My Charcoal Chimney Starter

On Saturday, I grilled in the back yard for a few old friends. Just ahead of the event, I bought a remarkable bit of fire-starting technology. Simple, but effective. It’s a device that ignites charcoal without the need for lighter fluid or even kindling wood. Naturally, it took me a while to find the damn thing, because I didn’t know what it was called (hardware stores are a marvel, but that’s a problem with them).

It’s a charcoal chimney starter. No doubt something along these lines was known to people as soon as metallurgy was discovered and the burning properties of wood charcoal were appreciated. Long ago, that is. For only about $15, I acquired a stainless steel cylinder, about a foot high and 7½ inches in diameter, with a row of inch-high slots around the bottom of the cylinder. Let’s see: the volume of a cylinder is V = hπr2, so that would be nearly 400 cubic inches. Enough space, as it turned out, to light enough charcoal to cook the evening meal.

Inside is a simple array of rods that divide the cylinder into a larger upper chamber and a smaller lower one, but air (and importantly, heat) can pass between the chambers easily. There are no covers or lids to it, but the cylinder does have a handle attached to its outside.

First, line the lower chamber with paper – newspaper in my case. Next, fill the upper chamber with charcoal. Then light the paper through the slots at the bottom. After the paper starts burning, leave it alone. The remarkable thing is that the paper will ignite the lower charcoal, with which in turn ignite the charcoal above it, until all of the charcoal is glowing hot. I suppose it works because the heat is contained and, since heat rises, it ignites the fuel above it. All together, the process takes about 30 minutes. Once the charcoal is hot, pick the cylinder up by the handle and turn it over to put the coals in the grill.

The hard part in all this was finding out what it’s called. I’d seen one used a few years ago, but that wasn’t much help, and I looked in vain in the grilling equipment sector of a big box store among many MeatMan 2000 UberGrills large enough to cook for a small army; say the Swiss Guard. So I did things the modern way, Googling “grill without lighter fluid” and the like, and before long, found a lot of videos like this.

Since I did this on Friday, it was then a matter of ordering one online for pickup in a store on Saturday morning. For mysterious reasons, the store cancelled my order right after I made it, and I didn’t notice the email telling me that, so it wasn’t waiting for me when I got there. But they had them in stock, so after some delay, the staff found one for me.

The surprise wasn’t that some high-tech system failed me in a minor way. The remarkable thing is that when I got the charcoal chimney starter home, it worked exactly as expected.  No inscrutable instructions; no auxiliary parts that you need to make it work but which you don’t have; no important steps in the operation of the device that everyone assumes you already know, and so no one tells you about. Life might be dull if everything were this easy, but some things should be this easy.

Birthday Eats

This year for my birthday I had curry duck at a northwest suburban Thai restaurant. Or, as the menu put it: “Boneless roast duck simmered in Thai spices, red curry, coconut milk, red peppers, green peppers, onions, grapes and fresh basil leaves.” Excellent choice, it was. I didn’t do the modern thing and point a camera at the savory concoction. I did the old-fashioned thing and ate it.

The cake this year was German Chocolate Cake. According to this list, at least, June 11 – close enough – is German Chocolate Cake Day, which I never knew until I looked into the question of just where German Chocolate Cake was created.

As luck would have it, Snopes weighs in on that subject, asserting that it’s in fact an American creation, and popularized only since the 1950s. Something like chop suey not really being Chinese, but who eats chop suey anyway? Or chili con carne in fact being norteamericano.

53rd birthday baked goodWe picked up the cake at a local bakery, and it proved as sweet and gooey as it needed to be. Note the candles. Lilly put them on, using all those we had handy. No one seriously suggested we load the thing with 53 little candles.

Good things to eat for your birthday, but still not as good as when I turned 21. My college friend Dan was taking a class that summer called Economy Botany, taught by one Dr. Channel, which I should have taken myself, but didn’t. Dr. Channel had invited Dan, and a girl named Rona, to his large house near campus for dinner. Dan asked me to come along, or maybe asked a number of us to come, but only I could. It was a coincidence that it was my birthday; I don’t think Dan knew till I mentioned it late in the evening.

“Dr. Channel served a multi-course, skillfully made meal,” I wrote. “We ate hors d’oeuvre – shrimp, vegetables, various dips – a special Georgia onion, baked, and a massive cheesy meaty spicy thick pizza, made from scratch by the professor, including herbs on top fresh from his sprawling garden, a part of his lush back yard that runs off in all directions. We ate under a bower near the garden, and finished off the meal with a wonderful pistachio pie.”

