chadzilla

casiquiare

Our 4 years participating in Trilogia en Fusion have given us some interesting eating experiences.  Arepas seem to take on an ethereal quality that is difficult to translate in even the best areperas in Miami.  The deep soulful flavors of cheeses such as queso telita and queso mano don't transcend over the Gulf and Carribean to our Latin markets.  Some defy definition or classification... natilla (not the custard as the name implies in Columbia, Spain, and other parts of the Spanish speaking world), but more like the richest butter that tastes more like the step child of butter and sour cream.  Contrary to popular belief, Christopher Columbus did not hold that the world was round, but rather pearish in shape.  He described it as mostly round with a 'nipple' on it, and on that nipple was Eden... complete paradise.  In a later journey following his 1492 'discovery,' he was convinced that he had found that nipple.  Geographically, what he had found was Venezuela.  We can thus concur that Venezuela is the nipple of the world.

As part of the entertainment provided to us each year, we are treated out in groups to restaurants in the Valencia area and also for some very interesting dinners at the Les Gourmets culinary school where the students push themselves to create meals showcasing their learned techniques mixed with the flavors of Venezuela.  We are also taken out each year to a great little restaurant called Casiquiare (named after a branch of the Orinoco and also a major affluent of the Amazon).  Although I do not know the full story behind this place, we were told that it used to be a club of sorts until an older Italian gentleman took it over and transformed it into something a bit more memorable.  Specialties of the house include a range of smoke grilled meats and some great versions of Venezuelan classics (house-made tequenos with a unique sauce of passion fruit and cachapas with telita are among the best).

Here are some great pictures that really do justice to the charm of Casiquiare.  They were taken by our friend, Neiza Hernandez, using Fabian's camera.

Separate from the restaurant itself, in an open building is the pizza factory.  This is usually staffed by 2 or 3 employees and houses a good-sized wood-burning hearth... the only way to make truly great pizza.  Since our first year here, we've watched the embers in this thing crank out the most amazing pizza.  The only problem... we had never gotten to experience it.  Maybe they thought a bunch of chefs would not be interested in such a thing, so this year we started dropping hints early.  "Say... maybe this year we could try one of those pizzas, huh?"  Well, they hooked us up, and it was worth it... best pizza in a long time.

 

A closer shot of the coal fire oven... there are few things more beautiful.  This will be in my backyard one day... one day.

Is it a grill?  A smoker?  A big pit full of smoldering citrus wood that delivers some of the best flavored meats you will ever bite into?  It's all of the above.  The flavor of smoke from this pit instantly takes my mind back to childhood tasting meats cooked over open flame in my grandfather's yard.  It's amazing how flavors and food have the power to transcend time.  I love the soul of smoke.  Smoke is universal.

Broad view of the kitchen/production area.  The staff here basically runs itself.  Complete consistency.

The Christian version of those shrines you see in every Chinese restaurant... I love the sacrificial glass of vino tinto for Jesus (Hay-Soos).  Beautiful.

The wooden boards:   Every meal we've had at Casiquiare has been served family style.  What made the very first experience special was that everyone had one of these wooden cutting boards set to eat off of.  Now of course this would be a huge Health Department 'no-no' anywhere in the US, and apparently it is now also in Venezuela since every meal since has utilized plates.  We were told that these boards will be gone very soon.  They are each knife-scarred and oiled deep with animal fat.  It's kind of sad actually.  I get the risk factor, but how great it is to devour great amounts of meat by slicing and eating it off of one of these.  They also wash and dry them on this customized rack so that they air dry perfectly... what love.  Wish we would have thought to ask for some.  I'd hang it on the wall.

A caricature of the proprieters.  Don't ask me to translate, cause I can't remember.

The owner, Señor Fantozzi.  He is constantly in the dining room, walking the floor, checking in on every aspect to make sure that everything is perfect.  His presence is regal and humble at the same time.  We could only gesture and speak in broken Spanish to express our appreciation at how attentively he has catered to us each year, but I think he gets it.  Big pimpin'.

Cachapas with queso telita... and one of the national beverages, Solera (same makers of Polar).  With the amount of food we consumed there, light beer was a necessity.

A meat platter of sausages, rib cuts, and other slices I couldn't readily identify before they disappeared on my plate.  That kiss of smoke is perfection.

Pretty much one the only vegetable representation the entire meal.  A nice balanced salad.

