fodder 4 Us

Food: Pikliz

admin — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 03:24:29 +0000

When I was growing up, young black Americans, although sometimes verbally abused by predatory white youths, had no problem trickling that hatred down to Haitian American Blacks. Jamaica had beaches, Red Stripe, Roots, Reggae, Marley and cheeba. Black America had blues, jazz, early rock n roll, hip-hop, Jordan, Ali, Richard Pryor and so much more. And in our eyes what did Haiti offer: poverty, Papa-Doc, Baby Doc, the Tonton Macoutes and HIV/AIDS. Most recently a 7.0 Earthquake has also decided to kick Haiti in the chest even though that side of the Island has more than been down for the count for decades.

Despite all this, and even without the help of Wyclef Jean, Haiti is the birthplace of a special relish or cole slaw that for me seems like such a double middle-finger to all that ails it and all who would deride this land of the high mountains: Pikliz.

{fodder4.us Pikliz Recipe}

Ingredients

1 medium sized head of white cabbage
1 cup of carton orange juice (not from concentrate)
juice of 1 lemon
juice of 1 lime
About 2 cups distilled white vinegar
1 medium onion
1 large carrot
6 scotch bonnet or habanero peppers
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
10 black peppercorns
10 whole cloves

Tools Needed

Benriner/mandolin with medium tooth-blade attachment
Large glass/plastic jar with air tight lid.
Food Processor with slicer attachment
citrus squeezer (optional)
rubber gloves (optional)
eye glasses or goggles (optional)

Adjust your benriner (mandolin food slicer) to about 1/8 inch thickness with only the main blade attached. Chop cabbage into manageable blocks with a knife first, then run through benriner to make 2 inch long shreds. Place in a very large non-reactive bowl.
Peel onion and then cut lengthwise. Chop off the tops and bottoms and then run through the benriner from top to bottom. You should end up with 'C' shaped thin slices. Break apart slices into bowl with shredded cabbage.
Add medium-tooth blade to benriner. Cut the large carrot at the base on the bias (diagonal) once. Run the carrot through the benriner on the bias to make toothpick sized (julienned) carrot pieces. Add to bowl with cabbage.
Do NOT fool around with the benriner. Use the guard and don't attempt to slice the last remaining bits of vegetable. Its better to compost a little more biomass then to cut yourself on a food guillotine... Crimony!
Add 1 cup of orange juice to bowl with cabbage.
Add 1 cup of vinegar to bowl with cabbage.
Cut lemons and limes in half and squeeze juice into a measuring cup. Add enough vinegar to citrus juice to make 1 full cup of liquid. Add citrus/vinegar mixture to bowl with cabbage.
Using a food processor with a slicer attachment, slice the peppers into thin slices. Add pepper slices (including seeds) into bowl with cabbage. Follow your food processor manufacturers instructions for safety and best practices for slicing.
Take special caution with food processor regarding its use and slicing peppers. Do NOT let the peppers come in contact with your eyes, nostrils, mouth, ears or skin. Seriously.
Place sliced peppers in bowl with cabbage. Wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water. Also consider opening a window and using a fan/ventilator while working with the peppers.
Add salt, peppercorns and cloves to bowl with other ingredients. Mix thoroughly and with caution.
Carefully place all contents in a jar with tight fitting lid. Place jar in refrigerator for 12-24 hours before eating. Flavor matures nicely with each passing day.

Any of you who say that you like spicy food, now is your time to step up out of the shadows of jalapenos and cracked black pepper. Get up on this pikliz. Its simple in its composition but stealthy, healthy and potent in its ingestion.

Pikliz has a body of cabbage and vinegar but for its heart: the scotch bonnet pepper. That’s right, the fraternal twin to the already girls-gone-bad habanero pepper. And if that wasn’t enough, throw in allspice berries or cloves to gorilla pimp slap any tongue left standing.

From what I’ve been told, you can always find a jar of pikliz relish in almost every Haitian household and recipes vary like miso soup recipes in Japanese households or Sunday gravy recipes in Italian American households.

Pikliz tastes great with fried chicken, fried fish, seafood and other meats. Just a small amount is the perfect compliment to the stronger flavors these foods present. When you take it out of the jar, give the juice a chance to drain off because that alone will knock you on your ass. As you get stronger at eating pikliz, (like kim chee, Frank’s Red Hot, gardenia, Tobasco) you’ll find yourself putting it on everything. Then in no time, you’ll be taking it straight, like a true junkie.

