Food Pornography: Wet and Wild

This is something I made a while back but I was struck by the picture today while going through some old photos of things we've eaten. I call this Blackened Wild Sockeye Salmon over Spanish Rice Salad. I can't really describe how good this was. Blackened fish is probably our favorite but Salmon in general is hard to screw up. I'm preparing an experimental dish as I write this, a Salmon dish with tomatillas and chipotle butter. I'll be working on getting a post up with the recipe and details in the coming week or so. I'd also like to touch on the controversy over genetically modified Salmon, so-called Frankenfish. So stay tuned, and eat right. Always eat Wild fish!

Food Pornography Series: Morning Wood

Welcome to a new series I'm putting together called Food Pornography. I take a lot of pictures of the food my wife and I eat at home (and sometimes at restaurants too) and would like to begin sharing those photos with you. This is just a taste of how we eat and how, with a little effort, you can eat too. For my first offering we have this mornings breakfast, coconut and chocolate chip pancakes with agave syrup, bacon, berries and fried plantans. The plantans were fried in regular veggie oil and then drizzled with honey and a sprinkle of powdered sugar. For a Saturday this is pretty typical. Breakfast is around 9:30, then maybe a little nap or an outting. Today we're going to Oktoberfest in Deming.

Love your Food and it will Love you back

My wife and I went out to a Mexican restaurant in town the other night and I thought I'd try one of their "traditional" entrees instead of playing it safe with an enchilada or burrito. I ordered the Pollo Chipotle, a chicken dish made with peppers and onions and these really amazing smoked peppers. I was all excited about it because I really love chipotle but when the food reached the table I thought I was staring into a steaming plate of dog vomit. Over in the corner of the plate were a smattering of pale milky looking beans and some rice that looked like it was some kind of revenge for the Alamo. I could see my wife looking over the table at the viscera on my plate and shaking her head. "You're not going to eat that are you?" Honestly I didn't think I should. But being as I was a little buzzed and hate wasting food I made a good show of it and tried a few bites. I won't lie, it wasn't half bad, but it wasn't half good either. It was obvious to me that this entree had not been put together with any sort of love. Now I realize that 12.95 is not going to get you very far in the love department, but come on people, how long are we gonna stand for this? We're not hogs. At least I don't feature myself a hog and don't expect to be fed like one. Not at any price.

Don't accept it. There's no reason to eat soulless food. I promise you, you can do better. Even if what you cook lacks flavor, or gets burnt, or borders on repulsive it will at least have something that no McDonald's hamburger, or shitty Mexican entree is ever going to have. And that something is love. I know that sounds a little gay, but I can assure you this idea is not the result of some new vaginal growth. I really believe that you have to sort of make love to your food for it to give you any health benefit. Now I'm not saying you should go around raping your morning fruit or sticking your dick in the mash potatoes. And I'm not suggesting that the love you put in to your food is necessarily going to turn your can of Chef-boy-ardee into something fundamentally nutritious. For that you'll have to buy better ingredients. But what it will do is change your psychological relationship to your food.

Fishermen are notoriously bad eaters. I think I've touched on the "it'll make a turd" paradigm in other posts, but I want to point out that this mind-set is more the result of cultural influence than the restraints that we face as a niche community. A lot of times we don't have adequate refrigeration, or the time necessary to prepare a good meal, or access to fresh foods like fruit and vegetables. On a Bay Boat you may not see a green vegetable for two or three weeks. Everything you eat may come out of a can or over the gunnel. Which is fine if necessity requires it. But here on land there really is no excuse. And you kind of gain an appreciation for that when you can't get a clove of garlic or a head of broccoli to save your life. You also gain an appreciation for the advantages of counter space and for the equipment you find in a normal kitchen. Small boats don't generally have the kind of storage capacity that allows for double boilers and crepe pans or any other "specialized equipment". A lot of them rely entirely on two pans and a diesel stove to do all of their cooking, if they cook at all. I've heard stories of so called "sandwich boats" where all they ate for the entire season (four to five weeks) were peanut butter and jelly or bologna sandwiches. That kind of diet could drive anyone into the arms of McDonald's. I don't care who you are.

What I'm about to present may not exactly be the antidote for anyone suffering from four weeks of sandwich boat, but it is an example of how the Norwegian fishermen of old used to put love into something as simple and disgusting sounding as "salt cod". I learned this dish from my old crab boat captain Leif, who would wax so passionately about this particular meal that you'd have thought he'd stolen the recipe from the gods.

Before I begin I have to disclose that when I first prepared this meal I had the advantage of an expansive galley with all the pots and pans I could possibly desire. You can however make this same concoction with one frying pan and a stock pot.

Salt Cod

16oz. salted cod (rinsed and cut into two inch sections)

one rutabaga (skinned and cut into two inch pieces)

two turnips (washed and cut into two inch piece)

one parsnip (washed and cut into one inch pieces)

two carrots (washed and cut into one inch pieces)

four red potatoes (washed and halved)

one onion (sliced)
two cloves garlic (coarsely chopped)

one salt pork or four pieces of thick bacon (cut into small chunks)

butter

salt and pepper

Your very first step will be to salt some cod. This can be done in as little as a couple of hours or up to a year or more. All you need is cod (previously frozen or fresh) and some course salt, preferably rock salt like you use for making ice cream or pickling. I've done some rush jobs on salting before but personally I think the only way to get the true texture and firmness in your cod is to salt it for at least forty-eight hours. I think I had this salting on my counter for about five days. Don't worry this is not going to go bad people. Trust me, before refrigeration this was how they kept food from spoiling.

