It’s fun to think how much I have learned since my first bartending gig. If I came across my 21 year old self now, I would give myself a swift kick in the pants and then fire myself for sucking. I didn’t have a clue. Some may argue that this still is the case. One thing I learned on my first gig, that to this day informs my drinking habits, is how to make a Perfect Manhattan.
I had two lunch regulars, a lovely retired couple, who came in once a week for a late lunch that always started with two Perfect Manhattans. The first time they ordered this I was terribly confused. Imagine, the audacity of them to assume that I, the greatest lunch bartender in the history of lunch bartenders, would not make them their Manhattans perfectly. I went to work making the most perfect Manhattan that I could and proudly put them up on the rail. “I’ll show them,” I thought to myself. I did it all wrong. The now confused customers wondered why there was an ugly awful neon cherry in their drinks and flicked them out onto their cocktail napkins. Then they sipped, producing faces of sheer disgust. I swallowed my pride and asked how I could make their drinks better. Then I learned.
A Perfect Manhattan is a sublime cocktail and is now what I make myself when I get home at the end a long day. Perfect does not refer to the perfection of the cocktail, but instead indicating that the drink should include both sweet and dry vermouth. This makes a lovely balance of complex, bitter, sweet and herbal flavors. I like mine built this way; 2 ounces of a spicy rye whiskey, ½ ounce of dry vermouth, ½ ounce of sweet vermouth, two dashes of Angostura bitters, stirred and garnished with a lemon peel. A few keys to this drink are using a great whiskey as well as quality and fresh vermouth. If your vermouth has gathered dust on the back of your liquor shelf and the cap is stuck to it with crystalized sugar it is not fresh! Dolin makes .375 ml bottles that are great for your home bar and you should keep them in the fridge. Vermouth is closer to wine than it is liquor. Would you drink a bottle of wine that you opened 5 months ago? Or a year ago for that matter? I know my mother has a bottle of vermouth in her cupboard somewhere that was opened in the 90’s.
Currently, on my home bar I am working with Willet 4 year rye and Dolin sweet and dry vermouth. It makes a magical combination. The Willet 4 year is just hot enough, around 110 proof, that with the substantial amount of vermouth I like to apply, you still know you are drinking whiskey. What is great about this cocktail is that a slight tweak can make it totally different. Try variations with different whiskeys and vermouths. Work with different ratios or try some orange bitters and garnish with an orange peel to pull out other flavors in the cocktail. You could even try a Perfect Martini, substituting gin for your whiskey. I would recommend using Captive Spirits Barrel Aged Big Gin for this experiment, a true delight!
I know there are a lot of preferences about how a Manhattan should be prepared. Some like it shaken, some like it stirred. I am an advocate for the stirring. There is nothing more special than the amazing texture derived from a well stirred cocktail. It achieves a level of viscosity that only occurs this way. If you do not believe me then check what a real expert says here. David Wondrich mentions that if you shake the drink it will feel “thin”. I totally agree. A final note on the garnish, I am in love with the lemon peel. When done correctly you can achieve a lovely little citrus oil spritz on top that lends aromatics and balance. Forget neon cherries, they are gross and add nothing. I hope you take some time to carefully source a few choice ingredients, stir correctly and enjoy!
Miraculous Matzos: This soulful Kickstarter-funded video about the Streit’s Matzo Factory is one of the best things I’ve ever discovered online. You might think it’s amazing enough that this factory, located in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood of the Lower East Side, makes 40% of all the matzos sold in the US, but when you consider that the Streit’s company chooses to remain in a New York City location (The best place in the world!) that arguably makes no sense (Old tenement buildings, 5 stories high, and no loading dock!), probably employs too many people (The best job in the world!) many of whom have worked here 30 years, but refuses to cut anyone (How could we? Too much unemployment), and swims successfully against the tide of economies of scale by holding tightly to their own values, their own vision, and their sense of the historical importance of the culture of the Lower East Side (That’s how we make matzo here. Like art. No one can take that away from us.) That’s my idea of the American Dream, fully realized.
Wings: We’re Not Talking Chicken: By now, the news has spread far and wide that the UN released a report stating that it will help alleviate world hunger if more people eat insects. The obsessive/ creative/ maybe crazy folks at Nordic Food Lab have received a grant from Velux to “expand research into insect gastronomy.” Nordic Food Lab’s current area of investigation: Are insect wings food or do you have to remove them? The problem (accompanied by diagrams of the chitin-protein matrix) is that insect wings can be hazardous and can possibly puncture the intestinal tract of humans. Also there is some question about whether or not they taste good. Nordic Food Lab’s solution? Consume the desert locust as a non-flying hopper with undeveloped wings.
