Avant La Fee Verte

I have been tasting absinthes for a few years now, but have never had a chance to write about them. Now that the trend has practically gone main-stream (I hate being a fashion setter) I thought I would put a few words down, especially as I've got a very interesting sample in front of me right now.

Apart from an odd tipple here and there in Prague and elsewhere in Europe, which was largely disappointing, my first real experience was a lovely Suisse Bleu, bought on line. It reminded me mostly of good Pernod, or Pastis, which I also adore. But the flavor was largely anise. Let me admit from the outset, this is not just alcohol, I don't care what anyone says. Not really hallucinogenic, but mind-altering. Making you both alert, inhibited and drunk at the same time. A fantastic combination if you ask me. Not like being too tipsy when you only think you're being lucid. But wide-eyed clarity.

This first trial was done by the book, with water, sugar cube and the fun spoon. The louche is lovely, but honestly, being a hardened veteran ouzo drinker (it's in my blood) I definitely prefer just ice. Similar louche and nice chilling effect without becoming too dilute. Call me untraditional.

Honestly, absinthe has a much longer history than dissolute Parisian cafes and symbolist poetry. That period has its charms, but it's really the 16th centurty that thrills me. And there are recipes, in pharmaceutical texts, Wecker is a good example, that must be considered if not the ancestors of absinthe, then indeed the real thing avant le mot propre. Or sometimes with the word.

So I've been trying lately to get closer to the ur-absinthe. Not too long ago I bought a "Clandestine" absinthe from the Val du Travers, which was really gorgeous. Tastes truly of wormwood and not anise. I've grown wormwood before, but it is so bitter and nasty, that I'm convinced you really need to know what you're doing to make something palatable out of it - i.e. with a still, not soaked in alcohol (though that was also done for medicines in the past - to purge worms of course).

But today there arrived a Roquette 1797, which claims to be an early form of the drink. What immediately surprised me is not only the lurid neon-green color, but that it doesn't really cloud. Maybe a little after sitting in the glass with ice for a half hour, but not dramatically. More amazing is the bouquet, sort of medicinal, like a Chinese grocery store, with a touch of funk. Absolutely nothing of the sweet anise pastis flavor. This is pure distilled wormwood as far as I can tell, with other minor herbal notes, maybe mint, or savory. Something I can't quite put my finger on. But extremely appealing. At first, it's a whopping 75%, like battery acid. But seriously mellows with the ice melting. But it's still flourescent. And the flavor is more rounded. I swear there's something reminiscent of fish. Not in an unappealing way in the least.

Now you can tell me if I've waxed completely incoherent after a few sips. The effects are immediate and intense.

But before I leave, let me give you a recipe invented over Thanksgiving, using the Clandestine.

Take a shot of absinthe and put it in a flute. Pour over good Brut Champagne, two shots of bitters and a fresh lychee. Called an Opal Eyeball. Killer.

Yours, Ken

Weenie-misu

So I was just playing around with some tiramisu this morning - ok, there was mascarpone in the fridge that never got eaten over Thanksgiving, and this is all I really know to do with it. So I made a little classic one - which is unusual, I normally mess with it a little, using bourbon and ground candied pecans, or tropical fruit and rum.

But then the idea struck me - not only for a savory tiramisu, but one using hot dogs. I know it sounds like something Paula Dean would make, but stick with me here for a moment.

Use a casserole, and some very good firm buns or even a baguette. This would definitely not work with your standard hot dog bun. Make about a dozen hot dogs, put them in your buns with some mustard and browned onions and line the casserole. Then pour over chicken or beef broth, so what you basically have is a stuffing with hot dogs in side. Then mix some cream cheese, shredded cheddar and some chopped kosher dills and some chopped sauerkraut. Whatever strikes your fancy would work, olives, relish, chili beans. Chacun a son gout. Cover the dogs with the cheese mixture and bake for about an hour. What should happen is you get a bubbly cheesy top with a hot doggy moist stuffing underneath. And you cut it just like a tiramisu, so everyone gets a slice across many hot dogs.

I dare someone to try this. Or else I will!

Placenta

Last night I gave a little talk to our local Pacific Italian Alliance and my students who came about Roman agriculture and Cato the Elder. I decided that rather spend the afternoon cobbling together some images, I would cook something fun, and Cato's placenta beckoned. OK, not that kind of placenta, though the shape is the same, and the biological use of the term apparently comes from the name for the cake. Or is it a cake? I am inclined to think otherwise now.

I have tried to folow Cato's directions using emmer groats, assuming Dalby's translation is correct. Alicae primae in older translations (Brehaut) is spelt grits. But I still fail to see how they can be worked into the flour dough without making impossible lumps that prevent the tracta from holding together. If anyone has ideas about this, please let me know. This time I used just flour. The filing between sheets is just washed sheep cheese (to remove the salt) i.e. feta, and honey.

It resulted in a really nice sort of sweet lasagna. Everyone ate it and said it was good. By chance my olives were also ready, and they turned out quite nice, with a pleasant crunch. I also had my own sapa to taste - the entire year's harvest (10 gallons or so) reduced to about a bottle and a half. About 4 hours of slow simmering, which yeilded a gorgeously musty syrup. A little vinegar for fluidity in one bottle resulted in a fine balsamic-like product.