Heir to the throne.  The owner's son, Felice Fantozzi, and Chef K.  

A good section of the dining room to waddle over to and digest.

trilogia en fusion 2011

We're back in the USA after a great 4th year participating in Trilogia en Fusion in Valencia, Venezuela.  The traveling was especially long this year, but it was great to spend time with some great old and new friends.  I'll just post a few point pictures now as we are swamped trying to handle business during a very short 4 days break before we're off again to New York for the Star Chefs ICC.  We'll be hitting the mainstage to soak up the inspiration and also spending a good deal of time at the FOH booth, so stop by and see us if you're there.  In between that, we'll be eating some Gastropod cuisine with Chef Jeremiah.  

I'll post more on Venezuela later.

Venezuelan El Rey chocolate

Fabian DiPaolo 2nd demo:  chocolate, white truffle, caramel corn, passionfruit, vanilla

Chef K prepping in the hotel room kitchen

Me with Chef Hiroshi Noguchi, old school international master ice sculpturer, culinary competition judge, and joker

prepping koolickles to fry, final dish for demo on History of Mobile Food:  whole wheat crusted fried koolickle, smoked bacon mayo, dark chocolate

the beautiful Señora Neiza bringing creamy smoked bacon dip (which echoed the flavors of carbonara), bread, chocolates, rum, and blessings

... and the less tasty, but very interesting tarantula from an Amazonian foods demo (I ate a leg, and the flavor tasted like the inside points of the top shell of a boiled blue crab after it's chilled... kind of obsure, but my personal reference point)

Chef K and I sampling the smoked salt blends of Chef Jose Luis Carrasquero

Fabian with Ponchito, our help with 'foraging' ingredients around the event for the past two years

bbq pulled jackfruit

This is not my idea.  Although I wish I had thought of it, I must disclose credit elsewhere.

A couple of weeks ago, the ladies from Tropical Delights made their usual Wednesday delivery.  Sometimes when I am available in the kitchen, I enjoy listening to their stories and ideas.  They made mention of there recent food truck visit and were excited about a vegan pulled 'pork' sandwich they tried.  I've always been aware of jackfruit, but never really messed with it... possibly because of it's faint similarity to durian.  The concept was to cook down jackfruit in bbq sauce.

I searched the internet and found a couple of other mentions on the subject (not putting in links, and not sure who deserves credit for this original thought).  What I found pretty much summed up my feelings on most hippie-appropriated vegan food out there... it sucks.  There was no reason, however, that I couldn't actually make it better.  Pretty much all of the recipes I found called for using canned jackfruit and cooking it down with bbq sauce of choice.  Seriously, if this is a vegan's perception of the full glory of awesome pulled pork, then they really should get out more.  Just the smell of pulled smokey pork would be better than eating this.

Anyway, the Tropical Delight ladies had offered to bring me a ripe jackfruit they had which was prime and ready.   The next Wednesday, said jackfruit arrived.  I cut it into quarters revealing the stringy flesh within.  The large visible seeds were removed, and I rubbed the flesh with olive oil and some Memphis style pork rub.  I let them sit on a low pit on their skins for over an hour while they bathed in mesquite smoke.  This is what they looked like afterwards...

The fibrous threads began to separate (I had repeatedly drizzled in more oil and spice into these crevasses as they cooked).  The flesh was then pulled apart and inner seeds removed.

Nice flavors, but a bit tough.  This is where the convenience of canned jackfruit comes in, I guess.  I would have to break down the insides to a more tender state.  The pulled fruit was then tossed with Peck Wicker's and honey and bagged then pressure cooked.

This was after 30 minutes.  Pretty tender.  It actually looks very similar to pulled pork or chicken meat.  The natural sweet aroma of the fruit blends very nicely with the tangy sauce, honey, and spice.  In retrospect, I think 15 minutes is sufficient next time.  There's a little texture of broken down starch almost stretching into mushiness after 30 minutes.

Now you've got the JACK!

3 alarm gator chili

It has been a very long time since I've eaten alligator.  I feel it deserves more fair product placement than the touristy crap food designation it has held for most of my adult life.  As a younger person, I was fortunate to experience alligator both fried and grilled.  This usually utilized the tail meat.  The popular (or more traditional) way to prepare it in South Louisiana was alligator sauce piquant.  You can probably ascertain that this is a fairly piquant stewed down dish from the name.  A lot of gator preparations involve overcooking and over masking of flavor.  As a result, I can not really say I hold any sort of childhood partiality to the taste of gator... who the hell knows what it actually taste like anyway?  Everybody says 'chicken,' but this is BS.  It's more reminiscent of shark or sword, and would probably go great on a Baja taco.  Those who know me may speculate that this gator-fascination stems from my love of watching "Swamp People," but that's just cause it reminds me of back home.

