Un retour à la Source Friday, Mar 4 2022

Kind of a chicken and the egg thing if you squint and un-focus your eyes a lot.

Its not that I am lazy or have exhausted the number of shits left to give, dear reader(s), I assure you. I’ve been working my stubby fingers beyond the conventional 40 hrs in order to satisfy the conscientious and well heeled groupies, but, just as today’s abrasive music might as well be a rusted steel brush scraping my eardrums, anything worth reading is printed in blurry typeset and what used to be a manageable dose of brown liquor lays me out stiff like a merciless Sonny Liston uppercut, I’m not into fetishizing the punch clock like I used to. The world is spinning at a different cadence and now that I’ve increased the global population by a soon to be 30lb soul, priorities have changed.

You’re welcome, humanity.

My bedrock commitment to trade-crafts of food stuffs and its satellite pleasures has not wavered, even if my over-ripened cynicism is well beyond salvaging for any worthwhile purpose beyond inoculating others to critical despair and disparities. Think of my reliable hopelessness for America society like a sourdough started or a salami’s musty -yet vital- bloom that entrepreneurial folks sell for $25/oz.

Reading this blog is more riveting than watching meat cure.

Sure my posting frequency has become somewhat impotent compared to the explosive weekly discharge of yesteryear’s culinary basement lust but if reader traffic stats are a motivating indicator, the number of eyes and bots using my blog for spam instructions and/or content have skyrocketed downward along with my investments in retirement, goofy exercise equipment and social band-aids during a pandemic. I take full responsibility for declining activity by selflessly sharing the blame with my waning, yawning readership. But there’s no deadline for a reset and on a weekend getaway to ground zero of my culinary renaissance we listened to Kitchen Confidential, read by the late author (at 1.25 times the normal speed which assured me that he scribbled the whole damned thing on a 3 day amphetamine spree) and we were supremely delighted. Borrow an audio copy from your library. I was inspired to squirt some revitalizing hot sauce onto our mutual indifferences and for those willing to endure more than 140 characters and anything more involved than a caption, meme or 15 second video of a dolphin catching a frisbee…settle down for 3 minutes and strap on some goggles because you are about to get fucked in the eyes.

For those who covet gluten, we salute you.

Chef Tony was a master raconteur from the tippiest, toppiest shelf. A distillation of Tom Robbins’ flowery vernacular and Bukowski’s blunt, mostly harmless depravity. Chef Tony had a prodigious prep list of vices, would happily lure unmoored cooks to his port, picked quick money over long-term tutelage, got tuned up on school nights and school days, but, much like the hungover working man’s anti-hero Hank Chinanski, neither was a crook. Morally spoiled, sure. Discount purveyors of bad ideas, yup. Slovenly drunks, chain smoking itinerants with platter-sized chips on their shoulders, absolutely. But they weren’t scofflaws. If they drove drunk they did their best to abide by the rest of the tenets of conventional traffic law and felt bad about it next day (hangover notwithstanding).

You can almost taste the fancy.

I met Anthony Bourdain, briefly, a few months into my resettlement in the Nation’s capital. It might have been November of 2002. I was working at Bistro Bis on Capitol Hill and I think Chef Tony was in town for a book related chit-chat. The chef-owner, Jeffrey Buben, was cut from the same cheesecloth as Bigfoot. He would pick through a case of limes and demand restitution for any lime that wasn’t uniformly green (the driver was always flummoxed and the math way above his pay grade). He’d curse the price of salsify and ask me if I’d pay the same price for weed (depends on the quality I suppose). Buben would guard the trash like a border agent, redirecting anything that was still edible to distinguished shelf on the walk-in where food scraps and leftovers reincarnated into meatloaf divinity. A pint of diced celeriac, a couple ounces of huckleberry sauce, limp scallions, a piece of lamb not worthy of FIFO. It all went into the grinder and it was curiously as tasty as it was resourceful. There was a standing freezer packed full like a teenager’s locker with scraps of raw salmon accumulated over 6 months would would become profitable salmon cakes during the biannual “restaurant week”. Buben was the unicorn who made money during “restaurant week”. He would scrub the bottom of the dish machine during service and it would shine like chrome. The cleaning supplies closet was locked after inventory and if you didn’t have a scrubby to clean, you were shit out of luck and resigned to elbow grease. As a matter of business principle, Buben never bought chicken bones. He had some barter with a Chinese restaurant and would come back with a cooler full of chicken leg bones once a week. He would pick carrot chunks out of the veal stock, extol their tender, veal soaked virtue and use them as a garnish on the next day’s special. Frugality was his superpower and stock in trade.

