Guilty Carnivore

Chef wants to outlaw out-of-season vegetables. (Reuters)

Celebrity British chef Gordon Ramsay said restaurants should be fined if they serve out-of-season fruit and vegetables.

“I don’t want to see asparagus in the middle of December. I don’t want to see strawberries from Kenya in the middle of March. I want to see it home-grown,” he said after raising his concerns with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

“Fruit and veg should be seasonal. Chefs should be fined if they don’t have ingredients in season on their menu,” he told the BBC on Friday.

Ramsay, whose London restaurants include Petrus and The Savoy Grill, said Britain had become a nation of lazy eaters who followed trends and fads rather than substance.

“There should be stringent laws, licensing laws, to make sure produce is only used in season and season only,” he added.

Punishment should include having to watch the same Hell’s Kitchen episode on a continuous loop for 72 hours.

Friday, May 9th | No comments

We’ve heard this before. (In-N-Out to PDX? thread @PortlandFood.org)

Tuesday, May 6th | No comments

Déjà Vu Dining. (NY Times)

Summary: “Elitists” visit the chain restaurants of the suburban hinterlands; discover the natives are bitter and cling to their Bloomin’ Onions and fried potato skins.

Monday, May 5th | 2 comments

Saturday, May 3rd | No comments

I encourage everybody to check out Kirk’s dispatches from Vietnam, which are now being showcased at his most excellent blog.

Friday, May 2nd | 1 comment

All salmon fishing banned on West Coast.

Salmon fishing was banned along the West Coast for the first time in 160 years Thursday, a decision that is expected to have a devastating economic impact on fishermen, dozens of businesses, tourism and boating.

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez immediately declared a commercial fishery disaster, opening the door for Congress to appropriate money for anyone who will be economically harmed.

The closure of commercial and recreational fishing for chinook salmon in the ocean off California and most of Oregon was announced by the National Marine Fishery Service.

It followed the recommendation last month of the Pacific Fishery Management Council after the catastrophic disappearance of California’s fabled fall run of the pink fish popularly known as king salmon.

It is the first total closure since commercial fishing started in the Bay Area in 1848.

Friday, May 2nd | 2 comments

Cheney’s Office: (Do Not) Save The Whales. (TPMMuckraker)

The latest contribution to good government from Vice President Dick Cheney: preventing the implementation of rules to protect the endangered right whale.

This comes from a letter House sleuth Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent to the White House today, requesting that the administration quit delaying the rules, which would restrict the speed of ships near American ports. Faster moving ships hit the whales, causing injury or death, scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say.

Wednesday, April 30th | No comments

Cheeseburger to cost beefy £85. (The Sun, which is a horrible UK tabloid that features topless women)

FAST food chain Burger King are to serve up the world’s most expensive takeaway – costing a whopping £85.

There’s no common old meat in this burger. It will contain top-quality Kobe beef from Japan. And instead of ketchup and cheddar, it will be garnished with foie gras – a goose delicacy – and rare blue cheese.

But BK customers will still be able to buy regular fries and a fizzy drink to help it down.

It will be launched in selected branches next month, with London’s upmarket Kensington and Chelsea tipped to get the posh burger first.

At £85, it is in marked contrast to deadly rival McDonald’s who offer a budget burger for just 99p.

Launching the most expensive takeaway in town may seem odd during the credit crunch.

But Lucy Barrett, of Marketing Magazine, said: “The idea of a burger that no one buys is not as ludicrous as it seems. Burger King will use it to promote a gap in perception between it and McDonald’s. It could lead consumers to reassess the quality of the brand.”

First of all, that’s $136 USD, but could increase steadily as the dollar tanks. Second of all, it doesn’t even include fries and a drink, which probably costs BK pennies?

Third of all…Lucy Barrett? Bill Hicks has some advice for you.

Wednesday, April 30th | No comments

Recession Diet Just One Way to Tighten Belt. (NY Times)

Stung by rising gasoline and food prices, Americans are finding creative ways to cut costs on routine items like groceries and clothing, forcing retailers, restaurants and manufacturers to decode the tastes of a suddenly thrifty public.

Spending data and interviews around the country show that middle- and working-class consumers are starting to switch from name brands to cheaper alternatives, to eat in instead of dining out and to fly at unusual hours to shave dollars off airfares.

