Squirrels & Beer

The Problem With Pork

2010-10-27T20:00:00.012-04:00

Not a great picture... but hey, it was a great dinner. Ossabaw pork tenderloin, cooked to a rosy medium from Nature's Harmony Farm.

I'll preface this post by saying that though backed by a few factual bits, most of this post is editorial.

Most people have had a pork chop. Unfortunately many of those same people have had bad pork chops. It's not the pigs fault really, or even the cook's fault to some extent, it is the sCaRy trichina worm. Trichinella spiralis to be specific. I along with millions of other home cooks, were raised with the thought that you had to cook pork thoroughly to kill this parasite. It just isn't true. Fortunately for those of you reading this, you can rest assured that I will help dispel this myth and help you cook a better pork chop.

Let me back-track a bit. Trichinosis was at one time a more significant concern than it is today. In decades of yore (let's say my grandparent's generation), the pigs that were raised for human consumption in factory farms were fed garbage. Food scraps, waste from restaurants, waste from food processing plants, and other tasty bits. Of course because they were pigs they didn't much care: if it was tasty, well then that was just fine. Trichinosis infection in people was somewhat common. According to my trusty interwebs netpages research, approximately 1 in 6 people were infected in the 30's and 40's. Today the pigs are still fed food scraps, but those scraps are cooked. Let's call it gourmet garbage, because cooked rotting beef parts and banana peel just sounds so much more appetizing. Partly as a result of this cooking, there has been a significant drop of trichina worms in pigs raised for consumption during my parent's generation. We'll call this the 50's and 60's. This paragraph is where I should include a reference or two but hey, it's a blog not a research paper... Just trust me.

Old habits die hard. You can't expect people to change their cooking habits overnight, things like this take time. How 'bout we give people 60 years to rid themselves of the nasty habit of mercilessly overcooking pork? Done... and here we are today. Today we live in a world where pork raised in the US is virtually free of the trichina worm. Even if the parasite was present in pork, the US Department of Agriculture says that it is killed in under one minute at a temperature of 140 degrees F. At 140 degrees F commercial pork is often rosy pink and still relatively juicy depending on the cut, but in my experience there is a narrow window where this pork is done perfectly. Because of the lack of fat in commercial pork, going too far above 140 F and you can end up with that dreaded, dry hockey puck.

So now we have a new problem. While we were eliminating the parasites found in pork, we were also breeding the fat (and thus flavor) out of the meat. The perception was that leaner is better. The National Pork Board is proud of this fact. They often compare it to lean poultry when in actuality pork shouldn't be all that white or lean to the point where it has virtually no intramuscular fat. Real pork - pork with flavor - is varying shades of dark pink or red.

For a long time, pork fat was the enemy. The rain on our pork parade. While we shouldn't gorge ourselves on pure pig fat (please kindly disregard my previous posts on Lardo di Arnard), there is a silver lining to that porky rain cloud. The fat in some pork, especially pastured or true, free range pork, rivals the levels of heart healthy oleic acid found in olive oil. Doesn't sound too bad does it? What if you heard that pork fat was lower in saturated fat than butter? It is. The pastured pigs found at an ever increasing number of farms dine on natural forage. Nuts, acorns, tubers, bugs, etc. This natural forage and the ability to roam freely (within reason of course) on wooded pasture is what lets pigs be happy and healthy. A happy and healthy pig produces happy and healthy meats for the consumer.

Now where can you, the "average consumer" find this pastured pork? You could take the time to drive out to a farm, talk to the folks who raised it, see the environment in which it was raised, ask a few questions, and eventually buy some pork and trek back home. Seriously, I would recommend it - but in reality not everyone has the time or the desire to do such things. We want convenience. So what if that same farmer instead came to your town and delivered that pork to you? Would that be convenient enough? You're in luck. How about you check out the new Farm Train from Nature's Harmony Farm. It is an easy way to buy direct from the farm on a fairly regular basis. Just go to the link above or visit Nature's Harmony website and enter your email address in the bottom right corner. They will notify you of upcoming deliveries and send you an email when it's time to buy.

Go getcha some.

Oh they have chicken (and eggs), beef, cheese, lamb, rabbit, heritage breed turkeys and other meats too but perhaps those belong in a different post.

Beer in Squirrels

2010-07-22T18:34:00.051-04:00

Yes, I said beer in squirrels. Just take a look at that picture for crap's sake. In what some people (like me) could describe as the single most perfect bottle of beer for this blog, the BrewDog folks across the pond in the UK have developed the world's strongest beer weighing in at an ENOURMOUS 110 proof... 55% alcohol. The beer is called The End of History. Click that link to read more about it or watch the video below. To top off this gargantuan feat, they have chosen one of the most hilarious bottling gimmicks of all time: they put that bottle of beer inside a squirrel. As a dedicated beer drinker and admirer of all things squirrel, I will take it upon myself to buy one of these bottles of beer.

What? What was that? You said it will cost $762 per bottle? Maybe I'll have to save my pennies for this one, or in what some people (like me) would describe as a very generous act of kindness, perhaps those fine upstanding fellows Martin Dickie and James Watt would send me a bottle for review. I'd be quite happy to report my findings here.

The End of History from BrewDog on Vimeo.

I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you that my squirrel kill count is approaching a milestone - my current count is 190.

Late Spring

2010-06-12T18:15:00.003-04:00

Late Spring has brought with it hot temperatures and an explosion of growth in our little garden. As I write this, today's heat index is 100 degrees... and the chilies love it. Hopefully, here is a preview of what is to come from our little 8x8 foot garden. This year I planted 4 tomato plants (yellow grape, black cherry, sun gold, beauty heirloom), 4 chilies (serrano, jalapeno, chile de arbol, coloro cascabella) and some herbs. Based on the yellow grape tomato flowers (above) we'll be getting a nice bounty this year. The black cherry tomato (below) plant is winning the race on fruit production and I hope to get some tomatoes in the next couple of weeks. I can't wait!

Green Market on Green Street in Roswell

2010-05-16T12:34:00.005-04:00

There's a new farmers market in town. The Green Market on Green Street in downtown Roswell is one of the newest markets in the Atlanta area but this past Thursday, market manager Kathy Mullen and the vendors looked like seasoned pros. The fact that the market is held on Thursday evenings makes it a great alternative to the grocery store. It is located just off Green Street on the grounds of Swallow at the Hollow. Not only is it in a great location, easily accessible from all points of downtown Roswell, but the fact that it is located on Swallow at the Hollow property means you can grab a glass of wine as you peruse the goods.

Opening day was cheerfully busy and vendors from within a 100 mile radius of Roswell came out to peddle their produce, cheese, meats, bread, smoked trout and salmon, eggs, fudge, honey, knife sharpening skills, milk, yogurt... just to name a few. The market is hosting vendors and farmers that are organic or Certified Naturally Grown. On select Thursdays when Alive after Five coincides with market days there will be specially themed events:

May 20 - Strawberries Alive!

June 17 - Blues and Blueberries!

July 15 - HOT!HOT!HOT! - peppers and local microbreweries.

August 19 - Tuscany in Roswell - tomatoes, herbs, pasta and Pavarotti.

So if you're in the area, stop by on Thursdays from 5 to 8 PM at 1072 Green Street, Roswell, Georgia 30075. The market will run through October 28, 2010.

No More No Knead

2010-04-01T08:18:00.068-04:00

No knead bread was soooo 2006. What... you still like planning 18-20 hours in advance to bake and enjoy your bread? You like dealing with incredibly super-sticky dough? All that and sometimes you still end up with failure. Welcome to the future: Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I started making this bread a few weeks ago after listening to Farmcast, a podcast from Nature's Harmony Farm.

The process is incredibly simple. Mix together some flour, water, salt and yeast and let it sit on the counter to rise for about 2 hours. In this regard it is similar to the no knead method (no kneading required). After that cover it, refrigerate it, and use it within 2 weeks. 2 weeks! How awesome is that?

Here's where the "5 minutes" part comes in: whenever you want some bread (say when you get home from work) take the dough from the fridge, cut off a grapefruit sized chunk, quickly form it and plop it on a pizza peel sprinkled with corn meal. It takes about 5 minutes (get it?). What do you do with the rest of the dough? Put it back in the fridge of course. You'll get about 4 loaves of bread from the master recipe.

Let the dough rest for 40 minutes on the pizza peel and preheat your oven to 450 with a stone on the top rack and a broiler pan underneath. After 40 minutes, slash the dough with a serrated knife, slide it onto the stone, and pour about a cup or so of water into the broiler pan. Careful, you're going to get lots of steam so don't burn yourself. 30 minutes in the oven and you get this...

I won't reprint the recipe here, but the master recipe that I've described above can be found in the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking or you can find it reprinted with permission on the web. I suggest looking at these websites, The Global Gourmet, or Mother Earth News. I don't see the need to ever make no knead bread again.

Lardo di Arnad: Part 2

2010-03-29T19:45:00.029-04:00

Back in late December I started the process of curing a hunk of fatback from what I later determined to be an Ossabaw hog. The fatback came from Nature's Harmony Farm of course... would you expect anything different at this point?! Originally I was going to cut the fatback into smaller pieces to make lard, but Jason who I'll call an expert on the subject of curing meats, suggested that I make Lardo di Arnad. So I did.

The process was relatively simple: boil some water, dump in some salt and spices and, once it was cool, toss in the hunk of fatback. I guess the hardest part was waiting the 3 months for it to cure. The result? At first I must admit I was skeptical. The water had turned a dark brown (see above) and it smelled quite strong. Kind of like spices sitting in salty water for 3 months with a hunk of fatback. So I cut off a piece, toasted some homemade bread and laid thin slices of the Lardo di Arnad on top of the hot toast to partially melt (see below). Holy crap this is good stuff. Salty, silky, and hugely flavorful with a wonderful pork flavor. I'm quite pleased with the results.

So far I seem to be the only one in this house who eats the stuff... and I've got lots. Come on over and try some.

Hog Butchering Class at Nature's Harmony Farm

2010-03-15T20:00:00.068-04:00

Early Saturday morning I set out on a day trip to Elberton, Georgia to visit friends and farmers Tim & Liz Young at Nature's Harmony Farm. This visit was quite different from past visits: this day we butchered half a Berkshire hog raised on the farm!

When I started telling people about the event, their ~~visceral~~ first reaction was to think we were actually killing the hog. This was not the case; the killing was done a couple days prior to our arrival to allow for hanging time and minimal processing like removing hair, taking out the internal organs and bisecting the hog into two halves. Below is the half hog just before we started.

The class began with lessons on how to render lard, how to make bacon, and how to use some of the less-used cuts of pork like the head. Tim explained the simple curing process for bacon and then we sawed off the hocks, all of which were placed in the smoker. Liz then showed us how she took the head to make porchetta di testa: a deboned, rolled, and cooked pig's head. Of course they were nice enough to share and we were more than happy to taste test. Everybody likes bacon, but the real treat was the porchetta di testa - good job Liz!

Removing the hock

Tim putting cured pork belly in the smoker to make hickory smoked bacon.

For more information on porchetta di testa, check out the video below.

Around noon we took a break for a farm tour and a quick bite to eat, then class resumed - now it was time to get down and dirty. There are a few different schools of thought on what constitutes a section or primal of a hog, but today we focused on three sections: the shoulder, the loin and belly, and the ham. These primals are further broken down into smaller cuts that are more recognizable: the shoulder was separated into the Boston butt and the picnic ham, the tenderloin was removed, the loin was sliced into chops, and while most everyone will recognize a ham, we cut into ham steaks to fairly distribute the meat among the 8 attendees. Enjoy a few pictures.

Check out video that Tim and Liz put together of the day's events.

The class was really fantastic. While most of us were generally familiar with what cuts come from what part of the pig, actually breaking down this half of a hog was an amazing learning experience. There are several more classes this year that include chicken, lamb, and turkey butchering, as well as meat curing and cheese making classes. Details are here if you're interested. Thanks Tim & Liz!

Pilgrims & Oysters

2010-02-02T19:16:00.006-05:00

Call it a pilgrimage. On the way back from a Lake Tahoe ski trip last week, I convinced my car mates to make a slight detour to see Thomas Keller's The French Laundry. We didn't have the time, nor did we have the cash to actually make it inside for dinner (4 people for dinner would have cost over $1,000), but it was a fun detour through Napa, Yountville, and then on to Sonoma. While we were there I ran into Culinary Gardener, Tucker Taylor tending to the garden with vegetables grown specifically for The French Laundry's kitchen. Pretty sweet deal. Tucker was at one time based in Atlanta at Woodland Gardens. His stall at the Morningside Farmer's Market every Saturday was always packed, often with a line of 10 people or more waiting to buy some prized tomatoes. Tucker was nice enough to let us walk through the garden and see the sights.

