The right thing for (says you) the wrong reason
I have yet to write a mash note here about organic produce. You may be wondering what a raving Goldwater-ite* is doing consuming, let alone enjoying, organic produce. Which is fine for you to wonder this. The thing of it is that I don't care about "sustainable"** agriculture. In fact, I don't care if such farming could raise the dead, bring back extinct species or turn my grey hair back to its original marron glaceé splendor. That's not why I joined up.
I am reminded of what Mark Twain (or was it Mencken?) said: "It is nobler to eat caviar on impulse than broccoli on principle."
I love organic produce because organic produce tastes REALLY good. Not just organic produce, but all organic edibles and potables. (In fact, after my invective on the matter, I have even found a local source of raw [!] organic milk.) Stuff tastes better when you don't process the snot out of it or ply it with chemicals, as the cannibals have often said.
To further illustrate, I was on the road back from Tampa*** when I remembered that, in one of my foodie newsletters, the writer had touted a certain butcher shop in Naples (about halfway between here and there) called Jimmy P's as one of the great ones, especially since they carried Kobe-style* beef. Seeing as how I have been driving past it for eons, I decided to stop in this trip, and even came equipped with a big-ass cooler to handle purchases. Yes, I coud just call up and order and have it shipped, even delivered "same day," but I wanted to see and pick and choose.
Wow. This place is a shrine to the civilized carnivore.
My mom's 72nd birthday (Happy birthday mom, even if you don't read this blog, or any blog, or know what a blog IS...or, for that matter, even ever sit in front of a computer) is today and since we're having a a small mob over, I decided to get a whole Kobe tenderloin, a (relative) steal at $283. Then I ordered a few flat iron steaks, some London Broil (a/k/a chuck shoulder steak) both of which are hidden steals in the beefeater universe, and top sirloin and then I called all my local foodie pals to see what they might want. Let's just say I didn't see much change back from $500. However, the Jimmy P's crew could NOT have been nicer. They broke down all the assorted primal cuts to get me all the things I wanted (Porterhouses, NY Strips, and all the other things my foodie pals asked for), put it all in cry-o-vac, and even threw in a free 24 oz. package of their custom-ground-on-the-spot***** Kobe chuck, lovingly laid it all in my cooler, and piled it with ice...all while I shopped at the mall across the street. Mad props for service.
Anyway, it was a hectic day (what with driving across the state and all) and I wasn't in the mood to do much cooking, so on my way home I stopped by "my" supermarket and loaded up on organic hamburger rolls, organic dill pickles and even Heinz organic ketchup and deli mustard. Figuring the only way to do the thing properly is to overdo it, I even dragged out the charcoal grill, fired it up with lump mesquite charcoal and then grilled off the burgers.
WOW.
The burgers themselves were not of a prodigious bun-bustin' size (figure 4 oz each), but they were so richly beefy, tasting like REALLY good steakhouse steak. I was transfixed. I mean, I know I can't eat this way every day, but for the occasional beefy treat...this is nothing short of sensational. The richness of the beef is not that unctuous tallow-ish taste, but more of a miniature display of butter-fireworks on your palate. The dry-aged aspect deepens The Beef Experience.
When it comes to food, nothing is as delicious (or--and I'm guessing here--nutritious) as food caught in the act of being fully itself. That we may forestall the next ice age, quench the thirsty, clothe the naked (or, at a minimum, the unfashionable) and teach the lepers how to sing, that's just a bonus. Like someone who joins the army for the uniform, count me in, even if I am standing shoulder to shoulder with people who look at me all weird.
-Joke
P.S. I am so NOT wearing Birkenstocks made from organic hemp.
* Sometimes I think I am the only such person writing a strictly nonpolitical blog.
** The cynic in me defines "sustainable agriculture" as "agriculture where profit is treated like a flatulent leper at the dinner table."
*** Back in the good old days, a flight from Miami to Tampa would be a 45 minute affair, 60 including checking in and boarding. With new security regulations, it's now an immaterial advantage over driving.
**** That's the traditional, Japanese (or Japanese-style) beef which is fed a 100% organic diet famously featuring beer--so as to both stimulate the steer's appetite for the strictly prescribed regimen of grazing and foraging and simultaneously discourage overathletic foraging & grazing--and routinely massaged, as well as pampered in a gazillion other ways designed to produce ridiculously delicious, and ferociously expensive (like $75-$175 a POUND at places like Lobel's in NYC or Allen Brothers in Chicago) beef.
***** I like it extra coarse, ground twice.
I am reminded of what Mark Twain (or was it Mencken?) said: "It is nobler to eat caviar on impulse than broccoli on principle."
I love organic produce because organic produce tastes REALLY good. Not just organic produce, but all organic edibles and potables. (In fact, after my invective on the matter, I have even found a local source of raw [!] organic milk.) Stuff tastes better when you don't process the snot out of it or ply it with chemicals, as the cannibals have often said.
To further illustrate, I was on the road back from Tampa*** when I remembered that, in one of my foodie newsletters, the writer had touted a certain butcher shop in Naples (about halfway between here and there) called Jimmy P's as one of the great ones, especially since they carried Kobe-style* beef. Seeing as how I have been driving past it for eons, I decided to stop in this trip, and even came equipped with a big-ass cooler to handle purchases. Yes, I coud just call up and order and have it shipped, even delivered "same day," but I wanted to see and pick and choose.
