Buffalo Chicken Sandwich with Celery-Roquefort Slaw

Since it was the Super Bowl recently, I've been jonesing for wings something fierce. There's something about fatty chicken wings coated in sticky, spicy hot sauce, chased with the cool, mineral crunch of celery and the cave-y funk of blue cheese. But do any of those flavors - so perfect together - actually require a chicken wing, as delivery system or matchmaker? I think not.

Instead, I put these flavors together in a sandwich. I tossed together some buffalo sauce by melting a few tablespoons of butter with a good 1/4 cup of Frank's Red Hot, a couple cloves of minced garlic, and about 2 tbsp of sriracha. I poached about a pound of skinless, boneless chicken thighs in the hot sauce until shreddy-tender (this makes enough for four sandwiches), then pulled them out and reduced the sauce to a sticky goo. I shredded the meat and tossed them back in the sauce to soak it up.

Meanwhile, I slivered a few stalks of celery on a mandoline and mixed a dressing of a few tablespoons of mayonnaise and sour cream, a splash of sherry vinegar and a handful crumbled Roquefort, and a little salt and pepper. Tossed together, this is a delicious, cooling slaw for any spicy meat, I'd hazard. But for these intents and purposes, blob it on a pile of the shredded chicken, rock this mess on a lightly toasted brioche bun, and you're laughin'.

Serve with your preferred fried potato product (we fancied our taters in the tot variety) and a Rogue Morimoto Soba Ale.

Pork tenderloin and warm succotash with heirloom tomatoes and bacon

Damn, I'm rusty. I've almost completely forgotten how to use my camera. I should probably just restore it to its factory settings and start over. Stupid blurry corn. Sigh.

Hey, I cooked! The week of 105 degree temperatures followed by the week of 90+ degree temperatures has been chased by the pleasant partly-cloudy and low 80s that I can really get with. My garden is exploding with corn the size of my forearm and state fair tomatoes, my scarlet runner beans are hanging heavy on their vines and the peppers are nearly ready. I feel reinvigorated (being thoroughly sick of Vietnamese takeout gave me a much-needed kick in the ass, too).

A perfectly-cooked pork tenderloin surprised me after not having cooked meat in what feels like forever. I brined it quickly in Kumquat Dry Soda with a tablespoon of salt and a pinch sugar. I seared it on all sides and finished it in the oven, pulled it at medium (to the touch test), rested for five minutes and was delighted to find it rosy and juicy when sliced into thick medallions.

"Mmm...Heather cooking," Scott approved as he dove into the succulent pork bedded down on a bowl of summer warmth: corn cut from the cob and sauteed with red cipolline onions, bacon and sliced scarlet runners (pods and all). When the beans were al dente*, I added some lemon zest and a fat knob of butter, some chopped thyme and summer savory, and a couple of handfuls of chopped black brandywines (the garden's first!) and sliced cherry tomatoes. They brought a nice twang of acid to the fatty, creamy succotash.

Enjoy with a crunchy Reed's ginger beer. Here's to hoping that a new-found nesting instinct includes getting my sealegs in the kitchen again.

*These scarlet runners were probably a week older than what would be ideal for eating with the pods - the waxy cuticle needed to be removed from the pod and the skins on the beans could've benefited from a longer cooking time. I'll look forward to letting the rest of them completely ripen and shell them for cassoulet or feijoada. Never eat scarlet runners raw - they are high in phytohemagglutinins and can cause stomach problems like nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

Pulled chicken sandwich with apple slaw and sweet corn

Sometimes good barbecue doesn't reinvent the wheel. Sometimes it doesn't even require you to go outside. I shredded some leftover roasted chicken (it had been marinated in a garlicky gochujang barbecue sauce) and warmed it in some basic hickory barbecue sauce with a little apple juice and a splash of sweet balsamic vinegar and served it on a soft wheat bun with a slice of good ol' Tillamook cheddar and some sautéed onions. So simple and unassuming.

