A Quick Trip to the Store

The funniest thing happened to me yesterday. I got my learner’s permit.

“Bruce, lots of kids get their learner’s permits every day,” you mention.

But I’m not a kid. I’m 44 years old an adult. I’m even a parent. But for the past 26 years I haven’t driven because of epilepsy. Before when I needed to make a trip to the store, I walked, bussed, biked, begged for a ride or didn’t go. For someone who loves to cook, but hates to plan, I need to make lots of grocery trips. For someone whose interest in a recipe is heightened at the mention of obscure Central Asian spices or Korean sauces, getting ingredients can be a headache. I briefly had the luxury of living directly behind the Wedge Co-op. Until I get a real driver’s license I still will need an adult in the front seat.

I had mixed feelings about living without a driver’s license. I certainly didn’t like the seizures, but I felt a degree of moral righteousness in not being a part of our one person = one car culture. I rode the bus. I carpooled. I biked. I walked. I had a smaller carbon footprint. I got some exercise too.

These “healthy” smaller carbon footprint missions weren’t always so fulfilling. My seven-year old daughter wasn’t interested in riding the tandem to the specialty grocery just so Dad could save a few bucks on a 10 pound bag of Kokuho Rose sushi rice. Her apprehension about that mission was vindicated when Dad’s backpack broke and the ride home became a two-mile walk while Dad tried to balance the bike and a 10 pound bag of rice. I could endure personal inconvenience, but it hurt to see her disappointment.

My company’s parking lot and ramp together accommodate over 1500 cars, but only one bus drives out there. Standing in that empty lot after working overtime, waiting for that one bus has made me hot with rage over the shortcomings of public transit and the indignities of my condition: the medication, expense, loss of opportunity. But most of the time I recognized my condition was much milder than many, and public transit in the Twin Cities is getting better. I might not become a great driver, but I doubt I will ever take a quick trip to the store for granted.

I've Been Thinking about Chickens

A Minneapolis chicken from Slow Food Minnesota's Urban Coop Tour.

Not too long ago I wrote about doing more butchering. Not slaughtering. Not working in the back of the supermarket, just doing more of my own trimming. Eliminating "value added" at the grocery store meant more savings at the cash register and making me more knowledgeable about meat. I've been buying whole chickens for some time. My thinking was -- could I extend this to beef? Buy large hunks and trim them down and use and freeze as needed?

Recently I've begun to wonder if I might go back a little further on the chicken supply chain. A friend of the Mini Chef deals with whole chickens too, but hers are LIVE CHICKENS. This is St. Paul, small urban to some, but not rural either. My wife was fetching our little one from a birthday party and walked into the friend's backyard, which happened to be the hens' living room. After the initial surprise and a bit of Q&A about small scale chicken ranching (3 birds), the idea started to tickle her fancy. By coincidence, Slow Food Minnesota sponsored a tour of urban chicken coops the next day so I could see how others are handling it. The ten urban coops on the tour represented a small number of local, urban coops. We even discovered a neighbor less than three blocks away with a backyard coop. If the internet activity about urban chicken raising (e.g. Backyard Chickens, Urban Chickens) and the attendance at a "driveway class" by local urban chicken proponents Peat Willcutt and Rocky Gordon are any indication, its becoming more than a fad. We've evaluated coop plans, and I've got a lead on some salvage lumber. My wife and I have started calling each other Mr. and Mrs. Brown.

Our backyard cannot support raising birds as a steady meat source, but is suitable for layers. I eat a lot of eggs. I love eggs. I was employed briefly as a breakfast cook in a busy university hospital cafeteria. At the time, I was cooking a few hundred eggs a day and though I got a lot of practice, it wasn't there that I learned the most about eggs. Despite the heavy exposure, I continue to love them and make them a part of most breakfasts.

How Much Do You Know about Eggs?

I don't know if its a true story or not, but I heard that for a final in a class on evolutionary biology, one of the essay questions was, "which came first the chicken or the egg? Explain." As long as the question is not "which came first the chicken or the chicken egg," it isn't a conundrum. Eggs have been around a lot longer than chickens. But how much do you know about eggs?

