The Omnivorous Fish - excuses

The 59th Annual Emmy Awards...

JoeFish — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 11:23:35 -0400

…is where I’ve been. That’s why you haven’t heard from me. I am neck deep in like 4 shows. I am halfway through a real post, but it’s just not there yet.

Here are a couple of pics of the new house for those of you that have been asking.

Exterior

Kitchen

Off the Face of the Earth

JoeFish — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 10:48:59 -0400

Wow, two weeks… well, I haven’t eaten anything worth mentioning in that time. I don’t have a kitchen, and I’ve been working like mad, so takeout sandwiches and lunch at the diner has ruled my realm. Lots of vitamin supplements, too, since it’s impossible to find anything both healthy and toothsome.

I’m going on a little fact-finding mission to the East Bay in May, but it seems likely that I’m going to remain on the East Cost for the time being. I want to stockpile money before I do anything too drastic…. I’ve become a creature of comfort… I admit it. Also, the tide of my career seems to have changed slightly, making it exponentially more interesting. And let’s face it, my job buys a lot of apple cider.

I’ve been considering the idea that the complaints I have with my quality of life have had a lot to do with apartment living, and, you know, they have houses in New York, too.

And, also, New Jersey. I know what you’re thinking: New Jersey? Yeah, well, there are good things about it, too.

I’m going wine tasting. In Virginia. More on that later.

Pumpkin Raviol

JoeFish — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 23:39:38 -0500

Jesus H Tapdancing Christ, I love apple cider. Apple cider, Benjamin Franklin is often quoted as saying, is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy. Ok, that’s beer, but really, I think I like hard cider better than beer anyhow. There is six pounds of swiss chard and four of lacinato kale in the fridge going bad because I have been working my nads off in the world of home improvement, and next week will be equally daunting in the interminable and often disappointing world of work.

But that’s ok, the pumpkin ravioli are ready, there are 5 dozen in the freezer. I didn’t take any pictures, like a dumbass, but I’ll walk you through the basics. Special thanks to Billy for making the rest of the ravioli while I cleaned up the kitchen.

The dough: Pasta is predicated on the formula of one egg, or 1/4 cup of water, per 1/2-2/3 cup of flour. Most people add salt, and some olive oil, although what oil contributes I have never been able to ascertain. Water can be a matter of economy- although that economy can become tradition- or a matter of gluten development. Ravioli like a stronger dough, unreachable when using high-protein eggs as a liquid source. I have seen ravioli made only with water, a tricky proposition, since, unlike bread dough, there are no yeast and rising forgiving anything left behind in the initial mixing. Want to know the truth? It’s a matter of taste. I think the egg pasta matches the richness of the pumpkin filling, so I use all eggs for this particular recipe. I have also seen ravioli made with dough whose only liquid was yolks. Once you have a little practice, you can make whatever you want. Starting with a mixture of eggs and water is probably a good idea. For 6 dozen ravioli, let’s say 4 cups (20 oz) flour, 4 eggs, ½ cup water and 1 teaspoon salt. Let me caution you here, again, not to add all the flour at once. Hold back ½-3/4 cup, it is much easier to knead in flour than to add water. If you’re making it by hand, which I recommend for your first five or six times, start with the flour in a mound (in a bowl, if you’re skittish) and make a deep indentation or “well” in the top. In small bowl, beat the eggs, salt and water together and pour into the well. With a fork or your fingers, stir in flour from the walls of the well, making a thicker and thicker paste until all the flour is incorporated. When dough is a more or less a cohesive mass, it should be dry to the touch. If it feels very wet, continue to knead in the remaining flour as needed. Knead until the dough becomes smooth, homogenous and elastic, about 10 or 15 minutes. Wrap in plastic and rest for at least thirty minutes in the fridge, until an indention in the dough doesn’t bounce back.

The filling: Anything used to fill pasta should be drained. I don’t care if you’re using peanut butter, there’s water in there you don’t need. Pumpkin is bad, but other squashes are even worse. I already gave you the recipe.

The technique: Cut your dough into 6 equal pieces; use a scale if you’re paranoid. Work with one piece at a time, keeping the others covered with a plastic wrap or towels. This is a great application for a pasta machine, where you’ll want to end up with a 5” x 30” rectangle. If you’re doing it by hand, use twice as much dough to make a 10x30 rectangle, and cut it in half to follow these directions. This piece of dough is going to make 12 ravioli, so scoop packed tablespoonfuls of filling 2-1/2 inches apart along the long side of the dough, 1” from the edge. Brush the surface of dough not covered by filling (including in between) LIGHTLY with water and fold the dough in half over itself, so you end up with 12 still-connected ravioli in a row. Press down along folded edge, up to the filling; then press in between ravioli. Finally, push any air out of the ravioli through the last open seam, then seal that seam. Cut the ravioli apart with a round cutter, pastry wheel or, my grandmother’s fave, a juice glass. Usually I do them square because I like the extra pasta while I’m eating them. Also, they’re faster and generate less waste than round varieties (though you can salvage enough waste for a small serving of fettucine when you’re done).

