Olympic Eating

If there’s one thing I love as much as food, it’s the Olympics. I can’t explain it, I’m obsessed. My tivo is filled to bursting with running, jumping, swimming and uhhh…trampolining? I love the Olympics as much as I love Chinese food, which is to say…well, alot.

As annoyed as I am by NBC’s tape delay of everything–their primetime shows are mostly broadcasts of the previous days event and I already know the winner, I really do enjoy watching Bob Costas organize everything. Weird, right?

So last week, Mary Carillo, his correspondent for all things China does a segment on eating in Beijing. As expected, she goes to all the “shock me” foods, but here’s the clincher: She goes in to the restaurant, sits down, they serve her some (amazing looking, I might add) duck feet and she proceeds to make fun of them and later admits, she ADMITS that she didn’t eat them. All while having the look of a four year old being served brussel sprouts on her face. Wow.

I was all excited that they were doing a segment on the food, and while I knew it wouldn’t be the food porn of Anthony Bourdain in Beijing, or even the slightly nauseating act of watching Andrew Zimmern eat around the city, I figured it would be interesting to see what someone not used to eating such things said. Well, I guess I learned–she said no thanks!

I have to wonder what all the Chinese think of this. I mean, imagine someone walking in to say, Chili’s, with a video camera and what not, filming a host sitting down, ordering food and marveling over it for a bit, then getting up and walking away. Strange.

The Omnivore’s 100

The blogosphere is a strange place, but every once in a while I come by something I find very cool. This was one of those things. This is from www.verygoodtaste.co.uk:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.

2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.

3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

4) Optional extra: Post a comment here and atwww.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

The Gastrognome’s Omnivore’s Hundred: I have 63 out of hundred. You?

1. Venison–I love this meat, especially the dear meat sausage that father of one of the kids I coach makes. 

2. Nettle tea–no but I look forward to nettle season at the farmer’s market–something new to try!

3. Huevos rancheros –love ‘em!

4. Steak tartare–in the running for my favorite dish

5. Crocodile–does gator count? but no on the croc.

6. Black pudding–I think I might have when I was in England, but I don’t actually remember.

7. Cheese fondue–yup, both my own crappy version and in the high mountains of Switzerland

8. Carp

9. Borscht–Another one I think I must have…but can’t say for sure.

10. Baba ghanoush

11. Calamari 

12. Pho–Hello, I live in Seattle

13. PB&J sandwich

14. Aloo gobi–I must have…but I can’t specifically remember. Damn I love Indian food, though.

15. Hot dog from a street cart–Hello I live in Seattle. Yeah, so that means it may have had cream cheese on it…

 16. Epoisses

17. Black truffle–I think we’ll need to remedy that.

18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes

19. Steamed pork buns–Had dim sum just this morning. I heart Mee Sum

20. Pistachio ice cream

21. Heirloom tomatoes

22. Fresh wild berries–Hello, I live in Seattle! Love the blackberries all over the place.

23. Foie gras Yup, and I’ll eat it again. and again….

24. Rice and beans Clear that one with living in South America

25. Brawn, or head cheese–Love me some offal!

26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper–Not that I know of…Though I once ate a raw piece of rocoto pepper and thought I would die for the next bunch of hours…

27. Dulce de leche Sigh. Thanks Uruguay

28. Oysters–Did someone say Oysterfest?

29. Baklava

30. Bagna cauda

31. Wasabi peas

32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl

33. Salted lassi –I’m not positive. Definitely mango ones…but salted? I’m not sure.

34. Sauerkraut

35. Root beer float

36. Cognac with a fat cigar –No more cigars for me, after yesterday. I smelled and tasted like an ash tray!

37. Clotted cream tea

38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O (Thanks, college)

39. Gumbo

40. Oxtail

41. Curried goat

42. Whole insects–My ants were lemon flavored!

43. Phaal

44. Goat’s milk

45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more

46. Fugu

47. Chicken tikka masala

48. Eel

49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut–Yup, I did. What did you do with your prom night?

50. Sea urchin

51. Prickly pear 

52. Umeboshi

53. Abalone

54. Paneer

55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal

56. Spaetzle

57. Dirty gin martini

58. Beer above 8% ABV–Yes and it resulted on standing on the roof of a hostel in Belgium helping some guy through all of his t-shirts on to the ground below at 3am, which in turn resulted in nearly missing my flight back to the states at 9 the next morning. 

59. Poutine

60. Carob chips

61. S’mores

62. Sweetbreads

63. Kaolin

64. Currywurst

65. Durian

66. Frogs’ legs

67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake

68. Haggis

69. Fried plantain

70. Chitterlings, or andouillette

71. Gazpacho

72. Caviar and blini

73. Louche absinthe

74. Gjetost, or brunost

75. Roadkill

76. Baijiu –No, but looking that one up makes me want to try it!

77. Hostess Fruit Pie

78. Snail

79. Lapsang souchong

80. Bellini

81. Tom yum

82. Eggs Benedict

83. Pocky

84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.

