food | Craig Cooks Crap

Cooking Salmon in a Cooler.

Posted on June 16, 2016 by Craig Stewart

Coolers. They’re not just for Busch Light anymore.

We’ve seen a lot of this country together, me and my cooler, The Blue Angel. We’ve been to the beach, barbecues, football games, golf courses, amusement parks, shady house parties in questionable parts of town and of course the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

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I’m the good-looking one, and The Blue Angel is way down there in the bottom right corner by my side.

Me and The Blue Angel have experienced so many wonderful moments, mostly powered by Busch Light, that I almost feel bad for the person I stole it from back in my foolish college days. Did I steal those memories from them? I’ve considered titling my memoir Stealing Hearts. Stealing Coolers. The Craig Stewart Situation. Maybe I’ll learn to scrapbook, just to make sure I never lose these magnificent memories of me and ol’ Blue.

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This cooler has been hit with a 7-iron (the most effective golf club to use as a weapon), thrown down a mountain and vomited in and around. It has never complained. It can’t talk. It’s a goddamn cooler.

Just when I thought I’d put this baby through every test short of the MCAT, this week’s The Food Lab recipe presented a new and unique challenge—using it to cook. Not just as an apparatus to carry beer and meat to the grill, but as the cooking device in and of itself.

It sounds insane, but according to Kenji Lopez-Alt you can cook fish (and steak, burgers and just about anything else) in a trusty old beer cooler. You just need a little water. Kinda like California.

Allow me to explain. Cooking in a beer cooler is possible because of a method called sous-vide. Despite sounding like a 19^th century disease, sous-vide means “under vacuum” because in cooking everything needs a fancy-ass French name. Essentially, you heat water to the temperature you want the food cooked, place a vacuum-sealed bag with the food in the water and leave it there for a while. It cooks the food evenly and eliminates the possibility to overcook. Most importantly for me, it’s virtually impossible to set on fire.

In commercial kitchens they cook sous-vide with expensive machines to regulate temperature. In Craig and Kenji’s kitchen, we do it down and dirty, with a machine usually used for regulating the temperature of 12-ounce brew donkeys. It’s all about heating the water to the appropriate level and temperature transfer. It’s a miniature hot tub inside the cooler—with none of the standard weird hot tub sex stuff.

It takes a lot to leave me speechless. Ask any of my coworkers/neighbors/people seated next to me at baseball games. But putting raw salmon in a cooler with warm water and pulling out fully cooked Olive Oil Poached Salmon (Page 399) with Grapefruit Vinaigrette (Page 400) was goddamn magic—and not some Criss Angel bullshit. I’m talking like the time David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear. I’m talking when Tiger Woods made that chip on 16. I’m talking parachute-day-in-elementary-school levels of magic.

All great magic tricks (I can’t believe I actually wrote that. Am I saying magic is cool? I mean, it’s cool in a “You do you.” kind of way I guess. It’s definitely not traditional cool. It’s sorta Bon Jovi in the early 2000’s cool: it seemed cool but was kind of awkward and sad when you really dug in. Now he does Direct TV commercials. It’s hard to be cool when you’re the face of AT&T, one of the most hated companies in America. But I’m talking about magic. And not the aural kind you get from Slippery When Wet-era Bon Jovi, the strange and dark kind you get from men wearing cummerbunds at children’s birthday parties) have an explanation.

In this case the explanation, and most important ingredient, didn’t make it in for picture day. We’re talking good old-fashioned H₂0. To cook the salmon properly, I needed 120^owater. My faucet spits it out at about 118^o so a few seconds on the stovetop and I was all set. Water? Meet the organ-transplant device I once left by a gas station in Paducah, Kentucky.

Salt, pepper, olive oil and salmon all went into the second most important ingredient–the freezer zip bag. I’m proud that as a society we’ve found a better use for freezer zipper bags than carrying marijuana. Everything went into the cooler, and using the pressure from the water to push all the air out of the bag, I sealed it up tight as Vanna White.

Then I closed the lid, threw a towel on top and worked on preparing the Grapefruit Vinaigrette. I sliced the grapefruit, combined the mustard, oil, basil and honey and… boom. Cavemen created fire, Newton created Calculus, my parents created this shining example of humanity and I have created vinaigrette. Bow before me.

15 minutes went by. I paced like Oprah waiting for her daily delivery of human flesh.

Another 15 minutes passed. I approached the cooler the same way I check social media—hoping for the best, expecting the worst.

I opened it and made a noise. A weird one.

Holy shit. I can’t believe this worked.

I feel like MacGyver and Bobby Flay had a threesome with Larry the Cable Guy, then gave birth to this cooking method next to an above ground pool in early September.

Seriously. I cooked salmon inside of a goddamn dirty old cooler and it turned out looking like this.

And it tasted delicious. None of the hints of Busch Light and Coppertone you’d expect from cooler-cooked salmon.

Delicious isn’t a strong enough word. This is the best salmon I’ve ever eaten, anywhere. It practically melted off my fork. It was fresh, flavorful and the vinaigrette played along without overpowering the fish. I made two servings hoping to have leftovers. I ate them both. I considered driving back to the grocery store for more salmon. I considered driving to the grocery store to buy more coolers. I did neither, preferring to stay true to my bluest friend.

Looks like I have another page to add to my scrapbook.

Recipe: 12/12
Did I Do The Dishes? THERE AREN’T ANY! IT’S A DAMN COOLER!

New Kitchen. Same Bitchin’.

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Craig Stewart

You might be wondering what happened to me. Did he cut off his fingers rendering him unable to type? Did he get overwhelmed by success and go on a soul-seeking journey to find the meaning of the universe? Did he simply give up, like he has on everything else in his life?

Still have all my digits (look ‘em up ladies), I already know the “why” of the universe (salami…duh) and despite all evidence to the contrary I have not given up on learning to cook or writing about it. Craig Cooks Crap went on hiatus because I moved into a new apartment, with an exciting new kitchen to destroy each and every week.

You might not think the new kitchen is very relevant to cooking Pan-Seared Pork Chops with Maple-Bourbon Glaze and Hot Buttered Snap Peas with Leeks and Basil, but I have a confession to make. I own almost none of the kitchen equipment, including the stove, I’ve been showing off with. With the exception of my cast-iron pan, which I’ve grown to love more than Donald Trump loves himself, almost everything belonged to my former roommate. He has a Food Science degree, manages a restaurant and owns pretty much every kitchen tool known to man except a damn garlic press. So we’re all going to be taking a step back here. For the first time since this experiment started I’m operating without proper equipment. Considering how poorly I did with proper equipment, this does not bode well.

One minute in to cooking the first dish in my new apartment things started to go downhill. I like to take nice pictures of the ingredients on my cutting board before getting started. It’s my pre-game ritual. Wade Boggs used to eat fried chicken before every baseball game. That’s 162 fried chicken meals a year not counting the playoffs. He also once drank 64 Miller Lites on a cross-country flight. That man deserves his place in the Hall of Fame.

