Couple Things About Local

I try as much as possible to source locally...sustainably...organically...consciously.  I don't always get the chance to get everything within those parameters but I try.  The Midwest is such a rich place for nourishment.  However I don't always use local ingredients and when I don't my next step is to shop independent/locally.  For example I love farina 00 flour for making my hand cut pasta and the farina I get is from Italy.  I buy it at a local independent grocer Piatto Pronto in my Andersonville neighborhood (they make killer foot long subs for less than seven dollars).  It's one of those stores that reminds me of the stores my mother tells me about from when she was a kid, a place where they remember you when you walk in and will bend over backwards to serve you.  Every Chicago neighborhood is filled with local independent grocers that don't always have organic, sustainable or local products however they themselves are local, our neighbors, friends, relatives...

Quick Short Ribs

I've been craving San Soo Gap San since this past Saturday when my guests were talking about how delicious it is...I can't stop thinking of short ribs so I didn't pass up the cross cut shortribs at whole foods today.  I marinated them for about two hours and grilled them on my wood grill for about 3 minutes on each side and that was it.  Ok, and the recipe I'm going to tell you is so easy you probably have all the ingredients on hand.  

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup soy sauce

1 t salt

2 T apple cider vinegar

2 cloves of chopped garlic

...and drum roll....2 T grape jelly!

Mix well and cover short ribs with marinade, allow to sit for two hours.  When you put the ribs on the grill, strain the marinade into a pan and reduce it until it becomes a glaze.   Remove the ribs from the grill, add your glaze...Sooooo good.  Not quite Korean but it did the job.  I think I will make more tomorrow.

Summer Menu!

Gazpacho

cucumber, hibiscus

Salad Sponge

goat milk, sunflower, homegrown

Tomatoes

herbs, manchego, edamame, black pepper

Hanging

smoked watermelon, roe, custard

Pierogi

Potato, white truflle, marscarpone

Scallop Tartare

avocado, almonds, mussels, peaches

Carrots In Honey

trotters, chanterelles, black garlic-coconut soup

1 Pill Makes You Larger 1 Pill Makes You Small

Shrimp Noodle

scampi

Hand-cut Pasta

black truffle, soft boiled egg

Oatmeal Dashi

chia seeds

Bacon Ice Cream

black pepper, Koval Whisky

Lamb Bite

corned, preserved lemon, date

Duck Breast

sour cherry, peanuts, nasturtium

Mirepoix

celery, carrot, onion, white chocolate

Mexican Hot Chocolate and Strawberries

balsamic, basil

Ravenous

Tonight, after a weekend of dinners, the table full of gracious patrons dining over sixteen courses-one, I'm tired, and two, I'm so hungy.  I want to go to dinner too...  My partner is at Aviary and I thought, geez, maybe I could snatch the walk-in table at Next and then head over to Aviary for a non-alcoholic cocktail-if they have those.  Then I thought it's not likely that I'd be able to snag it and taking the bus all the way down there to walk back to the bus coated in chilly rain just didn't do it for me.  Then I thought maybe I could go to ING.  Looked up a table for one on Open Table and no luck.  I suppose it all works out the way it is supposed to because I really need to save my money but I also love to calibrate my palate and dinning at such places certainly sets it straight.  Being a young chef (not that I'm young), but young chef in the sense that I have just been back in the kitchen now full-time for a little more than a year, it's important.  It's as to being an English major and having a reading list.  As a chef or cook there a just certain places that one should absolutely dine and then file in their memory bank the olfactory and taste.  Instead I've asked my niece to make a burger for me.  Four nights ago she made the best burger I have ever tasted.  But I forgot to get ground beef at the store today!

Smoked Watermelon

Changing a couple dishes around on my current menu because I have so many wonderful foraged items...And I just had to do something smokey.  Today I used my polyscience smoking gun to applewood smoke watermelon.  I loaded the chamber once until it burnt out and the watermelon, which I had sliced in 1 inch slices was perfect.  The flavor was like watermelon bacon.  I ate one slice and rest I wrapped and put in the refrigerator to see how long the smoke flavor will take.  I like to experiment.  The person who taught me to experiment was my mother.  Anytime I asked her a question about technique or prepartion that she could not answer she always said, "I don't know Lanie, you have to try it, experiment."

Ouch!!!

Went to the woods looking for what's on the left and found lots of what's on the right...but what is on the right is a fall mushroom.  Strange!

Tonight's snack: the morel from above and asparagus picked from my garden today.  Yum!

Today I got two and a half pounds of chicken of the woods (after I cleaned them)-weird since this is a Fall mushroom, one morel, and three ticks...Ticks are gone I hope but I know the symptoms of Lyme Disease and my doctor is on speed dial...

Rewards and Pangs of the Forage. Fuck!

Yeah so I'm pretty sure this is poison ivy and if it's not then it's something else fucking itchy!  Not only that, Tonya Pierce, my partner who has been gone for the last three days working on her design show, which I'm sure most of you know about if you see my personal facebook page and twitter account and I hope you will vote for her ;)...well anyways I drew a bath for her tonight and when I showed her this I was banned.  Ooph.  And now as I'm sitting her writing about this everything is starting to feel itchy but I'm not a scratcher.  Ew.

ramps

In the picture above there is a ramp pesto and pickled ramp bulbs.  The bulbs are cleaned and then placed in a deli with coriander, pinch of salt, and green peppercorns.  My pickle is 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar, 1/2 cup sugar, heated together to dissolve sugar, poured over ramps, allowed to cool, sealed and refrigerated.  For the pesto I chopped the tops and placed them in a food processor with 1 clove of garlic that I toasted in a skillet with hot oil, a handful of cashews, salt and olive oil.  Blend tops, toasted garlic, cashews and salt, slowly drizzle in oil.  Taste, season to your liking.  This was a recipe for about ten ramps.  It's simple, easy to wing it.

Fucking Rascals!

Finds!

Wild garlic- ramsons, and wild mint- apple mint.

All foraging aside this is the real reason why I love it so much, the sheer beauty!

Morels!  Just when I think I have the right spots and right timing they just don't appear, then as I'm giving up and heading back to my truck I find them in just the place I wouldn't have checked.  Today I was caught off guard by a beautiful flower, which most people plant outside their house, growing smack dab in the middle of sand in a nice sunny location.  As I approached it to to get a closer look just to it's right was lone blonde morel, sun shining down growing right up from the sand.  Yesterday I found several just poking from some beautiful green foliage along a fallen tree, which species I couldn't make out, but a more likely location.  At one point I was even in a burnt out area, which they tend to love but found nothing.  Two days of mushroom hunting and found just a little over a handful but thanks to some wonderful friends with a lucky connection to a couple who doesn't eat morels I got quite the load.  There's about another week to two of these wonderful creatures and if the temperatures reach up a bit then I might have more luck in my spots.  I also had some other good finds, wild mint-from what I've researched I believe it to be apple mint and wild garlic, known as ramsons.  You just never know...  When finding large quantities of morels or other mushrooms freezing, sharing and drying is my suggestion.  And if you are one of those lucky enough to find a carpet of them I also suggest to not take more than you know you can share, freeze, dry or consume.  The earth benefits from their return to it by helping the trees and forest floor and spreading more spores for seasons to come so we can find them again.  That really goes for any foraged edible.