85. Kobe beef

86. Hare

87. Goulash

88. Flowers

89. Horse –Nope…but Brett took the most amazing pic of it when he ate it in Japan. It’s definitely on the list to try.

90. Criollo chocolate

91. Spam

92. Soft shell crab

93. Rose harissa

94. Catfish

95. Mole poblano

96. Bagel and lox

97. Lobster Thermidor

98. Polenta

99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee

100. Snake

Changing the Energy

Recently I wrote a very angry piece. It was mostly spurred on by having read the Stranger’s review of a hookah bar. But some not very nice things were said. Now there’s backlash and comments and commenting on the comments, and I’ll be honest, it stresses me out. Two diet coke’s and a Reese’s later. I’m calming down.

I never set out to offend anyone. I have met Ms. Leson and Mr. Kauffman before and had extended conversations with Ms. Kelly and Ms. Denn via email. All are not but the nicest people in the world. My criticism, though it might been less than kind, was more directed towards those above them.

In order to try to change my chi, or whatever the bad energy I’ve brought upon myself, I’ve decided to do a list of 5 things about the Seattle food scene I love. So, Bad Juju, BEGONE!

My New Favorite Local Blog: I recently discovered Pat My Butter. Though of late, Pat has mostly done restaurant reviews, by digging deeper there is a ton of great information and insight on the restaurant industry.

My New Favorite Seafood: I recently had the opportunity to try Yukon River Chum. Yes, chum, the nearly lowest rung on the salmon food chain. But this is different–I swear it melts in your mouth.

Best Recent Restaurant Experience: I attended the Corson Building’s picnic last Sunday. Biking down there at 3pm I thought I’d have a bite and move on. At 9pm when I tipsily mounted my cycle, many bottles of wine and an ungodly amount of roasted peanuts later, I was still licking my lips. I got to meet Wiley and Matt, the owners, hang out with Emily, one of the chefs, as well as with a number of wonderful people, many of whom I met that day. There should be a post coming on this.

Favorite New Beer: As I mentioned in my Racha post, I’m a huge fan of Laughing Buddha Brewery. Aside from their Pandan ale, they have an amazing ginger beer. Like a regular beer, but with ginger flavor–as oppose to non-alcoholic ginger beer.

Most Comforting Food Around: It might be 80 degrees here, I don’t care. When I get down, no matter the weather, I want to amble down the street to 7 Stars Pepper for a steaming bowl of hot pot. I know given my heritage I should be seeking out some Matzoh Ball Soup, but I grew up in Seattle. When I want comfort food, I want hot pot.

Amazing. I truly feel better. The world works in mysterious ways. I’d love to here from anyone else on their 5 things they love. Thanks, Seattle.

Losing the Advantage at Duk Li Dim Sum

The advantage of not using carts at dim sum, as I’ve mentioned in some of my Vancouver dim sum posts, is that when you order, dishes can be steamed or fried to order. So when I heard that Duk Li, a new dim sum place in the ID was using the checklist order form, I was psyched. I had actually set out to try Szechuan Noodle Bowl, but that is closed on monday, and this was right down the street. Unfortunately for me, while Duk Li has you order off the sheet, everything is premade and precooked. I ordered a good variety of stuff. The pork and egg congee  was definetly old, missing the glutinous factor and acting more like rice soup. The flavor of the pork had a strange metallicness to it. I poured in a lot of hot sauce and made it a little ways through the bowl. Among the better options was the sticky rice dumpling. I didn’t know what to expect and I’m not sure where the sticky rice fit in, but the thing was basically an empty deep fried shell, but with a somewhat glutinous texture to the shell. Odd, but very good. The baked green onion bun was a similar success, flaky and slightly sweet.

Then things took a turn for the worse. Ordering the cilantro rice roll was probably my mistake, as beef or chicken rice rolls would have at least had flavor, but the strange texture of the rice made me think this was not its first time being steamed…The most dissapointing, however, may have been the taro cake. For years I was a turnip cake kind of girl, but recently, after a delicious taro cake, I’ve changed my ways. Expecting the usual flat square, pan fried cake, I ordered it. First of all, this cake was HUGE. It had been molded in a soup bowl or something. Second of all, it had not been fried, just steamed, so the whole thing had a gelatinous texture and lacked the flavor that the frying adds. Last of all there was cinnamon or some sort of spice that totally crashed and burned with the natural spice of the taro. I ate about one bite.

The whole thing was about $7, which really isn’t that much, especially since I easily ordered enough food for two people. Unfortunately when you consider I had to get more food shortly after because I couldn’t eat most of this…it adds up.

