Tag Archives: Rant

Reducer Podcast Episode 205: ZARDOZ

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Welcome to the Reducer Lounge. Brian and Joe are back with a range of food topics and skits covering such diverse subjects as coconut water, food trucks, homeless sales pitches, California’s Foie gras ban, why Joe hates Mizzourah, Saving Private Perez, Anthony Bourdain’s new career, whiskey denominations, the real Rock N’ Rye, Atmosbeer, Hebrew National kosher certification and the trill as shit greatness that is  Y.N. Rich Kid’s Hot Cheetos And Takis.

Zardoz

The entire episode in one picture.

For some reason we have an entire Motorhead song in there too.
Episode 205 is not in any way sponsored by J&B Scotch or Snyder’s of Hanover Pretzels.
(non-compensated endorsers)

 

Warning: Explicit Language. Not suitable for adults.

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Reducer Podcast Episode 204: The 15 Month Anniversary Spectacular.

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The entire episode in one picture.

 The wait is over! Jawn Fulla returns to the Reducer Studios to join Brian and Joe in celebrating the 15 month anniversary of the Reducer Podcast.

All the classic elements that got us a passing mention on the Best Food Blog In The Twin Cities are here for this (possibly 13 or 14 month) anniversary extravaganza: food talk; restaurant gossip; news; frequent cursing; clever poop jokes; borderline racism towards the proud and hard-working people of Mexico PLUS: some of the funniest podcast skits you’ll ever hear.

Note: For some reason our Podpress Player isn’t working like it usually does.
You can find the Podpress player directly above the top picture, or you can use the direct link to the podcast below as well as the link to our iTunes page if you care to download it to your iPod. Sorry for the inconvenience; we’re working on it.

Warning: Explicit Language. Not suitable for adults.


Reducer Podcast Episode 204: The 15 Month Anniversary Spectacular.

The guys start out this very special episode with a discussion about what they’ve been cooking and eating; leading to Fulla describing his visit to the critically acclaimed local restaurant [NAME REDACTED]. Joe has some nice things to say about The Bachelor Farmer and Pittsburgh Blue. Somehow this leads to a rant about the lack of diversity among Uptown, Minneapolis restaurants before Joe gets into the news.

Pink Slime

There’s some talk of food additives and a call-back to one of the few coherent moments of Chopped and Screwed. A story about Coors leads to a lengthy discussion on the new high-alcohol light beers, a horrific absinthe flashback and a love letter from Brian to the steaks at Rick’s Cabaret.

Sizzies Tizzlers

An obvious Polish joke leads to an even more obvious Mexican Joke and a flashback to Joe and Brian’s days on the WQUE radio station.
CAUTION:  This skit is recommended for Spanish speakers only!

A conversation ensues about Jean Paul Gautier handling the Coke can redesign and the greatness that is Mexican Coke. This leads to a story about a glowing review of the new Grand Forks, ND Olive Garden and a callback to the earlier stripper-steak conversation.
Joe’s wrapping up of the news via Alison Rosen’s famous Acecast sign-off starts the long awaited debate between Joe and Fulla about whether or not Adam Carolla is a bigger racist  than Kanye West.

Jawn reveals his secret recipie for Orange Chicken which will give you a craving for bad Chinese food. Joe and Brian nerd-out about The Walking Dead (which Joe kinda started to hate since this episode was recorded), Brian advocates theft of intellectual property before they both recall their days working for National Public Radio.

 

Go is opportunity.

The guys discuss their favorite food-related fictional programs and Joe fucks up his usually solid Tony Montana impersonation with a slide into Eddie Murphy’s dad. This provides fodder for a conversation about the use of the other “F” word in comedy and how comedians from Louis CK to Chris Rock handle the issue.

South Park's classic F-word episode.

A brief shit-talk about bikers leads into the greatest mash-up in the history of Western Civilization. They should have sent a poet.

Aye, but a band of knaves came upon this place laden with flagons of barley-broth and hempen wisps. The particle you inquire of was well lost.

Oh snap- this time we did.
As our final bit; we present to you Shakespeare’s classic drama:

Shamiq: The Moor of Shaolin

 

The Martes Chronicles: Chefs Don’t Eat

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It’s been a couple of years since I did any serious work on a restaurant line.

