On New Years, I hosted my first beer dinner. I've never really tapped into wine... I love it, but the distinguishing markers are lost on me... on penalty of death I'm not sure I could tell a cheap merlot from an expensive one. However, craft beer is a bit more hearthy and earthy and I've grown into it thanks to my friends Alicia and John over at RedPint. We had such a good time, and I enjoyed it so much I was greatly looking forward to another, and this time instead of us each picking a few types of beer, we decided we wanted to focus solely on Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project. There's something about it, from the beautiful labels and ridiculous names to the honestly intriguing tastes of each. Since we were able to get our hands on 7 varieties locally, it seemed perfect. 

For myself, I wanted to go in a completely different direction from the winter menu... its spring, and I wanted the menu to be lighter, with more emphasis on vegetables and color. Infact, while the winter dinner had a meat or fish and starch in every course, you'll find just one meat course in this menu (lamb) and I've spared a lot of the starch. 

Enjoy! 

Course 1: Jack D'or // Grilled Gazpacho with avocado foam paired with tuna tartar on homemade salt & vinegar potato chips

Course 2: American Darling // Crispy Tofu in a Red Coconut Curry Sauce with pickled garlic and shaved ginger garnish

Course 3:  Baby Tree // Terrine Duo: Baby Carrot, Shitake & Chard Terrine, Spring Asparagus, beet and spinach terrine w beet juice, cumin carrot juice and honey lemon yogurt sauce

Course 4: St. Botolph's Town // Ricotta, chevre & oyster tortellini in smoked shallot cream sauce

 Course 5: Once Upon a Time, KK, Nov 15, 1901 // Mushroom Croustade with soft blue cheese & braised leeks

Course 6: Hedgerow Bitter // Roasted Lamb Shoulder in Harissa with One Eyes Susans

Course 7: // Finest Regards // Neopolitan Beer Ice Cream : Dark Chocolate Stout Mole Ice Cream, Grey lady vanilla mascarpone ice cream, and Sam Smith Cherry Ice Cream with Brandied Cherries

So, its snowing. And by snowing, I mean there is water falling from the sky, and it is white. DO NOT PANIC! (too late). Though there is not yet a measurable amount of snow on the ground, all tv has been preempted, public transport has ground to a halt, there are car accidents everywhere and all first responders are on alert. In other words: hilarity. 

Public education is warranted.See, i've been IN real snow. It looked like this:

Now, when I look outside, (street devoid of humans as all have scattered into bomb shelters awaiting armegeddon as they live tweet the horror) I see this: 

Lets review. 

SNOW: 

..aaaaaaaaaand NOT SNOW:

Lets start with snow itself. Gird yourselves, PDX, because snow is nothing more than..... ready? RAIN! And rain is something you already get! Infact, nothing in PDX stops for rain. Not the "mist" that everyone else would call rain, nor the torrential, pounding, flooding, unending, for the love of Gd make its stop rain. So what it is about the snow that sends you running?

Its white. I understand, white is disarming. Perhaps you feel the snow should be more multicultural. Gray snow. Red snow. Green snow. Well, unfortunately, Gd is racist, get over it. 

Its hard to drive in. See, PDX drivers already can negotiate one way streets, street cars, the streetlong arcarde of bikers and driving in zero visibility rain. Snow is NOTHING. Ball up, peeps. 

Its cold. I could take this from Miami. I cannot take it from a people such as PDXers. Cold is just an excuse for another layer of hipster accessory. See, NOW is when you should throw that extra scarf on, pull a skirt on over that pair of pants, or wear a hat with an oversized flower. Oh wait, you do that in JUNE. So its like that, but now you won't need patchouli to cover the smell of sweat emminating from your junk being stuffed into girl pants 2 sizes too small, ya damn hipster. 

So, Portland. As I head out into the driving (flaking) snow, please, chill the fuck out, will you? 

It didn't just change the way I obtained food, it changed the way I
used it. We ate seasonally, and we ate based on what we had, with the
idea of wasting nothing. Instead of cooking with chicken breasts, you
had an entire chicken. You'd roast it one day, put the leftovers in
risotto a second, and finally use the bones for stock.

A friend expressed interest in learning more about how to buy, cook
and eat that way, so I thought I'd occasionally blog about it- in a
continuation of my non blogging, hodge podge of ideas here. I'll cross
post these to FB.

