Choke Me

I'm coming back to the artichoke. I said before that as a food, it was a cruel joke. But it's not. Well, not really. It's more like a good date. The kind that makes you work for it. Waiting at it's core: a beautiful, tender heart. An elusive flavor that is unlike any other, something that doesn't play well with many other kids on the food playground. It perplexes the complex, such as wine, and it can alter the perception of your tongue.

Then again, it's also like lobster. But if your date looks like a lobster, then call me; I'll give you some tips. No one should have to date anything with a carapace. I don't care how tasty they are; foreplay just isn't the same with an exo-skeleton.

Treated well, artichokes will shed their clothing for you, piece by piece. And you'll want savor every bit, sliding it between your teeth, dipping it in hot melted butter. As butterfat and liquid solids slide off the tip, steam rising from the wood-green leaves....it's rustic food ecstasy.

And non of that Smart Balance shit, ok? I'm all for giving props when necessary, but Brandeis Butter does not a sexy food story make. Neither do fatty, sweaty man-folds on your stomach, so don't go overboard.

So the artichoke exudes beauty and modesty in its design. It can stand on its own; it doesn't need to hide in pasta or sauces just to feel included. It's my rose: although the violet hues are hidden within, it blends sensorial satisfaction to the patient and pain to the trembling tips of the impatient.

And like any good relationship, there must be compromises. Should you steam an artichoke, there's a chance the stem will be reduced to a slightly mushy mass. If you clean them, and cut and roast the stems, then you inevitable lose the chance to easily eat the leaves.

So this is what I like to do when I'm 'choking it. Um.....yeah.

In a dry wide, straight-sided pan, toast 1 Tablespoon each paprika and cumin over low heat until fragrant.

Add 1 Cup of your finest cheap white cooking wine, raise the heat to medium-high, and cook, stirring frequently, until liquid is almost entirely evaporated.

Place four artichokes, cleaned of only the outermost leaves (and perhaps the very end of the stem if it looks less than appealing), in the pan, and swirl so they are coated with the remains of the liquid and spices.

Add 2 cups vegetable stock or water, and raise the heat to high. The liquid should come about 1/4 the way up the pan. Cover with a lid when it begins to steam.

Swirl pan occasionally, to evenly turn the artichokes, as they steam/braise. You may need more liquid, so add as necessary.

The artichokes are "done" when a knife slides easily in and out of the point where the stem meets the base.

Place artichokes on a plate, and sprinkle with coarse sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Serve with melted butter. And a large bowl for the leaves.

Now get your hands dirty and eat the damn thing. The base of the leaves are edible, as is the base and stem, once the hair-like center (the choke) is removed.

If you're feeling soupy, you can make some from the beat-up remains of your cooking conquests. Bring whatever scrap is left over to a boil with just enough water or stock to cover, using a kitchen towel to keep it submerged. If you have any of the initial cooking liquid left over, this will add another layer of flavor. Cook until wicked tender. Blend with a high-powered stick or standing blender (this can get fibrous, so be careful not to overwork your blender). Strain it through a fine mesh strainer, and adjust as needed with salt, pepper, cream, water, etc.

Vive l'artichaut!

I loves ya America….

But you’re already starting to piss me off. And I’m still in international waters, or rather, 33,000 feet above international waters. At this point, the only America I’m experiencing is in a long metal tube packed full of Americans retuning from their British experiences. And while I understand the basic physics of flight, I also believe in Newton’s law of gravity. As in, what goes up may come back down in the form of a fig-filled tasty treat. Or at least resemble one after hitting the ground. So instead of dwelling on the void beneath my feet, I instead try to fill it with the thoughts of my return.

Yes, this redhead has left the British Isles, on his way to America, the land of opportunity and firearms. Man, I can’t wait shoot something.

There are things I’ll miss though. For instance, the Glasgow airport was fantastic. It really was. It has to be the only place that gives you the opportunity to buy cases of beer AFTER you go through security. The last four rows on my flight to London became a mile-high game of beer pong. It was great. And despite the plane being thrown in every known direction with the turbulence, they were still able to pour a mean gin & tonic. British Airways: We don’t just fly. We live. To party. But in that reserved, austere British way.