Starsky & Hutch inspiration.

Legend lent him a “bubbles” nom-de-plume after it was said that he climbed onto the stove at his flagship restaurant during service, throwing plates, frothing at the mouth about too much that wasn’t up to snuff and his shoes began to bubble on the hot flat top. Want to run tuna next week? A colleague was enlisted in the wee hours to go fishing off the North Carolina coast, the only, albeit not exactly legal, alternative to the indignity of paying a wholesaler for the same thing. It was a 4 hr drive each way (boat registration was probably cheaper there or something) and the boat was then fastidiously scrubbed to the point where the vessel had appreciated in value. He had crunched the numbers and even with the cost of time and fuel, there was enough juice worth the squeeze. A dishwasher would scrape the sinew, chewier parts were transformed into tuna salad and if collards, eyeballs, scales and deep-fried tuna assholes were the rage, the trips would have paid off even more dividends. Everyone was happy all around, except for the server who had to moonlight as a deckhand during the summer and required more sleep than Buben’s low-power mode.

Your move, 19th century.

We were cleaning up towards the end of the night when a 10-watt bartender (we told him once to ask a patron on their way to the restroom whether it was a #1 or #2, so that we could time the plating of their main course and he wasn’t sure if we were joking. In hindsight, we should have insisted that we weren’t) shuffled back to the kitchen and told me that a gentleman (who’s name I was able to decipher as “Bourdain”) would like to buy the kitchen some suds. I was the only one on the line and the only one who recognized the name and made haste to fetch my drink. Tony was at the bar by himself and was thoroughly satisfied by the “soupe de poisson”, which I hadn’t made and wasn’t my recipe and the selection of high-brow cheeses, which I hadn’t ordered, cut or plated, but I was honored by the compliment. I can’t remember what we talked about. I invariably asked some dumb questions impulsively but he was kind enough to offer me a Doral cigarette, a testament to rock ‘n roll thrift. In retrospect, 20 years ago, given a second chance, I would have taken him to the basement of the Townhouse Tavern to drop the plow, reminisce about childhood in France, goof on the sticky parts of the carpet and politely decline solicitation from neighboring club’s fellas to watch us pee.

The tubesteak summit.

If it were last week, I would have settled for a fancy liquor bar 1^st, then cheap beer and shots somewhere else, still reminiscing about childhood in France with bonus toasts to our mentors, culinary stalwarts, epicurean epiphanies and how to make some parts of the planet a little better. I don’t have nearly the same stories to tell and my stupider days are generally in the rear view mirror though there is an emergency reserve in the glove compartment. I’ve got responsibilities and am still determined to figure out how to make things well. Hot-dogs and mortadella are my moonshot. Chef Tony inspired me to tickle the keyboard again and offer more to posterity than trolling the MAGA dipshits. If you miss Chef Tony’s sardonic appraisals of the culinary atmosphere, its peripheries and the honest joy of piecing together good places, better people and the best food (such conflictions may have led him to call it quits) then I urge you, committed reader(s), to rediscover his reading of Kitchen Confidential through your local library’s audio books. I’ll bet a flounder sandwich that he is cursing Roadrunner not being free despite a cable subscription and will wait patiently until it is.

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Chant du Cygne Sunday, Apr 10 2016

Swan song en croûte.

Inscribe the date.

A final somewhat selfish fabrication to celebrate and honor the nuptials of 2 cherished, well deserving friends who are straight after all.   Tamworth pâté en croûte with heart, tongue, wedding vegetables and mini-mortadella inlay.

Both their birthdays, too.

After 13 years and a few months, there’s no more juice left to squeeze, so fuck it, we’re done.  There have been countless friends, a reunion with a sister, 5 issues of Gluttony Digest, a dozen freedom BBQ’s, suckling pigs, turkey variations, fancy pumpkin, jobs here and there, bars that have expired, bars that have been raised, 2 cats, 2 presidents, legalized pot, statehood not, some competitions, softball, a blog, pictures, trips, broken thumb, brownouts, blackout, heartache, dwindling friends, steeper rents and relentless sirens at all times of the day and night.

There’s a swell bell.

