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.

  

How To Open a Bottle of Champagne---and other Gruesome Sparkling Wine Stories

Most folks celebrating New Year’s Eve will likely be popping the cork on a bottle of Champagne that night.

But are you REALLY drinking Champagne?

I’ll explain.

Champagne is a sparkling wine.  But not ALL sparkling wine is Champagne.  Champagne ONLY comes from the chalky and fossil-rich soil of the Champagne region in Northern France.  The use of the word “Champagne” is carefully controlled by the AOC (stands for “Appellation d'origine contrôlée”, France’s “quality control” for food and wine) and most of the civilized world has agreed to abide by their rules and play nice.

A list of rules that reads like a book of Sharia law. 

Just for starters:

Champagne can ONLY come from three grapes---chardonnay, pinot noir, and pinot meunier.

The grapes MUST be grown in one of the five vineyard areas of the Champagne region.
 
They also regulate everything from how you prune the vines to how you turn the damn bottles.
 
And that’s not even close to Champagne 101. 
 
The top Champagne producers are VERY old houses that are still run like the first season of Downton Abbey---lots of fuss over a missing snuff box.
 
But at the same time, it’s a very rock ‘n’ roll, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation.  Unlike other wines in France that are often judged by their year of vintage----most Champagne is NON-vintage.  In fact, it’s one of the AOC Sharia laws that a certain amount of wine from the house HAS to be saved to blend with the following years’ vintage to give Champagne that certain “je ne sais quoi”.
 
It’s also largely a matter of guesswork.  You really have to be a master to be able to throw stuff into the pot and know what the soup will taste like 2-10 years from now.  The big houses strive for consistency every year---though a few super biggies like Krug put out vintage bottles in years when the grapes are especially exciting.  The smaller, renegade grower's houses may not have the same prestige, but they can wow you with certain vintages and their “I’ll do what I want!” attitude.  
 
In short, Champagne is crazy town---but there’s nothing else in wine quite like it. 
 
Those are the basics.  But start getting into Champagne history and you’ll find hundreds of years of interesting stories.

For starters, Northern France ain’t no Cote d’Azur.  It’s freaking cold!  This has always limited the grape growers of the region.  Back in the day, they would pick the grapes and make their wine in the fall.  The cold winter would send the yeast in the fermentation process into hibernating like a freaking bear. 

Then by spring, the weather would warm up and the yeast would begin to RE-ferment.  The winemakers would open their carefully crafted wine and find….

Bubbles?!?!?!!!!

WTF?

This was seen as a horrible thing.  Good wine gone bad.

In truth, it WAS a bit of a problem.  Bottles of wine were exploding all over the place in the spring.  One bottle would explode and cause a chain reaction, seriously injuring the workers in the wine cellars.   

They tried everything to fix this.  Even a simple Benedictine monk (who didn’t even drink) named Dom Perignon couldn’t keep the bubbles out of his wine. 

Dom Perignon didn’t create Champagne.  He was just trying to turn lemons into lemonade.

He changed production methods, growing methods, harvesting methods.  He was also a savvy business man who increased the value both of the church’s estate AND their wines.

But he considered it a personal failure that he could never keep those damn bubbles out.

The tradition of Champagne on New Year’s Eve is a bit sketchy----but seems to have taken root after the French Revolution.  Champagne was beloved by the nobility in France.  But the Champagne in those days bore little resemblance to what we drink now; it was much sweeter to mask the acidity of the wine, a bit on the pink side, kind of gritty---and of course, they were still trying to get rid of those pesky bubbles. 

But it got the moniker “The Drink of Kings” due to its region more than anything. 

Reims cathedral is in the Champagne region of France.

The King of the Franks, Clovis I, was baptized in Reims in 496 A.D.  If you know nothing about French history, know that he’s kind of like our George Washington.  So because he was “the father of the country”, from then on, French coronation ceremonies were traditionally held in Reims.  They even built a huge cathedral on the site.  All the royals of Europe would show up and enjoy the local beverage---Champagne.

That’s why it’s called “The drink of kings.” 

It was such an important place that when the English took Reims during the Hundred Years War----it was Joan of Arc who got the cathedral back and made it possible for the dauphin (later Charles VII) to be crowned in the cathedral later that year.

Unfortunately, Charles VII was the equivalent of that guy who takes a lot of selfies and posts positive affirmations on his Twitter page to act like a leader-----but was really a self-centered, trust fund baby with no marketable skills. 

His depression and indecision during crucial moments of battle came across to his immediate circle as, “Why didn’t my general “like” my Instagram picture on Facebook?  I know he was still awake at midnight.  He wrote “LOL” on my court jester’s post.  I mean, why am I even fighting a war?  I should just quit everything I’m doing.  Like “opposite day” on that episode of Seinfeld.  I mean…what’s the point?  This is like…work.”