Though seemingly small, the daily trade-offs they are making — more pasta and less red meat, more video rentals and fewer movie tickets — amount to an important shift in consumer behavior.

Tuesday, April 29th | No comments

Environmental Cost of Shipping Groceries Around the World. (NY Times)

Food has moved around the world since Europeans brought tea from China, but never at the speed or in the amounts it has over the last few years. Consumers in not only the richest nations but, increasingly, the developing world expect food whenever they crave it, with no concession to season or geography.

Increasingly efficient global transport networks make it practical to bring food before it spoils from distant places where labor costs are lower. And the penetration of mega-markets in nations from China to Mexico with supply and distribution chains that gird the globe — like Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Tesco — has accelerated the trend.

But the movable feast comes at a cost: pollution — especially carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas — from transporting the food.

Sunday, April 27th | No comments

The wonder fish. (Fortune/CNN Money, via Ezra Klein)

So just what is Kona Kampachi? Think of it as a more versatile cousin of hamachi. It’s not genetically engineered in any way, just well bred. It’s sashimi-grade and sustainably farmed without hormones or prophylactic antibiotics. It’s richer in omega-3 than just about anything else in the ocean and has no detectable mercury. It melts on your tongue, holds up on the grill, and is so rich in oils that it’ll fry in a pan without butter.

Pregnant women, nursing moms, young children: Eat as much as you want of what might just be the best-tasting fish you’ve ever had. Really. It’s that good.

Thursday, April 24th | 4 comments

Check out Portland food blogger Veronica’s colorful Flickr gallery, which includes some incredibly twee and delicious bento. So damn cute!

Wednesday, April 23rd | 1 comment

Bakers feeling pinch of short supplies. (Reuters)

Rye flour stocks have been depleted in the United States, and by June or July there will be no more U.S. rye flour to purchase, said Lee Sanders, senior vice president for government relations and public affairs at the American Bakers Association.

Wednesday, April 23rd | 1 comment

EU set to scrap biofuels target amid fears of food crisis. (Guardian UK)

The silence is deafening on this side of the pond.

Saturday, April 19th | No comments

Tomorrow night is Willamette Week’s Food Cart Festival. Eat and drink, all for a good cause. For those who don’t work downtown (or near Mississippi Ave) 9–5/M–F, it’s a good opportunity to sample the fare.

Friday, April 18th | No comments

Uwajimaya is a fantastic, Japanese-focused superstore located at the mouth of Beaverton, just east of the 217 on Beaverton-Hillsdale highway.

Like many places in Beaverton, they have a parking lot.

A bookstore features a wide selection of manga, thus ensuring that at some point you will encounter a skinny white guy with a goatee. Or a perv exploring the possibility of satisfying his J-Girl, Lolita fetish.

Uwajimaya features a bunch of Japanese electronic cooking appliances that no doubtedy showcase advanced, fuzzy logical capabilities. Factoring in Moore’s Law, combined with Kurzweil’s prediction of Singularity, soon these rice cookers will subjugate humans to make rice for them.

Lots of twee kitchen gadgets are here to sate your predilections for mindless consumerism.

A wonderful, colorful selection of instant ramen beckons you. The usual Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Indonesian, Thai, Taiwanese, Thai, Malaysian, Singaporan, Laotion suspects.

And an unrivaled selection of instant bowl noodles, including a few Japanese import brands that—at as much as $4+ for a single serving—are a bit rich for my MSG-laden blood.

This Korean permutation was created by a person who obviously has never seen Soylent Green (R.I.P Charleston Heston - “…cold dead hands”? You made good on your promise).

Fresh (non-fried) ramen is also well represented here. I eat these often.

Uwajimaya has your prepared Asian sauce fix. It’s a bit more pricey than other Asian markets in town, but the selection is superlative and the shelving aesthetics are worth at least 10-20 cents.

One thing no other Asian market in Portland can touch is the selection and quality of Uwajimaya’s produce. In this photo alone you’re looking at pea shoots, Japanese eggplants, bitter melons, lemongrass, long beans, turnips, assorted exotic greens, etc. They selection of choys is only rivaled by Fubonn.

Buddha’s hands. If you stare too long, you might have an acid flashback.

In the fridgerated aisles, you’ll find an excellent variety pickled vegetables, including cucumbers WITH MSG, kimchis, menma, radishes, and assorted mountain roots.

