Presents For The Kitchen

Thanks to my job at the Chopping Block I get some very good discounts on some very fancy cookware. This past month's promotion was for Emile Henry, Mauviel and Rosle. For those not in the know all this stuff is usually waaaay out of my price range, especially the Mauviel. Most of their copper runs at insane price points (saute pan is 260.00!). Needless to say I jumped at the chance to get some new gear for the kitchen, considering I don't think I will every be able to purchase copper at these prices again! From Emile Henry I got a shallow brassier and a tagine, both are ceramic capable of taking some real high hear. The Mauviel pieces took many hours of deliberation to choose, in the end my order turned out to be exactly the same as Bowers', odd. I ordered the thickest copper wall they make with cast iron handles, all in all the pieces weigh about 20 pounds a piece. Out of 3 very classy boxes came a splayed side saute pan, large saute pan and a med. sautoir (or straight side saute). I don't have the heart to cook in these yet! I want to do something real special but I can't figure out what that will be.

On a side note I made one of the tastiest sandwiches ever yesterday. I got a whole pork belly from Arnolds not long ago with the intent of making bacon. One of the ends was nice and meaty so I figured there was no reason not to cook that right away! I cubed up the end and placed it in my new Emile Henry brassier along with some Shoyu, Dry Sherry, ginger, garlic and water. I let this all braise for about 3 hours and then I cooled it down over night. The next day I got some a baguette and placed two pieces inside with a nice dose of Siracha. The end result is not all that pretty but it was so good I had to take a nap afterwards. The cooled fat from the belly acted like butter on the bread and the meat was falling apart. Salty, sweet, fatty and spicy. You couldn't ask for a better meal.


The rest of the belly is curing in the fridge as I write this and should be done in about 4 days. I'm curing it in a mix of salt, sugar, black pepper (alot), garlic, and crushed bay leaves. Once its finished Bowers is going to smoke it for me and we shall see what we come up with. Keep your fingers crossed!

My Life Revolves Around Food

As most of you know I did not go to Hillsboro for the race due to a stomach virus. I decided against going and completely destroying my body for a discipline I don't even really compete in. Hopefully I'll make up for it at the end of this month at the Rock Cut race. Now that I mention that I need to get start getting up early and getting on the path.

A little before my bought with the flu Mike and I headed out for our first "exploring Chicago" lunches (part one in a series). We went down Grand to Bari Foods for their famous sandwiches. As is evident from the picture this was to be a curb meal and it made the lunch all that better. Right next door to Bari is Damato's Bakery where we stopped in for some cookies. I had the lady make me up a mixed box of her favorites. I must say that they where worth the trip on their own! Not usually a huge fan of the dry Italian style cookies but these were very well made and I'd defiantly go back. Next on our agenda is unraveling the mystery of the Jibarito, a sandwich invented here in Chicago.

This past weekend Leyla and I finally made it out to Mitsuwa in Arlington Heights after hearing about it for the past year. Mitsuwa is a Japanese supermarket with a built in food court. We had a little lunch before diving into the shopping. I hate to say it but the best part wast the green tea soft serve ice cream, although the food was not bad either. The market itself is amazing. Very clean and filled with packaging that I could not decipher, lots of big eyed cartoon characters telling me to buy, buy, buy! So I did. The fish section was very nice, we bought a couple pieces of salmon, yellowtail and chu-toro for nigiri later that night. I was finally able to find some nice high end Shoyu (soy sauce) along with good quality short grain rice. My favorite find of the day was something that I thought was 100% Brazilian. I used to drink this stuff called Yakult when I lived in Brazil. Its a small shot of a yogurt flavored drink, basically a shot of lacto-basilicas, but very tasty! Turns out its a Japanese/Korean product! Needless to say I bought about 30 of them! After making our way around the market and checking out we headed over to the booze section! Always bad news for me! To make matters worse there was a lady giving out samples of different sakes. Needless to say I bought some along with some plum wine for Leyla. While looking for a bottle I found this poster towards the back and proceeded to study it and figure out how sake is made. Well, all I got from it is that a cartoon bottle runs the production line and lays out flow charts, then POOF! Sake's done!