And right about then, a teenage Joan of Arc stepped up.  I know I complain about the youth of today----but SEE!  Not all young kids are lazy and good-for-nothing.

Jean d’Arc took Reims back from the English, met Charles VII, got him crowned-in as king, saved France, and then sometime around three o’clock in the morning, the tweet went out….

“Dudes!  I’m freaking KING!!!  Let’s par-tay!”

“Um…what about that girl who saved your ass?  You know she’s on trial now---right?”

“You r NOT invited, Debbie Downer!”

“I’m not kidding.  Here is a link to the pamphlet.”

“Lesbo.  Let’s PAR-TAY!!!!  Champagne in R-Town.  Ha!  OUR Town!”

“THIS IS NOT A JOKE.  BITCH WHO SAVED YOUR ASS IS GOING DOWN IF YOU DON’T HELP HER!!!!!”

“Tweaking so hard, dude.  Who’s the king?  Who’s the muthafucking king?”

“Unfriending.”

“Beheading.  LMFAO!!!!”

No secret---I’m not the biggest fan of Charles VII.

A few centuries later, the French Revolution was on, Louis XVI was reduced to the title, “Citizen Capet", they oiled up the guillotine, and suddenly---everyone was equal! 

Hooray!!! 

The newly formed National Assembly (in an attempt to wipe the slate clean---and to dip into the rich coffers of the Catholic church) abolished religion in France.  At one point, an entire convent of nuns was sent to the guillotine.  Poulenc’s opera “Dialogue of the Carmelites” ring a bell?

Okay, I’m geeking out.  But when you’re killing off nuns, your government is getting a bit kooky.

What Robespierre and his band DID realize was that they had to offer new traditions to replace the old ones.  Can’t worship your papal god?  How about our new “Supreme Being”?  Hmmm? 

They put on a whole festival and street fair to introduce “our brand-new god for your worshiping pleasure”. 

Unfortunately, while the fan-fares played and the paper-mache mountain designed by revolutionary artist David was unveiled to a public eagerly awaiting their new (and hopefully familiar) god-----Robespierre (perhaps as leader of “The Mountain” side of the aisle in the National Assembly) positioned himself at the TOP of that mountain.

Yeah---the guy shimmied himself up a wooden ladder and “appeared” as a vision in the azure painted-clouds that kind of made people wonder, “Um---are we supposed to be worshiping HIM?”

And if you thought Mark David Chapman resented the fact that John Lennon compared himself to Jesus…

It wasn’t long after that Robespierre had an unbreakable appointment with The National Razor.

But one of the non-religious customs that was encouraged by the secular government was to drink Champagne.  Because we’re all equal!  And you, too, can get drunk on the same stuff as the Kings of France.

Well, okay----you’re still poor.  We’re working on that.

So since you can only afford it once a year…

How about that non-religious day we all know and celebrate?

And THAT is why you drink Champagne on New Year’s Eve.

Does it HAVE to be Champagne?

Don’t be silly. 

If you’re simply looking for a cork that pops---it all falls under the category of “sparkling wine” and can be anything from a Brut Rose from California to a Prosecco from Italy to a Sparkling Shiraz from Australia.  Whatever rocks your boat.

A few things you should know:

Sparkling wines are traditionally served in a glass called a “flute”.

There's also the coupe.

There's a legend that it was supposedly molded to the shape of Marie Antoinette’s left breast.  Okay---that story is partially true.  Marie Antoinette supposedly DID have glasses molded in the shape of her breast---but they were supposed to be for drinking milk.  It was called a “jattes tetons” and had goat heads as a base. 

 
And yeah---that's a nipple at the bottom.

I know---kind of creepy.  But she was going thru this Rousseau back-to-nature phase that was hip and trendy in the day.  She and her lady friends would have these farm-to-table-like brunches where they’d dress up like farmer’s daughters and milk cows and churn butter outside her little palace Le Petit Trianon.  It was their way of convincing other noblewomen to breast-feed their babies instead of sending the kids off to a wet nurse.

Over the years, the coupe has been said to have been modeled after the boob of pretty much every King’s mistress or powerful woman the opposing political group hated---the sort of slut-shaming and women-hating that has been going on for centuries.

In any case, the titty glass is HORRIBLE for sparkling wine!  It spreads the bubbles all over the surface of the glass and causes them to dissipate---in short, flat Champagne.

Truth is, in the Champagne region, they just drink their bubbly out of a wine glass.

Now here’s where it gets dangerous…

The Champagne bottle is SPECIFICALLY designed to keep the forces within inside the bottle.  The glass is thicker than a normal wine bottle and the shape is different to help spread those forces around.  This took centuries to figure out.  This is also why you need to use great caution when opening one of these puppies.

As a server, I’ve opened hundreds of bottles of sparkling wine.  I’m always super careful.  

