The Art of Living According to Joe Beef

I'd never heard of Joe Beef until shortly after the Montreal restaurant's cookbook The Art of Living According to Joe Beef came out this fall. The cookbook published by Ten Speed got so much buzz early on that I felt like I had to at least pick it up and see what the talk was about. I knew it had a foreword by David Chang and all sorts of big name, glowing blurbs from Anthony Bourdain, Andrew Zimmern and Alice Waters and wondered if it was as good as they claimed it was.

There are very few cookbooks that I've read cover to cover but a few that I have include Vij's Elegant and Inspired Indian Cuisine, a couple James Beard Cookbooks, At Home on the Range and Wild Fermentation. I'm reading the Joe Beef cookbook essay by essay and recipe by recipe. I'm learning a lot. I love the narrative and voice and how the book goes well beyond the template that most cookbooks follow and gets to the heart of the matter -- why cook and why Joe Beef?

One of my favorite parts so far is the book's third chapter on trains. Joe Beef co-owner Frederic Morin has a deep and loyal love for trains and as a reader you get to take a 17 hour train ride from Montreal to Moncton on "The Ocean" -- the oldest continuously operated train route in North America -- with Joe Beef chef-owners Morin and David McMillan, Joe Beef cookbook writer Meredith Erickson and the book's photographer Jennifer May. They drink from Fred's "traveling-salesman bar kit, complete with bottles of vermouth, gin, Johnny Walker, and Fernet Branca." They listen to Neil Young and eat all sorts of delicious food including Black Forest Cake and Canadian wine. The recipes follow the essays -- "The following recipes are inspired by and meant for train travel..." including Tiny Sausage Links, Chicken Jalfrezi, Beer Cheese and Dining Car Calf Liver.

I've only cooked a couple things from the book so far -- the hot Daube de Joues de Boeuf Chaude (page 246) and the Kale for a Hangover (page 202) and they were both super tasty. I'm looking forward to cooking more and reading more. I hope that future cookbooks follow suit with deeply personal and complicated narrative and essays (and Smorgasbord centerfolds! That's right.) that push the envelope of what a cookbook can be.

Joe Beef's Hot Daube de Joues de Boeuf Chaude over mashed potatoes.

Before setting it to braise...

A couple hours later...

Joe Beef's potato ricer mashed potatoes.

I didn't have a hangover but Joe Beef's Kale for a Hangover cured me of something I'm sure.

The Art of Living According to Joe Beef By Frederic Morin, David McMillan & Meredith Erickson fall 2011 292 pages $40 Ten Speed Press

For Your Viewing Pleasure Pt. 4

I don't have time to do a proper blog post today so I'm putting up a snapshot from recipe testing for the Toro Bravo Cookbook: The Making, Breaking and Riding of a Bull (McSweeney's fall 2013). We're full steam ahead with the book and I have a lot of recipes to write this week so I'm going to get back to that. I also have a nasty sunburn to apply aloe to every few hours since Portland summer has finally arrived. Hope you are doing well and getting out and enjoying summer to the fullest. I spent Saturday at the river and Sunday at a lake. Lucky.

www.torobravopdx.com

For Your Viewing Pleasure Pt. 3For Your Viewing Pleasure Pt. 2For Your Viewing Pleasure Pt. 1

Yard Fresh Pt. 22

I've got my tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, pole and bush beans, chiles (thanks to my friend Anthony!) and greens going and now all that's left is basil and probably some more tomato starts. So far we've had a lot of Hood strawberries, snap peas and greens from the garden -- tatsoi, flashy trout's back lettuce and a lot of arugula.

I've harvested a quarter of the garlic and the fruit trees, cranberry bush and grape vines are loaded with fruit. I think there's going to be a lot of nice wine this year. The blueberries, on the other hand, have next to no fruit. I've bottled 40 bottles of plum/cherry wine from last year and if most of this already thinned fruit sets we might be looking at double that for next. I'm looking forward to using this book once we have more food coming in from the garden.

