Terra Madre Day!

December 10th is Terra Madre Day and we are doing a mushroom dinner with Tom and Wendy Wyant from Killbuck Mushrooms.

You can look forward to 5 tasty courses that will include a mushroom dessert!!!!


Sign up early, as space will be limited.

I will post the menu as soon as it is ready. I look forward to celebrating this event and hope to procure some interesting heritage products to use in the dinner.

See ya there.

Tennessee Truffles

I am currently trying to track down some Tennessee truffles for the winter menu. There is a company out of Tennessee that is currently producing truffles on a plantation in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

I hope that we can get our hands on some. It might be pretty hard, because they are pretty popular with big name cheffy-types.

Anyone know if truffles are found in Ohio?

I am also interested in trying "pecan truffles" which grow around pecan trees down south.

BesT!!

I am so excited that we recently received best restaurant from Scene magazine. I hope that we get some new clientele, since I doubt that most of our existing customers read the magazine.

This is a huge honor for all of us. Doug Trattner certainly made us all feel awesome with his kind words.

Congrats to everyone at Fire! Keep up the great work!

Next week, Tractor Pull!!

Phillip took a lil' video on his iphone a few weeks back. I thought I would post it to show everyone that we are really farming, and because it shows off tom's antique tractor.

The attachment I am using is a spreader. We took spent mushroom columns and but them in the trailer. There are large weights at the end that spin like a drunken college girl's vision after to many daiquiris. The spinning action breaks up the columns and spits them out the back. It's pretty impressive to see from the other end of things.

Enjoy below!


The straw helps keep weeds out, retains moisture and provides nutrients. The bed that we covered is where we planted our garlic.

This past Monday, we planted our 1st attempt at cover crops. George bought white clover seeds and we plowed then sowed the lil' buggers.

This might be all we are able to do for this year, but I hope we can still plant some more kale to carry us through our fall menu and into winter.

George, Phil, and I are looking forward to sitting down this week and hashing out we want to grow for for next year. If anyone has any cool ideas, let us know. We would also love advice from anyone that has any.

super happy exciting fun time!!

This Monday we are going to plant our 1st cover crop...white clover. I am a little bit confused as to how much we actually need to plant for 3/4 of an acre. I think lil' george bought 2.5 pounds and that ought to cover what we need.

We are attempting to plant clover as an alternative to chemical fertilizers. We hope that the clover will give us a jump start for next year. Our goal is to be able to plant lots and lots of stuff next year. It will be interesting to see if the clover makes a difference. Even though i have a limited amount of knowledge about farming, I am becoming increasingly excited about what we are doing.

I am super excited about being able to do a dinner at Tom/Wendy's property next year. This dinner will be incredible because we plan on picking all of our ingredients before cooking them to ensure maximum freshness/flavor.

It is incredibly fulfilling to know that in less than 2 years(i hope) that we will be able to grow most of our own produce.

Busy Busy Busy

I am currently in the process of providing a lil' more ownership over this blog to a few of my lovely partners in crime. I am a firm believer in people getting credit for all the work that they do.

I work with some of the best people that I have ever had the privilege of working with. I would love for them to be able to post about all of things that we are currently trying to accomplish from their perspective. the blog will prolly change to "The Misadventures of a Bunch of Dorks That Love Food Too Much". This title is tentative.....the more I think about it, it's kind of lame. I would love some suggestions if anyone has any.

The restaurant is pretty busy. This exciting for all of us, as being busy means that we are hopefully doing something right.

I got to meet Susie Heller last week(she has authored some of the most important cookbooks in the last 10 years). Susie is incredible and has loads of funny stories about Julia Child. I got to talk to her about the cookbook idea that I have pitched to Doug. It will be exciting to see how this takes shape. I would love to be able to to participate in a project that really demonstrates how far we have come as a restaurant.

