Dear pork,

It’s not you, its me.

Wait, let me start over.

Dear foie gras,

How do I say this, I’ve out grown you.

Literally.

Well, maybe that’s all a little extreme. I mean, I’n not ready to give up meat whole hog.

I know what you are thinking: who hacked this blog and does Nick “Bacon” Dawson know? Rest assured, its me. Here’s a picture of me holding today’s news paper.

See! I am of sound mind and, perhaps more than ever, sound body. And really, thats what its about, this bloated extra large body I’m carrying around. Its getting old.

I’m not, on the whole, unhealthy. But I’m also not running a marathon any time soon either. My knees are crunchy, both have donor ligaments – parts in both of my knees came from some wonderful soul who donated their organs – they aren’t mine. Hey, I fell hard, I defy any any ligament to take the falls I took and live to tell about it… but surely that extra 25lbs going into those 4 G ski turns wasn’t helping.

He’s how it went down.  For about three months now I’ve been kicking things into over drive. More cardio, less food. I got a FitBit, it tells me things..mostly it tells me when I’m lazy. So I’ve been running more. I’ve also been eating less.

I watched some movies too. I saw one about a guy who only had vegetable juice for 60 days. I watched one about the economics of corn. The best, the cream of the crop, so to speak, came with high praise. I heard about Forks over Knives from a colleague and friend. Dr. MK is a cardiac surgeon, he trained under one of the inventors of the heart transplant, he pretty much pioneered the use of surgical robotics in heart surgery… the man knows hearts. So, when he told me, over a year ago, that a vegan no-fat diet might prevent heart disease, my ears perked up.

Last week, Dr. MK and I were traveling together. I thought: what the hey, I’ve been working on calorie burn vs intake, lets see what this diet is like. And it wasn’t bad… really!

At this point I feel compelled to tell you,  I’m still a man-card-carrying, Fred-Flintstone-steak-eating, sausage-making, bacon-loving carnivore. Let’s just get that out there.

Still, eating a vegan no-fat diet really wasn’t that bad. For starters, you taste everything. Try a salad without dressing, maybe just a little sea salt and lemon. It’s alive, green, bitter, vibrant. If it is fresh and organic and well treated, there is a heck of a lot of flavor in them greens. Grains. Have you had really good quinoa or lentils?

Over the course of the week I tracked calorie intake versus burn. I have an awesome trainer at the gym who is helping me.  I’m trying to have a deficit of 3,500 – 4,500 calories a week. I get there through a mix of burning more and eating less. The trick is not to eat too few calories. So I monitored my intake. I used my FitBit to monitor burn and its online service for intake. At no point was I starving myself or in danger.

Here’s the kicker, I lost 5 lbs (down 20 over all), feel great and have more energy than I’ve had in…I don’t know when.

Will it last? Who knows. Have you seen the pork chops in my fridge? But I consider the week a crash course in what someone can do, how we can live. A vegan, fat-free diet can prevent heart disease and help turn off cancer genes. Surely a whole-foods-based diet is a long way towards the same goal. If (and by which I mean tomorrow) I eat pork fat, it will be from a farm I know, raising natural pigs in a healthy environment. Portions will be small. Veggies will be plentiful.

In what was perhaps a dose of karmic validation, on our last night on the road, I found myself – unplanned, I promise – sitting in the very seat piscitarian Steve Jobs had occupied a few months before. So I have that going for me.

Remember the post I opened about loving pizza? Yeah, well I guess my pepperonis are coming home to roost.

It is becoming increasingly apparent our struggles with weight gain in this country, at least in terms of a health epidemic, is an economic problem. Eating healthy simply costs more than eating crap. As long as we subsidize corn, we are effectively enablers in an economic addiction to cheap food, poor health and death.

Last week I had the privilege to speak to executives and sales teams at a large financial company. The title of the talk is Innovation as a Requirement for Success in Healthcare. I have not put the slides online, it was mostly a “TED-style” talk and so the visuals do not stand too well on their own. I did share an interesting slide from a JAMA report on actual causes of death. We usually see reports on morbidity – heart attack, cancer, stroke, etc. This particular JAMA report attempted to determine the real root causes of death. For instance, was the lung cancer the direct result of a lifetime of smoking. The study concludes 40% – the bulk majority – of US deaths are due to behaviors. The top three causes are tobacco, obesity / sedentary lifestyle, and alcohol.