1. It might be hot outside, but is it hot enough to fry an egg? How hot is that?
2. What's the difference between a large and an extra large egg?
3. Are brown eggs healthier?
4. How long does an egg need to incubate?
5. When does an egg go bad?
6. Do you know a trick for peeling hard boiled eggs?
7. Why do hard boiled eggs have a gap or pocket?
8. How many eggs do Americans eat annually?
9. What state is the number one egg producer?
10. If you want a soft boiled egg (creamy, almost runny, not yet crumbly), how long do you cook it?

Answers:

1. The temperature egg protein cooks at is not a single number. The whites cook start to coagulate at around 140 F, the yolks at a much higher temp. - around 180 F.
2. An extra large egg is about a quarter of an ounce heavier. Eggs are weighed and sold by the dozen. A dozen large eggs should weigh 24 ounces -- 2 ounces/egg. Each grade up (extra large, jumbo) or down (medium, small) is a 3 ounce difference, i.e. an average of a quarter of an ounce an egg.
3. No. Egg color is determined by the chicken breed. The quality or healthfulness of an egg is influenced more by the health and diet of the hen that laid it than by her genetics.
4. A chicken's average gestation is 3 weeks.
5. If a chicken's average gestation is 3 weeks, the egg should be viable for 3 weeks. The egg has a protective coating outside the shell. Once washed off (eggs from the store will almost certainly be washed), the time it can be safely used is reduced. After the outside coating is gone, it needs to be refrigerated. Eggs are surrounded by alkaline whites and lysozyme - unfavorable environments for bacterial growth. However, any egg that is cracked, smells bad or you just don't know how old it is should be chucked.
6. The only tricks I know for peeling eggs is to cook the bejeebers out of them. The more rubbery the easier -- unfortunately I like a soft boiled egg that is a pain to peel. The other pointer I hear is to use older eggs, the theory being that washed eggs start to separate from the shell over time.
7. The gap in a hard boiled egg comes from washing the egg and allowing gas to escape. As the egg ages more gas escapes and the egg will start to float.
8. According to the National Agricultural Statistical Service, total egg production in US from Dec '07 - Nov '08 was over 90 billion eggs. There is some egg export, but man!
9. Iowa is the hands down winner. California isn't even close.
10. If you are on a perfect egg mission, there are numerous recipes, but the real trick is to not boil the water. If the water is kept just below 180 F, eventually you will get there. I start with a gentle boil of just enough water to cover the eggs. I put in the eggs and lower to a simmer. After 13 minutes they come out nicely.

Boschwasher - A Dishwasher of Song and Legend

Earthday brought a lot of blog discussions about how to reduce carbon footprints in the kitchen. I've managed to reduce mine. Unfortunately, the reason wasn't good global citizenship. Our dishwasher gave out and was replaced with a painfully expensive, but substantially more efficient one. Bosch, whose appliances are all Energy Star compliant, is wonderful. Our dishes are finally clean, and it takes less energy to run. Its 35+ year-old predecessor did a feeble cleaning job, even after we scraped and rinsed thoroughly. The problem is, in the process of reducing our carbon footprint, I discovered serious problems in a different type of footprint. Our kitchen counter footprint.

If you've ever worked in a warehouse, you've probably used the term "footprint" in a similar sense -- how much floorspace a given piece of inventory or machinery occupies. Yanking our old dishwasher started a chain reaction of moves and new floor and counter footprints: The installers needed access to plumbing tucked behind our little liquor cupboard. We learned the footprint of our humble booze collection. The cleaning supplies under the sink temporarily went in a recycling tub for more plumbing access. Some very environmentally unfriendly substances took over the footprint of our most environmentally friendly practice. The microwave moved. The dish drying rack moved. It seemed every time something moved, something else had to move to accommodate it. Mise en place was turned completely on its head.

To make matters worse, the butcher's block countertop that covered the old dishwasher was trashed. Warped from the heat of the microwave above and the dishwasher below, we'd lost four square feet of work area until the countertop is replaced. Getting it back was like the Louisiana Purchase of counter space.

A trip to Ikea and visibly amateur carpentry work replaced the butcher's block. The lesson was clear: Counter space is next to godliness. But how does one get more counter space, aside from buying a mansion or a $40,000 makeover?