I did occasional catering jobs, but that’s an entirely different creature in terms of its physical impact on me. Now that I’m back to the grind of meal service; in a little more than a month of line-work I’ve dropped about three pant sizes.
No, I’m not on any powdered drugs or meal replacement supplements (unless you count Kentucky Bourbon). It’s just that kitchen work provides a perfect storm of high-energy work, extreme temperatures, calorie burning mental stress and very little down time. These factors boil down to an 8 hour workout without any breaks and fewer opportunities to sit down and eat a meal.

This is your brain on dinner shift

Cooks, whether in the finest restaurant or the greasiest spoon, are a little like diamond miners. We work hard in dangerous and stressful conditions to produce a product most of us will never have access to as consumers. That, and our bosses will cut off our hands if we try to skim anything off the top. This creates a number of problems when trying to catch a meal during an 8 hour restaurant shift.
Although a good cook is supposed to taste everything they make before it goes out the window, the truth is that there isn’t always time to do so during a meal rush, and after making the same item 200+ times over a weekend, you should be able to adjust the salt levels without taking a bite every 30 seconds. Some cooks “taste” everything less out of professional acumen, and more because they need a constant flow of calories in order to avoid passing out. This system works for some, but in my case, where my list of dietary restrictions seems ever-growing, I can’t just subsist on bits of what I’m cooking, because most of the time what I’m cooking is bacon.

Despite what the label says; this pork is not kosher.

In my less restricted days; I could get by on sneaked strips of bacon, ends of toast and an occasional misfired egg. Because so much of what I cook at both my jobs is forbidden to me; I’m far more likely to subsist on coconut water and cigarettes than to even attempt grazing during my shift. Luckily (or unluckily, if you’re the restaurant accountant) my low blood sugar will often lead me to make a mistake, leaving me with a mistake sandwich I can gobble down like Smeagol going to town on some fish heads.
Did I just say we eat our mistakes?
Yes, much of the time when you send your food back to be remade, some server or cook will be eating what you didn’t want. If it’s a steak or seafood dish, the manager will usually get first dibs, but most misfires end up getting eaten by the kitchen. If not by individual cooks, then incorporated into family meal.

"I just can't send out all this braised lamb, boss. Better eat it."

Family meal is one of those things that sounds much better than it is (unless you grew up in my family). In theory; it’s the meal made for the entire kitchen staff so they’re not grazing the profits of the restaurants away. The kind of restaurant you work in and the type of people you work for will dictate what qualifies for a family meal in your particular kitchen.

If you work for Ferran Adria at his laboratory kitchen/university/cult, or if you worked at El Bulli anyway, your family meal would be a sit down affair with plates and silverware and everything, with the entire kitchen staff sitting down to eat. If you saw the Bourdain episode where they showed the El Bulli family meal you may have a skewed view on the general nature of family meal, much like if you based your mental picture of “football field” on Cowboys Stadium.

Pictured: Not family meal.

In reality; family meal is almost always a thrown-together mess of whatever is about to be thrown away. If the staff is fairly tight knit and has the time on their hands; family meal can resemble a potluck meal with everyone contributing an element to the shared meal.
But there’s a dark side to family meal as well.

I worked in the kitchen of a Thai restaurant for three years as the only Caucasian in a 15-person staff made up of either Southeast Asians or Ecuadorians. Every kitchen has its class-stratification (usually along ethnic lines, but not always) and this place was no different. If you were Ecuadorian or me, your family meal was fried rice with chicken wings 5 to 6 days a week, with a misfired Pad Thai closing out the cycle. If you were Thai, Lao or Vietnamese; you shared the fried rice and chicken wing entree maybe twice a week . The rest of the time you were chowing down on grilled fish, sticky rice hand-rolls, vegetable stir-fries, soups, rice noodles and an occasional pizza ordered directly to the kitchen and only dispersed to the non-Spanish speaking cookstaff.

In fairness; when my boss was in a good mood she would occasionally share the good stuff with the amigos and I. The flipside to that would be when her walrus-faced second in command, name redacted, would be given the job of making our daily fried rice. Not only would this hungover manatee not make the requisite chicken wings, she was so lazy that she wouldn’t heat the oil in the wok before adding the rice, leaving us with something that was less fried rice than it was par-cooked rice lightly poached in warm vegetable oil. After dumping this lukewarm pile of oily rice on a platter for us; she would spend two to three hours putting together a fried carp and papaya salad meal just for her and one other cook.
No joke; this happened multiple times.
It was the increasing frequency of family meals like this that led me to leave that particular kitchen. Even the Ecuadorians complained, and they’re tough as nails.

