Wednesday, March 20, 2013
JAMES BEARD AWARD? MAYBE
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
PAPERBACK IS OUT TODAY!
— The Washington Post
“There are few people more revered in the food world than Craig Claiborne....Thomas McNamee has done his homework here, offering up a full portrait of Claiborne, whose life was not all crème fraîche.”
— USA Today
“Craig Claiborne was the greatest influence of my professional life. . . . Claiborne’s impact on the culinary revolution of the last forty years cannot be ignored or overstated.”
—Jacques Pépin
“McNamee’s book is extraordinary. This is a fascinating book, true progenitor that [Claiborne] was in what appears to be a genuine American food revolution. It’s impossible to think of his as a happy life but he certainly got his work done, which matters a great deal. I would recommend this book to anyone even vaguely interested in food.”
—Jim Harrison
Thursday, March 7, 2013
FRACK YOU, CHIP GROAT!
So. Here's this energy expert, Charles "Chip" Groat, lead author of a prestigious study that gives hydraulic fracturing--better known as fracking--a clean bill of health. No evidence of groundwater contamination. Safe. Clean.
Prof. Groat has impeccable credentials. He has served on more than a dozen earth science boards. He was executive director of the American Geological Institute. He was chief of the U.S. Geological Survey--as clean an agency as the federal government has, in my view--under both presidents Clinton and Bush. At the time of the study he was interim dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin as well as Director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at U.T. The study was reported as conclusive in one of the scientific world's most authoritative journals, Nature.
Oh, but. Turns out there's one little detail ol' Chip didn't mention. It seems that he sits on the board of a little old company called Plains Exploration & Production Company of Houston, which describes itself as "primarily engaged in the activities of acquiring, developing, exploring and producing oil and gas." He owns 40,000 shares in the company, and in 2011 they paid Charles "Chip" Groat some $400,000.
Caught red-handed by a nonprofit watchdog group, the Public Accountability Initiative, ol' Chip declared that disclosing his relationship with that company "would not have served any meaningful purpose relevant to this study."
He hadn't told the University of Texas, either, and they commissioned an outside investigation of the matter, which culminated, in November 2012, in Prof. Groat's resignation. He's still on the PXP board, and the study, though riddled with flaws, has never been withdrawn.
Prof. Groat has impeccable credentials. He has served on more than a dozen earth science boards. He was executive director of the American Geological Institute. He was chief of the U.S. Geological Survey--as clean an agency as the federal government has, in my view--under both presidents Clinton and Bush. At the time of the study he was interim dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin as well as Director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at U.T. The study was reported as conclusive in one of the scientific world's most authoritative journals, Nature.
Oh, but. Turns out there's one little detail ol' Chip didn't mention. It seems that he sits on the board of a little old company called Plains Exploration & Production Company of Houston, which describes itself as "primarily engaged in the activities of acquiring, developing, exploring and producing oil and gas." He owns 40,000 shares in the company, and in 2011 they paid Charles "Chip" Groat some $400,000.
Caught red-handed by a nonprofit watchdog group, the Public Accountability Initiative, ol' Chip declared that disclosing his relationship with that company "would not have served any meaningful purpose relevant to this study."
He hadn't told the University of Texas, either, and they commissioned an outside investigation of the matter, which culminated, in November 2012, in Prof. Groat's resignation. He's still on the PXP board, and the study, though riddled with flaws, has never been withdrawn.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
THE WONDROUS PRIVATE LIFE OF A TOP MODEL
This is Daphne Groeneveld, who, according to models.com, is the ninth-highest-ranked model in the world .
This is Daphne's"public" blog on tumblr, her public presence on the internet: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/daphne%20groeneveld A glance at two or three pages of this should suffice.
Much more interesting, and worth a longer tour, is her "private" tumblr blog, which of course is not private at all: http://o-h-lala.tumblr.com/
What a life!
This is Daphne's"public" blog on tumblr, her public presence on the internet: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/daphne%20groeneveld A glance at two or three pages of this should suffice.
Much more interesting, and worth a longer tour, is her "private" tumblr blog, which of course is not private at all: http://o-h-lala.tumblr.com/
What a life!
Friday, December 28, 2012
IN WHICH MY GOOSE IS COOKED
I cooked a goose for Christmas, and it was delicious, but Jesus (so to speak), it was a lot of work.
