Poivrot Farci

Yes. Think of it as a preview that may or may not appeal to your tastes. It is quite standard in most of the developed world where passersby aren't tethered to umbilical mobile electronics.

Secca d'Entrevaux. Air-dried Randall-Lineback eye of round. Heavy natural bloom in beef middle casing without starter culture. Eat it Ruhlman.

Pigeon, Gin-Soaked Currant and Toasted Almond Páté en Croí»te: Special Longshot Dark-Meat Horse Edition. Submission to qualify for the 2012 World Páté Croí»te Championship in Tain l'Hermitage, France. No dove, no love. Pastry feathers and almonds; juniper berries and culeb peppercorns as currants . Rooftop chimneys. Pigeon breast, liver farce í gratin, gizzards, almonds, currants, fatback, whathaveyou.

A detailed rose-veal ribeye. Dry-aged 6 weeks. The Complexus, Spinalis and Longissimus Dorsi are separated to remove the sinew and any membranes. Given the lean nature of the animal, kidney fat is placed in between the muscles and the whole sewn shut. Fatback bards the outside and is gussied-up with lemon and orange zest. Seared, roasted on squash, sweet corn and plum tomatoes then relieved of its decorative fatty girdle.

A detailed rose-veal ribeye. Dry-aged 6 weeks. The Complexus, Spinalis and Longissimus Dorsi are separated to remove the sinew and any membranes. Given the lean nature of the animal, kidney fat is placed in between the muscles and the whole sewn shut. Fatback bards the outside and is garnished with lemon and orange zest. Seared, roasted on squash, sweet corn and plum tomatoes then relieved of its decorative fatty girdle.

Rose Veal Paupiette à la Richelieu 3.0 edition. Rose veal paillard wrapped around ground pork seasoned with roasted garlic, rosemary and olive oil-cured tomatoes. Barded with caul fat, my ventrèche and a fatback calotte. Gently roasted with corn, striped roman tomatoes from the garden, lime segments and dutifully basted.

$94 including shipping. It is the best retail price you will likely find for a new 5 lb stainless steel stuffer and well worth it. Stuffed trotter. Apricots, pistachios, smoked belly, fatback and cardamom. Best when gently seared in lard and basted with animal juices. Up yours Manolo. The next best thing to embalmment.

Although cast iron retains it heat well, it is porous (it can absorb the undesirable flavors of burnt fats), heavy and requires considerable effort to properly maintain. Blue steel (or black steel) will season itself over time, but demands almost as much upkeep. While it does not have the cleaning benefits of stainless steel it is far cheaper than the All-Clad ilk and lighter than cast iron, but it may unfavorable reactions with acids. I’ve seen a stainless steel All-Clad (sandwiched metals) blister and warp. Never with blue steel. And you can get 3 blue steel pans for the price of 1 stainless.

Get a California roll with soap in it and consider using a thesaurus. Supermarkets (other than Safeway) sell sushi because there is an obviously profitable demand for it and it is a convenient alternative to dining out. Supermarkets also sell industrial bread which is not of the best quality but chumps buy it because there are very few other retail options for superior bread. Safeway gets top ranking for supermarket sushi / Sushi 'chefs' sent by big franchises. (2004 article)

Consider Ebay or Vintage KitchenAid for the metal attachments. $125 and well worth it. Candy Onions. Stuffed with ground lamb, rice and ararat spice. Ready to roast.

Countering the recent attention given to fraudulent claims of crab meat origin and the Pepsi crab-challenge into today’s food section, the Washington Post helps to perpetuate misleading labeling of “grass-fed” beef in “A Perfect Steakhouse Experience”. Bourbon Steak makes no assertions of “grass-fed” or “organic" beef on their menu, neither does the Piedmont Ridge website but such marketing merits are heralded in the article. All steers are grass-fed. Fewer than 5% of the beef raised in the US is 100% grass-fed. Even less is shady "prime". Its bullshit and dilutes whatever quality and integrity is left in this industy rife with fraud. Select-grade journalism for suckers.

