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What’s Love Got to Do With It?
My last entry on this tainted subject matter dealt with an attempt to define a narrow perception of food-porn, which included well deserved jabs at impossible to replicate dishes pictured in upscale cookbooks and popular programs on the Food Network. I must confess that, like many of the readers here at the CIA, I get turned on and inspired by what I see in places like The French Laundry Cookbook, so to me, that’s not food-porn at all—it’s food as a viable art form. The distinction being, I am willing to attempt that type of stuff within the comfort of my own home kitchen, and I’m confident enough to serve up the result to friends, family, and paying customers. I’m one of the few who is a willing participant and will pour my energies, creative and technical, into the endeavor in an effort to achieve something dramatic, memorable, even ethereal, and of course—delicious. Serious cooks are all about the love element, that ephemeral extra that no teaspoon can measure, and no mere recipe, however simple or complicated, will ever adequately communicate. The love element is quite possibly innate, though knowledge makes it easier to manifest in the dishes we carefully create for those we care about. Caring is a key to the love element, and it’s the key ingredient that’s gone MIA in much of what passes for nourishment in America today. Therein lie the lies and lines that comprise the true face of food-porn.
True food-porn bears the face of a clown cavorting beneath golden arches. It is aggressively sold with billion dollar budgets to people of all ages, but especially to kids, by cartoony kings and grand fatherly types in white linen suits and string bow ties. It is consumed 44 ounces of high fructose corn syrup at a gulp by millions every day. It saps and sickens us, and yet we continue to line up for another dose—some as many as three times daily. We are too fat from too many empty calories. We are suffering from epidemics of heart disease and diabetes and cancers. We are increasingly falling victim to food borne illnesses and new strains of bacteria that are byproducts of a broken system. This is the stinky whiff of food porn in the winter of our collective dietary discontent, and the rot ain’t emanating from the state of Denmark. There is nothing lovely or loving about it. The love element has been supplanted by slick marketing and a first-grader’s temper tantrum and wailing desire for a “free” toy and a “happy” meal.
Where is the love? It is decidedly elsewhere than the fast food drive-thru; a place so fast there’s not even enough time to spell the word, through. I thru up, not literally—but I wanted to, when that realization finally synched in. There’s no love inside those establishments that experience an average 300 percent employee turnover each year. The mostly part-time employee/teenagers who staff these corporate franchises barely learn which button to push and then quit for another minimum wage job. Fast food restaurants don’t teach marketable skills and depend on an endless stream of unskilled, unmotivated, first-time workers in order to keep labor costs low. It’s all about the bottom line—not the waist line of a nation. Corporate entities are beholden to shareholders, not to customers who are holding a quarter-pounder as they drive down Interstate America sharing what they’re holding with the kid screaming in the back seat. To me, that’s obscenity, and it fits the definition of porn, be it food-porn or otherwise.
I don’t feel or taste the love element in the casual dining corporate outlets that have self-replicated all over the map either. I’ve had mediokra at southern-themed chains and nuked gnocchi in Italian franchises. It’s not very good, but there sure is a lot of it, seems to be the attractive common factor. Hey, but it’s the same whether the outlet/unit is in Poughkeepsie or San Diego. What a marvelous feat of corporate structuring and homogenization. No matter where we go, there we are—enjoying the same facsimile of something sort of like what grandma used to make—minus, of course, the love element. There’s no room for that kind of nonsense in corporate America or on their menus.
With the absence of love in the equation the sex act changes from making love to crossing into the realm of the pornographic—base and animalistic. Translated into food-speak, the same metaphor holds true. What once was the forbidden fruit, and as such held a certain fascination and desirability, is now the normal daily ration for an entire population, and we’re not stopping at our own borders. Fast food and its mechanized business model for sameness is, so far, our country’s biggest contribution to the cuisines of the world. Fast food; empty calories designed to addict, manufactured without the love element, at best approximates a form of dietary masturbation. There can be no real nourishment taken from it, because in many cases it’s not even real food. Dissect the ingredients of a fast food milkshake and guess what—no ice cream. It’s as fake as a porn star orgasm—lights, make-up, mirrors—they do it with mirrors.
In his recent book, In Defense of Food, eminent food writer, Michael Pollan, admonishes us to eat real food, not too much, mostly plants. This is a simple mantra that makes such obvious sense but is very difficult to actually follow given the present food supply paradigm. How do you put a full measure of love into a happy meal? You don’t, you can’t, no use even making the attempt. BUT, and it’s a big butt, the fast food giants will try to convince us that they absolutely ooze the love element when market conditions dictate that they should.
There is a staggering number of reasons why sex porn and food porn are both multi-billion dollar industries, and they all $tart with dollar $igns. But, here’s the thing about capitalism: Once successful business models cease to be profitable, they simply fade away like the brontosaurus and make way for something else—maybe something better, maybe not. Once enough of us get sick of being sick and tired of what fast food does to the environment (which we’ll get to in a future posting), and once we learn that eating is a political act and that we can effect positive change by the meal choices we make, we just might make some headway. Until that time the food whores are running the show, and what’s concealed beneath the advertising make-up and sexy packaging is a depraved and criminal ball of snakes that corrupts and destroys instead of offering nourishment and nurture.
I don’t want you to think that I’m down on burgers per se. I’m not. I love a good bacon cheeseburger and a big ol’ mess of fries as much as the next semi-carnivorous guy. But let’s play “what if” for a second or two. What if you decided to seek out and patronize a burger joint that hadn’t served the planet’s entire population already. What if this place ground their own beef or buffalo from single animals humanely raised and slaughtered. What if they made their fries from potatoes that weren’t genetically modified and even went so far as to cut them by hand. What if they put real ice cream into organic milk. What if this mythical place was locally owned and operated by people who took pride in their work. What if that dribble of juice and mustard running down the backs of your fingers was really the steady ooze of the love element. That’s something corporations will never duplicate in a million years, and I’m drooling for it right now.
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Food Porn Illness
I want you to think of a four-letter word—a dirty word that starts with an eff. Did you know that’s how you’re supposed to spell F? Well it is. Why in the aitch ee double hockey sticks am I asking you this? I’m just trying to get your brain juices working with this little riddle, that’s all. Let’s spell it out together: Eff-Oh, Oh,—Dee cat is outta dee bag, I’m talking about the “food” word.