My sweetheart, the cats, bric-a-brac and I going out to pasture to become sharecroppers and manage a little slice of country living in Einstein’s getaway on the Northern tine of  Eastern Long Island  nestled between the LI sound, Peconic bay and some shitty vineyards.  We’ll be living in a 1940’s house with an original built-in murphy-bed style ironing board on an organic sheep farm with pigs, chickens and a garden; upstream and closer to the source of food. We’ll eventually help open and run a full service butchery & grocer using products grown on the 28 acres outside.  What’s more, there is a 2 acre garden where we can grow jelly beans, cotton candy and our very own dildo tree.  Hurray.

A little lopsided, as is often the case with love.

Thank you all for your readership. There are arcane liquor and zoning laws up here, cellphone service is sporadic, there are many spiteful low-watt Trump supporters and public transportation is virtually non-existent save for the occasional single-track diesel train that still runs in 2016. So we are pretty much moving back in time with the rest of you, but the barns and people are charming even if they tawlk funny.

Looking out my backdoor.

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Merci-Donnant 2015 Sunday, Dec 6 2015

Thanksgiving 2015

A well altered classic. Thank you JL David.

Hopelessly dated French food has always been the war-cry of this withering electronic diary, and the recent tragedy across the pond called for something with a more pro-populist, Tyranny stifling design and seasonally garnished quote from a revolutionary rabble-rouser.  The menu came together with only a few laps left since I’m running on flat tires and will probably abandon this bloggy thing in the New Year.  This food career never really came together and despite flaky assurances on behalf of others and 19 years or dedicated effort on mine and more than a year of fruitless odd-job plum jobs that fulfilled a need for cash, the pieces never fell into place.  So savor this penultimate post, all 7 of you readers.  I think I’ll take up hawking antique cookware and corny mugs at a bric-a-brac store somewhere in the countryside or upper 14^th St and hook my wagon up to ISIL’s tech scooter which might be an edgy way to get some hardcore intraweb fans.

Birdman: or the unexpected virtue of making dated food things.

Got the 16lb pastured turkey from the Mennonites.  I’ve never been up there, so maybe they got it from the pious Safeway and repackaged it.  I’ll never know.  But a bonafide Mennonite delivered it.  Decent bird, no heritage breed or anything and all the parts & accessories were there.  Roasting it whole is more boring than life itself and the drumsticks have those irritable plastic tendon things that I would have liked to have yanked out, but the bird was amputated below the ankles.  Recent Thanksgiving misgivings have been the noticeable absence of the whole bird centerpiece, but there is always a better way and the style of a whole roasted bird suffers compared to the practical and delectable substance of a compartmentalized critter.  In the past, the legs have been deboned, rolled up and stuffed with all the holiday party favors or ground up into regional meatballs and such that generally went over the convives’ heads who wore sweatpants and scarfed down pedestrian chips.

Photogenic pickled fish.

Pickled fish is just about the next best thing and some surprisingly fresh mackerel (never seen anyone else buy any there) made for a fine product.  Brined in 10% salt brine for 3 hours facing Mecca, then in a pickling liquid with onions, vinegar, wine, lemon juice, lemon zest, garlic, rosemary, some bullshit spices and who cares.  Photographed very well in the natural sunlight though, and that is what counts (on the Instagrams).

B-cup chest nuts.

Got some Virginia chestnuts which was nice since the North American chestnut tree was essentially wiped out in the last century by Japanese imports.  A bit small perhaps, more or a “marron”  than a full fledged chestbump. Soaked for 20 minutes in dihydrogen monoxide, scored, roasted and easily peeled.  Tasted and peeled much better than the cheap imposters Bestworld was peddling.  Not where the later came from,  but they were starchy, crumbly, hallow and exactly what $3.75/lb gets you.  Shame on both of us.

Less filling, tastes OK.

Bestworld is still the best place around and the kooky Korean-owned, Latino-run, gringo-serving emporium came through with plenty of other misspelled sundries. They always have smoked turkey parts so I got a neck while the turkey carcass and bone scraps barely simmered for well over, like, 2,880 minutes (modernists rejoice) and once the turkey pot-au-feu juice was cooled and strained, a white knuckle consommé path was plotted with some ground turkey, egg whites, cardboard, lawn clippings and other things that go in a raft sturdy enough to brave white water rapids. You, extreme reader, know what I mean.  I picked the smoked meat, added some broccoli and carrots and called it a day.

For the pervert who is into bondage and raw poultry.