Melissa Lavinc Smith, who helped me become noticed for my goofy obsession with food tattoos, has a book coming out called Inked Rogue Chefs. This book will be an incredible "coffee table" style publication that is dedicated to chefs that are tattooed up and will also offer up recipes from the chefs featured in the book. I'm lucky enough to be one of the chefs featured in the book and feel like I am not nearly cool enough to be featured in this magnificent publication. I also want to thank Melissa for even considering me to be someone in the book.

This week, provided my seeds come in on time. we are gonna plant Kale and clover(instead of Crimson and Clover........cue the Shondells). The kale we hope to use throughout winter. We are optimistic that the kale will be big enough to justify planting it this late. We braise it, so size doesn't really matter that much. The cold will make it nice and sweet. The clover we plan to plant as an organic alternative to commercial fertilizers. Clover stores nitrogen in its root system, and we should be able to use this to our advantage.

We have decided on some of our "staples" for next year. We are also trying to narrow down
some of the heirloom varieties that we want to plant. George, Phil, and I have talked about planting cardoons, and artichokes to see if they thrive in our climate.

THE CARDOONS WERE GEORGE'S IDEA AND I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT HE GETS CREDIT FOR IT!!!! There dude, you happy? lol!

The cardoons and artichokes can provide valuable shade to some of our crops that are a little less than tolerant of full sun. When we get our half acre(courtesy of Killbuck Mushrooms/Tom and Wendy Wyant) fully functional, we hope to able to produce some of our own livestock. This may be a distant dream, but we will see.

Things, all in all, are pretty exciting right now at the restaurant. We have a bunch of dinners planed for the month of Rocktober as well as a menu change for the fall season. I hope everyone is stoked for the new menu. I know I am!!

Please watch the following video and begin to understand how important it is that we start show the animals that eat more respect. This video is part of an underground investigation in England. I doubt that our industrial farms are any better. I love pork, and I love to know that the animals I eat are not mistreated. It's sickening to know that most people in the "civilized world" could care less about what happened to the animal they are eating while the animal was alive.

pig abuse/intensive farming

I won't preach anymore tonight. If you have ever taste meat from a farmer that actually card about the product that they were producing(Aaron and Melissa Miller), you would know the difference. Animals that are raised in poor conditions TASTE like it.

Bacon and Stuff

Earlier this week, Curtis and I decided to create "the world's greatest savory martini". We started experimenting with agar agar clarification.

I decided that I wanted to do a bacon/blue cheese cocktail. Don't make that icky face just yet!!!!!
so, Curtis and I decided finally upon blue cheese infused gin with a bacon infused dry vermouth.


The blue cheese infused gin turned to be a great success. We decided to use a cheaper gin because we were afraid that infusing/clarifying the gin wouldn't work. IT WAS AN INCREDIBLE COMBINATION!!!!

We are also able to save the blue cheese that we use for the infusion as a garnish for the drink.

I want to invite the owner of Velvet Tango Room over to try this drink when it is finished. I hope Paulius will come over and try my tribute to their Manhattan. I loved theirs so much, that
I had to come up with my own!!!

We is farming now, Pa!!

Myself and 2 of my employees/friends have recently decided to venture into farming. This project started a couple of months ago. I spoke with Tom Wyant from Killbuck Mushrooms about using some of his property. We then started talking about how much land we could honestly grow stuff on. This, in turn, led to the decision of leasing a half acre to grow on.

We started late this year, so we only had time to plant garlic. We planted several 125 foot rows of garlic. Tom has been gracious enough to allow us to use all of equipment(including his sweet antique tractor) for free.

Next year, we will really get into gear. I plan on planting all of our spinach, tomatoes, melons, herbs, and other staples that we use at the restaurant.

I believe this is the next step for us to become more of a self sustaining/ self reliant restaurant. I really hope that by the end of next summer that we will have a greenhouse built to extend our growing season and we will be able to supply the restaurant with a steady supply of fruits and vegetables that we grow ourself. It will be nice to be able to say that most of our produce is grown by us.

