How to hand forge a simple knife in ten grueling hours with significant forearm torture

One might think, from the title, that I'm prone to being over-dramatic, which - in fact - would be a correct assumption, but more importantly, I'm here to tell you that making tools by hand with fire and steel is not for wimps. There's a reason, a very good reason, we let machines (or migrant labor) do most of our work now. 

In short, hard work is HARD! 

Nonetheless, when my friend Ashlyn suggested I join her on Vashon Island to learn how to make our own knives, I thought this sounded just like the crazy kind of shit that would make a good blog post so of course I said, "WOW, I've always wanted to do that!"

If you lived in the 1700's, this is the last thing you'd see before passing out in the dentist's chair.

This is the forge where all the action takes place. Please note that the spikes on top are for (no joke) cooking hot dogs and potatoes. Will creativity and multi-tasking never cease?

We started with what our teacher, Drew, called "tool steel" or "bar-stock". He referred to it by some number which I promptly forgot, rationalizing - sanely - that as I age, new knowledge pushes out old knowledge, so if I remembered the number I'd forget how to put my pants on in the morning. Here is Drew showing us that hot steel is fiery red and orange and it will BURN YOU. 

Here is my anvil-partner showing us the handle-end of his knife.  With a hammer and a very butch swinging motion, he created the 'bolster' of the knife. The bolster creation was probably the hardest step.

Teacher Drew showed us how to make the 'rat-tail' of the rat tail knife, taught to him by another metal worker whose signature addition was not just the rat-bodied handle and the rat tail but just underneath the tail a little tiny rat-sized pucker. Blacksmiths, like cooks, and 7th grade boys and really, most everyone, like a little spot of potty humor.  We did not add this little 'adornment' to our knives. Poor constipated rat tail knife.

This is my knife. This was about 8 hours into hurling a very heavy hammer at a smallish piece of steel while holding it with heavy tongs.  I was very proud of my little rat, even though at this stage it looks like the rat head is bending over at the neck. No matter -- the beauty of this work is that you can just throw it back in the fire to 're-plasticize' it and try again to get the shape you want.

 In this shot, I'm reheating my knife to try to straighten its little rat back.

Drew showing us some technique and making it look very, very easy. Drew made everything look sooooo easy when he did his demo. Drew is clearly a liar. A handsome and nice liar, but still a liar.

I prided myself on doing all the work myself for the whole day until the very end when I was clutching my T-rex arm and making little moaning sounds.  I 'let' Drew put the edge on my knife because, you know,  I'm sure he needed the practice.

Here is a shot of our class' knives, along with the sheaths we also made. The class was a fundraiser  so Drew can teach a teen blacksmithing workshop on the island.  A fabulous day and totally worth the ensuing 48 hours where I couldn't brush my hair, hold a pen, or wipe my rat tail.

Curse you Rachel Finkelstein*

Photo attribution: Creative Commons License from Equalization Schools; Rebekah Dobrasko

A version of this article appeared in the September/October issue of Edible Seattle Magazine where I recently got the DREAM JOB of writing a food humor column every month on the back page called "Back of the House"

Miracle Whip is Satan’s sandwich spread.

 

I know this because on one of only two occasions that I forgot my school lunch, I ate half of Rachel Finkelstein’s tuna fish sandwich. It took a few bites to confirm, but yes, it was undeniable: I was eating tuna laced with the devil’s condiment. I spat out the filth and committed myself to remembering my lunch each and every day.

Forget for a moment the school lunches you see kids with now, packaged in fancy coolers and insulated lunch boxes with mini ice packs, sub compartments, and happy meal-ish toys. In the 70s, you ate locker-hot tuna sandwiches in greasy paper bags, pb & j’s, or you ate nothing.

Nearly as important as what your lunch was, was what your lunch came in. A brown paper bag, folded over twice at the top was my typical attaché. Crucial to the paper bag aesthetic was the tell-tale jelly stain that seeped through its ineffectual plastic baggie before I could even get off the bus. Eventually, peer pressure forced me to beg for a lunch box and I ran with a lemon yellow Partridge Family model. In my mind’s nose I can still smell the inside of my lunch box: a curious mix of wet metal and peanuty tuna. I loved my Partridge Family lunch box until one day Rachel Finkelstein came to school with a shiny new Welcome Back Kotter lunch box. I could have killed for that lunch box.