Okay, the slaw isn't literally made of apples, it just contains some apples. This is the way my mom always made it (she added raisins, too), and it's the way I like a basic cabbage slaw. A nice, creamy mayo-vinegar-sugar dressing, shredded cabbage and chopped apples. Yum.

Corn is totally not in season yet, not here anyway. But I can't get enough of the fresh ears showing up in the store. And lord knows I love a good compound butter, but sometimes a girl only needs a little butter, crunchy salt and pepper on her corn.


Serve with an ice-cold strawberry lemonade (mix fresh strawberry puree with Newman's Own virgin lemonade).

Frito Pie

My southern friends know this little beaut from their moms, aunts and grandmas, from Baptist church lady potlucks, from friends' house dinners. This, my Yankee friends, is Frito pie.

It is exactly as complicated as it sounds - chili on Fritos. Other accoutrements are optional. I made my own chili by browning some ground turkey with onions and garlic, added copious cumin, chili powder and paprika, then tossed in a can of chili beans (the kind that come in a tomato-based sauce). Layer a casserole (preferably the one your grandma purchased in the 70s with Green Stamps, then bequeathed to you upon her passing) with Fritos, then pour the chili over, add a little grated cheese, more Fritos, more cheese. Into a hot oven until the cheese melts. Total phone-in.

Since I wanted extra crunch (two kinds of crunch always being better than one), I spooned my Frito pie over some iceberg lettuce and topped it with sour cream and a julienne of radishes and those spicy carrots from the jar of jalapeños en escabeche. This way you've got the whole city mouse/country mouse thing, all in one bowl.

Mushroom-Cheddar Patty Melt

I know, I know. I take off for a week, and this is all I got to show for it (especially since the last post was a total cop-out, even though I spent hours constructing that chocolatey cave from 2lbs of chocolate truffles)? Don't worry, things will get exciting again real soon, I promise. I'll be in the field off and on every week for a few weeks, and I'm going to try earnestly to find little roadside gems for you during my travels. Until then, I make my own diner food.

Pardon my photos, I'm trying to learn to properly use this camera instead of just clicking it over to the macro setting and letting it auto-focus. Adjusting the f-stop is an embuggerance, but will be worth it once I get it right! It's a bumpy road to perfect mastery, but I'm trying to enjoy the ride.

Behold, the illustrious patty melt. A burger, for all intents and purposes, though open-faced. This one came on a thick slab of French batard (the King of Breads) with chopped green tomato pickle relish, mayo, hot mustard, a 1/3 lb patty of ground chuck and pork, grilled mushrooms and onions, and gooey, melted cheddar (hence, patty "melt").

If you're feeling conflicted about the fat and cholesterol (ha!), serve with lightly sautéed snap peas and a curry pickled okra spear. An ice-cold ginger beer wouldn't hurt, either.

Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: Celebrating Black History Month - African Contributions to American Cuisine

February is Black History Month. Last year, to celebrate, I introduced myself to blogger Courtney Nzeribe from Coco Cooks and interviewed her about her cultural identity, her cooking style and her favorite childhood foods. This year, I chatted a bit with my buddy Donald Orphanidys from Mr. Orph's Kitchen on how being black has influenced his culinary identity (not much), where he learned to love food (his Grandma's house), and how food in Philly differs from food in the South (wildly). His experience growing up on "helpers" (of the hamburger and tuna varieties) and gub'ment cheese are familiar to me, as are the Southern inflections to his cooking that stem from his time spent stationed (and later living) in Atlanta, Georgia.

Like me, Don finds inspiration in many places, and this year, to reflect on the contributions black people have made to American culture, I was inspired to create a celebratory meal, with a soundtrack. And I'm so pleased that our friends at Foodbuzz wanted to support my celebration by accepting my proposal for their February 24, 24, 24 event.


