gold vs. grimes, represent!

Last night, much fun was had at the Los Angeles Public Library for this week's edition of their ALOUD series. The Taper auditorium hosted this "bi-cultural binge." Moderated by Good Food's Evan Kleiman, a classic East Coast/West Coast battle ensued between LA Weekly restaurant critic Jonathan Gold and former New York Times restaurant critic (and current obit writer!) William Grimes.

As more of an adventurous home cook than restaurant junkie, I was thoroughly engaged and entertained by the panelists' vast knowledge of food and restaurant history in their cities. Conversation spanned nearly two hundred years, from the 1837 opening of Delmonico's in New York City to current foodie trends-- food trucks and nose to tail eating.

Gold and Grimes bantered to clear up misconceptions of their respective "scenes." Kleiman proposed LA food spotlights health while New Yorkers are pleasure-seekers. Both of the guys thought instead the food cultures were more of a result of geography and physical space. Los Angeles home owners are more likely to entertain in-house using local ingredients, while shoe-box dwelling New Yorkers store books in their ovens and eat out three meals a day. Both coasts came together to shape moden food movements, from the DIY/punk rock mentality to the internationalization of chefs and resurgence of public markets.

As the crowd thinned out, probably headed to Cafe Pinot to sample their special prix fixe menu, Grimes was kind enough to give the man some insight into NYC's craft beers while I picked Gold's brain for butcher recommendations.

Check out the William Grimes' new book Appetite City: A Culinary History of New York and Jonathan Gold's Counter Intelligence.

And a special thanks to tryharder for giving us your place on the list.

Tryharder t-shirts do get you into the best events.

Things I Love Thursdays.

Here it comes, this week's edition of "Things I Love Thursdays!"

On the radar this week are fellow recreational butchers, courtesy of the New York Times. Great article, even though it uses every conceivable butchery anecdote, leaving me to feel a bit like a can of potted meat.

Legendary food writer Jonathan Gold shared his words of wisdom and caution for us aspiring food writers at class on Tuesday. He is quite the inspiration-- had the class hanging on his every word! Just as candidly eloquent (if that makes sense) in person as he is in his columns. Too bad his event at LAPL is full for tonight. Any suggestions on how a lady might sneak in?

My new issue of Meat Paper magazine came in the mail this week! Such a lovely magazine. Gorgeous and full of flavor. In this issue, they set out to determine whether a T-Rex tasted like chicken. The diagram is priceless. Truly the best way to stay on top the trends in the meat world.

KCET (or your local PBS, I'd imagine) has been airing loads of episodes of Julia and Jacques cooking at home. I caught an episode this week about pork and watched Jacques break down an entire rack. His methods and instruction were so simple and straightforward I could imagine someone actually doing it at home for themselves. All the while, Julia towered over him making fabulous yummy sounds and smacking her lips. Now that's classic TV.


And because we really just like cook dinner at home, drink wine, and watch bad TV, I made an somewhat elaborate birthday dinner for the man that I have to share.

We love, love lamb, and these chops were pretty killer. They come with a silly story, too. I usually buy my lamb either from my favorite local butchers, Marconda's Meats or Huntington Meats at the Farmer's Market at 3rd and Fairfax or from Whole Foods, but the giant Ralph's near my house now carries quite a selection. I didn't give it a second glance when it first appeared, as grocery story lamb makes me think of the suspicious meats I remember as a child-- an oozing slab of a mystery cut shrink-wrapped with a little packet of mint-flavored jelly.
Not wanting to be too pretentious, I thought I'd check out Ralph's supply. I then ran into roadblock number two. All of the packages of chops were labeled "Wine and Mustard Marinade." Hm. I kept walking. That didn't seem right.
One more try. Aah. They weren't actually marinated, just topped with a poorly designed, misleading recipe card. So four pretty little lamb chops came home with me and did not get marinated in mustard.
Instead, they were quickly seared in my trusty cast iron and topped with the birthday boy's favorite mint sauce, a zippy seasoned-to-taste puree of fresh mint, olive oil, red wine vinegar, sugar, garlic, onion, salt and pepper.
Delicious. Sweet, spicy, savory and just special enough for a birthday.

Have a protein-packed day!

carnivore! the talk is all meat at LA weekend.

Whew! There sure were a lot of happenings in LA this weekend. There was the annual Festival of Books at UCLA, the Grilled Cheese Invitational, and LA Weekly's LA Weekend. I chose the underdog-- LA Weekend-- for the Jonathon Gold-moderated panel Carnivore! Perhaps the Weekly's event picked up later in the day, but attendance was slim for this excellent discussion. All of you lovers of books and bread missed out though- the range of panelists and opinons they shared were quite impressive.