Our pikliz recipe has a nice mix of sweet, sour and plenty of hot. Although this pikliz recipe is simple to make; don't deviate/improvise on your first go round. Make it just like its listed. The second time I made this recipe I tried to get all artisinal by using a juice orange, kosher salt, green cabbage and rice wine vinger. I pitched that batch and went right back to this one. For you pikliz beginners, fear not! You can make our pikliz recipe and eat it in the smallest portions that your coward tongue can handle. Remember, cabbage by itself lasts forever so just imagine taking that same cabbage and adding vinegar, salt, refrigeration and hot peppers. That’s right pikliz will last for a long time in your refrigerator so don’t even think of trying to escape your fate via spoilage. The older it gets the better it will taste, too.

Hardship be damned. Vive Ayiti! Vive Pikliz!

Enjoy.

The Country’s Best Salsa | Review

admin — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 02:24:06 +0000

Details Magazine April 2010: To help all of us get ready for summer, Details magazine offered up a salsa verde recipe. Since it is green salsa they're pushing, made with what some might mistake for unripe tomatoes, they mention the deep pedigree that goes into this sauce: Chicago, Paul Kahan and his notable eateries.

Three things to get out of the way:

1. Tomatillos (TOH-mah-TEE-yohs): These are NOT green tomatoes, although they are in the same family. Usually they are enclosed in a papery husk. Peeling the husk back reveals what looks like a small green tomato with a dry-sticky feel. You can find these in Latin grocery stores that cater to Mexicans. Be careful though, because tomatillo can have a different meaning depending on the Spanish community that is selling them.
2. Serrano Chilies (suh-RAH-noh CHIL-eez): Smaller, thinner and hotter than Jalapeno peppers. The flavor is similar to Jalapenos but more intense; probably in a good way.
3. Details (DEE- taylz / d’TAYLZ): Details magazine used to chronicle the lives and exploits of the ultra-cool, New York City under/over ground. For reasons unexplained Details decided to become the magazine for men in their twenties and now, in its current incarnation, the de facto magazine for gay & metro-sexual men period.

Review: Right out of the gate you first taste the tomatillo: citrus, vinegar, and that cierto algo that is always present in the best Mexican restaurant salsa. The next thing you’ll taste is the heat of the Serrano chili: bright, and raw despite the cooking time. The pepper taste often outshines all of the other flavors in the mix, maybe warranting a name change to Serrano Chili Salsa.

The salsa is good though; much better than any of the junk at the supermarket and a good many of the restaurants in town. The heat is harsh but authentic. It tastes like what salsa is supposed to taste like and that taste is not the tin marked ATOMIC at Rory’s Taco Hut.

On the day I made the salsa, I complained like a sissy Mary about the heat and the vinegar while I quickly lapped it up with corn chips. I was shocked to find that what looked like overcooked green tomatoes and peppers actually turned into very potent flavors.

That same evening I made a soft taco with a whole wheat tortilla, shredded purple cabbage, white Mexican cheese, the left-over red onion, sweet-simmered Japanese pork belly and that green salsa.

In that mix, the acid and fire fought very nicely with all the other flavors, especially the sweet pork.

The next morning, I ate what remained of the salsa for breakfast and part of lunch.

Is this the country’s best Salsa? —maybe with less Serrano peppers, and a little more garlic… and definitely not for chips alone. If you add this salsa to food then you'll be getting somewhere. You’ll fret and cry about the heat and harshness as you pile it on against your better judgment.

This salsa will go good with just about any authentic Mexican food. If chips and this salsa is a must, then so is beer. And that beer would be Bohemia, in this scenario. Try putting this on a pulled pork sandwich with shredded cabbage instead of that mayo’d up cole slaw.

If this salsa was a Japanese city we’d rate it: Kobe. After some tinkering, we made our own version of this Salsa Verde recipe —which we we're able to bump up to a full Osaka. Click on the links below to see the two versions and a comparison. Thank you Details, Thank you Paul Kahan.

Enjoy.

{Details Recipe}
{fdr4s Recipe}
{Us vs. Them}

Ingredients

10 tomatillos, husked and rinsed well
5 Serrano chilies, stemmed
3 clove garlic
3 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 teaspoon fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon coarse salt
4 tablespoon chopped cilantro
2 tablespoon finely chopped red onion
1 tablespoon finely chopped Roma tomato

Preparation
You may need to rough chop tomatillos before food processing.

1st vegetable mixture: Place 1 tomatillo, 1 garlic clove, and 1 Serrano pepper and all cilantro in food processor. Pulse-chop until finely chopped. Set aside.
2nd Vegetable Mixture: Put remaining tomatillos, garlic and peppers in a food processor (in batches if necessary) and pulse-chop until slightly chunky consistency.
Place 2nd vegetable mixture in mesh strainer. Gently shake to remove liquid.
Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat. Add the 2nd vegetable mixture and simmer until tomatillos just turn from green apple green• to light olive green•.
Strain cooked 2nd vegetable mixture to remove more liquid. Reserve 1 tablespoon of cooked liquid.
Place 2nd vegetable mixture in glass/ceramic bowl.
Bring to room temperature and add the lime juice and salt.
Stir in 1st vegetable mix, red onion, and tomato.
Add reserved cooked vegetable liquid to taste; up to 1 tablespoon.