Standard practice is to take the legs and do something to them that eliminates the inedible tendons that run through the drumstick in a fashion that makes for a preparation that is consistent, flavorful and easy to serve.  Ballotines (essentially a round meatloaf)  show some culinary proficiency and some showing off, which is the purpose of documenting holiday meals anyway.  These followed similar turkey leg fabrications; ground drumstick with liver, eggnog, cream, bit of pork, booze and then mixed with confit gizzards, thigh meat, some of the busted up chestnuts, sequins and were roasted in extra consommé, root vegetables and fresh cranberries.  The cooking juices and garnish were blended smooth and made some gravy of sorts.  Hurray.

It is a very nice platter.

Browned some Brussels sprouts in duck fat, then some fresh cranberries and poured the sauce over it.  Photographed rather well, particularly in a bowl by Daniel Castel.

Gizzards and thighs, oh my.

Couple air pockets which could have been mitigated by a pastry bag and caring more, but the passion is fading and there were some re-runs to watch on the TV.

At the very least, it is colorful

Done this one a few time before and the sauce of white cauliflower, sweet onion, butter, cream and lemon was particularly flavorful and a pleasant texture compared to the roasted florets.  Taking pictures during the meal is kind of tacky nowadays, particularly with people tethered to their phones so this portrait was snapped before it got gratinéed with clarified brown butter and lemon-toasted breadcrumbs.  Could have cooked the eggs a bit less, but whatever.

Colorful, and with 10% more gluten

The girlfriend likes vegetables tremendously and I like to whittle and cook them.  Most stuffings taste like a wet sandwich that got stepped on by a crowd, so these vegetables were glazed in duck fat and finished with lemon juice, vinegar and some flabby whole grain bread left to go stale; or as I and other closeted modernists like to call it “blanched air-toasting”.  Plenty of bread, vegetables, leafy Brussels sprouts, what’s not to like?

Not an endorsement of FIFA.

Still clinging to the pâtés, for better or worse.  I was the 1^st and so far only American to qualify for the World Pâté Croûte Championship 3 years ago in France.  Cost me a lot of money to get there and while I learned 2 things about the pastry, but I didn’t do that well and aside from the jet-lagged memories there wasn’t much of a payoff. Not even a T-shirt.  Should have invested in PR or had a more selfless Top Chef boss at the time. If there is any advice to give to a buddy cook, it would be to invest in hype and/or tattoos rather than substance and technique.  The former gets you the dining public’s attention and validation and by that time the later deficiencies are exposed, it doesn’t really matter because with the right type of irreverent hipster stoner food, you’ll be able to smear peanut butter on a coaster and there will be a 2hr wait at your door.

Yes, the stars are a bit much and it looks like prom night.

Pastry is the standard 50% clarified brown butter short crust and I broke out the fancy game-pie mold.  Made some black pastry with non-toxic (hopefully) shoe polish for the artsy fartsy flair.  Found a District of Columbia cookie cutter in a freebie box and stamped one out for the side, a carved a feather on the other side and some stupid stars on top for no other reason than they being a bit more interesting than fluted circles.  Pretty much the same forcemeat as the ballotine with the addition of dried cranberries, pecans, a piece of black truffle that has been soaking in port wine for about 6 years (that is not really a good thing).  Had some extra forcemeat and pastry so I made a pithivier shaped pâté pantin and planned to serve it hot as well.  But most guests’ appetites and attention were satisfied by that point so we just kept drinking.

It is the District of Columbia, or South America

Not exactly traditional for Thanksgiving, but it is something to do when you get tired of watching re-runs and drinking alone. Sure it is a bit effeminate, but such fabulousness will soon earn the respect that they, house-made vinaigrette and cake pops deserve.

Stuck a feather on the side and called in turkey dinner.

The pâtés always look sharp in the raw, but sag and droop once they’ve cooked.  Oh well, that’s life. Those guys at the fancy meatloaf championship made some fantastic decorations with sharp, crisp lines and they are true craftsmen.  Not sure how they do it, if they embed the colored dough or super-impose it.

Like a pastry urchin.  The last one of 2015

I filled the untouched one with apple cider aspic and tossed it in the fridge.  There is a post-partum sluggishness that takes over after the big day, during which I am too nervous to eat, though I am content to eat leftovers at 3am with my fingers in the twilight of the Frigidaire for a week.

Inlay sagged a bit, but you get the gist.

