One Man's Toffee is Another Man's Caramel

Who knew there’d be good ice cream in Scotland? Amazing whisky? Of course. Attractive sheep? Well, the jury’s still out on that one, although I am a bit lonely at the moment. But ice cream? The pride of New England desserts? I didn’t expect it, but there it is…Mackie’s of Scotland. Lurking in bloated liter-sized containers , they seem to be overshadowed by the more expensive, imported Ben & Jerry’s. And while I love the weird looks I get here in the U.K. when I flash my Vermont gang signs to the pints of Coffee Toffee Crunch sitting in their cool cage, when in Rome…and this Rome’s got some sweet creaminess going on in the frozen foods section. I’m all about eating local, anyways. Except for my women. I mean, Scottish women? Have you seen them? Makes America much more attractive. Both Ferrera and the country.

My favorite flavor thus far is something they call honeycomb; and while it isn’t really honeycomb, it’s still pretty damn good. It’s essentially meringue that’s been taken a bit too far when it was whipped, so it’s got the aeration, but with a toasty flavor that you could easily honey-fy in your mind given the right type of social persuasion and with a touch of artificial flavor. And it sticks to your mouth, like a good Pavlova should. So in the end, they’re more caramel bits, but I don’t want to get bogged down in details. If you’ve ever been blessed to have had a Cadbury’s Crunchie (I shall get poetic about that awesomeness at a later date,) then you know what I mean about the faux-honeycomb.

So this “honeycomb” comes across as more as caramel bits, strewn throughout “toffee” ice cream, which, expectedly with all the misnomers, is really more caramel ice cream. But at this point, who cares? And who knew that liquid from cow’s udders could be so freaking tasty? It totally beats out blood pudding in the competition for best product made out of an animal’s internal liquids. I wonder what blood pudding ice cream would taste like.

I’m going to stop before this gets out of hand. Blood, ice cream…I know what my twisted mind is capable of, and I won’t subject you to the open-throttle version of that. Maybe in private.

Coincidentally, for some hot, food-charged individual e-mail love, why not write to me? You know who you are, reading my blog…why not give a little in return? Redheads need love too.

The Coffee Achiever

I had a friend back in high school…Colleen Armstrong. I would’ve made up some fictitious name there, changing names to protect the innocent and whatnot, but I haven’t heard from the lady in many, many years, and besides, this is a good story, not one of those disparaging ones about a Catholic high school girl who gets knocked up behind the tennis courts, that gets turned into an after-school special, with Anne Hathaway as Colleen and Danny Bonaduce as Andrew. Yeah, Colleen was pretty cute. And I’m a fan of the semi-insane buff gingers in showbiz…Carrot Top, Danny, et all. It’s definitely a niche market. But I digress.

Every morning, a small but hard-core group of breakfast devotees would meet in Stillman dining hall, and gorge on the oft-overlooked morning meal. Most students chose the extra few minutes of sleep over the food; not us. Seven days a week, eggs, bacon, butter and bread flowed freely from their respective taps into our youthful veins.

Looking back on it, we were a bit like a culinary circus freak show, with everyone having a certain abnormal penchant for a specific type of sunrise sustenance. But now, given my current food habits, I realize that those are just the kind of people I want to keep camp with. Pat Walters would truly conquer the school’s bacon supply via bacon-and-butter sandwiches on a regular basis. Had I known I would be going to a university where bacon was considered an instrument of the hell they didn’t believe in, I would’ve girded my pork loins a bit better in high school. I may bitch about it now, but the truth is that four years of a bacon-free lifestyle probably helped guarantee my existence well into my 30’s.

Me? I liked the sauce….orange juice, that is. To this day, I still love tasting the dripping lifeblood of sacrificed citrus globes. They never die in vain, and they’re dead sexy as well. They’re also simply the perfect size to hold in your hands…like breasts. C’mon, you know you were thinking it.