Other than learning the valuable lesson that racism knows no color; I learned not to depend on family meal for any necessary nutrition during my cooking shifts. In the many years since I’ve realized that fend-for-yourself is becoming a much more common attitude in kitchens than the communal meal and the esprit de corps that it sometimes creates among the staff.

So the next time you go to a restaurant and your food comes out slightly wrong (but still well-made!), and you happen to see your cook looking sickly and bleary-eyed, don’t just assume they’re hungover or on drugs (although they most certainly are). Chances are that they’re merely starving to death while surrounded by food, so cut them a little slack.
You try doing a stressful job while surrounded by something you can’t have for yourself.

Unless you’re already a diamond miner. Or a strip club DJ.

 

Reducer Podcast 201: Bring Me The Head of Ava Marie Hamilton*

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"The nachos ARE the bomb!"

Welcome to Big Premiere Friday! No Tuesday post, sorry for being mortal, but here’s the Second Season Premiere of The Reducer Podcast.

In this episode we bring you up to speed on our summer, talk up the Town Talk, dish on Guy Fieri (see what I did there?) and ramble about food and cooking while punctuating the show with a good dose of potty humor and tasteless hippie-bashing. All that and much, much more!

WARNING: Explicit Language. Not suitable for adults.

Reducer Podcast 201: Bring Me The Head of Ava Marie Hamilton [ 1:10:52 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

*Metaphorically speaking, of course.

The Martes Chronicles: Youth In Repast

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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

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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.

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

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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.

And the sandwich... is gone!

 

 

The Martes Chronicles: What’s So Hard About Eating a Taco?

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The small handful of you that follow us on Twitter or listen to the podcast might be familiar with my gripe about the “Walk-A-Taco“; a local food item currently being promoted at Target Field.

Despite being the product of Saint Paul’s iconic Latin market, El Burrito Mercado, the Walk-a-Taco is essentially everything that Americans get wrong with Mexican food compounded into a conical travesty of shredded lettuce and ground beef. The supreme wrongness of the concept, along with the condescending tone in which it’s marketed to Target Field patrons, reaches a level of stupidity so epic that my body is unable to produce the sarcasm necessary to express how much it bothers me.

I’ll try anyway.

Stupid Thing #1: The Concept.

According to El Burrito Mercado’s Tomas Silva; this conical abomination was created with the intention to “Make it so people could enjoy good Mexican food in an easier format”. I’ll get into how not-Mexican the actual contents are in a moment; but for now I want to focus on the forehead-slapping stupidity of the above statement.

An “easier format”. AN EASIER FORMAT?

Is there an easier cuisine on earth to eat than Mexican food? Were the people of Minnesota clamoring for an easier vehicle in which to deliver ground beef and onions into their mouths? Should we add “eating the world’s simplest street food” to the list of things Minnesotans can’t do, along with “navigate a four-way Stop sign” or “win a Super Bowl*”?

*Burn.

Being a non-native Minnesotan; I give the locals a lot of crap for being dumb; but always with the caveat that they’re mostly smart with a tendency to do dumb things. Sure they vote wrastlers and unemployed comedians to public office; but there’s plenty of good museums, theaters and schools to make up for it. They’re not Missouri or Oklahoma dumb, more like Massachusetts dumb.

But to take something like a taco, which is purpose built for holding in your hand while you eat it, and somehow find a way to dumb it down because “DURRRR! EATING TACOS MAKES MY BRAIN HURT!” drags this state to Mississippi-levels of dumbassery.

Look! Here’s a four year old eating a taco while standing up. Notice how he’s not crying for his mommy to show him how to do it. Notice how he’s not having any kind of aneurism due to the complex logistics involved in taco eating.

Now perhaps the Minnesota contingent reading this will argue; “But Headchef! Clearly this boy is some kind of child prodigy future rocket surgeon. Eating a taco while standing is not something that any idiot can do!”

I submit the following evidence to the contrary:

Pictured: Two idiots eating tacos while standing.