The Napa Valley scenery was really nice. To be honest it's really all I care to see in Napa. I've been on one wine tour in my life and from what I've heard, I've seen it all. Usually you're shown the vineyards (we saw them) then you're shown the storage tanks/barrels (didn't see them), and then you're shown to the buy-some-room, I mean tasting room. We can get Napa wines here in Atlanta for what is likely the same price if not cheaper when you add in shipping costs. So what did we miss out on by not touring any vineyards? We didn't see any wine barrels. OK I take that back, I saw a tractor-trailer full of new oak barrels driving down the road. So there you have it: the fastest, and cheapest visit to Napa Valley of anyone I've ever met. Here's a pretty picture from the car.

From there we drove west through Sonoma (just about the same as Napa) towards Point Reyes National Seashore. Culinarily speaking, I think Point Reyes is most famous for it's Point Reyes Blue Cheese but our immediate goal was to see the picturesque California coast. We certainly saw it and it's monster waves. The picture below doesn't do justice because there is no scale, but these were some pretty big waves. After wave watching we stopped for lunch at Priscilla's Pizzeria & Cafe in Inverness, California. Despite the name of the place I had some really good oysters from Drakes Bay Oyster Farm - just up the road by about 2 or 3 miles. 6 raw and 6 BBQ oysters is what I ordered and they were really fantastic. These oysters were monsters with a deep bottom cup shape to hold all that liquor. Fantastic.

When we arrived in San Francisco we were about pooped, but dinner was still to be had at Zuni Cafe: a well established standard for Californian cuisine in the city. Dinner was great but I think the Ferry Building Farmers Market the next morning was more exciting. From cheese, to meats, to bread, to an incredible spread of vegetables, it was a fantastic market. I had a breakfast of Blue Bottle Coffee, sourdough bread from Acme Bread Company, and oysters from Hog Island Oyster Company. The beauties below are Kusshi (smaller, on the right) and Chelsea Gems (larger, on the left). I haven't had oysters like these in probably 10 years. Cold, crisp, and sweet is the best way that I can describe them. If you don't like raw oysters after trying these, you're a sissy.

Ferry Building Marketplace

Overall, the trip was great. From the snowy slopes at Heavenly and Squaw Valley, to the West Coast cuisine with it's great looking produce and pristine oysters, it is a great area of the country.

Squ-EEL-ing Good Dinner

2010-01-07T19:32:00.069-05:00

Most people hear the word "eel" and get scared. I think dinner. Perhaps people's first experience with eel is at sushi restaurants? They see eel mentioned on a sushi menu and they immediately picture a slippery, slimy thing that squirms and swims around in deep, dark, scary water! People who think that are partially correct - it does swim in water - but in the simplest terms an eel is just a fish. In fact, all eel served in sushi restaurants is cooked (which means it is not raw, for those just starting out) so you can ignore any fears you have about raw fish.

Maybe you decide you don't care if it's cooked or not, you just don't want it... you'll have some "other" fish. That's fine, but realize that eel is a nice, firm fleshed white fish with good flavor. That flavor is enhanced even further when you pour or brush kabayaki sauce (also known as eel sauce) all over it and heat it up. The dark, sweet & salty kabayaki sauce is what makes the eel look brown and glossy, just like in the picture above. Kabayaki sauce is kind of like an Asian BBQ sauce: soy sauce, some sugar, sweet rice wine (mirin) and that's about it. It would be great on salmon or even chicken too, just pick up a bottle next time you're at an Asian grocery store. After all, most people like soy sauce, lots more people like sugar, and then you throw in some rice wine to top things off. It's quite tasty.

So eel over rice was our dinner last night. I simply pulled the pre-cooked, pre-sauced eel out of their vacuum packaging and broiled them in our oven for about 3 or 4 minutes per side. Served over rice with some sauteed shiitake mushrooms, radish sprouts, and green onions, it was quite nice. Try it next time you're out at a sushi restaurant.

Lardo di Arnad

2009-12-21T22:55:00.004-05:00

Below is a large hunk of skin-on fatback from either a Ossabaw or a "Crossabaw" (cross between a Ossabaw and Berkshire) from Nature's Hamony Farm. Originally, it was destined to be rendered and turned into lard. That was until a fellow poster at 285 Foodies suggested I should make Lardo di Arnad... I agreed.

So I have started the process which is really pretty simple. According to Jason's instructions, I took 1 liter of water and brought it to a boil. I used a bottle of spring water just to keep all the flavors super-clean. Once the water boils, add 300 grams of salt and stir until dissolved. Add in a hefty dose of herbs and spices and let the mixture steep until it is completely cool. Here I have used about 8 grams of rosemary, 2 cloves of garlic (crushed), 7 juniper berries (crushed), a tablespoon or so of black peppercorns, 7 sage leaves, 6 whole cloves, 3 bay leaves, a stick of cinnamon, and a few small stems of thyme. Once cool, pour the brine over the fatback and refrigerate... for a long time. From here, time does the work. Jason instructed to leave the fatback in the brine for 3 months, turning once a month, making sure everything is submerged.

So, you have 3 months to figure out what Lardo di Arnad is. In 3 months (late March) I'll post again and of course show you the finished product. Below is the fatback in the brine.

Terrapin's Hopsecutioner

2009-12-16T18:20:00.000-05:00

Terrapin's newest addition to their year-round selection of brews: Hopsecutioner IPA. It gives new meaning to "killer" IPA... get it? Executioner? Never mind.

This beer is rumored to be one of the most expensive beers that Terrapin makes. Hops tend to be quite expensive and the mix of 6 kinds of hops including Warrior, Chinook, Centennial, Simcoe, Amarillo, and dry hop finish of Cascade certainly make that rumor believable. Aside from the hops this beer has a hefty backbone of malt and it makes the finish less bitter and more sweet and floral. At least that's my best guess while drinking my first glass ever. With that said it does ring in at 78 IBU's so it's still a potent IPA for those who like the hop.

The beer is a nice dark amber color and is quite viscous which makes for a nice mouth feel. This isn't a chugging beer. Congrats to Terrapin on their new brew. I'll be sure to partake often.

Hopsecutioner

Milling About

2009-12-03T19:15:00.000-05:00

If anyone has stepped into a mid-scale restaurant somewhere in the South over the past several years you have probably come across the name Anson Mills. For those of you who have not - time to get out more... or time to pay more attention to the menu. Though I have had Anson Mills products sparingly over the years at restaurants, this is the first time I've mail ordered anything from them.

To give a little background, Anson Mills is a producer of heirloom organic grains, legumes, and flours located in Columbia, South Carolina. They have products like oats, beans, rice, farro, cornmeal, etc. Yes, I'm going to make fancy grits. What makes Anson Mills special is first, the flavor that is achieved first by using only heirloom varieties of vegetables and plants and second, they grind everything to order and ship the very same day in frozen, insulated containers. Because they are just over the border there in S.C. regular ground shipping is basically the same as overnight. Shipping costs aren't too bad, I ordered 6 bags of various items and the total (with shipping) was just under $50.

Below is our first order of Anson Mills products and I'm positive it won't be the last. Please check out their website; they have a great deal of information, history, and recipes designed specifically for their products.

Our 2009 Heritage Thanksgiving Turkey from Nature's Harmony Farm

2009-11-21T18:00:00.000-05:00

Toms Struttin'

Earlier today we drove to Elberton, Georgia for another visit to Nature's Harmony Farm. Tim & Liz Young hosted turkey buyers from around the southeast for their second annual Turkey Harvest Day on the farm. As always it was great to see Tim, Liz and all the animals they have there.

We began with our electric alarm clock going off at about 7:00 am as opposed to the call and response of the farm's roosters at 4:30 am like last month. When we arrived after our 2 hour drive from Roswell, the Young's had music, cider, farm tours, and of course the guest of honor: heritage breed turkey. We picked out a 14.2 pounder which should be more than enough for the people we're feeding this year. Below are some pictures from our farm tour.

Toms & Hens

Now, why buy a heritage breed turkey versus a regular super market turkey? There is plenty of information out there on heritage breeds versus broad breasted white turkeys, but I think this New York Times article "About A Bird" from 2003 is a very good read. Please take the time to read it if you have not before; it will make you think twice about buying that supermarket turkey next year.

Aside from the ethical reasons, I think heritage breed turkeys simply taste better. I like to cook and whenever possible I seek out ingredients that are of the highest quality, especially for occasions like Thanksgiving. The meats from Nature's Harmony Farm certainly fulfill my needs. The turkeys, and all the animals at the farm, are pasture raised on grass where they are free to run around, scratch at the ground, and live a life that mimics nature as closely as possible.

For those of you who did buy a heritage breed turkey and now you're wondering how to cook it... be aware that these turkeys cook FAST. Last year we had a 13 pound turkey and it was in and out of the oven in about 1 hour and 15 minutes with an oven temperature of about 450F degrees. These birds are built very differently than a broad breasted white: the breast is much taller and elongated, and the legs and thighs are much bigger. That's what happens when a bird runs around on the farm as opposed to being cooped up in a poultry house. We followed this recipe which is similar (if not exactly the same) to the one Tim gave us when we picked up our turkey last year. Part of the reason that the turkeys are done sooner is because they are done at a lower temperature - or at least what is perceived as a lower temperature. I removed our bird from the oven when the thigh meat registered 150F degrees, and it probably should have come out at about 145F. While this might sound low, you have to take carry-over cooking into account which will take the bird into the 160+F degrees range. And, if you follow the USDA guidelines on cooking turkey you should only cook your standard grocery store bird to 165F degrees - not too much difference. The days of cooking turkey to 180F degrees are over, and whatever you do, DO NOT EVER use the plastic pop-up timer to determine the turkey's doneness. Your best tool for keeping track of the turkey's temperature is a probe thermometer.

So while it might be a little late to seek out a heritage breed turkey for this Thanksgiving (Nature's Harmony takes deposits and sold out months ago) keep an eye out for next year, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the taste and you just might feel a little better about what's on you plate.

Mom & Piglets seen on the tour.

Thanksgiving Turkey from Nature's Harmony Farm 2009

2009-11-19T20:20:00.000-05:00

Our 2009 heritage turkey from Nature's Harmony Farm coming Saturday night...

Who, me?!?!?

'Avec Eric' with Eric Ripert

2009-11-09T20:40:00.000-05:00

If you love watching cooking shows perhaps, like me, you've switched your allegiance from Food Network to your local PBS station. Filled with great ideas and cooking information, our Atlanta affiliates (we have 2) air a near constant onslaught of shows every Saturday afternoon. One of the newest shows to be picked up here in our Atlanta market is Avec Eric with Eric Ripert. Ripert, the silver haired seafood genius of Le Bernardin in Manhattan is the host. The show is simply fantastic. Focusing on not only seafood but other ingredients as well, Ripert guides us through places like Italy, California, and New York to see how recipes are developed in Le Bernardin's kitchen. Be sure to take a minute and check out this gem of a show... if you're busy there's always your DVR.

Manhattan Dining

2009-11-05T19:30:00.001-05:00

A couple weeks ago Liv and I spent a long weekend in Manhattan by traveling around to various New York landmark restaurants filling our stomachs and draining our wallets. It was a great way to celebrate anniversary #1. Aside from the draining our wallets part.

Thursday

After arriving on Thursday mid-morning we walked around Times Square to see the lights and the sights. It was our first time in the city so there was lots of standing and looking up for the first few minutes. I was surprised at how big Diddy is in real life. Before long it was time for lunch. I had picked out a very casual lunch spot because I knew we were going to be out and about. Kwik Meal #1 it was. The cart is known for it's marinated lamb served in a pita. The lamb was incredible. It had everything you want in a good lamb gyro plus more. This wasn't pressed and pre-formed mystery lamb meat, this was well seasoned and topped with tangy yogurt sauce. Excellent.

After lunch we walked some more, checked out Central Park and the subway system and before long it was time to check in to our hotel, relax and get ready for dinner at Momofuku Ssam Bar. When we walked into Ssam Bar, it was evident we were in for a loud dinner. Not to worry though, if Heston Blumenthal and Ruth Reichl were able to handle it, so was I. That's right, a couple of professional super-foodies were in attendance that night.

We walked straight in at about 7:30 and got a couple seats at the bar. The menu is changed daily but there are some standards that have gained enough popularity to earn at least a semi-permanent spot on the menu like the steamed pork buns. David Chang, the brainchild behind the Momofuku family of restaurants is of Korean descent so while the menu has many Korean-Asian influences it is by no means a Korean restaurant. Our dinner was (from the menu descriptions: steamed pork buns (pork belly, hoisin, cucumbers, scallions), fried brussels sprouts (fish sauce vinaigrette, mint, delfino), montauk skate (old bay fingerling potatoes, spicy aioli, preserved lemon), and crispy pig's head (sauerkraut, pear mostarda). The pork buns were fatty and soft with an explosion of deep porky flavor. If you have any reservations about pork or fat, stay away -for all others, this is piggy heaven. The brussels sprouts were great too if a little bit greasy. The vinaigrette and the mint played nicely with this little snack and helped cut the fryer grease that inevitably was caught in the folds of the sprouts. The crispy pig's head was shredded pig's head meat formed into crab cake size cakes, breaded and fried. Again, if you're hesitant... if not, piggy heaven. The skate was also quite good. The spicy aioli really worked well with the potatoes and the few fork-fuls I snagged of the skate were fresh and light.

