Ireland to the Rescue

None of that made any sense, but that's not the point. The point is, I had a wonderful meal at a Dublin pub which consisted of Irish brown bread, a baked potato, a pint of Guinness, and a dish called Dublin Coddle* which was one of the most comforting meals I've ever had.

So, tonight, I decided to reproduce it. Quite simple, really: cut a couple strips of bacon into square and simmered them with a couple sausages in a cup of water for 20 minutes. Then, I added two small onions (sliced), three small to medium potatoes cut into chunks, and a coupe carrots cut into pieces. Simmered that in the meat-cooking water for nigh on an hour, and then served it with dark bread, butter, and a stout. (St. Ambroise by the McAuslan brewery, a surprisingly good beer for Montreal, which should not be known for its beer).



Today's high was 6C, which is 43. With rain, you have one of those bone-deep chills that I know so well from my time in Britain. So, where better to turn for tonight's meal than the Irish (Eire's near Britain, right?)? During my all-too-short visit to the Green Isle, I learned a number of things: stout tastes better when you're eating a potato; Dublin Coddle is an amazingly warming food; in spite of all expectations, coddle is served with a baked potato; if coddle weren't served with a baked potato, I would still be cold.


*For years, I searched in vain for Dubline Cobble. It was quite by accident that I stumbled across the correct spelling. I am glad I did, because my memory of the first meal was hazy at best.

My Coffee

My coffee reminds me that I am alive. Like so many other things in life, it brings together pleasure and disgust, textures and smells mingling into a hot, bittersweet ichor.

My coffee is slow, removed from the technological simplicities which allow us to forget that our coffee is often harvested by hand, slowly dried, and then roasted by hardworking people thousands of miles away from our breakfast table. It starts with a kettle, placed on a burner. There is no electric heating coil to replace the primal element of fire.

My coffee starts as whole beans, poured into the hopper of a brass grinder from Turkey. As the fire heats the water, I turn the handle on the grinder, laboriously crushing the beans into a fine powder. The brass starts cool to the touch, but warms as my grip tightens and my muscles begin to tire ever so slightly. Removing the lid, I can check on the level of beans in the hopper, to see if I need to speed up the grinding. It is an inexact method: sometimes, the kettle whistles steam long before the hopper is empty; other times, I finish the grinding and can empty the coffee into a mug.

The smell of the grinder used to disgust me. The acrid scent of tarnishing brass wafted up from the hopper combines with the harsh smell of beans. The inside of the grinder has become caked in a layer of coffee dust from the years of use. The smell now reminds me of the pleasure to follow and of the past, and it is strangely comforting. I've drunk coffee like this since 2007, when I used a friend and roommate's grinder and the pain kept me from standing up while I cranked the burr. It reminds me of the rejuvenation I felt that spring, and the summer after returning home when I got my own grinder. It reminds me of grinding a cup an hour before my Modern tests a year later, the jitteriness of the caffeine hitting me just as I needed my mind to work as fast and as efficiently as possible.

When the beans are ground and dumped into the bottom of a mug, I am always amazed at just how thick the layer of coffee is. It seems to fill up the mug, before any water is even poured on top. And when the water is poured over the grounds, first a thick black sludge to wet them, and then a second pour to fill up the mug, a layer of lightly-colored grounds floats to the top. It sits there as the coffee steeps.

My coffee is a sensual awakener. I have never found coffee which assaults and nudges the senses so completely as this does. To be truthful, it is disgusting, but it is also grounding. The word organic is one which often comes to mind, in the sense of an experience which flows naturally from that which surrounds it. The layer of grounds on top becomes bitter, so the first sips of the cup is filled with bitter grit. Perhaps because of this first impression, the liquid below always surprises with its wonderful richness and smoothness. Towards the end of the cup, the coffee itself starts mixing with the liquid, and I have to admit that this is my favorite part. The grounds thicken the liquid, giving it body like a good cup of hot chocolate, and it lingers in the mouth as the tongue and teeth are covered with fine sediment.

My Coffee

My coffee reminds me that I am alive. Like so many other things in life, it brings together pleasure and disgust, textures and smells mingling into a hot, bittersweet ichor.

My coffee is slow, removed from the technological simplicities which allow us to forget that our coffee is often harvested by hand, slowly dried, and then roasted by hardworking people thousands of miles away from our breakfast table. It starts with a kettle, placed on a burner. There is no electric heating coil to replace the primal element of fire.

My coffee starts as whole beans, poured into the hopper of a brass grinder from Turkey. As the fire heats the water, I turn the handle on the grinder, laboriously crushing the beans into a fine powder. The brass starts cool to the touch, but warms as my grip tightens and my muscles begin to tire ever so slightly. Removing the lid, I can check on the level of beans in the hopper, to see if I need to speed up the grinding. It is an inexact method: sometimes, the kettle whistles steam long before the hopper is empty; other times, I finish the grinding and can empty the coffee into a mug.

