What is Good in Life? BBQ

Not all nourishment is consumed. For better or for worse, we are more complex than yeast cells. Humans require that which nurtures the soul, though there are times when all one wants is to just consume sugar and fart CO2. The past 2 months have been like that. I would make and excellent yeast cell.
Attending to matters of hearth and home has consumed much of my time of late but I’ve kept busy. At the top of my list of was to take part in the Guys Can Cook Too competition. Last year’s disappointment of having to back out at the last moment still rankled. I needed to face that demon, slay it, and dance on its corpse singing “hallelujah!”.
This year’s plan was the same as last year’s: pulled pork that would be paired with my Char B Q sauce. Instead of the usual cole slaw accompaniment, I went with a balsamic onion marmalade. I liked the sweet/sour play of the marmalade but it also adhered better to the portion.
The competition was set for May 14th, which allowed for a dry run opportunity to allow me to dial in my sauce and the smoking of the meat. The dry run was a success and I set myself busy to being preparing for an event that would require a minimum of 400 1-2 oz servings. I would smoke just over 40 pounds of pork shoulder and produce about a gallon of Char B Q sauce for the event. I gave the pork shoulder the full competition treatment: a generous coating of my dry rub, a flavor injection consisting of a mixture of apple juice and dry rub, and while cooking, an occasional vinegar mop of apple juice, lemon juice and a touch of vinegar. Gastro Pup was to be my sous chef and our main goal was to have fun, enjoying some prime daddy/daughter time. That soon went out the window as the event picked up steam and we began to get a steady stream of positive feedback. After a couple of other guests came back and made a big deal about how they were voting for us, well then we were all in and got serious about our task. At our busiest, we dished out 375 servings in just over an hour, and never kept anyone waiting. The most difficult challenge would be plating. My research on the event showed that one should be prepared to serve up to 600 servings within a 3 hour window. My research would prove correct. We were plating servings (and getting votes) right up to the end, others ran out early - some painfully so. At the end of the day, we didn’t win, but the exposure and the incredible amount of positive feedback was fantastic. Couldn’t have wished for better. We accomplished what we set out to do. No small feat in that I was working on 2.5 hours sleep after having worried my smokers all night. Gastro Pup was quite tired too, her Friday evening having been a night of some energy expenditure.
And now a word on some of the food the professional s brought:
1. Charlie Palmer of Dry Creek Kitchen was there doing caviar on warm blini and crème fraiche.
2. John Ash & Co. turned out killer rabbit tourine – my fave the for the night.
3. Johnny Garlic’s was there doing pulled pork, wouldn’t ya know. We kicked their butts! They kept their roast pork hot in braising liquid which totally changed the character of the meat. Epic fail!
4. Oyster Girls shucking some tasty bivalves. Best thing: our table was 5 feet from theirs. Nice!
5. The many wineries pouring some very nice offerings.
6. The culinary crew of Santa Rosa Junior College how not only saw to it that we had everything we needed but also put out a very nice buffet for those taking part. They must have known, because I didn’t realize that I hadn’t eaten in 24 hours.

Another nice aspect was the involvement of kids in the competition. A special youth category was established and next to us was a boy who would go on to win the youth category with a very fresh and lively crevice. The entire event was so well organized and executed; I’m conflicted about whether I want to take part in next year’s competition or just buy my ticket and soak up the fun. It’s that good, so definitely put this on your calendar.



Prepping the venue




Ready for battle!




The Fog of War!

Gastrotainment Victory

I'm currently watching a repeat of Monday's Bizarre Foods San Francisco. As it turns out, Mrs Gastro Hound and I escaped the cutting room floor and were in fact the most featured couple during the Off The Grid segment. It was a great day, spent enjoying great food amongst a crowd of fellow foodies and great chefs. Most of all, it was watching folks discover something about themselves, eating things they never thought they would and enjoying the shared camaraderie of doing something that's far outside the norm. A great day indeed.

And now, if you'll excuse me, we're about to be on TV... again.

