The Martes Chronicles: Youth In Repast

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Headchef

At some point in your early-to-mid-twenties you’re going to hit a fork in the road.

Oftentimes it accompanies another milestone in your life, like graduating college, moving into your first apartment or your first cohabitation with a significant other. It’s at serious points like this where you make big decisions about how you’re going to live your life, and although most people aren’t conscious of it while it’s happening, it’s at these points where you decide whether or not you’re going to be the type of person who hosts dinner parties.

For most of your early adult social life; you can afford to be less than discerning about what you eat and drink. Right about the time you hit legal drinking age it’s acceptable, hell, it’s practically required that you ignore most societal conventions concerning things like food safety, set meal times, basic nutrition, moderation and good taste. Even if you suffer the Dickensian misfortune of working in a professional kitchen at that age, your exposure to good food won’t have much of an effect on your taste as you’ll be too busy cutting off your fingers to broaden your horizons.

Becoming a know-it-all snob at that age is a luxury reserved exclusively for waitstaff and bartenders.

In fact; if you do have greater gourmet aspirations in your early twenties, and you’re not enrolled in culinary school, you will be the target of frequent mocking and derision by your peers as well as downright ostracism. 22 year old girls rarely want to hear lectures about artisinal cheese production; they’re at that party to drink Icehouse and catch chlamydia. The 22 year old girl that wants to talk heirloom bacteria strains rather than exchange them, if she exists at all, is away somewhere sipping rioja with one of her sleazier professors.

Sooner or later you either hit the point where you want to fancy-up your dinner every now and then, or you continue living off piss-beer and Totinos Party Pizzas. You might remain in a perpetual bohemian fuzz, having friends over for a crock-pot of lentils and box wine, or simply throwing barbeques as your sole plan for feeding and entertaining your friends. There’s nothing wrong with keeping it simple, especially if you don’t have money to burn on trying to be Martha Stewart.

But as you and your friends get older, start careers, get married and produce offspring you’ll find that the experience of comfortably dining with friends becomes more rare, and therefore more precious over time (Unless you work in academia where dinner parties are a regular occurrence. Then you’re just a privileged dickbag). Getting wasted and eating your weight in hotwings is always fun, but your friends may not have the ability to make time for that anymore, and might want to make your dwindling visits more special.

You don’t have to be slowly dying on the inside to throw a dinner party. Just because you have the means (a usable kitchen, a dining table, more than two plates) doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ready to host, and conversely, just because you’re in your early twenties (or merely live like you are) you shouldn’t be discouraged from attempting to throw together a feast every now and then.

Throwing a successful dinner party is, like all rewarding things in life, much like American Football. Even when keeping things extraordinarily simple, dinner parties tend to take a lot of careful scouting, planning, preparation and when you get to the actual event- a tremendous amount of improvisation. None of this, however, should intimidate you.
I have a decades-worth of experience and mistakes to draw from both as a pro caterer and as an arranger of culinary soirees spanning the spectrum from pic-a-nics and barbeques to 15 course tasting menus.

Consider the following do’s and don’ts as your introductory course.

DINNER PARTIES 101:

HOSTING DO’s:

