The Food in this Town (2): Dave

I have had an opportunity to read some food magazines lately.

According to them, really, truly delicious food is expensive. It also takes a great deal of special equipment to prepare. It is made by talented, highly trained individuals that have long winded, ethereal views on food. And they only use ingredients that require knowing a foreign language, a connection with a reclusive forager, and some medical training. In short, really truly delicious food is inaccessible to most people. At least, according to these magazines. And those tv shows and some of these restaurant reviews and any marketing of events featuring multiple chefs.

In the next paragraph, I am usually told that I can try to recreate these dishes at home, but it is going to be really time consuming, very complicated and technical, and any disappointment in the final product will be a reflection of my own failings in the kitchen. Instead, we all should consider taking our big bank accounts directly to the source and throw money at the passion! the love! the art! In each bite, we can taste the hours and hours and days meticulously refining each part to this awe inspiring whole that was carefully crafted to have us weeping by the last drop!

Sad.

And then I remember, "We are all just cooks and bakers." I remember the food that makes me feel full and happy and truly satisfied has never felt uptight. I remember how surprisingly easy it was the first time I made a cheese. How perfectly average that uber complicated, multiple paged recipe ended up tasting. And I remember the reason why I started this series of blog posts.

If we stop buying this story that our food needs to be cerebral or a perfectly manipulated fine piece of art, we will find that there are transcendent meals, prepared on the cheap, in each of our neighborhoods. These talented cooks and bakers may downplay their kitchen experiments; they might even shun the titles "chef", "cook" or "baker". Fools, I say. Incredibly talented, fascinating, generous fools.

Finding these hidden gems can take a remarkable amount of dumb luck. Or this series of blog posts, because I am about to spill some secrets. It is up to you to woo them, befriend them, or just ask for a sample of their wares. 

***

This actual series of posts (there is a long list of people and places to come) was inspired by my early morning drive to pick up some bread that didn't meet one man's standards of perfection.

It was a trip straight from either a mystery novel or a classic No Reservations setup. There was some prowling around an innocent, sleepy neighborhood in the dark of the early morning. A knock on a door before slipping inside. And the feeling of instant intoxication off of the heady smells of fresh baked bread that filled the house.

Oh man.

*** 

Do you know about Pizza Dave? You know, the Weber grill modifying Dave? The master of all things yeasty or fermented Dave? The fifth most popular Dave on the planet?

Meet SeligmansDog Dave.

I don't want to sound hysterical when I write this, but I really want you to believe me when I say:

Dave bakes the crackliest crust, perfectly crumbed extraordinary breads in his own home. He brews beer. He is ridiculously kind, generous and humble. And an invite to a Firedome pizza party on his back deck is one of the single most coveted tickets in my world.

It all happens in just another neighborhood and that bothers me because - well - do his neighbors have any idea? Oh man, is there someone in my own neighborhood I should be wooing? 

***

I met Dave when he was asking people for any Weber grill lids that they were not using. I had one and he was doing interesting things with them. Isn't this how all people meet?

It took only one modified Weber grill lid (Firedome) pizza party to realize the range of Dave's experiments.

Me: Which came first the pizza or the bread baking or the beer?

Dave: Pizza.  Motivated by hunger and limited funds in graduate school, I needed a fix cheaper than Pizza Hut.  My first tutorial was provided by a fellow grad student, a Sicilian named Franco, using James McNair's Pizza. I was never able to reproduce Franco's beautiful creations, but my own developed well enough.

Me: What does perfection look like in your kitchen?

Dave: It doesn't exist.  I'm not a perfectionist.  Life is too short; I'd rather do more things at 80% than fewer at 100%, unless it's a baguette.  But, I'm happiest when my kitchen has a few people eating and drinking and I'm cooking for them.  It's even better when my "kitchen" is by my grill. 

Me: Do you have bakery or pizza shop dreams (ohpleaseohpleaseohplease)?

Dave: Never.  Not once.  Maybe. My problem is I'm not devoted enough to any one thing.  Lots of people can make pizza, so that's out. Maybe a bakery, but I don't know if there's a demand.  Lots of people will express interest, but will the busy parent go out of their way in a hot car with screaming Timmy for a loaf of bread?  I have fantasized about bread delivery, but don't know if I could make a living doing that, life's expensive.  I'm a schemer though.  Romance aside, there is nothing about baking bread that can't be automated AND be as good as by hand, nothing.  This idea and the implications keep me doodling and thinking.

