November 2006 Archives

Here we find Eric hard at work Saturday morning at the Berkeley Farmer's Market.

Who here wants, needs, really should, improve their knife skills in the kitchen? Raise your hands, excellent. How many of you have been waiting for one you could afford and yet have a class that's comprehensive? Raise your hands, excellent. Maybe even learn how to sharpen your knives or repair broken ones? You bet. Well, you've scored big time people.

Paulding & Co. is offering a Knife Sharpening & Knife Skills Class for only 85 dollars. It's going to be held this coming December 11, 2006; 6:30pm – 10:00pm in Emeryville.

You're a bloody knuckle knobbed fool if you don't sign up today. The class isn't quite full yet, but it should be in a few days or so. Get with it, go now. Your fingers will be thankful you did.

Biggles

Above you see the smoked duck breast lightly seared. It's a prepared portion that's all ready for your mouth. I had 2 last week and enjoyed them immensely with a pile of basmati rice steeped with chicken broth, butter and whole cumin seeds. It's a rich treat, so poise yourself ready with something appropriate.

Holy cow, the FC menu just rolled in for this coming Saturday. I missed last week's market thinking it was closed. I dunno what happened. But this week? I'm ready. The menu is jam packed with items. There's 3 dang specials!

Heritage Brined and Smoked Pork Chops

Red Wattle Piglet Roulade stuffed with peppery sausage

Petit Jambon (little smoked Heritage hams about 1-2 pounds each)

I think I may go for the Piglet Roulade. Doesn't that sound great rolling off your tongue? Roooooulahhhhde. That would even sound good as a first name. Dr. Roooooooulahhhde Biggles.

OWOWOUUCHIE !!! Dangit! I had Pho Ga for lunch and just rubbed jalapeno juice in my eyeball !!! Keeripes, now the screen looks all smeary.

Sigh. Uh, along with those cool specials and the duck breasts they've added Fatted Calf tshirts. That's cool, I really like tshirts. They make a fashion statement and are easy to wash. That's me, Biggles the Fashion Plate. Check me out! OoOoo, I can hardly wait.

It's time now for you to click on to the Fatted Calf Newsletter not written by me. Please take an hour or two out of your day this coming week and visit your local farmer's market. There's always something fun to find and it's a great place to sit and just watch people wander by. Kinda like watching a fish tank or gazing longingly in to your fry pan as the bacon curlies up.

Biggles

I'd like to preface this entry by saying it was meant for Robert over at Get Your Grill On. A few weeks ago he sent me a kind invitation to do some writing over there. I bought this little roast and had planned on doing this outside, in a certain manner, which will remain a secret for now. But we had some nasty ass cold rain and while I don't mind the cold, I'm not going to cook outside in the pouring rain. So, I moved today's entry in to the dry kitchen inside. I'll be posting a notification here when I get my first piece up for those fine people. I can hardly wait !!! It'll be later this week, me thinks.

***

Okay, on one week we're playing around outside. It's pleasant, sunny & does a body good. The next week? I got my scarf on, gloves and all the windows are closed for the first time in 8 months. Time for a little lamb leg roast on a Monday night.

Prep time was about 45 minutes with oven roasting time of 1 hour and 15 minutes (meat only).

What the HELL am I doing wrong? While I truly believe it's the recipe's fault this time (shift the blame), why does my cornbread suck so badly? I'm talking so bad it separates and the center of the bread looks and feels like a gooey, yellow custard.

Check out the recipe though, it is kind of interesting.

Well, Ralph says the "treasures" are pretty much done with. He's been cleaning out the family stronghold for the last few months. The other day he loaded me up with a box full of cookbooks, menus and little food/wine related pamphlets from a kitchen cupboard seldom used. How seldom? There was nothing newer than the early 1960's in it.

Here's a freebie from Graham's Market in Hollister. It's a recipe book with mostly meat related recipes. Gramma and the boys moved up here in about 1946 or so, the book is before that some time. Clearly the image of the woman holding meat with that hair-do is a giveway. But check out that phone number. When was the last time you said, "Give me a call sometime. Here's my number, let me write that down so you don't forget. That'd be, phone number 73."

Are you ready to test your Meat Knowledge?

That looks pretty nasty, huh?

I think enough has been written about the cast iron cookware over the last 40 years. Letting the world know how great it is, is getting old. I can tell you cast iron cookware means everything to me though. I use it more often than any other fry pan or stew pot in the kitchen. Not only does it go from stove top to oven in a winky blink, but it responds to love and tenderness. There's no other pan in my kitchen that responds to lard and seasoning like cast iron. It only gets better over time and will virtually last forever. Unless it gets thrown on a shelf, on the back porch, for more than 20 years. Just look at this Wagner Ware Sidney 12" fry pan with 2" sides. It's nearly an antique and shows every second of it. I was lucky enough to rescue this, 3 other smaller ones and a gorgeous single burner griddle as well. The 12" was the worst of the bunch.

