Quote of the Week: Eat Like a Pig

"I'm not going to spend my last six months in New York going to the gym, running, and eating salads. I'm going to drink my face off and eat like a pig."

--Pat

 

The Perfect Turkey

Do you want to know the key to a cooking a perfect turkey? Butta. Of course we all know that butter makes everything better, so it makes sense that it would enhance the already delicious star of every Thanksgiving dinner. I take turkey very seriously. Come on, how many times a year does one actually cook a turkey? Just once a year, so it better be done right. 

First I take a stick of butter and let it come to room temperature so it's nice and soft. Then I take fresh sage, rosemary, and thyme, chop them up, and mix them in to the butter. While adding parsley would make it a more poetic recipe, I've been told that parsley doesn't actually work well with turkey, so I just stick to the three other herbs.

Then comes the fun part. Take the butter and smear it all over the turkey--really coat everything. Your hands will get messy, so my advice is to just enjoy it. Who doesn't love the feel of creamy butter all over your hands? Sexy. You should also lift the skin of the turkey and put some butter underneath the skin so that it can melt into the turkey breast and help to keep it moist. I save a little butter to put into the cavity as well.

My family prefers to cook the stuffing in a separate dish rather than in the cavity of the bird, but I still like to enhance the tastiness of the turkey by stuffing it with some savory items. I  chop up apples, onions, garlic, carrots, and celery, add some more sage, rosemary, thyme, and butter, and then stuff the bird with the mixture. The intention is not to eat this concoction but to allow the flavors to seep into the meat while it roasts in the oven. Delicious. And when it's all done, voila! The perfect turkey. The butter makes the skin extra golden and crispy and the flavors of the herbs and stuffing mixture give it that quintessential autumn loveliness that a Thanksgiving turkey should embody.   

Until next Thursday I'll be dreaming of golden, buttery skin and savory turkey meat--anticipating that moment when a foodie fantasy will become reality. Here's wishing everyone a happy, healthy, and, of course, tasty Thanksgiving. Cheers!

A.M. Ale

Song of the Week: Eat My Beat

People Getting Punched Just Before Eating

Quote of the Week: Drink Me

“She found a little bottle…and tied round the neck of the bottle was a paper label with the words ‘DRINK ME’ beautifully printed on it in large letters.

It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not;’…she had never forgotten that, if you drink from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

However, this bottle was not marked ‘poison,’ so Alice ventured to taste it; and finding it very nice (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavor of cherry tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffy, and hot buttered toast), she very soon finished it off.”

—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

The Bread of Justice: John Ruskin and Food

In the writings of John Ruskin, a nineteenth-century English writer, art critic, and artist who continuously turned to the observable world and found meaning in everything, it is striking that he never focused exclusively on food or the act of eating. For a man who “was convinced of the vital connections between things, as they bind and blend themselves together,” food and eating, which permeate everyday life, could have served as a means to convey his philosophies.[1] Upon a close examination of his writings, however, it becomes clear that Ruskin did observe the significance of food even as he never wrote extensively on it. While he never focused exclusively on food and eating as a topic, Ruskin did use both literal and figurative food examples to bolster his larger arguments. 

Ruskin sometimes used literal examples of food to support his arguments. For example, in “Modern Painters, III” (1856) Ruskin challenged the use of the words objective and subjective. Rather than adhering to these words, which he regarded as “useless” and “troublesome,” Ruskin asserted that the true nature of a thing is in its power to produce a sensation not the sensation itself.[2] This power is present whether or not a person is around to experience it. To support this argument Ruskin turned to the example of sweetness, writing

I derive a certain sensation, which I call sweetness, from sugar. That is a fact. Another person feels a sensation, which he also calls sweetness, from sugar. That is also a fact. The sugar’s power to produce these two sensations, which we suppose to be, and which are, in all probability, very nearly the same in both of us, and, on the whole, in the human race, is its sweetness.[3]

While dealing with what might be a difficult linguistic and philosophical concept to grasp, Ruskin successfully used a concrete example of food to convey his larger point; this literal example of food thus served to ground his ideas.

