Local Is As Local Does

Farming is not adapted to large-scale operations because of the following reasons: Farming is concerned with plants and animals that live, grow, and die.

- Cornell University Agriculture Professor, via Omnivore’s Dilemma

It’s not everyday that you get to meet somebody who was in one of your all-time favorite books. But that’s what happened to me on Saturday, and probably to many others who attended the Farm to Table Conference at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center this past weekend.

Anybody who stopped by the Heritage Farm booth at the conference most likely met the 20-year-old Peter Burns, who played a small role in Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Peter—who along with his father, Greg Burns, operates Heritage Farm in Ridgway, Pa., about 2 hours northeast of Pittsburgh—was an intern at the increasingly famous Polyface Farms during the time Pollan spent there researching Dilemma, and he nabbed a few mentions in the book.

I had the pleasure of speaking with Greg and Peter about their farm and their products. Among other things, they told me how the folks from the Big Burrito Group recently paid a visit to the Burns’ farm and will be sourcing some Heritage product for the Big Burrito family of restaurants. [A quick aside: If you believe in local food and you dine out in the Pittsburgh area, you simply must patronize one of Big Burrito’s many excellent establishments. Bill Fuller, Big Burrito’s executive chef, is as fervent a supporter of local farms as you’ll find. If this movement is going to continue to grow and flourish, it will be on the backs of dedicated chefs like Fuller.]

Peter’s year-long internship at Polyface, Greg said, has allowed Heritage to follow in the Polyface/Joel Salatin mold. So the grazing beef cattle help to fertilize the soil that sprouts the grass they eat, and the chickens (and turkeys!) are brought in behind the cattle as they are moved around the farm, picking out vital nutrients from the cow’s waste, leaving their own fertilizer packages behind to nourish the grass. As Salatin told Pollan, running a nearly universally sustainable operation means being a very good grass farmer.

If nothing else, the conference offered an opportunity for attendees to get some quality time with local farmers who are producing quality products.

I picked up some creamy raw milk cheeses from Pasture Maid Creamery, part of Dean Farms, in New Castle, a family-run operation that’s been around since the late 1800s! I also sampled some delicious cheese from Emerald Valley Farm in Scenery Hill, Pa. I foresee a shipment of some of Emerald Valley’s Formage Blanc varieties in the very near future.

Speaking of dairy products, I usually need my milk to have a good bit of cereal floating in it (my most recent favorite: Barbara’s Peanut Butter Puffins). But I really enjoyed the tall glass of raw milk I sampled during one of the three cooking demonstrations held on Saturday. And the bite of bison tenderloin, courtesy of Bistro 19 executive chef Jessica Gibson, was wonderfully tender. The bison was from Wooden Nickel Farm in Edinboro, Pa. Seriously, who even knew there was a buffalo farm in Pennsylvania?!

All in all, my 4 or 5 hours at the conference on Saturday was time ridiculously well spent. I met some of the true leaders of the local food movement, found new sources of sustainably produced products, and even added to my own local food production: a pot of freshly sprouted arugula and a pot of mixed lettuces.

Both pots are lounging in a window in my dining room. With any luck, in a few weeks, they’ll be my ultra local source for a salad that will accompany some monster grass-fed rib eyes in my freezer that I’m just dying to slap on the grill!

Welcome spring. It’s time to eat!!

Scrapin’ Up the Bits, Stank Style

In reading a New York Times article on the continued abuse of reliance on earmarks by members of Congress, I couldn’t help but notice the aroma of this bit o' pork:

Three Iowa lawmakers — Senator Charles E. Grassley, a Republican, Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat, and Representative Tom Latham, a Republican — sponsored a $196,000 item for research into ways to reduce odors from swine and poultry.

Ah, yes, in a time of remarkable political rancor, it's heartening to see that helping big factory farms find ways to mask reduce their illness-inducing stink is a bi-partisan pursuit. Democracy at its finest.

Speaking of Big Ag and polluted air, Elanor from the Ethicurean waxes eloquent about the rampant pesticide use on the melons and almonds and tomatoes grown in California’s Central Valley and its impact on the local community, including the children of the workers. Some of it is just… jarring.

Drift testing conducted at the school has found a "chronic" presence of pesticides at low-to-moderate levels in the school air. Chronic meaning constant. These kids are breathing in pesticides all the time.

And if you’re searching for a better understanding of how the big meat packers undermine food safety and quality in the pursuit of profit, Alan Guebert fills in some blanks. A taste:

Since 1980, the number of U.S. hog farmers has dropped from 667,000 to 67,000 while the percentage of hogs grown under contract to packers has risen from virtually zero to more than 70. Those two numbers are as related as ham and beans.

Finally, so much for my grand onion theory. Troy Bogdan of Pure Earth Organic Farm near Meadville, Pa., based on observation from 12 years of running an organic farm, sets me straight.

The reason an onion (especially the ones stored over winter) gets strong, is because it is getting ready to sprout. There is a natural time clock in each member of the onion/garlic (allium) family, and when "the alarm goes off," that means it's time to wake up from hibernation, and start to grow and get ready for reproduction. This in turn causes EXTREMELY strong flavors and scents.

If you see any of Troy’s delicious garlic for sale, be sure to pick some up.

Easter Brunch

We hosted our first family holiday meal on Easter Sunday. It was a small group, and we determined early on that we would keep it simple:

• Fruit and croissants (courtesy of Whole Foods)
• Easter bread toast (courtesy of Mother of Fillippelli)
• Two types of scrambled eggs: plain and flavor-infused with ginger, garlic, scallions, red chili, cilantro (eggs courtesy of Sonshine Farms in Mercer, Pa.)
• Roasted asparagus (again, Whole Foods)
• And, the centerpiece of the meal, a hickory-smoked ham

The ham came from Willie’s Smokehouse in Harrisville, PA. The ham was excellent. Moist, extremely flavorful. I don’t yet know the source of Willie’s pigs, but I intend to find out, ‘cause I’m not waiting until next Easter to order another hickory-smoked ham.

The asparagus, unfortunately, was a flop. I have grilled and sautéed asparagus with great success, but never roasted it alone. Roasting the asparagus seemed to be a wise option because the stove top was busy with scrambled eggs. Although I had some of my own ideas, I searched for some roasted asparagus recipes, and Bon Appetit, via Epicurious, offered an appealing one: lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Roast for approximately 20 minutes at 450.

Mistake. Way too long. It turned to mush. A terrible waste of what, by all appearances, should have been some fantastic asparagus. Bad Bon Appetit, Bad!

Thankfully, a shot of Crown Royal, a holiday tradition for my wife’s family, made the disappointment a little more bearable.

Scrapin' Up the Bits, Jalapeno Chip Style

Ah, sitting on the couch, watching a recording of today’s Inter Milan vs. Liverpool Champion’s League match, drinking a Stone Pale Ale, and treating myself to a highly rare treat, Miss Vickie’s hand-picked Jalapeno potato chips.

Odd combination for a Tuesday evening, but perfect for reporting on this mish mash of interesting news, some local, some not so…

To begin with, a special type of ticket for Tony Bourdain’s March 31 talk as part of the Pittsburgh Arts & Lecture series went for some big bucks on eBay. It included a one-on-one with the smoking cook world traveler, autographed book, a top-notch seat. The bidding apparently went back and forth, peaking at more than $2,200.