The smell of the grinder used to disgust me. The acrid scent of tarnishing brass wafted up from the hopper combines with the harsh smell of beans. The inside of the grinder has become caked in a layer of coffee dust from the years of use. The smell now reminds me of the pleasure to follow and of the past, and it is strangely comforting. I've drunk coffee like this since 2007, when I used a friend and roommate's grinder and the pain kept me from standing up while I cranked the burr. It reminds me of the rejuvenation I felt that spring, and the summer after returning home when I got my own grinder. It reminds me of grinding a cup an hour before my Modern tests a year later, the jitteriness of hitting me just as I needed my mind to work as fast and as efficiently as possible.

When the beans are ground and dumped into the bottom of a mug, I am always amazed at just how thick the layer of coffee is. It seems to fill up the mug, before any water is even poured on top. And when the water is poured over the grounds, first a thick black sludge to wet them, and then a second pour to fill up the mug, a layer of finely-colored grounds floats to the top. It sits there as the coffee steeps.

My coffee is a sensual awakener. I have never found coffee which assaults and nudges the senses to completely as this does. To be truthful, it is disgusting, but it is also grounding. The word organic is one which often comes to mind, in the sense of an experience which flows naturally from that which surrounds it. The layer of grounds on top becomes bitter, so the first sips of the cup is filled with bitter grit. Perhaps because of this first impression, the liquid below always surprises with its wonderful richness and smoothness. Towards the end of the cup, the coffee itself starts mixing with the liquid, and I have to admit that this is my favorite part. The grounds thicken the liquid, giving it body like a good cup of hot chocolate, and it lingers in the mouth as the tongue and teeth are covered with fine sediment.

Caldron of Beef

Even this die-hard Mexican food fan can grow a little tired of masa and beans. Such had happened over the past few months; the luster of tacos and even tortas had begun to tarnish in my mind. But, for whatever reason, I decided to hit up my secretish spot in Waukegan for lunch today.

I could not have made a better decision. In fact, I think this rates as one of the best choices in my life, although I pretty much always feel that way when I go to this place. I decided to get something different, rather than the usual gordita or taco, and let the home-style cooking of the little taqueria shine through. That made all the difference.

I ordered caldo de res, which for those not in the know is beef stew. Man, alive, it was good. Imagine a huge bowl brimming with spicy green beef broth, two huge chunks of braised beef with fat on, green beans, potatoes, and Mexican summer squash, served with fresh masa tortillas and lime wedges. From the first bite, two things were immediately apparent: this was going to be the best meal I'd had in a long time, and I would die if I ate all of it. In the end, I left a few bites of beef, some green beans and broth, and a single tortilla.

I may still die.

On a side note, I flipped on the Cubs game as I drove back to work. Now, much has been said about the decline in advertising revenue and the desperate measures to which newspapers and television are going (like going out of business). But I don't think it had really sunk in until about twenty minutes ago. The last commercial break before the game started began with one of those old school used car dealership commercials, complete with echo effects and an over-the-top reader.

I know these commercials never really went away, since I'd hear them occasionally on 670 or 890 on non-prime times, and they are alive and well in all their glory on the Spanish stations, but the pre-game WGN broadcast for a day game starting during the construction workday can probably be described as the primest of prime advertising spots, up there with the morning commute hours. For WGN to accept such a trashy commercial strikes me as a big deal. But maybe I'm reading too much into this.

Meat Musing

I've never been a big fan of the rather bland succulence of pork.

For me, beef, lamb or venison are infinitely "superior" meats, regardless of what the Euro-centric foodie culture prevalent in America claims.

French cookery relies on the pig because their beef is horrible! American grass-fed beef, whether from the western Great Plains or from the eastern Gaucho, may be less useful as a tool in the kitchen, but it is ten times more interesting as an ingredient.

Ice Girls

I've now been to three Hawks games, with a fourth coming up in about a week, and I can say with no uncertainty in my opinion that Ice Girls are a stupid attempt to bring cheerleaders into a sports setting which has no tradition of cheerleaders.

Are hockey fans so desperate to see attractive women during an hour-long game that they needed to invent a reason for bikini-clad skaters to appear?

America's a Funny Place

My grandfather is a great man. He grew up in a working class neighborhood of Louisville during the Great Depression, the son of a street carman. Like my equally great father's father, these experiences shaped my maternal grandfatehr's view of money and excess, but he was left with a strong self-indulgent streak (I might even go so far as to say he's a sensualist).

