Chomp!

By Ron Aiken
April 17, 2013

 

Shalom, people! 

This Sunday, April 21, 2013

Shalom is one of my favorite words I never say, along with aloha and namaste. I love the history and idea behind each, but culturally, being your garden variety stick-in-the-mud Southern male with a strong Baptist-Methodist (and, in later years, Catholic) religious heritage, I just can’t seem to get comfortable using any of them in real life out loud. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried a couple of times. I’ve included the odd shalom or namaste in an email or facebook greeting, but it never felt right. It actually had the opposite spiritual effect of making me feel pretentious, affecting a brand of spirituality I had no claim to. Still, I admire greatly those who can use them with panache as well as those cultures for whom they hold the deepest significance and reverence. 

Celebrating such heritages is something I believe in passionately, and without question, food is one one of the best ways possible to do that. Sharing a meal is the greatest equalizer – or maybe ‘humanizer’ is the better word – between cultures. Always has been, always will be. It allows us to connect with the unfamiliar in a non-threatening way and to share mankind’s most primeval, atavistic ritual, one that has not changed from the first day of the first man to now: putting food in our faces. 

Photo at left: Kugel, a traditionally Jewish egg-noodle casserole

Sunday, you can experience both – cross-cultural eating and greeting – at the fourth annual The Big Nosh, which takes place at the Tree of Life Congregation at 6719 North Trenholm Rd. from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sponsored by the Baker & Baker Foundation, BMW of Columbia and EDENS, there will be tons of vendors on hand with plenty of artisan jewelry makers and talented craftsfolk offering a variety of goods, gifts and more. Music also will be performed by 4 Fathers, the Klezmatics, the Atlas Road Crew, Sounds of the Sanctuary, Southern Klezmer, the Carolina Klezmer Project and Curve. The best part? It’s free! 

For a complete schedule – and it’s one packed with events both inside and out – visit the event’s website at www.bignosh.org. From a food standpoint, expect matzah balls, challah, Jewish confections, knishes, kugel, brisket and much, much more. Come by yourself or with the family and bring only an empty belly, an open mind and a welcoming heart and be prepared for a day of fun. Shalom! Ha! I did it!  

(Above Photo: Kugel, a traditionally Jewish egg-noodle casserole. Photo courtesy of the stamfordadvocate.com)

 

 

Coffee + Steak = The Rest of Your Life 

Sure, I’d seen the preparation before, on television in profiles of fancy restaurants or in recipes in glossy magazines such as Gourmet and Bon Apetit. Coffee-encrusted steak. Sounds great, seems like a combination I’d go all hysterical monkey over, but how is it, doing it at home, really? 

Do what I’m about to tell you to do, and you will learn what it means to go all hysterical monkey about something. 

 

 

With coffee, heat and your love, this plain chuck roast will become the most erotic thing in your life. Either that, or a very tasty steak.

 

 

First, get your favorite cut of steak. Lately, I’ve been rotating between London Broil and the oft-maligned chuck roast. In fact, the chuck roast, so often the victim of boiling-water preparations, has been my go-to cut of choice here of late – if you do it right, the fattiness turns to absolute butter in the oven and melts lovingly in your mouth in the most spectacularly pleasing of ways. 

Next, the rub, and here’s where you can suit your own particular taste. The base is ground coffee, and the finer, the better. I use espresso roast (the super-affordable Cafe Bustello in the aesthetically pleasing yellow can is my favorite), but you can use regular coffee grinds if you’re able to mix them in a spice/coffee grinder to make them less course and more fine. With the coffee base chosen (and, like coffee itself, the better the quality, the better the flavor), now you can decide what else to put in the rub. 

Personally, I like a couple of teaspoons (generally, not specifically) of paprika for kick, with a couple teaspoons also of garlic powder and white and black pepper. That’s it. You can add whatever else you like, but really, they’re just accents for the coffee flavoring, which the cooking process changes through alchemical majesty into the most delicious rub you’ve ever had in your life and nothing at all like you’d think if you just tasted coffee grinds by themselves. 