For this week's Sol Sunday menu, I am playing around with alligator chili.  True, this is just another overly seasoned cooked down gator dish, and who's to say that chicken couldn't be sub'ed in unknowingly (I've actually incorporated some pork as is common practice with things like gator sausage).  I'm still excited about this because I can put my hand on some alligator meat from a new point in my culinary career.  This pushes me to want to experiment with it.  How would fresh gator cooked sous-vide turn out?  Would there be a better showing of the actual flavor?  Would this flavor be desirable?  And how awesome would it be to focus on the Everglades regional bounty that could possibly become the benchmark of Floridian cuisine?

For today though, it's chili.  I took some inspiration from Kenji in an old Serious Eats article but went different directions.  I decided to embrace grill and smoke flavor and prepared some of the ingredients accordingly.  The result was a deep balanced slightly spicy flavor with hints of Tex Mex and mole.  Start by sweating onions and garlic.  Add in sweet red peppers and poblanos that were grilled.  Add in grill-charred pork and slow-smoked alligator.  Prepared aji panca for smoke and depth and aji amarillo for brightness and heat were nice Peruvian add-ins.  To push the heat a bit more, jalapeño powder and cayenne then round out the flavors with Venezuelan chocolate and uber-ripe tomatoes.  Turtle beans are added in at the very end.

chef jeremiah on MADness

Sometime during the barrage of chef tweets going on during the recent MAD Symposium, there was a definite enticement to the growing idea (is that a pun or double meaning?)... one that seemed to reach out globally through social media.  As this media was darkened by the role it played in facilitating the international rioting, it was also assisting in getting more positive messages to the world at large.  Chef Jeremiah was the only Miami chef in attendance in Copenhagen, and my curiosity led me to ask if I could interview him upon his return.  We intended to do this as a chat over beers, but ended up sitting in a Lowes (not the Loews hotel, but the home improvement store) in the patio furniture department... thus making the beer part a little difficult.  There have been a few online articles out previously with chefs discussing the symposium and the objectives and all of them very good reads.  The important points for me with this discussion deal with the realities... how to push the 'apply' button after we've made the choice.  More importantly, how to make the changes specifically in South Florida.  I was curious to hear Jeremiah's thoughts on this.  I've never done an interview before on this blog, so I'm going to free form it somewhat.  I really just wanted to focus on subject matter that I feel is too important to ignore at this moment in time... who really cares if Bourdain and Paula Deen are feuding or if someone is stealing the bubbles off Alinea's menu?  There is a slightly more pressing subject matter at hand in the food world.  This is simply sort of a recap of a chef to chef conversation.

How was this chef congregation different from the others we've seen over recent years?  "MAD was all about vegetation.  The cool thing about was it wasn't just chefs.  It was foragers, farmers, a few chefs, and a few other guys.. I'm not sure what their titles were... but, they were just talking about life in general, which was very interesting.  I think everyone sort of had the same mentality where it was what we need to do to change the way we as a society are living, and try to save Mother Earth.  So, it was cool to see that kind of focus rather than just... this is how you cook a duck breast.  There were only one or two cooking demonstrations.  The focus was more on plants.  A few different scientists and farmers and even the chefs were focused on plants, and what they're doing for us and why we need to promote them to be healthier so that we in turn can be healthier."

On the new growing 'chef community' and dialogue between chefs and others involved in the food supply.  "What I think was cool about the MAD symposium was that it had nothing to do with individual personalities or egos.  It basically shunned all of that.  We as chefs are not really important if we're not doing the right thing.  It wasn't about this is how many restaurants I have or this is my menu, but more about these are the ingredients I'm using, the people who are finding the ingredients for me.  It was about building relationships with farmers.  It was bringing in a different aspect of our industry which is the most important... who's bringing us the food."

