Thursday, February 21, 2013

How to break down a chicken


Enjoy peoples, leave me comments to let me know what I could've done better. I need the feedback!!

bien manger

-cwis

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

When In Season! (When In Rome haha...no?)

I know Valentine's Day is tomorrow. So what are the two things a person (girl) receives on Valentine's Day? Flowers and Chocolate! And if the guy wants to take that extra step, how about some chocolate covered strawberries? I mean what says love more than a sweet, delicious strawberry covered in a dark (or milk) chocolate? Mmmm, sounds awesome, right? There's just one problem - it's February!

The other day I was in a mall and a girl was trying to sell me some pastries they make in house. I explained that I'm not big on sweets and she said, "Well, we have these beautiful chocolate covered strawberries we dipped ourselves. They're very big as well!" I give her credit for trying to sell the product, but I had to ask a few questions. Here's how the conversation went:

Me: Oh wow, they are big! Are you a foodie?
Her: Yeah, I love food!
Me: Cool, so are you big into the organic foods? You seem like the healthy type.
Her: Oh yeah, it's so much healthier without all that stuff they spray on the food.
Me: Well, we all grew up eating that stuff and we turned out OK, don't you think.
Her: Yeah, but we didn't know any better so if I can, I'd rather not eat that stuff.
Me: Fair enough. Are you big supporter in local farms?
Her: Definitely! I try to go out to the farmer's markets when I can, you can get some great food out there.
Me: Absolutely! So what farm do you guys get your giant strawberries from? Do you get them from a local, organic farm?
Her: Oh, I'm not sure if they're organic but they ARE local.
Me: That's crazy! I didn't know you could grow strawberries in the winter time.
Her: Of course you can, let me show you the container it comes in.

(Now, I didn't want to be a dick, but I knew what she was going to show me. There was a 99% chance it was going to be a Driscoll container. Driscoll is a company that farms berries in California and some countries in South America. They say they're organic, but I think that's bullshit. I'll get into my views about Organic some other time.)

Shows me the container.

Me: Oh! Driscoll. Have you been to their farm?
Her: No, unfortunately. Have you?
Me: Yeah, it's in Watsonville.
Her: Oh, where's that? Is it far?
Me: It's in California. 
Her: Oh.

Every fruit and vegetable has its season. Of course there are green houses and this and that, but there's nothing more natural (and organic har har har) than fruits and vegetables growing when they're supposed to. Have you noticed that you can really only get watermelons during the summer time? Or that berries and stone fruit taste best when the temperatures are high?

It just doesn't make sense to me when I see "fruit salad" that consists of honeydew, cantaloupe, pineapple in the winter. Why? Because they're Spring/Summer fruits! They taste the BEST during those seasons. During the winter when you see them in the super market, they most likely came from a South American country. What's so bad about that? Nothing honestly, except for the fact that it won't taste as good and you're probably going to pay almost double fr mediocre produce.

Think about it this way - have you overnighted something from another country? Ever buy something on Ebay and it came from China and took about 3-4 weeks to get to you? There's nothing different about these fruits. In order to prevent these fruits from going bad before they get to your supermarket, a lot of these companies will actually harvest these fruits before they are ripe. This is a big risk they're taking. In their minds, the fruit will ripen while it's being transported. Some of it will, and some of it won't.
I'm sorry, let me rephrase that last sentence.
Some of it will, and a lot of it won't. Those kinds of fruit in the winter taste like shit. Almost like cardboard. Not only are we getting bad tasting and unripe fruit, but if the company that's producing them are 'organic,' then there's a chance we might get some foreign bug along with our fruit.

Foreign bug = possible diseases.

Then you have the companies that spray the shit out of fruits with crap to keep the bugs away. So what's the lesser of two evils?

But don't let this steer you away from eating honeydew, cantaloupe, and pineapple. Like I said, every fruit and vegetable has its season. Even though Spring and Summer time is the time for berries, melons, mangos, avocado, and stone fruit, Winter time is the time for citrus. Lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruit, kiwis are best during winter time. And you can't forget about Fall time - pumpkins, gorges, apples, pears, figs and certain berries are best during this severe season change.

Remember, I'm not telling you how to eat. I'm just simply helping you - of course some of us are ok with settling with mediocre, but those people aren't reading this. When you buy an apple, you want the sweetest apple that's going to crunch when you bite into it. When you buy a water melon, you want the juiciest watermelon there is. When you buy a crate of tangerines, you want the most succulent little orange balls there is.

So the next time you're out shopping for fruits and vegetables, whether for dinner or just to have in your fruit basket, remember what season we're in. And if you're craving an apple during the spring time, chances are it's because you remember how delicious that Pink Lady Apple was a couple months ago, and chances are it won't taste the same as you remembered, and chances are you're going to pay more for it, and chances are you're going to be disappointed just like your last boyfriend or girlfriend. Just saying.

Need help knowing what fruit and vegetable belong in what season? Check this out. 

bien manger

-cwis



Friday, February 1, 2013

Going against the grain

So we already know the importance of letting meat rest before we cut into it, right? NO?! well here's a video.

So now we know why we let meat rest. GREAT! So now, do we know why we slice meat against the grain? Wait, what?! NO?!

Ok, no worries. You're not the only one. Whether you're working with beef, chicken, pork, or even fish, you always want to cut across the grain. What does this mean? See the lines that run left and right on this piece of flank steak? They're fibers that run in a certain direction almost like muscle. Now the lines are the "grain"and the direction the lines are "going with the grain." Make sense? Cool.


Now what do you think cutting against the grain means? It just means cutting across the fibers. By doing this, you shorten the fibers in each piece - making it easier to eat.


Think of it this way - I'm sure you've eaten celery before. When you bite into a stalk of celery, have you ever experienced that string that comes off the celery? Think of that as a fiber in the meat. When you cut the celery against the grain it makes the string shorter, making it easier to eat, yes? Same thing with the meat. But instead of preventing eating string, you're preventing eating chewy meat.


So remember this kids: next time you cook meat whether it's roasting, searing, braising, broiling, whatever...remember to let it rest FIRST for about 5 min and then when slicing it, cut against the grain. Same thing goes for food prepping. Even when the meat is raw, always cut against the grain. We don't want chewy food! Think about it the next time you have a steak in front of you with a knife in the right hand and a fork in the left hand. 

I'm glad I added pictures or this shit would've been boring! Left side correct slicing, right side incorrect slicing.


bien manger

-cwis