As they have with music, black people have informed the American culinary vernacular by bringing elements and ingredients from their homeland in Africa to the genesis of their tumultuous history in North America. Many ingredients heavily associated with the South - black-eyed peas, watermelon, greens, sweet potatoes, okra and peanuts - were brought directly to the US by slaves. As a German-American, my perspective on African-American culture and cuisine is based almost solely on the experiences of other people, and over the past few months I’ve begun to explore the African roots of some of my favorite foods. I wanted to share my newly-gained insights with some old friends. The menu I created is an attempt at honoring these contributions:

Green Tomato and Watermelon Pickles
Black-eyed Pea and Corn Fritters with Sweet Pepper Chutney
Duck and Shrimp Gumbo “Ya-Ya” with Okra
“Smothered” Pork Chops with Caramelized Onions and Tomato Gravy
Swiss Chard with Braised Pork Hock
Spicy Sweet Potato Fries
Cornbread
Hominy Grits Pudding with Bananas Foster and Peanut Praline

The pickles were fast fridge pickles, in a sharp brine of white and sherry vinegars, shallot, salt and sugar. The watermelon rinds took sweet spices like star anise and fennel seed, while the tomatoes got a little hot chili and coriander. Both were bright and acidic, cutting through the rich, fatty meal and cleansing the palate. Mike (writer and occasional artist of film review blog and occasional webcomic Culture Pulp) kept grazing on them after the meal, plucking juicy spears from the chilly jars, happily crunching and regaling us with stories of Ravioli Day.


The fritters, based on the west African succotash adalu, were simple and delicious: black-eyed peas (also called cowpeas), corn, a couple eggs, S&P and a pinch of sugar, and a dusting of flour to stick the batter together. Fried in a little oil until browned, they were perfect with the sweet pepper chutney (minced yellow and red bell peppers and a cayenne chili slow-sautéed with onions and a pinch of my seven spice, a splash of balsamic vinegar and a little salt and sugar). The Swiss chard was braised in a splash of red onion vinegar (homemade from red onion pickle) with a pork hock, cooked until the greens were tender.

The gumbo is worth a post on its own. Being roux-based, mine is Cajun. I made a roux from duck fat and flour, cooked for two hours until rich caramel-brown and fragrant. I scored the skins on four duck legs and pan-fried skin-side down until the fat was rendered out, then flipped them and roasted them in the oven until tender. Meanwhile, I removed the heads and shells from two pounds of spot prawns and got some stock started. When the duck legs were done, I pulled out the bones, cracked them up and tossed them into the pot of vermilion stock. The next day, I started the gumbo by sautéing the Holy Trinity until glossy, then adding bay leaves, the roux and the stock (stirring to dissolve the roux), a can of chopped tomatoes, lots of chopped garlic and thyme, cayenne and S&P. I tossed in the shredded duck meat and let the whole thing cook low and slow for a couple hours until the duck was nowt but tender, filamentous hunks. When we were all ready to eat, I added the prawns and okra to cook for five minutes. Technically, gumbo yaya doesn't have okra, but I like okra and wanted to enrich the dish with an egg. I poached the eggs in the hot gumbo broth until the whites were set. David (the mastermind behind BadAzz MoFo and writer/director of such cinematic classics as Black Santa's Revenge) was reluctant to try the gumbo - being unfamiliar with some Southern ingredients, he mistook the okra for jalapeños and was getting heartburn just looking at it. It didn't take much convincing to get him to taste it once the confusion had been cleared.

The pork chops (from our quarter hog) were slow-braised in chicken stock amended with crushed tomatoes, caramelized onions and ginger, with a few shots of Maggi sauce and a few spoonfuls of my homemade Berbere spice mix. They braised for about three hours until the meat was falling from the bone.

Awhile back I made the dish kelewele, a spicy fried plantain from Ghana. This time I adapted it to a sweet potato fry, and it definitely translated well. Chopped ginger and Berbere spice, salt and pepper and a massage in some oil, then into the oven until crisped on the edges. This afforded me time to bake some cornbread (baked in cast iron, greased in bacon fat). Tanya (my beautiful, pregnant Scandinavian princess from Madison, WI and the joyful wellness diva behind Recess and frequent diner at Casa de Voodoo and Sauce) had a southern grandpa and was eager to expose her spawn to some of his/her culinary roots. I was happy to oblige.