That's Gastrotainment!

Well our little Burg of Santa Rosa has another celebrity chef in its midst: Andrea Mikiami Ballus, owner/operator of Sift Cupcakes and Desert Bar. This week on Cupcake Wars, she kicked some major butt and took the Grand Prize - and it wasn't really close. Andrea repeatedly drew on her wine country roots and wowed the judges, especially wedding designer Amy Weiss. The final challenge was to create a wedding display employing 2000 cupcakes. Andrea's creation destroyed the competition. Not. Even. Close. So bartender - a round of frosting shots for all my frieeeeeeeeeeeeeends.

The good news just keeps coming. It was officially announced this week that Spike TV has purchased all 52 episodes of Three Sheets. The series will begin airing on Feb. 8th at 10:30 pm EST, and will continue every Tuesday at that slot. Kudos to the fans who truly saved this show and also to Spike for recognizing a real gem of an opportunity. It's a good show.

The new season of Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods is set to launch on Tuesday, Feb 18th, so Tuesdays are looking like Gastrotainment Central. We've still no idea on whether our spots ended up in the final cut of the San Francisco episode. It's a must watch either way as that episode is something of a departure from his usual shtick.

Sonoma County's Bette Noir, Guy Fieri, is hosting a sneak peak of a new episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives at a local theater. The event is a fundraiser for a local operation, Worth Our Weight, which he features in the episode. Worth Our Weight offers culinary apprenticeships to kids and young adults who are struggling with significant challenges such as legal troubles, foster care, family disruption and even homelessness. It functions as a school and catering service. It's a great program and they also just happen to pump out some great food. They also operate a cafe on Sundays, and a booth at the local Farmer's Market which I'll be heading to shortly.

Happy viewing chow hounds.

Happy New Year!

I love the holidays. Home chefs bust out the skills to plate some serious chow. This year was no different as Christmas dinner was staged at my brother's house. Sis' in law did a pork tenderloin with a dry rub featuring cinnamon. She then finished with a sauce that incorporated caramelized onions and fresh ginger. Damn that was good! And best of all, the porky goodness of the tenderloin was still evident. Most tasty. Sad note, I was demoted to Salad Boy. I still managed a citrus vinagarette and home made croutons.

And that really is what the holidays is about - comfort food. Everyone has their own idea of what comfort food is. Where I live, the Latino community has beef head. Seriously, each Christmas season one can purchase an entire beef head for about $35. You know you're at an authentic Mexican eatery when cabeza (head meat) and buche(beef neck)are offered. Both are quite tasty. But how does one even begin to prepare such a cut? Well, here ya go: courtesy of a poster at Chowhounds:

Barbacoa de cabeza is a delicacy, traditionally eaten for Sunday brunch. Here's the recipe, such as it is.
Ingredients:
1 cow's head, tongue removed and reserved. If desired, remove and discard the eyes, ears, and (if the head is split) brain.
2 or 3 gallon jugs of vinegar (white or cider)
Beer. Lots and lots of beer.
Special equipment:
Burlap bags
5-gallon bucket
Shovels
Lawn chairs
Directions:
On Saturday around lunchtime, grab some friends, a couple of shovels, lawn chairs for everybody, and a cooler full of beer. Find a likely spot and start digging a hole wide enough to easily hold the head. Only one or two people at a time should be digging; the others sit around, drink beer, and critique the diggers' technique. After a few minutes, switch places. Repeat as necessary until the hole is hip-deep.
Put the burlap bags in the 5-gallon bucket and cover with vinegar. Let soak.
Build a good-sized fire in the bottom of the hole and sit around drinking beer and telling lies until it has burned down to embers.
Liberally season the cow's head with salt, pepper, and chile flakes, then wrap in multiple layers of vinegar-soaked burlap. Include a couple of onions and a head or two of garlic if you want. Put the wrapped cabeza on top of the coals, then shovel the dirt back into the hole. Go eat dinner. (Remember that tongue? How 'bout tacos de lengua?) When the beer runs out, go to bed.
The next morning, go dig up brunch. Not too early; it should have cooked for at least 12 hours. More is better. And besides, you're probably going to want to be sleeping in (if you know what I mean).
Unwrap the head (carefully, now; the meat will be falling off the bone). Put it in the middle of a picnic table. Serve with big stacks of tortillas and bowls of chopped onion, cilantro, and various salsas. No plates or utensils are involved; the diners use tortillas to grab chunks of meat off the head, then garnish as desired.
Seriously good food.

