johnnyd

Last August the Maine State Barbecue challenge brought contestants from as far away as St Louis. The competition used the Kansas City Barbecue Society rules & regulations (PDF). I pulled up a couple pics from my visit that day, Entries are recorded in the judges tent: As chiliheadmike said, appearance is a big factor, KCBS has special placemats for the judges. Criteria, perhaps? Plating in progress, A winning entry - four of six judges posted 9-9-9's - in the steak category, Yeah, I'm getting hungry too...

...or save for your next Bloody Mary!!Wonderful blog! Timely too - a bunch of us are getting together for a Japanese feast on Sunday. Your photos and menus are very inspiring. What's the availability/price of uni these days?

Mentaiko is high on the list of my favorite sushi items. I always thought it was cod fish roe, or maybe I was told that at whatever sushi bar I first had it. Peter - I have to try this. I'd use a white wine or white vermouth component in my poaching liquid, maybe sake or mirin in another batch and see what happens. If you are seeing it in your markets it can't be too far from mine - I'll post if I get some.

JJ, if you come up empty in NYC, These Folks have an amazing inventory, including rare and first editions. They would be happy to answer any inquiries and are reasonably priced.

I'd imagine they will taste a little different. Grab a baggie-full and experiment. I'd also check your State Maritime website for any shellfish harvesting alerts. Giving a panel of chowder judges a case of gastro-intestinal misery is, well, bad form. Edit to add: The wrinkles in my picture are between a half-inch and an inch across

There is a little "door" called a operculum that seals the animal inside the shell at low tide. After a flash boil of 5 or 6 minutes, they just fell off in my collander while rinsing the picked meats. The bay near my house has tons of them, They don't go away in winter - why not just wade out there in February and harvest them fresh? Freezing sucks!

Hey, that sounds pretty good. Congratulations chappie! Periwinkles aren't so bad. The ones I did were a bit gritty but there are ways to defeat that. I'm willing to try a periwinkle chowder at some point.

After poking around I found: Buri = Mullet Lavrak = small sea bass Amnon = a small African river fish aka talipalah. Denise = Ocean fish from the Red Sea A lot of this comes from an very active aquaculture industry. Great shots of the fishmongers and their prize products. Thanks!

Feijoada Completa - Na moda Carioca Adapted from "A Little Brazilian Cookbook" - Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz ------------------- 1 pig's foot, split (or two smoked ham hocks work well instead) 3 lb smoked beef tongue 1/2 lb piece lean smoked bacon, rind removed 1 lb piece salt (corned) beef - carne seca 4 cups black beans - soaked overnight 1 lb piece lean beef chuck or bottom round 1 lb fresh pork sausages 1/2 lb choriço (I use 2 or 3 whole fresh if available) Sauce 2 tbsp vegetable oil 2 medium onions, finely chopped 2 cloves garlic, chopped 2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped 1 small fresh hot red or green pepper, seeded and chopped salt fresh ground pepper Serves 8 - 10 ----------------- The day before, place beans in stockpot and cover with at least two inches cold water. I've noticed on a typical bag of GOYA beans there's a tip on skipping this step for same day cooking: cover with cold water and boil for ten minutes and let sit while you do other prep. See package for details. If using, cover the pig's foot in cold water top cover and simmer, covered for 1&1/2 hours. Cool, bone, transfer to a covered container together with the cooking liquid and refrigerate overnight. Cover the tongue, bacon and salt beef (carne seca) with cold water and soak overnight. Next day, drain beans and put them into a saucepan large enough to hold all the ingredients. Add the pig's foot and it's cooking liquid (or two smoked ham hocks). Cover the beans with cold water by 2 inches. Bring to simmer, cover, simmer for 1&1/2 hours at low heat. When the beans have cooked for 1&1/2 hours add the bacon, salt beef, fresh beef but leave the tongue to simmer separately. If necessary, add hot water to keep the beans covered. Simmer for two hours more. Remove the tongue from the heat and when cool enough to handle, peel and remove the gristle and bones. Add the tongue to the bean pot with more hot water if necessary. Stir the beans from time to time to keep them from sticking. At this point ham hocks will fall apart in all their gelatinous glory. Prick the fresh sausages and add them to the bean pot with the whole choriço. Simmer for 15 minutes, remove from heat. Sauce: Heat oil in frying pan and saute onions and garlic until onions are soft. Add tomatoes and chilli and cook until the mixture is thick. Season with salt and pepper. Scoop out a cupful or two of beans and mix into the tomato mixture. Stir this back into the pot and simmer on low heat for at least ten minutes. Stir often. To serve, lift out the meats and arrange them on an oval platter. Slice the tongue and put it in the center - slices overlapping. Slice the beef, bacon, salt beef, choriço and arrange around the platter - add sausages. Pour the beans, which should be very soft, into a tureen. ---------------- Popular companions to the dish are, white rice, sauteed shredded kale or collard in bacon fat, Farofa (cassava meal or manioc) fried in dende (palm oil), sliced fresh oranges, and molho de pimenta e limão (hot sauce with garlic, lime). The farofa is used traditionally to thicken, or bulk-out, a feijoada that's on the thin, soupy side, but is quite tasty fried up as mentioned above. Here's a feijoada from my 1st foodblog, I like a nice heart-of-palm salad with red onion and oranges. E tambem uma caipirinha, com certeza...

