April 2005 Archives

Early on SparkleWitch was leaving comments here and there on Meathenge. One of those comments she left, she mentioned something about making Meat Jewelry. How could you possibly miss? She was spot on, take a look! Those images on the keychain and bracelet are ones from Meathenge! Very cool.
Over the months I have really enjoyed cooking for Meathenge, so much so I've injured my guts. But I have to say, some of the best things have been the people who stop by here. Thank you Sparkle.

Xo Xo

She can be contacted sparklewitch at removethis aol dot com

The Fatted Calf Newsletter just rolled in. I was really happy to see the little hams back in. I was thinking the other day, it's been a little while since we've seen a roast listed. They're tender little guys with plenty of juicy goodness. Really likes the indirect heat of a grill, nice & slow. On my way down the list we have Duck Crepinettes with Picholine Olives. The duck is just about one of my favorites here, such a great Spring Time treat. The olives offer a nice companionny flavor, makes you smile. It's really tough to choke down a green salad after having so much happiness. Oh OH OH, look! A lamb sausage !!! Oh man, if that doesn't just shout Spring, yay. I have no idea what it's like, but you know darned well it's going to be worth buying at least one package. Oh look !!! Pancetta. Oh man. Is Pancetta meat? I don't think it is, maybe I can have some? Just a little rendering? Please Meat Gods, smile upon thine Biggles. Send forth your truth amoung truths and heal, heal, HEAL. I SHALL HAVE THE VEINS OF A NEWBORN !!! The kidneys of an OX !!! (Ya know, I sure hope Ox have decent kidneys).
All ya'alls listen up and get yourself to the Saturday Farmer's Market in Berkeley. This coming weekend is worth the trip. See you there.

Onward to the newsletter ...

ps - oh man, there's Guinea Hen pate listed too. Awwwww.

Hey, it looks as though Shuna has a few spaces left in her Knife Skills class for Sunday May 15th. If you're somewhere near or in the San Francisco Bay Area you need to reserve yourself a space. You'll finally be able to talk to someone who's worked in many professional kitchens and can give you the straight poop on What and How and Why Not. Why do the carrots always go skittering off the damned table when I'm whacking? My palm seems quite vulnerable when dicing an onion, why's that? Why can't I cut a gourd in half easily with my dull paring knife? Eh? You get the idea. A good time is had by all. While she's going through skills, you get a story about this & that and about that time when. It's fun just to hang out. So what if you're worried about spending another $40 bucks, you've surely blown it on less worthy things. Don't you agree?

If you're even remotely interested get yourself, go now and sign up today! Chef Shuna's Web Site and details.

Contemplate this on the tree of woe. The mighty cauliflower. I paid over 11 dollars for nearly 4 pounds (about 2 heads worff). Don't think we'll be doing Organic Cauliflower again, this I assure you. Even so, it's an interesting beast. Looks like white broccoli, it ain't. The little trees (florets they say) are far more uniform and sturdy. I aint' never cut one up, but after pulling the green fronds off it's butt, nature took it's course (along with my 10" Cook's knife) and it came to pieces readily. Why did I drag this thing to my abbatoire? Molly has been very helpful and kind in the wily ways of introducing the Biggles to a wider variety of vegetables. She offered up a Roasted Curry Cauliflower for me to try out. It looked easy enough for a Monday night. Off I went to El Cerrito Natural Grocery in a flash. Then to my local Indian grocery that opened up around the corner for fresher Coriander seeds (ours were old). I was READY. In the now famous words of Tommy Tang, Let's Get Cooking!

Here we find out plucky hero on Saturday morning getting things done so he can make it to the market on time. He realizes with a start he hasn't had breakfast yet, oh no. Need to keep the blood sugar on an even keel, that bad ol' gout. The cafeteria white cereal bowl is set carefully down and the yummy flax cereal makes it's way slowly in to the bowl. He's a caring man. He turns, notices fresh strawberries. In they go. His brows raise, the man is interested now. Off to the fridge for the lovely 1% cow's gift ... when ... at the door is a knock. A kind knock. Our hero looks outside only to see a little girl in a purple fuzzy coat he doesn't recognize. "Who could this be at 8:45 in the morning?" Wonders our hero.
Why, it's Mr. Tamale Man!
I kid you not. This kind gentleman and his daughter had a huge steamer pot in a laundry cart and were making the rounds. Chicken & Pork Tamales at 8 in the morning, $1.50 a piece !!! I got 2 pork and 2 chicken. Gout or no, I had me one pork tamale, it was too much. The masa was textury and corny and moist. The filling was clearly good pork and red chile sauce. It had just enough zing to let you know it was there, perfect for breakfast. I would have liked a little more meat and a little more red sauce, but it was FINE and I would have paid another dollar for that anywhere else. That was HOME cookin' there pal! What a great way to start the day. I am inspired and feeling fine. For now.

