Cape Cod Capers

 fig. a:  geography

Ah, Cape Cod!  Your sandy features and abundant coastline hold so many opportunities, so many pleasures!  And your lobsters are so disproportionately large (and tasty)!

 fig. b:  nostalgia

We're already so nostalgic for you.  It's only been a little over a week since we returned, but it feels like decades.

fig. c:  dunes


We miss your sand dunes and your foliage,

 fig. d:  ark

your quaint little towns and villages with their whimsical sense of style,

 fig. e:  shells

and your abundant beachcombing opportunities.

 fig. f:  lobstah & chowdah

But most of all we miss your seafood stores and markets.  Places like Hatch's, Mac's, the Chatham Fish Pier Market, and George's (motto:  "George's plaice has sole."), with their lobster rolls, their beautiful fresh and smoked fish, their briny, inexpensive Wellfleet oysters, and their luscious littlenecks

 fig. g:  steamahs

and succulent (and sometimes even sandless!) steamers.  Because of you, we ate plentiful seafood each and every day, and in every possible way:  raw, steamed, grilled, pan-fried, etc.

We knew we'd miss your seafood, so we brought some home with us

 fig. h:  sea food

in those lovely lined bags of yours.  We brought back delicious flounder and smoked bluefish, but we were especially excited to be bringing back clams:

 fig. i:  littlenecks

both littlenecks

 fig. j:  steamahs

and steamers.  You see, we had it in mind to make some real clam chowder, so we made sure to pick up the other essentials that are so critical to good, old-fashioned chowder-making:

 fig. k:  bacon

smoky bacon (from New Hampshire),

 fig. l:  potatoes

seasonal potatoes (from Quebec), and milk and cream (from Vermont).

You can find clam chowder all up and down the Cape, of course, but it's a little difficult to find one to our liking.  The regional preference is for starchy, even stodgy, clam chowder that's heavy with thickeners, but we prefer ours thinner and lighter, with any and all starchiness coming strictly from the potatoes and any crackers or pilot biscuits you might choose to top it off with.  The trick is to chop up your potatoes "thick/thin":  in irregular shapes that are narrower at one end and that cook irregularly.  If you chop 'em and cook 'em just right, the potatoes themselves will thicken your chowder just so.

Clam Chowder 

36 littleneck clams*
125 ml high-quality clam juice [like Bar Harbor] (optional)
4 strips smoky bacon
1 sweet onion, finely chopped
water or high-quality clam juice
9-10 small-medium potatoes, cut thick-thin
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup cooking cream
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
common crackers (optional, but highly recommended) 

If you want a particularly rich clam broth, pour 250 ml of clam juice in a large pot, add the clams, cover the pot, and bring to a boil.  When the liquid comes to a boil, lower the heat, and steam the clams until they've all opened (about 6-10 minutes). 

If you don't have access to a high-quality clam juice, just use the same amount of water instead, and follow the directions above. 

When the clams have opened, use tongs to place them in a bowl.  And when the clams have cooled enough to handle, remove the clam meat from its shell and chop finely. 

Strain the liquid in the pot along with any broth in the bowl through a fine strainer lined with a paper coffee filter, or just pour it off carefully, leaving the grit behind. 

Fry the bacon in a pan until crispy.  Pour the bacon fat into a pot and sauté the onion until translucent.  Meanwhile, dice the bacon.   

Measure the amount of broth and top off with water or clam juice to make a generous 2 cups.  Add this to the pot with the onion, as well as the diced bacon.  Add the potatoes, bring to a simmer, and cook until they are still firm but done.  Stir the milk and cream into the broth and add salt and pepper as necessary.  If your clams are fresh and briny and if you've used clam juice, you shouldn't need much, if any, salt. 

Bring the broth back to a gentle simmer and add the clam meat.  Do not let the chowder boil.  Cook the chowder at the barest simmer for another 2-3 minutes. 

The chowder will be at its best if you age it briefly, keeping it warm, but not hot, for an hour or so.  Afterwards, just bring the chowder bring it back to temperature, adjust the seasoning, and serve, preferably with common crackers (especially common crackers that have been split and toasted in the oven.) 

Serves 4-6 as an opening course. 

[recipe based closely on a recipe from John Thorne's Serious Pig] 

* You can also make a nice clam chowder with steamers, but we saved our steamers for, well..., steaming.

The other revelation of our Cape Cod excursion had to do not with fruits de mer, but with fruits du bord de la mer.

Michelle had read about Cape Cod's legendary beach plums years ago.  When we we got an invitation to vacation there, she tried to find out some more about them and discovered that we'd be there at the height of their season--mid- to late-August.  The thing is, how do you go about finding a fruit that's totally wild and that you can only procure from foragers?  Especially when the foragers in question are known to keep their sources secret--like mushroom hunters and their troves of prized chanterelles and morels.

We had no idea how we'd find beach plums, but we were determined to keep our eyes peeled for them.  And, in the end, it took us less than 24 hours to score both beach plums and another wild coastal fruit we had no idea even existed:  wild apricots.  But we found in them in a most unlikely spot:  at a flea market (!).

We'd been told that the weekend flea market at the Wellfleet Drive-In was a must--and it was!--but we had no idea that there'd be a grizzled old hippie selling foraged fruit along with his carved wood C.R.A.P.**  God bless him!  He had an amazing array of carved driftwood whales and other folk art treasures, and his beach plums and wild apricots were beautiful (much, much smaller than we would have imagined, but beautiful nonetheless).












fig. m:  wild beach plums & apricots

When we got them back to our beach house,











fig. n:  sorting



Michelle set about sorting through them.  And the next morning she made an exceedingly precious

 fig. o:  preserves

small batch of wild apricot and beach plum preserves.  Fresh, both fruit were a little too tart to be pleasant--but sweetened and cooked, they turned into the deepest, most delicious preserves.  The beach plums almost had a wine flavour to them, while the apricots were redolent of almond.