Dessert? Well how about we walk to the adjoining Milk Bar? We did. This is where the indulgence in pork turns to indulgence in cookies. We opted for a chocolate chocolate something or other, a cornflake chocolate chip marshmallow, and the famous compost cookie (the name is now trademarked). The compost cookie has pretzels, potato chips, coffee, oats, butterscotch, and chocolate chips. Amazingly good and it was clearly the best of the 3. The salty and sweet cookie was a smack-your-face-and-hope-you-have-a-glass-of-milk revelation. As visions of pork buns & cookies danced in our heads, off to bed we went. Great first day.

Friday

Friday morning started with a visit to the Statue of Liberty. We reserved crown view access and despite the overcast day it was well worth the extra $3 to be able to climb to the top. The stairs were not hard to climb but they were very steep and very narrow. I'm not a huge guy but my shoulders were nearly touching both sides of the stairwell as we climbed up. The view from the crown was great even though there were a few clouds off in the distance.

For lunch we were off to the famous Katz's Deli. You know, the orgasms and movie place. Based on the movie clip, the place hasn't changed much. Of course I ordered a pastrami on rye with mustard. While it was certainly good, the place seems more like a tourist destination than a food lover's hot spot. Liv was unhappy with her egg salad sandwich. I'm glad we ate here but I probably won't seek it out in any potential future trips.

Friday night we saw a hilarious God of Carnage show with a few names you might recognize if you've ever seen The Sopranos or Dumb & Dumber. The play won the 2009 Tony Award for the best play and for good reason. The acting was superb and the laughs kept coming.

After the play we were off to Locanda Verde. Chef Andrew Carmellini heads up this Italian gem in the Greenwich Hotel. We started with the highly lauded blue crab crostino with jalapeno and the burrata with peppers and fried rosemary. The crab is piled high and was super-fresh. The jalapeno gave a slight kick but didn't sear any taste buds. Excellent starter. The burrata sprinkled with crunchy salt and fried rosemary was a milky-cheesy godsend. If you've never had burrata, seek it out. It is incredible. After the apps I had the braised veal cheeks served over risotto milanese. The veal was tender and had a glazy, rich, succulent coating that makes your lips stick together. Everything you want in a great braised dish. Liv had a broccoli rabe sausage served over fagioli beans. Hers was good but I certainly liked mine better. However the real surprise was dessert. We chose the "La Fantasia for Two" and it was a big bowl of pumpkin gelato, brown butter gelato, apple cider granita, caramelized apples, and cinnamon sugar croutons. Wow. Paired with a fantastic recommended amaro by our waiter, the desert took our meal to the next level. The crutons were crisp despite being soaked in melted gelato and the apple cider granita was the crisp and cold yin to the brown butter gelato's yang.

Saturday

After getting a phone call on Saturday morning I was told that our childhood cat, Tinkerbell, had been put to sleep earlier in the morning (she was 20 1/2 years old). I was in need of some cheering up and NYC pizza was my medicine. We met my cousins Lindsay and Jennifer who live in the the city (albeit in different boroughs) at Luzzo's pizza. Nice place for a beer and some of the best pizza ever - great for cheering up! The restaurant has a "grandfathered" coal burning oven that has been around for 107 years. The pizza crust was crisp yet moist and held the topping of bufala mozarella wonderfully. Add in a couple Peroni's and I was good to go. We didn't gorge ourselves on pizza today because we were headed to Babbo for dinner.

Babbo, the powerhouse restaurant from Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich, is one of the most popular restaurants in the city, and for good reason: our dinner was nothing short of fantastic. Reservations are taken 30 days in advance to the numerical date and if you don't start calling at 10 am you better not get your hopes up. It took me about 15 minutes of dialing on 2 phones simultaneously, non-stop to get through for our Saturday night dinner. I ended up with a 6:30 reservation which at first seemed a tiny bit early, but after we left the restaurant at about 9:45 it was clear that the 6:30 time was perfect. Back to the food, we chose the 8 course pasta tasting menu (see the menu below) along with the wine pairings. The pasta was amazing and the wine pairing put every course waaaay over the top in a good way. Kudos to Marla Priest, the sommelier. If you make it to Babbo and try this tasting menu, do not hesitate to order the wine pairings. I think our favorite was the garganelli with "funghi trifolati." The hand rolled pasta accented with porcini mushrooms, parsley and a light butter sauce was like nothing I've had before. One of the best meals I've ever had.

Sunday

Sunday was bittersweet because we knew it was our last day. We woke up and went searching for a brunch/snack. Knowing that Hell's Kitchen wasn't far we walked to Sullivan Street Bakery and picked up a croissant, and a "cubano" a cuban sandwich with an awesome garlic aioli & cheese and a San Pellegrino Aranciata. You've never heard of Sullivan Street Bakery? I bet you have... no knead bread anyone? After more walking around on what was undeniably a beautiful fall afternoon in Central Park, it was about time to go home.

New York is certainly a fantastic culinary city, but looking back I know we only scratched the surface. There's so much to do and see that a long weekend is no where near long enough.

Pork & Beans

2009-10-18T22:18:00.000-04:00

Don't worry this is gourmet pork & beans...

Today is our first wedding anniversary so how do we celebrate? Pork and beans of course! This is real, homemade pork and beans with white beans soaked and cooked in homemade chicken stock and braised (fresh, not smoked) pork/ham hocks form Nature's Harmony Farm. Noticing a trend with these last few posts? This pork was superb - full of flavor which was only enhanced by the chicken stock, garlic, and rosemary.

Happy anniversary, sweet pea!

The Last From a Legend

2009-10-16T16:48:00.000-04:00

If you have been following the latest news from the food world you undoubtedly know that the November issue of Gourmet Magazine is the legendary publication's last. It is truly unfortunate that a magazine like Gourmet has been scrapped, but I suppose it's not terribly surprising that a few of our favorite things, no matter how beloved and cherished, will succumb to the obvious economic pressures of our time. As is tradition, the November issue features a beautiful roast turkey fit for, well... the cover of Gourmet. While that may not be particularly noteworthy, the final Letter From the Editor by Ruth Reichl is hauntingly fitting for this final issue, considering it was written months ago (magazines have to plan ahead, you know).

In the letter, Reichl reminisces about her childhood Thanksgiving celebrations and reminds us that the holiday shouldn't be so much about the glitz and glam of polished silver, spotless wine glasses, and picture perfect turkeys, but rather the memories created during the gathering of friends and family. To me it is a fitting reminder because even though the magazine often delved into unattainable, wild culinary fantasies, the thing we should cherish most about Gourmet is the legacy it has left behind. I can think of no other culinary magazine that has has such an influence on me and I'm sure countless others. Thanks to Gourmet for all the great inspiration over the years and good luck to all of its staff.

The final issue still in it's plastic packaging after arriving in the mail.

Poulet Rouge from Nature's Harmony Farm

2009-10-14T18:55:00.000-04:00

If you cook whole chicken on a regular basis you will probably notice something different in the pictures below. The pictures show a chicken with a smaller, thinner breast and longer legs when compared to a typical supermarket chicken. Now, small breasts aren't always desirable in all aspects of life, but this is a chicken... get your mind out of the gutter! This is a Poulet Rouge (French for Red Chicken) from Nature's Harmony Farm. What is the difference aside from the appearance? For one, they are older chickens: typically twice as old (or more) than a standard supermarket chicken. They are a slower growing, hardier breed of chicken. They are also raised differently. As opposed to being raised in a packed, overcrowded chicken house, the chickens at Nature's Harmony are raised on pasture. To read more about how Nature's Harmony Farm raises their Poulet Rouge chickens, click here.

Aside from the standards by which they are raised, I can tell you based on first hand experience that these Poulet Rouge chickens are an amazing change from what is often bought at the supermarket. The end result is a chicken that is full of flavor, moisture, and texture. Far more flavor than what you are probably used to. If you have the chance to purchase a Poulet Rouge chicken, by all means buy it! I'm certain that you will be pleasantly surprised at the difference. Shown below is a finished roasted chicken over a bed of turnip greens, fresh out of the oven.

Dinner on the Farm

2009-10-12T19:50:00.000-04:00

Saturday 10/10/09

Leaving Atlanta on Saturday morning under threat of rain, Liv and I attended the "Local Food Campout" at Nature's Harmony Farm in Elberton, Georgia. We had to trust that the food gods would smile on us instead of... spit? Anyway, we weren't spit on - not even one drop. The following is a brief overview of our wonderful Saturday and Sunday on the farm.

The event was a celebration of local food both from the farm itself and from other local farms like Full Moon Farm which provided seasonal organic vegetables and cheese from Split Creek Farm. All the food was exquisitely prepared by Chef Hugh Acheson and his team. Check out the menu further down in the post. Aside from the food, there were ample adult joy beverages from Terrapin Beer and wine from Boutier Winery gracing the tables.

This was our second visit to the farm. Our first visit was in 2008 when we bought our Thanksgiving turkey from Tim and Liz Young. This November we're headed out to the farm for our celebratory turkey again... we can't wait! Below is a short video of some turkeys gobbling and the males strutting their stuff - notice the fluffed and fanned feathers on the toms (males).

Upon arrival in Elberton we set up our tent in the pasture. The farm tour would begin soon and we wanted to make sure we had our humble abode set up for the night. The farm's designated tent inspector made sure that everything was up to par.

Farm's Designated Tent Inspector

The tour was an all inclusive look at how the animals are raised and cared for. Tim and Liz are committed to animal welfare above all else and raising the animals in an environment that mimics nature as closely as possible. The results are some of the best tasting meats I've ever found. To read more about Nature's Harmony farm values, click here.

Speaking of, what animals are raised at Nature's Harmony Farm? Poulet Rouge chickens and other pasture raised chickens, grass fed beef, grass fed lamb, naturally raised wood lot pork (including Berkshire, Ossabaw, and Large Black), heritage breed turkeys, heritage breed geese, and ducks. Oh, and they have a few honey bee boxes on the property too. Suffices to say they and their 3 apprentices have their hands full. One of the most interesting stories (and tastiest dishes of the night) was the story of the Ossabaw Island pigs. If you are at all unfamiliar with Ossabaw Island pigs, I encourage you to click on this link. It is a blog post by Tim at the farm and gives the history behind this very interesting and very rare breed. Below are several pictures of the animals that were taken on the tour.

Pollyanna, a Murray Grey Calf born on 9/28/09. Pictured here she is only 12 days old!

Cattle relaxing in the pasture.

Pollyanna stealing the spotlight, with lamb and cows in the background.

Ossabaw Island Pig (picture #1)

Ossabaw Island Pig (picture #2)

Ossabaw Island Pig (picture #3)

Naked Neck chickens raised under Poulet Rouge standards.

Pasture raised ducks

Berkshire Pigs

Heritage Geese

Narragansett Turkey

After the tour was over it was time for dinner! Chef Acheson (green shirt) prepared a killer multi-course dinner for 100+ people.

Menu for 10/10/2009

Passed hors d'oeuvres

Pimento cheese sandwiches with pickled okra

Deviled egg salad with caviar

Chilled sweet potato soup with chive cream

On the table

Roasted beets with avocado, Split Creek feta, and arugula

Tians of eggplant, sweet peppers, and basil and Split Creek goat cheese

Savory swiss chard tart

Red Mule polenta with melted leeks

Grilled Nature's Harmony Farm Ossabaw pork chops with agrodolce

Roasted Nature's Harmony Kathadin lamb leg with salsa verde

Nature's Harmony Poulet Rouge chicken bog over rice

Pumpkin and pecan pie

Following dinner was a warm bonfire and lively music from the North Georgia Bluegrass Band. The food and company was really, really great and Liv and I enjoyed every minute of it. After the band was finished, it was time for bed.

Sunday 10/11/09

Morning on the farm comes early, especially with what seemed like hundreds of roosters cock-a-doodle-dooing at sunrise. For anyone who thinks roosters don't cock-a-doodle-doo when the sun comes up, you can kiss my ass... they do. Jokes aside, the wake up call was fully expected considering we were sleeping only several yards from the chickens. After we opened the tent and saw the cool morning mist and the animals up and about, we put on our shoes and walked the farm watching some kids help with morning chores before breakfast.

Sunrise over Nature's Harmony Farm

Awake Yet? This was my first view when I unzipped the tent.

Breakfast was pancakes with honey right from the farm's bees and sausage made from the farm's pigs. Tim took the helm and made everyone a wonderful breakfast.

Honey bees hard at work.