What exactly is the 'New Nordic Cuisine' and why the shift to that part of the world from Spain and from the areas before that?  How is it different from what chefs such as David Kinch are doing?  "There are a lot of similarities in what they're doing in Copenhagen to what guys like Chef Patterson in California and David Kinch, Sean Brock in South Carolina are doing.  I mean they're just using what's there locally and what's weird for us here is that it's a whole different mentality.  Even Rene Redzepi was saying 'what is Nordic cuisine?'  He was asking everyone else.  I think he was just surprised and dumbfounded that it is a cuisine like everyone else's, because it's still in its infancy.  But, having been in the kitchen and being able to translate it in how it goes to the plate, it's really about hyper local products.  Nothing comes more than from a hundred and twenty mile radius or so.  It gives you this focus on 'how do we do this' by using what we've got."

So, how do we bring those philosophies on food home to South Florida?  "I think the hardest part is finding something that's growing in our climate now other than tropical fruits."  

Is it possible to create a second wave from that of the 'mango gang' in a sense that we look towards things that are less obvious?  A mango is a fruit, and that's a given edible thing so how do we push that philosophy in a direction that is maybe not so obvious?  "What popped up in my mind was a few different things of what we can utilize.  I grew up in Miami, and we're surrounded by water, so rather than doing the traditional foraging in a forest why not go foraging in the water.  Maybe there's some sort of barnacle we can find that's edible or crustaceans which are more obvious.  Underwater foraging would be cool, but I'd also like to find a real forager.  Someone who is knowlegeable about botany and plants and go with them into the Everglades and see what we're missing.  It poses a lot of interesting questions.  I've learned a lot from this symposium even when I got back reading other people's comments.  One of the coolest comments was from Sean Brock comparing what he's doing to what's going on in Scandinavia.  He was saying that if we didn't use all of these pesticides and poison we would have wild mushrooms growing everywhere and we would have... I mean, you walk around the grounds of the MAD symposium, and then there's wild fennel, here's lavender, here's lovage, you know... a hundred varieties of plants.  So as a nation, we've really just killed our land with plowing."

So maybe the question is not 'what we need to do' but rather 'what we need to start not doing?  "There were a couple of foragers from the UK and France and they were showing slides of what they would find, and how they would come about it.  To see asparagus growing in the wild is something unique for a chef in the United States... we're used to getting it in a box.   Even the flowers and the leaves (of wild plants) are necessary cause what it all boils down to is we are taking away the by-product... and throwing it away."

Aside from the water and the Everglades, what would be potential foraging grounds here in South Florida amongst the real estate industry?  Are we at a point where forgaging would even be possible?  "Unfortunately, we are in for a battle with this.  There was another presentation by a chef from Australia (Ben Shewry), in the coastal towns not in the cities.  He was saying how they go foraging by the highway, and people look at him strangely and call the cops who question by asking if he was taking the food to re-sell it.  It's peoples' perceptions... why are you taking these things?  Well, it's food.  The same chef was also saying how he drives along the same highway everyday, and one day he saw all of this wild asparagus growing.  Then he got out, and he wasn't taking it, but more or less in awe of how all of this asparagus was just growing by the roadside... but then, better yet why is this road running through all of this wild asparagus?"

There was a definite new awareness from chefs returning to their respective areas of the U. S. A. from MAD of noticing what's local.  Certain chefs like Sean Brock made comparisons of Nordic ideals to American Southern cuisine, and Kevin Sousa tweeting that some of the same wild plants that were being utilized in Scandinavia were also prominent and 'wild-growing' in the Pittsburgh area.  That brings us back to focusing on our region... how does this play out in a tropical zone.  There is a perception that there is an amazing agricultural bounty here, but the reality is that it is much more difficult in many ways.  A lot of these new farming techniques don't literally translate to a tropical climate.  "Look at the variety of things that grow here even in season.  In the winter we're growing corn, peppers, and tomatoes.  It's so backwards from what everyone knows as 'seasonal.'  So to be seasonal in South Florida, I have to cook summer food in the winter."

Understood.  We are in a situation where our guests expect to see fresh strawberries on the breakfast menu 12 months out of the year.  "It's that strange dichotomy that's always been in South Florida.  I've always been surrounded by it from growing up here, so I've never focused on being  a seasonal chef.  If there's something here now that I can use, then awesome, but it's always been an uphill battle I guess.  I think what's really cool now is what's going on a bit further north in Florida.  There's this whole new scene popping up around Orlando and beyond, and chefs like Chris Windus are able to get things that I never knew we could get here further south.  We both suffer from horrible summers, but they have more fertile grounds and it's more wide open.  I'd like to go up there with Chris and meet some of his suppliers."