I did go on a monday. And they’ve only been open a short time. But I will be waiting for many confirmed good visits before I try this place again.

Racha Noodles

I’ve passed the sign for Racha about a gajillion times in my life. For some reason it didn’t seem right that it was a ‘real’ Thai restaurant. Having grown up loving Siam on Broadway and moved on to the late Thai Dusit (housed in a former KFC) and now coveting Vieng Thong, it seemed wrong to me that here in the middle of fancy pants Queen Anne, with a big pretty sign would be a ‘real’ Thai restaurant.

I think part of the problem is that I don’t have a definition of ‘real’ in pertinance to Thai restaurants. I won’t claim that Siam is authentic, yet to me it is what I want out of a Thai restaurant (not, I repeat, NOT the one on Lake Union, though). So I came in to Racha expecting something a little like the Siam on Lake Union. Too big, trying too hard to be fancy and not hard enough to be good. From the outside the building is non-descript, but stepping inside was an experience. At the host stand was the specials, actually cooked and sitting on display. Off to one side were two older Thai women furiously making some sort of crepe, like the women making dumplings in the front window of restaurants in New York’s Chinatown.

Sitting down I immediately noticed that they were serving my current favorite brand of beer, Laughing Buddha, and I ordred up a pint of the Pandan Ale. The fresh rolls we split as an appetizer were pretty average and the peanut sauce unremarkable.The menu is large and unwieldly, difficult to nail down just what you want to order. My friend and I decided on splittling a Summer Fire Prawn curry and a tofu phad thai. All of the food that came to the table was quite good. It wasn’t, of course, Vieng Thong, but it was certainly Thai Dusit level. High quality. The portions were definetly single serving, which is a little strange for me, considering I’m used to eating Thai food family style. I appreciated that they had sticky rice, my current obsession, though it was a little over steamed, losing some of the stickiness.

Overall it was a good meal. I would return again, assuming someone else is paying, because the main difference between Racha and the Thai food I’m used to? The price.

How the Newspaper Industry Killed my Wednesdays

Unless you have been living under a rock (or don’t scrutinize the food section of every paper as your wednesday morning activity, same thing, really, in my book), you may have noticed that many of the papers have been slowly killing their food sections. Each week there is less original content and more drivel or previously posted content. The papers are requiring that their food writers post on blogs. Thus the content in the paper is either reprint or nationally syndicated.

I live in the Northwest. I don’t care to read about artichokes in March (thank you, Los Angeles), nor do I care about a story where the grocery store research was done in Iowa. The Seattle Times and the PI as recently as 6 months ago had fully staffed food sections in which I could read about the vegetables in season, the restaurants in my area. The articles were well researched and well written. Well, that has all come crashing down with the introduction of what I call ”required blogging.” 

The Seattle Times took their brilliant restaurant reviewer, Nancy Leson, and put her on blog duty. Now, instead of in depth research with three-plus visits to a restaurant and follow up phone calls, we get a blog entry. Really, it has made me realize that much of the difference between a blogger and a writer is little more than an expense account, a job and a bit of luck in getting that job. With the same resources as the rest of us bloggers, I’ve found Ms. Leson’s articles to hold little more clout than that of any other blogger. Which is unfortunate. I thought her of very good taste as a reviewer, but in blog form it is less convincing, more anecdotal. Her articles seem more like “Here’s what I did, here’s what I liked,” more like my articles, than a true review. To top it off, when I open my Wednesday paper, all I get is stuff I’ve already read.

Similarly, the Post-Intelligencer has Rebekah Denn collecting the writings of others online in addition to her own original, well written, content. I enjoy her writing, but it is clear the blog posts are not all well thought out, well edited prose, but rather that perhaps she knocked it off over a coffee. Meanwhile, the PI has been paying freelancer Leslie Kelly to do the restaurant reviews for the last year. I respect Leslie, I think she has promise as a food writer, but is out of her sorts here in Seattle. With a rural background, you’ve got to do a little research before diving into the international array of Seattle restaurants. Instead, Ms. Kelly has chosen to side step the culture of Seattle and review either restaurants of her own background or the obvious fancy houses, including long standing places like the Herbfarm and Cafe Juanita. I appreciate when she goes for new places, such as Spring Hill and Branzino, but am dissappointed that she refuses to dive in to the dives, the Chinese, Vietnamese and Ethiopian restaurants in Seattle.

Supporting the lack of reviewers capable of reviewing Seattle’s true restaurant scene, recently an article was written in the PI (not but Kelly, but by another writer) in which the title said “Finally, an all-you-can-eat Ethiopian buffet.” Really? I asked myself. Had the reviewer had so little experience with Ethiopian food that she was unaware of the buffets at lunch at, for example, Hidmo? It made me wonder. There is, luckily one last bastion of good food writing in my fine city, that of Jonathan Kauffman at the Seattle Weekly.