I'm Back!

After many arguments with Comcast I finally have internet access back! I'll be posting once again. REJOICE!!

Enough Already!!

I woke up this morning to snow. Snow. Please don't make me say it again, because this getting very old, very quickly! Almost the end of March and we have yet to see any real nice days, and I'm not talking warm, I just want sunny and above 48. Oh well, I guess waiting will make the summer that much better.

And yes, that is all I'm writing today because nothing else is going on because of the snow!

Shopping

Had my first experience with the megalith of Ikea yesterday. All I can say is "wow". That place has literally thought of everything to keep you in there for the better part of a week. They even thought of tie down straps and tarps for your car when you buy a whole kitchen and realize you drove your Twingo (French joke) there. After about 2 hours of walking around I was able to find a desk and file cabinet that worked for me and also managed to come up with umpteen billion other ideas for the house.

My plans of going for a ride yesterday with Mike went down the tubes. I was beat and the weather was just plain ugly (like today). Training is getting worse by the day. I've come to find out that a member of our team is a USAC certified coach. I've been shooting emails back and forth with Bob and he is currently working on a plan to get me ready for Nationals and the WORS season. I've also come to the conclusion that I need to improve my diet a bit. I don't eat very many solid meals while I'm working, just alot of small portions scattered throughout the day. I think this is a big factor in me being so sluggish lately (the weather doesn't help either).

I also just got another order from Arnold's Farm! Bowers got a whole pork shoulder and I got a whole pork belly to make Rillions and Bacon. I'll post some pics when I start the process. I'm sure Bowers will also have something to say about the shoulder when he get it. I'm looking forward to Pulled Pork Sandwiches!

Been a While!

Now that I have lost 80% of my readers, I'm finally back! #1 rule while moving is take care of Comcast first! One week to get my service installed!! What a joke. Otherwise we are almost moved into the new place and not living out of boxes anymore. That's not saying we have things put away but its getting there. I'm not going to post any pictures of the apt. since I know there are some real creepy people out there who read this, you know who you are!

As for cycling I have been slacking like never before. I keep telling myself that MTB season doesn't start for a while but that is no excuse. My 30 min. on the trainer today was a joke, I felt sluggish and just had zero motivation. Last Sunday a couple of us from the team headed down to Hillsboro to pre-ride the course. I'm screwed. After the first 22mile lap I got dropped like an ugly baby. I had never ridden hills and these were short and brutal. I'm hoping I can at least hang with the pack on race day but coming in DFL is looking very likely. Oh well, we'll be out sporting the new kits and it should be a good time.

Below are some pics I have taken while the blog was down. I've found that I delete more pictures than I take with the new camera!

Amazing burgers at Kumas! All named after Metal bands!

My first meal at the new place. Mangos with chili and lime and Mexican
Street Corn. Bought from a guys food cart!

Me+2 bikes+backseat=Not Comfortable!!

Gotta love scenic Illinois.

Not For The Kids!

Ok, so I'm on a You Tube kick! Those of you who saw the film "American Hardcore" will have seen a shorter version of this Negative FX clip. From what I gather they were opening for Mission to Burma when halfway through FX's set Burma got mad at all the kids on stage (worried about equipment). Patrick Raftery (guitarist) and Choke (vocals) along with some of the crowd proceed to take back the stage and finish their set. As you can imagine after watching this, it was their last show ever, the band just walked away and never spoke again. Funny thing is they never officialy released anything and only played 6 shows, Choke's next band Last Rights did one show and post-humously put out a 7". Still, these two bands are still considered one of the great 80's HC bands. Choke is still playing with Slapshot and Start and Stipes, not sure about the others.

Good Kids TV!

As I've posted on here before the kids show "Yo Gabba Gabba" must have some great writers as they seem to invite some amazing bands on their show. Here is another one I just found of the Aggrolites doing a bit! Its good to see that kids are getting exposed to REAL MUSIC, by real musicians and not the overproduced garbage on the radio. Big ups to the crew who puts this show together, makes me smile.