The deli features many pre-made Asian/Hawaiian specialties, available in combo and plate form.

You’ll also find grilled and lacquered meats and seafood, ready for you to take home to construct your own donburri.

The meat section features Carlton Farms pork, and many thin, pre-sliced cuts in case you want to bust out a shabu shabu or Korean BBQ party at your own home.

Live seafood waiting to be mercilessly slaughtered is availble in case you wish to indulge your macabre fetish.

The fish counter. What more can you say? Impeccably fresh, with a nice variety. That’s 3 types of pokes you’ll see there, including a spicy tako (octopus) salad, and a delicious wakame seafood salad.

Blocks of pre-cut, sashimi-grade protein is available for carry-out.

Including sashimi-ready portions chiseled for immediate consumption.

Here are the pokes in case you didn’t believe me earlier, you fucking bastard.

This is a typical take for me when I leave Uwajimaya. Notice the European beer. They feature a few key German, Belgian, and Baltic brands on top of the Asahi Extra Drys and Kirin. They even have the 375ml versions of Unibroue’s La Fin du Monde and Maudite, which I haven’t seen elsewhere, and the 750ml Don de Dieu which is a beer that makes me happy and stuff.

Connected to Uwajimaya’s hip is the wonderful Hakatamon. This is the subject of a future post.

Most of the time, I just grab a pair of chopsticks from the deli register and eat the tako in the parking loft.

Back at home, I like to generously sprinkle poke with togarashi and eat it.

Same with the chuka wakame salad (I’m still trying to figure how to make this stuff).

Hmm, this also gives me an idea.

I’ve got some of this…

…and some Japanese cucumber.

Uwajimaya Salad

• 3.2 ounces (or $2.40 worth) Albacore tataki
• 1/3 pound (or $2.64 worth) hiyasi wakama chuka salad
• 1/2 japanese cucumber, halved lengthwise and sliced wafer thin
• One, singular green onion “pole”, minced
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• 2 teaspoons tamari
• Ground white pepper

Combine.

Uwajimaya

10500 SW Beaverton Hillsdale
Beaverton, OR 97005
(503) 643-4512
Directions

Thursday, April 17th | 6 comments

A Drought in Australia, a Global Shortage of Rice. (NY Times)

DENILIQUIN, Australia — Lindsay Renwick, the mayor of this dusty southern Australian town, remembers the constant whir of the rice mill. “It was our little heartbeat out there, tickety-tick-tickety,” he said, imitating the giant fans that dried the rice, “and now it has stopped.”

The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people around the world. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia’s rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December.

…

The collapse of Australia’s rice production is one of several factors contributing to a doubling of rice prices in the last three months — increases that have led the world’s largest exporters to restrict exports severely, spurred panicked hoarding in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and set off violent protests in countries including Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Haiti, Indonesia, Italy, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, the Philippines, Thailand, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

Thursday, April 17th | No comments

Looks like Cookie McCain knows how to copy and paste.

Is this really a surprise? You can’t really blame her, as you know she didn’t even have anything to do with that website. I doubt she’s cooked anything beyond a hot toddy.

Though, she does seem remarkably not unlike a certain Food Network personality.

Monday, April 14th | No comments

Saturday, April 12th | 1 comment

Piling on the Food Network is hardly original. I know. It’s practically a cottage industry in the “blogoshpere”, and it’s been done here before and in much more eviscerating fashion elsewhere.

Like most self-absorbed “foodies”, I’ve long tired of the Food Network and their endless attempts to shove perk and pomp up our asses. There was a time when the channel was a mildly interesting conceit, but that ship has longed sailed, punctuated by endless “Food Challenges” that eventually culminated in a contest to determine whom could build the the largest agar agar-crusted, cake-like confectionary public works project in the shape of a lovable Disney Character (broadcast from Epcot Center).

Some time in the late nineties, with the ascension of Emeril, the Food Network became decidely personality-driven, which gave way to the rise of other bankable brands such as Tyler Florence and Alton Brown. Bobby Flay was given ample face time, graduating from “Grilling and Chilling” to a myriad of shows, including “Boy Meets Grill”, another show whose name escapes me where he hammed it up with that vaguely hot New York chicksa in front of an audience of metrosexuals and Sharper Image enthusiasts, “Iron Chef America”, and “Throwdown with Bobby Flay”.