Thanks to Ben Miller for first alerting me to the JAMA study on his blog. If you have access, you can find the JAMA article on their site. 

In the talk, I used the JAMA slide as an example of how patient behavior contributes to challenges our healthcare system faces. I went on to talk about food choices in general – a mini soapbox opportunity. If you have seen Food, Inc or read The Omnivores Dilemma then you are already up to speed on how the price of food contributes to poor health.

Food, Inc. is available for free streaming on Amazon Prime as well as Netflix. 

In Pollan’s Omnivores Dilemma, he looks at the price of corn as the most significant contributor to its ubiquity; and its ubiquity as a major cause of  obesity in America. Corn, largely thanks to advancements in genetic modifications as well as the innovation of nitrogen fertilizer, is a prolific crop. So prolific, as it turns out, we have so much excess the federal government pays farmers not to grow it. What do we do with all that corn? In addition to being broken down into many of the  multisyllabic, unidentifiable ingredients in processed food, we are now putting it in gasoline, plastics and more. Why? Because its cheap!

Want a primer? Read Polan’s essay here. 

The artificially low price of corn enables Hostess to sell Twinkies for pennies. Cheap corn lets McDonlads sell you a supersized McWhatever for less than $5.00. Least I be labeled un-American for lambasting a buttered ear of corn at a cookout, it is worth noting we are talking about an entirely different species. For the record, I loved buttered ears of corn. Frankly I love anything buttered.

Last week the USDA in conjunction with the Economic Research Service published a report titled: The Effect of Food and Beverage Prices on Children’s Weights. In the report, researches conducted a longitudinal study of the body mass index of kindergarteners and the Quarterly Food-at-Home Price Database. The results are predictable. Cheap, low quality, highly caloric food contributes negatively to BMI.

In addition, lower prices for dark green vegetables and lowfat milk are associated with reduced BMI. The effect of subsidizing healthy food may be just as large as raising prices of less healthy foods.

From the report’s Implications

“we taste ‘em, the olive oils, usually three different ways – cold off a spoon, on a salad and then warmed, you know, not hot, but with a little tomato sauce… I’m still looking for the right one”

“well, this is my second job and I haven’t really tried the food. I hear the fish tacos are good.”

You have a choice, pick a restaurant based off of those two quotes. Don’t have enough info? One is a multi-million dollar investment, the other is a more modest joint. Still undecided? Ok, last clue, one has a tiki bar over looking the river and the other doesn’t take most credit cards or reservations.

Last night Susan and I had an awesome date night. We kicked it off at the Virginia Museum which is winding down its Picasso exhibit. The collection is on loan from the Musée national Picasso in Paris. We had a great time exploring the same collection we had gotten to know well while living in Paris in a new but familiar space. Ironically, I lived across, like seriously front door to front door, from the Va Museum for two years and we almost never went. Since moving down the road we are going a lot more.

But back to the food. So after hanging with Pablo, we went to Mamma’Zu. We had the most amazing meal which wasn’t a surprise to us, we’ve been there many times before. We had fresh ramps – a seasonal delicacy kind of like a wild leek. We devoured a bright green fava been puree. The courses went on and on, many off the menu. We were in foodie heaven. Why do we go back time and time again? Because its all about the food!

If Top Chef’s Restaurant Wars has taught us anything its that the front of the house and ambiance matters, right? Some health care guy with a blog wrote about a hoity-toity dining experience in New York where the service, as much as the food, made the experience. Holistically, clearly the two go hand-in-hand.

Mamma’Zu is a little different. It is a bit like this place in Germany which blindfolds diners to heighten the food experience. When ambiance is removed, you focus solely on the food. Mamma’Zu has no blind folds – the place is simply dark and different. This place is a Richmond institution (need a primer? check this post). The paint needs touching up. Most of the tables are wobbly, maybe because there are some floor tiles missing. It is also a bastion of inside out thinking.

It is one of my top three or four restaurants in the world. Here is what I’ve learned from Mamma’Zu:

Inside out in thinking restaurant owners think: “What is the best dish I can serve tonight? Is this best olive oil to use? Can I make enough of these to serve or would I have to sacrifice quality.”

Outside in thinking restaurant owners think: “Can I fit the tiki bar AND a faux beach scene on this same wall? Will more people come for drink specials or food specials? How does that guy across town make those pizzas, I want something like that.”

