Brunchtastic

My first Seder was memorable for many reasons, not the least of which was the discovery of a passionate love/hate relationship with Manischewitz.  But I was too scared that I would screw up the kosher rules to put a knife to anything.  Therefore, you may find it surprising as I did that this year I was allowed to make one of the most sacred pieces of our Passover– IT.

Eli tackled this dessert last year, and it was delicious, no matter what he says (see his post for the recipe).  Looking back on my own misadventures with the torte, I didn’t cook the meringue enough and, while crispy, it easily sopped up the moisture from the melted chocolate and whipped cream that I piled on top.  I think I froze it too long as well, but who knows.  That said, it looked pretty, and I just enjoyed a nice  piece of the leftovers straight from the freezer.

Lest you think I can’t handle a frozen dessert, witness the awesome Baked Alaska I made for a recent party at our house.

Pictures coming!

Or how I proved that I’m better than everyone else, yet again.

So I mentioned in my first post about my home brewing that the most prolific piece of advice I received from friends and family was that the one’s first home brew was destined to be a piece of crap. That I should bite the bullet of predetermined failure, and look to the slightly more optimistic future of my home brewing experience. While my position that all of those d-bags can suck it hasn’t changed, I now have to evidence to support my righteousness. That’s right, once again I have proven all of the naysayers wrong in creating a what no one thought possible. A good, nay GREAT(!), first-time home brew.

Like I said before, it’s a Red Ale, so it’s got a lot of flavor. It’s sweet, and really hoppy, so you get a nice piney taste. It’s also surprisingly deep in flavor, meaning that the taste doesn’t just wash away, so I find myself drinking it pretty slowly. I didn’t test the alcohol level, so I can’t say for sure how alcoholic it is, but it definitely isn’t light.

Despite my early success, I did learn a lot that’s going to help me in the future. For one, I think I am going to tone down the amount of bottling sugar I put in at the end by a lot. With this batch I put in closer to the higher end of the recommended amount based on the recipe I was using. A lot of carbonation might be appropriate for a lighter brew, but with something so sweet and flavorful it seems to be a bit much. Also, I am definitely going to try and give myself a lot more room to operate in the kitchen next time. There is a lot of sanitized equipment lying around during the process, and it’s important that it stay sanitized, so a lot of clean space would definitely help.

Needless to say, I’m very happy with the way things turned out, and I’m already looking forward to my next batch.

Oh, also as a bit of an experiment to see how many people actively read this anymore, I wanted to get suggestions on what I should brew next.  Post your suggestions in the comments section.  Thanks.

This is something we should have posted a long, long time ago, but the quickly ripening weather has reawakened that ubiquitous urban dream of working on a farm. Well, not so much working as merely reaping the benefits of others work and taking it home with you.

For many wonderful months last fall, we had a car all to ourselves. Subsequently we had access to the lush farmland of the Hudson Valley and all its peak-of-summer goodness. Our first and best foray was to the aptly named Weed Orchards, seventy miles up the Hudson in Marlboro, New York.

First off, Weed is pretty awesome. Not only can you pick your own peaches (our main reason for going), you can pick nectarines, apples, pears, tomatoes, a million different peppers, and eggplant, then pick up some painfully delicious corn on your way out. Granted, this wonderful confluence happens for only a few short weeks a year, but it is mighty fine when it does. We went up Labor Day weekend and went back home with a Radio Flyer overflowing with anything we could get our hands on for $75. When you include the rather delicious lunch we had out in the fields, it’s one hell of a bargain. That and the wonderfully interesting people watching that occurs between the peach trees made for the best nostalgia-producing experience I’ve had in awhile.

Keys to awesome chili.

Lots of cumin

More cayenne than you think

More cinnamon than you may think

Coffee

Or at the very least, life enhancing. There’s a part of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, where Barbara Kingsolver and kin visit homemade cheese guru Ricki Carroll somewhere in Massachusetts and feign cheesemaking ineptitude for the sake of the reader. Clearly, Kingsolver has been at this for awhile, but I’m not one to be intimidated, so I ordered some cultures from New England Cheesemaking Supply (pretty much the only source, as far as I can tell) for a Christmas present with the hopes I would get to participate and eat.

We’ve only made the chevre so far, and only with cow’s milk, but it is amazing and incredibly simple. You essentially let some milk get warm, add the culture, stir, let it get thick for 12 hours and then drain for another 12 or so. You just have to forget how disgusting it looks in the process and not be grossed out by watery cheese oozing from knee highs and dripping into a pot below, like some weird form of Chinese water torture. Knee highs are the key to this process though, since they cost much less than cheesecloth and make for, shall we say, interestingly shaped cheese.