Dress Up an Old Favorite - Bowties & Mizithra

Between the love of melted cheese and the recession-motivated mania for thrifty cooking, it should come as no surprise that macaroni and cheese recipes are springing up everywhere. Some are casseroles incorporating up to one pound of cheddar; others try to dress up the dish in a more straightforward, folksy way with potato chips and bacon. Ever since I realized Fettuccine Alfredo was just another version of macaroni and cheese (different noodle, Parmesan instead of cheddar), I've been interested in how far I could push this. The real revelation for me was a recipe for bleu cheese and rotini. Make a buttery, creamy sauce. Mix with pasta. Add crumbled bleu cheese and viola! The opportunities are limitless.

Today's version incorporates a Greek cheese that is less familiar, but inexpensive and a favorite pasta shape -- farfalle (bow ties) with basil. Mizithra is not a cracker-ready cheese. Too firm for spreading, too dry for easy slicing, this nutty sheep's milk cheese is typically part of a meze (appetizer) with olives or is also served with browned butter and pasta. I decided to see if I could incorporate it in my pantheon of macaroni and cheese recipes.

Mizithra and Bow ties

(for 2 servings)

1/2 Pound Farfalle (Bow tie) Pasta
2/3 Cup grated Mizithra
2 Tablespoons of grated Parmesan
3 Tablespoon Butter
3/4 Cup Heavy Cream
1/2 teaspoon fresh chopped Basil (or 1/4 dry)
Generous dash of Cayenne Pepper
Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Cook Bow ties in 2 Qt of rapidly boiling water with 2 Tablespoons of salt, about 11 minutes. Yes, I said 2 Tablespoons of salt.
   
2. While the Bow ties cook, melt the butter over very low heat in a 12 inch saute pan with tall sides.
   
3. Before straining the pasta, set aside 1/2 C. of the salty, starchy pasta water.
4. Strain the pasta, and empty into the saute pan with the melted butter.
5. Add the Heavy Cream to the saute pan. Turn the heat to medium high and gently stir.
6. Add the Basil, Cayenne, and Salt and Pepper.
7. Continue stirring until the sauce thickens and there is very little liquid in the bottom of the pan. Add the Mizithra and Parmesan.
8. The sauce will probably become quite gloppy. Slowly add the reserved pasta water until smooth. Serve immediately.

Variant: Oregano in addition to or instead of basil.

Maple Sugaring -- Family Field Trip

"Thawing days and freezing nights, that's when the sap flows." Late march, early April. Now that the days have been warmer, most of the sap's been collected and cooked down.

On Sunday the family took a field trip to Ellsworth, Wisconsin to a small maple syrup producer. Briefly lost, the "Pancake Feed" sign told us we were back on track. S & S Sugar Bush (the Stockwell family) has been producing maple sugar for four generations. This weekend they held a gathering with hayrides, maple cotton candy and maple sundaes. It was sticky, sweet, tasty fun. Watch this spot next year for the 2010 dates and times.


This baby can turn out 30 gallons an hour!

Why Blog about Food?

Inspired by a posting by a novice blogger (not a veteran of 10 months like me), I decided to explain why I blog.

Why another food blog? Why do I write? I’ve become acquainted (virtually) with a few bloggers in the year I’ve been writing. For all that blogging is discussed; these questions don’t come up much. Breezy “About” sections will provide hints, but more likely the author will confess to an insatiable fondness for garlic, a vague desire to share the foods they like, and love for their sheltie/shepherd mix. None of these things are bad. I like dogs, garlic and sharing food. But none of this covers why I write.

My excellent seventh-grade English teacher assigned every student a daily journal for the entire year. I loved it, but I haven’t always enjoyed writing. Deeply self-conscious about anything I wrote, my inner critic turned college papers into grueling marathons of editing and revision; the papers often late and shorter than the assigned minimum length. But slowly, I noticed a growing stack of compliments. Teachers praised my work. My grades suffered penalties for tardiness, but not for content. With this modest encouragement and an offhand comment from a comic author, I decided to test the waters of blogging.

