Beef Back Ribs

Sometimes the best fun in the kitchen is to buy something you're unfamiliar with and hit it with your best shot. I spotted these ribs and am pretty sure I'd never cooked them before. They're not short ribs. Rather some weird scraggly end of what I assume was left after removing various steaks. There wasn't much meat on them, very short sections, only three bones. Cost about 4 bucks. I browned them in oil, doused with tempranillo and then for no good reason apart from the fact that I had these ingredients around, threw in 2 anchovies, a few squirts of tomato paste in a tube and a sliced shallot. Covered the casuela with tin foil and left to simmer maybe an hour and a half. They were unbelievably tender without being mushy, rich without being unctuous or too fatty, just a lovely deep rich beefy flavor. DO try them if you see them around folks.

Relearning How to Bake

By now you have figured out my oven obsession. Yesterday I decided to make Fornax more efficient by doing some interior patchwork, starting with vacuuming out all remaining sand then applying mortar to any interior nooks and crannies. Little did I realize how good a job it was. After stoking her for an hour, I raked out the coals, gave the floor a quick wet mopping with a newly made broom and threw in a standard sourdough. Not one minute later the bread was burnt to a cinder. Not just the side facing the hottest wall, but the entire bottom. I'm guessing it must have been 1000 degrees. I've never seen such immolation. Clearly I need to rethink fuel and stoking now that she retains heat so well. Not all was lost though. Nathan Crook had only to suggest the word quail and poof: it came into being. These cooked in maybe 4 or 5 minutes tops. Just marinated and set into a clay cassola. Magnificent.

An INFERNO for Food Scholars

When you do a lot of editing, you meet many wonderful people who work hard, write well and turn in assignments on time. They will be enthroned in paradise. Another sort of food scholar is cut from quite a different cloth. Irresponsible, inept, or just plain lazy. For these folks I have devised a simple schematic inferno, at the very least to give me some pleasure imagining their torments in the afterlife.

On the uppermost tier are the Grammarians. They mean well, are are often quite virtous, but never gain redemption because they are focused entirely on correct usage, spelling and ultimately meaningless details. Their punishment is to correct grammatical errors at the supermarket for eternity. Everytime they correct tomato’s, it magically changes back again. Beneath them are the insufferable Pedants. They refuse to have fun because they are always right. As punishment they will try to pronounce French words forever hereafter and every time they will be corrected by an obnoxious waiter. It’s “poo-ey fwoo-say!” The third tier is reserved for those who can’t follow simple directions whose fate is to wander aimlessly on the highway looking for the right exit while their dinner reservation expires. Dullars are next, they have to listen forever to a monotone drone on Food TV explaining recipes for excruciatingly simple dishes. The Lazy occupy the fifth tier, they might mean well but never get around to doing anything completely. They are consigned to remain on the couch while people just in the other room are having cocktails and nibbling enticing appetizers. The Silent, who never answer emails or phone calls are trying to place an order at a specialty grocery store, but no one can hear them. “A pound of truffle paté please!” but they are ignored forever. Layer 7 is for for the Late. Their food arrives hours after they order, and it is cold and moldy. They are forced to eat it anyway. The Flakes in the 8th rung of hell, do put in their order, but it never arrives. They go hungry until the end of time. The final lowest level of hell is reserved for the Plagiarists. They have bits of their own bodies plucked off and eaten by others.

Ah, now I feel better.

Flameware

I know this is not food, but closely connected to it. A few weeks ago I spotted flameware clay in Berkeley, make by the same company that makes by regular 50/50 mix. They offered me a "rusty skillet" glaze too. It's a cone 8 clay, so St. Theresa (the kiln) really had to work hard to get this up to temperature, but as you can see, it is very pleasant in color and texture. More importantly, in case you don't understand what this stuff is - a stoneware that goes right on the stove top. (Not soft earthenware, which chips and scratches.) So for the trial run there's a chicken and vegetables simmering in the olla. Broccoli rabe in the cassola. The pipkin is untested, as is a bigger pentola still unfired. Oh and the little butter melting cup up front. Despite the fact that it's 30 bucks for a 25 lb. bag, I think this set was worth it. Well done Leslie's and IMCO.

Robert May and Brian May

Have you ever noticed how Brian May, Queen guitarist, has a decidedly 17th century hairdo? Much like that of Robert May, celebrated 17th century cookbook author? Hmm. Did you also realize that May lived in the age of Hooke and Boyle, the birth of Astrophysics and other May has a PhD in the same subject? Hmm. There must be more. Well I was feeling in a Baroque mood today. This recipe is not exactly in May, but it could easily have been. It is 2 lbs of pork shoulder very finely chopped, with chopped apricots, dates, raisins, walnuts, pistachioes, candied citron, angelica root, sugar with ambergris, musk, all soaked in Batavia Arrack and spiced with nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper. That went into a crust of mangalitsa leaf lard, sprinkled with coarse sugar. I'm hoping it will slide out and be sliced vertically. We shall see tonight.

Interview

http://www.heritageradionetwork.com/episodes/2112-A-Taste-of-the-Past-Episode-83-The-Lost-Art-of-Real-Cooking

Here's a really fun interview with Linda Pellacio.

Stupid Arbitrary Rules

Have you noticed how the world is filled with stupid arbitrary rules? I don't mean practical moral precepts, which are eminently useful. I'm talking about things people tell you to do which serve no purpose whatsoever. Cooking is rife with examples. People do things one way, it gets repeated a million times, then everyone thinks it's inviolable law. Perhaps no other food is so subject to the whim of arbitrary rules than beans. I've written some of these stupid rules myself. And this story just goes to show, such rules were meant to be broken. I got home last night with this brand new iron olla from The Spanish Table, and wanted to try it out so badly, that I just chucked in some dry red beans, water, salt, and a touch of oregano, and threw it on the fire. Not this fire, I mean in the fireplace fire. And left it there, until morning. Reheated it up and the beans were perfect, intact, and yet cooked through. Succulent, perfectly seasoned. And broke every rule about how beans ought to be cooked. Let me know if you have a similar rule-breaking story.