"We never expected this great a response," said Jayne Adair, director of the Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures series.

Alas, I waited too long to finally order tickets. Just too long. They sold out two hours before I called.

And here’s some important news for Strip District junkies. The former Il Picolo Forno on 21st St. in the Strip District, next to La Prima Espresso, is now Colangelo's.

Picolo Forno is a well-regarded Italian restaurant in Lawrenceville, run by the son of the former owners of Il Piccolo Forno, Antonio and Carla Branduzzi. Antonio died in January 2007 and, up until a few months ago, his wife had continued to operate Il Piccolo Forno. We only discovered it more than a year ago, and fell for it immediately. Nothing like a late morning espresso or cappuccino from La Prima with a slice of pizza from Il Piccolo.

Mrs. Branduzzi closed Il Piccolo Forno a few months ago. As I learned Saturday morning, it has reopened as Colangelo's, and appears to be mostly unchanged. There were still thick slices of pizza on the counter, still delicious pastries in the glass case (we had some great cannoli's Sat. night), and still an open walkway between it and La Prima for some world class espresso drinks.

Needless to say, this is excellent news.

Meanwhile, according to the Post-Gazette, local restaurants are in a pinch.

Rising fuel costs meant many suppliers bringing in produce, meat, pasta and other ingredients had started adding surcharges for every load. Eat'n Park officials studied ways to consolidate truck loads. Or, as Mr. O'Connell put it, "Can we make two deliveries instead of three deliveries to a restaurant a week?"

The cost of ingredients also weighed on results. Beef prices are up, as are wheat, dairy, even fats and oils used in cooking. For Kings, food costs rose more than $560,000 above the previous year.

The article focuses on chain restaurants, which have greater flexibility in dealing with rising prices. The indies have to be feeling it that much worse. There have been numerous reports about the skyrocketing costs of wheat. But costs for everything are going up.

However, there could be sort of a silver lining to all of this, at least in terms of America’s bulging belt line.

Take the "senior menu" at Eat'n Park. It's never been just for seniors, Mr. O'Connell said, because anyone could order from it, but in February the chain turned it into a "smaller portion" menu. Someone who wants the Rosemary Chicken but wants just one chicken breast can get that.

"It's really, 'Hey, here's another way for people to save money,' " he said.

Kings is approaching desserts in the same way. "Our desserts were huge," said Mr. Whalen. In the past couple of years, the chain has been offering mini-desserts for those who want just a taste.

And, finally, it’s been a while. But this week’s Fast Food Abomination of the Week goes to… Quiznos, for its Prime Rib Ranchero: with loads of meat, pepper jack cheese, and chipotle mayo. I believe this is the second time Quizno's has secured this honor.

I couldn’t find the nutritional information for Quizno’s entire menu on its Web site, but I did find some examples of healthy Quizno’s eating here.

Among some of the highlights: As of November 2007, Quizno's large tuna melt has over 2,000 calories and 175 grams of fat! And what is probably the closest relative to the Ranchero, the large Prime Rib Cheesesteak Sub, has 1,770 calories and 116 grams of fat.

Those numbers speak for themselves.

A Salad

The dreary last days, if we’re lucky here in western Pennsylvania, of winter are really starting to get to me. I'm yearning for sunlight and t-shirts!

This arugula salad is something we might typically have as part of a late dinner on a spring evening, after the kids have gone to bed, along with a grilled steak rubbed in a good extra-virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, and a healthy dose of fresh herbs. We actually ate it Sunday with some leftover pizza (for which a small portion of said arugula had, the night before, been a topping, along with fresh mozzarella, caramelized onions, and prosciutto).

Now, you could save yourself a little trouble and use raw red onions. However, the red onions I have had this winter have been almost unbearably strong. I have a theory about why this is the case.

Several years ago I watched an episode of “Good Eats” all about onions on the evil network. Alton Brown claimed that, as a defense mechanism to ward off hungry vegetable predators, onions release a chemical irritant when they are cut. I have noticed, however, that the onions we get from the CSA rarely bother my eyes when I cut them. Yet, I am regularly reduced to a wincing Wendy when dicing or slicing grocery-store onions.

My theory: onions grown by massive, factory farming operations are bathing in what I can only assume is heavily abused soil, rife with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This hostile environment pumps up their defense mechanisms, causing them to be hyperactive and unleash their toxic fury on unsuspecting home cooks everywhere.

The onions from our local farm, however, are not bullied by chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and thus are a more tranquil veg, more than happy to be part of a avocado and tomato salad or rest upon the top of a grass-fed beef burger.

I have no idea if this has any scientific validity whatsoever. Nevertheless, long story short, for this salad, I let the heat do some work on my red onions.

Baby Arugula Salad with Lemony-Oregano Vinaigrette

• Half cup of walnuts, roughly chopped
• Big bowl of baby arugula
• 1 cup of thinly sliced red onions
• Pecorino Romano
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 3-4 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon of oregano, finely chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste

Turn oven to 325 degrees.

Combine lemon juice with oregano, salt, and pepper. Whisk in half-cup (or more) of olive oil. Lemon flavor should be strong, but not overwhelming.

Toast the walnuts in the oven for 3-5 minutes.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a medium sauté pan over medium heat. After a minute or two, add onions and sauté for 5-10 minutes, until onions are soft and beginning to brown/caramelize.

Sprinkle walnuts and onions over arugula, shave a healthy amount of pecorino over top, and toss with about two-thirds of the dressing. (NOTE: The salad should not be drenched in dressing.) Serve immediately.

A Losing Battle

I’ve been entirely remiss lately with the frequency of my posts. There’s been so much going on that it’s been difficult to pick which ones to devote some time to, and, in the end, indecision and laziness prevail.

Well, that, and when you write as part of your day-job, sometimes the thought of banging away on a keyboard into the evening—after you’ve scrambled to get a child to tae kwon-do; made, scarfed down, and cleaned up dinner; given kids baths; put kids to bed; made kids’ lunches for the next day; done a little laundry; paid some bills; and who knows what else—offers little appeal.

Anyway, I guess you could say that there’s a theme to the two following stories. And that theme would be: Our government stinks. When it comes to food policy in this country, legislators and the current administration will pay lip service to things like good nutrition and supporting “family farmers,” but where the seeds meet the soil, they almost uniformly side with the powerful interests working against these important objectives.

For example, there was a great op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times by Jack Hedin, who runs a small organic farm in Minnesota. Mr. Hedin explained how, to meet increased demand for his organic fruits and veggies, he rented some land from another farmer who raised only commodity crops.

But the arrangement ran into some problems with the Feds, namely the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, which manages the massive U.S. farm subsidies program:

The commodity farm program effectively forbids farmers who usually grow corn or the other four federally subsidized commodity crops (soybeans, rice, wheat and cotton) from trying fruit and vegetables. Because my watermelons and tomatoes had been planted on “corn base” acres, the Farm Service said, my landlords were out of compliance with the commodity program.