Tomatoes
There is NOTHING as good as a sun ripe slicing tomato picked and eaten
the same day. The tomatoes we get in the markets are mushy, tasteless
dreck that have been pulled green and ripened by gas in a warehouse.
Then we pay a premium for them since they're out of season. Instead-
buy them at the peak of summer fresh. Better.. grow them. Tomatoes are
some of the easiest vegetables to grow. But skip the slicing tomatoes-
grow paste or canning tomatoes... better known as Romas. You'll get
more use of them. If you grow them, you'll find yourself dealing with
them once a week or so. If you buy them, hit a farmers market and grab
20 or so pounds at once.

1. Canning or Freezing
We go around and around on this one- canning is a pain in the ass,
with a slight margin for error, and a requirement for preservatives
(citric acid, lemon juice, salt, etc). Freezing requires a vacuum
sealer and freezer space, but is loads easier. Rational thought says
freezer wins... but having lost power for a few days in a winter storm
(and thus 2 freezers worth of preserving) I say hedge your bets and go
half and half.

2. Peel 'Em
Get a big pot of water on, I salt it mildly, and then get it to a
rolling boil. Core your tomatoes (just divot out the stem on top) and
any major imperfections or rot. Then score the skin at the bottom-
this is one light crosshatch in the skin, not the flesh. A serated
knife is best for this. Throw tomatoes into boiling water 10 at a time
for 2 minutes, then pull them out and throw into an ice bath. Okay. I
never use an ice bath. I keep a big bowl in the sink, and keep cold
water running into it so the water cools off quickly. this is
important, you're stopping the cooking of the tomatoes. But at this
point, the skins should slip off. Keep a paring knife around for those
that don't. Tomatoes go in the bowl. Peels go in a second bowl.

3. Freeze 'Em
Think about how you'll use tomatoes. I make a few different size
packs. Small ones with 3 tomatoes for when I only need a few. Medium
packs with 6-8 for tomato centric meals or family dinners. Then big
packs with 12-15 tomatoes.. for sauce or tomato soup. Pack them flat
so they fit better in your freezer. Some people throw garlic and basil
in under the wisdom that you always use garlic in tomato dishes... but
I like em plain.

4. Can 'Em
I won't go into the canning process, but I tend to make 2 size cans
for the same reasons as above. Pint jars for the small uses, Quart for
bigger needs. I do slip in garlic and salt and I tend to be a fan of
the hot pack process.

5. Paste
I keep a few tomatoes aside and then blend the crap out of them with
the skins. Leave the processor on for a few minutes to really get as
much out as possible. Then simmer them for an hour on the stove with a
bit of salt. If you've got a few red peppers around, throw them in.
After an hour, you'll have tomato paste. Run it through a food mill or
sieve to make it smooth, then freeze in an ice cube tray. Really, you
never need a lot of tomato paste, and this is an effective way to
handle quantity.

6. Skins
With any leftover skins, throw them on a sheetpan and dry them in the
oven at 200 degrees for a few hours until then are dry as a bone. Use
a mortar and pestle to ground into tomato powder- this is great to
sprinkle on as garnish, but its better to rim a martini glass for
tomato martinis.

7. Tomato water
As you've been peeling the tomatoes, the bowls holding them have
collected tomato water. Save it... and freeze it (I use the vacuum
sealer). See above tomato martini reference. Tomato water, tomato
vodka and a tomato rim make a martini thatll knock your socks off. To
make tomato vodka, throw some tomato peels in a vodka bottle and walk
away for a month.

8. Tomato sauce
Use your tomatoes to make a huge batch of tomato sauce- the perfect
garbage disposal for the rest of your garden. Throw in eggplant,
zucchini, celery, carrots, basil, and onions. Blend the hell out of
it, no one will know. Freeze it in varying amts based on how you'll
use it. I love it in one serve amts.

9. Ketchup
Tomatoes, peppers, brown sugar, vinegar, spices.... voila. I put half
in a bottle in the fridge, freeze the other half for when the kitchen
bottle goes bad (about 6 months) and if I'm feeling generous, I'll can
some for friends. I am not often generous.