Rub with Love-able Popcorn: If a bowl of fried locusts (with undeveloped wings) does not tempt, how about a bowl of crunchy popcorn tossed with vibrant spices? Check out our newest product collaboration of Pop!Gourmet Popcorn and Rub with Love.
In Michael Pollan’s recent talk at Benaroya Hall, he argued for the return of home cooking and the necessary elevation of “family meal”—the thesis of his new book Cooked. Woven into his argument were anecdotes of food-hobbyists and home cooks who are in his mind, leading the return to a “food democracy.” He described a nun who made her own cheese as a “folk microbiologist” who understood that making cheese in old wooden wine barrels (rather than stainless steel as the health department regulates) actually promotes the good kind of bacteria our gut needs. He described those who ferment as geeky basement “fermentos” who are “pacifists in the war against bacteria,” a war we’ve been waging ever since we discovered that bacteria spread disease (only 5%, actually). He called the microwave a highly individualistic form of cooking—the “Ayn Rand” of home appliances with every man and woman for themselves. And that the main reason it’s bad to let corporations cook your food is that they’re “shitty cooks.”
I’ve been increasingly interested in not only returning to the kitchen, but in returning to the farm and to the plants and animals in their original states. Which is why I was ecstatic when roughly a week ago, I was invited by like-minded foodies to attend an all-day hog-butchery. Leading the charge was Seattle Foodies facilitator, Darryl Duke, closely followed by fellow Tom Douglas Culinary Camp alums—Dawn, Peter, Holly, and Bruce.
Darryl reached out to a part-time hog farmer named Luke Conyac, who runs a small hog farm with his brother (when they’re not farming, Luke represents farmers as an environmental lawyer and his brother does organic certification).
Luke and his brother grew up on a farm in Kansas. They both got college degrees and entered into corporate jobs. And like many others interested in the Good Food movement, they felt something was missing in their lives, so they returned to farming.
Their farm is in Marysville, just off of I-5. Once you turn off the highway you pass a few fast food chains and supermarkets. Turn one more corner, and suddenly there are acres of fields, forests, and tractors.
We visited with the pig litters, played with the runts, and then it was time to choose our pig. We picked her based on age and size, and for her lean torso that promised extra cuts of bacon.
The kill was humane and simple, and I appreciated that Luke had thought out a method that was clean and painless (as can be) for the pig. The pig was stunned in the head to numb the brain and its nerves, and the throat was cut. We collected the blood for blood sausage.
We used every part, in-fact. After a few hours of de-hairing the pig, and removing the guts, we cleaned the small and large intestines for sausage casings, we saved the tail for crispy fried pig tail. Then we brought the pig back to Luke’s home in Lake Forest Park where he showed us how to butcher the entire pig down to separate pieces: round, picnic, country rib, hamhock, head cheese, shoulder, chop, pork belly, tongue, skin for chicharrón, lard leaf for pie crusts. Luke even uses the fat to make his own soap.
Accustomed to pig parts wrapped in plastic and carefully labeled at the grocery store, I was amazed at how many of these parts I didn’t recognize nor knew what to do with. (The most common answer is usually to smoke at a low heat for a very long time).
I admit that killing an animal, especially when you view it alive first, is a difficult task for many people. But by seeing the process of what it takes to kill and butcher one pig—an almost a 12 hour process in total including commute time—you gain an appreciation for what good food takes. And in this “food democracy” that Pollan advocates for, I can’t imagine anything more democratizing than 8 people killing, butchering, sharing the meat evenly, and then cooking it all together in the coming week. How ironic that as we “progress” as society, one of the most meaningful things that I’ve experienced is the same thing that our ancestors practiced for thousands of years.
Last Tuesday, Newaukum Valley Farm finally received their organic certification! Josh Hyatt has been practicing organic forever and after 9 years of renting/leasing, he finally bought the farm last year. He now has 23 beautiful acres (18 planted) on the banks of the Chehalis River. The certification, which requires the farmer to go through a lengthy process, really doesn’t mean that much to us at Tom Douglas Restaurants, since we’ve been buying Josh’s produce for years- and it’s exactly the same produce with our without certification because Josh was already practicing organic. But having the certification should help him sell more lettuce at the Olympia Farmers Market. I think it’s pretty cool we’ve been able to see Josh grow (ha ha! Grow- get it?) and become so successful…. all those potatoes and cucumbers we bought for Tom Douglas Restaurants helped pay for Josh’s awesome little slice of the American dream. Buy Local! Buy Small! Congratulations, Josh!
