I've been reading a lot of Micheal Pollan lately ...

Our desires to change and be changed live happily in the kitchen. There we find a palette of pleasures with which we can paint the most whimsical gratifications to our specific tastes and needs. What is significant about the relationship between cooking and human nature is that as we desire pleasure we also require balanced nourishment. A two way street flanked by billboards imploring you to make the right decision.

Voltaire said that, “Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.” Often when eating and cooking are not chief interests in a person’s life, the “task” of feeding oneself can be burdensome and inconvenient. This has led us toward the increasingly processed and faster food diet that has become ubiquitous across our country, which is now known as the Western diet: High fat, high sugar, high carb, high gratification. The comfort foods of old, based on traditional, hand-made links to our heritage and history, have been replaced by the products of a thirty-two-billion-dollar food-marketing machine. The prosperity we’ve enjoyed since the end of WWII has instigate the decadent society we’re rapidly becoming (faster than ever).

In “In Defense of Food,” Michael Pollan tells us that “today in America the culture of food is changing more than once a generation, which is historically unprecedented….” This disconnect between historical foodways and modern eating habits has led us down a path laid with filet-o-fish sandwiches (instead of catfish po’boys), chocolate chip granola bars (instead of whole grains), and factory processed chicken “sausage” (instead of fresh roasted chicken). We have lost our way. The road signs are pointing in too many directions at once, which leaves one in a state of panic. With the multitude of choice out there, we forget to trust our instincts. The “paradox of choice” is true and alive in our national eating habits.

This is the part I’m most concerned about. Sure there are the related issues of dubious food marketing and imitation-food products masquerading as nutritional wunderkinds, but the choice to eat what we eat is still an internal process of our own psyche. The act of choosing to east ten big macs a week is still the choice that you made, not the choice of some evil processed food supplier out there in the ether of American commodities commerce. It is you and your neighbor who are choosing not to go to the farmer’s market and instead depend on the supermarket to provide you with wax covered, pesticide ridden vegetables. But how are we supposed to make the decision with all the conflicting information out there? It’s a complicated answer to nail down.

True, we are constantly bombarded by media and advertising telling us to eat this and not eat that (which is why Michael Pollan HAD to write a book defending the simple act of eating food) but every person who saddles up to a booth in their local fast food hamburger joint is compelled by the comforting notion of beef, cheese, and fried starch. This process of indulgence turned instant gratification releases so many endorphins into our brain that we stand little chance of denying our desire for the resulting feelings of satiation and comfort. Eating like this is an addiction. Making the right decision is a secondary consideration to the convenience of such a gratifying consumer experience.

So we have to move past our indulgent desire for instant gratification and strive for something more responsible. Beyond the environmental, social, and economic reasons to eat locally and organically, there is the most immediate concern that affects all of us: our health. The personal responsibility to respect our bodies and balance the indulgence with sensible, healthy food choices is the first step toward repairing the damage. Michael Pollan and Marion Nestle have both distilled the numerous adages and “rules to eat by” into three simple phrases: EAT FOOD. NOT TOO MUCH. MOSTLY VEGETABLES.

Words to live by, and eat by.

Cafe Du Monde: Fried Dough & Caffeine! Hell Yeah!

At first, venturing out beyond the walls of my hotel without a game plan was a bit overwhelming. But i was itching to go eat and explore. There was this list of things i wanted to do, which i pulled from many sources. My boss Pandee told me to go to Mother's for the Ferdie Special w/ Debris, Cafe Du Monde for Chicory Cafe au Lait, Central Grocery for Muffaletta, etc... Her list was a best of the best. Then Christine Carroll, the Culinary Corps founder/organizer had a more elaborate list that covered everything from best lunch to best recreational cooking classes. So, to be sure, i had a plethora of things to do but somewhat limited means by which to explore these many options. But i did my best to see as much as i could in the limited time i had. Cruising down canal street gave you so many options, but that road ultimately led to one place.

I was drawn to this place more often then i care to admit. Some would call it meccha or the hub of civilization, i just called it breakfast. It always seemed like a good idea to go to Cafe Du Monde. No matter what time of day, whenever we would walk by or actually stop and get a table, the place was packed. It was open 24 hours a day, which i guess isn't that uncommon for doughnuts and coffee. But the beignets were delicious and the coffee (when you asked for it black) was strong enough to give you extra sensory perception. So in that respect, this so-called coffee shop was more than the sum of it's parts. 

