What I learned/taught from JMB and Michael Ruhlman

9:45AM
I call Roy.  This conversation is going to suck.  I really hate disappointing people in general, but especially like this.
I forgot how mellow and California he is. "No problem, the event isn't for 2 hours and we have lots of tomatoes here.  Come on down, we have staff who can help you.  It's all good..."

Subtext: "Cooks get there".

Yes we do.  I forgot.  FUCKING HELL.  yup.  Be there soon.

So... simple is good yes?  How about Panzanella?  My favorite thing of the summer. That is easy.

Roll in at 10:15.  Just my apron and one bavarian so we can all see how much of a tool I am.

Roy's Kitchen/Chef Mark's kitchen is a mellow place filled with happy confident people.  They make me glad I took the time to shave.  This isn't a disaster morning, just merely a new culinary opportunity.

Diced tomatoes, toasted bread, pickled red onions, herbs etc

So, Alan (cook, nice guy) and I start making a panzanella.  Easy stuff. We get the whole thing done in around an hour, leaving me plenty of time to mingle.

Everybody loves panzanella.  Toasted ciabatta, large dice heirloom tomatoes, arugula, thinly sliced onions (in this case lightly pickled), EVOO, herbs, salt. Thats pretty much it.  a touch of vinegar to balance.  The tomatoes need to be the stars.  And they are.  The dish was fantastically successful and no one called me an idiot (at least not to my face ;)

Many people came back for 3rds, even fourths!!!

finished product

So what did I learn today?  hmmm?

• Cooks get there
• Simple really is better
• you need a powerful kitchen to pull of complex garde manger for a crowd
• Jello does suck.   

The Next Morning: AKA Why French Chefs occasionally kill themselves

Sunday Morning: 7am.  Day of the TomatoFest

After all that drama and tedium of last night, I permit myself to sleep in a bit.  While probably not my best work, the bavarians are done.  Just going to go there, unmold the the little bastards and call it a day. I stumble downstairs and happily notice that they are all set.  Yay!!! Time for a shower and coffee.

Upon getting out of the shower, it occurs to me to unmold one and give it a taste.  Also to see how they will come out of the mold.  Since they are plastic, I can't use the blow torch, which is a heck of a lot easier to work with.  I will have to carefully set the mold in hot water and hope that it will all melt just right, enough to free them, but not enough to melt them all together.

ummmm...

OH DEAR GOD! While yes, they do slip effortlessly out of their molds, slipping easily onto the plate, they do it not as a sexy French seductress with a green thumb, but more akin to a teenager who just threw up on herself and doesn't know it.  That thing on the plate is the ugliest thing I have ever made.  I have for sure seen that before after a night of lasagna and drinking.  YUCK!!!

And now for the big realization... I don't have a back up plan.  It is now 9:15.  The event for 200 people at Cedarbrook starts in 2hours and 45 minutes.  Did I mention how nice Cedarbrook is?  How much I respect Roy?  and how a very large number of Big Kid Chefs will be there?  I can not serve this vomit on a plate.  

yeah... not gonna happen

So what do you do? In a normal restaurant, we create a back up plan.  We have other ingredients, other staff to bust out something while maybe not as amazing, still servable.  I have nothing here.  

So options: 

1. Pull a Vatel.  (Historical French Chef, killed himself when the seafood didn't arrive for the King's banquet.  It arrived shortly thereafter).  A bit icky, but desperate to save face.  
2. Call Roy and act sick.  I hate this option.  While the easiest, and technically "no one can fault you if you are sick"... yes they can.  Cooks don't get sick.  It has bitten me in the ass enough times when I actually was VERY sick and still they don't forgive me.  Arghhh.
3. Invent a death in the family... I feel like I am in high school suddenly.  
4. Or tell the truth.  I have been really working hard in 2010 on telling the truth.  As anyone who has read the press lately, my interviews have been disturbingly truthful.  I really don't like the idea of backsliding into bullshit.  So option 4 it is.  This is going to suck and I will not be invited back, that is for damn sure.  