One of the ways that this shows itself is in a joy, which is inexpressible to those who don't know him, at finding bargains when eating out. I remember fondly his broad grin as he would tell me where he was taking me for lunch during my summer visits: a Greek place in Rockville where you could get a salad, bread, and more pasta than a man could eat for $6 was his favorite stand-by and eating with him there was de rigeur for much of my adolescence. I once made a pot of beans - beans, onion, some decent sausage, and salt - and the look of pure bliss as he ate what is really one of the simplest things ever was enough to make the whole back-breaking trip down to Louisville more than worth it (this was during my lost Herniated Disc era).

My personal favorite of his discoveries was at Chipotle. I went there today to yet again feast on the greatest unknown deal in pop culture America. It turns out that you can get rice and beans (ask for more rice; no one ever says no) for $1.75. That's right - you can eat at one of the most popular lunch spots in America for less than $2. And this isn't some cheapo white bread/deep fried fish sandwich king at Burger Thing for Lent. This is a year-round offer. It's called sides, two of them, and they aren't listed on the menu anywhere. But, oh the joy of standing in line with people paying $6 or $7 for lunch and knowing that I am going to get delicious cilantro-lime rice and really beautifully cooked beans for less money than the Wall Street Journal!

One of his favorite parts of this meal is the experience of Russian roulette when you order it. If his grin was big when he told us of the deal, it only got bigger when he related how no one ever charged the same amount: $1.50 was the norm at the time, but he'd been charged 75 cents and $3.25, too. Once, as he neared the register, he noticed the tomato salsa and asked for some of that, too. The total was a whopping $5.75! It turns out two sides is two sides, but three sides is a meal.

And, I have to admit, the eccentric joy of eating cheaply at a popular place is good enough, but the confusion behind the counter today when I ordered "beans and rice...yes, just beans and rice" made it the highlight possibly of my week (and it's been a pretty amazing week). The first guy just stared at me, then warmed up to the idea and, after asking repeatedly if that was all, he even smiled and wished me a good day. I could tell he was getting a kick out of the incongruity of my order with the petite women in front of me ordering oozing mounds of pork topped with cheese and guacamole. The next guy just flipped the lid on and folded it down, before handing it to the guy who marks the lid in marker, who paused, false stared a couple times, and then gave up on writing anything at all. He interrupted the cashier to tell her it was two sides, repeating it a few times as if to make himself believe it as much as to tell her what to charge me. When she rang it up, the sweet total of $1.75 came up on the display, before she asked me one final, incredulous time: Do you want anything else?

And the weirdest, greatest part of all of this? Where in the world, other than America and maybe Western Europe, would anyone consider $2.00 for a plate of rice and beans cheap?

Steel

Ruhlman's post yesterday (still today for me; had to stay up late because of an ill dog) put to paper my own pet peeve: the willful ignorance, bordering on stubborn refusal, by people to learn even the most basic of knife skills and care.

I realize that I am somewhat a strange case: my dad had trained as a chef in his 20s and felt that learning to cook was an important part of my upbringing, and learning to cook to him revolved around two basic skills he introduced me to at the age of 7 or 8. They are both very important; the first was making an omelette, the second was proper handling, care, and use of a chef's knife. And, for the past five years, I shaved exclusively with a straight razor (though practicality makes that impossible now that college is a waning memory). So, my skill with a blade, and my comfort with sharpening, is far and above that of the average American.

So, yes, one could make a very strong case that I shouldn't judge other people for not knowing how to use a knife. In fact, I will gladly give you that point. But, I don't see any possible excuse for the way so many people act around knives. They refuse to buy good knives, they buy knives that are grossly too small (a boning knife should not be used to dice an onion), they never sharpen them, they refuse to learn safe cutting techniques. And, of course, no one likes to be told they don't know what they are doing, even if they would readily admit their ignorance to someone who is just as ignorant (not that I ever patronize someone while they have a knife in their hands).

The point is, the knife is central to the kitchen. Unless one's entire kitchen repertoire consists of whole roasted vegetables and Chateaubriand, every dish starts under a knife. Properly honed knives, when used correctly, make such easy work (even if one doesn't work quickly) of prepping ingredients that cooking hardly seems time consuming at all. And the vast majority of my friends stubbornly refuse to pick up a chef's knife and a steel and learn even the simplest cutting stroke.

It can be intimidating to learn a new skill. Cooking on a daily basis, for all my meals, used to seem like something I would never be able to do. I certainly did not get to the place I am now in a week. Truth be told, even my knife skills could use some practice. But why don't more people at least want to learn these skills, even at the rudimentary level?

