Beach City Cooking

Windy City Cooking: Week 31

2010-04-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Note: this column was originally scheduled to be posted last week. Enjoy! -Max)

Opening Day
by Jason Hissong
5 April 2010

I have been to so many Major League Baseball games in my 28 years that I can't remember them all. When we moved to St. Louis in the late 80s, I remember Dad would turn on the tv to watch the Cardinals, but listen to the radio so we could hear Jack Buck. There was the game I attended my sophomore year of High School in which Mark McGwire tied Roger Marris' home run record at 61. There was that scorcher of an afternoon the day after my sister's wedding. The sun was so hot in the middle of July, in St. Louis, that I remember not enjoying the game much. There was that first, cold cold April day a few years ago that was my first ever trip to Wrigley with three of my best friends. There are the games in Houston's Astrodome, and Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium that I don't remember because I was so young. There was Mark Buerhle's first no hitter- another cold April evening in Chicago, on the south side. That season I think I went to 15 games between Wrigley Field and The Cell and Buehrle's no hitter was the only ticket I actually paid.

Opening Day is, once again, upon us. There is no grass as green as baseball grass. No sky as blue as the blue sky on sunny afternoons from inside the ballpark. There is no better time well spent than the time spent inside baseball stadiums, watching games, conversing with friends and strangers alike about this player's stats, or that player's history, or remember that time, or this is the year.

And with baseball, and trips to baseball stadiums comes food. The two are intrinsically linked. There are Dodger Dogs in Los Angeles. Up the coastline in San Francisco there is sushi and sake. There are hot dogs, and cotton candy, and pretzels and nachos. And peanuts. I don't remember a lot of those early games I went to with my parents before my high school days, but I always remember that, as we left the stadium I would walk the entire ailse of seats over crushed peanut shells. There's a joy in that crunch. Dad and I would get a huge bag of peanuts for cheap outside of Bush Stadium and bring them in. And, sure enough, somehow, by the end of nine innings the peanuts would be gone, with their discarded shells waiting to be crushed once again by exiting feet. Wrigley Field is the only place in the world, I'm convinced, that turns Old Style from a completely useless beer to the only choice possible. That's the magic of baseball. There are Chicago style hot dogs and regular hot dogs, I'll take two please. With mustard and relish, only. There are hamburgers from the grills. And Polish sausages. And cotton candy for the kids.

And, if not at the stadium then shortly after, at Goose Island, or Uncommon Ground, or some other place. The electric excitement of the game still in the air.

Baseball is here, my friends. And there is little that is better.

What Others Cooked for Me, What I Cooked, Where I Ate

I've cooked nothing this week, save for the two poached eggs to go with my two pieces of toast this a.m.

I've eaten everywhere this week. Tuesday night I found myself back with a familiar cast of characters at Tony's Burrito House at Damen and Belmont. I had the chicken burrito. Wednesday brought more Mexican from Garcia's. My friend Mike and I each got the taco dinner, he had steak for both of his and I had one chicken, one steak, and one chorizo. Thursday Jonathan and I went to Elephant and Castle post-haste after work to dine on huge burgers and two pints of Guinness, each. We love going there because it reminds us of our semester in Cambridge, England where we spent many many so many evenings in pubs, eating fish and chips, drinking Guinness. Friday Jonathan and I found ourselves at the T Spot on lincoln avenue, eating sushi after our four mile run. Saturday, Jonathan, his parents Sue and Steve, and I found ourselves enjoying a cocktail at The Violet Hour before heading to dinner at Feast. Sue had a hamburger, Steve had the salmon, Jonathan had the lamb chops, and I had the goat cheese stuffed chicken breast. It was incredible. I thank the Iseman's for their generosity.

Many more people to thank for Easter Sunday: thank you to Ashley for driving me to get coffee after the sunrise service. Thank you to our peers who prepared breakfast between services, it was all amazing. French toast. Quiche. Waffles. Fruit salads. Thank you to my friends Katie and Christen for hosting and preparing brunch- eggs benedict, roasted asparagus, strada, skewers of cheese, prosciutto, and cantaloupe. It was all very delicious. AND THEN, another huge thank you to Steve and Sue Iseman for preparing ham, cheesy broccoli, potatoes, and rolls for Easter Dinner. This is exactly why my life is so blessed.

Windy City Cooking: Week 31

2010-03-22T15:19:00.000-07:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

On Pizza
by Jason Hissong
22 March 2010

The photo you see is my attempt at making a pizza from scratch. I created this two years ago, maybe, when my friend Aaron came over one night. This pizza had chorizo as its protein, and I loaded it with cheese and an imperfectly shaped crust. I remember it being delicious in that 'this is really bad for me but I love it' delicious kind of way. It's becoming more and more evident to me that somewhere hidden in my genetic code is a deep, eternal battle with pizza. I hate pizza. I love pizza. What is pizza? What makes pizza, pizza?

Pizza is my father's favorite food. I think my parents have it at least once every week. And he's not picky. "Let's get a pizza," is one of his favorite sentences to speak. My parents didn't really enjoy Chicago until I took them for pizza at Piece in Wicker Park. My sister and her husband are both lifers, probably, working for a big chain pizza store. She's been working there since she was in high school. I live in one of the two cities that the pizza debate always gets down to- Chicago Style or New York Style. And I spent my formative years in a city that always throws its hat into these debates, but always knows it's small potatoes, comparatively. Still, that doesn't stop St. Louis from claiming its own style of pizza, and rightfully so.

I find myself writing about pizza after having three consecutive weekends in which I enjoyed very different styles. I'm going to write about this in the backwards order of how it happened, because it's freshest in my mind that way.

On Friday, my friend Andy and I went to Wicker Park so that I could sell some books to Myopic. Our plan was to then have dinner at the aforementioned Piece. Piece is a local pizza and micro-brew, and they do a great job at both. It's also extremely popular, and even more so on the first Friday of the men's NCAA college basketball tournament. After checking on the wait- an hour and a half- Andy and I made an audible and walked down the street to Santullo's.

Santullo's is the complete antithesis of Piece. It's not flashy or glamorous. It's quite small. It's dark and a bit dingy. It's an old school cafeteria tray and paper plate place. It serves New York Style pizza- thin, flat, greasy and huge- and other salads and sandwiches, but what's the point? It's good if you know what you're getting, probably jarring if you don't. Andy and I ordered an identical menu- one slice of pepperoni, one slice of sausage, small house salad.

The Friday before I found myself with another group of friends at Pequod's. I had never been to Pequod's before but I must say it was exceptional. It doesn't do the traditional Chicago style, mostly dough pizza. It's a thick, pan style pizza that's covered in cheesy goodness. And some of the cheese falls between the crust and the pan and gets melted and just a wee bit burnt and tastes oh so delicious. There were eight of us and we split a pepperoni, and a half basil, half anchovy.

The weekend before that I enjoyed a pizza by myself. I ordered it from Fornello's, a place I run, and ride on the bus, past often as it's between my home and a train station I frequently use. Fornello's makes a good pizza because they use great ingredients. I ordered a pepperoni, sausage, and jalapeno for myself, and greatly enjoyed it.

So, it seems I can't get away from pizza. It's a great food item. Partly because of its communal nature. Rarely is the time I order a pizza by myself, the above paragraph notwithstanding. Pizza is great because there are so many different styles, and forms, and it's so mutable. Chicago style or New York style? What about St. Louis style with it's cracker crust and Provel cheese? I think pizza is, in a way, a comfort food. It's very much an exhalation of the week's business on those Friday nights when one wants to lay low and enjoy a couple of movies. I've enjoyed a lot of pizzas in my day. I've had pizza almost everywhere I've been. The pizza in St. Louis is very different from the pizza in Florence, Italy, and that's part of what makes it great. Pizza is here to stay in the food culture, in whatever form, and I think it's a worthwhile inclusion. I should make more pizza myself, and this summer is sure to provide ample opportunity to do just that.

Note: I'd like to make the mailbag column an every six week feature or so. So if you have questions please leave a comment or email me. jason dot hissong at gmail dot com. Thanks!

What Others Cooked For Me, What I Cooked, Where I Ate

No one cooked for me again this week. Sadness abounds.

What I cooked: not much. I cooked some leftover rice and sausage for dinner on Sunday. I need to learn to cut how much rice I make because rice is NEVER good re-heated. Most things aren't, but rice seems to be one item that has a 100% strikeout rate when it comes to re-heating.

I had a lot of dinners on the go this week, and most not memorable. There were a couple of nights that I ate hummus, pita, and sliced green and red peppers for dinner. There were other nights I didn't eat dinner.

The two most memorable dining experiences this week came Friday night and Sunday afternoon. Friday night, of course, Andy and I enjoyed Santullo's. Saturday night I couldn't help myself. Fast Super Burrito's siren call called me and I bit, hard. One chorizo burrito suiza, please! Sunday I found myself at Jack's on Halsted, brunching with 19 others. Two dollar mimosas! I only had one, and ordered the quesadilla which was greasy and nondescript and the crab cake eggs benedict or the burger would have served me better.

Windy City Cooking: Week 30

2010-03-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

Yes, I Cook
by Jason Hissong
15 March 2010

On Thursday night I cooked for the first time since Sunday night. This is a common occurrence. Thursdays are usually my first day during the week that I have no post-work obligations. This is all by choice, of course, but those choices make me better in other areas of my life. So Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday are usually leftovers or a stop at Potbelly's, or a Clif Bar, or cereal. Something that's not cooking.

Thursday, though, is different. At times during the day I sit and think about what I want to make that night. Thinking about it now makes me excited for the upcoming spring and summer, and with the return of the warmth and sunshine comes the return of the farmer's market that sets up shop right across the street from my office. I digress.

When I arrived home Thursday I only knew my protein: the salmon fillets I had put in the fridge to de-thaw the night before. Checking my cabinets it occurred to me that my mixture of different kinds of basmati rice would work well with anything, really, but especially under the salmon because of the textures.

But those two items, alone, seemed sort of bland. What to do to spice it up? I had some leftover roasted red pepper and tomato soup on hand. I love this stuff. I get it at Trader Joe's and the flavor is rich and deep and it goes great with a grilled cheese sandwich. Thursday night though I wanted to transform the soup from pure soup to sauce. I did this by pureeing diced yellow pepper, for its sweetness, onion, and garlic, with the soup in my food processor. The result was a sweeter version of the soup, that, when added to the salmon as the final element, provided a nice complimentary taste to the salmon and rice.

I did not come to this meal from a recipe. I rarely cook from recipes, unless I'm baking. Baking is a formula, cooking is a recipe. That's a topic for another time. My point is this: it's not that I'm a great, on-the-fly cook. It's that I'm willing to try things. Thursday night, it worked. The next time I make salmon, I'll probably try a different preparation. It's the experiment of cooking that appeals to me. What happens when I do this? What does this combination taste like? What's its texture? That's why I love cooking. Part of the reason, anyway.

So, yes, I cook. Not as much as I probably should, but probably more than your typical 28 year-old single male. The salmon and rice dish was delicious. While I enjoyed the modified sauce, too much would have killed the dish.

What Others Cooked For Me, What I Cooked, Where I Ate

I huge thank you to my friend Katie. She's a newer friend in my circle, and over the weekend we got to spend some time together. In exchange for me helping move a couple of pieces of furniture for her, she sent me home with her home-made scones, and biscotti. All I can say is: I can't wait to have more. They were both delicious.

What else did I cook this week? On Saturday afternoon I finished the aforementioned soup and ate it with some toasted pita. On Sunday I made pancakes and Applewood-smoked bacon for Jason and myself. On Sunday evening I made risotto with Italian sausage and garbanzo beans. I have enough that I'll be eating the same dish for dinner for at least two of the next three nights.

I had two significant culinary outings this week. The first was Friday night. I met up with a group of friends- Rich, Tina, Tara, Ashley, Todd, Brian, and Erin- at Pequod's Pizza. When I told my co-worker Andres that I was going there for the first time his face lit up. This isn't the borderline casserole that is Chicago Style Pizza. But it's not the same thing as New York Style, either. This is a pan pizza, so it's thick and substantial, and delicious, with some cheese falling between the crust and the pan and getting crisp and almost burnt. We also had beer. Six of the eight of us then went to Goose Island for one last pint before heading home. Goose Island makes great beer.

Then on Saturday night a group of us went and celebrated my friend Jonathan's birthday. Jason, Jonathan, Nate, Luke and I started with dinner at the Logan Bar and Grill. I had the bacon and blue cheese burger, after splitting BBQ wings as an appetizer. I think all five of us had a burger. I like Logan's burgers. They're hearty and delicious and they do bar food right. We then went to a newer Logan Square location called Revolution Brewing. They, too, make good beer. Especially the Black Power Oatmeal Stout. Smoky, silky, and smooth.

Ray's Braise: College Towns - Princeton

2010-03-12T14:42:00.000-08:00

[Every other week, Ray takes us on a culinary tour of the tri-state area and treats us to some of his favorite recipes. Enjoy! -Max]

Illustration by Donal DeLay

Every University has its own culture, and the towns surrounding them tend to match. Where Rutgers is casual, Princeton is blue-blood. Where New Brunswick is urban, the city of Princeton is touristy. I never attended Princeton, but I've had the pleasure of visiting the city many times and sampling its culinary offerings. While you won't find the same cultural diversity or great cheap eats you'll find in New Brunswick, what you will find is a surprising amount of fine dining and some classic restaurants that can transport you to a bygone era of dining - as well as possibly the finest ice cream parlor in New Jersey.

One of the most important rules when eating out in a college town is this: just because hundreds of students crowd it every day doesn't mean it's your best bet for good food. This rule is in effect in full force at Princeton's hottest lunch ticket, PJ's Pancake House. Every time I came to Princeton, I would see lines of hungry students gathering outside this 35-year-old institution. Intrigued, I arrived early the next time to try the place before the crowds arrived, and was somewhat unimpressed. They have a wide variety of pancakes, including some like Peanut Butter and Chocolate or Old West Buckwheat that are pretty unique, but the batter is fairly standard. Not much different from what you'd get at an IHOP or make at home. But it's decent comfort food, and it definitely has its fans - hundreds of them daily.

Surprisingly, my pick for the best food in Princeton comes not from a restaurant, but from a small storefront fish market, Nassau Street Seafood Company. Sandwiched between two of Princeton's most popular restaurants (Asian fusion restaurant Tiger Noodles and seafood bistro Blue Point Grill), this take-out shop serves a simple menu of fresh seafood dishes, all for under $10. Tuna burgers, grilled fish, pickled salmon salad, fried catfish, crab cakes, and shrimp po'boys are all available daily, along with seasonal specialties. While hardly a nice sit-down meal (although Nassau street is such a nice area, with benches aplenty, that it shouldn't be a problem except in inclement weather), the quality of the seafood may be the best in town. The fried catfish has become my go-to lunch when I visit.

A lot of the restaurants in Princeton are institutions, serving dependably good food for decades. This is unusual, as nowadays restaurants come and go with the trends. Some, like the Yankee Doodle Tap Room, French bistro Lahiere's, and old-school Cantonese spot Karen's Restaurant, are pretty expensive, but one place that's a favorite with all budgets is The Alchemist and Barrister, an old-fashioned pub serving classic American and British favorites like burgers, shepherd's pie, and my personal favorite, a flavorful lamb stew served with Irish soda bread (which is great for dipping in the gravy when you're done). With all lunch entrees under $15 and served in very nice portions, this is probably the best bet in town if you're looking for a hearty meal.

In recent years, a lot of New Jersey's hottest restaurants have made their name in Princeton, with Mediterranean bistro Mediterra, New American joint Elements, and Italian trattoria Sotto Caffe all getting great critical notices. But one place that seems to have gotten overlooked is Princeton Restaurant Underground. And that's a shame, because you won't find another restaurant like this in New Jersey. Located (surprise!) underground on a side street, this hipster hangout is decorated with modern art and unique architecture. Not exactly the place you'd expect to find the best Bulgarian food around. Founded by a famous Bulgarian soccer player, the menu here is about half standard Italian-American offerings, half unique Bulgarian dishes that you can't find anywhere else. The Chicken Paprika soup is the perfect way to start the meal, an intensely flavored broth studded with chicken and little dumplings. For the main course, look no further than the options served on hot rocks, a unique cooking style in which the item you choose (chicken, sausage, beef, salmon, seafood, or a combination) is cooked at the table on smoothed hot rocks, creating an interesting flavor of grilling without charring the meat. This is by far the most unusual dining experience I've had in Princeton, and I never pass one of those up.

This is just scratching the surface of the food available in Princeton. There are countless pizzerias, sub shops, and sushi joints, if that's your preference. One of my favorites is a hole-in-the-wall barbecue joint called Joe's Roasters and Ribs. Good barbecue is hard to find in NJ, and this is one of those hidden gems. But one thing's for sure - after any of these meals, you'll be ready to wash it down with some dessert. There are a couple of ice cream parlors and coffee shops along the main drag, but don't be distracted by them. For dessert in Princeton, there's only one choice worth taking - The Bent Spoon. Located in the old-fashioned Palmer Square shopping center, this little place specializes in all-natural house-made ice creams and sorbets, the flavors changing regularly. You can go to the Bent Spoon every month of the year and find a completely different array of flavors each time, tailored to the season, the holidays, or whatever sparks the owners' creativity. Having just come back from sampling their February flavors, themed to Valentine's day, I was extremely impressed with their Passionfruit Sorbet. On past trips, I tried Tehrune apple sorbet, made from fruit from a nearby orchard, and a mango sorbet that tasted as though it was made from ripe mangoes. That's the most impressive part of the offerings at The Bent Spoon - every one of them clearly evokes their ingredients, unlike most of the processed offerings at other places. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but The Bent Spoon may serve the best frozen desserts in New Jersey.

This concludes my look at New Jersey's college towns. The two towns couldn't be more different, but they both contain some of my favorite places to eat in New Jersey. My time in college may be coming to an end shortly, but I have no doubt that these two towns will be calling me back for some time. After all, I've barely scratched the surface of all they have to offer. I'll be back next time, with a look at some of New Jersey's hidden gems.

Windy City Cooking: Week 29

2010-03-09T09:24:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

Questions and Answers
by Jason Hissong
08 March 2010

My favorite sports writer, Bill Simmons, writes a reader mailbag column every five or six weeks or so. Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, this week I'm doing the exact same thing. I've solicited questions for a few weeks, and now, finally, the question askers receive their answers. So, without further ado, off we go.

If you have to pick one chef you would consider your biggest cooking inspiration/influence who would it be, and why? -Jonathan

I've thought about the answer to this all day. And what's strange about my answer is that, while I consider this individual to be my single biggest cooking inspiration/influence, I've never tasted even a bite of food he prepared. My single biggest cooking inspiration and influence is Tom Colicchio. Colicchio is the head judge on Top Chef, and owns or opened many famous restaurants- Gramercy Tavern, Craft, etc.

But the reasons I picked Colicchio is because of his book Think Like a Chef. It's the first cookbook I read that changed the way I view cookbooks, and recipes. Colicchio's thesis is two-fold, really. First, food is important because it unites us. His entire introduction is about how he came to be a chef and much of it has to do with family coming together for meals. Or, if not family, groups of friends. The second part, and the main part, of his thesis goes something like this: I could write a book of 300 recipes and that would be fine. You'd read them and learn how to cook those 300 recipes. But, instead, if I teach you the basic techniques and language of a chef, now you're free to cook anything you want.

And that's when it made sense to me. That cooking was an experiment. That recipes are guides. That if I know the fundamentals anything is possible.

Which have been some of your most memorable dining experiences outside of the Chicago area? -Ignacio

Great question. My first reaction is to say the numerous dinners I had at the County Arms in Cambridge, England. That was a special time and place in my life, and because of it my life has been blessed in many many ways. Mainly by the people I met there and the people I met because of them. I have a very capital R Romantic view of those evenings. It was the fall of 2002 and I was turning 21 a mere two weeks after our scheduled return home. But man, those evenings. . . The County Arms was this little place just down the street from our house. And we'd have to walk slightly downhill and on clear nights we could see Cambridge all lit up and gorgeous. And we'd get there and we knew the owner, Trevor, and his staff by name, and they knew ours, and we'd throw darts and eat fish and chips and drink pint after pint after pint of Guinness. I love these memories, and it's the first thing I thought of after hearing Ignacio's question. I'm not sure it's memorable because of the food, though.