Keep it simple. This is the easiest rookie mistake to make. You’re so excited to have your friends over to your new apartment and show off your considerable cooking skills, that you throw all caution to the wind and try to shoot the moon. If you’re lucky you’ll end up managing to serve your guests many hours later than expected. Instead of considering the alternative, just try to avoid being needlessly elaborate.
No, really. Keep it simple. This isn’t a joke. You might be a really good cook, but unless you have a staff of caterers working in your kitchen, you have to consider that you alone will be responsible for all sorts of minutia beyond just cooking. Cleaning, setting the table, pouring drinks and serving food all take planning and effort. You don’t want to end up spending the whole time in the kitchen away from your friends, so plan in a way that won’t stretch you too thin. Speaking of which:
Prior Preparation. Unless you’ve got the type of kitchen setup that allows you to be cooking at the same time you entertain guests, you generally want to spend as much time as you need to in the kitchen before anyone arrives. If you’re serving food all at once or family-style (particularly appropriate for Chinese or Mexican food) you just need to have everything set up in advance so you can just finish up a few details and begin serving.
If you want to serve courses (pretty much de rigueur for French or Italian) your preparation is much more intense. Not only do you have to pick courses (and possibly wine) that complement each other, but you to be able to prepare them enough so that they’re most of the way done before guests arrive and finish them for service as each course ends. French cuisine is particularly tough with this, but not impossible at a beginning level. I recommend this book and this book as primers on the subject; both deal with cooking for company while minimizing your time in the kitchen. I’ll get into more advanced-level stuff in a later post, but for now a good hard and fast rule is:
JUST FEED YOUR FRIENDS SNACKS. Even if you plan on doing an appetizer course, having a few salty snacks out beforehand as an aperitivo is always a good policy. Besides helping your friends to drink more, the snacks take a little of the pressure off the host to produce food right away. You can entertain, show off your home, pour drinks and take care of any last minute details while your guests happily munch away.
If this is one of your first dinner parties, it might make more sense to simply forgo a formal meal and serve nothing but a variety of little dishes. This frees you up immensely, especially if you strategize properly. You can have a whole variety of cold or uncooked items out before your guests arrive (Olives, pickles, nuts, cheeses, hummus) and depending on peoples appetites you can systematically bring out more à la minute dishes (seafood, grilled vegetables, tartelettes).
As trendy as tapas are; they’re a really good way to go and have been a standby for me since highschool. Part of the beauty of tapas is that you can make the bulk of what you serve humble (and affordable) dishes like tortilla de patatas (a potato omelette) and supplement them with fancy items like imported cheeses.
Tapas are merely the tip of the iceberg for small-plate possibilities. French Hors d’oeuvre, Russian Zakusi, Turkish Meze, Chinese Dim Sum, Korean Banchan, Italian Cicchetti and even the much-maligned Scandinavian smörgåsbord all work on the same principle of many small plates making up a meal. Even if you don’t stick to a particular culinary framework you can apply the small plate structure to just about anything you want to make. Plus it’s a great way to show off your versatility.

HOSTING DON’TS:

Don’t Panic: This is the most important thing. You’re not cooking for the Queen of England; you’re just throwing a party for some friends. Prepare well and don’t forget to breathe and you’ll do just fine.
Don’t be coy with your guests: Information is key, and although you’re putting a lot of time and energy into having the perfect evening, your friends (especially the younger ones) might not be on the same page with you or appreciate what you’re trying to pull off. There were a couple of times in my early twenties where my wife-to-be and I went through the ringer putting together a nice dinner party for our friends only to have them flake out at the last minute.
Part of the reason for this is that my friends are jerks, but a big portion of the blame was on us for not communicating what we were doing. We might have known what a big deal our dinner was, but our friends had no clue it was a real grown-up dinner party and not just another bonghit-ripping conference.
So when you invite them; let your guests know exactly what they’ll be in store for. What kind of food you’ll be serving (especially important if you want them to bring wine or beer), degree of formality and what, if anything, your friends need to provide will let them know that this isn’t just a casual beer bust.
Don’t depend on a Facebook RSVP: Get direct verbal conformation that your guest is attending; that way you avoid looking like an asshole when they don’t show up.
Don’t run out of food or booze: If you’re unsure if you have enough of everything to serve your guests, and they aren’t bringing anything to contribute, don’t throw a dinner party. It also wouldn’t hurt to stock up on extras like coffee, mineral water, soda (for the non-drinkers), toothpicks, aspirin and tampons. You may feel silly having some of those things, but people will think you’re The Batman when you’re able to provide them upon request.
Don’t get your guests too drunk: Unless they’re attractive and single and no one has anywhere to be the next morning.