Again, any suggestion for making tracta with alica, would be most welcome.

Ken

Bambismo

It was not without some serious trepidation that I listened to a harried call from the Goddess of Meat and All Things Wild informing me that an entire specimen of Odocoileus hemionus (i.e. mule deer) would be imminently delivered to my doorstep. Luckily he, or she, arrived bereft of the more ungainly purtenances, bisected, and thoroughly chilled. I will kindly spare you, my gentle readers, the grisly snapshots, but I hope will trust my words to capture the moment when burnished steel met quivering flesh in an unprecendented feat of cisorifaction. To be frank, the experience was exhilarating. To hack through haunches, sever sinews, mince massive muscles, and dissect dainty dollops of dark red deer meat. There was nothing especially mysterious about rending steaks from the round, stew meat from the forequarters, chop meat from chuck, nor elegantly tying a roast of loin, or tiny sawn sections of osso bucco from the calves. With the staltward arms of two compatriots, we dispatched the beast in about 2 hours, plied with rum, and frantically filled freezer bags. That evening there were burgers and steaks (marinated in vermouth and juniper, a passing nod to the martini) on the barbecue. What possessed me to roast the bones, which could not possibly fit into my biggest stockpot, I can't say, but the choicest femurs went to Oonaugh, the wonder dog.

So if you happen to pass the intersection of Yale and Lucerne where the resident tribe of carnivores hold their august sacrifices, be sure to stop by and pay your respects to the beast. We will keep the flesh pots burning.

(With apologies to Cardinal Pietro Bembo, master of the Latinate style known as Bembismo, or in English, Euphuisms.)

New Wok

After a killer conference this past weekend at the CIA in Napa on Asian cuisine, it dawned on me that I hadn't seen my wok in ages. Could it have been lost in a move? Stolen by marauders? Vanished. So I sallied forth to my local Asian grocery store and rifled thought the piles of teflon coated flat bottomed travesties and found a shiny new hammered steel wok. The biggest I could fit on my stove (though they had even bigger ones).

On a whim I decided to season it with duck fat, and the results were truly spectacular.

Here's the method: wash the wok and dry thoroughly. Put the whole thing in the barbecue grill, mine was just barely big enough, and crank up the heat, covered. Let it heat for about 15 minutes. Then rub a few tablespoons of fat all around the interior surface and cover the grill. Repeat 4 or 5 times, using nearly a cup of fat. The result is a gorgeously laquered vitrually non-stick surface, as shown above.

For the maiden stif fry I did a simple medley of broccoli, carrots, baby corn and other sundry vegs. I also had to break out the steamer and made some shrimp ha gao, which I haven't done in ages. As well as a lovely red-cooked short rib dish with chilies, star anise, black cardamom and tangerine peel. Lush.

Whatever could have lead to this long hiatus in Chinese cookery, I can't say, but the revival promises to be pretty exciting. If you haven't seen it yet, go out and buy Fuchsia Dunlop's new book on Hunan Cuisine. Absolutely fabulous.

Leg of Lamb

Does it get more gorgeous than this? I was literally stopped while mowing the lawn and asked if I wanted to help cook this beast, apparently hand fed 4-H project, though I never learned its name. Nor can I explain how it ended up in Christine's freezer, and then Dave's kitchen, then mine. Just so happens William Rubel was coming over this day, and alas he couldn't stay to eat it, but helped me tie it up, and start the fire. Here she is about 45 minutes into roasting before a serious conflagration, being turned slowly on my mechanical wind-up turnspit.

The word succulence doesn't even begin to describe it. Seasoned only with rosemary and salt, and as you can see there were practically no drippings; everything stayed within. If you have a yen for such cooking, I can highly recommend the spits sold by spitjack.com.

The leftovers became a really dandy chili last night too. Oh man, making me hungry again, first thing in the morning. But now I must go give a test. Ciao.

Almond Handling

I really do wish I brought a camera, but today I brought a few students to an almond orchard and handling factory near Ripon, CA. We spent about two and a half hours ogling at monstrous, loud machines designed basically to separate the almonds from rocks and twigs, then from hulls and shells, and then grade, etc. It dawns on me only after that all of this was only necessary because the nuts are shaken violently from the tree with a truck, that grabs them by the trunk with huge arms and drops them into the dirt. (Each of us got to shake a tree with the truck, was was serious fun - earthquake in sensurround) And then another truck needs to rake them into neat winrows, then another scoop them up, then another take them away. As all this was happeneing I was envisioning people actually knocking the almonds down with sticks, cleaning them on the spot and needing no machinery. Apparently it was done this way not long ago, on some of the same trees. But then there wasn't a global market, and the best nuts didn't go to Japan. I don't think it was immediately obvious to the student what his had to do with food history, but I hope it will sink in by the next class.

Ok, So in the meantime, Please leave comments! Either no one is reading this, or you're not finding my rants stimulating, in which case tell me what you'ld like to hear!

Ken