More CSA

Caesar salad with TJ's croutons. But all the real dressing stuff: raw egg (boiled for 60 seconds), anchovies, garlic, Worcestershire, and lemon juice. I think I'd go more garlicky next time.

And: CHARD WITH PARMESAN = greatest idea ever.

This is my first time making chard. Blanch the stems for 60 seconds. Toss with leaves in olive oil (kind of unnecessary), pile on Parmesan (which makes the olive oil unnecessary).

I think this is a...eat it right away kind of dish, as I don't think the crispy, potato-chippy nature of the dish is going to hold up well.

Vegetables. They is betta wif cheese.

Yerm

Joined a CSA (eatwell farm) and got my box today.

Asparagus, 4 sun-ripened strawberries (that I ate immediately), chard, lettuce, a dozen pastured eggs, sugar snap peas, dried nectarines, spinach, scallions, green garlic, lemons, cute little nubbins of carrots.

NUBBINS!



I tossed the asparagus in olive oil, soy sauce, balsamic, S&P. And shoved it all in the oven for a coupla minutes. Quick, easy, and DEEE-RI-CIOUS.

Not fuckin' bad.

I think I'm supposed to take pictures of food I make...like those other bloggin' bitches, but for some reason, that just ain't my stilo. I shall try for next time.

I'mma bake the chard stems with parmesan, make some sort of quiche-y thing with the leaves, green garlic soup au gratin, and I think some Thai carrot soup.

Booyahshaka.

Cokate Quote

So: "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."

I disagree.

Hence the recent cookfest of braised pork belly with bok choy and shitake mushrooms on white rice. So DEERICIOUS.

But, I'mma have to fit into a bikini in two and a half months, so this means only one thing:

EXERCISE.

GAAAAAAH!

Maybe you say, "buy a new bikini"? I say, "money should be spent on a) vacations, b) food on vacations, and c) paying off credit card debt."

20 pounds in a two and a half months. What do you think? Crazy talk?

Chicago, Sunday, April 4, 2010 (I've Been to the Mountaintop II)

I should mention food photography (I mean, besides the obvious fact of my incompetence). I spent the first three and a half minutes at Alinea feeling uneasy about my little Canon PowerShot, and tried to make Tess bear half the blame by forcing her to take an initial photo or two.

First, there's the whole easy-peasy, Japanese-y trigger-happy tourist aspect of it (which is why I'm pushing Tess--white (okay, Jewish!)--to take some of the photos). That's a stereotype worth lookin' at, I think--although maybe it's mostly fundamental attribution error that drives this generalization.

I'm trying to put myself in the shoes of chefs and restaurant owners and food snobs who look askance at the hoi polloi of food photographers and bloggers. I can see how a massive DSLR flaring away might disturb other diners, but why the general distaste, the mincing horror? Evinced by none other than such champions of the unwashed, street-food consuming hordes as A. Bourdain?

I dunno, dawgs. Suffice it to say, I got over my reticence, and got snap-happy, 'cause this shit-bird ain't got but one chance to eat at this motherfuckin' place, so I ain't about to have no proof.

Course 5
We're told, "Think of this as a soup gone wild" (crabs and herpes?). Cubes of sturgeon. Cider vinegar-compressed apple. Dots of potato puree, leek puree, and chive puree. Celery heart leaves and micro celery, radish circles, thin ribbons of celery, buttery bread crumbs, a long strip of red delicious apple "gel sheet," topped off with a crispy ribbon of potato.

My photo


Alinea's photo

Sigh. Someone help me take better pictures.

Course 6
A little amuse-bouche-y type fried thang of shad roe with dehydrated bacon impaled onto a stalk of bay laurel. Not having had shad roe before, it's nothing like I expect, no snap or pop--it's actually more like gently cooked foie gras, creamy and burst-y in the mouth.



Course 7
Here's where the meal starts to get beyond me. Wine in antique stemware, ornate fork and butter knife, a gorgeous bordered plate, and a deconstruction of filet de boeuf Godard in the tradition of Escoffier. There's a centerpiece of Wagyu beef "poached sous vide," "topped with a vegetable matignon," and "wrapped in caul fat and seared to order." Then, around the plate starting at 12 o'clock: "quenelle of beef mousse with trimmings from the wagyu...with mushroom duxelle," tiny slices of braised (for 8 hours) cockscomb, a rilette quenelle of ox tongue, a poached, then breaded and fried sweetbread, "chopped truffles with truffle puree as opposed to the traditional tournee," and a fluted button mushroom.


Someone got to the beef before I could take a photo.