Here’s some Do’s and Don’ts for first time dinner party guests:

DO:

Bring Wine. Or beer or tequila or whatever your host asks you to. Be sure to ask, especially in the Midwest where people aren’t always forthcoming about their needs. Make sure you know exactly what your host expects from you. If they turn out to be barbequing outside, you can bring a mini keg and flip-flops. If they’re doing a full Italian meal, ask them what kind of wine you should bring.
If you have no idea about that; bring sparkling wine. It goes with EVERYTHING, is easy to drink and is as home in a plastic cup as it is in a crystal flute.
Show up if you say you will. This is another problem that seems specific to Minnesota. People will RSVP in writing and verbally, and still manage to not show up to your shindig because they had to go see some shitty indy-rock band. This happens less and less often to me now that my friends know what an awesome cook I am, but if your friends do this to you more than two consecutive times (and they don’t have a baby) then they aren’t really your friends.

DON’T:

Show up full. This has to be the biggest asshole move in the history of dinner parties, and surprisingly, I’ve had a couple of people (that I don’t socialize with anymore) pull this one on me. It may seem like an obvious thing to show up hungry for a meal, but some people think it’s perfectly acceptable to show up to your dinner party carrying a freshly crumpled Wendy’s bag under their arm. Unless eating constantly is a medical necessity for you (i.e. You’re a defensive lineman or you’re from Wisconsin) try to show a little restraint before you arrive.
Talk about Politics, Religion or Sex before desert is served. I seriously shouldn’t even have to say this, but Midwesterners (yet again) need to take a page from the South and learn the art of polite conversation. I’ve been to too many dinner parties to count, hosted both by young and old, where the guests (and sometimes the host, WHICH IS SUPER AWKWARD) let loose on a number of controversial topics. I’d say to treat dinner conversation as you would a conversation with a stranger on the bus, but Minnesotans (Minneapolitans in particular) don’t seem to have a problem discussing Middle East politics or abortion on the bus, so that’s not a very useful rubric.
To those people without a social filter: STOP ASSUMING THAT JUST BECAUSE WE ARE EATING TOGETHER THAT I SHARE THE SAME POLITICAL/RELIGIOUS/SOCIAL VIEWS THAT YOU DO! Most of the people sharing this meal with you came to eat and have a good time, not have a cyclical dorm room debate that accomplishes nothing and pisses everybody off.

I hope this has been helpful. Let me know in the comment section if there’s anything you’d specifically like to know for the second level Dinner Party Class. Also feel free to share your horror or success stories on the subject.

The Martes Chronicles: Tortilla Me Up, Tortilla Me Down

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Headchef

After my totally fair and in no way hyperbolic critique of the Walk-A-Taco last month, I expected more people to come to its defense. Apparently I made a pretty good case against the product, as most of the feedback I received was in agreement with my less-than-positive appraisal.

The only thing that seemed to throw people were a few throwaway comments I made disparaging flour tortillas. I’ve made no secret of my Mexican food snobbery and the various excuses I have for expecting you to tolerate it. At the same time; I don’t consider myself some kind of omnipotent expert on the subject. There are limits to my knowledge, and as much as I might like to be, I’m not the Space-Pope of Mexican food.

Rick Bayless is the Space Pope of Mexican food

That would be this guy.

It just happens to be something I was raised with; that I’m both deeply familiar with and constantly learning something new about. If Mexican food can be quantified as a single entity (which is asking a lot) it holds the strongest sense memories for me. Every Mexican dish and technique in my repertoire, simple or complex, in inextricably tied to people, places and events from my life. The smells and tastes often remind me of family and friends; parties held; romances kindled; places visited long ago.
Even the right combination of stray scents from the right restaurant or mercado, caught on a random street in a random American city, will transport me to being three years old in a Juarez market with my parents.

Often just the suggestion of Mexican food, even bad Mexican food, will make my mouth water like nothing else. This isn’t like a “reclaiming my lost childhood” kind of thing either; I’ve always been this way. Sesame Street was on right before lunch when I was a kid.
How could you not NEED tacos after watching this?

It’s easily my favorite culinary framework to operate in, being a perfect combination of challenging and familiar, with enough breath and depth to never be boring. I guess what I’m trying to say is that when I’m cooking you Mexican food, I’m showing off as much as possible.

I also happen to think, and this is merely my opinion, that when ranked against the other three major cuisines (arguably: Chinese, Italian and French. Feel free to disagree) that Mexican cuisine DESTROYS them in terms of sophistication and influence.

