Bee Article - Hank Shaw

I'm a little late in writing this but I wanted to make you all aware of an article that appeared in the Sacramento Bee today. Many of you, I presume, have been reading along at Hank Shaw's blog Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. A blog that follows Hank - a mountain man gourmet of sorts - and his edible adventures. If you aren't reading it then, well, you should be. His garden is diverse (who else is growing sorrel, 8 kinds of onions, and borage?) and for the most part sustains him and his girlfriend Holly, a woman with keen journalistic talent and a toga-perfect personality and poise. Furthermore, he catches almost all of his own fish and hunts most of his own meat. The few bits he buys he picsk up from local purveryors at various Farmers Markets. He lives in a complete food cycle that most of us could only dream of living up to. Eating an animal nose to tail is one thing, going out, killing it yourself, preparing it, and cooking it up in a haute fashion with vegetables and herbs you grew yourself is something else.

However, Hank did something no other personal food blog did. He was nominated for a James Beard award - something even the great names of Food Blogging weren't able to do. Hank's keen (though at times delightfully juvenile) sense of humor, Trotsky-esque goatee and glasses, fabulous cooking style, and intelligent writing will immediately endear you to him. Even the wandering vegan, who may bear slight antipathy to us meat eaters, will find his meaty pursuits noble in the way he respectfully approaches eating animals.

I encourage you all to go and read the article and then go read his blog. =)

Milk

Some English Student: So you're reading about Harvey Milk?

Me: What? Oh, uh, no. Here.

I hand my copy of Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages over to fellow student.

SES: Why would you want to read about milk?

Me: Because it's interesting to me and it might help with my thesis.

SES: Well, why not read about Harvey Milk, he was a gay rights activist.

Me: I know. Don't really know much about him though. I just honestly don't have much interest.

SES: Aren't your kind supposed to care about this kind of stuff?

And now we reach the point where my eyes widen just enough to let him know that I'm struggling to hold back verbal abuse and viciously beating him with a wooden chair.

I've learned in the past few weeks that I'm now apparently known by people in the English department as "the Food Guy." Literally. I've actually met people for the first time in my department who have heard of me and now refer to me this way. "Oh, you're the food writer." It's also known I'm gay. What else is being circulated, I'm unaware. I prefer to keep it that way.

However, this "your kind" crap is a bit out of line (by which I mean completely). Now this may be a joke but from the tone of voice I have no idea. It could be an honest question, it could be friendly sarcasm, maybe he's trying to be offensive, or it could just be plum stupidity. Even if it is supposedly friendly I've only shared words with this person once before. I wouldn't even call him an acquaintance. To be this frank and offensive without any proper context is either dumb or he really is just in need of a good ass kicking lecture.

Me: Uh... well, I've been busy.

SES: Well, I guess as long as it's one kind of milk or another I guess the gays are happy, right?

Fellow student laughs. Normally I just wave crap like this off. For some reason, today, not so. I. Am. Enraged.

Me: Fuck you. The book is about milk because I'm interested in the history of the subject. Furthermore, I don't even have time for the rest of what you just said and just what was so 'effed up about it! Just...

My voice trails off. I gather my backpack and walk out and away as fast as possible. My entire self is balanced between exploding in anger and violence, breaking down and crying, and dying of embarrassment. I'm literally so pissed off that for once in my overly verbose and talkative life I can't actually speak anymore. My brain tells me to bolt out of the building. To hide. I need to hide. I do not want to prolong this or have a second encounter.

I exit the building and hide behind a giant piece of what I assume is air conditioning equipment or a generator the size of a mac truck. I attempt to remind myself to breathe, my lungs beginning to suck in air greedily and push it out as fast as possible without lapsing into hyperventilation. Quietly, I swear to myself in a chain of colorful language that would peel paint of a wall and cause babies to cry.

Slowly, my anger subsides. I was never able to hold onto a bad mood. A good thing I guess. However, being around me during the 10 minutes I'm pissed is inadvisable, many innocents have been tongue lashed to near death. However, the fire burns out quickly and my rational mind kicks back in. I simply cannot stay angry at a situation or person for very long.

I am now left with 23 minutes before class to figure out 1) how people can be this stupid, 2) when I can see the Milk movie because, sadly, I really don't know jack about the guy, and 3) how someone can confuse a book with a giant milk bottle on the cover for a biography about a dead politician.

