adventures in DIY oysters, no band aids necessary

This past weekend I headed over to Capitol Hill with my friend Ali to check out Barracks Row’s Culinary Education Crawl, a daylong event put on by a group of restaurants and other small businesses along 8^th St. SE, the Hill’s main drag. About a dozen spots opened up their doors and held $10-$20 classes ranging from pizza making at Matchbox to baking classes with Hello Cupcake. Very cool indeed. Ali had sent me a link for an oyster shucking class earlier in the week, and being ardent lovers of the raw bar/supporters of local business, we figured we’d thrown down our twenty bills and check it out.

The class was held at Senart’s Oyster Bar and Chop House, which neither of us had been to before. A little overeager to start shucking, we got there about 15 minutes early and warmed our butts by the fireplace, which made a very good first impression, while the class before us finished up their last few shells.

A few minutes later we took our seats at the bar and listened to Senart’s chef kindly and repeatedly explain the proper knife wielding techniques to ensure that we didn’t maim the inside of our palms. (An accident prone individual, I listened very carefully.) After a few more minutes of instruction re: finding the oyster’s notch and applying the right amount of pressure, we were left to our own devices with a pile of P.E.I.'s, free to eat whatever we could open.

Baby's first oyster

Turns out shucking oysters isn’t as hard as I had thought it would be. Maybe I’ve watched too many quick fire challenges gone wrong? My first little guy popped open with relative ease, much to my childlike satisfaction, and though there were a few tough ones, you get into a rhythm pretty quickly. Following the chef’s sage advice, “don’t rush the wiggle” Ali and I both polished off over a dozen, which we washed down with the complimentary draught beer included with our ticket. Raw shellfish and beer…the perfect afternoon or the perfect afternoon?

Throughout the course of the hour we also learned about several different types and their flavor profiles…why some are mellow and sweet while others are briny or minerally, and how the environment of the beds they grow in affects the shape and color of their shells. Knowledge. 

After the class ended we walked over to Eastern Market, one of my favorite places in the city, and ambled around the outdoor vendors, taking advantage of the unseasonably warm day (and season, really). It was an awesome way to spend a Sunday afternoon, in a part of the city I don’t get to nearly enough. I’ve lived in DC for a year and a half now, and I sometimes struggle to feel ownership of my home here. But if I could have a few more Sundays like this last one, I think it would start to come to me. 

PS, typical of my excitable personality, I'm now extremely preoccupied with the idea of having an oyster shucking/prosecco drinking party when the weather warms up a little bit. Oyster lovers only. 

taking in the big easy, one meal at a time

Last month I finally made it to New Orleans, a city I’ve wanted to visit for years. Jake happened to be there for work, so I flew down at the end of the week and we tacked on a few extra days.

Prior to arriving I’d written down all the things I wanted to see and do, and I have to admit up front that I didn’t accomplish half of them, mostly because I prioritized stuffing my face over seeing the sights. I spent a LOT of time eating and poking my head into different restaurants and shops. It’s an easy place to get distracted and lose a couple hours roaming around, listening to street musicians and meeting people. 

But I don’t regret changing course, since part of New Orleans’ beauty for me was the lack of urgency I felt, as if the city were saying to me, “Relax, I’ll be here next time.” So we set about exploring, less focused on an agenda and more reliant on a few recommendations from friends and family (and the nav on my iPhone).

My first meal was none other than a shrimp po’boy. There are dozens of places to get a great po’boy in Nola. We chose Mother’s, a no frills Creole cafeteria, partly because it had awesome reviews, but mostly because it was 3:30, I hadn’t eaten yet, and it was close by. Lucky choice on our part. The sandwich overflowed with the freshest, most tender fried shrimp and cool, crunchy slaw on a soft baguette that wasn’t trying to compete with its contents. It was at once sloppy and delicate, and I would’ve been tempted to order a second if there wasn’t also a big bowl of jambalaya to contend with.

