At least the Black & Tan Macaroni & Cheese was good...

The other day I made Black & Tan Macaroni & Cheese.

I know the photo above isn't my best photography.  But I shot it in a restaurant kitchen with super bright industrial lights, aluminum container on steel counter, and my crappy cell phone camera.

And yes, like a Black & Tan---it's made with Guiness stout and lager beer.

It was incredibly delicious!  I even took some into work for the staff, told the cooks to just sprinkle some panko breadcrumbs on it and stick it in the oven.

Everyone LOVED it!  The chef even took some home for his partner to try.  Not only was it a roaring success, but my friends (even the ones who didn't get to try it) all wanted to know how it was made.  And just telling people the recipe sounds kind of fun and sexy, "You start by boiling the pasta in lager beer..." 

What the???

So I was riding high on the success of my exotic mac and cheese!  

And then the next day, I think I waited on Neil LaBute.

I'm a playwright.  He's a freaking AMAZING playwright!  

I noticed the resemblance as soon as he sat down and started looking at the menu.  

I walked over and greeted him with a glass of water.

Wow.  He REALLY looked like Neil LaBute.  He even sounded like him.  Oh my god, I think I'm waiting on Neil LaBute.  At least, I was pretty sure.  Or as Larry David would say, "pretty, pretty, pretty...pretty sure".  

But before I could even begin to process the fact that I'm possibly waiting on one of my literary idols, he looked up from his menu and noticed my t-shirt.  In fact, he did a double-take.

Oh no.

Of all the t-shirts I could have worn that day...

I could've worn my vintage Froot Loops shirt with Toucan Sam on the front.  Or my shirt that promotes a farm and educational center in Harlem called "Harlem Grown".  I could even have worn my sassy hot pink t-shirt that reads, "Ain't Nobody Got Time For That!"

But no.

The t-shirt I put on that morning read, "Careful...or you'll wind up a character in my next play."

Shit.

I know this might seem like the perfect t-shirt to be wearing while waiting on a famous playwright---but it really isn't.  I don't wear it for playwrights.  I wear it for defense.  The general public can be mean.  They don't care about you.  They just want to complain about something so the manager will give them free dessert.  

That's why I wear the t-shirt.  It's an extra piece of armor in a cold, hard world.

Maybe he won't say anything.  This will buy me some time to be 100% sure... 

And then he said something.

"Well...I'll be careful.  I certainly don't want to wind up a character in your next play."

It wasn't exactly snarky.  But it wasn't all jokey-friendly, either.  There was the faint hint of a smirky-smile at the end that sentence.  

It was, in fact, a very Neil LaBute sort of response.  I wouldn't have expected anything more or less of him.

And it was my opening.  He looked at me.  As if he were waiting for it.  "Here's where she tells me she's a playwright, too.  Let's just get it over with."

To be honest, it would be a perfectly natural thing to talk to another playwright.  Playwrights like to talk to each other.  We spend a lot of time alone with our thoughts and a blank page.  And LaBute was a teacher.  He's very supportive of playwrights.  Not exactly a good idea to ask him to read the new play you're working on...  But general stuff---absolutely!  I'm sure he would be more than generous with advice.  

Especially when he knows you're serving him his food and he's going to be stuck with you for the next half an hour.

He even gave me an opening!  Okay lady---you're wearing the playwright shirt.  You obviously want the world to know you're a playwright.  And I'm sitting here in your section.  This is your lucky day.  So go ahead...

But you see, I wasn't POSITIVE it was him.

I mean, maybe it was just some guy who LOOKED like him.  And sounded like him.  And responded like him.  

I'm a very cautious person.  I'm from the Midwest.  I can't just start telling this guy how much I love his plays when maybe he's just a mechanic.  

A mechanic going out alone to one of the top restaurants in NYC for a $50 lunch.

It could happen.

And let's be honest---Neil LaBute isn't exactly a fashion plate.  He "dresses down".  He looks like he could be a famous playwright---or a mechanic.  I feel okay saying this because I'm not a fashion plate, either.  Bear in mind, I almost wore a 20 year-old t-shirt with a breakfast cereal on the front that morning.

And practically every piece of clothing I own has a food stain somewhere.

And I'LL STILL WEAR IT!!!

Because it's comfortable and it fits me and I like it...

And because I'm a writer.  We're not really into the whole designer thing.

If only I hadn't been wearing the playwright t-shirt, he would never have known my secret identity as a playwright.  He would've gone thru the entire meal thinking I was just some waitress.  I could've bought some time to figure this out.  I could've just been friendly and helpful and maybe he would've just liked me as a waitress.  That would've been okay.

Lots of people like me just for me.

And maybe, when I was 100% sure it was him, and he now thought of me as a helpful, friendly waitress---I could've surprised him with a little something we had in common....

Or maybe he was a mechanic.  I didn't want to confuse the nice mechanic.  

And I just couldn't bring myself to say the old hack phrase, "Excuse me, but are you...?"

I couldn't do it.  Because I'm a better writer than that.  I swear I am.

So when I got my big opening:

"Well...I certainly don't want to wind up a character in your next play."

