Author Archives: mamster

Tears of the black tiger

Hey, I’m back from vacation. Thanks for not breaking into my house.

Why am I posting at 3am? I can answer that in three words: Black Tiger milkshake.

The Black Tiger milkshake was created by the evil geniuses at [Coffee People](http://www.coffeepeople.com/). Black Tiger is their high-caffeine blend. It would probably be an exaggeration to say that a Black Tiger shake is made with vanilla ice cream, eight shots of espresso, and two pounds of ground coffee beans. But that’s what it tastes like.

Coffee People is only in Portland, and I don’t always treat myself to a Black Tiger shake when I’m there. But when I do get one, I typically drink about a third of it, give Laurie a couple of sips, and toss the rest. Today (yesterday) afternoon, however, I was responsible for driving a carload of people to Seattle, so I popped the shake into the cupholder and proceeded to slurp up the whole thing. The passengers were delivered safely, and tomorrow afternoon, when I wake up bloodshot and twitching, perhaps I’ll tell you more about our vacation.

Oh, snap

I try to avoid blanket condemnations of American eating habits, because he who is without sin should live in glass houses and stuff. But sometimes it’s just too easy.

A while back I posted about hot dogs. In summary: buy Boar’s Head brand all-beef dogs and cook them by rolling them around in a hot skillet for fifteen minutes. Easy.

I didn’t think this was a controversial idea, and it’s not like I was deluged with letters. But on Wednesday I was reading the New York Times food section, and the lead story was about hot dogs. I was reading along and nodding until I got to this:

> Although serious hot dog fans prefer the snap of a natural casing, Mr. McDonnell’s dogs–like most–are formed with a cellulose casing, which is removed before packaging. “We don’t do skin at this point because we are after the mainstream shopper,” he said. “You can’t take America’s favorite food and change it to that degree and expect widespread acceptance.”

(Note: I corrected the attribution of the quote.)

This made me drop my tubesteak. Sure, I had bought some Hebrew National dogs on sale and noticed the lack of casing, but I figured (this seems silly in retrospect) this was somehow related to the kosher designation. I don’t think of myself as a serious hot dog fan, since I buy them maybe six times a year.

No casing? I said to Laurie, “This is like if I read that most people preferred boiled steaks to grilled steaks.”

“That’s just it,” she said, then clued me in. Of course! Most people boil or microwave their dogs. The casing doesn’t become an essential part of the experience until it’s a little browned. Given a hot dog heated by one of these inferior methods, I might choose a jacketless one, too.

On the other hand, maybe the Times got this information from Ahmad Chalabi. and Americans love snappy dogs.

A wee bit of butter

Last night I was planning to make a recipe for spaghetti with chard and pancetta from Pasta Harvest, a recipe which has the advantage of using the chard stems in the pasta and generating a chard leaf salad to eat afterwards.

Iris was excited about this idea. The other day we were at the U District farmers market, and we visited the adjacent community garden, where I pointed out a little baby red chard growing in one plot. This didn’t seem to make much of an impression at the time, but then later, when I was putting her to bed…

> **Me:** And we went to the farmers market.

> **Iris:** Dada, you know a plant called chard?

When we got to QFC, though, I had to dash Iris’s hopes, because when I saw the fennel, I knew it was time to make fennel in the style of the chef, meaning with lots of butter. “That’s okay,” said Iris. Here’s how I made it, and it was great.

**PENNE WITH FENNEL AND BACON**
Serves 3

*This is actually less butter than the chef used.*

3 strips thick-cut bacon, cut crosswise into half-inch strips
5 tablespoons butter
2 large fennel bulbs, cored and sliced thin
pinch red pepper flakes
3/4 pound penne rigate
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano
salt

1. Cook the bacon in a skillet over medium heat until crisp. Remove to a paper-towel-lined plate and pour off all but 1 tablespoon of fat.

2. Add the butter to the pan. When it’s melted, add the fennel and a healthy sprinkle of salt and the red pepper flakes stir well. Cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Cook, stirring occasionally until very tender, about 20 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Add the penne and cook until al dente. Drain and return to the pot. Add the fennel and butter, the reserved bacon and the cheese. Stir well and serve in warmed big bowls.