The superlative butchers at Golden Gate Meat Company in San Francisco managed to get hold of a few dozen geese from Grimaud Farms--air-chilled (hence no water weight added, as is customary with most other poultry) and never frozen: beautiful birds. Early on the morning after I'd brought home my ten-pounder, I woke up remembering a recent experience with a duck that I had cut up in order to braise the legs, roast the breasts rare, and make a nice stock from the back and other scraps; and I thought, Well, that would be a dandy way to deal with the goose. I also remembered, however, that the anatomy of that duck had been sufficiently different from that of birds I was more familiar with that I had really been digging around and doing some damage to its lovely dark flesh. Moreover, the connective tissue holding the joints together had been extremely hard to slice through. Now I was looking at a critter five times bigger, with pretty much the same anatomy, and tendons probably five times tougher.
And so I'm thinking, Time to call the guys at Golden Gate. Sure enough, they'd be glad to cut it up for me. Therefore, as sheets of rain slashed across the Embarcadero and the Bay at high tide splashed against the piers, I made my way through a gray eight a.m. Sunday to the Ferry Building to find Golden Gate--Closed Sundays? Naw! Who had I been talking to, then? I banged on the steel gate, hollered through it. I could see a guy mopping inside, but he didn't look up. I banged, I hollered. Finally he saw me and disappeared into the back. Soon appeared one of the butchers I recognized--the one, in fact, who had answered the phone. Padlocks click, in I goes, a discussion of the surgery ensues. Ten minutes later, one bag contains drumsticks, thighs, and first joints of wings with a knob of breast meat attached to each; another has the whole breast, un-split; and a third the carcass, wing tips, neck, giblets, heart, and liver--all but the last the makings of my stock. With Christmas Eve dinner not till the next night, I could make stock that day and let the fat rise in the fridge overnight. Also I could do my braise.
I thought I would brown the meat and bones on top of the stove. Not a good idea. First of all it took six frying pans, all six burners. Second, despite my assiduous drying, the fat-spatter was unbelievable. Goose napalm. So, a five-hundred oven. Lotta spattering there too, of course, but at least it was contained. Also in the oven I browned onions (skin on), carrots, and celery; together, for both the braise and the stock. I poured off the rendered fat--yeow--more than three cups.
I gave the stock a two-hour head start so I could use some of it in the braise. I managed to fit the meat into two large cast-iron skillets, then wedged in the now-caramelized vegetables, added some stock, thyme, and bay, discovered that my back-yard parsley was dead, and poured half a bottle of Loire (unoaked) chardonnay into each pan. Up to a simmer, and into a three-hundred oven. Wearing this great little timer around my neck, I could "remember" to check on everything once an hour. Barely bubbling, just right.
After four hours, the goose drumsticks were still so hard I could have cracked somebody's skull with one. After five, they were merely inedibly tough. Good thing this was the day before.
Finally, after six and a half hours and several addings of water, they began to soften, and that was enough for the day. I put the meat in a bowl in the refrigerator and added the braising liquid to the stock pot. By now the carcass was breaking apart, which was good--more gelatin in the stock, more unctuosity in the sauce to come. I fished out all the big stuff and smushed it hard in the strainer to squeeze out whatever juice I could, then strained the rest, again smushing anything smushable to a paste. All the solids could now go to compost and the beautiful, though very greasy, stock to the fridge.
Christmas Eve morning, the fat having nicely congealed, I scraped it off the top of the stock. What lay beneath was a sparkling-clear consommé. Beauty, thy name is stock! It did need to reduce by about half. No problem. That done, I put the goose in a bit of it and put that again in a 300 oven. After an hour and a half or so, the meat was falling off the bone; I took that out and kept it warm.
When the oven reached 450, I roasted the breast to an internal temperature of 145. The skin was tight and crisp, the meat bright blood-red.
I took a quart or so of the stock to reduce further for a sauce. I julienned an orange peel, blanched it, and added that. I just happened to have three kinds of oranges on hand--a regular navel, a Cara Cara, which has flesh sort of grapefruity-pink, and a Clementine. I cut out "filets" from the first two and just sectioned the third because it comes apart so nicely, and set those aside. The juice left over I added to the sauce, followed by a wee tad of butter for viscosity and what the hell. I completely forgot to chop, cook, and add the liver.
After resting it for forty minutes, I carved the breast meat off the bone and sliced it crosswise into thin medallions.
Braised meat went on one end of the platter, rare breast on the other. I chucked the little orange quarter-moons here and there amidst both.
It was very, very good. But once, I think, will have been enough.
The superlative butchers at Golden Gate Meat Company in San Francisco managed to get hold of a few dozen geese from Grimaud Farms--air-chilled (hence no water weight added, as is customary with most other poultry) and never frozen: beautiful birds. Early on the morning after I'd brought home my ten-pounder, I woke up remembering a recent experience with a duck that I had cut up in order to braise the legs, roast the breasts rare, and make a nice stock from the back and other scraps; and I thought, Well, that would be a dandy way to deal with the goose. I also remembered, however, that the anatomy of that duck had been sufficiently different from that of birds I was more familiar with that I had really been digging around and doing some damage to its lovely dark flesh. Moreover, the connective tissue holding the joints together had been extremely hard to slice through. Now I was looking at a critter five times bigger, with pretty much the same anatomy, and tendons probably five times tougher.