See the difference? The inside out thinkers have a core, a focus. In this case, we are talking about food. Sinek talks about Apple and tells us Apple is first a design company. Everything they do is about making better designs. Compair that to Microsoft, a company founded on selling software. When Microsoft launched the Zune MP3 player, its as if they thinking “we are known for global dominance in operating system software, I know, lets make MP3 payers to compete with Apple.” That is outside in thinking. It is away from their core competency, what some people call the “why”. In the case of the two Richmond area restaurants above, one chef/owner has a clear why, food. The best food; nothing else matters. The other place seems to be motivated off shtick. Their why is unclear. Are they going for a great tiki bar? If so, why serve bland fish tacos at all? In their case, the end result is that neither the ambiance nor the food comes off stellar.

Outside in thinking does not have to occur to the determent of everything else. A novelty restaurant can be a cool tiki bar and serve great food. An italian place like Mamma’Zu could focus on both atmosphere and food. The difference for inside out thinkers is resources. If focusing on something else means you lose quality and focus on your core, then its out. Outside in thinkers have no problem with detrimental compromise.

You’ve probably guessed it, I’m on this ‘inside out thinking’ kick. True. Consider it with me for a moment. Inside out thinkers start with a why, core, reason, mission…whatever. The end result is almost always focused. As consumers of that finished product, we can almost always trace it back to its roots. In a great restaurant we say “wow, they nailed in the kitchen today.” With technology we say, “it just works.”

Since my brain doesn’t easily shift gears, and since most of these posts are about healthcare, we’ll briefly explore the inside out theme in the healthcare construct. Healthcare leaders, both clinical and non-clinical, have the similar challenges to restaurant owners. Is it mediocre fish tacos with bad beach music or an almost obsessive focus on olive oil? Is it a fancy waiting room or is it spending that one critical extra minute more with a patient? The experience at Per Se taught me when the resources exist, one can build an infrastructure of service and experience to go along with a myopic focus on quality. Bridget Duffy tells us when we focus on that inside core belief, the rest (revenues, clinical outcomes, quality) will follow.

If you want to experience inside out thinking next time you are in Richmond, visit Mamma’Zu.

Elsewhere: Remember me? Yeah, me either. This whole graduate school thing is hard – who knew!?! Elsewhere is my series of posts highlighting content from sources I find interesting, inspiring and supportive.

My world got a little bit smaller the other day. When I walk the dog I usually listen to podcasts, downloadable audio and video shows. Think TiVo for your iPhone. You already knew that didn’t you?

So I’m listening to American Public Media’s The Splendid Table. If you are at all inclined towards the culinary arts, by which I mean eating, then it is well worth a listen. You can dial it in on most NPR stations, although I suggest you download it to you portable gizmo as a podcast, either through iTunes or their website directly.

Anyway. Host Lynne Rossetto Kasper kicks off each week with a mini-monolog about some food trend or observation.

This week, Lynne discussed an employer which is offering to help subsidize community sponsored agriculture (CSA) memberships for employees. CSAs are like gym memberships for famers markets. Usually you pre-pay to “join” a farm and get regular deliveries of fresh veggies, meats, dairy, etc. You help fund the operations and get a share of the lauder in return.

Think about that for a second – an employer that was willing to sponsor a food lifestyle choice for employees.

Some employers, although I anecdotally suspect the number is low, sponsor gym memberships for employees. The idea is when you workout you are healthier and thus avoid disease and illness which, in turn, saves the company money on healthcare costs.

If that logic holds true (and aren’t we told we are what we eat?) then doesn’t sponsoring healthy food choices also make sense?

There is a lot of talk in the healthcare industry about “accountable care.” Without going into details on the pros and cons and esoteric points, suffice it to say it means healthcare provides partner with the people paying for care to reduce the cost and innovate the care model. Most people who get insurance in the US, outside of Medicare, get it through their employers. Many of those employers are self-insured; meaning they pay for care out of the company’s coffers, even if administered through a third-party commercial plan. You may have blue cross, but your employer is likely footing most if not all of the bill.

Given that, doesn’t it make sense for employers to support employees who make healthy food choices?

Paying for CSA memberships is admittedly not the norm. It is a little on the hippie, 2000s-dot-com-days side of out there. But it may offer similar benefits as paying for gym membership, or perhaps it is even better. Nonetheless, it is as least accountable, forwarding thinking and socially responsible.