I hope that this project inspires other members of our community and even the crew at Fire to take be more involved in the current "farm to table movement" that is currently at the forefront of modern cuisine.

Tom and I also think that this will be excellent cross promotion for both of our businesses. I can't thank him and his wife enough for all of their help and allowing us to use their land.


So, here's to tractors, corn cob pipes, and overalls!!!!! YEEEE-HAAW!

Gooseberry Obsession

This summer, I have become obsessed with the Cape gooseberry. We have great success with our gooseberry/champagne pan sauce for the scallop dish. The blue corn grits from Covered Bridge Gardens and the Niman Ranch pork belly confit really round out the dish.

Recently, however, we decided to infuse vodka with Cape gooseberries for a summer cocktail. As has been my experience with most infused alcohols, I don't ever seem to have the patience. After 2 weeks, it seemed like the flavor just wasn't being imparted into the vodka.

Some of the other chefs and I read a lot of blogs. One of my favorites, Ideas in Food, recently posted about clarification of liquids using a cryovac machine and agar agar. This sounded like the way to go. So we pureed gooseberries with vodka and heated up a little bit to "bloom" our agar. The agar mixture was then combined with the other mixture and allowed to set in the cooler.

The mixture didn't set all the way(probably due to the proof of the vodka). We then vacuum sealed under the highest pressure that we could muster. The mixture was then strained through a coffee filter and the result is one tasty product.

We can now start thinking about other alcohols to infuse with whatever we want. The possibilities are endless!

Drunken Swine Nettle Ale is GO!!!!

Finally bottling the 1st batch of nettle ale tonight. It almost tastes like Oberon, which I find kinda weird. I'm gonna tweak the recipe and make it just a tad more bitter. In a week or so, we'll see how it tastes after bottling. I hope that it doesn't explode!

Pig's Head Madness

Last week we got in a pig's head from Niman ranch, because I haven't made headcheese(or brawn if you're British) since culinary school. The head was extremely fresh and Dave Treaster and I tackled that thang with mucho gusto!!









For the headcheese I used capers, cornichons, citrus zest/juice, lots of parsley, and lots of salt and pepper. I then reduced the gelatin and we assembled the terrine. After cutting into the terrine, I wish I would've added more of the liquid. It was kind of hard to slice and fell apart slightly. We even got to serve some to Michael Ruhlman and family when they came in to eat.


In the end, I was pretty happy with my 2nd attempt ever at headcheesery. I even thanked the piggy, before we started, for the opportunity.
Thank you, my delicious friend.

Meddling with Nettles

Today, after hours of research, I decided to finally make some nettle beer. I adapted recipes that I read from several places and set of to make a batch of brew. I wouldn't have even attempted this if it wasn't for Hugh Whittingstall and an episode from one of his shows.

The brew needs to ferment for 10 days before I can bottle it. Hopefully, in a month, it will be ready to taste.

Randomness

I went out and bought some cool stuff today. I finally got some beer from Indigo Imp brewery. I can't wait to try it. As usual, I seem to be a day late and about 5 bucks short. Hopefully, in the future, I will be more informed of great things like this before everyone else knows about them.

I also purchased Michael Ruhlman's new book : Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind The Craft of Everyday Cooking.


I have actually been looking forward to this book for awhile. I think the image on the cover would make a sweet, functional tattoo. What do you think? Never again would you have to look up recipes, you could just look at your arm or leg!!

I noticed a post on Cage Free Tomatoes blog as well today. The post was about raising your own chickens. I want to do this really bad, but don't know if it is possible in Cleveland Heights. Anyone know if this is possible?

I'm also extremely pleased with the new Spring menu at Fire. Food is fun, simple, and clean. If you haven't checked it out, you should give it a try.

I'm also working on some pretty cool stuff that I hope to be able to share in the near future. Now, I finally got all of the random thoughts out of my head and it's time to enjoy some Indigo Imp!!

uuuuuuuwhat?!!!

Seriously.......for real?!!!!