Tools: Pen(cil)s

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 04:06:26 +0000

Writing and rough sketching are important for the stifled artist. Writing your ideas down in text and images is the first step to hatching them. Your text and images will clean your mind and clarify your ideas. While drawing (formally, let's say) is another article, there is something here for everyone to take note:

Write with something that you like.

This seems obvious, however, we don't live by this guideline and the proof is shown by our lives. Most of us slave away at our work sites using the supplies that the office manager likes or whatever happens to be lying around. At home there are no writing implements at all; except maybe some crayons or freebie ballpoints taken from the bank. Add to that, nothing good to mark on, and it starts to become clear why we are repressed.

Take a little time to try out a few different types of writing implements: [pen: ballpoint, rollerball, fountain, felt-tip, technical, etc]
[pencil: #2/HB, grease, carpenter, golf, colored, charcoal, mechanical, etc ]
[where to find: office supply store, art store, drug store, online, supply cabinet ]

In most cases, we say, “Don't be a collect/worship whore!” but this is one area where you can revel in your stuff-fetish just a bit. If your excited about what you use to write/draw you will enjoy your creative work more. Since most of us enjoy enjoyment, you will do more creative work to increase it. More creative work leads to better creative work and ultimately a productive artisan.

Formulas are taking shape here:

fg + wi = (e+cw>)
[feels good] + [writing implement] = [enjoyment + more creative work]

cw + cw> = bcw
[creative work] + [more creative work] = [better creative work]

e + cw> + bcw = artisan^p
enjoyment + [more creative work] + [better creative work] = [productive artisan]

See, its pure mathematics.

An idea should not have to suffer behind the veil of unintended handwriting or inappropriate strokes. A good pen(cil) can even make a grocery list look sharp.p>

“What's good?” —you define it. When you write/draw do you feel stifled by the pen(cil)? Would you feel insecure if somebody saw what you did —solely based on the way the text/strokes look? That's not a good pen(cil) for you. There is much to be said about talent, ability and practice but not in this post; maybe not on this website. The whole idea is to get your creativity flowing and your motivation producing. If a specific style of pen(cil) does the trick, then go with it

I hold pen(cil)s in a death-grip. My strokes are hard, scratchy and ungraceful. Most ballpoint pens and their viscous ink translate my renderings into a frantic scrawl.

For some reason roller ball pens work extremely well for me. The friction caused by a pencil lead & felt tip pens is usually enough to restrain my strokes, too.

When I write with my preferred pen(cil)s, I love the way it looks. It makes me feel good about my writing. If you don’t like the results of your marking tools… don’t use them.

My choice marking tool: Pilot G-2 roller ball pen with black ink @ 1.0mm; go find yours.

Buy them in bulk. Gather up all the other marking tools in your house and work site and put them in a coffee can with a ‘FREE PENS & PENCILS’ note on it. When no one is watching, place the coffee can in the kitchen at your worksite or on a park bench in a busy park.

Now, go break in your new pen(cil)s.

Sketchpad, Notepad, Scratchpad | Tools

admin — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 03:31:13 +0000

The pad is a device that all of us have to learn to exploit with frequency and forethought. If you've let yourself waste away for years by ignoring your artistic impulses then this may be your only chance at recovery.

Pads allow you to store and manipulate information. They have been carefully designed to work without electricity and readily accept information from manual input via liquid and solid materials. Many people since leaving school have abandoned the pad altogether in favor of not so much the computer but instead old envelopes, napkins, palms of the hands and newspaper circulars. We use pads in schools not just for practicality but to spark creative thinking. That's why we are here.

For the notepad, think notes, articles, stories, and the like. Anything where the majority of information is best represented in text. You can use blank pages, lined pages (in varying widths) and pages with different colors. Write the way you like but in the notepad. Make this a habit. Use it to transfer and store your ideas as quickly as they come into your mind. Later you can take what you wrote and use it for your distinct purposes. Some of you creative-types may even prefer to use graph paper pads since they facilitate both text and images in a template that can accommodate freeform and precision.

Use the sketchpad when your idea is better seen than spoken. 1×picture = 1000×words, right? Many of us, lazy, tired, uninspired crafters feel we’ve lost our way in a world set up to serve the man. A sketch pad is a good way for us to begin to find our way back. Sometimes the most powerful imagery comes from the untrained or rusty hand. The sketchpad can be used to practice drawing but for you —use it to illustrate those ideas that you’ve been thinking about (For days, months and years). Force yourself to actualize some of your ideas in your own rendered images. You can make notes in a sketch pad but they should only serve the images around them. You can use sketch pads for practicing drawing but that is a different article.

