ol_ironstomach

Anson Mills has completely revamped and expanded their website since I last visited (a little too long ago) and now has an excellent discourse on the differing foodways of grits and polenta, and the regional preferences that belie the notion that they are the same. They note the predominant use of flint corn in polenta versus dent corn in Southern grits, but more interestingly there is a discussion of how polenta cooking changed as the Italians adopted multiple-pass reduction milling techniques which produced a highly uniform product, while their American relatives stuck with the cruder mush necessitated by the haphazard grain sizes produced by single-pass milling through the antebellum period. http://ansonmills.com/grain_notes/13

This talk of smoking the malted grain makes me wonder if anybody has ever tried doing this in a bacon smokehouse. Because the world needs a whisky that goes with Benton's bacon...

So happy to hear that this is visiting the US again. I experienced it at MoMA in '05 in, as they described, a "neutral gallery setting" where it was still incredibly immersive - a simulation of invisibly roaming among forty virtual vocalists. No stereo recording even begins to come close. And still, Tallis didn't write for drywalled rooms, so installing this in a stone chapel should be something special...an aural feast for your inner Tudor monarch.

Well, that sucks. Mathieson was knocking out some terrific veal cheek bites at the 86 Summer / 86 Bucks fundraiser on BLT's rooftop two weeks ago, one of our top two favorite items there, and his kitchen was sending up tray after tray of passed apps (I was partial to the chicken liver) as well as some positively gargantuan popovers.

Kostyra, but don't knock it. That episode where her mom demonstrates the family pierogi recipe was top notch, ranking right up there with the _Good Eats_ episode where Alton Brown's grandmother runs circles around him making biscuits.

Horror might be an overreaction sometimes, but with DeKuyper you're justified. I think Cointreau still stands alone for its sharply articulated, almost "hot" orange oil flavor. It's almost too straightforward to be interesting to sip on its own. Luxardo does make a "Triplum" triple sec that they've tried to position as an alternative, down to mimicking Cointreau's short, square bottle, but to me Triplum is weighed down by a strong malt note - almost moutwijn-like - that cannot be escaped. I have a couple other orange liqueurs in the cabinet, mainly Cognac-based, but again they are trying to be something else. Go with the real deal. IMHO.

For anyone who craves the insanely rich smoke of Benton's bacon, but only wants a small quantity (or huge amounts), I will just point out that Harvey's Meats, in the back corner of Union Market, buys it in slab form and has thick-cut strips ready to go, or will cut to order. Currently $11/lb.

Another one opening mid-October in the row of shops in front of the Germantown Wegmans garage. Had a chat with the GM since I happened to park in front of the construction site...these guys have been paying attention to the local midrange burger scene too.

There's a tiny but interesting selection now at DC Sharp in Union Market, but only a handful of yanagis and a few more debas/pettys, and only a few makers represented...Tojiro and Kikuichi showing on their web shop. A day trip to Korin's showroom in NYC (whose walls ARE full of knives) is probably the way to go if you want to see a broad selection.

The bacon threads are proliferating again. Moderators, here are a couple of interlopers: 1 and 2 In the meantime, a shout out for one of the more outstanding bacons I've had in a long time, this one a jowl bacon from Brick Farm Market, which opened this spring in Hopewell NJ. The fat is a higher percentage of the uncooked bacon than in traditional belly bacon, but once cooked it really concentrates down that baconny goodness along the line of muscle in the center. Apparently Gubeen hectored the butchers until they brought more out from the back. The market itself is an interesting project, originally the retail end of a retired hedge fund trader's attempt to build a vertical field-to-fork farm operation that's closed-loop, taking no energy or fertilizer from outside sources, while supplying high-end local produce and products. More here.

It's a very specific and simplified type, the Matryomin, commercialized in Japan. A bit too pricey when I looked into them. Here's one for Rocks: two conductors, one very good (Tilson Thomas) and one legendary (Bernstein), interpreting Stravinsky on piano four hands.