The meal that we've been enjoying together the most lately has been breakfast and I think that's because it's been so busy. It's quick and easy and we usually leave the house around the same time. So, lots of breakfast foods in this post. I'm looking forward to upcoming weeks when the garden is growing generously and we can eat more from it...

We've been doing a lot of recipe testing for the Toro Bravo Cookbook and we had leftover avocado salad from that so made it into a tasty scramble over toast.

Straight-up grilled burgers with cheddar, onion and bacon on ciabatta rolls.

Ham, egg and homemade arugula pesto on toast.

Potato taco mash-up with salsa verde, cilantro, lots of lime and sour cream.

We were at the bar one night and a girl had a big bag filled with asparagus that she was giving away. Her friend is starting an asparagus cooperative and she's been helping him get the word out. I grilled it up in a miso vinaigrette and it was really tasty.

It's not all that pretty but made this lemony, mustard seed chicken salad with leftover pieces from a roasted chicken and it was really good.

More Toro Bravo Cookbook leftovers -- took some leftover salsa verde from recipe testing and scrambled it with ham and brie.

Potato, sauteed chile and egg mash. Another case of the not-so-pretty but very tasty.

Future food!

Yard Fresh Pt. 21Yard Fresh Pt. 20Yard Fresh Pt. 19Yard Fresh Pt. 18Yard Fresh Pt. 17Yard Fresh Pt. 16Yard Fresh Pt. 15Yard Fresh Pt. 14Yard Fresh Pt. 13Yard Fresh Pt. 12Yard Fresh Pt. 11Yard Fresh Pt. 10Yard Fresh Pt. 9Yard Fresh Pt. 8Yard Fresh Pt. 7Yard Fresh Pt. 6Yard Fresh Pt. 5Yard Fresh Pt. 4Yard Fresh Pt. 3Yard Fresh Pt. 2Yard Fresh Pt. 1

At Home on the Range presented by Elizabeth Gilbert

I went to San Francisco in late April to meet with McSweeney's, visit friends and a city that I've missed and haven't been to in five years. I was really excited to meet with the fine folks at McSweeney's because as I've mentioned here before -- working with them on the Toro Bravo Cookbook is a dream come true. The only plans I had with them were to stop by the office after I arrived and a couple days later have dinner with some of them. When all was said and done I ate ice cream that David Byrne, yes that David Byrne, had delivered to the McSweeney's office while they finished up his book How Music Works which comes out later this summer and gone out for drinks and then dinner with the majority of the fine folks of McSweeney's and a very special someone.

If it had been just me visiting McSweeney's I bet two at the most three people from the publishing house I would've come out to dinner but the morning of I texted my editor and she said something to the tune of when we'd meet, where (Mission Chinese Food) and oh, Elizabeth Gilbert is coming to dinner too. What the fuck?!

I could go on and on about how generous, warm, and smart Elizabeth is because she is (She reached out for my arm as we walked into Mission Street Chinese and asked me to sit next to her at dinner so we could talk. Above and beyond. I couldn't have been happier about that and the rest of the night.) but instead I'll turn to the book that brought her to San Fransisco and therefore dinner that night.

It's the book above -- a reprint of her great grandma Margaret Yardley Potter's cookbook At Home on the Range which originally published in 1947. It turns out that Dave Eggers had been talking about doing some sort of a charitable book collaboration with Elizabeth when she came across her great grandmother's cookbook. Would Mr. Eggers like to reprint it and give all the proceeds to ScholarMatch and 826 Valencia? Why yes he would.

Fast forward to me getting my first package of books from the McSweeney's Book Release Club which I just became a member of...

My first box of books arrived for the McSweeney's $100 for 10 books Book Release Club...

With three incredible books including...

Two down, one to go!