Sea food?

Next week we’re taking a vacation on the Oregon Coast, and a biologist friend brought over some specimen books so we can identify any unusual organisms that attack us.

Iris’s favorite of the books is one called Whelks to Whales, a highly illustrated guide to everything from…well, you know. Iris can flip through the book and name half the things in it now. I think she’s going to be disappointed when we get to the beach and it’s basically all anemones and kelp.

I found the book amusing too, because there are plenty of organisms with funny names. Like a sea star called the Cookie Star, because it looks exactly like a cookie. If we find one, I think Iris and I are equally likely to try to eat it. But the best thing in the whole book is a slimy, lumpy ascidian colony called:

Sea Pork

I thought I liked every kind of pork, but I am prepared to make an exception.

Something from the sour patch

Sour cherry season lasts, oh, about ten days here in Washington, and we’ve been taking full advantage. These cherries are expensive (best quality ones are often $7.50 a pound, even more than Rainiers), fragile, and harder to pit than sweet cherries. Why have we dropped a good $40 on them so far this month? Well, I’m writing an article. But that begs the question.

I’ll give you the answer in the form of an analogy and then the form of a crostata.

Imagine you’ve never had a lemon. Somehow you made it to adulthood and just never happened to taste one. Then someone hands you a glass of fresh-squeezed lemonade, or a lemon tart.

You can’t erase your memory of lemons, Eternal Sunshine style, but if you’ve never had a fresh sour cherry, you’ve got a couple days left in the season, and I hope you’ll find that their effect on desserts is as bracing and indispensable as lemon. (I’m trying to stop myself from making a “lose your sour cherry cherry” joke, and apparently I just failed.) Furthermore, only the terminally weird (I say this affectionately) eat lemons plain, but I’m happy to snack on sour cherries right off the stem.

Here’s that crostata. This is an awesome recipe that *didn’t* make the cut for the article, so hopefully that will keep you on the edge of your seat until next June. In the meantime, if you can’t find the real stuff, Trader Joe’s jarred morello cherries are totally acceptable.

**SOUR CHERRY CROSTATA**
Makes 6 individual crostatas
Adapted from Room for Dessert by [David Lebovitz](http://www.davidlebovitz.com/)

*For the dough:*
5 ounces unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons lard
3 tablespoons ice-cold water, plus extra if necessary

*For the frangipane:*
3 ounces almond paste
3 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1-1/2 teaspoons sugar
4 teaspoons flour
1 large egg

*For the crostata:*
3/4 pound fresh sour cherries, stemmed and pitted
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar

1. **Make the dough.** Combine the flour, sugar, salt, butter, and lard in a large bowl and mix with a pastry blender or your hands, leaving fairly large chunks of fat–larger than for pie crust. Add water and mix, squeezing the dough into a ball. Add a little more water if necessary. Flatten into a disc, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate at least an hour.

2. **Make the frangipane.** Stir all the frangipane ingredients together in a bowl, or mix with a stand mixer. If you stir by hand, you probably won’t be able to get out all the lumps of almond paste, but it won’t matter by the time it’s baked.

3. **Assemble the crostatas.** Preheat the oven to 400°F. Divide the dough into six pieces. Roll one piece out into a 7-inch circle and transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet. If it’s not terribly circular, that’s okay. Spread with about two tablespoons frangipane (I found it easiest to do this with my fingers) to about an inch from the edge. Stud the frangipane with as many sour cherries as easily fit. Fold up the edge of the dough roughly, pinching it in places as necessary, to hold the filling in. Repeat with the other dough pieces. Brush the edges of the dough with melted butter. You may not be able to fit all the crostatas on one sheet. If you need to bake in two batches, refrigerate the second sheet while the first is baking.

4. Bake 30 minutes or until the dough edges are nicely browned. Let the crostatas sit on the sheet for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack and cool another ten minutes, then eat.