But I repeat.

I’ll give all due credit to the Chinese for inventing cooked food, the French for innovating technique and the Italians for showing the world how to treat ingredients- among many other obvious contributions to world cuisine. But remove the tomato, corn, beans, squash, sweet potato, peanuts, chile peppers, avocado, chocolate and vanilla (all of which either originated or were cultivated in Pre-Columbian Mexico) from those cuisines and many of their “classics” become less than awesome.

In terms of sophistication; read about how the Mayans and Aztecs figured out how to process chocolate and vanilla; both of which require precise fermentation and processing in order to transform the raw ingredients into the flavors we recognize. If they were smart enough to figure that out on their own, then they were certainly smart enough to build pyramids without extraterrestrial assistance.

http://twitpic.com/5qa0it

I’ve been cooking a lot of simple Mexican food for myself lately. About four days a week, I make my own tortillas.
Now, I don’t hate flour tortillas. Given the choice I’ll almost always choose corn over flour and I have a lot of difficulty accepting flour tortillas for items like tacos and enchiladas, but sometimes you want/need a burrito and flour is the only thing that will do.

Part of my snobbery stems from my upbringing, but it was working at the Restaurant of the Peninsular States Just Below California where I became spoiled on flour tortillas fresh off the comal. Corn tortillas have a fairly lengthy shelf life if stored properly. Flour tortillas begin to taste bad the moment they begin to cool down. Factory-made flour tortillas are particularly bad this way, as the heavy amount of shortening they use to keep the tortillas moist takes on an unappealing sour taste in no time.
Most burrito joints will warm these factory-mades on a flattop of some sort, but anyone who’s eaten a leftover burrito that they had in the fridge for a night knows that the tortilla is gonna be the worst part.

So I’ll eat flour tortillas; but I’m picky about when I do.

Making them at home is no picnic. You can buy flour tortilla mixes like White Wings at most large grocery stores (requiring only that you add water). They’re a staple in lots of homes and they make for a great product. The problem is that even the instant mixes require a lot of kneading and rolling out by hand, and failure to use a roller properly can result in tortillas that belong in the pita bread family. If you have the time and the energy; fresh flour tortillas are totally worth the effort and can elevate a meal quite a bit.

The other potential downside to flour tortillas is the lack of options for leftovers. Even homemade ones start to taste funky after a couple of days. They don’t make very good chips, or fry well for soups, so I find the best option is to make pizzas out of them.

Nothing is this world, however, can touch the fresh, soft corn tortilla.

First off; the smell of fresh masa is amazing. Whether in comes from a mix at the grocery store or it’s being ground fresh in a Mexican marketplace; it’s easily one of my favorite smells. Getting up early in the morning and making a stack of corn tortillas to last through the day improves the quality of every day I do it. They can be a lot of work for one person (like a lot of Mexican food, tortillas are a lot more fun when made in an assembly line of family or friends), but once you get the technique down, it’s no more difficult than baking bread.

Masa mix can be purchased at nearly any large grocery store, but Mexican mercados might carry fresh ground masa or other specialties like blue corn masa. I use a cast iron pan to cook mine on; and I recommend you do the same.

Because I make a lot of tortillas at home, buying a tortilla press made sense a long time ago. My wife and I went through two Mexican-made cast aluminum presses before we realized that our tortilla making was too heavy duty for these common grocery store models.

While shopping in an Indian grocery store, we stumbled on a cast iron chapati press (size 4) that seemed perfectly suited to our needs. We’ve had the same one for more than five years and it’s been nothing but reliable. The one in the picture above isn’t ours.
Ours came with a swastika on it for some reason.

I’ve posted plenty of taco-related recipes on here before, but when you’ve finished with tacos and still have plenty of leftover corn tortillas you have a whole world of other options for them.

You can fry them whole for tostadas or roll them up with cheese for flautas (or taquitos, if you will).
You can fry large strips or triangle for your own homemade tortilla chips (always better than from a bag) or for chilaquiles.