Some friends came over and we stabbed at the leftovers a bit and took a couple slices of the round meatloaf in pastry with the brown starfish on it.  Girlfriend took some to work but I think it was to use as a shim for a wobbly table or doorstop.  Form and function, how about that!?  But I should have made turkey ramen with uni ice cream and gold leaf on mismatched vintage plates and charged $85.

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Le Grand Non-Gagnant de Cochon. Monday, Apr 22 2013

The Grand Non-Winner

Cochon 555 Washington, DC 2013

This little piggy went straight to the bar afterwards.

Behind a fawned over figurehead’s formidable speech (Theodore Roosevelt notwithstanding),  is generally an obscured speechwriter worthy of a couple kudos, snap-shots, blogs, high-fives and twatters.  I am such a wordsmith with an equally subjective, savory craft who doesn’t always receive the credit they work hard to earn.

After all but begging my employer to get me to participate in the DC Cochon 555 edition since my requests to be considered as a candidate were routinely ignored, I had 5 weeks to develop a menu and after delivery of a decent Large Black hog from Leaping Water’s farm, 6 days to execute.  With the exception of a few fabrications and tasks that were delegated to colleagues, I made 96.83% of all the food; butchering the hog, brining the hams & bellu, making the aspic, the rillettes, the cheese sausage, the loin, the pâté en croûte, the pickles, the liver terrine, the pojarski, the breading, the gribiche and even cut the booties for the Pojarski.

Ham jam 2013.

As dictated by the contest rules, I would be judged based on usage of the entire animal, flavor, creativity, affability, star appeal and apparently marketing.  In hindsight, the menu should have mentioned the parts used, which have now been added in parentheses. The quality of the animal was not remarkable and any enthusiasm was quickly snuffed out by the presence of a few blood splashes in the shoulder caps, a symptom of careless slaughter and not being bled quickly enough.  Nonetheless, it was a decent hog.

Cochon 555, DC 2013

Range

Prosciutto Cotto (hams) & Mortadella (top sirloin, fatback)

Asparagus in blood aspic  (bones, feet, skin, blood)

and chicories in a smoked ham-hock vinaigrette. (shanks)

-∞∞∞-

Leverpostej.

Danish-style liver terrine wrapped in cured belly. (liver, trimmings, belly)

Salted and cured anchovies, a couple of marinated capers.

-∞∞∞-

Pâté en Croûte 

It’s heart, tongue, kidneys, fatback, pistachios and a few figs. (lard, trimmings, offal)

Some pickled rhubarb and mushrooms.

-∞∞∞-

Pork Belly Pojarski

Breaded and fried.  (belly, trimmings)

Ramp gribiche

-∞∞∞-

L’Astet

Loins roasted with spring garlic. (loin, tenderloin)

Warm confit potatoes and rillettes (jowl, belly)

-∞∞∞-

Saucisson en Brioche

Clothbound cheddar sausage baked in a leaf lard brioche. (trimmings, lard)

And cracklin’ whipped lard.

Hams (and shoulder caps) were given a heavy brine, tied and simmered.  Mortadella was stuffed into smaller beef middles so as to be more manageable to cut and serve.  Shanks were brined, smoked and simmered with tomato juice after which my sponsor assembled a vinaigrette with the diced meat, gelatin enriched tomato juice, pickled mustard seeds, olive oil and banyuls vinegar.  Stock was made from the feet, skin and bones then clarified with blood and egg whites.  The blood doesn’t impart so much of a flavor as it does an amber color, which didn’t necessarily produce a credible sanguine color until it was supplemented with clarified beet juice.  The asparagus was manicured and gently blanched, then tediously dipped like a candle in the aspic.

Me cook pretty one day.

Danish style liver terrine was comprised of liver, belly, milk, eggs, salted anchovies, salt tears, madeira, lemon zest, picked thyme and a purée of onions cooked in lard.  The terrine was wrapped in slices of brined and poached belly.  I should have dry-cured the belly as the wet cure yielded flabby slices that were difficult to work with.  This was a very good terrine (a pressed pâté) with a proper balance of liver and meat and the lightest touch of anchovy, which could have been more pronounced.  The slice was adequately garnished with marinated salted capers and pickled white anchovies.

For the pâté en croute, lard represented the fat content of the dough, malt syrup supplemented the mixture for added strength and color and the corn starch was entirely eliminated so as not to compromise the amount of protein in the dough –so as to eliminate breakage.  Tongue, gizzard and heart were brined & cooked; premium trimmings marinated with Armagnac, lemon zest and thyme, figs plumped in booze and a delicate inlay of pistachio assembled with the addition of chlorophyll, egg whites and a nominal amount of trimmings.  The hinging properties of the mold were properly used to apply a decorative pig emblem and after learning a thing or 2 at the Pâté Croûte World Championship, the pâté was built upside down to ensure a clean top and eliminate fissures.   This was a very good pâté, and with absolute humility, better than any other there.