Ramps!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's ramp time. Yum Yum!! So ramps are starting to show up all over the place right now. We have gotten some from Ben Bebenroth, and from KJ Greens. They are also popping up at all the farmer's markets.

So, last week, we got 20 pounds of these dirty lil' suckers! As usual, we are gonna use as much as possible throughout the spring. We finally got a cryovac machine so we can seal and store enough to hopefully get us through the entire menu.

I decided to make Kim Chi and boy is it good. The odor of fresh kim chi as it ferments is something that is unmistakable. Factor in the already unique smell of ramps and you have an entirely unique aroma. I made kim chi from all 20 pounds and it has fully fermented.

If you're feeling frisky, the recipe is as follows:

Ramp Kim Chi

1/3 c. Korean Chili Powder (sub chili flakes if you can't find them....just pulverize in coffee mill)
3 T. Fish Sauce
1 T. Japeness Soy Sauce (preferrably Shoyu from Kikkoman)
1/4 c. Vidalia Onion, julienned
1/2 c. Carrots, peeled then julienned
2 T. Fresh Ginger, minced
1 t. Sugar
1 T. Corn Syrup

and most importantly....

3 Pounds of Cleaned Ramps

Combine all ingredients except ramps, onions, and carrots. Place cleaned vegetables in large bowl. While wearing gloves, rub ramps all over with spice mix. Make sure to be extra vigorous with your rubbing. Once coated, pack ramps into large Ball jar. They will all fit, trust me. Cover and allow to sit somewhere(your basement) for 7 days. Make sure to vent the jars daily. Just when you get used to the smell, it's time to refrigerate.

Enjoy! The above pic was taken by my lovely assistant, Heidi. She even made a batch of kim chi using this recipe and our house has never smelled better

Ohhh Boy!! Oberon and Oysters

This post is kind of late, but still worth a read. On my birthday, which happened to be the day after Oberon was released, we decided to get some oysters.

My favorite type, right now, are Island Creek Oysters. These oysters are delightfully briny and slightly sweet. We decided to get a couple dozen and chow down.

I always make a mignonette when I eat my oysters. I have never made one with beer and that's where the Oberon comes in.

Here's the recipe:

Oberon Mignonette

1 T. Crushed Black Peppercorns
1 each Orange, zested and juiced
1/2 c. Red Wine Vinegar
1 btl. Oberon
2 each Shallots, minced
pinch of fleur de sel
excess liquor

Combine the first 6 ingredients and set aside in your refrigerator. Shuck your oysters over a bowl, so you can catch any of that tasty liquor that might escape. Add this to the chilled mignonette and enjoy.

Treasures From The Land of Swayt Tea!

I recently took a brief trip back to the south and brought back some goodies. Te goodies are (clockwise from top left): Sazerac Rye, Russel's 6 year Rye, Cheerwine, and Cherry Lemon Sundrop.


Each of these goodies are not able to purchase here. Does anyone know why Rye isn't sold in Ohio?

On the Cover of The Rolling Stone.....well not quite

Last night I finally received the newest issue of Meatpaper. I am super excited, not only because it's a pork issue, but because I'm in it!!!

See Ma! All these wacky tattoos finally paid off.

The article is about Chef's with pork related tattoos. Some other notables in it are Chris Cosentino and Michael Symon.

Check out the scan below. If you get a chance, you should subscribe to this mag. Sasha Wizansky and crew do a fantastic job.

SOMETHING IMPORTANT

For a long time now, seasonal cooking has been something that is important to many. We have long since forgotten what it was like to not have every vegetable at our disposal at any point throughout the year. Some people forget that not that long ago, refrigeration was something that most families couldn't afford.

So how in the world did we ever get by without these modern conveniences? What happened to the good ol' days? What happened to preserving produce when it was in season so it could be enjoyed in the darker cold months when the sun wasn't hibernating?

Maybe we just forgot.

Or.....we rely on less than savory practices to provide us with the things we love so much throughout the year. These products generally aren't that good, but they seem to always remind us of the warmer months. It's always hard to let go of the sunshine time, especially in the long and arduous winter we often face in Cleveland.

