Friends: The Not-So-Secret Ingredient in Life

Thursday 2:28pm: “…As it is only 2 days until I leave the continent & the sights of anything resembling a burger, could we go to Village Whiskey???”

And so it was decided. We would share a delicious meal one more time before she leaves for Uganda.

My best friend Amanda is sort of amazing. Not only is she gorgeous and smart and stylish and successful and kind (sorry guys, she’s VERY taken), but she kinda-sorta really loves food (with the exception of tomatoes), which makes me love her even more. Among the things we share: an affinity for mac n’ cheese, a love for Anthropologie, the same hometown, an obsession with music, the need to sing at the top of our lungs in the car to Queen, life-changing stints in Rome, we have ridiculously awesome boyfriends, and…the last, but obviously the most important: a major foodie crush on Jose Garces and his food. Fortunately, we live in Philadelphia and can, on a whim, show up at one of his restaurants and partake in some of the best food available in the city (If you happen to live in another city, I am truly sorry. You ARE missing out.) Amanda left for Uganda on Sunday June 26th to teach English for 7 weeks in the city of Gulu. I’m sure she’ll have many-a-culinary adventure while she’s there (or maybe not, she has packed an entire truckload of granola bars), but before she left, we needed to eat together one more time. And, well, a good old American burger seemed appropriate enough.

Village Whiskey is on the corner of 20th and Sansom Sts. in the heart of Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse neighborhood. It’s tiny; no more than 25-30 people could conceivably eat in there at one time. We shoved ourselves into one of their little corner booth/barstool hybrid tables, and got settled for our culinary foray. I got the pickled herb tomatoes—they come with baguette, house-made ricotta and an olive tapenade. We both ordered the infamous duck fat French fries with cheddar ale sauce, and Amanda got the Village Burger. We indulged our taste buds in what is my favorite of Mr. Garces’ joints. He puts out impeccably constructed meals: both intrinsically and visually. I’ve eaten at all of his restaurants, save one, and every single thing I have ever had has been flawless. And tasty. And I’m not remotely exaggerating that. That’s what I respect the most about him. Everything served in his restaurants is beautiful, sure, and a tad showy (as things will tend to be with uber-chefs), and definitely high-brow. But everything he serves is also straight-up delicious. I knew, walking into Village Whiskey, that I could sit back, relax, and enjoy the time with my best friend; because I knew, without a shadow of a doubt that my food would be wonderful. And it was, afterall. The tomatoes slick, and tangy, the little seeds and juices inside exploding in my mouth with the first bite. The baguette was chewy with well-developed gluten, and the ricotta spread lusciously onto the bread, filling in the many tiny holes made during baking. The duck fat fries were crunchy and decadent; the cheddar ale sauce a nice sharp cut through the delightful heaviness of the duck fat. I could see Amanda’s burger dripping it’s juices and sauces onto her plate, the inside a perfectly ripe pink color, outside charred, sealing in the flavor. The cheddar on top oozing slightly out the back, seeping onto the bottom of the house-made brioche roll, little sesame seeds, the rhinestones of the burger world, crowning the top. Just downright good.

And while I was aware of all the flavors and textures and smells and oh-my-god moments while chowing down, I don’t think this meal would have been nearly as good if I hadn’t been there at that moment, with her. Surrounded by our gorgeous food we could talk about some of our most important musings: her trepidations & excitements for her impending journey, the intensity with which she loves Andrew, my gratitude for her having had a hand in bringing a light into my life I never knew could shine so brightly: Patrick. We reveled in our collective memories, the funny, the stupid, the fact that I exaggerate nearly everything I say, the fact that she puts up with my exaggerating and can muddle throught it to the real story, all these things that have become so natural, they are the most beautiful part of how we’ve defined our friendship: We Just Are. We have accepted the other unconditionally, there isn’t anything but the constant celebration, and acceptance of what the other Is. We sat and ate our food and could shroud ourselves in the comfort of the familiar & constant: that we know each other, and in the end, that is all we need, and that is all that will ever matter.