I hated Rachel Finkelstein and her stupid lunch box.

What you brought for lunch spoke volumes about who you were and carved your place in the elementary school hierarchy. The Crips brought badass contraband like Ho-Hos or Ding Dongs and tried to sell it at a steep markup. The Bloods bullied you until you shared yours for free. The Hippiekids had to chew through bread so hearty they were still masticating it right through 6th period. The Buyers never brought their own lunch and were waiting in the lunch line so long that I was done by the time they sat down. I never got to know the Buyers, because I was a Bringer and we didn’t associate with one another. There were even subsections of the Bringers: those that brought the same thing for lunch for 10 years and those who were more adventurous. A third group, consisting of just Rachel Finkelstein, was the group that thought Miracle Whip was delicious.

If you have kids and you send your precious progeny to school with healthy sack lunches, I’m the kid you hate because I’m showing your darling sweetheart the beauty of layering crushed-up Fritos just so on a peanut butter sandwich followed by the ritualistic, highly sequenced eating of an Oreo cookie. By the time I’m done with your kid, there will be no more hummus and sprouts, no more apple wedges, nary a carrot stick. There will be hot tears and whining demands and uneaten hummus.
 

One day, perhaps it was a Friday—I can’t remember—oh yeah, now I do—it was Friday September 23, 1979 around 11:46 am; a cold sweat was running down my little back because I remembered that my drippy sack lunch was still sitting on the green vinyl bus seat, lonely, without me. A deep, sad hunger rumbled from my stomach. I would need to go get in line with the Buyers. I was so clearly a Bringer I didn’t know where to stand, how to get a tray, or what to say to the lunch ladies. While waiting in line, I tried to work out what I’d ask for, but I felt so much pressure and kids were laughing and cavorting and grabbing for hot pizza and applesauce and rolls and butter pats and Oh. My. God. Where was the peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Where was the locker-hot tuna sandwich? I panicked and grabbed blindly at a sloppy joe and some ghastly colored jello with chunks of unidentifiable fruit. I walked with my tray back to the table and glumly set it down, scanning for a Crip I could barter with.

Drinks were a whole other ball of wax. Even the Bringers had to buy their beverages. They came in 3 flavors: chocolate milk (10 cents), whole milk (9 cents), skim milk (8 cents). It was of utmost importance to shake the little cardboard box of milk before purchase, no matter the flavor, to make sure that it wasn’t completely frozen. 

The day the chocolate milk price rose to 11 cents was a very dark day in my elementary school’s history. We nearly rioted. Inflated milk prices brought together the Crips, Bloods, Buyers, Bringers, and Hippiekids for one beautiful, fleeting moment. Then Rachel brought out her sandwich with Miracle Whip and we all scattered like roaches back into the safety of our clans.

*The name "Rachel Finkelstein" is entirely made-up to protect the guilty.

Basic to Brilliant, Y'all: or how I revealed my super-not-so-secret-chefcrush to my wife

photos by the awesome and talented Helene Dujardin

Pretend that you are the proverbial fly on the wall:

Me: April, I have something to tell you.... I... I think, uh, I think I have a chefcrush.
April: A what crush?
Me: A chefcrush, totally innocent.
April: {cue stone cold stare, one eyebrow reaching for the ceiling}
Me: You know, like when you respect someone and you want, well, you want, how do I say this?
April: {cue long, penetrating death gaze}
Me: Honey,  I want Virginia Willis' biscuits.  There. I've said it.

I first "met" Virginia Willis on Twitter.  Twitter, or at least my version of Twitter, is a frenetic, bubbling stew of food lovers' comings and goings; it's a place where I can pull in, order up a conversation, return a favor, get inspiration, give tips, ask questions and leave feeling connected in a way that makes the world seem smaller.  I'm lucky enough to not often feel lonely, but twitter makes me feel surrounded by friends, even when I'm not. It's led to many new *actual* friendships, fabulous new food ideas, collaborations and real connections with people interested in similar things.

