THE GURGLING COD

Is it true what they say about the New South?

And do the folks keep eating chevre 'til they can't eat no more?
Question for the  rest of the ACC: Can you crumble those bowl-eligible football squads and have a delicious garnish for a spinach salad?  Didn't think so. Keep your electrifying quarterbacks, and we'll hang on to our delicious blue cheese. To celebrate this unexpected laurel, how about something special, like a track from an album of heavy metal versions of songs Al Jolson made famous? Done.

The rest of the story

courtesy of that Blogosphere:

IN Austin, Tex., Richard Linklater, a filmmaker known for the whimsy of "Slacker" and "School of Rock," is planning a big-screen adaptation of "Fast Food Nation," the 2001 exposé book by Eric Schlosser.

I am not the resident cineaste chez Cod, but I thought they kind of made this movie already. In a related development, Morgan Spurlock ditches vegan hottie, moonlights as offensive lineman for the New England Patriots under name of "Logan Mankins."

A single question would suffice

And that is why they did not assign this interview to Triumph:

Is that why some of your recipes call for canned vegetables?

As far as nutrition is concerned, canned or frozen vegetables have more nutrition than fresh vegetables. It's added from the companies, the manufacturer.

You can't possibly see yourself as a serious cook.

No, ma'am, not at all. I wouldn't know what fresh saffron looks like. I'm not into research.

What's scary is that this guy is probably on the shortlist for a Supreme Court nomination.

Gobble Gobble

"Suppliers Anxious over Surplus of Heritage Turkeys":

"The turkeys were being put just a tad on a back burner when we took up pork and wild rice, and we didn't have Plan B and Plan C" in case anyone backed out of a contract, Mr. Martins said in a telephone interview. "In the end we will pay Frank. Whether Todd and I have to give up $30,000 of our money, whether I have to end up living in Brooklyn instead of Manhattan, the farmers will be paid. It's going to put a stress on Heritage Foods."

Rain on the freaking scarecrow, man. Stay tuned for the telecast of Asshats Going Broke Selling Artisanal Turkeys for $140.00-Aid. And please do what you can to help-- no one wants to witness the tragedy of an interboro Grapes of Wrath.

Could Chris Kimball also have a big old but?

Maybe not even. The Dwarf heroically ignores the wafting scent of frying onions, and in the same vein as a recent post, gets after Chris Kimball's latest joint:

I have to say that it is one of the worst packaged books I have ever seen. It's a 3 ring binder with pages and dividers, which is fine, except that the fucking thing comes unassembled. You get this crappily shrink wrapped binder with the pages and dividers in its own shrink wrapping inside. The problem with the crappy shrink wrap on the outside is that it's too loose, so the package inside pops holes into it. The whole thing is too fucking stupid. Who would buy this? I was thinking about it, but certainly not after I've seen it. And particularly not after having to assemble one (you see, they give you instructions all handily printed on a card that includes one of those annoying subscription cards that fall out of magazines--I fucking hate those, but I digress) for a display copy. Imagine shopping for a cookbook, looking at an array of beautiful spines and you see this one. Imagine pulling it off the shelf and maybe those individually wrapped pages inside finally break loose. Or imagine the damage that will be done to the display copy with the pages undone (rememeber in high school when you yanked too hard on a page and it ripped out of the rings). So America's Test Kitchen, you might want to think about this the next time you produce a cookbook.

Unfortch, I suspect that this packaging is  a result of Kimball's relentless drive to repackage extant receipts--the same will appear, more or less, in the mag, on the show, in the books from the show, and in the bound version of the magazine. The CI/ATK  receipts are tested relentlessly, reliable if dull, and then flogged in every possible permutation. Thus, "horrible binder that falls apart" is another way to extend the brand.  In the meantime, send reinforcements to America's Test Kitchen.

Oh, no he diin't!

Actually he did. Bruni drops "Poor" on Ninja:

Ninja acts like a Disney ride, Space Mountain under a hailstorm of run-of-the-mill or unappealing sushi - but charges like Le Bernardin. It has a stringy crab dish served on a grapefruit that belches smoke, a ridiculous dessert in the shape of a frog and a whole lot of nerve.

I'm sure that the usual suspects will be buzzing about this debut of the fighting side of Bruni, but I think it would be worth considering if possibly Ninja is an elaborate joke, developed expressly to see what it would take to secure the lowest rating from Bruni.

Speaking of "poor," has there ever been a less compelling professional sports franchise than the Houston Astros? Bitching about playing baseball outdoors from your catcher, no less? So your jackass fans can rock their pathetic "bee" accessories in climate controlled comfort? As they cheer the first WS team in more than 50 years with no black players?  Do not fret, Brad Ausmus, for soon you will be in front of the hot stove with NLCS memories and your team's eponymous product to keep you warm.

Mark Bittman has a big old but

Bittman is one of those food people where I frequently find myself writing things like "I find his receipts generally reliable, but..." The other is Hesser, but I did not want the traffic that would come from using her name and that phrase in the title. The new Bittman jawn is "The Best Recipes in the World"  Subtitled "1,000 recipes to cook at home," it purports to offer the home cook the best of global cuisine.

