New Year's Eve, Cops in The Kitchen

New Year’ Eve first appears in my memory as the sounds of cops in the kitchen.

I wake up on the couch, TV going and the ball already dropped.  The kitchen light is on and there are men's voices, barely muted for sleeping children and sleepy wife.  I get up and wander out to the clatter of cuffs and creak of thick belts.  Four or five policemen are standing there, my father one of them, loading plates with pork and sauerkraut from the oval aluminum crock from the oven. 

They take great bites, bits of kraut hanging in mustaches trimmed sharply above the lip.  Conversation is small, centered on discussion of the events of the night.  Smells of cigarettes, black leather, and Old Spice foul the sweet roasting softness. Bright yellow walls, color chosen to compliment Sears oak veneer cabinets and just-lighter-than-Army-green appliances, serves only to increase their presence. The color can barely get around the negative space the consume.  They all have guns, billy-clubs and saps, hanging by my face.  I wonder at them, whether they get used, and why and how. 

They eat quickly, in good humor, pile their plates in the sink.  They thank my mother, the more familiar of them hug her, and they all head back out on duty.  I can’t remember if any of them noticed me.  They have been in the house maybe five minutes.  In the stillness after they leave Mom shuts off the TV and ushers us to bed. 

Pork and sauerkraut is my tradition for the first food to be eaten in the new year.  It is eaten to bring luck in the coming year.  Both my Father’s side (Polish, Stanislaw Okinski became Stanley Fuller on Ellis Island) and Mother’s side (Maiden name Zemak,  Pennsylvania Dutch which means German) follow the tradition and until long after I left home did I believe that every person did the same thing.  Pork roast, cook long and low, with kraut and sometimes potatoes added later in the process.  In some families, sausage would be added, or even take the place of the roast.  I had no Italian friends (they lived in different neighborhoods than we), missing the delicious love of the Seven Fishes until I moved to Pittsburgh at age 27. 

My father was a police officer in DuBois when I was a child.  He invited all the local police, City as well as from outlying Sandy Township, and the few Staties with which he was friendly, to stop by our house for pork and kraut.  Police cars would fill little dead-end Burt Street, and everyone would hope for a better new year in that tiny kitchen.  We kids would have some too, a little bit before bed then full steaming plates for lunch the next day, added insurance I suppose. Seemed to work for me. 

I still keep the faith.  And, like Steeler fandom, I am devoutly indoctrinating my kids. Attached is a good approximation of my recipe (family cooking lost to us already).  Start it at 6, you’ll be sure it will be ready by midnight.   And if you are working, as I and many of my friends will be, share it with your co-workers.  They need the luck too.  

 

Pork and Sauerkraut

I make pork and sauerkraut every New Years Eve make sure that there is a batch in the corner of an oven at the restaurant as well as in my house.  Everyone needs the good luck it brings to eat pork and sauerkraut for the first meal in the new year.

1          ea.        5-7# piece bone-in pork butt

½         C.        Brown sugar

½         C.        Salt

½         C.        Black pepper

2-3       Tbs      Dried thyme

1          ea.        12 oz dark beer, Porter or Stout

3-4       C.        Cider

At least 2 # sauerkraut

2-3       #          All-pork sausage, hopefully Serbian Kielbassa, cut into 1” chunks.

1.     Mix sugar, salt, and pepper in a mixing bowl.

2.     Place pork butt in a deep baking dish with room around.  Rub cure mix into meat on all sides. Place in baking dish with fat side up.  Let pork butt cure in refrigerator overnight.

3.     Scrape excess seasoning from pork butt.  Remove pork butt from dish.  Rinse dish.

4.     Return pork to baking dish fat side up.  Season top well with dried thyme. 

5.     Pour beer and cider around pork.  Cover and place in a 325° oven for 4-6 hours. The pork butt is ready when the bone pulls out of the meat easily.

6.     Add kraut and kielbasa.  Allow to cook for another 30 minutes.

7.     Eat at 12:01 January 1 for good luck all year.

It's another Tequila Sunrise...

“Not Thanksgiving At All” Steak and Jalapeno Quesadilla

 

The morning after Thanksgiving I have no desire to eat the leftovers.  By the end of Thanksgiving evening, I have spent a great portion of discussing, planning, shopping for, cooking, and complaining about the dinner.  My skin smells like stuffing, turkey repels me, and I drank probably half a bathtub of Beaujolais Nouveau and whatever Alsatian-style whites Jen, my sister-in-law with exactly the same tastes in wine as I have, has brought.  The film coating the kitchen matches the film over my eyes, and as I start the coffee, I think about brunch.