Heirloom Tomato Bavarois... I think

Big Gnarley Tomato

So the tomatofest is coming up this Sunday at Cedarbrook.  Overall a very cool event, run by an extremely hep kat of a chef Roy Breiman.  He invited me (via text ;) to be one of the chefs about four months ago, but honestly I didn't really think much about it.  Do you want to do a tomato themed event in August?  Ummm.... sure.  cool.

But of course, that was back when I was at the Swinery, with a kitchen, and tools, and a crew.  Now, I am sitting in my kitchen at home wondering... WTF?  Sexy bites for 160?  Sure, I can do this, but what?  The essence of this event is to make the tomato sing, not to hide it.  We each get 30# of crazy good mixed heirlooms and need to make something to fuel the 6 hour long event.  I have been pulling my hair out for weeks trying to think of what to do.

I don't want to cook them, cause why bother using heirlooms if you are going to cook them down; I don't want to really mess with them anyway at all frankly.  BLTs? ;)  Now that my cheap bacon source is gone, that seems a little silly.  Besides, talk about being type cast.

So thanks in part to a conversation with KT, I decided to do a cold terrine of layered heirlooms and goat cheese, held together with tomato aspic.  But now this has evolved into a bavarois of sorts.  (Honestly I am rereading Julie/Julia project and was annoyed about how big of a deal that she made out of the orange bavarian).

Your standard Bavarois/Bavarian is a creme anglais custard, set with gelatin, then with whip cream folded in, just before the whole thing sets up.  So it is light, airy, and moussey.  The goal here is going to be make it with goat cheese, tomato aspic, and whipped cream. Then top it with a tomato "petal" then set the whole thing into a mold that is lined with a layer of tomato aspic.  Except I want basil in there somehow, and I can decide how.  (Do I make a basil puree and fold it into the goat cheese, thus making a green cloud in the middle, or do I put whole leaves in the middle, or a chiffonade in the aspic?)

Dunno, but I only have 4 hours on Saturday night to finish and set up the bloody things.  which is no where near enough.

Step 1: Blanch the tomatoes... quickly in boiling water, shock, peel.

Tomato Petals draining

Step 2: Concasse: Cut the tomatoes in quarters, carefully removing the center flesh and seeds.  Save these for the aspic.  Salt remaining flesh "petals" lightly and set aside to drain overnight.

Step 3: Make tomato water: Mash all of the pulp with a potato masher or pulse in a food processor.  Set aside to drain in a cheesecloth lined colander.  The water should be more or less clear.  Repeat if desired.  This step will take about 4 hours.

drip drip drip

Step 4: Set the tomato water... ok, so here is the first pseudo tricky part.  First off, having to use powdered gelatin, which is in itself annoying.  But how set do we want it here?  Hmm, I vote sliceable gel.  So I just turn to my handy-dandy Garde Manger book... DOH!  At the Swinery.  grrr.  Thank God for the internet!  I looked up gelatin gel strength and found the exact same table stolen from the CIA garde manger book! http://bit.ly/cqvrZ6 .  Ok, it says I need to use 1 oz of gelatin per pint of tomato water for a sliceable gel.  Gelatin first needs to be bloomed in cold liquid (until it looks grainy) then heated gently to 120F and it clears.  Then it can be added to the main batch and the whole thing sets up.  Later, I will melt some and reset it in the molds.

Stupid plastic bowl thingies
The Trailer Park equivalent of a Bavarian Mold!!

Step 5: Line the molds.  Ok, so what the heck am I going to use for molds.  I don't have the room, time, resources, or molds to actually make 160 of these buggers and the tomato petals are too big for that.  (yes, I know they could be cut down, bite me).  So, with my very very limited budget, I ran off to Cash and Carry and pick up little plastic rice bowls.  They should work nicely and each finished product can be sliced into wedges and serves 6.  Sweet.  I only hope the gelatin doesn't pick up the recycle logo!

OK, take your warm but not hot, tomato aspic and pour about an ounce into each one.  We want a nice layer to hold the tomato petal.  Dammit, come to think of it, I should really cut the petals with cutters.  grrr. It will look nicer. ok.  I am in.

As an aside: Why I owe my life to Colin Aleveras (But why I hate him too) by Gabriel Claycamp.

