Smoke and Penises

Elena's pic credit.

A work colleague used the expression "head job" last week.

It wasn't an inappropriate use of the phrase, despite the nauseating level of "sensitivity-" and "harassment-" and sundry other politically correct "-training" insanities that bejewel working life thesedays.

No-one was insulted or harassed or made the victim of smutty innuendo - it was a simple anecdote in which "head shop" was misunderstood as "head job".

Okay, so it's a predictable spoonerism. More of interest is the unfashionability of the term "head job". It sounds so eighties to me - something that a drunk film star would say on a late-night chat show. Or how a teenager would shock its' parents.

"Head job" has, of course, been replaced with "blow job". It's a matter of record that the BJ involves the male ejaculate, whereas giving head is the oral precursor. In a way it reflects the supersize- me mentality: Give me the most of everything you can, whether I can stomach it or not.

Frankly, I'm wistful about the head job. It's a remnant from a (slightly) less debauched time, more about the fun of the penis than the end result. Head celebrates the journey rather than the destination. Head is innocent; blowing is intentional. Head is bucolic. BJs are industrial.

I'm just a funny old romantic.





Bottoms Up, Smokers.

Dessert Fries

As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program, I received a coupon for a free Alexia Foods product awhile back.  I finally got around to picking up some Sweet Potato Fries and wanted to come up with something a little unique.  Some brainstorming about dessert fries, along with a bit of mascarpone left in my fridge and this was born...

Cinnamon Sugar Sweet Potato Fries with Cinnamon Mascarpone
Recipe by Shannon

2T mascarpone

1/8t cinnamon

2/3t grade B maple syrup
1 bag Alexia Sweet Potato Fries
2T butter, melted
2T sugar
1t cinnamon

Add cinnamon and maple syrup to mascarpone and stir until well combined.  This can be done ahead of time, simply refrigerate until using.

Preheat the oven to 400deg.  Cut open the bag of sweet potato fries and add butter, sugar and cinnamon.  Hold the bag close and toss until the fries have been well-coated.  Spread out on a baking sheet in a single layer and bake for 20min, or until fries have crispy edges.

Transfer to a serving dish and top with mascarpone.  If you'd like, you can toss the mixture to allow the melting mascarpone to cascade over all the fries...

close up of the melting mascarpone

Fries for dessert are ok, right??

Tomato Soup with Fennel-Scallion Soup Nuts

We were about 30 minutes away from going to the neighborhood carnival with the Mydyett-Hunter family when Heather confessed hunger. I needed to make something and get it in her before we left or she'd be stuck with nothing but the horrors of the midway fry stands. I asked her if a soup would be good and she made a sad face, because her current eating regimen doesn't allow bread, and she usually has bread or toast with soup. I proposed making some soup nuts and she acquiesced, though I don't think she had much confidence in the experiment.

Soup nuts are little fried dumplings you can float on soup that serve the place of crackers or bread. I know about them from the Jewish food tradition, but there ought to be equivalents in most cultures that make soup and fry things. I started the soup nut dough by chopping a scallion and the fronds of a fennel bulb. I should have diced them really fine, but in my haste I just ran the knife through them and tossed them in a bowl. I added an egg, some salt and sesame oil and beat the wet ingredients together with a fork.

For the dry ingredients, I mixed some white rice flour and brown rice flour with a little bit of baking powder, then mixed in the wet ingredients until thoroughly incorporated. I put about an inch of canola oil in the bottom of a small pot on the stove to heat, then turned my attention to the soup. I don't really like canola oil for tasks other than frying because it doesn't taste like anything, but it can take higher temperatures than most oils, so it's fine for frying.

For the soup I diced half a sweet onion and half a fennel bulb (jesus what's with me and fennel lately) and sweated them in olive oil along with a couple smashed cloves of garlic and a couple tablespoons of diced carrot, seasoning everything with salt and pepper. When everything was soft and just starting to caramelize, I added a can of San Marzano tomatoes, crushing them as I did. Once that all came up to a boil, I turned it down to a simmer and made the soup nuts.

The baking powder had lightened the dough nicely, so I was able to use a teaspoon to make neat little morsels of it, and they fried up quickly into little hairy balls.* I fried them to a lighter color than usual to avoid burning the bits of fennel and scallion that protruded all over, but they were small enough to be fully cooked by then. I drained them on paper towels, and dusted them with sea salt while still hot. I tried one on its own and it was pretty tasty. I can imagine eating a whole bowl of them while watching a ballgame.