My personal favorite is migas (featured at the very top of the page). A simple combination of day-old corn tortillas torn roughly and sauteed in oil until crispy with onions and peppers, then scrambled up with eggs. Migas are a little more Tex-Mex, especially with the addition of cheese, salsa and sour cream, which even I can’t resist some times.

There are no hard and fast rules for how to make them, but the basic ratio is two 6″ tortillas to every one egg, and the order into the pan goes as follows:
Tortillas; onions; chiles; eggs; cheese; cilantro; etc…

Of course the greatest thing anyone can do with a tortilla chip; the one thing all little pieces of corn dream of being a part of someday; is the nacho.

But I think y’all already know how I feel about nachos.

BREAKING NEWS: Emeril Lagasse to judge on Top Chef!

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Headchef

Bam! Flipmode is the squad!

Long time waiting room staple Entertainment Weekly is reporting that sitcom star Emeril Lagasse will be joining the judges panel on the next season of Bravo’s Top Chef.

I am genuinely excited about this. While he’s made his share of regrettable career decisions; Emeril Lagasse is an American treasure who singlehandedly turned Food Network into a destination channel (before Travel Channel and Bravo sauntered along and stole all their thunder). He carried the torch for Julia Child through the late nineties and introduced a whole segment of the American population to cooking food they never previously would have thought to try.
He’s a class act; comparable (for better or worse) to a Jay Leno of the cooking world.
Tony Bourdain agrees with me.

They’re also adding avid bottle cap collector Hugh Acheson to the judges panel. Acheson was easily one of the best personalities on the last season of Top Chef Masters, and despite getting eliminated twice, seems to know a thing or two about food.

Plugging Emeril and Acheson into the mix with Padma, Gail and Chef Colicchio will make for interesting chemistry. Anything that keeps Saveur editor and insufferably pretentious douchehammer James Oseland off the main Top Chef show is a good thing.

I find Top Chef Masters to be a worthy spin-off, save for the awful judging.
They mixed it up this last season and added Ruth Reichl, who is awesome, but she seemed to be more in her element on her criminally under-watched PBS show than she was as a judge.
Curtis Stone is Australian, and therefore I cannot like him, as I am deeply prejudiced against Australians. He’s obviously telegenic, but more than that, he seems to be able to speak extemporaneously on a number of cuisines and techniques.
So bully to him; he’s a boon for the show.

The real problem is Oseland and his pissboy Alan Sytsma. Those two are so ridiculously foppish in their demeanor that they shouldn’t be allowed to review a dish unless they’re decked out in powdered wigs and pantaloons.

Also; he looks and talks like John Malkovich in a one-man play about Orville Redenbacher.

Thankfully; they also toned down the appearances of Saveur contributor Gael Green, who despite being in her late seventies, never turns down an opportunity to tell you about all the times she’s been laid.

Nothing stimulates my appetite quite like listening to grandma tell me about the good old days when she screwed Elvis.

I think the most exciting part of this upcoming Top Chef season is the location: TEXAS! They’re actually doing three cities; Dallas; Austin and San Antonio (Ha! Huck Fouston.) so hopefully they’ll take advantage of what I think is one of the more underrated food scenes in the country. Dallas/Fort Worth has the estimable Tim Love along with a slew of other quality chefs; Austin has amazing bar food and the best sushi restaurant in the continental United States and San Antonio has a Popeye’s Chicken across the street from a Whataburger. So that’s pretty cool.

When the next season of Top Chef starts; you can count on Reducer for all the nit-picky coverage and play-by-play analysis you’ll be looking for.

The Martes Chronicles: Farkakte and Farblondzhit

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Headchef

And for the record, there were a few Jewish cowboys. Big guys, who were great shots, and spent money freely.

Full Disclosure: I’m Jewish.

Not just non-threateningly Jewish like, say for example, Natalie Portman or Drake, but severely Jewish like Larry David or Optimus Prime.

At this point in my life; that means I don’t eat pork or shellfish, I don’t shave on Saturdays and I pretty much wear a hat at all times, despite my having a luxurious head of curly hair. I wasn’t raised with any of the typical Jewish cultural milestones, my parents being deadbeat hippies, so for the most part our Jewishness was expressed through the medium of food.