We brought back numerous souvenirs from our trip to Cape Cod,

 fig. p:  souvenirs

 fig. q:  ole no. 69

but there's no question the most highly prized were those two jars of beach house-made preserves.

Of course, there are other, more conventional ways of scoring traditional Cape Cod preserves, like beach plum.  And some of them are quite excellent, indeed.  Take the Chatham Jam and Jelly Shop,

 fig. r:  jams & jellies

in (you guessed it!) Chatham, where you can find dozens upon dozens of house-made jam & jellies, including a whole assortment of wild fruit preserves.

We kept the small batch we made at the beach house for ourselves, but we brought back extras to stock our pantry and give to our friends and family.

Ah, Cape Cod!  We miss you so.

aj

** The acronym stands for Cape Recycled Art Project, if memory serves me right.

p.s. TY to R & MA for making this happen--such a great time!

On the road 5: Zingerman's Roadhouse

 fig. a:  the Roadhouse

If only road food was this easy all the time.  I mean, sure, there wouldn't be the thrill of the hunt, but at least we'd be fully satisfied.

You might have heard of the good people at Zingerman's.  They established a delicatessen in Ann Arbor, Michigan, back in 1982 that long ago became a legend.  They knew what it took to keep the Jewish deli tradition alive, and they knew how to name a good sandwich,* but things didn't stop there.  Not only did they fashion themselves into perhaps the country's premier purveyor of fine foods, featuring a brilliantly curated selection of America's must-have regional specialties, but they established a veritable empire of good eats and tasty treats right there in Ann Arbor.  In addition to the deli, Zingerman's line-up now includes a bake shop, a creamery, a coffee shop, a candy "manufactory," and Zingerman's Roadhouse, their full-service restaurant.

Visiting the constellation of Zingerman's businesses in quick succession is a feat that requires so much will power, so much self-control (it's all so tempting!), that Zingerman's has named it the Tour de Food and actually enters all those who successfully complete the circuit in a 24-hour period in a rather generous draw (you stand to win a $250 gift certificate).  But for those who are just passing through Ann Arbor, the Roadhouse makes for an awfully convenient and delicious pit stop, and a great introduction to Zingerman's particular brand of magic.  Imagine a restaurant that served all your favorite American comfort foods, using only the very best ingredients sourced from the best producers across the continent, and prepared with the utmost care.  Imagine that same restaurant adding a top-notch barbecue pit** built into a vintage Airstream directly adjacent to it.  Now imagine that restaurant situated in a Eastern Michigan strip mall just seconds from the I-94.  That's Zingerman's Roadhouse for you, and if you've got an aversion to dining in strip malls, well, it's time to get over it because you don't want to miss out on a place like this.

 fig. b:  exterior decorating

When you step up to the restaurant, you're going to have to decide whether you want to go to the restaurant, or visit the barbecue/bake shop/coffee shop next to it.  I recommend that you do both:  visit the restaurant, eat to your heart's content, then swing by the Airstream to pick up some goodies for later.

 fig. c:  the perfect brunch

If you happen to visit Zingerman's Roadhouse in the morning, you'll find an extensive breakfast & brunch menu to choose from.  For brunch there's a full assortment of omelettes, waffles, and egg dishes to choose from, and some of them get kind of elaborate, but you might just want to go for the grits & eggs combo, featuring Anson Mills stone-ground grits, eggs any style, scallions and Cabot aged cheddar, fresh biscuits, Nueske's applewood-smoked bacon, sorghum molasses, homemade preserves, and a side of homemade hot sauce (upon request).  That was exactly what I wanted, and it was exactly what I got.  Even better, it was just as good as I imagined.  Really good coffee, too.

Jeez, why couldn't every brunch be like this?

 fig. d:  streamlined for better smoking

Afterwards, I paid a visit to the Airstream to pick up some treats for the road.  I mean, I had to make it all the way to Montreal that day--I was going to want to have lunch at some point, right?

So I picked up a smoked whole hog pulled pork sandwich, some Zapp's potato chips, and another coffee for the road.

 fig. e:  pulled pork picnic

And wouldn't you know it, a few hours later I had myself just about the tastiest picnic lunch you could imagine, considering I was traveling along the 401.  The only thing was that I forgot to ask for a side of some barbecue sauce or hot sauce.  Good thing I just happened to have a bottle of Arthur Bryant's barbecue sauce on hand (!).  You know what they say:  Be prepared.

Zingerman's Roadhouse and Road Show, 2501 Jackson Ave., Ann Arbor, MI, (734) 663-FOOD

aj

* Actually, naming is a big part of the Zingerman's story.  They were meant to be called Greenberg's, but then one thing led to another...

** How good?  Well, Jane & Michael Stern included Zingerman's in their list of the top barbecue joints in America when they put together their special BBQ edition of Popular Plates back in 2010.  When they did, they wrote:  "...Zingerman's goes beyond any ordinary definition of a barbecue restaurant.  But we would be horribly remiss not to include it here, because the pulled pork is as succulent as any found in North Carolina [!], and it is only a slight exaggeration to say it melts in your mouth."  That's a helluva claim, and I haven't traveled the BBQ trails of the Carolinas extensively enough to weigh in with any authority, but I can say that that pulled pork sandwich tasted mighty fine to me.  I would have served it on a bit less bready of a roll (Zingerman's uses one of their famous onion rolls), but that's just me.