Here's a great example of the sort of benefit one can gain from proper knife skills. At Thanksgiving, I walked into the kitchen to see my mom slicing a carrot for turkey soup. She was gripping the handle, not the bolster, and was using straight up and down strokes to cut the carrot with the heel of the blade. The blade wobbled whenever she applied pressure, and her fingers were in danger of receiving a glancing blow if the carrot were to spin before the blade bit. Since it was my mom, I didn't feel too horrible a person for pointing out to her that if she gripped the bolster and kept tip of the blade on the counter, the whole affair would be smoother and safer, especially if she pushed the knife forward as she brought it down.

Reluctantly, she made the switch, more to humor me than anything else. However, just that tiny switch made the slicing so much safer and the carrot/blade so much more stable, that her speed immediately increased and she visibly relaxed. She actually remarked at Christmas, the next time I was home, how glad she was I'd made the comment.

Intelligentsia's Clover Fetish

Say what you want about coffee, passions run high, especially here in Chicago. One of our leading coffee establishments recently announced the phasing out of standard drip coffee, to be replaced with made-to-order cups from a Clover machine. If you don't know what this is about, don't worry about it, you probably wouldn't care anyway. However, it's a rather contentious issue to those who know both Intelligentsia and the Clover machine (mostly for pricing reasons), and Gaper's Block's food page ran a post complaining about the shift (among other changes). I was kind of put off by what the post said, because I sometimes lose my head in battles of customer service, and wrote a letter complaining about the decision to Intelligentsia. I was pretty impressed with their response, which was sent less than a business day after I originally complained. Here's what Intelligentsia had to say:



Matthew,

Thanks for your email. Also, thank you for being a long time customer. I suspect some of your information you may have gathered from Gaper’s Block, which didn’t quite get the pricing right. Coffee of the Clover will not be twice as expensive as brewed coffee was before. Although it will not be as inexpensive as coffee out of the urn, there will always be a “Pick of the Day,” that will be quite reasonable and brewed to order. Here is what the new menu looks like:

COFFEE

Espresso - 2.50

Macchiato - 2.75

Con Panna - 2.75

Cappuccino - 3.25

Latte - 3.25 / 3.50 / 3.75

Valharona Mocha - 3.75 / 4.00 / 4.25

Americano - 2.75

Coffee by the Cup - Made to Order
Today's Pick - 2.00 / 2.35 / 2.65
Select Offerings - 3 & up

Chemex For Two - 6 & up

Valharona Hot Chocolate - 3.25 / 3.50 / 3.75

House Chai - 3.25 / 3.50 / 3.75

Most drinks may be served iced.

We really believe that brewed to order is the way to go as it highlights what we do, brews a better tasting cup and never sits on heat. We do feel that it is much more in line with our mission. I realize this may not be exactly what you wanted to hear, but we do feel it is how we need to move forward.
To take the sting out of all of this, if you would be so kind as to send me your mailing address, I’ll send you a gift card so at least the next few drinks will be on us.

Kind regards,


Doug Zell



Needless to say, I sent them my mailing address. [Update: Due to a comment made by James (below), I now have reason to believe that this was actually sent by Doug Zell. I am pleased and somewhat impressed.]

Eerie Similarities

I walked all over the Gold Coast today trying to find a free wi-fi spot so that I could find directions online to a Jewish deli which is rumored to be great. I almost found the deli before finding wi-fi. Only a few blocks farther north and I would have been there. Unfortunately, no deli for me today; my hunger got the best of me before I could make it to either, and I settled for a drenched beef with sweet peppers. The fries were disappointing. And who would have known that Starbucks had such a complicated system for getting internet access, involving cards with minimum limits and other more complicated things, like Green's theorem.

At least I got to take the Brown line north, for my first day of class at NEIU. I was planning on doing the Red line to the Berwyn and taking the bus west, but after I finally found an internet place that didn't charge an exorbitant fee, I discovered that the Brown line in fact terminates only a few blocks south of NEIU. So, I got to take that north, and then walk the rest of the way. The Brown line has got to be one of the coolest L lines in Chicago. It travels from the Loop to the northwest on elevated tracks which go behind apartment buildings, through Lincoln Park, to the west of Wrigley Field, and then veers due west and, after Western Ave, drops to street level and runs in the alley between two rows of houses. That drop really surprised me, as did the crossing gate arms which kept cars from dying beneath our massive train's wheels. It was weird to hear a dog barking when the doors opened at Francisco. This is one of my new recommendations for tourists: ride the Brown line to the Kimball terminus and then walk around a bit (but just a bit). You'll get to see the real side of Chicago, and one of the most unique public transit lines I've ever ridden - half subway, half streetcar.

When I finally got to NEIU, I walked straight to the science building, which it turns out is a slightly rundown lecture building from the late 1970s or so. I walked in and was immediately struck by a sense of deja-vu: the building reminded me of Nottingham University to an unnerving degree. Such a strange and unexpected feeling to get.

Burris

Whatever goodwill I had towards politics, both Illinois and federal, died today.