trans Fatty Blog

The Flavor Deficit

Forget the trade deficit. The real crisis is that Americans are shipping flavor overseas, to the tune of up to a billion dollars a year.* That's right, since we tend to prefer white chicken meat to dark by a factor of two to one, up to 30% of the dark meat produced in this country is exported. This despite the fact that dark meat has more flavor than white, is cheaper, and is much harder to dry out by overcooking. It has more fat, too, but still a lot less fat than many cuts of beef, ice cream, french fries, or lots of other things we all love to eat. Let's face it, the fat is what makes it taste better. So if you're tired of dry, overcooked, innocuous-tasting chicken breasts, give the legs and thighs a try.

Trans Fatty Blog, of course, advocates buying and eating whole chickens every time. Do the right thing, people. Let's keep flavor at home.

*I read this in a two-week old copy of the New York Times I found lying around. The article by Mark Bittman is still available online (Crossing Over to the Dark Side) but you have to pay to read it. Or you could do the old-fashioned thing and go read the hard copy at the library. (Does anybody do that anymore?)

Breakfast People

One of the interesting things about cooking at Inspiration Cafe is that you never know who you're going to meet. The cafe relies on volunteers, who tend to be a diverse bunch. One day the House of Blues Hotel sends over a crew, the next you're cooking with a pair of teenagers who may have barely picked up a knife before.

Either way, the Kitchen is a great equalizer. You walk into a room with a bunch of strangers and five minutes later the place is humming, everybody with a job: peeling potatoes, washing produce, cracking eggs. A sense of urgency cuts through the small talk, and people you might not otherwise trust with a large knife seem to handle the responsibility just fine.

Sourdough Bread

Mention sourdough, and most people think of San Francisco. But once upon on a time, all bread was made this way. Not just a specific type of bread, sourdough is a process for leavening bread using "wild" yeast from the natural environment. Until commercial yeast became available in the 19th century, sourdough was the only way to go.

The science of bread making relies on two relatively simple phenomena: The tendency of certain proteins found in wheat, when mixed with water, to form a web of rubbery filaments called gluten that have the capacity to expand as they trap gas in tiny pockets; and the tendency of yeast, if given a moist lump of flour to chew on, to digest starch and burp out carbon dioxide gas. Since yeast is to the botanical world what dust is to closets -- found practically everywhere, even the air -- these two phenomena were bound to collide sooner or later.

Supersize Renovation

Renovating the front windows this week, so not much time for blogging, let alone cooking. Remodeling is not good for the stomach. With all the takeout and fast food, I might just supersize myself. Luckily I think I'm burning the extra calories with elbow grease.

In the news, it looks like bloggers have come of age, joining the ranks of accredited journalists at the Democratic National Convention. Whether that's a step up for blogging or a step down remains to be seen. (Tip: To follow this link, you'll have to register with the online edition of the NY Times if you haven't already. It's free and it's worth it.)

Privacy Diet

One of the many financial institutions with which I do business recently sent me a copy of their privacy policy, which included (among other things) the following rather choice words:

"We do not disclose any nonpublic personal information about our current and former participants to anyone, except as permitted by law."

In other words, they promise not to break the law on my behalf. That's about it. In the spirit of this policy, I announce my new diet plan:

From now on, I will never eat jelly donuts or drink tequila, except as permitted by law.

This is one diet plan I think I can actually stick with.

Fun with Raw Fish

I've never tried making sushi or sashimi, mainly because it strikes me as a whole separate craft from cooking, and one I know nothing about. But as a person who eats sushi regularly, I was curious: what exactly is sashimi-grade fish?

The World Wide Web is full of sites that advertise sashimi (or sushi)-grade fish, but this is the same Web that brought us the I Love You virus. Vendors may be reputable, but if they aren't, what recourse do you have?

The Government doesn't have the answer. The U.S. Government doesn't even recognize a sushi grade, and since seafood inspection is voluntary; most fish is never inspected anyhow. Yet sushi and sashimi are increasingly common, sold everywhere from fine dining restaurants to takeout lunch joints to the local supermarket, where the guy behind the counter doesn't exactly look like the Iron Chef. So how do you know it's safe?

As far as I can tell, it boils down to two simple rules:

1. Somebody has to claim the product is fresh and wholesome enough to be eaten raw.

2. You have to believe it.

Looking for a Few Good Farmers

Most chefs are happy to sing the praises of locally-grown produce, but through the Frontera Farmer Association, Rick and Deann Bayless, founders of Frontera Grill and Topolobampo restaurants in Chicago, are actively working to promote this ideal. The Foundation was established in 2003 to attract support for small Midwestern farms as a vital cog in Chicago's culinary culture. The Foundation has announced the availability of grants up to $12,000 to small and medium-sized, individually owned farms that sell their products to customers in the Chicago area. For more information, see the Frontera Website, or contact Jennifer Fite at 312-661-0498.

Breakfast Prep

Tuesday morning, 5:38 AM, at Inspiration Cafe near Broadway and Wilson. The ever-reliable Maisie is already there, and Sandy too. Breakfast is the matter of hour, and Sandy and I are cooks this morning. Service starts at 7:00, and I'm hoping for a slow day because I need to be somewhere shortly after. I walk into the kitchen, plunk down my bag, and get to work.

Low-Carb Wine

If the future of wine is in a box, the box may be drier than expected, at least in terms of residual sugars (read carbohydrates).

Given the recent success of low-carb beer, it should be no surprise that winemakers are jumping on the bandwagon. As written up in the Good Eating section of this week's Tribune, a number of wineries are now providing carbohydrate and calorie information through Web pages, labels, and other promotional materials. One winemaker has even worked the carb count into the product name, selling One.6 chardonnay and One.9 merlot, named for the number of grams of carbohydrates in a 5 oz serving. The French, who have their own obscure system for naming wines that nobody else can pronounce, let alone understand, would not be amused.

There seems to be no escaping carb counting these days, but do we really need the nutrition information right in the name? Wine is naturally low in carbohydrates, so a brand promoted as low-carb may or may not actually have fewer carbohydrates or calories than other comparable wines.

Right or wrong, the problem with the whole low-carb frenzy is that it's an oversimplification. The one thing nutritionists all seem to agree on is that metabolism is complicated, but the message that filters through to the masses is that as long as you count carbs, the rest will take care of itself. Time will tell, but if you're skeptical, at least you can relax over a glass of low-carb wine in the meantime.