Talking about food. Eating food. Complaining about food. We didn’t keep a kosher home or celebrate holidays beyond Passover and Chanukah; but we ate a lot of bagels, pickled herring, matzohbrie, blintzes, chopped liver, chicken soup, felafel and a whole lot of Chinese food (especially on the day y’all call Christmas).

For most of my life, even when I wasn’t particularly interested in being Jewish, the food of my cultural heritage was often my only lifeline to 4,000 years of tradition from Abraham to Sandy Koufax. So even when I was eating bacon and driving on Saturdays; an occasional tongue sandwich on rye with a Dr. Browns black cherry soda was a comforting link to a birthright I didn’t fully embrace or understand.

I wasn’t alone in this, either.

Plenty of assimilated and secular Jews have made food their lone connection to being Jewish, and it’s been happening for long enough that there’s been a Yiddish term for it since the 19th century: fressfroemigkeit, or “eating religion”. Recently I’ve seen the term “Culinary Jew” pop up on the internet to mean the same thing; often in a negative appraisal of the fact that most American Jews qualify more as “culinary” than anything else.

This distinction is made in contrast to those practicing Jews who keep kosher; meaning they follow scriptural commandments originating in the Hebrew Bible dictating everything from what kind of foods can be eaten to how that food should be handled and cooked. These dietary laws (collectively referred to as kashrut) include practices dealing with the ethical treatment,slaughter and butchering of stock animals, identifying kosher animals and the meticulous (often obsessive) separation of meat and dairy.

Because I fell into the “culinary Jew” category for most of my life; I didn’t recognize that the food I ate as “Jewish food” was the way it was specifically because its origins had been shaped by religious practice. I understood that certain foods were associated with certain holidays (matzoh for Passover and latkes for Chanukah being the most obvious) and I had a fleeting knowledge of the biblical laws, but with the exception of a summer job at Hebrew daycamp at the end of junior high, I really had no understanding of how a kosher kitchen functioned.

I became an old man a few years back and suddenly became very interested in getting deeper into practicing Judaism. After a lot of consideration and reflection, along with the sudden onset of a crippling shellfish allergy, I decided to start “eating kosher” as best as I could manage. It’s been a lot of trial and error since then, with only occasional arguments with my decidedly not-kosher wife.

For the most part I’m very happy with my decision. For one thing, I know it’s made me a better cook. Without crutches like pork fat, diver scallops or butter and cream sauces on meat; I’ve become a better problem solver. I’ve been forced to pull more flavor from a smaller palette of ingredients and the results have been, by far, better tasting than anything I was cooking back when I was banging out steak au poiv to impress the ladies.

I don’t mean to suggest for a moment that there’s anything inherently superior about kosher cooking or that you should run out and try it. Keep eating all the bacon you want; it’s not hurting me any.

Although I don’t eat cheeseburgers because my sky deity says so; I try not to factor any judgement into it. Sometimes my friends accidentally feed me something I “can’t” eat, and you know what happens? I don’t get struck by lightning; so no big deal. It’s my own thing at this point, and the only reason I talk about it is because of the importance that food and cooking hold in my life.

When I wasn’t a practicing Jew; the food was the only thing connecting me to it. Now that I’m more superstitious; food is something that has to be refracted through the prism of Judaism. Every meal, every snack, in and out of the house is an exercise in menu scouring and ingredient reading. My friends and family all think I’m a little crazy for it.

Is it worth it? Sure. It makes sense to me, so I keep doing it. I don’t understand vegans, but whatever; one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.

Today I’m thinking more about food and religious mandates than usual, as I’m fasting in observance of Tisha B’Av, the day everything terrible happened to the Jews. I’m cooking some fava beans for ful medames, to be eaten when I break the fast, but that’s just boiled fava beans with parsley, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil.

You don’t need a recipe for that. I’ll get back to food next week.

Durian Fruit: Let it up in your guts.

Posted on August 7, 2011 by General BBQ

Hey Reducers.

