but I do remember thinking it was really good.

Returning home well past midnight (oh how late it was), I awoke an extremely short time later and started re hydrating. We had been invited to a 2009 Dinner at another friend's, and I was cooking a side....and baking, which I have to say I am crap at.

But all went well! See, you knew it would turn out okay!

A very good friend of ours lovingly cooked a standing beef rib roast, and served it with both a horseradish sauce and a gravy. He made twice baked potatoes which were heavenly, a salad, YORKSHIRE PUDDING!!!!, and collard greens, which in his family they eat for good fortune in the new year. I contributed a bowl of black eyed peas, a tradition in my family for luck. Now here's the thing. There was this vegetarian that was supposed to come, so we left bacon out of all of the veg dishes, even though it would have been AMAZING!

She did not come.

Neither did the person allergic to mustard. That's a whole other story.

I could not put the traditional porky favorite into my BEANS! I really don't know why I'm making a big deal about this. I sauteed two onions, added a few sprigs of fresh thyme, then sauteed for another bit. Then added salt and Veg stock. It was so good. I mean this was a vegetarian meal I would tell vegetarians there was meat in just so I could eat more of it. SO GOOD.

And I baked a chocolate torte...who knew it was going to come out as well as it did. It was lush and light in texture, but rich and velvety. Ahhh, we left the leftover cake at our friend's, I have to say I was a little sad about that. I could have gotten up that night and eaten the whole thing straight from the fridge.

All in all, 2008 went out the way the whole year felt, one blurry drunken mess, though full of friends and loved ones singing and dancing in their various drunken states. And 2009 came in like a medium rare slice of roast beef with all the fixin's. And I have to say, that's one hell of a way to ring in a new year.

~Happy 2009~