After getting selected for “random additional screening,” I couldn't help but wonder what it really was about the States that I missed. My friends? Of course. The food? Definitely the food. But definitely NOT having someone touch me intimately, when we’re not on a first-name basis. And they’re telling me to relax? Bringing stool samples to the local clinic every day for a week after getting sick in the Domican Republic would be less awkward. Was less awkward. At least they stayed away from touching my bathing suit area. I need an adult!

Sushi. Mexican. Stimulating conversation. REAL bacon. I hunger for these things, and none of them are to be found within the rectangular borders of my in-flight meal. My choices? Beef stroganoff or cheese tortellini. Or rather, grey slush or yellow slush. It’s too hard to choose. Your senses are already dulled due to the high altitude and the time change, and so the airline chooses this precise moment to culinarily SCREW you. Half the things on your tray don’t exist anywhere other than at 33,000 feet. Your food actually starts out, Shrinky-Dink style, as tiny hard versions that expand in water. Your only hope is to dump the entire ¼ teaspoon of pepper from that wee packet on one bite of your chosen slush, then have a mild freak-out from the piper nigrum, which will hopefully get the flight attendants attention, and then maybe score you a specialty meal. Just try not to convulse too much from the pepper overload, or some wanna-be hero is likely to tackle you and claim you’re a terrorist, and then the plane gets diverted to Greenland, where the real punishment begins. No one wants to go to Greenland. Not even Greenland wants to go to Greenland. Even Iceland, broke and poorly named, when offered to start over fresh in Greenland, said “No, we’re good. We’ve got enough whale blubber and pickled puffin to last us a while.” Maybe if they had a McPuffin burger, the Icelandic McDonald’s wouldn’t be closing down. Now with more real puffin.

So once the worst excuse for a “square meal” gets taken away, and the roll-y cart, which is the airline’s version of the giant boulder from The Temple of Doom is safely gone, I settle down to watch the movie. Except, due to some error, we get 5 hours of Top Chef instead. And it kicks off with guest chef Eric Ripert, one of the few men to whom I would willingly kowtow. The contestants are asked to fillet different fish, including salmon, anchovies, and live eels. Sweet!

Savoury! They blur out the fish! Are you freaking kidding me?!

What, they don’t want to offend our delicate American sensibilities by showing us the insides of a fresh fish? Apparently the sight of real, natural food would be harmful to some viewers. Or maybe it’s because if we saw good, fresh food on the tv, while eating the regurgitated, reconstituted, recycled food they serve us, the airline would have a mutiny on their hands. Parents would complain that their children are being exposed to disturbing images. And I’m not talking about Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve.

We’re beset on all sides by corporations and larger powers telling us how to bring up our children in this modern food world. Under their tutelage, formula would replace good old fashioned breast milk, and chicken and fish would only come in stick or nugget form.

But no! Fight the power! Breast is best! And all fish needs to be filleted, even if it ultimately will become rectangular and frozen. Stupid people. So you piss me off America. Somebody complained about having to watch fresh fish becoming good food, at the hands of skilled professionals. If you don’t want to watch, then don’t. Put your head down and eat your slush. That’s the crap they should be blurring that out instead.

America, here I come!

The Language of Food

I’ve always had trouble spelling broccoli. Crazy, right? Broccoli. Not that difficult. Sure, there’s a double “c” in there, but that’s really the only hurdle. So why is it hard for me? Maybe because they never spent any time on foods in school. I can spell Mississippi with my eyes closed (yes, blind people can spell too,) because it came with a cute little diddy in school. But I’ve never been to Mississippi. I’ve had broccoli a million times in my life; why can’t I spell it? It’s not fair.

It didn’t pose too much of a problem until a few years back. I was working the daytime sous position at Lumiere, which made it my responsibility to keep everything in storage properly labeled and organized. And in comes a beautiful case of broccoli (local, of course. Right, and I’m Tony Curran. Seriously, I might be. Look him up. Same birthday too! I know!). And I start writing out the label with my Sharpie, and I stop. Two c’s? Two l’s? Two of each? Crap! Luckily, with a slightly blunt Sharpie, I could fudge a line to look like one or two l’s. So that’s what I did. And then I went into the office and had to LOOK UP how to spell broccoli on the computer. Me, the spelling bee kid. Ah, how the mighty have fallen.