That meal, on that day, is a meal I will always remember. Those moments, the ones in which we gather with those we cherish; when we are in the proximity of those that matter most to our hearts, are often the meals that make our stomachs the most satisfied.

In true Amanda fashion, I’m sure she will relish in every single moment in Uganda, and come back with beautiful photos, and beautiful souvenirs, and beautiful memories. Uganda will have been a gorgeous piece of fruit in her hands: ripe, and slick, begging to have had every last drop sucked out of it, and she will return, the seed at the center of that fruit, the experience itself, rooted firmly at the heart of her; what used to be now flowing through her veins, forever a part of her. I cannot wait to see her when she gets back; to look into the eyes of my friend, and see a whole new world in them.

There’s something amazing about how the taste of food is affected by The Presence of Friends. So, go eat with someone you care about, I guarantee the experience will be remarkable.

Buon Appetito!

P.S. If you’d like to read more about Amanda’s experience in Uganda, please visit her blog: http://www.graceingulu.com/

Lust Between the Buns

[Vegetarians be warned: this post contains both hunting and unapologetic carnivorous tendencies]

Awwww yeah, that right there is The Money Shot, folks.

Food porn. Pictures of smokin’ hot, tantalizing, sinful, you-know-you-shouldn’t-but-want-it-anyway, lick-your-lips, you-need-to-go-to-confession-now, irresistible food. Just look at the cheese and the sauce oozing down onto the plate, titillating every repressed part of your primal self. It’s ok. Give in. Take a bite out of what’s between those buns.

“I think I’m going to need a cigarette after that, it was that good”, I said to Pat as I fell away from my empty plate, licking barbeque sauce off my fingers. He utters a muffled noise of affirmation, too busy going to town on the burger in his hands to really care. I’m not kidding, this was unreal. I haven’t found myself so consumed with a burger in a really long time. After the first bite, I couldn’t tear myself away, I didn’t want to put it down, I didn’t want it to end but I just, couldn’t, stop.

What’s so special about this burger? Well, first off, I assure you, this ain’t yo’ mama’s burger, child. Put aside all conceptions you have about what a good burger tastes like, right now. Leave them at the door, and enter the wild, wild world of: Elk.

That’s right. Elk. You know, that giant deer thing with antlers. Lives in the mountains out west. Yeah, that elk. Well, that giant antlered thing tastes pretty damn good. And what’s really cool about the elk meat that I was eating was that I knew exactly where it came from. My elk was born and lived in the Big Horn Mountains until it was killed by a member of my family. This elk roamed totally free in the wild of Wyoming, likely lived its entire life without any human contact, feasted on sweeping grasses, seasonal wildflowers and berries, and drank pristine water from mountain tributaries. There’s something sickeningly beautiful about eating an animal so pure; the sadism of consuming another animal’s meat, but being able to taste its life in every bite. I finally understand what people mean when they say that really good meat tastes like the things the animal ate. It doesn’t literally taste like grass and flowers and mountain water, but the meat contains the essence of those things. The very foundation of wild meat’s flavor is its earthiness. And to tell you the truth, this elk tastes more like Meat—is meaty-er in flavor—than any beef I’ve ever had.

As a result of our family’s recent receipt of aforementioned elk, my mom has had a giant freezer full of elk meat to dispense of, and so I offered to take some off her hands and at her assurance to its delicious flavor, to try and make something with it. Burgers on the grill seemed the shortest distance between elk and my comfort level, and in discussing the possibilities with Pat, it was decided that cheddar, grilled onions and a barbeque sauce would do nicely to compliment the meat. It seemed too easy, this combination of flavors, but as it turned out, it was perfect. I decided to go out on a limb and make my own barbeque sauce, my first attempt at what is almost a Holy art. What developed was a Tangy Whiskey BBQ Sauce, the recipe is below:

Tangy Whiskey BBQ Sauce
1 small onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
2/3 c. Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey
2 cups Ketchup
¼ c. apple cider vinegar
1/3 c. balsamic vinegar
3 TBL Worcestershire sauce
3 TBL tomato paste
1/3 c. brown sugar
1 TBL yellow mustard
½-1 tsp cayenne (depending on how spicy you like it)
½ tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper

Heat canola oil over medium heat; sauté onions and garlic for 3-4 minutes. Deglaze pan with whiskey, simmer for 5-7 minutes or until all alcohol has evaporated. Add all remaining ingredients, stir and simmer for 20 minutes. Puree in blender or food processor until smooth. Recommend making a day ahead so flavors can marry. Day of use: simmer on low heat for 1 hour prior to serving, stirring occasionally.

