That Stinks!

Ho ho!

My first attempt at mushroom identification has been successful! Unfortunately the results were not in my favor.

After a successful fishing trip with my brother and my buddy Matt, I, in my impoverished state, conceived of a practically free meal. With fresh trout in the fridge, and a bag of spinach from the food bank I decided that all I needed was some rice, which I had, to create a delicious meal.


However, upon reading the food section in the post today, I saw pictures of a mushroom that looked suspiciously like the ones growing in my front yard. The caption? Morels! “Ah ha!” I exclaimed. “The fabulous forest fruit diligently hunted and extensively documented by my hero Jim Harrison up in the UP, growing in my own front yard!”


I talked with my wild uncle who was enthusiastic. “They look just like penises,” I said. “Those are morels he confirmed.” I looked them up on Wikipedia to see if they had any preparation tips. There it said that one should beware of false morels which are poisonous.

Not wishing to destroy my liver immediately, I decided I should do some more research. I found loads of pictures of morals, but none that looked quite right. “Something’s wrong here,” I concluded.

After nearly an hour of searching pages with disclaimers like: “Warning, this page is not meant to be used to identify wild mushrooms for consumption, many mushrooms are extremely poisonous and could cause death,” I finally found the information I needed.

The mushrooms I had found were known as stinkhorns; that would explain the extremely foul stench. Wildman Steve on his Stinkhorn Homepage (http://www.econetwork.net/~wildmansteve/Mushrooms.Folder/Stinkhorns.html) has this to say:

Stinkhorns are too disgusting to eat, although none that I know of are poisonous. Nevertheless, people have tried eating the cooked eggs of some species after removing the slime layer. I reluctantly tried one bite of a cooked stinkhorn egg just once, so I could speak about the experience first-hand. I noticed very little flavor and a markedly unpleasant texture before I spit it out!

Apparently, the foul odor and slimy texture of the stinkhorn drive any thought of eating the buggers from the consideration of all rational people unlike myself. My feast was concluded late in the night sans fungi. Lesson learned.

I want a girl, just like the girl, that married dear old dad.

Hello readers,

It might come as some surprise that the Hungry blog’s readership is somewhat limited. Although my national fan base has yet to develop, I am comforted by the fact that the readers I do have are loyal and supportive. Thus today I dedicate this entry to one of my most loyal and long-time enthusiasts, this one’s for you Mom.

Mothers everywhere are intimately connected to one’s culinary habits. From the embryonic fluid of the womb to the Thanksgiving turkey, our moms have been the source of life-giving nutrients from the moment of conception through adulthood. The warm nostalgia conveyed by the phrase “just like mother used to make” confirms the spiritual connection that every child feels toward the maternal victuals consumed and savored throughout childhood.

Sitting here with my brother Ben we are attempting to think back on the foods we remember fondly that our mother either made or introduced us to. Ben was remembering that when mom used to drop us off at piano lessons and go grocery shopping, many times when she picked us up there was a Lindt chocolate bar waiting to be divided amongst us. Another meal that we remember with misty eyes was her pork chops and rice, a meal that to this day has become symbolic as the peak comfort food in our lives. Mom is and was a baker, baking bread and chocolate chip cookies. I remember as a special treat my brother and I were each given a beater to lick off. I can still feel the tongue gymnastics involved in trying to wrap around that final hidden pocket of sweetness. But for me, mom’s highest art was the pie. As a child I never liked the gooey icing slathered over cakes, so for my birthday mom would make pie. Cherry, peach, strawberry rhubarb and lemon chess, oh you pies with your flaky crusts I’ve never quite managed to duplicate. Fruit pies you haunt my dreams. A ball of vanilla ice cream added to the side transformed it all to heaven by the forkful.

Most of our greatest fine dining experiences have also been planned and paid for by mom and dad. One family outing that we all regularly look back on was at a restaurant called Nisa La Bella on a family vacation in southern France. This multi-course meal was punctuated by the singing of the restaurant song. Traveling with mom and dad is always a gastronomic wonder. The many places we have tried are too numerous to list but will probably be examined in future posts. One of our favorite local restaurants is Sweet Basil in Vail. It takes very little coaxing to get mom to agree to eat out at Sweet Basil.