Grits, Asian-American Style

fig. a: Anson Mills coarse white grits

A stamped white paper bag, a Pyrex measuring cup, and some white grits.

Doesn't look like much, I know. But those aren't just any grits, they're Anson Mills antebellum coarse white grits, the grits David Chang has called "the killerest grits ever."

These grits being "the killerest," you could make them straight-up, add some salt and pepper, add a little butter, and you'd be sitting pretty, but you're not going to settle for straight-up, are you? Didn't think so.

No, you're going to follow David Chang and Team Momofuku on one of their flights of fancy. People often misunderstand the Momofuku experience as being just another example of "Asian fusion." Now, there's no question that there's some fusion going on within the Momofuku empire, but there's also quite a bit of fission. And, yes, Asian elements figure prominently. But there's a side to David Chang that's almost Kenny Shopsin-like. As far as I know, he hasn't invented any countries, then set about creating their national cuisines, but there's more imagination than one generally associates with the term fusion. The narratives are richer. They're more profane. They're also a hell of a lot funnier.

As Chang describes things, Momofuku Noodle Bar's Shrimp & Grits was a pivotal dish, because aside from the Asianesque broth that Chang used to make the grits, and that you couldn't actually see, "there was no Asian foundation, relation, or appearance to the dish. No other "noodle bar" was serving shrimp and grits."

The idea, the dream, behind the dish was to take a down-home Southern soul food classic, disarticulate it, ruminate on it, and then reanimate it in Momofuku's laboratories:

I imagined what it would be like if my ancestors had ended up in Charleston, South Carolina, a few generations before I was born. They would have eaten corn, they would have eaten grits, they would have cooked with bacon. Or, if Southerners were magically transplanted to Korea, they'd eat jook instead of grits at breakfast. And you know a people who can handle the salty power of a country ham certainly could have gotten down with kimchi. I imagined a Japanese cook making grits--you know he'd boil it in dashi and season it with soy.

I guess these were all conversations I was having with myself. I didn't want to be cooking shitty fusion food. I consoled myself by thinking about how Vietnamese cuisine and Cajun cooking adapted French techniques into something that might have looked French but tasted totally different. But it was with this dish that I decided--or accepted--that if we reached past "tradition" to create the truest and best version of a dish for our own palates, then what we were doing wasn't bullshit.

Chang recommends making this dish with either his Ramen Broth or his Bacon Dashi. We went with the latter a) because it's way simpler, b) because it's way cheaper to make, and c) because it's another great example of the Momofuku Philosophy at play. As Chang puts it:

I can't overstate the significance of bacon dashi to us at Momofuku. It's not the dashi itself--though it is delicious--but the thought process that went into it. The successful transposition of bacon from Tennessee for Japanese dried and smoked fish was an important early success for us, and it continues to be a driving inspiration of how we cook.

We respect tradition and we revere many traditional flavor profiles, but we do not subscribe to the idea that there's one set of blueprints that everyone should follow.

So the following are Chang's instructions (more or less verbatim), using Momofuku's Bacon Dashi.

Still can't see what all the fuss is about? Well, here goes:

fig. b: before

Momofuku Shrimp & Grits

2 cups water
2 cups white or yellow quick-cooking grits, preferably from Anson Mills (SC)
2 cups Bacon Dashi (recipe follows)
2 tablespoons light soy sauce, such as usukuchi
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
8 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 pound smoky bacon, such as Benton's (TN) or North Country Smokehouse (NH), cut crosswise into 1- to 1 1/2-inch-long lardons
1 pound medium shrimp (16 to 20 count), shelled
2 tbsp grapeseed or other neutral oil, such as canola
4 freshly poached eggs
1/2 cup chopped scallions, greens and whites included

Combine the water and grits and soak the grits overnight (or for at least 8 hours) in the pot you'll cook them in.

Drain the grits, add the broth to the grits, and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, whisking all the while. Continue to whisk for 5 minutes after the liquid simmers, then turn the heat down to low. You'll reach "first starch"--the point at which the fine corn particles thicken the liquid just enough to suspend the larger particles--after 5 minutes, and it's crucial to whisk constantly until you reach that point, and to turn the heat down immediately afterwards.

Add the soy sauce, a large pinch of salt, and some freshly ground black pepper. Keep the heat low and whisk regularly if not constantly; the grits should be thickening, undulating, and letting occasional gasps of steam bubble up and out. Soaked grits will be cooked after about 10 minutes over low heat. They're ready when they're no longer grainy, and they've become thick and unctuous.

Add the butter, stirring until it has melted and been absorbed into the grits. Taste them and add additional salt and pepper as needed. Set aside, covered to keep warm, while you get the rest of the dish in order (or serve them at once if you can't take it anymore and you just want to eat them solo).

Put the shrimp in a mixing bowl, pour the oil over them, and add a couple pinches of salt. Toss them in the oil and salt until they're coated. Set aside while you take care of the bacon.

Cook the bacon in a 12-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat until the lardons have shrunk to about half their original size and are crispy, about 5 to 6 minutes. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and drain them on paper towels. Drain the bacon fat from the pan and reserve for another later use. Return the pan to the stove.

Make sure you've got your eggs poached and ready to go. They're ready? Good. Proceed.