I’ve discovered that typically, a farmer who grows the forbidden fruits and vegetables on corn acreage not only has to give up his subsidy for the year on that acreage, he is also penalized the market value of the illicit crop, and runs the risk that those acres will be permanently ineligible for any subsidies in the future. (The penalties apply only to fruits and vegetables — if the farmer decides to grow another commodity crop, or even nothing at all, there’s no problem.) [emphasis added]

In one sense, I can understand where the Feds are coming from. The farmer from whom the land is being rented is, I guess, double dipping: getting paid by the government to grow only corn or, worse yet, nothing on his land, and then renting out that land and getting paid again.

The problem, however, is the same: No incentive to grow fruits and vegetables, but you get paid to grow corn and soy and other crops so that mega-corporations like Tyson or Pepsi have access to cheap feed for chickens or high fructose corn syrup for soda.

And it gets worse. Mr. Hedin?

The federal farm program is making it next to impossible for farmers to rent land to me to grow fresh organic vegetables.

Why? Because national fruit and vegetable growers based in California, Florida and Texas fear competition from regional producers like myself. Through their control of Congressional delegations from those states, they have been able to virtually monopolize the country’s fresh produce markets.

Last year, Midwestern lawmakers proposed an amendment to the farm bill that would provide some farmers, though only those who supply processors, with some relief from the penalties that I’ve faced — for example, a soybean farmer who wanted to grow tomatoes would give up his usual subsidy on those acres but suffer none of the other penalties. However, the Congressional delegations from the big produce states made the death of what is known as Farm Flex their highest farm bill priority, and so it appears to be going nowhere, except perhaps as a tiny pilot program.

I’m sorry. I thought Congress worked for the people, not big companies. Silly me.

Or, in an absolutely expected development, President Bush’s final budget of his reign of terror administration has eliminated the funding for Pasture Systems and Watershed Research Unit at Penn State.

This is a big deal for research into things like sustainable farming, keeping waterways safe from runoff, etc. As a letter from the researchers about the situation explains:

Unless Congress acts to restore the $4.42 million allocation in support of the University Park location, the entire research program will be terminated and all 45 scientist and support staff positions will be abolished.

The research program at University Park seeks to develop profitable and sustainable animal, crop, and bioenergy producing enterprises while maintaining the quality of ground and surface waters. The loss of this research unit would end cutting edge research on nutrient management, forage and grazing land management, water quality, integrated farming systems, and bioenergy cropping systems for the northeastern U.S.

I believe Sam Fromartz, proprietor of ChewsWise, summed it up best:

In light of the growing demand for grass-fed meat and pasture-based dairy farming in the northeast, I find it incredible that this program is being killed. We need more research into sustainable agriculture, not less.

But then we wouldn’t be able to offer $5.1 billion more in commodity crop subsidies, would we?

Excuse me while I go vomit.

Bob’s Yer Uncle

I know there are those (cough, cough… Tony Bourdain) who think he’s a bit too cheeky, a bloody fool, or perhaps some other British insult. But I happen to like Jamie Oliver, particularly his recent emphasis on supporting local, sustainable products—even though some (not me) might find his tactics a bit extreme.

I liked his old show on the Food Network -- even though the premise of always having some different friends coming over for this or that meal was annoying -- and I was pissed when it got canceled so those genius network execs could make way for more Rachel and Paula and Big Headed, cleavage-laden Italian gal.

So, I was really happy when I saw that he had a new show, even though it's on the same said evil network. And I really enjoy it. No false premises or goofy contrivances. Instead, he simply picks something from his ridiculous gardens or a local farm to highlight as the theme ingredient for each show: eggs, rhubarb, chiles, and so on.

The theme ingredient for one of my favorite episodes was the mushroom. The episode opened with Jamie and his chef pal, Genarro (sp?), tromping through nearby woods engaging in daring acts of mycology. Using some freshly picked porcinis, they used a small camping stove to make a mushroom bruschetta that looked quite remarkable (and it wasn’t even in HD!).

So I decided I’d try to duplicate it. I watched that segment from the show a second time and made it as an appetizer for a recent Sunday family dinner (and again tonight to accompany some straciatella).

It was one of the best things I’ve ever made. Now, granted, that’s not necessarily saying that much. But, nevertheless, do this right, and I guarantee the final product will elicit moans of delight. That, or your money back.

Note that there are no real measurements here, just some general guidance, which makes it a little bit of an adventure.

BTW, Sir Oliver also is the genesis of “Bob’s Yer Uncle.” I guess it means “That’s f#$@ing good!”

Mushroom Bruschetta (Adapted from Jamie at Home, “Mushrooms”)

• Thinly sliced bread suitable for bruschetta, such as ciabatta
• 2 packages of wild mushrooms, or 2 cups of chopped assorted mushrooms (baby bellas, shitake, crimini, etc., but NOT white buttons)
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Butter
• Crushed red pepper
• Fresh thyme
• Lemon, cut in half
• Salt & pepper
• Small glass of water

Crank up the oven and toast the bread slices (on a lower heat if you just want crispy bread, broil if you want it a little darker)

Put two swirls of olive oil in either a 10-inch saute pan or a larger saute pan, and turn the heat to medium-high.

When the pan is hot, 1-2 minutes, put in a handful or two of mushrooms. [NOTE: The key to success is not to crowd the pan. If the pan is jammed full with mushrooms, Jamie explained, the mushrooms will release all of their liquid and the dish will be runny. So regardless of the pan size, just be sure that each bit of mushroom pretty much has the room to lay flat of its own accord (at least that’s the formula I’ve been using).

Give the mushrooms a toss or two, add a healthy pinch of salt and pepper and a dash or two of crushed red pepper. Let them cook for a minute or two. Give the mushrooms another toss, and add some thyme from two or three thyme stems.

Toss again, let the mushrooms cook for another minute or so. When they’re getting soft, add a nice hunk of butter, maybe 1 tablespoon for a small pan and two if you’re going with a larger pan to avoid having to do batches. (Personally, I like doing the batches.)

Give the mushrooms another toss or two, and over the next minute or so, watch the whole thing get creamy. If you’d like it to be a little more saucy, add just like a teaspoon to a tablespoon of water and let it cook for another minute. Squeeze in about 10 drops of lemon juice, give one final toss, and it’s ready to eat.

Put a spoonful or two on each slice of bread, and be sure to get a little sauce on each slice.

12,000 of 143 Million

As in 143 million pounds. Of Beef. Recalled.

Largest beef recall ever.

From the second largest supplier of beef to the nation’s public school system.

For example, Pittsburgh Public Schools, which has 12,000 pounds of the recalled beef.

Ms. Pugh said the beef is being kept at a food-service warehouse until federal officials tell the district what to do with it. If federal officials decide it's safe, she said, it still could be used in schools.

Ms. Pugh said the beef was part of larger shipments from the vendors. Some beef already had been eaten by students. There were no reports of illness.

I wonder how much of it made its way into the tummies of school children at other local school districts?

According to the USDA, the recalled 143 million pounds of beef, the Washington Post reported, "poses little or no hazard to consumers, and ... most of it was eaten long ago."

Of course, the most disturbing aspect of this whole sordid affair is that the only reason anybody even knows that these “downer” cows -- that is, sick animals that can no longer stand because they are so freakin’ ill – were literally being fork-lifted into the food production system is because somebody from the Human Society snuck in and took video of it happening! [Video is not for the squeamish!]