So….good news and bad.

First the good, my tacos took week 1! Thanks to everyone who voted!

Now the bad, it has become apparent that no one really likes the idea of confit of lambs tongue… although it’s not too late. Come on people, it’s just a muscle like any other cut of meat. Did we give up when the German’s bombed Pearl Harbor? “Over, did you say over? Nothing is over until we say it is!” So get over to RVA News and VOTE DAWSON!

From my entry for this week:

Ok, I’ll admit it. There is a certain stigma with offal. The problem with the 5th quarter, as our Italian friends often refer to organ meats, is they remind us so much of…well… us. But before you go sticking your tongue out in disgust, I implore you to try an experiment with me. Every time I use “tongues” below, substitute “duck leg”. Then, ask yourself, what is really different about eating the equivalent of a quadricep vs. any other muscle?

After the silence of these Virginia lambs, the tongues spent what can only be likened to a weekend at the spa: 24 hours in a salt water bath before being blanketed in a liberal snowfall of coarse kosher salt, thyme, and garlic over night. Next they went into a vacuum bag with some black tea leaves, juniper, and bacon fat, and took a plunge in the sous vide hot tub for 10 hours at 162 F. While they rested, some par-boiled potatoes, straight from my dad’s garden in Bedford county, were glazed in the cooking liquid from the tongues. The dish came together with some garlicky, sticky, slow cooked brussels sprouts. Some fennel was warmed in the separated bacon fat. The tongues got a final quick fry in some butter and were plated with a reduction of the cooking liquid and a whole grain mustard vinaigrette.

If I could have, I would have cooked the tongues longer. You’ll be surprised to find out there are not a lot of guides for sous vide of lambs tongue online. I think 18 hours would have made them meltingly tender. As it was, they had the texture of a medium rare steak, not unpleasant at all.

I’ve posted more pictures over on flickr

For a little something different…
The Richmond Times Dispatch ran an article last week on the Sous Vide style of cooking. I’ve become a huge fan (can you tell?) and was delighted when a friend suggested my name to the RTD. The article is a nice recap of the technique. And, like I said, I think it’s here to stay:

Dawson says he looks for the machine to soon be more prevalent when the price begins to decline. “Right now, it’s a bit of a luxury product, but I don’t think we’re far from seeing it become a mainstay in American kitchens.”

Does anyone know the medical signs of Gout? I will say this, its going to be salads for this guy for a while….at least until lunch tomorrow. Two weeks of indulging in everything from baby octopi to Ossobuco, from martinis to zinfandel, from sour patch kids to pizza rolls (don’t ask) have caught up. As I reflect back on menus and meals from 2009 it is not with the aire of a ill-fated gym resolution but rather appreciation for a rekindled passion for food. For me 2009 was a year of many things including career building, enjoying working in the town I live in, Land Rover repairs and knee surgery. Missing from that list – food. According to my scale there was no decline in my passion for eating. But, like all things in life when time is tight somethins’ gotta give; I simply did not cook as much as in previous years. Despite that, 2009 was not without some interesting salvos across the culinary bow. What follows is a retrospective of 2009 in three parts: food trends in, my top meals, and my top kitchen endeavors.

2009 Food Trends

The end of the last decade had a clear trend, it was when we took food back. Over the last few years us foodies have been kicking to the curb the ideas of factory made, mass produced food. Reaching a crescendo in ear of the factory food manufactures in 2009, the “local movement” has taken hold. There is still a long way to go before the movement is even mainstream, but it is clearly making headway. Want to know more? Have a listen to this episode of the Splendid Table. In addition to eating locally, we are continuing to pay more attention to the quality of our food. Books like Pollan’s Omnivores Delemma (though published in 2006) helped draw our attention to what we are eating and where it comes from. As home cook and diners we are celebrating by returning to slow cooking, artisanally made foods.