The Typical Military MRE (Meal, Ready to Eat)

When the BF said he was going to cook I was intrigued. I hadn't yet seen any kitchen skills though he said he was good with a BBQ. A skill he said with such pride on his face, only to be crushed at my admittance that I had no such means of cooking. Considering where I live, a BBQ might get stolen. So when he said he brought dinner and tossed me a small camo-green weather proof pouch labeled "Menu No. 5 - Chicken Breast" I was taken a wee bit off guard. 
Brian, as you may have guessed, is in the military. He had left work a bit early and snagged one of the MRE's (Meal, Ready to Eat; oh the military loves their acronyms) for me as he figured I would be amused. 

I was. 

Apparently each of these are between 1000-3000 calories, designed to be eaten once a day (though many soldiers eat three or four and subsequently return home with a bit of pudge). This particular meal was, according to Brian, "Not one of the best, but not so bad as the instant tuna casserole." This particular one contained a chicken cutlet reminiscent of the ones you were probably served in a school cafeteria, jalapeño catsup,jalapeño cheese spread, a piece of wheat bread, a spiced pound cake, M&M's (naturally), and some minestrone. Plus, tea, vanilla cappuccino, salt and pepper, mints, utensil, and a moist towelette were throw in. 

Oh, you may be wondering how we cooked all this. Well, thanks to the process of advanced chemical engineering, the military has that figured out. To cook the chicken we inserted into a plastic pouch a packet with heating powder. The powder, when mixed with an ounce of water in the pouch, creates a chain reaction that basically boils the water on spot, poaching the chicken which is in it's own pouch (the reason for that is the chemical and the water are both slightly toxic. "Do not eat chemical heater or its water byproducts!" says a warning). While poaching you have to prop it up against a "rock or something" according to the diagram. Seriously.


Here it is cooking:
So what does the final meal taste and look like? Well, the chicken cutlet when smeared with the catsup isn't horrible. It tastes like Middle School. It's also the only food Eat Beast ever begrudgingly ate. He tasted it. Spit it out. Looked at me. And then, realizing he would get nothing else, proceeded to eat it. It was a first. 

The spiced loaf was tasty, decent even in flavor, but the slightly powdery consistency was... odd. The bread, apparently universally detested by soldiers (though better than the crackers that can come with it) was like moist cardboard. It was a crime to bread everywhere. The cheese spread, a whopping 300 calories, was bad. It was bad. Like movie theater spicy nacho cheese, but unmelted, and with an undertaste of art paste. The minestrone was surprisingly good, had it actually some broth or something it would have been downright tasty. However, it was basically cold minestrone casserole.
How our boys and girls eat this I have no idea. All I know is I am going to contact the USO to send a care package with many tasty things inside it to someone who needs it. I highly suggest doing the same if you can. Our military deserves better than this.


Other Care Package Links:
OMP Care Package Information
AnySoldier
Guide to Packages

Book Review - "A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table" by Molly Wizenberg

I can’t say I know Molly personally at all. In fact I believe our entire communication history has simply been one or two e-mails about book publishing long, long ago. However, I believe I know her now, at least in a sort of separated, distanced way similar to the way I used to know a pen-pal I had in D.C. back in fourth grade (I still can’t recall her name after all these years). Molly has become a confidant, telling me her secrets, and recounting snippets of her life. Indeed I feel we even have things in common, and though I never had a smoky eye makeup phase we both had a penchant for wearing a dog collar in college.

The reason for the familiarity is due to her new book, A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table. Molly Wizenberg, the prolific writer of Orangette, one of the gods of the food blog pantheon, puts to paper rather than the publish screen on blogger, the various events that shaped her food focused life. And just like her blog, the stories are artful, poetic, and vivid, capturing in each single sentence the emotions of the moment and their meaning. So sirenesque is her song that I found myself shirking all responsibility to put away all three hundred some pages in a two days.

My only slight complaint, if you can even call it that, is that each chapter is only about 2-5 pages followed by a recipe. It reads much like her blog. This then purports the question, “Why should I pay $25 when I can just read her blog?” As for me, I only read Orangette every so often. Once a month or so and usually just the most recent post. If you’re like me then the book is a fabulous introduction into her prosy and pithy writing style. Her words carry you in and embrace you to sit down in your most favorite chair, sip some tea and just ahh… relax. Each little vignette is what an old professor of mine would call “As long as a piece of string.” The stories convey the emotion, people, and points in the right amount of words. Still, I found myself wanting more simply because it was all composed so well.