Is it worth it?

The March 2009 issue of Gourmet magazine recently published an article entitled: Politics of the Plate-The Price of Tomatoes. This article is extremely informative, especially for all soccer moms that thought those tomatoes their children eat just fall from the sky. The disconnect between product and plate in this country is amazing, as I'm sure most of you are well aware(I hope).

This article shows exactly what goes on in certain circles to provide us , as consumers, with product that isn't really of the best quality. This is just done to provide the consumer with something that they feel is necessary for them to have year round.

Is it? At what expense?

Immigrants have to live in worse than ideal(that's putting it lightly) conditions. These men are oft abused by those that promised to make their lives so much better. I know that in this country we often turn a blind eye to such practices, but it's time to understand that purchasing goods out of season can even affect the quality of life for some people.

So, what should you the consumer do? First of all, educate yourself better about products that are seasonal. It's time to help the environment and your fellow man.

Think about how much you and your children can learn. Gardening is a great experience for families.

What if I can't garden? You can always grow tomatoes indoors. You can even make it a party.......when you jar up all those tomatoes that you can't eat immediately. As soon as you start, you can't stop....like Pringles!!!

I know that sometimes it's hard to make an impact. There is no excuse not to buy and /or grow tomatoes when they are in season. This helps just a little. It helps, on a small scale, to ensure that men are not being forced to live in the worst conditions just to pick something that is barely edible in the 1st place.


DON'T BUY TOMATOES THAT COME FROM FLORIDA WHEN THEY ARE OUT OF SEASON!!!
THIS IS JUST COMPOUNDING AN ALREADY HORRIBLE SITUATION!!!!


For more on how to make an impact, check out a website that I hold incredibly dear : River Cottage. Hugh has made a huge difference for me, and hopefully for you as well!

Please comment if this post meant anything to you!!!!!

Ghetto-tastic Sous Vide

I've been playing around with sous vide cooking for a while now. The wine dinner we hosted on Wednesday was a chance to incorporate this technique into a couple of dishes.

The only problem I have, is that I am using a foodsaver to vacuum seal my items. The foodsaver does a decent job, but the bags don't seem to stay sealed like they should. At first, the bag seems to be airtight. Then, after awhile in a water bath(no I don't have an immersion circulator), the bag has expanded and it looks like it has air in it.

For the wine dinner, I sous vide rhubarb and white asparagus. The rhubarb was delicious and the fibers broke down nicely without overcooking the product.


I also sous vide cabbage for St. Patrick's Day. The cabbage turned out incredibly well.


The results then seem to be nothing more than boil in a bag some of the time. I would love to see the results with the proper equipment. I'm still working on getting a cryovac machine. If anyone knows someone that is throwing one away, let me know.

Chilean Wine Dinner March 25th

I thought it would be nice to blog about one of the nicest wine dinners that have taken place since I have been employed at the old Fire restaurante. Tonight Jeff and I did a wine dinner featuring Chilean wines from Odfjell Family Vineyards. We did our best to pair the wines with the food and I think we succeeded. Below is a blow by blow description(pics included).

1st Course
Corned Duck Breast
Asparagus Confit (2-way)
Whole Grain Mustard Vinaigrette
Frisee

Cold Blooded Aperitif

2nd Course
Pan Seared Halibut
Sous Vide Rhubarb
Watercress-Fennel Salad
Blood Orange Gastrique
Armador Sauvignon Blanc, Casablanca Valley, 2008

marco makin' us look good!!

3rd Course
Tandoor Roasted Veal Breast
Preserved Tuna Aioli
White Bean Puree
Mixed Olive Relish
Orzada Carmenere, Maule, Chile 2005


the veal was stuffed with Killbuck Valley mushrooms, la quercia proscuitto, parmesan,
rosemary, and garlic

Intermezzo
Sherry Vinegar Sorbet

there is no pic of the sorbet because it melted so fast.
people seemed to have incredibly mixed feelings about the sorbet.
we wanted to try it out and figured between these two courses would be perfect.


