I had a large spike in the number of hits on my blog one day last week. Google analytics told me it was because of referrals from stumbleupon.com. Download the plug-in for your browser, set your preferences and go. I have mine set only to food and whenever I click “Stumble!” in my tool bar I get a random food related page. Today I got something worth blogging about. Not since Squagles (audio link) has a food product been so eXtreme.

What do you think this dealie is?

Chia Pet? Garlic keeper? Lawn ornament? Some sort of pagan love device? Wrong, broham! It’s a novelty egg separator!

It costs $7 from this place.

This is something someone would give me for Xmas and say, “Hey, you like to cook and you have a good sense of humor – I thought you’d get a kick out of it!” And then I’d almost feel bad about throwing it out on December 26th. Almost.

Don’t you just wanna crack an egg onto his head now?

Full vegetable share from the Carroll Gardens CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Clockwise from left: Pea shoots, radishes, mixed greens, Boston lettuce, red Russian kale (I’m pretty sure this vegetable is a communist), bok choi (also a communist) and asparagus.

Pokey does not appreciate organic greens nor communists.

I am beginning to wonder why most Food Network cooks tell you to use olive oil for everything.

You see, I just bought a new drum of extra virgin olive oil (organical Fairway brand) and that shit is flavorful. So flavorful that it can overwhelm your food and palate.

Plus, olive oil has a relatively low smoke point, which doesn’t make it ideal for high heat cooking (I’m staring at a recipe right now that is telling me to coat beef in olive oil before searing it).

At The Restaurant, we use an oil blend (I think it’s mostly veg and some soy) for 99% of things. I asked Chef why they use both the olive oil and the blend for dressing salads and he said it’s because he doesn’t want just the taste of olive oil to come through. Makes sense.

Neutral-flavored oils are: Corn, peanut, canola, grapeseed, sunflower, safflower and light olive oil (”light” referring to the taste, not the fat or calorie content).

Here’s a handy little guide for your cooking needs. Fuck what the recipes say and go with science. From whatscookingamerica.net:

Scienticians say too much evoo can cause
automatonitis and corporate shillitis

I’m up the part in “The Omnivore’s Dilema” about how a human can only consume so many pounds of food in a year and how this is a bane of food corporations. That got me thinking about beverages.

There are so many more alternative (and malternative) beverages on the market than from when I was a kid. We had the big name brand sodas, powdered ice tea mix and those barrel “juices” that were 10 for $1 and made my throat scratchy. Then came along Snapple and Wendy with their juices, teas and sodas (which I miss, like the cherry-lime rickey) and other small companies that didn’t make it (Original New York Seltzer). Then Red Bell. Vitamin Water. Arizona. Pomegranate juice. The explosion of bottled water and fall-out of people ooh-la-la-ing someone who drinks Evian. We spend so much money on beverages when tap water is basically free.

Even the liquor companies have jumped on the band wagon and released new drink flavors. Vanilla vodka, mango rum and coffee tequila. Though, I think this is a total novelty and assume the market for these things are high maintenance women and guidos.

This isn’t a call to go back to the basics. I actually dig the vast varieties. I’m sipping on a Ito En peach tea right now that costs $1.50 each at Fairway. One bottle contains 120 calories and 30g of sugars. I am prone to buying the large gallon sizes of Diet Arizona Green Tea with honey, which I refer to as “Juice”. I’m not a soda drinker any more, but I’m currently a sucker for anything new and “natural” that’s flavored with natural sugars. Unfortunately, more often than not, they are shitty.

What is it about new beverages that make us say, “Oooh, I wanna try that!”? More so with most people than foods. When’s the last time you heard someone say, “Celery root? I’ve never had that. I gotta get me some.”

“‘Ey, oh! Lemme get a blueberry martini wit Red Bull. And a jack’n'diet for my bro.”

Dogswell makes a line of dog and cat treats that are very similar to human beef jerky (beef jerky for humans, not jerky made out of human meat). Except that they are all natural, cage free and fortified with vitamins and such . They come in chicken breast, duck breast, lamb and beef liver.

“Breathies” has parsley and mint to make your dog’s breath less stanky. You know, like if your doggy is dumb and eats poo. Pokey’s stupid, although he’s not that stupid, but his breath does smell like death. (More often I describe it as something else that is too offensive for me to write here. Buy me a drink or two and you’ll get it out of me, though.)

“Mellow Mut” contains lavender and hops to “help maintian a peaceful lifestyle”. I think that’s hippy talk for “your dog is an asshole that needs to chill the fuck out”. It’s got hops in it! Maybe if your dog is a hyperactive little shit, you should give it a beer to take the edge off. They make beer for dogs now. Like Happy Tale Ale.

Anyway, Dogswell treats retail for about $8-10 for a 6 ounce sack, which makes them pricier than regular beef jerky.

I have yet to try them myself, but Pokey enjoys them. My dog’s snacks are healthier and more expensive than the snakcs I eat myself. Priorities. Look at the son of a bitch, I can’t help myself:

“I’ll do anything for an ear of corn. ANYTHING.” 