Crêpes farcies aux champignons? Got it. It didn’t even take any getting. It was gotten before it was even got. Get it? It must be the harshness of English getting in the way. We all know food should be sexy (we do know that, right?), so we should look to the French for help. Où est le pamplemousse? C’est sous le parapluie, et à côté del’hippopotame! Mais non! Mais fucking OUI! After six years of French class, it comes easy. The only thing that came close to food language in our schools involves ooples and bononos. They’re not even real!

And the pamplemousse? Grapefruit is as much a cop-out name as Grape Nuts. There’s no relation to a grape of any sort, and adding fruit onto the end of the name of a fruit is, well, stupid. Today at the store I picked up some beanvegetables, melonfruit, and milkmilk.

Courgette is better than zucchini, which I just spelled zuchini. Aubergine instead of eggplant. Hell, aubergine instead of Andrew. The only way I ever spell my friend Jon’s last name right is by thinking of beer (BraunSTEIN, and yes I know it’s brown stone, and not even beer-related).

Even in cooking school, with students from eight different countries, we were less interested in trying to spell what we were cooking, and more interested in reducing our sauces “au sec.” Well, that and stabbing each other. If the National Spelling bee included a fight to the death while spelling for the last two contestants, than those little dorks would at least earn some more street cred. It would probably earn them some time on ESPN, instead of Univision, or whatever channel hosts it these days.

Spelling is one of those skills that you don’t truly need to make it through life in one piece, but it does help. It only really pisses me off when I see menus with typos, at which point it’s fun to be the critical hypocrite. As such, I’m reticent to ever put broccoli on my menu….that beautiful, perfect, non-existent menu that I’ve got at the moment.

Self-help

We all know people that have done it. C’mon, you’ve done it too, even if you won’t admit it. It’s not normal; it can feel wrong, a bit dirty even, like you’re cheating the system. But it’s right there, after all. And if all your friends are doing it, why shouldn’t you?

The self-checkout aisle. You love it. You hate it. You can’t live without it. You’d go buy your girlfriend some tampons just for the chance to MAYBE use it.

Because you don’t decide ahead of time that you’re going to use the self-checkout, you can’t decide that until you’re done shopping. You may get there, and decide that there’s too many people, but you want to use it, so you go buy something pointless, at the other end of the store, on the hopes that when you come back, there’s less people to see you screw up. I’ll throw you a bone here. Lipton onion soup mix. It’s the old stand-by. Find out where it is in your supermarket, and whenever you need to buy yourself some time, you can stride to it with confidence, like you meant to buy it all along. Besides, how great is that stuff anyways? It probably saved your ass more than once. You gotta have instant respect for anything that can be mixed with sour cream or water with equally good, if over-sodium-ed, results. And, if you ever get attacked by a badger, Lipton’s onion soup mix will instantly cauterize the wound. But don’t take my word for it. Take LeVar Burton’s. There’s a reason he wears the visor. Yes, they had badgers on the Enterprise. I can’t believe you’d ever think otherwise. If they’ve got Puerto Ricans, why wouldn’t they have badgers?

Racism isn’t funny kids. Then again, neither are badgers.

But let’s live in the now for a bit, shall we? You’ve got your basket, and you can see the self-checkout….area, for lack of a better word, lurking at the other end of the store, that no-man’s land that’s a bare step up from the diaper/cleaning supply aisle in terms of popularity, is also happens to be located close to both the exit and the locked gun closet in the manager’s office, in case things get a little out of hand. And you know they will.

So you saunter over there, all hot shit with your free-range tofu and Canadian pine/lemon hybrids (ever wonder where the idea for Pine-Sol came from? You’re welcome). But there’s a line. At least, you think it’s a line. Maybe it’s two lines. Maybe the lady reaching for gum isn’t in the line, but she’s going to be. Is there one line per block of terminals? Is there one line total for all the terminals, and you just veer slightly left or right depending on which one is free? The second one is far more efficient, although then you’ve got no one to “beat” in the other line, which detracts from the overall vindication of the thing, but cuts down dramatically on inter-line violence.