A lot of what we've seen from the realm of Nordic Cuisine has manifested itself in fine-dining restaurants.  Is it possible to translate this into the expanding casual style that we see in America.  Can it be done on this level?  "Yes, to some degree.  Look at what Sean Brock is doing at Husk.  He's only using what's local and from the South.  They're really blessed in Charleston with great produce.  When I went to eat there, he was really excited about these crackers he made.   They were made from flour from a wheat that was no longer harvested... sort of an heirloom variety now.  He said there was nothing in the cracker but flour and water, because he wanted everyone to taste the flour.  Can you really call that casual cuisine?  It's considered casual.  You can go in wearing jeans and sneakers and sit in a beautiful dining room.  I guess the problem is what is considered fine dining usually correlates to the price.  I'm going to charge you $38 for this steak, there's service, ambiance, what the people sitting around you are wearing.  That's it basically.  We all know that fine dining is dead, and has been for awhile due to the economy, but why can't we use this as a sort of segway to a new dining or eating... sort of create something different, genre-bending, something you can't stick a label on.  I've always been that type of chef and that type of person.  Look at what I'm trying to do out of an Airstream trailer.  Are you going to say it's street food... or this... or that."

You've definitely shown the flexibility of that through the dinners you've done... from putting out truck-cuisine to sit down dinners with some amazing visiting chefs cranking out 5 star food from a trailer.  "That's been our whole mentality, so it's pretty fitting that we're trying to be a big proponent of what's going on now as well.  Are you going to say we're just a food truck?  Don't label it.  Just enjoy it for what it is.  We are all sort of pigeon-holed as chefs... and diners as well.  I correlate it to the music scene in Miami as well.  Why don't more bands come play live music in Miami?  When you go on tour through the south and stop in Birmingham, then Jacksonville, maybe Orlando, do you really want to make that next leap all the way down and blow your budget and your time?  The same thing goes for chefs and for product as well.  We're kind of in our own little world.  We're closer to the Carribbean and the islands than to any other major city."

Follow Chef Jeremiah and the Gastropod here.  Email [email protected] with any inquiries.

the 7

... rollin' 7.

I was approached to participate in this '7' thing by a good friend at this very well maintained food blog.  It was started here.  The idea is to rummage through your old blog archives and pull out seven links, each in one of seven categories.

Chadzilla (no link... you're on it) was started 5 years ago this month.  My first post was 1 August 2006 (seems like so long ago).  Since then, the blogging game has changed quite a bit, and I've learned to not take things too seriously (whether if that's for better or worse I'm not sure, but I'm still here).  The first series of posts were related to our weekly menu changes during Miami Spice 2006.  We literally took the 'spice' aspect as a theme.  Interesting to look back at these posts now (there is definitely merit to the idea of revisiting a 7).  It may be difficult to chose posts the quintessentially represent each category without getting submerged into this old journal for hours, but here goes...

My Most Beautiful Post

tropical delights, part 1, part 2, part 3 (ok, so this makes it actually 9 posts, but these 3 sort of go together)

With the current focus on foraging and utilizing unusual plants, the pictures from our visit to Tropical Delights with Andre Mejides remind me what a bounty we have available right here in our own state.  Although cultivated, the walk-through did seem like foraging because Andre doesn't carve out rows or plow fields, opting to more or less let things grow as they will with a little encouragement, care, and knowledge.  This is 'most beautiful' simply because it celebrates that which comes from the Earth.

 

My Most Popular Post

meat glue   8 August 2006

This was one of the first posts, and one of our first forays into the mysterious cooking style now known as "Modern Cuisine."  I believe that transglutanimase was the first non-conventional ingredient we sought out.  After opening that first bag of Activa RM, we went ape-shit glueing almost every possible protein combination we could find in our kitchen.  The results were sporadic and we documented most of it.  While not very scientific in method, the post still pops up in most search engines on the subject.  We were just having a blast with the stuff.

 

My Most Controversial Post

the leash 29 June 2008

This caused sort of an internal controversy.  Apparently, the Sonesta company which I had been employed by for almost 10 years took offense to this declaration of 'independence.'  I see that as just plain ridiculous.  It almost suggests an insecurity within the corporation.  However, as everything eventually played out this post proved to be true.  We did in fact find new creative freedom culminating eventually as the Paradigm dinners.  This would have not happened under the strictness of the past.  That's just a fact.  Was it painful for them to watch us grow and become better chefs without the corporate eye on us?  All this is in the past now (seriously, it's gone, get over it).  Today is a much much different story, but that book has yet to be told... patience.