Ruskin more often used food in a figurative sense. For example, he described the sky as “human nature’s daily food,” the unimaginative artist as creating art “as simply a matter of recipe and practice as cookery,” the division of labor as causing men to be “broken into small fragments and crumbs of life,” and nations with good art as having “starved for it” and “fed themselves with it, as if it were bread.”[4] In “Modern Painters, V” (1860) Ruskin again used a food example to defend his argument:

It is the curse of every evil nation and evil creature to eat, and not be satisfied. The words of blessing are, that they shall eat and be satisfied. And as there is only one kind of water which quenches all thirst, so there is only one kind of bread which satisfies all hunger—the bread of justice, or righteousness; which hungering after, men shall always be filled, that being the bread of heaven; but hungering after the bread, or wages, of unrighteousness, shall not be filled, that being the bread of Sodom.[5]

In this case, Ruskin is not concerned with real bread and water but rather what the act of consumption symbolizes. The bread and water are significant in what they represent, not as actual foodstuffs. This figurative example helps the reader understand Ruskin’s larger argument of the essay—that one must resist materialism and instead strive for righteousness.

In his literal and figurative food examples, Ruskin most commonly referenced bread, water, and sugar—three basic substances that any reader could relate to—as well as the shared experience of eating. While food was not Ruskin’s primary focus, the examples he used throughout his writing strengthened his arguments. In his attempts to get the audience to truly see the world as it is, Ruskin’s use of food and eating offers one means to engage the reader and make his arguments accessible.

[1] Dinah Birch, “Introduction,” in John Ruskin: Selected Writings, ed. Dinah Birch (New York: Oxford, 2004), xxvi.

[2] John Ruskin in John Ruskin: Selected Writings, 68-69.

[3] Ruskin, 69.

[4] Ruskin, 9, 43, 85, 98.

[5] Ruskin, 138.

Ice-Cream Cone with a Cherry on Top

Get ready to pump your fist and check out the new single from Jersey Shore's Angelina--"I'm Hot"--with slammin' lyrics like "I'm hot, so hot, like an ice-cream cone with a cherry on top." It's sure to be the new hit at the club...

Song of the Week: Satan Gave Me a Taco

Quote of the Week: Pickles

"Pickles is my thing."

--Snooki, Jersey Shore

Jersey Shore (Season 1) - MTV Shows

Food Porn

“The human body reacts in very similar ways when anticipating food and sex. Capillaries swell, lips and membranes become engorged, saliva thickens, and the pulse rises. It’s no accident that the two pleasures have become confused.”

–Anthony Bourdain 

Food and sex so easily go hand in hand. The desire for sex can be likened to one’s appetite for food. The acts of eating and sex both cause pleasure, but one can only be temporarily satiated. After the immediate satisfaction of a decadent meal or delicious orgasm, eventually you’re going to want more.

But somehow the enjoyment of food is not only a first person experience but has developed into a form of voyeurism. And when participating in a voyeuristic activity, it somehow seems less dirty to watch people eating on screen than to watch them screwing. Rather than watching sex porn and getting ideas for new sexual positions, instead we read about or watch people engage with food and get new ideas for the kitchen.

Food porn, as Bourdain defines it, is “the vicarious enjoyment of people doing things on screen or in books that you yourself are not likely to be doing anytime soon.” It can be people reading or writing about food in substitute of sex. It can be looking at sensual pictures of food or watching people on television cook, eat, and talk about food that you’re probably never going to eat or experience. Either way, food and sex meld together into one beautiful entity.

Perhaps we enjoy reading about and watching others enjoy food because we know that good food can often lead to good sex. Many foods that are considered aphrodisiacs have been proven to prime the body for sex, such as oysters and dark chocolate (two of my favorite foods by the way). And this is nothing new. History brims with the recognition of connections between food and sex.

Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony John Winthrop, writing in the early seventeenth century, wrote that “finding that the variety of meates drawes me on to eate more than standeth with my healthe, I have resolved not to eate of more then 2 dishes at any one meale, whither fish, flesh, fowle or fruit or whittmeat etc.” Because Winthrop found himself tempted to continue in pleasures of the flesh after a large meal he attempted to approach each meal with moderation. But what were the pleasures of the flesh that tempted him afterward? A good Puritan wouldn’t have written explicitly about sex, even in a personal journal, but it doesn’t take a big leap of the imagination to surmise what would be going on in the bedroom after Winthrop bolstered himself with a variety of meats.

Similarly, this scene from the film adaptation of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, written in 1749, shows how the enjoyment of food can quickly lead to sex:
 

Bringing it up to the modern day, we have an entire television network devoted just to food, and now several other networks have food-themed shows. The Food Network takes attractive (think Giada De Laurentiis) people and places them in shiny, perfect kitchens, provides them with props and toys (I mean utensils), and gives them a plethora of ingredients that they can do whatever they want with. While the cook prepares the food a series of up-close shots usually occur—yeah, get a shot of that ruby red meat, luscious strawberries, or sensual whipped cream. After it’s all prepared, here comes the climax. The excited cook raises a fork to his or her mouth, gushes with pleasure, perhaps even gives a little groan, and consumes the food. Oh yeah…that’s heavenly, she might exclaim, unable to control herself as her cheeks flush, eyes close, and a smile spreads across her face. It’s kind of a surprise there’s no bow-chica-bow-wow music in the background. 