But Mom is not only responsible for what you eat, but how you eat. We will be forever grateful to our parents for their eating policies. When we were children the rule was that we didn’t have to eat anything we didn’t want to eat. We also weren’t forced to clean our plates, though we usually did. If we didn’t want to eat something, however, nothing special was ever made for us as a substitute. Thus our palates were linked to our stomachs at an early age. The other policy which probably saved me from jail was the rule that we all had to eat dinner together as a family. This was probably the golden rule and kept our family strong.



Nowadays, it there are fewer pleasures greater then getting together for family dinner in Georgetown. My parents eat better than anyone I know. After work and the dog walk the ritual is cocktails and cooking. They try new things and turn us on to many fantastic ideas. The wine flows freely and everyone goes to bed happy.

So thank you mom, for all you have done and continue to do for us, your two boys. And from us to you with hearts full of love; HAPPY MOTHERS DAY.

Alligator Mississippiensis

Hello readers,

Rather then a drawn out expination for why I haven't written in over a year I will simply post. About this time a year ago I went out to visit my good buddy Matt. He lives in Florida now, near Daytona, but when I met him he was translating in Dusseldorf, Germany. Matt became one of those friends that only someone who has lived for a lengthy time overseas can understand. In a foreign culture, someone who you might never have found much in common with back home, becomes the person you have more in common with than anyone around strictly due to sharing a nationality. This is by no means to say that every American I have met abroad I became best freinds with, heavens-to-Betsy no. But there are some people that you click with. These are the people that when the country and all the horrible people in it really start to get to you, you can vent to them and they understand. I have had five such friends, Luke and Vince in Chile, Hermann and Michelle in Spain, and Matt in Germany.


Matt and I had several adventures in Europe, notably weekend trips to Amster-dam and Barcelona and camping on the Belgiian/Dutch border. But we had never gotten together State-side. So last year having just quit my job I flew down to Florida for a few days visit. Since this is supposed to be a food blog, let me get to the meat of things. Matt is a fantastic guy and talented in many things, but his eating habits have often dissapointed me. Some people don't like seafood, but it seems a sin to pass up the lovely crustations of Spain. He mostly sticks to the red meat and vegetable diet. Not to say he hasn't introduced me to some outstanding chow. First and foremost being the Schweinebrotchen, a crispy on the outside, tender on the inside cut of pork on a roll, absolutely essential eating upon leaving the debacherous clubs of Dusseldorf's Altstat. But I gave it a second thought upon demanding we stop at the fishmarket we drove by on the way back from the beach.


Thorough searching yeided gator tail. I had eaten gator tail before as an appetizer at the Flagstaff house, a game restaurant above Boulder, but I had never attempted to cook it. Matt seemed amiable to the idea so we bought 16oz of the beast and stopped by Walmart for some other supplies. The best food in Daytona seems to be greasy hamburgers and BBQ, so I was happy for something exotic. I cut the tail in pieces and breaded it in some Zatarain's New Orlean's fish fry. I sauteed the tail and seved it with jumbalaya and rice.



The consistancy is what you would expect given the monster's position on the evolutionary time line, somewhere between fish and chicken. The taste was scrumptious, but its hard to go wrong breaded and fried. We washed it down with some rum and ate some of Matt's mom's key lime pie for dessert. This was followed by more rum and one of Matt's fine cigars from his collection.



I look back on all this fondly, but I also look forward to Matt's arrival in two weeks. Yes the two Matts will once again be reunited, this time in my home of Colorado. Maybe this time I can get him to eat fish.

Ugli Fruit

Beauty may be skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone.
-Redd Foxx

While walking though the grocery store this month, my friend Nick and I were amused to find in the produce section a basket of what looked like grapefruit that had been rolling around in the back of a truck for about 2 months. Our amusement was heightened when we found out that the name of these pitiful looking specimens was actually ugli fruit. We were tempted to believe that this was some kind of hoax, a way to pass off the dregs of the grapefruit harvest as some kind of exotic novelty.

