ronnie_suburban

The Chicago Reader has a useful piece in their May 5 edition which features some better-known places in town to source foie gras before the ban goes into effect: The Final Days of Foie Gras (this .pdf file loads a bit slowly) =R=

May 10, 2006... From today's Chicago Tribune - Good Eating section: The Korean challenge...Bill Daley takes on the difficult task of pairing Korean food and wine. A recipe from Joyce Goldstein and tasting notes are included. Is this polenta . . . or just mush?...in this special to the Tribune, Peggy Wolff explores just some of the glories of this versatile, corn-based product. Taking a fancy to gourmet tastes...Robin Mather Jenkins reports from the recently-completed Fancy Foods show which took place at McCormick Place earlier this week. Taking a 'cue from the East...Robin Mather Jenkins with a brief review of The Asian Grill by Corinne Trang. A spirited departure...Rick Asa spends some time at the newly-minted North Shore Distillery in Lake Bluff, which is the only operation of its kind in Illinois. How to conquer all muffin...James P. DeWan files his weekly Prep School installment. Sorrel...Renee Enna with a useful guide. ===== From today's Chicago Sun Times - Food section: The power of pink...Sandy Thorn Clark with a special take on some ways to celebrate Mother's Day. New products cater to harried cooks...food editor Sue Ontiveros reports on some of the new convenience products that were on display at the recently-completed Food Marketing Institute show which took place in Chicago earlier this week. Tastings around town...Celeste Busk previews upcoming events at Fixture, Scoozi!, Nacional 27 and Shaw's Crab House. Food news...among other tidbits, Denise I. O'Neal previews Art Smith's upcoming appearance in Oak Brook. ===== From today's Daily Herald - Food section: Wake Mom up with homemade coffeecake...with Mother's Day coming up on Sunday, food editor Deborah Pankey makes it clear that when it comes to mom, it's the thought that counts. Food and wine classes...a comprehensive listing of upcoming area food events, tastings and classes; broken out by day. ===== The May 5 edition of the Chicago Reader's Restaurants section offers a useful guide -- The Final Days of Foie Gras -- on where to source the delicacy before the ban goes into effect. Note: .pdf pages at the Reader's web site load slowly but they do eventually load. ===== In this week's installment of Chicago Magazine's Dish, Penny Pollack and Jeff Ruby chat with Gael Greene just long enough to remind everyone that her current irrelevance is not only a good thing, it's also well-deserved. ===== =R= <><><><><> Media Digest Notes... Updates from some Chicago media outlets, which do not 'go to press' on Wednesday mornings, will be edited into each week's post as they become available. Please do not reply on this thread. For discussion of any stories which are linked here, please feel free to start a new thread or contact the forum host or digester who will be happy to do it for you. <><><><><>

Here's a bit more information on the new places in Wheeling, from the Daily Herald's May 9 edition: Star chefs behind food for new Wheeling hotel Still, I get the feeling that we may not be getting the entire story as far as what this really means for TRU. I guess that time will tell . . . =R=

I don't want to speak for Mr. Kokonas and he may want to elaborate but there is a tremendous amount of information about Alinea and how it came to be here. =R=

Dave, the sopressata looks great. I'm sure it was a ton of taxing work. Hopefully, it'll pay off big-time. Can't wait for the updates. =R=

Well, the jowls have absolutely no "off" smell whatsoever, which makes this a very strange situation. In fact, they have almost no smell at all. A reader who frequents this thread sent me the following information, which she found at the University of Virginia's web site. It very well might apply in my situation but given that the jowls were sourced from Niman, I'd hate to think so: At this point, I plan to stay the course. I'll continue to cure them, then I'll dry them and smoke them over the weekend. If nothing else, it'll be an interesting experiment but I have to say that I'll be somewhat nervous about actually tasting them. And I'm disappointed. I've cured and smoked over 10 slabs of bacon since I started down this crazy road and this is the first time I've had any mysterious problems pop up while doing so. I'll continue to update as I go and please, feel free to share any theories about what might be going on here. Thanks, =R=