Scratching your head yet? I know. It seems really odd to think about something as basic to existence as food in the same breath as something basically dirty, and I mean dirty in terms of obscenity kind of dirty and not encrusted with soil kind of dirty, although much of what we eat is. But there it is. There’s been much press of late linking, via the hyphen, two words; food, which we recognize as necessary for sustaining life, and porn, which by definition has no prurient value, to form the relatively newly coined term, “food-porn.” If people choose to use this type of language the spelling should be altered to read F!#$%@&D-Porn. That would alert the reader that what they were about to mentally digest would not be suitable for those under the age of consent, and would not make suitable bedtime stories or proper television viewing for your average third-grader. I’m of the old-school opinion that children should be obscene and not heard. That way they won’t get their mouths washed out with soap like many of my childhood contemporaries did for saying stuff they shouldn’t have loud enough for an adult to hear. I don’t think Dr. Spock approved of washing out the foul mouths of babes with soap. I guess we got that from Mr. Spock, before he got that M.D., back before he was even on Star Trek, much less an expert on raising kids. He had just hit Vulcan puberty, and his Vulcan hormones were raging, and he wasn’t thinking about what he was Vulcan saying, and his mom told him he better watch his mother Vulcan tongue. Of course he didn’t, she washed his mouth out with Lava, the only soap on the whole Vulcan planet, and he never smiled again. But I digress. I’m confusing TV with reality and coming up with the ultimate oxymoron; reality TV.
That’s where this whole food-porn thing got started—The Food Network. How this came to be is a story we’ll explore a little later in the monologue, but first we need some background to tease out the common threads that link and bind the two disparate words together. Let’s do porn first. Porn, pornography, pornographic material, all involve, at the most basic level, ess-ee—double or triple ex. So how does the one thing that ensures the continuation of human life transmogrify into the realm of porn? I’ll just make some general observations. Aside from the obvious porn is about exaggeration. It’s like WWF—unreal, a caricature. real people don’t look anything like porn stars or show much inclination toward that type of sex-at-the-drop-of-a-hat behavior. Porn, while titillating at best and obscenely disgusting at worst, is ultimately empty—there can be no real satisfaction taken from it. It is something to be observed, usually visually, that carries with it a certain element of shame, naughtiness, and guilt. Therefore it is something to be viewed privately so that no one will know the level of our depravity.
Shocking but true, we can say the exact same things about many of the food programs that are so popular today. Exaggerated—yep. No basis in reality—check. Titillating—you bet. Naughty/guilty—naturally. Viewed privately—in many cases, yes. Empty? So far no one has come up with a virtual menu that you can actually experience with any sense other than sight. Smell-a-vision would be a real money maker, though. I’m reminded of the Weight Watchers prayer of thanksgiving, “For this food we cannot eat we thank thee, oh Lord,” but at least we can lust after those tasty calories that keep us glued to the tube while we munch on a cardboard air biscuit or drool over an open bag of genetically modified corn chips that are treated to pass right on through without depositing any fat along the way and garnished insanely with highly processed cheese dip which carries a low-fat label. Like porn of the sexual variety, it’s about eye-candy and lusting over that which we know we can never have or experience because in reality it just doesn’t exist for us. Many of us would rather watch than do, view than chew. So there’s the big criticism aimed at food shows. Nobody actually gets off the couch and into the kitchen—that would require effort, expertise, and time, all of which are commodities that are in short supply. So to nutshell it for you, food becomes porn when it represents a twisted ideal that is far beyond the reach of all but the most highly skilled, trained, and motivated food professionals. The between the lines message is, “Don’t try this at home.”
I suppose you could technically classify many of the coffee table variety of beautifully photographed cookbooks under the “food-porn” banner as well. Many of these expensive tomes contain recipes made with impossible to get and expensive ingredients and are prepared by extraordinarily gifted kitchen artists to such unattainable exacting standards that the only experiential mode most of us could hope to grasp is the acknowledgment of the artfulness and the admission of lust. Eye candy once again—nothing more. But there are those of us who actually glean inspiration from such books. So the argument can be made that one man’s porn is another man’s play book. This notion implies that when we actually choose to participate and activate, the dirty connotations evaporate.
Obscenity is in the eye of the beholder and is almost impossible to define—another twist on cliché that applies to our subject matter here. There can be no real discussion of “porn,” food-porn or otherwise, without giving some thought or mention to its connection to obscenity. Undaunted by the inability to arrive at a hard-core definition of hard-core, Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart, said of obscenity back in 1964 that, “I know it when I see it.” Well, in a much broader context than the pretty coffee table cookbooks or this season’s hot show on the Food Network, I’m seeing obscenities in almost every nook and cranny of America’s food supply. I’m seeing things I wish I didn’t know, but we’ll save some of that for a future posting. Meanwhile, are you getting the same kind of stinky whiff that I am? What do you think about all of this? I hope this rant will inspire some discussion, so let me hear from you. Until then, as we say in the bidness, “Chow.”
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Blood, Sweat, and Beers
I guess it was my old cooking buddy, Steve, who first uttered the kitchen maxim that I’ve tried to live by. It goes, “Heat burns, sharp will cut you, and pain…well—it really hurts.” There’s a lot of truth in those words. The kitchen is a dangerous place that’s full of sharp objects, heat in various forms that can do all kinds of damage to human tissue, and harsh chemical agents and poisons that most of us keep under the sink within easy reach of the average inquisitive rug rat, Those of us who toil in these treacherous environs are keenly aware of what can and will cause us physical damage, and most of us have the battle scars to prove it. But the sad fact is the diner you’re about to feed or that persnickety dinner party guest doesn’t give a rat’s patootie if the cook has just splattered a gob of third degree cajun napalm (aka roux) all over his forearm or that the prep cook has just learned, astonishingly, that he really doesn’t need the tip of his left index finger after all. The show must go on, the next course must get plated and served in spite of blood loss or bandaged burns. It’s like the butcher who backed up into the chopping machine and got a little behind in his work—oftentimes there’s a little bit of the cook in everything that is served.
You all know the old saw about getting out of the kitchen if you can’t stand the heat, right? Well let me enlighten you about how hot it actually gets in a commercial kitchen. I spent three weeks working in a campus production kitchen where the average temperature was 120-degrees. How do I know that? All our chef jackets come with a pocket on the sleeve which is where we keep our instant read thermometers. Normally we use these devices to tell the internal temp of a roasted chicken, but after seven or eight hours of roasting yourself in your own personal version of cooking hell with a crazed and feisty Frenchman playing devil’s advocate breathing down your neck muttering French chef terminology like “merde” every time he tastes your food, not only will you have cooked your own goose in your own juice, you’ll also be craving an ice cold adult beverage at the end of the shift. At least I know I do. Some restaurant kitchens get even hotter than that, which stands to reason once you crank up a bunch of commercial gas burners, flat tops, salamanders, and ovens all at the same time. A couple zillion BTU’s in a tight airless space can make Death Valley seem as airish as Aspen by comparison. I’ve had 50 years to figure out how to handle the Texas heat, but I’ve got to tell you, that was one hot New York kitchen. I would literally wring out my whites at the end of the day. I think I wrung out part of my gall bladder after the last day of that class.