When I first graduated CIA, I worked at an amazing restaurant in NYC called the Tasting Room.  Colin and Renee were young punk rock kids who opened their little dream wine bar in the East Village.  Colin shaved his mohawk and took out most of the piercings.  They went to France and staged at Arpege (God's own Michelin 3-star) and came back and rounded up some investors.  I was their first sous chef right after they opened in the fall of '99.

Fresh out of "the best culinary school in the world" (hahah) I thought I was the shit.  Until you go to NY and realize, CIA grads are a dime a dozen.  We are very similar to the Puerto Rican illegals doing the dishes, other than often the latinos are better cooks.  Colin wasted no time in breaking me of my cocky attitude and showed me how good a chef can be. 

I learned a lot from Colin (who became kind of my big brother) but the most important lesson I took away from him was this: IF YOU THINK OF A WAY TO MAKE IT BETTER, AND YOU CHOOSE NOT TO, YOU ARE THE WORST KIND OF HACK.  You can not look something in the eye and not improve it.  Better to turn a blind eye to something, then identify how to fix it and not.  This has carried over into all aspects of my life.  Tis a very frustrating rule.  Anyway, back to the bavarians.

9pm Saturday Night: Alright, back from my other gig and truly not too excited about this whole process.  The Aspic is set nicely, tastes fine.  Now I need to melt it down and pour a little in each mold.  There are 50 of them to do and it takes my whole dining room table.  Then a round cut out of each tomato petal in each one.  The catch is, you have to wait till the gel sets up again, at least mostly, or the tomato will sink down to the bottom and will be poking out when the bavarian gets unmolded.  add 30 minutes.  Did I mention that I hate jello?

10PM: Make the actual Bavarian base: To start this, I  

dumped 2 # of goat cheese in the kitchen aid and paddle the hell out of it until smooth and creamy.  Meanwhile, I made a gelatin solution on the stove with a quart of half and half.  This is where things start to go wrong... 

Goat cheese, tomato guts, basil

Ok, so mix the warmed gelatin solution in with the goat cheese, then whip cream and fold it in, simple, yes?  It isn't going to yield enough however, so panic insues.  I decide (it is after 11pm at this point and I have been up since 6AM) to take the residual puree of the tomato seeds and fold that into the goat cheese.  Sounds good, right?  I adjust seasoning and dump it in.  Then add a chiffonade of basil for color.  Fold together and voila!  ...

Um sort of.  It is still too warm to start to set, and one of the catches of a bavarian is that you have to stir often as it begins to set otherwise it will SEPARATE (sounds ominous) This mean pull everything out of the refrigerator to make room for a giant bowl.  And stir every 10 minutes for then next 40 freaking minutes.  

An aside: Midnight: I have decided that now would be a good time to quit drinking for a while.  I need to purge a bit, and besides, there isn't anything to drink in the house other than an old bottle of tequila, which I swear is corked (didn't know that could happen).  I haven't been drinking all day, and well hell, I might as well keep it up for a few weeks. 

So, it is midnight, I am just pouring the bavarian batter into the molds and I am very sober.  It sucks.  This really should be done with a lot of bourbon. Oh well.  By 12:30 they are all poured and starting to set.  It is going to be ok.  I will find out in the morning. 

This is the kitchen right now:  I hate Jello and Tomatoes. 

Really Good Pickles for Jennifer Bartlett!

Damn Good Dills makes 5 lbs

8 C white distilled vinegar                         8 C water

1 C sugar                                                   1 C kosher salt

1 tsp turmeric, ground                               ½ C pickling spices

24 whole, small red chili peppers               32 garlic cloves

8 fresh dill heads                                      

5 lbs well-washed, small to medium pickling cucumbers, about 16 C

In a large non-aluminum stockpot, bring the vinegar, water, sugar, salt, turmeric, and pickling spices to a simmer over medium heat.  Let cook while preparing the jarred cucumbers.

To each of 4 large 4-cup sterilized glass canning jars, and 2 dill sprigs, 8 garlic cloves, and 6 chilies.  Fill loosely to the shoulder of each jar with the cucumbers.  Fill each jar to the top of the shoulder with the hot pickle brine.  Clean the rims, screw the lids on snugly, and invert the jars for 3 hours.