Well, apparently they really are an exotic novelty, from Jamaica. According to Wikipedia, the new unaccredited authority on everything, "an ugli fruit is a citrus fruit created by hybridizing a grapefruit (or pomelo according to some sources) and a tangerine, and is sometimes called uniq fruit or unique fruit. Its species is Citrus reticulata x Citrus paradisi."

Well, in the spirit of exploration and as a favor to my legions of loyal readers I decided to buy one and see what it was like. The rules of produce selection apparently no longer applied to this homely victual so I chose a particularly forbidding brute with a scuffed, loose-fitting rind and brought it up to the register with my other groceries. The lady at the check-out apparently hadn't been informed that her store carried such oddities. She took one disdainful look at the thing and asked me if it was on sale. I probably could have convinced her they were giving them away much quicker than I was able to convince her that it was actually called an ugli fruit. She simply wouldn't believe me until I showed it to her on the little produce guide she had. At that we both had a good laugh. When I paid and was leaving she said "have fun with your ugly fruit" obviously thinking "these gringos blow their money on the stupidest things."

At home I peeled the inelegant fare, the skin came off easily, and broke it into sections. The membrane around the sections was also quite thick, like a pomelo, so I peeled that off as best I could and ate the juicy pulp vesicles inside. It was nowhere near as tart as a grapefruit or an orange, the acidity was quite mild. It was also not bitter, but lightly sweet. Maybe it was just the specimen that I got, but it seemed to me that the best word to describe it is bland. Like watered down orange juice. I'm not sure what one would do with it either, maybe it could be used in a salad. You can also check the official Ugli Fruit web page for recipes. Good luck.

And now my final musing. Do ugli fruit grow on the proverbial ugly stick? If so, when walking through the jungles of Jamaica, be careful not to get hit by falling ugli fruit.

I Heart NYC

After working for 18 straight days without a break I realized that it had been at least as long since I posted anything up on this blog so I jumped on a bus to New York for some inspiration and relaxation and to get out of Boston for a while. Pulling into Chinatown around noon on Friday, I realized that I really miss New York. Its international character and the mix of grit and glamour are palpably absent from the inescapable academia of Cambridge. In New York it doesn't feel weird not to be a grad student.

My day started off with a lunch in Kim Chi Alley where I used to work. I have developed an affinity for Korean food as a result of the delightful names. What can top bi bim bop and goon mandoo for fun things to order? I ordered the mixed mandoo at Mandoo Bar on 32nd street which consisted of pork, seafood, and veggie steamed dumplings wrapped in white, red and green dough served with a side of raddish kim chi and another sweet pickled raddish. They were all good, but I had a particular liking for the seafood dumplings which, when dipped in the sauce, tasted remarkably like German bratwurst for some reason. Surprising, but pleasantly so.

That night I went out drinking with my former supervisor and current friend Dave, from Global TESOL's Manhattan office. Since this is a food blog I won't go off subject to describe the evening in detail. It suffices to say that Saturday morning I was in dire need of nourishment. I met Sheila, my trusted New York restaurant guide, and her boy-friend Przemek at 7A in the East Village for brunch. When we walked up we ran into some of their friends who'd been waiting for twenty minutes. They soon got a table, but had finished their meal by the time something opened up for us. It was almost worth the forty minute wait outside once the food arrived. I had the salmon eggs benedict, made with lox and a tarragon hollandaise on sourdough. It came with fries and a mimosa for 11 dollars. The staff was as attentive as you could expect it to be with a line out the door on a Saturday afternoon. The crowd consisted exclusively of hip young New Yorkers and the next table of beautiful Russians adamantly yet agreeably arguing about something were a nice addition to the atmosphere. I left feeling refreshed and fortified in body and spirit.