Alinea's photo

Butter knife? To cut the beef? Need I say more?

Course 8
Honey foam, canard a l'orange with foie gras so creamy it's like a gusher in your mouth, morels, and a gelee of orange. A spinach type leafy green. English peas.



Course 9
A piece of crisp smoky bacon drizzled with salty butterscotch, a tiny sprig of thyme embedded in the butterscotch. Hung on a...wire...rocking...chair.




"Diiiing!"

Course 10
We're presented with pillows filled with Earl Gray scented air. We're told to let the pillow air inform our senses as we eat the "cup of tea" dessert: the yolk-like globules of lemon curd and Earl Gray flavored sable-cookie crumble with fennel jam, pine nut brittle, "rose pate de fruit with pectin" "shattered" with liquid nitrogen, white chocolate noodles caramelized sous vide.



I ain't a dessert-y kinda gal, give me a slice of pizza over chocolate cake, any day, but fuck. me, this was amazing.

Course 11
One hockey puck of "warm chocolate custard...set with carrageenan." Frozen chocolate mousse made with liquid nitrogen. Chocolate crumb. Another frozen mousse made from liquid nitrogen, but this time using coconut and looking for all intents and purposes like a de-yolked hard-boiled egg--a DEERICIOUS, coconut sorbet tastin' hard-boiled egg. Chunks of chewy coconut (partially dehydrated spray-dried coconut milk mixed with egg whites and powdered sugar). Dollops of coconut pudding and menthol sauce (Tess ate around the menthol; I disguised it in the chocolate pudding).



Course 12
Hibiscus gelee, creme fraiche, and pink, bubble-yum flavored tapioca. In a glass tube. We're told that it's a "one mouthful" course, but what this really means is a choking hazard--the delight of the thing, the absurdity of taking a "pull," the slurping sound as the mixture shoots into your mouth, the fruity bubble-yum flavor is just a recipe for laughs and for me, red-faced, hand-over-mouth attempts to not snort tapioca up my nose.



I'm not even a fan of bubble gum flavor--I know someone who lervs bubble gum ice cream, which is just all sorts of disgusting to me. But the way this was done, just the pinnacle of bubble gum combined with the "Techno-Emotional" nostalgia of it, the giddy humor. And I think this is what makes Alinea so amazing. Beyond the generally desired criterion of deliciousness, it's food as play, as memory, as magic, as wonder.

Like so:

Oops, Chicago

There is White Castle in Chicago.

And I forgots to eats it.

Boo.

Chicago, Sunday, April 4, 2010 (I've Been to the Mountaintop)

Here's where I come to Alinea. It's raining when we pull up to the slate gray, unmarked building, and I have, um, some difficulty parallel parking into the spot the valet points out to us--yay, free parking!--so the dude comes over and does it for me. I think I'll let the Kia take the blame for that.

Another guy comes over wielding an umbrella for us, and opens the door into a dimly fluorescent pink walkway. It's a little 2001: A Space Odyssey re-imagined as a night club inside a cervix, and, I think, this is in keeping with the Modern McModernson, Forward Thinking, Innovative quality of the cuisine. I start to imagine ladies in mod trapeze dresses wearing pillbox hats. (Which, yes, I understand denotes our not very recent past, but somehow still makes me think "future," as do space packs, flying cars, and raggedy knit sweaters with artfully placed, post-apocalyptic holes.)

Once we get past the next set of doors, though, it's a little less cervical and just straight intimidating and hush hush and measured tones. I think the finer the dining, the fewer women there are--except, of course, as patrons--whether it's the kitchen or at the front of the house. So what we have is men in dark suits all solicitous and genuflecting haughtily (I know, I'm projecting), and I'm feeling a little like an impostor, in my $60 dress from Urban Outfitters and my little cotton hooded jacket from H&M.

I'm feeling poor.

But it's okay. I leave Tess to order the champagne and the pinot to split, and she explains to me that the purpose of the swish of wine at the start of a bottle is actually to test whether the wine's been "corked," spoiled because of "cork taint." And here I thought it was for snooty people to be more snooty and send a wine back for not tasting good. The More You Know.

Some background:

This place has been named best in the U.S., #10 in the world, etc. The chef is Grant Achatz, who's studied with Thomas Keller (The French Laundry, ad hoc, Per Se, Bouchon) and Ferran Adria (alas, poor El Bulli). The cuisine: molecular gastronomy--although, I don't know if anyone who practices molecular gastronomy actually embraces the designation. It's possible Achatz repudiates the term like so many other dudes, but...I'll just use it to loosely describe the use of technology to change the texture, presentation, and experience of food.

