Is that a flask in your stocking?

Author Daniel Okrent, the first public editor of the New York Times and renowned nonfiction writer, spent years researching the temperance movement for his new book, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. Go out and get yourself a copy!

Every party has a pooper...

This week, New York Magazine has a terrific article by Okrent about the ways in which Prohibition effected how we drink now.

He writes that because of Prohibition:

- we go to bars to date and flirt
- we go out to be entertained

- we also party at home

- we order brand-name liquor

- the best bars are secret

In honor and anticipation of Okrent's book, we've put together a collection of our favorite images of women during the Prohibition era, and their sneaky ways they found to enjoy the hard stuff:

That last one is pretty ingenious. It's a cane. And a flask. Nice.

We have a huge crush

on the guys behind The Butcher Blog.

We imagine that the writers of The Butcher Blog are burly urban woodsman types who know how to keep a girl warm at night (kind of like the plaid shirted hottie we saw so many years ago at the cheese counter of Stinky Brooklyn and have been thinking about ever since).

Since grilling season is gearing up, we caught up with the guys behind The Butcher Blog to get some practical tips on cooking in the urban environment. Now we’re just wondering when they’re inviting us over for some pork and Pork Slap…

Gastronomista: If you only have access to a fire escape, what do you need to cook well during grill season?

Butcher Blog: In New York City, you can legally grill as long as you have 10 feet clearance from the building. It is illegal to use propane on a terrace, roof or balcony, which suits us fine, since we firmly believe there should be a national law outlawing gas grills. You need charcoal, and a roof. If you only have a fire escape you need charcoal, a bucket with grill top, and a long pole.

G: What are the must-have tools? What grill? What charcoal?

BB: We're big Weber fans—simple, classic and easy to use. They have a bunch of different sizes too, so you can find one that fits your needs. A pair of long handled tongs are also essential. At no time should the classic BBQ fork get near your grill—piercing the sear is sacrilege and we die a little inside every time we see somebody wielding one of those things. A note about charcoal: Kingsford is not charcoal. Their reconstituted bricks don't get the job done and should always be avoided. We're big fans of Royal Oak (or any other natural wood charcoal) and we eschew the lighter fluid when possible in favor of a chimney. Also, you can spice things up a bit by grabbing some hickory wood chips, soaking them in water and throwing some on the hot coals just before cooking to get some nice smokiness going. Finally, if you're city grilling a fire extinguisher isn't a bad idea (and your neighbors will appreciate it too).

G: What cookbook should you use to guide you?

BB: Pork & Sons by Stéphane Reynaud has everything you need to prepare every part of the pig in every single way (from making your own sausage and terrines to barbecuing a whole suckling pig -- you'll need a Bushwick backyard and some cinderblocks for that one).

Editor's Note: We love this book. We actually were reading it once at the bar of a Brooklyn restaurant, and we very swiftly managed to pick up the Chef, who kept trotting out to the bar to chit chat. He was a smoothe operator... on seeing the book, he said, "If you like Pork and Sons, I need to loan you my charcuterie book... but I have to get your phone number as collaterol."

G: What are you listening to while you cook (and for that matter, eat)?

BB: The Mets game. Creedence. Skynrd. Beach House. Tom Waits. Sonic Youth. Wooden Shjips.

G: What should be on the menu, including beverages?

BB: That suckling pig sounds pretty good right now. You'll want to ask your butcher to reserve the liver and heart for you, which you chop with some smoked bacon and mix with fresh bread crumbs, eggs, olive oil, garlic, fresh herbs (sage, parsley, rosemary, whatever looks good), and stuff that in the pig. This takes about three hours on a spit, which means you'll have plenty of time to down some Pork Slap to keep it thematic (plus beer in cans in a necessity when cooking outdoors).

Baste the suckling pig with a mixture of white wine (get something drinkable because you'll use about 4 cups and finish the rest; it'll mix fine with the Pork Slap), olive oil and a few dabs of Dijon. When there is only about 20 minutes to half an hour left to go on the pig, wrap some corn ears (pull out as much of the silk as you can but do not husk; throw a pat of butter inside the husk) in foil and toss around the edges of the fire where they'll cook but not get flamed. Open another case of Pork Slap.