• Bacon – this is probably not news to anyone who has eaten in the last year. Bacon has transcended mere breakfast food to ubiquitous ingredient.  Perhaps a symbol of our rebellion against low fat, low carb tasteless diet food, last year we embraced cured smoked pork belly with vigor.
• Slow food – We came back to crock pots, braising, and the family meal in 2009. In addition to things that cook slowly, we also returned to things that that time to prepare and eat; quite literally the antithesis of fast food. The wonderful result of slow food is often slow eating; spending more time around the table with the people we really enjoy breaking bread with.
• Traditional food merchants – Though still not widespread, many medium and smaller sized cities are seeing the return of butchers, fish mongers, bakeries and traditional purveyors. In recent years we have begun rewarding the entrepreneurial foodies who setup specialty shops in our towns. Think about this, would you take your car to a place that claimed expertise in all manor of transportation from skateboards to horses? No, we take our cars to mechanics who work on four wheeled passenger vehicles. Why are we buying our food in a place that sells everything from trash bags to meat in plastic sitting on a diaper?

My top meals of 2009

This portion of the review is regrettably challenging for me. Our travel was sparse, our time to eat out limited and our energy to sleuth out foodie finds minimal. Although a year that included sushi, Vail cannot be considered unfortunate by any means.

• 18 week aged New York strip steak at the Wildflower in Vail Co – This was one of the best steaks that I never ordered. It was my father who called for the rarely cooked (and rarely well aged) cut. To add to the improbability, those who know my cynicism for hoity-toity, resort style restaurants are undoubtedly surprised by the inclusion of the Wildflower on this list. The steak was the standout dish of the meal, but it was the service that made the experience remarkable. If the economic situation (remember, we are not supposed to say depression) of 2009 has taught us anything it is that we do live in a service economy. The businesses who are going to make it are those that understand exceptional service. The Wildflower, and our fortunately named server Nicolas (he was French, thus no ‘asssh‘ – or h) were the quintessential definition preemptive service; understanding the customer’s unexpressed wishes and seeing to them. Have I discussed my passion obsession for service before?
• Sushi at Hatsuhana - I’ve said it many times (including in 2008), Hatsuhana in New York is the best sushi that I know of. Hatsuhana is not avant garde sushi, unlike the fusion and insanely creative creations of my friend Osada (formally of Takah Sushi in Aspen which has gone donwnhill since his departure). Hatsuhana is traditional in the best sense. When I first mentioned it to Osada his comment in whimsically broken English was “[Americans] dont eat there, only Japanese”. And although not entirely true, the place is frequented by Westerners and Asians alike, it is rooted in real sushi culture. In the spring of 2009 I found myself in New York for a speaking engagement; due to schedule, I was in and out in less than 24 hours. One thing I made sure of was a meal at Hatsuhana. I walked in straight from the airport to a nearly empty sushi bar, owed entirely to my late arrival. I started with one of my guilty pleasures, ankimo – cured and steamed monkfish liver served with ponzu and chives. I’ve long held the belief that you have to gain the trust of a sushi chef and there is no better way to their heart than to request a childhood favorite. I asked for sawagani which are unctuous and umami laden fried tiny fresh water crabs. Sadly I learned they are illegal in the US thanks to a frivolous law suit. Never the less, the gauntlet was thrown and when I asked the chef to chose for me the reward was spectacular. There is benefit of arriving very late at a place that prides it self on new fish daily. In an effort to make use of the ingredients that he was most proud of, I was literally spoiled for choice. What followed was a virtually private meal of non-stop piscine creativity. For once, it paid to be late.

My Top Kitchen Endeavors of 2009

As alluded to above, 2009 did not see a lot of kitchen time from me. I would like to think it was because I was too busy, which is in part true. Also the case, some of the passion was gone. Perhaps the former led to the later, or maybe it was experiencing so few inspiring meals (only 2 on this years list above, compared to 5-1o in years past). Regardless, I just did not feel as innovative or inspired as I have in years past. Two meals in particular proved the exception.