And speaking of the Aggrolites their new video for "Reggae Hit LA" is up:

Beer, Yum.

Now that I have finally acquired a proper camera you all are going to be subjected to some terrible photography! Cool thing about this camera is that it can take multiple exposure values with one shot (ie idiot proof), although the manual settings still baffle me.

I picked up some of this great French cider from Whole Foods on Tuesday along with some other beers. I've always had a thing for cider, not the the pucker sweet American/English variety but the very dry style typical of Normandy. I had some when I was there in high school and have loved it ever since. Funny thing is nobody else drank it! Typical! As you can see on the bottle the Alc. content is only 5.5% which makes for a very refreshing drink and an excellent pairing with fatty foods. The taste is almost like a sparkling wine but the alcohol is more subdued. I remember my first cider I thought had some olives on the palate and I got that same flavor again with this, not in a bad way, just slight saltiness. There is another cider I get that is an Organic brand also from Normandy, although that one I find a little sweeter and not as refined.


One of the other beers I got was this Taras Boulba from Belgium. I had never seen this beer before and I think they had just got it in. I was instantly drawn to the artwork on the label, easily the most eye appealing bottle I've ever seen. I did a little research on Beer Advocate about it and it is brewed by Brouwerij Sint-Pieters (gotta love phonetic Flemish spellings). Some of there other beers have equally impressive labels, but frankly I've never seen them around. The beer itself poured very nicely and had a nice eggshell head that stuck around. It had a nice malty nose and a little bit of pepper nothing to strong. I was lured by the bottles claim of "extra hoppy" (only English on the bottle), but it wasn't that at all. Not saying it wasn't delicious but I was expecting IPA hops. Great beer and very easy to drink for a Belgian pale ale, I hope to get another one before they're gone.

Who Woulda Thunk It!

Mike: Oh yeah I love watching Dirty Jobs, the host is such a smart ass. By the way did you know you qualified for the mountain bike national championships?
Me: (Jaw drops and nothing comes out)....What, wait, huh? How the hell did I do that?
Mike: You placed well at Alterra Classic.
Me: Huh?

This goes on for a couple minutes till it actually sinks in that I get to ride in USAC's National Championships in Mt. Snow Vermont!! I placed 7th in my age group at a race this past season that is apparantly a qualifier, who knew. Frankly ever since Mike told me this I've been bouncing off the walls and looking for any excuse to start training again. Up till Saturday night I was simply going to race in order to have fun and win a couple races, now I have a goal and something to work my ass off towards. Upon reading this I'm sure Zach will be jumping at the chance to wreck me on some interval rides.

In other cycling news, the Tour of California started today and I heard a terrible piece of news during the intro. From what I gather Team Astana is being banned from riding the Tour De France, Paris-Roubaix, Paris-Nice and Paris-Tours. If this was the same team from last year I wouldn't even have raised an eyebrow considering their scandal. The thing is the whole team is new including managers, only thing that is the same is their financial backers. The worst part is that the team leader is Levi Leipheimer, who came in 3rd at last years TDF and is one of the best riders out there right now. Basically the Grand Tour promoters want to make an example of Astana not because of who they are but who they were! In that case why is Festina still a huge sponsor of the TDF?! If they are crucifying Levi for his sponsor then we should remember the Festina scandal and drop them as sponsors, tit for tat. Hopefully it'll work out for Levi but I doubt it. So please sign the petition and help a great American rider out!

Ah yes, and no more crappy Iphone photos! I got the camera and its amazing. Granted I don't understand 80% of its functions or manual settings. Time to start reading up on photography. Naz, Ben, I'm looking right at you!

Getting Amped

It looks like we are going to have a great crew out for the Hillsboro-Roubaix race! Ben and Mike from Killjoy have been convinced (like me) to ride on something besides single track. From Half Acre we have Zach riding with the Cat 3's since he's such a monster! In the 4/5 race there will be Adrian Silva, Kevin Clark, Tim Strege and yours truely. Our kits should be in by then and due to the delay they are waiving minimums for the next order, hello new skinsuit!