Wipe the pan cleanish with a paper towel and turn the heat up to high. Cook the shrimp in two batches. As soon as the shrimp hit the pan, press down on them, using a bacon press, the back of a big spatula, a flattish pot lid, or a smaller pan--whatever works (we've found that a flattish pot lid works best for us). Sear the shrimp for about 1 minute on the first side. Watch the shrimp closely. As the gray-pink flesh of the raw shrimp gradually turns white in the side pressed against hot pan, and when that white line creeps about 40% of the way up the shrimp, flip them and press down on the second side. Sear that side only long enough to brown them a bit, about 30-45 seconds. Ideally, they should be just slightly shy of cooked when you pull them from the pan--they'll continue to cook after they come out of the pan. Use your judgment. Cook them a little longer if you prefer, but, remember, nobody likes overcooked shrimp. Nobody. Not even you.

Make up plates for 4. Shallow soup plates are ideal. Start with a big helping of grits, nestle a poached egg in the middle, and arrange 1/4 of the bacon, 1/4 of the shrimp, and 1/4 of the scallions in separate piles around the edge. Serve at once. Savor.

Serves 4.

Momofuku Bacon Dashi

2 x 3-by-6-inch pieces of kombu
8 cups water
1/2 pound smoky bacon, such as Benton's (TN) or North Country Smokehouse (NH)

Rinse the kombu under running water, then combine it with the water in a medium saucepan. Bring the water to a simmer over medium heat, then turn off the stove. Let steep for 10 minutes

Remove the kombu from the pot and add the bacon. Bring to a boil, then turn the heat down so that the water simmers gently, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Strain the bacon from the dashi, and chill the broth until the fat separates and hardens into a solid cap on top of it. Remove and discard the fat and use the dashi or store it. Bacon dashi will keep, covered, for a few days in the refrigerator. You can also freeze it for later use.*

Makes 2 quarts. You'll only need 2 cups of this for the shrimp & grits, so you'll have plenty left over for other uses.

[both recipes from Momofuku by David Chang and Peter Meehan]

The resultant dish is one that's remarkably subtle, but utterly irrepressible. When I finished making the dish the first time, I remember saying to Michelle that I was surprised that the recipe didn't call for some kind of Asian-inflected sauce that you'd drizzle overtop, but then I went and took my first bite and suddenly I understood.

The taste sensation comes from below. It's deep in the grits, it's released by the butter that finishes the grits, and it's transformed into something that's positively rapturous when you take your fork and release the egg yolk and stir it up with the grits, the shrimp, the egg, the bacon, and the scallions.

fig. c: after

Are you starting to get it?

aj

P.S. A note on sources: as I've mentioned before, quality shrimp can be hard to find in Montreal, and this dish requires some reasonably fresh, juicy, tasty shrimp, so don't bother making it if you're not satisfied with the product at your local fishmonger, or, better yet, shop around. Sometimes quality can vary greatly from one poissonerie to the next. The best shrimp we've found in recent months have been at Poissonerie Shamrock (7015 Casgrain Ave., 272-5612) and at Norref (4900 Molson St., 593-9999).

You can use other brands of grits, of course, but Anson Mills' grits are pretty killer. Be sure to use quick-cooking grits, though, or you'll find yourself stirring furiously for an awfully long time.

* Among other things, Chang claims it's great with clams. I haven't had the chance to test this out yet, but I believe him.

AEB classics #87: the AEB Burger

We've been pretty serious about our burgers for a while now, but when we got a meat grinder attachment for our standing mixer, things got even more serious. In fact, the burgers that have resulted have been seriously outstanding, taking our deluxe home burger to new heights.

What are the keys to a full-on AEB Burger? The quality of the meat, the fat content, salting the meat 24 hours in advance, grinding the meat fresh, and forming the patties just so, without overworking them. Then there's the buns--always crucial. And while this burger is so good it doesn't require a whole lot of fixings, we really don't make burgers that often, so we'll be damned if we're not going put out a nice spread so that we can turn that burger into a gloriously overstuffed mess.

The AEB Burger

2 lbs beef chuck from a reputable butcher, roughly 20% fat content
kosher salt

If you're grinding your own beef, 24 hours before you make your burgers, salt your beef generously, and keep it in the refrigerator overnight.

fig. a: chuck

special equipment: a meat grinder
freshly ground black pepper
4 tbsp unsalted butter, portioned into four pats of butter

The next day, grind your meat twice through your meat grinder (we have two attachments for our grinder, and we use the coarser of the two). Season the meat with black pepper (remember, you've already salted the meat--no need to do it again).

fig. b: freshly ground chuck

Obviously, if you don't have a meat grinder, just start the recipe here. Try and get the best, freshest ground chuck you can find. You'll be missing out on the added value of salting the meat 24 hours in advance, but you'll still wind up with a great burger (just remember to salt each patty a bit when you season them).

Separate the beef into four portions. Gently form each portion of beef into a patty, making sure to place a pat of butter inside each of your patties. [The butter will baste the meat from the inside as it cooks.] Use just enough pressure to form the ground beef into a patty, and no more. Avoid overworking the meat. Set aside.

fig. c: freshly fried smoky bacon

4 strips of good, smoky bacon

Fry up your bacon in a large cast-iron pan until your strips are crispy. Set aside.

4 quality hamburger buns

Slice your buns and plate them.

fig. d: pickled onions

Now, lay out your hamburger fixings.