My taking-pictures warm-up routine is significantly less badass, but probably healthier. The problem is my kitchen’s not the only thing less than half the size it used to be.

Yeah. So no nice pictures for the moment.

The first step is to salt and refrigerate the chops for at least 45 minutes as part of a process called brining. Brining is supposed to keep the pork chop juicy, but with what I put these poor little pigs through they turned out drier than Cloris Leachman’s lady bits.

I decided to use the brining time to prep everything else, starting with the leek. I’ve never seen a leek before, much less bought one. They’re huge. When I was carrying it around the grocery store I was worried someone from the EPA was going to fine me for deforestation. Apparently, only the white part of the leek is edible, leaving roughly 95% of it absolutely worthless, similar to cable news. I wonder if leeks taste good, because as you’ll soon see why, I’ve never eaten one.

Making the maple-bourbon glaze involved three of my favorite things; women, whiskey and mustard. Usually you can only get that kind of action at Oktoberfest, but anything can happen in Craig’s new kitchen. I’d like you all to meet a very special woman.

We’re dating. She’ll probably be embarrassed that I’m writing about it, but I think I’m in love. She’s super sweet, a little on the quiet side and sometimes smothering but come on, she parties with Jack Daniels and Bulleit Whiskey. What’s not to love?

The prep work was done and it was time to start cooking with my new lady love, on my brand-new super-old electric-top stove. I’ve heard electric heat is harder to manage, and you need to pay close attention or things burn quickly but I was feeling confident. Like Jordan Spieth on the 12^th hole at The Masters, that confidence was about to be shaken to its very core.

Small problems started to pile up. I don’t own tongs so I used a spoon to flip my pork chops. Not ideal, but not a big deal. The chops weren’t browning, so I pumped up the juice a little bit. Again, no big deal. The water wasn’t boiling quite fast enough for the peas and chops to be done at the same time, and the butter wasn’t melting to cook the leeks in, but there’s an easy solve. Just turn up the heat.

BEEEEEEP. BEEEEEEP. BEEEEEEP.

DO NOT TURN UP THE HEAT. I REPEAT–DO NOT TURN UP THE DAMN HEAT. IF YOU DO TURN UP THE DAMN HEAT THE FOLLOWING THINGS WILL HAPPEN:

You will set off every smoke detector in your apartment, which is a great way to say hello to your new neighbors you haven’t met yet
You will attempt to remove the batteries from the smoke detector, which is 10 feet off the ground without a chair or ladder because you do not own a chair or a ladder
You will run back and forth between the kitchen, living room and bedroom fanning the alarms with a sweatshirt, moving from detector to detector like a game of whack-a-mole from hell
You will forget that the leeks and chops are still on the stove, continuing to create smoke and turning exciting new colors
You will turn off everything on the stove, including the peas which were making steam, not smoke, and not doing anything wrong
You will fall over and injure your pride as you attempt to plug in a fan and open every window in the apartment
You will have the heightened senses of a dachshund on Independence Day.
You will cry a little.
You will attempt to eat a semi-frozen pea and burnt-rubber pork chop
You will go to the bar down the street and order chicken wings

So there it is—my first true failure. There will be no final photo. There will be no uplifting story of unexpected success. Life is not a Disney movie, everything doesn’t always end up the way you want it to. That’s why I thought Toy Story 3 should have ended with them all going down together in the incinerator.

The only thing I’ve ever failed at is pretty much everything, so it’s not an entirely unfamiliar sensation. I like to look at failures as lessons and I have learned a few very important things from this traumatic experience.

Don’t trust Mrs. Butterworth’s. She’ll run when it gets too hot.
Own a chair. They are useful for more than just sitting on.
Don’t take time off from your blog. Karma’s a bitch.

Recipe: Chicken wings were pretty good.
Did I do the Dishes? Yes. I might be developing a sense of pride in my own place.

The cooking gods hate me.

Posted on March 19, 2016 by Craig Stewart

Every now and then I can be a bit lazy. I once went two weeks using paper towels as toilet paper. I’ve worn the same socks four days in a row because I didn’t want to do laundry. I watched a marathon of Chrisley Knows Best because I couldn’t be bothered to change the channel.

This week, the laziness gorilla struck again and forced me to make two poor choices. First, I delayed cooking adventures until Friday night, the night traditionally reserved for Redbull Vodkas, but during March reserved for watching unhealthy amounts of college basketball. Second, since I’d rather be watching basketball than cooking I decided to make a really simple soup, write a really short post about it and get back to the shooty-hoops.

The cooking and basketball gods knew my lazy intentions and they were not pleased.

No one cares about other people’s March Madness brackets. Brackets fall under the same category as children and bowel movements. Everyone’s happy you have them; they just don’t want to hear about it. So I won’t write about any bracket busting or money lost because of those spiteful bouncy orange ball gods. Plus, I’m a University of Missouri basketball fan (19-44 in the past two seasons and zero Final Fours ever) so there’s really no more pain they can put me through anyway.

The cooking gods know how to pack a punch when you don’t pay your proper respects. They were not happy with my lazy attempt to make 30-Minute Pasta e Fagioli (Page 196), a traditional Italian soup where you pretty much throw everything in a pot and let it simmer for a while. Under their angry boot, soup and blood would both be boiling.

It all began with a stark realization. I’ve spent a lot of money on various herbs and spices lately. I’ve had to purchase thyme, bay leaves, parsley, basil and countless other indistinguishable green and yellow dirt flakes. My long-term savings goals have grown to include vacation, buying a house and purchasing spices. As I resigned myself to needing to purchase oregano, I noticed something unexpected.

Do you know what that is? Over there on the left? That’s a spice rack. Sitting next to my goddamn stove. Where I stand and cook every single one of these goddamn recipes. Over the past 3 months I’ve spent more money on spices than David Beckham and almost everything I’ve ever needed has been less than four feet from my face this entire time. I could feel my blood temperature beginning to rise.

Prep work time. Where everything is always perfect and nothing could ever go wrong.

Half of the onion got stuck on my knife. So I applied a little pressure to try to free the blade. Still stuck. More pressure. Still jammed. I pushed a little harder and the knife released. The onion went with it off the cutting board into the air and directly into the trash can across the room like a buzzer beater in one shining March Madness moment.

Appropriate, yet infuriating. Onion basketball was my first curse from the gods. I took out my anger on the poor half of an onion that was left. I don’t think I did it right.

The feelings were stirring inside of me like taco Tuesday on Wednesday morning

Opening cans should not incite rage. I know how to build a number of excellent IKEA furniture solutions; I should be able to open a damn can of tomatoes. I didn’t actually open the tomatoes as much as I used the can opener to transform the can into a mangled lump of razor metal classifiable as a deadly weapon, but not effective at dispensing tomatoes.