(What's interesting about criticism of this kind of culinary risk-taking is how similar it sounds to critique of modern and contemporary art. Replace "art" with "cooking"--"that's not art!" and "what's the point?" and "this is so pretentious.")

At any rate, for me, this experience comes nearly seven years after I read that first NYTimes article about Ferran Adria and "Nueva Cocina," "Techno-Emotional Cuisine," and "Culinary Constructivism," as this movement is variously called.

Tess and I are doin' the tasting menu ($150). It was only Tess' sense of proportion and propriety that prevented me from embarking on "the tour" ($225). None of this includes wine, and the pairing represents another 75% the cost of the food.

As I've mentioned before, alcohol disagrees with me (the next day), so I'm not feelin' too disappointed about just splitting a bottle.

And so it begins. A server comes out with two arrangements that he places to one side of the table, counseling us that "good things come to those who wait."



"What is it?" we're whispering to each other.

I am, as usual, incorrigible, and surreptitiously take the corner of the edible flag and rub it between my fingers. It's har gau skin. Or Vietnamese spring roll skin. Embedded with marigold blossoms, cilantro, and mint.

[brain. explodes.]



Course 1
Steelhead roe in a "glass" pocket made of nutmeg-flavored spun sugar; papaya ("green papaya...compressed with vanilla for a slight sweetness and crunch" and "ripe papaya...compressed with cilantro, basil and l"ime zest"; small diced gel rum macerated with sugar, dehydrated into a rum rock candy; cross-sections of cilantro stem...compressed with vanilla"; "an intense, cleansing ginger liquid" carbonated and made into foam, "resembling a ginger beer"; lime zest and finger lime cells, ginger, basil buds, and cilantro; plantain puree for "an element of richness that unifies the dish texturally with a creamy, coating mouth-feel"; freeze-dried banana...

And according to their website:

Creating a compelling presentation with this many small, individual items becomes a challenge. We found a functional and aesthetically appealing solution in the nutmeg film. The isomalt-based shell is broken up by the guest, and mixes with the other ingredients first providing prominent crunchy texture before dissolving on the palate, without stickiness. We first heat the base to hard crack temperature. While the base is hot, we spoon in the roe mixture, encasing it, as the shell rapidly cools. We present the diner with the resulting "film," in hopes to inspire the audible, tactile and emotional satisfaction of both opening a gift and first cracking the surface of a creme brulee.

We're told to break the glass with our spoons. Briney, sweet. Like the ocean as candy. The intense flavor of basil. Shocking and delicious.

Course 2
Palate cleanser entitled a "Distillation of thai flavors." It's a small flute filled with a clear liquid. We taste: chili peppers, lemon grass, ginger. I say: "That better not have been a motherfuckin' course." It is.

Course 3
We're presented with our next course, and directed to remove the glass top off a tray and place it in front of the wooden tray found below. Next, we're instructed to remove the two metal parts set into the wood and create a platform (presumably to keep the har gau from sticking to a plate). The server takes that flag of har gau, marigold blossoms, cilantro, and mint and delicately (lovingly!) drapes it across the metal "x."

He then ladles a confit of pork belly onto the har gau, lists the ingredients arranged on the glass plate--black Hawaiian volcano salt, four miniscule melon-balled beads of cucumber, chips of deep-fried shallot, tiny banana slices dipped in curry sauce, supremed lime with the tiniest corkscrew of the lime zest resting on top, a still-wet spiral of fresh coconut, minced red onion, hot sauce made of red pepper coulis and cayenne with cayenne, cashews, a pinch of herbs, a sesame seed lemon vinaigrette--and tells us to build our own roll. (There's a warm towel already in a tray for us to clean our hands afterward.)

Tess wisely inquires as to how much of each ingredient we should add, and the server tells us that he usually just uses all of it. Good man.


Befo'


After

And how is it? A MOTHERFUCKING REVELATION. The sweet of the banana against the savory pork, the explosion of volcano salt, the crunch of the cashew, every fuckin' bite is new. I tell the next server that I'd like 10 of the rolls to go, something I'm sure he hasn't heard before, but being waited on makes me nervous, so I tend to get (more) goofy and (more) gauche.

(Video here.)

Course 4
A globe of dishware with a dimple on top. Lobster parfait with a gelee of lobster consomme, grapefruit, freeze dried lobster (?), and a nutty coulis of some sort (probably not nut) topped with FOAM. I forget what the foam tasted like (Ed.: poppy seed nage). At this point, my brain is still fizzing over the last course. It's actually fortunate that some courses aren't as mind-boggling as others, since they'd probably have to scrape chunks of brain matter off their ceilings if every last course made your synapses snap as much as that last one did. But this is still delicious. Lobster ice cream! Who woulda thunk?!