Still, while this is a memoir, I would call it a cookbook. While many food memoirs have recipes in them, oftentimes they seemed crammed in there with little introduction or relevance to what was being discussed. Rather Molly uses her experiences and people and defines them through a particular dish. She doesn’t simply say, “We made this,” but details the recipe’s history and emotional significance. Take for example the chapter "Like Wildflowers" where she describs her interactions with a close friend named Keaton and uses it to introduce the recipe for cranberry chutney with crystallized ginger and dried cherries:

For six months we palled around Paris, teaming up for research projects and sharing packets of Peanut M&M's from the metro vending machines. She was with me when I met Guillaume, and when he disappeared, and when we came back to the States, we drew together in the campus housing lottery and wound up sharing an apartment. It was a dark, gloomy building on the edge of campus, but we did our best to make light of the brown shag carpet and the mold on the bathroom ceiling. I taught her how to sear tuna in a cast-iron skillet, how to roast Brussels sprouts and potatoes, and how to make my family's favorite cranberry chutney with crystallized ginger and dried cherries. She shared her formula for spinach salad with green apples, toasted walnuts, and blue cheese and made me giggle every night when she put in her mouth guard (she grinds her teeth when she sleeps) by saying "I love biscuits," which came out as "I love bis-CUSTH." I love that girl. (208)

Furthermore, the recipes are simple, clever, and engaging. I rarely find a cookbook that I flag so many pages of with the direct intention of making the recipes. The recipes are diverse, offering something for everyone from lemon yogurt cake to an intriguing salad (via husband Brandon) of arugula, pistachios, and chocolate; and a simple French snack of bread with butter and radishes, which when made was met with resounding approval from the roommate and me.

Molly does seem to wax on about marriage and love and whatnot (this is not a book to read right after a nasty break-up, you'll just end up bitter), and, depending on your point of view, it’s either chick lit. or cleverly written appreciation for all that life and the people in it have given to her. I find it to be the latter.

Molly’s writing has been called reminiscent of MFK Fisher. I love Fisher, I do, but to compare them is silly. Molly’s prose possesses a different air, a sort of witty frankness to it that reminds me of those people in college I envied because they were so humorous and poignant in everything they said. Sure both Fisher and Wizenberg spent time in Paris and found love in their marriages and food, but its apples and oranges. Out of all the food memoirs out there, Molly stands out with the greats like Fisher, Bourdain, and Steingarten. It’s a memoir and cookbook that will be read and re-read for years to come as part of the great and ever growing canon of food memoirs.

Making Sausage: A Post of Dirty Implications

“You two together are a scatological nightmare.” I read the words again in the succinct little e-mail from Elise. I chuckled to myself.

It may be a bit true, and by a bit I mean when you get Hank Shaw and myself together in a room I simply guarantee that the conversation will be jovial, entertaining and educational. We hold thoughtful discussions about the various theories and practices of food. We muse over preparation techniques, the use of ingredients, and who is doing/cooking/writing what. Stories are shared about everything from previous meals prepared to angry squirrels (and possibly meals of angry squirrels).

It all starts very Socratic and Watersian, but sooner or later the conversation breaks down into “fart and poop jokes” as Elise puts it. Unfortunately, or fortunately as it entertains me to no end, poor Elise is always caught in the middle of it. Our raucous conversations start well intended and thoughtful, but sooner or later scream down a supersonic waterslide into jokes and puns that you would expect to hear from boys on a grade school playground or the high school quad. Such a range I know, but we’re able to somehow bridge the liminal space of the two and cover every inappropriate topic plausible in the colorful rainbow of lewd conversation topics.

This last weekend, the whole process was only exacerbated as Elise, Hank, and me sat down to make and stuff sausages. Let me say it again: STUFF. SAUSAGES. Let your brain roll that gobstopper around a little more. Suck on the flavor of that for just a second. Stuffing. Sausages.

Just from that, the foul trenches of your mind spring to life and start bandying jokes that you would never utter around grandma. Let’s face it, the second I lift my eyebrow and smile in just that particular way and say I spent my entire day stuffing sausages, well… you’re going to start giggling to yourself.

So yes, we were joking non-stop about stuffing sausages, packing and beating meat, pounding hamburger, and forcing it into a tube. Whenever the meat was done chilling I had to go and whip it back out. At one point we all argued about the proper size of a sausage patty since, let’s face it, size matters. Of course, it only got worse when Hank started to actually push the sausage into their casings. The sounds… Oh, the sounds! Splut, spurt, blurt, sport, splut, thbbbbbblllphbt! My lord, we didn’t even have to say anything to start laughing.

The taste of these sausages was quite exquisite. They were some sweet, sweet Italian sausages that were just so spicy and savory and sweet. We moaned as we ate them, relishing every single drop of juice that squeezed out of them.

It should be no surprise that for every culture that makes sausages they have jokes that go right with it because, truly, the sight is just a little bit too that way.

So yes, it’s inevitable, allow boys into the kitchen and be prepared to participate, put up, or cover your ears.* Especially when they're stuffing sausages.

*But seriously, you should hear my mom or my friend Kaiti. They can be worse than me. They put the boys to shame.