Looked me in the eye.  Gave me the smirky-smile.  And waited for my response.  Which went a little something like this:

"Um...yeah.  Yeah."  (look down at shirt uncomfortably) "You don't want that.  No."

And then it trailed off into something like Annie Hall mumbling, "la-di da, la-di-da..."

It was horrible!!!!!!  It was possibly the most uncomfortable moment in my life.  And I know I say that a lot.  But we could possibly have a winner here.

Because even if he actually WAS a mechanic, that was not the proper response.

And I studied improv!  At Upright Citizens Brigade, for crying out loud.

I quickly took his order.  I suggested the egg roll.  

"It's really good.  You should try the egg roll."

"What's in it?" he asked.

So I told him ALL about the egg roll in as few words as possible so I could get the hell away from him.

Because by now, I sensed that it had become painful for both of us.  No sooner did I leave the table, than he immediately took out his cell phone and took great interest in it whenever I approached the table.  

I could be over-imagining things in my head.  I'm aware that I do that sometimes.  But as I was ringing in (potentially) Neil LaBute's lunch order, all I could think of was the horrible dialog going on in his head as he sat huddled over his cell phone a few feet away from me.

"I'm one of the most famous playwrights in the world and she's walking around with this cocky 'Don't Fuck With Me, I'm a Playwright' t-shirt and doesn't even recognize me?  I even gave her an opening!  And 'la-di-da'?  What kind of dialog is that?  Good thing she has a waitress job."

Or maybe it was something like, "She's a playwright and has no idea who I am?  Seriously?  Wait---maybe it's me.  I feel like I'm connected to the theatre community, but...  Or maybe she DOES know who I am and she hates my plays so she's not saying anything.  Why does she hate my plays?  They're good plays.  Why doesn't she like me?"

Or maybe it was something more like "I promised Mr. Snider we'd have his brakes repaired by 4:00.  Where's that fucking part?  I texted every warehouse from here to New Jersey!"

Somewhere in the middle of his meal, I finally got up the courage to do something besides walk by his table with "silent service".  I finally spoke up again. 

"How was that egg roll?  Wasn't it good?"

He looked up from his phone for a moment and agreed that the egg roll was quite good.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I'm usually perfectly normal around celebs and all the VIPs of the culinary world.  I wait on them all the time.  I've been around them for years!  Doesn't phase me in the slightest.  I'm on top of my game.

When a former manager wanted to make sure that Carol Burnett's party was taken care of without being bothered, he called me at home and asked me if I'd come in on my day off to take care of Ms. Burnett.  

And I did and she was one of the loveliest celebrities I've ever waited on.  

But I KNEW it was her!  I knew it was Carol Burnett.  Not only because it's Carol Freaking Burnett---but the reservation was for CAROL BURNETT!!!

And I don't want to be Carol Burnett.  She's one-of-a-kind.  But I do want to be a playwright.

No.  I AM a playwright.

And I'm pretty fucking good.  

But this was (potentially) Neil LaBute.  And I couldn't hide behind the waitress mask in that stupid t-shirt.

I was clearly a playwright-slash-waitress.  A wanna-be.  Wearing my nervously-pounding playwright heart on my rolled-up waitress sleeve.  And doing it in front of a somebody.

Or a mechanic.

Either way, it felt the same.

But like a good waitress, I kept a smile on my face.  Some days, I don't know how I manage that.

My one ace in the hole was that at the end of the meal, he'd hand me his credit card.  It would either say "Neil LaBute" or it wouldn't.  

I had no idea what I'd say if it really was him.  But I really am a good writer.  I could do it.  I could say the perfect thing.  

Really I could!

I know it may not seem like it, but I'm normally pretty quick with the snappy banter.  I may only have about 30 seconds between the time I get the credit card and bring the receipt back to the table...

But I can turn words on a fucking dime.

And I'm a playwright, dammit.  Dialog is what I do.

I cleared the crumbs off his table, dropped the check, and took a deep breath.

And then he paid cash.

NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cue the international sound cue for loser:  "Whon, whon, whon..."

Oh, he tossed the cash on the table like a John who'd just seen a pair of balls peeking out of the Victoria's Secret and got the hell out of there.

I've spent the past two days over-thinking a lunch shift and beating myself up.  Because I possibly waited on Neil LaBute and all I did was suggest the egg roll.

But what could I have done differently?  What?

It was only late last night on the train that I finally figured out what I should have done in that situation.  It goes a little like this:

Extend my hand.

"Hi.  I'm Joyce."

"Hi.  I'm Neil."

Problem solved.

Why is my life so complicated?!?!?!  I mean, I know it's all my fault.  But why?

WHY????

But at least I had leftovers.

So finally, here is the recipe for Black & Tan Macaroni & Cheese:

I first heard about this concoction on a Food Network show several years ago.  It was a televised competition of home cooks.  These ladies (and a few men) were SO brave to take their home recipes (and their bad selves) on national television.  WAY braver than I was waiting on (most likely) Neil LaBute.  This recipe, in particular, caught my eye.  After the show, I went online to print it out.  They said the recipes would only be up for a limited time, so I'm not sure if it's still online.  I made sure to print out a copy asap.

But credit goes to Autumn Clements from Amelia Island, Florida.