Another highlight was the several dozen gulf oysters we slurped down at various locations. I don’t know why, maybe it’s the abundance of local product (I’ll have to look this up) but gulf oysters only cost a buck a piece, as compared to the $2-$3 they’ll run you up north, so we really gorged ourselves. I couldn't date somebody who wouldn’t share an oyster platter with me.  

One of my favorite experiences of the trip wasn’t at a restaurant, but a visit to a cookbook store in the French Quarter called KitchenWitch. The owners, Philipe and Debbie, opened the store 2 months after Katrina hit in an effort to start breathing life back into the city, and both work second jobs to keep it going. It’s a crazy, haphazard collection of cookbooks with a focus on Southern and Creole cuisines, mixed with rare first editions of classics, like Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

I wandered the store for an hour, stopping often to pet the owners’ three dogs, who apparently found my cooing extremely blasé and snoozed away despite my best efforts. I was so taken with the cozy, eccentric, and quintessentially New Orleans space. If you’re ever in town, stop by.

Towards the end of the trip we finally made our way to the legendary Café Du Monde for some beignets and café au lait. For five bucks we sat in the 150 year old open-air café with a hundred or so fellow tourists and split a plate of three hot, puffy, sugar-drenched donuts and drank chicory coffee. It was simple and perfect.

We also ate a couple of exceptional dinners. I couldn’t leave New Orleans without eating at a John Besh restaurant. We tried Luke for oysters and a (surprisingly) fantastic burger, and Domenica, because in my daiquiri-fueled state that night, the Jerseyan in me really wanted pizza. They didn’t disappoint.

But the main event was dinner at Cochon, Donald Link’s homage to all things pork. The dimly lit space  has the whole “haute barn” thing going on with a warm, inviting vibe and diners in casual dress.

I didn’t get any pictures, as it was the sort of place that shames you from doing anything other than enjoying your food. Besides, I will remember the braised pork cheeks with gremolata and applesauce for the rest of my life. I also broke away from the pork-centric menu and tried rabbit for the first time at our server’s suggestion.  Served in a “pot pie” of sorts, underneath pillowy dumplings, I ate the entire dish in blessed out agony, refusing to admit that I was full and miss out on a single bite. The whole experience was nothing short of incredible. 

There were so many other memorable bits and pieces, like getting to see a good friend from college, but I feel this post getting long. So I’ll just say that New Orleans was amazing and I can’t wait to go back. The people there enjoy life in a way I haven’t experienced in any other city, and it reflects in even their most casual food. In short, it’s my kind of place. 

Oh. And if you are my size, do stop after one Hurricane, or else you will end up looking like this.

Counting down the days til I'm back in the Big Easy,

Kira

a year in food and the people who feed us

Earlier this week, The Daily Meal released their annual list of America’s 50 Most Powerful People in Food. It’s not a list of best knowns – no Paula Deen or Rachel Ray here, and by my count there’s only one woman with a cookware line. (#49) But for anyone interested in the country’s foodscape, it’s a fascinating collection of people who influence what, why and how we eat right now.

The list covers every aspect of the industry, from acclaimed chefs whose restaurants we’d die to eat in to the CEOs of national grocery chains, TV personalities we watch faithfully to government agencies responsible for the safety of our food, authors, activists, and a whole lot of ground in between. I’ve been through it 4 or 5 times and I’m still overwhelmed by the breadth of the space. There are so many moving parts in our food culture.

In my opinion, some of the most interesting takeaways from this ranking are the juxtapositions that emerge as you click through, which only highlight how vast the system is. I doubt they did this on purpose, but I paused for a long minute when the CEO of Costco ranked one behind the New York Times Restaurant Critic. But as momentarily thought provoking as that might be, I also think it’s a pretty fair illustration of our culture’s relationship with food – the way the elite mingles seamlessly with the everyday, and how many of these interactions go unnoticed.

For example, I’m sure I’ve drank Tropicana OJ, gone to Trader Joe’s, read Food and Wine, watched an episode of Top Chef, written a Yelp review and passed a PETA canvasser on the street in a single day. And by simply going about my business I’ve engaged with 6 of the 50 in one 12-hour stint. Kind of mundane. Kind of wild. There’s no one way to look at it.