The opposite gender was also featured prominently. Giada de Laurentis flashed smiles and breasts in her plucky routine, charming herself into several different shows of late that properly showcase her huge teeth. Ina Garten gave us a slightly creepy Mrs. Robinson, breathily mugging for the camera as if she’s shamelessly coming on to you everytime she makes a salad. I secretly think she keeps a 14-year old Samoan male on the side when Jeffrey leaves for the city to stockbroke or whatever he does to subsidize her Long Island lifestyle of table decorations, effusive gardening, and the endless parade of oh-so talented gay friends.

Sandra Lee seemed like a fusion of the Mary Kate/Ashley Olson Wonder Twins, all grown up and joined together in the shape of a percoset-hungry housewife who lives in the shadow of an abusive husband with a predeliction for cheap bourbon and forced threesomes. You can actually smell the heavy stank of Aquanet and desperation seeping through the television.

The Food Network soon morphed, however, almost entirely into the network of Rachael Ray, whose unbridled, percolating ebullience makes you understand why the Terrorists really hate us. However, with Ray spread thin of late with her own show and magazine and hanging out with Oprah at Chippendales, a void of sorts has been created, a chasm from whose distended belly erupted that peroxide-stained bobblehead toolshed named Guy Fieri.

You might have seen Fieri in “Diners, Dives, and Drive-ins”, where he roams America’s backwoods looking for honest grub. Apparently, despite constantly making the show about him rather than the people he’s in the business of exposing (or maybe because of this), Food Network has decided to give him another show, “Guy’s Big Bite”.

Nothing really prepared me, however, for the “Ultimate Recipe Showdown”. The show itself is kinda like “Iron Chef” for people who think “Iron Chef” is too educational. Three contestants compete to complete the best dish based on a particular theme (in this case, fried chicken).

It was hosted by Fieri and Marc Summers (nee Marc Berkowitz). The latter personality normally talks you through a half-hour look behind the scenes in “Unwrapped”, a show that exposes how industrial grade surimi is produced, thus scarring you for life. Summers was also once the host of Nickelodean’s “Double Dare”, where he similarly vacillated between effortless cipher and cheerful douchebag. There was a moment in the opening intro of “Ultimate Recipe Showdown” whereupon Summers enunciated every syllable of Fieri’s surname with such Italian-inflected patois that you’re simultaneously suprised by the jarring dissonance and astonished that he’s not an android.

Fieri actually used the line “Domo Arigato on that one, Mr. Summers” when describing one contestant’s decision to use panko in creating her chicken katsu. And when he uttered that phrase, a little kitten was mauled by a panther. He later said “Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing” in regards to another contestant’s (this was an African-American woman, incidentally) recipe for fried chicken wings with fruit sauce, exhibiting that Guy Fieri’s erudite Urban Dictionary prowess is dangerous enough to set race relations back half a decade or so.

This is typical of the banter thrown around during a typical episode:

GF: “Summers(¹)…I’ve seen meatballs deep fried.”

MS (incredulously): “Really?”

GF: “Oh…slamma damma ding dong!”

I really have a hard time understanding why the Food Network has decided that Guy Fieri was it. He emerged victorious from the scrum that was the second “The Next Food Network Star”², but never seemed to possess that je ne sa quoi that I thought America would require out of its future Applebee’s pitchmen.

But what do I know. Apparently what America really wants is some pear-shaped loser who looks like he totally owns Smashmouth on karaoke night, who buys all his shirts from PacSun and all his Dep gel from The Dollar Tree. He also owns restaurants in California with names like “Johnny Garlic’s California Pasta Grill”, and “Russell Ramsay’s Chop House” and “Tex Wasabi’s Rock-N-Roll Sushi-BBQ”. All of these names are horribly embarrasing. If anybody you knew asked you to meet for some “Killer Shrimp Yaki-Flautas” and a stiff “Kick-Assarita” and at any of the aforementioned places, you would feel immediately compelled to punch that person in the face.

Ultimate Recipe Showdown

Check your local listings.

¹ Fieri frat-affectively calls Summers by his last name, which seems rather misplaced considering this name is completely fabricated.