But Colleen…well, she was the coffee achiever. As a day student, she’d drive in to school every day, clutching a 36-ounce Dunkin Donuts coffee. Apparently Dunkin Donuts sees a quart of coffee as just a tad too small. It’s sad, really, the American desire to just have bigger everything, often at the cost of quality. I’ve stepped foot on five continents in my three decades of existence, and the only one where I wasn’t exposed to the liquid filth that is Nescafe was Africa. God bless Ethiopia…they actually keep all of their good coffee for internal distribution, unlike so many other countries.

What gave Colleen the undisputed title of “coffee achiever” was the devotion she showed to that coffee. She technically lived in a different state. She drove a standard. She has a small bladder (ok, that’s a generalization, but I think most women do. Have a problem with that statement? You know where to find me.) But more importantly, a 36-ounce Dunkin Donuts coffee will simply NOT fit into the cup holder of her car, or any car, for that matter. But despite all of that, there she’d be, clutching that giant styrofoam cup…EVERY DAY. That’s a bigger commitment than I’ve probably given anything in my life. If you ask me, all beverages should be able to fit in the cup holder of your car. Cup holders are proportional to your bladder…you need to respect their limitations, which were imposed by the car gods. Without them, libation anarchy would ensue. We’d have kids “experimenting” with those gallon jugs of neon blue fruit juice you see in supermarkets, out of their minds on some blue juice chemical/sugar high. Drinking and driving: bad. Drinking artificial blue juice and driving: worse. Look at all those car companies now…they obviously know what they were doing. Wait a minute…no they didn’t.

Thinking back on it, I can’t remember if the cafeteria actually offered coffee to the students. They probably shouldn’t have, because it’s not like anyone actually needs it at that age. Although after the occasional, ahem, nocturnal libation gatherings that we’d have when the teachers were fast asleep, coffee would’ve been the miracle drug the following morning. But hell, half of jocks couldn’t even spell hangover, let alone know how to effectively get rid of one.

I wasn’t a jock. I was a dork. Still am, in fact.

And besides, I didn’t even really drink coffee until the end of my college career. I guess Colleen was just a tad higher up on the scale of caffeine maturity. For me, the acidic sugar rush of my OJ was all I needed jumpstart my morning. Forbes and I would persuade one of the teachers to drive us to Dunkin Donuts for donuts, not coffee. That was because donuts, like any food from the outside, were worth their weight in gold back on campus. This was also way before Red Bull, Rock Star, or those other crazy drinks that give Andrew more shakes than when he was cooking for the Dalai Lama. Oh, watch out now…name drop. I can’t imagine what a high school campus is like nowadays, with kids hyped up on energy drinks. Security guards roaming the campus with tranquilizer guns, to put down the rowdier ones that moved in packs and were foaming at the mouth.

But not Colleen. Despite a rather maniacal laugh that paired perfectly with a coffee-fueled existence, she kept the classic cool that make her the ultimate coffee achiever.

Dead Fish with Almonds

A little nibble to get your pelagic fix for the day.* Coincidentally, this dish pairs extremely well with Hoist by Phish, or Eat A Peach by the Allman Brothers).

This dish was inspired by my good friend Jon (that's his sexy mug there. Oh yes Jon, I Googled your ass in the middle of a Stirling coffee shop), who was overheard at a party describing the bands that are the cornerstones of his musical being. “The Dead, Phish, Allmans,” he said. A tremendous writer and a remarkable base of musical information, this dish is for him. The ‘shrooms just seemed a “natural” addition to the musical origins of this dish.

My mom always told me that my eyes were bigger than my stomach, but I spent years trying to prove her wrong. There was a reason I was always the star at the kid’s table during the big family get-togethers…I would finish anything, and everything. So, as a professional chef, I’ve tweaked that old statement a bit, and basically live by the rule that if your eyes are bigger than your stomach, well then your fist is just about right. This recipe follows that general rule. It’s also a little jab of patriotism, because despite being easier for all practical measurements, I’m not ready to convert to metric…yet.