Next you will need to rinse your cod to remove the excess salt. I run it under the sink and then put it in a bowl of water. Look closely at my watch. That's 7am. During the course of the day I changed the water twice. This long of a soak is not necessary if you've only salted the fish for a couple hours, but anything over two days you should prepare yourself for a few rinses.

There's really not much else to it from there. Peel your onions, garlic, turnips and rutabaga. Chop everything according to size preferences. I like the rooty vegetables to be approximately the same size as the potatoes so that things cook evenly.

Once you get a couple of pots of water boiling you can start to drop your potatoes and veggies in to start cooking. I usually put the potatoes in first, cook them for a couple minutes, then add the rutabaga and carrots. Turnips and parsnips don't take nearly as long to cook so you want to save them to near the end. Contrary to some opinions you can cook the potatoes and the other root veggies together. Some salt cod snobs may disagree but don't listen to them, odds are they aren't doing the dishes.

In your second pot of water you will want to drop in your salt cod. These should be fairly big chucks and they should be started shortly after the potatoes. Salt cod should cook for about 35 to 45 minutes depending on how long you've salted it. There is a danger that on a short salt the cod will start to disintegrate slightly in the boiling water. The only thing I can recommend is not cooking the cod at such a rolling boil and also not cooking it quite as long.

Once the cod and the potatoes have been cooking for about twenty to twenty-five minutes you can go ahead and throw in the turnips and parsnips, and get the salt pork (or bacon) and sauteed onions going. It's important when cooking the bacon that it be cut in small chunks and that it produces a good amount of grease.

This may gross some people out but it is an integral part of the meal and should not be omitted no matter how bad your cholesterol.

In a second skillet add a little of the bacon grease or use butter, at this point it won't matter, and begin to saute the garlic and onions. My wife complained that I turned them to mush by over caramelizing them, but this is not a stir fry people. I can assure you this is how it is done. Really, do it however you want. But don't sit there and criticize how I did it if you expect me to cook for you again. You be the judge (but a silent one), doesn't that look delicious?!

O.k. now that that's settled here's the most important part of this entire meal, the assembly. You don't have to do it this way but I think for the sake of argument I'm going to say this is by far the best way. I'm missing one piece of the puzzle here and if you can find it you're a better man than me, but I've given myself fits trying to locate Norwegian flat bread. At first I thought the guys on the boat were just giving me shit, sending me out on a snipe hunt because everyone I talked to had never heard of it. They even tried to convince me that I could make the stuff by cutting the crusts off of white bread and rolling it flat with a rolling pin. To my credit I wasn't dumb enough to fall for that one but I'll be damned if I've ever come across the real thing.

As a substitute I just use plain old rye bread. No butter, no toasting, just plain and pure. On the plate you put a healthy portion of root vegetables, a nice pile of sauteed onions, a few pieces of salt cod and over the top of everything you sprinkle the salt pork (or bacon pieces) and drizzle grease over the whole thing. Salt and pepper to taste and enjoy.

If that's not love then I don't know what is.

Take that Mexican Restaurant.

Fakes and Snakes

I was doing a web search of The Deadliest Chef the other day to see what kind of visibility I was getting on Google and Yahoo when out of the blue comes this asshole from Anchorage calling himself “Alaska’s Deadliest Chef”. Where does this guy get off? Doesn’t he know that that was my idea like three or four years ago, that while I was crabbing in the Bering Sea and getting my ass kicked by brutal weather and harsh living conditions, preparing gourmet cuisine in gale force winds and twenty-five foot seas I was nurturing this idea, carefully planning my marketing strategy, dreaming of book deals and a better life. What does he think I’m just going to let some sourdough crumb bum swoop in on all that? Like just because he’s some Alaskan fossil with a little bit of cooking cred he can come waltzing in on my million dollar idea and stake his claim. I don’t think so.

Something has always bothered me about doppelgangers and people sharing my same name. My first instinct is to kill them. I get this weird feeling that as long as they are above ground, circulating and respirating in the same world that I am that somehow my life is diminished, my identity sullied by some lesser version of me. I realize that this is totally irrational and I would never act on these crazy feelings, but pushed far enough, encroached on by interlopers and hacks, I might be forced to at least kick a little ass.

Recently someone suggested that this guy’s emergence might be seen as an opportunity and that by having a little competition might be a healthy thing. Maybe this would spur me toward achieving my goals in a more timely fashion. Perhaps we could have some kind of publicized cook off. All of this is well and good, but why should I suddenly have to defend my trademark just because some toothless wash-out wants to clever up his cooking pilot, “Alaska on a Platter”. He’s all about down to earth straight talk, about promoting Alaskan Cuisine. From what I’ve read he seems like a nice enough guy but sounds about as interesting as a lovable train bum that keeps telling you the same story over and over again on a fourteen hour haul through the Nevada desert. And this idea about Alaskan Cuisine, what the hell is that? Alaskan Cuisine makes about as much sense as Alaskan Fashion. There are only three elements you need to know; flannel, sweat pants, and rubber boots. Yes there are some endearing qualities about the food you might find in Alaska. There’s a whole lot more game, and the fish is extremely fresh, but let’s not kid ourselves here, Alaska is no Mecca for haute cuisine. Unless you’re eating seal blubber straight off the ulu you aren’t doing anything they didn’t do in France or Disneyworld first.
With that said I would like to warmly encourage Mr. Stryjewski to cease and desist. Stop fooling yourself. There is nothing Deadly about your biography. And nothing that would warrant you calling yourself “Alaska’s Deadliest Chef”, unless of course you’re referring to your current post in the cafeteria of the Chester Park Senior Center.

Irish Cuisine, yet another oxymoron

I hope that last part didn’t come off as too defensive or bitter. I don’t want it to diminish this next part of the blog because in all honesty what I really care most about is writing about food.