I tweaked her recipe a tiny bit, but I was merely the dramaturg.

Ingredients:

6 cups water
24 ounces lager beer
16 ounces rustic shaped pasta
1 1/2 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
12 ounce can evaporated milk
6 tablespoons lightly salted quality Irish butter
2 1/2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon dry mustard
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 cup stout beer
8 ounces shredded smoked Gouda
24 ounces shredded fine quality Irish cheeses
1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions:

1.  Start by shredding your cheeses.  I used a smoky Gouda, Aged Irish cheddar, Irish Dubliner, and Irish Porter Cheddar.  The Gouda is not pictured because I hadn't bought it yet when I shot the cheese party pix.  But like an Indian curry---this is your flavor base.  The rest of the ingredients are inexpensive.  This is the money shot.  

   
2.  Put water and lager beer in a big 4 1/2 quart or larger pot over high heat.  Bring it to a boil and add pasta.  It's going to fizz and it will look pretty awesome.  Cook till al dente and then drain and keep warm.

3.  On your second burner, start browning your ground beef.  The original recipe doesn't call for this, but I wanted to make it a full stick-to-your-ass meal and give it that hipster Hamburger Helper feel.  Add 1/2 the salt (1 teaspoon), pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.  I made it all even for the written recipe, but do as you will to taste.  But bear in mind, your primary flavor is going to come from the high-quality cheeses.  Don't go crazy on the garlic.  This is Irish, not Italian. 

3.  On a third burner, bring all your milks JUST to a boil over medium-high heat.  Use a medium-sized sauce pan for this.  

4.  On your fourth burner, in a medium-to-large-sized saucepan, melt 4 tablespoons of butter over medium heat.  Add flour, stir with a whisk, and make a light brown roux.  Whisk in your hot milk, mustard powder, remaining salt, cayenne, and stout.  Bring to a strong simmer.   Reduce heat to low and stir in cheeses until melted.  

5.  Combine pasta mix with ground beef.  Stir well.  Place remaining butter in a FIFTH saute pan over medium heat and stir in bread crumbs till golden brown.  Spread bread crumb mix on top of pasta.  Alternately, you can put this in an oven proof pan and bake for a few minutes.

Feel free to garnish with some applewood smoked bacon, if you like.

The leftovers keep well and will help you get thru even the most awkward and humiliating moments in your life.

Enjoy.

The Constant Eater? What? You Weigh Like...Nothing.

This is what people generally say when I tell them the title of my food blog.

That, or they just look at me and roll their eyes.

But I DO eat constantly!  Just the other day, someone said to me, "My god---you're ALWAYS EATING!"

I attribute my slender figure to a combination of good genes, a weird metabolism, and the fact that I've always been a grazer.

This caused my poor mother no amount of embarrassment when I was a child.

Honey, you were always so skinny.  But we fed you.  Whatever you wanted.  You'd eat as much as you wanted and then you'd be full.  An hour later, you'd see the soft pretzels at Famous & Barr and you'd start crying, "But Mom!  I'm starving to death!!!"

(You were always so dramatic, honey.)

And you were so skinny that I was worried people would think I wasn't feeding you.  I'd be hauled off as an unfit mother.  But we had just fed you!  An hour ago!  I was never so embarrassed in my life.

In all fairness, half of my mother's stories end with the phrase, "I was never so embarrassed in my life."

But I still remember her asking our pediatrician every year, "Dr. Sommers, are you SURE she doesn't have a tape worm?"

"No Judi," he would laugh.  "That's just how she is."

To this day I eat whatever I want and never gain weight.  I've never been on a diet a day in my life.

Feel free to hate me right about now.

The title of the blog comes from my deer-like grazing habits and the fact that I wanted to write about food.  There are plenty of blogs with wonderful recipes and food porn photos---most of them doing it WAY better than I ever could.

How was I going to make my blog different?

Then I remembered a quote from one of my favorite writers:

"This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible.  This was terrible with raisins in it."

---Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker was one of the members of The Algonquin Round Table---a group of writers who met for lunch at The Algonquin Hotel in Midtown Manhattan in the 1920s.  Their plays, screenplays, magazine columns, short stories, and theatre and book reviews helped shape the culture of a new, more worldly, and more intelligent America.  Most of them were the original writers for The New Yorker magazine.

In the 1920s, Parker ran a column in The New Yorker under the thinly-veiled pseudonym, "The Constant Reader".  The column was supposed to be book reviews.  But as Joan Acocella wrote for a "Life & Letters" piece in the same magazine in 1993:

"The Constant Reader columns are not really book reviews; they are stand-up comedy routines.  You don't have to listen to her opinion, she says.  If she didn't like the book, maybe that was just her hangover speaking."

"I hate writing.  I love having written."

---Dorothy Parker

She was born Dorothy Rothschild.  "But not THOSE Rothschilds" she refined.

She was beautiful, witty, brilliant...

And a bit of a hot mess.

"Tell him I was too fucking busy.  Or vice versa."

---Dorothy Parker

A toxic blend of bad love affairs and booze with a few failed suicide attempts thrown in for fun.