In addition to shopping for the big day with all its Brussels sprouts, flour, and butter nonsense, I throw a couple of items in the cart so I can start my day after the Day consuming completely differently tasting food.  This year, I will be making a little item I developed while opening Mad Mex # 11 in Willow Grove, PA (Philly suburb).  

Most non-restaurant people don’t know that it is eminently important to drink until the wee hours after the first real day of business at a new restaurant.  It builds camaraderie and relieves stress after that 18-hour day.  The best part is arriving back at work the second real day of business after four hours of sleep to attack another 18-hour day.  To celebrate surviving this long, stressful, and hung-over day, it is again important to drink tequila until the wee hours. 

The Sunday morning after these two long opening days greeted us with the inconsiderate feature of a brilliantly sunny morning and a lot of work to do.  The opening team needed inspiration.  It was important that I make a rich, flavorful, greasy breakfast that was achievable with the ingredients on hand yet did not really taste like Mad Mex food.  I grabbed a flat of eggs, an onion, some jalapenos, and some flank steak and got to work.  The following is a reconstruction of what occurred that morning.

1       #          Flank steak

1       Tbs.    Dijon mustard

1       Tbs.    Salt

2       Tbsp. Olive oil

½      ea.      Stick of butter

1       C.        Medium sliced raw onion

1-4   ea.      Jalapenos, sliced into rings

1       Tbsp.  Mexican Oregano, dried

2       tsp.     Cumin, ground

2       tsp.     Salt

8       ea.      Eggs

More butter

4       ea.      10” flour tortillas

1       C.        Shredded Monterrey Jack Cheese

Salt and pepper

Guacamole

Sour Cream

1)    Prepare Guacamole.  Reserve.

2)    Place steak in a bowl.  Add mustard, olive oil, and salt.  Allow to marinate.

3)    Heat cast iron skillet over high heat.  Sear steak until crusty on the outside and a gentle medium in the center, about 140°.  Set aside and allow to rest.  Return skillet to heat.

4)    While steak is cooking, melt butter in a medium skillet over medium heat.  Add onions, peppers, oregano, cumin, and salt.  Cook with stirring until onions soften but do not become soggy. 

5)    Heat comal (flat cast iron skillet).

6)    Slice beef across the grain.

7)    In skillet, add a generous knob of butter.  Crack 2 eggs into the pan.  If you desire, poke the yolks so that they cook solid.

8)    While eggs are cooking.  Place a tortilla on the comal.  Sprinkle with cheese.  Allow to melt.

9)    Place onion and pepper mixture across half the tortilla.  Add some beef.  Add two eggs. 

10)Fold and remove from the griddle.  Cut into thirds and serve with guacamole and sour cream.

11)Repeat steps 7 – 10 until everyone is fed.  Hopefully, one of these bums will have made you a Tequila Sunrise.  Sip it as you cook.

Guacamole

3       ea.      Avocados

Juice of 2-3 limes

1       ea.      Large clove garlic grated on a microplane grater

¼      C.        Chopped Cilantro

1-2   ea.      Diced ripe tomatoes

Salt and Pepper to taste

1)    Peel, seed, and dice avocados

2)    Add everything else.  Adjust seasonings.

You Too Can Write a Book Review!

John Allison of the Post Gazette asked me to write a review of Adam Gopnik's newest book, "The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food" Sweet!  Nothing more fun for an amateur writer than to criticize in print a professional writer!   When I got the book, the first advance copy I of my life, anxiety set in.  "I agreed to read this book, intelligently assess it, and deliver an engaging written review.  All in a reasonable amount of time." 

Turns out, getting the book read presented the biggest challenges.  Two active young children, a busy and growing restaurant company, a professional spouse, and silly things like friends and sleep all conspired to keep me from finishing the book.  After getting through a dozen or so pages over the course of three nights reading in bed, I switched to reading on the couch.  I covered more ground but at the cost of having to drag myself up to bed at 4 AM. 

John would send gentle e-mails, checking on my progress.  Still not much past halfway through the book, I assured him that the review was progressing well and I just needed to do a little more work.  I assume that this little lie to an editor surprises nobody.  I look forward to a time in my life where I have an opportunity to deliver immense lies camouflaging catastrophic delays to a really powerful and frightening editor. 