Hydration is important. Therefore I will now advise you to have something cold, nice, and preferably adult to sip on while you cook, unless you’re currently enrolled in a 12-step program. In that case drink something semi-adult like Waco tap water. It may not smell too good but it’s the only drinking water I know of that you could legitimately call al dente. It is kind of chewy. Or you could splurge and have a few O’Doul’s, but be careful. I got addicted to that stuff. I was drinking maybe nine or ten cases a day. It was ruining my life—I spent all my time in the bathroom until I had the courage to get some help at Non-alcoholics Anonymous. I also went through ATE of the twelve steps when I got hooked on phonics. The advantage, of course, to imbibing while cooking is the painkiller effect it’ll have when you realize that’s not a breakfast radish in the salad bowl—it’s your thumb. So let’s stick to food-related accidents. That’s where I started this rant, and that’s the way I’ll end it.
I can happily report that since arriving at culinary school I have managed to survive with only a handful of minor nicks, burns, and abrasions—no stitches so far, but many of my fellow culinarians have not been so lucky. I have progressively watched a young fellow from Curacao lop the tips off of two fingers and accrue a nasty gash in the palm of his good hand. He still hasn’t learned the value of the monkey grip—the way your guiding hand is supposed to hold whatever item you’re trying to cut. I keep telling him to tuck his finger tips back but pretty soon it won’t matter. He’ll hold whatever it is with his new set of nubs. I’ve seen a well intentioned Jersey girl slice her hand wide open with a serrated bread knife. Okay, it was kind of dumb. She was holding a baguette while she sliced instead of using a cutting board. I’ve seen a number of nasty burns on the legs and feet of those who didn’t move quick enough when hot stuff spilled. And I’ve seen a whole bunch of self-inflicted injuries that happened when people had a few too many of the aforementioned adult beverages outside of class. I think I can recount for you one broken neck, a broken clavicle, two fractured ulnas, one wrist, an ankle, and various digits that have all happened when normally nice kids turn into alcohol induced jackasses. Some have managed to soldier on bravely, working through and with the pain. Others have to drop out until they heal. These culinary types work hard, play hard, and sometimes fall down really hard. It’s a testament to toughness or stupidity, or probably both.
So just because you think you know your way around the kitchen, don’t think you’re immune to injury. Bad things can, do, and will happen in the kitchen. Be watchful, especially when your sous chef isn’t a cook. I once watched a girlfriend who was helping me make dinner catch her hair on fire when she was trying to boil water. Thinking fast, I smacked her with a wet dishrag before her do went up like Michael Jackson in a Pepsi commercial.
So here’s what I want from you. Give me your sordid tales of kitchen mayhem, your worst self-inflicted wounds—how did they happen, how did you react, what were the circumstances, how did you fix it? If we can’t laugh at ourselves we have to laugh at other people.
As we say in the bidness, Chow!
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Food Memories
I have a confession to make—yes, I’m going to come clean right now. In that long ago time before fast food when I was a kid, I was one of the finickiest of finicky eaters, and my mom and both grandmothers spoiled me rotten. If it had any form of onion in it I avoided it like it was radioactive. Casseroles made me do the duck and cover drill. If it was green and leafy, forget about it. If any two foods on my plate happened to be touching, it might as well have been cat droppings—there was no way I was going to eat that. When my exasperated father tried to force me to swallow a mouthful of vile English peas he was rewarded with a shirtfront that looked like something out of “The Exorcist,” courtesy of yours truly. The visualize whirled peas metaphor seems applicable here. That was the last time I tasted any kind of green pea until a great deal of time had elapsed. As a child I tried my best and succeeded in avoiding any sort of sensory contact with a vast cornucopia of foods and beverages that seemed questionable to my self-sequestered palate. So, my early memories of food are dominated by bland and undistinguished foodstuffs and my myriad ploys of food avoidance—whew! I’m sure glad they didn’t make me try that!. Thank the heavens all that changed—eventually.
For me, food memory is more of a collection of remembrances of firsts—the first time I remember something tasting good once I finally got up the gumption to try it. Coffee is a good example. My family and another family had traveled from our central Texas city to Galveston Island at the start of Spring Break, ostensibly for a jaunt into the gulf aboard a shrimp boat. Our parents thought this kind of adventure was perfect for a bunch of teens and preteens. The famously unpredictable Texas weather was uncooperative, though. A nasty cold front accompanied by high wind and rain forced us back from the dock into a seaside diner where we hoped to ride out the storm for a while. It was six in the morning when cold, wet, and hungry, the teenagers in the group gathered around one table while our parents sat in a nearby booth. We all ordered coffee. I did it to impress the girls who seemed so much more mature than me. There was a bowl filled with ice cubes on the table that held tiny glass jars of cream, and the sugar came from a chrome shaker instead of a paper packet. I can’t tell you what I had for breakfast that day, but I can tell you that I must’ve swallowed a gallon or two of coffee, each cup laced with two creams and lots of sugar. The combination made me jittery as a Mexican jumping bean and gave me a horrible stomach ache, but when we left that diner I walked out a confirmed fan of coffee. The combination of aroma, bitter, sweet, fat, and heat had won me over—not to mention the caffeine rush.
An old French classic proved to provide my onion epiphany. As I mentioned before, I was a card carrying anti-onionist from early on, and that attitude stuck with me even into my college years. My fraternity had thrown a big bash at a hotel in Dallas, and the next morning a bleary eyed bunch of us arrived at an upscale eatery for a much needed brunch. My date informed me that this joint had a reputation for the best french onion soup in town, so not wanting to appear squeamish or unmanly I reluctantly ordered a bowl. What a sensory delight! Although I was unfamiliar at the time with the proper descriptors, the combination of flavors tantalized my taste buds in a deeply meaningful and personal kind of way. I didn’t know gruyere from Real Velveeta, I just knew I loved the bubbled and blistered strings of cheese attached to a garlicky floating crouton that still had a little tooth to it. I knew nothing about caramelization, but I did realize that the onions tasted a little sweet, and in tandem with the clear beefy broth, the rich fattiness of the cheese and the still chewy bread, this was a combination I could get enthusiastic about. This experience turned out to be one of those pivotal points in my life. If I had been so obviously wrong about onions, what else had I been wrong about?