If you've ever used the phrase, "one-night stand"----you can thank Dorothy Parker.  She's the one who first uttered it---most likely over the hair of the dog that bit her.

Her biography (written by Marion Meade) is titled What Fresh Hell Is This?---a phrase Parker often uttered when the doorbell or the phone rang.

Sometimes she's like that dark, but funny friend you love to sit and snark on popular culture with over brunch; other times, she's like that friend on Facebook whose posts seem to be just on the edge.

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

---Dorothy Parker

Oddly, being an alcoholic may have saved her life.  In those pre-Prozac days---the hooch at least seemed to calm her head.  When she DID die at the age of 73, it wasn't by her own hand---it was just an old-fashioned heart attack.

I recently discovered a delicious little book that came out last year and I just got around to reading:  Under the Table:  A Dorothy Parker Cocktail Guide by Kevin C. Fitzpatrick.

Because if anyone liked to booze it up during the age of classic cocktails, it was Mrs. Parker.  You not only get a cocktail guide to all the classic (as well as obscure or forgotten) cocktails of the Prohibition-era----you also get tidy little sidebar pieces on the history of Prohibition, how the drinks got their names, speakeasies in NYC, some tightly-written bios on members of the Algonquin Roundtable---and of course, a delightful primer to Dorothy Parker herself.

In addition to the title of author, Fitzpatrick is the founder and president of The Dorothy Parker Society.  He's also a licensed NYC tour guide who gives Dorothy Parker-themed tours to her legions of fans.

Fitzpatrick uses his tour guide skills to take you into a potentially snobby world of dead writers and extinct cocktails without making you feel like you just walked out of a lecture on "The Doric Column in Greek Architecture".  You come away from his tour well-informed, delightfully entertained---and thirsty!

It's no secret that the world of mixology has moved past the Sex & The City-era of Cosmos and Appletinis and gone all the way back to the Eighteenth Amendment for inspiration.

When I first started waiting tables, if someone ordered an Old Fashioned, you knew it was going to that table of old folks out for the Early Bird Special.

Now that same Old Fashioned is using locally-distilled whiskey, kumquats, brandied cherries, infused house-made simple syrup, pricey boutique bitters---and it's going to the kids with tattoos and hipster handlebar mustaches.

My bartender friends went a little nuts over the book.  And customers at the bar passed the book around as they sipped on Sidecars and took a snapshot of the cover with their iPhones so they could remember the title to add to the arsenal of their home bar.

Another little tidbit you'll learn is that the phrase you often see printed on bar napkins:

"I love a martini---
But two at the most.
Three, I'm under the table;
Four, I'm under the host."

---Dorothy Parker

SHE NEVER SAID THAT!

If she actually HAD, the NAACP would be getting a cut.

The N-Double-what?---you say?

Jewish white lady leaves her estate to Martin Luther King Jr.  He's killed a few months later.  Her ashes sit in a file cabinet in her lawyer's office for almost 20 years as they haggle out a lawsuit that goes on almost as long as the one in Bleak House.  She's now buried in the NAACP Memorial Garden at their headquarters in Baltimore.

Don't believe me?  Look it up.

With Fitzgerald being such an expert on Dorothy Parker, I decided to email him a few days ago.  I went to the Dorothy Parker Society website, mentioned that I had just finished reading (and LOVING!) his book, and asked a question:

"What did Dorothy Parker like to eat?"

"I write doo-dads, because it's a doo-dad kind of town."

---Dorothy Parker

According to Meade's biography, Parker wasn't all that interested in food.  She was more the liquid lunch-type.

Kevin got back to me quickly, thanked me for the compliments on his book, and then answered my question.

"I've heard Mrs. Parker was a meat and potatoes fan.  I met the daughter of her housekeeper, and she said as much."

He refers to her as "Mrs. Parker".  A thousand times love!

And then he sent me a terrific link to something he'd posted on the Society's website several years ago with an actual recipe for "Dorothy Parker Steak".

The recipe was sent to him by the granddaughter of Warren Dixon who was "chef to the stars during the Depression".  I love the simple way recipes used to be written:

"A small, thick, juicy sirloin steak grilled along with halved tomatoes, mushrooms, and narrow discs of summer squash which have been boiled lightly in salt water and then covered with pats of butter, may be substituted for the marrow"

You can view the entire post here:

http://www.dorothyparker.com/wordpress/2000/05/cook-this-up.html

"Maybe you can think of a drink pairing?" Kevin suggested.

Naturally, I went to Under the Table for ideas.

While there is now on the market a Dorothy Parker Gin, Dorothy Parker preferred bourbon or rye---both of which would go much better with the steak, anyway.

So here's a recipe from Under the Table:  A Dorothy Parker Cocktail Guide for a little something called the New York Cocktail, which was a favorite in speakeasies all over the city.

New York Cocktail

2 ounces rye or bourbon
3/4 ounce fresh lime or lemon juice
2 dashes grenadine
1 teaspoon powdered sugar
Orange peel

Shake liquid ingredients and sugar over cracked ice, strain into a chilled old-fashioned glass, and garnish with an orange twist.


So after all this, if you still don't understand why it's called The Constant Eater...

