The Great Bag Debate: An Unintended Consequence

For those  out of the loop, or, say, the greater Seattle area, our city council is working on a proposal that you will be charged 20 cents for every plastic bag you use to carry your groceries home. Now, don’t get me wrong, I TRY to bring my own bags to the store, but I am a little forgetful. I’m all for paper, except when I have a ten block walk home–even worse if it is in the rain. So I’m not a huge fan of the new rules, but whatever, they won’t affect me very much.

The unintended consequence that I’m so very excited about, however, is that in the last 3 months I’ve recieved three new tote bags as freebies. The grocery tote has replace the crummy t-shirt as the ‘it’ give-away, and I’m excited about it. My collection of tote bags has gone from 1 to 4 and now I get to pick…is it a PCC day (from a half-marathon) or a MercyCorps kind of day (from a charity gig I did)?

Back to Tasting Chicago

I know these post in reverse order…so this could be the first segment or the third on our trip…But either way, it is the part about tasting the real tastes of chicago. We started our morning by parking at the Roosevelt Road El stop and walking over to Canal Street for the Maxwell Street Market. I love markets. I love the hustle, the bustle and most of all the myriad of stuff for sale. While we wandered, I ached to have a place like this in Seattle. Our first stop for food was the eyeball taco stand. B ordered a barbacoa taco, I ordered an ojo barbacoa. The taco was shockingly tasty. The eye took in all the barbacoa flavors, but its texture was more like that of bone marrow, or the fatty part of stewed pork belly. Creamily fatty are the words I would use. It fit in to my taco perfectly. We washed them down with a giant cup of tasty horchata. Why is the horchata better there than it is here? It just isn’t fair! We continued along, through the wave of people (at least as crowded as the taste had been the day we had gone). We stopped again at a taco stand for quesadillas for the kids and a huitlacoche taco for me. Huitlacoche is a corn fungus. It is black. Black foods scare people. Fungus scares people. This looks like black beans. Feels, again, like marrow. Tastes a little like mushrooms. The fact that it was wrapped in an amazing hand made tortilla made the whole thing even better. And the hot sauce, a yellowish thing in a jar, was very good. And spicy.

It was a hot day, and the market is enormous! Tonia, B’s sister in law stopped for a corn on a stick. Those are great, if you ever see a Mexican weilding a corn stand, I reccomend stopping. We have them here, so I only tried a bit, but as usual it was covered with mayonnaise, chile and salt. Sounds strange, tastes great (If I had a tv show, I think that would be my motto). We were just heading out the north end of the market when something caught my eye–a pupusa stand! Pupusas are flat, griddled…things? They look something like a pita bread, but the texture is more like a tortilla. I got a mixta, stuffed with beans, cheese and chicharrones (pork rinds). Then I dribbled the traditonal cabbage slaw over top. This really makes the dish. It has a warm, rich mouthfeel, then the vinegary slaw just cuts right through. A great way to finish up the morning at the market.

From the Market we moved on to Greektown. We passed by a bunch of restaurants that had been reccomended–too touristy (Pantheon), too cutesy for a group of 7 with small children (Artopolis)– and ended up picking Venus because the flower boxes in the window were really cute and the bar was in the shape of a boat. Unfortunately they didn’t let us sit in the window, despite the fact that when we arrived we were the only people there (it was 230 on a Sunday afternoon, and it did fill up while we were there). The service was not bad, but was very brusque and coarse in a way I hadn’t experienced in a while. It pained me to see the Mexican busboy being so rudely ordered around in nearly incomprehensible spanish by our waiter. The bread and olives that came out immediately were both very good. We ordered a variety of appetizers. The traditional saganaki was pretty run of the mill saganaki, it was fun for the kids to see it lit on fire, but the waiter did it very methodically and didn’t bother waiting while the kids turned around, as we rushed to get them to be paying attention. The Taromasalata (a personal favorite) was a huge hit, even with squemish eaters of all ages. It helped that we did not tell them what it was (fish eggs) until later. The oven roasted potatos were a big hit with most of the crowd, but overall were nothing out of the ordinary. We also ordered a fried eggplant which was a huge dissapointment. The eggplant was not thoroughly cooked, and thus was still hard inside the flavorless breading, under the flavorless sauce. Overall, however, the meal was enjoyed by all. Nothing was out of the ordinary, but it was all good eating.