I had to admit, I’d been wrong about almost everything where food was concerned. I had wasted lots of time turning my nose up to stuff I now knew to be delicious. From anchovies to asparagus, from oysters to Osetra Caviar; from couscous to quinoa, I embarked on a voyage of discovery that continues to this day. It was the culinary equivalent of going from plain old B to BLT with chipotle mayonnaise and sliced avocados or zero to 60 at light speed. Once the light was on, I never wanted to turn it off again. I can still conjure the scenes in my mind; when, where , and who was there when I first sampled many of the dishes I love to make today.
That’s because food memories are rooted, I believe, in some primal and powerful corner of our gray matter. These snippets of remembered tastes, textures, and smells can trigger emotions and other nonfood memories both good, bad, and bittersweet—lost loved ones, good times had by all, even the faces of relatives long gone from this world can be brought back to the forefront of our thoughts by something as simple as the taste of a traditional Christmas cookie.
So, if I had to choose only one memory of food to share with you, which one would top the list? Could it be the Chef’s tasting menu at Michael Mina’s Aqua in San Francisco circa 1996? No, but that’s a really great one—wonderful friends, superb food. How about an evening at The French Laundry just last February? No, my girlfriend had a cold and couldn’t taste a thing, but that didn’t slow me down—WOW. What about that time back in 1972 when my buddies and I went backpacking in New Mexico? We had survived on skimpy freeze-dried rations for a week, and when we finally dragged our emaciated frames back to Santa Fe for a real meal we wolfed down a huge stack of warmly wrapped blue corn tortillas and fiery hot salsas both red and green and then begged for more. That was a winner, but no cigar.
Instead I’ll tell you about me, stuck in a tiny bachelor’s bungalow in 1993, newly divorced, penniless, lonesome, and sick as a dog with the flu. I didn’t think my situation could get much worse, though I’d learned to quit asking, what else can go wrong? I was patently miserable. I ached all over, my throat looked like raw hamburger, I was feverish, nauseated, and hadn’t eaten in three days. I was curled on the couch, suffering silently when I heard a tap-tap at the door. I hobbled to the door and there was my friend, Steve, with a container full of still steaming scrambled eggs. I was what you might call a friend in need and was lucky enough to have a friend indeed who lived nearby. This guy was and still is a fantastic cook. In fact, he was an early source of inspiration and instruction when I first discovered I wanted to learn to cook. I croaked my words of thanks and shooed him away before exposing him to my contagious malady, grabbed a spoon, and began to eat.
The sensation in my throat was soothing. My body craved simple nourishment. It was as if I could actually feel a form of healing taking immediate effect. It was a comfort to know somebody cared, and the way those eggs tasted….mmmmmmmm. It makes me smile right now. They were buttery with a very creamy texture, cooked over gently simmering water, stirred constantly, and conservatively seasoned with sea salt and fresh white pepper. So simple yet so satisfying. Food like that nourishes body and soul. My friend’s act of kindness helped me through a difficult time. I remember that time, I remember him, and I surely recall the best damn eggs I ever ate.
Share some of your food memories—I want to hear.
Chow!
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What I Did on My Summer Vacation
I know this title is cornier than Aunt Loretta’s pinky toe, but let me tell you, it’s a good idea to check your student e-mail—especially over school holidays. In a fit of worry that I had improperly parked my Volkswagen in the wrong spot when I departed Hyde Park, I checked my e-mail last Thursday to see if there was notification that my car had been towed. I was in luck. Although I did in fact park in a slot I shouldn’t have, CIA campus security assured me that the car would still be there when I got back from the summer break. Whew! I had visions of owing next year’s tuition to the Poughkeepsie city pound.
There was, however, another intriguing message from the folks at The Food Network announcing open auditions for the next season of The Next Food Network Star, one of their more popular programs which airs on Sunday evenings. It’s a reality show, a competition of sorts, and the last chef standing gets his or her own cooking show as the door prize. There were auditions scheduled for New York, Atlanta, San Diego, and—my luck continued to hold—Austin, Texas, just two hours away from where I currently sat, staring at the laptop screen. The Austin auditions were scheduled for the very next morning, so I did more scrambling than a breakfast grill sergeant, and rustled up glossy 8X11’s, polished up my resume, and blew the dust off a DVD of an old TV-pilot for a cooking show I did a couple of years ago. There was just enough time to print out the 11-page application form, and my lady friend and I were hellbent for leather, hammer down, pedal to the metal, bucking Inner Snake 35 traffic the whole hundred miles to the Austin Hyatt-Regency and whatever fate awaited me there.
What awaited was a whole lot of waiting. I managed to arrive at the prescribed time, but I was number 101. Best I can calculate, there were over 300 network wannabe’s that sacrificed their day for a chance at stardom. There were humanoids of all ages and descriptions, older guys like me in fairly presentable street clothes, grand motherly types with sparkly eyes, attractive girls who looked like they’d just left Howie’s Deal/No Deal set, and tons of nail biters. There were highly skilled, trained and motivated food professionals in freshly starched whites and Dansko clogs, and there were heavily tattooed hipsters in wife-beater T-shirts, spiked hair, and sporting whatever it is you call those few long strands of whiskers protruding from the center edge of the bottom lip. I can’t think of it to save my skin. There were big folks, little folks, and people of almost every ethnicity I can think of, although I don’t recall spotting any Uighurs or Chechyn Rebels. The common thread, of course, was a mutual interest in all things food…or was it? The lure of fame and fortune is a more probable motivation for the throng that arrived expectantly, with deer-in-the-headlights eyes, and each as nervous as a tablespoon of bacon fat in a red-hot skillet, hours before I dragged in.
It was mid-afternoon before they called my number, and I ambled, bear like, since I was loaded for bear, down the long hallway to the interview alcove for my ten minutes with a lady whose name I don’t know, but she holds my future in her hands and on the digital video that the producers will probably never even see. It’s a crap shoot, no two ways about it, and I knew that going in. She asked some questions, we chatted amiably, she said they’d be in touch, but I won’t hold my breath. I shuffled off, and number 102 sat down in the still warm chair. Back in the lobby, the nail biting continued unabated.
What proved to be highly entertaining to both me and my paramour was the endless opportunity to people watch and eavesdrop, and we’d had five hours to do just that. It was way better than a comparable 3/4’s of a workday wasted in line at the DMV. You could cut the hopeful energy with an 8-inch French knife—it was palpable as butter, and the bull-hockey quotient made me wish I’d worn manure-proof boots instead of my stylish sandals (sans socks, of course). We chuckled a lot, and then drove somewhat more slowly back to Waco, Texas.