The advertised participants were Jonathan Gold, LA Weekly's restaurant critic, Mark Peel of Campanile, Octavio Becerra of Palate Food & Wine, and Susan Feniger of Street. As most events do, it started about 40 minutes late, which left me curious about why there were five chairs on stage for quite some time. A surprise guest? Yes! Worth the wait. Happily, the last guest was Vinny Dotolo, co-founder of Animal and winner (along with Jon Shook) of Food & Wine's Best New Chef award.

First of all, I thought the selection of panelists was pretty exquisite. Mark Peel is legendary, having worked with Wolfgang Puck for years. He was very intelligent and well-spoken, coming from a background of agricultural economics and history. Octavio Becerra is an chef who knows the importance of butchering skills. For years, he has been an advocate of using all parts of an animal in cooking and is a food detective, seeking out the best in all of his meats and produce. Susan Feniger spoke from a health- and environmentally-conscious perspective. Her latest restaurant venture uses meat as a "condiment" instead of in the forefront of dishes. Dotolo filled the place of the young, edgy chef who brings a refreshing passion to his work, really believing that food and cooking is art, reflected on his menu in the phrase "changes and modifications politely declined."

Many apologies for the poor photo quality.


Gold, Peel, and Becerra


Feniger and Dotolo

One of the major conclusions was that the panelists and the attendants are not representative of our country (or the world, obviously), so even if we believe that animals deserve respect and that we deserve to eat the tastiest foods we can, not everyone shares these ideals, either because it is not a personal priority or because they simply cannot afford to invest in better quality products. Can the majority pay $16 for a humanely-raised, grass-fed, local, organic cheeseburger when the fast food joint across the street sells a moderately tasty (though heart-attack inducing, environment-destroying, and cut from an animal that has never seen the light of day) burger for 99-cents? Opinions and solutions differed between the panelists. The idealists stuck to the supply-and-demand principle, that if we spend money on higher quality products now, more will have to be produced, eventually bringing costs down. The others saw the reality that most people will never pay for higher quality meats and concluded that government regulation is the only option.

Needless to say, each panelist was on top of the current dynamics in the food world, so there was one point that left me confused. Gold's opening question hit on Padma Lakshmi's Carl's Jr. ad. I get it. She's sexy. She was raised as a vegetarian Hindu but now eats beef. She's a pop-culture foodie icon but devours fast food. Even though I was trying not to roll my eyes that this was the first point, I was excited because I thought the issue of women in the food/meat/butchering industry would be brought to the forefront. Unfortunately, it was kind of brushed over. When the floor opened for audience questions, the first question related to feminism and meat. What a let-down it was when there was an immediate and unanimous conclusion that sexuality and carnivousness were completely seperate. Why, then, are there twice as many female vegetarians than male? Why, when dining out, do women more often dine on salad or pasta while the man orders the big, juicy steak? Why, in most households, does the only time men cook involve a grill while the women make the casseroles, desserts, salads, and baked goods?

I don't want to dwell on the negative as I really enjoyed the discussion. It was totally a celebration of meat and the way that it should be consumed-- coming from animals that were well-fed and lived a healthy, low-stress life and savored in moderation in an environment that compliments the food. It should be an experience that is intentional and respected on every level. Taking an animal's life in order to sustain our own is never something that should be taken lightly. As Peel said, it is something that is "sacred and profound, flesh to flesh."

So, are we willing to be conscious omnivores, paying more for quality meats in hopes of improving our food experience and our country's sad agricultural state? If it can be as easy as lunching on grass-fed beef and family-raised pork hot dogs from the Let's Be Frank truck parked on Vine today, I should think so!

a little taste of argentina

I happened upon a little question & answer with Jonathan Gold regarding Argentinean food in Los Angeles. Check it out! It includes a few restaurant recommendations, though they don't seem to be very meat-centric. I wonder if the steak they do serve would be as excellent as it was in the Southern Hemisphere... I still can't get over that I managed to get all of my meats "sin salsa, sin aceite-- solo" (pretty much the only Spanish I spoke) in Argentina and I can't find a waiter here who knows what the grilled chicken special is marinated in or what the difference is between mixed greens and leaf lettuce.
I digress.

And speaking of Jonathan Gold, he will be making an appearance this weekend at LA Weekly's LA Weekend in a panel discussion called Carnivore! Will I be there? Heck yeah! Stay tuned. I'm a bit confused because one site says that tickets cost $18, but the official site says some sort of sponsorship has made it free, so here's hoping for free!