chadzilla

the new cult-ure

I think my first real awareness of Japanese pickles was the first time I watched "Tampopo."  It would be some time later before I realized the pickles that Tampopo pulled from that 'flowerpot full of dirt' or whatever similar muck I thought at the time were such an amazing Japanese diet staple.  All in good time, right?

Nukazuke are incredibly easy to make.  I have had a growing fascination with fermentation for a while now.  Both Chef K and I have had this interest from home-brewing beers to making vinegar from mother culture to the wonderful world of pickles.  Curing hams and other pork parts also falls into this arena.  As a kid, I would drink the storebought dill pickle juice in my grandmother's refrigerator (and was repeatedly warned that it would 'thin out my blood' whatever the hell that meant).  Besides the great taste of pickles, it is only recently that I have come to understand their great importance to our metabolism.

"Wild Fermentation"  If you have not read this book, I highly encourage it ($9 on Kindle).  While not the most definitive or detailed tome on pickling, it definitely sparks the bug to pickle.  It isn't backed up by any reports or scientific evidence, but the book has captivated my attention and kept me reading more than any other book in quite some time.  It opens up the window to a big world full of microbes that are far more important to us than one would imagine.  We are so caught up in our modern world of anti-bacterial everything that we are on a path to destroying all of the good little bugs that  help us simply because of our lack of understanding.  Not that I would throw sanitation out the window, but we are too obsessed with destroying everything under the microscope.  We really don't fully understand the complex relationships our bodies have with our little friends.  That realization has led me to making and eating pickles everyday.

Making nukazuke is one of the easiest ways to make and eat pickles daily.  The rate of reward is very short.  Once the nukadoko (fermented rice bran bed) is established, vegetables dropped into the bed are transformed into flavorful pickles in about 24 hours.

Chef K had begun a nukadoko a few months back, but lost it.  The nukadoko is similar to a sourdough starter culture in that it is alive and needs to be monitored and fed.  Using it daily is a simple way to keep it going.  I have started another culture since and it's thriving.  Supposedly, there are family nukadoko cultures in Japan that are passed from generation to generation.  If not maintained regularly, rendering it dormant (through refrigeration) may be necessary to preserve it.  

The most stressful part of the nukadoko so far has been getting it going.  The key elements that are combined are toasted rice bran, brine, miso, beer, aromatic vegetables (ginger, radish, cabbage), and time and attention.  It will take about a week and a half to get it where you want it.  In that time, it is best to keep the nukadoko weighted (so the brine extends above the bran) and covered with cheesecloth.  It needs to be fed daily.  At this stage, the vegetables inserted are mainly to flavor the nukadoko and to get the natural fermentation going.  I tasted these everyday after removing them, noticing the slow transformation day by day.  Once established, weighting it is not necessary... just keep it covered with cheesecloth, stir it up daily, and feed it... this time harvesting the vegetables afterward as pickles.

The nukadoko itself resembles wet sand and smells of fermenting bread dough and koji.  It should be tasted regularly for saltiness (if the salinity drops too much, the opportunity for bad bacteria to move in and thrive increases).  If the bed begins to smell overly sour or putrid, then it is probably bad.  Otherwise, keep on pickling and eating.

More on pickles...

Another pickling device that both Chef K and I have invested in is the pickle press.  This is another quick way to create tsukamono type pickles with quick turnover.  When using with an acidic brine (with vinegar), the press is great for non-fermented pickles... but still highly enjoyable.  I've also made several batches of brine-fermented pickles recently when coming across fresh vegetables prime for pickling at the farmers' market or otherwise.  These involve a bit more time and trust.  I say trust because the brine will develop quite a garden of colorful molds on top.  This is part of the beauty of pickling because it can be different each time and it's like pulling a slot machine of pickle flavor.  The last batch has the flavor of lightly sea salted oysters (these were refrigerated in fresh brine and I am still enjoying them).  I've managed to get the salt level as low as 3% during fermentation without letting any 'bad' bacteria thrive.  Another big benefit of fermentation is increased umami.