Stupid Thing #2: The Execution

A quick browsing of my iTunes library will demonstrate to anyone that I have a high tolerance, nay- a love, of lowbrow trash. One thing I am ruthlessly snobbish about, however, is Mexican food.

Growing up in the Southwest and California, having Mexican half-siblings and learning to cook from these family members instilled in me a deep and abiding love for authentic Mexican cuisine in all its variations. I dig Tex-Mex food as well, but I’ve known since I was about 6 that if your taco/tostada/burrito is covered in shredded lettuce, cheddar cheese and sour cream- then it ain’t really Mexican food, tasty as it may be.

That’s the other thing that infuriates me about the Walk-a-Taco; is that almost nothing about it bears any resemblance to a taco. Head down I35 to Laredo some time, purchase yourself a flak jacket and head across the border to get a taco.

If you order from a stand where Mexicans are eating; the first thing you’ll notice is that your tacos, in addition to costing roughly 12 cents each, look like this:

Lengua Taco

Lengua Taco on Home-made Tortilla

That’s some braised cow tongue on a handmade SOFT CORN tortilla, garnished simply with chopped onion and cilantro. If you want to go really crazy you can throw some salsa or a thin taqueria guacamole on there; but anything else is essentially gilding the lily.

The Walk-a-taco eschews simplicity, authenticity and good taste for the Midwestern standby of PILING ON THE CHEESE AND TOPPINGS!

First off- the whole thing is stuffed into a fried flour tortilla. This makes sense from a structural standpoint considering the mess of toppings within, but is a big fail in the nomenclature department, as the the fried flour shell would put it more in chimichanga territory than anything else.

Further investigation from this guy’s excellent review reveals the ugly truth: The Walk-a-taco is, in fact, less a taco than a taco salad. Apparently once you drop below the ground beef facade and into the tortilla itself; the contents are mostly shredded lettuce dressed in vinaigrette!

For those of you keeping score at home; the cumulative offenses of the Walk-a-Taco are as follows:

  • Fried flour tortilla
  • Ground beef
  • Shredded lettuce
  • Cheddar cheese
  • Sour cream
  • Chopped tomatoes
  • The perfunctory addition of jalapenos and cilantro
  • Motherfucking salad dressing

The most offensive detail comes courtesy of Josh’s review; that the Walk-a-Taco not only comes with a fork, but requires one in order to be eaten.

WHAT THE FUCK?

To review: The “taco” designed to make Mexican food “more accessible” and “easier to eat” is neither more accessible or easier to eat than an actual taco, nor is it remotely Mexican. The Walk-a-Taco is an absolute failure of concept, execution and delivery.

It’s a fucked-out boondoggle of a food item that could barely be eaten sitting on the couch in front of the TV; let alone at the ballpark it was intended to be eaten at. A cold seafood tower makes more sense as ballpark fare than this faux-Mexican abortion in a cone.

The most infuriating part is that if they really wanted to have a ballpark-ready Tex-Mex item that’s a portable mess of ground beef, cheese and sour cream; they could have simply used the one that already exists.

It’s called the Walking Taco. It’s a bag of corn chips (usually Fritos) cut open with a bunch of Tex-Mex toppings like chili and cheese dumped on top of them. They’re popular all over the Southwest at rodeos and football games, and while they do require a fork to eat, you can actually eat them while standing or walking.

I really wish I could have been present at the meeting where they decided an inedible mess of a taco salad served in a giant Bugle made more sense at Target Field than a Tex-Mex classic with practically the SAME FUCKING NAME.

No doubt they spent enough time watching the locals struggle with four way Stop signs and decided they didn’t want to risk customers suffocating themselves with the chip bag.

….

I went to Target Field for the third time this year and saw plenty of suckers carrying Walk-a-Tacos around. Not in their hands, mind you. No, they needed a cardboard stand to hold them in while they brought their shit-in-a-tortilla back to their seats.

Two days later I made flank steak tacos for a friend’s birthday; complete with handmade tortillas. We found ourselves outside on my porch watching the Aquatennial fireworks while we were eating. The view necessitated that we stand up while eating our tacos and, shockingly, no one broke their neck doing so.

Anyway; if you want to know how to make a taco that doesn’t suck; here’s the recipe for tacos de lengua. Try not to kill yourselves eating them.