There’s no evidence that any of the recalled meat is tainted with any of those pesky bacteria that can kill people. Rather, the USDA explained, the recall was taking place “because the cattle did not receive complete and proper inspection” and therefore were deemed by the USDA to be “unfit for human food.”

The question that has to be asked is fairly simple: Is this – forcing cows that clearly are way sick to stay upright via forklift or cattle prod so that they can technically not be considered “downers” and therefore suitable to be turned into products for human consumption -- an isolated incident? Anybody would have to be a fool to believe so.

Tired of hearing about these beef recalls? A wee-bit scared that the steaks or burgers you’re getting for surprisingly cheap still at the grocery store perhaps is a little suspect? Try something local, most likely primarily grass-fed, and definitely not “processed” in massive meatpacking plants.

Below are a few local options for beef for which I can vouch. Others can be found via Local Harvest. Although, unlike at the grocery store, this is beef done on a truly small, local scale, so product only becomes available when there is enough raw material ready!

Sojourney Farms – Holbrook, PA

Rose Ridge Farm – Malvern, OH, 330-904-5365

Fergaed Farms – Valenica, PA (ground beef, quarter, half, or whole cows only), Caroline Hahn at 412-585-3903 or chahn@pulva.com

Bacon & Eggs

No, no, no. Not the classic American breakfast. The classic Italian pasta dish, “alla carbonara.”

The long-awaited first foray with a Zuni recipe finally took place last Sunday, spaghetti alla carbonnara. A wicked winter wind-induced power outage forced me to make it in somebody else’s kitchen, but it still turned out exceedingly well, and was remarkably easy to execute.

The recipe calls for mixing the egg/ricotta mixture with the pasta in the still-hot pan in which the bacon was cooked. But I kept the pan on a burner on low heat to cook the egg mixture just a bit more than might happen otherwise.

The sauce’s consistency was perfect: slightly thick, but still “loose” enough to thoroughly coat the pasta. I typically subscribe to the Mario Batali, less-is-more – or, as he puts it, “condimento,” – approach to saucing pasta. But with this carbonara, the condimento approach doesn’t work for me. Not that it should be swimming in the sauce, like so many Americans prefer (or think they prefer), but this sauce is the star, in my opinion, and deserves to be more than a supporting actor for the pasta.

Finally, timing is important here. The pasta will take only slightly longer to cook than the bacon, so once you get the pasta started, you want to get the bacon going just 2-3 minutes later.

The only thing I will do differently next time is load up more on the cracked pepper. Overall, though, this was highly enjoyable, and will undoubtedly become a staple. And my in-laws are owed a debt of gratitude for letting me borrow their kitchen, because I had been looking forward to this Sunday meal since the previous Monday!

Spaghetti alla Carbonara (adapted from the Zuni Café Cookbook)

• 1 pound of spaghetti [Zuni recommends penne or bucatini, as well, but, for me, the thick, round spaghetti noodle seemed the best option]
• 5-6 slices of a thick, quality bacon, chopped into small (1/2-inch) pieces [garden-variety bacon, I would think, will produce a disappointing result]
• 4 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil [a few good turns around the pan]
• 4 eggs
• ½ cup ricotta cheese
• ¾ cup of peas [fresh, would be ideal of course, but organic frozen peas, quickly thawed in a bowl of warm water, worked very well]
• Good pinch of salt
• 1 cup of loosely packed, freshly grated pecorino romano
• Many turns of freshly cracked black pepper

Heavily salt a pot of water and get it to boiling. Put in your spaghetti.

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large sauce/sauté pan (enough to hold 1 lb of cooked pasta). Add the bacon and cook for about 7-8 minutes, until the edges are just getting crispy, but the middle is still tender. This should not be a “crunchy” dish!

While the bacon and pasta are doing their thing, crack the eggs in a bowl and lightly beat together with the ricotta and salt.

When the pasta is just short of al dente, drain it. If the bacon is done before the pasta, be sure to remove it from the burner (remember, tender, not crunchy). Add the well-drained pasta and the peas to the pan with the bacon.

Immediately pour the egg mixture over the spaghetti and add most of the pecorino and the black pepper.

Put back on the burner over low heat, and toss well (with the spaghetti, some long tongs works well here) for just a minute or so, until the pasta is well-coated and the egg mixture appears to be slightly cooked.

Serve immediately and pass around some freshly grated pecorino.

Blood Orange Love

The cocktail. The name elicits images of swanky Manhattan dinner parties or chortling, powerful businessmen in smoke-filled lounges. Even as I’ve become a martini fan (Saphire, up, dirty, with 3 olives!), I find the idea of the cocktail offputting.

Nevertheless, this sounded good: blood orange and Campari.

If I must be truthful, until several days ago, Campari had never tainted my liver. A twist of the cap and thoughtful whiff was all I needed to determine it was a form of bitters. I would not have guessed it had 60 ingredients, but when mixed with some pulpy blood-orange juice and a decent bit of confectioner's sugar, it’s highly addictive.

After a highly successful simple two-drink test run on Friday evening, we made a batch to have as a cocktail at a dinner party being thrown by some friends on Saturday (no pictures, alas, but the beef tenderloin topped with an herbalicious pesto was a thing of beauty). Most of a large pitcher was emptied, so I’d call it a success.

If you aren’t constitutionally opposed to bitter – and like your cocktails a little on the potent side -- you can get a little more aggressive with the Campari. If you’ve got a hankerin’ for something sweet, I’d recommend a scant teaspoon of sugar per glass.

Scrapin’ Up the Bits, Lusty Bit Update Style

Ssshhhhh. I gotta secret. I got some insider information about those stickers. What stickers? Those stickers, the ones on the fruits and vegetables you buy in the grocery store. What is it? Well, as long as you promise to keep it quiet (h/t Sustainable Table):

• A four-digit number means it's conventionally grown.
• A five-digit number beginning with 9 means it's organic.
• A five-digit number beginning with 8 means it's genetically modified.

Of course, most of the organic apples and celery and the like I’ve seen in Giant Eagle recently looks more like prunes they’re so freakin’ wrinkly. So, yeah, I've been sticking to the conventionally grown stuff.

This is from last week, but it got buried somewhat by coverage of the presidential horse races. If you don’t like to watch sick animals being shoved around by forklifts or smacked in the head with electric prods, then just read this (but don’t watch this).

The long and short of it:

Video footage being released today shows workers at a California slaughterhouse delivering repeated electric shocks to cows too sick or weak to stand on their own; drivers using forklifts to roll the "downer" cows on the ground in efforts to get them to stand up for inspection; and even a veterinary version of waterboarding in which high-intensity water sprays are shot up animals' noses -- all violations of state and federal laws designed to prevent animal cruelty and to keep unhealthy animals, such as those with mad cow disease, out of the food supply.

Moreover, the companies where these practices allegedly occurred are major suppliers of meat for the nation's school lunch programs, including in Maryland, according to a company official and federal documents.

Seriously, I really don’t know if I can eat a piece of meat anymore unless I have at least some indication that it didn’t come from a place like this!

It’s good to see that grocery stores are moving away from plastic, but I’m not even really sure what this particular journalist is trying to say about it.

While subbing tap water for bottled water is effortless, giving up plastic bags is an inconvenience.

Huh? She must usually write for the Style section.