Thanks to the apprentices (Mario, Kerry & Amanda), Chef Hugh and his team, but most importantly Tim and Liz for a wonderful weekend. We look forward to similar events in the future and if you are interested in attending tours or events, or simply want to learn more about the farm, visit the website and blog by clicking here.

See a great video recap that Tim and Liz put together (below), and check out Tim's blog post about the event here.

A Monster Among Us

2009-09-25T10:44:00.000-04:00

Just when you thought it was safe to walk on your lawn, one of these jumps out in front of you. This is the definition of a monster mushroom. This makes your average grocery store portabella look like an amuse bouche. The mushroom is almost certainly a result of the massive rainfall we've had at the beginning of the week.

I'm not sure what kind of mushroom this is, but if anyone out there can help identify, please post a response here. In the meantime try not to get too scared by these monster mushroom pictures.

EDIT: After some internet research I think the mushroom in question is a huge puff ball mushroom. They are evidently known to grow to giant proportions and they are in fact edible!

David Chang's Bo Ssam

2009-09-20T15:02:00.000-04:00

Vegetarians: please kindly disregard this post.

Everyone else: ready for some pork?

This pork shoulder recipe from David Chang of Momofuku fame, is a popular dish at Ssam Bar in Manhattan. The process of curing overnight and slow roasting the pork is a semi-lengthy process, but it is also extremely easy. Here I have taken a 9 1/4 pound whole picnic shoulder, removed the skin, removed the shank end, cured it according to Chang's directions, and roasted it. While the butchering on this picnic shoulder is more work than is truly necessary, it's kind of fun at the same time if you're into practicing some minor knife skills.

Above is a whole picnic pork shoulder. Why is it called a picnic shoulder? I'm not really sure so I dug around online. After all, at a little over 9 pounds its hardly the first thing I would consider lugging to a Sunday picnic. I found this website that I will quote from because it isn't the kind of thing I can take credit for coming up with on my own. The website says "generally, the shoulder is smoked... which gives it a very ham-like flavor. Since picnic shoulder/ham is an inexpensive substitute for real ham (which only comes from the hind legs), [it is speculated] that it would have been considered a good cut for casual dining — such as a picnic — rather than for use at a formal family dinner, such as Easter or Thanksgiving." I'll accept that as an answer. Anyway, on to some kitchen counter butchering.

The first step is to remove the skin. This isn't necessary for all dishes that call for a pork shoulder/picnic shoulder/pork butt, but for this recipe I wanted good contact between the curing agents (salt and sugar) and the meat. Removing the skin is easy enough - just tease away at the layer of fat under the skin with a sharp boning knife. The skin comes off fairly easily.

Once the skin is removed it can be used in a couple different applications. You could fry it in the style of chicharron (fancy way of saying pork rinds) or you can let the kids play Silence of the Lambs and make a mask out of it. Who says cooking isn't fun for the whole family?!

Here I have decided to remove the shank or leg end from the shoulder itself. This is an optional step but remember the whole thing now weighs about 9 pounds so you're probably not going to be missing the extra weight unless you're having a party. Removing the shank allows it to be used for another dish too, like soup. Cutting off the shank requires a little knife wiggling and exploring but it makes you kind of proud once you've accomplished it.

After a slight mis-cut, I'm almost done...

Done! Above are the separated shank and shoulder. The shank along with some trimmings from the shoulder are going into a freezer bag for a later date.

Now comes the first real step of the recipe: Mix one cup of coarse salt (I always use Kosher salt) and one cup of regular white sugar in a bowl. Thoroughly rub the salt/sugar mixture ALL over the pork.

Once you are sure you have covered everything, lay the pork shoulder in the bowl, cover everything with foil, and refrigerate for at least 6 hours and up to overnight. Sounds pretty easy right? Now go grab a beer, scan the backyard for squirrels (Squirrel Kill Count: 138), and enjoy the weekend.

Day #2

6 or 7 hours before you're ready for dinner preheat your oven to 300 F degrees. Take your now cured pork shoulder from the fridge and set it in a large roasting pan. In the oven it goes... Every hour or so baste the pork with the rendered pork fat accumulating in the bottom of the pan. If you notice the pan drippings starting to burn in the bottom of the pan add a 1/4 or a 1/3 cup of water.

To the left you can see the cured pork shoulder, fat side down. I took a picture of it to show how the color has changed. It has turned a dark, glossy red because of the salt and sugar.

To the right is the pork shoulder fat side up, the way it will be roasted. This way the melting fat will help baste the meat as it cooks.

When the pork is tender and shreds easily with a fork (think southern BBQ) it is ready. Remove the pork from the oven and ramp it up to 500 F degrees. Meanwhile mix up about 7 tablespoons of brown sugar and 1 tablespoon of coarse salt. I know, I know, you ask MORE sugar and salt? Yes. When David Chang says do something to pork, you do it.

Sprinkle this mixture of sugar and salt on the pork and put the whole thing back in the oven until the sugar has melted and turned a dark, caramel, crispy brown, 10 to 15 minutes more - tops. You might have to use the broiler, or if you want to play with fire use a blow torch to melt the sugar. Above is the sugar sprinkled over the nearly finished pork.

Now after all your hard work... wait it wasn't that hard, was it? Your oven worked harder than you did. Anyway, now you're finally ready for dinner. I'm serving this bo ssam pork with some Jasmine rice, red leaf lettuce, sliced cucumbers, sauteed shiitake mushrooms, kimchi, ginger-scallion sauce, and ssam sauce. Use tongs to pull apart the pork shoulder and mix and match the sauces, vegetables, and the pork, and eat it on folded lettuce leaves like tacos.

The David Chang recipe invites raw oysters to the party, and while I'm always on board for raw oysters, the wife and our good friends (including one shellfish allergy) weren't going to have it. Of course, the dish was wonderful even without the bivalves.

All of the recipes for the pork and the sauces can be found at various sites/blogs around the net, but I referred to Martha Stewart's site most often because David Chang himself appeared on her show to demonstrate the recipe. A video can be found on the Martha Stewart site by clicking on the picture above the recipe. Enjoy this with your friends; I can tell you from experience they will like it! Below is the final product - a great Sunday dinner.

New Word: "Cheftestant"

2009-09-10T21:45:00.000-04:00

In the world of food TV (not to be confused with the now, mass market, blase Food Network) there is now a ridiculous new word: "cheftestant." This word will need to become part of your vocabulary if you want to talk to your friends/neighbors/coworkers about such TV shows as Top Chef and Hell's Kitchen. The word refers to the contestants on these chef reality shows, of which Top Chef is certainly my favorite.

This newish season of Top Chef is especially fun because there are ~~three~~ two chefs from right here in Atlanta. Hector Santiago, chef & owner of Pura Vida was recently kicked off but there is still hope with Executive Chef Eli Kirshtein of Eno Restaurant and Wine Bar, and the powerhouse from Woodfire Grill, Executive Chef & Partner Kevin Gillespie. Check out the remaining Atlanta guys on Bravo TV, Wednesdays at 10:00 EST.

Lobster Bowl

2009-08-29T21:26:00.000-04:00

For Liv's 30th birthday today (and my 31st birthday tomorrow) we decided to splurge for some lobster. As it turns out we didn't have to splurge much at all. This afternoon I went to our nearest Super H Mart to scope out the seafood/lobster selection and much to my very pleasant surprise they were having a one day sale (you'd think I was at Macy's) on lobster! I picked up a few of the big live bugs for only $4.99 per pound. Incredible. At prices like that I felt at ease experimenting a bit tonight for dinner and I did an Asian-style lobster bowl with dashi broth, organic udon noodles, tobiko (flying fish roe), enokitake mushrooms, scallions, and baby bok choy. Dashi broth is kind of like the chicken stock of the Asian world. It is used often in all kinds of dishes and you have most certainly had it in miso soup.

I steamed the lobsters over a bed of seaweed. Seaweed is very cheap and very easy to come by in any Asian grocery store. Steaming is a little cleaner than boiling them because you don't have to deal with large amounts of hot lobster-y water and steaming produces a better final product as well, in my opinion. I steam for 10 minutes per pound and these lobsters were all about 1 pound each. You can do the math.

After steaming I separated all the lobster meat from the sharp, menacing shells. Little bastards can give serious cuts sometimes! Fortunately I escaped with no bloodshed tonight.

After the meat is removed from the shells and the shells are tossed in the trash, be sure and double or even triple bag your garbage. If you have never smelled shellfish stink after a few summer days in your hot garage... well... just take my word for it and double bag the garbage and seal it well. After the cooked lobster is separated, you're free to do as you please; it is really quite a versatile protein.

For our dish tonight I sauteed the bok choy with some scallion whites and garlic while the udon noodles boiled. At the last second I reheated the cooked lobster meat in the homemade dashi broth and when the noodles were done, everything was ready to be plated. I took the lobster knuckles and the little leg meat and placed it in the bottom of the bowl. On top of that came the noodles and then I ladled the dashi broth over everything. The tail meat, the claws, the enokitake mushrooms, the orange tobiko roe, and the bok choy were placed on top. A drizzle of sesame oil and some soy sauce if you please and you have a really nice dinner.

We paired our lobster bowl with a Grenache Blanc from Consilience. The wine was recommeded by my good friend Lloyd Irving at Old Milton Package in Alpharetta.

Garden Time #4: ignitarious de mouthus

2009-08-22T21:00:00.000-04:00

I never took Latin in high school but if I did, I might know a better way to say "a hot pepper will singe your mouth." As it is, I'll stick to my best guess.

Anyway, here's an update on our prolific chile de arbol plant. It was giving us so many little red fiery chiles I had to do something with them or else I would risk spoilage before I had a chance to use them all. I contemplated pickling, which is certainly an easy and a worthy thing to do with peppers of all kinds but it required more work than I wanted to do at the time. The next best solution was to dry them. I knew that de arbol chiles took well to drying so all I needed was a needle and thread. I simply picked the ripe chiles and strung a needle and thin thread through the stem end. It is as simple as that. These are hanging over our kitchen sink area but are well out of the way of daily chores.

As you can see in the picture, the chiles are quite wrinkled already but they aren't quite dry enough to crush and crumble into a jar. When they are I will have my own jar of crushed red pepper for use in all kinds of dishes.

Garden Time #3

2009-07-25T15:28:00.000-04:00

The tangled mess that are our tomato plants have finally decided that they want to give up their bounty. If you're a backyard vegetable gardener like myself you no doubt know that the tomato season is upon us. There are plenty of green tomatoes still waiting for the extra plant sugars and sunlight to brighten them into their various shades of red, purple, or orange, but at the rate that they ripen it won't take long!

Here's a prodigious bowl of produce from our garden. The red tomatoes are a variety popular in Europe called Carmello, the brownish looking ones are Black Pear, and the small, orange grape sized tomatoes are called Sun Gold. The Sun Gold are my favorite. They have the highest brix level of all the tomatoes that our particular nursery carried. The red chilies are Chile de Arbol: a nice fiery chile related to the cayenne. A little salt, pepper, and perhaps some fresh mozzarella if you're in the mood, and you've got a great salad.

Cooking with Dexter

2009-07-09T18:48:00.000-04:00

Over the past several months I have really enjoyed reading a New York Times column named Cooking With Dexter, by Pete Wells. Because it fits in with the food/cook/amateur hunter theme of my blog, (squirrel kill count: 128) I'll mention it.

The column follows the culinary adventures of a sometimes clumsy cook (Mr. Wells) and his son, Dexter. Dexter is a 5 year old foodie obsessed with hoarding food and developing his own recipes among other things. The articles are full of satire and tidbits about Dexter's often ingenious cooking ideas and his quirky, 5 year old perspective of the food world. While it is mostly entertainment for me, the column always comes complete with recipes and good cooking ideas. So, if you're looking for a few laughs and maybe even some ideas for dinner, check it out.

If you would like to read the newest edition, Mummy Dearest, click here.

Grilled Pizza

2009-07-03T12:26:00.000-04:00

Grilled pizza is so easy and so superior in flavor compared to most homemade oven baked pizza, it's surprising that people don't do it more often. If you have a grill you CAN make grilled pizza! I suggest that you don't even bother with those pizza stones for the grill. They are quite expensive so why spend $50 or more on something that isn't even necessary? I'll outline the basics of how I make grill pizza.

First build a 2 zone charcoal fire (hot on one side, cool on the other). If you're using a gas grill, preheat your grill by turning half of your burners on medium-high to high and leave the other half off. The objective is to cook the dough quickly on the hot side, take it off, put on your toppings, and then place the topped pizza on the cool side to melt the cheese and warm the ingredients on the other of the grill using indirect heat.

Now I know what you're thinking... Doesn't the dough fall through the grates? Doesn't the dough stick to the grates? Nope, not even close - so set your fears aside and grill some pizza.

