So it has been quite some time since I posted but todays post is sad news for the city of Chicago.
Chef Trotter passed away today at age 54. His family, friends and a lot of big names in the food game have done nothing but pay respect to a man who really in the end helped shape some of Chicago's food culture.
Chicago chef Graham Elliot (Master Chef judge) tweets: "CHARLIE TROTTER: chef, mentor, trailblazer, philosopher, artist, teacher, leader. He now belongs to the ages."
The first time I heard the name Charlie Trotter was because of Anthony Bourdain and "No Reservations"
Cities with major food culture there are men and women who have helped shape the face of food in there cities and what I have read and learned about Charlie Trotter was he was one of these men
I am not sure what to say but here at FoodXCore we offer our condolences to his family, friends and to all those chefs influenced by him in one way or another do not forget what he taught you because someone has to pass it on!!
So this morning I got to my work set up and did what I do almost every morning and that is walk down to Char-Cu-Te-Rie in here in downtown Visalia, Ca for my morning coffee and time to kick back and do some reading.
This week I have been reading The Ethical Butcher but today I grabbed the travel issue of Lucky Peach magazine and started reading an article that featured Roy Choi (Kogi and A-Frame) and Christina Tossi (Momofuku Milk Bar).
Roy starts talking about the "aloha spirit". "The aloha spirit happens in many ways. Can you think of letting someone in your house without feeding them, or let them go on the road and not pack them a lunch?" This question got me to thinking about food, friends/family and being involved in the hardcore scene.
One of my favorite things in life is when my wife and I open our home up to friends. Whether it was for a special occasion or just to say "Come over I am firing up the grill". You could almost always count on after any-show our house and yard would be filled with friends and bands who were on the road.
I knew first had that bands on the road did not get good meals on the road so if they were in my house they got fed. There is nothing better then a bunch of guys hanging out around a bbq grill in the snow drinking beer.
In September of 2007 I put together a going away party/birthday party for my wife (we were getting ready to leave Spokane and return to California). I used my buddies restaurant and cooked three pork shoulderes and prepared Kalua Pork, tons of rice and potato salad. Beth made her garlic bread that everyone freaking loves (she has only given the recipe to one person and the is Joey). It was an evening of just spending time with friend.
I think about the times of sitting around a diner and eating food that may not be the nest on the planet but you sit there for a couple of hours with your friend and just b/s the whole time. Everyone has had those late nights at Dennys.
Sometimes I think people miss the point of food. I think food is about community. I was not trying to do something awesome when I would cook late nite after a show it was about bringing people together. The truth is some of the best food around is not always the "best" food but the best times.
When you are eating or in some cases feeding people think of what Roy Choi said about the aloha spirit...Sometimes that is what it is all about.
So today I go to lunch at Brewbaker's Brewery in downtown Visalia,Ca. I pull up a stool at the bar order my beer (Dopplebock) and asked what was the special called "Australian Open" and as the bartender began to describe what was in on the burger and as soon as he got to the fact that there was on egg on the burger I say "That will do...Lets go with that".
Recently I filled out an application for one of my favorite restaurants in Santa Ana,Ca and one of the questions on the application was asking about my favorite burger and why. So this got me thinking...What makes a good burger?
Double-Double Animal Style
First and for most how do you have your burger cooked? I like my burger medium rare to medium because there is nothing worse then an overcooked burger. If you are out and you order anything over medium you are looking at an overcooked burger, especially if it sits under heat for a few minutes.
I put the question out there "What make a good burger?". David Villalpando for Fist City MX says a good burger is "sirloin, chorizo, bleu cheese, jalapeno and onion rolls oh yeah and bacon!!"
One of my favorite things to do when in LA is hit up the Grill Em All Truck because the truth is they have some of the best burgers around. Not only do you get burgers based on your favorite metal bands but just good damn food. Oh yeah by the way have opened a brick and mortar in Alhambra! Can not wait to visit there real restaurant.