After making these pickles a part of my everyday diet, I've noticed that my digestion is a little more at ease.  Like many chefs, I have a horrible diet and often eat very late at night.  As I get older, it has wreaked havoc on my metabolism.  I've tried omeprezole for a while, but don't like depending on medication... besides, they never worked that well and I still suffered.  On the pickle diet, my system is much more balanced and at ease.  I simply feel better.  Just like "Wild Fermentation," I cannot back this up with scientific data and have no detailed reports to reference.  It just works for me.  Fermentation is like cooking with microbes, and just gives us chefs a whole new world to explore and learn in.  Catching spores from the air and building cultures is like foraging and gardening on a microscopic level.

in defense of sysco (or... changing the system)

Sysco ends up being the whipping boy of the kitchen world for various reasons.  We've all held that whip in our hands at some point in time or another.  Even non-chef/cooks out there have come to understand this organization as the butt of many a good food joke.  They equate the chef who orders from Sysco as the slacker who doesn't really care about his ingredients or his guests.  "He's cooking out of a box."  (... as opposed to cooking out of the box.)  It's easy to take this view because we like simplicity and we want to feel like we are better than the next guy.  How many food articles do we read where this corporation becomes equated with some lower level of cuisine... or maybe not even 'cuisine,' but some downgraded fast-food world inspired pseudo food stuff served out of a package.  The mediocrity of American food.  Yes, it's easy to make the jokes, but like everything else in this world things are not that simple and true change takes a little bit more than elevating one's self at the expense of others.   There is a growing sense of discouragement with the American food system as a whole.  I have felt this for a long time now.  This entity is under more tough scrutinization than every before, and it should be.  There are many evils to point the finger at.  Again, it's easy to envision many little guys facing up to the giant agricultural corporations.  In a David and Goliath scenario, picking out the good guys and bad guys is pretty easy.  In reality, things are just not that black and white.

No disrespect to Joe Beef.  I've never been to Canada or eaten at the increasingly famous restaurant, but I respect the points brought up in the last Lucky Peach intervew.  The Joe Beef team seems to strike a chord of integrity in food that resonates with the restaurant-going population across America.  The only point made that I think was unecessary was the Sysco-bashing comment.  Ok, we get it... you are cooler than us and have more integrity... was that the point?  I understand why the comment was made though.  We are living in a time when you can make yourself seem loftier by making others seem like something lesser.  In a heartbeat, we'll laugh at the restaurant chef who gets a weekly Sysco delivery, but that guy who makes the tacos at our favorite taco stand... he's ok.  He may stop by Jetro every Tuesday to buy masa harina, mop heads, lard, and toilet paper all from the same store, but he's ok.  He's doing it authentic.  He's keeping it real.  What a bunch of fucking hypocrisy.  Some of the people who applaud this type of comment will stop at the grocery store later (which also sells meat, bleach, and mopheads) and think nothing of it.  What's the difference here?  None really.

How do we affect actual change in the food system?  There are many restaurants out there that lay claim to only using the freshest, most sustainably and organically grown, local, free-range, virgin organic grass fed, foraged, artisanally prepared foods that your good money can buy.  All the key promo words are locked in there.  Not always, but often we can cry bullshit to most of these.  It's all about promotion.  It's sometimes just about labels and loopholes and putting a big green sticker on your head.  Do I believe it's all bullshit?  Of course not, but things have gotten a little bit out of  hand.  We can't just spend every menu writing session hopscotching over ever trendy ingredient and terminology.  It needs to be real.  Many of us chefs have replaced the traditional competitive medals and rank insignia of former days with pats on the back from the media (and by media, I mean all public forums including social media).  Most chefs (again including myself) are loving the fact that chefs are profiled in such honorable ways now.  This was not always the case, and line cooks were once considered the dreggs of the restaurant world.  I'm just saying that this is dangerous motivation, and the more we do it the closer we get to slipping on the thin ice into freezing waters of contradiction.  I've tasted my own feet many times.

All of this was made clear to me (well, not really clear at the time, but a little faint light bulb went on somewhere) a couple of years back at a StarChef congress.  The opening panel was with Charlie Trotter and Norman Van Aken.  Trotter made a comment that echoed so hard, it's the only thing I can remember from the entire conversation.  When every chef was deep in the doo doo of bashing the food system and making ourselves seem somehow more elevated (including myself), Trotter sat there and defended our American food system.  He took the 'not so easy' way out of the argument.  My mind retorted.  Why would this extremely intelligent and influential chef say this?  Well... because he is extremely intelligent.  I always play devil's advocate in situations.  I'm not trying to be an ass, but my mind will always 'argue' with itself as a means of trouble-shooting things that has developed over many years of kitchen organization.  It's a reflex.  How is our system so great?  We've got huge corporations genetically altering our foods and spraying them with the latest Roundup chemicals, pigs cows chickens being piled up on top of themselves and their shit in foodlots, food poisoning outbreaks revealed weekly, increasing food allergies, etc. etc. etc. etc.  Other countries have it better and their grass is greener and not genetically altered.  Is this really true?  And if it is, then how do we change it?  Trotter said that, "we (the American food system) fed the world."  This is not completely literal, as there are children starving at this very moment.  It is, however, more on point than not.  We have come closer to feeding the world than anyone else.  Did we sell part of our souls in the process... sure we did.  We want to fix it now, but getting all 'Alice Waters' on the food system really doesn't do a damned thing when you get down to it.  A little garden on the White House lawn doesn't feed a huge percentage of the population.  Yeah, it makes for a cute newspaper story, but come on.  Maybe it's time to have real conversations on the food system if we want to change it (not the counter-productive bashing that is so easy to engage in).

