When three worlds collide, Kalorienbomben explode

Tokyo fast food, Italian slow food, and French haute cuisine all walked into a bar... No, actually they all collided together in this completely improbable recipe by Momofuku's David Chang, published here in the first edition of his culinary lifestyle quarterly Lucky Peach, devoted entirely to the idolatrous pursuit of Japanese ramen. The magazine has a studied cool hipness, with many DIY illustrations and even a short story thrown in there (which I couldn't bring myself to read, frankly). It's obvious that the whole thing is a bid for a new television show (that's mentioned a couple of times)--he won't stop at an iPad app. I call this a "lifestyle" magazine because it's definitely hawking a whole way of being toward the world--be like these cool guys! The vibe is very "Hey guys! Look what the cool guys worship and worship accordingly." Worship, of course, equals CONSUME! The ability to get others to consume things is the kind of salesmanship that network producers are looking for in television host, and David, with the help of his pals Anthony Bourdain and Wylie Dufresne (along with some others), is doing his damnedest to show he should be the new IT-BOY TV chef. And I use the term "guys" here not to generally denote people in the usual sexually biased way that our language institutionalizes, but very specifically. This is a quarterly for men who dominate kitchen and palette.

The rag is at its best when it sticks to the facts about ramen: the history, regional differences, and recipes for making the dashi and tare as well as the alkaline ramen noodles. There's also an interesting article by Todd Kliman about the pursuit of authenticity in food, as well as a debunking of "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome"--the sickness some report from eating food laced with MSG. But it's at its macho egocentric worst in, for example, the "conversation" between David, Anthony, and Wylie on "Mediocrity." At one point Anthony says something about Italian food that is "ingredient driven" and Wylie says glibly (or drunkenly), that's just cooking--presumably he means that all cookery needs ingredients to cook. Whoa, dude, so you're saying "ingredient driven" is just a tautology? Thanks for the insight. And the less than mediocre logic.

Because it's not a tautology, and this picture (or really, recipe)  proves it. The recipe, like most (but not all) of the recipes in the edition, are technique-driven, not ingredient-driven. New techniques for manipulating ingredients (whatever they may be) in order to produce a desired taste, flavor, texture, or product. The ingredients are not ends in themselves. Technique uses them as means to producing taste and a chef's ego. This is food for the Gestell--technology, not food. And it's obviously not about the integrity of the raw ingredients--instant ramen noodles serve as a substitute for the raw flour in traditional pate a choux, which is the base for gnocchi parisienne. It's certainly not about healthful nourishment. This is what gives this cookery its decidedly manly-man flavor.

I know this kind of "food" is very de rigeur among the culinary elite, but as a simple home chef who is also very concerned about the health of others, including the non-human and non-sentient others we share this planet with, I find it beyond narcissistic. It's narcissistic on a species-level. 

So why did I make it at all? First, I had a bunch of egg yolks left over from the Pistachio Meringue I had made. I was desperate for something to do with them besides make more dessert. Looking at this recipe, it seemed simple and kind of cute. Instant ramen! Cool! But I had been away from ramen too long. I had forgotten how utterly processed it is. The packets of seasoning, as Ruth Reichl says in the issue, should just be instantly thrown away. You might want to disinfect your trashcan too, while you're at it. So I made these little gnocchi and they tasted like tiny pancakes. Something about the thought of them--not so much the taste--did not sit well.  I had to resist the urge to instantly repress the whole nastiness of the thing by throwing it away. Since I have a zero-waste policy in the kitchen (or at least that's what I aspire too), the hubble and I were stuck with them. For two nights. So I tried to make the best of it. I went ahead with the planned accompaniment, for which I had procured a very nice brandywine heirloom tomato. Gnocchi meant Italian in my mind, so that's what I had been thinking before I made them. Of course now I was intensely skeptical about the pairing of tomatoes, olives and pancakes. Nonetheless, avanti! Ultimately it was pretty good--at least the pancake flavor was minimized and we finished off the first batch.