In typical Twitter style, one day someone just pops up on your radar and you become aware of them and then before you know it they are adding something positive to your life. So, I met Virginia on Twitter and before long we were bonding over a most unusual subject matter - the fact that we both have a fondness for Isabella Rossellini and April has a downright -- what's that April, speak up now -- that's right, a crush on her; a starcrush, if you will.  The next thing I know Virginia has sent me a somewhat clandestine photo that her seat neighbor snapped of Rossellini at a conference which I then dutifully passed on to April -- because I am nothing if not supportive of a little long distance, completely innocent, biscuit-coveting, southern fried chicken eatin', stone ground grit-crushing crush.

This is not the photo Virginia sent. While Isabella will always be a beauty, this shot was probably taken 20 years ago.

Moving on to the real purpose of this post --- if you find yourself having a chefcrush, you have to - naturally - order their first cookbook, read their blog, and start making some of their dishes, in a completely respectful, non creepy stalker sort of way.

Enter the biscuits.

Before I even attempted Virginia's buttermilk angel biscuits from her first book, Bon Appetit, Y'all, I pondered if an East Coaster like me could successfully channel the South and turn out anything other than a New York Islander's hockey puck of a biscuit. Must have been something about my comfort level around the loft-giving properties of Aqua-net (circa 1980, Short Hills Mall, New Jersey) that set in me a natural inclination towards the light and flaky, bouffant poofs of buttery love that would have made Roseanne Roseannadanna's hair proud.

Simply put, Virginia's biscuits were the best I have ever made.

When Virginia asked if I would be interested in participating in her Virtual Potluck for her second book, I jumped at the chance to snap up a review copy of Basic to Brilliant Y'all, where Southern hospitality meets French elegance.  Basic to Brilliant Y'all presents each recipe in its quick and dirty form and then amps it up with some serious cheffy embellishments. It was just one of these embellishments that caught my eye.  Specifically I saw a reference to a pickled cherry tomato recipe. I'm on a quick-pickle kick these days and I'm just the sort of lazy preserver that leans toward high sugar or high acid recipes because they are least likely to kill you dead with botulism, which is just a terrible way to begin or end your day.

Virginia's recipe for pickled tomatoes uses raw onion in the jar, but I subbed in fennel slices because I love raw onion, but it hates me. Let me also walk you through the other 2 dishes I made from B2B.*  After the success I had with the angel biscuits, I wasted not a moment in deciding to try out her sweet potato biscuits, because there is just no part of SWEET POTATO BISCUIT that can be wrong. I served the sweet potato biscuits with her recipe for Peach Dijon-crusted Pork Tenderloin (recipe below) and served it with a fennel and parsley salad and those tart little pickled tomatoes and extra sauce on the side, as instructed.  I cooked that pretty little pork to a rosy pink because that's how this girl likes her pork and there isn't any trichinosis in the U.S. domestic pig supply anymore to get your panties all in a twist, so stop overcooking your damn pork, ya hear? The dish was simple, yet elegant, decidedly Southern leaning, but with a focus on fundamentals and execution that speak to Virginia's culinary pedigree and time spent in France. In short, that grub rocked, yo!

Virginia is offering you a special gift. If you buy a copy of her book in the next 2 weeks (by Oct 12, 2011), she'll send you a personalized, signed bookplate to place in your copy. So, listen up - if Virginia can get this New Jersey girl drawling out a y'all and pulling biscuits out of the oven so light and airy they could double as angel wings for yer mama, then surely you need this book in your collection.  Fill out this form to get your bookplate and run like you were being mugged in East Rutherford to make that sweet potato biscuit recipe.

*girl, shoot, I'm busy - I don't have time to type out Basic to Brilliant, Y'aaaaaaalllllll - I'm a Yankee in a hurry!

Recipe used by permission Basic to Brilliant, Y'all by Virginia Willis, Tenspeed Press, 2011

Peach Dijon–Crusted Pork Tenderloin

Serves 4 to 6

A grill pan is all you need to make a simple supper in 30 minutes or less with this recipe. I return to this recipe again and again. Mama even keeps the sauce already made in the refrigerator and uses it on pork chops as well as chicken. The key is not to start brushing the meat until it’s almost cooked, otherwise, the sweet glaze will burn.