 

 

The Martes Chronicles: 110° is Soup Weather

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Caldo de pollo

EDITOR’S NOTE: Martes Chronicles is Headchef’s new regular column, and can be found here at Reducer every Tuesday.

If you’re living in one of the 17+ states currently experiencing a brutal heatwave; you’ve probably noticed that it’s hot out, Bucky.

Dog-kicking hot*.

The last few days have featured the kind of heat and humidity that give Vietnam flashbacks to 8 year-olds, and fill the heads of adults and children alike with elaborate plans for refrigerator tents.

It’s uncomfortable at best, but some people are behaving as though this is the first time in recorded history that summer has been hot. Having spend the summers of my youth in New Mexico, Texas and Florida; the heatwave we’re experiencing in Minnesota lacks a certain novelty for me. Don’t get me wrong; it’s gross and I hate it and I wouldn’t recommend going out and playing soccer in it, but having toughed it out as a wheezing little kid, it’s not so tough as a wheezing adult.

In this kind of weather most people would rather be doing two-a-day football practices than spend any time cooking in a kitchen, so they go to restaurants to enjoy the air conditioning (a feature typically not installed in the kitchen where your food is being made). Even barbequing, a normally robust and favored activity, becomes dangerous when the heat index is pushing 115°.

People with working air conditioning don’t really have this problem. When you live in a perpetually-chilled wine cellar, not only does the heat outside not bother you, but you’re not subject to the hot-weather metabolism everyone else is experiencing. For example; if you’re out in the hot sun all day (or an ancient apartment building with no AC) and you can actually muster the energy to eat, you’re probably going to crave lighter fare like salads or pitchers of margaritas. Maybe you can stomach a hamburger if it’s late enough at night, but for the most part you and food maintain a tenuous distance during the hottest days of summer.

Not the privileged few living in the blast-chiller. People with AC are living in the future. Four months in the future, to be exact. Their bodies have been magically transported to November and so have their appetites. Air conditioning isn’t what jacks up your electricity in the summer; it’s the crockpot and bread machine you’ll have running at all times if you DO have AC. This is why people from Florida and Houston, where it’s 110° and humid all year round, are still so damn fat.

Head to a place with 100°+ weather and oppressive humidity where AC is a rare exception rather than the rule; and you’re pretty likely to find people eating hot soup in order to cool down. Pho, ramen, miso, matzoh ball, caldo- these are all perfect summer soups. I live on these soups during the summer.

In fact, if I don’t have hot soup for a meal at least once a week during the summer I tend to get really bad colds because I ride my bike in the city and inhale a lot of toxic shit. You ever ride your bike on a hot, dusty day and end up feeling like your palate is made of steel wool? Hot soup (especially spicy soups) will make you feel human again. Miso soup is particularly good for removing toxins related to air pollution, and a well-made bowl can be shockingly refreshing at the end of a hot day dodging traffic.

Caldo de Pollo, or Mexican chicken soup, is my favorite standby. Pretty much any Mexican broth-centric soup is good eating in this weather. Most of them are based on simple stocks offset with whatever is on hand. Many of them seem to work best as a breakfast, and if you’ve never experienced a huge bowl of Mexican soup for breakfast I highly recommend it. If you know where to look; there are plenty of small restaurants that specialize in it. Or you could make your own.

No pressure.

If you haven’t read my classic menudo recipe; you should check that out. If tripe and beef feet are a little too hardcore for you; here’s the puss-out method:

  • Throw four chicken thighs in a large pot with a quartered onion, ten cloves of garlic, two bay leaves and a few peppercorns. Fill with water and bring to a boil.
  • Once boiling, skim off scum from top of stock and reduce (ha!) heat to simmer. Let it bubble until it reduces by 1/4.
  • Cover a handfull of dried chiles in boiling water. Let sit for 20 minutes. Strain the chiles, reserving the water. Remove stems and seeds.
  • Puree the chillies in the chile water with a can of tomatoes.
  • Remove chicken thighs from stock and let them cool before removing bones.
  • Put the chicken along with the chile mixture into the stock with 1 tablespoon Mexican oregano. Bring to a boil.
  • Reduce to a simmer. Salt to taste.
  • Serve in large bowls with fried tortilla strips, avocado slices, chopped onion, chopped cilantro, wedges of lime. Fresh tortillas or Mexican bread are great for soaking up soup as well.

