Life Update :: 4.20

Do people who smoke out really need a day to "celebrate" that fact?  Are they some kind of persecuted group of people?  Is it an opportunity for them to do something different than what they normally do?

The answers to these questions are no.

It was mentioned to me earlier today that today is cough–National Pot Smoker's Day–cough.  Like I said, I don't think they need a day, but where would such a statement be made, you ask.  Well, at work.  That's right, I got a job.

I'm working at Rooster crepe. sandwich. cafe. in the kitchen.  I'm one of two people that can actually make the crepes.  Probably because making crepes in the first place is a mistake.  I take a very runny egg-based batter and pour it onto a hot surface with no lip and spread it out quickly enough so that it spreads all the way to the edges, but not so fast that it doesn't have time to set before I get to the edge.  It took me about two days to get the rhythm, but I can now make three at a time and get about 90 done in 45 minutes.  Other than "spinning" the crepes, I also assemble the crepes when they are ordered.  Overall, it's a pretty easy job.  I gets stressful on Saturdays when we have over 300 crepes, alone, ordered from 8:30-2:00.  It's a lot of controlled movement, thinking fast, doing it correctly.

Ministry is going well too.  I'm still being challenged and encouraged by Mike and Phil, which I would expect nothing less.  I'm being more proactive in pursuing people on Sunday mornings, those who I haven't seen at City Church before, finding out their stories and sharing some of mine as well.  I tend to find the people that have just moved to the Lou and so I have a quick connecting point with them.  For others, I just make stuff up and hope for the best.  I'm kidding, of course.  Or. Am. I?

I'm connecting with quite a few of my neighbors also.  I hung out with the guys upstairs on Saturday while they smoked three racks of ribs and two pork shoulders.  Glorious smoked meats.  We watched the Cards game, which I've decided has to happen, just as I would watch fútbol in Costa Rica.  Of course, this is the 6 hour and 53 minute game making it a real stretch for me to care the extra 11 innings.  A lot of things can happen during that amount of time.  One thing of interest is Hailey deciding to try out flying and jumping out a two story window.  Thankfully, one of my neighbors, the smoker–of meats, not grass–caught her and she's none-the-worse.

I'm exploring Saint Louis as much as I can also.  On Friday I went to Farmhaus, a new restaurant which focuses on local ingredients and classes up some of the homey classics: meat pie with chorizo gravy, bacon-wrapped meatloaf with a BBQ glaze, fish and potatoes.  They do their own charcuterie also, which makes me happy.  Yesterday I was looking for a particular herb and went to Produce Row, which seems to be the landing spot of all the produce that gets to Saint Louis.  It was pretty impressive.

I was also welcomed to Saint Louis last week when my car was broken into.  Nothing was taken, but they smashed my window.  Got it fixed quickly and all is well.

Lately the freshness of Christ has been on my mind also.  How I often don't place my identity in him and what it looks like to do so.  How just as in the Old Testament, God sits on the throne in the tabernacle, God's right place in my life is sitting on the throne of my heart.  I often forget that and snap at people "trying" to help me on the phone, but quickly remember that I have been extended grace and so should they.  Still there are other times when I don't remember and I can only hope for more grace on my part from those around me.

Still hoping to return to Chicago to plant, so if you know anyone that wants to do that, send them my way.  Right now, however, I'm building relationships where I am and enjoying my time in Saint Louis and trying to keep my smoking relegated to meat alone.

Urban Dwelling

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce.  Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.  But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Moving anywhere has its challenges.  Foremost, at least for me, is just the act of moving.  Packing up, finding boxes, realizing how much stuff you have, leaving some behind, realizing you shouldn't have left your smoker behind, no matter the smoke bowls are rusted through– how now am I going to make bacon?!  Obviously leaving your friends is difficult also.

But once you get to the new city there are new challenges.  Getting a grasp on the pulse of the city, having to drive everywhere, finding new places eat.  For me a big challenge has been trying to find good places to buy food.  Farmer's Markets, delicatessens, meat shops, coffee roasters.  I know they're there, but I'm still trying to find the ones that I like.  Trying to set up my apartment has been a challenge too.  For the most part, I'm moved in, but my pictures haven't been hung yet.  My bedroom isn't perfectly arranged or picked up.

All of this is made more difficult with the prospect of living in Saint Louis for only one year.

How much effort do I want to put into finding the perfect place to buy coffee?

Is it worth my time and effort to build relationships with where I buy my meat?