Dead Fish with Almonds

For this homage to Jon, you’ll need some fish, some almonds, some mushrooms, some olive oil, some garlic, and some salt and pepper. A fork and plate help as well, but I’m not here to push Western eating styles on you, so just follow your heart.

Pre-heat your oven to about 425 degrees. Or Gas Mark 7. Or 220 degrees Celcius. Or 491.33 Kelvin. That should about cover most people’s ovens.

Take a good-sized piece of fish, preferably dead. If it’s still alive, then you can employ the “fist” method, by holding it with one fist, and punching it with the other (brilliant!) Use a nice, white-fleshed fish, such as halibut, haddock, or cod.

What about those almonds…are they thin sliced ones? Cool. Whole ones? Fine…just fist’em up until they’re smaller chunks. Actually, use a knife…I don’t want to be held responsible for pointy-almond-related injuries.

Take a good fistful of mushrooms, and cut them up. White mushrooms are fine, but if you can splurge on something nicer, like shiitakes or even chanterelles, then all the better.

Lightly oil a baking sheet, and lay out the fish flat, and to one side. Season with salt and pepper.

Take a clove or two of garlic, and smash with your fist, making sure to remove the skin. Place in a bowl with the mushrooms, pour over a few seconds worth of olive oil, and add a bit of salt and pepper. Now mix in about half the almonds. Pour the mixture out onto the other side of the baking sheet, so you’ve got the fish and the mushroom mix, side by side. This way you’re only using one baking sheet; it helps with cleanup.

Put the rest of the almonds in the bowl, add a touch more olive oil, and smear that mixture all over the top of the fish. You can put some more smashed garlic in there if you want, but make sure it’s good and chopped up, so it’s better incorporated into the fish.

Now stick the tray in that wicked hot box you call an oven. If so much dust has accumulated after years of take-out and disuse to the point that it bursts into flames…well, that’s a hint that you should cook more.

7 minutes! Seven minutes in heaven, or seven in hell, from the fish’s point of view. Enough time for one cocktail, 2 fun-sized candy bars, or a quick call to the parents to boast about your mad cooking skills, courtesy of a mad cook.

Remove the fish (it should be perfectly cooked at this point…but if not…cook it longer. What do you want me to say?) Then consume, with your socially approved eating devices. And then pass this proper pelagic procedure on to potential pescetarian persons.

Not a bad dish, if I do say so myself. Jon, do you concur?

*Don’t be embarrassed, I had to look up that word too.

Quote of the Day

Scene: A screaming child running towards his mother, and another child standing there, accused, clearly coming up with some excuse in her precocious little mind. When asked why she pinched her brother, she says "I didn't pinch him, I simply squeezed his head really hard." All in that accented, childish voice. (Ahem) Adorable. And all before 9 am!

We're Rolling!

The Carbon Trust Authority has FINALLY given us legitimacy, and we have the financial ball rolling, so to speak. What a relief...all the work I did at Monachyle last fall, all the number crunching, and energy calculations....it's all paid off.

Fear of the Un-Fried

Ever been to the Kippen Street Fayre? Didn’t think so. Ever wish you had paid attention back in school when they talked about that crazy, sometimes-a-vowel “y”, and now, several decades later, you stammer when a pretty girl comes up to you in a bar and says “I’ll go home with you tonight if you can give me three words in which the letter “y” functions as a consonant?” Then you subsequently wonder what you’re doing in some weird bar where linguistic pick-up lines are the norm? Damn, I wish such a place existed. Then my spelling bee past might just score me a date with Jennifer Love Hugetits.

But it’s good to see Kippen kicking it old school in the naming of their annual festival. There used to be a “Ye Olde Taverne” in my hometown, which was just a sad attempt to throw in extra vowels to make something look, um, authentic I guess. The Tavern, excuse me, Taverne was, in turn, authentically empty….all the time. They probably scared off all their customers…they should have known that New Englanders are scared off by too many vowels.