I know I’m a little tardy but I wanted to discuss our traditional St. Patrick’s Day meal of Corn Beef and Cabbage. How exactly this became an Irish thing is not entirely clear. My Grandmother who is 100% Hillbilly Irish (from the hills of Kentucky and Indiana) tells me that in Ireland they don’t eat Corn Beef on St. Patties Day. I did a little digging and found out that in fact Irish immigrants began to substitute Corned Beef for their traditional Irish Bacon around the turn of the century because it was cheaper and more widely available. They learned of Corned Beef from their Jewish neighbors in New York and Boston. I could never figure out why Rueben sandwiches became so popular for the Irish holiday. The Rueben always struck me as something you’d get in a Jewish Delicatessen not an Irish pub. I know it’s not kosher but with a name like Rueben it’s definitely not Irish either. I guess the beauty of St. Patrick’s Day is that anyone and anything gets to be Irish for a day. Irish seems to crawl from the woodwork, to seep from every crack and ooze from every hole in a person’s genealogy. Just like Cherokee, but on a less permanent basis, people want to be Irish for some reason. Maybe it’s that they have always been underdogs. Maybe it’s their cute accents and their penchant for drinking and brawling. I don’t know.

Recently my wife and her mother travelled to Ireland to visit their ancestral home. They had both been granted Irish citizenship because of their direct matrilineal link to the homeland (Cat’s grandmother immigrated to the U.S. in the late forties). I can’t say I’m not a little jealous. I’ve always fashioned myself as a bit of a Mic. Unfortunately I’m a too much of mutt to make a strong claim on my Irish heritage. If you ran across me in the streets of Dublin you’d probably think I’d taken a wrong turn at Bucharest.

I still really enjoy St. Patrick’s Day no matter how cobbled together it’s meaning and customs. I, for instance, have always celebrated it as a kind of a pagan wake for that bastard St. Patrick who came and ruined all the cool druidic traditions of “primitive” Ireland. People always say that St. Patrick drove all the snakes from Ireland, but the truth of the matter is that there weren’t any snakes there until he arrived. Religious and symbolic feelings aside I still think St. Patrick’s Day is pretty awesome. And I think I like Corn Beef and Cabbage primarily because on that particular holiday you don’t necessarily want to be bothered with cooking some complicated meal. You want to go out and get drunk. You want to raise hell, have sex and party. Corn Beef and Cabbage affords for all of those execesses and quite honestly never disappoints. Only a complete idiot could ruin it. I mean really. How hard is it to dump a slab of meat in a pot, cover it with water, turn on the range to medium low heat and walk away for several hours? In the time I had our corn beef on the stove Cat and I went out for a couple drinks, came home, had a few more cocktails, had sex, showered, and watched some tv. About an hour before we were going to eat I halved a few red potatoes and added them to the pot, threw in a few whole carrots and a half an onion. Half an hour before dinner I cored a cabbage, cut it into six wedges and set it on top of the other ingredients in the pot and put on the lid so it could steam. Nothing could be simpler. In my opinion no other meal even comes close to facilitating the consumption of large amounts of alcohol. And really, isn’t that what St. Patrick’s Day is all about?

Recipe

Corned Beef and Cabbage

One corned beef in a bag (brine and seasoning packet included)
6 quart pot or larger
Enough water to cover meat by two inches
Four whole carrots
Six to eight whole red potatoes
Half an onion
One small to medium cabbage

1. Open packaging and dump corn beef into pot. Fish out the spice packet and set aside. Rince excess brine from bag and add to pot. Cover meat with water to two inches.
2. Add spice packet and turn stove to medium heat, or medium low if you will be leaving the house.
3. Cook for several hours. If water gets low add more.
4. About an hour before you want to eat add the carrots and potatoes (halved or whole) and half an onion. Cook about another half hour to forty minutes.
5. Twenty minutes before you eat core and wedge the cabbage and place it on top of the rest of the ingredients. Cook twenty minutes or until tender.
6. Serve and enjoy. Horseradish is optional. Mustard is good to, and some people even eat their corned beef with catsup but personally I think those people suffer from the same kind of brain damage that most lovable train bums and lifelong Alaskan residents do.

Recipe

Guinness and Black

One Guinness Draught
two ounces of black currant juice

1. Pour Guinness into a glass
2. Add black currant juice

This is something that the Irish drink in Ireland. When my wife came back she raved about the drink and said she ordered it everywhere she went. At first she kept asking for Irish Car Bombs but apparently they don’t have such a great sense of humor about that as we do here in the States. Honestly I can’t say much about Guinness and Black other than it seems to me like a woman’s drink or something you might find Irish puffs drinking in the gay part of Dublin. It makes me feel a little weird thinking of an Irish pub as being a gay bar but in Ireland it must be pretty common.

Anyway, there you have it. Until next time. Eat well and have fun.

Country Captain

The other day at work the third engineer off the M/V Kennecott (an Alaskan Ferry we’re working on) came up to me and told me that Phil Harris had just died. For those of you who don’t know who Phil Harris is he’s the long time captain and owner of the Cornelia Marie and a seminal figure in the Fox docudrama Deadliest Catch.

I can’t say that it was a shock that he’d died, but my first thought wasn’t, as you might expect, tragedy at sea. Had I thought that I would have certainly taken pause because a buddy of mine fishes on the Corn Hole (as the boat is affectionately known). No, I was pretty sure that when the third came to me with this news that the cause of death wasn’t some maritime catastrophe but more like some sort of coronary issue, cardiac arrest or stroke or something more fitting a legendary fisherman like Phil. No disrespect to Mr. Harris but I think it’s interesting that Bering Sea crabbers are more often noted for their fast living than their fishing exploits. It’s true they risk their lives and have interesting and sometimes exciting occupations but more often than not their true mark, their real legend is built on the stool of a bar rather than at the helm of their vessel.

