An Evening In The Pursuit Of A Roasted Chestnut

Mel Torme wrote about chestnuts roasting on an open fire in the midst of a heatwave. "Think cool, be cool", he thought. Less than an hour later, his beloved winter memory became a song, and before long that song became American folklore. It's an image so powerful you need not have actually experienced it to understand it at a Pavlovian level the moment someone starts crooning. It is a very deep rooted, cultural, emotional picture of winter and the holidays.

This year a few days before Thanksgiving I was able to finally give myself fully to the idea of winter when we used our fire ring for the first time. Amy bought it on a whim, and couldn't help but add the grill that covers it, god bless her. She had also bought a few pounds of chestnuts with the intention of making stuffing for the Thanksgiving gathering we had been invited to by our friends at Eater's Guild Farm. We lit a fire because we felt like it and remembered almost incidentally that we needed to prep the chestnuts, so that great holiday mythology became reality. Most people would just turn on the oven. But we had the chance to fill our Thanksgiving stuffing with the true spirit of the holidays so we went for it.

The fact is, there are very good reasons that chestnuts were once roasted on an open fire. The wood smoke, the intense heat that caramelizes the shells, the simple fun of it, all three infusing the nut even more fully with the feel of fall. Sometimes we forget when roasting chestnuts in an oven, when we're looking mostly for the shells to become brittle so they can be easily peeled, how important it is to actually cook them, thoroughly and a bit aggressively, to really develop their flavor.

More importantly, the act of lighting a fire on a cold, crisp late fall or early winter day fills you with the essence of the moment. The fire we built was in great excess of what was needed to roast the chestnuts (we did cook dinner on it later as well) as was the effort to build it. We wandered our property collecting downed wood that we thought would produce a good smelling smoke. We spent the better part of an afternoon gathering wood and tending the fire toward a plush bed of temperate coals, then stoking it with a little green wood to give a muscular, perfumed smoke. We scored the chestnuts carefully and deliberately, lounging comfortably beside the fire. Then roasted them until they were blushed with char and cracked open looking like a flower at hell's gate. We greedily dove into to the peeling, hands getting tender and rosy from the heat and now sharp, dry shards of the smoky shells. But there was no way to wait for them to cool. We were caught up in the moment.

Not too many people roast chestnuts anymore. The work involved is too daunting. The black walnut or beechnut, two other native fall treats, are even more overlooked for their mis en place intensity. Especially black walnuts, which oxidize and go rancid so quickly it almost seems like you're racing the clock even as you struggle to get them from their shells. But if you slow down, take the time to enjoy the prep, the real act of cooking, especially if you can light a wood fire and give it some seasonal context, you might find the work less tedious, even enjoyable. We don't eat foods so much that we have to work hard for, which is unfortunate because it gives our diet a sort of lazy and unnecessary boundary. The idea that we might live our whole lives without chestnuts and black walnuts just because they are a pain in the ass makes no sense to me.

These days many people think cooking is tedium and that stands between them and the more common use of their kitchen. We don't enjoy cooking anymore. We think of it as a chore, something that takes us away from our real lives. We look for "thirty minute meals" to give us back the time we want to spend with our loved ones instead of incorporating the act of cooking, which is so loaded with love and life and the expression of our place and time, into our lives. Cooking is bursting with the stuff of our real lives, but for some reason, we disregard it for time with the tv. We treat it with the same disdain we treat doing the laundry or scrubbing the toilet.

I can tell in an instant which of the cooks that come in to my kitchen will be in it for the long haul. They are the ones who enjoy dicing, tournet, peeling potatoes, even washing dishes. They enjoy the everyday, the mundane, the grunt work. The real work. Cooking.  Believe me when I say your cooking will taste better and your kitchen, your family, and you yourself will be happier, better off, when you do the same. There is no way to fake careful attention and respect for the food before you.

Don't rush through the prep. Don't hurry to get to the plate. Build a fire. Relax and fuss over it for a bit. Roast. Be slow and deliberate. Smile and talk comfortably with the friends and family around you. Dinner is coming. And it will be be good, as will be the time spent in its pursuit. But only if you are mindful enough to make it so.