"There must be a magnificent disregard of your reader, for if he cannot follow you, there is nothing you can do about it."

---Dorothy Parker

Looking At The World Thru A Windshield: An Omnivore At The Vegetarian Food Festival

Recently I saw a Groupon offer----half-price admission to the NYC Vegetarian Food Festival.

I'm not a vegetarian, but I love vegetables.  I eat a lot of them.  Probably more than some vegetarians.  But as much as I really try to eat healthy---I'm not perfect.  After working a busy brunch shift in Harlem, I've been known to make the occasional pit stop at the Popeye's on 125th St. before getting on the train home.

It's not something I'm proud of.

I don't think I've ever gotten take-out from Popeye's and NOT immediately passed out for a two-hour nap after eating it.

In fact, that was my Facebook post one afternoon:

"I just ate Popeye's and I will not take a nap.  I just ate Popeye's and I will not take a nap..."

One of my friends commented on my repetitive post.  Said it was repetitive.  Why was it repetitive?  When I didn't immediately respond, another friend wrote, "Shhhhh.  She's sleeping."

I was.

It's sad, really.

But maybe if I went to the Vegetarian Food Festival, I could take a few steps towards being a better person.  After all, it's no secret that a diet full of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains is definitely good for you.  Maybe a day with the vegetarians would help give me that Zen and contented life I'd always wanted to lead.  Like a fabric softner commercial.  I mean, I'd still be me----but a BETTER me!  And my sheets would always smell like Spring Rain.

So I signed up for the Groupon and headed downtown.

The first thing I noticed about the Vegetarian Food Festival was that it's pretty much vegan.  If you're one of those French Fry Vegetarians existing on cheese pizza and mozzarella stix---this may not be your organic, fair trade cup of tea.

But while being a vegetarian is a fairly easy dietary choice---being vegan is a freaking lifestyle!  And it's a little time-consuming.  Let's say you enjoy a bit of half-and-half in your morning coffee?  Well, you're going to have to start by soaking some cashews in water overnight.

And then there's a whole to-do involving a food processor and some cheesecloth...

I've made cashew half-and-half.  It's delicious.  But it involves a certain amount of work.  

The second thing I noticed was how much vegetarians desperately want to eat things that look like meat, taste like meat, and have the texture of meat---without actually BEING meat.

When I tried to describe this phenomenon to a friend, a light clicked in his head and he replied, "Oh!  So they're like Episcopalians?"

 The longest communion line at the festival was a throng of hungry parishioners waiting for these...

Vegan Sausages!!!

Meat substitutes were everywhere!  There were even vegan gyros made from seitan.  In case you've never heard of seitan, it's yet another meat substitute made from high-gluten flour, basically.  And once they squeezed a bit of vegan tzatziki sauce on a slice of cooked flour, it tasted almost exactly like the stuff they carve off the giant spinning wheels of lamb in the Village.

I found myself annoyed by all the meat substitutes.  Not for any moral reason.  But I already EAT meat.  I try not to eat too much and try to buy from reputable butchers where they only purchase from farms where the animals are humanely-raised, etc, etc.  So I didn't WANT meat substitutes.  I wanted vegetables!  And there weren't all that many vegetables there.

As I encountered the deliciousness of the vegan cheese (oh!---this stuff was the bomb!)...

I remembered that there are FIVE taste senses on the tongue----sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and umami.

Umami is the one some people might not know.  It's a fairly new discovery.  It's a savory taste.  The reason MSG became such a popular ingredient was that it supplied that taste.  A taste for L-glutamate.  It's hard to find in meatless-options.  Mushrooms have it.  Tomatoes have some.  Sauerkraut.  But it's a yummy taste.  Vegans and vegetarians often use something called nutritional yeast in their foods to mimic it.

Vegetarians who eat cheese can get the flavor there.  Think of how much better your pasta tastes with a bit of fresh Parmesan cheese grated on top.  Umami can have a bit of a fermented flavor.

And it was the promise of this taste that drew the vegans in.

Unlike sweet or salty (which can easily be part of a vegan diet) umami is harder to replicate in the home kitchen.

For example, I went completely nuts when I saw these:

      
Vegan Beef Jerky!

Oh, I sampled them all!  The consistency was between Beef Jerky and a Slim Jim.  And if there's any gal who enjoys the occasional Slim Jim, it's yours truly.

You see, the first time I bought a couch, I went to the Salvation Army Store in Minneapolis.  I found a terrific couch.  Beautiful color, kind of retro, and super comfortable.  Just as I was making the couch commitment in my head, some young, in-love couple sat on MY couch!

And I could tell they liked it.

And then they saw me looking at them sitting on my couch.  It was like they could read my mind.

Shit.

I quickly turned around nonchalantly.  Tried to pretend I was "just looking".  I'm just browsing around.  Never mind me.  I'm just going to browse my way towards the payment register....

But apparently, I wasn't very good at being stealthy.  They immediately picked up on the fact that my casual vibe more-closely resembled Pooh Bear after he rolled in mud, grabbed a balloon, floated up towards the honey tree, and tried to disguise himself as a rain cloud to fool the bees.

"I'm just a little black rain cloud.
Pay no attention to little me."