Me: Your blog is a notebook full of ratios, enviable scientific tools and creative problem solving. I don't really know what the question is - do you see yourself as a food scientist or baker?  Is it the methodology or the results that drive you? Are you a scientist in all of your kitchen experiments?

Dave: I interviewed with Proctor and Gamble as I was leaving grad school. The recruiter was describing the hydrolytic instability of aspartame at high temps explaining why it couldn't be used in cake mixes.  I was mesmerized.  He tried to convince me the molecular complexity of food science problems wouldn't be as engaging as that of  drug synthesis. I begged him to let me make that choice, but I didn't get the job.  I ended up at big pharma as a scientist for 10 or so years. Gotta pay the bills.

I get the most satisfaction when I make a good idea into something great; I'm fundamentally a development person applying my interests to anything in the kitchen. In that context, I'm passionate about process measurement.  Accurate and inexpensive measurement tools have proliferated in the past 15 years, it's a great time to be a geek.

Me: You bake breads for your daughter's teachers. Have you noticed an improvement in your daughter's report cards? Do you get report cards on your bread?

Dave: Sharing with the teachers is one of my favorite things to do.  They enjoy it, I get to scale up a bit, win/win.  Giving teachers treats wasn't meant to be a bribe, but it can't hurt.  Most of the teachers are native western Europeans and are a great practice crowd for just about any bread.  They don't just pop a roll down the hatch and say thanks, they are thankful in a most sincere way.  I'm not sure how honest they are, but they do seem to like the samples so far.  And Frankie graduated valedictorian from K, 1st and 2nd grades!

Me: What are you currently experimenting with in your kitchen (or bar)?

Dave: I've brewed beer for more than a decade, mostly extract and the beer was good. When my wife and I lived in Baltimore, Ken Follet visited us to use Trish as a model character for his book The Third Twin. He had some of my brew one day, took a long pause, smiled and said, pleasantly surprised, "that's really good." I was in heaven, a real Brit liked my beer.  In Frankie's early years I stopped brewing, then re-started, then went all grain, then had many problems, and now I'm back to partial mash and my brown ale - sometimes hoppy, sometimes malty - is starting to kick ass.  I'm finally coming out of a very long brew slump.  That's my current buzz. But, I rarely write about brewing, nor enter contests.  I prefer to be a loner in brewing until it comes to sharing final product.  

Me: What food or drink eludes you - what is missing from your life and haunts your belly?

Dave: Big volume and shelf life in breads!  I want to know what gives Wonder bread an infinite shelf life and cloud-like volume and see if some of that could be applied to more healthy and  grainful preparations.  The physicochemical explanations are tough to find, I spend some time in the food science literature, but it isn't my 9-to-5 and have only limited time to study it.  I'm also not a professional scientist anymore, no science community involvement, etc. and, frankly, cookbook authors suck.  I fantasize that a recruiter at ADM will read my blog and toss me an offer, but for now, I'm just a kitchen hack.

Me: Was there an experience that changed the way you thought about food?

Dave: Being served fried capicola with eggs and toast by my mother and growing up in Boston.  In my earlier years, there was never any extra attention given to food.  It just was special and everyone held identical core beliefs in this niche.  The defining moments of life coincided with feasts, snacks, drinks and rum cookies from Brandano's.  Immediately following the shock of the death of a close loved one was the quick decision one made to hire a caterer for after the wake. Produce at stores in my gritty hometown made Giant Eagle's look sick and farmer's markets look like boutiques.  Mindfulness of food can't be wrong, but I still find some food movements unnatural.

Me: What is your favorite "secret" (non-mainstream) food or drink source in Columbus? 

Dave: 

• Asian Pears, Crestview market
• French fries, Dairy Queen (Hudson and Indianola)
• Brisket, Rayray's (Pacemont and N High)
• Primo Pizza (mush / sausage) ONLY when served while at Studio35 watching a flick
• Bells 2 Hearted pint ONLY while at Crest Tavern
• Egyptian style feta and merguez, Mediterranean Food Imports (Dodridge and N High)
• Anything from Curds and Whey

Me: Favorite ice cream: brand and flavor.

 Dave: I don't like ice cream and I think molecular gastronomists are obtuse.

Me: How about the best thing you have ever eaten?

Dave: I was in a place called Noodles Panini Restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale last year and ordered the meatball sub. Each and every morsel of meatball, sauce and bread was perfect. Perfect.  I almost cried.

Me: What does someone have to do if they want to try your pizza or breads or beer?

Dave: Get my address (DM on Twitter) and let me know when you'll be stopping by or come by and we'll slap a baguette in the oven together while sampling a brew. I mean it.