On another note I handed in my resignation to Gapers Block today (sorry Naz). I went into this project to write nothing but original material on food, food culture and not just repost other peoples links and events. What I came to realize is that I'm way to busy right now to get involved in anything like that (after only two posts!). Frankly my job is not one where I spend inordinate amounts of time in front of a computer so to actually sit down and be creative, ride my bike and work is to much for me to handle right now. I have enough hobbies as it is, I don't need to be awake until 3am to write a piece that I'm not all that happy with. I like my situation with this blog. I write when I want (usually after a beer, more on that later) and the only people who read it are ones I don't really have to impress. I can write what I feel and say what I want with no repercussions.

Speaking of beer, I've been buying a couple new ones every week at Whole Foods on North Ave. I will try and post them on here, I'm already a little behind. They have a great seletion of Belgians and some nice French farmhouse beers like this most recent buy. Forêt is brewed by Dupont who makes a very famous beer called Saisson Dupont. Both are classic farmhouse style beers but Forêt is all organic ingredients and uses only spring water. The color is a nice warm cloudy gold with a pretty lacy head. For an ale it is very crisp and the hops aren't to overpowering, just enough to clear the palate. We had this with some roasted chicken from Arnolds Farm (that was amazing), and it was a perfect compliment to the gamy/fatyness of the well raised bird (sorry no pics of that). Once again I have to apologize for not having better/any pics. I have a camera that I want but with the move coming up I'm trying not to buy it, although Bowers stole my thunder and bought one before me! Blast you expensive tastes!

Here are two pics from our trip to the bakery on Sunday, Zach is trying to stop the voice in his head saying "pork cookie, pork cookie".

It's Here!!

Ladies and Gents we have our first official cycling news of the year! I am now registered for my first two races! The first on March 29th is Hillsboro-Roubaix. Its not remotely as hard as Paris-Roubaix but I think there is some pavé as you roll through town. I can vividly see myself losing my breakfast very early on this race since I've never done a road race before and have ZERO confidence with this kind of ride. I'm going into it with the purpose of just having fun and seeing what I can do and how road races are.

The second is a little more up my alley, Rock Cut Challenge (I think thats the name). This will be the first MTB race of the season. Their justification for holding it so early is so they don't clash with the WORS series. This should be a fun time since all the heavy hitters will be out there shaking off the winter cobwebs. Like most non-WORS races there is no Comp class and there is no way in hell I'm racing elite. I guess I'm stuck with the Sport class again who don't seem to understand the concept of trail etiquette! God forbid anybody should pass you while you cough up a lung, idiot.

On another note Zach, Mike, Jason and I hit up a spin class on Sunday. With a high of 9 deg. there was no way in hell we were going to do a club ride. The spin class was fun but kinda brutal since the instructor focused in on us since we were wearing kits and the only cyclists in the class. It was great for strength training but not even close to a real world scenario. Those classes are a great way to destroy your knees, but in a fun way. After some spinning I took the guys up to Argyle for some food and then on to Chiu Quon Bakery. We bought some cheap baked goods (great egg custard) and Mike found it necessary to purchase a "pork cookie", no joke. I"m still waiting on the review of that one.

Vegetarians Look Away!

So I'm posting this here since it has nothing to do with Chicago hence I can't put it on Gapers. Explanations aside, this is just plain sexy! Its a freakin wall of suckling pig! I'm sure you've figured out by now this is not the US. Its actually an establishment in Madrid called Casa Botin. Apparently its the oldest surviving restaurant in the world (est. 1725) and was called the worlds best food by Hemingway. Obviously this has rendered it into quite the tourist trap, sad. That does not take away from the fact that a place like this would be shut down here, not by the health patrol but by people complaining that there food is looking at them. Hate to break it to you but thats what it looks like before they gas, inject, sterilize and shrink wrap the mystery meat you pick up at the stupid market.