I've always been envious of that free-standing restaurant chef that gets to bring in the most exquisite produce and proteins that his buyer can find.  He's driving up to the docks every morning to pick up the freshest catch, stopping over at the Farmer's Market to get those Catalonian mountain-grown spring onions that are only in season for 2 hours out the year (he's flying these in, but will only buy locally made cheese), checking on his garden and feeding his small herd of baby Albanian midget pigs before coming into the kitchen to prep and maintain his aging cheeses, fermenting vinegars, and check the humidity level in his salami incubator.  Somehow, he still finds time to cook on the line for every service and tweet every 10 minutes about all the cool stuff he's doing.  Chefs so lofty they sound like they shit marbled fingerling potatoes.  Yes, I'm being facetious (to a degree).  I do love all of these things just like the next guy.  I like being liked.  As chefs, we are committed to learning and experimenting with food.  It makes us better.  We want to be better, and we should seek out ingredients from similar minded artisans and growers.  So in the end, does that chef really impact the world after he's fed his 60 guests for that night.  Maybe he turns the tables once, so it's 120 people (if there are no cancellations).  Maybe 20 of them ordered the fresh sustainable fish.  Is what he is doing important?  It definitely is, but it took me some time to realize that it is more meaningful on a grand scale to talk that bride into not choosing the endangered fish as her entrée for her wedding of 200 people on the beach than to write it up on the special board in your restaurant.  Doing banquets is grueling uninspiring work, but there is that bit of compensation involved... affecting things on a grander scale and making true change.  Sure, the local foodie web-mag won't be running into your kitchen to write about the sustainable line caught fish fillet you lighly baked and served to a ballroom full of people, but there is some satisfaction albeit much more transparent and much more effective.  This point was made even more clear to me after reading Nate Appleman's comments in this interview.  How much more impactful it is when Nate puts humanely raised chicken in every Chipotle franchise across America than when another chef puts it on the menu for his 20-seat chef table?  And to truly and honestly achieve that goal, systems must be put in place to raise, kill, package, and deliver that chicken (reality).  There is no chicken fairy that drops shipment at the door overnight.  This is a big country, and feeding it takes a lot of 'not so pretty' effort.  I believe we can achieve everything we want to do over time, but we need to be real about it.  So why does Appleman get dogged for his career choice... seriously?  You are the man, Nate.  Don't listen to the critics and keep it real... not surreal.  You have the capacity to do far more good here, than anyone thowing stones at you.

Back to the bashing, can we not affect more of a real change in our systems with dialogues focused in areas that will actually matter instead of preaching to the cyber-choir?  When we did a demonstration a few months back for an auditorium full of Sysco chefs, the lights in my brain got brighter.  These guys were so motivated to learn new things.  I was inspired by it.  If they took new ideas, and shared them with all of their chef/customers... wouldn't a change in the system be so much more possible?  What if they all started to insist on more greener products (which they are) for their regional clients?  Sysco is huge.  The means are there to accomplish what we want if we approach it without worrying about the backlash.  We need to be careful of standing on pedestals cause it's so easy to fall off.  Is it not better to affect change from within a system instead of resorting to insult to make oneself feel like they have more integrity.  I realize that 'green' has become more of a promotional tool than anything now, but let's work it.  We scoff when a Super Wal-Mart sells organic produce.  Is it really organic?  What does this label mean anyway?  We do use Sysco products in our resort.  We also use other foodservice distributors.  We have a purchasing department and storeroom that is bigger than most restaurant kitchens.  We buy fresh amazing ingredients from the little guys every chance we get.  We try to support and promote local and do so whenever possible.  We want to feel good about ourselves.  Can the little fish guy on the dock supply pompano for your banquet of 300?  Probably not.  You pick and choose your battles.  As chefs, we want to maintain our integrity.  Realizing what defines you is the next step.  Turn the mirror inward.  We all need to stop at Publix on the way home from work somedays.  That's part of the amazing food system we have here in the good ol' U S or A.  Take a good real look at it.  It really is amazing.  Trotter was right.  Now, let's start the dialogue here.  Let's talk about how we can really make things better.  This isn't completely a David and Goliath battle, so let's be careful where we sling our stones.  I know I'm going to get some sort of backlash for this, but my point is about effectiveness.  How do we truly and honestly make a better system for our kids?