Did you know that our very own Tom Douglas and the fabulous “Chef in the Hat” Thierry Rautureau have a weekly radio show called “Seattle Kitchen” on KIRO? We’ll be posting the show and its brief synopsis here on the Tom Douglas Family Meal Blog every week, so keep your speakers cranked to “11″ or your headphones at arms reach for great insight into the Seattle restaurant scene and beyond!
Listen below:
Cooking Risotto, History of Hot Dogs, Olive Oil 101 and Cheese Parings.
As Seattle Beer Week comes to a close, I reflect on all of the wonderful experiences I have had this week at our joints. I know, to most, beer is the common man’s drink. As of late, beer is one of the most exciting things to pair with what I eat. A recent personal beer renaissance began at an unlikely place during Marche’s Mussel Month in February. Typically, a wine destination with Seattle wine icon Cyril Frechier at the helm, I anticipated an evening of well paired French grape juice. However, Mussel Month featured three different preparations of mussels with suggested pairings. The one that stuck out the most to me was a curried dish paired with a Chimay Triple, a delicious Belgian Abbey beer. The soft sweet grape notes from the beer eased the subtle spice from the curry. At the same time the understated bitter hop character of the beer sang with the natural sweetness of the mussels and caramelized nature of the toasted cumin. Needless to say each bite and each sip of beer was pretty magical- the food playing off the beer and the beer playing off the food. This is what pairing is all about!
I put a challenge to the chefs here in TD land last week when we opened Seattle Beer Week with a tour stopping at Palace Kitchen, Serious Pie, Dahlia Lounge and the Rub with Love Shack including beers from New Belgium and Elysian. I dropped a sample of beer off for each chef and asked them to dream up a bite that would make the mouths of our tourists happy. The beers selected for the evening ranged from a sour cherry kriek beer from New Belgium to the Elysian Superfuzz brewed with blood oranges. One pairing stuck out the most for the evening and all the guests agreed. Palace Kitchen chef, Dezi, knocked us out with a scallop crudo wrapped in nasturtium leaf with Jacobsen Sea Salt and spicy aioli. The brew was an Elysian mainstay, Avatar Jasmine IPA. Jacobsen Sea Salt lent texture and the perfect level of seasoning to a sweet scallop and peppery leaf and flower. The Avatar is floral, a touch sweet and crisp. The combination was phenomenal.
Last night at the Brave Horse Tavern I was thrilled by the pairing that Sous Chef Chris Field put together. Midnight Sun and Black Raven Brewery collaborated to make one of the coolest coconut porters I have tasted. The beer incorporated birch syrup that hit the high notes in the toast category while the roasty malt hit the low notes. Also of note, this beer was not sweet and far more dry than I had anticipated based on the list of ingredients. Chris vowed not to relegate this beer to a dessert pairing and knocked it out of the park by serving a mole braised short rib, chili tamale and grilled lime with it. I think the crowd was thrilled. I know I was. The bitterness of the mole harmonized with the birch tones of the beer. The body of both the dish and the brew matched perfectly and the grilled lime played the perfect contrast with the coconut notes. The pairing was truly inspired and shows us once again how cool and complex we can get with the combination of beer and food.
While beer flavors can be similar to wine, there are some notes that are completely different. For example, there is very little tolerance for bitter wine, but hoppy beers are fun to pair with. Maltiness is something that has a vague similarity to the toasty quality that wines aged in oak have, but it is not quite the same. This variance opens a door to a slew of intriguing pairing options. Hop character offsets sweetness and fat in dishes in a way that really makes them pop. Carbonation is another factor that really sets off food as well. Bottom line, besides the obvious rosé consumption, this summer I’ll be drinking lagers, farmhouse ales, sour beers and dry porters.
Have you ever seen a bouquet of sweet potato slips? Farmers Jackie and Dev have mastered the art of sweet potato cultivation. We’re looking forward to enjoying hundreds of pounds of yummy sweets later this season!
Also TDR line cook Shawn Illiff, with a little time on his hands between positions at Dahlia and Etta’s, gets down and dirty at Prosser Farm (in the best possible way!)
We are excited about the imminent opening of TanakaSan, and apparently others are excited too! Eater National calls out TanakaSan as one of the most anticipated openings, nationwide, of Spring and Summer, 2013. TanakaSan is our soon-to-open Asian American restaurant with a playful menu (TanakaSan Family Fried Rice!) and a cool drinks list (sake slushies!!) that’s a collaboration between our fearless leader, Tom Douglas, and his partner, our brilliant Executive Chef, Eric Tanaka. As Eater reports, TankaSan will open with “a slew of concepts headed to the Via 6 complex.”