(It's me again.) He really means it. He is a good man.

You're welcome.

While I work on the next post in this series, tell me: what is your favorite thing from Dave's kitchen? What is your favorite secret source for great food in this town?

Note: Most of the photos in this post were taken by Paul Djupe because he is awesome like that.

The view from wherever I am right now

Black Hills traffic jam (a photo from my archives)

Rhinos, Persian Onagers and Sichuan Takins - oh my!

Isn't that how that line from the Wizard of Oz goes?

Well, there are no lions at the the Wilds (one of the largest conservation centers in the world and definitely the largest in Ohio). No tigers either. 

But there were rhinos!

Even a little baby rhino.

Did you know that rhinos have cute butts?

Seriously.

And then there are the beautiful Persian onagers.

The takins were no longer being reclusive. 

In fact, they were making it easy for the staff to monitor their behaviors:

There were also Przewalski's wild horses.

I mean, there are plenty more animals, but on this trip, I only had eyes for these.

Definitely not the camels. Ugly things, really.

I just want to take a minute to say that there is so much happening at the Wilds. They are adding horseback and zipline tours this year. And now members get the open air safari bus tours at no extra charge. It all made me feel so good about renewing our membership. 

If you go, remember to bring a lot of water and a camera.

(Disclaimer: I paid for my own membership to the Wilds. The Wilds doesn't even know who I am.)

The Food in this Town :: 1 :: Lori and Westgate

A wise man (and a talented chef) once told a much less confident me to stop downplaying my home kitchen experiments. "We are all just cooks and bakers" were his exact words. 

Liberating.

***

The food news and reviews for a town inevitably focus on all things branded and big named Chefs. Good for them; both have worked hard to get their names at the top of the lists. But when you (as a diner) rely on Yelp or local newspapers for the skinny on where to get great food, you miss many of the most incredibly delicious meals created by passionate, even slightly obsessed, cooks and bakers.

Some of these talented folks downplay their kitchen experiments and shun the titles "chef", "cook" or "baker". Fools, I say. Incredibly talented, fascinating, generous fools.

Finding these hidden gems takes a remarkable amount of dumb luck. Or this series of blog posts, because I am about to spill some secrets. It is up to you to woo them, befriend them, or just ask for a sample of their wares.

***

Quick quiz:

1. Does this picture make your belly growl? 

Have you heard of the Twixlen brand empire?

Oh really? Well, you might want to stick around for this very long post.

Meet Lori aka Twixlen (on Twitter and Columbus Underground).

It is difficult to pinpoint Lori's exact culinary specialty. It is much easier to say she is the perfect blend of brains, personality and ability.

Lori is the person that knows all that is happening in this foodie town at any given moment. She can take all of that information and put it into any sort of context: historical, geographical, butter-al, political... 

I cannot even write about how kind and funny and thoughtful she is without blushing and getting all poetic. So, instead, I will tell you that if you haven't met Lori, you should head over to the Hills Market next week to meet her. Or join us for a CMH Dinner Club event.

But what I want you to take away from this post is that this woman can cook.

She is being talked about for her plum cake (the bundt cake, donut, cocktail and alcoholic jello varieties)

AND the drink named after her at the Clarmont 

AND her limoncello

AND that spicy maple mustard she mixed up for a certain secret CMH Gourmand something.

And her vegetarian/vegan experiments.

And more. That was just from the past few weeks.

We (the people lucky enough to have a taste of anything she has mixed up) are certain that soon she will have all the world eating coffee jello shots out of her hand while she is mixing up soulful biscuits with the other. (Her bisquits really do have soul.)  I think we would all agree that the Twixlen brand empire ruling the world is more of a sure thing than the Rapture actually happening (less room for mathematical error).

I asked Lori how it felt when we talked about the Twixlen empire. "Not gonna lie - it's a little weird. It's gotten less weird over time. As long as I don't turn into Napoleon."

It only makes sense that the ruler of an empire would live in a fantastical place. Lori lives in the Westgate neighborhood, a magical land of ingredient abundance and these unforbidden fruits are ripe for the picking. By you.

Lori is the person to talk to if you need to forage the alleys of Westgate/Hilltop for the herbs, mint, grape leaves (to keep your homemade pickles crispy), all types of berries and mulberries, and any other ingredient that can be grown in Ohio but usually isn't sold in stores. 

Stop.

I am having a hard time with the adjectives in this post. I want to use so so many.

Let's try something different, okay?

Me:  Was there an experience that changed the way you thought about food? 