Finally, some Lusty Bit updates. I’ve recently…

• made some additions to the Intertubes Stuff I like
• updated the recipes listing
• and I’m finally experimenting with a little more blog sophistication, adding “labels” to my posts. The labels – which are at the end of each post – are like key words, you can click on one of them and all of the posts with that same key word, that is, that are somehow related to the topic (e.g, milk labeling), will come up.

Scrapin’ Up the Bits, Hectic Style

A whole mess of things worthy of a mention.

First, starting with a local item. It looks like the Soup Nazi is coming to the ‘Burgh. Can’t wait to try the lobster bisque.

Next, and this is old news by now, but for anybody who missed it, particularly sushi fans, you might want to think twice about getting that spicy tuna roll the next time you’re looking to get some of those good fats. As the New York Times reported last week, mercury levels from sushi the newspaper purchased at 20 different places throughout Manhattan had scary-high mercury levels.

“No one should eat a meal of tuna with mercury levels like those found in the restaurant samples more than about once every three weeks," said Dr. Michael Gochfeld, professor of environmental and occupational medicine at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway, N.J.

So, not only is bluefin tuna – often the tuna of choice at many sushi restaurants – way overfished and starting to become dangerously depleted, but it’s also warehousing the mercury from all of that wonderful industrial waste finding it’s way into to the ocean. What an unexpected two-fer!! Listen to this guy – for the time being, skip the tuna sashimi and try the mackerel.

Sticking with the good news (and New York Times) theme, Mark Bittman leaves behind his “Minimalist” persona for a day to become the food eco warrior. While I would never say this is scintillating narrative, it is a collection of some scary facts. Here are some of the highlights, but do be sure to check out the whole article, if for nothing else than the disturbing picture of a factory cattle farm.

Just this week, the president of Brazil announced emergency measures to halt the burning and cutting of the country’s rain forests for crop and grazing land. In the last five months alone, the government says, 1,250 square miles were lost.

And

The world’s total meat supply was 71 million tons in 1961. In 2007, it was estimated to be 284 million tons. Per capita consumption has more than doubled over that period.

And

an estimated 30 percent of the earth’s ice-free land is directly or indirectly involved in livestock production, according to the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which also estimates that livestock production generates nearly a fifth of the world’s greenhouse gases — more than transportation.

And

Though some 800 million people on the planet now suffer from hunger or malnutrition, the majority of corn and soy grown in the world feeds cattle, pigs and chickens.

Next up, some interesting stuff coming out about folic acid — some of the stuff added to cereals and pasta and other foods to “fortify” them. Well, there are some concerns that maybe all of this fortification isn’t a risk-free proposition.

As many as 1,000 newborns a year in the United States - and many more elsewhere - have been spared so-called neural tube defects because their mothers got a crucial infusion of folic acid before they even knew they were pregnant.

But now some scientists are asking whether there have been unforeseen trade-offs for the population as a whole - including thousands of additional colon cancer cases each year, a somewhat smaller bump-up in prostate cancer, and an increase in cognitive impairment among the elderly.

This is all very preliminary stuff, but it’s something that hopefully will be further investigated.

Finally, once the weather breaks and the birds are chirping and the flowers are blooming and the Pirates begin their glorious march toward their 16^th straight losing season, we’ll be transforming our garden into a Victory Garden.

Words to Eat By

While skimming through the February issue of Food & Wine, popping in and out of an article by Salma Abdelnour about a trip she took to Japan to pretty much do nothing but eat incredible food for five days (seriously, please, tell me, how does one get this job?!), I came across what Ms. Abdelnour described as the five “Buddhist-inspired principles” of eating:

1) Respect the labor of everyone whose work contributed to the meal

2) Commit good deeds worthy of sharing in the meal

3) Arrive at the table without any negative feelings toward others

4) Eat in order to achieve spiritual and physical well-being

5) Be dedicated to the pursuit of enlightment

Now I can’t say that I follow these five rules, although I’d like to think that, at any one moment, without really thinking about it, I’m generally following two or three. Unless we're making pizzas -- for which my wife is primarily responsible -- then I'm closer to five of five.

The Sentences and the Fury

ALERT! ALERT! This is a serious post that will discuss important social issues and reference scientific research. You’ve been warned.

Maybe I’m overreacting. But darn if this didn’t set me off when I read this last week:

A nation in which the poor are defined by an income level that in most countries would make them prosperous is a nation that has all but forgotten the true meaning of poverty. A nation in which obesity is largely a problem of the poor (and anorexia of the upper-middle class) does not understand the word "hunger."

The offending two sentences came early on in an op-ed by Bret Stephens, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, in the Journal’s online “Opinion Journal.” In the context of the larger commentary -- a backhanded slap at anybody who dare complain about “divisions” in America or about the progress, or lack thereof, in Iraq -- these two sentences were nothing more than punditry detritus.

But those two sentences say a heck of a lot to me about how a good portion of people in this country view the socioeconomics of food and, more specifically, nutrition.

It’s true, of course, that the obesity epidemic is concentrated in less-affluent populations (how’s that for medico-journalese!). And there’s a very good reason for that: cheap, calorie-laden food is what many low-income people can afford.

Just last month, researchers from the University of Washington reported something that might surprise Mr. Stephens, but not anybody who’s been paying attention:

They found that the foods which are less energy-dense -- generally fresh fruits and vegetables -- are much more expensive per calorie than energy-dense foods -- such as those high in refined grains, added sugars, and added fats.

[snip]

Lower-calorie foods jumped in price by about 19.5 percent in that two-year period, while the prices of very calorie-rich foods stayed stable or even dropped slightly, the researchers found.

And this isn’t some short-term phenomenon:

Since 1985, the actual price of fruits and vegetables has increased 40 percent, while the price of sugar and fats has declined by 14 percent.

The bottom line is that more fattening foods are far cheaper than healthful foods. This is due in very large part, of course, to the federal subsidies paid to support the growth of corn, soy, and several other “commodity crops” that are the backbone of those calorie-laden foods (e.g., the gazillion tons of corn used to feed all those cows needed to produce those flimsy little meat patties at McDonalds).

In the same McClatchy article, a beautiful chart shows that of the $70.2 billion in subsidies – that’s right, BILLION – given to agriculture interests between 1995 and 2004, only $1.55 billion went to support fruits and veggies.

So is it any wonder that, when a mom of two making, say, $16,000 a year, sees what it will cost her to buy four or five oranges, and then realizes she can get a case of generic orange soda for the same price, she chooses the case of soda?

This whole diatribe thus far brings me round to another recent study, published just this month and covered by the New York Times’ Tara Parker-Pope, which demonstrated that giving poor people vouchers to purchase fruits and veggies actually… wait for it… increased the amount of fruits and veggies they ate.

Who would have thunk it? Certainly not Mr. Stephens, who I have little doubt would decry such a program proposal as a government “handout” -- unlike those billions of dollars in federal subsidies for growing the corn so desperately needed to produce Cherry Pepsi.

In the study, women were given $10 vouchers weekly for use at a farm market or supermarket.

After six months, women who shopped at the farmers’ markets were eating about three additional servings of fruits and vegetables a day, compared to the control group. Supermarket shoppers consumed 1.5 extra servings.