Is this preoccupation with food reflective of our particular culture or is it just a part of human nature to seek out pleasure? Perhaps it is quite normal for people to seek out pleasure, but it manifests in our culture, not to be promiscuous but to eat and drink well. And when we can’t, we can turn to shows or writings on food to fill our appetite.

As someone who writes several times a week about food, it makes me wonder if my blog is nothing more than food porn. And if this blog is truly an exercise in food porn…does that make me a porn star?

Nice Matin

Last week I headed into the city for some Halloween debauchery with my sister, her boyfriend, and some of their friends. It was destined to be a memorable night, and I even got to create another alter ego. Maya “Off-the-Hook” Rook—a tough, guidette bitch from the Jersey Shore. (Note to my readers: if you don’t have an alter ego I highly recommending getting at least one. I now have two, and they are both fabulous.)

But before hitting up the New York City nightlife scene, we had to eat. My sister treated me to a wonderful meal at Nice Matin, located at 201 West 79th Street. The menu was inspired by Chef Andy D’Amico and Simon Oren’s trip to Nice, France. The result? An excellent menu and lovely restaurant.

After we each ordered a glass of red wine, first up for the meal was the escargot, which was baked en cocotte with tomato fondue, garlic butter, and bread crumbs. The bread crumbs that topped the escargot were crunchy but quickly melted into a buttery, cheesy softness in the mouth. Each little dish had two snails rather than one, which is how I’ve usually had it. Bonus snails! It was a perfect appetizer—garlicky, buttery, warm, and succulent. 

I knew I needed real food. For the past week I’d had my nose to the grindstone with grad school work and I’d also run out of money, so basically I’d been living off of bread and pasta and vitamin supplements. Not cool. My body was craving vegetables and meat. It was an easy choice to order the soup du jour—butternut squash soup.

When I usually make butternut squash soup I do it as a puree, so I assumed that’s how it would be prepared here. Au contraire, mon ami. Instead, it was a hearty soup with large chunks of butternut squash, mushrooms, onions, and lentils, all simmered in a lovely chicken stock. With the first spoonful I felt my body start to revive. It was exactly what I needed—delicious, healthy, and satisfying.

Sonya ordered the spinach salad, which I partook of as well. Her plate brimmed with baby spinach, aged French goat cheese, roasted beets, pickled onions, hazelnuts, and nut oil vinaigrette. The spinach was fresh and green, the cheese was luscious and creamy, and those beets…wow. They were really incredible, like little cubes of ruby goodness sprinkled over the plate. I really need to start integrating beets into my own cooking. The salad was superb.

After my body replenished itself with the vegetable loveliness of the soup and salad, it was time to move on to meat. I ordered the Raviolis Nissarda—short rib ravioli flavored with orange and sage, red wine daube sauce, and parmesan. It was exquisite. Each ravioli was a pocket of hearty short rib decadence—the perfect balance between pasta and meat. I opted for the smaller order, and it was just the right size for me. I was able to enjoy every tasty bite without being too full.  

Instead of ordering dessert, we each ordered another glass of wine. That’s just how we do. I don’t think I could have eaten another bite, but if I go back I’d definitely want to try dessert—the menu looks phenomenal.

After the meal I was replenished with delicious food and good conversation with my sister. The sun had gone down and darkness was setting in over the city. It was Halloween weekend, and now I was ready for shit to get off the hook…

Ernest Hemingway and a Simple Taste of Life

The other night I was lying in bed, feeling somewhat unfulfilled and restless. But what to do? There were many possibilities at hand, but I found myself burdened with an inability to decide. As I stared up at the smooth, white ceiling and felt the down comforter like a cloud below me, I realized exactly what I needed: Ernest Hemingway.

Truly, when all else fails, there is nothing that Hemingway and a glass of red wine can’t fix. A Moveable Feast was plucked from the bookshelf, and I lay back down to read. Immediately I was absorbed, transported across the ocean and back in time to Paris in the 1920s. I joined Hemingway in cafes—we read, wrote, sipped wine and beer, ate oysters, and met with Gertrude Stein and Sylvia Plath. We observed James Joyce eating with his family at Michaud’s and experienced debauchery on a road trip with F. Scott Fitzgerald. There was magic and there was love, and we were one with Paris.