Eggceptionally Silly

Eggs are fodder for all sorts of folly.

Exhibit A: The "Egg" Plant


Exhibit B: Ovular eggs are so last season. That's why you need an egg cuber.



Exhibit C: The Scene of So Many Crimes


Exhibit D: The Ultimate Freudian Slip

Crack an Egg on Your Hand and Watch the Yolk Drip Down...

There is nothing I love more than discovering an inside secret or trick of the trade. When I learned last week that raw eggs are the best remedy for minor kitchen burns, I polled every chef I know to ask if they knew about this alimentary aid, shocked and upset that I had been in the dark all these years. Less than half had ever heard of it. But all, like me, were curious about the cure-- even a bit peeved to think that they had spent a lifetime enduring burns and blisters when something as simple as a cracked egg could have saved them from pain and scars.

Some people say that you can use the whole beaten egg, while others insist that all you need are the whites. The method, though, seems to be the same:

1. Beat cold eggs or egg whites in a bowl (there is no information that indicates the yolk inhibits healing).
2. Place a clean cloth in the bowl to saturate the egg.
3. Apply the egg-soaked cloth to the burn for a few minutes up to one hour.

The protein-packed cold egg treatment relieves the discomfort AND prevents blistering. Most serious cooks can handle the pain (as they say, if you can't handle the heat....), but no one wants that ugly pinkish brown blister.

The next time you touch an uflagged hot skillet handle, crack an egg and grab two clean towels--one to soak the egg for your aching hand and the other to flag that hot pan. You know better now.

Knuckle Sandwich - Part Deux

You know we love knuckle sandwiches...

We really dig this one by This Charming Man. Knuckle Dusters on Toast. Delicious.

$140 from Lost At E Minor

Chickens - A Love Affair

We continue to be obsessed with chickens.  Baby chicks, in Bossy Chickens, and on Chickens on A Spit.  Yep it's true. We want to build them palaces that profess our love and have collections of all different breeds - with crowns of feathers, frocks with spots, and lots of attitude.

So naturally, our hearts melted a bit when we saw the project "Little Chicken Growing Up" - a blog from 2008 that features the most wonderful pen and ink drawings by artist Mieke Roth of a crossbreed of a Breda fowl and a Silki Bantam chicken.  Ms Roth did a drawing of this adorable little guy every day as he grew into his oh-so charming feathery feet...

A few of our favorites:

Day 2

 

 Day 17

Day 46

Day 20

Also check out her Scientific and Technical Drawings here.

This Earth Day, Build a Geodesic Greenhouse

Exhibit A: One enterprising gentleman, Jim Dunn, living 7,750 miles above sea level in Colorado, who built his own geodesic greenhouse to sustainably grow edible crops during the brief 80 days of of growing season.

The Geodesic Dome was invented by R. Buckminster Fuller, folk hero cult figure, polymath, synergist, scientist, engineer, philosopher, wildly prolific author, marathon speaker (42 hours in one sitting in 1975!), inventor of many words, and the Beatles' "Fool on the Hill."

Stanford University has possession of Bucky's entire Dymaxion Chronofile, an artifact of Bucky's "Guinea Pig B" experiment, in which he chronologized every single aspect of his life for generations to come: notes, sketches, correspondence, hotel stationary, dry cleaning receipts.

As an undergrad, I was lucky enough to take a course in which we had access to the 270 linear feet of the Chronofile, and could also dig through thousands of models and videos. By far, the coolest artifact I ever found was a handwritten note from Yoko Ono to Bucky, asking for advice on how build their own geodesic dome.

Before we get into explaining how to build your own dome, a few words from Bucky on this 40th Anniversary of Earth Day, from his "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth," billed in advertisements as "an alternative to oblivion, by the inventor of the geodesic dome."

"Now there is one outstanding important fact regarding Spaceship Earth, and that is that no instruction book came with it....