Get your dough ready spreading it to about a 1/4 inch thick. If you can go thinner by all means go for it, but be aware that the thinner the dough, the faster it will cook. I also like brushing it or spraying it with olive oil. Below is the raw dough just after being placed on the grill.

Raw dough on the hot side of the grill.

The cooking of the dough/crust goes fast - like, real fast - so DO NOT leave the grill, do not answer the phone, do not get a beer. OK if you're quick you can go get a beer, but walk fast! I would say that this dough (below) was turned after about 45 seconds. I told you it was fast.

I flip the crust probably 3 or 4 times. I want to cook the crust through but I don't want it to burn. By flipping it a few times I'm able to achieve that.

Pizza crust after flipping.

After the crust is cooked, remove it and add your toppings. Obviously the sky is the limit here, so add anything and everything you want! Now place the pizza back on the grill but this time put it on the cool side. Again, you want to warm the ingredients and melt the cheese. This process takes about 4-8 minutes depending on the heat of your fire. When your cheese is melted, you're done. Slice it up and enjoy!

Finished pizza being taken off the grill by yours truly.

Don't Beat Your Meat...

2009-07-02T19:15:00.000-04:00

...Grind it!

If you're used to supermarket ground beef, you're in for a revelation when you start grinding your own meat at home. It's not scary, just keep your fingers out of the way! There are lots of advantages of home grinding:

The first advantage of grinding your own meat (aside from being kinda fun) is above all, freshness. The quality of your finished dish is automatically multiplied simply because you have freshly ground meat. You'll be surprised how light and fluffy the meat can be. I know it sounds funny to say that meat can be fluffy but, just believe me.

The second advantage of home grinding is that YOU get to pick and choose the cut of meat you want to grind. As you'll see below, I'm using brisket which has plenty of flavor (fat). Try to use something that has at least an 80/20 ratio of meat to fat. If you're looking for even more flavor and juiciness, look for cuts that will yield 75/25 or even 70/30 ratio. You could use anything from the standard chuck or sirloin to something a little more specialized like flat iron or brisket.

The third advantage that I'll mention is that you can more safely cook your burgers to medium, medium rare, or even rare. I was a little too hungry and I ate my burger before I took a picture, (sorry) but if it's been a while since you've had a fresh, medium rare burger you're in for a real treat! Keep everything cold, keep everything clean, and a medium rare home ground burger isn't as risky as it sounds.

It may not be everyday that you grind your own beef but I think it is most certainly worth the time. If you have a Kitchen Aid or a Cuisinart stand mixer, you're halfway there. Now all you need is a meat grinding attachment that matches your machine. So if you're looking for a 4th of July treat to yourself and your guests, try out a home ground burger!

Raw beef brisket ready to be cut into cubes and ground.

Ground brisket from our grinding attachment on the Cuisinart mixer.

Bird Feeder

2009-06-26T17:34:00.000-04:00

Cooper's Hawk after catching a robin.

That's what I'm calling myself: a bird feeder. I feed small birds like bluebirds and cardinals at the suet and sunflower seed feeder but I also feed bigger birds like hawks. Above is a Cooper's hawk. I don't really do it on purpose, but living in a wooded area with lots of prey around, invariably you're going to see some hunting. This is the second time I've seen this bird swoop through the trees and land a tasty meal. The first time was early last Saturday morning when this hawk nailed a bluebird in mid-flight. What was amazing was that it happened about 10 feet in front of me. Now again, this afternoon when I was walking outside to get some thyme from the garden this guy (or girl) swooped down from above and caught a robin. If you look carefully you can see the robin under the hawk's talons. Both attacks happened in about the same spot and both of them happened about 10 or 15 feet from me. This hawk likes to show off.

Chanterelles

2009-06-14T19:08:00.000-04:00

If you're out mowing the lawn, sometimes you come across a stray pine cone or stick that grinds and pops under the blade. You may smile and think manly thoughts about the horsepower lurking just inches below your fingertips... Then sometimes you stop dead in your tracks, blink a few times and realize that you have something quite unusual right in your own backyard - literally. Bright orange chanterelles right under your feet!

Here are a couple pictures of some wild chanterelles that decided to grow under our office window at home. I noticed them while pushing the lawnmower between our front and backyard lawn. Pretty damn awesome.

Whole Grilled Fish

2009-06-14T18:26:00.000-04:00

When people think of grilled fish, I'd bet that 80 to 90% of people reach for salmon or tuna cuts and don't look any further. Most other fish is looked over because people don't know what to do with it. They are used to farmed salmon and sometimes over-fished tuna because that's what the stores and restaurants have pushed for sale over the past 10-20 years. These cuts can be mighty tasty and often good in all kinds of cooking applications, but I find whole grilled fish to be exponentially better in flavor and moisture. Besides, there's nothing better than tossing a whole, seasoned fish on the grill for a few minutes and impressing your friends with a perfectly cooked dinner - head, tail and all.

I always prefer to buy fish that is approved by the Monterey Bay Seafood Watch because they keep a close watch on what is being over-fished and what is potenitally harmful to your health (see: mercury in fish). If you're not in to tree hugging or preventing brain damage in your unborn child feel free to ignore the list, but I personally find the information useful. Over the years I have found that often, the more environmentally friendly fish like Spanish mackerel or mullet are not only cheaper, but are far tastier as well.

After that rant, tonight we (somewhat shamefully) grilled whole Gulf red snapper. Not exactly on the top of the list of environmentally friendly species, but it sure was good. There were some large Spanish mackerel in the case (one of my all-time favorite grilled fish) at our local Harry's Farmer's Market but the snapper was unbelievably fresh and the size was just right - about a pound each. According to our fish monger they had arrived just a couple hours before we purchased them. I snagged a couple and grilled them whole over a charcoal fire. Topped with a peach salsa and a side of grilled corn and bread, it was a great Saturday night dinner.

So the next time you're in the mood for fish, check out the Monterey Bay guide for sustainable seafood choices and instead of the usual salmon or tuna, try something different - a fresh whole fish. I think you'll be surprised at how great it turns out.

Garden Time #2

2009-06-05T09:45:00.000-04:00

See if you can find the three tiny zucchini!

Japanese Eggplant flower

It's amazing what a month of growing can do. Looking back at pictures from the first garden post I'm quite amazed (and pleased) with the amount of growth taking place in our little garden. Much of that can be attributed to our substantial rainfall over the past month combined with the warm Spring temperatures.

The Italian zucchini, for one, is growing very fast... It already has 3 tiny zucchini eagerly awaiting their pollination time. The Japanese eggplant has put out one large gorgeous purple flower and has well over a dozen more getting ready to pop. The tomato plants are really on the move about now with the most ambitious Sun Gold plant reaching nearly 4 feet in height with several clusters of yellow flowers. Even the pepper plants which prefer the hot heat of summer are getting in on the action sending out a few tall, tender branches. Enjoy the pictures!

Garden after one month

24 Hours in New Orleans

2009-05-27T15:06:00.000-04:00

The bar at MiLa

Sitting here in the New Orleans airport (yes, again) I figured I would write about my dinner and lunch over the past 24 hours. Last night I had dinner at MiLa. I was originally planning on driving out to Clancy's but MiLa was literally across the street from my hotel. I took that as a sign from the food gods and to MiLa I went.

The chefs of the restaurant are Allison Vines-Rushing, a 2004 James Beard Rising Star Chef of the Year winner and her husband Chef Slade Rushing.

The restaurant was pretty empty aside from 2 or 3 couples and a stray flying termite that managed to creep under the front doors. (It is evidently swarm season in the Big Easy) They weren't expecting much business the day after the Memorial Day weekend and I was happy to have plenty of space to spread out on the bar. Entering the space, your eyes are drawn to the huge alabaster bar lighted from underneath. Perhaps the termites found it pretty as well (?). They have a few published signature cocktails on the menu but I decided to let the bartender whip me up an orange something or other. Great drink as an aperitif, he did well. It was a nice balance of sweet and bitter orange. If only I could remember all the ingredients. I started dinner with a complimentary amuse bouche: a goat cheese crostini with tomatoes and a balsamic reduction drizzled on top and a deep green parsley oil underneath. It was OK. The balsamic taste wasn't as strong as I had hoped. Considering you only have one bite, you've gotta pack some punch. All was fixed when the appetizer came along though. I ordered a deconstructed oysters rockefeller. The six or so very lightly poached oysters arrived on a bed of spinach drizzled all over with a white creamy foam and each oyster was topped with a piece of thin, cripsy bacon. The fact that you don't have to wrestle with the oyster shell was a nice change, especially when you've got on a freshly ironed light blue shirt. Everything was well seasoned and the oysters were my favorite part of the meal. Next came the entree; a sweet tea brined duck cooked on a rotisserie, served with roasted beets on a bed of wilted greens and drizzled with a date jus. This was a good idea in theory but there wasn't much tea flavor. Maybe I was expecting something like tea smoked duck, but I felt the flavor could have been more pronouced. The bitter wilted greens were great though, and the date jus was a perfect flavor match with the duck. Overall it was a pretty good plate of duck. For dessert (something I rarely go for) I got a Muscadine wine gelee. The gelee flavor was rather subtle and frankly I would have preferred more muscadine flavor. There is probably a fine line between gelle and grape jelly though, and if I had to choose, I'll take the gelee. It was cool and refreshing nonetheless. Overall the meal was quite good.

Today I drove back to Cochon Butcher for lunch before I left town. I had the muffaletta last time so this time I tried the bahn mi. I thought about it for a minute... why order a Vietmamese sandwich in a Southern Cajun style restaurant? To their defense they do list the "bahn mi" with quotations on the menu and refer to it as a Vietnamese po'-boy as not to offend any hard core food bloggers. Anyway, the sandwich was just OK. It was not as impressive to me as the muffaletta was. The bread was great, it had that thin crust that shatters all over your lap but is yet still super soft on the inside, it had the pickled daikon and carrots, the cilantro, and the jalapeno peppers too, but yet again, the flavor was lacking. The meat of the sandwich was pork liver pate and head cheese - fantastic in theory but they just lacked the pronounced pork flavor that I was hoping for. Still, I really admire and respect what they do there at the Cochon complex so I'll certainly be back when given the chance to try more!

Riverside Farmers Market

2009-05-16T11:12:00.000-04:00

Today was opening day for the second season of the Riverside Farmers Market in Roswell, GA. I was really looking forward to grabbing some tender Spring vegetables for dinner tonight... but unfortunately the market had just about everything BUT produce. This was similar to last year's opening day where the main attractions were craft items and flowers. Maybe it is just too early for local farmers to have a good harvest to sell at the market? No, because I'm quite confident the in-town markets like the Peachtree Road Farmers Market and the Morningside Market have an abundance of fresh produce.

At the Riverside Market I noticed candles, jams/jellies, coffee, fresh flowers, pieces of pie, a master gardener stand to answer all your home gardening questions, even some live plants and bags of composted manure. I'm not going to discredit the quality or craftsmanship of these items, I'm sure they're wonderful, (OK maybe the composted manure didn't take much skill) but when I go to a farmers market I want produce and I want lots of it! As it was, the only real produce I saw were some flats of strawberries, and a girl selling some greens. I already have a small bag of strawberries and a opened bag of pre-washed, pre-cut greens in the crisper drawer left over from last week. I was pleased to see some fresh eggs and a Artisan Foods Bakery stand selling fresh breads but I had already made up my mind that I wasn't buying anything. I'll try back in a month or so and hopefully the market will have ramped up its selection of fresh, local produce.

Garden Time

2009-05-08T15:52:00.000-04:00

Here's our little backyard garden for Spring/Summer/Fall(?) 2009. It's nothing extraordinary (we just don't have the space), but hopefully it will provide more than a few summer treats for us. We tried a garden last year but after our tomato plants had a run-in with our lawn service's broad leaf weed spray, they decided to stop growing. 2, 4-D isn't friendly. So, garden #2 is up and running!

I ordered our vegetable plants from Tasteful Garden again this year. They are based out of Heflin, Alabama. They are a small family, but they are doing big business lately - good for them. They also have lots of great heirloom plants to choose from. This year I'm growing...

Tomatoes:
Sun Gold
Carmello
Black Pear

Peppers:
Chile de Arbol
Carmen Pepper

Vegetables:
Japanese Eggplant
Italian Zucchini

Herbs:
Stevia
Lemon Varigated Thyme
German Thyme
Basil
Tarragon

Fear No Cochon

2009-04-30T20:50:00.000-04:00

Paper bag with fancy Cochon Butcher stamp.

Cochon Signage

As the swine flu builds to truly pandemic levels, what better a time to celebrate the pig? The culinary world has yet to get it's fill of pork so feel free to indulge while your "sky-is-falling" neighbor avoids all things swine like the plague. Ouch... too early?

The truth is that pork is not a threat when it comes to the flu. Eat up.