Refrigerate for up to 2 months.  Use any left over pickling liquid to pickle other kinds of vegetables.   


(Learned these pickles from Chef Greg Higgins. Not sure if this is his exact recipe, but is certainly in the spirit, thanks Greg!!)

An Italian "al fresco" evening in the Tri-Cities

Finally, my weeks of sitting around trying to get something going are coming to an end.  On Monday, I am teaching my first class in quite a while, over in the Tri-Cities.  The wonderful Italy compatriot Sandralini is the hostess, along with other Italy trip veterans KT Wright and Mary Pat.
Since the class is full and I have to work up my shopping lists, I thought I might post some recipes of the delights we are to have.  Winemaker Neil Cooper will be there as well providing some libation, so it should be a great time!

Menu:

• Frascarelli with truffled grape tomatoes and parmigiano
• Antonio’s ricotta flan with pecorino fonduta
• Heirloom tomato panzanella
• Rosemary Spiedini (Pork tenderloin, bacon, chicken livers) grilled
• Saltimbocca, zucchini gratin, sautéed escarole, grilled polenta cakes
• Fresh ricotta with cinnamon and sugar, fresh peaches
• Espresso and grappa

The Story of Antonio: I first met Antonio years ago through a mutual friend.  Tall, handsome, and charming he is the dream of the Italian Chef.  He came to CC west Seattle in 2006 and taught a couple of cooking classes and then did an awesome Gypsy dinner.  In '08 we all went to Italy to visit him and have a wonderful Italian cooking adventure.  Debbie and I hosted/ran the trip and Antonio was the star.  He shared some of his own recipes like this Frascarelli and his Tortino.  

Antipasti

Frascarelli: Antonio's grandmother made this pasta up, technically translated, Frascarelli are the little goobers that stick to your hands when making pasta.  This pasta dish is supposed to be made with only one hand so "she could smack the little kids misbehaving and clinging to her skirts".  

Frascarelli serves 8

22 oz flour

4 eggs

1 tsp kosher salt

Make Pasta: Sprinkle flour in a fine layer on a cutting board.  Beat the eggs in a small bowl with the salt.  Using the whisk drizzle the eggs all over the flour.  Using your fingers squish the eggs into the flour to form little lumps.  Make sure to work all of the eggs in, but leave the lumps pretty big. 

Finish: Place pasta in a fine sieve and shake gently to get excess flour off. 

Cook: Cook in heavily salted boiling water for 1 minute.  Drain and add frascarelli to a pasta sauce, or toss with olive oil.  Serve with Parmigiano and halved grape tomatoes (warmed) and truffles.

2nd

         Our next course will be another Antonio creation. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I tend to think of pecorino as a garnish cheese, not a sauce.  But this works beautifully, melts smooth and delicious  

Tortino serves 6

flan

3C good fresh ricotta                                                         2 egg whites

1 T cornstarch                                                                    1 T heavy cream

Sauce

1 C grated pecorino romano                                              2 C heavy cream

Garnish

Nutmeg, freshly grated                                                      Marjoram sprigs                                  

Preheat oven to 375°F

Make Flan: Mix ricotta together with the egg whites in a small bowl.  In another small bowl, combine heavy cream and cornstarch until combined.  Whisk the cornstarch mixture into the ricotta mix.  Pack into buttered ramekins.  Bake for 25 minutes or until browned on top and risen slightly. 

Meanwhile make sauce: Place the cream in a small pot and over medium heat, reduce by half.  Add the grated cheese.  Simmer until just thickened.  Hold warm. 

Serve: Pool ½ C of warm sauce in the bottom of each bowl, and unmold the flans in the center of each bowl. Grate some nutmeg over each and serve with a sprig of marjoram.  

3rd- Salade

                There is nothing that says summer like a good heirloom tomato.  During the season, I try to make panzanella at least 20 times, and I never get tired of it.  It is fun and easy to quickly grill the bread to add more character.  

Grilled Panzanella (Tuscan Bread Salad)          serves 8

10 oz coarse country bread, stale

3 ripe heirloom tomatoes, cut into large chunks

1 yellow onion, thinly sliced

1 C torn basil leaves

2 T red wine vinegar

kosher salt and pepper to taste

⅓ C extra virgin olive oil

Prepare the Bread:  Rub the bread lightly with olive oil and then grill over on a hot grill, until well marked.  Cool.  Cut the bread into 2” chunks and combine with the tomatoes, onions, and basil. 