Our attitude towards animal slaughter in this country is a don't ask don't tell policy. I'm not going to get into details but suffice to say we need to change our practices of factory farming, whether it's animal or vegetable. I guarantee the resources are out there for you to buy humane meets. I just did the other day and I'm not going back to my old ways. Granted this won't work out so well when I cook for clients due to the fact nobody wants to pay the premium associated with a good product! I don't get why people want to save a couple bucks and eat garbage.

Something else I just learned is that genetically modified (GMO) crops or cattle does not have to be labled as such in the US. In the EU it is clearly marked so the consumer knows what they are getting. Future plans for GMO cattle in the US include breeding them to withstand diseases and produce better marbled beef. The main purpose of these "experiments" is to breed a cow that can digest corn better (since cows naturally feed on grass their rumen won't handle corn well). Frankly I find this repulsive and will only lead to blander and more "sterile" meat. Hopefully the US will change its policy regarding GMO products but seeing as Cargill is one of the major supporters of this movement, I don't see that happening!

On a happier side note, I'm going to make my own bacon very soon. My new farmer/rancher said he can get me some belly! Yummmm!

Moving Along.

As some of you already know Naz asked me to write for Gapers Block food section on a regular basis. I have a feeling that it is going to make my postings about food on this site drop quite considerably! So I encourage you to check there regularly. Most of my posts will be fairly short but I'll try and piss some people off. I would like to think that I'm going to keep both going, but frankly nobody is going to fire me if I don't post here for a week. With racing season bearing down I'll have more to write about but as for now I haven't even been training for 2 weeks. Every time I have a break in my schedule the weather shuts any plans of riding down.

My first race this season will be my first road race, Hillsboro-Roubaix. Not really sure where it is but I know guys from the team are going and it looks like a fun time. Believe it or not there are actually cobbles in this race too! From what I gather the downtown loop is all pavé, pretty cool. I'm not looking for a win, just want to get a feel for the race and maybe do a break at a terrible time to piss everyone off (your with me, right Mike).

On the team front our kit order has been held up and is going to be a couple weeks late. Sucks because Zach and Kevin are going to race around the middle of this month (psychos). With some luck we'll get them in on time. We also have had a bunch of new people joining including some riders with a fair amount of experience.

Food wise, Bowers and I got an order from Arnolds Farm, a local pasture rancher. All his beef is grass fed and the chickens run around and eat cow poop like they should. We ordered ribeyes, short ribs, top round roast, a whole chicken, pork chops and country style pork ribs. The chicken looks nice and dark and lean, kind of like the ones I had on the farm while fishing with my Dad in Brasil. Tomorrow night I'm going to crack open the ribeyes I got and hopefully that will be my first post on Gapers Block.

I Love Mornings!

As most of you know (and despise me for it) my jobs don't require me to be out the door till sometime in the afternoon or late morning. This morning I decided to take full advantage of the present I gave Leyla for xmas. A killer Pro-Ject turntable with no bells and whistles. Just a jet black simplistic machine that screams music snob. I started the morning with a big gourd of chimarao (or mate for you Argentinian jerks). If you've ever had this stuff you'll know that the caffeine content makes Red Bull look like tap water. So while speed reading my latest issue of The Economist I played a pretty broad range of tunes. You gotta love that these three albums were played back to back! A 99 cent copy of Billy Joel's 52nd St., my mint condition original Blue Note recording of Dexter Gordon's Go and my favorite piece of vinyl, Vulture Rock's compilation of the West Side Boys recordings (ah, French punk rock).

On another note I'd like to praise The Economist for writing such a great magazine. Its nice to read unbiased news in this day and age. I mostly read it for the international coverage, since our American media could care less about what goes on outside our borders. "Oh, we're fighting a pointless war? Who cares! Britney just bought some Starbucks!" What a joke.

I think I also read The Economist because my Dad always has since I can remember. Its comforting just to have it around even if I can't finish an issue before the next one arrives!