During another brief business trip to New Orleans I was happy to visit two of Chef Donald Link's restaurants: Cochon and Cochon Butcher. Cochon is the fancier of the two and serves Cajun Southern Cooking (the sign told me so). The menu certainly supports that with catfish, alligator, rabbit, oysters, and of course pork dominating much of the fare.

Cochon Butcher is smaller, far more casual and is part sandwich shop, part meat market, part bar. Before I go further, I should mention that almost everything in these two restaurants is made in-house. From the cured meats that go into the sandwiches to the cherries and olives that go into the cocktails, it is all made right there on location. To help out in these ventures Chef Link is joined by partners Stephen Stryjewski, Warren Stephens, and Kris Doll. These chefs have fantastic talent and drive.

My dinner on Monday night at Cochon consisted of a couple bourbon-based cocktails (the bar is dominated by bourbon) a plate of wood-fired oysters and the namesake of the restaurant, Louisiana cochon. The oysters arrived on a bed of rock salt, topped with butter and fiery Cajun spices. They were served in their shells plump and barely cooked, (a good thing) yet they were still hot and steamy. I can say they were among the best roasted oysters I've ever had. The main course was wood fired oven roasted suckling pig meat shredded and re-formed into a loose hamburger-style patty. Dusted with flour and pan seared it is served on top of a bed of braised cabbage and turnips, then topped with a crunchy piece of pork cracklin. There are some tangy pickled turnips in there too to help freshen up the dish. Can you ask for much more? I say yes. How about lunch?

Cochon Butcher Signage

Lunch the following day was at Cochon Butcher. When entering the small restaurant and shop your eyes are immediately drawn to the large temperature controlled curing chamber which ceremoniously houses many of their cured meats.

Cured meats?

New Orleans?

Sandwich?

If you guessed muffaletta, you win! This sandwich was packed full of porky goodness. In fact, I think I actually enjoyed the sandwich more than dinner the night before. The warm muffaletta highlighted with their own olives and pickled peppers was phenomenal. If you still think Central Grocery has the best muffaletta in town, you are sorely mistaken.

So next time you're in NOLA, get your pork-lovin' ass down to the Warehouse District and enjoy some of the finest Cajun food New Orleans has to offer.

Cochon Butcher Muffaletta

Jacques Pepin's Flatbread

2009-04-23T15:25:00.000-04:00

Jacques Pepin is certainly no stranger to the culinary community. Through cookbooks and TV series, he continues to churn out highly useful information and innovative ways of cooking in the kitchen. The recipe below is from his most recent TV series, More Fast Food My Way. The recipe was developed after Pepin visited a Tibetan restaurant and wanted to re-create a pan-cooked flatbread. The advantage of this bread is that it cooks up FAST. Start to finish you're looking at no more than 20 minutes so it's a great weeknight meal addition. Of course, we're not talking about the depth of flavor associated with something like sourdough, but the bread takes to flavor additions like herbs or mushrooms, as I have added in mine.

Jacques' Flatbread

1 1/2 cups of AP flour
1 cup of water
salt to taste
1 teaspoon of baking powder

Dump everything into bowl and "stir it into a gooey stuff" as Jacques says. The dough will indeed be very wet, gooey, sticky... whatever you want to call it! Heat up a pan that has non-stick properties* over medium to medium-high heat. Pour about a tablespoon of olive oil into the pan and then pour in your dough. Spread it into one flat layer in the pan with a spoon or spatula. A little oil on the spoon or spatula helps keep the dough from sticking to it. Add a tablespoon or two of water around the outside of the dough where it meets the pan; the object is to create steam to help cook the bread. Cover the pan with a lid and cook for about 8-10 minutes. After 8-10 minutes have passed, flip the bread and re-cover the pan so that it cooks from the other side. Think of this as a big savory pancake. Cook for another 5 minutes and you're done!

I suggest peeking at the bottom of the bread about half way through the first 8-10 minutes just to make sure the bottom isn't burning. You want good color, but you don't want charcoal! Adjust your stove top temperature accordingly.

Feel free to add your own touches. I have added dried thyme, black pepper, and sauteed mushrooms to this bread just to change things up a bit.

*I use the term "non-stick properties" because while a non-stick pan is perfectly acceptable to use in this recipe, I prefer to use cast iron or carbon steel whenever it is available.

Wingin' It

2009-03-22T18:46:00.000-04:00

In Atlanta you can find a variety of chicken wings at places like Wild Wing Cafe, Taco Mac, Hooters, and the best of the ghetto, J.R. Crickets (holla!). The wings found at most restaurants are deep fried, and while that generates absolutely NO complaints on my end, it's fun to do you own wings at home using your grill. The grill method eliminates any large pots of gurgling hot oil so you can (somewhat) safely enjoy a few beers and not worry too much about burning down your house at the same time.

As you can see in my picture above, I like to have a mound of hot coals in the middle of the grill and then place the wings around the outside of the main heat source in a ring. This allows me to slowly grill a couple dozen wings (or more) over indirect heat while avoiding any flare ups. The fat renders out of the skin and crisps up wonderfully. You'll never know they weren't fried aside from the fact that they will have great smokey, grilled flavor. I've managed to squeeze in 32 wings in this grilling venture.

After they come off the grill, you'll need to apply your favorite wing sauce. I make a mixture of regular Texas Pete and melted butter, maybe with a few herbs mixed in. Texas Pete has a great balance of heat and flavor. Wings should be spicy but not overpowering. I'm not into the "I have bigger balls just because I like hotter wing sauce than you" - that's crap. I want taste, not mouth numbing heat! Here I have a mix of about 1 part butter and 3 parts hot sauce with a pinch of dried thyme added in. Toss the wings and sauce in a large bowl and you're good to go.

Add in a cheap American lager and you've got yourself a night in front of the TV. Enjoy!

Dining in Brevard, North Carolina

2009-03-07T13:46:00.001-05:00

So it's been a while since my last post. Most of that is because I've been in Brevard, NC the past couple of weeks working at the site of the now defunct Ecusta Paper Mill. It is a very large project and the environmental cleanup and demolition that is going on is quite extensive. While I was there I was able to eat at a few restaurants of course, so here are a few short reviews of some local fare. Good or bad, I will preface these reviews by saying I only visited these places once or twice during my stay.

Jordan's Street Cafe
Jordan's was probably where I had my best meal. We stopped here for dinner one night and I was impressed with the food and the bottled beer selection. I had a pan roasted chicken breast sitting on top of a bed of kale and broccoli rabe ravioli. The seasoning was spot on and the chicken was moist and crisp. I had a Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA to accompany my meal... maybe a bit hoppy when sidled up to a chicken breast but I'm not complaining - the 90 minute IPA is killer.

Stars: 3.5 out of 5

The Falls Landing
Another restaurant with a decent beer selection. I had local trout topped with candied pecans, and served with blue cheese mashed potatoes and green beans. Being so close to Asheville, I was pleased to see a couple of local brews on tap from Highland Brewing Company. I opted for the Gaelic Ale which was a good match with my dinner. The fish was OK, it was maybe a little too sweet with the candied pecans but it was certainly edible. Nice bartender and the chef was accommodating.

Stars: 2.5 out of 5

Poppies Gourmet Farmer's Market
This place is an absolutely WONDERFUL little store nestled along Asheville Highway. They close shop at 7 PM so dinner is an option for the early-ish birds, but the lunch I had was killer. The lunches here consist of custom made sandwiches, hot entree specials like beef stew over noodles, and personal pizzas cooked in the stone oven. Everything here is upscale, crunchy-granola organic and super tasty. From the looks of things they try very hard to source everything locally. They also have a very large beer selection that would make most liquor stores in the Atlanta area blush. If you're looking for a great lunch for a fair price, stop here.

Stars: 3.5 out of 5

Twin Dragons Grand Buffet
Yep, it's a Chinese Buffet. Surprisingly the food here is pretty good and the selection is incredible. Items range from the typical Chinese-American dishes, soups, to cheese quesadillas (for the kids or for the timid), custom stir fry where you pick the ingredients and they cook, salt and pepper frogs legs, sushi, and even a nice dessert bar complete with it's own self serve ice cream. I mostly stuck with sushi which was by no means the best I've ever had, but it was always fresh and tasty. There were sides of kimchi and seaweed salad too which was nice. Perhaps the best attraction to this place aside from the friendly service is the price. Lunch was about $8 and dinner was $9.50. For all you can eat sushi, I'm in.

Stars: 2.5 out of 5

The Clock of Brevard Fine Food
Funny name, great fried chicken. This was a lunch stop for us one day. The fried chicken was great. No heavy breading, just a light coating that is fried to a crunchy, crispy crust. Served with a side salad, cole slaw, fries, and a buttery toasted piece of bread, it was a good lunch. The sweet tea was surprisingly good here too. I was pleased that it lacked the sickening, super-sweetness that some sweet teas have.

Stars: 2 out of 5

Ed Boudreaux's Bar-B-Que
The better of the two BBQ places I visited while there but that doesn't mean it's anything extraordinary. I opted for the beef brisket which arrived shredded rather than sliced. I'm not a brisket expert, but I'd rather have mine sliced with a nice fat layer on top. Instead this one arrived dry with no evident smoke ring at all. Perhaps the best part about this place was the TV trivia we enjoyed with some co-workers and friends... that or the few pints of Lagunitas IPA I had.

Stars: 1.5 out of 5

Pisgah Fish Camp
We stopped here for lunch and dinner on two separate occasions. The atmosphere is kind of dismal but at least the service was nice. For lunch I had the buffet which on this particular day consisted of calabash shrimp and various sides. Not great, but dinner a few days later was better. For dinner I had the local trout entree which was actually pretty good. The trout itself rivaled the trout I had at The Falls Landing. I opted for the baked potato and something else (can't remember) as a side. Good stop if you're looking for something quick. I'm knocking a half star off of this due to the cafeteria/retirement home atmosphere.

Stars: 1 out of 5

Hawg Wild Bar-B-Que
Not my favorite BBQ in the world but then again, as with all these places it's hard to fairly judge them after just one visit. I had the pork BBQ plate with the Eastern BBQ sauce. The pork was kind of dry and had no discernible smokiness. The Eastern NC BBQ sauce is usually a tangy, tart, vinegar based sauce with the typical sugar and spices that one would expect in this neck of the woods. This one however was dull and watery. No surprise considering the first ingredient in the sauce was literally water. If you're looking for good BBQ pork, keep searching.

Stars 1.5 out of 5

Ingles
This Ingles is indeed the Southeast grocery store chain that we all know of... you know, the Ingles Advantage. Walking into this store, I was immediately impressed: clean, fresh, good selection of produce and meats - everything you want in a grocery store. I stopped here one night for a sandwich and a salad while my co-worker opted for leftovers from the night before. I was more than impressed with the salad bar and my sandwich was pretty good too. This grocery store was better than some of the restaurants! If you're in need of a quick, late night sandwich while in Brevard, look no further than here.

Stars: 2 out of 5

Sagebrush Steakhouse
It's a chain. It wasn't good. Don't go here unless you want a sodium-induced coma the next morning. This place makes Applebee's look like the Ritz. My meal was likely prepared by a high school student. I had the prime rib with smashed new potatoes and a salad. The prime rib was mealy and had a weird beefy shellac on the outside crust. The potatoes were OK but the salad had an inedible mildewy mustiness that only pre-bagged, far out of date lettuce can have. I would have sent it back at any other restaurant (and I usually don't send things back unless something is really wrong) but I know it would have done no good.

Stars: 0 out of 5

Flat Iron Tacos

2009-02-13T17:40:00.000-05:00

Liv was working late last night so I cooked dinner for myself: grilled flat iron steak tacos. The flat iron cut is FULL of beefy flavor but it's also very cheap so it works great as a fajita or taco meat. Sliced thin, it's as good as it gets.

Here are a couple pictures of my Tex-Mex dinner for one: flour tortillas, Mexican crema, some pre-mixed shredded cheese, and some grilled onions and tomato. OK, I'll admit the rice on the side was from one of those little bags, but given the few beers I had in me I wasn't willing to make much from scratch!

ESB

2009-02-06T14:54:00.000-05:00

It's not Extra Special Bitter, Extra Strong Bitter, or Extra Special Brew, this one is Early Spring Beer. Turns out beer companies like acronyms... who knew? Anyway, this is the latest seasonal offering from Sierra Nevada: ESB 2009 edition. It's not quite early Spring just yet but I'm not complaining - it's good! Nice hops, nice malt, nice color, 5.9% ABV. As with most Sierra Nevada brews this one has pronounced hop flavor. As a self-proclaimed hop head, that's not a bad thing in my book. In fact, I would go as far as saying this one almost tastes like an IPA (there's that acronym thing again) but this one is a little heavier on the malt than an IPA. So if you want a nice late winter or early spring beer, check out your local grocery or liquor store. This is a seasonal brew so it won't be around forever.

P.S. For future reference, I won't just post any old beer up here. If it makes the blog it's worth checking out. Enjoy!