We recommend:
Boston lettuce
sliced beefsteak tomatoes (if in season, which they absolutely were not last, when we made the latest batch of these burgers, so we excluded tomatoes altogether)
sliced pickled cucumbers
pickled onions
pickled green tomato chow chow
mayonnaise
quality mustard
ketchup, preferably homemade

Whatever you settle on, your fixings tables should convey plenitude. It should look something like this:

fig. e: hamburger fixings

Fresh French fries are awfully nice, but a good potato chip can do the trick too. We're particularly fond of Covered Bridge (Hartland, NB) brand at the moment.

fig. f: real potato chips

special equipment: large pan, preferably cast-iron
a large lid that fits the pan
4 slices of cheese, preferably something interesting but not overwhelming, like an aged cheddar or a caraway gouda (yes!)

Now it's time to cook up your burgers. Choose the largest cast-iron pan you have on hand. If it's the one you cooked the bacon in, set it a notch above medium heat. If it's not the one you cooked the bacon in, transfer the bacon fat to the pan and turn the heat to a notch above medium heat. When the pan is good and hot, place all four of your patties in at once. The pan should be hot enough to make the patties sizzle on contact. Let the patties sizzle for 3 minutes without moving them or flattening them. Flip the patties over and cook for another 3 minutes. The patties should have a nice deep crust on them, but they shouldn't be overly blackened. When the second 3 minutes are up, flip the patties again, turn the heat down to low, cover the pan and cook for 2 minutes. Make sure your cheese slices are ready. When the 2 minutes are up, flip the patties again, cover them with cheese, cover with the lid again, and cook for a final 2 minutes. The patties should be perfectly medium-rare after this final 2 minutes.

Place each patty on a bun, adorn with a slice of bacon, and serve, allowing your dining companions to dress their burgers according to their own whims. (Mine: lettuce, pickled onions, chow chow, mayonnaise, strong Belgian mustard, and an occasional dab of homemade ketchup.)

The finished product should look something like this, and it should look and smell so crazy-good that you just start chomping, possibly without even remembering to put your lettuce inside your burger first.

fig. g: burger time

Your burger should taste so crazy-good, that just thinking about it, days later, drives you, well, crazy. Seriously crazy.

Fully satisfies 4.

Got your own burger dos and don'ts? By all means, send 'em in.

aj

ps--Thanks to Judy Rodgers' Zuni Cafe Cookbook for the tips on purchasing, salting, and grinding our beef, and to Saveur's "The Burger Bible" issue (our fave issue of 2009) for the "pat of butter" tip and a whole lot of inspiration.

On and Off the Road 2

fig. a: smokehouse pastoral

We'd gotten tipped off to Oscar's Adirondack Smoke House about 3 or 4 years ago by a fellow traveler here in Montreal, but we didn't follow up on the tip promptly, and within a few months, all thoughts of Oscar's famous smoked hams had wafted away like so much hickory smoke.

Thank god A & J refreshed our memories. They'd spent a few furious days eating their way back and forth across Montreal for their honeymoon (you know, the usual: Au Pied, Joe Beef, Salle à Manger, Cuisine Mas, Dic Ann's, The Main, Laloux, etc.), and on their way back to New York they made a few well-researched stops in the Adirondacks, one of which was Oscar's.

Two weeks later, on our way down to the Catskills, we pulled off the 87 at exit 23, and pulled into Warrensburg, to pay Oscar's a visit. And from the moment we set eyes on it, we knew it was going to be good.

fig. b: smokehouse gothic

I mean, "Choice MEATS," "HOME SMOKE HAMS BACON," and the name "OSCARS" printed directly on one of their smokehouse chimneys--how can you go wrong? (Especially with all that beautiful blue smoke wafting through the air...)

Now, if you're looking for 100% traditional country hams--the kind of backwoods masterpieces you can still find in Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee--you're not going to find them at Oscar's. They're crazy, but they're not that crazy.

What matters is the care Oscar's puts into their product, the way they sugar- and salt-cure their meats, and the way they smoke everything using that lovely, natural hardwood smoke. We loved their "petite" smoked ham (perfect for two!), their double-smoked bacon (now you're talking!), and their super-smoked cheddar cheese (yes!). And they make a mighty fine German-style red potato salad, too. We packed our cooler, and pointed our car back towards the highway.

Oscar's, 22 Raymond Lane, Warrensburg, NY, 1-800-627-3431

And if you're heading down to New York from Montreal, or up to Montreal from New York, Oscar's ain't but 5 minutes from the 87. That's a small price to pay for fine smokehouse fare.

aj

ps--TY A & J, and S, too.

New York Stories 2

The saga continues...

1. B.A.L.

Things got started with an impromptu gathering of the Bacon Appreciation League. We discussed the ins and outs of applewood-smoked versus cob-smoked bacon, and the regional traditions of the Northeast, the Mid-Atlantic, and Great Lakes states, and then, the focus of that particular gathering being the smoked bacons of Wisconsin, we cooked up a full two pounds of Nueske's award-winning applewood-smoked bacon, along with some buttermilk waffles and some scrambled eggs, and got to work. We'd covered well over 120 blocks on Day 1. We were pretty sure we were going to cover some ground on Day 2, too.

Stop #1 was back down at Washington Square. We hopped a 6 train and headed south. 20 minutes and a minor mishap later, we got off at the Prince St., got some fresh air, and headed to the Grey Gallery where we had a rendez-vous with...