Toss salad: Dissolve salt and pepper in the vinegar.  Add the oil and mix well.  Drizzle with vinegar and toss well.  Allow to sit for 1 hour for flavors to meld.  Serve at room temp.

4th- Primi

             Livers (fegato) are something that has taken me a long time to get comfortable with.  I love me some pate, and make about a million types, but just straight up eating liver has been a challenge.  This dish is wonderful and so simple as to be comical.  It is literally cubes of bacon, chicken liver, and pork tenderloin, threaded on rosemary branches, and grilled.  Nothing could be easier! The only catch is make sure the coals are burned down low enough to prevent flare ups... or grill these guys over an indirect heat. 

Spiedini alla Florentine serves 8

8 pieces chicken liver                                           16 bay leaves (fresh if you can find them)

1 pork tenderloin, cut into 16 pieces                     8 strips bacon

16 sage leaves                                                      2 cloves garlic, crushed

8 sturdy rosemary branches                                  16 (2”) bread cubes, stale

kosher salt and pepper to taste                            Extra virgin olive oil

Build a fire in a charcoal grill and burn until the coals are covered in white ash

Marinate: In a large bowl, toss the liver, bacon, tenderloin pieces, garlic, sage, and bay together.  Add 1 C olive oil along with several large pinches of salt and lots of pepper.  Marinate 1 hour.

Skewer: Using the rosemary branches as skewers, thread 1 piece of liver, 2 pieces pork tenderloin, 1 strip of bacon, bay leaves, sage leaves, and 2 bread cubes (dip in the olive oil first).  Alternate all of the pieces, repeat to make 8 skewers.  Drizzle with all of the remaining marinade. 

Grill: Grill over hot coals until done, serve with a nice chianti.  

5th-Secundi

                  Our main course will combine lots of elements to round out the class and because I really want to have something "jump in my mouth" ;)

Saltimbocca alla Romana serves 4

4 pieces thinly sliced prosciutto, cut in half crosswise

1# pork scalloppine, cut into 8 pieces

8 large sage leaves

¼ C extra virgin olive oil

¼ C dry white wine

1 C Veal stock

4 T butter, in small pieces

Prepare the pork:  Pound the pork very thin.  Place 1 slice of prosciutto on top of each slice of pork, center a sage leaf on top of the prosciutto, then thread a wooden toothpick through the sage, prosciutto, and pork to hold all three in place.  Set aside.

Cook the meat: Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat until hot but not smoking.  Add meat to skillet, prosciutto side down, in a single layer, (work in batches if necessary) and sauté until prosciutto is lightly browned and crisp on the edges and pork is lightly browned, about 2 minutes.  As meat is cooked, transfer to a warm platter. 

Make sauce: Pour off and discard fat from skillet.  Return skillet to medium high heat, add wine, and cook, scraping browned bits up, until alcohol has evaporated, about 1 minute.  Add stock and accumulated juices from platter, and reduce by ¾, about 10 minutes, then whisk in the butter.

Return meat to skillet to warm through, then transfer to a serving platter, prosciutto side up, and spoon sauce around.  Remove toothpicks before serving.  

Garlicky Lemon Escarole serves 4-6

2 large bunches escarole                           ½ C olive oil                

15 cloves garlic, sliced                               1 T balsamic vinegar

kosher salt and pepper to taste                1 tsp chili flakes

Juice of 2 lemons

Blanch: Blanch the escarole in heavily salted rapidly boiling water and shock in ice water to cool. 

Sauté: n a large sauté pan heat olive oil and sauté the garlic and chili flakes.  When starting to brown add the escarole and the lemon all at once.  Cook 5 minutes.  Sauté until everything is hot and saucy.  Season and serve.  

Simple Polenta Cakes

2 C Polenta                                    1 T Kosher Salt

2 C Light Chicken Stock                 ½ C Parmigiano Reggiano

2 C 2% Milk                                    1 stick Butter

2 C water                                       1 T roasted garlic paste

Bring to a boil: Combine all ingredients except cheese and butter in a medium sauce pan.  Bring to a simmer, slowly, over medium-low heat, stirring frequently.  Make sure to get all lumps out—there should be none to start. 