Cast Iron Grilling

2009-02-04T15:25:00.000-05:00

Here's my new grill toy: it's a cast iron grill grate made by Lodge. I've been wanting this for quite a while now but I finally gathered up the $30 needed to buy it. In other words, it's fairly cheap to purchase but I've just been lazy and haven't clicked the few buttons on Amazon.com so they could send me one. You might ask, What's so good about cast iron? My grill works fine just as it is. You're right. This item isn't a necessity and that's partly why it took me so long to order it to begin with. Your grill probably works fine, as did mine, but what if you could help it work a little better?

Some higher end grills already come with cast iron grates. Some of them even come with enameled cast iron grates but sadly, my Weber charcoal grill does not - one of the very few pet peeves I have about Weber charcoal grills.

Whether it is a cast iron pan on the stove top or a grill grate like this one, cast iron heats up relatively slowly and evenly but it also holds on to that heat once food has been placed onto it. The advantage is that compared to a thin, wiry grill grate, (like the kind that comes with Weber charcoal grills) food placed on one of these thick cast iron grates will not cool off the metal as quickly. A deeper, darker sear is attained much more easily because the grate says hotter longer.

For our Super Bowl Sunday dinner I grilled a steak. As is evident from these pictures, our super-thick ribeye has dark, smokey, crispy grill marks. Yum! I can easily say that it was the best steak I've cooked on this grill.

The picture above is taken after just one turn so you can clearly see the grill marks made by the cast iron. The steak turned out great; a crisp salty-peppery crust.

Because this ribeye was so thick I only cooked one and sliced it. Served with it is an endive, mushroom, and sweet pea melange that I saw on Jacques Pepin: Fast Food My Way, and a simple baked sweet potato with butter.

Scraps the Fox

2009-02-03T17:44:00.000-05:00

If I do say so myself, here are a couple great shots of our resident red fox that we have lovingly nicknamed Scraps. She (or he) has been visiting our backyard for the past year or so. She is a beauty and I'm really happy that she comes to visit every now and then. We think it is a female because neighbors have spotted her with a couple other foxes, possibly her kits.

Last summer, Scraps appeared rather regularly, every other day or so, whenever I happened to leave her a tasty squirrel. I got into the habit of laying the "dispatched" squirrels at the back of our yard near a large oak tree (in the right of the picture), sharing in the bounty. Scraps would come by, grab the squirrel, then trot off to areas unknown. Our hope was that she was feeding her young and, again, based on the reports from neighbors, she may have been doing just that. Enjoy the pictures!

Squirrels & Beer

2009-02-02T18:20:00.000-05:00

There comes a time when each blogger comes into harmony with the title of his or her said blog... Today is that day. Below you will see the remnants of squirrel #69. That's right, I ate one.

If you can't tell from the pictures, I only used the legs. The squirrels are so small that actually breaking down the animal is rather difficult. Especially when your butchery is regulated to the backyard patio and a plastic cutting board. I've had this guy in the freezer for about 6 weeks or so until I gathered up the gumption to actually defrost it and cook it. Part of my encouragement came from a New York Times article on squirrel cookery in Great Britain. Turns out that squirrels are being served on restaurant tables all over the country and people are loving it. You can read the article for more interesting and useful squirrel cookery information.

I cooked this squirrel in a very simple braise of carrots, onion, celery, garlic, and herbs. The braising liquid was of course... beer (and a little water). I used a Redhook Winter Hook brew with plenty of good flavor. The squirrel was pretty damn good - not at all gamey or musky. While avoiding the "it tastes like chicken" cliche, if I were to compare it to other meats I've had in the past, I would say it is most similar to rabbit with a hint of squirrel, I guess! So next time you're in the mood for something different, stop on by our house. I'll try to keep a squirrel or 2 in the freezer for some drop-in dinner guests.

Throw Dinner in the Fire

2009-01-18T13:58:00.000-05:00

Here's a fun idea for all you kids: cook your dinner in the fireplace! While the idea might sound kind of silly, it's not much different than cooking over a wood fired grill. This technique was first brought to my attention by my good friend The Caveman. Only joking. Seriously though, the fireplace is a perfectly acceptable place to cook your dinner provided you have the right equipment... like a fireplace. Instead of just dropping food directly on the fire I used a nice cast iron grilling grate that I bought a couple weeks ago Amazon.com (more on that grilling grate in later posts).

Step one was to prep the vegetables. I wrapped some medium sized carrots and radishes in a foil packet which would later steam/roast in the fire. The foil obviously protects the veggies from absolute annihilation in the heat of the fire and keeps those dirty ashes off your prized produce. You can season your veggies any way you want but I sprinkled in some thyme, olive oil, a squeeze of fresh orange, and salt & pepper.

Step two is to arrange the logs off to one side of the fireplace. It helps if you've given the fire ample time to burn to create a nice bed of hot coals. This fire was burning for about 6 hours before I started cooking. It's hard to see here because of the camera flash but believe me, there's plenty of heat going on. The cast iron grilling grate fits PERFECTLY on top of my fireplace grate which was a nice surprise considering I was doing this on the fly. Anyway, I would suggest keeping a fire going on one side of the fireplace. Obviously it generates additional heat and coals during the cooking process, but after you're done cooking you probably want to spread the fire back over the entire fireplace again to help burn off any grease.

Step three, cook that chicken. Below is the main course: a Poulet Rouge chicken from Harry's. This particular chicken is from a farm in North Carolina. As far as I know the farm supplies all the Whole Foods stores in the Atlanta area. They are quite different from your usual supermarket chicken. To achieve the Label Rouge status they have to be a slow growing breed, and have to be a minimum of 81 days old, among other parameters. Check out the website above for more info. The meat is more firm and has a distinct, chickeny flavor that is a far cry from the boneless skinless breasts from Tyson or Perdue.

The final result is below after about 45 minutes over the fire. Even if you don't cook your entire dinner over the fire, you can still have a little fun and toss in some foil wrapped sweet potatoes or other veggies.

Jamie at Home

2009-01-12T19:48:00.000-05:00

For those who are still sleeping at 7:30 on Saturday mornings, you're missing out on a great Food Network show. No, I'm not talking about "garbage bowl" Rachael Ray or the soft porn that is Sandra Lee, I'm talking about Jamie at Home with Jamie Oliver. OK I'll admit, the show is on real early for a Saturday and I'm usually sleeping too (unless an unlucky squirrel catches my eye - kill count now 72) but my DVR is a great friend and records it for me.

The show is a real gem. Jamie bases each episode on a particular ingredient and develops 3 or 4 or 5 dishes based on that ingredient. The dishes are often simple to prepare but the inspiration is based on seasonal produce, much of which comes directly from his home garden. For those who aren't willing to get up that early on a Saturday and don't have a DVR never fear, there's now a cookbook to go along with the TV series. I got mine from Mom as a Christmas present. Thanks Mom! The book is full of gardening tips, good recipes and lots of colored glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explainin' what each one was... just kidding, Arlo!

So enjoy the show or grab the book but take a lesson from Jamie: some of the best cooking is often a combination of seasonal ingredients and simple preparation, all treated with respect.

Sweetbreads

2008-12-19T16:07:00.000-05:00

Organs. Offal. Variety meat. Whatever you want to call them, I find them delicious. Just ask Peyton, he made it a part of his Best Man speech at my wedding. I think it's unfortunate that others don't have the guts... hmm... I mean desire to try some of these items. They are not necessarily offensive tasting or gross to look at, OK some are gross to look at, but they are part of animals that we eat everyday.

The American food culture has weaned us off of these tasty and frankly very nutritious meats and replaced them with boneless skinless chicken breast, ground beef, and supermarket pork chops. Don't get me wrong, every food item has a place where it can shine, but I think people should venture out of their comfort zone a little and try something new. It won't hurt you, you might even like it! After all what's more gross: eating hot dogs (by the way when they say "All Beef Franks" on the package, that mostly means ground up and re-formed bull penis) or eating something like... sweetbreads!

Why are they called sweetbreads? Because if you saw them on a menu called pancreas and/or thymus gland then people would probably throw up a bit in their mouths. Here's my most recent journey cooking and enjoying this tasty offal. Maybe I'll inspire a few folks to try something new?! If so, you can follow my steps below for a real treat.

Step 1: Remove the sweetbreads from the package and give them a quick rinse under cold water. This is the step where most people will freak out a little. They are kind of soft and gooey and don't exactly look appetizing.

Step 2: This step is entirely optional, but it helps remove some of the blood in the organ itself which helps with presentation. Soak the sweetbreads in cold, acidulated (lemon or vinegar added) water for about 1.5 to 2 hours changing the water a few times.

Step 3: Take the sweetbreads out of their soaking liquid and add them to a sauce pot containing clean water with the juice of one lemon and bring them to a simmer over medium heat. When the water begins to simmer cook them for 2 to 5 more mintues depending on their size. After the required time, remove them from the pot and plunge them into ice cold water. This stops the cooking process. Allow them to cool for a few mintues in the water.

This is the sweetbreads in the ice cold water after simmering.

Step 4: We're finally done with all the water and all the pots! Now remove the sweetbreads from the chilled water and remove any fat, connective tissue, veins, sinew etc. that is on the surface of the sweetbreads. I've never had any significant problems with this, I think the sweetbreads I buy are already fairly well cleaned.

Place the sweetbreads on a plate lined with a thick wad of paper towels or a kitchen towel. Place another plate on top and then place a weight on top of that to press the sweetbreads (canned goods work well here). This step removes some of the water and firms the sweetbreads. It is also optional but without this step you will end up with a more spongy, less desirable (in my opinion) texture. Put them into the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or up to 24 hours.

Step 5: Cook! This is where you can get creative. Sweetbreads are very versatile and can be cooked via several applications. Common methods are to fry them, saute them, grill them, or braise them. I find that when sauteed over high heat with butter or bacon fat, they are superb. I like the thin, brown crispy exterior contrasting with the creamy interior. Grilling would also work nicely. With mine, I dusted them in flour and sauteed them in butter.

Step 6: Enjoy! Now I'm not the best at presentation, so bear with me here, but I served the sweetbreads for our Saturday lunch over a mixed greens salad with grape tomatoes (most of the tomatoes are hiding) dressed with extra virgin olive oil, a balsamic vinegar reduction, and salt & pepper. On the side is a sliced bosc pear and a couple slices of toasted and buttered baguette. Hey, Olivia ate it so it can't be that gross...

Heritage Turkey for Thanksgiving

2008-12-01T18:42:00.000-05:00

Me in the AJC!

Bourbon Red Turkeys

Photos by Jamie Gumbrecht

This year for Thanksgiving we got an extra special bird. We bought a heritage breed turkey from Tim & Liz Young of Nature's Harmony Farm in Elberton, Georgia. If you don't know what a heritage breed turkey is, search for it in Google - there's plenty of info out there. Tim and Liz are new to the farming scene but they are most certainly doing great things. I won't simply repeat all the newspaper info, but if you're interested in reading more about these guys, visit their website above or check out this AJC article here.

Finally... Beer!

2008-11-06T18:40:00.000-05:00

Never mind the scary looking thing on the bottom left, it's just a beet trying to steal a taste.

So I've been going a little overboard on the squirrels and I've been ignoring the obvious: beer. The title of the blog is Squirrels & Beer after all, and I do drink gallons of the stuff each week...

My first beer blog is about Terrapin's latest "Side Project" beer called Gamma Ray. Terrapin is by far my favorite local brewery out of Athens. Sweetwater gets lots of fame and larger distribution, but Terrapin has bigger balls! Take this beer for example: Terrapin has been brewing a series of what they call "Side Project" beers. These are limited release, hand bottled, one-time, small batch brews. Once they're gone, they're gone. This one is aptly named Gamma Ray because this stuff shoots right through your system at 11% abv (alcohol by volume). Other beers with that high an alcohol percentage are big, heavy brews that take a while to get through. Surprisingly though, while no sissy light beer, it is quite drinkable and quickly sneaks up on you! It is a wheat wine style which I had never heard of. If you've ever had a barley wine style beer, this one is similar in body but has the soft amber color and taste of a wheat beer. Oh, and they added 700 lbs of tupelo and sourwood honey from the Savannah Bee Company to the tank so it's got a nice, but not overpowering sweet honey flavor. It has all the usual wheat beer flavors coming through; banana and citrus are the most prominent that my palate detects... and of course the honey. So if you're looking for a nice sipping beer go by your nearest liquor store and grab a bottle or 2. This one will not dissappoint!

Married!

2008-10-30T19:55:00.000-04:00

Well it's been a month and the last time I typed something I was "single" and in New Orleans on business. My how times have changed! Olivia, my sweetie pea and I were married on October 18th, 2008. It's hard not to be biased, but I think the Grammer's did a primo job on that reception. I will post some pictures when we get them in but I wanted to write something.

Oh - squirrel count is 64.