What did I do to deserve that meal? Right place, right time, I guess. The special Georgia onion, I know now, was a Vidalia. Dr. Channel had baked it in aluminum foil, I think. I never knew an onion could be so sweet.

Johnson’s Door County Fish

This quote came to my attention recently: “Chicago is the city of the steak house, of deep-dish pizza, the Italian beef sandwich that requires three hands to manipulate and eleven small paper napkins to mop yourself up with afterwards.” – Joseph Epstein, Literary Education and Other Essays.

Yep. Been there, eaten all those things. But they weren’t on offer recently at Johnson’s Door County Fish in west suburban Lombard, Ill. In fact, a hand-written sign at the counter at Johnson’s told us the sad fact that the restaurant had no Lake Superior whitefish for sale that day. Sad news, since whitefish is a wonderful gift from the 2,800 cubic miles of Gitche Gumee to us omnivorous land-dwellers.

I’d been to Johnson’s once before. I’d seen it written up in the Tribune, and soon after needed to be in the vicinity, which isn’t very often, so I decided to give it a go (here’s a more recent mention in the paper, about its fish sandwiches). As unpretentious fish joints go, it’s first rate. Not the best lake fish I’d ever had – Bayfield, Wis., had that, but pretty good. That was seven or eight years ago, maybe. I remember taking Ann with me, and she was still a toddler.

The place looks about the same. Brown woods, a lot of windows, worn booths, and some fish ornamentation, such as a scene of fanciful schools of purple fish painted on the wall in 20th-century restaurant vernacular style. Also, a there’s navigation map of northern Lake Michigan posted on the wall, along with blown-up b&w images of Great Lakes fishermen and their equipment.

I had the walleye plate and Yuriko had the cod plate. The presentation isn’t anything special. In fact, it looks like the fried fish you might get at one of the lower-rung fast-food places. But the fish is tasty, much better than it looks.

Another hand-lettered sign explained that the restaurant is for sale. Apparently the owners are in their 80s, and want to sell. I’m not in the market for a fish restaurant, but I hope someone takes it over and maintains it as an independent, low-cost fish joint here in the Midwest.

New Product Monday

The rains lately have been tropical-like, without the high heat. The days start warm or warmish, and then the rains come in short, intense downpours. Enough to water the plants and dampen the deckchairs. Afterward, it’s clear and warm again.

I don’t follow the snack-food industry as anything but a consumer, so I didn’t know that Nabisco, as well as Ritz, are brands of Mondelēz International. Mondelēz, eh? A Brazilian behemoth come to North America to buy our brands? A Taiwanese confectioner who picked that name to throw us off? A massive Turkish purveyor of sweets that got its big break when Atatürk expressed admiration for its tulumba and walnut sujuk?

No, Mondelēz company HQ is in Deerfield, Ill., and according to some sources, operates the world’s largest bakery, a whopping 1.8 million-square-foot Nabisco facility in Chicago. Recently we’ve been buying Ritz Toasted Chips because damn, they’re good. They bear the Nabisco logo, complete with the oval and the crux gemina (or antennae?). Everyone likes them, which is no small thing in this house. They’re small, crisp crackers, and exceptionally tasty.

I spent some time with the ingredient panel, trying to figure out what is it that makes them so good. My guess: sugar. And yet, they aren’t sweet. Still, sugar is the fourth ingredient, following flour, soybean oil, and cornstarch. Salt is three more places down the list, though the taste seems more salty than sweet, though not that salty. Must be the balance of sugar, salt and some of the other substances that whip the taste into being. Anyway, it’s a home run for the Mondelēz food technologists, test-kitchen managers, tasters, and so on.

Sorry to say that Santa Cruz ORGANIC lemonade – the label practically screams that at you – is only fair. Coming in a convenient quart-bottle, it’s neither very sweet nor tart, and I think lemonade should tend toward one or the other. I prefer a tart mix myself. It isn’t bad, but it’s more watery than it should be.

The bottle does assure us, however, that Santa Cruz National, which is based in Chico, Calif., is a Green-e certified company that buys enough renewable energy each year to cover its production needs, and “we recycle more than 95% of our waste.” Well, dandy. Now make better lemonade.

Corsicana

Everything about this picture says Texas: the Collin Street Bakery sign, marking a famed Texas bakery; the Texas flags; the HEB grocery store; the pickup truck driving by; the onion domes off in the distance. Onion domes?

Texas4.25.14 001First a little background. On April 24, 2014, Jay and I drove south on I-45, the main road from Dallas to Houston. About 50 miles south of Dallas is Corsicana, seat of Navarro County, and home of the Collin Street Bakery. I’ve been eating its fruitcakes on and off for years, mostly by mail order, but in 1996 (I think) I passed through town and visited the bakery store.

