We Made a Blog

Last week, inspired by David Chang, I decided to make a dish where protein was not the dominant theme. I wound up with a small portion of pork and a healthy dose of beans. The beans were made with jalapeno, tomato paste and sriracha. Delicious, but not quite perfect.

I set out to rectify that.

Cooking, I have a knack for. Recipe creation, not really. A solid base of information provided by my mother and the occasional class at The Brooklyn Kitchen have given me enough know-how to whip something up. But an actual original recipe, other than my infamous worked-over veggie burgers, I have not created.

What follows is the perfect recipe for a chili concoction that will rock your taste buds as much as it does your colon.

I realized that what I was missing in my last attempt was a fatty substance to add that lingering flavor you get out of true dishes. I also only used one jalapeno, forcing the addition of the sriracha.

This time I solved both issues. For depth of flavor, bacon is an obvious choice. Take five slabs, chop them and then render in a medium-sized saucepan. Once rendered, add three diced jalapenos. Cook until the bacon begins to crisp and your nose starts to burn.

Take about a pound of ground turkey and season with salt (lightly), black pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. Of course fresh garlic and onion is preferred. Dump the meat in the pan to brown.

After a half a minute, add two tablespoons of tomato paste. Stir.

Let the meat brown. Now taste. Depending on how spicy the meat is, add an appropriate amount of honey. Start with a three-second squirt out of your honey bear. Taste. Too spicy? Add more honey. Once you have the correct ratio of honey, take a tablespoon of white vinegar and add to the mix. This will help cut the richness of the chili.

Take a small can of pinto beans and strain as much liquid out as possible. Add to the pot. Let that all simmer for at least 15 minutes once the beans are added.

Get some extra-sharp cheddar, the amount is kind of up to you, shred and fold into the the beans and meat.  Shred some extra for topping.

Let the pan simmer for a bit. There’s no science to how long it cooks at this point, it really just depends on how much time you have.

I like polenta – a lot. So I like to take half-inch slices and fry them up. Season with a  pinch of salt, pepper and garlic powder. Don’t overcook! Just brown them on medium-low heat. You want a slight crunch without losing the creaminess in the middle.

Take your bean, meat, bacon and jalapeno mix and pour over the sliced polenta. Take the extra shredded cheese and put it on top as soon as you as you can so it melts nicely.

There you go. You will flip out at the depth of flavor here and, more importantly, that you only have a single pot to clean.

I’ve walked past Saltie so many times I thought I‘d actually eaten there already. It’s at a particular locus between my apartment and other haunts that means I’m usually not hungry when I pass by. Yesterday, I was.

And I faced the scary menu. Sardines, pickled egg, capers, pickled carrot and parsley sound more like someone’s pranking you than suggesting a sandwich. But you remember that Saltie is in some way connected to Marlow & Daughters and the ingredients suddenly transform into hidden secrets you never dreamt of.

So I ordered the Captain’s Daughter (the aforementioned combination) with a cup of hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was excellent; thick and creamy, with just the right level of sweetness. Even if as soon as I was out the door I pondered what made me think to order a hot chocolate with a fish sandwich. But it was an excellent hand warmer for the walk home.

The sandwich was excellent. Most things placed on fresh focaccia are. The saltiness of the capers brought out the best in the sardine, which was slightly muted by the pickled egg, and the parsley, bathed in something acidic, cut through any heft. So, yes, I do suggest you give it a try.

But that isn’t why I felt the need to write this. Now, I can’t give a full review of the place because I’ve only been there the one time, but the fact is, the sandwich was $10. Actually, all of the sandwiches were $10 or hovering slightly above, which makes you wonder how they figure out what to charge. In any case, I would gladly pay $10 for the sandwich on taste alone. What enraged me was when I got home I discovered that my sandwich wasn’t even cut in half. Ten dollars and you couldn’t cut my sandwich in half?

Fine. Whatever. I’ll get over it. It tastes that good. But what’s this? My bread is falling to pieces. Remember, this isn’t a cold-cut sandwich; you need to apply pressure to keep all the pieces of fish and egg from falling out. In trying to keep your sandwich whole, you inevitably begin to bend it. The more it bends, the more it falls apart.

Again, for $10 you couldn’t cut my sandwich in half?

This is the problem with charging so much for something as quotidian as a sandwich. It brings it up a level in expectation. If this were maybe $7, I would be back again and again. But when you ask someone to pay that much for a sandwich and you don’t deliver perfection, it’s hard not to be disappointed.

Also, why the fuck are sardines and eggs costing me this much? I know this is exotic food to the uninitiated but, really, this is peasant food. The kind of thing my Dad would whip up for me for lunch on a Saturday when my Mom wasn’t around to complain about the smell.

We Brooklynites love our food. Especially anything novel. And often around here, things are as advertised. Saltie makes very good food – let that not get lost in this rant – but I just want to get what I pay for. Or vice versa.

It’s a music video about making a music video, right?

The Limousines: Very Busy People

It’s amazing how much time you can put into something when you want to.

For the most part I’m lazy and under-motivated. Which is a little surprising when I look at my life from the outside. It isn’t like I don’t do anything. I have a full-time job, run a side-business with a friend and I’m going to be an adjunct professor this Spring.

Sometimes I really don’t understand how I am where I am. I don’t mean that in a bragging manner. It’s just disbelief  that I am somewhat successful, yet I know full well that I could probably sit on a couch for a week with a stack of DVDs and not get bored.

I seem to run on a personality-cocktail of good fortune, some wit, general friendliness, (apparently) ahead of the curve intelligence, being in the right place at the right time and not turning down any opportunity. I think it’s that last trait that has helped me the most. When it comes to my professional career I’ve never turned anything down. Luckily I had things to “not turn down,” of course, but I didn’t.

I tried.

This blog, for example, was a case of creating opportunity for myself. I was extremely lucky to be working with Chandra at the time and got along well enough with my developer Pete to become a friend and business partner.  So I set out to create this.

I spent so much time refining the design. Far too many nights pouring over Photoshop until I got the exact look and feel I wanted. The endless iterations and self-doubt.  And then there’s the requirement gathering, working with the developer who thinks you’re crazy, convincing Chandra to write with me; essentially the nasty bits we designers often forget. It’s just a ridiculous amount of work.

But hey, here it is — we did it.

Then came the writing. The lack of hits. The tweaking. The maintaining standards. The random stints of lost interest. So you stop. But it pisses you off that you stopped. Remember how much time you put into it?

I know what it takes to stay motivated to do something. Luckily, in the most important times I am able to. I wonder how you take hardcore determination and turn it into sustainable, mild determination.

I think that’s exactly what I’m looking for: a mild determination.