The study results, Ms. Pope reported, coincide with a decision by the USDA -- after apparently a bit of pressure from public health groups -- to start giving participants in the federal W.I.C. program (Women, Infants, and Children) subsidies for purchasing fruits and vegetables.

“Wonderful!” you might think. “Fantastic, even!”

Think again:

The W.I.C. program will provide monthly vouchers worth $8 to each recipient and $6 to each child. Breastfeeding women will receive just $10 a month toward fruits and vegetables.

So here you have a study that demonstrates quite clearly that the eating habits of poor women with children can be significantly improved through nominal weekly vouchers for fruits and veggies. In contrast, you see an action by the USDA intended merely to provide a talking point, something along the lines of, “We are helping poor women and their children eat healthier with vouchers for fruits and vegetables…”

The well-documented socioeconomic disparities in deaths from diseases like cancer and heart disease are not due to happenstance. There are directly attributed to environmental and economic factors, such as whether somebody can afford to buy a bunch of grapes or a bag of carrots at the grocery store. And, meanwhile, you have the government subsidizing the production of the most fattening and cheap foods on the planet, while doing almost nothing to help those in most need of getting an apple a day.

And what are the costs of this?

A new study shows that the nation's unchecked diabetes epidemic exacts a heavy financial toll as well: $174 billion a year. That's about as much as the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and the global war on terrorism combined.

[snip]

The incidence of diabetes has ballooned — there are 1 million new cases a year — as more Americans become overweight or obese, according to the study, released Wednesday by the American Diabetes Association. The cost of diabetes — both in direct medical care and lost productivity — has swelled 32% since 2002, the report shows. (emphasis added)

So, contrary to Mr. Stephens’ assertion, I would argue that, as a country, we definitely understand what “hunger” means. There are many kids and adults who go to bed -- or heck, spend a good portion of their day – hungry, and there are many others who have enough money to eat, but only the cheapest foods, the stuff that leads to things like obesity and diabetes.

I don’t know how much any one individual can do about any of this. But aside from the superior taste and quality of everything I get from local providers, buying as much as I can from local farms is one way I see to help further develop a local food infrastructure that can, in its own way, be part of the solution to these problems.

I know that our CSA, Harvest Valley Farms, participates in WIC, and hopefully as people start to demand more sustainably raised produce and meat, more of it will become available, the price will begin to inch down, and something good can begin to take hold well beyond what’s in my CSA basket each Tuesday from May to November.

Scrapin’ Up the Bits, Lots of ‘Em

While I work on a longer, more “serious” post about nutrition and disease, there’s been a heck of a lot of interesting news and things happening.

Perhaps the most uninteresting of these was the arrival today of my Zuni Café Cookbook. After the wild success of the roasted whole branzino, it just seemed like fate was telling me to crack that thing open as soon as possible. My plan is to make at least one main course from it a week for the next month or so and report on the outcome.

From cookbooks we move to much more intriguing fare, such as the FDA’s approval of cloned animals as a source of beef and pork and milk. I swear on whatever holy text can be provided that I am not anti-technology, but this really is unnerving.

There are no long-term data on whether meat from cloned animals is safe, and the government has no plans to track the products from these animals once they enter the marketplace or to label them as coming from a cloned animal. In any case, for those interested, the Ethicurean’s cloned animals digest is very informative.

I’ve read about overfishing, but did you know that the price of cod – the fish of choice for fish ‘n chips – in the UK has quadrupled in the last few years because cod stocks have been so depleted? And that these huge Chinese-owned fisheries are doing their best to devastate the fish stocks in the waters off of Africa? The NY Times has the scoop… or should I say “catch”?

We use garden-variety fresh mozzarella on our pizzas. But true Neapolitan-style pizzas, particularly those made in Naples, only use mozzarella di bufala, and it’s apparently about to get more expensive because of problems with bacterial infections in Italian buffalo herds.

The Daily Table blog has an interesting post about water, both its scarcity and its health, and how local, family-owned farms are important to both.

Want to find food that’s in season and local? The National Resources Defense Council has a fantastic resource for you.

Milk Labeling: They Listened, They Really Listened!

Who are the four, well-dressed gentleman above, you ask? Why, the remaining members of the legendary Kool & the Gang, of course.

And, why, you ask, is there a picture of Kool & the Gang on a food blog? Because, it's time to celebrate, baby!

It’s now official: Government bureaucrats who engage in sneaky maneuvers to the potential detriment of the public sometimes get their rear ends handed to them.

Or, more plainly put, milk labels in Pennsylvania with terms such as “rBGH free” will continue to be allowed!

In a letter to Pennsylvania milk processors, William Chirdon from the Department’s Bureau of Food Safety and Laboratory Services (who I spoke to previously about this issue, and whose name I misspelled in that report!), explains that the PDA received “a great deal of input” on the (cough… BOGUS) labeling standards it issued last fall that would have banned any labels on milk that said the product was hormone- or antibiotic-free because they were cutting into Monsanto’s profits “misleading.”

Under new standards PDA released today, this information is allowed on a milk label, as long as it also contains language that explains the FDA has found “no significant difference” between milk from clean cows and those that have gotten Monsanto's special juice. From my experience, most labels already included this disclaimer.

This really is a stinging rebuke to what I still contend was some highly dubious and downright slimy actions by PDA Secretary Dennis Wolff—actions that were quickly met with a public outcry from food bloggers (pathetic self promotion, I know!) and, of course, dairy farmers who don’t use synthetic growth hormone in their dairy cattle and want to let people know about it.

To be honest, I’m shocked. I was almost certain that these guys would drag their feet for a few months, thinking the public would forget about it—get lost in a fog of American Idol and American Gladiator—and on some random Friday afternoon at 4:00, quietly announce the initial standards change would stand.

It’s nice to be pleasantly surprised once in a while.

Roasted Branzino, Mamma Mia!!

Since the day of the Strip Club, Penn Avenue Fish Company has become one of our favorite culinary stops in the Pittsburgh vicinity. We’ve had ultra-fresh cod and sole filets and buttery “#1 tuna” (seared to perfection by some friends for the rib-eyeriffic dinner party), not to mention the unorthodox yet highly satisfying seafood tacos and great sushi from the prepared foods menu. It’s all been quite good – probably as good, if not better, than any swimming creatures you can get in Pittsburgh.

So it was no surprise that when we purchased two whole branzino (those headless things on the chopping board over there), also known as European sea bass, on Saturday morning at said fish monger, the end-result later that evening was nothing short of spectacular: tender and moist, with a subtle flavor that seemed almost destined to be eaten with the “picada” – a mix of olive oil-soaked bread crumbs, orange zest and mint, among other things – sprinkled atop the fish.

Kudos must go to the wife, who, based on one whole fish that was filleted by the server at a restaurant table several years ago, did an expert job of filleting the mostly whole branzino that emerged from the oven. She also gets kudos for choosing what would accompany the fish: chard with raisins and pine nuts, from the indispensable Savoring Italy cookbook.

The branzino recipe was published almost a year ago in the New York Times, adapted from what has to be the most popular cookbook among food bloggers, the Zuni Café Cookbook.

There’s not much for me to add to the recipe. I followed it fairly closely, although, for the picada, I didn’t do a whole lot of measuring. I have included the chard recipe below, because it paired very well with the fish and was remarkably simple.