As the web site notes: “The DeLuxe Texas Fruitcake or Pecan Cake you order today is still baked true to the old-world recipe brought to Corsicana, Texas from Wiesbaden, Germany in 1896 by master baker Gus Weidmann. He and his partner, Tom McElwee, built a lively business in turn-of-the-century Corsicana which included an elegant hotel on the top floor of the bakery.”

The hotel is gone, but you can still buy baked goods at the bakery store, including the signature fruitcake. We bought one to take to our mother, plus some smaller items for more immediate snacking. From the parking lot, we noticed those nearby onion domes, and being curious about onion domes in small-town Texas, we went over for a look. After all, how often do you see Moorish Revival buildings in small-town Texas? Probably more often than I’d think, but anywhere there one was.

It’s the Temple Beth-El, a former synagogue on 15th St. in Corsicana.  A shot from across the street is here; it’s a handsome building.

Like the Collin Street Bakery, Temple Beth-El too dates from the late 19th century. The Jewish community of Corsicana isn’t what it used to be – they probably went to Dallas, like everyone else – so in more recent years, the building’s been a community center overseen by the Navarro County Historical Society.

Now fully in a look-see mood, Jay and I went over to the Navarro County Courthouse grounds. Navarro himself was there. A statue of Jose Antonio Navarro, that is.

The Smithsonian tells us that “the sculpture was commissioned by the Texas Centennial Commission to honor Jose Antonio Navarro (1795-1871), a native Texan lawyer, merchant, and rancher who founded Navarro County and co-created the Republic of Texas. Navarro named the County seat Corsicana after his father’s birthplace, Corsica. While on an expedition to Sante Fe, Navarro was captured by Mexican soldiers and given a life sentence for treason. He escaped in 1845 and upon his return to Texas was elected as a delegate to the Convention which approved the annexation of Texas and drafted the Constitution.”

Nearby Navarro stands “The Call to Arms,” a Confederate memorial. It’s a little unusual, not being a soldier standing at attention or the like.

The statue’s plaque says that it was erected in 1907 by the Navarro Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy “to commemorate the valor and heroism of our Confederate soldiers. It is not in the power of mortals to command success. The Confederate soldier did more – he deserved it.”

History’s written by the victors, indeed.

Maxine’s Chicken & Waffles

Until recently, I was only dimly aware of chicken & waffles. As a combined meal, that is, apparently known to the Pennsylvania Dutch and as a soul-food specialty in the 20th century. (More about it here.) Not long ago, Lilly started mentioning the combo. Not sure why. Maybe she picked it up from a let’s-go-there-and-eat-something show (e.g., Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.)

Anyway, the notion had lodged in my mind just in time for me to see a listing for Maxine’s Chicken & Waffles, which is at 132 N. East St., right at the eastern edge of downtown Indy. The area’s still mostly small commercial uses and parking lots, though I spotted a couple of apartment complexes being developed nearby.

Once I saw the listing in one of those publications left in hotel rooms, and did a little reading about the place – this is the age of Yelp, after all – I suggested it for Saturday lunch, after we’d finished with the Eiteljorg Museum. I didn’t want to end up at some restaurant that could be anywhere, just because we couldn’t think of anywhere else to go, and everyone wanted to eat right now.

Maxine’s is about a 20-minute walk eastward from the museum, across the heart of downtown Indianapolis. Along the way we spotted the statue of Vice President Hendricks, but also another memorial that goes to show the veneration we still have for President Lincoln.

Indy, April 2014It marks the spot where Lincoln stopped to speak, on February 11, 1861, on his way to Washington City to become president. (We should still call it Washington City. Maybe that usage will return if DC wins statehood.)

We arrived at Maxine’s for a late lunch. Good thing, too, because I’ll bet the place gets really crowded on Saturday morning and into the early afternoon. As it was, it was mostly full. According to a sign on the wall, and its web site as well, the place only dates from 2007, founded by the children and grandchildren of Ollie and Maxine Bunnell, whose large family had a knack for cooking (Maxine’s regular job was cooking at St. Francis Hospital).

I’m glad that the restaurant survived the recession. Not every venture started in 2007 would be so lucky. But I don’t think luck was the main factor. We all had a variation of chicken & waffles – plain, blueberry and strawberry waffles – and they were terrific. So seemingly simple, so artfully made.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAs you can see, it’s your basic waffle, adorned by three fried chicken wings, with a bit of honey-butter on the side, along with syrup. The combo works. They complement each other. After you’ve eaten some of the sweet waffles, you switch to the mildly spicy chicken, and then back. From beginning to end, not a bad bite in sight. Not even a mediocre one. Whatever soul-food recipes the heirs of Ollie and Maxine have come up with, they’re winners.