Food wasn’t a difficult choice. I’ve cooked for some time. I enjoy it immensely. I generally don’t burn food; that aside, I don’t make pretensions about talent. I enjoy reading political news, stories about journalism, and economics. But each requires a level of knowledge I don’t have, time or effort to research I am unwilling to commit. Generalist blogs are often entertaining, but more often are self-indulgent. With food, I could explore a passion that I am knowledgeable about, and write about my experiments. Food is important. It would be difficult to overstate this. Thankfully, I could write without agonizing deadlines. The writing muscle would get exercise. I edit my postings carefully. I take few liberties with statements I make about food. But the stakes (steaks) are not so high. Any errors are my own.

Food of the Day -- Chicken Tenders

Why the inner pectoral muscles of chicken for food of the day? It's just white meat. Yes, it is just white meat, but it happens to be very good white meat. Breaded and fried (with tater tots on the side), it is my default lunch when eating at my work cafeteria. I'm repeatedly surprised how good it is. It also presents a conundrum for some restaurants and butchers.

I've resolved to be my own butcher . . . sort of. Not a primary, slaughterhouse butcher, not the grocery store role, but a tertiary level where I handle some of the finer ("value-added") cutting and trimming. First I need to, pardon the pun, bone-up on the craft. My wife reminds me of how her mother flirted with their butcher,

"Hey Mrs. Nichols, I've got some good-looking lamb chops for you."
"Oh Mike. . ." [spoken in goofy, never-heard-at-home voice]

I'm not persuing the romantic opportunities as much as the practical: It's not just that meat is expensive. Beef is confusing. At the risk of stating the obvious, cows are big. In addition to the major cuts (chuck, rib, loin, sirloin, round, flank, short plate, brisket and shank), there are dozens of sub cuts, many with multiple names. The confounded consumer (me) wastes time and money with poor choices. Why? Because the recipe I stuck in my pocket before shopping recommends something too pricey or the butcher used a different name for the same cut. Unavailable, concealed under an unrecognized label or too pricey -- I often need a substitute. Unfortunately, there is more to beef than "slow and low" versus "fast and high." Cooking techniques are destined to fail when you can't recognize the product. My food education continues.

I've been buying and carving whole chickens for years. The simplicity is incomparable -- a wing is a wing, a leg is a leg (thigh or drumstick), a breast is a breast. If you're having trouble figuring out the anatomy, stand it up, flap the wings and dance it around the kitchen. Even a city boy knows what a chicken looks like. For the butcher's apprentice, there isn't much nomenclature to master with poultry. There is an exception to this poultry simplicity -- chicken tenders. The USDA describes the inner pectoral muscle, tenderloin or strip closest to the bone, but doesn't provide a standard name.

Terminology aside, the chicken tender is a clumsy piece of muscle when dealing with a boneless breast. It hangs loosely and is difficult to contain for breading or cooking a neat split, boneless breast. Include them and the breasts look bulbous and huge, separate them and the portions appear reasonable and rest easily on a plate. Separately, they don't add up to much. Two tenders make a modest serving. What does the chef or butcher do? In a family restaurant, those clumsy, but tender pieces are separated and wind up on the kids menu as chicken fingers, tenders or nuggets. Despite their high quality, most consumers aren't sure how to cook just tenders, though they're increasingly sold separately. They haven't reached the status of beef tenderloins in the grocery stores, but their price suggests they're catching up (last check $6.39/lb).

I learned how to make Wiener Schnitzel from my days as an at-large employee of a German restaurant. The basic technique of breading and frying was an invaluable lesson. The veal in Wiener Schitzel is pounded flat (and thereby tenderized). No such flattening or pounding is necessary with tenders. The small, tube-like tenders don't require the large quantities of cooking oil necessary for deep-frying breasts, and they cook quickly. The keys to good breading technique are using the right oil temperature, i.e. hot enough to sear immediately, and using a breading you like. The technique is fairly simple: cover with flour, dip in beaten egg and bread crumbs (in that order). I have seen recipes recommending soaking in a buttermilk and crumb mixture overnight, which produces a heavy coating. The method I learned and just described was recently described on The Splendid Table. Lynne's stamp of approval is good enough for me. Season the breadcrumbs with a little pepper, Parmesan and Italian seasonings. They cook very fast.