Our little Spaceship Earth is only eight thousand miles in diameter, which is almost a negligible dimension in the great vastness of space. Spaceship Earth was so extraordinarily well invented and designed that to our knowledge humans have been on board it for two million years not even knowing that they were on board a ship...

Take the initiative. Go to work, and above all co-operate and don't hold back on one another or try to gain at the expense of another. Any success in such lopsidedness will be increasingly short-lived. These are the synergetic rules that evolution is employing and trying to make clear to us. They are not man-made laws. They are the infinitely accommodative laws of the intellectual integrity governing universe."

- R. Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, 1963

...

So, this Earth Day, go straight to Growing Spaces, and order your geodesic greenhouse building kit. The following photos come from Colin Dunn's description of his industrious father's building project, as documented on Treehugger.

For the Rotisserie Chef Who Has Everything...

A vintage 9K gold spinning rotisserie chicken necklace charm.

The lovely pre-owned vintage charm is crafted in genuine gold, signed 9 375 with British hallmarks. The charm has solid 3D construction with a movable handle that can rotate the rotisserie. It has been professionally polished and cleaned, and measures approximately 3/4" long by 1/2" tall without the rings, and weighs a good 3.40 grams.

Buy it now from jewels-n-tools on EBay for $119.99 plus shipping and handling.

$20 by nicodemusgreen on Etsy

The Things We Want

Once upon a time, the Rolling Stones reminded us that while "you can't always get what you want, you just might find, you will get what you need." Ah, sweet truth. Although we know the truism Less is More inside and out, somehow we always need to be reminded.

Fortunately, the Recovering Lazyholic has made a sweet graphics suite called "Need to Want Less" to remind us to live the simple life, or, er, the simpler life...

The rest of her website is pretty great..and motivational for all of us lazies out there. And if you need reminders to get ye act together on your wall: she has an etsy store.

And finally, a little mid-week motivation:

I Love Oysters, too

Introducing Chef Chuck Hughes, lover of oysters.

The Cooking Channel - a sister channel to The Food Network - is being launched this Memorial Day (Monday, May 31), by the Scripps Network to replace the now defunct Fine Living Channel. Among the new talent is the very promising shellfish-slinging Chuck Hughes, host of "Chuck's Day Off", which now airs in Canada and more than a dozen other countries, and which will be reaching our televisions and amassing fans in short order.

Think rock and rock lobster.

We met Chuck this weekend at the Kitchen & Bath Industry Show at the McCormick Center in Chicago, where The Cooking Channel hosted a press event to introduce him to the US market.

If the line of girls was any indicator of the impending success of the show, get ready.

Chuck showed off his lovingly inked arms, and we're here to bring you the run-down.

Left forearm: shrimp with lemon

Right forearm: lobster

Right inner elbow: a slice of lemon meringue pie, his favorite dessert

Right bicep: pomegranates, bitter and sweet

Right shoulder: the beloved pineapple fish

His first tattoo: an homage to Mom

His next tattoo: a flying pig in black and white on his upper right arm (or "I heart Mindy", as he told one fan named Mindy -- the boy's got skills)

Impending superstardom, Exhibit A: Girls! Girls! Girls!

So who is Chuck, anyway? Meet him here:

And an official trailer from The Food Network:

"All of our Bloody Marys come with a beer back"

On a Sunday morning, that is music to my ears.

Bear witness:
The Publican Bloody Mary with Tito's vodka, Publican mix, housemade celery bitters, and...
Killer Kowalski Baltic Porter, Flossmoor Station (Flossmoor, Illinois)

Our neighbors at our communal table said that the beer back is standard practice in Wisconsin. Let's make it standard practice everywhere!

We took our beer-backed Bloody Mary with dried fig crumb cake and a cherry scone to start. Thereafter, scrapple with fried egg and sourdough (think cornmeal and pig part mash), a housemade pork roll sandwich, and a waffle with honey butter and market blueberries. We rounded out our brunch with a bowl of fresh made ricotta, poached cherries, pistachios and beer bread.

oink oink, from Chicago.

The Publican

837 West Fulton Market

Chicago, IL 60607

312-733-9555

Open for brunch on Sundays starting at 10, when the Bloodies are ready right away.