Bam. You've gotten rid of 25# of tomatoes, which at best cost you 2$
in seeds (plus water, fertilizer, time, etc) and at worst cost you
20-30$ at the farmers market. You've taken care of any tomato related
needs for the year, and you did it all in one day.

1. Interpreters are difficult to find.
If you don't know what you're looking for, its almost impossible to find individual interpreters or a simple explanation of what we should be providing, how we should provide it, and where we should get the providers. The obvious methods of finding providers (google, state or national organizations) is incredibly ineffective. There is a very finite number of interpreters to begin with, serving the entire state of Arizona.

2. The new evolution of community events don't have operating budgets for interpreters.
Meetups, camps & other free or volunteer run organizations run on a zero budget. If there is a budget, its always going to be "spending the least humanly possible" on every aspect. These events are based on a collaborative community. Everyone chips in, discounts, etc, in return for goodwill and some promotion. There is absolutely not a dime of profit made by anyone, everyone is doing it for the greater good. 

3. No one knows who is required to provide services.
If a number of state, city, event officials and lawyers can't conclude who needs to provide services, then the average volunteer event coordinator can't figure it out either. But at base, everyone WANTS to provide services, it just needs to be easier, more reasonably priced and less fraught with the risk of legal penalization. Organizers all over town are petrified right now, and the net result is that Phoenix will have less community events benefiting everyone.

4. The cost for interpreter services is criminally expensive.
There is no regulation for a service that supposedly, everyone is required to provide. Agencies charge agency fees, and pass very little of that onto the interpreter. Students, who can't be paid, can't find all the hours they need to provide. But, you hire agencies because they "handle" the interpreters, and that's invaluable.

The proposed solution: Let's disrupt the system and make things better for absolutely everyone.

Let's create an interpreters bureau. A website that lists all the interpreters in Arizona willing to work on these events, as well as students who need hours. Interpreters would need to be willing to work in pairs with a student, and would need to agree to a fee of $50/hr. This does not include lunch, travel, prep or anything else. You get paid $50/hr for the hours you work.

The bureau would be funded independantly by donations and sponsors. If an event qualified (volunteer run camps, meetups, etc that served the general population) then the bureau would pay the interpreters for the event.

Interpreters get a solid stream of work at an hourly rate higher than what I'm told agencies pay. We begin to evolve a base of interpreters who learn deep technical vocabulary. Interpreters are also more easily located by paying agencies because of the website and thus gain additional higher paying work from the private sector.

Students get the hours they need in a rewarding environment, interacting with the community, being supervised by actual interpreters.

The deaf community gets interpreters at events, with less hassle because the system is in place.

Event organizers have an easy avenue to make their event accessible.

EVERYONE WINS.

Are there issues with this plan? Sure. But instead of complaining, come up with a solution. The tension between the deaf community and community events is caustic and penalizes both sides. We need to stop blaming eachother, filing complaints and hiring lawyers and just solve the problem. Ultimately, we all want the same goal- events that service the community... the ENTIRE community. 

I've been asking people this question for years... I'm convinced its great at revealing what kind of person they are. Even the questions they respond with to dig at the question are revealing.. "do you mean like, everything? including toothbrushes?" .

For a geek, I have an odd adoration of old things. I see people in their new tract housing, with the bisque walls and cream carpets, driving their tauruses and just think, "ugh. Fucking ugh." This was a breaking point for a longtime boyfriend and I- houseshopping, it became clear after a week that we had irreconcilable tastes, and I just knew it ran deeper than hardwoods vs berber.

A big portion of my workweek is made up of things I do for free... free advice, free fixes, volunteer work... which means that I try to live modestly, but also choose wisely about my priorities and what's important to me.  Having a summer place may seem indulgent, but I haven't seen a hairdresser more than 4-5 times as an adult. At any given time, I own no more than 3 pairs of shoes, and atleast one of those are snowboots.  I have an insanely well appointed kitchen, but I only buy clothes 1 or 2 a year and have upcycled the vast majority of my furniture.

I do believe in quality, I just think that we dispose of things too quickly when it makes no sense. I owned the same car for 10 years- a subaru I drove off the lot new and would have driven into its grave if I hadn't moved. I purchased a 12 year old 4runner which I adore, for about $3500. With about 2k in upkeep over the past 2 years and a decent resale value, its been the perfect car for where I live and I'll be sad to see it go.