Reduce to a simmer: When simmering, stir frequently with a wooden spoon and cook for 35 to 40 minutes, until each grain of polenta is tender, not gritty.  Stir in butter and cheese. 

Cool, set, fry: Pack into a buttered 9x13 pan.  Using plastic wrap, smooth the top; cover and refrigerate.  Cut into desired shapes and pan-fry.  

Zucchini Gratin  serves 4

1# zucchini

2 C highly seasoned tomato sauce

Kosher salt

1 C grated parmigiano

2 T olive oil

Preheat oven to 375°F

Prep eggplant: Trim zucchini and cut them in very thin slices, lengthwise. Salt the slices and set them aside for 30 minutes to drain. Drain well, and dry with a cloth.

Assemble: Oil a heatproof dish. Make a layer of zucchini in the bottom, then a layer of thick, highly seasoned tomato sauce. Top with another layer of zucchini and finish with sauce. Top generously with grated cheese, sprinkle lightly with olive oil.

Bake: Bake for 25 minutes to until hot and bubbly.  Let stand for 5 minutes to set up.  Serve. 

6th Dolci

       This one brings back memories for me.  When I was 15 years old I started having regular dinner parties (parents gave me money for food and then skipped town for long travel) and I had a very interesting friend who was an opera singer and a world traveler, and very loud and flamboyant and very gay.  For a 15 year old in Centralia WA, Stephan was a trip.  This was his favorite "Italian" Dessert.  

Peaches with Ricotta and Grappa serves 6

2 peaches, thinly sliced                                                     

2 C very good, sheep’s milk ricotta

2 T cinnamon sugar

1 T grappa

                             

On each of 6 dessert plates, place a scoop of the ricotta.  Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.  Place peaches around and drizzle with the grappa.  Serve.  

Gonna be a great night!

Vin Santo of Course!!

Have a little Faith...

So today, my littlest girl is ready to spring into action...no not Jez, she has been in service for quite a while as anyone who knows her will tell you.  Faith, the starter.  Thought it might be fun to geek out a touch and talk about some bread dynamics.

Bubbly goodness

Faith is what is known as a liquid levain or in English, a sourdough starter.  The only problem is that in the French style, she probably wont make sour bread... so really she is a levain.  Long ago before Louis Pasteur isolated yeast, bakers had only a few options to make bread rise.  The principal plan was to make a living culture out of flour and water and wild yeasts.  Normally made by mixing flour, water, and some fruit or other natural sugar containing thing (grapes are nice, ours used pomegranate seeds) and allowing it to sit for a while.  If you feed it flour and water every day, eventually the wild yeasts will have a chance to colonize and you will have a stable culture.  It, romantically speaking, really helps if you do this by the light of the full moon and stir with a silver rod.

Now, there are some pros and cons with this method.
Pros: when properly executed, a levain will create amazing truly idiosyncratic breads.  They will not only taste of the place (Provence, Seattle, etc) but also the direct environment (my family etc)
Cons: The starter is not only alive, but REALLY idiosyncratic in its own right.  It needs to be fed the same amount every day at the same time, maintained in the same temperature and humidity, and oh yeah... it needs to be fed.  Everyday.  And it could die. and that would suck.  And if you don't do it perfect, it makes really crappy bread.

Grahl

However, being that there were no cute little packets of yeast, this was pretty much the only way to make bread.  The only other option was a magic wand like our boy Grahl... but that is a different story.

So the nitty gritty: you have two basic kinds of levains: liquid and firm.  A liquid levain (like Faith) is 100% hydrated, meaning that the flour and water are in equal proportions by weight.  (We can discuss baker's math some other time).  Liquid levains tend to make lactic acid... which means that the bread is complex but not tangy.
A firm levain is where water equals about 60% of the flour weight.  It looks like a dough, but it isn't kneaded.  Firm levains tend towards acetic acid production, i.e. the breads that you make with them will be tangy.