It’s your old pal, the General. I know, I haven’t been around much, and I’m sure your mom and her new boyfriend may have said some pretty nasty things about me, but you need to know that I love you very much, and only want the best for you…and your Mom’s new boyfriend gave her warts. The down-stairs kind.

Now, what brings me around again? I’m so glad you hypothetically asked. Is it the “Red Vine Suicide Diary” I mentioned in the last season of the podcast? An editorial on the inexplicable appearance of a very decent micro-gastro-pub that appeared in my goat-fart hometown? Is it the answer to what’s in the cooler the asian guy carries around in Crank 2: High voltage? No, my children, it’s better than all of those things smothered in hash oil and rolled between a bag of money and a bag of bloody cast-of-Jersey-Shore-remains.

I’m here to introduce you to a very good friend of mine, Durian.

You may have heard of Durian, as it has a pretty spotty reputation. It’s smell is politely described as “pungent”, and it’s flavor doesn’t seem to want to sit still in one category. In fact, these (usually) little guys are a bitch to hold with bare hands for more than a few moments, as they’re covered in stiff, sharp little spikes that defy you to even come near it, let alone eat it. In fact, In southeast Asia, where they are native, it isn’t unusual to see nets under the trees where they grow, because if you are unfortunate enough to be under the tree when one of these delicacies falls, it could very well fucking kill you.

Before we go any further, let me best try to describe how it tastes to me. You know when you meet someone, and maybe you have a few drinks and end up at their house after hours? Maybe you even have such a good time you both call in sick the next day, and spend that time “playing in the sheets”. You have so much fun, you call in a second-day, exhausting the last of your cigarettes, booze, drugs, and reproductive fluids. Now it’s time to find your clothes and what-have -you, and get ready to return to the outside world of nurishment and hygene…but before you go, as an act of appreciation and fondness, you decide to take one more mouth-stroll downtown, and it’s not exactly dirty, but it’s fucking miles from clean. That flavor, boys and girls, is my closest association to the flavor of this thing.

Now for those of you who are saying “General, you’re not exactly selling this to me. I mean, is that supposed to be a good flavor?” and I say, with a patronizing pat on your head, “Never mind, dear, now go get yourself a nice Granny Smith.” For my fellow humans with a sense of adventure, here’s a couple of perspectives on the flavor, from food conasuers more notable than myself.

Andrew Zimmern- “completely rotten, mushy onions.”

"you see, Cathy, what I do is get someone to eat me whole, and puke me into this pile of dirty satin...me have sex now?"

If you want to see this anthropomorphic scrotum try it, FF to 7:30 in this link.

Anthony Bourdain- “Its taste can only be described as…indescribable, something you will either love or despise. …Your breath will smell as if you’d been French-kissing your dead grandmother.”

Happy Mothers' day.

Headchef, Reducer Network- “It’s like if an avocado and a mango screwed in a bowl of custard and didn’t clean up afterward.”

Pussy-eating extrordanaire.

Russel Wallace- The five cells are silky-white within, and are filled with a mass of firm, cream-coloured pulp, containing about three seeds each. This pulp is the edible part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. … as producing a food of the most exquisite flavour it is unsurpassed.”

All this being said, the peoples of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia seem to be getting a lot of mileage out of our funky little friend. They use it for everything from candy and custard to coffee and curry.

So, yes, it does look like some sort of foi gras abortion, and it may have an “aquired” taste, and yes, maybe doctors advise pregnant woman not to eat it, and maybe one or to philosophic types from the Phillipines warned that if it ever spread to the west, it would cause rape riots, and a mass explosion of mail-box fucking. It’s still an exotic treat, widely available in its’ native land, right? Yes, but even there, good luck trying to take it with you on the bus, or in any self-respecting establishment, for that matter.

Yep, it smells that bad to most people. If you don’t believe me, keep an eye on your local asian markets’ produce department the next time you swing through. They won’t always have it, but if they do, and you in no way resemble or relate to, say, this dumb cunt:

…then take yourself on a little trip around the world. They’re relatively cheap, and regardless of how you feel about it afterward, you’ll never forget the experience. In fact, I would venture to say that this seperates the “foodies” from the people who love to fucking EAT.