The little things on this recipe were adding up fast. After almost losing a hand to my murder can, the ball of anger moved from my chest to my face.

Next, I needed to squeeze the tomatoes to separate them into smaller pieces. The Food Lab warned they might squirt. I didn’t listen. The cooking gods didn’t like that. After the first tomato my favorite shirt looked like a wardrobe piece from a Tarantino film.

So far the cooking gods had demanded in sacrifice half an onion, my favorite shirt and nearly a hand. That’s a high price to pay for soup, which is really just hot water with bits in it. Everything goes in the pot, gets stirred around for a while and then all the liquid goes on top. As it and I both begin to boil over I started to think about what I’d done to anger the cooking gods. I was a faithful servant. Why would they punish me?

The pasta went in and I looked at the final step. Then I knew what I’d done. More importantly, I knew what had to be done to appease their vengeful wrath.

“Stir in the parsley.”

It was time to make amends. I’ve spent a lot of words and time trashing parsley as useless, flavorless and the worst thing to happen since they remade Psycho with Vince Vaughn. If parsley and I could come to an agreement and end this destructive war, I felt we would both be better for it. I stripped the parsley of its stems and I chopped. I chopped like I’d never chopped before. Sparks flew from my knife. Blisters formed on my fingers but I never stopped. I became one with the knife as I just kept chopping. Up and down. Up and down. Then there was nothing. I was alone in time and space. Just me and the parsley in a perfect calm moment.

And so the great Parsley Treaty of 2016 was enacted over a bowl of soup.

The soup tastes good, flavorful and with more substance than your typical water with bits in it. But I don’t think the soup is quite as good as the lesson I’ve learned here. Pay your respects to the gods of your craft and they will reward you. Disregard them, and be prepared to pay the price.

Except the basketball gods—those bastards have screwed me enough.

Recipe: 57/68

Did I do the Dishes: Yes. I am shame.

Man Tops Meal in Overtime.

Posted on March 12, 2016 by Craig Stewart

Author’s note: Post contains picture of a bloody finger but hockey is a brutal sport. What you gonna do?

Guys don’t cook for other guys. The only reason most men even know how to cook anything at all is to impress women. The only reason most men do anything at all is to try to impress women. If I didn’t want to impress women I wouldn’t shower, work out or try to dress well. Hell, I barely even do those things now.

Barbecues don’t count. Those are mostly about drinking Keystone Light and playing games with disturbing names like Cornhole and Hillbilly Golf, and not about the quality of the food. After all, if you’re drinking Keystone Light, you really don’t care if something tastes good or not.

What I’m saying is that 26-year old guys don’t invite their bros over to watch the hockey game, have a few beers and enjoy a nice home cooked meal prepared with love. Until now.

The game? St. Louis Blues versus Chicago Blackhawks. Good versus evil. Jedi versus Sith. Craig versus Parsley.

The meal? Easy Skillet-Braised Chicken with Mushrooms and Bacon (Page 252) and Seared Brussels Sprouts with Bacon (Page 433).

Tonight on Craig Cooks Crap, it’s Man versus Meal in the Wednesday Night Rivalry matchup of the season.

Let’s check out tonight’s starting line up.

Now, down to center ice to drop the puck.

First Period.
The game has gotten off to a painfully slow start behind a man at the grocery store who is committed to making six separate purchases, and paying for each of them via different method. I don’t know much about personal finance, but I know that this guy is an ass. I’m sure there’s a reason for his mad-scientist money approach of using checks, debit cards, vouchers and cash to pick up some apple sauce, but all it did was get me ready to drop the gloves early in the first.

Luckily, the line judge (cashier) can sense my rage and keeps the game under control with a simple apology, saving me from having to spend five minutes in the penalty box for fighting and probably facing an assault charge.

THE GROCERY STORE SCORES FIRST TO TAKE THE EARLY LEAD!

I have to go back to the damn grocery store because I forgot that in order to make Easy Skillet-Braised Chicken with Mushrooms and Bacon and Seared Brussel Sprouts with Bacon you really need to make sure you have…oh I don’t know, maybe goddamn bacon! Combine that with a ten-minute wait to make a left turn off my street and the fact that the real hockey game got underway before I’d even sliced a shallot and I think it’s fair to say that Meal has taken an early lead over Man.

It may be 1-0, but Man is making a mighty comeback in the end of the first. For the first time in two weeks I have completed my entire prep work without sustaining any injuries. The team is going to need to stay healthy for us to have any shot at making the playoffs (cooking Easter Dinner). We’re counting that as a goal for Man, and going into end of the first all tied up at one.

First Period Intermission.
Meal – 1
Goals: Grocery Store Rage (1)
Man – 1
Goals: Not Cutting My Finger Off (1)

The first intermission is highlighted by the arrival of my two alternate captain (bros, bruh) and an Urban Chestnut STLIPA. If I were a betting man, I’d bet real hockey players have a drink during the intermission too. How else could you deal with the fact that you probably look like this?

Second Period.
The pace has picked up.

Pan too small. Two chickens in. One left out in the cold. Three minutes of hockey watching. Flipped first two chickens. Four minutes of hockey watching. Why is there so much smoke? I act like the cloud is a smoke machine during player introductions and I’m taking the ice. Why is sizzling chicken so loud? I mentally reframe the sound of hot popping grease as a screaming crowd. Two chickens out. Third chicken in. Three minutes of hockey watching. The Blackhawks scored and the refs blew a call. Chicken rage-flipped. Four minutes of hockey watching. The Blues took a bad penalty. Chicken out. Bacon in. Bacon burnt.

Put a goal on the board for Meal.

The bacon touched the pan and caught fire like the Internet after Kanye West drops another substandard album, or his wife drops another substandard nude. Maybe it’s time to turn down the offensive heat, and play a little more defense.

I focus on the fundamentals for the second bacon attempt. Fundamentals like don’t burn the damn bacon. Mushrooms, shallots and everything else go in the pan. Like all great hockey players, I keep my stick (spoon) on the ice (pan) and my skates moving (stirring), managing to not catch anything else on fire.

Chicken stock and wine complete the braising concoction. The chickens get a soak like a defenseman in the ice bath after the whistle blows. The whole thing hits the oven for the second intermission.

Second Period Intermission.
Meal – 2
Goals: Grocery Store (1) Bacon Burnt Like Ryan Reaves by Officiating (1)
Man – 1
Goals: Prep Skills (1)

Politics are discussed in the locker room over drinks. Surprising everyone, we don’t solve global warming, the shrinking middle class, the second amendment or police brutality with our heated discussion.