Swiss chard with raisins and pine nuts

• 1.5 lbs of chard, washed
• ½ cup of water
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 2 tablespoons of raisins (we used goldens)
• 2 tablespoons of pine nuts
• Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the chard into long, thin strips. Turn up the heat to medium in a large saucepan, add the chard, water, and a good pinch of salt. Cover and cook, stirring here and there, until the chard is pretty tender. About 5-7 minutes.

Drain the chard in a colander and try to squeeze out as much liquid as possible. Wipe out the saucepan, put on low heat, and add the butter. When it’s melted, add back the chard along with the raisins and ground pepper, stirring to get everything well coated and buttery, about another 3-5 minutes. Sprinkle with the pine nuts and serve.

Scrapin’ Up the Bits, Local Style

Catching up on some local food news I’ve been meaning to get to for about a week or two.

First, on March 28 and 29, an organization called Pathways to Smart Care is hosting its second annual Farm to Table conference. The theme is "A Recipe for a Healthy Pittsburgh,” and it's being held at the Lawrence Convention Center. What’s in store at the conference?

The event will feature area farmers and businesses that support sustainable agriculture, with national and local speakers, including Sandor Katz, an expert on wild fermentation, along with Patricia DeMarco of the Rachel Carson Homestead and Will Clower of Mediterranean Wellness.

Registration is $10 before February 1 and you’re asked to submit a recipe as part your registration. My submission was grilled Kentucky Wonder Beans with prosciutto.

Second, McGinnis Sisters, a local “specialty” grocery store with locations on Rt. 51 and in Monroeville, is opening up a third location on Rt. 228, not far from Kitchen de Fillippelli.

What’s the big deal, you might ask? As one of the Sisters explains…

McGinnis Sisters Special Foods Stores has had a longtime dedication to not only buying direct from local farms, but also building strong relationships with individual farmers. "They promise to provide us with what we want, and we promise to buy it; we can guarantee we'll sell it," says Sharon Young, one of the three sisters that comprise those of the McGinnis Sisters name.

The kicker: from what I can tell, the store is going in right across from local grocery behemoth, Giant Eagle.

And, last but not least on the local food front, if you work downtown, you have some new temptations to resist:

The French Tart has opened a shop in 2 PPG Place, where it offers eclairs, cream puffs, brioches, macaroons, tarts, turnovers, its signature 4-inch cakes and other sweets, as well as an array of savories including quiches and pastries stuffed with succulent cheeses, veggies or meats (including a pastry-wrapped French hotdog with mustard).

According to my wife, who spoke with the owner one time at the Shady Side location (it also has a location in Mt. Lebanon), the French Tart uses almost strictly organic ingredients. We’ve had several pastries from the French Tart and they were all magnifique!

First Visit: Good Eats in Point Breeze

Not that it needs my approval, but, even after a single visit, I can highly recommend visiting Point Brugge Café in Point Breeze (real close to Shadyside).

Now, the two kids were in tow, which can skew the experience at any restaurant. Even though the restaurant bills itself as a “a neighborhood gathering spot,” it’s perhaps not the best choice if you’re bringing along children 5 and under (e.g., no kids menu, a chic, dimly lit interior).

This isn’t a criticism, as most so-called family-friendly joints, well, aren’t very good. Which is why we rarely take the kids out to dinner. In other words, why spend a lot of money at a fine restaurant on a meal you will have a hard time enjoying because you’re so busy begging one kid to sit down or fishing out Star Wars figures from under the table or entreating a child to drink his root beer more slowly? And, on the other hand, why spend money at all on barely edible food at a restaurant just because it has dinosaur-shaped chicken tenders and crayons on the table?

That said, this evening we just wanted to get out of the house and have somebody cook something for us for a change—something delicious. So we settled on the much ballyhooed Point Brugge.

To be quick about it, we had

• Delirium Tremens on tap;
• tender mussels in a creamy white wine broth;
  
• thick but perfectly crispy frites with a tarragon-laced mayo for dipping;
  
• a large salad with a mellow dressing, some creamy goat cheese, and surprisingly tender greens; and, to keep the kids at bay while we finished our entrees
• a truly perfect piece of a Belgian chocolate cake and some ice cream with a velvety chocolate sauce – neither of which got the respect they deserved from a 5- and 3-year-old (although the 5-year-old did an excellent job of sculpting the ice cream into a chocolate pond before devouring most of it).

All of it, including my son’s grilled cheese, minus the roasted red peppers, on a baguette, was truly enjoyable.

The lone disappointment was my entrée, a pan-roasted grouper resting atop a salad of artichokes and hearts of palm with a side of pilaf with sun-dried tomato. The fish was tender and flaky, but, with no sauce of any kind, was rather boring, and the salad underneath seemed to be an afterthought, as if whatever was supposed to be under the fish was a casualty of an inventory order gone wrong, and this was what the kitchen wrangled up in a pinch. The pilaf was very tasty, but seemed like a stranger on the plate, a side for the sake of a side.

This entrée was one of the specials for the evening, and specials are supposed to be, well, special, not something I could make at home, probably with better results.

Despite being the only couple with young kids, the service was excellent and we never felt rushed, and the restaurant truly is cozy – fairly intimate, warm colors, not too loud even when it’s packed – the type of place where you could sit at the bar, downing some Chimays and various small plates (does everybody have small plates now?), and not even realize 2 or 3 hours had passed.

Overall, it’s clear that Point Brugge knows how to do things well and, despite the occasional hiccup, keep customers returning. Next time, I’ll stick with some of the more traditional Belgian dishes – I'd be exhilarated with just some more mussels and frites – and hopefully be there long enough to get a second beer and a piece of chocolate cake all for myself!

Delicious and Befuddled

Several moons ago, there was a popular Pan-Asian restaurant in Bethesda, Md., called Oodles Noodles. As its name implied, noodles were the house specialty, and they were done well. [Sadly, the restaurant is no longer there, replaced some time ago by a New Orleans-themed restaurant that itself may have already closed – ah, the dangerous lives of restaurants.]

At one point, my wife and I probably ate there once a week, rotating our meal choices around a few favorites, among which included peanut noodles, which featured two different types of long noodles in a warm peanut sauce; mee goreng, a somewhat fiery, curry-infused dish with noodles reminiscent of traditional spaghetti in thickness, but not length or texture; and, one of my all-time favorite soups, Siam noodle soup.

The first slurp of Siam noodle soup was always an adventure, because no matter how I approached it, the broth’s spiciness would reach up through my nose and steal a breath. This soup truly was a circus in your mouth, full of tang and fire (and shrimp and squid and, of course, noodles!), begging you to not abandon a single slurp to the depths of the huge bowl in which it was served, and always leaving a dripping ring of perspiration underneath each of my eyes.

With a hankering for a spicy Asian soup, I recently went searching through a few of our cookbooks and found one in Barbara Kafka’s Soup: A Way of Life that sounded like just the ticket. The recipe, borrowed from Jean-Georges Vongerichten, called for ginger, lemongrass, curry paste, onion, garlic, lime juice, fish sauce, and an ingredient that has taken a hold on whatever part of my brain controls appetite and flavor desire, coconut milk.