If I had to pick a memorable dining experience because of the food it would have to be the meal I had at Jack Binion's Steakhouse at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I bet you weren't expecting that, were you? That meal was memorable because of the food. My NY Strip cooked just right- pink but not still bleeding. Fried mushroom caps that were not too heavy and greasy. Grilled asparagus still crunchy and vibrant green. Mashed potatoes creamy and just a tad lumpy. That meal was a gift from me to my parents for allowing me to stay with them for the year previous. I had just come off a disastrous year of living in St. Louis by myself and they graciously allowed me to come live with them to right the ship, so to speak. It was a great meal, and I am thankful to have had it, and to have shared it with them.

My concerns: making it fast, making it healthful, AND making it taste good. Ideas? -Jessica

I'm going to tackle this one backwards. Making it taste good starts with ingredients. In my experience there is a direct correlation between quality of product and how it tastes. Yes, the execution of the dish does contribute to taste, but generally the better quality of the ingredients, the better quality of taste.

Making it healthful: that's more difficult. I'm about to read Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food. I may have a different answer post-read, but, I like his book's tagline: Eat Food. Not Much. Mostly Plants.

So, to me, that means moderating the bad, processed, nutrient-lacking food and eating more food that grows from the Earth itself. The sun gives everything on this planet energy, and, to me, the more direct the path from the sun to me the more healthy it is. It's better to eat the things that consume the sun's energy than it is to eat the things that eat the things that consume the sun's energy.

Making it quick: That's more difficult. Certain things take time. They just do. There's no way around it. Because if you're cooking, say, a ham, it has to reach 160° internal temperature. That's when it's done and not a moment before. This takes time.

In a more specific way, I think one can circumnavigate a busy life schedule by planning. I know a family that plans their meals for an entire month. They're extremely busy people and it works for them and has for years. So, take some time to plan your meals. Then, when you are planning, plan meals that use similar ingredients. Or meals wherein the leftovers from one meal can become something else with very little manipulation for the next meal.

Hope that helps.

What is the best advice for a beginner that's living on a budget? More specifically, I want to try new recipes, but some require me to buy lots of different spices. The cost adds up and blows my grocery budget. Do I just need to suck it up and consider it an investment or is there a better strategy? -Katie

I often hear the spices question as the biggest obstacle to people starting to cook. And rightfully so. If anyone has ever gone to the grocer and seen the rows of spices, it's overwhelming. My suggestion is as follows: find two or three spices you really like and stick to them. Also, know that you don't have to get them all at once. Spread it out. Maybe start out with two or three but every month add one or two. A little spice goes a long way, and while fresh spices and herbs are always preferable they are not always practical. No need to blow the budget, but do experiment. That's part of the fun of cooking.

Speaking of spices. . . our very own editor and Beach City Cooking founder, Max, posted the following:

What's your favorite spice and why?

I love this question. And the answer is simple: pepper. Pepper is the king of all spices. I never use pre-ground pepper, I always grind it myself. It's my favorite because it's ubiquitous. It's my favorite because a little goes a long way. It's my favorite because of the smell, and the sound it makes as it grinds. It's my favorite because it accentuates flavors and can also deepen them. It's my favorite because it adds nuance and substance to simple flavors, and adds another layer of flavor to more complex tastes. So, there it is. Pepper. I'd be surprised if there are too many kitchens without it.

What Others Cooked For Me, What I Cooked, Where I Ate

Jason and I hosted our annual Oscar Party on Sunday night. I'd like to thank Karla for bringing her amazing meatballs. And Dana and Dave for that oh so good shrimp dip. And Julie for bringing the Stella Artois. I cooked hummus and and made a nacho cheese dip with Rotelle's. Good times.

I ate out a lot this week, but the only real noteworthy meal I shared was with Andy on Thursday night. We made dinner plans as I was literally on the train heading towards his house. We went to Bar on Buena and while I dined on the pulled pork sandwich with sweet potato fries, Andy had the B.O.B. Burger. Readers who have been with us for a while may recognize the place and the burgers, as I wrote about that very dish in Windy City Cooking, Week Five.

Windy City Cooking: Week 28

2010-03-01T19:28:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

$3,770.47
by Jason Hissong
01 March 2010

A few weeks ago I read Sam Walker's Fantasyland. Reading a book about his foray into the world of fantasy baseball elicited a couple of reactions. First, it made me hungry for baseball season. Second, it made me hungry for statistics consumption.

Let me stop here and say that I am not a numbers person. There's a reason I majored in English and History in my undergraduate career. Numbers and I are not friends. I don't like that there is always an answer. I don't like that there are things in mathematics that I just don't understand, and maybe, never will. That said, I'm beginning to enjoy spreadsheets when it comes to certain things, baseball being one of them.

It's too early to do a spreadsheet for my own fantasy baseball league. And I thought "what else could I do?"

And then it hit me: look at how I spent money on food in 2009. So I took three hours and 12 bank statements and went line by line entering how I spent money on food in 2009.

And that's the number I came up with. Of my take home income last year I spent $3,770.47 on food, to the best of my knowledge. That number is off in its exactness. For example, the $60 or so I spent at the Daily in the first part of July was not $60 for myself. Katie and Jason paid me cash and I put the bill on my card. But it's as an exact number as I am able to deduce.

My sister once told me that I eat like a rock star. And she's right. That's a lot of money to spend on food. Here's how it breaks down:

November was my most expensive month, coming in at $539.28. Me second most expensive month was October at $439.03. On the other side of the spectrum May was my least expensive month at $204.72. March came in at $217, and April $220.

There were two vendors to whom I gave more of my money than any other, save groceries. I work in an office building in downtown Chicago. And while somedays I get moments of awe walking those streets, the people that run them know that convenience is king. On the first floor of my building are both an Au Bon Pain and a Starbucks. I made at least 50 visits to both places in 2009, and together I gave them $735.75 of my money. $239.63 of that to Au Bon, the remaining $735.75 to Starbucks.

It's a misnomer to say that all of those funds went to the same Starbucks. Indeed, they did not. I'm sure the majority of those dollars went to the Starbucks in my building, but there's also a Starbucks within a three minute walk of my apartment. And one just over a half a mile north of that one, where I like to walk and run in the summer. And there's another on my way to my church, and still another close by church the other direction as well. They're everywhere. And justifying a three dollar expense here and there is so easy, and so deadly.

And this is where it gets really scary. It appears, again given my best efforts that probably have a slight margin of error, that I spent only twenty dollars less at Au Bon Pain and Starbucks than I did at Trader Joe's, Jewel, and Whole Foods. The grocers received $523.01, $156.87. and $74.92, respectively.

My single largest splurge was the $72.34 at Uncommon Ground in December. It was dinner for two, and a couple of drinks, and gratuity included.

There are vendors that I went to every single month, or nearly. I at at a Corner Bakery Cafe eight of the twelve months of 09. The same for Fast Super Burrito. Potbelly's came in first in that race, however, with ten of twelve months.

What does all this tell me? Well, it tells me that I spend a lot of money on food. I eat out quite often. It also tells me that I'm probably have way in between being super lazy and being bamboozled by convienence. $700 for coffee? Somehow I did it. It's ridiculous, and clearly indicates that I need to change my behavior.

This was an interesting experiment. The numbers were tough for me to look at, no question. Contrary to that guilt and fear, however, is the opportunity to make 2010 better in terms of food frugality. How do I do that? Well, first, I start buying coffee and making it at home. I have the tools with which to do that. I just don't. Second, I start planning my meals better. Two weeks ago I went to Trader Joe's and purchased a lot of food. I usually only cook for one and had to throw some of it out. That's wasted dollars. Inefficient dollars. So, planning better would curtail this, I think.

Next week: reader mailbag! If you have questions about cooking, eating out, etc., please leave a comment, or email me at jason dot hissong at gmail dot com.

What Others Cooked For Me, What I Cooked, Where I Ate

This week I cooked a couple of things. I made an incredible chicken and broccoli cheese soup. I made roasted salmon with blanched asparagus, and I made braised Italian sausage with blanched green beans and a basmati rice mixture. All good meals.

I didn't eat anywhere spectacular, but I did share meals with people important to me. Friday night Jason, Aaron, Jonathan, Ben, Tim and I ordered some pizza and had chips and other snack food while we played Risk. Thank you to Aaron's mom who cooked us this wonderful cookie dough cheesecake dessert thing. Saturday night I had cause to take a there-and-back road trip to Milwaukee with my friends Tim, Kip, Jessica, and Tracy. We dined at La Perla and I very much enjoyed my carne asada tacos.

Windy City Cooking: Week 27

2010-02-23T08:12:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday--and occasionally on Tuesday--Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

The Thin Place
by Jason Hissong
22 February 2010

I asked my friend Larissa what she means when she uses the term "thin places." She gave me a quote. I didn't ask her where this quote is from, but this is what she wrote me, "These are places along one's spiritual path where God's spirit feels especially near." There's more to the quote, but for my purposes today that portion is enough. If forced to paraphrase, I would say that thin places, or moments, are when the tangible and the spiritual intersect, and are inseparable.

Saturday. Freedom from the cubicle. Much needed after a long Friday that ended a long week.

There's still snow on the ground, and patches of ice, and slush. It's still cold. But that's not a deterrent. My friend Jonathan and I put on our running shoes and head out. The cold air still stings, the wind still chills. One never gets used to these things. One simply endures. And so we run our 5K, together, as friends. He could blow me out of the water. Literally. I have no doubts that he could finish a 5K in half as much time as myself, but he sticks with me the entire way.

There's nothing that feels as good as the hottest shower I can stand after a difficult run in the winter. We spend the next hour recording me reciting Phillip Larkin's poem Aubade. This is me experimenting with the spoken word form. It's something I've been interested in for a bit, and Jonathan has a home recording studio for his music. We record and listen. And, after a while, recitation upon recitation, the poem got to me. It's a meditation on death, really, and being afraid to die. And it's six thirty and we're both starving.

Jonathan has planned an incredible menu. He spent his Friday night shopping various markets for the ingredients, being conscious of sustainability, green-ness, being environmental friendly, etc. And he does a spectacular job.

The menu: seared, then roasted, grass-fed, pound and a half ribeye, after a 24 hour marinade of soy and rosemary, with a home-made dill horseradish sauce. Garlic mashed potatoes. Blanched, then roasted, asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and Bourson's Gournay cheese. One bottle of Ex Umbris, a Syrah.

And there are moments that he needs me to help cook. Usually, I'd be the driver in the kitchen; setting everything to my own machinations, not being able to articulate the idea in my head to my helpers. I'm happy to take a back seat, here, in his home, and let him drive. In the interim, I get to steal slices of prosciutto and they are good. The salt addicts me. The thin translucence of each piece tells me a story of taste, and life.

The ribeyes are huge, and they barely fit in the pan. The asparagus is vivid green after its ice water bath, and I see Jonathan learn as he goes: the last bundle he wraps with prosciutto is much tighter than the first. He asks me to be in charge of the potatoes, and I am happy to do so. I mash them, and add garlic and butter, and leave the skins. And it's okay if they're lumpy, we both prefer them that way.

We check the steaks. It's a two person job because they're so heavy, and when we bring the cast iron pan out of the oven it's clear that they need another ten minutes. "Wait," I say. I take the bag of marinade and pour the rest in the base of the ban. Cast iron soaks liquid, and I'd hate for the steaks to be damaged by not having enough. "I would have never thought of that," he says.

The meal is cooked. And everything mesmerizes me. It might be the slowest meal I've eaten in a long time. I'm sure to not leave any piece of the ribeye on my plate. The bites are slow, and I savor each of them. The dill horseradish is a great sauce, but the steak needs none. Instead I use a couple of spoonfuls on my mashed potatoes, just to try it. The Ex Umbris is a perfect pairing with the food.

The conversation is good, and sometimes silent. There is no music, a rarity for the two of us.

This meal itself is, for me, a thin place. There is the recognition that at least two animals gave their life for this meal, for me to enjoy. There's an appreciation of those lives in savoring each bite. There's gratitude.

But this meal is a thin place, too, because of the company. Jonathan and I have a long history of friendship. We're approaching eight years as friends. I am so grateful for him. I think of how many meals we've shared over those eight years. I am sure I can not name them all. I know they are many, and I know we will have many more together. And the meal is even better because we both helped prepare it.

The meal is a thin place because during it, it was all I could think about. Or, rather, I didn't care to think about anything else other than what was right in front of me.

Thank God.

What Others Cooked for Me, What I Cooked, and Where I Ate

It's been a strange couple of weeks here at Windy City Cooking. The story I present above happened nine days ago, and what I describe below is no more than seven days old. So next week we'll be back on real time, as it were, with both the column's central theme and this section describing the same days.

No one else cooked anything for me over the last couple weeks, and that's perfectly okay.

I cooked some things. I made grilled cheese and tomato soup for lunch on President's Day. There is nothing more comforting on a cold winter day. I then used the leftover tomato soup, and added some butter and lime, to make a sauce for my three cheese ravioli. I also made an onion soup in my crock pot.

This weekend I ate like a king, at the expense of my wallet. Friday night I dined at Glenn's Diner with my friend Mike. He had the sturgeon and I had the scallops. Saturday I dined with Kara, Mandi, and E at Ed Debevic's. It's a typical diner and the food was typical diner food. I will say no more about that experience save that I am grateful they served beer. Sunday Kara, yes the same Kara, and I went to El Mariachi for lunch. I had two tacos, chorizo, and she had a burrito. Sunday night Andy and I went to Five Guys. It was my first ever Five Guys experience and it was a great one. He had a cheeseburger and I had a bacon cheeseburger with everything plus jalapenos. All feasts. All with great company.

Stay tuned! Next week I research my bank statements from 2009 and become transparent about how I spent money on food for twelve months. The week after that, it's mailbag time! I'll answer your questions about food, cooking, dining out, etc. So feel free to post a comment, or email me at jason dot hissong at gmail dot com with any and all questions!

Ray's Braise: College Towns - New Brunswick

2010-02-19T08:39:00.000-08:00

[Every other week, Ray takes us on a culinary tour of the tri-state area and treats us to some of his favorite recipes. Enjoy! -Max]

Photo Courtesy Monyca White

My eight-year stint as a college student will come to an end for now come this May, as I prepare to graduate from Rutgers University with my Masters degree. Being on the cusp of this accomplishment has caused me to reflect back on the time I've spent there - and of course, the meals I've eaten! When we think of the dining habits of college students, we usually think of ramen noodles, crowded dining halls, and student centers filled with the usual array of fast food chains. But by wandering outside the university grounds, there's usually a whole world of great, reasonably priced food to be found.

College towns tend to be a hub of global dining, due to the large population of international students, as well as students ready to broaden their dining horizons, and New Brunswick is no exception. Home to the biggest university in New Jersey, its dining scene is diverse and thriving. The main hub is along a stretch of Easton Avenue, directly off the main College Avenue campus. This is home to some of the city's most popular restaurants, so get there early if you don't want to compete with hundreds of students for a seat!

One of my favorites is Noodle Gourmet, a reasonably priced Chinese restaurant. While Chinese food is omnipresent, Noodle Gourmet distinguishes itself by serving a more authentic version, complete with Shanghai and Mandarin specialties. Bypass the standard lunch specials and order from the noodle soups or the Chinese specialties printed on the wall. The service is friendly, and the food is ample and delicious.

In terms of value, it's hard to beat Edo Japan, just up the street from Noodle Gourmet. While Edo's dinner options can be overpriced, they have one of the best lunches in the city - a bento special that gives you rice, salad, dumplings, vegetable tempura, crab-and-cucumber rolls, and a main course of your choice (go with the sensational Salmon Teriyaki) all for $7.95. Easton's main drag also includes a Jamaican take-out, a Lebanese grill, a taqueria, and New Brunswick institution Stuff Yer Face, an old-fashioned place that serves only one item - an overstuffed stromboli sandwich filled with sauce, meat, and cheese - in over 12 varieties. One of the most exciting additions to Easton Avenue is the new Tula Restaurant and Lounge, a mid-priced New American bistro offering twists on classic dishes such as pulled pork or flatbreads. I tried their pulled pork sandwich as a lunch special recently, and found it to be flavored far more subtly than the oversauced pulled porks that are often found at barbecue chains.

Easton Avenue may be where most of the college kids come for lunch, but I've been visiting New Brunswick since I was a kid, and there's more to be found in the more urban area of the city. In recent years, New Brunswick has become one of New Jersey's most prestigious dining centers with such restaurants as Delta's, The Frog and The Peach, and Daryl Wine Bar and Restaurant, all perfect for a special night on the town. But for day-to-day dining, you can't beat The Round Grill, a Mongolian barbecue joint. This style of dining involves preparing a bowl of frozen meat, vegetables, noodles, and sauces from a buffet, which is then grilled in front of you by the chef. It makes for a very filling, delicious meal, and trust me - the one-bowl lunch special will be more than enough to satisfy! With three meats, 15 vegetables, and ten sauces, there is no limit to the combinations that can be designed for every taste.

One of the most unique dining experiences you can have in New Brunswick is the Ethiopian restaurant Makeda. Ethiopian food is still somewhat hard to find except in the biggest cities, but Makeda has been a New Brunswick mainstay for over ten years. This spicy cuisine mostly consists of intensely flavored stews eaten with the unique, spongy Ethiopian bread Injera. And when I say this food is spicy, I mean fiery! This will not be to everyone's tastes, but I found the flavors to be among the most intense and delicious I've ever tasted. I particularly recommend the Minchetabesh, a ground beef dish tasting of cardamom, offered as a lunch special.

A little further down George Street will bring you to the George Street Co-Op and Cafe, a vegetarian health food store offering a massive array of organic snacks and prepared foods. Some of the dessert offerings there, such as the cashew butter granola cubes, are good enough to even attract this avowed omnivore to this little slice of vegetarian heaven.

If you've got an adventurous palate, there are many great lunches awaiting you in New Brunswick. But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention another Rutgers institution, probably the number one food people think of when they hear Rutgers...the Rutgers University Grease Trucks. These famous trucks are known for their massive gut bombs of sandwiches. One, the "Fat Darrell", is an overstuffed concoction of marinara sauce, french fries, chicken fingers, and mozzarella sticks - and it was recently named the best sandwich in America. There are over twenty varieties of "Fat sandwiches", some vegetarian, all spectacularly unhealthy, and they're adding new ones all the time. The cooks running the trucks are always happy to customize a sandwich for you, and several created this way have been added to the regular menu. On one cool fall day, I decided to try one of these beasts, customizing one without cheese but loaded with everything else I could find. It was a delicious, greasy mess, but definitely not something I would eat too often. Give me a teriyaki salmon bento any day.

But then, that's the beauty of college towns. There's something for everyone. Having spent four years going to school in New Brunswick, I've come to love the city's unique dining scene. Not everything is to my tastes, but there are some places that will keep me coming back long after I've graduated. New Brunswick is a bit like a microcosm of all the cultures that come to Rutgers to learn. And food is the international language.

My next column will take us to a very different college town - Princeton, NJ.

Greek Revised: Chicken Pastitsio

2010-02-16T17:31:00.000-08:00

[Editor's Note: Please welcome new columnist Maria Koumentakos, who will take us through her own spin on Greek cuisine, highlighting a different classic Greek dish every month. Enjoy! -Max]

Greek Revised 01
February 16th, 2010
by Maria Koumentakos

Hey guys! This is my first article here on Beach City Cooking. I’m very excited and honored to have been asked to write it. I’ll be writing a monthly column featuring a Greek recipe I like that I’ve modified to my tastes or one that I’ve never made and always wanted to try. A little background info about me:

I’m a Panamanian born Greek, I’ve been raised on Greek and Panamanian food and being interested in cooking from a very young age, I’ve had extensive experience with Greek cuisine. By living here in Panama, my style of Greek cuisine had to adapt and mold to the ingredients available (or unavailable) to us here as well as the personal changes we have made over time to otherwise traditional meals. I’m looking forward to be showing you guys every month the things I’ve learned from my mother, my main teacher of Greek cooking, and also anything I’ve learned on my own as well.

My first recipe will be a famous Greek classic, the Pastitsio. I love Pastitsio; it very well might be one of my favorite foods. The only problem I’ve ever had with it is its richness. Containing ground meat, béchamel sauce, different spices and seasonings, tomato sauce and pasta, it makes for a heavy meal. So I decided a while back I’d give it a try using ground chicken instead of ground beef, fat free milk for the béchamel, and I omitted the butter in the béchamel too.