Sounds tasty, but I'm sure many readers will be appalled. Good, as this is a perfect launch for a series of posts I'll be calling Food that Scares Me. Trust me, the cow's head will be a happy memory in comparison to what's coming, LOL. Here's a little sampler, me eating a slice of pizza at a local dive.



This slice had been on the warmer for at least 8 hours. Note how the styro plate has been warped by the long exposure. Note too the congealed grease. Nothing sez New Year's Eve eve like cardboard pizza. It was so old I offered the bartender 50 cents for it. We settled on a buck and I tucked in. To quote Bourdain "... the texture was somewhere between fried sneaker and oven dried trojan". The flavor was similar. And yes, if you look closely at the pic, you can pick out my can of PBR. Serious slumming!

Andrew Zimmern and Gastrohounds go Off The Grid

I've been sitting on this way too long, such is the amount of material I've got backlogged.

It's Friday, Oct. 15th. I'm puttering at the computer during lunch break and catch blurb at BiteClub blog that Andrew Zimmern is bringing the Bizarre Foods crew to SF for a shoot the very next day. They would take over the setting of Off The Grid - a a roaming, mobile food service that features a revolving schedule of food trucks that park in various locations and offer up their wares to a dedicated band followers. And what's not to love - the food is cheap and killer-good. Oh, and it got better. Zimmern was to team up with Chris Cosentino of Incanto as they hijack one of the wheeled kitchens known affectionately as the "Gastrobus" (heh), and transform it into Le Gut Truc. A quick call to Mrs. Gastrohound and we're set to head out early the next morning for what would turn out to be a fantastic day made even more memorable by a surprise visit of Aaron Sanchez.

We arrived early, got parking right across the street (no small miracle) and quickly made our way to what was at the time, a very small gathering of folk curious to see what was going to happen. It wasn't long before Mrs. Gastrohound and I found ourselves being interviewed on camera. The producer was seemingly impressed that we'd drive all the way from Santa Rosa to take part and spent a good amount of time with us throughout the day - even getting a shot of the Mrs chomping down on some gut grub. Speaking of which, let's get to what was being offered up by the Zimmern team. First up, a veal tongue slider with tuna-caper sauce. Next, a chitlin taco with the usual salsa, and what would be the star of the menu - something called Hoof and Mouth. A creation of Cosentino's, it consisted of crispy fried pig's head and pig trotter meat balls, all loving encased with a loving dollop of something called "brainaise". Yep, it's exactly what you think it is. It also hap pend to be fantastic.

The crowd eventually grew to about 150. The die hard foodies busied themselves with snappping pics of the various dishes and getting words in with the celeb chefs while the "I'm a big fan but frightened of brains" set girded their loins in hopes of measuring up to the challenge that was before them. Total strangers compared their experiences and offered up encouragement to those that were queued up for their first try of offal. There was a palpable sense of camaraderie in the shared moment of discovery made even more special by Zimmern, Cosentino and Sanchez as they worked the crowd. We especially enjoyed taking time with Cosentino and Sanchez who are the real deal. Humble and truly happy to be part of the scene. I also spent extended time with Hugh Schick, the owner and Chef de Cuisine of the Gastrobus, which goes be the official name of Le Truc. He was quite a character, and very gracious. Zimmern, as this was his gig was mostly all business, not surprisingly. At one point though, he emerged from the back of the bus to share a rare treat: a fresh abalone caught just that morning and treated only with an hour long soak in lime juice. Abalone ceviche, which I love. I was able to confirm for one the local denizens that it was indeed raw just as he was putting it down. "Raw - you said raw?. Oh damn, man that thing was raw!" Welcome to my 'hood, homie... LOL.