Time to get to work.

While I was dredging chunks of brisket through the smoky gravy on Saturday, I had a vision of the leftover brisket lolling about in a soup. Minestrone soup to be exact. I just love homemade soup, especially if it includes tomatoes and brisket. It's perfect for the changing seasons, all rich and yummy. Minestrone doesn't have a set recipe, since it's traditionally made with seasonal vegetables. I wanted to start off on the right foot, even if it's usually planted firmly in my mouth. Instead of digging through my cookbooks, I decided to see what Elise had going on. I lucked out, she did have a nice recipe and it looked good even in print. Thank you Simply Recipes, you just made my afternoon that much easier.

I had 2 pounds of brisket ready to go Sunday morning, my meez was in place. Are you ready?

I was perusing the net a few weeks ago and ran across a mention of Lenspen. I've had problems cleaning pork fat off my camera lenses for the last however many years and decided to give it a try. Jeez, it was only 15 bux, what the hell?

Okay, first things first. What you see above and below is Fatted Calf's Heritage Pork Shoulder Roast stuffed with Greens and Walnuts. Actually, there's garlic and fresh ground pepper in there too. We had this last night for dinner and it was an unexpected delight. I know, I know, it's Fatted Calf. I've been eating FC's stuff for more than a few years and even today I'm receiving something I haven't exactly had before. The pork roast itself was extra flavorful and the stuffing's love had made its way in and around the roast. Of couse topping it with pancetta twizzles helped a bit too, eh. Here's what it looked like before it went in to the oven.

Okay, so that's the meat. Now it's your turn to decide what to get for the holidays. I've been serving their salumi and pate for the last few years as appetizers and the huge grins and moans I hear from the living room are always welcome. Sure you can make your own, Derrick does. But I don't have that kind of time and want to share something special with the friends and family that I love. Fatted Calf allows me to share the love without strapping my hillbilly ass to the kitchen for 3 days. You go and put a smile ont the world.

"The Fatted Calf will be at the Ferry Building Market on Tuesday, November 21 with a special holiday menu. We would appreciate all pre-orders by Friday, November 17. Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving to All!"

You all know what to do, now get with it. Please read on to their menu not written by me and place your order for Thanksgiving today.

I was standing in line at Highland Hills Farm's stall on Saturday morning. Ted was tending to a customer who ended up spending 77 dollars on a handful of beef roasts. One of the items they passed up was a cute little brisket, a few pounds worf. Snatch and grab, I had me a brisket. This wasn't planned, but the lure of the slow cooked beef brisket in my mowf was too much, I had to make it go.

But Biggles, how come the brisket you're picturing here is clearly a brisket a little more than twice just 2 pounds?

Cause I switched gears mainstream, doof. What was to be a little happy meal turned quickly in to an all day affair with a pink slab of beautiful beefy love. And I'm man enough to admit when I'm smitten and on my knees pleading for more.

Come in to my parlor, got your ring ready? You'd better be able to support my brisket or you'll have me to deal with me little mister. Beware all who enter here, it's beefy!

Nearly 10 years ago JLee and I would make a special trip in to Berkeley and visit Pepito's Deli. All we wanted was a pint of their Chile Verde, a load of warm tortillas and some cheese to grate. We'd fly back to work and just stand there loading up our tortillas and slurping away. The elixir of the gods. It was always the finest we could find, wasn't cheap though. This pint of goodness was 16 bux, worth every penny too.

Seasons passed and one day we pulled up to find it had closed. We weren't close enough to the staff or owners to know why, but it was gone. Gone until today that is!

I spotted this flyer on the side table the other day, didn't pay much attention. Until I spotted the word Organic on it. What the HELL !?!

Does this matter? For something that has so little cheese in it that it can't have the word Cheese in it for the Canadians? Do we care? I don't and we have 2 boys that love the stuff.

Go save the world somewheres else, please. As JLee is fond of saying, "quiddit".

Biggles

It's a little food and photography all for fun contest. We had to pick an entry from this October, I chose one with Madamoiselle Crepinette!

Please visit this link and get an eyeful of all the beautifully yummy entries!

Biggles

The boar bacon is the one in the center there. It isn't a great image, I took this in someone else's kitchen on the fly.

Given the sheer volume of bacon that Chilebrown and I have on hand, we thought maybe it would be good to sit down and have a taste. The catalyst for this particular meeting was a delivery of yet another kind of bacon, Wild Boar Bacon.