My modifications, while not quite making it a low calorie dish I think make it much healthier and low in fat. Definitely not a meal that will have you reaching for the antacids or go straight to your thighs (if you watch your portions).

First, these are pretty much all the things I use in this recipe. Some of them are not pictured, but you’ll see them as I go through the process. As you can see, this dish calls for many ingredients. Some of which have been an impromptu addition to the recipe by my mother and me like the culantro, the mint, the spaghetti sauce, and the bay leaves, I think. A little fact that many dislike about the preparation of this meal is the degree of difficulty. Well, it’s not so much the difficulty but the amount of work you need to put into it in order to make it. For instance, it took me about two and a half hours. Sometimes it takes me longer because I’m slow doing the prep work, but I think it’s well worth the wait because it is delicious.

Alright, first things first. The prep work (the most boring part for me). Peel and/or wash a carrot (1 large), celery (1 stalk), bell peppers (1 small red, and 1 small green), red onions (two medium), garlic cloves (about 4) and herbs (1 fistful of fresh basil, 1 fistful of fresh oregano sprigs, 1 fist-sized bunch of parsley, and about two or three sprigs of spearmint). Remove the stems from all the herbs.

Then comes the chopping… you want to finely chop everything (unless you like chunky vegetable pieces in your food). Sometimes if I want to speed things up I cut up everything in even pieces and I throw it in the food processor, pulse a couple of times, and it does the chopping for me. This is also a good way to quickly chop the parsley.

You’ll need 1 pound of ground chicken breast and 1 pound of ground deboned chicken thighs. If you can’t get it ground, you can use the food processor for this.

Once I get done with the prep, I immediately get started on the sauce. The first thing I do is brown the chicken. Heat up a large pot and add two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. I value highly a good quality olive oil, because seriously, what is Greek food without it? When I have to buy from the store, I get Eleatis Extra Virgin Olive Oil, it’s the best brand I’ve been able to find here in terms of flavor, freshness and quality. My dad actually orders our olive oil by the gallon, so I’m pretty much covered and seldom I’ve had to buy from the store. We always have a steady supply here in my house; the brand is Fino Extra Virgin Olive Oil. It is very good in quality and it comes from Kalamata which is my mother’s hometown (and where Kalamata olives come from).

Anyway, as I was saying, heat up a large pot on high heat and add two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil.

When it’s slightly fuming, add the chicken and stir it so it doesn’t stick to the pot and until it’s loose. Then season it with a generous amount of soy sauce (you can add as much as you like and then not add any salt to the sauce, that’s what I usually do because I overdo the soy sauce). Stir occasionally until the chicken is a bit brown and its juices have evaporated. If you feel like it’s burning or browning too fast you can lower the heat and add a little bit of water to deglaze the pot (which is what I did).

Once it was browned I remembered I had to add the pepper, but you can add it with the soy sauce, or later on.

Then, when it was nice and brown, I added the chopped vegetables. They look all mixed up like that because I did the rest of them in the food processor all together.

After adding the veggies I stirred it well, and sautéed it with the chicken for about five to seven minutes. I then added the parsley with the mint and stirred it for a couple of minutes.

Next I added the oregano leaves, which were about ¾ of a cup of fresh oregano and I do mean fresh! If you want to use dried use about a tablespoon or less because dried herbs are more concentrated than fresh.

After adding the oregano I stirred it for about two more minutes and then I started adding the spaghetti sauce. It was 1 can of Del Monte Spaghetti Sauce Garlic and Onion (if not available, you can use other flavors of spaghetti sauce like bell pepper or mushroom).

And right after, the tomato paste (about 3 tablespoons).

Once I added my tomato products, I stirred the sauce well and then I added 3 and ½ glasses of water. It is very important that the sauce gets enough water because if it’s too thick the pasta won’t absorb much sauce or flavor and you end up with a dry and bland pasta layer. Three regular-sized glasses of water usually does the trick. If you feel that the sauce is too thick you can add more water later, or if you feel that you made it too watery then cook a little bit longer until it evaporates.

After that, I added the 4 bay leaves.

Then I remembered to add the 4 culantro leaves which I finely chopped. I really like what culantro does to this dish, and meat dishes in general. It’s amazing in chili or bean soup. Culantro is a Latin American parallel to cilantro–it’s in the same family but has a more pungent taste. If you can get culantro instead of cilantro then go for it. Since I forgot to take a picture of it, that picture will have to do.

And here’s what they look like when they’re chopped, next to the cinnamon and allspice I used.

This is more or less the amount of cinnamon and allspice I start out with (with the garlic clove for scale purposes). I usually add a bit more cinnamon pinch by pinch very carefully until I achieve the perfect amount of cinnamon-y background taste I need. After the culantro I added the cinnamon and allspice.

And last but not least, a boullion cube. I used a Maggi boulion cube. I like them better than Knorr.

All the sauce needs now is some time to stew and meld all the ingredients together… so, once it was boiling, I set the flame on medium/medium high and covered the pot.

While I waited for the sauce to get done, I got the pasta going. I used one pound of pasta, Ziti in this case. It can be virtually any kind of pasta you like but I prefer any kind of pasta with holes in it. First get water in a medium pot and set it on high heat. I usually fill the pot ¾ through when making 1 pound of pasta. (Maybe I’m being too “play-by-play” telling you how to make pasta and all, not that I think you’re dumb or anything, I just like the step-by-step thing). Then when the water is boiling, add 1 tbsp of salt and stir. Then add the pasta and stir well. These Ziti took 10 minutes to be al dente. It’s very important that you don’t overcook the pasta.

When the pasta is cooked and drained, drizzle some olive oil on the Ziti so they don’t stick together and set them aside.

When the sauce is going and the pasta is done, I start the béchamel. And here comes an interesting part. If you’ve tried making béchamel sauce before, then you’ll know what I’m talking about, it’s very tricky to get it right. The traditional recipe calls for browning the flour with butter, and stirring, and stirring, and stirring to no end. Then try to add hot milk to it and see if it won’t turn into a big lumpy mess. If you’re an experienced cook or a chef maybe you can get it right every time, but if you’re not, then you’ll probably suffer more than once with this tricky tricky sauce.

Anyway, my mother came up with a very smart solution. She adapted the recipe of dessert custard into a variation of béchamel. This way it’s much easier to get a smooth and creamy sauce that is simpler to make and to get right with the first try. Don’t worry it won’t turn out too custardy when it’s cooked. It virtually has no difference with regular béchamel both in appearance and taste. It’s been approved by Greek people (all of my mother’s friends who’ve hounded her for her secret for years).

I gathered my supplies first (two liters of milk, a cup and a half of flour, four egg yolks divided in two containers, and salt).

This is what I did: I put one liter of milk in the blender, added two egg yolks, half a teaspoon of salt and ¾ of flour and blended it together. Then I poured the mixture in a medium sized pot. I did the same with the other liter of milk and the rest of the ingredients and poured that in too. You should do this, unless you have a really big blender.

Then I set it on medium high heat and (this is important) stirred continuously until it boiled. If you feel that at some point it’s starting to get thicker and sticking to the bottom of the pot, then you can lower the heat and stir a bit harder to unstick the little bits that got stuck on the bottom. When the béchamel starts boiling, if it seems to be getting too lumpy don’t worry just turn it off and stir well, it’ll smooth out. The previous blending of the raw ingredients prevents it from forming lumps.

When my béchamel was done, it was time to turn on the oven (400°F or 205°C) and turn off the sauce. Right after taking the sauce off the heat, make a fine chiffonade with the fresh basil leaves (chiffonade means to thinly slice them) This is what mine looked like (could’ve done it a little finer if you ask me).

Just add the basil in there with the sauce and stir. Adjust the salt if needed and remove the four bay leaves.

That’s how the sauce will look when it’s ready.

Now comes the real fun. The assembling! First thing I do, I take the pasta and put it in a rectangular baking dish (about 20” long and 12” wide, if I’m not wrong) and I add a generous amount of the finely ground parmesan cheese, then I mix it up so it gets nicely distributed.

After that, make sure to evenly distribute the pasta layer with the ladle or your hands. Once I do that, I like to sprinkle some of the chunkier flakes of parmesan cheese on top. It gives it more texture I think. (I bought a finely ground one, and a coarsely shredded one for texture).

Then I added the sauce. Make sure you cover every nook and cranny with the sauce so as to not leave any holes.

Once I’ve added the sauce, I smooth it out with a spoon so it gets evenly distributed.

And then I like to sprinkle another layer of parmesan cheese.

All layers of parmesan cheese are semi-generous with the more generous being the first one when you mix it in with the pasta, and the last one where you sprinkle it on top of the béchamel.

And now the semi-last layer, the béchamel sauce.

The only thing I’m careful of when adding the béchamel is not mixing it with the sauce layer. I do this by pouring large globs of béchamel over the sauce layer and when I’ve finished filling all the unfilled areas, I smooth it out with a spoon.

And now? You guessed it… more cheese! For the last layer I like to sprinkle both kinds of the parmesan.

Usually I finish up the little can of Sargento, and then I add some of the more coarsely shredded parmesan on top of that.

What the parmesan cheese does is make an amazing crust that is beautifully golden brown and it adds flavor to the dish as well. The reason why I don’t really add much salt in general is partly because of the cheese, which has its fair amount of salt.

My mom told me yesterday that the traditional method of making this dish actually calls for breadcrumbs on top of the Pastitsio which are supposed to meld with the butter in the béchamel and create a crispy crust. I’m not sure if the traditional way also uses parmesan cheese (or any other kind) but I’ve tried it both ways and I find that the cheese makes it tastier.

And now, last but not least I grate by hand a nutmeg over the assembled Pastitsio. This gives it a very special kick. My dad taught me this part last year actually, but it is used in the traditional recipe.

When the Pastitsio is all put together, I slide it in the oven I preheated before. It usually takes about 45 min to an hour to finish cooking and get nice and golden on top.

This is it, inside the oven. I hope you can see it well.

Now all you have to do is wait, so go take a shower or read a book, maybe take a nap, but don’t oversleep because if you forget about the Pastitsio it’ll get burned and all that hard work will be in vain.

Spunky and Libby kept me company while I was cooking. I think they were actually waiting for me to drop something but they were out of luck this time.

And here it is the finished masterpiece! This is how it looks like when it’s all done *drools*.

And here it is served.

I hope you enjoyed my article and my recipe. I’ll see you next month. Kalí Órexh (Bon Appetite in Greek)!

Windy City Cooking: Week 26

2010-02-15T12:19:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

Changing Tastes
by Jason Hissong
15 February 2010

Sunday evening I found myself at home enjoying the company of two of my favorite people; my roommate Jason and his girlfriend Elizabeth. While watching Planet Earth reruns on Discovery and establishing our game of Monopoly, we decided to get food. And the decision came down to two types of cuisine: pizza or Chinese. The pizza would have come from Fornello or Carreno's. If we went with the Chinese, on the other hand, there was only one choice. Orange Garden.

And that's what we did.

Let me start by saying that I'm a huge Orange Garden fan. I think it's fantastic food for the price. I've rarely, if ever, been dissappointed. I have many fond memories of Orange Garden. I took my parents there the night before my spine surgery two years ago. I spent two Christmas Day dinners in a row with my friend Dave there after he so graciously picked me up at Midway and drove me home. I've had Orange Garden many times on Sunday evenings, watching football or baseball, just because it seems like the perfect thing at that moment.

Jason, on the other hand, has never been super high on the place. He likes it, but I doubt he'd put it anywhere near his favorite neighborhood spots.

And for the first time, I agree with him. Something's changed. Last night I think all three of us were disappointed. The crab rangoon was small and tasteless. It was more wrapping than filling instead of the even balance of great crab rangoon. My sesame chicken was, as expected, fried and heavy and I've had it so many times and thought it great. Sunday night, it was gross. It was just sad looking. Jason's orange beef was similar to my dish: fried and heavy and sad looking. Elizabeth's non-fried chicken was pink and strange and the entire experience was just off.

So what's changed? I'm not sure. I doubt Orange Garden has changed much of anything in the three and a half years I've been a patron. Or in the decades it's been open. It's the same today as it was the day we moved into the neighborhood.

If Orange Garden hasn't changed then the only other variable that has changed is me. I think my taste has changed over the last few years. I'm certain that my food acumen has changed, and grown. I'm not saying I'm a top tier, change the culinary world chef or anything like that. But I know more about cooking and food at 28 than I ever did when I moved to Chicago at 24. But has my changing taste changed so much that a once beloved go to spot is now off the list?

Time will tell. Today the answer is yes. Orange Garden is fine, but I think I have to downgrade it to pedestrian. I think that going forward I will seek other places of a similar type first, before relying on the immediate proximity of Orange Garden. It will, no doubt, be difficult. Because I get a bad case of Recipe Syndrome when it comes to restaurants: that is, in my head there's the ideal, and somewhere between the ideal and the execution something gets lost, or changed, or something's missing and that leads to disappointment.

So, for now, a moratorium on Orange Garden. Keep me to it.

Note: I'm waiting one more week before writing the mailbag column. I have received four or five great questions which will serve the column well. But I wanted to throw it out there one more time: if you have a question about me or my cooking, or my life's food culture, please post a response or email me at jason dot hissong at gmail dot com. Thanks so much and I look forward to fielding your questions!

What Others Cooked For Me, What I Cooked, and Where I Ate

No one cooked anything for me this week. That makes me a sad panda. But it's also not entirely accurate.

On Saturday I had the great pleasure of cooking dinner for and with my friend Andy and Joan, the woman whom he is currently dating. Andy picked me up in the afternoon and we got a pork tenderloin from the Paulina Market, and then stopped by Trader Joe's for the rest of our ingredients. We roasted the tenderloin, and then made an asparagus based dish with sautéed onion and prosciutto, and topped the asparagus with a poached egg. We also purchased a loaf of sourdough bread at Trader Joe's and I think all three of us were delighted to eat this meal. The only misstep was mine and that is that I poached my eggs too long so that they weren't runny. Which is unfortunate. Next time I'll do better. But, I love cooking with and for Andy because he's such an eager student. He wants to do most of the work and I get to direct him and answer his questions to the best of my ability. I love that.

I cooked two other dishes this week, as well. I made rice with diced cucumber as a base. I then fried some bacon and, using some of the bacon grease, fried some tofu. I chopped the bacon and then mixed everything together. Delicious.

I also made a nondescript, pedestrian stir-fry earlier in the week. It had some carrots, cucumbers, and snap peas, along with some rice and diced chicken breast. It was okay. Again, I'll do better the next time.

I only dined at two places this week. The first was Roong Petch. I dined with about 20, and enjoyed the Bamee Noodles. It has pork, bean sprouts, crushed peanuts, crab meat, green onions and fried wontons over noodles. Very good Thai.

On Friday I enjoyed three tacos from Fast Super Burrito. When I find myself in these sorts of fast Mexican places I'm going for the three tacos as opposed to the burrito, and I'm not sure why. Anyway, I had one chicken, one stek, and one chorizo taco. I always save the chorizo for last, and it's always the most delicious and the hardest to finish.

Panama City Cooking: Sancocho at El Carbón Rojo

2010-01-27T12:09:00.000-08:00

[Editor's Note: Every month, Juan Duque of Panama City stops by to share the cuisine of Panama with us. Enjoy! -Max]

Panama City Cooking 02
January 27th, 2010
by Juan Duque

Hi! Welcome back to Panama City Cooking. This month I wanted to feature a local restaurant, so you guys could get an idea of what kinds of food we have over here. For this first one I chose the Bar and Grill El Carbón Rojo. It’s basically “The Red Charcoal” in Spanish. This used to be another restaurant decades ago, until it was bought by three Greek brothers in the early 80’s and got its current name. We actually went behind the scenes for this one!

It’s a very popular restaurant with a loyal clientele that’s been there for years. It’s a big hit with families on the weekends, since it’s not very expensive, and there’s a wide range of dishes to choose from. The food’s not very fancy or extravagant, but there’s surely something for everyone on the menu.

It’s a very laid back restaurant, with fresh air all over the place. No air conditioning here! It’s the kind of place you’d go on a nice Sunday afternoon to grab something to eat, drink and maybe watch a game, if you’re into that!

There’s plenty of parking space in the front and back, and as you can see, there’s a lot of little “ranchos” or “bohios” (open-air seating, essentially) where people can sit down and eat.

Their specialty is charcoal-grilled meats, and they’re all pretty tasty. It’s what keeps people coming back to the place (well, that and the bar, of course). They cook those in a pretty open space, as you can see in the picture above.

We ate at what they call “El Rancho Grande”, which is the biggest seating area they have there, with about a dozen tables inside.

The menu is mainly divided into meat, poultry, seafood, and pork. And there’s also the appetizers, dessert and refreshments, of course. There are lots of drinks to choose from, and plenty of different beers, from two national beers (Panama and Soberana), to imported beers which I guess are pretty common to our regular readers (Heineken, Budweiser, etc.). There’s also a Greek beer called Mithos in there. Again, the place is always pretty packed with people drinking at the bar.

You get this little salad with every dish. It’s not quality lettuce, but the tomato with a little parsley and grated carrot made it better. It’s not really that great, but it’s appreciated. They have a way better Greek salad which you can try.

There’s something you guys should know about this place: it has really kick-ass seafood. I mean, the trademark charcoal-grilled stuff is pretty great, but the seafood is surprisingly good and fresh. I ordered a shrimp ceviche as an appetizer, and it was very tasty. Ceviche is basically raw seafood marinated with lemon (or other citrus), chopped onion, garlic, and a little lettuce leaf. It’s really good! It comes with a few salt cookies here. I thought it could’ve used fewer onions, but it was still good. I’m just picky with that stuff. You can also get the octopus ceviche, corvina ceviche, clam ceviche, and even a combination of octopus, shrimp and corvina.

The lemonade was amazing. I think the lemons they use are mandarin limes, actually. I’m not sure about that, but they call them “limón mandarina” over here, so it should be true! It’s a lemon and mandarin orange hybrid. If you slice it up, it kinda looks like an orange. Honestly, regular lemons are fine, but lately I’ve been really enjoying lemonade with these. They use raspadura to sweeten it, which is raw sugar without refining. I don’t know how healthy this is, but it’s definitely tastier. It tastes a little bit like honey, but not quite. It’s a very specific flavor, which in my opinion makes the lemonade way better. And I already like regular lemonade a lot, since it’s what I’ll usually drink whenever I want to drink something that’s not just water.

I went with my brother and my girlfriend, so you’ll see three different dishes you can have at El Carbón Rojo. I should point out that every dish comes with yucca, patacones, or french fries. Sadly, they didn’t have yucca this time. What we call yucca is actually the yucca root. You can cook it like a potato, which is why it’s usually served as something similar to french fries, only that it’s yucca! It’s supposed to be healthy, and a good carb to go with any type of food. Of course, it’s fried yucca here, so it’s not really that healthy. I have to stop saying yucca.

I had half a charcoal-grilled chicken (can you get the entire chicken? I don’t know!). It’s really one of the best things you can order here. Really, don’t go for the fried chicken, this one’s worth trying. I know some people don’t find eating chicken very exciting, but the charcoal grill definitely makes a difference here. There’s a little bit of chimichurri on top, but it’s pretty basic. Just the red pepper flakes, olive oil, minced garlic and chopped celery. It’s very mild, so it didn’t really overpower the chicken’s flavor, just enhanced it. The french fries were okay, but they’re really made from the potatoes they have there, so they get a little soggy if you don’t eat them quickly enough.

My girlfriend had grilled corvina (I think it’s also known as white sea bass), with a special Greek salad side. The corvina was really fresh, according to her, and it didn’t have that fishy odor you can sometimes encounter. It was light, but consistent and crispy on the edges. She asked for one of the mandarin limes, and squeezed a little of its juice on the corvina, which apparently made it even better. The Greek salad is not really on the menu as something you can just order with your dish, but it was a special request. And by the way, I’ve tried the Greek salad before, and it’s AMAZING. Again, the owners are Greek, so they know their stuff. You can see they really give you plenty of big, chunky feta cheese, with a little bit of parsley on top. The rest is tomatoes, cucumber, authentic Greek kalamata olives, lettuce, and of course, the extra virgin olive oil. Actually, she ordered it without the olive oil, but it’s much better with it. It usually comes with onions too, but I definitely think it’s better without them. The owners actually order huge boxes of olive oil from Greece, which makes it extra special.