Third Period.
Like the Blues who currently trail 1-0, we need a late-game rally if we we’re going to take this game home. Unlikely heroes show up on great teams when you least expect them. Alternate Captain, and now honorary sous chef, Bryan came off the bench and offered to handle the Brussels sprouts prep while I drank beer and watched the game. He did admirably for a man so incompetent he once tried to order a Shamrock Shake at a Lee’s Famous Fried Chicken. Man scores to tie the game at two goals apiece!

More bacon is cooked and the Brussels sprouts are invited to the bacon party, even though hockey night is totally a sausage fest.

The weird green balls don’t seem like they’re cooking properly in just the bacon grease, so I drown them in vegetable oil and hope for the best. Sometimes when the game is tied this late, you have to get creative.

Somehow, the alien-testicle vegetables turn out really well. I’m counting that as a goal for the good guys. Man takes a 3-2 lead early in the third. The Blues have scored twice to take the lead, and the chicken comes out of the oven. I’m feeling confident—too confident.

As a Blues fan I should know better, about my own cooking abilities and a hockey team with more failures than an Insane Clown Posse concert. Just when you think everything is in good shape, that’s when it all goes to shit and people get hurt. Really, really hurt.

I remove the chicken from a pan that’s been in the oven for 45 minutes and take the Brussels sprouts off the burner. I mix in the heavy cream with the chicken/wine/mushroom juices and disaster strikes for the home team. In order to move the molten-pan to the burner, I grab it and leave the fingerprints from my left hand stuck to the handle as my skin begins to melt like nacho cheese.

Meal scores. In a big, bad and burny way. I scream, curse and go to the bench to ice down my upper body injury.

The game is tied and my skin is turning the color of those ugly Chicago Blackhawks jerseys.

Hockey-player mentality shows up. You play through the pain. Stirring the heavy cream into the sauce, I call over my alternate captain to assess the damage as I start to plate the food.

My hand is so burnt I’m bleeding. I didn’t even know that could happen. Wait a minute. My left hand isn’t bleeding. Where is all the blood coming from? Son of a bitch. The back of my right hand is covered in blood and I have absolutely no idea how or why. Good thing I’m not European Royalty in the 19^th century, because my general clumsiness and vulnerability to injury would have killed me from blood loss a long time ago.

That’s definitely another goal for Meal. 4-3 and the bad guys have the lead late. I’ve blown this game, and the Blues have done the exact same thing with 1:17 left. Everything has gone wrong.

I only have one chance to score and take it to overtime. Grin, bear it and plate this up pretty enough to make Maneet Chauhan weep.

This bitch is tied. We’re going to overtime.

Meal – 4
Goals: Grocery Store (1) Burnt Bacon (1) Hand-fire (1) Red Wedding (1)
Man – 4
Goals: Prep Skills (1) Alternate Captain (1) Alien Testicles (1) Plating Like A Playa (1)

Overtime
I’m sidelined in overtime. Both of my hands are falling off and I can’t focus on anything, even eating. I defer to my alternate captains for a final review.

“I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. The part of the meal I enjoyed most was how injured Craig got while preparing it, that’s what it’s really about.” – Alternate Captain Bryan

“Wait, there’s how much blood in this? If I had to describe the meal in three words they would be: Damn. Good. Chicken.” – Alternate Captain Bill

PUT IT ON THE BOARD! GOOD GUYS WIN. BAD GUYS LOSE. SUCK IT THE FOOD LAB. YOU DON’T COME INTO MY HOUSE AND TRY TO TAKE DOWN A TEAM ON A HOT STREAK.

The average hockey game lasts around two hours and 14 minutes. Making Easy Skillet-Braised Chicken with Mushrooms and Bacon and Seared Brussels Sprouts with Bacon takes even longer when Craig’s team captain.

The Blues even pulled it out in a shootout, so the burning sensation in my left hand and the second gash in two weeks to my right middle finger seem worth it. I feel wonderful. I didn’t expect the praise of my friends to feel this good. I’m in excruciating pain, yet sit here a glorious victor.

This must be what it feels like to win Lord Stanley’s Cup. Unfortunately, I’m a Blues fan, so I’ll probably never know.

Recipe: Can’t Actively Rate Due to Pain

Did I Do the Dishes? No. It’s getting disgusting in here.

Caprese Salad is a whole bloody affair.

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Craig Stewart

Once I got lost in a grocery store. I remember circling the produce section three times, then wandering the aisles searching high and low as my anxiety began to build, my senses to sharpen. A memory hides within me of a guileless return to the produce section, my soul still hopelessly misplaced under the glow of fluorescent tube lighting. I paced back and forth between the two cheese displays, perplexed and exhausted. A third lap to the produce section was accompanied by only the dream that some loving soul would reach out and save me from my inevitable fate.

Unfortunately, no one wants to help a 26-year-old who’s lost in a grocery store.

The grocery store is an impossible maze, that, when combined with my lack of proper grocery list planning, creates a shopping process more complicated and frustrating than the bipartisan presidential nomination process.

I don’t think I’m an incompetent human being. In fact, when it comes to directions I’m pretty damn competent. Blindfold me and take me anywhere within 30 miles of this exact location without a map and I can find my way home. I can tell you which direction is north at any given moment. I can even explain to you the numbering system that dictates the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways (evens run east-west, odds run north-south, radials have three digits with an even first number, and spurs have three digits with an odd first number—study up and never get lost again.) What I can’t tell you is whether ramen noodles are in the Asian section or soup section.

What was particularly frustrating about that trip to the market was the recipe’s demands for fresh ingredients. The Food Lab insists that in order to make Tomato and Mozzarella Salad (Page 791) with Sharp Balsamic-Soy Vinaigrette (Page 790) that really pops, fresh ingredients are the absolute key. This is a problem when shopping for tomatoes in early March.

I found the tomatoes right away. They’re pretty easy to spot because they look like clown noses; not like eggplants which look like clown penises. I was unable to determine tomato freshness, and since they’re out of season it seemed like a moot point anyway, so I just went with the ones that looked the most like Donald Trump’s face—red and ready to pop.

Next I circled the produce section four times because I couldn’t decide if basil was produce or not. I picked apart the green parsley, romaine, arugula and spinach section looking for basil, because basil is green. When I run the world, grocery stores will be sorted by color, because the current system just isn’t working for me.

I never found any fresh basil, because they don’t carry fresh basil. I’m 0-for-2 on fresh ingredients, the most important factor in this recipe. I ended up finding some shredded basil in a little plastic tub. With how much pre-packaged basil costs per ounce, it reminds me strongly of another shredded green herb that comes wrapped in plastic.

Then it was time for the mozzarella di bufala, which is made from water buffalo milk. I gave up on finding something made from water buffalo milk almost immediately. I opted for mozzarella in a bag. Make it 0-for-3 on freshness.