Finally I finished.  I mostly dug the book.  In reading it I saw the reflection of a lot of my thoughts on current and future food trends.  Gopnik's dissertation on the birth of the modern restaurant out of the same social changes that drove the French Revolution engaged me.

But most of all, I developed an incredible jealousy of his life.  How is it possible?  Traveling the world, dining at brilliant restaurants, cooking for his family in NYC, chatting with hot French food revolutionaries like Zoe Reyners, being brilliant and well-educated, and seeming to have a blast at it all.  Amazing!  By what accident of birth did I miss that all?

Anyhow, here's the review.  I haven't seen a check for it.  When I get it, if I get it, I plan to use it all to buy Cognac.

Gopnik Review

Discovered While Cleaning the Attic

I delivered papers as a boy, beginning at age 10 with a route of 29 customers and quitting right before I turned 16 with somwhere over 140 - all the customers that got the Courier Express in my small home town of FallsCreek, PA. I amassed this formidable empire by absorbing the other paper routes as kids got sick of them. Sure, I spent hours after school (evening route) trudging through slush while avoiding the group of thugs that resided across town. Of course I smelled like ink every day, and my hands were stained black. But I had cash, free flowing tip money. And when those Christmas cards started showing up, look out!

Here I am pictured with my younger brother, whose route I absorbed soon after this picture was taken, paper domination global.

If you can read the text, I'd like to inform you that while Chuck still digs motorcycles and I, obviously, continue to be an amateur writer, we have moved past our shared interest in D+D.

From last October's newsletter

October 2010

“Never Give an Inch”

My favorite novels are ones that tell stories of passionate and alienated anti-heroes trapped on a quest of their own design. Single-mindedly pursuing a ridiculous goal whose purpose lies in opposition to all their best interests, they neglect everything except that which is eminently material to the cause. The goal is true, and noble, and there is no question that it must be achieved. On the Path, those of lesser vision fall to the side, or are discarded. Great personal injuries occur, often leading to death at the fulfillment of the quest, or just before. But most of all, our hero’s wracked torture as he watches everything close stripped from him, trailing away in fish-eyed confusion, broken and torn by his mission, is the meat that keeps me turning the page. “Will he come to the conclusion that he is wasting everything?” “Will he die in his pursuit?” “Is there any compromise that he can fashion to achieve his truth and stay human?”

Unfortunately, in life, things do not get tidily wrapped up in 427 pages. The hero rarely gets to give everything for the one true holy thing. There are PTA meetings to attend, spouses and children, and it’s nice to keep a friend or two in pocket. This dilemma, the fractured interface of the ideal of the perfect restaurant with the compromise of reality, is where we, the Chefs, find ourselves. We believe in our vision; for the dish, for the concept, for the kitchen, for the restaurant. And the requirements of our trade make sacrifice a fundamental theme. We truly bleed for the craft, and sacrifice our backs and friends and weekends, and thrive in a milieu where the truest yardsticks are pain. How many hours spent over the stove, how wickedly scarring the burns, and how many screaming attacks survived are strung like black and jagged pearls along life’s string. The quest strips us, breaks us, isolates us, and we follow it through the darkness for our light at the end.

But the light is never to be found. Every day begins anew. No matter what the achievement of yesterday; covers served, excellent sauce, perfect medium rare, rocking service, today winds a new clock and sets it to tick. Yesterday’s masterpiece is gone, washed down with wine into the organic soup of life. Today we begin anew to bang nature’s raw products into form and flavor to please our eyes and tongues. When finished, they fly from us, never returning as we turn to the next plate. And so go the days and weeks and seasons and years, continually trying to accomplish the goal of assembling perfection amid the erratic beauty of this earth. The stone is rolled up,

But we believe that we can. That we will. That we HAVE to. And that if you don’t like it, then f__k off and go away and leave us to our mission. Because if you can’t be there with me, then I’ll do it myself. And for the hours of sweating, cursing, and screaming, we find the occasional bits of beauty and that keeps us moving forward.

That, and off color butternut squash humor.

But there is no redemption. A good chef believes that he or she is right, completely and without question. And this right needs not be questioned. To competently lead a disparate group of young men and women into the stressful pressures and conditions of service, they must be prepared to execute the commands of the chef. To question, to disobey, is to slow down the machine and break the flow. And without the flow, there is chaos. And chaos is the enemy of the restaurant. Only by applying incredible organization and control can the endless details of the evening’s dinner service be executed.