And now for the reality check on reality television: If 300-plus people show up for an Austin audition, just imagine how many more will be there for the NYC audition on July 31st. There’ll be thousands more in El Lay and San Diego. The odds? Well…they’re not too solid. Actually, you might do much better with a ticket to Vegas and parental permission to bet the family farm. But, show biz is a bug with a mighty infectious bite. I’m glad for a chance to participate in the process just to see how it all works, and I’ll let you in on a little something—I secretly am keeping my fingers crossed. You never know what’ll catch the eye of a casting director—some quirk or trait that’ll help them sell the show. One thing is for certain, though; if you don’t go through the motions with an enthusiastic willingness to jump through the hoops, there’s a 100% chance that your phone will not ring, and that’s the bottom line.
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Pea-Owed About Produce
Last week in San Miguel I was drafted into dinner party duty for what turned out to be quite a crowd. I had prepped for eight diners so, of course, nine showed up—and that was just the first shift. After the first set of guests departed another late-night nine showed up unexpectedly to polish off the leftovers. Now I’m not complaining. After all, cooking is what I do. And open door mi casa/su casa hospitality plays an important part in the culture of Mexico. There were a couple of guitars and lots of songs floating around in the cool evening air while the guests munched on honey drenched figs that were jacketed in serrano ham (think prosciutto only it’s Spanish) and stuffed with toasted pecans and gooey gorgonzola. I also had a tub of freshly made chipotle hummus and bolillos to pass around and a bottle of vintage port to pour. All in all, we managed to pass a most pleasant bilingual evening in the courtyard garden of Casa Mission (pronounced miss-EE-own).
I had concocted eight different dishes for the evening repast, all with fresh ingredients purchased in the Mercado located near the downtown jardine (Har-DEEN), or from a variety of specialty shops, deli’s, and bakeries. The main course, oven roasted marinated squab, came right out of the pigeon coop at Casa Mission. Everything was SOOOOO good—better than I could have done back in Texas, and here’s the reason why: In Mexico, people don’t shop the way we do in the states. Everything I purchased was just a day or so from the field where it was grown—fresh, seasonal, local, and delicioso. And that got me to thinking……..
Why do consumers here in the states continue to settle for the tripe that passes as produce in the big grocery chains? How come you can’t get tomatoes that taste like tomatoes? Peaches that taste like peaches? Where are the fresh cream peas and black-eyed peas? Man, this is summer! I want the good stuff and you should too. Why is it, that while the best tasting peaches are grown 45 miles from Waco, you can only get peaches from either Georgia or California in your Texas friendly HEB? There’s something wrong with this picture, and the only way to change it is to actively change our own behavior in two fundamental ways. First, start pestering the produce managers and store managers in the grocery stores where you shop. Demand that they offer better produce that’s grown closer to home. Ask them to support local and organic producers and farms. In the time it takes these mega-corporate entities to digest this new consumer feedback, stop buying produce in the grocery store. Start supporting farmstands, CSA’s, Farmers’ Markets, or better yet, plant a garden of your own. When enough consumers demand it, the big box suppliers will change.
It’s Saturday, and here’s what I’m going to do today. I’m going to Lorena to buy cheese. I’m heading to Westphalia for some sausage made with craftsmanship. I’m stopping off at World Hunger Relief for some eggs that were laid yesterday by authentic yardbirds. While I’m in the neighborhood I’ll pop in at Homestead Heritage for some of their fresh-baked bread and some honey. On my way back home I’m heading for the Cooper Farm stand at Lake Air and Sanger for peaches and tomatoes and maybe a ripe cantaloupe. You can’t get this kind of goodness at a grocery store—they don’t have it and they just don’t get it. But if enough of us are willing to be more vocal and vote with our pocketbooks, maybe someday they will.
There’s a food revolution brewing and I want you all to join me. We deserve better than what the Wal-Marts, HEB’s, and Krogers of the world are currently prepared to deliver. As we say in the bidness, “Chow!”
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Dateline: San Miguel de Allende
Since I’m a bona fide college kid once again, I get to enjoy the normal breaks and vacations common to the academic world. Twenty-somethings and high-teens thrive on this kind of thing. In the days leading up to this current hiatus I heard many a heavily tattooed fan of body piercing exclaim his or her impatient desire for a much needed break from the seemingly endless rigors of campus life. After all, how much marathon partying can the human body handle without collapsing in a quivering mass of intoxicated blubber? Now, I’m not one to throw rocks here because I engaged in plenty of bad behavior myself in the days of my wasted youth at the Baylor Baptist College of Knowledge—and beyond, if you want to know the truth. But let’s just say that I’ve learned to imbibe a little more gracefully, with moderation and temperance, as I approach AARP membership status. Maybe my younger classmates will enroll in a 12-step program of some sort over the summer break. As for me—I’m enjoying myself immensely these next few days in beautiful San Miguel de Allende before I hot-foot it back to the Texas triple digit temperatures for a family wedding. I do miss a lot of stuff about Waco, but the heat isn’t very high on my list. It was 63-degrees when I left New York, and it hasn’t gotten above 80 since I arrived in San Miguel.
So, what am I up to in old Mexico? Chillaxillation is a freshly coined descriptor that fits my bill to a tee. Don’t try to pronounce it like it was Spanish. I don’t speak much Spanish yet, but I am fluent in Spinach and other leafy greens. I’m visiting my ladyfriend, Carey, and her lovely daughter, Johanna, who both like to beat the brutal Texas heat by escaping to the mountains of Mexico where the prevailing meteorological conditions are more conducive to sustaining human life. I really dig the old world feel of the place. San Miguel was built by the Spaniards back in the 1500’s, and a couple of years ago UNESCO named San Miguel a World Heritage Site. That’s a big deal that will help ensure that the city will retain its charm and won’t knuckle under to the KFC’s and Mickey-D’s of the world. The restaurant/music/art scene is vibrant and still thriving, for the most part, despite the perils of the economic meltdown. My accommodations here are absolutely superb. Check out the website, www.casacaseysanmiguel.com, and see for yourself. This is a great part of the world.
Last night I sampled somewhat judiciously from a bottle of Don Ramon Tequila Reposado. This has to be the best cactus juice I’ve ever swilled down my parched gullet. If you can find the stuff don’t waste it on margaritas. This elixir is best enjoyed neat from a shot glass one incredibly smooth sip at a time.
Tomorrow evening I’m whipping up a casual din-din for eight guests at a posh B&B called Casa Mission. The proprietors raise pigeons for local restaurants. I’ll be serving roasted stuffed squab (prepubescent pigeon, y’all) with figs, toasted pecans, and a port wine reduction sauce. Should register pretty high on the yum scale, but I’ll get you the details in the next posting.
All in all, I’m having a ball, y’all. Mexico is a kick, New York is a major league boot in the boo-tay, and I’m looking forward to being back in Waco soon. Let me know how you’re doing, what you’re up to, and what kind of summertime treats you eat to beat the heat. As we say in the bidness, Chow.