My brother had breaded king prawns. Like I said, the seafood here is very good, and this is what I usually order when I go to El Carbón Rojo, since they’re actually pretty big and always feel fresh. In fact, they get them from the seafood market pretty early in the morning. If you don’t like breaded seafood, which is completely understandable, you can have them grilled, which I know many people would prefer. There’s also the garlic king prawns, but I can’t comment on their quality, because I’ve never tried them here. I’ve had these in other restaurants, and they’re sometimes dry or simple, but these are almost always great. I like dipping them in the tartar sauce they give you, or just squeezing a little mandarin lime juice on them, which can be pretty delicious too.

For dessert I had homemade flan. It was okay, but I’m not a big fan of cheesecake, and this definitely had a similar texture, so it wasn’t for me. Cheesecake lovers will definitely like it, though! I did think it was a little small for the price ($3.25), so unless you really like this type of flan, I don’t think I’d recommend it.

On the other hand, there’s the peach charlot. My brother had this peach charlot. Really, this is the one to get. It was incredibly good. I’m gonna have to back and get this again, since I only had a bite of his. As I understand, it's made with vanilla custard, crumbled lady fingers, canned peaches, and some sort of light syrup that we couldn't really figure out. It also has Chantilly cream with chopped nuts on top. Oh, there’s also kourabiedes, which is a Greek dessert.

The nice people at El Carbón Rojo granted us access to their kitchen, so we could take a few pictures of their sancocho process. Sancocho is a traditional Latin American soup, made with chicken, garlic, yams (called ñame here), otoe (similar to taro), onions, celery, and cilantro. Some people also use red peppers and oregano.

The chef started by explaining how he prefers using what we call “gallina dura.” This is basically a mature hen, with harder meat. Some people don’t really like how gallina dura tastes, but he explained it’s an important part of their sancocho, because of how much flavor a big hen gives the soup. You can see one in the picture, next to a tiny chicken, which can also be used for sancocho. The difference is that when using a tiny chicken, you’d have to use chicken stock to get the real sancocho flavor. So that’s why they prefer to use gallina dura.

This is an example of how a sancocho is presented when it’s finally served (sans the actual soup, of course!). Otoe is the little pinkish cube you see there. It’s a root vegetable that’s found here in Panama, with a very mushy texture. It’s kind of like a mushy potato.

Making a sancocho is very simple. We weren’t allowed to stay there a long time, so I’ll show you what we captured.

He first cut up the big hen into pieces, which will be used when serving it to clients, and cleaned them. He took a decent sized pot and filled about ¾ of it with water, then he put the pieces of chicken in the pot, with high heat.

Meanwhile, he chopped the garlic, onions, celery, and red peppers, and cilantro into fine pieces.

Every now and then he’d scoop a little bit of fat and stuff that came off the hen, off the top. He told us how he usually takes about half the fat that comes out from the hen, or else you’d be eating a soup that feels very heavy. And trust me, I’ve had those types of sancochos, and they’re never good.

After a while he added the chopped garlic to the pot, and a little bit of salt.

We weren’t allowed to stay much after this, because the process takes about two hours, but he explained to us what he was gong to do next. You have to leave the pieces of hen boiling with the salt and garlic, and add about half of the onions, celery and red peppers after quite a while. Then a little bit after that, you’ll add the otoe, and the ñame, but not all of it. The reason for this is that it’d make the sancocho feel too thick, and also because it tends to dissolve, and people like to see their big piece of ñame when they’re eating their sancocho.

When the hen pieces are tender, you’ll have to remove them. At this point, you’ll add the rest of the onions, peppers and celery to the pot, and also the rest of the ñame, and reduce the heat a little. After some time, you’ll finally add the cilantro and oregano, and reduce the heat to low. You have to keep it going for a few more minutes, and you can also add salt at this point if you feel it’s necessary. Then you’ll be done with your sancocho, and all that’s left is serving the soup in a plate, and adding the hen pieces.

We actually went back a few hours later to try the sancocho, and I’m happy to say it was delicious. The only thing missing was a little bit of mandarin lime juice, which for some reason we didn’t get when we asked for it. But the sancocho itself was great, it felt very light but full of flavor. And even though you’d expect the hen pieces to be hard or chewy, they weren’t at all! They were very soft, with a great taste. My girlfriend said her ñame could’ve used a little more time in the pot, but otherwise it was delicious.

I hope you enjoyed this installment of Panama City Cooking. See you again next month!

Windy City Cooking: Week 25

2010-01-25T08:07:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

Top 5
by Jason Hissong
25 January 2010

A big Windy City welcome to Beach City Cooking's newest contributor, Ray Goldfield. Go read his column. It's great.

My column comes inspired by two places. First, Ray's column I mentioned above. Second, from one of my favorite films- High Fidelity. In the film, and the novel upon which it is based by Nick Hornby, the three main characters sit around a record store and create hypothetical Top Five lists. Top Five Side Ones, Track Ones, for example.

And thus I present: my personal Top Five Ingredients.

1) Pork. I often joke that I would be a vegetarian if it weren't for pork. And while it's said most often in jest it's absolute truth. Chicken? Beef? Veal? Lamb? Take it all away. Really. I'll cope with that loss no problem. But pork? That, my friends, is a different story. Pork is succulent and salty. It tastes great for breakfast, lunch or dinner. The four different main cuts of pork offer wide variety- sirloin, belly bacon, rib bacon, ribs, tenderloin, the shoulders, chops, etc. Pork is always tasty for a side dish or a main dish. Or, even on occasion, for its flavor.

Favorite preparations: bacon, usually thick cut. Ribs. And the tenderloin has always treated me well.

2) The Egg. Some will declare the egg to be the most perfect food substance ever created. And they're not far off. I love eggs. They're packed with protein. They're versatile. One can separate the different components of the egg for different preparations. They're used in baking formulas and as a standalone item themselves.

Favorite preparations: poached or scrambled.

3) Cheese: a dear friend of mine once said that she thought cheese should be its own food group. I agree. Again, it's all about the versatility. There are so many cheeses, almost an infinite variety. I've never made my own cheese- maybe someday- but I don't think I'll ever get sick of it. I love it as slices for cheese and crackers. I love it shredded and mixed into my risotto. I love it melted in fondue. I love the smoothness of a brie. I love the crumbles of the blue cheese. I love the heat of the pepperjack. I love cheese. Plain and simple. Parmigiano-Reggiano is the king of all cheese, and if someone tells you otherwise they are fools.

Favorite types of cheese: Parmigiano-Reggiano, Muenster, Gouda, Pepperjack.

4) Rice. Another food item with a seemingly endless amount of variation. I enjoy rice for my starch more often than not because it's cheap and easy. Basmati or jasmine are great for everyday dishes. Risotto is a specific preparation with, more often than not, arborio rice- a short grained variety. I love rice in sushi and other Asian preparations. I love rice where it's not supposed to go- rice with eggs and bacon? I've made that. Chili with rice as the starch instead of bread? I've made that, too. It's lovely. I love the smell of cooked rice. I loved the fluffiness of the basmati. I love that rice is mostly tasteless. That allows it to be versatile and mutable.

Favorite preparations: risotto.

5) Beer. I love beer. I love cooking with it. I love drinking it. I love learning about it. I love tasting new ones. I love going back to old favorites. Beer, to me, is based in friendship. That sounds a little strange but it makes sense given my life. I learned about the wonderful world of beer while in Cambridge, England for a semester during my undergrad career. And it was in those English and other European pubs that, while drinking beer, some of my deepest friendships formed. So there's that. I love the smell of cooked beer. I love the taste it gives both starches, such as rice, and meats, such as sausages, when cooking with it. I love the taste of deep, dark beers. They are heavy and old and wise. I love the lightness of pale ales for those breezy summer days when the sun doesn't set until after nine. Obviously there's a lesson about excess, here, but it's common sensical to me. And some nights that common sense is checked at the door.

Favorite beers: Guinness. Rogue Dead Guy Ale. Fat Tire. Delirium Tremens.

Also, I wanted to spice up my column a bit with a new feature. One of my favorite sports writers often has a mailbag edition of his column in which he answers questions from his readers. I would like to copy that, because it works well. So, if you're reading this and want to ask me a question please leave a comment below or contact me at jason dot hissong at gmail dot com. I will compile a list of questions and answers and hopefully in another few weeks or so those will fill a column.

What Others Cooked for Me, What I Cooked, Where I Ate

A big thank you to my friends Dave and Dana who provided an incredible lunch for me on Saturday. They prepared gnocchi with a saute of garlic and red chard. A small spinach salad and garlic bread accompanied the gnocchi. We also polished off this tasty snack food that I don't even know how to describe. Bugles served as the base but there was a caramel/sugary covering that made them stick to one another and the various nuts mixed in. So good. Thank you.

I cooked a stir fry dish this week. It didn't turn out so great. My favorite preparation that came from the noodles, ground turkey, carrots and onion of the stir fry was the soup I made on Friday night. I re-heated the stir fry in my cast iron and then added to it whatever tomato soup I had left from the box of tomato soup I grabbed at Trader Joe's the last time I went. I made pancakes, and this morning I poached two eggs to go on top of two pieces of buttered toast.

I ate a lot of Mexican food this week. First, at Tony's Burrito House at the corner of Damen and Belmont. I went with some friends on Tuesday and it was lovely. I had the chips and guac and was pleasantly satisfied. Tony's isn't the best I've ever had, but it's quite good. I also dined with a party of 20 or so at El Mariachi. A nicer place than Tony's, for sure. It was great to be with a great group of people, and know that lunch was going to take two hours or more and just not care. I like those people a lot. And my quesadilla left nothing to be desired.

Ray's Braise: Best Meals of 2009

2010-01-22T08:09:00.000-08:00

[Please give a warm welcome to new biweekly columnist Ray Goldfield! Ray, in his column Ray's Braise, will take us on a culinary tour of the tri-state area and treat us to some of his favorite recipes. Enjoy! -Max]

Photo Courtesy Jason Perlow

In many ways, 2009 was the year everything changed for me in the world of food. I grew up in a home where food wasn't a huge part of day-to-day life. My father loved eating out, and he wasn't picky. My mother was certainly a good cook, but her tastes geared more towards salads and vegetarian dishes. In addition, growing up with dairy allergies, my diet was somewhat limited. It was very easy, as an adult, to fall into a routine of eating canned food and meat and potatoes without putting much effort into the food that I ate. Variety mostly came from eating out, and while I did certainly consider myself a food lover, I never had much interest in broadening my horizons. This started changing in 2002, when I won a contest in the Newark Star-Ledger to ride along on the Munchmobile, a yearly review trip that criss-crosses New Jersey visiting eateries of every kind. I was exposed to so many unique places and cuisines on these weekly trips that I came away with a much better understanding of my likes and dislikes. But it wasn't until years later, inspired by my friends (including those posting at this blog), that I really took the initiative in cooking for myself and bringing the things I love to eat when I'm out to my daily life and my kitchen table.

I'm still very much a rookie cook, learning my likes and dislikes and what methods work best for me. I'll always be a meat-and-potatoes guy, but that doesn't mean meat and potatoes can't be made a lot more interesting. 2009 was a year full of experimental recipes, delicious discoveries, and great meals both out and in. These are the six dining experiences that I'll remember most, and that sum up 2009 for me.

6. Ichi Umi:

Everyone has that one big restaurant splurge that they save for special occasions. For me, it's Ichi Umi, a Japanese buffet that just opened outside Menlo Park Mall. Unlike most buffets, where dishes languish under heat lamps, Ichi Umi celebrates fresh food, a hallmark of Japanese cuisine. When you first approach the buffet, you're greeted by dozens of kinds of sushi, salads, and fresh seafood at the cold buffet. Between the hand-made soba noodles, the snow crab, the Ikura shooters, and the Unagi, it's easy to make a meal out of just this. But then you'd miss out on the hot offerings, including a Yakitori grill, traditional Japanese Oden, tempura, teriyaki short ribs, and the highlight of the meal - at least eight preparations of fresh fish nightly, from sake-glazed salmon, to fried yelloweye, to chili-glazed sea bass. I'm usually a pretty jaded guy when it comes to buffets, having lost interest in most of them when I started transitioning to a more varied diet. But this is the one I make an exception for. Japanese food aside from sushi often gets short shrift, and this place was a revelation for me in all the cuisine has to offer.

5. Thanksgiving:

I had my first try cooking Thanksgiving dinner in 2008, when my mother was visiting a friend and my girlfriend was coming over, but I kept it very simple that year. A turkey, some sides, and a dessert, all straight from the recipe cards. 2009 was the year I took over the meal in full, with more than one guest coming. Cooking for company is an altogether different experience than cooking for yourself. There's an added pressure, and these Thanksgiving dinners were the first time I experienced it. But with the added confidence of 2008 under my belt, I felt bold enough to experiment with this year's dishes. A teriyaki glaze for the turkey, homemade mushroom stuffing, mashed potatoes made with chicken broth instead of milk, and pecan and peach pies made from scratch. The only concession to convenience? Ocean Spray cranberry sauce. Mostly because in my opinion, some things should be sacrosanct. Jellied cranberry sauce has been part of my Thanksgivings since I was a boy, and that's not changing now!

4. Wegman's Wokery Buffet:

One of the greatest parts of eating out is finding good food in incredibly unlikely places. And it doesn't get more unlikely than a supermarket buffet. The traditional "hot food" buffet at grocery stores is known for such unappealing offerings as dried-out fried chicken, overcooked sausage and peppers, and gloppy mac 'n' cheese. But Wegman's, a supermarket with a huge selection of specialty ingredients brings something different to their Wokery, a selection of Chinese, Indian, and Thai dishes. Most of their offerings are fairly standard, but there's a few items that set it apart. Intensely flavored Masala Shrimp, clad in a fiery, crispy batter. Freshly fried samosas, in vegetarian, chicken, and lamb varieties based on the day, rival those served at some Indian restaurants. But the standout by far is the fried lemon-pepper fish. Each piece is a thick filet of fresh fish (they wouldn't tell me which fish is used) marinated in what tastes like pure lemon, and breaded with a crisp, peppy coating that manages to be surprisingly greaseless. As with all buffets, getting the food as it comes out is best, but this is probably the best-tasting fish I've had eating out all year.

3. Chili:

There's no recipe more versatile than chili. It can be tailored to any diet or type of appetite. There can be vegetarian versions, meat-heavy versions, mild versions, fiery versions, and everything in between. So naturally, it was one of the first dishes I experimented with when I began cooking. It can take a few tries to get chili right. My first try I was far too timid with the spices, and wound up with a fairly tasty bean-and-meat stew. The next time, I allowed myself to have a slightly heavier hand with the chili powder, and was rewarded. My personal chili recipe involves three kinds of beans (kidney, black, and chick peas), two kinds of meat (ground turkey and ground lamb, with the lamb formed into miniature meatballs), tomato sauce, chili powder, onion powder, crushed parsley, and a hint of curry powder and cinnamon. It adds up to a spicy if not fiery mix that I consider the perfect meal for a cold night.

2. Ben's Kosher Delicatessen:

Eating at Ben's (38th st. between 7th and 8th Av. in New York) is like taking a walk back in time. I don't keep strictly Kosher, although Kosher food always has appealed to me primarily because I never have to worry about dairy at a meat restaurant. Most Kosher restaurants today are either Middle Eastern or modern New American-style. Not Ben's. This restaurant is a celebration of old-style European Jewish cooking. There's a lot to recommend here, such as the pastrami burger and the chicken-in-a-pot. But if you want a taste of Ben's at its best, look no further than their Ronnie's Mixed Platter, a sample of all their old-school delicacies. Stuffed cabbage, potted meatballs, derma, egg barley with mushrooms, a potato pancake, and a special dish selected by the chef. When I was there, it was a chicken fricassee in gravy. Undoubtedly a calorie bomb of epic proportions, but it's a celebration of classic food that you can't find anywhere else. And a massive amount of food for only $18!

1. Chicken Noodle Kugel:

I've always enjoyed kugel, particularly the traditional potato kugel which is often served at Passover. But the appeal of noodle kugel always eluded me - primarily because it's always made rather sweet, often with cinnamon and raisins. The sweet/savory combination can work, particularly in spicing meats, but the noodle kugels I've tried are usually too intense. I'm a pretty big pasta fan, so I wasn't ready to give up on the dish. And so was born my first grand cooking experiment of 2009. Using a traditional noodle kugel recipe, I removed the water, sugar, raisins, and cinnamon. In their place, I used chicken broth as the base, spiced it with salt, pepper, onion powder, turmeric, a hint of cumin, and a little cinnamon (which provided an interesting flavor contrast to the more savory spices) and added diced chicken breast to the mix. I baked it according to the recipe, and what came out was one of the most enjoyable dishes I've ever made - a rich, chicken-y pie that made for a very satisfying meal. With winter here again, it's on my list to make again, only this time I'll be adding some shredded dark meat chicken as well, for a contrast to the breast. This was the first recipe where I let my imagination go wild a bit, and I was very happy with the result. I feel like this dish was the moment I gained a lot of confidence as a cook.

These were the meals that made up my 2009. Here's hoping 2010 will be as delicious!

Windy City Cooking: Week 24

2010-01-19T16:37:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday--and occasionally on Tuesday--Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

The Diner
by Jason Hissong
19 January 2010

Edward Hopper's painting Nighthawks is one of my favorite images. Partly because everyone knows it, or some variation thereof. Partly because Hopper's composition of buildings and figures is well composed. Partly because on the surface it looks so pedestrian, so standard. And yet, looking closer, there's so much unknown about the figures in the piece. There's a figure whose face we cannot see. The red-haired woman with the other customer is looking at her had, disinterested in whatever conversation occurs between her, presumed, man and the soda jerk at work. All of the figures are within the walls of the diner. And outside, the streets are empty, lights turned out.

Richard Russo uses a diner as the centerpoint of activity in his small New England town in his novel Empire Falls. It's a good novel and one I'm glad I've read. The characters have interesting arcs, and the diner serves as a sort of central point from which characters enter and leave, their lives swirling around and into and out of the place.

The diner has a place in our culture. There seems to be one in every town. And if not a local one, more than likely family owned, then there's one of those ubiquitous chain diners that are in every town. What is it about the diner? There's a charm to it, I think. A comfort. There's no pretention about what kind of food the diner offers. There's no expectations of haute cuisine. There are no Michelin stars or celebrity chefs. The diner is, perhaps, the epitome of the blue collar restaurant. The inhabitants are regular people, the wait staff and chefs are getting by, best they can.

Diners are on my mind because I ate four of five meals at the same diner in Skokie, Illinois from Friday night to Sunday morning. Friday night I had the ham club, which was okay but I ate way too much. Saturday morning I opted for the French toast. Saturday for lunch I had the chicken quesadilla. Sunday morning I had the Mexican skillet. And those four items exemplify one part of the diner's appeal: there's so much from which to choose.

I had another recent diner experience. There's a great place called the Lincoln Resteraunt right at the intersection of Lincoln, Damen, and Irving Park in Chicago. It's less than a two minute walk from where I live. I went on a Sunday morning with Jason and Elizabeth. Jason bought a newspaper and it was about the time the first football games were starting. So there we are, the three of us, in these booths that have been in place longer than we've been alive, chuckling, once again, at the woman who runs the place and her hair that is literally two feet straight out in every direction. That place was, and is, such a place of comfort. Another part of the diner's appeal: comfort. They are, in my experience, without stuffiness.

In November of 2008 I traveled with my parents from Omaha to Dallas for a family Thanksgiving. We stopped in Salina, Kansas to eat breakfast on our way down at a family diner whose name escapes me. Whenever I'm in Kansas I always think of Truman Capote's opening to In Cold Blood, "Holcomb stands on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call 'out there.' " I thought of that sentence as we exited the car in the early morning hours that Saturday, with the cold wind blowing across miles and miles and miles of empty fields. And the three of us walked into this diner and there were families, huge families, in almost every seat. And the waitresses knew them by name, and asked us ours and I knew that had I been a resident of Salina, I would eat many meals in this place. The food was cheap, and good, and at the end of the day there's not much more one can ask for.

What I Cooked, What Others Cooked for Me, Where I Ate

Thursday I cooked a new soup- wild mushroom with artichoke hearts. While I blended the mushrooms I added the artichokes at the end, and should have blended those as well. But that's part of what I love about cooking- trial and error. There is always a chance to do it better the next time.