No sooner did I get to the register, than those bees were right on my heels.

It was the battle of the "cool couch".

Luckily, I knew that the guy working behind the counter only had one good eye.  I don't know what happened to the other eye.  It was just missing with no cosmetic attempt to disguise the fact.  So while he was ringing up some old lady for a sweater, I jimmied myself into position on the side of his one eye...

Now, my actions may not have been politically correct----but I got the couch.

But how was I going to get it home?  I didn't have a car.  Let alone a van.  Or even a driver's license.

A friend of mine who DID know how to drive went down to the UHaul to rent a van.  Unfortunately, the smallest vehicle they had available that day was a small truck.  It seemed a bit of overkill for a couch----so I decided to make it fun.  When she came to pick me up in the truck, I ran out with a tape player and a cassette of trucker songs.  To make the whole trucker theme complete, I suggested we pull into a gas station for some Slim Jims.  We laughed hysterically as we gnawed on our Slim Jims and sang along with old trucker songs like "Convoy", "Six Days On the Road" and "Give Me Forty Acres (To Turn This Rig Around)".

Just like music, food can be evocative.

So that's why I bought this.

And then I Googled recipes online and tried to figure out how to make it at home.

And why I went to the market to purchase this.

And spent an hour cooking a brine and slicing my tofu.

And let it marinate overnight.

And then plopped it in the oven at 200 degrees for a few hours.

And then what I got was this:

And it was HORRIBLE!!!

Tasted NOTHING like the delicious vegan pastrami I'd purchased.  Or any other kind of beef jerky, for that matter.

And that's why my hat is off to every vendor at the food festival.  Because everything I tasted was completely delicious.

But what the best food vendors at the festival did was to tap into perhaps a sixth taste.  While umami borrows from the Japanese, I think the sixth sense should borrow from the French.  Proust, to be exact.  His memory of Madeleines.  The way food can take you back to a time and place.  It's why the best meat loaf is the one that tastes like mom's.  It's why people from the Midwest got all excited when a Steak-n-Shake opened in NYC.  Why Campbell's Soup will never go out of business. Why we get all excited when we see "vintage candy". And why we practically cry when a product we grew up eating is suddenly discontinued.

Proust's evocative Temps Perdu.

Probably not a catchy name for a taste bud.  But it's just as good as umami.

It's why comfort food can be anything, really.  It just depends on where and when you ate it.

Things CAN taste better if they remind you of a happy time.  Even if you don't remember being particularly happy in that moment from years ago.  It was somehow better.  Simpler.

That's why even vegans long for the smell of something on a grill pan that reminds them of that summer when they were a kid....

The last thing I learned at the Vegetarian Food Festival is that vegetarians and vegans are no better, healthier, or happier than most of us.  Every other booth was someone either selling something that would help you find peace and tranquility or someone raising awareness of a good cause---involvement in which would give you satisfaction and peace and tranquility.

At the end of the day, no matter what we choose to eat, we're all looking for the same thing.

That beautiful, crazy happiness that can come from driving around town in a ridiculously-sized truck with a brand new couch and eating stupid food as we giggle and recount the story about how we were victorious over a couple in love and managed to catch the one good eye of a Salvation Army clerk.

As Del Reeves sang:

"Well I'm looking at the world thru a windshield.
And I see everything in a little bit different light.
I got a sweet little thing I'm a-wantin' to see in Nashville.
And I'm down around Dallas and a-rollin' on South tonight."

Stock Lobster! Aaaaah, aaaaah, aaaaah, aaaaah...

I recently had some lobster heads made available to me.

That's all I'm saying.  

Looking to make things disappear?  I'll take them off your hands.  Get my drift?

I've had people give me everything from a bag of raw pork fat to fish heads with their eyes gouged out (fish eyes will make your stock cloudy----good to know).  

My freezer is perpetually full of "projects".  It's like freaking Jeffrey Dahmer in there.  

Before you try to cite this post as evidence of a borderline personality disorder...  YOU may have boneless, skinless, chicken boobs in your freezer.  I have their feet.

Please explain to me how we're so different.

Americans aren't used to seeing whole animals (especially live ones) in their local supermarket.  Butchering has been visually sanitized to encourage consumerism.  The ability to buy a whole dead chicken with its head and feet removed is pretty recent stuff, history-wise.  

The one place you'll MAYBE see whole, intact animals is in your supermarket lobster tank.  

Many a happy trip to the market has been ruined for me by seeing these doomed little guys all huddled together in the corner with rubber bands on their hands trying desperately to shield one another from the mysterious latex-gloved hand of death.   

I KNOW they're only a few chromosomes away from a NYC roach.  I'm fully aware they're just a big red bug in the water.

But I just can't "do the deed".

I may be a member of "the family", but I'm not "a made man".

What can I say?  

The heart is a lousy hunter.

But if the lobster is already dead, and there's some melted butter nearby...

And nothing could be more dead than these pre-cooked heads.

I squirreled them home with big plans to turn these decapitated lobster heads into some dee-licious lobster stock.

A basic fish/seafood stock can be anything from some leftover shrimp shells thrown into a pot to an elaborate production with fresh Herbes de Provence and shallots and lemongrass and all that good stuff. 