Jeremiah seems to think that it is.

The passage above (Jeremiah 29:4-7) the Lord instructs Israel while they're in exile from Jerusalem to live in the city.  "Plant gardens, build houses, give your sons and daughters in marriage."  These are all major time commitments.  Gardens have to be tended.  Building houses seems pretty permanent.  Giving sons and daughters away in marriage means meaningful relationships have been established.  In others words, be a part of society.  All of those commands are long term even when Israel didn't want to spend more time than they had to there.  But in doing so, they will be blessed.  In seeking the welfare of the city, they will find their welfare also.

As Christians, we often overlook the place where we are now preferring to think it'll all burn up in the end, rather than the biblical picture of a renewed heaven and earth (see Rev. 21:5).  It is important for me to build relationships with those here in Saint Louis as if my call were a long term one.  Why does it matter that I may only be here a year?  How much more would my time here be blessed if I involve myself deeply in Saint Louis, investing in those around me, building relationships with my neighbors, eating at neighborhood joints, and immersing myself in Saint Louis' culture?  The promise that the passage gives is that my life and the life of the city will be blessed.

Of course, I'll never be a Cardinals fan.

Lemp Brewery

I was inspired last week as I drove up Broadway just as the sun was hitting the now defunct Lemp Brewery.  John Adam Lemp was a German brewery that came over in 1838 and used natural caves to brew his lager, which claims to be America's first.  The site is only a few blocks south of Budweiser's massive complex, but brewing no longer happens there.  It is contracted out to a couple of smaller breweries.  The buildings still stand though as a testament to the brewing heritage that was Saint Louis.

more photos :: flickr

Cooking Basics :: Stock

So if you're like me, you aspire to to use as much of your food stuff as you possibly can.  That's why you have a turkey carcass frozen in your freezer right now and why it's been there since November, or last November.  (Hey don't judge.)  We all have our reasons for not following through on the issue of stock.

Objection 1: Stock takes so much effort.  Answer: Not really.  It takes time, but as with most things in the kitchen, it takes just a little bit of kinetic energy to get the inertia to run itself.  And that turkey carcass is chalk full of potential energy just waiting.

Objection 2: You can buy stock at the store on the cheap.  Answer: Sure you can, if you want your soups and sauces to lack flavor and depth, go ahead, do it.  Do it.  But if you care about the food you put in your body and the flavors that you put on your tongue, you'll make your own.  Plus, you have nearly free stock just sitting in your freezer.

Those are the only two objections that I can see and I just destroyed them both.  That was easy, now on to the cooking.

This time on your trip to the grocery, market, whatever, pick up a head of celery, a couple onions, a bag of carrots, some thyme and parsley.  Okay, that added, what, five to seven more bucks to your grocery bill?  Yes, you could have bought two quarts of stock for that, but I'm about to multiply your monies, I promise.

Pull out your biggest pot, for cooking, and toss your thawed, or in my case, semi-thawed, turkey carcass in it.  Take one of those onions, weigh it out, then grab an equal amount of celery stalks and carrots.  Chop them all up roughly and about the same size.  Throw them in the pot with the carcass.  Grab about half the stems of the parsley and tear them from the bunch, take some thyme, pour some peppercorns that you have on hand and a couple bay leaves in the pot too.  Now cover it all with water, put a lid on it and throw it on the fire.  It may take some time here, but let it come up to a boil.  During this time, you can catch up on your DVR recordings of Grey's, or The Kardashians (that's probably spelled wrong, but I'm not checking it).  Once it comes up to a boil, turn it down to a low simmer (think slow bubbles).  I left my lid off at this point and I didn't lose much liquid at all.

Now you can leave.  And really you should.  Take your dog for a walk, go out with friends.  Busy yourself, cause this is when the magic happens and all you can do now is screw it up–that too would be pretty hard to do.  Give it a good 3-4 hours.  I think I let my stock go 5.  Plus getting out of the house will let you come back in and you'll be able to really smell the goodness that is homemade stock.  Your place will smell amazing and that dog odor will finally be gone.

Toward the end of the time, or any time during these hours, you can grab a spoon and scoop up the foam that's come up to the top.  I'm not sure what it is, but it doesn't look appetizing and your end product will be clearer.

Now you're place smells amazing and you have this big pot of liquid gold, so get a big container, a strainer and if you have it, some cheese cloth (this helps grab some of the bits that could go through the strainer, but it's not necessary).  Pour your liquid through the strainer into the big container and throw all the solids away.  You've used them and they've served you well, so you can get rid of them.  (The carrots are pretty tasty though.)