The grocery store had defeated me. I’d been there 30 minutes and had absolutely nothing that I actually needed to complete the recipe according to the book. So I just decided to escape the labyrinthine nightmare with hopes that I had the rest of the ingredients at home already. I bought a meat stick in the checkout lane to make myself feel better about giving up. It worked. I wish my dad would have given me a meat stick snack when I quit basketball in seventh grade. All I got was a long conversation about commitment.

The tomatoes need to salt and the onions need to soak for awhile, so I start there. The chopping goes surprisingly well with both the onions and tomatoes. The onions get a nice cold bath to think about what they’ve done, and the tomatoes get covered in enough salt to destroy Carthage for a thousand years.

Since I’ve got time now, I dive in on the vinaigrette. I feel pretty confident. All I have to do is mix everything together. There’s no chopping or cooking. What could possibly go wrong?

I’m not mad at you, like my gesture would reflect, but I’m mad at myself. Apparently using a parmesan grater to grate shallots was a bad idea. After I’ve bled enough to star in a civil war film, I get properly bandaged up. With a little luck I managed to keep the blood out of the vinaigrette, which is good because I don’t feel like making Balsamic-Soy-Zika Vinaigrette.

I also added a tablespoon of salt instead of a teaspoon. That shouldn’t be a problem right?

It is time to start the salad, which is simple. Chop up the mozzarella, add olive oil to the vinaigrette and mix everything together. Place on plate and take pretty picture.

I feel like I’ve earned this salad. A hellish journey through the underworld of the grocery store, and a bloody affair with a cheese grater that puts a Quentin Tarantino film to shame have led me to this place. A place with a damn salad on my plate. Woo. I don’t even like salad that much.

But damn, do I like this. It’s a little salty. Ok, it’s salty enough to turn me into a piece of human beef jerky. Yet the combination of all of these flavors somehow works, even with March tomatoes, non-water-buffalo cheese and plastic-wrapped basil. It’s a salty, vinegary salad of not-fresh goodness, and it’s actually very simple to make and worth the effort.

Maybe not worth getting lost and chopping your finger off, but definitely worth the effort.

Recipe: 806/1000

Did I Do the Dishes? No

Did You Know? Clams and Shrimp are Totally Different.

Posted on February 19, 2016 by Craig Stewart

Clams are difficult to find in a land-locked state. I’m not sure I’d want to eat clams out of the Mississippi River. I’m not sure I’d want to eat a pig that drank out of the Mississippi River. I’m not sure I’d want to be near the Mississippi River, which is a problem considering it’s about a mile from my front door.

I decided to make Linguine with Fresh Clams this week. I was going to write about how it’s my dad’s favorite Italian dish, which is true, and that I was honoring him by making it, which would not be true.

In reality I chose to make Linguine with Fresh Clams the same reason I do almost everything, last minute panic. I blindly pointed to a recipe in the pasta section of The Food Lab while sitting in my car at the grocery store.

I landed on Linguine with Fresh Clams. I did not make Linguine with Fresh Clams. Apparently, the grocery store doesn’t carry a lot of clams this time of year. Or any time of year. This is not a clam-rich part of the country. We have highway construction, racial tension and the wrong type of crabs, but unfortunately just no clams.

We do have shrimp. Which is odd considering the no clams thing. As far as I know these two shellfish grew up in the same neighborhood. I guess only the shrimp had the guts to get out of the ocean and try to make something out of himself in the big bad Midwest. You go shrimp. You go.

So I made Pasta with Extra-Garlicky Shrimp Scampi (Page 690). It has almost the exact same ingredients as Linguine with Clams, but with a main ingredient that’s actually available. I look at this as a lesson in love. Don’t discriminate. If you can’t find the mollusk you’re looking for, you might be looking for a crustacean and just not know it.

Scampi means “shrimp” in Italian. So when you order shrimp scampi, you’re ordering shrimp shrimp. Don’t you feel like an idiot now. I did after I read that fun fact on the internet.

After the seafood counter saleswoman and I decided that shrimp and clams are pretty much the same thing anyway I had to pick up some other ingredients, including a dry white wine.

The only wine I know anything about comes out of a box. So I wandered up and down the wine aisle reading labels like a soccer mom searching for gluten-free crackers. Sterling. Guenoc. Clos de Bois. These sound like World War II battlefields. I need something relatable. Something that I know won’t let me down. Something friendly and approachable.

My wine’s name is Josh, which really stands out next to a fancy-ass name like Estancia. Josh is a bro. He’s cool, maybe a little standoffish at first, but Josh is definitely a good dude. I’m feeling strongly about Josh. No one named Josh has ever let me down. Except maybe Josh Duggar, he let us all down.

Josh and I went home together (wine will do that to you) and started thawing out shrimp. Weird, yet sensual first date. Next, following traditional first date protocol, I introduced him to my oldest enemy and one true fear, parsley.

Something has changed in me and the parsley. The chopping process has become easier. The Devil’s Herb isn’t making me want to find the nearest parsley farm and start a labor dispute. I finished chopping the parsley and thought to myself, “maybe we’ve both grown up a little.”

Then I dropped the parsley on the floor.

I hate this stupid plant. I hate it more than I hate Charles Schulz’s Peanuts and James Cameron’s Titanic. I hate it more than I hate chocolate and peanut butter. I hate it more than I hate Family Circus and Luke Bryan.

I may need to lighten up. I seem to hate a lot of things that normal people enjoy. Except parsley. Parsley can go straight to hell. Luckily I have extra to chop up. Oh boy.

I do love garlic. Which is good because there is enough garlic in this recipe to ruin next week’s vampire convention. The full recipe calls for 12 cloves of garlic prepared in various ways. The smashing gives me a chance to take out my remaining parsley rage like a UFC fighter would, violently. The slicing gives me a chance to practice not chopping my fingers off. The mincing presents a problem, as I do not own a garlic press.

A garlic press and a lemon squeezer look the same. They are not. After loading up the lemon press full of garlic and squeezing it several times, I’m left with garlic boogers. The smell of eating these garlic boogers would make me as much of a social outcast as eating real ones.

Oil, garlic and salt are added to the shelled grey decapods while the shells themselves are cooked in oil. The Food Lab says this is the secret to achieving full shrimp flavor. Full shrimp flavor sounds like an excellent ska band. Like a ska band this whole ordeal just seems unnecessary.

The oil is strained and everything goes into the pan. Shrimp cooks faster than a man running to the bathroom after a Chipotle burrito. I must be getting better at this because I’m not as stressed about how fast things are happening. Maybe it’s because of my second conversation with Josh.

Pasta is ready. Everything is thrown in the big pot and cooked down. I’ve made close to two pounds of pasta and shrimp. Probably three pounds if you count all the garlic. I’m going to be a very fat, very sleepy, very smelly person this week. Kind of like last week. And the week before that.