I've made plenty of stock in my day, but never one from lobster heads.  I worried that maybe there was some stuff in there not so great for stock.  So I put the victims of Madame Guillotine in the freezer and went online to do some research.

Not a whole lot of info out there on making stock from lobster heads.

I did discover that the tomalley (sometimes spelled tamale) may be inside of there.  This is lobster liver, basically.  I'd heard of it, but frankly, I'm not around whole lobster a lot.  By the time it gets to my plate, it's usually just a lobster tail on a Surf-n-Turf platter or it's been all mayonaise-d up on a cold lobster salad sandwich.  But I'd heard that it has a different taste (and can possibly be full of toxins).  

It IS a liver, after all.

Some people LOVE the tomalley!  They spread it on crackers like it's freaking lobster pâté.  And when they hear about people throwing it away, first thing out of their mouths is something that distinctly sounds like, "Stupid white people."

I've never eaten it, so I can't comment. 

But after checking in with a few friends who love tomalley, they unanimously agreed that it's probably not a flavor you want in your stock.  A few suggested that the bitter flavor might get boiled out of the tomalley (and yeah---there was gonna be some in there).  But no one had any proof of anything.  This was apparently going to be uncharted territory. 

I pulled a head out of my freezer to defrost and began studying up on lobster anatomy.  An hour later, I felt as ready as the creepy serial-killer in Manhunter.  But instead of "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida" as my Dexter-like theme music, I put on some old Django Reinhardt tunes to calm my nerves and crept into my kitchen armed with nothing more than an espresso spoon and a cheese spreader.  

As I performed my surgery while Django strummed away at "Jeepers Creepers" on my iTunes playlist, I began to think about the world and how it works.  Because after all, this lobster was only able to survive to the requisite 1.5 pounds because he ate other living creatures.  

He's not so innocent!  And lobsters will eat ANYTHING!

If you're a creature smaller than a lobster (or maybe even a big Dungeness crab, but you just shed your shell and you're all vulnerable-like)-----he will EAT YOU ALIVE!

If you took the rubber bands off the guys at Red Lobster and dropped a newborn baby in there---those lobsters would eat your baby!!!

Like a dingo!

Oh, all sorts of crazy thoughts go thru your brain while you're gutting lobster heads.  

So---I think I did this right.

Here is a lobster head sliced off at the neck.  See that greenish-looking stuff at the top?  Apparently that's what I needed to get out.

After going in like a ghoul with my espresso spoon, I had all this gooky stuff on my plate. 

I'm guessing that big green glob is the tomalley.  Some of the rest of it might be good.  Or it might be brains.  I wasn't about to pick thru a few crumbs to find out which was which.

What I was left with was a lobotomized lobster head.

Plopped my heads in a pot of water with some leeks, carrots, celery, garlic, fresh parsley, bay leaves, salt, black peppercorns, and some dry white wine. 

Within minutes, my apartment smelled like lobster heaven!

Almost three hours later (oh yeah---I let this one simmer long and super-low to concentrate for three full hours) I had a giant bowl of deliciousness.

What can you do with lobster stock?  The possibilities are endless!  

A base for a creamy seafood bisque.  A fragrant lobster risotto.  Or just toss some veggies in a pan with olive oil, add some pasta, a pat of butter, and a ladle full of stock.

So what I'm saying is....  I'm open.  I'm available to take certain things off your hands.  You know, take care of business for you.  Maybe you could find something to do for someone such as myself?       

Chicken Feet For the Soul

You wouldn't think "free-range" chicken feet would be so hard to find.

But if you're going to cook with feet, don't you want the ones that have actually been able to walk around?

Why chicken feet?

Well...they make AMAZING chicken stock!

Okay, try not to notice that they look like little hands and stick with me here. 

In the old days, the death of a farm animal meant that the WHOLE animal would be used.  That's how things like ox tail soup, pickled pigs feet, and head cheese sandwiches came into being----ALL of which contain collagen.

You know, that stuff they put in skin creams?---which, by the way, is next-to worthless.  Collagen can not be absorbed thru the skin.  Period.  The molecules are too large.   Sorry to burst your bubble.  It's science.

But if you eat it...

Collagen DOES seem to have some benefits when taken orally.  It improves skin, bone, hair, and nail health.  It can also help relieve the symptoms of (and may even help cure) everything from diabetes to arthritis to Crohn's Disease.  It also helps absorption of other minerals.  Helps with asthma and colitis.  AND has the anti-inflammatory effect of an over-the-counter pain killer.

It's also the biggest reason why chicken soup is recommended for the common cold.  

Ever wonder why they serve Jell-O in hospitals?  Hmmmm?

I'm not saying it's laying hands on Lazarus or anything...

But it's definitely good stuff.

Chicken feet most likely won't be in the butcher case.  Even in those fancy (and pricey) butcher shops, you'll have to ask for them.

The secret word is "pastured".

Forget "organic".  Forget "free-range".  These words have all been worked around by greedy corporations and the US government.

"Pastured" is the code-word these days.  But, like any other word that promotes the latest "best"---there will always be someone trying to undercut the meaning of the word to make a buck.  There's really no true definition.  It's more "implied" between those of us who know.