Lori: I don't know if this qualifies. But it's the only thing I can think of...  I was working at Hoss's Steakhouse, and since the only thing we got at a huge discount was the salad bar, that's mostly what I ate. The managers, got one free meal a day, although, I'm pretty sure they ate whatever they wanted all the time. This one manager used to eat a steak every. single. day. He would grill it himself, and he liked it just one shade past rare. I'd never eaten rare meat - my mother firmly believed that all undercooked meat was a one way-trip to wormville. One day, he got it in  his head I needed to eat part of his bloody steak (we'd been talking about how we liked ours cooked). I tried it, and was *amazed.* Totally converted. 

Me: You don't use recipes. Your mind seems to think in terms of adaptations and substitutions and tweaks. I have no idea what the question is - how did this happen? Who did this to you?  

Lori: Heh. I do use recipes, I just don't follow them very well. And, I'm really not sure. About 6-7 years ago, I started cooking, and really grew to love that I had the ability to tackle even complicated foods (I'm thinking of  you, asian dumplings!) and make tasty meals. At about that time, I started trying to recreate the foods of my childhood - the things I learned standing on a chair in the kitchen. My mom gifted me with a church cookbook (one of those spiral bound deals) where she'd hand written family recipes on the divider papers, and somehow that connection between past and family and humanity in general solidified itself. (This is getting too deep.) But there is something about specific foods that convey a period of time in my life. Also, I watched a lot of Food Network - specifically, Good Eats & I started reading about food and the science involved in it. It changed the way I cooked, and I became much less tied to a written recipe & discovered cooking was much more about what tasted & felt good in my mouth. 

Also - you know how there are things that just make sense? Cooking is that thing for me - and the more I taste new things and explore different cultures through their food, the more sense it continues to make. 

Me: What are you currently experimenting with in your kitchen (or bar)? 

Lori: Sadly, nothing at the moment. There's just not been time! My last experiement yielded Plum Cake Jello - really a whole assortment of Not-For-The-Kiddos jellos. Even one that was vegan. I'm pondering making a lemon-lime-cello... because I'm currently completely addicted to lemonaid/limeaid etc. 

Me: What food or drink eludes you - what is missing from your life and haunts your belly? 

Lori: Real bbq. The bbq of my childhood - White's BBQ. Small white building on a rural highway, picnic tables inside, covered in red checked vinyl, lift top CocaCola case that kept sodas *just short* of freezing... and the bbq. Pulled pork. Shredded. Soft, intensely flavorful, sauce free. The only dressing it ever got was their homemade hot vinegar sauce (I'm thinking it was white & apple vinegar + red pepper flake, little bits of other not-dried hot peppers & their seeds, salt & probably a little sugar. The only way they served it was on a super fresh-soft hamburger bun. They did old school-pit-style bbq - literally a hole in the ground where the pig would smoke. City BBQ tries, and theirs is great, but it's not White's. 

Me:  Favorite ice cream: brand and flavor. 

Lori: For sure Jeni's... and to pick a favorite flavor is impossible. But right now, I really love the lime rhubarb cardomom. 

Me: Of all of the suburbs and neighborhoods and gin joints in this town, why Westgate? 

A friend & coworker lives in Westgate... and I picked him up to go to dinner, and driving through the neighborhood, the whole place just felt right. I loved the big trees & the yards & that I saw people out walking around. It was also a surprise, right there off a less-than-good-looking stretch of West Broad. I looked at other neighborhoods, with similarly aged homes, and even looked into living downtown in a condo, but they were all out of my budget. I do really love the neighborhood, having met so many people there - I actually know my neighbors, and see people I know when I'm out walking my dog. 

Me: What does someone have to do if they want to try your plum cake or if they need a pint of Westgate mulberries? 

Lori: Heh. For the mulberries, there are a couple select alleys where the trees are at the alley line & they just grow wild... free! Free! No one who lives in the houses even seems to know you can eat/cook/whatall these berries. It's crazy. Last year I also had a major crop of purslane, but I'm not seeing any this year & I'm bummed. 

As for plum cake - I think mostly, it's something I'll make for friends or for sharing at an event. I haven't made a batch in a while... I'm thinking of doing the mini-cupcakes for the Home & Garden Tour afterparty this weekend. 

(It's me again.) Did you hear that? Plum cake at the Westgate Home & Garden tour?

In summary, Lori is amazing and talented.  Free mulberries exist in this town. Westgate is secretly delicious.

You're welcome.