Jambonneaux. Pressed, boneless pork shanks. Shankscicle. Shanks are brined, simmered, picked and packed into spring loaded cast-aluminum molds found in a friend’s restaurant’s basement in Épernay, France. A hole at the bottom of each cavity allows a whittled ulna or fibula bone to be inserted into the "ham" to mimic a larger bone-in ham. The pressed shank is then rubbed with lard and coated in toasted breadcrumbs. Best enjoyed cold with condiments. The press to impress Sly & the Family Bones.

Veal Pojarksi beta version. Cutlets formed from ground rose veal, cream & sourdough panade, butter-simmered onions, marjoram and smoked paprika. Breaded, twice, with toasted breadcrumbs. Standard macaroni bone proxy with obligatory paper bootie.

White balance and settings on the camera were askew. The inlay is pasty white with a dusting of lucknow fennel seed. With proper eyewear however, it appears in the compulsory 3-D.

Wild Salmon Terrine with Inlay of Great Lakes Whitefish and Mustard Seeds. Gravad-laks and Vermouth Aspic. Picses Eclipse.

So long as there isn’t any legislation that puts the kibosh on artificially fattening over 95% of our cattle on similar grain or a third of the human population with excessive, nutritionally deficient value meals and such, we will enjoy 2/3rds our fill of forceful feeding. I reported on a Chicago-bound duck smuggling scheme in Gluttoneers’ Bootleg Canteen for Gluttony Digest #5, Autumn 2006.

Yes. The fraudulent mustache (and sombrero) was an integral accessory for a kitschy 2001 mariachi-ish costume and every comment was a compliment on my passionate, elaborately hand-sewn embroidery, pompoms, bells, flowers, glitter, sash, snare drum and so forth. Antique facial hair, phony or groomed, is not the calling card of exaggerated discrimination. For clarity, is this really the face of racism? An obtuse costume of nondescript headgear (not exclusively a head-wrap) and handlebar mustache that would otherwise be perfectly acceptable for Halloween, New Year's, Carnaval or a beer commercial but in poor taste despite their genuine appreciation of broad ethnic cuisine and which has incredibly generated such confused, hypochondriac second-hand offense as to produce this sour, prejudiced, and unauthorized “offended on behalf of others” race thesis: The Fojol Bros is essentially a lampoon lemonade stand for adults being vilified vicariously, after 3 years of operation, by some with a deficiency of attention, for what is harmless in any other context and tangentially tolerated, even encouraged for Saint Patrick’s day stupidity or historically inaccurate Cinco de Mayo “Mexican independence” stupidity: hokey tourist nationalism from novelty hats and a pin or T-shirt suggesting promiscuity –lubed by tinted beer and counterfeit nachos. In every Bucca di Beppo’s Pope room swivels a bust of the current leader of the Catholic church, spreading the gospel or grace 360º from under a plexiglass popebox and lazy-Susan pedestal to gluttons who are not conducting religious seminaries and can excuse themselves to the “Goomba (sic)” designated restroom. Where is the outrage and petitions decrying desecration? Or perhaps selling a lassipop from a van behind a fake mustache and floppy hat is not the front-burner issue civil rights it is fabricated to be, though yelling “racism” is just as likely to strike a frenzy as “free burritos”. The Fojol Bros have certainly not earned the gold ‘ol racist American credentials that, by law, prohibited American Indians, slaves, women, Western & Eastern Europeans, Japanese Americans, Muslims, South Asians, Latin Americans, homosexuals, convicts and plenty more their fundamental human rights in just 300 years, in addition to invading, bombing and meddling in other country’s affairs. Affluent Americans who are abusively apologetic for all the tangible evil and oppression this country has deliberately promoted world-wide should calculate the Fojol Bros’ legitimate offense handicap for selling vegetarian food -the conscientious consumer’s war cry- from fictitious lands in an effort to make money by selling a product that pleases people. If prospering financially from their act and guise makes them despicable, perhaps acclaimed hallmarks of contemporary pop-culture escapism (adding to Mr. Landrum’s list) and their leading men are worthy of such scrutiny, reprimand and censorship for condoning portrayals and caricatures of others’ race, religion, sexuality, age, disability, social class, stereotypes, etc… other than their own, for our entertainment, courtesy the makeup & costume dept: Anything Mel Brooks; Most contestants of Let’s Make a Deal; Peter Sellers’ brownface in The Party; James Earl Jones and the C. T. Howell in the blackface themed Soulman; Richard Pryor’s contemporary slave in The Toy; Pryor/Wilder disabilities in Hear No Evil, See No Evil; Dustin Hoffman’s cross-dressing in Tootsie; Williams/Lane/Azzaria intense homosexuality in The Birdcage; Every cast member in the revered and absolutely awesome Revenge of the Nerds; geriatric jokes in Cocoon and Dudley Moore’s annoying alcoholism in Arthur and its saucy sequel. Those who are stewing this desperate social injustice, have paid to see these features and enjoyed them are complicit. Shame on you.