1/4 cup Kosher salt

3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 cups boiling water

3 cups ice cubes

2 (11/2- to 2-pound) pork tenderloins

1/2 cup peach preserves

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves

1/2 cup Dijon mustard

Freshly ground black pepper

Combine the salt and brown sugar in a heatproof bowl. Add the boiling water and stir to dissolve. Add the ice cubes and stir to cool. Add the tenderloins, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and refrigerate to marinate, about 30 minutes. Remove from the brine, rinse well, and pat thoroughly dry with paper towels. (Do not brine any longer or the pork will be too salty.)

Meanwhile, stir together the peach preserves, rosemary, and mustard in a small bowl. Prepare a medium-hot charcoal fire. Or preheat a gas grill to high or grill pan over high heat. Season the tenderloins with pepper. Place the meat on the grill, and grill, turning once, until the internal temperature reaches 145°F, about 15 minutes.

Brush with the peach-mustard mixture during the last few minutes. Remove to a cutting board and cover with aluminum foil to rest and let the juices redistribute, about 5 minutes. Slice on the diagonal and serve immediately. 

Portland, Oregon: City of (st)INK and roses

The recession is worse than I thought, Portland -it appears- is for lease.

I was recently down in Portland, Oregon to do a couple bookish events, one at the Whole Foods in the Pearl District and the other at Robert Reynolds Chef Studio (take a class here - he's wonderful!). I've lived in Seattle for 16 years and had just barely scratched the surface of our sister city to the south. Until now.

I have recorded my outsider impressions thusly:

1. Portland is flush with trees. They say New York City is a city with a park in the middle of it and Portland is a park with a city in the middle of it. I can vouch for this.

2. It's easier to find parking in downtown Portland with a stretch limo towing an Airstream attached to a Vanagon than it is to find 1 square inch of uninked skin on your average Portlandian.

3. Portland is like the love child of Seattle neighborhoods Georgetown and Fremont, with more bikes, more tattoos, better public transportation, less diversity and no apparent professional dress code.

4. Portland's downtown Saturday farmer's market kicks ass, takes names and is larger and more diverse than any in Seattle.

5. Portland is also called the  City of Roses which is a good goddamn thing because deodorant is apparently being rationed. 

Depression is a problem in Portland. This guy was obviously blue.

Maybe he didn't see this sign, which perked me up right away. 

Even the water tower in Portland loves you, blue guy.

Will someone please, once and for all, explain the origin and promulgation of the shoes tied around the telephone wire phenomenon in urban cores throughout our great land?  It has been explained to me  that "it's a signal to let people know where drug deals go down."  This explanation is about as logical as selling heroin on  Craigslist, but first calling the police to let them know what you're going to do. 

When bananas go bad*

*hi jesse!

I call this photo: Long Apparatus.

Gotta give it up to the Ace Hotel for their quirky take on wall murals.

View from the Ace Hotel in Portland

I bet this sort of soup-Nazi attitude flies better in the Ace Hotel in NYC. Here in Portland if you had no sink, they'd probably apologize and let you stay, right after they tattooed your neck 
and stole your deodorant.

Someone had mentioned Clyde Common to me -- I believe it was my buddy
Jameson Fink. As it was just 3 flights down from my hotel room, I made quick work of their $6 happy hour burger - the juiciest, most flavorful bit of beef between two buns I've experienced since watching that amateur video my friend Marc made.

I didn't stay here.

Ads as art

Portland could also be called "The city of bridges."

red bridge

I got to know this bridge very well. At the far end of this bridge is the Portland Farmer's Market Administrative Offices which should NOT be confused with the Portland Farmer's Market, because it's a 45 minute walk over a long bridge and through a shady section of town and there are no farmers there, no market and it's closed on Saturdays.

 Four fabulous Italian rosés at Nostrana. Don't ask me what they were.  

Let's just call them light pink, pinker, pinker still and pinkiest.

I was blown away by this incredibly simple and humble plate of beans with albacore tuna at Nostrana. There is no place to hide in a dish like this; no bells and whistles to distract from the fundamentals. Everything has to be perfect -- the tenderness and creaminess of the beans, the level of salt and acidity and the crisp freshness of the vegetables.