And of course the flip side is also true. While many of these people and their spheres of influence can coexist and even overlap without friction, the list also brings to light some ongoing tensions between people and organizations whose missions exist in stark contrast to each other.

Take 9 and 41. The former is the CEO of a controversial biotech giant that produces genetically altered seeds, pesticides and growth hormones for most of the country’s farms. They feed a majority of America, and you’ve probably eaten produce grown from Monsanto’s patented seeds. The latter is President of a nonprofit sustainable farming movement aimed at improving the way farms produce food, and a champion of local and organic agriculture. Both aim to feed us, but they represent opposing ends of the food systems spectrum. (Slow Food USA recently lent its voice of support to a class action lawsuit brought against Monsanto by a group of small farmers.)

So the list is a snapshot of what’s happening in food right now, and a glimpse into the many separate ways we’re growing. There’s a lot going on and naturally it doesn’t all agree with each other. But it does confirm that food is front and center more than it ever has been, from the value we place on its production to the stock we put in what others say about it. Take Yelp, whose CEO comes in all the way at number 3. User generated content is now the go-to before choosing a restaurant, holding equal weight or even superseding the voice of respected critics. Fair or unfair, I know I won’t go anywhere with shitty Yelp reviews.

But the power isn’t given to consumers alone. Yelp is a huge reputation management opportunity that provides business owners a forum to engage in dialogue with their customers, and by extension, the ability to create loyalty if they play the game right.

And if you needed any further confirmation of the ever expanding role that food plays in our daily lives, look no further than the Food Network, whose President sits at the very top of the food chain. (hee!) Its programming appeals to Midwestern moms and metropolitan gourmands alike, and without it there would be no concept of the celebrity chef as we know it.

I happen to believe that the world would be a better place without Guy Fieri, but I’ll take the bad with the good…the good being all the other food-focused programming it's paved the way for. Second to icons like Julia Child, the Food Network created an empire out of encouraging everyday people to mess around in their kitchens, and made cooking accessible and exciting along the way. Fist bump for that.

So this is where we stand right now. I’ll be curious to see how the list changes next year to reflect all of 2012’s happenings. Check out last year’s here if you feel so inclined.

on bad habits and kitchen commitments

One of my most persistent flaws is a lack of organizational skills. Anyone who knows me well can attest to this. I’m kind of messy, I don’t keep a planner, and I’m not in the habit of making to-do lists. I suspect that my boss has picked up on this deficiency of mine, as she often says, “My motto is, if it’s not in writing, it doesn’t exist.” I think she made that motto up for me…

I once bought a stylish agenda as a sort of commitment device, but the only thing I ever used it for was to write down the details of overly ambitious dinner parties I wanted to throw and to make grocery lists. We are who we are.

However, in the spirit of this blog, and in the interest of feeding better meals to the people I love, I thought I would put down in writing some of the things I want to accomplish in my kitchen in the near future. As an aside, there are few things more satisfying to me than feeling like I’ve produced something I could proudly feed a friend.

Some of these I’ve yet to tackle — number 5 comes to mind whenever it goes below 50 degrees, but I always end up cheating — and others I’ve attempted a handful of times but have yet to achieve the desired result. Number 2, in particular, eludes me. Either way, I'm looking forward to working on these and sharing them with anyone who will have some.

Things to prepare...

1. Pasta from scratch
2. Perfectly seared scallops
3. Hand whisked mayonnaise
4. Crispy, matchstick French fries
5. Real, homemade chicken noodle soup
6. Infused olive oils and vinegars
7. Authentic tasting Indian dishes
8. The mother sauces

Skills to develop/habits to adopt...