Pasta is difficult to plate without he fancy pasta dishes they have on Food Network. I went with a more traditional Italian plating style. I call it, heaping on as much pasta as possible.

For having 12 cloves of garlic prepared in various ways, the pasta itself is a little bland. It’s scampi so I know it’s supposed to be lighter, but I feel like there should be more flavor to the noodles. Especially since there’s still clumps of garlic booger hanging around in there.

The shrimp themselves are spectacular. I feel like a real Italian. My German mother would be proud. There’s only one real complaint that I have about the shrimp.

They’re not clams.

Recipe: 8/11

Did I do the Dishes? No

Did I pick the parsley off the floor? No

Pan-Roasted Chicken Parts with Micro-Steamed Asparagus

Posted on February 13, 2016 by Craig Stewart

There’s just something special about meat on the bone. It’s primal. When I eat it I feel like the top of the food chain. I feel like a hunter, when most of the time it’s Colonel Sanders doing the real work. I’ve only been hunting once. I fell out of a tree stand. I don’t think the sport is for me. I’ll stick to food for getting the caveman juices flowing.

Making Pan-Roasted Chicken Parts (Page 365) with Micro-Steamed Asparagus (Page 242) was about more than just pan-roasting a chicken. That would be too easy. This is America. You’ve got to work for your food and make all those Republican Presidential Nominees proud. Since the only hunting I know how to do is for my keys in the morning, I had to get up close and personal with my bird in a different way.

I’m talking butchery. I’m about to get all Michael Myers on this poor little five-pound bird and chop it into little tiny pieces. Eight of them to be exact.

I started by popping the leg and thigh out of their socket. I was expecting to be slicing and dicing, not performing fowl physical therapy. Luckily the next step was more my speed, lopping off the dark meat bits with my handy dandy assault weapon.

If this was a slasher film it would be a boring one. Not Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan boring, but close. I’m not really chopping the legs off as much as I am grinding the chicken into submission. Maybe if I pull at the legs they will just pop off like Mr. Potato Head.

After the most disappointing dismemberment scene since the latest Eli Roth movie, the meat chunks kind of look like legs and thighs, so it’s on to breasts. I needed to separate the breasts from the back, then separate the breasts from each other, then slice the breasts in half. If anyone Google searches “breasts”, I’m really hoping this post shows up and they are wildly disappointed.

The back separates surprisingly easily. What the hell do I with a chicken back? The Food Lab says to make stock. I say that’s more work than I’m willing to put into this right now. I give up and throw it in the freezer, where it will be forgotten.

Did you know they throw in extra parts for free when you buy a whole chicken? I think I found a liver, kidney and a heart. I never found any lungs. This chicken must have had a really shit mile time in high school.

I am all that is man. I have butchered my bird. It took the better part of half an hour, but I did it. With my bloodbath complete I was left with 13 vaguely chicken-shaped pieces. I somehow made five extra and I don’t know how. I decide that this is a good thing, because more chicken is always better.

Now it’s time for the chicken to go for a seaside holiday, in a process called brining. Brining sounds fancy, but apparently all it takes is soaking the chicken in salt water. This I can do. Waiting 45 minutes? This I cannot.

I filled the time by watching Frasier. I still haven’t watched Making a Murder, Better Caul Saul, or The Walking Dead, but I’ve watched six seasons of a 20-year old network single-camera sitcom. Maybe I’ll catch up on Night Court next. No spoilers please.

It’s finally time to cook. I throw the first piece in skin side down and quickly realize, this pan is too small. Other than this small issue and an equally small grease fire everything goes surprisingly well. I flip the chunks when brown and throw them in the oven with a thermometer. Now comes my favorite part, more Frasier.

Why am I doing this? It’s 2016. Watch House of Cards or something.

After 22 minutes of watching Niles and Daphne making eyes at each other, the chicken comes out of the oven. I grab the thermometer that’s been inside the bird for half an hour, burn my fingers off and drop the thermometer on the floor. I immediately pick it up with my other hand and burn those fingers off too. Finally, I wise up and grab it with my sleeves like I’m wiping off finger prints at a crime scene.

The second chicken batch is ready for the oven. Instinctively, I grab the thermometer and burn my hands off for the third time. I have no brain cells left to lose so I bang my head angrily on the countertop.

Luckily making Micro-Steamed Asparagus takes no cognitive thinking. It barely requires hands. You place the asparagus on a microwave safe plate, cover it with damp paper towels and microwave it. That’s it. I don’t know why or how this book dedicated four pages to this process, but they did. This recipe doesn’t belong in The Food Lab. It belongs here.

After preparing my microwave vegetables I took this picture.

I don’t know what that growth is, but I’m starving and don’t care. I immediately added two more chicken chunks on the plate, because it’s almost bedtime and dammit daddy’s hungry.

It’s great. The chicken is crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside. All the recipe took was chicken, the basic bitch of food, salt and pepper. That was it. The asparagus tastes like microwaved asparagus, and it’s shockingly good. There’s only one thing left to answer. What show will I watch while I enjoy this masterpiece?

Smart money is on Frasier.

Recipe: 23/23

Did I do the dishes? Yes.

The Best Corn Chowder

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Craig Stewart

Corn is going to kill us all.

I read the first 83 pages of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I watched Fed Up. I’ve seen Children of the Corn. I get it. We started growing butt-tons of corn in this country because it’s profitable and supported by government subsidies and it can be used to make sugars that add flavor to pretty much everything from Coca-Cola to Toothpaste. It’s the only vegetable that can rot your teeth and fix them at the same time. Take that, Broccoli. Unfortunately these corn sugars are giving us all kinds of diseases according to men in white lab coats somewhere. It’s all probably true, but guess what?

I don’t care.

Corn tastes great. Corn on the cob is delicious, even if it takes 10 feet of floss to feel like a normal human being after eating it. Corned Beef is fantastic, and I don’t think it has anything to do with corn, but whatever. Cornbread is the only reason to go to Cracker Barrel. That and the friendly service, home-style cooking, and giant game of rug checkers you can play while waiting for your cornbread. The golf tee game is cool too. Maybe I don’t hate Cracker Barrel*.

Soup is also going to kill us all.

Canned soup is full of salt, preservatives and additives that are poisoning us all from the inside. It’s drying us out and turning us into human jerky for the aliens to eat when they arrive. Andy Warhol’s later Campbell’s Soup Cans work had all those odd and vibrant colors because he’d eaten too much soup during research and the additives were affecting his vision and perception of reality. It’s all probably true, but guess what?

I don’t care.

My coworkers once gave me 24 cans of Healthy Choice Soup for my birthday, accompanied by a card that said “Have a Soup-er Day.” That gift was practical, unexpected, delicious and quite possibly the best gift I’ve ever received. Well, maybe Spider-Man socks. I guess I’m easily impressed.