In a David vs Goliath contest, the Supreme Court decided in favor of Goliath. In other words, the Indiana farmer who fought Monsanto on their right to prohibit him from planting inexpensive seeds he purchased from a small grain elevator and which likely contained Monsanto patented soybeans, lost the battle.
Eating insects is good for you and good for the planet according to this article from the AP based on a report from the UN.
We bid a sad, sad farewell to one of our favorite downtown spots, City Kitchens, a wonderful kitchenware store that is shutting its doors as reported by Rebekah Denn.
We are at the cusp of fresh salmon season with delicious pink, coho, Copper River, sockeye, king, and Bristol Bay salmon appearing on menus. Salmon is synonymous with the Pacific Northwest, and here in Seattle we idolize it. That’s why Tom Douglas has teamed up with fisherman, canneries, celebrities, boat builders, and movie producers to get the word out on why saving Bristol Bay is so important.
For those who don’t know about the fight occurring over Bristol Bay, here is a quick synopsis from the New York Times. As the largest sockeye salmon fishery in the world, over 50% of the world’s salmon comes from this one body of water, located in southwestern Alaska. The latest Bristol Bay Economic Report states that the harvesting, processing, and retailing of Bristol Bay salmon is worth $1.5 billion in value, and thousands of jobs.
Pebble Mine is a massive copper and gold mine that is proposed to be built upstream from Bristol Bay. It is spearheaded by Northern Dynasty Minerals (British Columbia) and Anglo American (London). Together they form the Pebble Partnership.
Pebble Partnership is spending over $80 million this year to collect the permits and approvals they need from state and federal agencies to begin building. The mine is only guaranteeing 50 years-worth of copper and gold resources—just one generation’s worth—and yet, it is estimated to permanently affect thousands of acres of wetlands and natural habitats, shut down 90 natural streams, and create 3,000 pounds of toxic waste.
Here’s a quote from the CEO of Pebble Partnership, John Shively, in an interview with PBS Frontline: “If the choice has to be between fish and mining, we choose the fish. Our challenge is to prove that the two can coexist.” Based on the latest EPA report, and under the Clean Water Act, no evidence suggests this is possible.
Leading the fight is Commercial Fisherman for Bristol Bay. Tom Douglas has joined the fight because in his words, “This is a thousands-of-year-old fishery; it has thousands of years of life left in it if we run it properly. To me, it’s unequivocally one of the biggest environmental catastrophes waiting to happen of my lifetime.” Watch the entire conversation in the video below:
Tom goes on to make the point that for restaurateurs, chefs, and diners, Pebble Mine affects us too: “What’s important to us is [salmon is] sustainably caught, sustainably run; that is just a part and parcel for us as restaurateurs—especially, I think, high end restaurateurs—where our customers are looking for our guidance on what’s right to eat, what’s a good thing to have on our plate—if I have it tonight, that I can still have it tomorrow, and for the rest of my life” – Tom Douglas.
If you would like to join the effort and support Bristol Bay, you can “like” Save Bristol Bay on Facebook. You can also email kat@fishermanforbristolbay.org directly for questions, or to find ways you or your organization can get involved. To comment directly on the latest Bristol Bay EPA report, submit your comments before May 31sthere.
Did you know that our very own Tom Douglas and the fabulous “Chef in the Hat” Thierry Rautureau have a weekly radio show called “Seattle Kitchen” on KIRO? We’ll be posting the show and its brief synopsis here on the Tom Douglas Family Meal Blog every week, so keep your speakers cranked to “11″ or your headphones at arms reach for great insight into the Seattle restaurant scene and beyond!
Listen below:
Tom, Thierry and Katie Oh are in-studio discussing goat cheese and a new Intrigue Chocolate, food in the news, and prawns!
Welcome to Family Meal, a blog that examines all things new and noteworthy in the world of food, wine, and dining.
At family meal, otherwise known as staff meal, there’s no hierarchy; you’re breaking bread with your friends. For those 30 minutes, everyone is equal- and hungry. Family meal is our version of the water cooler- but with better food.
I’ll be sharing my thoughts, tips, and observations, and, in the spirit of family meal, I’ve invited our creative, energetic staff- everyone from line cook to bartender to bookkeeper- to have a say. I hope you’ll add your own comments and join in the conversation.
RSS Subscribe