Bingo! You spy the one slightly obscured terminal which isn’t being used, but is it because no one else notices, and you’re just that observant, or is it because it’s broken? The red light’s not flashing, but maybe the bulb’s burned out. Do you go over there? If you do and it doesn’t work out for you, will the rest of the line let you back in? And in the front no less? You already screwed up once, what makes you think you deserve a second chance? Trust me…NO ONE KNOWS. This is the reason that God invented lemmings…so we’d have something lower on the intellect chain to relate to, and then follow suit appropriately, while avoiding blame for our actions. Damn, it feels good to be American.

The best situation to be in is either A) there is no line, so you can get your groove on in the space that’s supposed to be a line, or B) there is a line, but you’ve got earphones on, which allow you to follow suit and remain just oblivious enough to the people around you that you can be held even less accountable for following said suit. And who is this suit that we’re following?

Yes, press that button to start. Or don’t press it, and just start scanning away. Because you can do that. It may not seem like much, saving those 2 seconds. But it’s no longer about you. It’s about everyone else in line behind you. Feel those beady eyes bearing down on you, impatiently waiting with their fat-injected rotisserie chickens and Glade plug-ins? They want you to scan faster than any normal check-out person who has ever lived. There’s a reason you never, ever see someone with a shopping cart in the self-checkout. They would be beaten to death by everyone behind them with those crappy plastic baskets. Because self check-out is like Lord of the Flies…it’s survival of the fittest, the quickest. Better find that bar code quick. Actually, you should already know where it is. What were you doing while you were waiting in line? If you look back and the guy behind you is putting on war-paint with a tube of tomato paste, I’m sorry dude, but you’re screwed. If you wanted to piss away your time, maybe you’d have been happier in one of those dictatorial regular checkout lines.

After all, that’s why you’re in the self-checkout in the first place, right? Because you think you’re faster than Ned, who’s been working the register in aisle 4 since you moved to town 6 years ago, and who by now you’re pretty sure had that gold star on his name tag cut-and-pasted from a 1st grade spelling test by his mom. This is Ned, who stumbles when you hand your club card to him a split second before he asks, and only the metronome-like gum-chewing from the bagging girl helps to bring him back from the brink of needing the shock paddles. Ned, who makes you roll your eyes when he doesn’t know his Spanish onions from his white, and needs to consult “the book,” or worse, the floor manager. C’mon Ned! WTF? And then you watch the monitor, making sure that the price comes up right, because if not, SO HELP ME GOD NED, it’s all YOUR fault!

Back in the self-checkout world, where you have no one to blame but yourself, it’s all about speed. You’re gonna kick ass at this. But the stakes are high. You’ve got a head of broccoli; what do you do? You have to “look up item,” then remember how to spell the damn thing, and find it on the list. But wait, is it broccoli, broccolini, broccoflower? Organic, or *gasp* conventional? That’s why you have a couple of boxed items…you can scan them quick, make up time for your ineptitude of veggie knowledge. Where’s your precious Ned now, eh?

And bringing your own bag just proves that no good deed goes unpunished. That whole bagging shelf is a fine-tuned scale. Look at it wrong and the machine shouts out “unknown item in the bagging area! Stacy, get the fuck over here!” and then the infamous red light blinks, letting everyone know that you failed…you, and only you. And the entire line behind you gives this exasperated sigh, because you let down the whole team. It’s high school JV soccer all over again, and now tomato war-paint guy has just snapped the end off his Swiffer mop, looking for blood.

So you have to out-think the machine. You scan the first item, something heavier and with a larger surface area, like that industrial-sized block of gouda. You look at the gouda, then at your bag. Then, being the bad-ass you are, you Indian Jones that crap, and place it in the bagging area together, in one fell swoop, praying the machine can’t tell the weight difference. Suck it, “skip bagging” button! You know you’re faster than the machine. By the time it’s saying “please scan your first item” you’re already feeding it dollar bills like a North Shore stripper.

Of course, you can tweak the whole operation a bit…make it your own. Scan your discount card at the beginning. Personally, I like to do it at the end, which gives you enough time for a nodding “Who’s the man?!” half-smile to the line behind you as all your savings pile up like nickel slots. Go ahead and wrap that receipt around your neck like a silk scarf…you’ve earned it. Then give Stacy a slap on the ass, a wink and a nod to Ned, who still has no idea who the hell you are, and skate on out of there.