We've been warned not to touch the globe because it was hot--I do it anyway, and it's not--and to place our spoons into the divot when done to signal we're ready for the next portion of the course. Here, the server removes the top of the globe to reveal: a "salad" of lobster chunks with mung bean and some kind of vegetable (Tess thinks). But wait! Are we comfortable with chopsticks? the server asks--I contemplate making a wry remark, but don't--yes, yes we are. Ready? No! Wait! First, a dousing of a lobster cream bisque over the salad, which drains through holes in the dish. (Alas, poor lobster bisque! I knew you but for a moment.)



Perfectly cooked lobster. But is this course over? Nay! The lobster bisque I'd mourned earlier has been waiting for me, having sat with a pile of chai spices. The server takes that and strains it into a glass to make a chocolatey lobster drink. Chocolate lobster milk?! WHO WOULDA THUNK?!



Sorry to be a cocktease, but it's getting late. I'll describe the rest of The Greatest Meal I've Ever Had in loving, pornographic detail tomorrow.

(The chocolate lobster milk. What would I give up to have that every day? Sunshine, health care, and equity for women, I think.)

Chicago, Sunday, April 4, 2010 (Dim Sum and Vaginas)

Got up at 11 after spending the early a.m. hours reading the entirety of The Lovely Bones. Meh to the book.

On our way to dim sum, Tess and I make a pit stop (in my tank of a rental Kia) at Lake Michigan, a vast, and in good weather, foam-green swath big enough to pretend you're by the ocean.



This thing ain't no joke.

There's a 30 minute wait for dim sum at the Phoenix Restaurant in Chicago's Chinatown, so Tess and I hop on over to Saint's Alp tea house for some bubble tea. (Apparently, you don't get the tapioca as a matter of course. I'm like, dude, do you not see me? Do I look like I don't want giant balls of edible starch in the bottom of my drink?)

Then, the usual: greasy pork spareribs chopped into knuckley bits, char siu bao, har gau, shu mai, oily meatballs, shrimp in those slippery rice noodles, steamed tofu skin roll, and...chicken feet.

As shameful as it is, and I know this makes me a discredit to my race, this was my first occasion to eat los pies del pollo. Thoughts? Skin-ny and fatty. It's not the freak show I made it out to be when I was a kid, but it ain't nothin' to write home about neither.

After lunch is another bubble tea joint so the gents can get dessert, I guess. This place is called "Joy Yee Noodle: Pan-Asian Cuisine." They run a take-out counter with myriad bubble teas, bubble slushes, bubble what-have-you, and for the non-discerning client, of course, bubble-less variations of the above. One of the boys orders an avocado shake with tapioca--visions of avocado and chocolate shakes in Indonesia, blech--and while my sip of it is decent enough, an unfortunate childhood incident with avocado, in addition to basic etiquette, prevent any further tastings.

The glass walls are awash in that distinctly Japanese-y of customs: displays of fake food made from dyed plastic, and I notice one simple bamboo tray mounded with (plastic) soba noodles. I'm deeply intrigued by this, and suggest to Tess that we come back and eat here. She doesn't seem convinced, and it's probably for the best, as "Pan-Asian" typically doesn't bode well, and the combination of "Pan-Asian" and "Chinatown" is particularly foreboding.

On our way to drop off one of Tess' friends, we drive past the Vagina Building, aka the Smurfit-Stone Building--there's an apocryphal story around it, that it was a feminist design in response to the phallic heights of the skyscrapers around it, but, alas, the story's been debunked.

The Vag is Behind the Bean

The most women's libby building in the Chicago skyline is actually this guy--I mean, gal on the right, called the Aqua Tower:



It's the tallest building to be designed by a firm headed by a woman. Fascinating, I know. (I mean, I guess it is. Just less fascinating than someone saying, "I'm going to build a giant vagina as a big ol' fuck you.")

We also drive past Wrigley Field, which I'm told is famous because of the Cubs, and Ferris Bueller and, speaking of vaginas, A League of Their Own.

Fun times.

Chicago, Saturday, April 3, 2010 ("Later That Day," or "Don't Forget the Smelts")

Met up with an old college friend for dinner and catch-up at Nightwood, one of those "New American" joints that does the whole sustainable, local thing.