I grilled the burgers for 4 minutes on each side over medium-high heat, and then moved them up to the higher grill rack to melt the cheese, that took about 2 min. Make sure you use sharp cheddar, that bite is an indispensable flavor, and don’t even think about going reduced fat. Thick-sliced, grilled red onions were stacked on top of the burgers, and then they were smothered with the barbeque sauce. Top with lettuce and tomato, if you like. I opted out of any additional vegetation and it was still absolutely delicious.

Now, once assembled, simply squish down the top part of the bun (an essential practice when eating burgers) grasp tightly in your hands, buckle up, and go for it, you lusting-drooling-carnivore, you. You’ll never go back. I certainly am not. Call the parish priest, we have a convert! Psh, who needs beef when you could have earthy, luscious, caveman-red, the-way-meat-is-supposed-to-taste, Elk.

Buon-Appetito!

I really hope at least one person will try something new as a result of this post. Trying new foods in familiar ways makes getting over any trepidation you have much easier. I recognize the good fortune I had in having elk meat with so few degrees between me & its natural origins. Not everyone’s a hunter, and so here are a few reputable retailers of ranch-raised, free-range, elk meat.

Jackson Hole Buffalo Meat Co.—Jackson Hole, WY
http://www.jhbuffalomeat.com/

Cowboy Free Range Meat—Idaho
http://www.cowboyfreerangemeat.com/

Colorado Elk & Game Meats—Colorado
http://colorado-elk.com/index.html

Mmmmmmmmmmm, Cheese

If anyone ever told me I couldn’t eat cheese anymore, I would be rendered utterly heartbroken. In the interest of dramatic hyperbole, I’d probably perish altogether; I’d rather be dead than not be able to eat cheese.

Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about myself, and one thing I’ve discovered is that I’m really good at eating. And I really love the food I get to eat. How unfulfilling this passion of mine would suddenly become if I was unable to enjoy a warm, melting glob of cheese, a freshly broken wheel of parmesan, the little salty crumbs falling away from the crevasse made by the knife. Oh, and what about macaroni and cheese?! The spawn of two of my favorite foods, the convergence of a bouncy, starchy noodle and an ooey-gooey cheese…I would be lost without this, the Queen of All Casseroles, the Master of the Cheesy Universe!

Sure, I like a smear of fresh goat cheese as much as the next guy. And a supple baked brie gets me a little hot and bothered. But a bubbling, lightly browned, steaming hot volcano of a casserole dish; cheese oozing like a glorious magma through the fissures of the pasta…*ahem* Pardon me, I’m going to need a minute.

Yeah. It’s pretty much one of the greatest dishes, ever. Mac n’ cheese first entered the food scene back in the 14th century in England. Variations of this casserole exist formally in almost all Western cultural cuisine. So, in my astute opinion, if something’s been around for over 700 years, and there’s more than one country with a history of it, I’m guessing it’s pretty damn good.

My mother, (Hi Mom! I believe this counts as guest appearance #2???) Adrienne—I feel I’m going to talk about her enough in this blog, y’all ought to know what her name is—makes a bangin’ macaroni and cheese! Every year for Christmas Eve, following 7pm mass with my grandmother and Aunt Maggie’s family, we all return to my childhood home, to a glorious baked ham & massive dish of my mom’s famous baked macaroni and cheese. My Aunt Maggie allegedly waits all year for this meal, so she can spoon a heaping pile of ooey-gooeyness onto her plate. For years, I didn’t dare attempt to recreate my mother’s cheesy masterpiece. I felt that some Mom-Made-Things are better left unattempted, and this was one of them. However, in a random act of bravado one day, I decided, as I stared into my fridge and found little more than a few blocks of cheese, desperately wondering what I could possibly make for dinner, that I, the daughter of the Macaroni n’ Cheese Master, could surely produce something comparable, albeit, delicious. It was a sure thing, my success, right? Genetic pre-disposition for mac n’ cheese making is a real thing, right? So, I went for it. And this is the recipe that was born of my effort. I’m throwing the gauntlet: my mac n’ cheese is better than my mom’s. (Sorry mom, no hard feelings)