Four Whole Fried Chickens And A Coke

It would take no more than a cursory glance in my direction to tell that I am a man who prefers hedonism to health. I enjoy food, both "good" and "bad". I love gin and whisky, cheese and other animal fats, carbs, and until a little over a year ago I absolutely loved to smoke. And I do mean loved it. I have since become that most hypocritical of non-smokers (the one who lectures smokers on the folly of their bad habits), mainly because I quit a day late and a dollar short and will suffer the consequences of my live today pay later philosophy until the day I die. At the tender age of forty one I became someone who will be on medication for the rest of his life, and this medication will only somewhat arrest the decay of my lungs, not repair or relieve my condition in any way. The news could have been far worse. I was basically told that I can live a long and somewhat normal life without my current condition getting worse. So I don't get to burn out after all. I will fade away. And perhaps have a very long time to dwell on it. But I don't have cancer. Which, to be honest, after twenty years of smoking, one could argue was easily deserved.

So I dumped smoking to avoid death and possibly divorce (my wife's parents only recently both passed away from maladies brought on or worsened by their smoking), which led me to also evaluate some of the other things that affect my health, specifically food and alcohol. To my way of thinking, and I stand by this implicitly, a life lived in the confines of prohibition is no life at all. If there were two lines in the great before, one for those who wanted to live long and live without, and one for those who were okay with the idea that a slab of foie gras and an early death didn't sound so bad, I would clearly be lining up to kill the duck. I could of course come to regret this point of view, wishing as the light was slowly dimming, that I'd eaten more oat bran and thought more sensibly about drugs in college, so I could be here for just a bit longer. But I like to think that I'll look back and think my road was worth walking, and that the price to walk it was money well spent.

What I don't want is to wither. To live a life where the indulgences of youth (and middle age) destroy the years I am standing on this earth. Die a few years early, who fucking cares. Death comes to us all and when it does, the moments of regret for me will be few. In many ways, I made my life full and big and worthy in the wake of my bad decisions. But lethargy, depression, immobility, slowly watching the things in life you thought you'd have time for someday become things you consciously know you will never be able to do, even though you will be around to make time for it: this  makes me remember how much I love vegetables and fruits, and that it is not actually a sacrifice at all to choose them over ice cream and potato chips.

I'm not there yet. I am a person who makes change slowly, but once the seed is planted, eventually it will sprout and grow. Jake ate. Elwood had no soul on his plate. Jake died too soon. Elwood lived long enough to make the most unwarranted sequel in movie history. Somewhere in there is a place where whisky and wheat grass and red meat and kale, work in harmony to bring health and happiness to someone who finds so much of his happiness in food and drink. It is not about going without. It's about making room for all, because I love them all and I believe that a life lived with joy and the inclusion of things that bring us joy, is a healthy life, and a life lived long enough.

The trick is to find the right mix of hedonist and puritan so that life stays rich and joyful but doesn't end or devolve too soon. If I am wrong and I find myself at the end too soon, I hope my loved ones will not begrudge me that one last sip of whisky, and not judge me too harshly for knowing the right thing to do but not doing it (let's face it, we all know what to do: eat sensibly and exercise -- this basic tenant has not, nor will it ever, change). I'm sure I will wish in those last moments that we could all stay together forever. What I hope is to not not look back and wish we would have spent our time together indulging our joy despite our impending demise.

I wish for us all a life well lived, with many moments of recklessness and repression of common sense, sewn together by just enough desire for self preservation to keep suffering at bay. But not so much as to keep the best and the worst of the world out. Never so much as that.

Cheesy Beef, Beefy Cheese

The first time I had Epoisse a part of me thought it was the best steak I'd ever eaten.

Thelma and Louise at Cato Corner

Epoisse is a raw cow's milk cheese from Burgundy, called the king of all cheese by Brillat Savarin. It is a washed rind, or "smear ripened" (I hate that term) cheese. A bacteria called B. Linen is inoculated on to the rind of the cheese which causes it to ripen quickly, turning it soft in texture and strong in aroma and flavor. In the States, we'd call this category stinky cheese, which gives us one of the few truly American cheeses, Limburger. This category of cheeses is my favorite. Big, bold, assertive, and complex . After gaining an appreciation for these bruisers one may find all others a little boring. My very favorite is actually made in America, at Cato Corner in Vermont, and is called Hooligan. Could there possibly be a better name for a cheese so pungent, such an assault on the senses, but so inescapably tempting? Your better senses tell you obviously you must stay away. But, no...