Next stop was Kitchen Arts and Letters a bookstore devoted exclusively to culinaria. When I read about this store it sounded like a place created especially for me by the Holideck engineers on the USS Enterprise. The owner, Nach Waxman was there with a couple of assistants. Most of the clientele were chefs who seemed to know him pretty well. This guy was a specialist and I felt like I had to impress him. The first thing I asked for was the foreign language cookbook section. He had several in Spanish and German but most were in French. People are doubly impressed if you cook for them out of a book that's not written in English. I've been plotting an attempt to teach myself French by cooking out of a French language cookbook with a French-English dictionary. I almost bought a book by Heberlin but I remembered that his recipes were quite complicated and probably wouldn't be the best ones to start translating. It also cost 85 dollars. Next I asked him about essays. He told me John Thorne's Outlaw Cook was out of print and unavailable ("John doesn't have any stashed away either,") but recommended Calvin Trillin who he assured me was laugh-out-loud funny. I left with his book The Tummy Trilogy and Jaime Oliver's first book The Naked Chef, as I had just watched the DVD of his show, Jaime's Kitchen, and finding him an affable bloke, I decided to buy his book. Considering my inability to leave a bookstore, any bookstore, empty-handed, I think I did a good job escaping with just two purchases.

Next stop on this day-trip was cross town to Zabar's on the advice of my father and brother, neither of whom would believe me when I said I hadn't been there. Zabar's I discovered is an old-world deli stocked with a trove of goodies and jam packed with highly aggressive old Jewish ladies on a Saturday afternoon. It was like a mosh-pit had formed at a Barbra Streisand concert. Once drawn into the flow of bodies there was no way to offer up any resistance. The first two times I was swept around the store I simply tried to take it all in while attempting to harpoon free samples on the fly with a toothpick. The third time around I picked up a smoked trout and a garlic basil Gouda. The selection was impressive, especially the goat cheese and olives, and everyone seemed to be in high spirits.

My original plan had been to have a schwitz at the Russian and Turkish baths on 10th St. but I was running out of time and you shouldn't rush a sauna. Instead I decided to find something to eat before hopping on the bus back to Boston. Wandering along down Ludlow I stopped outside a chic looking place called Libation (137 Ludlow St.) to read the menu. I gasped when I saw what was listed on the tapas menu: Tuna tartar taco, avocado and tomato relish, ginger lime vinaigrette. My dish! I had no choice but to try their version. Inside the place was nearly empty. It was about 6:30 and I think they were more of a late night place, but that was fine, I was hungry again.


I sat at the bar and Kate (who puts the tender in bartender, baby) brought me the menu. I ordered the tacos off the American tapas and a glass of Albarino. After about 10 minutes she apologized and said that the barback couldn't find a bottle and recommended the 5 Rivers Chardonnay, which was crisp and delightful. She brought out the tacos which were five bite-size delicacies on a rectangular plate, standing up on a gob of avocado. The fish was finely chopped into quarter-inch cubes and lightly dressed. There was a small daub of avocado on each of them and they were sprinkled with sesame seeds. The taco shells were made out of mini-corn tortillas. I liked the flavor of the corn and the sesame seed which gave the dish a nutty taste that contrasted well with the cold fish. But there was still not enough punch, they could have upped the ginger lime as it was nearly imperceptible. The seaweed side salad was a nice touch.

I was going to need more than five bites to constitute dinner, Lenten fasting aside, so I ordered a second tapa, the roast duck breast, duck confit and roasted peach spring roll, sprout salad and tamarind sauce. Kate recommended the Davis Bynum Pinot Noir which had just the right body, velvety with very light tannins, and not too peppery, an excellent match. The bill came to just under fifty dollars which in my book falls into the insanely expensive category (for two apps and two glasses of wine?!?) but this was New York and I was on vacation, and everything was exemplary. The meal was creative, light, refreshing and cool and it was a good end to my little sojourn.

Nocturnal Inspirations

"I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."
-Henry David Thoreau

"Some men see things as they are and say, 'Why?' I dream of things that never were and say, 'Why not?'"
-George Bernard Shaw

When people say they can't cook, I think what they really mean is that they don't cook. Cooking is not easy. It is a juggling act involving high heat and sharp knives. But some things are easier than others. It is pretty easy to cook pasta for example. Boil the water, dump in the pasta. A homemade sauce is not that much harder. You have to pay attention to what you are doing. It also helps to know what good food tastes like, so you know what to aim for.

In Germany I had a lovely roommate, a French Algerian girl who claimed she couldn't cook. I cooked for us both quite frequently and she, as most people tend to be, was very appreciative of the good home cooking that saved her from eating canned soup all the time. So one day she wanted to cook for me in return and made what she said was an old staple, a broccoli-cheese casserole. It was astoundingly bad. Some how she had managed to cook the broccoli so that it was scorched and raw at the same time and the cheese that was supposed to cover the top had melted to the bottom of the pan and burned. I tried to be polite but you just couldn't eat it. Luckily it ended in laughter and I believe we ended up getting a pizza.