Eat Potatoes With Potatoes

File this under “Learn Something Every Day.” As I was reading a press release today about an environmentally friendly hotel – a green hotel, in commercial real estate parlance – I came across the following: “[It’s the] most environmentally aware hotel that I have ever stayed at – breakfast plates and cutlery made from potatoes…”

Wait, what? Immediately I imagined knives and forks carved out of potatoes. No matter how artfully you did that, I don’t think they would work very well as eating utensils. Of course that’s not what the release meant. PR writers should avoid that kind of unexplained references in passing.

Still, help is only a Googling away, and pretty soon you’re reading about bioplastic cutlery made from potato starch (Spudwear is or was one brand) and other plant-based materials. Been around for the better part of a decade. I had no idea.

A Thousand Words About Pho

Found a new place for pho not long ago, not far from where we live. Once upon a time, the only place we knew for pho, besides Vietnam itself, was Argyle Street on the North Side of Chicago. But good food tends to spread.

Why go on about it in words when this image will speak for me?

March 2014 phoAh, muy delicioso.

The Day of the Trivet

More snow last night. Getting a little tiresome, eh? Most of the nation is probably getting tired of the Winter of ’14 and its polar vortices and cancelled flights and icy Southland.

But spring is nigh. I know that because in the mail today I got the first circular of the season advertising better lawns through chemistry. Maxi-Green Lawn Service, or something, promising a lawn as green and monocultured and uninteresting as the surface of a billiard table. It’s a little hard to imagine any kind of lawn under those feet of snow, but I know it’s down there. As usual this year, I’m going to promote biodiversity in my lawn and survival of the fittest for the flora.

Here’s a word you don’t see all that much: trivet. I’m thinking of it because I also got a MoMA catalog in the mail today, as always full of artful bric-a-brac that I don’t order. In includes the Bakus Trivet, by Brazilian designer Tati Guimarães.

“An ideal way to collect and repurpose corks from special occasions,” the catalog says. “This stainless-steel frame becomes a trivet when you add bottle corks atop the 36 bent spikes. (Corks not included.) Made in Spain… $48  MEMBERS  $43.20”

Some cork-collecting friends of mine in college could have used one of these trivets, provided it wasn’t that expensive. They collected corks for some years, and wrote on each cork who was with them when the bottle was opened, and when. As I participated in wine drinking with these lads, my name too ended up on some of the corks, which were kept in a wooden box.

These days it would take a long time for me to accumulate 36 wine-bottle corks. And we don’t need any more trivets, since we have two cast-iron objects that serve that purpose. Still, it seems like a clever little item.

The Almondmilk Carton

Sunny day today, but that just means that a little snow melts on top of the snow mounds near the streets, then refreezes on the streets, forming hazardous ice sheets. I saw one wide sheet today at the corner of a large street and a side street. Right-turning cars onto the side street risk skidding out of control on the turn – and maybe into a car waiting to make a turn onto the large street.

We’ve gone through a half-gallon (1.89l) of almond milk in a couple of days. A little expensive, but it’s tasty stuff, and probably healthful. But it’s not enough to market it as merely healthful. The container, which is exactly like a milk carton, goes to considerable length to assure buyers of its virtues as a food. It also assures us of its ritual purity.

Or at least the modern equivalent. It is:

FREE OF [caps in the original] dairy, soy, lactose, cholesterol, peanuts, casein, gluten, eggs, saturated fat, and MSG.

All Natural with added Vitamins & Minerals [caps again – though English is not, last time I checked, German].

Made from REAL Almonds.

Vegan.

Made in a Peanut Free Facility [I really want to add a hyphen].

and

This Almondmilk [sic] is made from Almonds that were not genetically modified.

That last one piqued my interest. By golly, I’ll sleep better tonight knowing that no Frankenalmonds have crept into my diet. I checked a little further, and found that the almonds used to make my almond milk are from California.

From there, I looked up the Almond Board of California. A handy Almond Board pdf tells me that there are no fewer than 30 varieties of almonds raised in California, 10 of which account for 70 percent of production.

Always nice to learn something new. The pdf also says, “All California Almonds are developed using traditional methods; genetically modified almond varieties are not planted or available in California.”

The carton, then, was making a virtue of necessity. Strictly speaking, though, “traditional methods” must involve breeding almonds for desirable characteristics over a good many years. A kind of genetic modification, in other words, just as agriculture has done for centuries. Just not the boogeyman kind from modern labs.