The soup was ready, so I creamed it with the stick blender, whose praises I have sung before, and served it with the soup nuts on the side. The whole thing came together so quickly Heather not only got lunch, but had time to change her mind about her outfit before we had to leave. At the carnival midway I found the make-your-own-slush booth and made a kind of pousse-cafe out of root beer, blue raspberry, cherry, lemon and lime. It was awesome except for the crippling brainfreeze. Lila was pretty fearless on rides and fed baby goats in the petting zoo. soup (v) soup nuts (vg)

*That's a really weak that's what she said. I don't have much to tickle you with this time.**
**That's what she said

Getting To Know You

Photo credit.

How long does it take to know another person? If you're dating with a view to marriage, the magic time appears to be around the eighteen month mark. If accurate (or even close) that leads to a few unavoidable truths.

-> If you have been dating someone for longer than two years, and marriage isn't explicitly on the horizon, it probably won't happen.

-> After dating for longer than two years, if the question of marriage appears obliquely or indirectly, you probably shouldn't marry that person.

-> Excessively speedy marriages ie: those within six months of meeting, are likely to founder because you really don't know the other person.

-> When you're dating and learning about your possible long-term partner, often the only way to smoke out problems is to ask pointed questions eg:

~ do you or any of your family have a history of depression or other mental problems?

~ do you have any addictive traits, for instance alcohol, drugs or gambling?

~ do you want children or not, and how many if so?

~ do you think you can change me (other than perhaps my wardrobe)?

~ will you need me to be with you all the time, or will I have some independence?


Too often we float along in a cloud of denial, thinking that when the time comes, it'll all work out.

No it won't.

Life will throw sufficient variables at you - deliberately taking on stuff that doesn't jive with your own life-story is asking for heartache multipliers beyond that which will test any relationship.

Better to face the difficult questions, then say NO, even if your dreamboat appears to be the One. Leave the fog of fantasy and get tough. Relationships don't survive pussies.





Bottoms Up, Tough Guys.

Fake Okonomiyaki

When I visited Osaka in 198something I was introduced to the local specialty okonomiyaki, a delicious dinner pancake. Restaurants serving okonomiyaki have tables with little griddles in the middle, and they're made with lots of fanfare that would be annoying if it weren't done by Japanese people. They have such a formal, serious bearing that they can do basically anything and you just assume it's an ancient ritual and is therefore cool. It's not such a stretch when you remember they actually have quasi-religious ceremonies for serving tea and sake. The kitchen dude comes out and oils the griddle, then mixes some chopped cabbage and other vegetables with a rice flour batter and pours it on the griddle, forming it with wooden tools that probably have awesome names. When the pancake has set up, you paint it with some soy sauce, then some bonito flakes are scattered on it and it's flipped over. More painting, more scattering, and then the whole thing is cut up and served. If the guy doesn't do it to your satisfaction he cuts off a finger and presents it to you in atonement*.

It's showy and fun, a kind of kabuki make-a-pizza, and I loved it. The pancake itself is substantial, the vegetables give it a complex texture, and the glazing of soy sauce and bonito is both savory and sweet. I thought Heather might like it, and eating JP style gave me an excuse to make a version of okonomiyaki for her. Granted, the dish I made for her is nothing like a real okonomiyaki, but that's why I made it.

I started by slicing a fennel bulb and half a sweet onion really thin and caramelizing them in olive oil. Fennel cooked this way gets marvelously sweet and has an almost brittle texture. Onions get similarly changed by caramelization, but the transformation doesn't seem as magical. Caramelized onions still taste like onions, but fennel tastes like candy.

While the fennel was cooking, I made the batter. I started with a couple of eggs, some olive oil and a ladle of vegetable stock, then whisked-in rice flour until the consistency was smooth and slightly heavier than a crepe batter. I mixed the flour in first so the starch granules would have time to hydrate before I had to pour the pancake. I grated a carrot and chopped the fennel fronds finely and added them to the batter along with some finely sliced scallion and celery, sea salt and black pepper.

By the time all the vegetables were incorporated, the fennel and onions were nicely caramelized, so I poured the batter over them. I couldn't cook the pancake entirely on top of the stove without flipping it, but I wanted a nice surface for presentation, so I decided to finish it under the broiler. The residual heat in the pan was sufficient to set the pancake, so it didn't need too much time under the broiler. I didn't want a browned top, just a firm surface to spread the dressing on.