Good enough for government work, but not the judges.

Pojarski’s were diminutive, fancy mock-cutlets fashioned from trimmings of raw shoulder, cured belly, onions cooked in lard, spices, toasted bread crumbs and cream.  Twice breaded and gussied-up with a paper bootie.  Gribiche made with barely boiled eggs became seasonal with a surplus of ramps; the bottoms sweated in olive oil, the top blanched & chopped, along with gherkins, mustards, lemon and whatnot.  They were fried to a golden George Hamilton  and down right delicious.

The loins and tenderloins were brined (without #1 curing salt) in a 5% brine flavored with rosemary and fennel seed. I do not remember any of the other contestants using the loin, surprisingly.  L’Astet is a regional pork dish from l’Aveyron that involves a trussed loin and garlic.  In this case, the tenderloin was cut in half lengthwise and threaded through the center of each quarter loin.  The loin(s) were expertly trussed, nice & tight, and left to marinate in olive oil with spring garlic.  It was later cooked to 145F internally, roasted fat-side down and sliced for the contest.  It was completed with one of the best batches of rillettes I have ever made –jowl, belly, 4 spice and meyer lemon.  Yukon gold potatoes were punched out, blanched and finished in rendered fat with mustard seeds.

A variant of saucisson à l’ail (garlic sausage) had clothbound cheddar replace the garlic and after a quick steam in the combi oven was wrapped in lard-based brioche dough and baked.  The prototype came out much better.  Inexplicably, these ones had a significant gap between the sausage and the dough which we had not experienced when using the garlic sausage.  It was a worthwhile sausage, though the binding properties of garlic make for a better, firm texture than cheese.

Complimentary smoked fat-back truffles with Bavarian pretzel crust were offered courtesy of our pastry chef and a testament to the amount of rendered lard that we used.  We had a modest amount of food left over after the liquor drenched event and with the exception of a pound or 2 of fatback, used up the entirety of the animal. 2 of the more reputable judges validated my efforts with firm handshakes and solidly honest compliments, but their votes were diluted by the great unwashed whose palates and eyes were fooled by pedestrian fare and stickers.  Congratulations and thanks to the teams from Proof, Vidalia and Birch & Barley for providing creative and satisfying fare under such considerable time constraints, particularly to those that did the work.  If there is a next time, I’ll develop a winning recipe for making T-shirts. Tremendous thanks to Richie Havens too, even if your career really took off before I was born.

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Championnat du Monde de Pâté Croûte 2012 Tuesday, Jan 8 2013

2012 World Pâté Croûte Championship:

Special Chump Edition.

World Champ. Slices of life on the farm

Here is a close approximation of my performance at the 2012 World Pâté Croûte Championship. I was exposed to dizzying level of professionalism and experience and feel that I fell short. Having to bring my wares from so far away put me at a considerable disadvantage, perhaps more so without the ooh-la-la garnishes & flair (though presentation accounted for few of the 200 total points) and I picked #12 at random, placing me last in the tasting, at which point the judges may have had their fill of 23,000 calorie forcemeats. Judges included Regis Marcon (Le Clos de Cimes ***), 2011 winner Eric Desbordes (Le Bristol ***) and numerous MOF’s. My mistakes were significant, but at least my slices stayed together –another contestant’s aspic was too loose and the pastry collapsed when cut. First and foremost, my pastry (80 points) did not achieve enough color, likely a result of baking 3 at once, thereupon lowering the temperature of the oven. Had I cooked it longer at that temp, I would have risked overcooking the forcemeat. I did not have a consistent gap for the aspic either.

Color me humbled. Bravo Yohan (insert applause emoticon).

Upon speaking with Patrick Henriroux (La Pyramide **, MOF) he said that the judges prefer a chunkier forcemeat, and that I should have kept the gizzards whole. Keeping pace with the gin flavors I finished the slice with fleur de sel mixed with lime zest and ground juniper berries. M. Henriroux explained that juniper is not a flavor that the judges crave. Pickled cauliflower lightly dressed with an orange zest & confit fat soffrito didn’t compare to some of the Bocuse d’Or inspired garnishes put forth by other competitors, but wasn’t worth many points anyway. Lastly, I should have pulled the pâté out of the fridge earlier so that it would have been served at room temperature which otherwise mutes the flavors. Now I know better and being exposed to such work has been invaluable.