This volume, in the same I-can't-believe-I-wrote-the-whole-thing vein, collects recipes from 44 countries. Bittman successfully avoids the usual suspects, drawing as heavily from places like North Africa (home of Harira, a satisfying soup traditionally used to end Ramadan fasting) and India (Marinated Lamb "Popsicles" with Fenugreek Cream) as he does from easy targets like Italy and France.

("Easy targets like Italy or France"? Are we cooking a meal or driving a Panzer? I digress. )

The everything-in-one-place format works differently here than it did in his earlier book, which was, ultimately, about technique, not individual recipes, so while there are more than 1,000 recipes here, the reader doesn't acquire quite the same "take-away." Still, for one-stop-shopping on the world's cuisine, it'd be tough to find a better book.

Color the Cod skeptical. It leads me to fear that Putamayo globalism is the new Orientalism, where "Ethnic" becomes a generic catchall at the stove in the way "world music" functions on the stereo. Somehow, one at a time in the Minimalists in DI/DO, shortcuts to ethnic seem less dodgy than in the context of a 768 page global fakebook. Also, here's hoping that Bittman insisted on a better binding than for HTCE -- my copy of that one is decollating at an alarming rate, which is doubly irritating b/c a) it was not cheap b)  in falling apart, it seems far more used and beloved than it is. If anyone has actually used this book, I'd be interested to hear detals of how grave the fakes are, but more than than that, I'd love to hear about cookbooks you cherish or despise for the durability/frailty of their bindings. By and large the PB ones from Workman are the bunk, I think, but I'd love to hear from Codland on this question.

No Goats, No glory.

The contrapositive of this statement would be goats=glory. My experience this weekend suggests this relationship is indeed true. I have been messing around with mozzarella this fall, but the only time I got it to work well enough not to be embarrassing was with raw milk from the inconveniently far off Happy Cow Creamery. I wanted something besides the Cabot 454 Big Block of extra sharp for pizza. I had discussed the possibility of goatzarella with the ladies at the Split Creek Dairy in the past. They were enthusiastic, so I picked up a trial size (gallon) of raw goat milk, and on my return, discovered that the goat mozz receipt I had was not compatible with the cheesemaking stuff I had on hand. Further research revealed a super-easy receipt for goat ricotta. Technically, not ricotta,  but tasty, and higher yielding than other cheese receipts I have tried. If you can get some raw goat milk, give it a try: heat goat milk to around 195 (not boiling) and add 1/4 c cider vinegar. If it does not separate into white curds and greenish whey, heat a bit more, but do not boil. Ladle out curds with slotted spoon into colander lined with fine cheesecloth and let drain for a few minutes. The receipt I worked from, from  Ricki Carroll's Home Cheese Making calls for adding 3 tb melted butter and a 1/2 tsp baking soda. I'm not sure what purpose the baking soda serves, but I'd try with a bit of heavy cow cream and some kosher salt next time. The finished product, once it has set in the fridge, is a bit stiffer than ricotta, and has a subtle goaty flavor. It worked out well as a base for a white pizza, and was even better rolled into marble sized balls, dusted with herbes de provence. I will be back to see these goats soon.

I saw a man, he ate dry caramel salt with his wife.

"note to self: drizzle some Karo in bag of Pirate's Booty"

The zooty dinner as photo safari strikes me as irredeemably assy, but these photos are  useful in making it clear that you will need to make plans for dinner after your session at Alinea. You may find this resource useful. Even better, here are directions from Alinea to Ribs & Bibs, my favorite South Side rib establishment. Reggie will hook you up. Go White Sox.

Fruit and vegetable roundup

Today's planned report on the Upstate version of sausages and grapes (with kale, over grits)  has been derailed by 1) unexpected non-availability of Neese's Extra Sage sausage and 2) unprecedented weirdness in the world of grapes. This is a dish I've made a few times, and I enjoy it because you can stay local, and feel vaguely italian, only not, at the same time--like seeing Baltimora in Branson, MO, maybe. You brown sausage meat, add kale or collards (presteaming is an option, a slug of balsamic, and a 2 handfulls of red grapes just before serving over local grits. The usual grapes looked a little drosophilic, so I went with the more expensive organic grapes, which were longer and darker. Momma raised me right, so I did not pick grapes off the stem to sample. Mistake. Turns out these grapes were to real grapes what fake tits are to real tits. Rather than soften with heat, and via their juices contribute an autumna frisson to the kale and sausage, these freaks turned into hot little bullets that were almost as dangerous as jalapeno poppers. The rest of the grapes will be thoroughly blended in a smoothie, which is serves as the French Foreign Legion for fuit that does not fit into the plan otherwise.
On the other hand, Persimmons! Georgia Persimmons! What a fun, sexy fruit! It's as if the tomato people wanted to get into the dessert market and focus grouped a bunch of Bellini drinkers. If the persimmon is wrong, the Cod does not want to be right.