I started reading At Home on the Range on a Saturday and I finished it on a Saturday. The same Saturday. It is that good. If you like what I write about here -- DIY cooking projects, gardening, food adventures and all sorts of other eat, drink and be merry things I think you're really going to enjoy this book.

I've only cooked two things from it so far -- a classic meatloaf and the chicken cacciatore -- and both were delicious. The recipes are all written as this one below -- in paragraphs and often with more insight and voice than ingredients. Page after page of honest and full-of-life stories.

Some selections from At Home on the Range:

"So go our culinary ways with confidence and without apology. Use only one standard in trying out strange foods or seasonings: that you like the result."

"'Which is more necessary in the house, the bed or the stove?' has almost as much chance of being satisfactorily answered. Granted that the three most important happenings in life, birth, marriage and death, take place in bed; three equally vital occurrences, breakfast, lunch and dinner, daily owe their success to the stove."

Followed by this advice for a new couple to purchase the best bed and stove they can afford:

"Don't rush either purchase, for these important articles, like a husband, should last a lifetime if well selected."

At Home on the Range meatloaf recipe.

All together now.

Filled with three unsliced hardboiled eggs and topped with bacon.

And a can of tomato soup...

Slice and serve!

Chicken cacciatore over spaghetti with arugula hazelnut pesto.

At Home on the Range Presented by Elizabeth Gilbert Written by Margaret Yardley Potter pub. date April, 2012 originally published in 1947 240 pages $24, McSweeney's Books

Eating Local Guide by Jen Bracy

Do you wonder what it is?

Well, here's what's inside.

Maybe you read about Jen Bracy's Eating Local Guide in the Oregonian or maybe you've seen her selling them at the downtown PSU Portland Farmers Market or seen them for sale at New Seasons Market. Jen was nice enough to drop off one of her handy and inspiring guides for me a couple weeks ago and here's the scoop.

Description of the Eating Local Guide ($10) straight from the source:

"The guide consists of monthly cards highlighting seasonal foods and presenting ideas for how to prepare and preserve them. The format is flexible, allowing individual cards to be carried to the market and used in the kitchen. The monthly guide package includes a plethora of resources and links [from CSAs to farmer’s markets to local businesses & restaurants to gardening and preserving tips] as well as timetables showing what produce is in season."

If you'd like to purchase one of Jen's guides she will be talking about and selling her Eating Local Guide and posters at the downtown PSU Portland Farmers Market June 23, July 21 and 28. The guides are also available for purchase at New Seasons Market, Bob’s Red Mill, Food Front Cooperative Grocery, Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply, Cherry Sprout Product Market & City Farm. Eat local!

Food in Jars by Marisa McClellan

Although you can, of course, can and preserve food and drink year-round the really fruitful time for both is just around the corner. If you want a new book to keep you company and guide you through the putting-by time consider Marisa McClellan's just published book Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year Round (Running Press, May 2012, hardcover, 240 pages) which shares the name of her popular food blog. Although McClellan lives in Philadelphia now she's a born-and-raised Portlander and she'll be in town this week to promote her inspiring DIY book.

According to McClellan: "Unlike other books on canning and preserving, Food in Jars offers small-batch recipes ideal for tiny kitchens."

I haven't had a chance to cook from Food in Jars yet but I'm looking forward to these recipes amongst others: rhubarb jam with strawberries and oranges, strawberry vanilla jam, Meyer lemon jelly, zesty lime curd, pickled brussels sprouts, blueberry lemon syrup, and chocolate hazelnut butter.

Thursday, June 14th @ KitchenCru 6:30-8:30pm -- Marisa will teach a canning class on the basics of boiling water batch canning while making a batch of take-home strawberry lemon jam. Sign up for the $60 class here.

Saturday, June 16th @ Powell's Books on Hawthorne 2-4pm -- Marisa will sign copies of Food in Jars and be available for any and all canning questions.