"Organic" DOES have a definition.  But, like any other government term, it only means they meet the MINIMUM government standard.  

Your daily multi-vitamin that contains 100% Daily Value of Vitamin C?

That's just the bare minimum to prevent you from getting SCURVY.

Like an 18th Century pirate.

Arrrr.

I'm not saying the term "organic" is all bad---but it has more meaning for fruits and vegetables than meat and poultry.  Basically, a company pays the government a HUGE fee to get the term "organic" slapped on their packaging and (for thousands of dollars) the chickens don't eat GMO corn feed and they actually get to see a crack of daylight thru the slats in the wooden shed where they're clustered together by the thousands.

"Free-range" has also been co-oped.  Chickens are now ONLY allowed to shit on each other by the hundreds and occasionally they open the door to the shed.  The chickens see daylight and freak out.  Oh sure, they can go outside if they want...

The ones that aren't trampled to death at the sight of daylight are considered "free-range".  In fact, even the ones that got trampled...

I mean, they had the opportunity in life and all...

Even the terms "pasture-raised" and "pastured" are now being abused.  There's really no standard.  The word is whatever it means to you (the consumer) and the farmer.

So get to know your butcher!

The best butchers will inspect the farms they buy from.  They KNOW the farmers and what goes on there.

But enough semantics.  Let's get down to some funky chicken feet.

At the sound of the words "chicken feet", your butcher's ears will likely prick up a bit.  They'll stop everything to talk to you---like you're one of the "cool kids".

"We can special order them.  Stop back in on Monday and we may have them by then."

Monday. Different butcher.  Leaning over the counter, we exchanged the latest developments in hushed tones.  I felt like a private detective in a Dashiell Hammet novel----lurking around in a trench coat on a dock by the East River on a misty, Depression-era night.

"Pssst.  Buddy.  Got any chicken feet?"

"Sorry, lady.  Nothin' yet, see.  But there's another tomato who asks for them.  For stock.  Yeah.  They're hard to come by.  But I'll tighten the screws on 'em, see."

You may be asking yourself, with all the chicken Americans eat, why is it so hard to find chicken feet?

One word.

China.

China is THE biggest importer of chicken feet.  The Chinese freaking LOVE chicken feet and have a thousand recipes for them.  It's also a popular item on dim sum menus (I was told the best in NYC are at Golden Unicorn in Chinatown).

The owner of Perdue has been quoted as saying that if they couldn't export their chicken feet to China, they'd go out of business.

As recently as a few months ago, there was a huge scandal in China when tons and tons of chicken feet were found in a storage facility----many dating all the way back to 1967!

Apparently they were hoarding these Cold War Era feet for the next Zombie Apocalypse or something and then, boy oh boy, would they cash in...

But I'm not trying to start a religion here.  I'm just trying to give you some tips on how to make the best chicken stock ever.

Whatever you normally use for stock, that's what you're using here.

Onions

Garlic

Carrots

Celery

Peppercorns

Parsley

Thyme

Whatever rocks your boat.

You're going to boil your chicken feet for about a minute or two.

After that, remove them from the pot and put them in a cold water bath.  You just want them cool enough to handle.  Some chicken feet will still have the outer layer of skin attached.  This quick parboiling will make it easy to remove.

Oh---I almost forgot.  There's a tiny step that might send you packing.

You're going to hack off the toes at the first joint.

Basically, you're declawing them.

And if this freaks you out, THIS is what they do to your cat when you send it in to get declawed.

This is why declawing is considered inhumane and the procedure is against the law in most European countries.  

They're not delicately removing the nail bed of your cat---they're simply cutting off the entire first joint of its fingers.

They don't tell you that at the vet's office, do they?

And now your cat is dazed and in pain and has to walk around on those amputated paws with a cone on its head.

You might find it odd that the woman telling you to hack off chicken toes is urging you not to declaw your cat----but the chicken is dead.  Your cat is going to be a member of your family for potentially the next 20 years.

Like your expensive sofa?  Don't get a cat.

Okay---hack off those chicken nails?  Good.  Now that you feel all icky and Josef Mengele-y...

Just put the feet into a pot of water and add your veggies, herbs, and seasoning.

Same as you would with any other stock.

Difference being, with chicken feet, you're going to end up with a REALLY lush, gelatinous, and collagen-rich stock.  

Unfortuntatley, when I finally DID get my chicken feet from the butcher, upon inspection, I noticed that these chickens had been suffering from a case of "bumblefoot"---an infection in the feet.

I parboiled them for a minute to get a good photo for you (and the butcher) but wasn't really thrilled about putting abscesses into my dinner.  Call me crazy.  So there will be no chicken stock this week.  Because I'm like a freaking mom going thru a kid's trick-or-treat bag when I cook.

But don't let this discourage you from making chicken stock with feet!

I'm not discouraged.  I'll be back out there in no time knocking on butcher shop doors and whispering, "swordfish".

However, let this be a lesson that unless you're cooking for yourself and your family, sometimes what you're eating is just tossed onto an assembly line and barely even glanced at by a human being.  

That's why my secret ingredient is "love".

Okay---and butter.