Hemingway was a man who cherished everyday, concrete moments and who was described by Fitzgerald as possessing the “quality of a stick hardened in the fire.” These distinctive qualities and his straightforward, concise language defined his novels and characters. Food and eating certainly played large roles in the crafting of his stories, offering everyday moments to ground one’s self in as the modernity of the twentieth century rushed in from all directions. The relationships in his works are often built upon everyday moments—the eating of a sandwich, the taste of a sip of white Capri wine, and the feel of a woman’s body between sheets.

The first time my younger sister tried to read what is perhaps my favorite of all of Hemingway’s novels, The Sun Also Rises, she remarked, “It seems like all they do is go to cafes and drink and eat.” Well, yes. That’s kind of the point isn’t it? The characters use consumption and pleasure to deal with post-World War I society. Rather than focusing on the war, the unfortunate sexual effects it had on the main character, Jake Barnes, and the fact that the woman he loves, Lady Brett Ashley, sleeps with other men, instead they drink and they eat. Jake and Brett cannot consummate their love, but they can induce pleasure with food and numb themselves with alcohol. As they seek an authentic existence in a society dealing with the disillusioning effects of World War I, it is only through the basic, human acts of eating and drinking that they can find meaning in their daily lives.

And perhaps Hemingway was onto something here. Don’t we still often turn to food and eating in the midst of a rapidly changing society and uncertain times? Isn’t it a glass of wine or a slice of bread that can help us deal with the external world? When all else fails, for me there’s always Hemingway, and for many of us there’s always a bite of food or sip of drink that can reaffirm a sense of meaning and authentic experience in our lives. So cheers to the one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century—Ernest Hemingway, this simple taste of life is all for you.

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”

—Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast 

The Itis

You know when you eat a really big meal and get sleepy afterward? Yeah, that’s the itis. It’s that incomparable sleepy, satisfied, satiated, full feeling that only gluttony can cause. The itis is usually caused by consuming large amounts of fatty or fried foods, like a plate of bacon or ribs, or a one-pound burger smothered in cheese, topped with grilled onions, five strips of bacon, and sandwiched between two donuts. It always amazes me when people don’t know about the itis, and I feel that the word should be spread far and wide—especially to foodie circles. The official term is postprandial somnolence, but itis just sounds so much better.

It’s not in the dictionary, and Microsoft Word keeps thinking it’s a misspelling and changes it to “it is,” but I won’t rest until it’s a common word in the English language.

Urban Dictionary offers a few definitions. Here are the top five:

“The drowsy sleepy feeling you get after eating a large meal. Usual meals like big Sunday dinners, Thanksgiving and Christmas meals.”

“A naturally occurring drowsy feeling that is created when a person, normally of the African-American race (although it may affect peoples of all creeds), eats a large amount of fried, salty, or fatty foods...this feeling usually causes one to sip some purple drank and take a nap.”

“Drowsy or sleepy effect linked to digesting large meals, usually high in fat or salt content. 

Note: The digestive system uses roughly 60% of your energy while you idle about daily, so after eating large meals the digestive system takes energy from other areas of the body, allowing it to work faster, and bringing about a sleepy effect.”

“The feeling which one experiences after eating a large meal. Usually characterized by sluggish, drowsy, tired, or lethargic feelings.”

“That drowsy feelin u get after a big ass meal. U usually dont want to do anything or have lost the energy to do so.”

One of my favorite itis memories took place when I was living in China for a summer. Sichuan cuisine causes itis like whoa, and after a particularly large and filling meal a Chinese friend leaned back in his seat and said he was tired.

“Is there a word in English,” he asked, “to describe feeling sleepy after you eat?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed, thrilled at the opportunity to spread some knowledge. “It’s called the itis.”

“Itis?” he asked, sinking further into his chair. “Ah, I have got…the itis.” He was clearly satisfied and I was happy to have introduced the word to China.

Now, I’m not the only one spreading the word. The Boondocks, a cartoon based off of Aaron McGruder’s comic strip that features two young black kids growing up in the suburbs, created a whole episode based off the itis back in 2006. And it was wonderful.