² By the way, where did they stash the two gay guys who won the first The Next Food Network Star? Did test marketing snuff their nascent Food Network careers? Did they not play well in Peoria? Were closeted gay homophobes who secretly wished Tyler Florence would baste them too threatened by an openly gay couple?

Friday, April 11th | 5 comments

Apparently.

On Hardball, while remarking on Sen. Barack Obama’s reported request for orange juice after being offered coffee at an Indiana diner, David Shuster asserted: “[I]t’s just one of those sort of weird things. You know, when the owner of the diner says, ‘Here, have some coffee,’ you say, ‘Yes, thank you,’ and, ‘Oh, can I also please have some orange juice, in addition to this?’ You don’t just say, ‘No, I’ll take orange juice,’ and then turn away and start shaking hands.” Host Chris Matthews agreed, “You don’t ask for a substitute on the menu.”

Friday, April 11th | 1 comment

Does this affect you? Do you care?

Here in the U.S., the cost of food has been rising exponentially as we’ve foolishly hitched our wagons (literally) to ethanol. Crops that were once staples in the food cycle, such as corn, are being used to produce fuel in a zero-sum game, and the results are riots in Mexico over the price of tortillas.

A common trope repeated by armchair chaos theorists is that when a butterfly bats its wings, a hurricane can result halfway across the world. However, this appears to be happening at a macro scale in our own country, as rising prices affect everything from eggs to beer.

• Surging costs of groceries hit home
• Grand Rapids-area bakeries hit by rising flour prices
• Rising flour prices send pizzerias scrambling
• Beer Prices Rising Amid Crop Shortage

Working-class Americans are increasingly bearing the brunt of these increased costs (“Middle class Long Islanders turning to food pantries”) as rising wholesale prices are feeding an alarming, worldwide inflationary spike.

We are experiencing a perfect storm, as energy and fuel prices climb, the world’s shaky financial markets continue to deteriorate as a result of greed and malfeasance, and a maturing world population has pushed grain demand to levels unseen. A growing, foreign middle class are patterning their lifestyles much in the way we Americans have been living for decades. This burgeoning affluence has pushed demand for fuel and energy to an all-time high, and millions of middle-class Chinese with a newfound taste for meat are helping to feed a vicious cycle which usurps grain stores at exponential rate (to serve as livestock feed) and burns the massive amounts of fuel necessary to sustain this consumption.

Food riots are breaking out all across the world, which leads to food protectionism as foreign countries limit exports to mitigate domestic upheaval. History indicates (“Rice Riots of 1918”) rising food prices, particularly grain, can be a bellwether from which to gauge growing societal entropy. Just last month, the price of rice in Asia surged 30% in a single day.

The lack of deference to this subject paid by the American mainstream media is disgusting, but hardly surprising. The questions are too myriad to attempt to cogently address, and our current clueless cadre of politicians are hopelessly inept, more concerned with American flag lapel pins and justifying 100 years of troop presence in an area of the world that will soon be ground zero for the entropic decay associated with the eventual end of cheap energy.

With that in mind, Tommy@Macerating Shallots has tagged me for a six word memoir meme. 66.67% of my memoir I will directly rip off from William Butler Yeats:

“The centre cannot hold: we’re fucked“.

Thursday, April 10th | 1 comment

As Prices Rise, Farmers Spurn Conservation. (NY Times)

Thousands of farmers are taking their fields out of the government’s biggest conservation program, which pays them not to cultivate. They are spurning guaranteed annual payments for a chance to cash in on the boom in wheat, soybeans, corn and other crops. Last fall, they took back as many acres as are in Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

Environmental and hunting groups are warning that years of progress could soon be lost, particularly with the native prairie in the Upper Midwest. But a broad coalition of baking, poultry, snack food, ethanol and livestock groups say bigger harvests are a more important priority than habitats for waterfowl and other wildlife. They want the government to ease restrictions on the preserved land, which would encourage many more farmers to think beyond conservation.

Kerry Dockter, a rancher in Denhoff, N.D., has about 450 acres of grassland in the program. “When this program first came about, it was a pretty good thing,” he said. “But times have definitely changed.”

The government payments, Mr. Dockter said, “aren’t even comparable anymore” to what he could make by working the land. He plans to devote some of his conservation acres to growing feed for his cows and some to grazing. He might also lease some land to neighbors.