From here we hopped on the blue line to the red line and got off at Addison for a bit of wandering up there. Surprise! We got off and there was Wrigley Field! Pictures all around. There was also some sort of block party/music fest going on, which is always fun to stumble by. We headed up Grace street in search of El Mercado Meat Market. Once found, I went on a bit of a nostalgia trip from when I lived in Uruguay. Then I bought alfajores for the kids–these are to delicious, soft flaky cookies that are pressed together with a caramel like substence known as dulce de leche. I was bummed that they were out of beef empanadas, but settled for a chicken one, and it did the trick, sending me reeling down memory lane–as much as the cuisine of Argentina has a great rep, Uruguay lacks much beyond alfajores and empanadas that is worth mentioning. I lived on these things while I was there.

As we kept walking we saw a store called CB2 which I had heard good things about, unfortunately I was the only one in the mood to stop, and I was shot down. We finally made it to Laschet’s Inn, and we had some very tired people on hand. This was the last stop for all but B and myself. We had some great stuff here–wonderful German beers that were exactly what we wanted in the afternoon heat, and tasty little snacks. I had the Hofbrau Summer brew, B the Spaten Optimator. Yes, we can get these at home, but the food and the environment we can’t. The place is super cute, like a German chalet–ok, I’ve never been to a German chalet, but it was a lot like the ones in Switzerland…Low cielings, cozy feelings. And then the food–we ordered a ‘jumbo’ pretzel and hackepeter. The jumbo pretzel, was, was advertised, quite jumbo. Bigger than my head, I’d say (quiet, there in the peanut gallery), delicious, warm, doughy, with the perfect amount of salt. The hackepeter is a steak tartare. It was served on a rye bread, which I wasn’t a huge fan of, with onions and capers. The velvety texture of the steak was amazing, some of the best tartare I’ve had. I scraped it from the rye and put it on the pretzel with capers for an unbelievable treat. If you are in the Chi-town area, I reccomend a beer break here.

From here, waving goodbye to the others, B and I headed to Spoon Thai. Wow. A dive from the outside, with a sign that looks like it belongs over a jo-jo’s stand in Renton, inside was beautiful blonde wood walls and silver Thai carvings on the wall. We were only on the crawl, so we each ordered a Thai iced tea and split an appetizer off the Thai Menu. It was a beef jerky with tamarind dipping sauce and it was perfect. The beef was coated in a glaze, then with the hot/sweet of the sauce, it should excellent skill and flavors. We had them box the rest up and headed for a stop at our friends house. They were grilling, and of course, insisted we try some of the chicken they were making. Though the coals were a little hot for the thickness of the breasts, the meat turned out extremely tender and perfect for dipping in the honey habanero sauce they had made.

From here we were tired, and about to cut the tour off when I insisted we hit one last place. B’s brother, B2 had joined us at this point and the three of us headed to Palace Gate, a Ghanaian restaurant.

I have no idea what we ordered. We asked, What is best? and the lady said “mumbojumbo….but….you don’t want it….its too spicy for you” at which point B and I simoultaneously jumped out of our seats and frantically exclaimed in an effort to make sure that we got that thing. We take that quote as a perfect description of what we know we want! We also got one other thing at her reccomendation. One item was a beef and fish stew, yellow in color and viscous in texture. The other item was beef in sauce, slopped over a pile of starches that included noodles, rice, beans and plantains. We were also given a bowl of another starch, which seemed to be a cornmeal dough of some type. It reminded me of solidified arepa dough. We used it to dip into the stew sauce. This was my favorite dish of the day. I think the mucus texture of the stew must have come from okra, but I don’t mind that texture as much as many people do. It tasted good. $20 covered more food than the three of us could shake a stick at! The plate of starches was also good, the sauce on the meat especially. I also enjoyed the plaintains, but could take or leave the rice and noodles. All of it was extremely spicy, in the best kind of way, where it builds up and leaves your lips burning for a while afterword. Another strong reccomendation here.

We headed back to our friends place to round out the evening with some beers and low and behold, what should show up but a box of deep dish pizza! Well, given we were touring the city for food, we couldn’t turn down a slice of the native dish. We each had a slice of the stuff, from Chicago’s Pizza. It was pretty good, though I have little to compare it to. I would eat more of it, suffice it to say.