The dessert was a new creation, fudged on the fly. My friend Eric (a doughy Jewish kid from Maryland) told me about grits pudding he'd had once, and I wanted to figure out what that should taste like, and how to make it. I started by making basic grits, whisking stone-ground cornmeal into simmering cream (to which I'd added sugar and homemade bourbon vanilla). When it had set up moderately well, I added two whisked eggs (tempered to avoid an omelet) and spooned it into a buttered souffle dish. I baked this for awhile, covered, at 350, until the edges were set up and slightly browned. I spooned it into little serving dishes and topped it with sliced bananas (browned in a hot pan with butter and brown sugar, flambeed with bourbon), vanilla whipped cream and some crushed peanut praline. I guess it worked pretty well, but next time I'll add more eggs to and bake it in a shallower pan to get more of a spoonbread consistency.


I'm having a hard time concluding this post. I've been away awhile on a conference and a broken toe, and two days of cooking is exhausting. So I hope you enjoy this special food-based mixtape I made for you in lieu of a proper closer. It consists of R&B and jazz greats of the 1940s and 50s, and like with food, proves that pretty much everything good about America is because of black people.

Bacon cheeseburgers on green onion brioche

Last night we went to see the Department of Eagles play at the Doug Fir. I love that band so much, and it was a really great show (though they pretty much stuck to In Ear Park and mocked my cries for Forty Dollar Rug). Before the show, I didn't really know what to make for dinner, but had a pound of ground beef (the last of the grass-fed beeve we bought last summer) and two days-old green onion sweet buns from the Vietnamese bakery. I kept forgetting to take them to work for breakfast, and boy howdy! Am I ever glad about it.


Those Vietnamese really know how to bake. They don't, however, seem to be too fond of printing the name of their food on labels or the internet, because I have no idea what they call these buns. They're slightly sweet and tender like brioche (or Hawaiian sweet bread), and come in a variety of flavors like sweet bean, ham and cheese, hot dog and corn (a personal favorite), or green onion. I usually go for the green onion, because I'm a slave to green onion on sweet pastry (which reminds me, I'm overdue for some dim sum).

I sliced the bánh-something (I'm pretty sure these are actually Chinese in origin, but who knows) in half cross-wise and assembled them: first, a little mayo and mustard; then the mammoth gluttony burgers (a whopping half pound each); a slice of thick, smoky bacon; sauteed mushrooms and onions; a slab of Madrigal cheese and barbecue sauce. If they weren't $2 each, I'da put some avocado on there too. I know the purists are giving me that look. Don't look at me like that, this is my way of a burger. Besides, if you're using fancy scallion buns you've already ruined everything. Fucking live a little.

Serve with blue box and not a shred of irony.

Beef sirloin meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy

There's just no way to make meatloaf look pretty, is there? Too bad.

In an attempt to make room for all the pig that I just bought, I had to pull a couple things from the freezer, among them a 3-lb sirloin tip roast from the half beeve that I split with Greta and Matt last spring. Matt is always good for going in on meat en carcasse - it's good to have coworkers and friends who give a shit about where their food comes from.

Normally, I'd never do such a thing as grind a lean cut of meat like sirloin tip roast, but I also didn't want to wait another day to roast it on the weekend, nor did I want to slice steaks off it. And I have meat coming out of my ass right now anyway, so why not a meatloaf? It's cold out, and gravy is the cure.


I ground the roast (and some ends of bacon for fat) on the coarsest grind, added an egg, a slice of stale wheat bread and a small onion (these went in the grinder, too), the last blob of gochujang and some squirts of Worcestershire sauce, some fresh thyme and parsley, some paprika and lot of salt and pepper. Mix gently and just enough - overworking makes a tough meatloaf. Form into a babyloaf shape and bake on a sheet in a 375-degree oven for about 45-60 minutes.

I never use a loaf pan to make meatloaf anymore because that juice will sit in there and boil the meat, which is not tasty. Also, when you try to cut a slice, it falls apart like loosemeats. The baking sheet technique is just way better, trust me on this.