But back in Kippen, there’s a fayre that’s certainly noteworthy enough that, spell check be damned, it’s better than fayre. Ah, puns…the binkie of sub-par writing; how you make me feel safe. Selling bread to the throngs of pasty locals that littered the streets from nine a.m. on, I was able to learn a bit more about the local food culture.

Mainly, that the Scots are pretty much set in their food ways. While I’m not learned enough to label every tradition with Latin-based psychology terms, these food ways drip down through generations, to the people that stood before me, trying to return their loaves of sourdough because they “obviously weren’t cooked enough. Why else would they be chewy like that?” Fair assessment, right? How can bread be the “staff of life” if it’s not hard enough to actually use AS a staff? Where were you for that gem, Professor Grieco? Or, towards the end of the fayre, when people knew that prices would go down to get rid of stock, they crouched at the edge of my tent like ball boys at a tennis match, waiting for their bargain. Damn, those Scots can run when there’s bread involved.

But in the long run, I fayred better in terms of collateral damage than my Mhor fish cohorts, losing only a few fairy cakes in the process. Side note: I never knew that foodstuffs could officially be homosexual. But let’s be honest…cupcakes are undoubtedly the drag queens of the cake world.

Heading over to the fried –food trailer, brushing the flour from my arms, I saw the ground splattered with so many oil stains that it looked like the aftermath of a cabana-boy training seminar. People were devouring fried haddock in a way that made me wonder if they loved the taste of fried foods, or just really hated haddock.

Surely it’s the former. Throughout my time in Scotland, I’ve come to see it as a kind of positively-charged ostrich philosophy with fried foods…if you can’t see it (because it’s covered with batter and deep-fried), then it must be good. Pizza, Mars bars (which is what we call a Milky Way…but that’s a whole other post), babies, (sorry, couldn’t help myself)…it’s just better when it’s deep-fried. Given the piss-poor quality of healthy eating in this country, I’m surprised fish & chip shops don’t offer deep-fried vitamins…the batter really helps the medicine go down. Now I’m wondering if I should’ve deep-fried those sourdough loaves. People would’ve looked at it, and said, “Hmm….yes, that seems about right. I’ll take two.”

Ice Cream Battlefield

The Scottish summer here lasts for, oh, about three days. And I have been lucky enough to experience those 72 hours of Vitamin D-laden bliss. People, of course, don’t know what to do with themselves. They’re used to their food, and their weather, combining with their own personalities for this comforting trinity of cold, grey things. The people can be lovely, don’t get me wrong, but they’re like avocados. If you hadn’t been conditioned to know that there was something better underneath the skin, you’d assume they were just rough and leathery through and through. Mmmm…creamy guacamole Scots.

So they do what they think they’re supposed to in these rare situations…they pull on their one pair of shorts from 1997, and go in search of the one thing that is guaranteed to be paler than their own appendages: ice cream.

Funny side story there, little one. A few years back, my friend Mike and I went to the Dominican Republic for a week or so. We ended up telling people that the hotel had paid us to come down, just so we’d make everyone else feel tanner by comparison. We’d wake up, get on the Banana Boat, per se, slather each other up Jackson Pollock-style, and get blitzed on Coco-Locos for the next 10 hours, because they made us feel tanner. So I know what you’re going through, even if you don’t.

Seeing you there, covered in ice cream, well, it reminds me of myself in so many ways. I was a messy, messy ice cream eater well into my 20’s. I totally turned the curse into a blessing once, though. On a first date with an incredibly cute girl, and not 20 minutes in, I had splattered my entire pant leg with a tasty combination of root beer and vanilla ice cream. She must’ve liked the infusion of Andrew and ice cream, because we dated for two years thereafter. But you’ve got a ways to go before you’re in any kind of position to date, even if you are already wooing women with your adolescent innocence and creamy cap.

