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Stop Cutting Up My Friends

I'm a recent newcomer to Mark Bittman, but I've quickly become a fan. While I was home in Massachusetts this past weekend, my dad turned to The Best Recipes in the World on the local PBS station for some background entertainment while we engaged in one of our many heated Scrabble battles (yes, we are one of those families). But soon enough, the game took a back seat to watching Bittman, who devoted an entire episode to what's generally referred to as the best restaurant in the world: El Bulli.

I first heard of El Bulli when I read Clotilde's amazing account of her six-hour dinner there over at Chocolate & Zucchini. I don't think I'd even heard the term molecular gastronomy yet, but there it was in all its glory. And on Saturday evening, I watched in amazement as Bittman learned from chef Ferrán Adriá how he makes his spherical olives and Parmesan "air."

I have to say, I'm a real sucker for Bittman's everyman personality. Even when he stands next to and converses with some of the best chefs in the world, there's something about him that makes me think he could show up at my apartment at any moment and start raiding my fridge. His cooking videos on the New York Times website are casual and refreshingly unpolished, and as if I needed further incentive to enjoy those anti-Food Network stylings, the New York Times posted one of his quirkiest videos to date today.

May I take a moment to share with you roasted tomato soup, featuring Mark Bittman and a very special friend. What I would give to sit down for dinner with this guy.

Field Trip!

Punctuality has never been my forte, so perhaps it comes as no surprise to the people who know me that I'm just now posting about something I did more than a week ago: I finally took my first trip up to Stone Barns. This was significant, considering I'd been meaning to go for about three years.

I was admittedly motivated to get off my duff about it by Dan Barber himself, whose discovery of my proclamation of love, though more than a little embarrassing, was happily also a conversation starter. So on a crisp Saturday morning, friends Martin and Zabrina and I rolled out of bed and hit the road up to Pocantico Hills.

First activity of the day was the Insider's Tour. Though mid-February might not seem the best time to be walking around on a farm (and don't get me wrong, it was COLD), it was really interesting to see what could be considered the farm's off-season activity. Of course, there really is no such thing as an off-season at a working farm, but I know so little of what goes on from November to May that it was really interesting to see the peas and salad greens already growing in the greenhouses and the beds of the dooryard garden that had been planted with garlic.

The greenhouses were bright and warm, and we got to nibble on a few samples right from the beds. There's nothing like picking a little leaf, brushing the dirt from it, and popping it right in your mouth. Here I discovered my new favorite salad ingredient: golden frills. It's an unassuming little mustard green, but it packs a spicy punch not unlike horseradish. Unexpected and delicious!

From the greenhouses we wandered out to visit with some little friends.

Massive Beef Recall Stemming from Hallmark Slaughterhouse Video

Westland/Hallmark Meat Packing Company, otherwise known as the proprietors of the slaughterhouse whose disgusting abuse of cows was captured on video by a Humane Society worker, have issued a recall for 143 million pounds of beef. It's biggest recall of beef in history and includes meat that entered the marketplace as far back as two years ago. That last bit indicates that this recall is as much a PR gesture as it is out of genuine concern for the public health, since most of that beef has already been consumed and Westland/Hallmark insists the rest of it actually poses little threat to the health of those who eat it.

The New York Times ran an editorial about the recall today, emphasizing that it points to a much greater problem with our food inspection program. (Here I felt a little wave of validation for my mini-rant about the same issue in comment #61 about cloned meat.) And how:

The [Humane Society video] surfaced after a year of increasing concerns about the safety of the meat supply amid a sharp increase in the number of recalls tied to a particularly deadly form of the E. coli pathogen. There were 21 recalls of beef related to the potentially deadly strain of E. coli last year, compared with eight in 2006 and five in 2005.

At the moment, the Westland/Hallmark web site consists solely of a sort of splash page, with a letter dated February 3, 2008 to the public from its president. I realize it's beside the point, but oh my gosh! Did no one proofread this business? Anyway, he concludes his letter with these words:

I proudly assure our customers that we comply with all USDA requirements, including the requirement that only ambulatory livestock may enter the harvest facility to be processed for human food. I am confident that we have met this high regulatory standard.

Curious.