I have heard it said that if you can read you can cook, and I think this has some validity. A clear recipe should be easy enough for a moderately intelligent person to follow. It helps to have practiced some of the basic skills and have an idea if you are headed in the right direction or not. It helps to have a sense of whether or not things are coming together or falling apart. But a good recipe carefully followed usually turns out in the end. There are very few dishes that I feel comfortable enough with to just go and cook. And these are ones that I have cooked so many times that I don't have to think about it. So it was a very rare occasion the other night when I got truly experimental with a dish I'd never made, or even eaten before.

The concept came to me in a dream. I don't know what sparked this dream but one night I found myself in the Night Kitchen working on a feat of fusion cooking to my knowledge never before attempted. The concept was this: Sushi tuna tacos with wasabe guacamole in won ton wrapper shells. I awoke elated. I'd never invented a recipe before and here it had come to me while asleep! How easy is that?

Through some initial research I found out that wasabe guacamole was a meme that though independently arrived at, was already out there on the internet, nothing official like Bon Appetite, but a few daring home chefs had written about a crazy idea they had. However, mine had a name: Guacasabe!

A few months later I found my self in a creative mood at the grocery store and strolling down the Asian food section, conveniently placed next to the Mexican stuff in order to jog my memory. I decided the day had come.

My most immediate concern was the taco shell. I figured won ton wrappers would give me the fried crispy goodness I was looking for, but I bought some spring roll skin and some sushinori in case things got really out of hand. I rounded up a whole mess of other ingredients, grabbing things impulsively off the shelves, lost in a sort of raging brain storm, and headed home to experiment.

The question most pressing on me was how to make the squarish won ton wrapper to serve as a taco shell. I cut up a bunch of card board beer boxes and made them into wedge shaped taco holders. I found that when the wrappers came out of the hot oil they were quite pliable for a second or two before hardening. This was perfect.

I filled them with chunks of raw tuna, cilantro and the guacasabe. The wasabe, or Japanese horseraddish, that I ended up with was powdered and was to be mixed with water. I added about one teaspoon of the powder to a mashed avocado, then added another. To make it saltier I added soy sauce, maybe three or four teaspoons to the mash. I put it all together and bit into the first taco.

It wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't good. The texture was great, warm and crunchy mixed with cold and slimy and a little leafy. But the flavor just wasn't there. The avocado went well with the wasabe and soy sauce, but it acted as a definite mellowing agent. This needed a punch. I also wanted a little more stuff inside.

I chopped up a cucumber and added that. This did a lot for sustenance, but zero for flavor. I ate a couple with Sriracha hot sauce, but it just wasn't the right touch. I did a lot of experimenting and in the process gave my self a bit of a stomach ache. This dish was definitely meant to be an appetizer and a petite one at that. I just needed more flavors, so next time I have planned a mango fruit salsa laced with ginger and possibly some habaneros.

All in all it was a pretty good first experience in recipe development. I will post the final recipe when I get it right. But bringing something from dream to reality certainly felt good and provided an evening of crafty entertainment.

Homesick for Heartburn

I have lived in a lot of different places over the last decade, Chile, Spain, Germany, and now Boston. Each and every place was obviously unique. There were things that I absolutely loved and other things that drove me to the point of tears, curled into the fetal position and crying for mommy. But of all the hardships and annoyances, the dangers and deprivations, the one gaping fault line that constitutes a common thread running rampant through all of these places is the lack of good Mexican food. Denver is in my experience the farthest you can get from Mexico before the quality of Mexican food takes a serious plunge*. I don't want to get into what constitutes authentic Mexican food. I'm sure there are people in Germany who much prefer the mild Gouda smothered glop that passes for Mexican cuisine to the fiery, life-giving chili peppered goodness that you can get on Federal Boulevard, but they are deluded.