Finally, as the night got late, we hopped back on the Red line to journey back to Indiana. We were almost home at 130 am, when the lights of the White Castle lit up the corner. Like Harold and Kumar, B knew what needed to happen. He veered off the highway and we went in to get me that holy grail, the object of Harold and Kumar’s affection. No, I’d never had one before. Yes, I’ve now experienced one. And you know what? I’d do it again. Something quirky and wonderful about any burger served at 2 am, but this was more than that. I liked it. Wouldn’t trade a Dick’s for it, but I’d hit it up again.

Eating in Indiana

Part two of our trip to Chicago is the part where we head to Indiana. I was meeting B’s family for the first time and I was nervous. Suddenly there were 20 Tomky’s all around! Luckily they were all very nice and interested in talking to me and I tried to stay calm. It was very tiring, and eventually I had to retreat for a nap, but not before I got to try some new foods (don’t worry, this still is and always will be a blog first and foremost about food). Aside from the usual hamburgers and hot dogs, B’s family is swedish and thus had a few Swedish eats around. That was wonderful. We started with a few pepperkokar cookies, like thin gingerbread, accompanied by some lovely mojitos made with mint fresh from his mother’s garden! Her plants are clearly doing better than mine, which to be honest don’t look all that much worse then before I abandoned them for 5 days. Which says more about how they looked before than their resiliance to apathetic care. Right, Swedish food. The swedish meatballs were terrific, in a thick gravy, and cooked till just done, meaning they retained great texture and flavor. There was also swedish potato sausage. I loooooved this. Seriously, it tasted like matzoh ball sausage. I think I’m going to get me some next time I find myself in Ballard. Or Ikea. It was in broth with some slightly bland vegetables, luckily B’s Grandpa rescued them with “slap ya momma” cajun seasoning spices. Very funny.

There were leftovers, but upon returning from firework watching, the three tomky brothers and myself ransacked the fridge for leftovers and left not even a crumb of Swedish yummies behind.

Did I fail to mention dessert? I don’t know what was in Grandma’s banana cream pie, but darn it was good! I was awoken from my nap to try some, and that was just fine with me.

The Taste of Chicago…And Tasting Chicago

Last weekend I was in Chicago, ostensibly to meet B’s family. “Find out all the best food” he told me, encouragingly. So there was born a second reason for the trip to Chi town, a tasting of the best food we could find. We arrived on Thursday evening and went to meet some friends at a bar called the Hopleaf. I was excited they suggested this place, as it was on my list to try anyways. Great beer selection, delicious curry mussels. Let me rephrase, transcendent curry mussels. I was impressed. Pretty good fries, pretty good pork belly with strange sauces. I would stick with the good beers and the mussels.

From there we moved next door and I tried a Goose Island “Honkers” beer which was fun and tasty…then it was off to bed to get ready for the next morning at….The Taste.