I mashed some boiled white and russet potatoes with cream and butter, then folded in some grated cheddar because I am evidently trying to get a big, fat ass. I honestly don't know why I added cheese, I was like on autopilot or someshit.

Serve with an ice cold Coke and The Office.

Idaho trout with macque choux and Meyer lemon beurre blanc

Since I split a half a pig with Matt, I had to pull a lot of shit out of the freezer to make room. Miraculously, my already-packed freezer could fit a quarter hog. Must be my mad Tetris skills.

I always buy seafood several pieces at a time, when the hankering hits hard, but then I cook one piece (or don't) and the rest has to go to the freezer. This time, one had to come out. This little brown paper package contained two trout fillets.

Some astute readers will notice my flagrant substitution of fingerling potatoes for bell peppers, making this a mountebank macque choux, but don't hate. I didn't think to call this macque choux until I got to writing it up. Besides, macque choux literally translates as "brakes cabbages", making potatoes the least of this dish's problems. I don't know (I've been saying that a lot lately, haven't I). I just kind of knew how this was supposed to taste and named it later.

I sliced these giant banana fingerling potatoes and gave them a hot water bath to parcook, then drained and pan-fried them with minced shallot in olive and rendered bacon (the first taste of the pig, and it's good). When they started to brown up on the edges, I tossed in a cup of frozen white corn and halved grape tomatoes. Then a squonch of chopped thyme and Meyer lemon zest, crunches of flaky sea salt and black pepper. Let it get brown and crusty, and then pull everything out of that pan, turn off the heat and deglaze with half the lemon's juice and a splash of white wine. Whisk in a couple knobs of butter until creamy-dreamy. That's your sauce, baby.

Now just rinse and pat dry the trout fillets, and salt and pepper the flesh side. Get the pan pretty hot (not quite rippin', but hot), and lay the fillets in skin-side down. Now the most important step: walk away from the pan for a few minutes and don't fuck with it. It'll take all of your strength to not poke it or try to move it, but you gotta just leave that shit be.

Okay now you can flip it. Turn off the pan (the pan is still hot enough to cook the other side of the fish, so don't freak out). Stir a sexy little wad of crème fraîche into the macque choux, then stir in the beurre blanc and a few fatty pinches of chopped parsley. Top the wee piles of sweet-crunchy/dense-crusty/tangy-juicy with a crispy trout fillet.

You know you're dying to, so go ahead and throw some crunchy pinches of sea salt at it.

Serve with a bright chard and smug self-satisfaction.

Elk sirloin chili with Beans

Any more, whenever I cook or even eat beans, I think of my buddy Ken Albala over at Ken Albala's Food Rant. He doesn't get as much traffic as all the Foodbuzz and Foodie Blogroll folks, which is a fucking shame, because he's actually a real writer. Of actual books.

One of such books is Beans: A History.

You ever find yourself reading some Pollan and thinking to yourself, "sure, this is entertaining, but I really wish he didn't dumb everything down for the lay audience"? Yeah, me too.

If Michael Pollan is coffee, Ken Albala is espresso. Ken is an award-winning food historian and author of such effervescent reading as Eating Right in the Renaissance; Food in Early Modern Europe; and Cooking in Europe 1250-1650. More recently though, he dabbles in what he deems to be "pop" food writing, but is, in my opinion, a meticulous examination of individual foodstuffs.

Beans is one such exploration, in which Ken chronicles the cultural and culinary significance of one of our most basic forms of sustenance, the humble legume. From the crippling classism faced by Medieval bean-eaters, to the role of toxic vetch seeds in combating famine in the 12th-century, to the bacterium that distinguishes natto from hamanatto, Beans delves into depths rivaling a thesis for its attention to detail, and for leaving no stone unturned. Beans is, in a word, thorough.

It's also pretty fucking entertaining, although I'll admit that the thing I like most about this book is its unflinching nerdiness. This is an entire book about the seeds of a single plant family. It's not just for scholars and botanists, though - Ken's enthusiasm is contagious.