My piddling pâté, in all its underbaked splendor.

This is the high water mark of cookery; the confluence of discipline, theory, practice, technique, artistry and finesse. It is an absolute honor and pleasure to have been selected. Any and every cook should aspire to have the substance of their work judged blindly in such a format that transcends the stylistic pandering to photogenic tattoos and irritable congeniality. The gentleman whose work I witnessed and tasted are legitimate craftsmen*.

I represented, at the very least, be it ever so crooked.

Yohan’s pâté had been in the works for almost a year and was stunning, though I thought the liver flavor was a bit strong. The theme was “the farm” and included something from every farm animal. The black dough fabrication & application of the lettering was clever and the detailed flower inlay nicely centered. Virtually all the forcemeats were chunky to the point where they fell apart after cutting the slice (mine had a firm yet moist texture) and more than half featured exceptional quality foie gras, not the excessive 2 ½ lb+ David Crosby sized lobes generated here which loose too much fat. Very rich and significant amount of care went into layering and inlays. One criticism from the judges is that they fear the aesthetics may begin to trump the flavor. Other inlays included especially savory ballotines, intricate designs and even whole cèpes with an intensely mushroom flavored aspic. All other pastries were cooked closer to perfection than I have ever seen and nothing short of delicious. An absolutely remarkable event with plenty of Mumm bubbles and M. Chapoutier Crozes-Hermitage Les Meysonniers to wash it all down. We plated in 10 minute intervals and I was not able to see the first 8 pâtés plated.  I got pretty juiced on complimentary wine afterwards.

1% meatloaf sampler.

*The romantic suggestion that cooking at this level is art is nonsense. I do not know of any artist that must consistently replicate such a varied standard of work on a daily, weekly, monthly basis (we each had to bring 3 identical pâtés). These cooks are in the rare league of polished tradesmen like woodworkers whose creative artistry is seen through clean dovetails and moldings. Artists make one-offs. Craftsmen don’t.

Bocuse d’Or is next month, sir.

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Finaliste Wednesday, Nov 21 2012

Finalist

 4th edition of the World Pâté Croûte Championship.

Crust or bust.

The Pâté Croûte World Championship has finally lived up to its international claim by including this American (dual French/US citizenship), a Swiss and Belgian.  A detailed recipe and photographs of a “Squab, Gin-Soaked Currant and Marcona Almond” were submitted and reviewed with others, all names removed, just as any food competition should mandate.  Then a phone call was received, though I did not answer it.  A message was left informing me that I had been selected.  I listened to it and then felt something I haven’t felt before.  Far out.

Skin to win?

All pâtés will be tasted blindly thereupon ensuring that substance trumps style, photogenic tattoos and irritating congeniality generally associated with State-side cooking gameshows. I will be assembling my pâtés (3 total) in Washington, DC and flying with them to Paris, then on to Maion Chapoutier at Tain L’Hermitage on December 3rd.  I will be competing against 7 Michelin stars and well seasoned, ahem, culinary competitors.  I am a long shot dark (meat) horse but it is an absolute honor and pleasure to take part in a celebration of practice, theory, artistry, passion, discipline and technique.  MOF judges and I am guaranteed a free apron afterwards.  I’d prefer a T-shirt, but whatevs.  I’ll take what I can get.  Congratulations to my fellow competitors.

2009 CMPC

2010 CMPC

2011 CMPC

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Pâté en Croûte: Distraction Spéciale «Merde Sandy, Il Pleut». Monday, Oct 29 2012

Pâté en Croûte:

Special “Crap Sandy, its Raining” Distraction.

Ivy League Edition: Beats Harvard and Yale. Both flooded.

With the absolutely crippling, thrilling, paranoid fantasy of a shotgun full of delusional diluvial rain pointed at what seems like the crotch (the good kind of crotch) of North East America, take the time to call up your local utility provider and courteously thank them for the thankless services they provide  before rabidly barking at them 72 hours from now when you have to suffer the inevitable consequences of weather and the fallibility of electricity when you are not able to sustain your sedentary lifestyle with less than 3,800 calories of raw fruit.

It might float your boat.