• The New Visits charity dinner in Lynchburg – Can you say ‘over the top’? We started by mailing a very simple “comfort food” menu to guests with items like ‘tomato soup with grilled cheese’ and ‘southern barbaque’. The reality, at least my hope in how it was perceived, was very different. The tomato soup, pictured above to the left, was a gazpacho aspic with jalapeno and cucumber caviar. The bbq was all day braised pork belly served under a glass filled with apple wood smoke. It did not stop there – the salad nicoise was deconstructed and the olives had a surprising twist, they were liquid inside… the bisque was an sea urchin foam…liver and onions? foie gras torchon served with apple butter on a southern biscuit and shallot salt. It was a great night, well executed with expert help (hi family!).
• New Years Eve, aka the Sous Vide Experiment -  Of all of the things I have played with recently, sous vide has to be the technique that has me the most excited about cooking again. Sous Vide, or under vacuum, involves cooking foods sealed in vacuum bags submerged in a precisely controlled water bath. Put practically, if you want a piece of beef to be perfectly medium, say 134F, then why not cook it at that temperature? When you think about it that way, it makes perfect sense. The added benefit of the vacuum bag is there is no loss of moisture of flavor from the meat. In fact, you can infuse just about any flavor you want. It does not have to be meat either. Veggies can be perfectly cooked as well. For New Years Eve we started with a take on the croque madame – fine dice of home cured bacon lardons and brioche, a scant bit of aioli with some water cress for color all topped with a butter fried quail egg. It was a perfect one bite dish! We moved on to veal cheeks which had been cooked en sous vide for 8 hours in butter and a braising liquor of squab stock and aromatics. We capped off the meal with buffalo tenderloin that was also cooked en sous vide, enveloped in duck fat with just a hint of sage. Check out the menu here for the complete details.

The end of the decade was still a resplendent one in terms of dining in the Dawson world. I would be remiss to call myself anything but lucky. The thing that I am perhaps the most excited about is becoming invigorated again about spending time in the kitchen. Here is to eating in 2010!

Just saying is all….

It has been the year of the cookbook. Last year’s releases of Grant Achatz’s Aleina set the new standard for uber food pr0n:

At $32.00, Aleina broke the mold of the $150 high-end celebrity cookbook.

And once the flood gates were open, it has been no holds bared for frugal foodies. These are some of my favorites from 2009:

Is there anything better than seeing those first green shoots pop up from the brown dirt in the early spring? They are at once the white flags of winter’s surrender and the welcome committee for the sun. Early spring time veggies are often the most delicate and sweetest that nature has to offer. That first bounty is truly something to celebrate; and there is no better way to applaud Mother Nature’s work than treating them simply.

Fortunately, most of us do not spend the winter working through our supply of canned produce from the previous season anymore. Most grocery stores carry the full gamut of veg year round. But if you live in Vermont and had broccoli in December, there’s a pretty good chance it did not come from a local farm. Vegetables are one of the best reasons to find a farmers market and to live seasonally. Eating what is growing naturally during the year is not only more sustainable and trendy, it tastes better. Really, I promise. Tasting asparagus that came out of the April ground from your local farm will always knock the socks off the South American produce laying limp under the mister at the store.

If you do venture out to your local farmers market, or are among the lucky few to have your own garden, then its time to think about how to celebrate the early harvest. One of my favorite ways to enjoy the first plucks of spring is with a simple vinaigrette.

The vinaigrette is one of the most versatile ‘sauces’ in the kitchen. Few things are so simple but pack such a big punch. At the most basic – oil and vinegar- you get bitter acid and sweetness from the wine vinegar, umami and fruit from the oil and maybe a hint of spice from cracked black pepper. One of the vinaigrette’s great tricks is its ability to complement foods and not over power them. Getting the hang of a basic emulsified vinaigrette will open the doors to a plethora of potential combinations: ponzu and yuzu for an Japanese flare, dill and caper to accompany fish, chopped pickle and hard boiled egg for a salad dressing… the list is endless.

The good news about the vinaigrette is that there are no real rules (shhh don’t tell the French), only guidelines. Most are emulsified, that is to say very well mixed to the point of being creamy in texture. They can also be ‘broken’ where the acid and oil are noticeably separated. The acid can come in many forms, from lemon juice to aged balsamic vinegar. For that matter, so can the oil; olive, walnut, grape seed, melted butter, duck fat! What follows is my take on a very classic and simple vinaigrette as well as some variants. Once you master the suggestion below, feel free to play around. Make sure to drop me and note let me know what you come up with.

When it comes to the classic oil and vinegar mix, I prefer an emulsified vinaigrette. Emulsification is tricky don’t worry if it does not come together for you right away. There are a few tricks that will help though. Get a Hand Blender
. Those are the hand held mixers that you can plunge into anything you want blended. I use mine almost daily. If you are going to use a whisk, stick it and the bowl into the freezer for five minutes. Heat is the enemy of an emulsification. For the recipe below, I assume a whisk. If you are using a stick blender, it will be the same, but you will want to use the tall narrow cup that your mixer came with.

A general guideline for ratios is 3:1 oil to acid. Keep that in mind and you can riff on the idea however you like.