For years, the problem with cropland was that there was too much of it, which kept food prices low to the benefit of consumers and the detriment of farmers.

Now, because of a growing global middle class as well as federal mandates to turn large amounts of corn into ethanol-based fuel, food prices are beginning to jump. Cropland is suddenly in heavy demand, a situation that is fraying old alliances, inspiring new ones and putting pressure on the Agriculture Department, which is being lobbied directly by all sides without managing to satisfy any of them.

Wednesday, April 9th | No comments

Some Good News on Food Prices. (NY Times)

Michael Pollen, in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, argued (among other things) that as a nation we do not pay enough for our food.

Along with some other critics of the American way of eating, he likes the idea that some kinds of food will cost more, and here’s one reason why: As the price of fossil fuels and commodities like grain climb, nutritionally questionable, high-profit ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup will, too. As a result, Cokes are likely to get smaller and cost more. Then, the argument goes, fewer people will drink them.

And if American staples like soda, fast-food hamburgers and frozen dinners don’t seem like such a bargain anymore, the American eating public might turn its attention to ingredients like local fruits and vegetables, and milk and meat from animals that eat grass. It turns out that those foods, already favorites of the critics of industrial food, have also dodged recent price increases.

Logic would dictate that arguing against cheap food would be the wrong move when the Consumer Price Index puts food costs at about 4.5 percent more this year than last. But for locavores, small growers, activist chefs and others, higher grocery bills might be just the thing to bring about the change they desire.

…

“It’s very hard to argue for higher food prices because you are ceding popular high ground to McDonald’s when you do that,” said Mr. Pollan, a contributor to The New York Times Magazine and author of “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto” (Penguin Press). “But higher food prices level the playing field for sustainable food that doesn’t rely on fossil fuels.”

Interesting—if somewhat flawed—logic. Though, here’s a question (ignoring the actual tilling and harvesting machinery): how does the food get to the market? I haven’t seen any teams of pack mules on the 99W lately.

Wednesday, April 2nd | 3 comments

This is a wonderful recipe that takes me back to my childhood. My father would make this dish for special occasions, such as Arbor Day, or, interestingly enough, on Nooruz, which is the Kyrgyzstan celebration of New Year that is actually commemorated in the spring. Despite the fact that he had never visited Kyrgyzstan, or had any ties whatsoever—ethnic or platonic—to this landlocked Central Asian country, my father fashioned himself as quite the Krygyz-ophile.

He once even went so far as to befriend a traveling group of Uyghur circus performers, who sponsored his admittance into their homeland in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China with the intention of leading him on a cross-border incursion into greater Kyrgyzstan (this was at the height of the Cold War). Unfortunately, while navigating the highland border crossing, a mule ate some of the psychedelic peyote buttons smuggled back by one of the Uyghur guides (scored during a night of reveling in Bisbee, AZ) and ended up killing half the expedition in a mad rampage.

My father’s life was spared when, in a fit of desperation, he frantically grasped at and accidentally—in a mad flailing—impaled the crazed beast with the dagger end of a kefta kebab skewer. The trip was cut short as the surviving members returned to base camp in order to properly lionize my father with song and fermented yak spittle. Then the Chinese Red Communists came in and imprisoned my father against his will, details of which I will not go into as they were documented in the 1997 movie Red Corner (starring Richard Gere), which is based loosely on my father’s travails.

Nooruz Dumplings (or Arbor Day Stew, or National Heroes’ Day Fricassée, or Administrative Professional’s Day Ragoût)