You really are a cute child…even more so with the thorough staining of frozen dairy all over yourself. If the circle of life was in full effect, some larger child would come along, just pick you up, and eat you, now that you’re lightly sweetened, just how the Scots like. Oh, how I wish that were true. I could almost see through your constant wailing if I knew that you were providing decent nutrition for someone higher-up on the food chain. Until then, I’ll just watch you wander aimlessly outside this ice cream shop, amidst the dairy battlefield, with all the lost and forgotten cones splattering the sidewalk.

They say love is a battlefield…specifically, Pat Benetar. But seeing how ice cream is love, I guess she’s right. Love is a battlefield. Now I’ve got it stuck in my head. Now you’ve got it stuck in your head. Sorry about that. Oh, you don’t know Pat Benetar? Here, come to my van, I’ll play you a tape. No, it’s ok, I’m sure your parents won’t mind. I’ve even got some ice cream in there.

A Feeling

To feel, to taste, to taste that feeling….I missed it. There’s something so raw, so unpretentious about cooking. I feel like I’m wrapped in a warm blanket of garlic and olive oil, and the familiar hiss and buzz as the damp mussels hit the pan reminds me of my days at Skipper’s Dock. I can feel the muscles in the salmon tense up in the pan, feel it relax under my fingertips, crusting up so nicely, you’d swear it had been Designed just for that purpose. Computer screens, people, so many other things can play tricks on me, changing fonts and faces. But with my food, I trust my hands, and they trust me. I felt that way tonight, the food nothing more than mashed new potatoes, the salmon, and some mussels.

Cooking helps me retain my sanity. It’s just a feeling.

World Oceans Day

Today, June 8th, is the first ever World Oceans Day. It's sanctioned by the UN, because apparently the United Oceans couldn't get its act together in time. And when you're staring at ocean blue helmets all day long, it's only natural that the UN would want to maintain something along the lines of that color spectrum, before they have to change one of their official colors to "oil slick and sludge water brown."
To top it all off, Ted Danson, fresh off a mere 20 year break from pouring pints on national tv, is working to spread the knowledge of declining fish populations among the larger species of our oceans. He was probably just pissed off that he came in 6th at this year's Endangered Species Killing Spree. I'm just kidding...he's a good guy, and looks stellar with the white hair.
So, as you spend your evening wondering why they chose ocean blue for the color of your urinal cake in your favorite bar bathroom, think of Ted Danson, and it will all come full circle.

The Foie

Desperation for customers was the hunger of the Adamo hotel when I stepped into its lobby this past Friday. After some wheeling and dealing, and I had a room for two nights, including breakfast and dinner, in the tiny Stirling suburb of Bridge of Allan. With breakfast and dinner you ask? Oh yes, I answer. And not some shite set menu either….the gastronomic doors of the kitchen’s abilities were opened before me, and I could choose anything from the menu, three courses in all.

The funny thing about having a dinner plan like mine: you invariably judge what you choose not by what you may be hungry for, but instead, by what kind of deal you could get. Why not go all out, order the 40 dollar lobster dish, right? Instead, with some psychological irony in play, I found myself specifically not wanting to order the most expensive thing, for the sheer purpose of not looking like that guy who automatically orders the most expensive items. But then again, I couldn’t make my order paint me as a sheepish foreigner, right?

So I sought to find a happy balance, and chose an appetizer of foie gras with honey-pickled beets and wild mushrooms, and a pear and pecorino risotto for my main. That way I was able to settle my be-freckled culinary butt-cheeks right down the line between ballsy and bashful. And squeeze.