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Grazing Brooklyn
Allow me to apologize for slacking on the blog these past few weeks. BUT, in my own defense, let me just say that the culinary curriculum up here in Hyde Park has been kicking my ever widening boo-tay. I do have to admit the food up here is quite a bit different from what you get in the average college cafeteria. There was one week of cramming for finals followed by another week of fabricating fish followed by another week of cutting up all kinds of meat. It’s been a little hectic, but I have managed to squeeze in some extra-curricular adventure here and there.
A couple of weeks ago one of my classmates, who is a native of Brooklyn, took me on an all-day stroll through his old stomping grounds. Brooklyn is the epitome of urban cool, and we managed to do a major-league food crawl in an effort to discover some of Brooklyn’s finest cuisine. What prompted our quest was a casual comment I’d made about pizza. New York is noted for its pizzerias, and for me—the last time I had sampled any was before George the Third stole the election back in double-ought. I had purchased a slice through a walk-up window somewhere in the East Village and had a craving for more ever since—funny how something as simple as a slice of pizza can stick in a fellow’s head like the refrain of “The Lime and the Coconut.” I was jonesing bad, and since Brooklyn was just a two-hour train ride away, off we went. But we didn’t limit ourselves strictly to pizza.
We started the day with a hot cup of joe from a Zagat rated coffee shop called Cafe Regular. The coffee was about as good as it gets, thanks to the La Colombe Torrefaction beans they use, and the pastries weren’t no slouch neither. Sticky buns there come from Marquedt Patisserie, and the award winning rolls are made in the famous Sullivan Street Bakery. We were still in the mood for something breakfasty so we hoofed it over to a little Polish sausage joint called Jubilat Provisions. The proprietor is a jovial Polish guy named Stanley Kris, and everything about the place screams Old World ambience. Most of the space is devoted to a huge smoker that turns Stanley’s old world charcuterie creations into veritably magical viands. Traditional sausages and other smoked meats, house-made pickles and kraut await savvy shoppers. We each got inch-thick slabs of smoked bacon to munch on as we hiked to our next stop. My motto—“It’s better with bacon.”
We ambled in to Christie’s, a hole-in-the-wall source for Jamaican jerk, to try the meat patties. My guide had advised me to try what I had pictured to be something akin to hamburger, but man oh man, I was in for a treat. The beef patty was a spicy concoction encased in a savory pastry, and I couldn’t stop at just one, although i should have, considering what was coming next on the agenda.
It was pizza that had inspired us on our food jaunt, so by 2:30 that afternoon we made our way to one of the most highly rated pizzerias in all of New York, Di Fara Pizza. From the looks of the place I didn’t think there was anything too special going on. There’s nothing fancy-schmancy, but there was one major clue that told me this was the place. In the middle of the afternoon there was a line out the door and down the sidewalk. The guy who makes the pizza is just as big of a draw as the pizza. His name is Domenico De Marco, and he’s been at the pizza game since he got off the boat back in 1959. People at the counter watch in reverent silence as the master crafts each pizza, one order at a time. We each ordered two slices and washed them down with a cold cream soda. Plain, basic, cheese pizza with freshly snipped basil never tasted so good. Mr.De Marco gets about as much media coverage as Madonna. The inside walls are plastered with rave reviews from the New York Times, The New Yorker, USA Today, and other notable publications too numerous to mention here. At four bucks a slice, pizza from Di Fara would be a steal at twice the price.
We spent the rest of the afternoon in a couple of establishments renowned for excellent libation. Char #4 is an upscale bar/eatery that specializes in Class-A whiskey and house-cured meats. We had some old Irish whiskey and some lamb pastrami with aioli and a fistful of micro greens. Pretty yummy. From there it was off to the Spuyten Duyvil (spit at the devil), a classic beer garden that stocks every kind of weird beer a hop head could imagine. We ordered a short snort of Bourbon County Stout that had definite chocolate overtones. In fact, we thought it’d be just dandy with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream. The stuff packed quite a punch, too—14% alcohol, but at $9 for a six-ounce glass it was a tad pricey for my budget, so I switched to a more affordable anise-flavored IPA. The evening wasn’t getting any younger, so we sallied forth once again afoot, and made our weary way to our dinner destination.
Williamsburg is a generally tony part of Brooklyn, and we dined at one of the neighborhood’s landmark establishments—a place simply called, Diner. The emphasis there is decidedly in the sustainable/buy local/seasonal ingredient camp. And dinner at Diner was delicious. Some of the courses were a bit too aggressively salted for my taste, but the overall experience was exceptional. My spanish mackerel with polenta was superb.
We had feasted all day on a wild array of tasty treats, and so, with bellies stretched taut, we made our weary foot-sore way back to the train, back to the campus, and eventually to my narrow cot in a spartan dorm-room where I slept like a dead man.
It occurs to me that there are places of note tucked into out of the way corners of Central Texas that offer best-of-the-best dining experiences. I can think of a bunch myself. But what I want you to do is share some of your favorites within a two-hour radius of Waco. Thanks for sharing and reading and bon appetit!
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Fwah Graaaaaahhhhh: Fare or Fowl?
Last weekend I had an opportunity to tour Hudson Valley Foie Gras, basically a duck farm that provides 52% of the foie gras consumed in this country. This is going to be fairly long for a blog, but please bear with me.
So, let’s talk about one of my most favorite, but highly controversial food subjects—foie gras. It also happens to be one of my most highly esteemed munch items. For starters you might want to know a couple of factoids, like what is it and how does one pronounce it properly. After all, it’s a funny looking, foreign sounding, probably French name. Am I right? Thought so. What it is is the overgrown liver of a goose (in France) or duck (in the USA). How it came to be super-sized is a pretty interesting story we’ll get around to by and by. But first, here’s how to pronounce it: FWAH GRAH. Say it with me, FWAH GRAH. It’s not phooey grass or foy grawl unless you’re from Marlin, Texas. Whenever I say it I like to drag out the AAAAHHHH part for dramatic effect. That’s because foie gras is one of the most delectable delicacies in the whole wide world that choosey omnivores like me will devour—when they get lucky.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. You’re going, “KEY-RIPES, MAN! THAT’S LIVER! Why would anybody eat THAT?” Right? As it turns out, folks around the globe have been slobbering over foie gras for the last 5,000 years or so. The ancient Egyptians were about as big on foie gras as they were on pyramid schemes. In fact, there are heiroglyphics of servants carrying platters of foie tattooed into the walls of the tombs of the pharaohs. Toot Uncommon, the Boy King, put it on his ancient cheerios and slurped it up from a bowl precariously perched atop the noggin of a kneeling minion named Moses. But the Egyptians didn’t call it foie gras. None of them could speak French until Napoleon came to visit many centuries later. Nope, back in the day they called it Q’ttubah al Hummah. I’m not too sure of the spelling, but loosely translated it means, “What am I? Chopped LIVAH?” I’ve only been in New York for 6-weeks and already have the effing attitude. Go figure.