The Taste Of Chicago Yes, I was warned. “You’ll be hot sweaty and there are a million people and its expensive, blah blah blah.” They told me horror stories. The crowds, the masses. I came in prepared for warfare. I left happy as a clam and very full. It was in fact a wonderful experience. Upon arrival, we got tickets and started eating. First we hit up the Beef Sandwich at Ricobene’s. This was very good. Whenever possible, we tried to do Taste Portions, as they were far more reasonable prices and we could try more stuff. The taste portion at Ricobenes was perfect. The sandwich was well fried, the crisp breading was thin enough that it didn’t overwhem the meat, but enhanced it and the meat was far more tender than I expected. The bread and sauce were nothing special, but were good enough that they matched up to the flavors of the sandwich.
Next we headed to Vee Vee’s for some jerk chicken (taste portion). This was nothing special. I had heard good things, but really it was pretty average, not enough flavor, the cruddy bits of chicken. Dissappointing. We moved on to the specialty beer tent so we could get something that was not bud or bud lite. I discovered a tasty and refreshing Beach Bum Blonde. Beer was slightly pricey, but really not that bad for a festival, and unlike here in Seattle, you didn’t have to stay in the designated drinking area, which was nice. We picked up Cochinita Pibil at the Adobo Grill next. These were not taste portions, so they struck me as quite expensive. On top of that, they were nothing special. Good tacos, but nothing unbelievable. One at taste portion would have been a better value. We continued our wander when B decided to veer from the list. Good things rarely happen when we do that. Oops. We had some not very good roasted corn from O’Brien’s. We soldiered on finding the Costa’s Gyro stand. These were very good gyros. The sauce all dripped out the end (and onto my dress) which sucked, as it wasn’t on the meat, but the meat had a lot of flavor and the whole thing was very good. We picked up some more tickets and got a taste portion of samosa at Arya something starting with a B’s. It was a very average, if not mediocre, samosa. It was put into sauce which made it soggy. Lame. I was dissappointed there. Luckily things took a turn for the better here, as we tried the BJ’s Market catfish. These were extremely good. I had recently had a bad catfish experience, and this proved to me I could like it again. Yum! From here we headed through the one crowded corridor. You just have to really embrace the ridiculousness, the festiveness. And have nowhere to be any time soon, too. That helps. We picked up a slice of Lou Malnati’s cheese pizza. I had deep dish pizza many years ago, but I have no recolection of like or dislike. I don’t like too much sauce on my pizza, and I think I was concerned that much of the deepness of the dish would be filled with sauce. It turned out it was not. There was a lot of cheese (I love cheese) and crust (I love crust). It had definately been sitting for a bit, but the taste was good, and the slightly thick cheese (because it was no longer melted) didn’t bother me. I liked it. I like deep dish. This was a good thing to learn. After this we hopped out of the taste to pick up some better beer at a nearby mini mart then sat on the grass to hear a favorite band of ours, Old 97’s. They played a great festival set and we were buzzed and happy as we moved on in our adventure. We headed to a feared sign: “Latino/Indian Fusion.” That is a travesty. Ugh, I hate fusion. However, what we had been told to try, mango cumin dusted fries, was delicious. Good fries, good flavorings. It was a taste portion and it totally hit the spot. As I thought about it, mango and cumin are really not fusion, as both are heavily used in both latin and indian cuisine. It was the fries that made it fusion. And let’s be honest, what DOESN’T go well with french fries? (I’m actually excited to hear any answers to that questions…). We had extra tickets left and again B made the poor decision to stray from the list. We got a brat and a perogei at a near by stand. Both were miserably bad. The brat had zero flavor and the bread was dry and there was too much of it in relation to the meat. The one measly perogei I got (by far the smallest ‘taste’ portion) was greasy and limp. Not the best way to end the night. So we didn’t!

We headed up to our friend’s brothers house for a fourth of July fiesta. We met lots of great people, learned a ton about chicago. Hung out on a chicago style porch. Ate more food: They prepared chicken and steak for tacos, delicious chilequiles (I love chilequiles), rice. They had lemonade, mineral water and vodka cocktails, which I could have drank a ton of. It was a really good time. I was starting to really like Chicago. I never like other places. I liked Chicago…

Don’t Cheat!

I was (shamefully hanging head) watching The Next Food Network Star. They harp continually on the contestants for not having a culinary point of view. I don’t understand the need for one, though I suppose for a show it is important. So I got to thinking about what mine would be. I thought back on my recent culinary adventures: Baguettes from scratch (which are finally good enough to post about, soon), soup dumplings fully by hand. And I realized what mine is: Don’t Cheat! From the most basic recipe–I can make a mean papardelle pasta with shaved parmesan that tastes like freaking heaven in ten minutes from scratch–to the most complicated, do it all. Don’t use premade sauces, don’t use short cuts (unless they are good ones, where you still get everything done–freezing your homemade stock in ice cube trays, for example). I guess you could say it is the anti-Rachel/Sandra tactic, though I think Anthony already holds that title. But seriously, my basic idea is that you have to choose a recipe that fits your time period, not try to fit the recipe into your given time period.

Where to eat in Lake Chelan

My answer? Don’t. I’m not saying to starve yourself, by anymeans. I’m saying, if you are staying in town, you want to grill. Armed only with olive oil, salt, pepper and some rosemary I grabbed from the side of the road, I prepared an amazing meal on the grills. A flank steak, grilled medium rare, a mound of asparagus, a pile of potatoes. I shouldn’t have spoiled myself, because all the meals we went out to in the town of Chelan had no prayer of living up to that standard. Luckily outside of the town of Chelan, there are some tastier options.

This is Cisco’s, which is in Entiat. It’s about 20 minutes from Chelan, between Chelan and Wenatchee, so a good stopover if you are on your way in or out of town. Amazing Mexican food. I hadn’t had a torta like that in a while. The owner was nice, came outside and chatted with us while we ate. The salsa is a cabbage version that was pretty impressive.

The other reccomendation I offer is Blueberry Hill in Manson, on the far side of Chelan. It’s a bit out of the way, but it is good solid food (I suggest the French Dip) with a beautiful view. And you can do lots of wine tasting on the way back to town.