So, if you’re still trying to decide, just remember the old saying about all things strange and unfamiliar: put it deep inside you. ‘Night, ‘night. Daddy loves you.

Even this pussy likes it.

The Jueves Chronicles: A Word from the Ghost of Orson Welles

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Headchef

Birdseye......

Ladies and gentlemen, audience members, food bloggers and Polish spam hackers; I am the disembodied spirit of one George Orson Welles; better known to the public at large as actor, director, author, bon vivant, theatrical innovator, conspiracy theorist and planet -sized Transformer: Orson Welles.

I’ve taken some time away from constantly haunting Harry’s Bar in Venice, much as I did in my more corporeal manifestation, to discuss the current state of The Reducer Network.

/Tries to lift gravy boat. Fat ghost hands just knock it over.

Ah, yes… where was I? Reducer! Firstly I am told that Headchef apologies for not publishing his regular Tuesday column as scheduled. Apparently the reviews were quite favorable up to this point, and had he not been indisposed as of late, you the reader would have this week’s article trucked away in your trouser pocket… on some sort of electograph device, no doubt.

I should make a point of mentioning that I have not personally spoken with Headchef. As an adherent of the Israelite creed, he is obligated to avoid engaging in discourse with all manner of supernatural apparitions, and as such we communicated through an intermediary. Such is the superstition among some groups of men. David Sarnoff dealt me a similar treatment when he re-cut The Magnificent Ambersons.

No implication; merely an observation.

/Notices rotisserie chicken on spit. Watches it without blinking for five full minutes.

Ahem.

I was further informed by his representative that the powers that be at the Reducer Network are looking for more feedback from the audience members. While they want to continue to bring you the best in gourmet living for the proletariat along with a smattering of humor; frankly they’re a little burned out.

Looking at the website over that last three months; one would believe that they haven’t been very busy. To paraphrase Otto Von Bismark; none of you have seen the sausage as it’s being made. The diligent fellows in charge of Reducer have recorded and summarily jettisoned more than five separate podcasts. While releasing these completed, full-length recordings would certainly keep traffic moving steadily to this page; they did not meet the exacting standards of the creators; and therefore will remain unheard for the time being.

Make no mistake. There will be a second season of the Reducer Podcast; along with additional comedy podcasts more centered on toilet humor and cheap chicanery.

There will be more recipes; many of which have already been photographed and polished, yet remain unpublished for reasons unimportant. There will be continued ranting published on a regular basis by Headchef and General BBQ, and perhaps Fulla will grace us with his presence and wit at some unforeseen point.

This brings me to what is possibly the most important aspect of this announcement:

Reader participation.

Firstly; if you haven’t started following us on Twitter or Facebook; do yourself a favor and click the tabs on the left of this page linking to those respective social networking sites. This simple action will afford you an opportunity to access information and announcements that you may not be privy to while merely visiting Reducernet or subscribing to the feed.You can also use this to interact directly with the publishers of the site; not to merely comment on articles, but also to pose direct questions and requests.

If you, dear reader, are also the type inclined to photographing food, traveling for the sake of eating or any of the other behavior associated with food blogging, but don’t have the time or energy to manage your own food blog; Reducer is extending an open invitation to any potential contributors, regardless of culinary experience or background.

Reducer is looking for corespondents to submit articles, recipes, photos and videos on anything related to food. Especially (though not exclusively) welcome are non-Twin Cities residents willing to describe the food scenes of their respective metropoli and therefore build this network of, how was it put again?

Ah, yes:

“a network of mercenary chefs, bartenders and other assorted smart asses producing original online content on the world of food and cooking.”

Frankly, much of this could have and should have been done sooner; but sadly life does not always spoon feed our opportunities to us at a rate we are comfortable with. Sometimes one must grab the hoagie of fate with both hands and not stop chewing until you have a greasy wad of waxed paper trapped in your beard.

Don’t let yourself choke on the pickle, dear reader.