Gorgeous leeks right now, from Lotte in Germantown, in a simple brandy cream sauce with oyster mushrooms, and domestic white shrimp on top. My local Harris Teeter also has a BOGO deal for VIC card holders on Keys Fisheries Conch (red) Chowder, in the frozen seafood case.

In. Guess this means I have a month to work out this year's science project

Pulled pork shoulder was nicely moist; smoke flavor was on the light side, as was the smoke ring. On the table are your choice of five 'que sauces: two spicy, two sweet, one Carolina vinegar-pepper style. I thought they were all good, particularly the spicy "Colonel Bacon", a bacon-mustard sauce (and I don't usually like mustard sauces) and the "Hog Fire" which was a mild-medium hot pepper sauce. I was less excited about the smoked sausage (served with a dusting of paprika-based dry rub), which was pleasant but more akin to a snappy kielbasa, than the loosely packed coarse-ground Texas style I was hoping for. Sides were good: spherical dark-brown hushpuppies, a nice crisp cole slaw, decent mac 'n cheese. I enjoyed their cornbread too, although it was more like the sweet and moist New England style than the dry and savory Southern vernacular. Is it the best 'que in VA? I'm not convinced yet, but more sampling is in order.

They've expanded their stand to include a lot more Japanese knives, most of them modestly priced, in both production and handmade steels. There are even a few with a left-handed grind, including a couple of yanagis. Ryan Swanson, the owner, was busy working a small Henckels on flat water stones using the traditional Japanese technique, which is something I haven't seen very often around here. Properly done, he was taking transparent paper-thin shavings off a ripe tomato with it. $1.75 per blade inch for conventional grind; $2-6 per blade inch for single (Japanese) grind, according to the placard at the register.

Let's not overlook what is, for my money, the most useful comparison tasting this board has ever conducted. In the years since I first read this, I have tried maybe a dozen other brands of canned tomatoes in my tomato/sausage/spinach risotto, but gubeen _always_ notices if I stray from the default Hunt's. Like Libby's canned pumpkin, this is a product that has impressively and reliably optimized its niche.

In Bourdain's case, unknown and often unheralded, but hardly random. Doing the advance work is the bulk of what ZeroPointZero's PAs do.

Scott Heimendinger, the man who parlayed his built-it-yourself immersion circulator plans into a gig as Director of Applied Research at Nathan Myhrvold's Modernist Cuisine Cooking Lab, has debuted his next immersion circulator as a stylish, fully assembled, ready to use appliance. Initially priced at $199 (via Kickstarter) and slated to become available in November, the Sansaire circulator clips to any vessel of up to 6 gallons capacity and controls water temperature to 0.1 deg F or C. Video here. Kenji Lopez-Alt has already weighed in after trying a prototype, and raves about it except for a slight error in temperature accuracy. He notes that in speed and temperature stability, it is a significant improvement over the more expensive SousVide Supreme, in part thanks to a forced circulation pump. (Contrary to Kenji's headline, the Sansaire is not a Modernist Cuisine product; Scott explains in his FAQ that he had begun this project before accepting his current employment and that Myhrvold has permitted him to continue it as a personal side project.)

I don't know how these might have been pollinated, but I saved, washed, and dried the seeds anyway. Chez Stomach has plenty of room in the back forty, and YouTube has a bunch of info on growing melons on black landscaping cloth, or trellised. Let the games begin...next spring!

Thanks to a serendipitous find at a roadside market in Pennsylvania, I am presently obsessed with French melons. No, I don't mean Brigitte Bardot í la 1957, but the Charentais melon and its crosses. They're small, perhaps the size of a duckpin bowling ball, with a slightly ribbed rind that often shows a bit of residual green in the valleys. The true Charentais retains its stem and may be smooth or netted, but crosses with common (US) cantaloupe (muskmelon) will show netting and may drop off the stem. The flesh is deep orange and remarkably fragrant...and the complex flavor will spoil you for ordinary cantaloupes. Am I right, porcupine? Since it's a long flight to Cavaillon (and my French sucks) has anybody seen Charentais-variety melons at local farmers markets?