While Kauffman does have a required blog, it is mostly peopled by inane interns and the like, while he posts only occaisionally. What he does do, however, is one beautifully researched, full length, in depth article each week. Yes, sometimes it is of fancy places, of new places, but just as often, he is busy discovering the wonders of a new cuisine, the intricacies of a dining style, whatever it is, he presents it beautifully to the reader. I can only hope that the Weekly will begin to shine and the other papers will realize the worth of worthy food writing. Perhaps the Stranger could pick up a few tips.

Last week in the Stranger, their feature restaurant review was of a hookah bar. There is no food involved. The reviewer, going to review a hookah bar states that he hates tobacco. And then, shock of shockers, he hates the hookah. Well, class, what did we learn here? If you don’t like tobacco, don’t go to a hookah bar? Additionally, he mentions that he was surprised not to see belly dancers and camels and guys with Fu Manchu ’staches and opium in the air. So that is all I know about this place. The Stranger will clearly not be my bastion of good food writing in this city any time soon.

So there it is, Seattle. My long-winded, self serving, self-indulgent and a long time coming rant on the quickly deteriorating state of food writing in my city. How sad is it, that as our wonderful city rises as a restaurant city, we have a failing system of newspaper food writing.

An Apology

Bacon Wrapped Steak and Nitter Kibe Potatoes

Sometimes life gets busy. No, not too busy for food (not in my life), but so busy that the important details pass you by. Last week I returned from three days of backpacking in the woods to find my camera perched on the kitchen counter, like it had just been taking blog photos while I was gone. I looked through the photos and saw that while I was eating unmentionable camping food, B had taken over blog photo duty and grilled himself a little treat.

What has this got to do with being busy?

As I admired the steak photos–everything’s better in bacon–I realized what a great foodie man I have.I thought back to when I first met him.  He claimed to hate pasta and Chinese food. It’s really pretty amazing we made it a month. But luckily I’ve never been one to give up and once I learned that the only Chinese food he’d had involved a buffet in DuPont, Washington, I remedied the situation. I smiled to myself, remembering this, now two years later he dives into hot pot and dan dan mien with as much zeal as I do…TWO YEARS LATER! Suddenly it hit me. I’d forgotten our anniversary.

So B, I’m sorry. I wish I could have been there for you to make me bacon wrapped steak and nitter kibe potatoes. Perhaps we can celebrate another time–but let’s stick with your fancy home cooking, because I saw the honey and napkins from your other dinner while I was gone. Thank’s Ezell’s Fried Chicken, for feeding my boyfriend.

A Beautiful Duck Fat Ladden Accident

Beef Liver Mousse

 

Who says accidents must be bad? As my friend over at cheesetoast later told me, “it’s not an accident when it’s duck fat.” But it was an accident, it was just a wonderful and delicious one.

Basically I wanted to have a BBQ. I wanted to use the enormous beef liver that had taken up space in my freezer for the last two months. I decided to make mousse. There was too much mousse. What better way to preserve the second ramekin of mousse than by spreading a layer of duck fat, left over from the duck confit episode, over the top of the mousse?

Sometimes when you are cooking, or at least when I’m cooking, I get excited about something, an idea, a technique, and rationalization departs. Call it a brain fart, call it what you will, but I went to spread the duck fat over the top of the mousse before I had let the mousse cool down.

What happens when you put solid duck fat on top of warm liver mousse? I watched in fascinated horror as the fat quickly melted right into my mousse. My brain froze. Then I looked again. My mousse was creamily encasing the melted fat. And, as all good adaptable cooks would, I took a spoon and started stirring. The result, of course, was an unbelievably rich and tasty beef liver mousse. Having later eaten the version with out the duck fat, all I can tell you is that the proof is in the mousse: There is no such thing as a bad accident when duck fat is involved.

Duck Fat and Beef Liver Mousse

Chop up a sweet white onion (I used a walla walla) and a clove of garlic and put into a pan with a few tablespoons of butter (this recipe is very forgiving, so don’t worry about amounts). Saute them till they are transluscent, but don’t let them caramalize. While that is going on, chop the liver into managable pieces, about the size of two fingers. Add the liver to the pan and sautee for a few minutes, till all the sides have changed color. At this point I seasoned the liver with fresh thyme from my half living herb garden, a pinch of salt and some fresh ground pepper, though the seasoning could be whatever you choose. Then dump it all into the food processor and puree with about 2 sticks of butter.  Deglaze the pan using a sweet wine (I used port, for example) and add that along with a glug worth of brandy to the livers. Pour these into ramekins or molds, then add two teaspons of duck fat in and swirl with a spoon. Because mine was an accident, it was totally mixed in, but you could make a great design while mixing in the duck fat. Decorate with more herbs as a garnish, refridgerate for a few hours and serve with Wheat Thins (or cracker of your choice).