After a solidly simple amuse of warm broccoli soup with a creamed goat cheese layered on the bottom (visually appealing, and an interesting reversal take on a goat cheese garnish), I was served a slice of foie gras roulade about the size of a hockey puck. I’m going to look into the origins of engorged fowl livers, and who discovered their awesomely sexy taste qualities. I’m sure some of the chemical makeup of the goose and duck help in establishing the amazing flavors, but I can’t help but wonder what human liver would taste like. If Charles Manson had used the liver defense, he might be living in Southern Cali right now, making decent money after opening a forehead-focused tattoo shop on the strip.

I must admit, I was a little taken aback at just how much tasty, cylindrical fat lay before me, with a few crystals of fleur de sel dotting its surface. But I eagerly scooped up a bit, and let my mouth receive it like an old friend.

Sadly, it was not a good friend in return. It looked beautiful, and was properly cooked, but it lacked depth of flavor, of character; it needed salt, plain and simple. Have you ever stuck your hand into water that was at the exact same temperature as your body? For a moment you feel nothing specific like hot or cold, just the basic sensation that there’s something in contact with you? That’s what this was like…I could feel lethargy of unctuous fat along my tongue, but it didn’t sing. It was like going to bed with a beautiful woman, and then the sex is just terrible. When beauty becomes more important than substance, then what is good and true in this world will surely have dissipated.

I finished it all off, of course….it may have needed salt, but I’m not stupid.

Ah, youth

It’s a beautiful thing, waking up to the Scottish Highlands. Highland cows tromping about the highland grasses, with highland expressions, while some highland sheep nearby just look high. Wake up with a coffee (as long as it isn’t that Nescafe shite,) and sit out on the mossy hill, watching the fog pouring its way around the mountains. I wish every morning here was like that.

But not today. Today, my morning began with the face smoosh from a 4-year old’s chocolate-smeared hand, and accented by a high-pitched shriek of joy (on his part of course.) It was like getting healed by a midget televangelist sponsored by Nutella. Praise the lord, and pass the ammunition…I’m probably going to shoot this child before the day is out. With the devilishly sadistic innocence that is childhood, I half-believe that he’s read my prior rant against Nutella, and just wanted to remind me, performance-art style, of his own views on the subject. The half-dozen flies that I hear and feel circling above me every night are psyched at the chocolate shrapnel smears that now dot the sofa around me.

Of course, that’s only one of the trio of adolescent awesomeness that literally abounds at every waking moment here. It’s not yet noon, and yet the youngest one has successfully found time to wail 7 times for mom. She could be sold in the auto department at Best Buy with her child car-alarm wailing, one of those popular ones that change intonations just slightly every four stanzas. Maaaa, maaaa, maaaa, maaaa, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mom, mom, mom, mom….Meema, Mamu, as long as it’s got the letter “M” and a couple vowels, it’s workable material.

Something in the refrigerator smells bad, and I have to keep myself from thinking about rotten dead meat, and then rotten dead baby, and then…well, wondering how far I could escape after my murderous rampage. The odds are in my favor, with no internet and scant cell reception in this glen. Evil thoughts make me smile.

The kids must’ve found out the short, but intense laundry list of things that I abhor, and have made a week-long routine of them, extra special for me. The youngest one is running in circles, singing the theme song from “Mamma Mia.” All those musicals out there, and she’s singing this one? At this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if I woke up tomorrow morning, being force-fed apple skins, and forced to walk on nail clippings. She doesn’t have any clothes on, which is their standard M.O., but she’s got some pretty unique self-made Crayola marker art that has her looking like a cross between Braveheart and the living canvas of a blind amateur hippie.

It would seem that any attempt to involve food in this post is being completely subverted by these carbon-based torture instruments. Let’s go pick some wild garlic down by the river, I think. There’s even a few buckets in the yard to do just that. Seems all too easy…until I find that Mr. Nutella fingers has decided to answer the call of the wild in said bucket.

I need to escape to the tea rooms and post this. While I firmly believe that we need less people on this planet, if I don’t leave here soon, I’m going to start supporting my own cause. Murder by urine-soaked bucket….could be a first.
Let the Scottish experience begin…..