Xo Xo

I'll tell you why. For the last ... 3 months or so I've been dealing with Gout. What's gout? Well, to keep this short, it's the body (kidneys) inability to handle meat, alcohol, caffeine & legumes (even tofu), these foods are high in purines. Basically, it's an accumulation of uric acid in the blood. When it arrives in your feet (cooler than your body), the salts in the uric acid solidify and settle. Causing immense pain (you limp a lot).
I'm about 14 days out with nearly no meat (a few pieces of ham) and no alcohol and no caffeine and no legumes (not even tofu). At this point I don't have any clear idea as to what the near or distant future will bring.
So, if ya'll could keep that in mind when you wonder WHAT THE HECK IS BIGGLES DOING WITH CARPAL TUNNEL ENTRIES ?!? Or, WHY THE HECK NO MEAT IN THAT BURGER ?!?
You know why. Now now, settle down. This by NO means spells disaster for Meathenge. I'm still going to be smoking, grilling and roasting new and different meat type recipes. Good stuff too, just won't be eating much if any of it.
Please be ready for different types of entries here and understand the reasoning behind it. It's what's going on here at Meathenge Labs. And that is that.
Onward ...

Spring Time is such a perfect time for sausages. The days are longer and give you plenty of time in the early morning to get things going. There simply is no better smells than breakfast sausage, eggies, home fries or toast with coffee first thing. No sir, nothing like it. Heck, go for a nice long hike up in the hills. Check out all the spring flowers, wild orchids and grasses. Whip out your hibachi, get your fire going and grill your bordelaise right up there on top! Now that gives you the strength to carry on, you bet. Course I suppose you'll have to bring some tequila to keep you busy while the hibachi cools down. Hoo, that'll make for a nice long afternoon. See? Sausage gives you time to stop and smell the roses.
See you Saturday bright & early!

When he shows up to work with one of these things in tow.
The commercials for the recent Burger King sandwiches are quite funny. Some guy waking up in bed to find some life sized plastic cartoony king next to him. Or the one for this breakfast sandwich, where this guy opens up the window shade only to find the same king outside his window with the birdies and a nice looking breakfast waiting. What gives these commercials a creepy air is the fact this king doesn't say anything or have any moving parts, just stares with an odd look on his face. At least Chucky had a moving mouth and eyes. Good stuff.
After the commericals are over and you find yourself in the drive-thru lane, hungry and ready to open up your meal to find this? Egads man, so disappointing. I expected so much more from Burger King.
Supposedly it has 2 slices of American Cheese (Why American? Why us?), 3 slices of bacon (not sure of their definition of bacon), 2 Omelet Egg (what the hell is an omelet egg?) and 2 halves of Sausage Patty (2 halves? Must be a size issue). And speaking of size, if I got this for lunch, I'd be disappointed yet again.
Here's what this brave Employee had to say, "The eggs were fluffy, yet bland. Bacon crispy, sort of, but didn't crunch. Typical spongy nothin' bread with odd molten velveeta-like cheese (couldn't afford real velveeta I suppose). It coats the sides of your tongue and won't leave." He was smacking his mouth like a dog with peanut butter in it, I had to stare. Employee did say the sausage patty was okay, but he started holding his gut and making funny faces. Funny faces to me anyways.

Here's what Burgler King thinks the Enormous Omelet Sandwich looks like. That's funny.
This rig is sportin' 2080mg of sodium (that's a lot by the way, almost as much as a can of Cambell's Cream of Chicken soup). 760 Calories with 450 from fat. Not much trans fat though, yay?
This food would almost be funny if weren't so tragic. I have nothing more to say on the matter, move along.

UPDATE: Okay, so one more thing. 1 hour later Employee showed up in my office, wanting to give me the scoop. He still feels sickly and feels as though he has the capacity to drink maybe 5 gallons of cool refreshing water. Jeez man, it was only two thousand miligrams of salt! Wuss.

Xo Xo

What a strange trip this has been. It all started innocently enough. Meathead (brother inlaw) has his way of making corn bread. NO COOKIE INGREDIENTS, is the guideline. No flour, no sugar. He wanted the bite and crunch of the corn meal, nothing in the way. His grandmother made it this way and unfortunately she never wrote it down. So Meathead has been winging it for years, tweaking this and changing that. I was lucky enough to get a piece a few months ago, heaven. I asked for the 'recipe' and he was kind enough to put something down. This last Sunday was time and off I went on the hunt for the perfect cornbread.