1. Cook red meat with more confidence
2. Learn more about wine
3. Try one new recipe per week
4. Clean as I cook, not after

I'm not especially optimistic about that last one, but I'm going to try. Hopefully this blog serves as a more successful commitment device than that leather agenda. Time will tell.

when life gives you green tomatoes, fry them

You always want what you can’t have…an often-used saying that sums up our tendency to long for the unattainable. I know it well. Two things. Naturally straight hair — a stubborn and inconsistent curl pattern is not an easy thing to live with —and lately, ripe tomatoes. But this is a food blog, not a hair blog, so today I’m writing about the lack of good tomatoes in my life at the moment and how I get around that.

During the summer, my neighborhood has an awesome little Saturday farmers market about two blocks from my apartment. My favorite vendor is Chesley Vegetable Farms due in part to their impressive selection and abundance of tomato varieties. Check these babies out.

All summer long I’ve got the goods for salsa, tomato salads, and the occasional batch of red sauce to hoard away in my freezer when I am especially high on both ambition and time. Read: not often. But the tomatoes disappear in late September to make way for apples, and a few months later the market closes up shop until next spring. Inevitably I will add tomatoes to my list for the grocery store — since I can’t be expected to cut them out of my diet all together just because the local growing season is over, now can I — only to be met, year after year, with watery, hard, flavorless disappointment. I continue this dance for a few weeks, until I force myself to rip the band aid off and stop buying them when they’re not in season.

Pause for knowledge. Last fall I read a post on Eatocracy and learned that a good majority of the country’s winter tomatoes are picked when they’re green, reddening (but not ripening) when exposed to ethylene gas. The more you know…

(An old book on produce that I found at Omnivore Books on a trip to San Francisco this summer. If you squint, you’ll see that the author also laments the absence of quality year round tomatoes. I'm not alone.)

This somewhat lessens the urge I feel when passing them in the aisle, since the thought of biting into a raw green tomato is not altogether appetizing. However, the value of the green tomato is not lost on me, as I’ve realized in recent winters that it possesses quite a bit of utility, which is especially valuable when we’re starved for the real deal.

Enter the fried green tomato, currently enjoying a wave of popularity on restaurant menus, and also in my kitchen. They’re great on their own with remoulade or a simple aioli, and a luscious change up for the T in a BLT. Frying them delivers the soft flesh you associate with a ripe tomato, accompanied by a mellow tang and hot crispy exterior. Yum. People use various coatings…some like all flour, some all cornmeal and others use panko/more traditional breadcrumbs. I’m personally a fan of combining the silkiness of flour with cornmeal’s grit. Give this one a try, or play around to find your own method.

(Im)patiently awaiting summer's tomatoes,

Kira

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Recipe:

4 medium green tomatoes

1 cup buttermilk (you can use regular, but I like the tang buttermilk provides)

½ cup all-purpose flour

½ cup cornmeal

1 teaspoon garlic powder

½ teaspoon each cayenne pepper, kosher salt

vegetable oil, enough to shallow fry, about ½ inch deep in skillet

Slice tomatoes about 1/3 inch thick, expect 4 or 5 good slices out of each tomato.Mix the flour, cornmeal, salt, garlic powder and cayenne in shallow bowl. Pour buttermilk in second shallow bowl. Heat oil on medium in a large skillet or pan. Dip tomato slices in buttermilk, then dredge in the flour/cornmeal mixture and drop into the oil in batches of 4 or so, taking care not to crowd them. Flip when golden brown, after 2-3 minutes, and fry another 2 minutes on the other side.

Remove tomatoes and place on paper towels or a cooling rack. A cooling rack will keep them crisper on the bottom, but paper towels will do in a pinch. Enjoy!

For a BLT, eat on thickly sliced multigrain bread or a baguette, spread with lemon mayo, a few slices of bacon and a fat handful of arugula.

Other toppings to mix and match: thinly sliced granny smith apples, pesto, avocado, cucumbers, watercress

where would i be without bacon?

The first smell I can remember is bacon frying.

I was four years old, or at least young enough for Jem and the Holograms to still be showing re-runs on Saturday mornings. Remember that one?