I really cannot believe that Bones somehow beat Charcuterie in the Single Subject Cookbook category. Yes, I'm a big fan of the Ruhlman/Polcyn tome but I'm also a huge cookbook addict in general. Having read Bones from cover to cover I think it's a truly lousy book. It was only about bones in the loosest sense and the recipes were so basic, that the book essentially accomplished nothing. It provided no genuine expertise whatsoever. There were almost no dishes in that book which any average cook couldn't have cooked without the recipes therein. What a terrible choice. Between that and Alinea getting completely hosed in the Best New Restaurant category, I'm very down on the Beard Foundation today. Frankly, I'm surprised that a chef from the Midwest (Shawn McClain) actually won the Best Chef Midwest category. If there had been any way to give that award to a chef from NYC, I'm sure the Beard Foundation would found a way to have done so. I guess we flatlanders just don't rate. =R=

Great job, melicob! My first batch of lamb sausage came out about the same but I nailed it the next time out. I think that leanness was a factor and I learned, after the first time out, to add plenty of fatback to the mixture. Even with relatively fatty lamb shoulder, I'll add anywhere from 8 - 10 oz of fatback to a 5-pound batch. It makes a substantial difference. Good luck with the Spanish Chorizo. =R=

One quick test that won't require removal. What does it smell like when you open the bag? If it smells like it looks, I fear you might be done with this experiment . ← I know, this is a real stumper. I will do an "aroma check" when I get home tonight. There was no "off" smell coming from inside the bags, so I'm still hopeful. My only thought is that this is somehow a glandular problem and that I didn't trim the jowls well enough before setting out. FWIW, I sourced the jowls from Niman and they had no off aroma at all when I took them from their original, crovacked packaging. =R=

A couple more images for the sleuths . . . A light greenish-yellowish tone on some of the surface area of the jowl. Not looking so good. =R=

Here's a pic of my greenish jowls . . . Especially near the bottom of the picture, you can see some greenish/brownish discoloration. I thought I'd removed the glands but perhaps I missed some and that's the source of the discoloration. It's kind of hard to see but the liquid being leached is a strange color; more yellowish today but a bit greener yesterday. I'll try to capture some better images but I really don't want to remove the jowls from their bags unless I absolutely have to. Any thoughts? =R=

Again, even I don't mind a dish-by-dish critique. In fact, I enjoy reading them very much. It's just that I have no interest in writing one because I really don't think about my meals at Alinea in those terms. I tend to remember my experiences there more on the whole. But, given the nature of the meal, it would be impossible not to think about which dishes were favorites, etc. And with 20+ courses, it's hard not to have favorites. I think it's part of the experience of dining at Alinea -- stopping somewhere along the way and asking your companions "ok, what have been your favorite courses, so far?" Midwesterner, was this your first visit to Alinea? If so, I'd be curious to know why you made your first visit during anniversary week. Was it because it offered a chance to try some othewise retired dishes from the first year? Some other reason? Coincidence? =R=

Completely understood. And just to be clear, I too want these types of posts to continue and I'm speaking on a strictly personal basis (not as the forum host) when I say that they have less resonance for me than they used to. In no way am I suggesting that the folks who make them cease to do so. That said, there comes a point, especially when it comes to subjective descriptions of a restaurant's cuisine -- especially one like Alinea -- when there is no substitute for experiencing it first hand. In the case of Alinea, I'm lucky that I live in the Chicago area and have access without having to travel, etc. Josh's comment about the "different strokes" angle (directly above this post) reinforces my point somewhat. At the end of the day, subjective taste is a very difficult thing to analyze. Sometimes you either like something or you don't. One never has to have a "good reason" for their opinion. I'd be shocked if everyone who dined at Alinea (or anywhere else) liked it equally. Happily, thankfully, the world doesn't work that way. =R=

Question about curing jowls . . . I started curing mine on Friday night using the salt box method and the basic cure recipe from the book. I went to flip them over today and I noticed kind of a funky greenish tint on the meat. It doesn't seem 'normal' but they weren't even out of refrigeration for longer than about 10 minutes. I took them from their cryovacked packs, rinsed them, dried them, dredged them in cure and returned them, in ziplocs, to the fridge. Can anyone comment on this? =R=