The scratchpad in many cases is the most valuable of these three tools. The scratch pad is all about portability and immediacy. Your best ideas come at the worst times so having a small palm-sized scratchpad around will allow you to make small text and images —enough to form a viable seed of an idea. As scratch would imply there is no need for grammar. Just transfer as much information as possible while the idea is floating up out of the ether.

The hardest part of using pads is using them consistently. If you can become habitual with your use, your art hand will become stronger and your muse will thank you for it. Your timely struggle to take what's in your mind and bring it to reality is the real masterpiece. Jot, sketch, and scrawl away.

Practicals:

Scheme 1: [For people who slave in an office or behind a desk.] You’ll need six:

Notepad, Sketchpad
Notepad, Sketchpad
Scratch Pad
Scratch Pad
(A) stays at home. Keep (B) at your job, (C) goes in your vehicle and (D) stays in your bag/on your person.

Scheme 2: [For people who slave without a desk or storage space] You’ll need four:

Notepad, Sketchpad
Scratch Pad
Scratch Pad
(A) stays at home. (B) goes in your vehicle and (C) stays in your bag/on your person.

Draw/write with something you like using; avoid pens/pencils that you don’t like.
Force yourself to use your pads. Your ideas will be richer and your mind will also be clearer.
Jot, sketch and scrawl away

Specifications:

plain

ornate

How can you keep your ideas pure when the first thing you see is this?Find pads with the plainest covers available. Neutral colors like black or gray are good. You can also get away with composition books and manila colored notebooks since for most of us these types of pads are so common that they won't bias your ideas or work. Your writing pads can be lined or not; whatever you prefer, but no other visual cues or adornments.

amateur

professional

Sometimes high expectation comes with a tool marked 'professional'. The rusty-fingered artist may be reluctant to use them for fear of their markings not living up to all of that professional billing. There can also be a lot of 'interference' from the stores and staff that sell professional-grade items. Go with the amateur stuff so that your ideas don't have to carry any added pedigree baggage.

flimsy

well-made

Get pads that you can use and abuse. Great ideas can come through a lot of trial and error. Use pads that you don't mind using up quickly, getting them wet/dirty and also ripping out the pages. You'll be tempted to not use pads that contain only the finest materials. Unintentionally, you may find yourself becoming a worship-whore or a collect-whore —just reveling in your pads' material qualities or the pleasure of owning them instead of getting anything done.

Concept: Begin

admin — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:39:17 +0000

It is so vital that work starts. The temptation to hesitate is strong and not only that, it seems like the right thing to do. To be cautious for the sake of getting it right the first time —you know, measure twice; cut once. However, I realize that through days, months and years of practice I have become a master at being a lazy coward.

In the early days of procrastination I put things off for the most primal reasons:

I didn’t want to do it.
I wanted to do something else.

That sheer honesty in not doing a damn thing was cause for guilt, stress and depression; three killjoys for #1 and #2 mentioned, previously. So rather than getting started, I found more elegant ways to procrastinate. I devised (as we all do) noble and altruistic reasons to not do it:

When I do start, I want it to be good/right/perfect…
I’d hate to start and then not finish, so I want to really focus before I start…
The wife; the kids; my job; finances…

This allowed me to feel just fine about not doing anything. After living this way for years, it feels so awkward to be even remotely ambitious or aggressive.

Concept: Start doing it. Right now; right here. Stand up and start.

Unfortunately, this concept can’t help but be somewhat motivational. That is problematic because nobody listens to motivational. I’m going to do my best to look at this conceptually: Start working now just for the sake of seeing how your results can be from impulsively, rashly plunging into it. Take an objective look at the emotional, mental, physical, and aesthetic results of starting your work, right now.

Keep careful records of your results for use in future endeavors. Don’t be disappointed if it doesn’t come out looking like a museum piece. Remember, it was our decision to jump right in. Also, weaning yourself from the need to make ‘pretty’ can lead to more variation and new ideas. Note the results of your work: what works, what does not, and everything in between. Keep doing it today, tomorrow, and on and on as much as you can because there is tremendous power in ‘daily’. As a side benefit you get to thwart your procrastination and give your muse some much needed sustenance.

Still not convinced? Okay. Well, how about some motivation?

Make no mistake: Death is coming for us all.

The minutes, days, months and years are creeping by and you are closer and closer to death. When death comes knocking what will you say, “I was waiting for the right moment to…” I think not.

Gruesome? Harsh? Creepy? Indeed. So by all means, get started. Begin.