Food in Jars: Preserving in Small Batches Year-Round by Marisa McClellan pub. date May, 2012 240 pages $23, Running Press www.foodinjars.com

For Your Viewing Pleasure Pt. 3

We're just at the mid-way point in terms of writing the Toro Bravo Cookbook: The Making, Breaking and Riding of a Bull (McSweeney's fall 2013) and that means things are really cooking now -- literally and figuratively. I don't have time to do much more this week than meet my monthly deadline for the book so I'm putting up a snapshot that I took while at the restaurant a few weeks ago during prep. and service. I got to ride with the bulls and it was a lot of fun. If you didn't get to come out and celebrate Toro's fifth anniversary this past Friday I'm sorry but you missed out. I'll put up photos and possibly a video from that up here eventually as well. The best part: the marching band procession from Tasty n Sons to Toro Bravo that kicked it off.

www.torobravopdx.comFor Your Viewing Pleasure Pt. 1For Your Viewing Pleasure Pt. 2

DIY Meat Smoking Pt. 2 -- Q&A with Dave Blaikie

Q & A with Dave Blaikie (If you haven't read the first part of this blog series you can at DIY Meat Smoking Pt. 1)

Me: When did you build your smoker?

Dave: In 2009.

Me: How did you make it?

Dave: I made it out of a 55-gallon drum that used to be filled with vegetable oil. A man was selling them in his front yard and I had to get one. It was 15 bucks and I wedged it into the back seat of a Mazda Protege. Sheet metal that I found in a scrap pile and angle steel lengths make up the smoker box and stand. It took a week to cut and weld all the pieces in my garage. The design is based on a smoker my friend had.

Me: What are your favorite things to smoke?

Dave:Anything pork. Baby back ribs are my faves followed by the pork butt, and country-style ribs.

Me: Any advice for someone who's never smoked meat before and is about to try?

Dave: Ask questions. For starters, get a good book because you have a lot to learn and you're going to be sitting for a while. Don't use lighter fluid, unless you like that taste in your food. Use a mixture of woods. I use oak or mesquite as a fuel wood and add any fruit wood that I can get my hands on. You can use all fruit wood if you want for both fuel and flavor as well. Apple wood is my favorite and if you can get your hands on some, do it.

Get the temperature in the smoker up to where you want it. You want to have a good fire going but want the smoke to be as light as you can get it. Don't worry it'll have a smoky flavoring without too much smoke. That's about it. Every smoker is different and it takes time to understand the in's and out's of each one. Oh yeah, don't rush it. This is all about kicking back with your friends, drinking and salivating over an aroma that can only be made from smoking meat.

Check out DIY Meat Smoking Pt. 1

Dave and Tyler doing what smoking meat requires -- a lot of waiting...

Blaikie with friends with a rib in his hands. Eating smoked meat from the smoker that he built of course...

After learning from the master Tyler tried his hand at some smoked pork butt. It turned out really good.

Juicy and perfectly smoked pork butt.

DIY Meat Smoking Pt. 1

Our friend Dave built the above barrel smoker a few years ago and we've gotten to eat all sorts of delicious things smoked in it. A little less than a year ago Dave needed someplace to store it and we've had it at our house ever since.

Late April Dave and his fiance Rachel came over and we celebrated their engagement by smoking an insane amount of meat for four people while splitting wood from our old apple tree that we cut down this winter. It was a really old tree -- one arborist thought it was nearly as old as our 100+ year old house -- and hollowed out as you'll see in the photos. Although the wood is still drying it was the perfect combo because apple wood which is ideal for smoking meat.

That day with Dave and Rachel we smoked a five pound brisket, three pound pork butt, and a rack of pork and beef ribs. Don't worry -- in the end, we invited some other friends over to help us eat it all.

The Basics

We mortar and pestled herbs and spices and then dry-rubbed all of the meat with various combinations, adding brown sugar to some of the rubs and leaving it off of others. We got the smoker up to temperature (Dave says the sweet spot temperature-wise is 220-230) with mesquite, dried some apple wood while doing that, and then put all the meat into the smoker at 3:30pm to cook until about 8pm -- 4.5 hours.