In my entire waiting-tables career, I’ve only had ONE bottle of sparkling explode on me.  Unfortunately, it was a bottle of sparkling red.  Shit.  As I loosened the cage, I could feel something was wrong.  I barely twisted the bottle when the whole thing exploded.

Red wine.

Luckily I knew what I was doing beforehand and had aimed it properly.  Only a napkin was injured.

But the pressure behind a bottle of sparkling wine can be up to 60 miles per hour.  Like that line in A Christmas Story---“You’ll shoot your eye out.”

The vast majority of eye injuries that turn up in emergency rooms across the U.S. are due to mishandled bottles of sparking wine.

So unless you have dreams of becoming one of those film directors with an eye patch…

Handle this stuff with caution.  Point it away from your face and anyone else’s face----and body.  Point it at the ceiling or a wall.

Also, Champagne should be properly chilled---about 45 to 48 degrees.  That’s about the same as your refrigerator.  If it’s opened when it’s too warm it may explode on you.

And it actually shouldn’t make that popping sound we all associate with sparkling wine.  As Karen MacNeil writes in her definitive book, The Wine Bible, “Unbidden, more than one older Frenchman has advised me that a Champagne bottle, correctly opened, should make a sound no greater than that of a contented woman’s sigh.  Frenchmen are French men after all.”   

So, what’s good this year?

Well, everyone has their preferences.

Jeffrey Goldin, general manager of Red Farm Broadway, prefers something on the sweeter side---a sparkling Muscat.  But as far as actual Champagne that won’t break the bank, he recommends the reliable crowd-pleaser, Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin.  And then he went on to tell me the whole history of the wine and how it was named after the first woman to take over a Champagne house---The widow (“veuve” in French) Madame Clicquot.  

He then proceeded to entertain me with his impressions of stuffy and ridiculous sommeliers that he once did at a wine dinner---impressions that made even the sommeliers laugh.

The thing about wine is that once you start to learn stuff about it---you realize how much you DON'T know.  But the more you learn, the more this whole wonderful world of stories and people (and, oh yeah---wine) opens up to you.

Wine knowledge isn't all stuffy old guys making weird slurping sounds and inventing stupid descriptive words and phrases like "chalice-y" and "the musk of a satiated otter".

It really is fun and exciting and WAY more down-to-earth than you would think.

It's like drinking beer with your smart friends.

I also contacted a few of my sommelier friends this week to get some quotes and recommendations.

I quickly learned that trying to get a quote out of a sommelier the week between Christmas and New Year’s is like trying to interview a fighter pilot in the thick of battle.

The emails came back, “I’m SO sorry I didn’t get back to you.  I’ve been working 15 hour days back-to-back.”

Luckily, my old and dear sommelier friend, Dana Farner, had just enough time to scrape out the message that she had already put something together for the website at her work.  Dana is the Beverage Director of CUT and sidebar, Wolfgang Puck’s outposts at Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills (A Four Seasons Hotel).

“Do you want to add that link? Or copy paste? I could add an intro for you to personalize it or something if you want but you're right- I am out of my mind busy.”

As a gal who just worked 14 hours on Christmas Day----I totally understood.  

So here are her top five recommendations (and notes) on her favorite bottles of bubbly this season.

1. Camille Savès Rosé Brut Grand Cru, Bouzy, Champagne NV

A delicious red cherry but not sweet Champagne from Grand Cru Bouzy, the village that’s as fun to drink as it is to say. If you look closely, you’ll find a tiny RM on the label which stands for Récoltant-Manipulants, meaning that Camille Savès grows all their own grapes — a rarity in Champagne.

2. Gaston Chiquet “Special Club” Brut Champagne 2004
The Special Club refers to a collection of 27 Growers (RM) who have organized to promote the flavour of the earth in Champagne. Only their best can be bottled as “Special Club.” A lean, bright, mouth-watering Champagne.

3. Jacques Selosse “Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs Substance”, Avize, Champagne NV
Another RM in a class of its own. Selosse blends vintages since 1986 to make this wine, with the intention of highlighting the specific beauty of the village of Avize. The wine is deeply layered with toasted nuts and candied citrus. A luxury “wow” bottle that tastes unlike any other.

4. Lanson Rosé Brut Champagne NV
An extremely popular Champagne in Europe, Lanson is less well-known in America. This rosé is surprisingly low in sweetness with dried fruit and lots of minerality.

5. Ca’ del Bosco “Cuvée Annamaria Clementi” Franciacorta Riserva 2004
Not all great bubbles come from Champagne. Franciacorta in Lombardy, Italy produces some of the greatest sparkling wines in the world. It’s made the same way as Champagne and often matches it in quality. You’ll find a little toastiness in this luxury bottle along with bright citrus notes.”

She also has an awesome video tutorial on how to correctly open a bottle of sparkling wine, which you can view here.

 

So watch, be safe, drink responsibly, and Happy New Year!