Some of you are still doing your holiday shopping, and I scold you for your procrastination. However, you can satisfy the academic foodie on your list (or yourself) by picking up a copy of Beans or Ken's latest tome, Pancake: A Global History.

**********************************

Oh, hey, and speaking of beans, I made it to the store yesterday. It really wasn't that terrible - without that nasty sumbitch Old Man East Wind, it was actually kind of pleasant, bordering on magical.

Since I knew I had to carry everything I purchased, I made very edited choices. Milk, eggs and flour are already heavy, so everything else really had to count. A couple containers of frozen juice concentrate to drink with our vodka. A bag of pink beans.

We had everything else at home, so this wouldn't be too difficult. Catherine sent me a huge elk sirloin roast a few weeks ago (have I mentioned that I love that woman?), from which we'd eaten a couple of steaks and then refroze. I'd normally never refreeze a meat, but I was going out of town and figured it'd be better to risk freezer burn than for the whole thing to rot in my absence. Rubbed and double-bagged with the air smooshed out, it was absolutely fine rethawed, without a single indication of freezer burn.


I finely diced the elk and browned it with an onion and a few spoonfuls of homemade ancho chile powder, half spoonfuls of pimentón and garlic powder, and a good few pinches of homemade Berbere spice. I dumped in a can of tomatoes and the leftover tomato-roasted pepper soup from last week. Then I added a dribble of soy, a spoonful of gochujang and a few good pinches of MSG. Oh, don't look at me like that - it is pure, crystalline umami. It makes everything taste really good and I'm not sensitive to it.

I let everything simmer and stew while the (presoaked) pink beans cooked in unsalted water. Never cook beans with the tomatoes or in salted water, or they'll go tough. When the beans were tender, I drained them and added them to the pot, then added more salt and pepper to taste. While the beans were soaking up some of the good chili flave, I whipped up some cornbread.

Top with cheese, sour cream and minced shallot for best effect. I'm heading to the kitchen for some leftovers right now. Not too shabby, this "working from home" business.

Chicken and Waffles

Chicken and waffles. The first in a series I call Monochromatic, Yet Delicious. Some of my readers (particularly the ones who hail from exotic locales) have blank looks on their faces. It's a real thing, I assure you, to eat fried chicken on waffles. And it's really fucking good.

Chicken and waffles is an American dish that was invented by black people in the 1930s to serve the needs of Harlem's hungry jazz cats after a show. They often played so late into the wee hours that by the time they were done, it was too late for dinner and too early for breakfast. Anyway, that's the most widely-accepted creation myth. I think it might have a little more to do with the amount of grass those dudes were smoking, but that's just my theory.

Chicken and waffles are a Thing. They are a thing for which I hanker, and only one joint in town (that I know of) sells them, and then only on Sundays at brunch. Even those waffle carts that are popping up all over NoPo are missing the boat on the chicken. As usual, I had to take matters in to my own hands.

Granted, my chicken is merely oven-fried (I hate frying, especially in a freshly-cleaned kitchen) with a corn flake crust, but it comes close. I like it spicy and crunchy, on a fluffy waffle (a basic baking powder-leavened recipe instead of Belgian for simplicity - I didn't feel like waiting for a yeasted batter to do its thing). Smeared with maple sugar spread and butter, a little syrup for good measure, and you're havin' kittens, baby.

Enjoy with a screwdriver and Dizzy Gillespie.

Chicken Gnocchi Soup

...or, Snow Day

We don't get much snow here in Portland. We're nestled so snugly between the Coast Range to the west and the Cascades to the east, and all that noise gets buffered out in our quaint little Willamette Valley. But once or twice a year, we get the veritable shit...er, snowstorm of Weather. And the city shuts the hell down.

Nobody goes to work or school on snow days. We all turn on the TV to check for road closures anyway, just to see some asshole on the news careening downhill, perpendicular to the road, taking out innocent parked cars in his wake (do yourself a favor and cue up Yakety Sax in another tab so you can watch the vid with a soundtrack). People always try to drive in this shit. People from sunnier climes (cough*Californians*cough) who think that driving up to Ski Bowl a few times a year qualifies as "driving in snow" experience. It's comedy gold, really, for everyone except the owners of those parked cars getting pwned on the side of the road. Here's to good insurance.