Phil was probably a heck of a guy and a pretty decent fisherman, and I don’t mean to disparage him or his memory just because he was on a crappy television show. I only mean to point out a sobering truth, fishermen are, for the most part, full of shit. Contrary to the picture we get of them on the television screen they are not by and large sage observers of the human condition but drunkards and gluttons, with bad hygiene and missing teeth. Not to say they’re not a lovable bunch, I just wouldn’t take any grooming tips from them. Or for that matter advice on women or health.

I didn’t know Phil Harris. For all I know he was next of kin to the Dalai Lama. The closest I ever got to him was I sat between him and a greenhorn off our boat at the Airport Bar in Dutch Harbor. I remember this kid made us move from our table so we could sit closer to Phil. We were the only ones in the bar and this kid almost creamed his pants when he saw Phil come in with one of his famous deckhands. I didn’t want to move from where we were sitting because first of all I thought it was weird, and second of all I was trying to watch something on TV and they had another channel on at the bar. This kid wouldn’t quit though. He kept going on about how he couldn’t believe it was actually him and that he couldn’t wait to tell all his friends back in Nebraska that he’d actually been in the same bar with this TV big shot. Finally to shut him up I agreed to go up there on the condition that he didn’t bother the guy or say one word to him. He said that that was fine, that he’d probably be too scared to talk even if he could think of something to say. I sat between him and Phil just to be on the safe side. I still felt weird. I didn’t have anything to say to the guy either, but not because I was tongue tied by awe. I just thought of him as some other asshole out there trying to catch our crab. Who the fuck was he anyway? So what if he had a boat and could throw around a few hundred pots? Any idiot can catch crab in the Bering Sea. Believe me, it’s not rocket science.

I do, however, want to dedicate this blog entry to the late Phil Harris, may he rest in peace. Like I said before, I’m sure he was a heck of a guy. My sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Country Captain

Country Captain is an old Southern chicken and curry dish that came to the States by way of the British Navy who in turn probably picked it up in India in the early 1800’s. Traditionally the British used to refer to indigenous members of their colonies as “country” people, meaning essentially anyone not from England. With regard to India and its local merchant fleet a country captain was a ship captain of Indian descent. It is only conjecture but it is believed that the dish got its name because it was learned by British mariners from their Indian counterparts. The Brits in turn brought it to the U.S. through ports in South Carolina and an “American Classic” was born. I put that last bit in quotes because for one thing it seems as though there isn’t much about this meal that is particularly American, and for another, I doubt that a lot of you have ever heard of it. It was however quite popular in the 1940’s and 50’s in large part because Franklin D. Roosevelt and George S. Patton were served the dish (on separate or the same occasion I’m not certain) and instantly fell in love with it. In fact it was the President’s favorite food. Mrs. E.H. DeSaussure came out with a recipe in the 1950 book “Charleston Receipts” which was reported to be identical to the one Mr. Roosevelt enjoyed. The recipe came to me by way of Paul Prudhomme who included it in his epic edition “Seasoned America” in 1991. This book has made several journeys with me on the Bering Sea and does not have a bad recipe in it. It doesn’t have an easy recipe in it either which made it challenging to cook from at sea, but it never disappointed (not that starving crabbers are a tough audience). A distinct difference I noticed between DeSaussure’s recipe and Paul’s was that D included bacon and the spice mace. It’s unlike Prudhomme to pass up a chance to use bacon, and while I’m not really all that familiar with mace I’ll have to try this other version someday.

A couple of things that are in both recipes but that I don’t include in mine are raisins and sliced almonds. I leave the raisins out primarily because my wife thinks they are some sort of culinary abomination. She can’t understand why they exist or why anyone would want to turn a perfectly good grape into something shriveled and dry that resembles a black booger. Before we’d ever met though I’d omitted them on the boat because our Chief engineer Billy thought that anyone who ate meat and fruits together was a kind of degenerate he liked to call a “fruity meat lover”. I come from a family that stuck to the traditional pairings of applesauce and pork chops, pineapple and ham, and oranges and waterfowl so personally I don’t share this aversion. Coming from an Irish background and living more than a decade in an industry skewed toward Norwegian influences, an industry that’s meal set was almost entirely meat and potatoes, Billy refused to believe that normal people would eat such reprehensible concoctions. To him these people were following some sort of unnatural path, their inclinations for fruit and meat a sign of other aberrations like body piercings and gay sex. Naturally I steered clear of these associations. The last cook on the boat they’d taken to calling “the Gay Chef,” and hoping to avoid that nickname myself I’d chosen to pare down these fruit and meat groupings.

The only one I didn’t totally abandon was apple sauce and pork chops, but that was only because I’d read somewhere that it was bad luck to serve pork without its apple accompaniment. Not being one to tempt fate, and being in a field who’s participants have a certain respect for superstition I guarded myself against any accusations of fruity meat loving by loudly declaring this fact. This worked for the most part. I think Billy respected that my hands were tied on this particular meal and so couldn’t fault me. The blame obviously had deeper more ancient roots and lacking the willingness to give up pork chops and the intelligence to discover the origin of this superstition he just let the matter rest.

Had I known at the time that Country Captain was one of George S. Patton’s favorite dishes I may have had the courage to serve it in its original form, raisins and all. I don’t think even Billy, as tough as he was, would accuse Patton of being a fruity meat lover, not at least without risking being pistol whipped.

As for the slivered almonds I really don’t have a reason for leaving them out. Maybe it’s because almonds are so expensive (especially in places like Dutch Harbor), or maybe it’s because I don’t like the idea of having slivers of any kind in my food. That just sounds like it might be dangerous. Whatever the reason I’ve never made Country Captain with almonds and therefore view them as merely optional.