1. Construct a lanyard from girded twine reinforced with titanium filaments.
2. To this attach a bulb of elephant garlic using ordinary helicopter cabling hooks, and loop around your neck.
3. Extract exactly 43 seeds from a dozen (or so) preserved Moroccan lemons.
4. Using a vernier micrometer (in a pinch, a digital caliper will suffice), extract the top .002 millimetre sheath from each seed using your best carbide-based honing stone. Bless with elephant garlic by waving the lanyard exactly 2 cm above in exactly 7 counter-clockwise concentric circles (progressively diminishing in size, you may choose to honor the Golden Ratio…your call). Set aside.
5. Meanwhile, in a large stockpot, pour 2573 milliliters of witchhazel stock over one free-range ham hock and the hoof of a middle-aged albino alpaca, and bring to a rapid boil.
6. Add 2 tablespoons of tincture of wort (recipe to follow), stir, and lower to a low simmer.
7. Bless the stock with garlic lanyard, this time maintaining a 5 cm seperation cushion, doubling the number of concentric circles (again, the Golden Ratio comes highly recommended), but this time use clockwise rotations, except on the very last (14th) rotation.
8. Light an incense.
9. In a non-stick 12-inch sautee pan, bring 2 tablespoons non-GMO rapeseed oil to smoking point over high temperature. Sear 8 ounces of lean, cubed Virginia Oppossum tenderloin (that has been sprinkled with Tamil peppercorns and Gibraltan sea salt) for 1 minute. Then take the garlic lanyard, smash against your forehead with a force strong enough to maim a small child, and then add to pan with lemon seed shavings and one gingko nut. Stir-fry until the papery garlic skins become translucent.
10. Hermetically seal these ingredients with your favorite brand of high barrier plastic, and place inside a thermal immersion circulator and allow to cook sous vide at exactly 185 degrees Farenheight for a fortnight.
11. When the meat has been cooked, plate in a shallow dish, top with a ladle of stock, and garnish with a dollop of wort tincture (recipe to follow).

Tincture of wort

• 3 kilos assorted wort, including but not exlusive to Adderwort (aka Snakeweed), Blue Navelwort, Bullock’s or Cow’s Lungwort, Golden Ragwort, Laserwort, Mallowwort, or Sea Milkwort. However, I would advise against using Hemlock Dropwort, which imparts a slight bitterness that is not very pleasing to the palate.
• 1123 milliliters of common bog liquid
• 5346 milliliters desalinized North Sea water
• One nutmeg berry
• One tablespoon Brewer’s yeast

Bring all the ingredients to a boil in a pressure cooker, and cook for one hour. Decant the liquid using Spanish Moss as the filtering medium, then wash the residue, puree, and set aside. Reduce the liquid by 1/2, add 1/2 teaspoon of agar agar, pureed residue, and 1/8 a thimble of sodium sulphate. Stir well and salt to taste. Mixture with thicken as it stands.

Tuesday, April 1st | 2 comments

Food Stamp Use at Record Pace as Jobs Vanish. (NY Times)

Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s.

The number of recipients, who must have near-poverty incomes to qualify for benefits averaging $100 a month per family member, has fluctuated over the years along with economic conditions, eligibility rules, enlistment drives and natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, which led to a spike in the South.

But recent rises in many states appear to be resulting mainly from the economic slowdown, officials and experts say, as well as inflation in prices of basic goods that leave more families feeling pinched. Citing expected growth in unemployment, the Congressional Budget Office this month projected a continued increase in the monthly number of recipients in the next fiscal year, starting Oct. 1 — to 28 million, up from 27.8 million in 2008, and 26.5 million in 2007.

The percentage of Americans receiving food stamps was higher after a recession in the 1990s, but actual numbers are expected to be higher this year.

Federal benefit costs are projected to rise to $36 billion in the 2009 fiscal year from $34 billion this year.

Sunday, March 30th | 1 comment

Commentary: Shame on them and shame on us. (McClatchy)

I suppose this benign neglect of so important and damaging an event is combat fatigue on the part of the public. No doubt the White House is happy to see Iraq shoved to a back burner, just as all three presidential candidates are relieved to talk about something else, anything else, but their half-baked ideas about the war.

Shame on them, and shame on us, for such callous indifference to the service, sacrifice and suffering of the families of the dead, wounded and injured troops who’ve given so much for so little in return.

Vice President Cheney again stuck both feet in his mouth by saying and then repeating that we should remember that our military is composed entirely of volunteers; that our troops all volunteered for this duty, this burden, this sacrifice.

What’s your point, Mr. Vice President? That because they volunteered to serve our country in uniform it’s okay to squander their lives in a war of choice, your choice and your president’s, and that it somehow matters less than if they’d been dragooned into service by press gangs or a draft like the one you dodged with five deferments during the Vietnam War because, you said, you had “better things to do”?

Saturday, March 29th | No comments

High Rice Cost Creating Fears of Asia Unrest. (NY Times)

HANOI — Rising prices and a growing fear of scarcity have prompted some of the world’s largest rice producers to announce drastic limits on the amount of rice they export.