I didn't eat here.

I did, however, grab a late-night bite at Pok Pok Noi.  I wish I had a picture to show you but it was hard to focus on anything through the snot and tears generated by the Thai chilies in my bowl of unripe papaya salad (somtom). Not since I've been on the streets of Bangkok have I had such an authentic version of this dish. And the pandanus leaf infused water that they serve? It was a revelation.  Toasty, full-bodied and refreshing, I'm afraid pandanus-free water will never quench my thirst again. I'm ruined Pok Pok Noi.

I also checked out Bamboo Sushi, one of only 4 sustainable sushi bars in the country.  I highly recommend the mackerel, albacore belly and any sashimi served with yuzu jelly. On my train ride home, I packed a pastrami on rye with a side of coleslaw from Kenny & Zuke's. I will always, until the day I die, leave Portland in this fashion. I say this as a Jew from the New York area: thank you Kenny. Thank you Zuke. 

 

As if Portlandians need a 3 foot hand to point them towards their civic duty.

Food trucks rule the streets in Portland. There's even one for grilled cheese sandwiches.

Food truck lit up at twilight.

Done

Don't mind if I do. Until next time, Portland!

5 wild foods that will make you richer, prettier, and even more delusional

#1 Rose hips

Dried on the vine rose hip, best from the species Rosa rugosa

I love the tart, cranberry-like acidity of rose hips, chopped up and infused into teas, added to sauces served with fish, or made into jam.  Walk on by this dried up one and harvest them earlier, just after the first frost (they are sweeter then).  Peggy over at About.com wrote a nice little piece about the culinary uses for rose hips but what stuck in my craw was her little note at the end:

"A research student wrote me with the following cautionary note: Anyone using rose hips for cooking should remove all the seeds. They are covered with sliver-hairs that, when ingested, irritate the digestive system and cause what the aboriginal people call "itchy bottom disease.""

For what it's worth, Peggy was not able to find any corroboration of this fact; all the same I will be dutifully de-hairing my rose hips (essentially cutting them in half and removing the seeds) from here on out. Warnings that come on any food, whether wild or processed are to be heeded - I'm reminded of the warning on foods containing Olestra. I need only a passing reference to 'anal leakage' or 'fecal urgency' to get me to pay extremely close attention. 

Moving away from aboriginal warnings and back to the subject of roses, if you live in Seattle, run, don't walk over to Sugar Pill on Capitol Hill where you can find owner Karyn Schwartz mixing up herbal tinctures and blends, flavored salts and infused sugars.  She recently gave me a sample of a rose petal salt and I'm dreaming up things to do with it; mix with honey to drizzle on figs; stir into yogurt with warm, grilled pita slathered with butter; add to basmati rice and toast it in the pan before adding saffron for a pilaf... 

I keep thinking of all these things to do with it, but haven't gotten much farther than licking my finger and sticking it in the little crock of salt, which - technically - is a use for it.

Whether you take your roses in petal form or hip form, remember these wise words: roses good, "itchy bottom disease" bad.

#2 Miner's Lettuce

This is miner's lettuce, aka Claytonia perfoliata

 

Whiteys owe a lot to scurvy.  Meaning, without scurvy whiteys wouldn't have gotten wise to what foods to eat to prevent it. It was the California Gold Rush flavor of whiteys who learned that miner's lettuce could prevent scurvy because it contains Vitamin C. No doubt this information came thanks to some friendly Native Americans who later regretted sharing anything with the sickly whiteys. 

Sickly whiteys, it's my new band name.

I don't eat miner's lettuce to prevent scurvy - I eat miner's lettuce because a walk in the woods is merely an end to the means of grazing like a cow through edible wild foods.  Miner's lettuce is a convenient edible to lazily request an exercise break around when your more fit friends are leading you on a death march up some imposing elevation gains. Oh, and its flowers are so cute you want to pinch their petals.

Smoked sockeye salmon with parsley sauce, nettle gnocchi and miner's lettuce salad

 #3 Fiddlehead ferns

  Only an oompa-loompa could make a meal out of this fiddlehead.