RECIPE

SEASONING MIX

2 tbsp curry powder (I use Gram Masala)
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried cilantro
½ tsp dry mustard
1 tsp dried sweet basil
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp white pepper
¼ tsp ground cardamom
¼ tsp ground allspice
2 tsp salt
1 tsp dark brown sugar

It’s best to make this seasoning mix first so you have it on hand. It will play a role in several stages of the recipe

1 whole fryer (about four pounds) cut into six pieces
1/3 cup all purpose flour
3 tbsp olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 cups chopped green peppers
1 cup long grain rice (uncooked)
4-6 cloves garlic (minced)
2 cups chopped fresh tomatoes (or 1 ½ cans whole tomatoes, drained and chopped)
3 cups chicken stock

1. Rub chicken pieces with 2 tbsp of the seasoning mix.

2. Mix the flour with 1 tbsp of the seasoning mix in a shallow bowl.

3. In a large pot or sauce pan (something you can cover and will hold several quarts of liquid) heat the oil over medium high heat. Flour the chicken pieces, reserving the left-over flour. When the oil is hot arrange the chicken in the pan and brown, turning several times. After about eight or ten minutes remove the chicken and set aside.

4. In the same pan add ½ cup of the onions and ½ cup of green peppers and cook for several minutes.

5. Stir the rice and the remaining seasoned flour. Cook for several minutes stirring and scraping the pan occasionally so that the rice doesn’t stick.

6. Add the garlic, tomatoes, remaining onion and pepper and remaining seasoning mix and cook for five minutes.

7. Add the stock and scrape the pan in order to get all the crust from frying the chicken off the bottom. I’ve actually burned the chicken a little a couple times but don’t worry if this happens. When the little black bits get released into the rest of the sauce it lends a nice charbroiled aspect to the overall flavor.

8. Return the chicken to the pan resting the pieces on top of the sauce and bring to a boil. Once you’ve reached a boil reduce heat and cover. Simmer for 20 minutes.

9. Remove from stove and let stand 10 to 15 minutes keeping the lid on.



10. Serve in bowls.

Food for the Vermin

A few days ago my wife and I lay our pet rats Squeaky and Flo to rest. After some weeks of suffering with a massive tumor and dementia, respectively, we had them euthanized at a local veterinarian hospital. My wife prepared their coffin with treats for the afterlife, coins for the boatman, their favorite blanket, some newspaper, and read aloud a eulogy at their tiny gravesite (a flowerbed next to our front door). We lit a candle and sprinkled some food over their grave for the birds and their outdoor cousins to come and enjoy. The candle burnt for two and a half days before finally guttering and melting into the soil.

Yesterday I was shooting the bull with some guys at work (I got a job at the shipyard a few months back) and I happened to mention our recent loss. I guess I should have known what kind of response I’d get. They laughed and joked and imagined inventive ways of dispatching pet rodents. Someone suggested that instead of taking them to the animal hospital we should have taken them to the Lychee Restaurant, a local Chinese Buffet. He argued that instead of paying a vet fifty bucks to euthanize the rats I might have actually made money on the deal. To be completely honest I wasn’t terribly offended by the off-handed way they treated the death of our rats. I realize that if I’d have been reporting the loss of a dog to these same men I would have probably received solemn condolences instead of wisecracks, and maybe that’s unfair. I guess there’s a certain hierarchy in the value we ascribe to certain animals’ lives. As rats, Squeaky and Flo were in the lower end of that hierarchy, but as members of our family their value was placed very high. (Just as an example of how disparate our views are on this matter, a fishing buddy of mine, a Mexican guy we called Cholo, always dreamed aloud of one day leaving the industry to open up an exotic meat store in Sea-Tac. Noting the large population of Asians and Hispanics in the area he thought it would be a great idea to open a butcher shop specializing in dog, cat and horsemeat. I tried explaining to him that first of all, there were laws against selling any of those animals as food, and that second, his store would probably be burnt down inside of a week, but he just didn’t get it. Cholo was convinced by his experiences in Mexico and the testimony of some of his Asian friends at the cannery that his store would be a booming success. As far as I know there is still no dog, cat and horsemeat emporium in Sea-Tac or Tuckwilla.)

I remember resisting the rats inclusion in our household. When Cat first brought them home, unannounced, I wasn’t very happy about it. All I could think of was how they were going to stink up the house and how we would get in trouble with our landlord who had a strict no pet policy. My wife is the kind of gal that would rather beg forgiveness than ask permission, so after hearing her sob story about how Squeaky and Flo were to be euthanized so that their original owners could move abroad I finally gave in and tried to enjoy the critters for what they were, food begging machines. Flo was the most shameless and aggressive offender. She would sit on the gate of her cage leaning out over the edge as far as she could, her front foot pawing at the air, trying to stir up some aroma from the dining room table. Neither of them were very tough critics of my cooking but after a while I began to suspect that they had a greater appreciation for it than my wife did. I never once saw them pick a mushroom or olive or any other ingredient out of something I fed them. They savored everything and ate whatever I put in front of them. And unlike my wife they never balked and complained about any of my dinner proposals. They never said, “Sundried tomatoes are gross,” or “I don’t eat pork,” or “I hate artichoke hearts.” They were excited about everything that crossed the threshold of their cage, so eager to try my new concoctions in fact that they literally snatched them from my fingers, sometimes even trying to sample the fingers themselves. Now that’s a compliment. A little bit scary and cannibalistic, but I can’t think of higher praise for a chef’s abilities than wanting to trace the flavor of the food all the way back to the fingers that created it.