This silly culture of irrational fear is remarkable.   It has been suggested by the media, home improvement store magnates and toilet paper manufacturers that such coincidental weather patterns are more likely brought on by the really very real threat of Al Qaeda, gays marrying homosexual pets or iced cream, a second socialist term of a totally radical left-handed Muslim president and running out of milk.  A scholarly professor-type in the family posits that America’s atavistic pilgrimage to the milk aisle before hyperbolic warnings of fire, rain and brimstone is a terrifying emotional regression to an infant state nurtured by mother’s milk.  An erudite cynic at the local tavern professes that toilet paper consumption during fo-rizzle rapture-inducing drizzle can be attributed to giardia brought on by desperately drinking tainted river water.

The Arc that I baked.

But rather than curse your flooding basement, here’s a metaphorical lifeboat, or, if you still have electricity, a worthwhile distraction since this thing will sink like a 3^rd world ferryboat.

Sturdy hull.

This “inadvertent argyle peppercorn-nipple edition” is hardly waterproof, is not sea-worthy and will not power a flashlight or lightsaber, but doesn’t need any appliances or utilities to cook.

Rivet(ed)ing.

Baking Bad.

Chunky ration.

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Pâté en Croûte Porc et Veau Rosé: Édition Spéciale Raisins Trempés au Cognac et Poivre Vert. Thursday, Jun 7 2012

Pork and Randall-Lineback Pâté en Croûte: 

Special Brandy Drenched Golden Raisins and Green Peppercorn Edition.

Golden Grapeness.

Here’s a little ditty about Berkshire pork and Randall Lineback rose veal.  Golden raisins happily dunked  in VSOP (Vestigial Secret Obligatory Pruno).  Filled with corned tongue, breached humpback whale warts, confit heart, steamed insecurities, pistachios, Cherrios, and possibly the cap of a black Sharpie.  1/3 medium grind, 1/3 smooth like iced cream, 8/5 garnish cooked a sea level without convection.

Fruit of the Loom zoom.

Pastry and forcemeat recipes are painstakingly streamlined and deliberately consistent.  While the garnish varies based on mood, measurements have been etched on the bench and are dutifully respected.  Anything worth doing is worth doing right.

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Le Pâté en Croûte: Édition Spéciale Pistaches et Abricots. Saturday, Mar 31 2012

Pâté en Croûte:

Special Pistachio and Apricot Edition.

Râte my Croûte.

Berkshire pork (Craig Hagaman’s, from High View Farm; Berryville, VA)  some dry-aged Randall Lineback, its tongue, heart, some pistachios and dried apricots soaked in liquor with peppercorns and brandy.  Madeira aspic.  Damn fine pâté.  Sold the whole thing within 48 hours.  The lid’s integrity was maintained by turning off the fan in the convection oven, which was otherwise causing the forcemeat to swell and blow the top loose allowing the aspic to ooze out, which is not good, and requires anxious applications of butter spackle.

Petal power.

Tasted very good.  Lean, aged,  rose veal, wholesome pork, aromatic booze, unctuousness from cream and spice seasoning reminiscent of a firm handshake. Apricots invigorated the savory pageant with sweet, boozy applause while peppercorns whistle the parade back in line. Formidably rich farce à gratin (chicken liver, duck fat, mushrooms, onion, brandy, orange zest) dutifully replaces the humdrum raw liver binding agent which instead can best be applied to liver pâté and Leverpostej (Danish liver pâté seasoned with salted anchovies).

Roof is being raised a little less, to good effect.

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Le Pâté en Croûte: Édition Spéciale Canard et Cerises Sèches. Tuesday, Mar 6 2012

Pâté en Croûte: Special Duck and Dried Sour Cherries Edtion.

Pretty feathery pastry.

Some duck marinated in Sailor Jerry rum.  Damn fine rum.  Nice & spicy.  Then a nod to Neil Diamond’s fruit of choice.  Farce a gratin (chicken livers marinated in brandy, shallots, duck fat), pork (30% of the weight of the duck), confit gizzards, fatback, pistachios and some warm spices.  No structural breaches and the most recent pastry proportions provided noteworthy savor and palatabilitinessness.  A worthwhile endeavor.  It’s be even more worthwhile is someone bought any of the damned stuff rather than gazing mouth agape at the meat case as if it were some sort of kooky dead animal exhibit at the zoo.

Doing what Pablo Neruda wants me to do with cherries in preparation for spring, I think.

Plenty of similar cooked charcuterie offerings available, in addition to raw sausages and a wide variety of cuts from all animals.

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