Get Goosed

Artichokes are God’s idea of a cruel joke, and yet we’re continually playing into his hand, as we try desperately to get them into our stomachs by any means possible. In all my years as a chef, I’ve seen few other edible objects in this world that require so much work for so little reward. And then I’m reminded of my story about the Canadian goose. So choke lovers, I’m sorry, but you will have to wait.

When I was working at a restaurant many years ago, the pastry chef hit a Canadian goose on his way to work. Yes, a Canadian goose. Lower on the culinary food chain than pigeon, even. Pigeon can be squab, but Candian goose will always be Canadian goose. But as a Mexican coming from California, this guy saw Canadian goose as “goose,” as in Christmas, as in food. And so I arrive at work one day to find this guy tossing around this inverted pillow with a beak, trying everything to get at it what he thought was a treasure trove of awesome meat inside. He boiled it, roasted it, butane torched it, smacked it with the rolling pin, called it names…everything. Had the ASPCA had known about this, he’d be up on criminal charges, even though the goose was dead already. You know that honk that geese make? Just picture the honk reflex from smacking a dead goose with a rolling pin. HILARIOUS. It’s like a Whoopie cushion with wings.

Several health code (and moral) violations later, the focus of his ire was finally looking more like a poorly constructed football with a beak. Now, as any good Bostonian will know, one of the by-products of our aerial friends to the north is the snow-staining liquid land mines that look a bit like spinach puree on a bad day. Pretty soon, that group also included our pastry chef.

He continued undaunted though, and now free of feather and feces, he hit fat. A lot of it. Of course, we didn’t want to say anything, because this man was determined. And the only way it could’ve provided any more entertainment is if John Madden had shown up to give us a poultry play-by-play.

And yet he soldiered on. It was a matter of principle now, and he didn’t want to lose face. So many hours after taking its last breath, and with about 90% of it in the garbage, the victim of vehicular goosicide ended up as a small strip of leathery meat, disgraced and alone on the plate. I’d like to tell you I tried it, and found that it hadn’t died in vain. I’d really, really like to tell you that.

The pastry chef learned several valuable lessons that day. First, fewer animals die when you bike to work instead of drive. Second, there’s a reason we don’t eat Canadian geese, and it’s not because it’s "un-Americun." And finally, when the electric knife gives up, so should you.

Now, I can’t tell you that pastry chef’s name was Ernie Quinones, and he’s now the chef at the UMass club, because that wouldn’t be nice. So I won’t.

Man vs. Woman: Part 1

It takes a woman on average 15-30 seconds to determine your skill at general hygiene, which has a direct effect on how she’ll view you, for the rest of your life. That whole up-down look you get? You’re being judged on no fewer than 72 different points of your being. And if you pass that test, and she comes to you place, you’ll be getting it again, only this time it’s your apartment, not your person that she’s judging. Next time a woman comes into your home, watch her closely. She’ll immediately look from side to side, for signs of dirt, grime, and emergency exits if the first two don’t meet her needs.

So when you’ve got a woman coming over, it’s all about the sheen and clean. Get rid of the whiskers in the bathroom sink, and try to clean up all the errant nail clippings; despite being your private place, the bathroom shouldn’t look like the killing floor of a Mounds Bar slaughterhouse. The quickest fix, in fact, is to stuff a pipe bomb into a gallon of bleach, throw it into your bathroom and shut the door.

Now for the living room. Put things in those empty vases. If your skills lean more towards horticultural homicide and you can’t be trusted with flowers, then fill them with cool coins, dirt that you’ve pilfered from the Fenway track over the years, anything. Except condoms. Get the drool marks off the couch, and the crumbs while you’re at it. Leather cleans up real easily. Burnt orange shag does not. If your carpet looks like my hair, then it’s time for a new carpet. Trust me, my hair requires daily upkeep…you don’t want that for your carpet. Put away the ironing board, and all the “to be ironed” clothing bling that’s hanging off it. Contrary to popular beliefs, having an ironing board out is not going to impress a woman. There’s a reason that that “wrinkled look” is so popular, and despite what kind of therapy your naked ironing may give you, it’s like picking your nose: everyone does it, but no one wants to see evidence of it.