Spike Gjerde's recent interview with Eater mentioned this ambitious project, apparently in the works for a couple of years now, but only recently picking up steam. A ten million dollar redevelopment of an East Baltimore pumping station at 1801 E Oliver St, the Baltimore Food Hub aims to create a large (3.5 acre) campus and incubator of local producer and service businesses to develop and promote the region's food, with emphasis on farm-to-table and social enterprise. The project hopes to provide job training, microfinance, production agriculture (through a separate half-acre greenhouse site), distribution, catering, and kitchen services. Project manager and urban planner Greg Heller's resumé includes the somewhat smaller Dorrance H. Hamilton Center for Culinary Enterprises in Philadelphia. Humanim will operate a job skills development component, although it doesn't sound as if they're quite as vertically integrated as DCCK (which, I think, would have been a natural fit for a satellite operation). IMHO, this is a brilliant and synergistic initiative. The region has the variety, the cultural history, and the ability to produce extraordinary foods, but hasn't always done so in a coordinated fashion. Baltimore's long-suffering neighborhoods are ripe for renewal; having a single-stop incubator to develop the necessary neighborhood food businesses would go a long way towards successfully anchoring redevelopment beyond Federal Hill and the areas adjacent to Inner Harbor. This first link contains an overview presentation: http://christopherwink.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Food-Hub-Presentation-Feb-08-2013-No-Budgets.pdf http://www.americancommunitiestrust.org/initiatives/item/89-baltimore-food-collaborative.html http://www.baltimorefoodhub.com/

Scheduled to open mid-September. Eater Baltimore's interview: http://eater.com/archives/2013/08/07/spike-gjerde-interview.php

You can never keep enough good chicken broth around the house, so we normally keep a case or two of Pacific organic chicken broth in the pantry simply for convenience, even though the flavor is rather weak. But the other week, the Kirkland house branded organic chicken stock was on sale (also in aseptic cartons) so I picked up a case of each in case the latter turned out to be a dud. Surprise: the Kirkland organic is good. Really good. Still falls short of homemade, and obviously lacking in gelatinous goodness, but it has a much more strongly concentrated chicken flavor than any other ready-to-use broths that I've tried, without any weird notes or bizarre ingredients. It's good enough to sip: I'm a bit under the weather at the moment, so stirring in a dab of minced ginger from a jar, and adding a shake of white pepper into a cup of the stock, then nuking it briefly, has been super convenient and tastier than usual.

Friday night, the waiting list grew to 2.5-3 hours inside, and about 1.5 hrs outside, with lots of people trying to cram in one last taste before they closed. Saturday was apparently reservations-only, and had been booked up long in advance. Looking around at the other tables, there were a fair number of three- and four-generation parties who had grown up with the place. Bill Edelblut apparently has plans to work on an O'Donnell's cookbook, and to keep the website alive for the time being before deciding what he's going to do next. I hope he does, lest the Norfolk sampler (and basket of rum buns) vanish forever from the face of the earth. In retrospect, it's a bit weird that ever since they shuttered the Bethesda location shortly after Bish Thompson's closed, the icons of Bethesda seafood would have to be Tako Grill, Matuba, and the Bethesda Crab House, with Freddie's representing the new vanguard.

Trouble is, I always overeat a bit here...it's hard to resist a three taco combo, side of really fresh guacamole, and an horchata (or two). Their lengua is particularly good, and I don't know of a better use for tilapia than their fish tacos. The al Pastor is also decent, although it doesn't have the flavor complexity of the ones from Picante (in Chantilly). I appreciate that they try to put a good griddle sear on the carnitas right before assembly, but it's still too finely shredded to avoid becoming dry...nothing like the carnitas I used to get on the left coast. They're currently toying with ideas for expanding their menu, so now is the time to offer suggestions at the counter. But the tiny kitchen is a limitation.