It was around the time when Squeaky’s tumor made it difficult for her to reach her food dish and Flo’s brain trauma (she suffered a fall in December) left her unbalanced and unable to climb the gate or grasp and hold things like she used to that I noticed their appreciation for food deteriorating to a purely instinctual level. They’d always had a sort of competition going to see who could get the fattest but now it seemed as their friendly wager had devolved into something more like a death match. Flo just didn’t know what was going on anymore. She would sit at the seed dish brushing through it with her paw but unable to pick up any of it. Squeaky would drag around her tumor like a sidecar with a square tire in an effort to collect whatever hit the floor of the cage, unable to climb to the second level herself. With her added girth and Flo’s inability to comprehend her surroundings Squeaky began to bully food away from her. Suddenly it was like we were feeding two castaways on a life raft. One was delirious from sunstroke, the other determined to survive no matter what the cost, even if it meant eating her lifelong companion.
It was then we decided to put an end to their lives. Once they’d lost the ability to enjoy food, to sleep peacefully, or play in the wheel we figured that it was probably inhumane of us to wait around until, either one of them croaked, or the stronger of the two did something unforgivable.

I don’t know exactly what life lesson to take from this experience. I guess if I learned anything from Squeaky and Flo it was that you’ve got to enjoy life while you have the faculties to do so. To settle for bland food, to take no pleasure in sleep, or play, or any other carnal pursuit seems to suggest you deserve your lower rung in the hierarchy. Squeaky and Flo were not very sophisticated animals, they often sat in their own poop, and drug food through where they defecated, but compared to some people I know they certainly had broader palates and a much more vibrant appreciation for the things in life that sadly a lot of us take for granted or neglect entirely.

As a small tribute to beggars and vermin everywhere, to people and animals who still know how to enjoy life and to make do with what they have I’ve put together two recipes that I think represent and celebrate their tastes and spirit.

Stone Soup

This has a special place in my heart and culinary history. When I was about six years old I heard of stone soup and was intrigued by the idea. I don’t think I’d heard the folk tale or was read the children’s book (there’s one from 1947 by Marcia Brown, one written by Ann McGovern in 1968 and a much more recent one penned in 2003 and set in China) but essentially the story goes as follows, a stranger or a group of beggars or a soldier returning from the front after WWI passes through a starving town. The townspeople tell them to move on because there is no food but they decide to stay and rest. They take from their wagon a large iron pot and a magic stone (or an ordinary stone, or in some stories a piece of wood, a button, a nail, or an axe) and they announce to everyone that they’re going to make a batch of stone soup (or wood soup, or button soup, etc.). Everyone in the town is pretty hungry so their interest is naturally aroused. They come to see how this stone soup is prepared. The stranger fills his pot with water, builds a fire under it and then ceremoniously puts in his special stone. He sits watching the soup for some time licking his lips in anticipation. Then after a while he says to himself, loud enough for those gathered round to hear, that stone soup is great, but that once he’d had stone soup with cabbage that was fit for a king. Soon enough a villager appears with a small cabbage that he’d been saving in secret for himself. The stranger puts it in the soup and waits. Later he makes another soliloquy about how such and such a stone soup was fantastic but one he’d tried with potatoes was out of this world. On and on he extolls, one variation of stone soup after another, until finally there are carrots, onions, celery, meat and all kinds of herbs and spices complimenting his creation. All he’d started with was a pot and a stone and some water. He’d contributed nothing substantial to the soup but an idea, a kind of promise of a more delicious meal than what each individual could have prepared for themselves. He’d inspired people to pool their resources and in the end was able to “trick” them into feeding him.

I think as a kid what appealed to me most about stone soup wasn’t it’s lesson about community (or trickery) but that it seemed like you could put just about anything in stone soup without it becoming something else. As long as you started with water and a stone you had free range to do whatever you liked. At the time I made my first and only batch of stone soup I’d never cooked anything without my mother’s assistance, and without the aid of a recipe. In fact I think the only thing I’d ever attempted was the fried egg in the street and regular old bisquick pancakes. Stone soup was my first culinary adventure.

I had no idea what I was doing but just the idea of there being a stone in the soup pot made the whole experience sort of magical. I felt like I couldn’t fail, that whatever crap I decided to throw into my soup it would be delicious just on account of the big ass rock I’d started out with. I don’t know how to explain it exactly. But to a kid, a boy six years old, a pot of soup with a stone sitting at the bottom of it is about the coolest thing in the world. It didn’t matter how bad it ended up tasting (and believe me it was pretty horrible) the fact that I’d made the soup with a rock in the bottom of the pot made it some sort of culinary masterpiece. Or at the very least weird enough to be something to brag about. That stone soup was my soup. I invented it. All by myself. I didn’t get to touch the knobs on the stove but everything else I’d done one my own, without supervision.

Obviously I don’t remember what all I put in my stone soup but I can at least leave you with a basic recipe to follow. I figure as adults maybe some of the magic will be gone but maybe not the community part of it. Get together with friends. Have each person bring an ingredient. Mix and match. Break bread. Eat soup. Watch out for the rock in the bottom of the pot though. No amount of cooking is going to make that thing tender.

Stone Soup Recipe

One large stone (about the size of your fist, washed of all dirt and boiled)
1 ½ - 2 gallons water
Salt and pepper to taste
Additional ingredients (optional)

In a large pot combine water, salt and pepper, and stone and bring to a boil. Add desired additional ingredients and simmer for an hour and a half. Serve hot with crackers or fresh bread.