During inclement weather, I'm not so keen on leaving the house. I've been a bit slumpy anyway lately, and this doesn't really increase my motivation to leave my couch, let alone step foot outdoors. I don't feel like doing anything that doesn't involve a blanket and sweat pants, and am eating mostly total garbage like totchos (yes, that is nachos made with tater tots) and Blue Box with ketchup. I'm not pregnant, I think it's just the weather and the darkness. I spent 8 hours playing Chibi Robo yesterday, for fuck's sake. Ain't no cure for the wintertime blues.

Except maybe some hearty chicken soup with crunchy green beans, peas and carrots, chunks of creamy fingerling potatoes, cremini mushrooms and succulent chicken, and some tender gnocchi. The dumpling-like gnocchi sort of melt into the soup after awhile, making it nice and creamy-chowdery, and the broth is just shy of melted chicken demi glace, so rich and velvety, with plenty of fresh thyme and black pepper.

Serve with oven-warm rolls and Tivo'd episodes of How Clean is Your House.

Sticky orange-soy pork spareribs with turnip puree and asparagus

The other day I was wandering around New Seasons, as is my wont, and they had an unbelievable deal on pork spareribs. Like $2.38 a pound or sommat. Sure, you're mostly paying for bone, but that's still so cheap that you can get a half a rack for a few bucks and feed two people easily.

Their root veg was particularly enormous, too, and I wound up buying a turnip and a golden beet, each easily the size of my head. The crispy autumn sunshine and oak duff worked their magic on me, and I fell into the trance of a slow braise. Orange zest and juice, sugar, soy sauce, garlic and shallots warmed in a wide casserole and I slipped the ribs under the cozy liquid, tucked it snug in its bed with tinfoil, and kissed it goodnight in a three-hour warm oven.

When the meat was dripping off the bones, I reduced the liquid until sticky-sweet and earthy soy. I boiled and mashed a whole megatuber, Super Mario-esque turnip with a lot of buttermilk and cultured butter, added a pinch of salt and chopped parsley, and then ran the immersion blender through it for good measure.

Pencil-thin asparagus (not in season, but Scott tends to pick it up for his requisite steak-and-mashed-potato-while-Heather-is away Man Dinner, and we had some left from last week when he made just such a purchase) took a hot pan with olive oil, salt and lemon zest.

Most of the meat fell off when I tried to cut the ribs apart, but I was able to salvage a few for the photo. I can't stop thinking about everything else I want to braise.

A Tale of Two Cities

...and their respective Meatloaf Sammiches. Warning: iPhone photos ahead! Apologies for the powdered milk patina.

So, I've been out of town a lot for work. It's a controversial project that I can't discuss, but I do a lot of driving and hiking. In the rain. Through brush so thick it bruises me. I love the sugar pine and manzanita on the east side, and the salal and evergreen huckleberry on the west side, but lord if that shit ain't make a tough stroll.

I live on a chintzy per diem on this project and usually eat a lot of trail mix and peanut butter to keep the change, but whenever I'm in Klamath Falls I eat at Mollie's at least once. It's a truck stop across the parking lot from the Super 8, and when I was out here for weeks on end a couple years ago, I used to spend my lonely evenings at the adjoining bar for cocktails, karaoke and dancing with strangers.

Mollie's is a place where you get The Special. You get the "Supper", as in "Broasted Chicken Supper", or "Salisbury Steak Supper". The supper includes a potato "your way" (baked, mashed or French-fried), soup or salad (you always get the salad, with thousand island, because you just do), and a vegetable (usually corn or the peas/carrots centimeter-cubed, but sometimes an over-steamed zuke or broccoli). Or, like me, you buck tradition and get the meatloaf sandwich served open-face and topped with rich brown gravy that may not come from a can.