However temperature plays a role as well.  There are cute little buggers in levains called lacto baccili and they are either heterofermenting or homofermenting.  Homofermenting only produce 1 thing, either acetic acid or lactic.  The hetero kats can bat for both teams and will make either acetic acid or lactic acid depending on the ambient temperature.... make sense?  So if we keep our levain at room temp, it will make lactic, if we refrigerate it, it will produce acetic.

So for a true San Fransisco sourdough, keep it firm and put it in the fridge.  For a complex European style bread, liquid and room temp levain is the way to go.

Ok, enough geekin out.  So Faith is liquid and room temp, just the way I like it.  Fluid and dynamic even.  The thing I like most about working with wild yeasts is that it takes Faith.  You have no control.  It's like kids, you can put them in the perfect environment, you can feed them the best things and... sometimes they will surprise you completely.  Kids and Yeast cultures... perfect recipe against taking things for granted.  They scream: Be Here Now.  Or else I will do something crazy.

Have a little Faith... you can do it.  If anyone wants a proper recipe, let me know. I plan to bake tomorrow.  Cross your fingers, she is only 10 days old...
 

To kill a pig

So on to the meat of it;
I am going to go Kill another pig.  This is not something that I do lightly, nor often at all.  Frankly it is something that has plagued me with nightmares and given me hope all at the same time.  There is something truly religious about taking a life for the sustenance of your village.

It all started way back in 'O8 with the first Sacrificio.  I have a bit of a moral issue with the way our society takes for granted the abundance that we are blessed with.  My God, people, we live in the Pacific Northwest. Abundance drips from the trees and still leaps from the seas.  It however is not supposed to come in little packages at Safeway.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am a fan of conveniece.  (actually that is a lie, but hell, let's go with it for now).  But I am not a fan of consuming... consuming more than our share, more than we need, or consuming blindly.  Most of us go to Costco and pick up a pack of pork chops and never think beyond: Damn that's a good deal!  These were real creatures and for the most part they had truly shitty lives.  We are not treating our fellow beasts the way we ought.

Strictly from a culinary perspective, never mind the ethical or spiritual one, food raised poorly tastes bad.  Has less nutrients and makes us fat. But more importantly it degrades the experience of eating and the joy in fresh food.  We become that much more comfortably numb.

Ok, enough soapbox.  ANYWAY... I commissioned 24 pigs in 2008 from our amazing pig farmer Mark Baker.  He raises them the way you want them to be raised.  I am proud to take my kids there and proud to tell them to LOOK AROUND... this is the right way to do things.   However, I started having second thoughts... who am I to "commission" animals?  This seems awfully anonymous to me.  Hence: A party.

Personality trait #1: When I am uncomfortable or haven't done something, the little part in my brain that should be saying "maybe you should practice this alone first" doesn't work.  My first response is to invite as many people as possible to watch me try.  calms the nerves.

So Jan 13th 2008, I took 70 people, and the press to a small farm on the pennisula to kill my first pig.  I had not only never ever killed anything before, but I also was running and insane fever and had pneumonia.  But whatever.  Once the invites go out, what are you going to do?  There were at least 13 small kids there, many grandparents, several dogs, a band, a BBQ, and a really really cold wet miserable day.  In the style of BraveHeart, I got dressed up, had Heid braid my hair and set off.

To make a really long story a touch shorter, the event was a success.  My first shot was clean and did the job, we cut the throat and gathered the blood (although I did get kicked in the head), and as a village we broke down the pig and salted the parts for the winter.  Everyone got into it and had an amazing time.  Blood was on all of our hands.  We did it together and we were all proud of our role in the circle of life.  It felt to me as if we were tied to something larger, traditions that went back in time.  We were a big family.

(Amusingly, I ended up at the emergency clinic that night with a 103.5 degree fever and was sick for weeks.  The Weekly wrote a huge article the earned Jonathan a major award and many many vegetarians vowed never to speak my name again. C'est la vie.)

So here we go again: on October 23rd I have been asked to travel all the way to Rice, WA to try to recreate this moment.  To bring together a new tribe in an ancient sacrifice for all of us.  There will be blood on all of our hands and we will shake them as brothers, sisters, as family. For more information go to: www.wildinrice.com