 

My First Article

It’s out. My first published food writing article. And you know what? They got my name wrong. Even worse? My mother was the one who pointed it out to me. In the table of contents I’m Naomi Bishop, then you go to the article and suddenly I’m Naomi Cambell. Not even spelled like the supermodel either. To add insult to injury, in the printing or editing process my accent marks got deleted and now it looks like I don’t know how to spell crème fraîche. Oy. It was a little heartbreaking, I have to admit. Brett kept saying that someday it will make a funny story. My only question is will it make a funny story because I’m a famous food writer and “look at my first piece, what a donkey” or will it be “look at this flailing attempt I made to be a food writer. I couldn’t even get my name right”…

Anyways, if you are looking to see the article by me (and my buddy, Ms. Cambell), you can find WINO around Seattle. Where around Seattle? I wish I could tell you. I tried to get my editors to give me specific places, and they just kept naming neighborhoods. I found my copy at the Old Peculiar Bar in Ballard.

Anthony Bourdain has Big Balls (live show at the Moore)

Yup, that is my conclusion after having seen him perform last night at the Moore Theatre. And I don’t just think that because his pants were a little tight. I say that because this is a man who truly has only one thing going for him–that he is straight up, downright hilarious. He doesn’t have anything to say that a million other people haven’t already said. It is simply his naked comic timing and wording that have gotten him where he is today.

Okay, let me back up. When we waited to go see him, I was a little worried. Obviously, as a superfangirl, I would have bought a ticket even if it were just to see him stand there and cluck like a chicken. But I admit, I was worried that I would have heard his spiels before, seen his shtick. Then he stepped on to stage. Like a 12 year old at a Backstreet Boys concert, my heart fluttered. It was crazy to see him in person. There he was! Right in front of me. It was cool. He started talking. I would say about 30% of what he said was stuff I’d heard before, read before, seen before. But there were some totally great lines. He justified kicking off Dale from Top Chef by declaring that eating his scallops was like “felching Mrs. Butterworth.” His humbleness was pervasive, from his clear embarassment when he came out to racous cheers to when he admitted he doubted he could make it past the second round of Top Chef.

Other great moments included his discussion of why Scandinavia has such bad food (Mongols never invaded) and the question and answer period. The Q & A truly showed his skill as a comedian, as he was unfazed by even the dumbest questions and turned them all into hilarious, spontaneous mini monologues.

It was pretty amazing. I assume, since they said last night that this was the premiere, that he’ll be doing a few more of these shows. I would reccomend them.

Seafood on the Grill: Oysters and Saba

Yup, we’re still in America. Nope, that is not meat on my Memorial Day grill. I was at the store (and starving, never a good move) looking for food to grill. B called “Is it okay if I just do seafood?” I asked, standing over an enormous tub of giant Pacific oysters. These puppies were big and meaty. But I couldn’t stop there, I went a little overboard. Scallops, for ceviche, mackeral (aka saba) to wrap in banana leaves and grill, big, beautiful asparagus. It was, I must admit a bit of a feast.

The ones on the left are topped with lime juice, salt, pepper and cilantro in a ceviche style, the ones on the right are just plain sashimi style topped with tobiko, which I had picked up in all the hungry excitement at the store. I grilled the asparagus plain, with just olive oil, salt and pepper, a little bit of fresh thyme, from my plant (which has yet to die!). The oysters are even easier, I just plop them on the grill. After 8 or so minutes you can hear them give a little “POP” as they open, and they are ready to go. I served them with a spicy sauce made of sambal oelek and tonkatsu sauce mixed together.

For the main dish, we took the mackeral and rubbed it down with salt, pepper, curry and turmeric and let it sit for an hour before wrapping it in a banana leaf and throwing it on the grill too.

It is really too bad that America insists on filling their grills with big honkin’ cuts of meat, because these oysters and fish were at least as good as the last overcooked steak or store bought hamburger patty I ate.

Adventures in Charcuterie

I know it has been a while since I promised to tell you about my adventures with pork belly curing, but alas I never did. Luckily my less lazy than myself co-worker has put up a lovely post chronicling our adventure. I reccomend that you read it here.

Upcoming food porn posts for you to look forward to: B’s given me permission to post his amazing food pics from Japan and gettin’ out the grill for Memorial Day–Seafood Style.