Note the perfect lake of gravy nestled in the back-of-the-scoop crater.

This sandwich was perfect in every way, except that you couldn't pick it up with your hands and shove it into your trembling face fast enough. The baked-on ketchup skin lets you know that this is real leftover meatloaf, not a shoddy patty with gravy. The minced celery and onion in the meat was a homey touch.

Then there's Kozy Kitchen, which is apparently a chain along the southern Oregon coast. There was one next to my hotel in Coos Bay, but we ate at the one in Myrtle Point (sardonically called "Turtle Point" by coworker Chris). They, too, had a meatloaf sammich-type offering, this time the "BBQ Meatloaf Cheddar Melt". I was skeptical, yet intrigued.

You can hardly stop staring at those chili fries, can't you. I'm right there with you - you can tell how enamored of them I was by the fact that they are front-and-center in the photo and the sandwich is shrinking behind their glory. In fact, when I saw them on the menu I almost just ordered those; instead, I asked for my requisite side-of-fries to be topped with chili and cheese. The waitress forgot the onions, but I forgave her.

This meatloaf sammich wasn't quite what I was craving. It was great, don't get me wrong, but it was trying too hard to be a patty melt or a sloppy joe. The sauce cloyed, the loaf was too crumbly and the fries easily stole the show. I did, however, enjoy the toasted bread that had about a stick of butter on each slice.

I coveted Chris' order of the Country-Fried (or was it Chicken-Fried?) Steak Scramble. I think the difference between chicken-fried and country-fried is in the type of gravy, but this is an unscientific assumption.

Mollie's handily won the meatloaf sammich contest, but Kozy Kitchen gets props for thinking outside the box, and for having a sassy old broad cookie instead of a grumbly felon on the line. Kozy Kitchen also had the Obama burger as the special, which featured bacon, horseradish, fried onions and blue cheese crumbles. I couldn't tell if this was supposed to be some kind of joke, so I avoided asking.

Mollie's Truck Stop
3817 US 97 N
Klamath Falls , OR

Kozy Kitchen
531 8th Street
Myrtle Point, OR

Shepherd's pie

Okay, to be honest, Friday was pretty fucking glorious. A seriously perfect autumn day: sunny, a balmy 65 degrees, just gorgeous. But when I got to the store after work I still ended up leaning toward comfort food, and picked up a half pound of ground lamb (and some beef, just for shits and gigs). Shepherd's pie was calling.

This also afforded me the opportunity to use up the celeriac languishing in the "root cellar" (bottom drawer of the fridge, where I keep my carrots and apples and such). I caught it in the nick of time: slightly stronger-than-desired celery flavor, but not yet totally lignified.


Shepherd's pie is dead simple to prepare. It's just a meaty, veggie mélange with gravy and a mashed root veg topping. The creativity comes when you decide which veg to use, and how you'll go about the gravy. My veg consisted of the classic (read:predictable) savory pie combo: peas, cremini mushrooms, Sweet Nantes carrots, onion, and sliced scarlet runners. I sautéed these in the fat from the lamb and beef mince until crisp-tender. The gravy was comprised of two tomatoes (simmered hot until melted into sauce) 2 tbsp veal demiglace and a half a pint of Guiness, thickened with a flour and chicken fat roux. I added some chopped rosemary and thyme for good measure, added the meat and veg mix to it, and into an oval soufflé.

I creamed together a large Yukon gold potato and a celeriac tuber (both peeled, cubed and boiled 'til tender) with a knob of good butter and some half and half. I opted to go cheese-free with the topping (my mother always topped the potatoes with grated cheese, though her Shepherd's pie was always just ground beef in tomato sauce without veg, likely a vestige from her days in the Marine Corps), but whipped in an egg so the topping would brown up better. In retrospect, added grated cheese and scallions to the potato-celeriac mix would've been a sexy take on traditional Irish champ that could've elevated it to a new zenith. Next time.

Served simply with some steamed and butter-browned Brussels sprouts and a glass of earthy Ponsalet Monastrell Jove, and you're getting hugs on your insides.