I've learned to maintain my computers just like one maintains a car.... With the occasional component upgrade or replacement, my desktop and laptop have worked hard and been amazing machines for the past 5 years. Along the way we've even replaced motherboards (basically building a new computer) but at a mere fraction of the cost of a new computer. My mac friends laugh at my monster laptop, but it serves my purposes, does more than most macs, and I love it.

This week, the GPU on my laptop went out (sadly, the inexpensive component is largely irreplacable in a laptop, its soldered to the motherboard). This means the laptop will go going to its grave and while most people would be excited about a new machine, I'm crushed. It is a completely functioning machine, excepting its ability to process graphics outside of VGA mode.  My machine is a virtual passport of the last 4 years of my life, telling people where I've been through the stickers and decals on it. The keyboard has almost no letters still visible, and I've literally worn a dip into the space bar where my fingers hit it.

But as I divest of many of my belongings, I notice that what I'm willing to sell or give away isn't determined by age or quality, but its value to me, functionally or emotionally.

i love entertaining- and surely part of that is being around friends and the mass consumption of alcohol, but a big part is that I just genuinely enjoy staging and planning the event itself. I love cooking, but I'm not someone who does peasant meals well (love em, just don't make em). I worship at the altar of charlie trotter and iron chef and actually on any given day do have tomato water, paste, dust, pulp and whole peeled (canned and frozen, because you never know), organized by color. I know. Trust me, I know.

BEER ICE CREAM

Lately, I've been enjoying experimenting with two new things: terrines and ice cream. Not together because that's disgusting. I was never fascinated by ice cream- infact I only eat one kind of ice cream (coffee coffee buzz buzz buzz or starbucks java chip), and the making of it always seemed like one of those mechanical things where if you just got the ingredients right, you were golden. Then I started tasting some of the genius combinations coming out of Sweet Republic, and I was wowed. I began making granitas...  a riff off their basil lime, or a lemon shiso, pomegranate pepper...but when I started hosting beer matching dinners, I scoured the net for a recipe for beer ice cream. it was pre beer ice cream craze- and I found only one solid recipe. Simply- beer, cream, eggs, sugar. For the first dinner, I used a coffee chocolate stout, served it as a beer float in some Sam Smith Cherry Beer and everone fell in love.

I had a whim- what about a neopolitan ice cream sundae, all with beer ice creams. Strawberry, chocolate and vanilla.... Sam Smith has a great strawberry brew, but standing in front of it at the package store, I realized their cherry was infinitely better and grabbed it instead. A dark chocolate stout and a hef for the vanilla...  but that didn't seem complex enough. It was merely a "neat trick" as a professor of mine might have said, to make them that simply. So I started considering compliments to the flavors... Chocolate stout mole ice cream, Vanilla Mascarpone Witbier, and Cherry Ale w Brandied Cherries. They're all a simple riff on the basic recipe, which are below.

TERRINES

You see terrines all the time on menus, and sure, that's great, but I'm deeply fascinated by the layered terrines of Charlie Trotter and other chefs... they're gorgeous and remind me of lattichino glass or intricate beads... infact, the process is much the same. I used CT's baby carrot, shitake and chard terrine as a testing ground. Its not difficult, but it was my first foray into gelatin. Its a carrot aspic, a layering of roasted baby carrots, with a row of roasted shitakes, and then wrapped in blanched chard. Its gorgeous.

I expect to be trying more in the future.... it will be a lovely way to serve veggies, and in this case, I'll pair it with a beet asparagus and spinach with shallot chevre terrine, a wasabi cream and a carrot reduction.I'd like to do one with asian veggies in the future: pickled burdock and other radishes...

I'm sure I'll detail the entire dinner in another post.

Chocolate Stout Mole Ice Cream

• 1 cup of chocolate stout (I've tried a few, and for this recipe, like Black Chocolate Stout, though Southern Tier is pretty good too)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 roasted or dried chili peppers
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1/2 nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup sugar

whip yolks and sugar until fluffy and pale. bring all other ingredients to simmer, then remove peppers, pour rest of mixture over yolks and sugar mixture slowly,  whipping constantly.return to heat and bring to simmer stirring constantly, to thicken. Pour into bowl resting in ice and continue whipping until mixture is cool. Pour into ice cream maker.