Waste Em All
Well in the end is there a such things as the perfect burger, I don't know because like anything that is good it is subjective. A good burger is only as good as its ingredients. If you use crappy meat, crappy cheese or mediocre then guess what you are going to get a crappy burger.
If you are at home making burgers use the time to experiment, do not just slap meat into a patty and if you are out grow a pair of balls and try something new when it comes to your burger. Trust me it is the best way to go.
So I do not normally have any resolutions or anything but this year I have a list of things I want to do and here they are!!!
1) Food Recipe Contest: April 13th 2013 is national Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day and I am wanting to partner with a local restaurant and collect a bunch of grillled cheese sandwich recipes and the winning recipe will hit a menu on April 13th. Keep your eyes peeled!!
2) COCHON 555: 5 chefs, 5 winemakers and 5 pigs and 10 cities (including SF and LA). It is not a super cheap event but I am willing to spend the money on it,
3) Another visit to Jason Quinn's "The Playground" and I think another visit to "INK"
Last but not least I am really going to try and develope the Fat Boy HC blog into something dope this year. Working on some recipes to put up here as well. Keep your eyes peeled going into the next year.
So 2012 is winding down and I got to thinking about where I have had the chance to eat, read and watched. So I decided that I would try my best to touch on some interesting things to the last year...Enjoy
Last Christmas I received a copy of Brian and Michael Voltaggio book called Volt.INK and in the spring of 2012 the wife and I went down to Los Angeles to get away for a few days. It was on this trip that we not only had the chance to have lunch at INK.Sack but Mr. Voltaggio took a few minutes out of his schedule to sign my book.
If you get the chance to have lunch at INK.Sack you have to order a bag of Crab Chips with whatever sandwich you get...Trust me this is one of the best things you will ever snack on!
COCHON 555 is 5 chefs, 5 winemakes and 5 heritage breed pigs. This is a multiple city competition. In four years the COCHON Tour has served over 35,000 guests,
harvested more than 1 Billion Media impressions for “heritage breed pigs
& family farms” and featured over 1500 food pioneers supporting a
better food system. When the tour landed in Boston the winner of the Cochon competition was Jamie Bissonnette owner of TORO and COPPA.
July 1st and the state of Claifornia officially banned the sale of Fois Gras courtesy of animal rights organizations like PETA. If you do not know what Fois Gras (fatty duck liver). Foie gras is made from livers that have been plumped up to several times
their normal size through force feeding, a process called gavage. There are California restaurants that finding loopholes to be able to serve it by bringing it in from out of state. What sucks is that restaurants could face up to a $1,000 fine per day.
David Chang (Momofuku) gets his own show on PBS this year called "The Mind Of A Chef". I love this show because is the pages of the magazine "Lucky Peach" were to come to life this is what you would get. Daisy (my youngest daughter) and I will sit and watch this show as often as possible.
For all those who are fans of Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" he calls it quits with the Travel Channel but do not fret he has joined CNN for a new show and do not forget the cooking reality show he is doing on ABC.
Here is a couple of stories from the 2012 Eater archives: Gordon Ramsayapplied for the UK trademark for "The Spotted Pig," which is, uh, not his restaurant. It's April Bloomfield and Ken Friedman's restaurant in New York. Rumor has it Ramsey will be returning the trademark to it's rightful home. Zagatprinted its 2012 guides to Bay Area restaurants with the name of the city misspelled "San Francsico." A restaurant in Moscow held a caviar eating competition
in which twelve "lucky" souls had to eat a half kilogram of black
caviar worth $70,000 as fast as humanly possible. The prize for winning?
More caviar. And last but not least from the EATER universe Ghostwritingate: New York Times writer Julia Moskin claimed a whole bunch of celebrity chefs used ghostwriters; a whole bunch of cookbook authors (including Gwyneth Paltrow, Bobby Flay, and Rachael Ray) had a problem with it.
Oh yeah I forgot to tell you I got a free pair of kitchen shoes and Chris Cosentino;s book "Beginnings" because not only do I watch to much Top Chef but follow cool people on twitter!!