The Ethicurean: 143 million pounds of beef recalled — but not to worry 
New York Times: The Biggest Beef Recall Ever (editorial)

Chickeny Goodness

I think chicken gets a bad rap sometimes. It's become this sort of default protein that just gets fried, drowned in sauce, or reconstituted into fun shapes to distract from how supposedly boring it is on its own. Not so! Give the chicken its bones and skin back and then give it a chance, I say.

Last winter, I was turned on to the whole roasted chicken. Not those sticky rotisserie jobs at the supermarket, but rather the raw thing, rinsed, seasoned, and then tucked into my oven for a couple hours. It's incredibly easy, plus it makes the kitchen (and then some) smell delightful.

The only trouble with roasting a chicken for one or two people is that, once I've enjoyed my serving fresh from the oven, the remaining chicken goes into the fridge, after which it's impossible to duplicate that fresh-from-the-oven taste ever again. So what does a person do with all that cold chicken?

Well, it may be February, but I'll tell you what: roasted chicken makes the best chicken salad I've ever had. Lots of recipes call for boiled chicken, particularly of the boneless and skinless variety, which almost always makes for a dry and generally disappointing chicken experience. But roasted chicken holds on to the fat and juices that keep the meat from drying out, and using a whole bird also means being able to use the dark meat, which I've always found to be more moist and flavorful, anyway.

(Chicken salad pictured here with Bread Alone's whole grain health bread, my new sandwich love.)

And hey, once you've carved all that meat off for the salad, plunk that chicken carcass into 4 quarts of water with some onions, celery, carrots, garlic, fresh parsley, salt, peppercorns, and cloves; simmer for a few hours; and you've got yourself the base for some nice hot soup. (In my case, it was kale and turkey meatball.)

Vive le poulet!

Happy Balumtimes

So I hate Valentine's Day. Not in a jilted lover kind of way, but in a do you really need a fake holiday to express your love kind of way. I also hate it because babies wielding bows and arrows kind of freak me out. So this year, big D and I decided to stick it to the man and stay home. It worked out pretty well, actually, because we ate exactly what we wanted and we didn't have to put on shoes.

I had been craving fried plantains something fierce for the last few days, so we planned the whole meal around those. In the end, we ended up with pan-seared pork chops with mango and pineapple salsa, fried plantains, and greens dressed with a lime, mint, and cilantro dressing. Not too shabby.

Those plantains really hit the spot, especially with a little hot sauce. I needed a little something tropical to brighten up this most dismal of months. And it didn't hurt that I got a little something hokey (but delicious) from D to top it all off:

The name says it all. The Chocolate Room has only been in the neighborhood for just about two years, but it's established quite a fan base (apparently it was full to brimming when D stopped in, though of course there was a run on chocolate fondue for two that particular evening). Inside this little bag were three each of the Antoinette, Kelly, Cleopatra, and Donna, descriptions of which can be found in their chocolate profiles. They were all incredible, but the Donna and Antoinette definitely win points for their unusual flavors.

It was about as pleasant a Valentine's Day as I could have asked for.

FishPhone!

Well, if you're unsure of buying and eating a certain fish next time you're craving seafood, Mark Bittman has a suggestion in his latest post on Bitten, his blog with the New York Times: send a text message. The Blue Ocean Institute has a service that allows you to send a text with the name of the fish in question and receive a message in return that contains the Institute's rating, along with other information about safety, population, and certification where it applies.

I'm going to try this during my grocery excursion this evening. Too bad they can't also send me a message about the guy selling me the fish... last time I went to this particular market, the fish man picked his teeth with his gloved hand just after handing me my salmon.

New York Times: Shopping for Fish
Blue Ocean Institute: FishPhone

Abuse of Cows at Slaughterhouse, New Disease Associated with Pig Slaughter

Via The Ethicurean: The Humane Society has posted video on their website of abuse of downed dairy cows at a slaughterhouse in California. Please be aware that the footage below is very graphic.

The footage was shot by a worker at the slaughterhouse and shows downed cows ― cows that are unable to stand on their own due to poor health and injury ― being abused with high-pressure hoses and forklifts, and being dragged by their legs with bulldozers. Though the video was produced by the Humane Society itself, I think it's pretty safe to say that this material is objectively appalling. (For more, see Cheap Meat, narrated by the HSUS worker who went undercover to film this footage.)

Also regarding slaughterhouses, the Washington Post ran an article today about a disease thought to be associated with slaughtering pigs at Quality Pork Processors in Minnesota.

Washington Post: Inhaling Pig Brains May Be Cause of New Illness