Back at the start of this rant I mentioned that foie gras is controversial. In fact, it’s been banned in places like Chicago, California, and other places that start with a “C” by people who I might refer to with a name that starts with “Chicken” and ends with “its.” I’ll leave it up to you to fill in the blanks—just remember, I always think clean thoughts. What’s all the hubbub about? It seems that some people of the PETA persuasion (People Ethical Treatment Animals) take issue with the care and feeding practices of the cottage industry that produces foie gras. Personally, I’m all in favor of treating animals right because I’m going to be eating animals, right? The harsh reality is that in order for us to eat, something has to die. It makes sense for us to take utmost care with our food supply. We should try our hardest to sustainably produce the best possible quality livestock if we plan on ingesting and digesting them. We have to do all in our power to raise the bestest, healthiest, happiest, hardiest, beasties they can be. We must treat them in a humane way and slaughter them humanely. Foie gras producers in the US are model citizens in this regard. But, instead of tackling the gigantic, deep-pocketed corporations that give us dirt-cheap government subsidized protein in the form of beef, chicken,and pork, all of which could use a major overhaul, by the way, PETA’s been picking on the three remaining producers of foie gras. That’s right, there are only three in the entire USA who raise a special breed of duck (Moullard) for the production of foie gras, and they don’t have the fiscal clout of a flea compared to BIG chicken, pork, or beef. The poor little foie folks get pelted by PETA with lawsuits, a big lobbying effort in various state legislatures, and by those nutty PETA pranksters who get their kicks throwing bricks through the windows of restaurants that serve foie gras. They have singled out this insignificant segment of specialty poultry producers because, like a schoolyard bully, it’s a fight they think they’re going to win. Foie, while ridiculously expensive on restaurant menus, just doesn’t generate enough cash to fend off the lawyers who are the very types who love foie gras in the first place. This makes me crazy.
Why all the misguided rancor over something as ancient and innocuous as fattened up waterfowl liver? It has to do with the issue of force feeding. In the last month of a Moullard duck’s life it is fed a diet rich in corn by means of a feeding tube carefully inserted into the throat which deposits a controlled ration of feed into the crop of the duck—the crop, not the gut. The crop is where birds store their food before it is ground up by the gizzard and then passes into the digestive tract. The duck doesn’t mind this at all. It is not an act of cruelty. I have witnessed this procedure with my own eyes and verily, I say unto you, these ducks are digging it!
Remember these two important facts about duck physiology. Their esophagus is a lot more leathery than ours. It has to be in order for them to swallow a diet of crustaceans, fish with spiny fins, rocks, shells, grains, and grasses. No teeth—no chew—must swallow whole. That feeding tube is no problem at all. Secondly, waterfowl in general have evolved to grow big livers. The liver is the place they store fat (which equates to energy) so they can have the stamina to migrate. The foie gras producers are just aiding a process nature designed over the eons. And there’s something else to consider. Think about what a single chicken in a Pilgrim’s Pride Poultry Processing Plant might be worth in terms of dollars and cents. Remember you can buy a whole chicken in almost any grocery store for around five bucks retail. These foie gras ducks are worth around $70 each WHOLESALE! They don’t just tear out the livers and throw the rest away like dove hunters do with dove breasts. These guys use everything because it all has real value—breasts for grilling, legs for confit, rendered fat for cooking, carcasses for stock, feathers for pillows, the rest for pet food. And oh yeah…there’s that marvelous mound of liver lobe which can get as big as two pounds. It behooves the caretakers to treat these valuable ducks with a level of respect that’s astronomically higher than the luckiest free-range chicken will ever experience.
I think it’s time to tell the anti-foies and foie-foes to shut the hell up and go bother somebody who deserves bothering, like Wall Street bankers and insurance big shots. There are lots of interesting things I’d like to do with some of their livers. Actually there’s a recipe I’ve been meaning to try from the Spanish Inquisition Cookbook, but I’m going to need a deep Friar.
If they do manage to ban foie gras there will be a hue and outcry from the ranks of highly skilled, trained, and motivated food professionals, such as myself. There will be weeping, wailing, and gnashing of porcelain capped incisors from the multitudes of diners. Allow me to paraphrase Anthony Bourdain: Taking foie gras away from a chef is like telling an artist the color purple is illegal. It would be a lily-livered shame to lose something this precious due to the misguided outrage of one group’s much ado about nothing.
Next time you’re out at a ritzy restaurant, try the foie gras and prepare to be amazed. It’s truly like nothing else—extraordinarily fatty, but in a fantastical way. It pairs so well with something sweet, fruity, and acidic and should be served with a sweet wine like a Sauterne, port, or ice wine. Try it and thank me later.
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I Mustard Up the Courage to Try Mayonnaise
Bad food puns have been part of my schtick since the first day I signed on as a “Cooking Coach” at the Wooded Acres HEB some ten years ago. That’s plenty of time to hone the repetoire of groaners many of you have come to expect of me. I’m particularly fond of pasta jokes. In my early days cooking in the kiosk kitchen, we would frequently serve a couscous recipe as a side to whatever chicken or fish item we happened to be pushing, and I discovered that hardly anybody actually knew what couscous was. What it is is granular semolina—the stuff you make pasta from, but it doesn’t resemble any spaghetti I’ve ever seen. People would stop by for a bite and ask why i was putting raisins in my rice. I’d tell ‘em it wasn’t rice, it’s couscous. People in Texas get flustered when you attempt to feed them something with origins as unfamiliar as North Africa. When they tasted it they’d usually ask, “What’d you say this was, Koo-Koo?” Well, that just opened the door for what became my sub-famous couscous riff. Realizing that it’ll probably lose some of its punch on paper instead of the normal oral delivery, I’ll share it with you anyway. This is what I’d tell ‘em.
I was first introduced to couscous by my girlfriend Zsa-Zsa. We were on a trip to New York, New York ‘cause Bhoutros-Bhoutros Ghali had arranged a visit to Sing Sing to see Sirhan Sirhan. We took the choo-choo, did the cha-cha the whole way. Zsa-Zsa was radiant in her Mu Mu—her eyes like littlke BB’s. We had the pooh-pooh platter which was a no-no. At the prison that night, wouldn’t you know it—there was a Duran-Duran concert,and they served us couscous with mahi-mahi and chow-chow which was MMMM-MMMM, but we both got beri-beri from Bora Bora and had to say ta ta.