Now comes the fun part: the first time you do this, they’re going to stick to the table, no matter how much flour you’ve put on them. Loosen them with something THIN and METAL, like a bench scraper, icing spatula or even a butter knife. You could also work a piece of dental floss underneath them, but be careful not to tear them.

Obviously, this all assumes you’ve worked with pasta dough before, or at least some kind of dough. Don’t be skittish with the flour your first time. You can freeze them flat on cookie sheets lined with floured towels, once they’re solid you can put them in bags.

Listening: Watching a Law & Order rerun

Site News

JoeFish — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 14:41:19 -0400

First, I’d like to apologize to people who I know have been checking the blog and not finding new content. I promise to keep the content coming more regularly, as I appreciate your patronage, especially my blogging heroes who stop by. I appreciate your time and your comments.

Second, to whomever has decided that boting my site with a bunch of porn ads is good for the world, I hope you get “Georgia Pacific” stamped on your head and dropped in a pit full of rabid beavers, you spineless, bottom-feeding turd. Everyone can thank this person for their comments having to be approved now.

Last but not least, I get home on Monday, and so hopefully the restaurant content will be supplemented with more cooking and agriculture comment. There are farming surprises in store, so stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by!

Fish

Excuses

JoeFish — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 21:52:21 -0400

My dog ate my homework. My computer crashed. There was traffic. I don’t have the time to make custard, because I’m a busy person. What do these sentences have in common? They’re all excuses, for one, but more importantly, they are all lame. Custard isn’t all that difficult to make, but people don’t make it, for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that jello pudding is seventy nine cents and takes thirty seconds to make. Is the ten minutes needed for custard really that long, or is it that it pales in comparison to the boil-water-and-stir of the jello? This question leads us to the larger problem that people don’t realize the difference. The food revolution we are in the midst of came after an equally extreme food revolution: the era of canning and processing. Better living through chemistry and all that crap. We, as a society, don’t really know what food is supposed to taste like anymore. If we’re serious about a food renaissance in the country, the way to it is not Rachel Ray. It’s Edna Lewis.

Edna Louis, if you’re unaware, is a cook, cookbook author (they are two very different things), restaurateur and old-fashioned American cook. She is from a place called Freetown, VA, a colony set up by freed slaves, where she grew up on a fully functioning, self sufficient farm. She knows what food tastes like. Reading her book In Pursuit of Flavor is to walk with her down to the ice-cold stream, looking for watercress growing between the rocks. It’s cooking great mounds of cabbage for the migrants helping thresh the wheat. Reading her book is like walking alongside the Ghost of Christmas Past, able to look in on a moment that you know to be forever gone.

Back to our pudding. When was the last time you had a real, eggs and milk custard? If it’s been a while, go make one. Look up the most basic recipe they have in the Joy of Cooking and make it. And for god’s sake, if you don’t know how to cook then follow the directions. The other part of this equation is that people don’t know how to cook, but that will be a whole separate article. For now, let’s concentrate on flavor, because eating and cooking are two completely different tasks.

The eggy custard is rich, luscious on the tongue and floods all of its vanilla glory throughout your mouth. Jello pudding is thick and yellow and tastes starchy, like corn sugar (dextrose: thank you, conAgra). And it’s not just ersatz, but on its own- without the context of the egg custard- is pretty bad. Why do people eat it, then? The answer is that they don’t, by and large, know what they’re missing.

Salad dressing is another excellent example. What the hell are those square red things swimming around in the “Italian Dressing?” When people taste a real vinaigrette, they say things like “I wish I could make this at home.” To which, of course, the answer is, “YOU CAN MAKE THIS AT HOME. IT’S OIL AND VINEGAR.” Why do we need to have guar gum to stabilize our salad dressing that’s loaded with salt, preservatives and corn syrup already? The hardest part of making an excellent vinaigrette is having decent oil, not the machine oil they use in most of that processed garbage. Oil, vinegar, salt, pepper- mustard if you want to go crazy. This isn’t hard, people just don’t know.

Remember a few years ago when the idea of putting chocolate chip cookie dough in ice cream was really novel, because they only way to get said dough was to make it? Now, every stoner in America can go to the Piggly Wiggly and get a tube of disturbingly bad chocolate chip cookie dough at any hour of the day or night. Of course, it has a bunch of shit in it that nobody can pronounce, but it does save you those six minutes it takes to make the dough. Oh, you say, but it’s so much simpler to slice the cookies than drop them. Well, that’s retarded, but if you insist, there is, in fact, no law against taking some plastic wrap and making a log out of the dough you make yourself.

I can go on and on, but I think you get my point. Stop wondering why things don’t taste as good as your grandmother made them: you know why. Go make that custard. Whisk up that vinaigrette. Roll those cookies. Make sure you know what you’re missing before you decide it’s not worth the time.