Unless a peon is using a knife to whittle down cases of potatoes into slender finger-sized matchsticks, virtually no one is hand-cutting fries in restaurants. Hand-activated-potato-cutting-mechanism-through-a-metal-cutter-frame perhaps, but that energy can just as well be replaced by a brick and length of string. An extension of the “artisan” fraud for those who can’t find a better way to say that they make their own fries from whole potatoes.

Most of the portioned/processed beef purchased in supermarkets over the last decade has been sprayed with carbon-monoxide to keep it all nice and bright red and it will stay so after being in the trunk of your car for a fortnight. Without it, cut or ground beef turns brown after a couple days, particularly grain finished feedlot beef which has less anti-oxidants and consequently shorter shelf life than 100% grass-fed beef. The FDA does not require labeling of products sprayed with carbon-monoxide, probably because the general public is ignorant and will get into a paranoid frenzy over what is essentially a natural gas, no more harmful than the cyanide in apricot pits. The issue with TG is whether it is being used for clever novelty or intentionally misleading the consumer, the later being a concern in quality conscious countries, ours not being one of them. This week I was unable to find any retail cucumber pickles (other than Maille, though with artificial flavors and sulfur dioxide) that did not include a yellow coloring agents #5 or #6. None. Most of the stuff in every aisle has a shelf-life that rivals the half-life of manganese, and we’re likely grateful for that. Except for the details.

What about the smell in the Bestworld? A meek reek of leeks, beets, meats, fish and probably some bleach to clean the floor. That is the reality of such a store. Other gated-community flavored retailers have a bland whiff of boring. Life smells, or stinks depending on your perspective. So do juniper bushes, dry-aged meat and old people. And, whoever smelled the smelt (which they have) has allegedly dealt it. I can only hope that 20 years from now, I’d be delighted to have a smell evoke memories from the era during which I lived and shopped at the Bestworld.

The appropriately named Bestworld (formerly Bestway) in Mt. Pleasant (3178 MtP st) has them, next to the Thai tiger eggplant and under what looks like Thai stink beans. Bestworld, along with A Literri is in the rare league of considerable substance-over-style food shops. Relief from the sterile, vacuous, Vegas-sized national retailers that charge $2 for a generic grapefruit. It is my default-setting for all dinner party proteins & sundries and should be yours too. Overlooking the folkloric prejudices of shopping in a Latino market, mismatched/misspelled signage (chunk meat, horganic eggs), narrow aisles (by American standards) and bric-a-brac consignment store feng shui reveals a formidable selection of charming food stuffs; the confluence of Latino, Asian and Gringo sensibilities. The produce selection is far from exhaustive, but they routinely carry enough esoteric items to please any savvy consumer. The fish showcase is far and away the best in area –not luxury fish, but excellent quality and recently labeled with origins. Whole fish, scaled and gutted to order. Never been touched by a knife, packed under ice. Spanish mackerel, mullet, pompano, striped bass, flounder, porgy, white bass, squid mantles, perch, croaker, freshwater sheephead, bluefish, catfish and vermillion snapper (*erroneously labeled as red snapper*), butterfish, blood clams, surf clams, head-on shrimp (not wild), etc…no more than $8/lb -leave a gratuity in the tip jar if they filet it for you. And say "hello", "please" and "thank you." Though the land based proteins are pre-cut (pork and beef can be cut to order at the prodigious grain & dried legume "El Progreso" 3158 MtP st, down the street), beef, pork and chicken parts/offal are readily available (tongues, tripe, hearts, livers, gizzards, tails, ears, smoked hocks, bellies, and so on) and when asked nicely, they will provide whole/uncut items if they have them. While the meats make no claims of small scale local quality and consciousness, the variety is simply unmatched. Acceptable beer & wine offerings, multitudes of spices and dried chilies, salt cod, smoked herring, crema, fresh Central American cheese, lots of rice, rice noodles, fruit nectars, Asian condiments, frozen quail and rabbit (better than no quail or rabbit), occasionally Confucius style (head & feet on) chickens, 10 for $1 limes, 4 for $1 lemons, tropical fruit and for those privy to the tiki bar hangover curing properties of $6 Pedialyte, the Latino $4 Suero-Oral counterpart comes in horchata, mango, pineapple and coconut flavors.