I also have some leftover beef stew that I ate on Monday, and on Wednesday I didn't eat dinner.

On Tuesday my friend Emilie had me over for dinner. She fed me pâté on pita bread, and then gnocchi with vegetables and cheese. It was very good and very filling. I thank her for her generosity.

I ate out a lot this weekend, at the same place over and over again. No question that the two breakfast meals were the standouts. On Saturday I had the French toast. It was good, not great, but much better than the ham club sandwich I had the night before. Sunday I had the Mexican skillet, which featured chorizo and jalapenos and a pepper jack cheese.

Windy City Cooking: Week 23

2010-01-11T22:08:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

Culinary Surprises, Culinary Simplicity
by Jason Hissong
11 January 2010

I purchased Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck Cookbook via a giftcard over the holiday season. While I haven't read it, and I probably won't ever cook from it, I have looked through it. It's fascinating. It's part autobiography, part modern art book, part scientific journal. The tome's opening pages feature stunning artwork by Dave McKean. One of the pages has an image of Blumenthal himself through McKean's mixed media lens, and the double page spread the words: Something interesting happens every time I put food or drink in my mouth.

While I don't have Blumenthal's culinary skill or knowledge, and I don't yet take the time to really ascertain what happens in my mouth every time I feed it, I do think this statement is accurate. And what I find fascinating time and time again is how often I am surprised by food, and how often simple food brings such enjoyment.

Example one: on Tuesday of this past week a group of my friends- Jonathan, Jason, and Elizabeth- journeyed to Navy Pier after work to see for ourselves the spectacle that is Avatar on an IMAX screen, in 3-D. We had about an hour and a half to kill before the film started and we planned to eat at Navy Pier. So we settled on Bubba Gump's Shrimp Company.

There's no question that I pre-judged this place. A dining experience based on a movie? Which has the movie on a monitor, constantly running? With decor that can be qualified as southern scrap yard in an attempt to be clever? At Navy Pier? My friends, one cannot get more touristy cliched than this here in the Windy City.

And yet, all four of us walked away with the same conclusion: better than expected. I had the Po Boy Sandwich, which featured shrimp on a hoagie style roll. And it was really good. Fresh shrimp. Nice flavors in the cole slaw. French fries not too salty or greasy. Jason had the Bucket of Trash, which features crab legs, shrimp, and fries. Jonathan had a fish and chips and Elizabeth had the Ying Yang Shrimp Salad in which she substituted salmon for the shrimp. I think all of us were satisfied. Was it mind blowingly good? No. Will I ever return? Probably not? Did it surprise me? Yes. It surprised me because of its simplicity and its clear flavors, well executed.

Example #2: Saturday afternoon I was tired. I had a pretty packed morning, combined with a somewhat late Friday night and lack of good sleep as I awaited the phone call telling me my maternal grandmother had passed. I wanted something simple and comforting. Something that hit the spot on a cold winter day in January in which, after arriving at my home after my morning errands, I had no desire to step back outside until I had to.

So, I made one of the most comforting dishes from my childhood: grilled cheese and tomato soup. I love this dish because it is so simple and satisfying. Because it's canned tomato soup (yes, canned, I usually add half a can of milk to the soup, and then some crushed black pepper and red pepper flakes) and bread with butter, and cheddar cheese between.

And there's nothing better, nothing more satisfying. The temperatures are warm and the flavors go well together. I love dipping the sandwich into the soup, to soften the bread even more and then everything mixes together on the tongue. It's comforting to me, and it's good, and I am not ashamed to love something so simple.

What I Cooked, What Others Cooked For Me, Where I Ate

I cooked some beef stew in my new cast iron Dutch Oven on Sunday. It's very similar to the chili recipe I used on New Year's Day. It was hearty and satisfying and the perfect note for a cold winter's night in January, with football on the television.

On Friday I took the leftover chili from the New Year's Day celebration and added some shredded cheese during the re-heat process for Jonathan and myself before we went to Guthrie's Tavern for some pints and board games with coworkers. The dish turned out well, landing somewhere between the heartiness of the chili itself and the savoriness of a risotto style dish.

I had many meals out of my home again this week, which is a testament to the many friends I have here in Chicago. Monday I had a burrito caliente at Cafe Laguardia. My friends Tim, Mark, and David joined me. On Tuesday I ate at the aforementioned Bubba Gump Shrimp Company with Jonathan, Jason and Elizabeth. I skipped dinner on Wednesday. On Thursday I joined my friend Andy at Garcia's in Lincoln Square. Garcia's is one of my favorite places in all of Chicago, and their remodel job is incredible. The food is still excellent, and nothing is better than their chips and salsa with the three tacos dinner. I always get one steak, one chicken, and one chorizo. I am always satisfied. Friday I modified the chili for Jonathan and myself. Saturday Tracy and I dined at Orange Garden, where I had the Szechwan chicken and she had the General Tso chicken.

Chicken Piccata

2010-01-05T17:09:00.000-08:00

When Jen and I lived in Valley Village a few years back, one of our favorite restaurants was Georgio's on Ventura Boulevard. It was a cozy little Italian joint, where the food was good and consistent. We especially liked their chickens Francese and Piccata. In perusing the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook that I recently received, I came across a recipe for Chicken Piccata that looked pretty great. So, armed with fond memories, I tested out the recipe, and it turned out well. Onto the recipe!

First, set your oven to 200º so it can serve as a warming tray for your cooked chicken cutlets.

This recipe calls for 1/2 cup chicken broth. If you have chicken stock on hand, or a canned chicken broth, feel free to skip this step. If not, go ahead and grab 1/4-cube of bouillon.

Dissolve your 1/4-cube in 1/2 cup of boiling water.

We're going to need 4 chicken cutlets for this recipe, but all we have on hand are chicken breasts. As always, this recipe will serve two, so modify the recipe as needed.

The best way to think of one of these boneless, skinless chicken breasts is to look at what parts of the chicken it contains. You've got the actual chicken breast, but underneath it that small, thin flap of chicken is the tenderloin. You're also going to want to remove the excess fat with a small, sharp knife. You can reserve and render it for use later, if you like.

Next, cut the tenderloin from the breast.

Hold one hand down on the breast, and slice through horizontally, forming two cutlets. You can pound these flat, if you like. I sort of regret not doing so, but they turned out pretty well regardless. Repeat this step with the tenderloin, and you've got two more small cutlets, bringing you to two large and two small cutlets just from one breast. Not bad!

Season these with coarse kosher or sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper.

If one of your cutlets is significantly bigger than the others, cut it in half to ensure more consistent cooking time.

Heat 1 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil over medium-high heat. It's ready as soon as it's barely started smoking.

Then, dredge your cutlets in flour. 1/4 cup of flour should be plenty for all four (well, five now) cutlets.

Cook for a couple minutes on each side until cooked through.

When they're done, remove them to an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet and place them in the oven so they stay hot. I did mine in two batches, but feel free to do yours in one, if you like.

While the chicken is cooking, slice half a lemon into 1/4-inch-thick slices, toss out the end of the lemon, and squeeze the juice from 1/2 to 1 1/2 lemons, depending on how lemony you like your Piccata. The juice from 1 1/2 lemons, about 1/4 cup, will make this a very lemony dish, so only use as much lemon juice as you like.

Mince one clove of garlic.

In the oil left over from cooking the chicken, cook the garlic for 30 seconds or until just softened.

Pour in your chicken broth, and scrape any little browned remnants stuck to the bottom of the pan into the sauce. Next, add the lemon slices and simmer until reduced to a thicker sauce, which should take 10 minutes or so. Then, add the lemon juice.

Chop 3 tbsp unsalted butter.

Turn the heat to low, and add the butter piece by piece, whisking until smooth. Season to taste.

Remove the chicken to a plate.

Top with the sauce, and garnish with lemon slices. Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by Beach City Cooking, and I'll see you all very soon for another post. Have a great night, and stay cool!

Windy City Cooking: Week 22

2010-01-04T16:15:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

The New Year
by Jason Hissong
4 January 2010

The menu: antipasto of swiss cheese and crackers, sausage, raw red peppers, carrots, radishes. Roasted fennel, parsnips, and carrots. Main course: three cheese and broccoli soup, chili with rice, and pasta e fagioli. Dessert: Oreo/cream cheese balls and chocolate cake.

My co-chef: the marvelously skilled Kate.

The guests: Jason and Elizabeth, Tim and Rhonda, Dave and Dana, Jonathan, Kara, Robb, Dana and Andrew, Garrett.

I have goals I want to accomplish every year. Not resolutions, per se. And the first goal for the last two years has been this: start the new year by cooking dinner for my friends.

So that's how 2010 began. 14 people coming to my home. People who know one another, and people new to my circle of friends.

Being in the kitchen all day is one of my favorite things to do that I do less often than I would like. So one of my 2010 goals is to cook for more people, more often.

Kate came over early, at three, and together we created this meal for our friends. And there is nothing better than that.

And, slowly but surely, people arrived until we had all 14. The chili and soups simmered on the stovetop, in the crock-pot, until serving time, having wafted the most comforting scents throughout my apartment all day. The antipasto items laid on the table, waiting for consumption nibble by nibble.

Eventually, bellies filled. Bowls and spoons piled up in the sink, and then the dishwasher. Eventually, one by one, or two by two, the guests left and at midnight there were four of us, watching garbage television, playing Uno, appetites satiated.

When I reflect back on this year's New Year's Day Dinner there are no regrets. Sure, the broccoli cheese soup could have been creamier, but it worked. There could have been a couple of tweaks to the chili, and next time I'll try a different combination of spices. There could have been an addition or two to the people who dined at my home on New Year's day but, three days later the only thing I would change is my level of exhaustion from the previous night's celebration. Everything else was just as it should be in terms of both the food and the guests.

And for that, I am thankful. And for them I will continue to cook.

What I Cooked, What Others Cooked for Me, Where I Ate

I didn't cook much worth mentioning this week other than New Year's Day Dinner. I had leftover pizza one night, mac and cheese another. I skipped dinner altogether on Tuesday. No one, save for Kate, cooked for me this week.

I was able to share meals out with a few people this week. A huge thank you to Elizabeth and Kristin for hosting the New Year's Eve celebration at Kristin and her husband Collin's place. I enjoyed a Wednesday evening meal with my friend Tracy at Julius Meinl. She had pancetta crepes while I had the turkey and avocado sandwich. Saturday night I was able to dine with Robb. Robb is an old friend who moved away with his partner, Shayne, at the end of summer. I am so thankful we had a chance to get together other than the party as he's a great friend and I miss him dearly. We went to the Pick Me Up Cafe where we both had the BTH Club. On Sunday Jason, Elizabeth and I went to the Lincoln Restaurant. It's a cozy little place right by our apartment. They both had the three pancakes and eggs. I had the Alabama skillet- chorizo and jalapenos, eggs, potatoes. Good stuff. Greasy and filling.

Blue Cheese Dressing

2010-01-03T16:31:00.000-08:00

I recently received a copy of America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, and it's a terrific book. There are plenty of photographs, which is a big plus in my book, but it's the sheer number of handy recipes--over 1200--that makes the spiral-bound tome so worth owning. In flipping through the book, there are a bunch of recipes that stood out to me, but one in particular caught my eye: blue cheese dressing, mostly because I had some great blue cheese on hand, and some buttermilk I had to use up. This recipe turned out to be extremely delicious, and thankfully quick and easy to prepare. You won't even need to break out the blender or food processor. Okay, onto the recipe.

You'll need 1/3 lb. blue cheese, crumbled. The recipe recommends a mild blue like Stella or Danish--I think this was a Danish blue, but a very, very strong one, so I used just a tad less than the recipe recommended. Gorgonzola would be a suitable substitute in this recipe, but just make sure that whatever cheese you use, it's one that has a strong flavor with some serious depth to it, because this recipe is one that really sings with a good blue cheese.

Start out by pouring 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp buttermilk into a large mixing bowl.

These garlic pics are shamelessly stolen from the Souvlaki post. You'll only need a lone clove for this dressing. You can use the other against any approaching vampires.

Peel your clove. If it's not peeling easily, you can crack it against your counter and it should peel off easily then.

Mincing garlic is a good thing, mincing words usually not.

Add your fromage bleu to the buttermilk, along with the garlic.

Mash everything up with a fork.

Add 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp sour cream. We got this great Cascade Farms sour cream that's the best, freshest sour cream I've ever had, so if you can find that, I recommend it.

Then, add 6 tbsp mayo. We like Best Foods light mayo--Best Foods is the same as Hellman's, it's just called Best Foods west of the Rockies.

You'll also need 2 tbsp white vinegar.

And, finally, 1/2 tsp each of salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Mix it all up, and it's ready! According to the recipe, this will last for 4 days in a sealed container in the fridge.

I think Boston Bibb lettuce holds up nicely against the dressing.

Spoon your desired amount of dressing onto the salad, and enjoy! This is also great as a dip for carrots, celery, chicken fingers or chicken wings.

Thanks for stopping by Beach City Cooking, and I'll see you all tomorrow for another edition of Windy City Cooking. Have a great night, and stay cool!

White Corn Tortillas

2010-01-02T15:34:00.000-08:00

I've been on something of a Mexican food kick lately. I really enjoyed making those flour tortillas a month or so ago, but I've always been more partial to flour tortillas than their corn counterparts. I think that's because I've had corn tortillas far less frequently, and because the ones I have had haven't been particularly excellent. I was leafing through the excellent Tacos book by Mark Miller that I mentioned in yesterday's Tomatillo Salsa post, though, and came across a recipe for homemade corn tortillas that looked easy enough. These tortillas turned out really well, and weren't terribly too much work, although you will get some good exercise out of the process if, like me, you don't happen to have a tortilla press lying around. Okay, onto the recipe!

Okay, first you'll need a large mixing bowl.

You'll also need some Maseca, also known as instant corn masa flour, pictured above, or some regular old masa harina. I've been able to find masa harina in the past, but not where we're currently living, so we opted for the former flour. You'll need 4 cups Maseca or 2 cups masa harina. You should be able to find at least one if not both of these ingredients in the international foods aisle of your local grocery store, or, barring that, in a Latin American foods speciality shop.

You'll also need 1/2 tsp salt (0r 1/4 tsp if using masa harina). Add that to your Maseca or masa harina in your mixing bowl, along with--

--either 2 2/3 cups plus 4 tbsp warm water (if using Maseca) or 1 1/4 cups plus 2 tbsp warm water (if using masa harina).

Combine with a wooden spoon until soft but no longer sticky. Then cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap for about an hour, so the water can be absorbed into the Maseca or masa harina, resulting in a denser dough. You'll really be able to tell the difference when you handle the dough afterwards. So, in the meantime, treat yourself to a siesta.

For this next step, you'll need a small bowl of warm water.

You should also go ahead and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

Moisten your hands with the warm water, then form the dough into 24 1.5'' balls, setting each one on your baking sheet. If I know faithful reader and best friend David Plotkin, he's going to count the balls in the picture and find out that there are only 23, so I'm going to just cop to dropping one on the ground and having to throw it out right now. (Hi David!)

Cover your future corn tortillas with a wet kitchen towel, and keep them covered until you're ready to cook them. Then, preheat a griddle or large cast-iron skillet to 350º.

If you have a tortilla press, you can skip the next few steps, because all you have to do is pop the ball of dough into your press and form a tortilla. If you don't have one, though, the recipe provides us with a handy alternative. First, you'll need a large heavy-duty plastic bag, opened and cut along the sides.

Place one ball of dough on the right side of your opened bag.

Push down on it with your hands until it's about 1/2''-1'' thick.

Then, fold the left side of the bag over the right side, covering the flattened ball of dough.

Using a small saucepan, a small cast-iron skillet (like a fajita pan), or a bacon weight, flatten the tortilla a couple of times.

Next, uncover your tortilla and trim off the edges with a small knife to form a circular tortilla.

Cover the tortilla once more, and flatten a couple more times until 1/4''-1/8'' thick.

Preheat your oven to 200º. Then place a tortilla on your preheated griddle or skillet.

After about 1 minute and 15 seconds, flip your tortilla.

30 seconds more, and it should be all set. Remove it to your preheated oven, wrapped in aluminum foil.

Prepare and cook your remaining tortillas in sets of four; while they cook, begin preparing the next batch.

When they're all done, seal the aluminum foil pouch tightly and remove to your fridge until use. These should keep for about a week. Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by Beach City Cooking, and I'll see you all very soon for another post. Have a great night, and stay cool!

Tomatillo Salsa

2010-01-01T10:39:00.000-08:00

Hey faithful readers, Happy New Year! I'm going to try and get these blog posts back to something resembling a more regular and respectable schedule. Thanks from Jason, Juan and myself for your continued support of the site! We'll have plenty more content for you in 2010, so stay tuned!

One of my favorite cookbook authors is southwestern chef extraordinaire Mark Miller (not to be confused with comic book scribe Mark Millar or cultural studies genius Mark Crispin Miller!) and while I'm a proud owner of his Tacos cookbook, I've also recently taken his Great Salsa Book and Coyote's Pantry cookbook out from the library. I can assure you that the title of the latter volume is no bizarre non-sequitur, but a reference to Miller's famous Coyote Cafe restaurant in Santa Fe.

Miller's Tacos book is a 75 taco recipe-strong tome, but the other books are great, too, and there's a tomatillo salsa in Coyote's Pantry that sounded like a good way to get myself acquainted with the tart fruit commonly found in southwestern and south of the border cooking. I'm sure I've had tomatillos at some point in the past, as they're often the base for your standard Salsa Verde, but I'm not sure I'd ever had such a freshly-prepared iteration before I made this one. Okay, onto the recipe, and for those unfamiliar, I'll talk a little about what the tomatillo is like along the way.

The first thing you'll need is an ear of corn. See that green husk? We're all about the green in this recipe. But please, no broccoli in this salsa.

Next, heat a small cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat.

Remove the husk and shuck the corn from the cob.

Roast the corn in the dry skillet, 3-5 minutes or until it's started to blacken a bit.

Remove it to a bowl. The roasted corn is going to influence the flavor of the salsa when it sits in the fridge.

You'll need about 15 tomatillos for this recipe, but we'll start with these four so you can see what to do with them. A tomatillo is little like an apple, a little like a lemon, and a little like a plum. When pureed, it's even a little like a pureed kiwi, what with all the seeds. Tomatillos have these husks that make them seem a lot more intimidating to work with, I think, so first--

Just remove the husks. They should come off pretty easily. And now they don't look quite so strange anymore. They are going to be a little sticky to the touch, though, so you'll want to rinse them off.

I sliced this one open so you can see what it's going to look like on the inside. It's pretty pale and heavy on the seeds. Resist the urge to taste it, because it's going to be a little tart or sour at this point.

Chop your first four tomatillos into a pretty small dice.

Next, you'll need enough cilantro for 1/2 cup.

Rinse, dry, and chop your cilantro fine. I usually use a small knife with no serrated edge, bunching up the cilantro with my fingers and making long, pulling cuts across it to achieve this effect most easily.

In your blender, add the tomatillos, the corn, the cilantro, 1 3/4 tsp salt, 1 cup water, 1 tsp sugar, and 2 tbsp fresh lime juice. Puree until smooth.

The only reason these tomatillos didn't go in the first blending cycle is that I totally forgot about the remaining tomatillos, at first, so feel free to add the other 10 or so chopped tomatillos to that previous step before blending.

Blend well--

--until nice and smooth.

Remove to a container and enjoy! The recipe says the salsa will only keep in the fridge for a couple days; ours kept for about four.

Thanks for stopping by Beach City Cooking, and I'll see you all very soon for another post. Have a great night, and stay cool!

Windy City Cooking: Week 21

2009-12-28T20:07:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all, and which this week turns legal drinking age. Enjoy! -Max)

Food Traditions: Christmas
by Jason Hissong
28 December 2009

I rest my head against the tiny window of the Boeing 737 that will take me from St. Louis to Chicago in 38 minutes. I'm anxious. I've never traveled on a plane during snow, or winter conditions, really. The captain dings the intercom on to inform us that we're going to be delayed because the plane needs to de-ice. It's a small comfort. I close my eyes and try to sleep, and as I try to sleep I can't stop thinking about our family's food traditions during the holidays. And, more importantly, how they're changing.