I am really big on trying new foods. Here’s a short list of foods that I’ve eaten for the first time lately:

Ramps: The Restaurant has been getting ramps in. We sautee it in a cast iron pan or grill it, chop it and add a small bit of it to the duck confit risotto. It’s an amazing vibrant green color, looks like a leafy scallion and tastes like concentrated garlic meets leek. They are in season right now and for another month or so. Here’s a recent NY Mag piece about them.

Salsify: Another ingredient at The Restaurant. It looks look like a long, skinny parsnip covered in dirt. It’s a root vegetable with the texture of parsnip (less stringy, though) or celery root. There are good, but I don’t know if they are worth the prep work (your hands get really dirty and sticky when peeling them). They are supposed to have a faint taste of oysters, but I don’t get that. Maybe because I’m not a supertaster.

Sweetbreads: I am against veal. I have never purposely ordered it, but I will try a bite if someone else does. But I figured if I am going to be a chef, I have to put away my food convictions and try everything. So I ordered veal sweetbreads as my meat course at L’École. It’s extremely tender, pretty silky and tasty. From what I understand, they are extremely perishable and you need to take care when prepping them (they need to be soaked in acidic water or milk). It’s a luxury along the lines of foie gras.

Meurgez: Vincent brought over some of these Moroccan lamb sausages to my house warming party. Juicy, spicy, flavorful. Ah, it’ll be hard to go back to regular sausages.

Have you tried anything new and noteworthy?

Here’s a NY Times article by Mark Bittman about cooking gear. (Check out his list of kitchen item you CAN live without – including what Joey V. has been saying for years, the microwave.) I heart Mark Bittman: He’s so much more useful to the average person than Frank Bruni or New York Magazine are.

It’s coincidental with what I’ve been thinking about lately. I’ve been obsessing about knives and knife brands. But having a kick-ass, impressive knife won’t make me a better cook. Of course, it’ll help make my prep work easier and faster. But I think in the end, for home cooking, as long as your one chef’s knife (and maybe a paring knife) is comfortable and consistently sharpened, you’ll be alright.

Minimal kitchen gear and multi-taskers.

This why I’m going to be stubborn and stick to my guns about not buying a salad spinner.

Keep it simple, stoopidhead.

I used to have a big beef with the American snack industry. The first time I went to London, in 2002, I went ape-shit over all the flavored potato chips they have over there. The selection of deliciousness overwhelmed me: Sunday roast, shrimp cocktail, curry, chicken with thyme, lamb and mint, SMOKY BACON! It was like a mini-mall of flavors. Check out the Walker’s website (which I think is owned by Frito-Lay because they have the same logo). I got really angry at Lay’s and Ruffles for not expanding their flavors beyond regular, salt ‘n’ vinegar, sour-cream and onion, and BBQ.

Fast forward several years later and America has finally caught on. Except it’s mainly indie chip makers that are experimenting, like Kettle (check out Kettle UK, they offer different flavors then America) and Terra with their sweet potato chips. The Big Boys are still fidgeting with oils and fat content and cooking methods - which I understand, but they are putting all their potatoes in one basket. Lay’s Dill Pickle flavor isn’t that bad, but it needs work. And Lay’s chips themselves are cruddy because they are paper thin – I don’t want to be able to read my blog through my chips. (However, a guilty pleasure of mine is bag of Ruffles with a pot of that store bought French onion dip full of preservatives.)

Even Emerald Nuts has caught on. They have flavored nuts now! Chipotle and wasabi, both oven roasted.

Matt and I got a bag of Utz’s Dark Russet Potato Chips. Holy shit! They make it with peanut oil (as opposed to canola or safflower), which is a neutral flavored oil, so all you taste is the potato. And they taste lighter and crispier because your mouth doesn’t get all greasy. I’ve never had chips like them. Even Pokey loves them. Buy them now!

What new snack products do you like?

This is an addendum to my previous post about MSG.

It’s amazing how much I learn while on the toilet. I was reading the MSG entry in “The Food Lover’s Tiptionary” just now. (Which is a reference book that I highly recommend to anyone who who takes cooking seriously - before you buy any cookbook or use any recipe, buy this book). Here’s what the entry said:

“The FDA doesn’t require a separate MSG listing when any of the following (MSG-laden) ingredients are present: hydrolyzed vegetable protein, hydrolyzed plant protein, Kombu extract, and natural flavoring seasoning.”

I found this article about Fairway selling foie gras. And in a place like Brooklyn, there is a large population of people who want my Fairway to stop selling it.

Foie gras has been outlawed in California and Chicago. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that the government says it illegal for me to ingest certain foods.

They way I see it, is that if you are in for a penny, you’re in for a pound. You can’t say you are against foie gras and then go and eat caged, hormone injected, corn fed beef - because where do you draw the cruelty line?

I understand vegetarians and vegans getting upset at the sight of it, but do you have to boycott a store that sells it along with your seitan and tofu and flaxseed? That’s like them refusing to go to a restaurant that serves meat.

I’m big on organic produce, dairy and meats, but I have friends who think organical stuff is all malarkey and I don’t get all preachy on them.

These people are concerned with one supermarket chain carrying foie gras, but there are certain Asian countries that torture and murder dogs for human consumption. I don’t know how you are supposed to chose your cause: How it relates to you? Are we New Yorkers that ego-centric?