Ingredients:
* 3 table spoons grape seed or canola oil
* 1 table spoon white wine vinegar
* 1 teaspoon Dijon style mustard
* 1/2 clove garlic, crushed
* 1/8 teaspoon (lets call it a pinch) of white sugar
* pinch of sea salt
* freshly ground black pepper (course)

Technique:
In a cool bowl, combine the vinegar, salt, mustard, sugar, and garlic and pepper. Whisk together to combine into a rudimentary paste.

Start whisking vigorously in a figure eight movement.

We want to add the oil very slowly. In a stream so small that the next stage would be a drip, not a stream at all.

Slowly drizzle in the oil. You want to look closely, you should never see the oil accumulate on the surface. If it does, whisk faster and drizzle more slowly. The goal here is to literally smash the oil and vinegar together. Mustard contains a natural compound called lethicin which helps that bond between the oil and vinegar.

As you whisk the in the oil, you will see the entire concoction lighten in color and take on the consistency of mayonnaise. (mayo is really just a vinaigrette with an egg yolk by the way).

Thats it, pretty simple right? For veggies, serve it as a dipping sauce in a bowl. Lightly toss roasted asparagus or roasted cauliflower in the vinaigrette. Early spring lettuces should get the lightest possible coating- spoon 1 teas spoon into a bowl and add the greens, toss to cover.

Variations

In the recipe above, I suggest a neutral oil like canola or grape seed (this tea oil is also wonderful but pricey). Olive oil has a very distinct and fruity flavor that can be overpowering, but sometimes, particularly with more hearty viggies, it works quite well. The technique would be the same and you can even mix oils, using half tea oil and half olive oil.

For my favorite salad dressing I like to throw in everything but the kitchen sink. This is where a Hand Blender
comes in handy.

* 6 table spoons grape seed or canola oil
* 2 table spoon white wine vinegar
* 1 teaspoon Dijon style mustard
* 1 clove garlic
* 1 small Bubbies pickle (bubbies brand is worth seeking out, they are fermented)
* 1 hard boiled egg, yoke separated from white, the white should be finely diced
* 1 table spoon grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (use the real stuff)
* 3 dashes of Worcestershire sauce
* 1/2 teaspoon capers (get the salt packed ones, soak them in warm water for 10 minutes first)
* 1 big pinch of  red pepper flakes
* pinch of sea salt
* cracked black pepper to taste

The technique is the same, combine everything except for the oil and chopped egg white in the cup of the stick blender. Pulse a few times to form a slurry. Make sure the stick blender is on high and begin slowly drizzling in the oil just as before. Once the oil is incorporated and you have an emulsification, stop blending immediately. Over mixing will cause the emulsification to “break” and you’ll have something that feels like it has an oil slick on the tongue – not good.
Stir in the chopped egg white by hand with a fork.

If you do want a broken vinaigrette that does taste good, try this

* 3 table spoons good olive oil
* 1 table spoon lemon juice
* 1 small garlic clove, minced into a paste with the back of your knife
* pinch of salt and black pepper

in a bowl, combine the garlic, salt, pepper and lemon juice. Pour in the oil. Using a fork give things a good hearty mix. You will not get an emulsification, but when it turns cloudy, you are there.

Spoon that over anything from roasted fish to some arugula greens with shaved goats cheese. YUM!

Usually when I write about comfort food, I am writing about simple food; the kinds of things that remind us of home and grandma. A few days ago I posted the menu that was mailed to a group of diners who had ‘won’ a meal as part of a charity auction. On the outset it looks a lot the kinds of foods I am using waxing on about. But the names of the dishes was where that similarity ended.

As meals go, this one was over the top, a tasting menu based (mostly) around classic American foods. Our guests started with a “BLT” cocktail of bacon vodka, lettuce ice and cherry tomatoes. We paired that with a cherry tomato that had been confited in bacon fat, topped with house pickled carrot, black truffle and sea salt.

Once seated, the diners progressed through the menu below – from a rich uni bisque, some ‘molecular gastronomy’ inspired concoctions, a classic preparation of foie gras paired with some southern accents and finishing with rich pork and beef courses. It was a tour de force for both diners and chefs.

The pictures below are from the courses before they went out to the dining room. You can find all the pictures in their full size glory, as well as a video of the uni preparation on flickr. I am looking forward to posting some more details as well as info on the charity event that led to the evening of food.