This Christmas differences abound from the Christmases of my youth. First, there are more of us. It's not just my parents, my sister and myself. My sister is married now, and her and her husband have three daughters all under six. Second, my parents and my sister and I all live in different cities. No longer is Christmas centered around my travel plans only, the way it was until I was out of college. It's a larger, coordinated effort of my parents travelling from Omaha, me flying from Chicago, someone coming to get me at the airport. I feel different, too, because I feel I no longer have roots in St. Louis, where I spent my formative years. It might be different if my sister's family lived in the house in which we grew up. But they don't.

I remember when I was young, somewhere between 12 until I went to college, our family Christmas tradition went something like this: I'd have to be at church for many hours on Christmas Eve, as I probably had something to do in every service. Getting home shortly after midnight, my mother would have a meal ready. At midnight. It would be something simple- crock-pot smokies in a jelly/brown sugar sauce. Ham, either from the next day's meal or from the meal we had that afternoon. And cookies. Of course there were cookies. I especially like the sugar cookies that featured a single Hershey's Kiss in the center; the perfect blend of sugars, of dough and chocolate and just delicious. So, just after midnight, with the snap and hiss of a real fire, the tree providing the only other light, and plates full of food, we'd sit around and distribute presents. We opened them one at a time, taking turns and somewhere between two and three in the morning we'd all go to sleep, the Christmas haul staying in the living room until Christmas day. The dishes in the sink until Dad woke up and did them in preparation for the next day's feast.

That's generally how it went.

Things are different now. They have to be. Christmas Eve now goes like this: I work half a day in Chicago and take the packed train to Midway to wait in crowded lines. Sometimes I'll get a drink while I wait (the first Christmas I lived in Chicago is notable because Jonathan and I had flights departing from adjoining gates, and we overestimated the time we needed to get to said gates, so we had a couple of hours that we filled with Guinness and Jameson consumption before our flights. Good times. Good times). Dad, or Dad and Mom, or, this year, Dad, Mom, Zoe and Emma (my sister's two oldest girls) pick me up at the airport. We drive back to her house. We meet Jamie's parents, sister and her son for dinner at a restaurant. We go back to my sister's house so the girls can open their presents from their grandparents and parents, and somehow the adults get theirs in, too. Unceremoniously. Matter of factly. Shoehorned in between unhindered bursts of joy and laughter from the babies.

Christmas Day brings the new food tradition: a trip to my brother-in-law's aunt's house for Christmas Day dinner. She makes this incredible cheeseball. And there are two crock-pots full of hamburgers. And cookies. And pork tenderloin. And cookies. And my mom made smokies. And cookies. And relish trays. And if you go hungry it's your own fault. It's all good food. Nothing's bad. But it doesn't feel quite right. I don't feel at home. I feel as though I'm a guest. And it's that feeling that I dislike.

I'm trying not to say that one is better than the other, but it is. I'd much prefer the Christmases of my youth than the sort of hurried, doesn't quite fit Christmases of my late twenties.

Maybe it's because I'm growing older and at some point I have to realize that people change. Traditions change. I generally like change but not this time. And I need to explore why that is. The food is just a symptom, I think. Or maybe it's because of the food that I feel rootless. Nothing's familiar. It's not cooked the way I remember. Different hands prepare the meal. It has a different feel, and I'm still trying to adjust.

I do know this: food will be of vital importance to me if there ever comes a day where I host Christmas. Even if it's just me and my significant other. Or me and my friends. Or some other combination of people. Food is too important to me not to have a central role in any holiday celebration.

APPENDIX: In the seven days since last week I can add yet two more food culture experiences to topics on which I've previously written.

First, a huge thank you to my co-worker and friend Andres. He graciously provided a gift of Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home. I can't wait to read this thing.

Second, another huge thank you to the following individuals for coordinating an incredible birthday day, and dinner for me: Jason, Jonathan, Shayne, Elizabeth, Kate, and Julie. The seven of us had dinner at the Wishbone Cafe in celebration of my birthday. There's nothing like southern comfort food on a cold, icy winter day to celebrate a birthday. Thank you, again!

What I Cooked, What Others Cooked For Me, Where I Ate

I didn't cook much this week, between the birthday celebration and travelling for the holiday. I did cook pancakes for the family on Saturday morning. That could, quite possibly be the only thing I cooked all week.

Others cooked a lot for me this weekend. Most notably my brother-in-law's aunt Terri. She always hosts Christmas Day dinner and there were a bunch of people to feed. Over 20, I think. So there were hamburgers and the pork tenderloin. Mom cooked her famous smokies, and there was an incredible potato dish that I devoured. The potatoes were the perfect texture and there were bread crumbs, I think, to add a seamless crunch to the softness of the potatoes. And, of course, the cookies and homemade cheesecake for dessert.

I ate at so many places this week. Potbelly's for a Big Wreck on wheat while I waited for my flight to St. Louis. Christmas Eve we had dinner at Applebee's where I split a spinach and artichoke dip with Dad and then had a chicken sandwich for dinner. The other notable meal in St. Louis was Saturday night, as the eight of us went to Outback for a nice dinner. I had the Alice Spring Chicken with a chopped salad. Very nice stuff, if a bit ubiquitous. Thanks Mom and Dad, for all the meals!

Panama City Cooking: Patacones

2009-12-23T23:54:00.000-08:00

[Editor's Note: Please give an extra-warm welcome to Juan Duque and his new monthly column, Panama City Cooking! -Max]

Panama City Cooking 01: Patacones
December 23rd, 2009
by Juan Duque

They say Panama is the heart of the universe, the crossroads of the Americas, and even the bridge of the world. You can definitely see that reflected in our food, since you’ll be able to find dishes with heavy influences from pretty much anywhere around the world. Our geographical position is a big part of why this has happened, with the Panama Canal being the main reason we’re basically a huge melting pot of cultures when it comes to food.

My name’s Juan and I’ll be writing a monthly column here at Beach City Cooking about pretty much anything related to food in Panama. This will be a learning experience for me because if I’m being honest, I’m not great at cooking! I do love food, and although sometimes I neglect it, I enjoy our traditional dishes very much. So you’ll probably see me falling in love with certain foods all over again, as I revisit them for the first time in months (or even years!).

But for this first one, it won’t be necessary. I already take this one on dates pretty often, and I’d even dare to call it love. I’m talking about patacones.

This (not so healthy) side dish is a part of probably every single Panamanian’s life. Really, go to any traditional Panamanian restaurant or even an Italian restaurant if you want (or pretty much any restaurant), and you’ll be able to order patacones as a side dish. Their ubiquitousness can’t be overstated, they’re everywhere!

Patacones are fried plantains, also known as tostones in other countries. The basic recipe is the same almost everywhere, with some countries making variations in the shape (like giving it a cup shape, so you can put cream cheese, sauce or whatever you like inside). There’s a few differences in how to eat them when they’re done, ranging from using ketchup, to dipping them in salsa, or just using salt.

I’ll show you the traditional way they’re done in Panama, which is just the patacones with a little salt added. You can eat this with any type of meat you like. Oh and eating a salad on the side wouldn’t hurt.

You’ll need unripe plantains for this. They’re the green ones. They’re pretty cheap here.

I bought two of them, but decided to use another one I had in the fridge. This is something I would regret in the future.

You’ll need a large saucepan (we call them “paila” here), or any deep frying pan, and some oil. I prefer sunflower or canola oil. Just don’t use olive oil, or you won’t be able to get them nice and crispy!

Make sure to use enough oil so that when you put in the sliced plantains, they’ll be mostly covered with oil. Turn the heat to medium-high.

While that’s going on, make sure to wash the plantains before using them. And dry them.

Now you’re gonna have to cut both ends of the plantain, that way it’ll be a lot easier to peel. I don’t really recommend doing this if you just took it out of the fridge, though. It’s much harder. You should let them stand at room temperature for a little while. Slit the peel along one of the lines, and then it’ll be pretty easy to just remove it.

As you can see I had a hard time initially, but I blame the knife! As soon as I started using my BergHOFF knife, it went smoothly. Observe:

Now, I know they sorta look like bananas, but trust me, don’t eat them! They’ll taste pretty nasty at this point, and you won’t be able to get ride of the taste for a while. You’ll have to cut them in thick slices now. Not too thick, though, unless you want really big patacones.

Now carefully put the slices in the oil in batches, and leave them there until they’re a little yellow (not golden). You can flip them so they’re cooked evenly.

Use either a plate or a flat surface with a paper towel to put the slices on.

Remove the slices from the oil. You can use a slotted spoon like I did, or whatever utensil will allow you to pick them up without grabbing excess oil, like a spider.

Now the fun part: Flatten those suckers! But be careful not to do it too hard. You can use a wood mortar, or any other flat object. I used this plantain press. At least, that’s what I think it is. I just found it here.

Beautiful! At this point I realized I had too many slices. Luckily you can freeze them after the first frying, so they can be used later. I froze one batch. You can add a little salt at this point. It all depends on how you wanna do it, though. Some people prefer to add the salt before the first frying, others when it’s completely done. It’s up to you!

It’s time to fry them again. You can tell this is a very healthy dish. Just leave them there for a very short time, just to get them as crispy as you like, and take them out. My first batch got a little too crispy and golden, but it was still okay.

And there you go, take them out and they’re ready to be eaten! You can still add ketchup or whatever salsa you like. I prefer them without any type of sauce, because they’re delicious just like this. You can also try doing sweet patacones, with plantains that are a little riper (but not completely).

I hope you enjoyed the first installment of Panama City Cooking! See you again next month.

Windy City Cooking: Week 20

2009-12-21T22:18:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

Evolver
by Jason Hissong
21 December 2009

'Tis the season.

I've had three culinary events this week which evolve previous topics I've written about. This is the nature of cooking, writing, and, life. As we march forward through time things shift, understandings change, ideas and meanings more lucid.

And so, with these events, too.

Early on in this endeavor I wrote a column about why I love to cook. And most of it is that cooking, for me, and especially when I'm doing it for others, is a form of thanksgiving for my friends, and food, and life.

And so I get to repeat what I did last year: New Year's Day Dinner at my house. Prepared by me. For my friends. Except, this year, it's different, because I'm different.

It will not be the same crowd 1 January 2010 as it was 1 January 2009. People move away. Other people join, and the table will be as it is meant to be.

This dinner will be different from last year because I will be cooking different dishes. I'm not sure what the menu will be at this point, but I don't need to know right now.

The most important difference: I won't be cooking alone. The lovely Kate will join me in cooking the meal. And so, things change. I give thanks for my friends by cooking for them, and by cooking with them.

A more recent column highlighted my Cook's Bookshelf. And to this I add a new volume: Michael Ruhlman's newest Ratio. The book was a gift from Ashley to me for my birthday. Thank you!

Ratio's premise is simple: forget recipes. Here's the base level of what you need to know and then, once you have the base level, an infinite amount of variety can be accomplished. It's not a dissimilar theme to Colicchio's Think Like A Chef.

I like Ruhlman's prose. It walks the very thin line between pragmatic and pretentious. Here it leans towards the latter. I love this book. It makes so much sense to me because I am NOT a recipe cook. Recipes stress me out. There's no innovation in recipes. And, of course, there is that ubiquities discrepancy between what the recipe promises and what's executed.

I've not read the entire book, of course, but from the first handful of pages I can tell that this is one I will read cover to cover. Also, it makes me want to get in my kitchen right now and start playing with ingredients.

The third event of my culinary week occurred Sunday evening. I travelled to the Rogers Park neighborhood to eat at the other Uncommon Ground, which is, of course, my favorite restaurant here in Chicago. In that column I wrote that it's my favorite restaurant because of the food, yes, but because every time I've been there it's been with people special to me. And Sunday night's visit was no different.

The John Erickson Trio played last night. It was the first time I had ever gone to Uncommon Ground to hear music while having dinner. I'm so thankful to have gone. The music was very good and so perfect in that place.

And so I get to add another experience as to why that place is my favorite. I dined with a table of seven comprised of individuals from two separate circles in my life. The seven: my roommate Jason and his girlfriend Elizabeth. My friends from my place of worship Megan and Tina, and Tina's roommate Jessica. Ashley and I were the sixth and seventh and I certainly loved every moment.

I had the chopped salad. Ashley and Megan both had the pork chop with polenta and fried brussel sprouts. Tina had the pumpkin ravioli. Eiizabeth had the filet and Jason had the meat loaf. I'm not sure what Jessica had, as she was at the other end of the table from me.

So things change and are added to a bit. The fluidity is what appeals to me- that this process- cooking, eating, understanding both, being thankful for those around me- is always changing. I am thankful I can see that. And I'm thankful I have that.

What I Cooked, Where I Ate, and What Others Cooked for Me

Backwards this time: thank you Ashley for cooking the wonderful dish which she has entitled "whore in church." It's a pasta dish with shrimp and sun dried tomatoes. But to that is a cayenne/tabasco mixture added into the sauce that compounds itself as one keeps eating. Other thanks: the Title department in my office for their potluck on Monday. Sarah and Kelly for hosting the cookie exchange party on Saturday night (I don't even want to know how many calories I consumed there).

I ate out a lot again this week. Uncommon Ground on Sunday evening. Friday evening I enjoyed dinner with my friend Andy at The Pick Me Up Cafe. I had the corkscrew pasta in broth. He had a breakfast scramble. Saturday afternoon my friends Shayne and Katie joined me for some Christmas shopping in Wicker Park. We ate at the Earwax Cafe. While the Earwax has the most unappetizing name ever, the food is really delicious. I had the tomato soup and grilled cheese. Shayne had the Kitchen Sink Burrito and Katie had the chorizo burrito. Other than that it was my usual, tired lunch rotation.

I cooked this week! I made pancakes Sunday morning- before I had Ratio! Earlier in the week I made a simple dish of braised Italian sausage that I put on top of a jasmine rice and carrot combination. Tasty and delicious.

Chicken Souvlaki

2009-12-19T15:58:00.000-08:00

Growing up in Buffalo, NY, there were a lot of cool little Greek places in our neighborhood, and my go-to meal was usually chicken souvlaki. I loved picking up the chicken, tearing off a piece of pita, spooning on a little tzatziki, and going to town. There's just something fun about the process--it makes the resultant bite just that much more delicious. If Sisyphus got a bite of souvlaki every time he completed his Herculean task, he'd probably be way happier. (Because, you know, rolling a rock up and down a hill for eternity is definitely comparable to the hard work of assembling a good bite of souvlaki.)

So, every week I pick up a few cookbooks at the library. I'm not terribly picky about which books I take out, although I really do prefer cookbooks with lots of pictures, just because they're a lot more fun. A few weeks ago, I picked up Roadfood Sandwiches, by Roadfood.com founders Jane and Michael Stern, which is unfortunately devoid of pics, but a great cookbook nonetheless. I've since tried out a few of the recipes in the book, the first of which is for a delicious chicken souvlaki sandwich. Okay, let's check out this recipe.

First you'll need a head of garlic.

Well, maybe not a whole head. Let's start off with just a couple cloves.

Peel your cloves--

And mince them.

In a small bowl, combine with a couple tbsp EVOO.

And a few tsp oregano.

And..a tsp freshly ground black pepper.

Give that a good whisk.

Next, you'll need one whole RBP.

Slice that up.

With a small knife, give the slices a good ribbing. As in, remove their white ribs. I would never condone poking fun at your red bell pepper.

Chop those up.

You'll need two Romatoes.

Slice each of those up into four slices.

Chop those up, too.

You'll need five or so boneless, skinless chicken tenders.

The conclusion of the "Chop Those Up" trilogy. Nominated for a Golden Globe!

You'll need a baking pan, preferably 13'' x 9'', greased. Grease is good. (Er, sometimes! I'm really just referencing Wall Street.)

Arrange your chicken, pepper, and tomato on a skewer, and place in your baking pan. Should fit just right.

Repeat with the remaining chicken, pepper, and tomato--they should comprise three more skewers. See, now this looks just like the Greek flag! Pretty cool, right? No, I'm kidding. The Greek flag is blue and white.

Pour your marinade over your skewers. Marinate in the fridge for a couple hours, turning the skewers every so often so the marinade gets to visit all those exciting vacation locales in your baking pan. It's a little adventure for the marinade.

After two hours, remove your skew--oh, wait a minute. That's a cucumber, not a pan full of skewers. So, rewind fifteen minutes. After one hour and 45 minutes, take out a cucumber.

Peel it.

Slice it in half, lengthwise.

Use a teaspoon to scrape out the seeds.

Live Free or Chop Those Up. (Or, Chop Those Up: Salvation. Take your pick.)

Remove to a small bowl.

Grab two more cloves of garlic. Peel and mince.

Add to your cukes.

Add a little kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Oh, and the juice of 1/2 a lemon.

Add one cup of plain yogurt, and mix it all up. Let it sit in the fridge while you cook the souvlaki.

Preheat the broiler, then pop in your skewers, cooking for 10 minutes or so or until done and nicely charred. Turn them every few minutes so they get cooked properly and that nice charred effect on all sides.

Any pita will work for this recipe. These are from Sprouts, 89 cents a pop. Pretty great deal. If you're really gung-ho about making everything yourself, you could make your own pita.

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by Beach City Cooking, and I'll see you all tomorrow for another post. Have a great night, and stay cool!

Windy City Cooking: Week 19

2009-12-14T09:42:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

Enemy Self
by Jason Hissong
14 December 2009

I'm sick.

I'm not physically ill. I haven't come down with H1N1 or that ubiquitous winter cough. I don't have any virus or disease, that I'm aware.

I'm sick of myself.

Why?

I had a moment today, at a holiday gathering, where I realized I was jealous of others' culinary ability.

It's a ridiculous notion. I'm sick of myself.

When I examine this more closely what I know is this: 1) I want to cook more from home. 2) I want to spend less money on food. That's what that really means.

I'm sick of my current lifestyle.

Because I have trashcans full of money in the form of empty Starbucks, and Au Bon Pain, and Intelligentsia, and Metropolis coffee cups.

How many times can I make the Jimmy John's, Corner Bakery Cafe, Qdoba, Potbelly rounds for lunch?

How many times can I take the easy way out and stop by Orange Garden on my way home?

How many times can I convince myself that it's okay to eat out all weekend, because I have to eat and I'm with friends?

I hate New Year's resolutions. They don't stick because it's an artificial starting point. Self made. In my experience, people only change their lifestyles or habits when the pain of changing is less than the pain of staying the same. So New Year's resolutions don't work, for me, because the artificiality of the calendar flip is simply an excuse, and an acknowledgement that I'm not in enough pain to change, yet.

And yet I find myself, every year, seemingly, making resolutions.

The truth is this: I'm a runner but I don't concentrate on foods that help me run. The Soldier Field 10 Mile in May and the Chicago Marathon in October aren't going to care that I spent my prep months eating crap.

I need to lose some pounds. I'm sick of my belly. And yet I do nothing in terms of what I put in my mouth to aid that effort.

I'm interested in sustainability and the slow food movement, and making sure my food comes from good places. And yet I do nothing to learn more and learn how to aid those processes.

I made a comment today at a holiday gathering that I was jealous of the culinary prowess on display.

My friend David turns to me and calls me out. You're a great cook, he tells me.

I know in my head he's correct. I can more than hold my own in the kitchen.

But I'm sick of myself because I haven't seen any improvement lately.

Because I haven't been cooking.

And, in the end, writing, running, and cooking are all the same in this way: the only way out is through. The only way to get better is to do.

So a today resolution: more cooking. More learning and cooking about the things I feel are important in my culinary life.

Because I'm sick of myself.

What I've Cooked, What Others Have Cooked for Me, Where I Ate

I'm not going to detail every meal I ate this week, mostly because you've read it all before, in previous weeks.

Highlights, though: Friday night I hit the Kristkindlmarkt in Daley Plaza. It's a perennial little holiday to do celebrating the German cultural presence in Chicago. You better believe I had a kraut-saddled brat in the cold winter air. Delicious.

I went to a place I had never been before on Saturday night. Jason and Elizabeth and I went after seeing The Fantastic Mr. Fox. The place was called Firkin and Pheasant. It sets itself up as an English pub -tyle place, but the food is pedestrian. I had the club sandwich.

The other remarkable culinary standout this week was the holiday gathering I attended yesterday. I didn't write down every dish, but many thanks to David, for hosting, Melanie, Charles, Lisa, Kimberly, Tim, Mark, Blake, Chris, George, Kiki, Kip, Chuck, and Alex for the spread. Tons of cookies, and tarts. Cheeseball, shrimp, goat cheese and cranberry roll. Pretzels, fresh fruit pie. Warm apple cider. You get the picture. I contributed peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. My only regret is that I brought some home. Because they won't go uneaten.