 

My Most Helpful Post

paradigm essence (no date)

This is technically not a post (and I guess technically not all that helpful except for myself).  It's the photo album of the Paradigm dinners.  This does not include every dish or even every meal, but just those that yielded interesting results or at least decent pictures.  So... not a post, and not helpful.  Please browse through it if you have the time.  Some of these make me cringe now.

 

A Post Whose Success Surprised Me

making vodka pills  8 October 2007

I was excited when Fabian played around with this technique from Paco Torreblanca.  Alchohol spiked syrup poured into stamped out cornstarch molds to create a thin shell around the sweet liquid interior... this I thought would interest culinary minds everywhere.  But... maybe leading my post with the 2 words 'vodka' and 'pill' brought on a whole mess of web traffic that I had not intended.  It remains as one of the only posts ever I had to block comments on.  Can you believe that people actually thought they could get a buzz from consuming one of these.  I mean, come on, there's only like a drop's worth of vodka in each shell.

 

A Post I Feel Didn't Get The Attention It Deserved

egg-sperimentation 8 September 2008

Although a seemingly simple test, we cooked blended eggs at various temperatures and recorded their state afterwards.  There are (or were) references for eggs cooked whole with coagulation temps for the whites and the yolks, but once blended the proteins coagulate at an entirely different rate.  By cracking a few eggs, we were able to create a visual reference for perfect scrambled eggs... and this was before chefs started putting eggs into thermal iSi's which makes them even more perfect.  So, maybe this is outdated a little, but still useful.  I only had 2 comments on this post which surprised me a bit.

 

The Post That I Am Most Proud Of

paradigm 091108 12 September 2008

The reason for the selection of this post for this category is a selfish one.  We were walking through the Star Chefs ICC during the first year it was staged in the old Armory (year 3 of the ICC), and noticed Wylie Dufresne standing off to the side.  We decided to walk over and introduce ourselves, and were blown away when he responded by saying that he knew who we were.  That was a true star-struck rock star moment for us.  To be recognized for our efforts by someone whom we have the utmost admiration for.  Wylie mentioned this oyster method in our conversation stating that they had tried to glue oysters many times before, but had not thought of partially cooking them and then stating that he was probably not that smart... imagine the irony on top of the elation of the moment.  This is when we truly felt as though we were part of a much larger community of chefs trying to push the envelope a little and not just working in some tucked away kitchen in a hotel north of Miami.  This was also the recap of our 2nd paradigm dinner which went on to run for about a year.  The result was tons of information and the chance to push ourselves with new challenges everyday.

 

Now... to fulfill my final obligation, I must select 5 blogs which I have admiration for to do the same.  I have not approached these bloggers/chefs/writers, so this sort of makes it a wish list of reading.  They are as follows...

Playing With Fire & Water (amazing and amazingly intelligent... I'm thankful for knowing someone who seems to have infinite storage for information)

Michael Ruhlman (of course... Mr. Ruhlman may have been approached to participate in this before, but his posts are so well written and the photography is beautiful.  Ruhlman somehow maintains himself as a true food writer, not as a critic but someone who stands for the cause of good food and cooking.)

Michael Laiskonis (increasingly becoming one of the most well-known pastry chefs, Laiskonis manages to work also blogging into his crazy schedule... actually it's been dormant for almost a year now, but if you follow his travels you understand why.  The recipes and techniques are solid, and the culinary world is better off because he is willing to share his knowledge on this database.  It doesn't even matter if he hasn't posted in a year, because he is so far ahead of everyone else he can take the hiatus.)

Philip Foss (following Chef Foss' blog through the last few years has been inspirational.  This is a story about a chef in the corporate world who dropped it all and literally went 'balls out' into the culinary scene... first by selling pre-made sandwiches from a truck and now by supporting his family while putting out the innovative cuisine he was meant to create.  It's been an adventure in reading alone.  How many chefs start their bio by stating "Phillip Foss smoked a lot of pot during high school...")

Offal Good (Chris Cosentino just comes across as a genuine guy.  I like his style, his humility, and his conviction to his philosophy.  The culinary world is better because of him.  A man with guts.)