Some of my favorite Feijoada ornaments, I like the one from Cape Verde - Whiskey and Olive Oil. Below is another PiriPiri sauce and my favorite, molho picante - lime juice, garlic and minced (carefully) thai chilis that I prep up myself. Here are a couple authentic ingredients, Biju Black Beans and some old Tio Joao white rice I bought from a Brasilian store that opened here in Portland for about fifteen minutes. They also had authentic carne seca shipped up from Newark which I happily included in my feijoadas for the short time they were open. They also had a couple types of farofa, So I made some basic black beans with smoked ham hocks today to accompany some Texas Red Chili I've been trying to perfect, so I figured it was worth a contribution to the cook-off. Usually I put in all kinds of crap - the more the better to get close to an authentic feijoada - but the objective today is a side dish. I soaked these over night, threw in the hocks and let it go for four hours. Added onion about the last half hour.

Ever since the Saveur recipe came we haven't gone a week without a quart of Ribolita in the fridge. With a shortcut or two, it's a fast dish too. Today's variation: 1 carrot 1 leek 1 rib celery 1 spanish onion a little red onion 1 quart fresh smoked ham bone stock 1 can diced tomato (pre-loaded w/oregano, basil, garlic) 1 can cannellini beans 1 half lb Lacinato or whatever (above) several cubes two-day country bread salt & pepper 1 quarter lb chorizo (what the hell?!) We usually use chicken or turkey stock but I bet this works too. We stopped mashing a second can of white bean as we prefer it a little lighter and the bread makes it come together. Wonderful stuff!

This is awesome! For me, nothing helps a foodblog more than historical perspective and this one has it to spare. Thanks for the wonderful photos. Looking forward to the markets if you get a chance. What sort of fish come ashore and which are the favorite in Ashkelon's restaurants?

My shrimp marketing colleague-in-arms reported in the other day on a foray to St. John's for a Atlantic Coldwater Shrimp conference: Hello John, Hope all is well. How are the shrimp shaping up down there this season? The :Atlantic Coldwater Shrimp: Marketing Challenges and Opportunities" conference in St. John's Newfoundland last week was really interesting. I traveled there with a few of the shrimp trappers from Canso. Basically, learned a lot about the perilous state of the industry, what with warm water prawns being the increasing choice all over the world, seemingly, and prices, tariffs, etc, etc, etc. Despite a grand announcement that Moody Marine was going to recommend MSC certification to many of the fleet areas, the industry is mostly aiming, it seems, to dump their supply into discount bins in Russia and China. Sad state of affairs. Because I was there with a small-volume day-trippin' trap shrimp fishery, I think the market picture for them could conceivably be much different. It seemed clear that the package product of a charming small environmentally friendly fishery with quality product (and possibly a low carbon footprint) could find a real niche, particularly in the UK. We had some very interesting conversations with buyers and suppliers from Norway and the UK, so we'll see what happens with that, hopefully in line with next season. One thing I thought was interesting though, was that for two days, we talked export export export. Even our nutritional breaks were sponsored by container ships. Meanwhile I became increasingly curious to hear about domestic markets. I mean, people eat shrimp in Canada, right? I was thinking about our efforts here at the Ecology Action Centre to try and capitalize on a growing "local food movement", and the food miles and carbon footprinting awareness that is undoubtedly coming down the pipes, to stimulate a local niche market for these Chedabucto Bay trap-caught shrimp. So I got up and asked the room of 250 odd people, if anyone could comment on this marketing oppportunity, and invoked the examples of the local markets for BC Spot Prawns and Maine Shrimp. And I got a room full of absolute silence..... A telling answer in itself. During the break, John Sackton of Seafood News told me he thought it was a good question, and that these guys just aren't there yet. Maybe if I ask again in a few years... jeez. Anyway, Mr. Sackton is quite a fan of your Maine shrimp, apparently. Meanwhile, that article seems to have catapulted the chedabucto bay trap-caught shrimp onto a number of new menu items across the city, some even utiliaing a shells on presenation.... so ..... building, building, and crossing fingers. Anyway! There is your shrimp update from up east! I'd love to hear your thoughts. Regards, Sadie

Today's menu: Bourbon Chocolate It's my birthday today and I'll have whatever the hell I want, damnit!

Thank you for this clarification Hiroyuki. It didn't seem alar was a possibility after I looked it up and saw the ban, but I knew I was close.