I cooked minimally this week. And very common food: eggs. Leftover onion soup. Nothing worth mentioning beyond that.

Apple-Parmesan Breakfast Pizza

2009-12-10T17:46:00.000-08:00

Today's post is just a simple, basic breakfast pizza you can whip up with relative ease on a weekend morning. The only somewhat more complex ingredient is the homemade pastry dough, but even that's not too bad. You can find step-by-step instructions for making your own pastry dough in this post. This recipe is pretty simple, and involves fewer than ten ingredients, including those necessary to make the pastry dough, so it really relies on fresh, good quality apples and Parmesan. You can use whichever apples you like--I personally prefer Granny Smith for desserts. Oh, and if you don't have Parmesan on hand, a super-sharp Cheddar (Cabot's sharp Cheddars are my personal favorite) would make for a great substitute.

First, grate 1-2 cups of aged Parmesan. I was thinking today how weird it is that we do to food what it's very bad to do in real life. For example, if you're grating, people won't want to be around you. But you grate some cheese and everyone wants to be around you! See? Very weird!

You're going to need about 1/2 a recipe of homemade pastry dough, but you should probably make a whole recipe's worth and just use the remainder for something else, because the mixture of the pastry dough is pretty precise and, take it from me, it's unfortunately easy to mess up a 1/2 recipe of pastry dough.

Here we have everyone's favorite generic lightly-floured surface picture, making an encore appearance.

Next, lightly flour a rolling pin and roll out your dough to a large rectangle. You want a size that you'd consider a medium rectangular pizza, that fits your baking sheet well.

You can trim off the edges for appearances' sake, or just leave it freeform.

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil, grease lightly, and place your future crust on the baking sheet.

In a bowl, mix together a few sliced apples, 1/4 cup sugar, a little cinnamon, nutmeg, and the juice and rind of 1/4 a lemon. I loosely based this off of the recipe for the apple mixture in the Apple-Cheddar pie post. Next, place your apple slices on your rolled-out pastry dough, and drizzle some of the remaining liquid over them.

Sprinkle your grated cheese over the top.

Bake at 350 for 12-16 minutes or until just browned.

Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by Beach City Cooking, and I'll see you all very soon for another post. Have a great night, and stay cool!

Whole Striped Bass Roasted in Salt

2009-12-08T23:20:00.000-08:00

A couple of notes to kick off tonight's post: first, on behalf of Jason and myself, sorry about the lack of a Windy City Cooking edition this week. Jason will be back with another edition next Monday, so please stay tuned for that. Secondly, today's post contains pictures of whole dead fish, to be blunt, so if that wigs you out you're probably best off skipping this one. Tomorrow's post will be a nice breakfast pizza, no dead fish, I promise, so if you're skipping this one, I'll see you tomorrow and we can share a slice. Sound good? Okay, onto the aforementioned fish, which serves as the basis for our Whole Striped Bass Roasted in Salt.

I got the recipe for this salt-roasted fish from this great seafood book I've been reading, Rick Moonen and Roy Finamore's Fish Without a Doubt. I saw Rick Moonen on Top Chef about a month ago and was very impressed with what he had to say about sustainable seafood, and eagerly picked up his book at the local library. It's a lengthy read, with not as many pictures as I'd like--I'm all about cookbooks with lots and lots of photographs--but it's great, and pretty all-encompassing, with 250+ different seafood recipes in the whole book. In fact, I'd say this cookbook's recipes will definitely be making a repeat appearance or two on this site.

And speaking of Top Chef, they did a reunion special at the beginning of last month wherein the unlikely pairing of Ilan Hall and Marcel Vigneron prepared a whole fish roasted in salt. It looked great, and I've actually been meaning to make this dish ever since I saw it in Top Chef head judge Tom Colicchio's cookbook, Think Like a Chef--the very cookbook our very own Jason Hissong sent me a couple months back. See how everything comes full circle? Pretty cool. Okay, onto the recipe.

First, set your oven to 400º. Then crack four large egg whites into your largest mixing bowl.

Next, add 1/2 cup water--

--and whisk until the mixture bubbles up to twice its height.

Dump in 4 cups of kosher salt.

Mix everything up until the mixture has the texture of "wet sand" (according to the book, and this is exactly how it comes out).

Next, line a baking sheet with aluminum foil.

Empty a cup of your salt mixture onto your baking sheet--

--and spread it out so it's a little taller and longer than the fish you'll be using.

We almost always buy our fish at Quality Seafood, the local open-air fish market at the Redondo Beach Pier, and the largest of its kind on the West Coast, I believe. I think this was $6 or so? They always have great deals on very, very fresh fish. You might recall them from some of the very first post-ending photos on this site.

Their fish always seems to come wrapped in obscure discarded Asian-language newspapers.

Here's that whole Striped Bass. You just want to place it in the center of your salt crust base. The book says you can also use any small whole fish for this recipe, especially Branzino or Turbot.

I'm just posting this one so you can get a better look at the gills--see how they're very red? That means the fish is very fresh. When buying a whole fish, you can always ask the person at your local fish market to show you the gills so you can make sure your fish is sufficiently fresh.

Next, pour the remaining salt mixture over the fish--

--and pat it out so it covers the fish entirely. Don't leave any gaps or the fish won't roast in the salt correctly. Okay, you can go ahead and put it in the oven now, for 30-35 minutes, depending on the size of your fish--30 minutes for a small fish, 35 for a large fish.

When you take your fish out of the oven, it should look something like this. The salt creates a thick crust for the fish to roast in.

After letting your fish cool for a few minutes, you can pretty much just peel off the salt crust. Feel free to make a mess, because at the end all you have to do is pull together the ends of your aluminum foil and toss the whole thing out. Underneath, it'll look like not much has changed, but when we peel off the skin--

--we can see a perfectly-roasted fillet. Carefully remove this to a plate.

Before we can get to the other fillet, we'll have to remove that pesky bone in the middle. To do so, pick it up from the tail end, and carefully pull it away from the fish.

Take the remaining fish out of the salt crust, and flip it over and onto a clean surface.

Finally, remove the skin, and you're left with the second fillet. This would be great with a salad and some crusty bread and butter. Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by Beach City Cooking, and I'll see you all very soon for another post. Have a great night, and stay cool!

Herring-Apple Salad

2009-12-06T22:12:00.000-08:00

What do you usually make for lunch? According to Healthy Tuna.com, 88% of Americans eat tuna, with 83% of those tuna fans having it for lunch. How many eat herring? A measly .0017%! No, I'm kidding, I couldn't find that statistic. But tuna is great, and herring is pretty good, too. I'd say they're my two preferred canned seafoods. This recipe, from What's Cooking America, represents a nice change of pace from your typical canned tuna. It's probably the least time-intensive recipe on the site, but it's pretty delicious and the apple provides it a really nice crunch. It's great with crackers, or on little toast rounds, maybe some petit toasts if you've got those around.

The herring fillets come in a small tin, wrapped in some vaguely colorful (but sort of dull) wrapping. (We'll see if I can locate a Thesaurus later on in the post.) These "seafood snacks"--you can't fault their description, but it's kind of weird that "seafood snacks" is in larger type than the barely-readable "boneless herring fillets"--boast a couple of label-worthy claims. First, they're kippered. If we consult our old pal Wikipedia on the matter, we find out that means the herring have been "split from tail to head, gutted, salted or pickled, and cold smoked." Okay, that sounds like a good idea.

The wrapper also assures us that each serving contains 1.0 omega-3 fatty acids. Those are really good for you, which is why all the cool canned seafoods are always bragging about how many omega-3s they contain. (There's a lot of peer pressure in the canned seafood world.) That Healthy Tuna site is pretty keen on omega-3's, too, as they "can curb or prevent cognitive decline, dementia, depression, neuropsychiatric disorders, asthma and inflammatory disorders." All this, and brain food, too! Not bad.

Oh, and for the first step, remove the wrapper--

--be relieved the can has a little tab and you don't have to try using your can opener on it--

--pop the tab--

--and pull back the top. See? That wasn't so bad! And check out these fillets, they look pretty legit.

Next, empty out the can onto your favorite cutting board, and reserve the juice in a large bowl.

And really mash them up. Just a fork will suffice. You can add some red food coloring at this point if that appeals to your sense of humor.

You're also going to need an apple. I think this was a Pink Lady, any apple variety you like will do.

Dice it up.

Grab a few bread-and-butter slice pickles, or whichever pickle you like best.

Chop those up, too.

Place your herring and apple into a bowl.

Add the relish with relish.

Remember that herring juice? Of course you do! We're all about Chekhov's Gun here at Beach City Cooking.

Then, add 1/6 cup vinegar (preferably white vinegar or red wine vinegar), 1/6 cup EVOO, 1/2 tsp kosher salt, and 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper to the bowl.

Whisk it up.

Add your herring-apple-pickle mixture, and combine well. Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by Beach City Cooking, and I'll see you all tomorrow for another edition of Windy City Cooking. Have a great night, and stay cool!

Windy City Cooking: Week 18

2009-11-30T17:25:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

Giving Thanks: The Harvest
by Jason Hissong
30 November 2009

I'm sitting shotgun in our rented Jeep Wrangler. Jonathan's driving down I-70 towards Indianapolis, where we'll switch to I-65 which will deliver us back to Chicago. We're listening to the Garden State soundtrack as the miles tick by. It's calm, and collected, and it just seems appropriate as we travel home. We haven't spoken much on this trip. There's no need.

We've spent the last four days on his family farm in south-eastern Ohio. I love going to the farm. It's so quiet and peaceful and serene. The house is at the end of a mile long road, and sits by itself. This time of year the fields are harvested and the air freezes the ground into a hard, dense mass. The farm is great because it's such an antithesis to city living. The dark is darker. The quiet quieter. Isolated from others, yes, but at the same time more a part of the natural earth.

And this little farmhouse that has been around for generations and generations is now the place to come to recuperate from a few months in in-city living. The isolation and open road and rolling hills provide ample time to take stock of gratitude, and to collect myself and prepare for the frenetic end to this year, and the beginning of the next.

I am grateful for the Isemans. Over the past eight years they have always been so open and kind and giving to me. They have opened their homes to me on numerous occasions, simply telling me to make myself at home. They have fed me on more occasions than I can count. They have taken an interest in my life, and provided guidance and wisdom when asked.

And so, on Thursday, a celebration. Of friends and family, sure. But of food as well. And I am grateful that Sue asked me to contribute a risotto dish to the Thanksgiving Day spread. Being in the kitchen with her, for however brief a period of time, was one of the most enjoyable parts of the weekend.

So I give thanks. For the spread: turkey, broccoli and cheese casserole, sweet potatoes, gravy, oysters, rolls, stuffing, risotto. Everything home made. Everything made with care, and grace, and love. Everything made with the knowledge of generations passed from one to another. And so they will continue to pass, to the Iseman's children and grandchildren.

And to my own, if that is to happen.

And for that, I give thanks.

What I've Cooked, What Others Have Cooked For Me, Where I Ate

This is such an interesting week to write this section as half of it has been away from Chicago, and away from home.

The first three days this week were my usually suspects for lunch: a club lulu from Jimmy Johns, a chopped salad from Corner Bakery Cafe, and a baja turkey sandwich (turkey, snap peas, tomatoes, swiss, and jalapeno mayonnaise on a ciabatta bun) from Au Bon.

For dinner this week I had macaroni and cheese on Monday. On Tuesday I made an omelet to use some items I needed to use before they expired: avocado and chicken, mostly.

Then we get to the fun part of this week, in an eating sense. Wednesday night Jonathan and I stopped in Merrillville, Indiana and had dinner at Steak and Shake. I had the spicy chipotle cheeseburger because I'm a sucker for spicy chipotle menu items. I know Steak and Shake is strange, but I have such fond memories of going there late at night during the summers of my youth. It wasn't an unpleasant experience on Wednesday, just one full of nostalgia.

On Thursday, of course, I had the spread mentioned above. I am grateful for Sue and Dr. Iseman for preparing such a great meal. A little assistance from their daughter Alyssa and her oldest son, Jacob. Thursday evening brought the traditional turkey sandwich / leftovers.

Friday I used some of the turkey and combined in with the leftover risotto while adding some red pepper flakes and thyme. I simply heated it in the cast iron skillet and away we went.

Friday brought another incredible meal from Sue. I contributed the sweet potato french fries. She and Jacob prepared a marinade for the pork tenderloin, which Dr. Iseman then grilled. Add some green beans and it's a recipe for the perfect meal.

Saturday and Sunday brought an expensive meal ticket. Saturday at noon we met up with Jonathan's cousin Wade, and his wife, Susan, at a little place called Who's Diner in Greenfield.

Jonathan and I then drove to Athens, Ohio to meet our friend Drew, whom we have known since college. The three of us had a Guinness at Tony's, and then we made our way across the street to a place called Casa Nueva. It's incredible. One of the best Mexican places I've ever been to. And it's employee owned. It's pro-Slow Food movement. This is a place deserving of a column of its own.

Sunday brought Jonathan and I back to Chicago, and back to our daily lives. We stopped in Richmond, Indiana at Applebee's for lunch. Why? Because sometimes one must eat at Applebee's. I'm not saying it was good. I'm saying it was necessary. Sunday evening brought us to Merrillville, Indiana, again, and we thought: well, might as well. I went to Potbelly and he went to Chipotle.

Pecan Pie

2009-11-29T23:30:00.000-08:00

Armed with our homemade pastry dough, there are a zillion possibilities in front of us (give or take). One recipe I really wanted to test out with this pastry dough was a pecan pie, something I'd never made before but always struck me as pretty involved. As it turns out, it's a little time-consuming to prepare, but not too complicated at all. So, let's check out how to make a classic pecan pie.

For this pecan pie, I used a recipe from Epicurious, which is usually my go-to site when I need a reliable, basic recipe to work from. Okay, let's start out by turning our collective ovens to 350º. (I finally figured out the keyboard shortcut for the "degrees" symbol--it's option-0 if you have a Mac! That was pretty exciting for me.)

Here's my favorite Beach City Cooking stock photo of a lightly floured surface.

Remove your pastry dough from the plastic wrap, let it set out for a short while until it's softened enough to roll out.

Lightly dust your rolling pin with flour, then roll out your pastry dough to about 1/4'' or so thickness.

I had a little bit of a pastry dough malfunction when trying to get the rolled-out dough into the pie pan. If you want to avoid such troubles, fold in the four corners of your rolled-out dough, place into your pie pan, and pull the folded-in corners back out over your pie pan's edges. Once that's all set, you'll also want to poke your pastry dough all over with the tines of a fork.

You'll need 6 tbsp of unsalted butter--

--and 3/4 cup light corn syrup for this recipe. We actually have light corn syrup in our kitchen, but only because our cat, Peanut, is diabetic, and if you have a diabetic cat, you're supposed to have some light corn syrup on hand in case your cat ever goes into ketones.

Okay, start out by melting your butter in a small or medium saucepan.

Once the butter's melted, add 1 1/4 cups light brown sugar--

--and stir until well-incorporated.

Next, whisk in the corn syrup and 2 tsp vanilla extract.

Then you'll need 1/2 tsp of orange zest.

Whisk that in, too.

In a separate mixing bowl, crack in three eggs--

--and give them a good whisk.

Slowly stir your buttery, syrupy mixture into the beaten eggs.

You'll need two cups of pecan halves--you can just go ahead and dump those into your prepared pie crust. See, this is the fun part. It's all coming together.

Pour your homemade syrup into your homemade pie crust. Hey, check that out. It's starting to look like something! Okay, throw this in the oven (careful, not literally!) and let it cook until the the filling is fully set, at least 50 minutes to 1 hr. This one took 1 hr 10. A good way to see if your pie's done to is to shake it a little (with your oven mitts on, of course!). If it shakes around, it's not quite there yet. If it doesn't, it's literally all set.

Once it's set, let it cool and enjoy! Preferably with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Thanks for stopping by Beach City Cooking, and I'll see you all tomorrow for another edition of Windy City Cooking. Have a great night, and stay cool!

Homemade Pastry Dough

2009-11-24T21:12:00.000-08:00

I'm not nearly as into baking as I am into cooking, but I do really like baking whenever I get around to it. I always forget just how different the satisfaction you get from baking something just terrific is from the enjoyment that results from cooking something delicious. There's something often more freeform about cooking--it seems like there's usually more room for improvisation, and trial and error. Baking usually seems like more of an exact science to me, as getting a pie out of the oven just in time for it to be cooked through, but not overcooked or undercooked, can be pretty tough if you're not either (a) checking it frequently enough, (b) an expert baker, or (c) both of the above. And if you over-mixed the flour, or mistook a measurement, well, baking's just not as forgiving as cooking. So perhaps if it turns out great, you can get a little more satisfaction out of it, but if it turns out terrible, you might be more disappointed. Either way, whenever I bake, I find it to be pretty worthwhile, whether that means a worthwhile learning experience because I just burned a whole tray of brownies, or, hopefully, a worthwhile eating experience, because those brownies didn't burn at all, and are just soft, gooey, and delicious.

Today, let's start off with a basic pastry dough that's wonderfully versatile and requires, wait for it, no blender or food processor. It's all by hand. That's right: we're going to make pastry dough like the French cavemen did.

For this recipe, you'll need a 1/4 cup measure, a sharp knife, a tablespoon measure, and a big red bowl. Oh, and some saran wrap.

The recipe we're using is this great basic pastry dough recipe I found at Epicurious. Okay, so to start, you're going to need to mix 1 1/4 cups of flour and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. I usually just eyeball the salt, but I like to live on the edge like that. That's just the kind of radical thinking we like to employ here at Beach City Cooking.

You'll need a cold, unsalted stick of butter. I recommend Trader Joe's, their butter is usually a really good deal.

Chop it up into 1/4- to 1/2-inch pieces, and add to your mixing bowl.

Okay, so, for this next step, you could use a blender or a food processor. But both of those are no fun to clean. I'm not sure what would be fun to clean, really, but those definitely rank pretty far low on the list. So instead, take your hands and mix everything together until you get a coarse peameal-esque texture.

Add 3 tbsp cold water (I just poured it into the tbsp measure from our Brita pitcher), and stir until everything's just mixed enough. Grab a handful of the dough, and if it stays together, you're golden, if not, add 1-2 more tbsp of cold water.

Insert a Beach City Cooking stock photo of a lightly-floured surface. Any will do.

Literally round your dough up into one big ball, and drop it onto the LFS. (That's "lightly-floured surface" for any acronym admonishers out there.)

Demonstrate your best understanding of mitosis, twice.

This is the fun part. Flatten each ball of dough with the bottom of your palm, in order to get the fat moving around the dough and distributing evenly. Do this a couple times on each ball.

Then bring the dough back together--

--and press into a 5-7'' thick pancake. You're looking for a big Vermont lumberjack pancake here, not a super-flat, diner-style one.

Good to go? Okay, good. Nice work! Wrap this in a little saran wrap, and refrigerate it for at least one hour, or until you're ready to use it--it'll keep for up to three days in the fridge. Over the course of the next week or two, we'll look at a few different possible uses for this pastry dough, so stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by Beach City Cooking, and I'll see you all very soon for another post. Have a great night, and stay cool!

Windy City Cooking: Week 17

2009-11-23T23:01:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday, Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

The Web Log

23 November 2009
by Jason Hissong

My good friend Joel used to run a blog about pop culture and other items he found of interest. His blog was full of links to other websites, because that's what the first blogs were. The word 'blog' itself is a contraction for "web log." So, in the tradition of early blogs, I present this entry in that style.

The first item is Colin Nissan's McSweeney's article. The column is the celebration of the ubiquitous fall decorative item: the gourd. Warning: some language is not appropriate for children and / or the work environment. The hook, from the opening paragaph:

"I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table. That shit is going to look so seasonal."

It's a comical piece, worth many laughs and a couple of reads. I don't know that I have much to contribute in an assessment of the piece other than it's really funny and you should read it. And if you read it and don't find it funny, well, that's not for me to inquire as to why.

The other item that crossed my radar this week was Adam Gopnik's article "What's the Recipe?" from The New Yorker.

Let me espouse my jealousy. I wish I was this articulate about cooking and writing about food. I'm not. But that's the sort of piece I'd love to write one day, with much more practice in both writing and cooking.