So I take back my claims made last summer that it’s not worth making your own cheese. Making chevre from cow’s milk is absolutely worth it, if only because you can have 2 lbs. of fresh, organic soft cheese for about $6.

www.cheesemaking.com

Yesterday was a bit of a momentous occasion, as I took the first steps towards completing my first home brew. If all goes well it will be an red ale, with a reddish-brown color, and hopefully lots of flavor. For Christmas I received a pretty excellent home brewing kit, with all the equipment I would need to complete my first brew, including the ingredients for the red ale. Here’s a link to Home Brew Mart, the website the kit was purchased from.

If you do the math, it turns out it took me almost 3 months to get my shit together and start the brewing process. Even after receiving the kit, home brewing carried with it a certain mystique which I think played a big part in why I procrastinated for so long. It wasn’t so much that I was worried that it was going to be too difficult, because really just like baking (sort of), in that you go step-by-step following the instructions very closely, until your done. What really scared me was the absolute failure that I was told my first brew was destined to become. It doesn’t matter who you ask, family and friends alike, anyone who even thinks they know anything about home brewing all say the same thing. “You’re first brew always sucks ass, don’t worry about it,” or “They never come out good on the first try, so just get this one out of the way and learn from your mistakes.” While I appreciate being told like it is, I don’t necessarily condone marking someone’s efforts a failure before they even get started. It just seems a but fucked up to me.

Oh well, haters be damned, I went along with the process, and I have to say it wasn’t as scary as I had built it up to be. I won’t go through the whole process of cooking the batch, as you can find a million tutorials online that do it better than I could.

Having brewed the beer and bottled it after two weeks of fermenting, I am really excited to see how it turns out. I think a big part of what makes brewing your own beer so attractive is the level of investment it requires, and as a result the level of attachment you feel to the process. I can’t think of anything comparable to the experience in conventional cooking. When you take into consideration the specialty equipment it requires, the time, the prep (cleaning labels off of beer bottles sucks sooo many balls **see the bottom for my thoughts on this process), the cooking, and the wait time, there’s a lot going on, and a lot the get attached to. If everything turns out ok, I anticipate a fairly immense sense of pride for the final product.

I am definitely going to be posting on the outcome of this first brew, and hopefully on many more in the future. Oh, and another benefit of brewing at home is that when all is said and done, you’re getting about 56 bottles of beer (more that 9 six packs) for roughly $35, which is amazing.

**The best bottles to clean were Saranac and the worst were easily the Anchor Steam. F Anchor Steam in the A, for real. The best way to clean the labels that I found was to soak the bottles in really hot watter for a few minutes and then scrape of the labels with a knife, or some similarly shaped object. If you have trouble scrubbing off the left over glue, spray on some windex, it makes a huge difference.

One might think I wouldn’t be the best fit for a vegetarian co-op in Cambridge, Mass. And normally, you’d be right; I wouldn’t be able to overcome my burning hatred of hippies or my love of meat. A love so profound, soon after my 9-month flirtation with vegetarianism in high school, I developed the ability to look at a live cow or chicken and think “yum.”

But of course, the extreme profligacy of the meat industry is well-documented, and there are few things quite as sad as sitting on the Chinatown bus, biting through the breaded skin of a fried chicken leg from Roy Rogers, and having a pocket of grease drip onto your lap. An undignified end to an undignified life.

Even beyond that, us carnivores would benefit greatly from having to think a little more creatively. So with that in mind, I’ll be bringing you dispatches from my co-op’s regular meat-free meals, and maybe share a recipe or two from our decade-old secret recipe book.

But first… here’s something from Martha Stewart:

This is a modified version of a recipe I saw on her show when the Pats won the Super Bowl (oh, by the way, fuck you, New Yorkers). People will swear it has meat in it, and don’t get smart and try adding some–I tried that once and it doesn’t make two shits difference. I think she called it Firehouse Chili. I call it…

Martha Stewart’s Jailhouse Chili

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 large onion, chopped

1 large carrot, chopped

1 large bell pepper, chopped

1 habanero pepper, minced (see note about heat below)

1 can pinto beans, drained

1 can black beans, drained

1 can kidney beans, drained

1 large can of diced tomatoes

1 small can of tomato paste

1 lb dried lentils

1/3 cup of chili powder (the size of a regular spice jar)

1 tablespoon cumin

7 cups of water

olive oil

salt, to taste

In a large heavy soup pot, sauté the garlic and onion in the olive oil at high heat. Add carrot, bell pepper, and habanero pepper. When the vegetables become soft, bring heat down to medium and add the rest of the ingredients except salt and stir. When the chili starts to boil, bring heat down to a simmer. Let the chili simmer for at least an hour (more is better), stirring occasionally and adding water if necessary. Add salt and stir and get ready to fart like a beast.