I have been disappointed so many times by crummy Mexican that I have pretty much just stopped trying. But it had been long enough since my last lesson that the weekend before last I decided to try Jose's, just down the street from my current residence in Cambridge. It was an evilly cold evening and on my first attempt to leave my apartment I was nearly knocked into the bushes by an icy wind. Retreating inside I donned my long underwear, hat, and gloves and tried again.

When I arrived at Jose's my spirits lifted. The place was packed with people who seemed to be enjoying them selves. The place is tiny, and I found myself waiting at the bar for a seat with a basket of chips and a very decent margarita (salted, on the rocks) in front of me. The waiters were Mexican and speaking Spanish and the man who finally seated me had a scorpion tattoo on his neck. The decor was tasteful, people were laughing, I felt very much at home. A plaque on the door pronounced that Jose's had been named Best of Boston 2004 by Boston Magazine, presumably in the Mexican food category.

Alas, when my food arrived my hopes were shattered. What sat before me looked vaguely like the chili rellenos that I had ordered, but something was wrong. The black beans were good, the rice bland, but passable with a generous sprinkling of salt. But cutting into the relleno I could see that the cheese was not even melted. The thing was still pretty cold, the battering on the outside was thick and soggy, the sauce was some kind of tomato sauce reminiscent of Spaghetti-O's.

I was appalled. I am not the kind of guy that regularly sends something back to the kitchen. Usually if food is not to my liking I'll grumble a bit and finish the whole plate. But this was simply too much even for my forgiving palate. They took it back and at least got the cheese melted. They gave me 30 percent off which I appreciated, but not enough to keep my mouth shut about the incident. Granted my Boston readership is not wide-spread, but Jose's still gets an emphatic boo hiss.

Part of me wants to think that this was not the fault of the restaurant, but rather the Bostonian clientele. Maybe the fact that there were no Mexicans sitting at the table should have clued me in right away. Perhaps these restauranteurs had blasphemed against their own cuisine in order to stay in business and felt really bad about it. That could excuse the mildness but it still doesn't explain the barely thawed state of my rellenos that night.

So last week I did what I've done before, made my own Mexican food to make up for it. Nick Mattison, my fellow Coloradan and emigre from New Mexico (although last week he denied he was a red-stater) and I decided it was time for some border cooking. One of the problems with this solution however, is that sometimes the ingredients themselves are hard to find. I remember participating in an on-line forum for Americans living in Germany where exactly this conundrum was being discussed. One guy had started growing jalapenos in his garden. There were no Anaheims to be found, no Hatches, no Big Jims, so we settled on a green Italian variety, red bell peppers, and fresh jalapenos.

In an experimental mood back at the house we roasted the peppers over the gas stove, then started musing about what we could stuff them with. We had plenty of jack cheese and used that with the Italian peppers dipped in beer batter to create a close approximation of the traditional relleno. With the others we got a bit creative, with very good results. The red bell peppers were transformed by the roasting and even developed a bit of a kick. We filled them with the cheese and added a mixture of chopped and roasted peanuts, pistachios, and pumpkin seeds. The jalapinos were filled with peanut butter before being coated and thrown into the pan. It was all quite tasty, served with green chili sauce and sour cream with a side of spicy red rice and chips with guacamole. We saved the jalapinos for last as a sort of macho show for Sara, Nick's girlfriend. They were exceedingly hot, as would be expected, but the creamy peanut butter and sour cream made for a surprisingly pleasant tactile sensation in the mouth, and they tasted good too.

That night we had an idea for a show on the Food Network that I intend on pitching, so keep it quiet. It's called The Improvisers. Premise: Nick and I show up unexpectedly at your house. We attempt to make an interesting, delicious meal out of what ever you've got in the kitchen. It could be a trendy SOHO apartment, it could be a trailer in Appalachia. Maybe you just went shopping, maybe you just got back from vacation, we don't know. We might end up having to make Rice Krispy sandwiches. It all adds to the zany hilarity. It's like Iron Chef meets Trading Spouses. I also get access to the liquor cabinet. Just an idea. What do you think? We're taking volunteers to shoot the pilot.

*I'll make an exception for New York City. Despite what the Old El Paso Salsa spokescowboys say, you can find good places to eat every kind of ethnic cuisine in the world there including Mexican.