Well that is it for now....I hope everyone there has a great new years and remember no one eaters better then a fat boy!!
So with all the business with Anthony Bourdain and the Travel Channel I got to thinking about how many feuds exist between other chef. So I started with EATER and The Braiser and here are my top 5 favorite chef feuds!!Please not I am not trying to make mountains out of mole hills I just think some of this stuff is funny. Enjoy
5) Jose Andres v. Gordon Ramsey: I am the first to admit that I enjoy the trainwreck known as "Hells Kitchen". Every season seems to get worse. When Chef Jose Andres had taken to Twitter to voice his opinion of FOX "Hells Kitchen", ""Hells Kitchen is not making my profession look good. watching with
daughters for first time, and I feel so ashamed! Don't treat people
badly."
4) Alton Brown v. Adam Richman: Alton Brown slammedMan vs Food star Adam Richman
for his "disgusting" show, in which he takes on local pig-out spots and
their insane food challenges. "That show is about gluttony, and
gluttony is wrong. It's wasteful. Think about people that are starving
to death and think about that show. I think it's an embarrassment." My favorite thing was when The Food Network had Adam Richman as a judge on IRON CHEF. 3) Jamie Bissonnette v. Anthony Bourdain: Most people do not know Jamie Bissonnette. I wish I could live in Boston and work under him. Bissonnette finds Bourdain to be highly entertaining but skewed in his perspective on Boston: "That
fuckin' prick comes to Boston and he doesn't go to any restaurants, and
he goes to fucking dive bars in Southie and then he goes on to say that
Boston doesn't have any good fucking restaurants?
2) Eddie Huang v Marcus Samuelsson: Huang's main point seems to be that Red Rooster isn't true to Harlem in any sense. By presenting "upscale" soul food
at a premium, Huang argues that the restaurant is both misguided and
condescending. "By catering to diners outside Harlem and talking down to
the ones who live there -- promising things like "elevated" soul food
-- he treats the place like a museum exhibit," Huang writes. "He speaks
in stereotypes, desperately trying to capture snapshots of villagers
dancing, praying and bespoke-suiting to display in this playhouse of a
restaurant."
And last but not least and my favorite feud is.... 1) David Chang v. San Francisco Chefs: During a Q & A with Anthony Bourdain at the 2009 NYC Wine and Food Fest, Bourdain asked Chang about food trends that he hates. His response:"F***in' every restaurant in San Francisco is just serving figs on a plate. Do something with your food." After the SF Asia society cancelled a book tour event due to the comment, Chang stood his ground saying, "Why would people get upset? I'm not gonna retract what I said. I think everybody needs to chill out. People need to smoke more marijuana in San Francisco."
I like food, I like to go out to eat with the wife and kids. I like everything from fine dining to food trucks. I also think that sometimes when looking for somewhere to eat you have to look past the letter in the window (LA County establishments have a letter given to them by the health board). What makes for somewhere to eat better then just reputation and where all the hipster kids are calling "cool"?
On Monday my daughter Daisy and I went to Central Fish Market in Downtown Fresno,Ca. so we could get groceries for dinner, but first we needed ramen! We ordered a couple of bowls of ramen, she had a Japanese soda and I had a can of Sapporo. As we sit eating we are digging through my MOMOFUKU book so we can figure out what we need to buy.
Central Fish gets busy, I mean super busy. It took us almost 35 minutes to get out food and like always it was worth it. Downtown Fresno has a bunch of places to eat but there is something about Central Fish. If you sit long enough everyone is going to walk through the door. When I say everyone I mean white guys, black guys, business people, old people, constructions guys...I mean everyone!! This is one of those times where the local know best.
Just because there are a bunch of fixed gear biks, dudes in jean cut offs and they sell Pabst does not mean it is the cool place to go. Sometimes I do not mind a table that is a little beat up and grimy with the smell of fresh seafood next door in a neighborhood most people won't hang out in after dark.
Do you know what the locals know? More importantly are you a local and you do not know where the gems are in your town? If not I think it is time to see what is in your own backyard.