Based on home based. Special Stonemason's Blossom Edition. Alina duck, their confit gizzards, apricots and pistachios. Madeira aspic.

The ribeye was about 35€/kg (about $22/lb, not unreasonable). Less marbled bone-in Limousin retailed for 32€/kg and the strip loin 34€/kg. High standards of quality cost money and there is a tremendous amount of pride is serving well reputed appellations. This is not that dopey Rancher’s Reserve. The only 90€/kg beef I witnessed was the Rossini. A prototype for the holiday season –during which, the shop (retail space fits a dozen people) will serve over 700 customers on a Saturday. 4 week dry-aged tenderloin from 4 year-old 100% grass-fed Limousin steer. Foie Gras des Landes (exceptional 600gram lobes, not the obscene 1100gram nonsense peddled here) and legitimate Perigourd truffles whose thick aroma spread like fog. Wrapped in suet and caul fat. Sold by the slice. This particular one was gone by mid afternoon. Excessive assembly, perhaps, but eaten with dignity and class. And you don't get a free T shirt for eating the whole thing.

That is only because we have become accustomed to artificially cheap, corn rushed beef or immature grass finished alternatives. The cost of naturally raising a suitable breed on grass the years it takes to become sufficiently marbled is prohibitive, and exceedingly gassy. 5 year old, 100% grass-fed “Normande” rib-eye. Hugo Desnoyer; Paris, France.

If fertilizer, soap, pet food and meat-glue tube-steak (does anyone really think Arby’s still uses roast beef that isn’t scraps stripped from bones and glued together?*) are flavors that you crave and you are indifferent to the animal/human welfare of CAFO’s then the abominable factory slaughterhouses will satisfy your needs. The small slaughterhouses I have visited within 100 miles of DC kill a handful of cows on the days they are permitted to (other animals on other days and poultry on another if they are permitted), as opposed to the scourge of humanity out west that kills thousands daily. If factory farming gives you anxiety, eat more of their prozac flavored chicken. However, the compromise of smaller operations is less waste than is worth the effort and some slaughterhouse aren’t permitted to keep certain organs, blood and whatnot and not all of those permissible may up to the USDA snuff. It is all shipped to a rendering plant. Cheeks and tongues from steers that have been killed with captive bolt pistols or 22 caliber gun shot are not allowed to be harvested for fear of bone or bullet fragments and unless requested, meat cutters don’t remove such parts from stun-killed animals because of the alleged low demand and extraneous knife cuts, though I suggested the interest in cheeks, tongues and oxtail was quite high among the few who use them. When asked about the viability of stocking oxtail, collar, cheeks, tongue, shins and “rat” (cylindrical tendon muscle from the center of the heel similar to the shank) the Maryland plant’s big cheese replied “we’re not in France, and there aren't many Frank Ruta’s”. Invariably, whatever off-cuts which are the hallmarks of everything from pot au feu to Phở take up space in freezers, like blood, and cost money to hold. Visit a European butcher shop, where food is an integral part of tradition and culture. Then compare it to a butcher shop in the US. When you can’t find one, consider the dismal 2-tone selection at any Supermarket. Beef, in all its adulterated variants is artificially cheap and without a long history of butchering we have never had to consider anything other than the center cut or ballyhooed burger. We don’t have as much reverence for food as we think we do, other than in the quantities we ingest. *Transglutaminase was banned in Europe from 2010-2011. Critics argued that the risk of harmful bacteria from a conglomerate meat was much higher than a singular piece. More importantly, there were concerns that the use would lead to fraud; selling scraps of beef glued together to suckers as the real McKoy.