Scream, YAY for Guinea Hen Crepinettes with walnuts! If you haven't been down the Guinea Hen path yet, it's time. The meat is a bit sweeter than your chickenny fowl. A very nice change for your daily happenings. And the weather around here is at least sunny if not exactly warm, so this would be an excellent time to get the grill out and make it go. If you wanted a few NEW items to toss on to the grill, I see Calabrese listed this week. The other new sausage I see is something called a Chipolatas. Googled it comes up as, "chipolatas are small Italian sausages made of coarsely ground pork and flavored with thyme, chives, coriander, and cloves, and sometimes red pepper flakes." YEAH !!! That sounds wonderful. So, between the Crepinettes, Calabrese & Chipolatas, your grilling session for this coming weekend is SET.
Under the Pates, Confits & Terrines headings you'll find Taylor's Pate de Maison. I had some 3 weeks ago or so and found it very tasty and quite different from the Pate de Campagne. Had some zing to it, very nice. Taylor also has some Duck Confit going, oh man. You may want to pick some up for Tuesday, Confit is always good on a Tuesday.
Hey, have you tried the Mortadella yet? If not, give it a try. You will not be disapointed. It's a good sized portion, enough for more than 3 or 4 days of the best sammiches you've had in a long time.
Now I find myself at the bottom of their newsletter, Other Meaty Goods. It brings to mind a load of cookbooks, from Mr. Pepin to Bourdain. They all talk about making your own stock, chicken stock, brown stock, veal stock, demi-glace & Glace Viande. Basic stocks are easy enough, but getting the Demi and Glace version down takes some time and concentration. So, many of us end up not following the recipe as it was meant to be. Well, Taylor & his crew have put together these delectable concoctions for you. So, when you're at the Fatted Calf stall this coming Saturday morning, don't forget to pick up a little jar of "Demi". You deserve the best.

Xo Xo

Maybe 3 weeks ago I was minding my own business, standing in line at the Fatted Calf stall in Berkeley when Sam bumped in to me. She was on her way back from The Ferry Building in San Francisco and was stopping off for a meat fix. We exchanged a few meaty words, this and that. Then she looked down in her cloth shopping bag with this funny grin mumbling something about jams, marmalades and "you gotta try this one". The upshot was Sam was aparently in a Marmalade Jag and thought I should wander across the way and get myself some of Loulou's Blood Orange & Rosemary Marmalade. It was sunny, I had meat and was in a decent mood. Why the hell not? Sugary treats are nice after meat.
What struck me was the contrasting flavors that did so well together. What hits your buds first is the orange part, very sweet. But it's quickly followed by the zest of that orange which brings you down to earth, then hangs a left turn at the Rosemary. Don't get me wrong, I love the traditional jams & jellies, but dang. This was fun. Fun is good.
Take part in spring this year and go find yourself some fancy preserves. Makes ya whistle!

Xo Xo

Fourth in a series of private classes taught by Shuna Lydon, this knife skills class will give you an overview of different knives and their usages, how to buy and hold a knife, and make useful and whimsical cuts. Practice using various knives and learn how to keep yours sharp. The class is a mixture of lecture, questions and answers, and practice. To see photos and descriptions of Shuna's other classes, visit:

Chef Shuna's Eggbeater web site.

Or contact her directly, shunafish at nospam earthlink dot net

• YOU MUST CONFIRM YOUR SPOT !!!

• >>>if you cancel up to 72 hours prior to the class, you will be refunded $15. If you cancel after this time frame, there will be no refund<<<
  
  
• The size of the class will be limited by the size of the kitchen. Thank you so much for your interest, I look forward to hearing from you!
  

BIO:

Shuna Lydon is a fruit inspired pastry chef. Her style seamlessly links savory and sweet ingredients and methods, creating familiar and innovative desserts with a focus on local, seasonal and sustainable produce. Her career has spanned thirteen years, working in New York City and Northern California. She has worked in such notable kitchens as Gramercy Tavern in Manhattan, The French Laundry and Bouchon in Yountville, and Citizen Cake and Aziza in San Francisco.
Her work has garnered attention in The SF Chronicle, Gourmet magazine, among others, and her most recent press was as a featured chef in 7X7 magazine.
Shuna Lydon, most recently, has focused her attentions on teaching, privately and through Sur La Table, and working for different farmers and food artisans at the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market.