Vanilla Mascarpone Witbier Ice Cream

• 1 cup witbier (i used Cisco's Grey Lady, but think a wheatier tasting beer might do well, like a Hef)
• 1 cup cream
• 1 cup mascarpone
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• pinch salt
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup sugar
• vanilla bean, scrapped

whip yolks and sugar until fluffy and pale. bring beer and cream to simmer with the scrappings from the vanilla bean, the salt and the cinnamon. pourf mixture over yolks and sugar mixture slowly,  whipping constantly.return to heat and bring to simmer stirring constantly, to thicken. Pour into bowl resting in ice and continue whipping until mixture is cool. Whip in mascarpone. Pour into ice cream maker.

Cherry Ale Ice Cream w Brandied Cherries

• 1 cup Cherry Beer (i used sam smith organic cherry, but doesn't matter)
• 1 recipe of brandied cherries (these are homemade maraschino cherries, detailed in another post
• 1 cup cream
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 4 egg yolks

whip yolks and sugar until fluffy and pale. bring beer and cream to simmer, pour mixture over yolks and sugar mixture slowly,  whipping constantly.return to heat and bring to simmer stirring constantly, to thicken. Pour into bowl resting in ice and continue whipping until mixture is cool. Pour into ice cream maker. When ice cream is thick, but not solid, add cherries.

Phoenix has lately been the home to pop up restaurants, pop up design shops and pop up retail. The "pop up" moniker may be just a trend, but the concept is sound: quickly develop and launch a direct to end user idea that will exist only for a short, determined amount of time. It is the B2C manifestation of a/b testing, a fulfillment of the Agile movement and ADHD nature of this generation. 

But is there anything more "pop up" than a natural disaster? Either due to a 24 news cycle or perhaps the earth is indeed, falling in upon itself, but the average person would suggest that we are inundated with disasters these days, and its quite difficult for a need/response to rise above the fray. For this reason, I wanted to try a pop up charity event in response to the Japan crisis. 

The Japan earthquake occured on March 11. By the 15th, Hana Japanese Eatery and I floated the idea of such an event, and on the 18th, committed to the idea by announcing it to the public. The event took place the evening of the 30th, meaning that in just about 10 days, we planned and executed the event. 

The primary key to success of a pop up event is contacts- our event benefitted from a closeknit culinary community as well as my association to local corporations, media outlets and non profits. The normal recruitment cycle that these "pay a price to come and sample food" events is generally long- sites have to be erected, promotional materials produced, budgets created, print, web and social advertisements created, and restaurants have to be convinced that there's a reasonable ROI on the expense of time, funds, effort and loss of income from the restaurant being open. 

Here's how our pop up event was different. We didn't stress the details and kept moving forward. Most importantly, we decided off the bat there would be no overhead. We would donate absolutely every single dime to charity. To keep the terms uncloudy, we asked the Grand Canyon Red Cross to actually step in and handle the money onsite. 

This "there is no budget, its give it all or nothing" approach, coupled with the urgency felt from the disaster really helped businesses to come on board quickly. There was no benefactor but the charity, no egos. 

We secured a venue in short form, as this was important than it might be under different circumstances, and was a great excuse to use a venue that was looking for the exposure. In our case, I was aware of Madison Event Center from talks regarding another event, where the space hadn't worked out. One phone call and a short visit later, we had the location. The center was large enough for the event to scale, they had A/V and most rentals internally, available parking, the evening available, and an eagerness for exposure. 

Though unneccesary, to dress the venue up, I contacted Kool Party Rentals, where I've worked with the owner on past events. They came on quickly with the offer to supply lighted table rentals at no charge. 

At that point, the work became quickly divided. I worked on press and logistics while Lori Hashimoto of Hana Japanese began contacting restaurants. This was appropriate, because this is where our contacts lay.  Since Hana was also giving to the event, they were a convincing voice. Restaurants that couldn't or wouldn't particpate often offered gift certificates, which we accepted. If I could revisit one decision during the event, this would be it. In hindsight I wish I'd just asked them to donate directly to the charity rather than participate in an end run with raffles, auctions, etc.