While I work on the next post in this series, tell me: what is your favorite thing from Lori's kitchen? What is your favorite secret source for great food in this town?

How does your garden grow? UP!

We did not buy our house for the back deck.

I think that the wood was mostly rotten under its new coat of paint back when we moved in. For years, we were so busy ripping out decades old landscaping, improving the soil quality in the areas we wanted to garden, growing hundreds of different varieties of vegetables and fruits from seed, and painting that we managed to avoid the deck altogether. 

One breezy, sunny day, we tried to let two babies play on the deck. The wood was mossy. It was split. It was sagging and bubbling all over the place. We finally noticed our deck for what it was: a safety hazard.

One day, while Paul was on a trip to Minnesota, I called my dad over to the house and the two of us ripped the entire deck out.

The guys came up with a plan for the deck while I was busy imagining a way to expand the garden into that same space. This is what we came up with:

Obviously, my favorite part of the deck is my own contribution: "the wall".

I love that the herbs are just a few feet from my kitchen.

I love that there is more room for my garden to grow.

I love that it makes our deck feel like a lush room.

I love having people join us for a meal in the "board room".

I love that it blocks my view of the neighbor's yard.

I have two friends in the process of building their own walls. Here are the details of what we did:

We buried two 4x4 treated wood posts into the ground with cement to help anchor them. 

For the top three planters, we built a frame from two 1" x 6" x 12' and two 1" x 6" x 4" cuts of untreated cedar  

For the bottom planter, we used 8" boards instead. (If we were to rebuild this wall, I would use all 8" wide boards because it gives more room for dirt and dries out less quickly.)

Additional 4" wide cuts were used to close each section of planter by the support posts. We did not want the treated support post wood to leach any non-food safe chemicals into the dirt.

The remaining 4" wide cuts were nailed into the bottom of each box at staggered intervals in order to provide support.

Each planter was lined with window screen before being filled with dirt and plants. One alternative build would be to make wider planter shelves and set plastic/ceramic planters or pots inside (instead of window screen and dirt).

(before window screen, dirt and plants were added)

We are in our second year of planting.

Lettuces, basil, chives and citronella geraniums have all worked well.

Parsley and sage and other herbs that are fairly large have not done so well. Yet.

The top planter has been the most difficult to fill successfully because it dries out the quickest and receives constant sun. We are trying some dwarf tomato plants and hardier lettuces this year.

If you have any questions or advice, let me know. 

UPDATE: If I could do this all over again, I would make all rows 8" deep and the entire thing 6" wide instead of 4". If I could do this all over again, I absolutely would.

Not cute.

Sage Blossom Syrup

The quality of the culinary experiments happening in my friends' kitchens is more than a bit intimidating. 

There was the rhubarb and ginger simple syrup that made me love gin. (gin + me = an unnatural pairing)

And the peony syrup that made my head swoon.

So when friends pointed out the abundance of sage blossoms in a neglected corner of my garden, I was super excited for the opportunity to keep up with the cool kids! 

I used this really well written post on making flower jelly as my jumping off point.

45 minutes of flower picking and sorting later, I poured boiling water over all of those little purple flowers and immediately killed all of the pretty. It was okay though, Joe warned me that would happen in his post.

The next morning (more than 12 hours later), I strained the liquid into a sauce pan. While my sage blossom tea was coming to a boil, all impurities and scum were skimmed off.

Lemon juice and sugar were added. Once the sugar dissolved, I strained the syrup (twice) into sterilized jars and refrigerated. (I didn't seal the jars because I was eager to share with friends.)

Quantities, you ask?

1 Jeni's container of sorted, cleaned flowers from 2 overgrown sage plants (about 2 cups)

The remaining water from 1 heavily used teapot (about 4 cups of water)

The juice of 1 lemon

1 scoop of sugar in the only clean container I could find in a hurry (about 1 cup)

This was obviously not a measured experiment. I was prepared to add more water or sugar as necessary to get a light simple syrup with floral notes but it turned out just right on the first pass. And while the syrup was tasty enough for me to quit tinkering quickly, it was dramatically more enjoyable once it was cold. 

Oh! I couldn't find the sharpies that I am always hiding from little hands so I "labelled" this jar by putting one small sprig of sage inside. Once I found a sharpie, I removed the sage and wrote something completely illegible on the lid. We all have our way, I suppose.

UPDATE: The sage blossom syrup is being used!

UPDATE: This is a big hit with the kiddos and adults in lemonade. 

Happy cows live at Snowville Creamery.

Many thanks to Snowville Creamery for opening up their operations to the masses this weekend!