[Warning: This is not a “light” recipe. So, bring your full-fat, butter-loving, artery-clogging gusto with you when you make this. And to be honest, anyone who’s trying to make a “light” version of mac n’ cheese should be drawn and quartered; they’re ruining the gloriously squishy, melty, oozing essence at the very heart of what makes mac n’ cheese so amazing. The Wikipedia for “Macaroni & Cheese” has an entire section titled “Health Concerns”. That section’s there for a reason. Some things are just not intended to be “light”. This is definitely one of those things.]

Baked Macaroni & Cheese
1 lb. Pipette or other similarly shaped pasta
4TBL butter
4TBL flour
2 cups of milk
8oz. grated Monterey Jack cheese
8oz. grated Mozzarella cheese
2.5oz grated Parmesan cheese
¼ medium onion, grated
Fresh cracked, black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 F. Boil pasta according to package instructions, minus 2 minutes off the cooking time. In a large dutch oven, melt the butter. Once melted, whisk in the flour, stirring vigorously until all the lumps are gone. Stir the butter and flour mixture for about 45 seconds to cook the flour slightly. Slowly whisk in the milk, and let cook for about 1 min. or until the sauce thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon. Quickly add the grated onion, black pepper, Monterey Jack, and Mozzarella. Stir to melt. Add cooked, drained pasta. Stir the pasta and cheese sauce together; sauce will be stringy and very thick, and will tighten up quickly. Transfer mixture to a greased 9x13 glass baking dish, top with grated Parmesan. Bake for 23-26 min or until casserole is bubbling and top is golden brown. Let stand for 5 min. before serving.

Notes: Originally I used these two cheeses because they happened to be what I had on hand. Now, I prefer this combination; the Monterey Jack is sharp but creamy, and the Mozzarella, well, we all know how beautifully Mozz melts! My recipe does not produce an overly saucy product. It is certainly cheesy (there’s over a pound of cheese in this dish), but the pasta and the roux do a really great job of bringing everything together quite cohesively. The parmesan replaces breadcrumbs and helps the top get nice and crunchy, sealing in all the amazing-ness underneath. Plus, it produces Brown Crunchy Cheese at the corners of the dish, and who doesn’t love that?!

Enjoy digging into this; may this free you from the confines of the Crap in the Blue Box. By creating this from scratch, you will enjoy the smells, the taste, the utter perfection of the marriage of pasta to one of the best foods in the world: Cheese.

Buon Appetito!

Fried Fish Fantastic-ness

Let’s cut right to the chase. There’s almost nothing sexier than a perfectly crispy, hot, steaming fried-thing.

Even if you’re one of those wheat-grass eating hippies (don’t worry, we all know there’s no way that tastes good, but you can go right ahead and continue being band-wagon-trendy and consuming that disgusting crap), or if tempeh is a part of your regular diet…if that shit was fried, you’d be drooling just like the rest of us.

Think about it for a second: imagine a steaming hot plate of French fries, skin-on, hand-cut, crispy, so fresh you-can-still-see-the-salt-grains-glistening, melting slowly on the ridges of each fry, the entire plate a collective beacon, begging to be eaten, dipped into cold, smooth, tangy, ketchup or sprayed with a heady malt vinegar. Tell me your mouth’s not watering…

For me, the piéce de résistance, the Miss Universe of the fried things, if you will, is a simple, well-done, piece of fried white fish.