digital dish

When I was approached to participate on a panel discussion for the Florida Film Festival 2012, my first reaction was 'why?'  This is a FILM festival.  Then as I started to look into the food aspects of the festival it began to make much more sense.  Reading further, I discovered that a couple of years ago, the festival featured Anthony Bourdain and Norman Van Aken for their food world representatives and now they wanted me, my reaction was again 'why?'  Were they getting desparate?  Could they not scrape up any big name food people?

Well in short, I'm glad they asked me.  Getting to meet the folks who organize the festival was great.  The panelists were all very interesting in different ways.  Actually, I was mostly impressed that each one of them has managed to forge a career on their own and managed to make a living through either books, blogging, teaching, and doing pop-up dinners and other cool events.  It is amazing to me how being a chef has come to mean so many different things today.  My approach to most things is to take it in and learn.  This approach makes me feel blessed and appreciative.  I see myself still as a cook who just wants to share information and learn from anyone I can.  I would like to thank the Florida Film Festival 2012 organizers for giving me this opportunity.

The panel discussion titled "Digital Dish:  Taste and Presentation" began to form as a discussion via email and then over lunch before the event.  The topics bounced around how food is reliant on experience for enjoyment,  how stories give meaning to dishes, modern cuisine:  what is it really and what place does it have in cuisine, the importance of trying new things, and most importantly how media and social media are impacting the food world.  Marcel Vigneron (far left), myself, Jeff Potter of "Cooking for Geeks," Martha Foose, and Gui Alinat were the panelists.  I think I was the only member without a cookbook.  Our backgrounds were all very different, but it made for a more rounded discussion.  Martha, who among us is embedded most deeply into the book world, has two amazing cookbooks "Screen Doors and Sweet Tea" and "A Southerly Course."  I just loved her southern Mississipian accent and personality.  I really miss that.  She is someone you could just sit back and listen to all day... preferrably outdoors with a cocktail.  Jeff comes from a computer engineering background and claims to not be a chef.  His merging of scientific process with food has taken him many places.  Marcel is a hustler.  I say that totally as a compliment.  I appreciate chefs who have forged their own way.  He's got some good ideas and is not afraid to put everything on the table without recourse.  His latest venture is working with Haru Kishi on an egg-centric pop-up series called The Coop.  Gui is the chef/owner of a high end catering operation in Tampa and is also a food writer.  He writes a newpaper column and has a cookbook, "The Chef's Repertoire."  

The discussion has unjarred my brain from a few jammed ruts, and the biggest part for me is the motivation to keep going.  In the beginning, Chadzilla was a way to learn and meet other chefs and food people.  There wasn't much information on the internet for the 'modern cuisine' that was becoming known and Chef K and I just wanted to put it out there.  The failures and successes and 'in between' experiences brought us closer into the growing cyber chef community.  Today, you can't throw a pair of fine-pointed tweezers without hitting a book or blog that tells you the secrets behind the molecular smoke and mirrors.  That was partly why Chadzilla has gone almost dormant.  Not that that was our only focus, but there is so much food stuff out there in general today it's overwhelming.  We still love to learn and share, but when necessity dissappears we need to find a new mother.  I don't want to have a strict themed blog or look for kitchy subject matter.  It should not be used exclusively for promotion.  I don't want to put ad's in it (never did) and aside from accepting a few free books, have never capitalized on it.  What then is next?  It my most simple answer, it is only a love of food and the processes that take it through it's transformations.  Is that enough?  If it isn't, then I'm not up for any alternatives.  Hope to see you around.

florida film festival

The Florida Film Festival in Orlando is embracing the food scene with a series of events focused on Food.  Dinner and a movie, anyone?  I will be sitting in on a panel discussion on Food and Social Media titled The Digital Dish with a few others this Saturday:  Gui Alinat from Tampa (author of "The Chef's Répertoire"), Jeff Potter (from Cooking for Geeks... also with a book), and Martha Foose (author of 2 great books on Southern food.  Also involved with the event is Marcel Vigneron who will be providing some interesting edible accompaniment.

I'm very much looking forward to meeting these writers and chefs and appreciate the opportunity to participate in the dialogue.