While waitin' on Jimmy, I watched my neighbor valiantly attack a gorgeous lookin' spit-roasted pork loin, which under most other circumstances is likely the entree I woulda ordered. After the intemperance of my lunchtime meal, however, the pork is more monstrous than delectable.

I top myself off, instead, with two appetizers:

1. arugula and a sunny side duck egg on a bed of Anson Mills farro (tastes like barley--I can't really tell the difference)
2. deep fried Michigan smelts with green garlic mayonnaise and some kind of...green

The smelt is important because April is smelt season in Chicago, when folks are supposed to be casting off Lake Michigan and dunking the little fuckers into a deep fryer. I get the feeling the scene's not exactly swinging, either 'cause the fish aren't running or 'cause I just ain't hanging with the right crowd for smelt. At any rate, it was an opportunity for me to eat local, trash fish, so I tooks it.

They were prepared really well, light, crisp on the outside, and tasting like soft-shell crab, the "finniness" of the whole fish texturally similar to the soft-shell exoskeleton, then the buttery insides. You just have to be unfazed at the prospect of biting a head off a fish, and you certainly can't be one of those "I only eat fillets" kind of motherfuckers.

For drank, a non-alcoholic, tamarind rickey (house-made tamarind syrup, lime, and soda), since I am now a half-assed, teetotaler.

(I don't have anything against alcohol, even how it makes people, me included, act when indulged in excess. I just have a shit time recovering the next day. If I can figure out a way to not feel like someone raped my brain the following morning, I'd get right back on the bandwagon. Or off it. Whichever it is.)

Chicago, Saturday, April 3, 2010

Woke up to a lazy Saturday morning in Hyde Park, Chicago--enclave of middle class African-Americans and U of Chicago-affiliated white intellectuals, as College Friend Jimmy so succinctly put it.

Et a piece of matzoh (Yay, Passover! Lamb's blood on the lintel!) for breakfast, and then, several hours later, found myself seated inside Hot Doug's, five dog combos arrayed before me, along with diet coke and two large servings of duck fat fries.





I'll spare the details of the line that shivered down the block, enduring what was probably an unseasonably warm Chicago spring day (try again, sun). Suffice it to say, the hour and a half (more?) delay was ample motivation to break Pesach, so we managed to consume a lion's share of the following:

1. Chicago-style Dog: char-grilled and "dragged through the garden" (mustard, onion, the toxic-green relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato, peppers, and celery salt) on a poppy-seed bun
2. The Atomic Bomb: Damn Spicy Pork Sausage with Spicy Mango Mayonnaise and Coolea Cheese
3. Cherry Pork Sausage with Pomegranate Creme Fraiche and Snow White Cheese
4. The Salma Hayek: andouille with brown mustard, onions, and a pickle

And, the one and only:

5. Foie Gras and Sauternes Duck Sausage with Truffle Aioli, Foie Gras Mousse and Fleur de Sel



There are three principal rivalries between New York, my hometown, and Chicago: the early nineties Knicks v Bulls, the foldable, flour-dusted, heat-lamp New York slice versus the deep dish, and the New York dog (debatable, but frequently: mustard, ketchup, sauerkraut, and if you went to public school and ate free lunch, baked beans) and the Chicago-style dog.

While my loyalties are firmly in the NY camp for b-ball and pizza, I think we've got to concede a loss with regards to "encased meat." The Chicago dog is brighter, more complex in both flavor and texture, the sweet relish against the preponderance of salt, the liquid give of fresh tomatoes against the snap of the dog and the crisp pickle, and then the little flourish, that extra "fuck you" of the poppy-seed bun.

The foie dog, though, was a revelation. An illustrative detail: having saved my last bite for the foie dog, I absentmindedly picked up one of the fries (less spectacular than I expected), and ate it. Horrors! I'd been intent on savoring the residue of foie gras and duck sausage! Frantically, I dabbed the parchment paper that had previously held the foie dog for some last specks of liver so I could prolong the taste. That's true love, right there.

I can't be more specific than this, as the foie gras dog must be experienced to be understood. Let it serve that this foie dog should be marked as one apart, a god among dogs, a leader of dogs, a Christ-dog risen again, having rolled back the stone barring the entrance of his tomb, a dog ascending unto Dog...

There's a tiny, lilac-point Siamese kitty purring frantically for my attention, so that's all for the evening.



(The Atomic was the only one I'd pass on should I ever get a chance. There's "spicy to enhance flavor" and then there's "spicy just for pure spite," and I think the mango mayonnaise was the latter.)

(Can you list the 10 Plagues of Egypt?)