Anyway, Epoisse. Epoisse is big, brutal, runny, offensive and beautiful in every way. It comes packed in a small balsam box because it is so ripe, soft, and runny, that without reinforcement it would burst like a flood swollen dam. It quivers maliciously at the thought of escaping the walls of its overripe, nearly desiccated orange rind. It is a small wheel and typically eaten by cutting the top off and spooning the paste out and spreading it on dark bread within reach of a good, strong Flemish beer.

But the first thing you are struck by when you first eat Epoisse is that it unmistakably tastes like beef. Roast beef. Like soft, yielding, knee buckling beef fat. This made me wonder why more cow's milk cheeses don't taste more like beef. They have the same source, after all.

I was reminded of this connection tonight when tasting a roasted prime rib of beef. Prime rib is a cooking conceit I have had little love for for most of my career. In the Midwest, prime rib is a staple of every cheap buffet and mediocre steakhouse, every wedding banquet and hotel catering menu, and is despised by most cooks who take cooking seriously. It's usually badly executed and overpriced, prized only for whatever worn out cachet it still carries amongst very unfoodie types. But I sometimes develop a weakness for the abused culinary heroes of yesteryear. I begin to wonder why they came to prominence in the first place and think about what luster they lost and how we might regain it. To that end, we have recently been cooking whole rib primals for large groups at Reserve.

At Reserve we pride ourselves in our aging program. We bring large cuts in and dry age them for far longer than industry standard. This is a practice gaining a little popularity in high end steakhouses around the country right now. We buy green (un aged) beef and hang it in a very cold cooler for a minimum of thirty five days and it stays there until it sells. During one particularly long summer dry spell for beef sales we had a rib primal hang for nearly 100 days. Dry aging is the best means of aging beef, and long aging brings out the funk. As beef ages, bacteria and lactic acid go to work on the comparatively simple proteins, fat, and carbohydrates present in meat and break them down. When they break down they become very complex and nuanced. The same thing occurs when cheese ages. Up until 28 days, a steak will taste like a steak. After that, mushrooms, blue cheese, flavors of the deep woods or pasture. Normally these primals are cut into steaks and grilled. They are rarely, even in highly vaunted steakhouses, roasted whole. But today we did. And in the rib we roasted today: the flavor of nearly spoiled milk.

Sounds horrible, doesn't it? Believe me, it was not, and I have a dozen staff members who ate it and will attest to it's deliciousness. When I say nearly spoiled, I'm not talking about sour. I'm talking about the onset of fermentation, the positive acts that bacteria have on foods before they begin to biodegrade and become inedible. I'm talking about the development of amino acids (umami) in great number. The best way I can think to describe it is like the transformation that occurs when sugar is turned to caramel. For the most part, sugar is just sweet. Caramel is smoky, deep and rich. This was not the flavor of fresh milk, sweet and wholesome and clean. This was the flavor of age. Milk on the road to becoming parmesan.

Lactic acid also continues to break down connective tissue and soften muscle fibers. Around sixty five days or so the texture can become a little livery. Until then, the texture gets soft, supple, and incredibly tender. The rib we ate tonight was 50 days old and was tender enough to easily pinch a salty, garlicky snack off the crust of the roast. Here's the thing about a giant roast like prime rib. A good one will have a very soft, rare interior with a dark crust where most of the seasoning resides, even after a day or two of rest. The seasoning doesn't really make it's way to the middle, so the best forkful is a chunk from the middle and a sliver from the grey, slaty edge.

So, this was no Vegas buffet prime rib. This was prime rib in it's glory, long aged, perfectly cooked and seasoned. The group we served it to tonight ordered two but didn't even finish one. They picked at the first one, pushed it around and sneered at it because it was "still mooing". The great shame of wasting something so rare, so well executed by my cook Brian, so expertly aged & butchered by my sous chef Brandon...not happening. We ate it. The whole staff. We carved and attacked that rib like it owed us money. This cut and the people who cooked it took prime rib back to the mountain top. A great and glorious moment in the cuisine of middle America.