And so I'm thinking, Time to call the guys at Golden Gate. Sure enough, they'd be glad to cut it up for me. Therefore, as sheets of rain slashed across the Embarcadero and the Bay at high tide splashed against the piers, I made my way through a gray eight a.m. Sunday to the Ferry Building to find Golden Gate--Closed Sundays? Naw! Who had I been talking to, then? I banged on the steel gate, hollered through it. I could see a guy mopping inside, but he didn't look up. I banged, I hollered. Finally he saw me and disappeared into the back. Soon appeared one of the butchers I recognized--the one, in fact, who had answered the phone. Padlocks click, in I goes, a discussion of the surgery ensues. Ten minutes later, one bag contains drumsticks, thighs, and first joints of wings with a knob of breast meat attached to each; another has the whole breast, un-split; and a third the carcass, wing tips, neck, giblets, heart, and liver--all but the last the makings of my stock. With Christmas Eve dinner not till the next night, I could make stock that day and let the fat rise in the fridge overnight. Also I could do my braise.
I thought I would brown the meat and bones on top of the stove. Not a good idea. First of all it took six frying pans, all six burners. Second, despite my assiduous drying, the fat-spatter was unbelievable. Goose napalm. So, a five-hundred oven. Lotta spattering there too, of course, but at least it was contained. Also in the oven I browned onions (skin on), carrots, and celery; together, for both the braise and the stock. I poured off the rendered fat--yeow--more than three cups.
I gave the stock a two-hour head start so I could use some of it in the braise. I managed to fit the meat into two large cast-iron skillets, then wedged in the now-caramelized vegetables, added some stock, thyme, and bay, discovered that my back-yard parsley was dead, and poured half a bottle of Loire (unoaked) chardonnay into each pan. Up to a simmer, and into a three-hundred oven. Wearing this great little timer around my neck, I could "remember" to check on everything once an hour. Barely bubbling, just right.
After four hours, the goose drumsticks were still so hard I could have cracked somebody's skull with one. After five, they were merely inedibly tough. Good thing this was the day before.
Finally, after six and a half hours and several addings of water, they began to soften, and that was enough for the day. I put the meat in a bowl in the refrigerator and added the braising liquid to the stock pot. By now the carcass was breaking apart, which was good--more gelatin in the stock, more unctuosity in the sauce to come. I fished out all the big stuff and smushed it hard in the strainer to squeeze out whatever juice I could, then strained the rest, again smushing anything smushable to a paste. All the solids could now go to compost and the beautiful, though very greasy, stock to the fridge.
Christmas Eve morning, the fat having nicely congealed, I scraped it off the top of the stock. What lay beneath was a sparkling-clear consommé. Beauty, thy name is stock! It did need to reduce by about half. No problem. That done, I put the goose in a bit of it and put that again in a 300 oven. After an hour and a half or so, the meat was falling off the bone; I took that out and kept it warm.
When the oven reached 450, I roasted the breast to an internal temperature of 145. The skin was tight and crisp, the meat bright blood-red.
I took a quart or so of the stock to reduce further for a sauce. I julienned an orange peel, blanched it, and added that. I just happened to have three kinds of oranges on hand--a regular navel, a Cara Cara, which has flesh sort of grapefruity-pink, and a Clementine. I cut out "filets" from the first two and just sectioned the third because it comes apart so nicely, and set those aside. The juice left over I added to the sauce, followed by a wee tad of butter for viscosity and what the hell. I completely forgot to chop, cook, and add the liver.
After resting it for forty minutes, I carved the breast meat off the bone and sliced it crosswise into thin medallions.
Braised meat went on one end of the platter, rare breast on the other. I chucked the little orange quarter-moons here and there amidst both.
It was very, very good. But once, I think, will have been enough.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
ELIZABETH DAVID ON EGGS; AND SO MUCH MORE
"I shall try to explain these things, and others connected with the successful manipulation of eggs, for they are well worth the practice needed and the time and money you must spend. From unsuccessful attempts there is much to be learnt, so one must count an occasional wasted egg or failed soufflé as profit rather than loss."
--French Provincial Cooking, Frome: Butler & Tanner Ltd., 1960
--French Provincial Cooking, Frome: Butler & Tanner Ltd., 1960
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
MORE IMPORTANT THAN GUN CONTROL
--By far. If the country can figure out how to deal with what this courageous writer describes, we will all be much safer. Click on this link:
I am Adam Lanza's mother
I am Adam Lanza's mother
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