The tables were all packed underneath an overhanging patio, and the countless waiters and waitresses navigated the cramped quarters like rats in a warren. As they nonchalantly hauled trays precariously piled high with brimming cups of scalding coffee and saucers of snow capped beignets, i waited for the loud crash of chipped china hitting concrete, but to no avail. This place was a well oiled machine, albeit a idiosyncratic machine of many rusty parts. The actual beignet production process was pretty seamless too (so seamless in fact that they provided a viewing window through which to witness the action). They ran the dough through a sheeter and then through a cutter and more casual than i thought was acceptable, the cook threw the raw beignet dough, probably 12 at a clip, into a huge deep fryer with a splash of skin-melting magma characteristic of Hawaii's Mount Kilauea.

It defied reason how this operation sustained itself over the decades. But i guess when a system works, there's no reason to fix it.

Somehow, those little squares of dough made it out of the gauntlet in pristine condition and after being dumped with powdered sugar, they were ushered out to their awaiting public. They were neither greasy nor were they cold. Each a little pillow of fluffy delicious i can only dream about late at night when the hankering for fried dough creeps into my subconscious. 

It was a perfect introduction to the tourist experience in New Orleans. It was also the perfect way to share some time with some newly made friends. Mark Carter, Lisa Slater, and Aimee Bariteau were the first of my Culinary Corps compatriots that i had the pleasure of meeting. We all had doughnuts on the brain and met up before the volunteer work officially began to share or mutual love of all things fried. We discussed the work ahead of us and talked about our lives back home, all through mouthfuls of hot beignet and milk flavored coffee. (Or was it coffee flavored milk?) These early relationships were what served as the foundation for the entire trip. A bunch of food freaks weaving a common thread through an uncertain experience, making the best of a situation by consuming the comforts of a city renowned for its cuisine. We truly were about to embark on something magical, and if these were the quality of people that i would be working with for the next week, i was one of the luckiest people in the Big Easy.

Cafe Du Monde was more than a cafe, it was a state of mind. I believed it served as a gateway for visitors to enter the reality of an actual New Orleanian. Having that chicory coffee coursing through your system, inhaling the cloud of powdered sugar as it's aspirated into the air by other first time beigners, absorbing the constant din of chatter, brass instruments, and commerce that filled the atmosphere. These things, like an aperture of a camera, helped bring the true experience of NOLA into focus, capturing the essence of its uniqueness with each sugary mouthful of beignet and each swallow of milky coffee.

Now was it milk-flavored coffee OR coffee-flavored milk? What do ya'll think? Let me know.

-GDP

I'm finally home!

I'm finally home and it feels like i've been gone for an eon. I'm restless, thirsty and all i want to do is laundry for some reason. I don't actually feel like cooking, which is weird because i always feel like cooking. I think the respite from my normal routine has shaken my very foundation and left me asking the same questions that creep into my brain when things get really tough in my life. Am i really doing what i love? Am i doing something worthwhile with my life? Am i actually making a difference doing what i'm doing? But now i'm not exploring these ideas from a place of frantic stress, but rather an off-centered place of calm. I can actually hear bird chirping outside my window and I think i would normally have tuned that out due the reflex I have when I’m at work of tuning out all unnecessary stimulus, while I’m attempting to concentrate in something. My mind is pleasantly clear, maybe it’s the second beer I just started. 

Anyway…I haven't heard the clatter of the ticket machine spitting out orders in like 2 weeks. It's a really amazing feeling, actually. The jolting fear that i forgot to order something from produce or the fish company or some other purveyor hasn't struck me in a few days. I’m not sure what it’s going to be like when I get back to work tomorrow. I’m actually excited to get back to cooking, but I’m pretty much dreading the state of my mis en place. After two weeks the menu is probably going to look a little different than I left it. But thus is the nature of my chosen profession, the constant, unrelenting controlled chaos that is a small, ill-designed kitchen.