I needed a dressing to substitute for the soy sauce glaze, so I used the microplane to make a puree of a garlic clove, then made it into an emulsion with sesame oil and rice vinegar, and added some grated ginger, chopped roasted red pepper and more of the fennel fronds. Microplanes are fantastic for this kind of chore. It would take a five minutes and a bunch of mushing with a mortar and pestle to make a smooth garlic puree conventionally, but just rubbing a clove through a fine microplane gets it done in seconds. I covered the pancake with the dressing and scattered some sea salt, garnishing with a chiffonnade of alley mint.

The dressing contrasted with the candy-like bottom** of the pancake, making each forkful nicely complex and mimicking the effect of the soy and bonito in the original item. Heather was pleased, and I got to keep all my fingers. I told her about the custom I observed during my stay in Japan, of the over-served salaryman pissing in a doorway, performing the traditional drunken-outside-pee ceremony. She said it sounded beautiful and moving. (v)

*Not really.
**You heard me. Candy-like bottom.

Colorful Snack Items

Vegetables in Saffron Maki and Truffled Pâté in Hibiscus Maki

Avocado, Ginger and Wasabi in Calico Maki

I've gone bananas for making these maki rolls. They're pretty easy and you can put anything you want in them. For the poker game on Tuesday I made three varieties using two kinds of rice, one I cooked conventionally in vegetable stock and saffron came out a nice bright yellow, the other was soaked in jamaica (hibiscus flower infusion) overnight and also cooked in it, with a little salt. I think the salt acted as a mordant for the color, allowing the rice to stay a vivid magenta-purple when cooked.

I knew I would be doing something with hibiscus rice this week, since it had been on my mind, and while shopping at Paulina Market I saw some nice looking pâté in their refrigerator case. The ingredient list was admirably brief: chicken liver, pork liver, truffle oil, parsley and salt, so I got some to try. The tart hibiscus rice suggested a rich, flavorful interior, and after tasting a bit on some bread, it seemed like this pâté should fit the bill.

Pâté is often served with pickled vegetables to cut its richness, usually pickled onions, cornichons or gherkins, so I sliced some red onion real thin and pickled it in rice vinegar while the rice was soaking. I also like the way strong herbs work in conjunction with rich, fatty elements so I buffered the pâté with some alley mint. In the end I made some with the pickled onion and some with sliced dill pickles, and both came out fine. The pickled onions were almost the same color as the hibiscus rice so weren't as striking visually, but that's a quibble. I could easily devise a method to highlight the difference by separating them inside the roll by changing the sequence of layering with the mint if I made them again.

The vegetable rolls were made with the remaining pickled onion, some shredded carrot, roasted red pepper and some kale, cooked with onions, garlic, alley basil and mint. I dressed the carrots with sesame oil and rice vinegar so they acted as a kind of slaw, and the acidic bite did wonders to liven up the dark, muted flavor of the cooked greens. The color combination inside the roll made a nice mock flame, which mimics the logo of either the Campfire Girls, Standard Oil or the BK Broiler.

Since I had two types of rice made, I tried making a variegated roll using both. I dropped little bits of rice all over the nori sheet from each batch, then spread them with my fingers into a kind of calico, then stuffed them with slices of avocado, dressed with some diced ginger and pickled onion. I remembered while constructing the first roll that I had bought a piece of wasabi root at Mitsuwa the other day for some rice balls and still had some left. I grated it with a microplane into a smooth paste and spread a little dollop along the avocado.

Holy shit, real wasabi is awesome. Having been previously only exposed to the pea-green nuisance conventionally served as wasabi, I was absolutely startled by the difference when using the genuine article. Genuine wasabi is a lovely pastel green and has a little kick to it, but it isn't the assault on your palate and sinuses I've come to expect from the mealy paste served with most sushi. It has a smooth, gradual build of flavor with a raw, vegetal quality I described as "jungle-y" when I first tried it. The piece I bought was about the size of a 35mm film cannister (weed box) and cost me $13, so it isn't something to be used frivolously, but it is magical tucked into its traditional place next to rice and seaweed.

Yellow and calico rolls (v).

Tomato Strata

I thought this Savory Bread Pudding w/Tomatoes & Herbs from the NYTimes would be a killer recipe, crusty bread, ruby red tomatoes, copious amounts of fresh herbs, cheese, farm fresh eggs...

And it was good.  Except I've made another tomato strata, and I think I liked that one better.  Maybe it's the goat cheese.  Goat cheese has a way of always stealing my heart.

Either way, I'm posting this since It's delicious with fresh tomatoes!!  Whatever variation you choose, may I implore you to use goat cheese?  Thanks :)

Is there a single ingredient that can make (or break) a dish for you??