Kleftiko (robber’s lamb)

This is a fantastic dish that both my wife and I really loved. I found it in a Mediterranean Cookbook my Mom gave me for Christmas. I have a lot of cookbooks that seldom get used so I was glad to finally make something from one that really spoke to me. Kleftiko literally translates from the Greek to mean “stolen meat”. The nickname robber’s lamb apparently is derived from a time when sheep rustler’s were a problem in the region. Kleftiko is an enclosed dish, kind of like a pie, but with a shell that holds in all the steam and juices. Traditionally it was cooked in an underground oven, somewhat like the Kalua pig, presumably so that the smoke from the smoldering coals wouldn’t give away the position of the bandits. We cooked ours in a conventional oven. However you decide to prepare this dish I just want to warn you now, this is not going to be any thirty minute show stopper. You’re going to have to work to make this baby, and you’re going to have to put in the time to make it right.

Kleftiko Recipe

4 to 6 lamb leg steaks about 1/2 inch thick (enough to cover the bottom of a 10 inch pie dish, or a ceramic casserole dish)
Juice of one lemon
2-3 tbsp. fresh mint (chopped)
1 tbsp. dried oregano (rubbed gently between fingers or roughed in a mortor)
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. black pepper
3 tbsp. Olive Oil
1 large yellow onion (sliced thin)
1 large red onion (sliced thin)
½ cup dry white wine
4 bay leaves

Single 10-inch pie crust

½ cup shortening
1 ⅓ cups all purpose flour
Pinch of salt
3 – 4 tbsp. cold water


1. Combine the lemon juice, mint, oregano, salt, pepper and 1 tbsp. olive oil in a shallow pan. Place lamb steaks in pan and coat both sides. Marinate for several hours, 4 to 6, turning the meat a couple of times.
2. Combine the ingredients for the pie crust and form into a ball. Reserve for later in the fridge.
3. After sufficient time pull meat from marinade and reserve. Preheat the oven to 325° F. Then heat 2 tbsp. oil at medium high heat in a large frying pan. Brown the lamb on both sides, turning once.
4. Remove lamb from pan and place in a single layer at the bottom of pie plate or ceramic dish. Arrange onions and bay leaves over the top of the meat.
5. While pan is still hot pour in the wine and scrape up the crust sticking to the bottom of the pan. Add marinade and cook about 1 to 2 minutes. Pour over lamb and onions.
6. Wet the rim of the pie pan. Roll out dough and cover the pie pan tightly covering any cracks or holes with excess dough.
7. Cook for 2 ½ hours.

Serve with boiled potatoes and roasted or sauted vegetables.

Rest in peace Squeaky and Flo. We enjoyed feeding you our scraps.

Pot Pie vs. Dutch Baby (Kaiju Style)

Have you ever noticed how the insides of a pot pie are like the hottest substance known to man? Seriously, you may think it’s cooled down enough after you’ve blown on your first bite for a few seconds but don’t make that mistake, I beg you. You could melt steel in that pot pie. It’s like molten lava. The earth’s core. I promise you, if you ever want to taste again do not even think of eating that thing until it’s rested at least twenty minutes. Yeah, I know it’s a long time to wait but trust me, you’ll thank me.

Now that I’ve got that public service announcement out of the way we can get down to the real subject of this blog. If a Pot Pie and a Dutch Baby were Japanese Movie Monsters (kaiju) who do you think would win?

The Pot Pie like I’ve said does have a molten core, and it’s crust could, I guess, be compared with armor plating. In a way it looks like the kaiju Gamera, that turtle like creature that flies through the air like a pinwheel, shooting fire from the leg holes in its shell.

The Dutch Baby is not nearly as intimidating. The fact that the word baby appears in its name sort of takes the edge off any potential fearsomeness. Dutch Babies are kind of like a thick pudding. They’re soft and doughy, and they puff up when you cook them. Their real danger I guess lies in the amount of butter floating on their surface. It can get pretty hot and it has the real potential to cause serious health risks. All in all though, with a light sprinkling of powdered sugar, some fresh berries and maple syrup the Dutch Baby can’t really hold a candle to the Pot Pie. Of course it’s a totally different kind of creature.

The Dutch Baby is more on the order of Mothra. Its’ sort of mystical. It’s something worth revering, an object of wonderment and delight.

A Pot Pie is more something a Bulgarian weight lifter would eat before a competition. It’s dense and terrestrial. Solid peasant food made from the scraps of other meals.

When I presented my wife with this question, when I explained how I thought the Pot Pie was like Gamera and the Dutch Baby like Mothra she immediately shot down my metaphor pointing out that both the monsters I’d chosen were in fact good guys and would therefore never fight one another. They were more likely to take turns fighting on the same side. Say the Dutch Baby attacks at dawn and the Pot Pie follows in the second wave at dusk. The tandem would be certain to triumph over any appetite, no matter how large or pissed off.

I guess the obvious question then isn’t who would win in a fight between the two, but how do we employ them both to fight on our side.

Let’s begin with the Dutch Baby since technically it’s a breakfast food from the pancake family. Derived from the German Apfelpfannkuchen the Dutch Baby was developed at the Manca Café in Seattle, Washington during the first half of the last Century. Victor Manca was the proprietor and head chef at the Manca Café and is credited with creating the Dutch Baby. The name was purportedly coined by his young daughter, and the restaurant held a trademark on that menu item for several years during the forties. Sunset Magazine popularized the dish sometime in the fifties when it featured Manca’s recipe in its pages. The recipe I have comes to me by way of my Romanian Grandmother (may she rest in peace) who lived her entire life near Geneva, Ohio, fifty miles East of Cleveland and thirty miles from the Pennsylvania boarder. I’m not sure where she got her hands on it but it has more the ear markings of a pound cake from early Colonial America than a single serving pancake made at a West Coast Café. My Grandmother’s recipe serves twelve and requires a pound of each of its four ingredients.