2. WB & Co.

I'd heard fantastic things about "the Wallace Berman show," Semina Culture: Wallace Berman & His Circle, which, as the title suggests, is much, much more than solely a Wallace Berman show. In fact--and the title suggests this, too--the show starts with Berman's Semina, his limited edition, loose-leaf, mixed-media journal, and spirals out, investigating the numerous artists and other collaborators that contributed to Semina and made up Berman's shifting scene. This list of collaborators is stunning: everyone from Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, and Alexander Trocchi, to Bruce Conner, Lawrence Jordan, and Jack Smith, to Jay DeFeo and Jess, to Dean Stockwell and Dennis Hopper (that's right), to Toni Basil (yes, Toni Basil). Better yet, most of the work assembled is stunning, too. We really took our time because the show touched a nerve. It was at once a deeply inspirational and a deeply melancholy experience. So much talent and vision, so many tragic stories. When it was almost time to go, we unwound with some of the far-out proto-music videos (ballet dancers, masks, Hendrix) Toni Basil directed years before she became a star of MTV. If only people made music videos like that these days.

Back out into the bracing air and sunshine, took in a father and son golfing (with real golfballs and real clubs!) their way across Washington Square, left on Sullivan, and a few minutes later we chanced upon a place that was on our "to do" list, but which we'd somehow forgotten was on Sullivan Street:



3. Joe's Dairy

We'd been wanting to visit Joe's for years. This time we'd decided, "That's it, we're doin' it!" So when we suddenly found ourselves face-to-face with Joe's quite by accident, there was no need to even discuss it. It looked a lot like I'd imagined it: tiny, no-nonsense, old-fashioned. We stepped right up to the counter and got busy. Michelle ordered some fresh mozzarella, paid for it, and made her way back onto Sullivan. I was about to follow her, but then thought better of it. "You got any smoked mozzarella?" "Yeah, they just came out. How many smokeys you want?" "Just one, thanks." She wrapped up my "smokey" and handed it to me. It was still warm from the smoker. The smell was ridiculous. I took it out onto the street, unwrapped it, and we tore into it. It was then and only then that we both realized we'd never actually had smoked mozzarella before. First of all, we'd rarely ever had mozzarella this good and this fresh before. But, more importantly, up till then, we'd only ever had smoke-flavored mozzarella. Talk about irresistible. We ate about 2/3 of that hunk right there on the street. It took superhuman will not to polish it off then and there. When what was left of that "smokey" was safely tucked away, we kept walking.

4. Grandaisy?

Problem was, about two minutes later we found at 73 Sullivan St., smack-dab in front of the former Sullivan Street Bakery, now Grandaisy Bakery. "Grandaisy?" We knew that Sullivan Street had opened up a new store up in the West 40s, but we hadn't realized that the former partners had parted ways. I turned to Michelle and said, "Jeez, I guess the split wasn't exactly amicable." One partner took the Sullivan Street name (and the brand) up to West 47th; the other kept the Sullivan Street location and came up with the name Grandaisy. Hmm. Anyway, yeah, we'd just gorged ourselves on mozzarella, but our curiosity got the better of us. We got one slice of their pizza patate (potatoes, onion, rosemary) and one of their pizza pomodoro



and we sat down to conduct our taste-test and warm up a bit. After all, we've got a pizza crawl to bone up for and Sullivan Street Bakery has been a contender in the New York pizza sweepstakes for quite some time. The verdict? Well, we like our bakery pizzas up here in Montreal (i.e. Marguerita, Roma, Boulangerie/Charcuterie St. Viateur, etc.), but this was a whole other league. So good, in fact, that we picked up a slice of pizza bianca for the road and we headed east. We took a fairly haphazard route, across SoHo, through NoLIta and Little Italy, into Chinatown, and by the time we stopped again we were on Orchard in the heart of the Lower East Side.

5. Lower East Side Tenement Museum

I was hoping to show Michelle the Lower East Side Tenement Museum Store/Antique Shop, but it was no longer. They still have a store, but they moved that up the street to a location where they sell tickets for their tours, but the antiques shop is gone. We were disappointed--I'd been there twice before with H and they'd had great stuff both times, and some of it was even reasonably affordable--but we soldiered on to the store (which is a pretty great museum store). For some pathetic reason I'd never taken any of the L.E.S.T.M.'s tour, even though I've been fascinated with the history of the district for years now. With "enough is enough" being a bit of a theme for the day, and one of the L.E.S.T.M.'s "Getting By" tours about to commence, I took the plunge.

An hour later, having toured re-creations of both the Gumpertz family kitchen (1870s) and the Baldizzi family kitchen (1930s), having discussed the hard times brought on by not one but two economic depressions, and having imagined (and, I confess, romanticized) the kinds of German-Jewish and Italian subsistence meals each family cooked and shared to get by, I was starting to get a little hungry. I guess we could have gone to Katz's or Sammy's Roumanian or Yonah Schimmel, but we would have had to walk quite a few blocks to find some decent Italian, and we were right on the edge of Chinatown. Plus, we were planning on eating Asian for dinner, so this snack could act as the appetizer course for our next meal, and one of our Chinatown faves was just on the other side of Allen. That's all it took.

6. #1 Dumpling

Three minutes later we were packed inside #1 Dumpling House like a couple of sardines, hoping to get an order placed at the height of their dinnertime rush. It really wasn't that bad--we always enjoy standing at the counter watching the cooks made the massive sesame pancakes and the pan-fried dumplings, and assembling the sandwiches, and there's really absolutely nothing like #1 Dumpling here in Montreal, so we're always happy to be patient. Within ten minutes we had our "sesame pancake with beef" sandwich and our order of pork & chives dumplings in hand and we were on our way to Sara D. Roosevelt park to sit and snack. We've said it before, but that sesame pancake with beef is sensational, and at $1.50 a pop it's in the running for the steal of the century. Those dumplings--well, they were some of the finest we've had in quite some time. There was actually a split second there between the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and #1 Dumpling where we contemplated passing on our Chinese snack and holding out until dinner, but that would have been foolish.