This week I decided to combine these two forces plotting my demise, and make “The Best Corn Chowder” (Page 212). The best seems a little strong. Why can’t we just call it what it is? This week I made “Hot Milk and Corn Death Water” (Page 212).

After my trip to the grocery store, where I discovered that Coriander costs more per ounce than crack cocaine, I sat down to investigate the secrets of Corn Chowder in The Food Lab. The most important factor is fresh corn, preferably bought directly from the farmer. It’s February. My corn is wrapped in plastic. It most likely came off an Iowa farm in early-September. This would be before the farmer, who I’m supposed to somehow have a relationship with and buy my corn from, had any idea of the highs and lows his Iowa Hawkeyes would take him through this college football season. Spoiler alert Mr. Farmer, you end up disappointed, just like I am in myself and my poor plastic-wrapped corn before I even start cooking.

After cutting the corn off the cob, and in the process scattering it across my kitchen I was directed to, “Milk the corn.” It’s not a euphemism. I don’t know how to milk corn, because milking corn is not a thing. So I squeezed the corn over a pot, and scraped at it with the back of a knife until the corn juice (I don’t know much, but I know it’s not milk) started to flow.

Corn juice, corn cobs, bay leaf, coriander, fennel and stock all go into one pan and are turned up to a boil. While that pot is heating up I prepare the onions, garlic, salt pork and potatoes. The potatoes present an issue, as I don’t own a potato peeler. I try to tackle the situation with a pairing knife, and in the process one potato ends up on the ground, mashed, mangled and screaming for life. I was prepared for this disaster with a back-up potato. My confidence in my cooking skills is so low I bought an extra potato, simply because I knew I would screw up at least one of them. Is that intelligent or sad? I’ll leave that distinction up to the jury.

I melt butter and cook the salt pork in another giant pot. Salt pork is bacon for people who look at bacon and think, “It’s good, but could use more fat and salt.” I was going to make fun of those people until I tasted the salt pork. I am now one of those people.

Once the fat has rendered (which is fancy cook language for melted) I add the corn, onions and garlic and coat everything in the delicious butter/salt pork fat mixture. I start to realize that I appreciate this style of cooking more than the quick-searing meats. It’s much more paced, almost Zen. I begin to feel enlightened. Maybe cooking isn’t so bad? I open my inner eye to the glory of the soup, and it’s time to add the stewed stock mixture to the pork pot through a fine mesh strainer.

Back in reality, I don’t own a fine mesh strainer. This is not Zen. I Frankenstein together a colander and a coffee filter and hope for the best. It works, but like a coffee pot, takes time. Luckily this is soup, we have all the time in the world. I rediscover my peaceful center.

10 minutes later it’s time to add the most important ingredient, half-and-half. We haven’t skimped out on fat thus far, and we’re not stopping now. The entire concept behind this recipe is that it’s supposed to kill me eventually. I stare in death’s face unafraid and drown the sucker in half-and-half.

The butter and the rest of the soup have separated like a traveling salesman and his wife. Kenji has a solution, soup meet blender. I am skeptical. I don’t think I’ve ever used the blender for anything other than a milkshake. Plus, with my track record there’s no way that this doesn’t end with the neighborhood coated in a thin layer of corn chowder.

It worked, and spectacularly so.

I scoop out a bowl, chop up a scallion and prepare for my death cocktail.

It’s staggeringly good. I don’t care what those bastards in white lab coats say about corn and soup and climate change, this is worth it. If I die, I want to do so covered in corn, like a true American. Every single bite of The Best Corn Chowder brings me closer to my impending doom, and I’ll go there gladly.

As long as they have corn chowder when I get there.

Recipe 3/3

Did I do the Dishes? Yes

*Promotional consideration definitely not provided by Cracker Barrel, but if they’re offering, I’m listening.

Diner-Style Smashed Cheeseburger

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Craig Stewart

The best burger I’ve ever eaten was on Rollins Street in Columbia, Mo. The year was 2010. Like a first kiss, you never forget where you were standing when you ate that first burger that made you say out loud to the world, “This. This is why we are here.” The first kiss was at a science exhibit about the circus. I still can’t explain that one. The best burger is much more simple. On Rollins Street I discovered the glory of god’s perfect condiments, pickles and mustard.

A great piece of my life has been lived under the assumption that these two delights we’re not just bad, but reprehensible enough to be left for dead on the side of the burger plate like refuse along the highway. I spent over 20 years in denial, and when I look back I am ashamed to think that I spent nearly 80% of my life disrespecting these noble condiments.

That day things changed. I changed. I forgot to ask for no pickles or mustard on my cheeseburger and my worldview shifted. In that moment the rubbery, overcooked hockey puck of a burger I had on that corner stopped being lunch and became love.

I love pickles and mustard on a burger. In my opinion a burger exists for the sole purpose of delivering condiments. It’s a plus if the meat is good too, but the most important piece of the entire operation is not the patty, cheese or bun, it’s the pickles and mustard.

Pickles and mustard were what I fell in love with that fateful day.

I guess you can’t rekindle an old love, because this week’s attempt to ignite that old flame with a Diner-Style Smashed Cheeseburger (Page 552) literally ended up in flames. Specifically, the flames of a burning toaster oven.

Our tragic story began at the grocery store with a hunt for beef, buns and pickles. I got beef because turkey burgers aren’t burgers, they’re sandwiches. I got Colonial Buns because their tagline, “Colonial is good bread” really hits you over the head with a hammer of creativity. I got pickles because, as stated earlier, no hamburger is complete without pickles and mustard. My mustard was waiting faithfully at home, lonely without it’s pickle partner.

The Food Lab recommends grinding your own meat for optimum burger pleasure. Due to lack of time, skill and equipment I trusted the butcher, even though his answer to my question, “What should I use for hamburgers?” was a verbose and well thought-out, “Uhhh…Hamburger?”

While my pan was heating I got started on preparation work. I sliced an onion without crying and brushed my buns with butter. The fact that the only brush I own is a toothbrush forced me to actually “spatula” my buns with butter rather than brush them. This means I also spatula’d my countertop, cutting board, hands and pants as well.

The pan is beginning to smoke as I create little Easter Island Meat Moai monuments, and I mentally prepare for the rush of raw power I’ll experience as I smash these perfect little meat-beings under the power of my heavy-duty metal spatula. I place my buttered buns delicately on the rack in the toaster oven.

The meat mounds are in the pan. I take out my anger at everyone who has ever wronged me as I smash the two burgers down with the force of the asteroid that took out the dinosaurs.

I may have overdone it. One burger looks like it spent 15 rounds in the ring with Tyson. The other looks like a meat pancake. I realize that love is delicate and in my foolish attempts to recreate it, I’ve crushed it.