First you preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Then find your largest metal pot (avoid anything with plastic handles or anything that is not completely oven safe), cast iron or stainless work best, add one cup of butter (yes that is all four sticks) and place the pot in the oven until butter is completely melted and bubbling. Do not brown the butter. It just needs to be really, really hot.

While the butter is melting beat twelve eggs in a large bowl until they are mixed evenly and smooth but not frothy. Gradually add three cups of milk and three cups of flour alternating about a cup of each until blended smooth. Mix in one tsp vanilla.

By this time the butter ought to be about right. Pull the pot from the oven and pour in the batter. Return to oven and cook about twenty minutes or until the Dutch Baby has risen substantially and browned around the edges. Remove from oven and sprinkle generously with powdered sugar. At this point you’re on your own. A lot of people like syrup with their Dutch Baby. Some like fruit or berries and if your feeling really decadent you can whip up some cream and dab it on top. I prefer mine with raspberries or blackberries and a little maple or agave syrup. I also serve this with some kind of side meat, either sausage or bacon. Its pretty dense though so you won’t need much else.

If you aren’t trying to feed an army (I once made a Dutch Baby for a crew of nine that consisted of 18 eggs, a cup and a half of butter and four cups each of milk and flour) then you can easily adjust the recipe down to your needs. Most of the time I third the recipe for my wife and I.

Dutch Baby for Two to Four

1 stick butter plus 2 tbsp.
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1/3 tsp vanilla

You’ll likely still have leftovers but a Dutch Baby keeps pretty well unrefrigerated so if you’re spending a lazy Sunday afternoon at home it can be picked at throughout the day.

Dutch Babies are awesome. Delicious, filling and with the word Baby in the title kind of sinister sounding. They easily rank amongst my favorite foods and are a dish that will impress any guest or relative. Try it out sometime. When somebody asks what you’re having for breakfast tell them a Dutch Baby and see what kind of reaction you get.

Pot Pies don’t exactly have the same wow factor of a Dutch Baby but I think that’s primarily because when you tell someone you’re eating pot pie they naturally think of some crappy freezer burned Swanson abomination. Pot pies have gotten a bad rap over the years because they tend to resemble cardboard both in appearance and taste and have really been neglected by scratch cooks and homemakers because they assume they’re too hard and time consuming to make. It’s really too bad because there’s nothing quite as satisfying and delightful as a homemade pot pie. And one of the best features of pot pie is that it is a great dumping ground for leftover meat and vegetables from other meals. On this particular occasion I started with fresh ingredients but you really can incorporate a lot of things that you find hanging around in your fridge. We do a lot of veggie sautés and if we don’t end up eating them all they can find themselves in the garbage a week later. It’s best when possible not to cook too much of something that is no good cold or reheated, but mistakes happen and when you find yourself with a pile of stuff that no one is going to eat you can always throw it in a soup or a pot pie.

Chicken Pot Pie from Scratch

Two Crust 10-inch Pie Shell (refer back to T-minus Two for recipe and instructions)

Spice blend

1 tsp black pepper
½ tsp white pepper
1 tsp salt
1 ½ tbsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp dried basil
½ tsp dried thyme
½ tsp dried sage

Filling

2 cooked chicken breasts (chopped or shredded)
1 large onion (chopped small)
2 medium carrots (cubed ½” X ½”)
3 medium potatoes (cubed ¾” X ¾”)
4-5 cloves garlic (minced)
Family Size can of Cream of Mushroom condensed soup
7-8 oz. Canned Young Sweet Peas (about half a can drained and rinsed)
¼ cup chicken broth (or ¼ cup retained pea juice)

Blend spices in a small bowl. As an alternative to the sage, thyme, basil and white pepper you can use about two tablespoons of poultry seasoning. It won’t be exactly the same but it’ll still be pretty good. Don’t skimp on the spices. They’re expensive but they really make the meal. If anything I’ve low balled some of these measurements so the only thing you need to watch is that you don’t get too heavy handed with the salt or the pepper.

For my pie I used the leftovers from a whole fryer we ate a day or two before. I carved off a leg and thigh, both wings and one breast picking the rest of the bird clean of usable meat. Skin and gristle should probably be discarded unless you’re into that sort of thing.

In a large bowl mix together the Spices, the Raw Veggies, the Cooked Chicken and the can of Mushroom Soup. Add enough of the Chicken Stock (or pea juice - it sounds gross but I kind of like the juice from canned veggies, it’s salty like urine) to make the mixture smooth but not soupy. Don’t be alarmed if the mixture smells a little bit like wet cat food, this is normal. If you’ve ever worked with Mushroom soup before you’ll know what I’m talking about. Once you’ve found your desired consistency gently fold in the peas so as not to mush them.

Pour mixture into the pie shell, add a little salt and pepper on top and close up with the second shell.

Place in oven on center rack and cook at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and cook approximately one more hour. The smaller you cut your veggies the sooner they will be tender. If you like bigger pieces allow for a longer cook time. Watch for over browning of the crust edges. These may burn. You can avoid this by making a foil ring and placing it gently around the edges of the pie. They sell a metal ring specifically for crusts and they’re only a couple bucks but they aren’t necessary (disclaimer: I have two of them).

Once you feel the pie is sufficiently done pull it out of the oven and let it rest on a wire rack or on one of the burners on the range. You should give it about twenty minutes to a half hour to cool before you cut into it. It’ll be kind of soupy so be prepared to spoon it out.

With this meal I don’t really serve anything else. You’ve pretty much got all the basic food groups covered but if you feel like your plate is kind of naked I guess a salad with a little tomato, onion, green pepper and a favorite dressing would suffice.

Enjoy. And for godsakes have patience. Don’t go burning your mouth. Remember the Pot Pie and Dutch Baby are here to help you. They are our friends.