I don't have to tell anyone that in the last year or so the sheer volume of food blogs, blogs in general and personal based web sites have absolutely exploded in all directions. Some are clearly paid writers, some are avid fans and some people are just plain having a good time. I say, go for it.
But if you're going to take the the time to get your site up, designed and your content organized, WOULD YOU PLEASE PUT YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION up? There are instances where your readers need to contact you for one reason or another. One might be to let you know the method for blocking spam doesn't really work. Or maybe you screwed up a comment and need some help either editing it or removing it completely. There have been a few times when the images you've installed aren't registerging correct and need some work with the html end of things. Or maybe you've posted something that is misleading or incorrect. It would be nice to be able to contact you directly and not clutter up your comments section with it. And sometimes the conversation is better left private.
We all know one cannot post your true email address on a web page, the spam bots would overrun us with unwanted email. You also should not use the mailto function in html. However, you can use things such as drbiggles at nospam dot com or something simmilar.
In any case, a web site needs to have a contact. An email with someone behind it to administer to the needy. Please put contact information on your blogs. Thank you and good will towards us all.

ps - Just in case you're interested in munging your email address, go HERE.

Biggles

I've had this post on the side lines for a few months now. This week has slowed a tad for the Labs here and figured this would be a good time to lay it down.
I believe it was back in and around 1984 when I started hammering on computers, mostly hardware. Yeah well the last eleven years or so I've done more on the soft side, this means using a mouse. And it was in the last 12 months when I was working on a huge line of product labels for cans here at work when I developed a really nasty case of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Surely I don't need to go in to details about what CTS is.

If yer interested, read on.

Looks as though Fatted Calf has a gift for us this week. The little darling is called Petit Sale, a French style pancetta. I know Chef Shuna has been in to the guanciale, yum. Maybe greens are good, maybe it'll be okay in the end. Next up we have the meal in a package, the Hoffman Farm Quail stuffed with Savory Pork Sausage and Chard. I can't say enough about these guys and that savory pork sausage with chard is amazing in itself. The weather is picking up, get that smoker going. It's time. And now one of my favorites, the Pork and Wild Mushroom Crepinettes. I could survive on those alone, no kidding. Hey the Cotechino is back this week, too cool. If you missed it last weekend, try again this coming Saturday. It's so good, so different. I noticed the Pate De Maison is back, it's been absent. A local restaurant was hoarding Taylor's stash, I almost considered visiting the restaurant to get me some. I backed out and figured it'd come back soon enough. And here it is and if it wasn't for a bit of gout, I'd git myself a loaf. Looking under the Salumi heading I'm seeing something called Cacciatorini. After doing a bit of googlin' it says that it's usually half beef & half pork, could be all pork though. It is seasoned with black pepper, garlic, spices, dry white wine, and packed into a small natural casing. Aged for about a month. It does sound good huh? Go have a taste yourself this coming Saturday at the Berkeley Farmers Market, supposed to be sunny and niiiice.

Read on ...

Last month Meathenge participated in the famous, Is My Blog Burning. IMBB is a themed cooking roundabout wherein people who have blogs cook to the theme and post it up, simple enough. Last month's theme were Muffins or Cupcakes, muffins are so cool. Meathenge Labs put their heads together and wound up doing a Curry Chicken Muffin, came out very well I must say. But it wasn't the only good looking recipe my wife found, one of the others was a BLT Muffin. I wasn't able to pull off two muffins for the roundabout, so I did it this last Sunday. Read on, if you dare.

This entry came about late last week when the Fatted Calf newsletter rolled in. One of their specials for the week was a new sausage, Cotechino (kotehkeeno). I was interested to see, I wanted to know a bit more. So I did what any wild eyed hillbilly would do, google it. Here's what I found:
"This hearty and satisfying dish is traditionally eaten on New Year's to bring abundance and fortune. Cotechino is an Italian fresh pork sausage. It is creamy and delicate in flavor. It is sometimes sold precooked or boiled but the best ones are fresh. If you can't find cotechino a high quality fresh pork sausage flavored with nutmeg, cloves and pepper will suffice."

Yeah, I dunno. Boiled clove flavored meat wasn't what I was interested in at that moment. I might try it, but surely wouldn't enjoy it, no sir. Later on that same day, Amy stopped by and offered up a recipe she thought would get me close to how it was supposed to be. That was the inspiration I was looking for. Holy cow, I am so glad I did. This meal turned out to be one of the best meat surprises in probably 6 months or more. Meat Surprises can be a really good thing.