Chefs are jerks by definition. A chef is an egotistic creative control freak, usually with a neatness fixation. He has little patience for fools and no time for drama. Play your part, carry the weight, and step in line. This does not make for a great personal life as these traits carry into relationships with friends and family. Even with other restaurant people, the chef is alone. Between the competition with other chefs (don’t even try to deny it, every last one of you), the master/student relationship with the cooks, and the flirty yet distrustful connection to the servers, there is a quiet place where the Chef sits alone, even in the center of the room.

But we have no choice and love it. We grow, and adjust, and develop some ability to step back from the quest and breathe

Stone Soup for Chef in the Garden

Making this on PGH Today Live in the AM (9/22/11) then 10 more times for kids @ Dilworth Traditional Academy for Chef in the Garden Thursday and Friday. I love the story and can't wait to tell it! Sharing, community, working together, and just a little sneakiness.

Stone Soup

1 ea. Stone, clean and hopefully sterilized

2 # Potatoes, diced

1 C. Lentils

2 ea. Bay leaves

1 C. Diced onion

1 C. Diced carrot

1 C. Diced Celery

3 ea. Garlic cloves, sliced

1 ea. Small bunch greens (mustard, kale, chard, sliced/chopped)

2 C. Green beans snipped and cut

4 C. Diced tomatoes

1 C. fresh cut corn

Whatever fresh herbs are available

Olive oil

Salt and pepper, very important

Splash of olive oil.

1 ea. Baguette, cut into chunks

1. Place stone in pot. Cover with water and season well with salt and pepper. Perform this act in full view of poor, hungry villagers.

2. Make a fire. Begin heating pot on fire. When first villager comes to question, describe the soup that you are making and that it would be delicious if only you had a few potatoes. When villager brings potatoes, dice them and add them.

3. When second villager arrives, describe how you are making Stone Soup and that it will be delicious, and that all you need is a few lentils. When villager brings them, add to soup. (Be careful to inspect the lentils for rocks before adding.)

4. Continue to suggest ingredients as villagers arrive. Add in sequence. Allow pot to simmer all the while. Chat with villagers. Relax around the fire.

5. Stir occasionally.

6. When olive oil and fresh herbs have been added, remove from fire. Ask if anyone has a stale chunk of bread. Cut it up to fit in bowls. Pour soup over bread. Serve everyone!

Grilled Hanger Steak, Fresh Creamed Corn, Warm Green Bean Salad with Pancetta Vinaigrette

Grilled Hanger Steak, Fresh Creamed Corn, Warm Green Bean Salad with Pancetta Vinaigrette

4 ea. Hanger steaks, about 8 oz. each

Extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

2 # Assorted pole beans (green, wax, etc.) sliced thinly on a bias

½ # Arugula

Pancetta Vinaigrette

Fresh Creamed Corn

1. Make Pancetta Vinaigrette. Hold warm. Reserve extra rendered pancetta

2. Make Fresh Creamed Corn. Hold warm and covered.

3. Preheat grill.

4. Blot steaks dry. Lightly rub with olive oil and season well with salt and pepper. Grill to a nice medium rare.

5. Allow steaks to rest for 10 minutes.

6. Place beans in bowl. Drizzle with warm Pancetta Vinaigrette. Toss in arugula. Adjust salt and pepper.

7. Check creamed corn for seasoning and consistency. Adjust the latter with a little water if necessary.

8. Slice steak. Place a pool of creamed corn in the center of the plate. Fan steak over corn. Drape warm bean salad over the top.

Pancetta Vinaigrette

¼ C. Rice vinegar

¼ C. Red wine vinegar

¼ C. Balsamic vinegar

½ C. Diced, rendered pancetta

1 ea. Shallots minced

2 Tbs. Picked fresh thyme

Zest and juice of 2 lemons

1 Tbs. Sugar

½ C. Rendered pancetta fat, warm

½ C. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1) Combine all ingredients in blender, except for pancetta fat and olive oil.

2) Start blender and slowly drizzle in oil and fat to emulsify. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Fresh Creamed Corn

6 ea. Ears corn

1 tbs. Chopped fresh thyme

salt and pepper

up to a ½ C. water

3 Tbs. Whole butter

1. Cut corn off cobs with a knife. After cutting off corn, scrape cobs with the edge of the knife

2. Place all corn and liquid into a skillet. Add thyme. Bring to a simmer.

3. Season well with salt and pepper. Adjust constancy with water if necessary.