I would plop myself in front of the tv, and soon enough the comforting smell of bacon would waft its way to me. At this point I would go down to the kitchen, sneak a piece from the plate it was resting on, and watch the second act, pancakes. I loved this part.

My dad specialized in K-shaped pancakes, which my sister Krissa (convenient) and I ate with endless amusement. When breakfast was ready, I would crumble most of my bacon on top of the edible letters, reserving a couple pieces to dunk straight into a bowl of maple syrup like Oreos into milk, the best sweet and savory 1-2 punch five bucks can buy, and a Saturday tradition I honor faithfully.

I think the idea of tradition is what sticks out most about those breakfasts for me. I’ve always been especially comforted by traditions, the steady sameness of them time after time. I’m not someone who is especially freaked out by change, but it’s nice to return to the things that make you happy, especially when they are delicious. Food is a powerful anchor for memories, and those breakfasts were one of the pillars of my early childhood.

So when I smell pancakes rising or bacon sizzling, I remember being four, and soon enough I’ve triggered a whole stream of memories from those years…simple material things like this one especially soft purple sweater of my mom’s, and stories that have been told a hundred times, like the day I tried to ride my Barbie Jeep to the mall. (I was apprehended at the top of the block.) In my first post I wrote that consumption is intensely personal, and this is one of the ways I meant that. Everyone has their own triggers that evoke vivid memories of certain times or places, and in some cases they go so far as to influence our preferences and habits.

For example, I sometimes lapse into periods of half assed vegetarianism for a week or two at a time, characterized by a lot of lentils, quinoa, and other "plant based proteins" that my boyfriend Jake refers to as rabbit food. I’ve often considered making a more serious commitment, but it always comes down to bacon. I just fucking love it. Sorry. Case in point, I keep a container of reserved bacon fat in my fridge, and the good people of Phillips Deli know exactly how I like my BLT. (on toasted wheat, with avocado and sprouts, should you ever need to know)

Bacon is, simply, one of my favorite foods. And I can’t help but wonder if that has to do, in some small part, with the positive associations I keep. Aside from the fact that it’s one of the world’s most perfect foods, in all its salty, chewy, crispy deliciousness, I think it’s infinitely more appealing to me thanks to memories of eating it crumbled on top of K-shaped pancakes.

PS – Evidently, pancake artistry is not a genetic trait. Mine suck.

my introduction

I would say I’ve always been a food lover, but that’s not entirely true…not the way I am today, anyway. While food has always held a significant role in my life, its place and meaning are constantly shifting. My evolution from picky little shit to simply a person who enjoys eating and tries to do it well has been a long process.

I’m still evolving, and I’m starting this blog to write about that and some other things…meals I cook and meals cooked for me, meaningful pieces of food journalism I’ve read, and Proustian memories of tastes and smells that have shaped my appreciation for eating. Writing and food are two of my greatest loves, so this is my little project to try and combine them. I hope that people will read it and be able to relate their own experiences to mine.

Beyond these personal reflections, I have a fascination with food and its relationship to daily life, not the least of which has to do with its consumption, an intensely personal yet inherently public part of living. So much of our time is spent thinking about it, buying it, savoring it, struggling with it. We treat it differently depending on the family we grew up in, the culture we live in, and a myriad of other influences that often go unnoticed. And food is at the forefront of popular culture right now in a way that it never has been, enjoying a celebrity that translates to your average person being much more likely to know what sous-vide means. All worth talking about, in my opinion.

I should mention that I’ve been chewing on the idea of this blog for about two years, either too busy or preoccupied with things like it’s “voice” to get it started. I had the same nasty little procrastination habit with papers in college, but deadlines eventually force you to write, and the words come, and the result is usually pretty consistent assuming you’re not running on Red Bull fumes. In this case, I have no imposing deadline, but I’m operating on that same principle.

Yesterday I was scanning a list of potential topics I’ve been keeping, looking for some linearity or theme among them, when I felt a rush of that same ephemeral New Years motivation that gets people in the gym for about three weeks. Riding that wave, I wrote this post. Fair enough.