I grew up roughly 50 miles north of the Chesapeake Bay. Seafood and fish, FRESHEST of the FRESH seafood and fish, was available at the drop of a hat. I got spoiled. And now I’m a snob about anything that comes out of the water. Any inkling of a place in Philly that serves good seafood (which by the way, there is no such thing as a good crab cake anywhere in the Philadelphia metro), and I’m on it. So, when I was casually flipping channels one night, attempting to read/journal/text/watch TV all at once (as we Gen Yers do, we’re such technological-multi-taskers!), and I peripherally heard someone on the screen say “the best thing I ever ate was the Fish n’ Chips at The Dandelion in Philadelphia”, my ears perked up, my head whipped towards the screen, and my salivary glands were at full attention. And I listened. And I was intrigued.

And so, I went.

The Dandelion (with an adorable cartooned “dandy-lion”, get it?? How clever.) is the latest of the famed restaurateur Stephen Starr’s ventures. It’s a British gastro-pub, and it’s been open a whopping 6 months, with barely-old-enough-to-drink-alcohol-in-the-US executive chef Robert Aikins at the helm. The fact that Aikins is an ex-pat Brit increases the potential authenticity of aforementioned fish n’ chips exponentially.

Patrick (my boyfriend, who is kind enough to be dragged along with me on many a culinary adventure though, he enjoys food as much as I do, so I highly doubt that this is in any way torturous for him) and I were seated at a little table with mismatched furniture; chairs and a table you would find in your grandmother’s basement. This was quite reflective of the rest of the décor: dark wood walls and ceilings, incandescent lighting, tchotchkes and framed old-time photos of champion breed dogs on the walls. Quite charming, really.

Obviously, I knew what my entrée was going to be, as I had only one reason for even setting foot in the place, but we settled on a British Cheese board, and some beer to start us off. Our delightful waitress, oh let’s call her Charlotte—I didn’t catch her name and that sounds British, doesn’t it??—with her delightful accent arrived beers in hand. A cask flight for Patrick, and a Bombadier for me. Oh, and I can’t forget the bread! The bread was fantastic. Crusty and served with fresh made butter and a little cellar of flaked sea salt, absolutely…well, charming!

(see, how stinkin' cute is that salt cellar??)

Then, this glorious wooden board of cheese arrived in front of me: an aged Cheddar, some kind of aged soft cheese that I now can’t remember the name of but had a pleasantly subtle beefy quality to its flavor, and a blue cheese so authentic it wasn’t white & blue it was golden & blue. Fresh honeycomb, a grape chutney, and quince paste were served as accompaniments.

(Mmmm, artisan cheeses, mmmmm)

And then, suddenly, there it was, in front of me. My order; the one I had come here in search of. I almost couldn’t believe it. Was it real? Could fried fish really be this gorgeous?? There are frescoes painted by Michelangelo that I haven’t stared at with this much awe and wonder and, well, flat out desire. That’s right. I said it. I wanted that piece of fish. I wanted to grab it with my hands, and take huge, messy, ridiculous bites with it, blistering my lips from the still hot crust. But, I am a lady, and I think I would have embarrassed Patrick, so I calmly took my silver fork in my hand, and with a deep breath and a flick of the wrist, crunched down to break off my first bite. Oh, and *cccrrrrunnnnnnccccchhhhh* it did. (This crust was at least a ¼ inch thick, the entire filet as long as my hand) And then…the first bite.

(It took all I had to stop eating long enough to snap this pic, so appreciate the beauty, please)

I couldn’t have cared less what had come Before the Bite. There was Before, and there was After. And in After, there was nothing but me, and the fish. A soft, silky, luxurious, light & flaky filet of Chatam cod, coated almost paradoxically in a thick, fried, armor of breading that crunched so loudly it made your brain rattle. Time stopped. I was in a vacuum, the world around me moving in streaky slow-motion. Lost forever, I chewed, albeit, not much, that fish literally melted in my mouth. With the swallow of that first bite, life came rushing back to me. I plowed through this fish and its accompanying crispy chips like a guy with a John Deere. Fish was never going to be the same. I was never going to be the same. Damn it, I thought to myself, as I reluctantly maneuvered my fork for my last bite, this is the BEST fish n’ chips I have ever had in my entire life.

..My entire life, thus far. Like I said before: Onto the Next One. ;)

Buon Appetito!