My buddy Langdon Cook has a lot to say on the topic of ferns and frankly, he says it a lot better than I do,  so read his book Fat of the Land and check out his blog of the same name.

Spring fiddleheads with porcini and nettle sauce waiting for some smoked halibut.

 #4 Sardines

Sardines are the nutrient powerhouses of the past, present and future. They will make you smarter. You will feel more vibrant. You will suddenly be able to pay your bills on time. You will finally move out of your parent's house at the age of 38. Your life partner will look sexier. Rachel Finkelstein, your nemesis from elementary school, will seethe with jealousy when she hears that you eat them.

Yeah, yeah, so everyone's talking about sardines these days in the food circles.  I'm hesitant to jump on fish bandwagons because fish fads are why many species are in trouble these days: see Chilean Seabass or Orange Roughy.  Chefs pimping out fish can be very powerful and if they pick the wrong fish (say one that is very vulnerable to fishing pressures - for example, if they reproduce later in life and are caught as juveniles) it can have pretty damaging effects.  But pick the right fish - one that is short lived, highly fecund (gets it on early and often) and is pretty much built to be eaten by the bigger fish, well then I can get on the sardine bus. In fact I might even dress in sardine drag and ride on a float in the Sardine Pride Festival '12.

Smoked sardines with piquillo pepper sauce, from Good Fish, photo credit Clare Barboza

#5 I can't remember

I took this shot at an undisclosed location somewhere near Carmel, California. I'd tell you more but I was blindfolded,  spun around 10 times and taken there in an unmarked Vanagon.  I can tell you this: it was a nice place where everyone was really, really mellow.  The food tasted great here. I was so very hungry and everyone was so very funny.

If you happen to know what #5 is or where I left my shoes, please mention it in the comments.

So you want to write a cookbook?

There’s no lack of romanticism in the idea of writing a cookbook. You imagine your name splashed across the cover in a stylish, zippy font, a sharpie pen in your hand and legions of fans lined up to have you scrawl your Rick Moonen on the title page. There’s even more allure and magical thinking contemplating a book tour – suddenly you’re in that movie Almost Famous and there are girls fetching you drinks, tour buses, crazed fans, backstage shenanigans and diving into swimming pools from the second floor balcony.

The truth is that writing a cookbook encompasses more work than you can possibly imagine, more recipe testing than one ever ought to do, and, in my case, night after night after night of eating fish, which is certainly no hardship – I mean, I love fish, but even I have my limit. If the recipe tests well, you happily move on to the next but if it doesn’t you tweak and tweak and tweak until your significant other threatens to move out when you put the 18th version of that broiled oyster with grapefruit sabayon on the table.

Unless you are a very lucky, terribly famous person, you will not be able to quit your day job while you are writing this book and testing these recipes. You will attempt to jam this writing into your already busy life, crow-barring the work into your schedule with the determination and anxiety of a neurotic terrier with his head stuck in a foxhole.

But I don’t mean to discourage you.

There are some supreme upsides, the first being the pleasure you get saying the words ‘I have just sent in my manuscript.'  Say this with a British accent because it will sound more impressive.  Say this line to everyone you meet, including your pets as they will look excited each and every time you say it. Then --- next.... an interminably long month or three later,  the book returns to you in its actualized physical manifestation - and this is the day you have been waiting for - THE EAGLE HAS LANDED.  The hand cramps, the stomach pains, the sheer labor that comes from birthing a book baby from your own fingertips – this is a wonderment that is palpable and it is a joy that no longer needs active tending or a college savings plan. On this day, with your book in your hand, you will be done with the writing.

Soak it up.

Breathe it in.

Enjoy this day for tomorrow you’ll move on to a deeper depth of hellfire that is known in the business as the Fiery Pit of Shameless Self Promotion.

Why write a cookbook? Not for fame and not for money. Write a cookbook because you feel like you have something to say, something to add, a mark to make that hasn’t been made. Write a cookbook because you take joy in the process of defining your style, and take pleasure in communicating that style to others. Write a cookbook so that when the girls and the crazed fans finally arrive, you’ll have something good to feed them.