Brush your teeth. Now for the mouthwash. Go on, you bad ass….kill that Gingivitis like it’s your step-brother who used to fall asleep on top of the remote with professional wrestling on the tv, until you duct-taped him to his mattress and threw him out in the yard one night, and you were going to super-glue the remote to his forehead, but you could never get the needle into the nozzle of the superglue thing, and it was all dried up anyways, and you knew that that duct tape would be painful enough to get off, and besides, he did give you that Pearl Jam CD for Christmas one year, and so you really can’t hold a grudge, and you called off the step-fraternal fatwa. Huzzah for repressed memories!

The kitchen is the best part. You may know it as the room of eating, the food Thunderdome, or the place where hunger goes to die. Any other superlatives are now legally owned by Snickers, after their last craptastic advertising campaign.

I’ve just been informed that “Craptastic” was bought by Hershey’s for its upcoming anti-Snickers campaign, so to avoid any legal smiting, let’s go with “blow chunktastic.”

In any case, put the dishes away…it’s not conceptual art to have them strewn haphazardly in your drying rack. Use your one ubiquitous sponge to wipe down everything. That’s right baby, spread those germs. What you need is a true all-purpose cleanser. Not just kitchen or bathroom-specific, but something better. Something that you can use as deodorant, to season your steaks, to cure Athlete’s foot. Tastes great on popcorn, and fixes squeaky door hinges. Know what would solve that? A wood pellet burner. Aww, it’s sad that it’s become a joke already. The Arctic Monkeys of the fuel world.

Back to the kitchen. It’s nice, but not required to have a 2:1 ratio of non-alcoholic food items to alcohol (by volume, not weight. I’m not cruel.) And, if you can somehow swing it, the smell of warm cinnamon buns or popcorn are like culinary Spanish Fly to visitors. Just imagine if your breath could smell exactly like hot cinnamon buns. Hang around a Weight Watchers and you’d be fighting off the ladies with a stick. And no one would give a shit what your apartment was like.

Back in the real world, if you’re prepared for it, bring her in. If you’ve got some Wal-Mart-trained “greeter” ninjas, then now’s the time to let them loose; they’ll help ease her into the awesomeness that waits around every corner of your (hopefully) clean abode. See if they can incorporate some citrus slicing into their routine, to segue smoothly into a welcome cocktail.

Good luck!

Cereal Killer

What happened to you, Crispix? You used to be cool. You stayed crunchy, EVEN IN MILK! No other cereal could claim such greatness. How have you not become overlord of the nation of cereals? The cereal experience nowadays is a race to get it all in your mouth before it hits the milky amoebic glob phase. You don’t even have time to enjoy it. You’d have thought we could come up with something more effective in this department by now, but we’re forced to suffer the indignity of mushy cereal. I know we’re still devoted to the internal combustion engine, which is terribly outdated, but cereal? Mmm…..internal combustion cereal. Now with more methane.

When do you not want crunchy? If you didn’t, then you’d want porridge. But when you pour a big bowl of grainy shrapnel, with mummified strawberries and bran flakes coated in what looks like tasty clusters of nuts and leprosy, you want to feel all that food love in your mouth. Of course, in the states, this would require a warning, because some kid would find a way to slice up his throat with high-fibre goodness. And then BAM!, a lawsuit.

Don’t get me wrong, lawsuits make the States great. Without them, creativity would run amok, and the cereal world would be plagued with steak clusters and gin & tonic flakes. Hey, maybe the law got a hold of Crispix, and slammed it with a gag order to keep the non-sogging secret from getting out. Because then people would take their sweet time (gasp!) enjoying their breakfast, which would lead to them being late for work, and in turn would cause a systematic break-down of the our country’s economic stability. Oh wait, too late.

But not too late to employ another key American strategy: blame someone else! So I’m wrong. Commence the fist-shaking at your nearest box of Crispix…bastards ruined capitalism, forced me to flee the country, do my own ironing, and emasculate my spelling of the word fiber.