Doc, I always read the recaps that folks post and I always enjoy the images (and the effort folks put forth to capture them) but whether someone enjoys a particular course or not is becoming moot for me. Still, because Alinea's menu changes so frequently, I'm always interested in reading about the specifics. At our table last night, there were 6 of us and we rarely had a consensus about any of the individual courses. Yet, at the end of the meal we were all completely blown away by our overall experiences. This is usually how my trips to (at?) Alinea have played out. When you're served 22+ courses, obviously some will shine more than others. In light of that, course-by-course evaluations have lost a great deal of their significance for me. =R=

Dayum!! I cannot wait to start this phase of my Charcuterie 'training.' =R=

We had a phenomenal meal at Alinea last night. The anniversary 'Tour' was a lot of fun and the atmosphere in the restaurant was even more festive than it usually is. I sensed that this was because most of the folks who were dining there last night were return visitors; friends of the house. But, I was incorrect. I'm told that there were a fair amount of first-timers in as well. On second thought, I figured that the mood was, more likely, simply a function of the occasion. Regulars (at least the ones with whom I chatted) were happy to be there celebrating Alinea's 1-year anniversary and first-timers, I'm guessing, were happy for the opportunity to finally try Alinea and experience a bunch of dishes that would probably not have been available otherwise. I'm pretty much at the point where I find dish-by-dish recaps of Alinea meals to be useless. In fact, I believe that focusing there almost entirely misses the essence of what Alinea is and does. The Alinea experience is a cumulative and collaborative one; a soulful, complex and richly satisfying symphony. And while Chef G is certainly the composer and conductor, it is the passion, knowledge and dedication of each player which actually allows the Alinea experience to be properly communicated to the diner. Chef G's vision is intense and focused. And, he so inspires those around him that his vision is transmitted to the diner in resoundingly clear fashion. There isn't an Alinea employee I've encountered whose knowlege and enthusiasm isn't readily apparent. Delicious, distinctive, imaginative and thought-provoking food are the main components of what makes a restaurant a destination. From the first course to the last, 'Tour' diners at Alinea embark on cohesive, meticulously-designed journeys. Courses progress in a manner which not only impact the diner on multiple sensory levels but also engage him emotionally. At the end of the Tour, even though you're sitting in the same chair in which you started your meal, you feel as if you've traveled. Is Chef G alone in wanting to push the experiential envelope of fine dining? Certainly not. But Grant Achatz is an original. His voice is distinctive and his vision, while possibly comparable to that of others on a purely superficial level, literally changes the way we think about food into the way we feel about food. This culinary-emotional alchemy is so rare and so unique that, at least for me, it all but obliterates everything which came before it. =R=

Janet Fuller has a piece about Avenues, chef Bowles and the foie gras ban in today's Chicago Sun-Times: Chef thumbs nose at ban: 10 courses of foie gras =R=

more on this story ... ← Avenues' Chef's Palate menu with Foie Gras can viewed here. =R=

Eerie, indeed. Just yesterday I received a very similar package from Butcher & Packer, but mine included sheep casings (the ones I got from the last place have been problematic), 1 pound of Cure #2 and some butcher's twine. My box also included some bactoferm. Mr. A., I believe we are on parallel courses, although I still have some jowls to cure tonight before I start trying to fabricate a curing chamber. =R=

Thing of beauty, Chris . . . thing of beauty! =R=

I believe that catfish is never Kosher. I'm not certain of that, though. Here's a link to a good Kosher site's Fish guide. Congrats, btw =R=

I've had a look at an advance copy of Michael Ruhlman's The Reach of a Chef: Beyond the Kitchen and it's absolutely terrific. I'm in "can't put it down" mode now and hope to post a more comprehensive review shortly. =R=

LOL! Unquestionably =R=

Nothing will change this bad news but at least some folks have plans to send Chicago's foie gras era out in style. I just received word about a very special foie gras menu being offered at Avenues, starting this weekend. I've posted the details here, on the Avenues thread. =R=