The price of rice, a staple in the diets of nearly half the world’s population, has almost doubled on international markets in the last three months. That has pinched the budgets of millions of poor Asians and raised fears of civil unrest.

Shortages and high prices for all kinds of food have caused tensions and even violence around the world in recent months. Since January, thousands of troops have been deployed in Pakistan to guard trucks carrying wheat and flour. Protests have erupted in Indonesia over soybean shortages, and China has put price controls on cooking oil, grain, meat, milk and eggs.

Food riots have erupted in recent months in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. But the moves by rice-exporting nations over the last two days — meant to ensure scarce supplies will meet domestic needs — drove prices on the world market even higher this week.

Saturday, March 29th | No comments

Phở Binh Minh (no relation to Binh Minh nee Maxim Sandwiches) is located just north of dowtown Tigard, half a mile south of the 217/99w intersection.

It is a pretty standard-issue, family-run Vietnamese restaurant. Which explains why I enjoy eating here.

Phở Binh Minh opened in late spring of 2007, and has a new-ish, recently baked feel. There’s a surreptitious hallway to the left as you enter that leads to a video crack room that seems to exist within a vacuum in its own strange, alternate existence, completely divorced from the prosaic reality in the main dining room.

Ah, Oregon. You can feed a daily addiction, diverted from and sheltered by society, but pumping your own gas is verboten.

The Goi Cuon (with shrimp and poached pork loin) is fresh and features a nice amount of fresh herbs.

Here’s a cross-section view.

The Goi Cuon Chay (vegetarian) were very nice - extremely large. The fried tofu was excellent, and it was packed with Thai basil. The fillings were bursting from the seams - one of of the rolls was nearly falling apart. But I’ll take that any day over a small petite salad roll.

The garnish platter isn’t the most ample, but features just enough for a large bowl. Big ups for the sawleaf herb (ngo gai).

The Phở Tai Chin (with rare beef and braised brisket).

Note: if you’re ordering phở tai (rare beef), ask for your “steak on the side”—if you like it that way—and you’re sure to get it. The waiters are sons of the family,and speak English fluently. And you get a fair amount of lean, thin slices of beef round draped on a side plate with your soup.

Brisket.

The phở here is an honest, hearty bowl of soup. It’s not the most nuanced of broths, but it’s a flavorful, “clean” broth and it’s evident the cooks pays careful attention to the stock. It is very reminiscent of the stocks I grew up eating from the various kitchens of my Mom, aunt, and their various friends. The fresh rice noodles are consistently toothsome.

Their papaya salad, quite frankly, rocked my world. For $4.95 it was chock full of fresh shrimp (and pork - there was a good amount of protein), and the herbs were aplenty - rau ram and basil. The Viet version of papaya salad is less tangy than Thai version, with more of a focus on sweetness (some may call it cloying), but ample slices of fresh jalapeno played well against that. Really, really good.

I’ve also sampled a few other items at Phở Binh Minh. The Bun Tom Thit Nuong was large, ample. The grilled pork in this dish was seasoned nicely will lemongrass, and the skewer of 3 grilled shrimp were slightly overcooked, but otherwise good. Their nuoc cham I think is bland, a bit on the sweet side (I like my cham fiery and tangy). A decent version, albeit subdued—the garnish (just cukes, pickles, lettuce, sprouts) could have used fresh mints and basil.

Their cia gio is a pretty good rendition, as well. This place serves solid, fresh food with proteins that never have “off” tastes (something I can’t say about certain other Vietnamese places in town). On the strengths of their standard-issue Vietnamese dishes, Phở Binh Minh is in a league with some of the better Viet restaurants in Portland.

Phở Binh Minh

11945 SW Pacific Hwy Ste 212
Tigard, OR 97223
(503) 968-0121
Map

Thursday, March 27th | No comments

Following up on the last post about the distribution of wealth vis-a-vis Starbucks tip jars, last Monday night I went to Berbati’s to see Jens Lekman. On a table inside the entrance, set up to collect ticket money and check off names from the will-call list, was a fucking tip jar.

After paying over $6 beyond the face value of a ticket for “convenience” fees, just to get my name on a list so that it can be crossed out…and you’re expecting a fucking tip? Go blow an alpaca, you entitled piece of shit.

Wednesday, March 26th | No comments