We took a ton of pics, and what follows is a brief offering. I'm putting up a slide show of the full event on the sidebar, so do check it out. And if you are ever in SF, definitely seek out Off The Grid, it is definitely worth the effort. Cheap eats at its best.


Piatto di Giorno


Mrs. Gastrohound and Andrew Zimmern


Eat brains... 2 billion zombies can't be wrong!



Veal tongue slider. Zimmern scores big with this. The tongue had an uncious quality to it, tender and juicy. The tuna-caper sauce was the perfect condiment offering.


On hand to check out the scene in a blue hoodie is Food Network exec Bob Tuschman, host and judge of Next Food Network Star.


Me and Chris Cosentino: Los dos Malos!

Don't forget to check out the slide show for all the pics from Off The Grid. The frame size is small, so if you see a pic you like, click on it to enlarte. Use your browser's "back" button to return to Gastrohounds. Projected air time for the next season of Bizarre Foods is April 2011. We'll keep you posted.

Happy Thanksgiving

This pic was from Thanksgiving '93. I'm plucking 2 turkeys that I had just shot 3 days prior. There to help is the Gastropup - all of 6 months old and chompin' down on a savory binky. Savory too was the bird. The flavor was much more akin to pheasant - much more of a game bird quality to it. The birds themselves had been gorging on over ripe sauvignon blanc grapes. An incredible meal made possible by a century old cookbook that belonged to MamaRoux's grandmother. It took me step by step from field dressing, hanging the birds for 2 days, plucking and then prepping for roasting. Best. Bird. Ever.

Hope yours is too.

Own it!

...and when it comes to the BBQ Sauce competition at the Sonoma County Harvest Festival - I do. For the 2nd year in a row, my Char-B-Q Sauce took 1st prize. After winning last year, I had something of a disappointing showing during the summer after having tinkered with t he recipe slightly. I was still placing, but 4th Place just doesn't cut it. After some soul searching and a few swift kicks to the rear from Mrs. Gastrohound, I went back to the original recipe but I still wanted to shake things up. As contestants are allowed a maximum of 2 entries, I decided to put up another entry and go with something very different. I recalled some writings by Chris Lilly talking about the popularity of peaches and pork in Alabama. I quickly came up with a recipe for a bourbon-peach BBQ Sauce. A couple of test runs were quite successful with many tasters enjoying the fact it was not as spicy as the Char-B-Q Sauce. The results speak for themselves, with my Char-B-Q Sauce taking the overall honors, and my Peach-Bourbon BBQ Sauce taking 3rd! Not a bad showing at all. A great way to close out the BBQ competition season.

Harvest time is well passed, officially coming to an end a couple weeks back as our wine making group picked over the mouldering remains of 2nd crop pinot noir at Devaux and Truchard vineyards in the Southern Corneros region. It was grim work, and we are somewhat dubious about the eventual product. On a good note, I received my allotment of our 2008 Obsidian Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon. Aged for 21 months in a Hungarian Kadar barrel, it is an 88%/12% blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. Made entirely from Lake County grapes, it clocks in with an alcohol content of 15.5 percent. We also updated our label and used a taller than usual Bordeaux bottle making for a very impressive package. No doubt this will be featured at many local tables during the holidays season.

It has been about 5 weeks since my last post, but I've not been shirking my duties. In fact, I've been quite busy and have amassed a metric crapload of material that I shall begin offload in quick order, so stay tuned in. What's in store? Brains, intestines, celebrity chef cavorting, more meat butchery, possible TV appearances, and 2010 may still hold some surprises.

Gastrohounds would like to throw out some savory birthday wishes to Lucullus, the Delicacy Ape. Call it an informed hunch, but something tells me that Lucullus does not dine alone tonight.

When you live where I do, it's good to be hungry.