With your rub finished – and again, there is no right or wrong on the measurements, just make sure with the coffee you’ve got enough to cover your steak(s); probably, between one to two cups will give you enough – coat the steak thoroughly and let sit. In a perfect world you’d let it sit for up to 24 hours, but Chomp! realizes ain’t nobody got time for dat, so fire that sucker up immediately! What I do is use peanut oil in a pan on the stove on medium high heat and sear each side for approximately five minutes (while I’m not finicky about measuring ingredients precisely, I finnick in a major way over cooking times. Like a haircut, there’s no going back once you’ve gone too far, and few things in life are worse than ruining a delicious steak by overcooking it). 

Before I’ve begun the short pan-searing process, I’ve also preheated the oven to 350 degrees. So, with my oven ready, after the searing is done I move the pan directly into the oven and let it cook for 15-18 minutes, depending on the size of the cut. For a really thin cut, I’d shoot for 10-12 tops, but with the humongous cuts I prefer, 15-18 gets the job done. If your frying pan isn’t oven-friendly, you can simply transfer the meat to a sheet or bowl or something that is (or just aluminum foil, even). Take the meat out, let it rest (I tend to use 10 minutes as a good amount of time for the cuts I like) and enjoy. (Note: other cooking methods – only in the pan, on a grill, etc. – are fine, I just like the way the heat cooks the fat in the oven and leaves the meat so moist it melts on your fork.) 

Your only job, besides having your mind expanded with flavor, is making sure your home is appropriately monkey-proofed and getting OK with the idea that this is now how you will prepare steak for the rest of your life. It is simply that good. (By the way, on the subject of resting meat, I came across this very interesting blog about the science behind it and why it is so important: http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/12/how-to-have-juicy-meats-steaks-the-food-lab-the-importance-of-resting-grilling.html). If you try it, let me know how it went at [email protected]! 

 

 

Old World v. New World Wine Dinner Gourmet Mayhem! 

Well, I may have over-sold the mayhem part, but the rest is about as enticing a title as it is possible to imagine for a wine-dinner theme. In fact, the only thing that could boost its appeal is if I were to say such a thing were taking place this Tuesday, April 23, at Hampton Street Vineyard starting at 6:30 p.m., was prepared by chef/co-owner Bill Murphy and was paired with wines presented by Jean Pierre Chambas of Aleph Wines Corporation. 

The dinner is understandably priced at $100 per person as it is hosted by the Central Carolina Community Foundation as part of it’s annual Food & Wine Series sponsored by BB&T, the proceeds of which assist Central Carolina with awarding grants to nonprofits in the Midlands. But enough about the charity, let’s look at the menu, each course of which will be paired with an Old and New World wine.

First Course
Gulf oysters with a light lemon zest vinaigrette
Fournier Sancerre 2010
Emmola Napa Sauvignon Blanc 2010

Second Course
Grilled salmon on a bed of shrimp risotto with a maple syrup red onion confit
Maison Champy Savigny Les Beaune Aux Fourches 2009 
Cooper Mountain Organic Reserve Oregon Pinot Noir 2010

Third Course
Grilled loin of lamb on a bed of minted couscous with a sundried tomato tapenade coulis and a side of charred carrot, toasted almond and goat cheese
Chateau De L’Estang Cotes De Castillion 2009 
Ledgewood Creek Napa Cabernet 2008

Fourth Course
Assorted French cheese with balsamic dunked figs
Guigal Croze Hermitage 2007
Fess Parker Santa Barbara Syrah

So there you have it. To purchase tickets, go to www.yourfoundation.org. Seating is limited, so act quickly. Disclaimer: any mayhem you experience as a result of this dinner is in no way my responsibility. 

 

Above Photo: These beautiful people are enjoying a recent wine dinner as part of the Central Carolina Community Foundation’s Food & Wine series. It’s your turn to be beautiful! (Courtesy photo.)

 

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