Moral lessons be damned. I’m a man of solutions. What can I make out of my meat pancake? Meat crepes? A meat Frisbee? Put a hot dog inside of it and make pigs in a meat blanket? What’s that smell?

The toaster oven is on fire.

I did not expect buns to be my downfall. The smoke alarm begins to scream. This does not help the situation, and merely adds a shrill soundtrack to the horror I’m witnessing.

I took a picture of the fire, because I’m dedicated to this food blog even at my own personal risk. If the house burns down and the insurance company gets involved and they find my charred remains, they probably wont even have to pay my family with this type of damning evidence.

I turn the oven off and the fire eventually recedes, content with merely terrifying me today, and not taking my life.

A quick breath later, and now my hamburgers are overcooked, and under-flipped. I make the flip and throw some cheese on to cover up the burn marks of meat pancake and the scars of his poor mangled mess of a burger brother. They’ve seen some shit. They deserved a better end than this.

Cheeseburger construction begins, as I feel obligated to put my lover through a proper burial, covered in lettuce, onions, mustard and pickles.

Despite all that’s happened between us, like my cheeseburger trying to burn my house down, I needed to try to find that spark between us again. I take a bite out of pure respect, for the burger and my efforts. I tried so hard to find that blissful burger moment again. Maybe with this bite of cheeseburger, I will.

I didn’t. I’m out of goddamn mustard.

Recipe: 14/20

Did I do the dishes? No

Quick and Easy Pan-Seared Steak with Simple Red Wine Pan Sauce

Posted on January 22, 2016 by Craig Stewart

I am a man held hostage by a hunk of cow.

I decided to make something quick and easy. It also needed to be hearty and fulfilling because it’s so damn cold a parade of penguins is moving in next door. So I chose to make something that had the adjectives “quick” and “easy” in the title, yet would be substantial enough to help me survive this frozen wasteland I call home. That dish is Quick and Easy Pan-Seared Steak (Page 311) with a Simple Red Wine Pan Sauce (Page 319).

Notice the use of is, not was. I’m currently still waiting to get this “quick, easy and simple dish” started. Allow me to explain.

The first step of Quick and Easy Pan-Seared Steak is “Season generously with salt and pepper.” The second step is wait 45 minutes.

45 minutes is not “quick.” It’s a full episode of Maury when you fast forward through commercials.

45 minutes is not “easy.” I once walked out of a Jimmy Johns because there were four people in line ahead of me.

Rather than once again dwell on The Food Lab’s outright lies, I decided to fill the endless void of time and space by being productive. I sliced one shallot and minced another. I googled “Slicing vs. Mincing” and received absolutely no direction. I made an educated guess. I don’t think I did it right.

If Satan has a garden, he grows parsley. I watched several YouTube video tutorials about the proper way to cut parsley and I still have absolutely no idea how it’s done. I feel like my rage alone should be enough to scare the parsley pieces into separating from each other, but when that didn’t work I threw down my knife and got out the scissors. They did nothing. I’m left with a heaping pile of malformed greens. I abandon the Dark Lord’s Decorative Garnish.

I look at the clock. There’s still over a half an hour left until I can start cooking.

I’m making Red Wine Pan Sauce. I have 30 minutes with nothing to do and I’m angry and hungry. I don’t think Red Wine Pan Sauce takes the entire bottle and it’s about time the chef took a taste. I pour myself a glass and wonder if Hemingway did it like this when he wrote his food blog.

My mind has wandered and I’m starting to think about thyme. I only need four sprigs of thyme for this recipe, yet was forced to purchase roughly 400 sprigs because that’s how grocery stores work. Is this an allegory? Do we think we need more thyme/time to make a difference in our recipes/world yet in reality a little goes a long way? What does this say about the human condition? Do we grasp for more thyme/time against the inevitable end? How much thyme/time is too much thyme/time?

Have I had too many glasses of wine?

The clock has struck zero. There is no more thyme/time for philosophical questions. There is only thyme/time for steak.

30 minutes later.

It all happened so fast.

As instructed, I heated the pan to roughly the temperature of the Sun. When I threw the steak into the molten hot pan I was greeted by a satisfying sizzle, and a terrifying fear of losing my eyesight as hot oil jumped out of the pan and into my face.

I kept my head up, and fought through the plumes of smoke to make the ever-important steak flip. It happens flawlessly and I stare in wonder at the crispy brown steak crust I have birthed, and the thyme, butter and shallots I have forgotten about on the prep counter.

I throw everything in the pan hoping it’s not too late, before flipping the steak a few more times. Many cooks believe flipping a steak more than once is the secret to ruining a perfectly good steak. J. Kenji Lopez-Alt believes otherwise, and I am but his faithful disciple, now anointed by searing hot vegetable oil.

When I was growing up, my friend’s father once ordered a steak by telling the waiter, “Knock the horns off, wipe its ass and walk it on in here.” I’m not quite so bold. I’m shooting for 120^oF, more commonly known as Medium-Rare. I bought a thermometer at the grocery store for this, so I guess I’m officially invested now.

The steak is out and needs to rest for five minutes, but my panic can not subside. I thought to myself, “If my steak gets cold before the pan sauce is ready everything is ruined.” In reflection, that was somewhat dramatic. All I’ve had to eat today was a frozen dinner. I could have covered the steak with ketchup and would have eaten it.

I quickly start throwing everything I can into the pan to try to get it cooked down in time. Shallot? In. Flour? In. Wine? In. Stock? In. Stupid-ass parsley? In. Dijon Mustard? Safety seal still on. I reached for a knife to cut the bottle open and grazed the nuclear-hot pan with my wrist. There is no time for pain. Next time i need less wine, and more preparation.

I defeated the safety seal but felt the overwhelming pressure of my ever-cooling steak and quickly decided to eyeball a tablespoon of mustard into the pan when Hurricane Dijon made land. Chicago doesn’t go through this much mustard during baseball season and it’s in the middle of my sauce. I decided to just heat it up, cook it down and live to fight another day. What can man do but persevere in the face of such overwhelming tragedy?

Once the sauce was remotely thick I chopped my steak in half, scooped out a spoonful of the stuff and sharpened my teeth. During my panic I forgot to throw the frozen vegetables in the microwave. I don’t care. It’s 9:00. None of this was quick. None of this was easy. None of this was simple. I am a carnivore and it is time to feed.

This is the best steak I have ever eaten. The burns and boredom were worth every single savory bite. I simply can’t describe how incredible this piece of cow was. I am proud of my creation. Did I invent steak? No. Have I perfected it? Yes.

When I go to sleep tonight I’ll do so with my stomach full, and I’ll dream about this steak. When I wake up tomorrow, I’ll do so with my head on fire, not from the searing hot oil bath, but because I probably had one too many glasses of the main ingredient in Simple Red Wine Pan Sauce.

Recipe: 9/9

Did I do the dishes? Kind of.

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