The hottest spot on the racks is of course right by the smoke chute. We put our meat in when it got to 200. Then as the meat smoked we occasionally rotated things and cracked the door if it got too hot -- we tried to keep it between 220-230 -- and added wood if the fire got low.

You don't want too much smoke -- just a bit. We put wood shavings in a small cast-iron skillet and had an apple wood fire with mesquite coals in the barbecue. Although we didn't do it this time Dave usually adds vinegar and mustard to the meat toward the end to keep it moist. And if you don't know this already you always want to remove the silvery membrane from ribs so that they cook properly.

Gartner's never fails -- brisket, pork spare ribs, pork butt and Dave brought beef ribs.

We gave all the cuts nice dry rubs and put them in the smoker when it was 200 and nicely, lightly smoking.

Masters of the meat -- Rachel, Dave and Tyler. And Rubin -- can't forget the white wolfie.

Splitting apple wood while the meat smoked. Apple wood is great for smoking meat and seafood.

Sweet spot.

Not much longer to go.

Carving time.

Brisket!

We climbed meat mountain and lived to tell the tale! So good.

Up next a Q&A with the meat master himself -- Dave Blaikie!

Taste of the Nation Portland 2012

This year's 25th anniversary Portland Taste of the Nation at Jeld-Wen Field was incredible and rather than type up all of the reasons why I'm going to lay it all out in photos for you. If you were there you might see yourself in some of the photos below because I snapped a lot and managed to only drop my camera once. It's ok. This was the first year Taste was held at Jeld-Wen Field and I think it's a fantastic venue. You'll see from the photos. If you weren't able to make it please consider attending next year. It costs a pretty penny but 100% of proceeds go toward hunger relief in Oregon. Without further ado...

One of the most decadent treats of the night was Gruner's foie gras torchon on toasted brioche topped with riesling pickled rhubarb. One of my favorites of the night and they went fast.

Another favorite only available to VIP ticket holders (spend more on your ticket for several additional tastes and early entry) was Bamboo Sushi's amberjack topped with red jalapeno, cilantro, black flying fish roe and miso vinaigrette.

My friend Craig joined me this year and this is what his tray looked like 10 minutes in. So many tasty treats. And we got to sample a lot of nice wine, beer and spirits as well.

Chop's table was very popular and they had one of the most diverse spreads of any of the partipants. Tried all kinds of delicious salames, proscuittos and pates and had a difficult time leaving that table and moving along...

This was probably about 30 minutes into general admission. Packed but not uncomfortable because of all the natural light and air flow above. Everyone was in great spirits sampling all the food and drink and knowing that all money spent goes to a great cause.

For $25 you could try your luck at restaurant roulette. All sorts of local food and drink gift certificates to be won...

I won these! Anya Spence of Miss Zumstein is a good friend of a friend and looking forward to using both GCs.

Departure was serving up one of my other favorites of the night -- spicy steamed honey chicken bao.

They deserve a close-up -- Departure's spicy chicken bao.

I always look forward to what Andina cooks up for Taste of the Nation. This year they did lomo saltado empanadas and potato, avocado, smoked tomato causitas. Both were delicious as always.

My boyfriend's friend Brewer Dylan Goldsmith of Captured by Porches poured my friend Craig an alt beer right before Mayor Sam Adams gave a speech declaring May 8th officially No Child Hungry Day and at the end thanked Dylan for the tasty IPA he was drinking.

Happy to donate some copies of my book to the silent raffle. My book came with gift certificates to Chop, Nong's Khao Man Gai and Missionary Chocolates. Not too shabby.

Closing shot -- love this one of Irving Street Kitchen's station cooking up potato latkes with gravlax and apple butter. Can't beat cooking in sunglasses...

Stay tuned for next year's Taste of the Nation! www.portlandtaste.org