Last night I used up the gnocchi as an accompaniment to this spatchcocked braise-roasted chicken. This is a chicken with integrity! We bought it at the farmers market (paid a shocking $19 for it--about 4 lbs) from the farmers themselves, who assured us it had had a kick-ass life on pure open pasture until the day of its sacrifice. I braised it with carrots, Easter-egg radishes from our CSA box (yes, still finishing up the radishes), and a few fingerling potatoes. A little wine, chicken stock, onion and garlic and the jus was perfect, and it went well with the little pancakes. But the chicken was not perfect, unfortunately. The pasture-raised birds have less fat and are stringier than the saline and water pumped industrial birds. It almost tasted a bit overcooked--I might have overcooked it a bit--but really it was just so much leaner than most chicken you buy.

I am very disappointed that my taste-buds have been colonized by the food-industrial complex. I am horrified by the thought that my taste tends toward cruelty. I will now make this my mission to figure out how this kind of bird should be treated in order to maximize flavor and succulence. Must go on a mission...

Baking Extravaganza!

Yesterday I did something quite unusual for me: I spent the day baking. I'm trying to broaden my culinary skills, and this represents a foray into hitherto forbidden territory. Why forbidden? Fats terrify me on one level, I'll admit. To be a good baker, you must be fearless in the face of fats and sugars and to skimp is suicide. But I had just received a half flat of freshly picked organic strawberries from Helsing Junction Farms, my CSA, and was acting on their directive to "eat or process immediately." I made two desserts: Pistachio Meringue Stack with Rose Cream and Strawberries and Strawberry Margarita Frozen Pie.  I also made a Radish Goat Cheese Galette.

The Pistachio Meringue Stack was good, but honestly, it contained too much cream for my taste. The rose water also tasted a bit soapy to me--maybe I bought some that was less than quality, I don't know. The best thing about the recipe was the meringue, which I would make again. If I were to do this dessert over, I would rethink it in terms of small, silver-dollar sized meringues, topped with just a smear of cream (I don't think the marscapone added that much) and fresh, macerated strawberries. Instead of rose water I would add vanilla, as the recipe also suggests. And to really kick it up a notch and make the whole thing truly herbaluscious: mint! Or even shiso would be great with the strawberries. The strawberry margarita pie has yet to be tried, but just tasting it before putting it in the freezer I could tell that, again, there was too much cream. Too much cream really dilutes flavor in my opinion. And it makes me feel vaguely ill afterward. I'll weigh in on this after we've tried it, but I can already imagine this recipe cutting the amount of folded cream into the pie mixture by 2/3 (down to 1/2 a cup) and perhaps amping up the strawberry margarita mix by 1/2. I really liked the margarita flavor of the pie mix before I added the cream.

As for the Radish Goat Cheese Galette, this was absolutely AWESOME! What a surprise, especially for two people (me and the hubble) who don't really like radishes. The crust, a Kalorienbombe, was the highlight. But I do love sour cream, it must be said. Somehow the slightly acidic kick in its sourness seems to amp flavor instead of mask it, like straight cream can do, and this sourness reverberates with the tang of the goat cheese. I mixed the butter and flour together lightly in the food processor, then dumped the mix into a bowl and added the sour cream a little at a time with a fork, as the recipe suggests. There were fairly largish small chunks of butter in the mix, and I ended up adding 4 T of ice water to get the whole thing to stick together. Once it did, it was rather moist. I let the dough sit in the fridge for a couple of hours, then rolled it out. I was able to make a mini galette with the scraps I got from cutting a nice circle from the dough before topping and shaping. For the topping, I cut the radishes really thinly with the mandoline and tossed them with balsamic vinegar and a mint-marjoram-walnut pesto I made with the fading mint from my garden. YUM. (Sidenote: apparently marjoram is in the mint family and the ancient Greeks used it to appease the gods. It is a symbol of happiness--the kind the belly feels when receiving it.) Hubble and I don't really like radishes, but they came in the CSA box so I wanted to use them. We might be converts now. What also amped up (this is apparently the word du jour today) all these flavors  even more was the genius wine pairing of the hubble. He had just procured a half case of the Cristom Willamette Valley Pinot Noir Sommers Reserve 2007 for a ridiculous price (nevertheless expensive) at Pete's yesterday, so naturally we had to try some.

It was nothing less than outstanding with the tang of the sour cream and goat cheese and the creaminess of the buttery crust. Ridiculously good.

Sometimes I feel a pang of guilt that we eat so well when others have nothing to eat or are cursed with a taste for MacDo. Thank you thank you thank you for this yummy life.