I wanted to start posting some pictures from my trip and begin the process of chronically the events of Culinary Corps, as well as my days before and after. So with out further ado, here’s my trip to NOLA:

The night before I got on the plane at SFO, I stayed with my homeboy Nick and his girlfriend Erin. They are some of the coolest peeps that I know and their apartment is awesome and is situated right across the street from Duboce Park in SF. I went to Bi-Rite and got stuff to make dinner and stunk up Nick’s apartment with merguez sausage and threw it over some pasta with mushrooms and a quick ragout. Delicious! And of course after dinner, Nick put his mixologist skills to work and pored me a perfect Manhattan, my first Manhattan in fact. Again, delicious! 

It was the perfect way to start my trip and I couldn’t have asked for better company than Nick and Erin. Woke up at 3:30 the next morning and caught a cab to the airport to catch my 6:00am flight to NOLA.

As I sat down in the plane, I had no idea what to expect when I touched down in NOLA. I knew basic facts about the city. I looked at the weather report and everything looked amazing for the time that I would be there. I knew there were afew things that I really wanted to do when I got there, but I was essentially leaving things up to chance.

In terms of my expectations for the volunteer work I was about to get into, I was pretty much at a loss for what was coming next. I knew from talking to Christine and e-mailing back and forth that she was uber-organized and that the trip was going to be planned out to the letter. I knew what the itinerary and all the events we would be taking part in, but that didn’t account for last minute changes that would inevitably happen and the ultimate variable of group dynamics. Who were these people I was about to be thrown together with for the next week? I was dying to find out!

I sat there in the plane and imagined myself cooking in some small, hot kitchen, stirring a big pot of crawfish with crazy cooks yelling all around me and hot boiling crayfish water leaping all over my arms. I was freaking out a little, and luckily the trip was nothing like that. Well at least the big pot of crayfish never made an appearance. The rest we can leave up to interpretation. Haha. I was definitely ready for anything and looking forward to meeting all the people I had chatted with on our conference call.

Here’s some pictures of Louisiana as I was flying over. The Mississippi river was as brown as everyone told me it was going to be. And it dawned on me just how surrounded with water New Orleans really is. There’s the Mississippi river on one side and then there’s lake pontchatrain on the other. The reality of the flooding really begins to set in when you see with your own eyes just how the geography is situated.

It was an awesome way to start a visit to the Crescent City that would really test me in ways that i'd never been tested and pushed me in directions i never thought i'd like to be pushed in.There will be more posts to come, i need to go change my laundry.

-GDP

Dinner with Mom at Grange

The Citizen Hotel unveiled its new restaurant about four months ago and has been a success since its opening. The theme of the restaurant is local, local, local. With morel mushrooms from Yosemite, pork from the Sacramento Valley, and produce from local farmers markets. Grange is fulfilling its commitment to the tenets of the slow food movement. We ate around 7:30 and the restaurant was pretty much full on a sunday.

We were in a comfort food kind of mood i guess because if there was starch on the menu, then we were ordering it. We got a frito misto of white fish, calamari, onions, caper, and lemons served with a caper aioli. It was pretty awesome. We also tried the tagliatelle, which was dressed with a delicious meyer lemon cream and tossed with crunchy fennel and crab meat. The pasta was a little tough, but the flavors were on point.

For our entrees, we had meat and....yup, you guessed it, more starch. I had the braised pork shank which was stuffed and rolled with house-made fennel sausage and served over creamy grits and roasted carrots. The dish was good, the braising jus was seasoned aggressively and the grits had just the right amount of toothiness. Mom had the zinfandel braised shortribs wth potato puree and gremolata. The short ribs were ridiculously tender and i can appreciate that because I have yet to perfect the art of braised short ribs. Mom had a gin and tonic with dinner and i had a bottle of Green Flash Brewing Co. West Coast IPA. The hoppy IPA was great with the creamy grits and pork, also the crispy frito misto, too. 

Dessert: We had a chocolate cheese cake on top of a hazelnut-rice crispy wafer, caramel sauce, and bruled bananas. Chocolate Decadence with peanut butter anglaise, peanut dust, candied peanuts, maldon sea salt...both were equally delicious, equally rich, and more than enough to eat all at once, so we took them home and i'm sure mom and my aunt enjoyed them the following evening.