Notes:

1. The heat is easy to modify depending on what you use from the habanero pepper. The hottest part of the habanero is the seeds, followed by the white inner “ribs”, and then the colored flesh. I usually use all of the colored part and about half of the ribs, unless I know all my patrons will appreciate serious spiciness.

2. Like most soup dishes, the secret is to go a little overkill on the salt.

3. Although this will probably fuck up your pot, it’s not a disaster if you happen to burn the bottom of the chili. It ends up giving it a nice smoky flavor.

4. This chili keeps super well, and tastes even better on subsequent days.

Ok, so the new year hasn’t been entirely full of piss and vinegar. I have discovered a new favorite beer, Dogfish’s Raison D’Etre, and a new favorite place to drink it, Barcade in Williamsburg (though The Lighthouse in Park Slope also deserves an honorable mention).

There is also the bright spot that is the Trail Mix Bar at the new Whole Foods on the Bowery. Between that and their beer room, plus considerably shorter lines than the other WF’s in the city, I find myself drawn there week after week. Plus they have this creepy, 1984-ish type monitoring system for the custodial staff, where they have to press oddly located buttons whenever they sweep a certain location.

Apologies for the extended delay in posts, we’ve been a bit busy with our other blog. But rest assured that Brunchtastic is back in full effect and just as angry as before, if note more so.

I know one of the reasons I’ve been so lackadaisical about posting is the winter and its never ending monotonous march of root vegetables and mealy apples. It doesn’t seem as though there is a new thing anywhere to taste, never mind to bother writing about. Much of my disillusionment stems from my winter CSA share, which, if anything, would seem to alleviate the winter produce blues. Unfortunately, my roommate and I faced month after month of nearly rotting beets, potatoes, turnips and tired greens. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, and this is coming from two people who are obsessed with their summer share (and I mean obsessed), but carrying home 30 lbs of this stuff only made us lament the never coming spring even more.

So here’s hoping that April brings green things; it will, at the very least, bring Passover, and for that I am grateful indeed.

ps- We are not actually responsible in any way for Stuff White People Like.

I’m currently reading Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, and it brings to mind the curious trend of impossibly narrow food challenges that people have imposed upon themselves this year as the wave of food politics has swelled to tsunami-like proportions.

Barbara Kingsolver and family eat locally for a year, growing nearly everything on their Appalachian farm and sticking pretty well to it during the lean times, which is more than I can say. She’s an unapologetic locavore and a hell of a writer, making for an interesting read that mixes recipes, anecdotes, and serious politics.

http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com

Then there was that crazy (but sort of awesome) guy in Bay Ridge who planted a farm in his backyard intending to eat only from the veggies and animals he raised himself for the month of August, only to be hit by the freakish tornado that touched down there. He was the subject of a New York Mag cover story and made me want to move to a semi-detached in Bay Ridge.

http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/37273/

But there’s more—the New York City Council Member who ate for a week purely on what could be bought with food stamps—and nearly starved to death (ok I’m exaggerating, but barely). His stunt was political to be sure but still a sobering reminder, and one of the more honest food challenges to surface this year. Clearly he’s not the only one doing it, but WNYC did a great story (if only I could find it online)

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/tags/eric%20gioia

The big NYTimes article about freegans from this past summer. I’ve done my share of dumpster diving but cannot fathom wrangling a healthy diet from it. Cheers to them, I suppose.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/garden/21freegan.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Even Adam Gopnik got into the game, composing a week long mélange of foods produced in the five boroughs.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/09/03/070903fa_fact_gopnik

The result? Am I more conscious of every bite of food that I put into my mouth now that I was on December 27^th, 2006? Undoubtedly yes, but I am also a little sick of the notion that eating responsibly is a challenge at all, something that can only be done in bits and spurts, before one grows tired, fed up, or literally hungry. Everything in moderation, after all.

(sorry for the weird formatting)