Not a defender either, but uni of a certain age topped with a quail egg still ranks high on my list, just not as high as out of it's own shell. When I was diving for urchins off the Maine coast during the boomlet of the mid nineties, I was a witness to processing technique. The majority of trays processed here were destined for Japanese chain supermarkets. Off-loading freshly harvested sea urchins in Kennebunkport, Maine in 1994: The major processing plants employed dozens of white coated, hair-net wearing people who cracked open each urchin with a custom-made stainless steel device and down the line they went. Roe was extracted and dumped into flat, plastic seives, then bathed in a solution that removed any remaining shell particles and "tightened them up". I was told it was 4% alar per gallon of fresh water, but I'll have to check that when I see an old urchin buyer friend later this week. (Fresh water kills seafood so it might have been a brine instead. Alar in food processing was banned in 1989. Being highly perishable and very delicate, the odds of a single "melt" were high and would ruin the presentation of the tray as a whole so something had to be done to prevent this during the long journey to Japan. The use of alar may have been allowed since virtually all of it was destined for export. I'll post again when I find out more.) The uni were graded according to a color chart which will determine what price can be supported at auction. The best are installed in those pine boxes, the supermarket grade go in Styrofoam. I've probably eaten uni at every stage of freshness. I developed a habit of cracking open one or two urchins from the day's first harvest bag - partly to taste any subtle differences in harvest locations, but mostly because there is nothing like fresh uni right out of the ocean. At sushi bars, I've sent a few orders back. There isn't a sushi place on the planet that can fool me on freshness. I've been known to berate a waiter for disrespecting customers with some foul-tasting scum. If I've had enough sake, I'll go straight to the chef and tell them what I think. Whole urchins out of the water eventually drain as they relax their grip on the water held inside the shell - much like a clam or oyster, only much faster. Stable temperatures, about 40°F, help keep the roe from spoiling before processing even though the urchins have drained overnight. We've had to hold a few thousand pounds in a walk-in overnight owing to a late-night docking. Sometimes, the market price rises sharply overnight and we'll get paid more for day-old product. There is a slight degradation of flavor in an urchin that's lost it's water but I just may be more sensitive to it. So there's a little light shed on uni processing. In my opinion, unless urchins are kept in some kind of aerated, salt-water aquarium with a bunch of native kelp to nibble on, it is highly unlikely a sushi bar can serve "fresh" uni, but that doesn't mean it still isn't top notch product. As mentioned previously there is something about the flavor of week-old uni. A certain maturation takes place. It's a matter of personal taste.

Fascinating, John. Thank you!

I totally agree, Doddie. Many thanks to Peter for his photo and inspiration. I'm going to try and replicate it this weekend. There had to be some landings yesterday - the weather was perfect. Might have been some large hauls which explains the incredibly low price. The next couple days aren't looking very fishing-friendly: To add some perspective, each floor of a multi-story household averages 12 feet.

Checked into Harbor Fish Market on my usual Friday morning waterfront prowl and saw whole Maine shrimp, laden with roe, for $0.79/lb. Excellent excuse to try Peter The Eater's delicious creation: Dark rye, pearl of mayo, steamed(?) shrimp and a roe crown.

Cheers to you & Mr. Foodbabe! I as well turn 50 but two weeks from Thursday. Apparently, I have been denied favorites like oysters and foie gras, to be replaced with All Bran and cheeseburger helper... maybe we should switch places?? Nice Sea urchin you got there. I suppose I could eat that...

The dinner scene in Galaxy Quest. The hosts go to great pains to get some indigenous food from some crazy planet for Alan Rickman's character.

Harding Lee Smith, Chef/owner of The Front Room overlooking the scenic Eastern Promenade, is aiming for a March 12th opening of The Grill Room at 84 Exchange St., the space formerly known as Natasha's. The chipper folks at Front room said hopefully earlier, but that probably means give-or-take a weekend on either side. Front Room brunch review here (8/06) Looking forward to great food in such a killer location. Bravo, Harding!

The Farm Alliance will be in Monument Square from 11 to 1 on Wednesday the 30th. Today's email asks that you have your orders sent in by Monday night. The Menu seems little changed from above except for the new availability of Red or Purple carrots $2.25/lbs from GORANSON FARM. TO JOIN THE LIST - Send an email to Simon at eatlocalallyear/AT\gmail.com

Interesting article about Canadian trap-caught shrimp from my friend, Sadie Beaton, Sustainable Seafood Coordinator, Ecology Action Centre, in Halifax, NS: Click Here for full article and pics from The Chronicle Herald of Halifax, Nova Scotia (available for a limited time) Also, Restaurant Fid - Dresden Row, Halifax, NS Interesting item also noted was that the bay has been closed to dragging and seining for the last couple of decades so it’s almost like a protected area for shrimp.

Whoa! Great story, Ivy!