Now you have to cool your stock down.  You can't stick it straight into the fridge, cause it'll lower the temperature dramatically and you risk bacteria getting into the rest of your food.  And leaving it out on the counter is risky too.  So a couple options.  Bags filled with ice work and cool it down quickly.  Or a cooler full of ice, that you put the big container in.  Just think about cooling it down quickly with out risking infection to anything else.  If any fat rises to the top, you can pull that right off.  And I don't add any salt to my stock because I want to add that when it goes into something, so if I reduce it, I'm not concentrating the salt, just the liquid.

Divide it into smaller containers and freeze it (don't fill them too full!).  I got 9 quarts out of my turkey carcass.  It cost me roughly 5 bucks in extra ingredients, which would buy two quarts of stock at the grocery.  So for the price of two quarts I got nine.  See multiplication, I told you.  Total cost per quart is about 55 cents.  Seriously, it's worth it.  You can pretty much do this with any animal bones you have sitting around.  Chickens are obvious, but we make veal stock (demi-glace) in the restaurant with this same basic approach, just using veal bones instead of chicken, we just roasted them off first.

Cooking from Scratch

Me making pasta from scratch, circa. 2007. It's kinda been my dream to make everything in my kitchen from scratch.  I'm not sure why, but I like the idea that everything that I eat has been made by me, the old fashioned way with seasonal ingredients and outrageous flavor.  I mean, seriously though, when it comes to things like cookies and ice cream, aren't they always better when it was made start-to-finish in your own home?  Of course it was!  That's why everyone gets so excited when you pull a fresh batch of cookies from the oven.  They're that much better than store bought.  Plus, you know all the ingredients that you put into them.

Sugar, flour, salt, chocolate, butter, vanilla extract.  None of those words are hard to say.  Not like sodium benzoate or sulphur dioxide–I guess those words are that difficult to say, but didn't we study those in high school chemistry?  I don't want to rely on my 10th grade chemistry class which I've forgotten about nearly completely (except for the cute girls) and guess at what I'm putting in my body.  Sugar, flour, salt, chocolate, butter, vanilla extract are all tangible items to me.  I know what they are in their raw forms.  Sodium benzoate I do not.

Confession: There is a leftover bag of Skittles in my car right now that I am eager to finish off with every handful that I shovel into my mouth.

Clearly I'm not overly concerned about additives in my food.  However, I would like to all but eliminate things like Skittles from my diet.  Making sure that everything I eat I have made kinda ensures that.  I haven't found a recipe for skittles on the interwebs.  But I have found one for butterfingers, which sounds amazing!  And it makes 96.  Or David Lebovitz's recipe for salted butter caramel ice cream. I've never seen that in a store, but why buy it when I can make it.  So I'm dwelling on the sweets, but those, for me, are the easiest to just buy.  This way, if I want it, then I have to make it.  And if I don't have the energy to do that, then I probably shouldn't be eating it.

Meals themselves are where this will be tested and proven.  Bases in the kitchen are often just easier to buy.  Chicken stock is relatively cheap, but seriously, have you ever tasted store bought chicken stock and thought, "This is amazing!"?  I think not.  Plus making my own stock will, in the long term, be cheaper and produce less waste.  When I cook a whole chicken, instead of throwing away the bones, I'll make stock.  And with that stock, a few other ingredients and I'll have soup.  Add some parisienne dumplings and I have a pretty hardy soup that is dirt cheap.  This is the way restaurants do it and they have a lot less food waste than I had previously thought.

Homemade bread is one of the more satisfying things to make and eat.  It's also a lot easier to make than we think.  And after spending a whopping $15 at Sam's club on 50 lbs. of flour and 2 lbs. of yeast, I should be set for the year.  Math: Roughly 1.5 lbs flour gives me two loaves, which lasts me about a week and a half.  A minimum amount of yeast, some salt and water added to that and I'll get nearly a years worth of bread (50 weeks) for $15 (15 cents/loaf) and maybe, maybe, 40 minutes a week.  As opposed to $4 loaf for the same quality artisan bread bought at Whole Foods.  I'll post on this soon.

I think this will be far easier said than done, but in failure we learn how to succeed.  (I just made that up.)  I'll post on both.

For now, though, I need to get some fruit bought and some turkey carcass turned into stock.