The hook comes from the central portion of the article, after Gopnik alludes to philosopher Michael Oakeshott. Gopnik writes:

". . . the real surprise of the cookbook, as of the Constitution, is that it sometimes makes something better in the space between what’s promised and what’s made."

This is exactly the kind of point I attempted to make a couple weeks ago when I wrote about my bookshelf of cookbooks. The cookbook represents the ideal of what could be, and yet the execution of those recipes reflects what actually is. And somewhere in between something gets lost, or changed, or added. And so, in that way, when I cook a recipe from, say, Mario Batali, I'm not making his dish. I make it my own.

Gopnik makes many great points in the article but the one that resonated with me the most is the question about learning to cook: can one really learn to cook from a book? Or is cooking something passed from generation to generation? The truth is probably somewhere in between.

I've learned much from cookbook cooking, even if I rarely follow an exact recipe. I've also learned from asking my mother what to do if, and when, and why. She doesn't always know the answers, and that's okay. What she does know she learned from someone else, and so on and so on.

Still, Gopnik's article breaks down modern cookbooks into two distinct categories: encyclopedic and grammatical. A cookbook either attempts to encompass every conceivable item in a certain style of cooking, or it attempts to teach the reader the basics of cooking in order that they experiment on their own. I own and have read both types. In fact, I own some of the books Gopnik references. This, again, shows the truth is somewhere between the poles.

It's a well-written, well conceived piece. It's something I'd love to have the experience to write someday. In the meantime, I'll continue cooking, and continue writing.

What I've Cooked, What Others Have Cooked For Me, Where I Ate

It was another crazy busy week. Monday brought me to Jimmy John's for a Club Lulu and jalapeno potato chips. Hummus and pitas comprised dinner.

Tuesday I had some canned butternut squash soup. It was okay but nothing spectacular. For dinner I went to Costello's sandwich shop, having a nondescript chipotle chicken sandwich.

Wednesday I shared with Ashley an order of mozzarella sticks and a cheese pizza from Bojono's.

Thursday I actually cooked. I made an acorn squash and some sausage. I had never made acorn squash before. It's delicious. Thanks to Kate for the suggestions on how to cook it.

Friday a bunch of us went to Cooper's. I had the Broodwich. It was okay, but nothing more spectacular than anything available at a worthy deli. The fries, on the other hand, were crisp and salty, which is just fine by me.

Late late Friday night, say 2:30 a.m. I made a stop to the local late night burrito stand for a chicken burrito supreme. Always so good, but only after 2 a.m. My friend Ben has told me repeatedly I need to do a column on late night spots for food like this. And he's right. Someday.

Saturday I attended a pot luck style event in the mid morning. There are too many people with too many dishes and it wasn't appropriate to take notes. Needless to say I wasn't empty-bellied after making my way through the line, or the desserts. Saturday night my friend Kimberly was gracious enough to have a few of us from the previous event over to her home. She made a vegetable soup for us, and then we went to the circus! Thanks Kimberly!

Sunday I found myself cooking two scrambled eggs and the rest of my sausage. Sunday night I was over at Ashley's and we resigned the fact that neither of us felt like cooking, or having Thai, so we had Bojono's pizza again.

Windy City Cooking: Week 16

2009-11-16T17:19:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday--even when (still!) recovering from surgery!--Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

The Revisionist
by Jason Hissong
16 November 2009

     It starts with an idea. I hear a word, or see something on the television. Acorn squash. Risotto. Tomato bisque. I think: how? I think: what does that taste like? I think: what goes with that? I think: how do I cook that?

     I skim my cookbooks for a general idea. And it's at this point, I think, that I could do better. I am not a recipe chef. Part of that is a self-centerdness of me wanting to do it all. Part of it is that I just don't have the patience to go step by step. I figure I'll make it up as I go, and it will turn out one way or another. Maybe I should cook from some recipes and then modify. I digress.

     I try something for myself. It's okay. I can do it better, and will, when I serve it to others.

     It's Saturday afternoon. I have no plans for the evening. I call some people. "Hey," I say, "Do you want to come over for dinner?" Soon enough I realize I'm cooking for five or six. The rest of the day I spend cleaning and going to the grocery store for the ingredients I need, and then some.

     I make the dish. I serve. Everyone likes it, says it's really good. If they're lying they swallow those words. I think it's probably okay. It would be better if I cooked it from a recipe, I think. But it's over and done with at this point.

     That might be the most difficult part, really. The realization that, at some point, I have to serve this dish as is to other people. I can make sub par food for myself, no problem. I can take a failed experiment for myself and live with it. But when I have to feed others? There's a risk there. A risk of failing. A risk of looking a fool. A risk of hurt pride, and shot confidence and that sends me to question my cooking skills.

     That sequence never happens. My friends are too polite for that, if they even think those things at all. I know when my food's bad, when it doesn't work, how I could do it better.

     It's always a process, though. Of nipping here, and tucking there, and refinement. Practice. Making something over and over and over until I settle on how I want to do it and then when that status quo sets in I try something else to make it different, and new.

     * * *

     It starts with an idea. I hear a word, or see something on the television, or read something in a novel or comic. Mood Seven Mind Destroyer. I think: whose mind? I think: who's doing the destroying? I think: what's Mood Seven?

     I start by writing a brief little something with pen and paper. Or drawing something. I get no more than five paragraphs with pen and paper before I switch to my keyboard. I think it might serve me as a writer to try to attempt a first draft with nothing but pen and paper. To make me slow down. Sometimes my Romantic ideas of writers overtakes my pragmatism and I think, despite knowing that I hold my pens too tight, I could do that. Write an entire manuscript by hand.

     I get a draft down.

     I don't necessarily like it.

     I send it to people I trust to get feedback. I want them to tell me it's great as is, even though I know it's not. It's going to take another draft, or three. I know it's good, but not as good as I want.

     I get the feedback. It's good information from trusted sources to make my writing stronger.

     I print out a manuscript for myself and use a red pen- 'cause I'm neurotic- and I color my pages red.

     I sit down to write a new draft and I open a completely new document to do so.

     I finish and send it out again and this is where the doubt waxes and the self confidence wanes. Is it good? Is it better than the last? What am I doing with this piece?

     It's always a process. I could tweak a manuscript for a year and still not be done. I finally settle on a level of satisfaction, partly out of attrition, and let it go. It sits in my folder or on my hard drive, waiting for me to drum up the confidence to send it for submission somewhere, sometime in the future.

     * * *

     I love them both, of course. And when I look at the process I realize that they're the same thing. Idea, execution without full research, refinement, execution, refinement, execution. Somewhere in there I have to present my work to someone else. I have to break out of the invisible bubble of self and take a risk- a risk of failure and success. It's the same thing.

     What I've Cooked, What Others Have Cooked For Me, Where I Ate

     It's been an interesting week for food as I recover from my wisdom teeth extraction. It turns out I came down with the dreaded dry sockets which is really painful and annoying, by the way.

     I ate a bowl of macaroni and cheese from Au Bon Pain for lunch all three days I went to work last week. It's so good. Creamy and rich and normally I don't like those sort of mass batch foods but this turned out really well. It was soft and flavorful and good.

     On Wednesday night I went to a place in Wicker Park called Zen Noodles & Sushi with my friend Johnny. We went to a reading/signing at Quimby's right after. I had the sesame chicken. It was not the wisest choice as that was my first foray into solid food since the teeth came out. I kept chewing with my front teeth, which is difficult.

     Thursday night my friend Andy had me over to cook. Amy and Ashley joined us as we watched the San Francisco 49ers intercept Jay Cutler and the Bears five times. At least the food was good. Tomato soup with a grilled Gruyère and bacon on sourdough. I also made an arugula salad with a honey-dijon dressing.

     On Friday night I went to Orange Garden with my roommate Jason and Elizabeth. I had the Mongolian Chicken. Their dishes escape me at the moment and I didn't write them down when we got home. If you're reading, kids, pipe in and tell me what you had.

     Saturday I had an impromptu dinner party. Only two others attended- Jonathan and Ashley. I made asparagus with lemon-thyme butter and purchased Brioche rolls. The main course was chicken with forty cloves. That's right, forty cloves. And, of course, one would think that after knowing the man as well as I do for nearly a decade now I would be observant as not to include mushrooms in anything I cook for Jonathan. This escaped me Saturday night, and for that, I am sorry. Still, the chicken was very good and I have enough leftover that I'll have to make something new with it by Wednesday.

     The Brioche's lightness and sweetness made it perfect for Sunday morning French toast. It also made the last of the rolls perfect for cubing and making croutons that then went into the onion soup I made Sunday evening.

Chicken with Lime Dressing, Avocado Mash and Red Bell Pepper & Almonds

2009-11-11T23:52:00.000-08:00

Today's dish goes great with those homemade flour tortillas we made yesterday, and is a multicomponent meal that's not terribly time-consuming, but definitely does take some time and effort to prepare. This is a dish Jen taught me how to make--it's from the South Beach Diet cookbook (neither of us are on the South Beach Diet, but for some reason it's a legit good cookbook), but you can see the recipe online here--that I greatly enjoyed when we first made it together, and still am a big fan of today. I think it's the avocado mash that really makes the dish, but perhaps you'll be more partial to the charred RBP & almonds, or the chicken itself. I've made a couple of modifications to the recipe, but we'll get to those in a little bit. Onto the recipe.

The first thing you'll need to do is juice a few limes until you have 2/3 cup lime juice. We're making a double recipe, so just halve these measurements if you're cooking two portions and not four. I used this awesome Cuisinart citrus juicer from Big Lots (refurbished, $15 or so) to juice the limes. It works like a dream, the price was right, and it makes juicing lemons, limes, and oranges far easier than the elbow grease normally required to get just a few drops of juice free of its pulpy prison.

Next, remove your lime juice to a small bowl.

Then you'll need a small bunch of cilantro, washed off and ready to be chopped.

You'll need 1/2 cup. The cool thing about chopping cilantro is that you don't need any special knife to do so. You can use a basic knife or a chef's knife, most sharp kitchen knives will work for this purpose (except one with a serrated edge). All you need to do is bunch up the cilantro, and make a sweeping motion through it, with the knife's blade touching the cutting board throughout. Repeat until you've got enough chopped cilantro.

Add the cilantro to your lime juice--

Along with 2 tbsp EVOO, 2 tsp sugar, and 1 tsp salt--

--and whisk it up.

We're going to make this whole pack of eight chicken tenders, but feel free to use half of the package if you like.

Place your chicken is a deeply kitschy but surprisingly useful bright red mixing bowl.

Pour 6 tbsp of the lime dressing over the chicken.

Mix it all up, cover your bowl, and fridge it up for a good 45 minutes to an hour. The recipe says to only marinate it for ten minutes, but we're doing this longer marinade so we can skip the flouring step later. The recipe has you later flour the chicken before cooking to seal in the flavor, but because the flour adds a weird and unnecessary texture to the exterior of the chicken, we're going to marinate the chicken a little longer so it can be plenty flavorful on its own.

After about 45 minutes (just enough time to watch this week's House), take out a small bowl, squeeze 2 tbsp worth of fresh lemon juice, pour it into your bowl--

--and spoon in 4 tbsp of the lime dressing.

Add one avocado.

One more.

And a third.

Mash everything up. Sometimes I like to listen to music when I cook. If you do, too, a mash-up would be an appropriate genre of tune to choose for this step. You can use a potato masher, a fork, your hands--whatever you like. I hear avocado baths are en vogue at local high-end spas, so this could be a good way to get your exfoliation on.

Add 4 tsp salsa or picante sauce--

--and mix the whole thing once more. Then refrigerate for the remainder of the cooking process so the ingredients have some time to intermingle.

One trusty cast-iron skillet, on a medium-high flame.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, then add 2 tbsp EVOO to your skillet. Don't be alarmed by the warped mirror reflection in the oil. Please try not to confuse it for an Alice in Wonderland-style portal into another dimension.

Add your chicken and cook for 5 minutes....

....and five more minutes on the other side.

Then transfer your skillet to the preheated oven to finish cooking, for 10-15 minutes or until chicken is done. Halfway through cooking, baste chicken with juices.

Okay, while the chicken's finishing up, let's make that red bell pepper & almond mixture. Chop about 1/3-1/2 cup almonds (depending on how much you like almonds) in half, and set those aside. Then wash three RBPs.

Slice the first RBP like you slice an apple.

Repeat with the other two.

Chop your RBP slices, and preheat a small cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat.

Add 2 tsp EVOO, then your RBP, to the skillet.

Cook for 5 mins or so, until the pepper turns bright orange and has softened.

Mince 2 cloves of garlic and add to the pepper. Cook for 30 seconds or until browned.

Add your almonds--

And stir everything together.

Plate your RBP & almonds, avocado mash, and chicken. Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by Beach City Cooking, and I'll see you all later on tonight for another post. Have a great night, and stay cool!

Homemade Flour Tortillas

2009-11-10T16:36:00.000-08:00

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. I've wanted to make homemade tortillas for a long time. When I first got into cooking last year, my friend Antonio raved about director Robert Rodriguez's tortilla-making video which came as a special feature on one of his movies. I never saw the feature, but Antonio's excitement about the video was palpable, and that, along with my love for Mexican food (my favorite cuisine, actually), got me interested in trying to make my own tortillas. I finally got around to doing so last week, and the results were plate-sized chewy deliciousness.

I found this great recipe on TexasCooking.com that looked easy enough to attempt, and was off to the kitchen. Thankfully, these tortillas are ridiculously cheap to make, and require only kitchen cabinet staples. Okay--onto the recipe!

Start out by grabbing your large mixing bowl.

Add two cups of flour. Note: that's f-l-o-u-r, flour. This note is for the person who emailed me asking if dandelions would make for a good base for a pie crust.

Rumford Baking Powder. Touted as aluminum-free, but comes in an aluminum-based container. Just a little Beach City Cooking dramatic irony for you.

Add 1.5 tsp of this stuff. The container is set up so it's really hard to measure teaspoons of baking powder and not get some all over your fingers. You know, just to make things more interesting.

Whisk it up.

Heat 3/4 cup milk (whatever % you like should work, I used 1%) on the stovetop or in the microwave. You'll only need to bring it to lukewarm.

Add 1 tsp salt and 2 tsp vegetable oil--

--and then get a little more use out of your beloved whisk.

Pour the milk into your mixing bowl, little by little, stirring with a spatula as you go.

You should end up with a sticky dough that looks something like this.

Next, gently dust a wood surface with flour.

Take your dough, and place it on the floured surface.

Knead well for about 2 minutes--

--and return to the infamous mixing bowl.

Cover with a damp kitchen towel, and take a 15-minute break. 15-minute break ideas: read one chapter of Jonathan Lethem's new book, Chronic City; take a foot bath; eat an oreo in 10 bites, one per minute, taking a one-minute break after every two minutes.

*tweet* Break's over! (That's the noise of a whistle! Not to be confused with a single utterance from a Twitter user.) Line a baking pan with baking powder's BFF and worst of enemies: aluminum foil.

Uncover your cloaked mixing bowl and tear your dough ball in two.

Divide each of those pieces in two.

And, one last time.

Shape your eight pieces of dough into balls, and arrange them on the baking sheet--

--and cover them again. This time, you get a 20 minute break. See how generous I am? You're welcome. It's my pleasure, really. Let's watch an episode of Curb this time. Those episodes are usually more than 20 minutes, but it's okay--the dough's not rising, just resting, so we can totally finish the ep without worrying about over-rising dough.

Okay, now comes the fun part. Preheat your cast-iron skillet to medium high, so it can get very, very hot very quickly.

Take one ball of dough and flatten it in your hands, then work it into a 4 or 5-inch circle.

Dust your rolling pin with a little flour, then roll out your dough patty into a circle with an 8-inch diameter.

Carefully place your almost-tortilla onto the hot cast-iron skillet.

These only need 30 seconds on each side (or less--I frequently found the tortillas only needing 15 seconds on the second side), so flip your tortilla as soon as it begins to blister.

Allow your tortilla to finish cooking.

Remove, let cool, and enjoy. These are great for burritos, tacos, whatever you like. Just make them larger or smaller depending on your preference. You can also freeze them and reheat them, wrapped in that dreaded/beloved aluminum foil, in the oven, until they reach your desired temperature (like any tortilla, they're good at room temperature but great when heated).

Thanks for stopping by Beach City Cooking, and I'll see you all tomorrow for another post. Have a great night, and stay cool!

Windy City Cooking: Week 15

2009-11-09T17:30:00.000-08:00

(Ed.'s Note- Every Monday--even when recovering from surgery!--Chicago's Jason Hissong writes Windy City Cooking, a column whose title says it all. Enjoy! -Max)

Extraction
by Jason Hissong
9 November 2009

This is going to be a bit of a different column. Essentially, it's an extended version of what I do at the end of my columns in the What I've Cooked, What Others Have Cooked for Me, Where I Ate feature. Why? Extraction. I now have four stitched up sockets where my wisdom teeth used to be thanks to Dr. Katabi and his staff at Armitage Oral Surgery.

Because of said stitches I can't really use the back of my mouth to chew. So I've had to find ways to get all my requisite nutrients and protein/fats/carbs. It's a different way of thinking about food. A challenging way.

So, what have I made and purchased? Well, I purchased a two pound container of yogurt. That has been my breakfast for the most part. And it's gone after three days. Also, pudding. Both are soft. Both taste good.

On Thursday night I made my tomato bisque. It's smooth and creamy. It starts with the aromatics- garlic, onion, celery, carrots. I added four cups of stock after sweating the aromatics. To the stock and aromatics I added quartered tomatoes. I used an entire package of small tomatoes I got at Trader Joe's. I think it had eight or nine medium sized tomatoes. Anyway, I added the tomatoes and then after letting it simmer for about half an hour I added a cup of milk, two tablespoons of butter and used my stick blender to puree it all into a smooth, creamy soup. I also added some blue cheese to melt and blend into the mixture. Usually I'd serve this with some bread, but, alas, I can't chew bread.

I also purchased some hummus. Usually I like to make my own hummus, but it's been a crazy week. Hummus is good because it provides me the protein I need while I can't really chew.

Also, there is ice cream. I've had two wonderful friends- Ashley and Kara- each bring me ice cream. And I've eaten it all. Because it's ice cream, and ice cream makes everything better. I even purchased some more tonight. Because it's ice cream.

I made scrambled eggs for breakfast. That experiment worked better in my head than it did in execution. It was fine, but I had to cut each bite further than normal to get the smallest pieces possible without chewing. Or, without chewing much, and definitely with only using the front part of my mouth.

Mashed potatoes. I made a huge pot of mashed potatoes last night. Mashed potatoes are so good. And so easy. Way easier than I realized. It's literally just boiling the potatoes until their done, draining then adding some milk and butter and mashing them. I also added cheese to mine, because I like the undercurrents of cheddar in the middle of all that starch.

So it's been an interesting experiment attempting to figure out how to satisfactorily feed myself without chewing. And, a bit fun. I fee like I've eaten way too much. And I don't know if it's always been the healthiest way to go about it. I need to go to the store tomorrow to re-stock on yogurt and some other things, because I think I have three or four more days of eating without chewing.

     The good news is that my mouth now has room for all its teeth. And I look forward to being able to chew again.

What I've Cooked, What Others Have Cooked for Me, Where I Ate

     On Monday I actually brought my lunch to work. Of course, it was leftover Orange Garden from my trip with Ashley the previous Friday night. And, like Panda Express from the outset, Orange Garden is never a good idea re-heated. I had Ashley's leftover fried rice from Orange Garden for dinner on Monday, and I had maybe five bites.

     Tuesday I had lunch with my friend Kara at Cosi. I had the steakhouse Gorgonzola. It's a great combination and one I'll have to attempt myself. For dinner I attended a potluck. I'd like to to thank: Robin for her homemade salsa and chips. Sarah for the steak tacos and guac from Tony's Burrito House. Erin for the relish tray. Lea for the pita chips and hummus. Terry for the walnut and raisin salad. Kim for the taco salad. Elisa for the tamales and salsa. Suzanne and Norah for the spring rolls. Jennifer for the rice and beans. Nadia for the chips, salsa, and hummus, and Anne for the brownies. Apologies if I missed anyone.

     Wednesday I had a Baja turkey sandwich from Au Bon Pain. For dinner I had a bowl of cereal.

     Thursday I cooked for Ashley. We had a risotto dish- again. This time with black beans and blue cheese. It was delicious.

     Friday I had yogurt and cereal for breakfast. And then I fasted. And after my fast, I ate foods without chewing them.