Now here’s your assignment. Send me some food jokes. I studied way too hard this week and I need some chuckles. The dumber the better, but be advised, they won’t print anything that’s too dirty.
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The Good, The Bad, and the Ugli Fruit
Let’s continue our conversation about the foods we count as favorites, but let us (lettuce) also share some of our least favorites or down right “I can’t stand its.” Now, I’m a fairly omnivorous guy, but there are a few edible morsels out there in the food chain that have earned my disdain. Tripe immediately leaps sideways to my mind. The sideways reference stems from my hung over state of body and brain the first time I managed to ingest a dish that not only included tripe, but also contained another least favorite, hominy, as a principal ingredient. I’m talking about menudo. This legendary sopa from south of the border is purported to have almost magical curative powers for those who have imbibed too heavily the night before. I had, and I wanted to find out if the legend was true. In the company of my fellow alcohol over-achievers I arrived at the old Red Rooster Cafe on Business 77 and ordered a bowl. I managed to choke down a steaming serving without any further shameful incident, but I have to report that it didn’t sit well on a still queasy stomach, and it didn’t do much to quell my symptoms. There was that distinctively noxious tripe aroma that kept giving me fits, and the swollen kernels of hominy that bobbed in the splotches of surface grease tasted exactly like Ivory Soap. I know what that tastes like because of something I said in front of my mother once, but that’s another story. That whole discomfitting experience takes a back seat to what I’m about to disclose.
My Uncle Buster had toes that were dead ringers for Brazil nuts. I had seen him sans shoes from time to time and knew this to be true. Every time my dad popped the vacuum lid on a can of mixed cocktail nuts I would see them lying there, half hidden by the more delectable nutmeats. I knew there would be more toward the bottom of the can, and a shiver would run up my spine. I also knew that when everyone had gotten their fill of filberts, peanuts, cashews (bless you), and almonds, only the Brazil nut dregs would remain. Nobody eats them—EVER! That’s when I would ask my dad to call his brother, my Uncle Buster, and ask him if he was still able to walk. Once I got my courage up and nibbled the tip off of one. I felt like a cannibal.
Now it’s your turn. Give me some some of your goods, bads, and uglies. Thanks for reading and sharing.
Bon Apetit, Chef Oz
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Howdy, y’all from Hyde Park, NY
Welcome to my blog. I say, “My Blog,” but it’s really your blog as much as it is mine. The only way this is going to work is if we make it a multiple-way conversation, so let’s get the conversation started.
As you might guess, this is going to be a blog about food, and I’ll try to give you a glimpse of what life is like inside the best culinary school in the world. For starters, IT’S COLD!!!!!!! But spring is on the way in May, I’m told. The campus has a definitive Hogwarts feel to it—lots of different kitchens concealed in rather surprising locations in the maze of the main building, and the students are all here to learn a bit of food magic. The rest of the world has Harry Potter, but we’ve got Charlie Trotter.
So, for this blog’s maiden voyage, let’s talk about some of our favorite foods and why we like them so much. If it’s okay with you, I’ll tell you a couple of mine first.
I never met a potato I didn’t like. Will Rogers might’ve uttered something along those lines as a precursor to a more widely known quote, but be it man or spud, I’m sticking with the humble potato. Rather than enumerate the myriad of potato recipes I have known and loved, I’ll just call a spud a spud—it’s versatile, nourishing, comforting, filling, and works magnificently as a side dish. If there was an Academy Awards Show for food, Mr. Potato Head would be the perennial nominee for best supporting actor. What’s not to like about Russian fingerlings sauteed with shallots and garlic in a little duck fat? What self-respecting Fourth of July gathering would be complete without a tub full of potato salad on the sideboard. How could anybody serve a meat loaf dinner without a buttery mound of mashed potatoes on the side? And nothing says comfort food like a steaming bowl of creamy potato soup on a cold rainy night. The potato is up there on my list of favorites.
But so are peaches. As many of you know, peaches grow very well in our part of Texas, and when I was a kid, we had five peach trees in the backyard. They were Indian peaches—small and pale fleshed but very sweet and juicy. We ate them right off the tree, cut them up into our cheerios, made pies and cobblers, and froze mass quantities for later use.
It was my job to pick up all the fallen rotting peaches that littered the ground and dispose of them properly. This wasn’t very much fun, actually, and my gag reflex often was kicking into high gear, but then I figured out a Tom Sawyer approach that got the rest of the neighborhood rascals involved. My mom and grandma often remarked how nice my friends were to help out with such a nasty chore. Little did they know that after dark we took those peach corpses to our wooded roadside hideout and pelted every passing motorist with a barrage of slimy peach goo. The offended motorists, who often as not had their windows down, would slam on the brakes, yell foul four-letter curses, and occasionally give chase, while we vanished into the woods amid war cries and laughter. By 9:30 we’d all be back at the Osborne kitchen. That’s about the time the homemade peach ice cream was ready. We were all grins and shifty eyes as we nursed bramble scratches and, not uttering a word to give ourselves away, made mounds of the cold sweet stuff disappear. Just knowing the naughtiness of our actions made that summertime dessert taste all the sweeter. Today I still love fresh peaches in almost every form, but I get an equal enjoyment out of the memories of long ago summers in Waco, Texas.
Now it’s your turn. What are some of your personal favorites, and why? There will be a test! Not really, but I really do want to hear from you.
Latest comments
Here’s a big ol’ Hyde Park “Howdy” to you, Pantrick, and yer purdy little wife, too. Glad to know you’re going organic. It’s probably a little easier to do that In Austin than Jerusalem on the Brazos, but I’m hoping
... read the full comment by Chef Oz | Comment on What's Love Got to Do With It? Read What's Love Got to Do With It?
Excellent entry as always, Oz! Since Amanda and I have started eating organic, and paying attention to where our food comes from, we’ve felt better and have much more energy. Now I just wish I could learn to cook it!
Hope you are well my
... read the full comment by Pat Buchta | Comment on What's Love Got to Do With It? Read What's Love Got to Do With It?
I am definitely putting some love in my mashed potatoes, too. Here’s the quick mash 101 that results in fluffy mounds of carb heaven. Wash your spuds—don’t peel. You can use russets or Yukons. Split them in half lengthwise. Put them into
... read the full comment by Chef Oz | Comment on What's Love Got to Do With It? Read What's Love Got to Do With It?
One night I was teaching your sister-in-law how to properly mash a mess of Yukon Gold potatoes. Watching in horror at the violence being inflicted, I snatched the masher from her hand, put my hand on her shoulder, and with a single tear welling up in my
... read the full comment by Rev. Sam | Comment on What's Love Got to Do With It? Read What's Love Got to Do With It?