FOOD

Originally only Japanese restaurants were approached, and we'd hoped to convince all to come, but in the end, only Hana was willing. That said, we received interest from eateries in other genres and it felt antithetical to the event to turn them down. We became lucky very early that the brands that were signing on were renowned restaurants: Barrio Cafe, Citizen Public House, Sens Sake, etc. I popped into a Robeks for a drink, noticed someone who looked like an owner and asked them to participate, they ended up supplying most of the drinks at the event. 

It's very important to understand what the laws are regarding insurance and waivers. Each restaurant required a certificate of insurance and we needed to ensure everyone handling food onsite had a food handler's card. 

DRINKS

With food in hand, drinks became an issue. Though we had willing alcohol sponsors, and a special event license can be turned around in Phoenix in an afternoon, the Red Cross did not feel using the liscence was appropriate, and that the event should be family friendly. To that end, we worked with various vendors to secure a variety of drinks including iced tea, vitamin water, bottled water, energy drinks and more. 

ENTERTAINMENT

The venue had A/V in place, and volunteers were able to secure a willing DJ (Sophia Gunn) who was willing to spin. Additionally, we were able to secure Taiko drummers (Ken Koshio) to come in as well as Japanese dancers. A local comic shop donated some anime movies to be shown on the screens. All the entertainment was donated, and we created a very simple schedule for it. 

INFRASTRUCTURE

The only expenditure for the event was event insurance, which was a $150 +/-, and some paper goods (plates, forks, etc) for those restaurants that didn't bring them, about $300.  Hana Japanese agreed to carry all these costs. 

PRESS

How do you alert the public to an event such as this AND convince them its worthy? We concentrated on four groups: 

1. Social Media- we used our existing influence circle on twitter, facebook and Yelp. Yelp partnered on the event, creating a featured event on their calendar, and giving us placement in their newsletter. We created a facebook event that all the partners in the event posted to and evangelized, we created a twitter hashtag #rollin4Japan and a twitter account as well @rollin4Japan and used them frequently. We responded to questions immediately and interacted with our partners on the event online. Messages were retweeted often and it was usually as simple as asking people to do so. A base of excitement was built though this. 
2. Collateral/Messaging - we not only let Hana Japanese Eatery fans know we'd be closed for the day and why, so they could attend, but having a formatted email made it easy for others including partners and the Red Cross to alert their fellowships as well. We didn't erect a website, but did place a page on Hana's website with basic info and logos, and otherwise referred people to Yelp or Facebook. We had a logo that a local designer, Mark Dudlik threw together for us, and we put a flyer together that restaurants and partners used. 
3. Japanese community - The Asian community rallied around our event, helping spread the word, but also securing dancers, etc. They were an obvious partner and we were pleased that almost 1/3 of attendees came from this avenue. 
4. News - we issued a media blast 2 days before the event and personally sent it to every single DJ, news director, newsroom, tv station or newspaper we knew. We had a few tv shots scheduled in advance, both a morning show appearance and a lunchtime appearance, but a simple call to those stations we hadn't appeared on around 3pm in the afternoon proved fortuitous. Due to the media blast, they knew who I was and all sent cameras out. We met them at the door, arranged interviews and told them where the best shots could be had, when drummers or dancers would be performing, etc. 

We also made a point of taking the time at the event to constantly walk around and ask people where they'd come from. It was fantastic that the crowd was very evenly divided amongst the press avenues we'd persued. 

VOLUNTEERS

I didn't solicit volunteers the way I normally would for an event because frankly there wasn't much to be done. Red Cross would run the door, I'd handle the coordination on site, and each restaurant was responsible for themselves. But a number of people stepped forward to help in a variety of capacities: when Margaree Bigler of Devour Phoenix heard about the event, she offered her help and within 3 minutes I was on the phone with her. Monica Picard of PopChips graciously connected us to a number of her connections for drinks and other items. 

Ultimately the success of the event was due to a number of factors: primarily the existence of great relationships with a full network of contacts prior to planning. Unlike events weeks or months in planning, there were no contact lists, flow charts, schedules or schematics- we simply all had the experience to handle problems and issues as they arose, and a bunch of willing participants. It meant everyone throwing all hands in. The winner was Red Cross, but also Phoenix, who supported this event that they themselves had put together.