Back in NOLA

2008-10-01T22:52:00.000-04:00

I am fortunate enough to be back in New Orleans again for the second time in about a month. What a fun city. I'm glad the dire forecast for Hurricane Gustav spared NOLA, although it did considerable damage to the north and west of the city. Walking through the back streets away from the crowds you get that patchouli, sandalwood & stale beer smell that wafts up every now and then that somehow reminds me of Black Crowes concerts. Good memories.

I ended up having a nice dinner at the Bourbon House Seafood & Oyster Bar. It's hard to stay away from the tourist traps here, especially on Bourbon Street, but these guys did a good job. I had a 1/2 dozen oysters on the half shell (ended up being 8 because they were in a giving mood I guess) and a redfish entree. I finished it off with a bourbon milk punch. I would go back if I had the option.

I was tempted to go spend some time and money at a jazz club but after a few drinks I figured I would save face and money and wander back to the hotel. I feel bad missing out on some good jazz, but we get some good music in Atlanta too. I plan on hitting The Black Keys concert tomorrow night in ATL. Yeah, I know they're playing in New Orleans as I type but I've got friends going to the Atlanta show so I'll wait and see them there. If you don't know The Black Keys, prepare to get your ass blown off. Thanks to NOLA for a good evening.

More Backyard Wildlife

2008-09-27T14:55:00.000-04:00

Here's our newest backyard pet. A black rat snake! I've spotted this little guy (or girl) before, but until now it's been so elusive I've been unable to snap a picture or two. Today was a different story and I was allowed to get real close. Anyway, hopefully Mr. (Miss) Snake will chow down on some chipmunks.

Lollipop

2008-09-16T18:50:00.000-04:00

As a person who enjoys music and concerts, I have respect for many different musicians/groups in lots of different genres if their music is written with originality and performed with talent. The person shown in the video below is most certainly not one of them.

For those of you who were watching Saturday Night Live this past weekend (or caught it on DVR like myself) you were no doubt horrified by what you saw and laughing your ass off at the same time. Lil Wayne played a song called "Lollipop." Watch the guitar solo at the end of this song. This guy is an absolute, worthless joke.

Thankfully, Kings of Leon will be on next week...

Lil' Wayne on SNL: Worst Guitar Solo Ever? @ Yahoo! Video

Hummingbird

2008-09-02T19:45:00.000-04:00

Just to prove that I don't kill everything in my backyard here is our newest resident, a female ruby throated hummingbird. I just put up our feeder and I'm thrilled that we have a tiny little bird! I hope she stays around for a while. As a reference, the brown bar that is holding the feeder is a 1/2 inch in diameter. Tiny!

New Orleans

2008-08-27T18:24:00.000-04:00

I was in South Louisiana this week on business. I flew into Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport on Monday and drove to a few cities in and around the area. As Hurricane Gustav spins towards the Gulf of Mexico many were wondering if lightning can strike twice in The Big Easy. Time will tell...

I got to visit my cousin Tyson and his family (Sarah, Elizabeth, Cornelia, and Henry) in Baton Rouge which was nice, and I got to hit New Orleans for a couple hours on Wednesday morning. I figured if I was in the area I better saddle up at Cafe du Monde and Central Grocery if nothing else... so I did. Enjoy the pictures - I'm keeping the Muffaletta.

Beware the White Squirrel

2008-08-22T13:00:00.000-04:00

I saw something horrible today. At first I thought it might be a squirrel ghost coming back to haunt me (squirrel kill count is at 54) but then I remembered a conversation I had with a coworker about white squirrels in the Brevard, North Carolina area. I'm up here working and I saw one of the little guys while I was driving through town.

The story goes that these squirrels were accidentally introduced to the wild after a carnival truck overturned in the area back in the 1950's. The squirrels got out and the rest is history. The folks here love them. In fact, in 1986 the city passed an ordinance that states this:

"The entire area embraced within the corporate limits of the city is hereby designated as a santuary for all species of squirrel ( family Sciuriadae), and in particular the ' Brevard White Squirrel'. It shall be unlawful for any person to hunt, kill, trap, or otherwise take protected squirrels within the city."

I hope they know what they've gotten themselves into...

Don't believe me? Here are some links.

Brevard White Squirrel Festival

White Squirrel Research Institute

History of the White Squirrel

Fast Food in L.A.

2008-08-15T18:50:00.000-04:00

Here's an article from the New York Times about a year long moratorium on building new fast food restaurants in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Conversely, there are incentives for people and businesses that open new grocery stores or table service restaurants in these areas. I think it's a great idea. Quite obviously there are some people out there who are unable (or unwilling) to find good grocery stores with quality items to feed their french fry eating machines, I mean children. You can see here the son of the Michelin Man reaching for more fries. Enjoy the article.

Woodfire Grill & Chef Michael Tuohy

2008-08-14T17:00:00.000-04:00

Chef Michael Tuohy gazes at the wood fired grill before his last service at Woodfire Grill on Tuesday. Photo: Marcus Yam, AJC

Woodfire Grill has been one of my favorite restaurants to visit in Atlanta. I say that like I've been there numerous times. Actually, I've only been thrice. The first time was with Liv in the Fall of 2002. We had started dating more seriously at the time and it must have been only a few months since the restaurant had opened. She lived in the area and I had driven by Woodfire Grill and noticed the dark wood and brushed aluminum signage and smelled the wood smoke. It seemed like my kind of place. When we got there we were a few minutes early so we took a seat at the bar and ordered a couple cocktails and snacked on the Spanish almonds. I think we both had Woodford Reserve on the rocks... who was this girl that kept ordering straight bourbon? Anyway, we were eventually seated and had a great dinner. We ordered a salmon Carpaccio appetizer and split a Rocky free range chicken with steel pan greens. There was a bottle of Pinot Noir in there somewhere too. I know I had a 3 course cheese plate for dessert, but I'm not quite sure what Liv had... my memory must be fuzzy. Liv and I ate there two more times, once on New Year's Eve a year or 2 later and once with Lauren, Kevin, Dad, and Marilyn.

The reason I'm posting this is because this past Tuesday, August 12th was Chef Michael Tuohy's last night as executive chef and owner at Woodfire Grill. He is moving back to his native California to accept a position as the executive chef at The Grange restaurant inside the Citizen Hotel in Sacramento. He has been in the Atlanta area for the past 20+ years but seemingly came into his own while at Woodfire Grill. He gained attention and admiration in the Atlanta area and throughout the Southeast because he promoted and practiced using fresh, local, organic, seasonal produce and meats (aka: farm-to-table) whenever possible. I know there are countless chefs and home cooks including myself, who watched Chef Tuohy and have been inspired by his mantra and seek out these ingredients whenever possible.

Woodfire Grill will continue to live on with new owners and a new executive chef Kevin Gillespie, promoted from within, but it is sad to see Tuohy leave Atlanta. I wish I could have had one last dinner there with him at the helm, but I'm glad I got to experience his cuisine more than once while he was still here. With that said, Atlanta says goodbye. Go buy yourself a local free range chicken, fire up your charcoal grill and open a crisp bottle of sauvignon blanc to celebrate the upcoming weekend. Thanks for the great meals and memories! Good luck to Chef Tuohy.

Hot Damn! Bigfoot!

2008-08-13T18:45:00.000-04:00

As you can see from the image, a couple of guys have found the body of a creature most commonly known as Bigfoot. You know, Sasquatch. Here's the website: http://searchingforbigfoot.com/ The story goes that a couple of guys in North Georgia (of all places) came across the body in the woods. Maybe I should change the title of this blog to Sasquatch & Beer and buy a bigger pellet gun.

In all seriousness though, I doubt that these guys found much of anything, but if they did I'll truly be amazed.

DNA and photo evidence will be released in a press conference this Friday the 15th.
Below are some statistics:

*The creature is seven feet seven inches tall.
*It weighs over five hundred pounds.
*The creature looks like it is part human and part ape-like.
*It is male.
*It has reddish hair and blackish-grey eyes.
*It has two arms and two legs, and five fingers on each hand and five toes on each foot.
*The feet are flat and similar to human feet.
*Its footprint is sixteen and three-quarters inches long and five and three-quarters inches wide at the heel.
*From the palm of the hand to the tip of the middle finger, its hands are eleven and three-quarters inches long and six and one-quarter inches wide.
*The creatures walk upright. (Several of them were sighted on the same day that the body was found.)
*The teeth are more human-like than ape-like.
*DNA tests are currently being done and the current DNA and photo evidence will be presented at the press conference on Friday, August 15th.

Working Nights

2008-08-12T18:10:00.000-04:00

I'm in Alabama working the night shift at several Walmart stores this week. Walmart is a pretty big client of ours and when you're #1 on the Fortune 500 list, you tend to get what you ask for. I started this past Sunday and I'll finish up after my Friday night shift. I start around 8 p.m. and work until about 3 a.m., sometimes later depending on the work load. After that I still need to complete paperwork and send off emails so I'm not in bed until around 4:30. It's not too bad, it's even kind of fun. The only downside is being away from home for 6 days in a row... that and I'm now working during the time when I'd usually be having a beer. I think I was made to work hours like this. I adjust to the hours almost immediately. Maybe I should apply to work at a gas station or something. Back in college I would stay up until 5 or 6 in the morning and sleep until the mid-afternoon, when I got the chance. That was back in the days when Dumb & Dumber was on regular rotation on TBS. Right now I can catch the late night re-runs of the Olympics.

Anyway, I hope you're enjoying the week.

What's in a Name?

2008-08-08T20:00:00.000-04:00

Why squirrels and why beer?

The beer is probably self explanatory, but after killing squirrel #52 yesterday I thought it was a good time to explain the title of this blog. For those of you who haven't heard (where have you been?) I've been killing pesky squirrels in our backyard since February. After 6 months, it ends up being about 2 squirrels per week. Some weeks are better than others... Now I've dispatched 52 of the little rodents. Anyway, it started off as a population control measure because squirrels were EVERYWHERE. In the front yard, in the back yard, on the roof, digging holes in the garden, eating my birdseed - just all over the place. It's now become a bit of a hobby, but in truth I still feel that I'm helping keep a natural balance. In fact, just this afternoon there were 2 squirrels chasing each other through the backyard in what I could only imagine was a territory issue.

Now you might ask, "Why not leave the poor furry squirrels alone? Who cares if there are a few running around the yard?" First, squirrels are the sons of Satan. Don't believe me? Look here: http://www.deadsquirrel.com/links.html They are nowhere near as cute once you get to know them. Second and more seriously, you might have missed one crucial location where these squirrels were running and frolicking... on the roof of our house. Get into a conversation with someone and you might find out that they have had squirrels in their attic. Then ask them how much it cost to rid their attic/home of squirrels. The cost can very easily run into the $2,000-$4,000 range. That is if you still have a house to rid them from. Squirrels love to chew on electrical wires which can cause house fires. I don't know about you but I don't think either a burned up house or $4,000 out of my pocket is desirable. I decided that a $50 pellet gun from Walmart was not only fun, but truly useful too. The dead squirrels have created quite an interesting situation in our backyard, but I'll get to that in later posts.

So that's my squirrel story. I hope next time you see a squirrel running across the road you hit the gas, not the brake.

Fall TV

2008-08-03T13:35:00.000-04:00

Like many people, I too look forward to the new season of Fall TV. I mean what's more American than spending a few quality hours staring mindlessly at the television? Got any favorites? I'm a big fan of The Office, Heroes, and while not exactly scripted programming... football. There's just something about waking up late on a cool Sunday morning, starting a fire, and popping open a few beers. In a couple years (2010) I'll even be able to get up on Saturdays and get behind my alma mater, Georgia State, as they start a college football program of their own!

Anyway, as many of you know I'm also a big fan of cooking shows. None of them have yet to tackle cooking squirrel - maybe there will be more on that from me this fall (?!). Now that The Food Network is 99% full of bullshit programming like Rachael Ray, Sandra Lee, Paula Deen, Down Home with the Neelys... (get a fucking room, you two) etc., I've turned most of my attention to PBS. There you can find some great food shows and none look greater than a new show coming this fall called "Spain... On The Road Again." It looks more like a documentary than a how-to cooking show, but I'm betting it will be fantastic. The show follows Mario Batali, Mark Bittman, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Claudia Bassols on "the road trip of a lifetime" through Spain. How cool is that. Even the theme song is recorded by who else, Willie Nelson, doing a Spanish inspired version of "On the Road Again."

http://www.spainontheroadagain.com/

Watch a preview below.

First Post

2008-07-31T16:50:00.000-04:00

Here's my first post on my first blog. It's about nothing in particular, just my journey through life and the things I find interesting along the way.

I'm writing this a couple days after a relatively small earthquake (5.4) hit Chino Hills, California. While some earthquakes can be destructive and deadly, this one was just strong enough to knock some stuff off shelves and "rattle" some nerves. In that light, I found this video kinda funny. Enjoy.

Earthquake Rocks Chino Falls - Watch more free videos