There you have it. It’s infinitely adaptable. I’ve made vegan and vegetarian versions of this. Experiment with it and see what you get.

Am I crazy, or does anyone else like soup in the summer?

*This is a Southern Expression. Reducer Network does not support kicking dogs.

BREAKING NEWS: Minnesota Government Shutdown Causes Horse Piss to be Pulled from Shelves

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This is what you get when you type "Shitty Beer" into Google image search.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Our long, dry off-season is almost over here at Reducer. Starting next week you can expect a regular column by Headchef every Tuesday, the second season of the Reducer Podcast, new recipes, news, travelogues, articles and a series of comedy podcasts that have nothing to do with food.  More on that later; here’s the news:

The portion of our readers who are Minnesota residents have probably noticed that the sun has been shining a little brighter, birdsongs have been a little sweeter and food generally tastes better since the state government shut down a couple weeks ago.

Further compounding this glorious event is the news that, due to a lapse in their licensing payments with the state, MillerCoors will no longer be able to sell any of their brands of shitty beer in Minnesota until the shutdown ends. According the the Star Tribune; liquor retailers must begin pulling all MillerCoors products from store shelves “imminently”; meaning that all their products could be unavailable for sale within a few days.

Here’s a list of the affected brands:

Blue Moon Pale Moon Belgian Style Pale Ale, Coors Banquet, Coors Light, Coors Light 3.2, Foster’s Lager Beer, Foster’s Premium Ale, Grolsch Amber Ale, Grolsch Blonde Lager, Grolsch Light Lager, Grolsch Premium Lager, Hamm’s, Hamm’s Genuine Draft Style, Hamm’s Special Light, Henry Weinhard’s Dark, Henry Weinhard’s Hefeweizen, Henry Weinhard’s Pale Ale, Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve, Icehouse Beer, Keystone Light Beer 3.2, Killians Irish Red 3.2, MGD Light 64, Mickey’s Ice Ale, Mickey’s Malt Liquor, Miller Genuine Draft, Miller High Life 12/16 oz can, Miller High Life Ice, Miller High Life Light 12 oz can, Miller Lite 3.2%, Miller Lite Beer, Milwaukee’s Best #1 , Milwaukee’s Best Ice, Milwaukee’s Best Light #1 3.2, Molson Canadian, Molson Canadian Light, Molson Golden, Molson Ice, Molson XXX, Olde English 800 Malt Liquor, Sparks Light

Pictured: The demographic most affected by the ban

I’m sure there are plenty of tasteless alcoholics who will be heartbroken about this development, as well as a few hipsters who didn’t previously realize that their beloved “microbrew” was first developed in one of America’s shittiest ballparks by the corporate megalith that is Coors.

As someone who almost exclusively drinks beers made in either Mexico or Texas; this story doesn’t really affect me or my Pacifico-drinking wife. When discussing this story; General BBQ pointed out that many smaller liquor stores, especially in small towns and poor neighborhoods, will essentially have their stock decimated by this. Most sporting events and concerts around town will be reduced to serving Budweiser and… that’s about it, unless they already have a stockpile of local beers.

Oh yeah; many Minnesota bars, restaurants and convenience stores are running out of liquor and tobacco, as they can no longer renew their licenses to purchase the non-Coors items that are still legal.

Having one segment of distributors cut off from the state is one thing, but leaving the purveyors without the means to, well, purvey anything to customers is going to destroy a lot of small business in this state if the shutdown continues. I was in a downtown convenience store just today and they were already running short on cigarettes; a mere 14 days into the shutdown.

Strange how, despite the de facto lack of a state government, they can still find the time to infringe on the right to buy and sell. This is bad for everyone, even non-smokers and non-drinkers, as liquor is usually the main profit source for restaurants. If the shutdown is still in effect and you start to see your favorite steakhouse or sushi bar have a dwindling liquor supply; look out. That establishment may not be long for this world.

The only winner in this, besides Mormons, is of course the state of Wisconsin; which over time will be flooded with trembling, thirsty Minnesotans desperate for cartons of cigarettes, bottles of booze and restaurants that don’t resemble ghost towns.

If only there was some set of images that encapsulated the slow death of the state of Minnesota in contrast with Wisconsin’s increasing ascendancy.

Yup. That about does it.