A couple of hours and a long, brisk walk later, we found ourselves in that part of the Village that borders Chelsea at a restaurant we'd been meaning to go to for a couple of years at least:



7. Fatty Crab

We'd been fantasizing about Fatty Crab's take on Malaysian for a while already when our friend P came back from a trip to New York reporting that Fatty Crab's Watermelon Pickle and Crispy Pork salad was the single most mind-altering thing he'd tasted in five years (!), and this from a man who knows his food and has traveled extensively. That's the kind of testimonial you take note of. Like Momofuku, Fatty Crab is young, loud, and brash; like Momofuku Ssäm Bar, Fatty Crab's dishes come in succession and they're meant to be shared. We started off with the Green Mango with Chili-Sugar-Salt, which was exactly as advertised and which instantly primed our tastebuds, and actually kicked them into overdrive. Then we ordered the Assam Laksa, a "traditional spicy fish soup," the Stone Crab Claws with Black Pepper Sauce, and, instead of the watermelon salad, we got the Pickles Raja Chulan... Yeah, right. As if. No, don't worry, we didn't get the pickles, we got the watermelon salad. Not only that, we enjoyed it. Neither of us were willing to say that it was the best thing we've tasted in the last five years--hell, pretty much every time I have a smoked meat sandwich it's the best thing I've had in the last five years--but we certainly understood P's reaction. Chunks of watermelon, crisp-fried lardons, scallions, mixed herbs, and a tangy dressing--what's not to like? You'd have to have a Teflon palate for the eruptions of flavor contained therein not to get to you. The Assam Laksa was very traditional--very spicy, but also very heavy on the preserved fish. Good, and I'm sure very healthy for you, but the amount of preserved fish was even a bit overpowering for me, and I'm someone who truly loves salt-packed anchovies and their ilk. The crab claws, on the other hand, were sheer pleasure. Big and juicy--even a bit messy (as the prat next to us found out when a sizable chunk of Michelle's crab landed on the cell phone he'd placed next to his drink)--and accompanied with a rich, heavenly black pepper sauce. We were having such a good time by that point, we couldn't think of up and leaving, so we ordered some steamed pork buns as our finisher so that we could compare them with Momofuku's. How did they fare? They compared very favorably, indeed. For one thing, with Fatty Crab's, you got the pleasure of assembling them yourself. Each plate comes with two buns stuffed with two thick slices of pork belly. It also comes with a dark kecap manis-based sauce and some sauteed mixed herbs. I thought the pork at Momofuku was more satisfying, but otherwise Fatty Crab's steamed pork buns came out on top.

8. By the time we left Fatty Crab we had just enough time to make our movie at the IFC, a midnight screening of Infernal Affairs. Just when I thought the day's feasting had come to an end, Michelle pulled a couple of Doughnut Plant ginger doughnuts out of her bag of tricks. Showtime.

END OF DAY 2

Joe's Dairy, 156 Sullivan St., (212) 677-8780

Grandaisy Bakery, 73 Sullivan St., (212) 334-9435

#1 Dumpling House, 118A Eldridge St., (212) 625-8008

Fatty Crab, 643 Hudson St., (212) 352-3592

Doughnut Plant, 379 Grand St., (212) 505-3700

aj

The Land of Milk and Honey and Bacon and Cheese and...

1. Shelburne Farms maple-cured, cob-smoked bacon
2. Dakin Farm maple-cured, cob-smoked bacon
3. Shelburne Farms honey
4. Flag Hill Farm Cyder
5. Amish butter
6. Ayinger Ur-Weisse Dünkel Weizen
7. Stratford Organic Creamery whole milk
8. Celebrator Doppelbock
9. Dakin Farm cob-smoked bacon odds and ends
10. Dakin Farm Maine blueberries, packed in water
11. Shelburne Farms smoked cheddar
12. Dakin Farm yellow-eye beans
13. Lazy Lady Farm "O My Heart"
14. Orb Weaver cave-aged farmhouse cheese
15. Orb Weaver Vermont farmhouse cheese
16. Bee Haven Honey Farm pure Vermont honey
17. Dakin Farm buckwheat pancake mix
18. Vermont Common Cheddar Crackers
19. King Arthur unbleached all-purpose flour
20. Jasper Hill Bayley Hazen blue cheese
21. Gore Dawn Zola blue cheese
22. Jasper Hill Constant Bliss cheese
23. Black Gilliflower apples, a.k.a. Sheep's Nose apples
24. Stevens Lady apples
25. Cabot Creamery salted butter

Yep, you guessed it. We just made another one of our famous cross-border shopping expeditions to Vermont. Actually, we went down on a weekend getaway, to get out of the city, go for walks, and have another nice meal at American Flatbread, but one thing led to another. "...An endless banquet" is digital proof that we've found Montreal to be nothing if not rich (in at least two senses of the word) when it comes to its food culture, but there's something about our friends to the south and the landscape they call home that never fails to impress us. And somehow this admiration of ours has a way of turning into a lot of little food expenditures. The reason for this has something to do with our weakness for dairy. Good dairy, that is. And what, exactly, is so special about Vermont's dairy? Well, that has something to do with the kind of pasture land you find in Vermont, with the fact that Vermonters, to a degree that's almost unheard of these days, continue to hold on to their farms, and with the fact that the number of people who keep cows in Vermont (even just one) is so much higher than the average. Noel Perrin said so much back in 1978 in First Person Rural: Essays of a Sometime Farmer, his account of small-time farming, and life among small-time farmers, in Vermont, and this situation has continued to hold until now. In fact, in Perrin's mind these factors helped explain why Vermont was better looking than its neighbor to the east, New Hampshire.