It also called for kaffir lime leaves and probably my least favorite meat, boneless chicken breast. I didn’t have easy access to the former and Ms. Kafka, in the commentary accompanying the recipe, suggested the lime leaves weren’t an absolute necessity, a claim of which I was dubious, but in no position to challenge unless I wanted to spend my lunch hour trekking down to the Strip District to pick some up at one of the several Asian markets there, which was just not in the offing. I had some Bell & Evans chicken breasts in the freezer, and, honestly, I didn’t think much of their inclusion at the time I was making the soup.

I brought up Siam noodle soup earlier because this recipe, despite its inclusion of coconut milk, immediately made me think of it, meaning that it had to be made, kaffir lime leaves or not.

The end result, topped with chopped cilantro and green onion, was quite good and quenched my hankering. That said, one thing about it truly bothered me: the chicken. Its only purpose, from what I could tell, was to add some protein in the case that it would be served as the main meal. The chicken had no flavor and, consequently, was a taste distraction—a roadblock through which the other robust flavors had to bust through.

A Thai cookbook we have contained a similar soup recipe: No curry paste, a lot more lime leaves, and, to my disbelief, boneless chicken breast. Here it was again, this flavorless intrusion into a soup that, in all other respects, is a celebration of robust flavor.

Then I thought back to the book Heat, by Bill Buford, which I recently finished reading and highly recommend. In the book, Buford, who, through means that aren’t fully evident to me (or, at the least, aren’t explained enough to truly make sense of it) quits his life as a magazine editor to serve as Mario Batali’s “kitchen slave” at MM’s famous New York restaurant, Babbo.

At one point, Buford discusses the publication of the Babbo Cookbook and dishes some inside dirt on how restaurant offerings are transmogrified into a hopefully easy to follow recipe for the home cook. In short, what’s in the cookbook does not recapitulate what happens at the restaurant. It can’t be done.

And I have to wonder if the same general concept applies to these recipes. I doubt there's much boneless chicken breast used in traditional Thai cooking. In my experience, it’s more likely to be the dark stuff. But average Joe and Jane Cookbook Buyer, for reasons I can’t fathom, prefer the tasteless boneless chicken breast (usually breaded and fried on a Kaiser roll), so cookbook authors toss them a bone here and there, just to keep them happy.

In any case, I plan on making this soup again fairly soon. Next time, I’ll have the lime leaves, but the chicken will be replaced by shrimp. And, in honor of a long-lost friend, I suspect some noodles will find their way in, too.

A Meal Fit for the New Year

Although I’ve had a few fun experiences on New Year’s Eve, more often I’ve had bad – as in sucky, miserable, annoying – evenings. So, for the time being, my wife and I have abandoned any pretense of big plans for Dec. 31. This year we opted for getting the kids to bed at their usual time and enjoying some good food under dim lighting in our dining room.

The menu had an inherently Indian flair, born from what I though would make an ideal choice for the meal’s centerpiece, lamb chops from Pucker Brush Farm, which I picked up in November at SlowFood Pittsburgh’s last Laptop Butcher of 2007.

Once we decided to prepare those lamb chops tandoori style, we needed some appropriate accompanying dishes. They were, for the appetizer, some tumeric, ginger, and cayenne-infused shrimp and, to play sidecar to the chops, a curried lentil, sweet potato, and chard stew-style dish.

I have little to add to the recipes themselves, which I mostly followed. I halved both the shrimp and lentil recipes, both of which worked out extremely well. The lentils required almost four cups of vegetable broth to get tender and stay moist.

The chops were truly luscious, some of the most tender meat I’ve ever had. And the tandoori marinade, so chock full of vibrant flavors, did not overwhelm the lamb at all. My only recommendation would be to scrape off some of the excess marinade from the chops before putting them on the grill. Otherwise, you might have a hard time getting what I think is a necessary bit of char on the chops, which are only on the grill for 10 minutes for medium rare.

Initially I had planned on a desert of vanilla ice cream, topped with crushed hazelnuts, dark chocolate shavings, and a splash of Bailey’s. But we switched gears and just had a big glass of an Icelandic ice wine, which with its pear flavors was a welcome way to end an excellent meal.

Scrapin' Up the Bits, Bye-Bye '07 Style

OK, OK, I admit it… December doesn’t seem like the best time to be buying or eating avocados. That said, if Giant Eagle is going to sell avocados at this time of year, then maybe they should actually last a few days, eh? I bought one about a month ago as well and, when I cut it open and tasted it a little bit, it had the consistency and flavor of wax.

Last week, with the hope of putting some slices on a COBALT sandwich (Cheese, Onion, Bacon, Avocado, Lettuce, Tomato) – using some delicious bacon from Wil-Den Farms – I cut it open and you can see above what I found. Mind you, the avocado was by no means overly soft. Based on my experience over the past few years, it seemed to be plum for slicing. Shame the inside looked like a rotted out tree!

Even minus the avocado, the sandwich (pictured to the right) was still pretty good. And, admittedly, the “T” in the COBALT was a tomato from the same grocery chain (yes, meaning it came from pretty far away – I was weak and really in the mood for a BLT!) that was pretty good, even though it’s December.

Enough complaining… A little bit late, some of my favorite things about the holiday season:

• Holiday beers
• Panettone from The Enrico Biscotti Company - where, by the way, on Christmas Eve, we received a present in the form of two free black and white people cookies for our two kids: “Little ones never pay for little people cookies,” the very nice woman behind the counter said.
• My mother’s pizzelles
• Watching It’s a Wonderful Life
• My wife’s gingerbread men (and women)
• Listening to the soundtrack from Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown

‘Burgh food gems… A food critic from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, China Millman, offers her top 10 food moments of the year and, I gotta say, it was inspiring. It really demonstrated to me that Pittsburgh has a better food scene than I give it credit for.

Gotta get me some of that Boscano Tartufo from Penn Mac.

And, after our recent trip to NYC and the other-worldly gnocchi with short rib bits appetizer I had, the braised pork ragu with gnocchi from Mio Kitchen & Wine Bar in Aspinwall sounds ultra appealing.

More local food… Two other local food items of interest – that is, two new local food-related businesses. First, Radicchio’s International Marketplace to the south of the city in McMurray sounds intriguing. What caught my eye:

But the nicest surprise may be its 15,000-square-foot produce section in the center of the store. It features precise piles of fruits and vegetables (including exotics such as Sharon fruit persimmon) in easy-to-navigate rows managed by clerks in black bow ties.

And then there’s the mega-environmentally friendly, Florida-based pizza chain, Pizza Fusion, which is opening a location far north of the city not far from Casa de Fillippelli. The menu seems almost too extensive, almost never a good thing in my view. But it’s an interesting concept in a pizza chain, that’s for sure:

We proudly serve up delicious, gourmet pizza in its purest form - untainted by artificial additives, like preservatives, growth hormones, pesticides, nitrates and trans fats (to name a few). ... Additionally, we proudly offer health conscious alternatives for our friends with selective diets and food allergies, such as our delicious gluten-free pizza, brownies and beer and our tasty vegan selections.

Born from a desire to make a difference, every detail of our operations is continuously evaluated from an environmental perspective in an effort to further minimize our ecological footprint. From delivering our food in company owned hybrid vehicles and offsetting 100% of our power consumption with the purchase of renewable wind energy certificates to building LEED certified restaurants, we are committed to being a leader in not only the pizza industry, but in a better quality of life.