It's just that, belly bacon taken from a wild pig. I've always wanted to go boar hunting with someone. George used to do that while he was still in California. I asked him about tagging along one day, I really wanted to go. He said I was welcome, but I had to have a side-arm. Those wild boards are huge and can take you down in a second. That means I had to have a good sized pistol with me, one with real bullets. There are many things I can do well and being safe with something with bullets isn't one of them. I'd come back with a hole in my foot or without one of my digits. It doesn't scare me, it's just a fact. Armed with this knowledge, I let others do my wild pig killin' for me. I needs me fangers.

The wild boar came in a slab, it needed to be sliced. The texture of this bacon was wiggly. The meat was loose, not firm like standard belly bacon. The smell was light and fresh, not heavy in cure or smoke. Not gamey. Along with the wild bacon, we did Fatted Calf's belly bacon and Morants Canadian Bacon. 3 bacons for the 2 Meat Brothers.

Each bacon got its own pan. Since wild piggies get to run around, the bacon is quite lean with a high meat to fat ratio. We could have added a little oil to the pan. All 3 cooked up just fine. The Canadian bacon was too salty and we left it for CB's pot of chile he was going to make that day. Fatted Calf's bacon was a fine contender, but this was Taylor's milder version. The smoke was light, the cure was even and the cut was a standard belly cut. There were no huge wangly country slices in there with rinds and heavy smoke action.

The boar bacon had a light smoke, light cure and had the texture of a chewy beef roast. Hence, wiggly meat. It wasn't a bad chewy, it gave way pretty quickly. But I don't think we expected the heavy, chewy texture of the pork belly. Both CB and I enjoyed it immensely. I would absolutely love to put slices of this in my smoker for a few hours, oh yes. All in all I'd like to see more of this Wild Boar Bacon. The possibilities for it should be quite huge. I'd like to see a far heavier smoke to it along with a cure that's on the sweet side. Just a tad mind you, just a bit. What a way to start a Saturday morning !!!

Biggles

Guess what? The smoky, brined pork chops are here this week! The above image is from a while back, but nearly the same product. I wanted to let ya'll know cause I was lucky enough to work a day at the Fatted Calf stall in Berkeley a few weeks ago. There were 2 people that came up to see if we had any chops this week? Nope, and they left! While I was pretty taken aback considering what that day's menu had to offer. I thought it was pretty cool that they wanted that specific one thing and nothing else. A Meat Shark.

Fatted Calf's customers are generally a nice lot. I've seen them each week making their way up and back through the market with their sacks bulging with swag. They're interested in what's what and always willing to buy one new thing they haven't tried. There was a woman and her husband or boyfriend that were clearly newbies. They asked questions about this and that. I laid it down best I could. I don't make the stuff, so individual spices and procedures elude me from time to time. They felt bad for holding up the line, but I urged them on with juicy descriptions of the completed food stuff. I didn't mind taking time with them because they liked hearing about the meat as much as I enjoyed talking about the meat. I know they'll return for something new each week. I could see the twinkle of pate and sausage in her eyes.

There were a few who wanted a lean product. One poor woman wanted "lean" bacon. I presented her with 4 packages and she noted quickly, "These are NOT lean." I deal with the public from time to time, so I smiled and dug a little deeper. It was at that moment I turned and mentioned to her, "You know this is 'bacon', right?" There was nothing lean enough and she left. A few hours past and while there were probably 7 customers poking about, a young woman with her "doctor" (read: Grampa) asked for something made without so much fat. Everyone within ear shot chortled. I turned around and looked at the Charcuterie sign just to make sure I was at the right stall. She left with beef jerky. See! Something for everyone!

And that's just about where we are going to be for this coming Saturday morning. A place where you can find something for everyone, the Berkeley Farmer's Market. Please come out and enjoy the changing seasons and fill your grocery sack with fresh goodies. Let me take you out with a pretty picture of Fatted Calf's lamb brochettes grilled while covered with their smoky bacon.

Don't eeeven ask me if they were any good. Cause they were, nyah. Please read on to the newsletter not written by me.

xo,

Biggles

Well, here's my second draft. The first draft was a pretty well crafted rant about Chowhound. But I think it's all been said before and recently by Sam and Fatemeh and a few others here in the SF Bay Area.

Suffice it to say, "Good bye Chowhound. It was fun for a while, but your lack of thoughtfulness to your posters has caused me to remove you from my bookmarks. And the grief you've caused to chefs and restaurant owners is unforgivable."

Biggles

ps - It's easy to criticize and I thought maybe I should offer up a suggestion or two. If an entry needs to be removed or edited, the poster should receive and email letting them know what's going on and why it should be removed or edited. Offer some support, some ideas, assist your posters in becoming better at what they do. There needs to be some way the restaurant owners, cooks and chefs and/or staff can have a venue too. Why does there have to be such a gap between us and them? It doesn't seem right. There needs to be an open communication so service and food can improve. Instead, it's a bitter chew for the owner who can't stand up for their establishment. Why is this important? Diners can be nitwits too and expect too much or have the concept completely wrong.

There, that sets it right for me.