QUESTION: Why is Vermont more beautiful than New Hampshire? ANSWER: Because of Vermont farmers. Remove the farmers, and within ten years New Hampshire would surge ahead.

This is a serious argument. If you just consider natural endowment, the two states are both fortunate, but New Hampshire is more fortunate. It has taller mountains, it has a seacoast, it even owns the whole northern reach of the Connecticut River, except a little strip of mud on the Vermont side.

But New Hampshire's farmers mostly quit one to two generations ago and started running motels or selling real estate. The result is that most of New Hampshire is now scrub woods without views. Dotted, of course, with motels and real estate offices.

A lot of Vermont farmers, however, are holding on. Almost every farmer has cows, and almost every cow works night and day keeping the state beautiful. Valleys stay open and green, to contrast with the wooded hills behind them. Stone walls stay visible, because the cows eat right up to them. Hill pastures still have views, because the cows are up there meditatively chewing the brush, where no man with a tractor would dare to mow. (That's the other argument for butter besides its taste. I once figured that every pound of butter or gallon of milk someone buys means that another ten square yards of pasture is safe for another year.)

Sure, Vermont is suffering from sprawl and free-market economics these days in a way that it wasn't 30 years ago, but not nearly to the extent that most every other corner of North America is. And some things may have even improved over the last three decades, like the farmstead cheese scene. And the strength of the farmstead cheese scene has everything to do with the fact that Vermont has so many cows, and especially so many cows raised on small farms. And there is something to be said about Perrin's argument. I mean, as much as we love mountains and forest and that kind of thing, there's something to be said for pasture land and the views it affords. So maybe it all does boil down to this: four legs good.

You'll notice that we brought back a lot of Vermont dairy: organic milk, artisanal butter, and lots of farmstead cheese. We've hardly worked our way through our treasure trove of cheeses yet, but so far standouts include Lazy Lady's O My Heart, which is as creamy and as delicate as they get, and Orb Weaver Farm's cave-aged cheese, which has a wonderful caramel side to it. And let's not forget those Vermont Common Cheddar Crackers, made with real Grafton Village cheddar. Who needs Smartfood when you've got something as classic and as versatile as your Vermont Common Cheddar Cracker. Plus, who can argue with 175 years of experience? So cheese and cheese-based products were a hit.

But the other major discovery was Vermont bacon. Now, as much as I like bacon, I'm certainly not an all-out bacon fetishist, not the kind of person who left vegetarianism behind for bacon, not someone who'll take bacon any way they can get it. I've got some standards. Luckily, it's easy to get very good, high-quality bacon around these parts. Even our two local grocery stores--Sa & Fils and P.A.--have truly excellent bacon available behind their counters--throw in some of the city's premium boucheries/charcuteries, like La Maison du Roti or La Boucherie du Marché, or the city's amazing Eastern European charcuteries, like Charcuterie Hongroise or Slovenia, and you're laughing. But, believe me, you've never had anything like the bacon we found down in Vermont. Cob-smoked (as in corn cob-smoked), maple-cured bacon. Thick-cut, succulent, smoked and cured beyond perfection. I still can't get over it. We bought a couple of packs for our own personal, breakfast-time consumption--one pack of Shelburne Farms, one pack of Dakin Farm--and then we bought a couple of 1-lb. packages of Dakin Farm cob-smoked "odds and ends" just to cook with. We're talkin' heaven.

The next best discovery was beans, real New England baking beans, yellow-eyes and soldier beans. 2006 harvest. I know. You're thinking to yourself, "Beans?" You wouldn't believe what a difference it makes. They cooked to perfection in a fraction of the time the last batch I made did, and instead of being a characterless vehicle for the baked beans' other ingredients, they had a real flavor of their own, and cooking them created a rich pot liquor, just like it's supposed to. I can tell you one thing: I'll never use supermarket-bought navy beans ever again. That's it. It's over. Why would I ever go back? Together with a 1/4-pound of those Dakin Farm "odds and ends," I made the best damn batch of beans I've ever made. Seriously. Forget about "world-class." These were otherworldly.

Then there's the honey. Fantastic stuff, and at a fraction of what honey costs here in Quebec. I've still never quite understood the Great Price Hike of 2002 (or was it 2003?), the one that jacked up the price of honey by at least 60-80%. Whatever the cause, it doesn't seem to have affected Vermont's beekeepers.

And if that wasn't enough, we found apples, too. Somewhat rare stuff. Stevens Lady Apples, a tiny, perfectly colored, perfectly formed, slightly flattish variety, that, it's said, was kept tucked away in ladies' bosoms for safe-keeping until needed as a breath freshener. And Black Gilliflowers, a.k.a. Sheep's Nose apples, a cooking variety prized for its slightly spicy flavor.

Some people go on a trip and buy t-shirts and snoglobes and keychains, and that's cool. Other people go on a trip and buy milk and honey and bacon and cheese and beans and apples, and that's cool too. Trust me.

aj

[You can find out all about Shelburne Farms and Dakin Farm, etc. via the miracle of the Internet, and you can even order some of this stuff online, but wouldn't you rather go for a nice drive?]