Wow. This place is a shrine to the civilized carnivore.
My mom's 72nd birthday (Happy birthday mom, even if you don't read this blog, or any blog, or know what a blog IS...or, for that matter, even ever sit in front of a computer) is today and since we're having a a small mob over, I decided to get a whole Kobe tenderloin, a (relative) steal at $283. Then I ordered a few flat iron steaks, some London Broil (a/k/a chuck shoulder steak) both of which are hidden steals in the beefeater universe, and top sirloin and then I called all my local foodie pals to see what they might want. Let's just say I didn't see much change back from $500. However, the Jimmy P's crew could NOT have been nicer. They broke down all the assorted primal cuts to get me all the things I wanted (Porterhouses, NY Strips, and all the other things my foodie pals asked for), put it all in cry-o-vac, and even threw in a free 24 oz. package of their custom-ground-on-the-spot***** Kobe chuck, lovingly laid it all in my cooler, and piled it with ice...all while I shopped at the mall across the street. Mad props for service.
Anyway, it was a hectic day (what with driving across the state and all) and I wasn't in the mood to do much cooking, so on my way home I stopped by "my" supermarket and loaded up on organic hamburger rolls, organic dill pickles and even Heinz organic ketchup and deli mustard. Figuring the only way to do the thing properly is to overdo it, I even dragged out the charcoal grill, fired it up with lump mesquite charcoal and then grilled off the burgers.
WOW.
The burgers themselves were not of a prodigious bun-bustin' size (figure 4 oz each), but they were so richly beefy, tasting like REALLY good steakhouse steak. I was transfixed. I mean, I know I can't eat this way every day, but for the occasional beefy treat...this is nothing short of sensational. The richness of the beef is not that unctuous tallow-ish taste, but more of a miniature display of butter-fireworks on your palate. The dry-aged aspect deepens The Beef Experience.
When it comes to food, nothing is as delicious (or--and I'm guessing here--nutritious) as food caught in the act of being fully itself. That we may forestall the next ice age, quench the thirsty, clothe the naked (or, at a minimum, the unfashionable) and teach the lepers how to sing, that's just a bonus. Like someone who joins the army for the uniform, count me in, even if I am standing shoulder to shoulder with people who look at me all weird.
-Joke
P.S. I am so NOT wearing Birkenstocks made from organic hemp.
* Sometimes I think I am the only such person writing a strictly nonpolitical blog.
** The cynic in me defines "sustainable agriculture" as "agriculture where profit is treated like a flatulent leper at the dinner table."
*** Back in the good old days, a flight from Miami to Tampa would be a 45 minute affair, 60 including checking in and boarding. With new security regulations, it's now an immaterial advantage over driving.
**** That's the traditional, Japanese (or Japanese-style) beef which is fed a 100% organic diet famously featuring beer--so as to both stimulate the steer's appetite for the strictly prescribed regimen of grazing and foraging and simultaneously discourage overathletic foraging & grazing--and routinely massaged, as well as pampered in a gazillion other ways designed to produce ridiculously delicious, and ferociously expensive (like $75-$175 a POUND at places like Lobel's in NYC or Allen Brothers in Chicago) beef.
***** I like it extra coarse, ground twice.
Comments
We don't co-sleep either.
I hope not. I'm crunchy enough to allow that once in a while. But they'd better not think they're entitled to it on a regular basis. And I don't call that co-sleeping. I call it being a PIA.
On the other hand, I nursed the younger one so long that when it was time to wean her, she'd already moved right past the sippy cup stage to single malt Scotch.
OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration.
--P.
2. Poppy cracks my shit up. And also, I nursed the girl child for approximately that long as well.
3. Happy birthday to Joke's Sainted Madre. Look at me, all down with the español and shit!
4. Rumour (meaning my mother) has it that there's a newly opened meat market in my 'hood that carries Kobe beef. I haven't been yet, but DH just got a raise, so it's a matter of days, really. I hope my half-assed cooking techniques or lack thereof can do it justice. (I'm guessing nicely seared outside, really rare inside, yes?)
The thing with Kobe (or Kobe-style...TX has some way excellent ranchers) is that it demands a pretty hard sear on the outside and NO MORE THAN MEDIUM RARE on the inside. In fact, you ought pull it off the heat when it's a shade underdone and then let it rest with the residual heat doing the rest of the work for you.
What's teh dirty little secret about Kobe beef (and let the professional Capitalist 'splain it to you) is that people who go all out and get some only go for the Fancy Cuts, like porterhouse, tenderloin, strip steaks, etc. leaving the brisket, flank, flat iron, etc. behind.
What does this mean? It means that the Fancy Ass Cuts have to carry the weight of profitability for the other, "lesser" cuts. This means, basically, that you can get, for example, a Kobe top sirloin for a smallish premium (say, $5/lb over) over regular beef, as opposed to filet which has a premium of 3x-8x.
-J.
I can see Miz Goodbaby doing some serious wheedling or, more brazenly, just occupying the space normally taken by the traveling TSMYM.
-J.