It had such an impact, in fact, that the only entry for “itis” in Wikipedia is just a summary of the Boondocks episode. I’ll let this scene from the show speak for itself:
 

How can you be a foodie and survive without this word in your vocabulary? So the next time you eat big meal and feel a bit sleepy afterwards, don’t fight it—just give in, be satisfied, and get some good itis-induced sleep…

Song of the Week: 80s Burger Rap

Sex, Drugs, and Lobster Rolls

I was recently treated to a fabulous lunch at Fish in Greenwich Village in New York City. I already did a review of Fish last June, so I'm not going to write another one. I do, however, want to share some of the lovely pictures of our lunch. Get ready to be jealous...

Blue Point Oysters

 Extreme Close Up

Enjoying Our Oysters

Fried Clams and Fries

 New England Clam Chowder

 Lobster Roll

Lobster Mac and Cheese

Liz Lemon

One of my favorite shows to watch when I want to unwind is 30 Rock, and it's not hard to see the connection between this show and food. Liz Lemon, played by the magnificently hilarious Tina Fey, absolutely loves food. There's about a million instances where she is seen eating or referencing food, ("I'm a star, I'm on top, Somebody bring me some haamm!!") and it just so happens that some fellow fan out there has posted a video on YouTube that brings together some of Liz Lemon's best food moments. Enjoy!

The Magic is in the Hole

Well, after admitting I was a foodie failure last month for not getting to Voodoo Doughnut the last time I was in Portland, Oregon, there was only one thing I could do—go back to Portland and hit it up. And that’s exactly what I did.

This time I was determined to make it to Voodoo Doughnut and we did it up right. After hitting up a couple of bars we went to the original Voodoo Doughnut in downtown Portland at 22 SW 3rd Avenue. The line was out the door, but figuring it was worth the wait we got in line. And waited. And waited. After ten minutes of standing around, barely moving, and probably being quite obnoxious to the fellow doughnut seekers in line we said screw it and bailed for the other Voodoo Doughnut location. Good move.

The other shop (Voodoo Doughnut Too) is located at 1501 NE Davis Street. There were only a couple of people in line—just enough time to drool over the array of doughnuts rotating in the display case. The variety was seriously a thing of beauty. But how to choose? 

First up was the Old Dirty Bastard—a raised yeast doughnut with chocolate frosting, Oreo pieces, and drizzled with peanut butter. But this wasn’t your ordinary Old Dirty Bastard. This was a BIG Old Dirty Bastard. So big, in fact, that it was placed in it’s own box. Gigantic and delicious—just the way I like it (that’s what she said). 

Of course I had to get a Bacon Maple Bar—the reason I wanted to go to Voodoo Doughnut so bad in the first place. It’s a raised yeast doughnut with maple frosting and topped with strips of bacon. Damn. It really was all I’d dreamed of and more. Unfortunately after we left the shop and I was about to devour the Bacon Maple Bar in the backseat of the car, I went to take a picture of it first and my batteries died. Did I wait to replace the batteries so I could snap a pic before eating it? No way. I couldn’t resist any longer, and it was truly exquisite. While I’d like to have a flashy, tempting photo to show you of this famous doughnut all you’re going to get is this picture of it half eaten and crammed into a box with other doughnuts. But trust me, it was perfect. The doughnut was perfect, the maple frosting was perfect, and the bacon was more than perfect. The impeccable balance of sweet and savory was definitely worth the wait. 

Other doughnuts we got included the Diablos Rex (a chocolate cake doughnut with chocolate frosting, red sprinkles, a vanilla pentagram, and chocolate chips in the middle); the Maple Blazer Blunt (a raised doughnut rolled into the shape of a blunt with maple frosting and red sprinkle ember); the Cock-N-Balls (a raised yeast doughnut filled with Bavarian cream and topped with chocolate frosting); and as you can tell from the photos, some other scrumptious delights as well. Everything was tasty but I definitely had a sugar overload afterwards. 

I don’t usually think of myself as someone with a sweet tooth, but I think part of the problem is that a lot of places just don’t do sweets right. Voodoo Doughnut, however, has got it going on. And while the serious foodie in me really wanted to hit up the original location, I’ve got to say that I was probably much more satisfied with the doughnuts than I would have been if I’d waited in line for hours. Unless you’re a complete purist I’d highly recommend just going to Voodoo Doughnut Too. If you’re in Portland then you should definitely check it out, gorge on some doughnuts, and, seriously, don’t forget the Bacon Maple Bar!

Taste Survey

The results for the recent survey are in! The question was "What is your favorite taste?" and the polls revealed...

Savory (Umami) 9

Sweet 5

Salty 5

Bitter 1

Sour 0

It looks like umami dominates! Thanks to those who participated. Check out the new survey regarding favorite Thanksgiving dishes.

Quote of the Week: Delicious Autumn

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."

--George Eliot