4th Course
Jamison Farm Lamb Duo
Red Wine Marinated Sirloin
Braised Shoulder Tortellini
Sauteed Rapini
Porcini Jus
Armador Cabernet Sauvignon, Maipo Valley, Chile 2006

this dish had incredible flavors.
the tortellini was jampacked with goodness.

5th Course
Rhubarb Upside Down Cake
Rhubarb Compote
Creme Fraiche

delicious

The food was awesome. Jeff and I were both extremely pleased with our results. We ordered extra lamb and our going to run the lamb dish as a weekend special. If you didn't get to try this dish at the wine dinner, you should visit us at the restaurant.

I apologize for the wackiness with the fonts. I can't seem to get the format right this time. Allow yourself to be distracted by the pretty pictures instead.

The Best Seasoned Salt Ever!!!!

This brand is my favorite.

The Viking salt is something I use all the time.
Something about smoke, curry, and garlic.

Try them if you see them!!!

Essential Cooks Books - Episode Dos

This book is a fascinating read. One of my favorite parts of the book is the argument against vegetarianism.

If you are a fan of the book's namesake, then you should go out and buy it. Hugh Fearnley- Whittingstall is extremely passionate about the subject matter and spends the entire 1st 100 pages or so helping one understand meat.

Below is an interesting clip wherein Hugh demonstrates how to grow your own food in urban areas. This show originally aired on BBC and is quite insightful.



Watching Hugh follow someone around with"fine rotted horse muck"(manure)...priceless.

Check out the River Cottage Handbook series of books as well. I just ordered the 1st four on Amazon and hope they arrive in time for my birthday!!

Creminelli Tartufo

We ordered a case of Creminelli's Tartufo salami last week. This stuff is incredible. There is a slight black truffle flavor, and thats just the way I likes it.

The salami itself is nice and salty as well. This salami is excellent with some good cheese and crispy crackers. I like to eat it with Guggisberg's Aged Grassfed Baby Swiss.

MMMMM-HMM!!

OBERRRRRRRRRRRRRON!!!!!!

It comes out on March 30th!!!!! That's the day before my birthday.......yeehaw!!

Experimental Drinktitude

This drink menu is starting to become extremely fun to play with. Today we finalized the 1st edition of our new house cocktail list:



I played around today, trying to perfect a recipe for green olive caviar. So far, its pretty cool. Now, I just need to work on getting the size right. Hopefully, this will end up garnishing a dirty martini.




I think it will be awesome. I'm still trying to work on encapsulated shots.

I also made a sherry vinegar sorbet for a wine dinner. This idea came from the book Flavor Bible. It turned out really good, and we will use it as an intermezzo.

Essential Cooks Books - Episode 1

Inspiring. Fun. Awesome.

If you love being a glutton and aren't afraid of meals that say f-you to diets, buy this book. The book is worth it just for the illustrations and photos. Make sure you buy the Canadian edition!!

A Few of my Favorite Things

Favorite knife:

The Shun 8" Chef's knife with a Granton edge is the best knife that I have ever owned. This knife is sharper than any knife I have ever used. I love Shun knives because they are so easy to maintain.

If you have some cash and need a knife that will last longer than most marriages, buy this one.

Bacon Is Hard Work, But So Damn Worth It

Today, I took a bunch of pics of the baconator in action. The baconator is incredible, but sometimes smoking in the the tandoor can be a little bit tricky. It is hard to maintain a proper, consistent level of smoke. When it works, though, it works like my liver after a night of heavy drinking. You can see an example below.






The bacon is hooked up all S & M like to the baconator...



...and dropped into the tandoor.

The bacon smokes like a crowd at a Dave Matthew's concert and looks like this when done:

Fan-dang-tastic!!!!

There you have it kids.....house smoked bacon and all its porkgasmic goodness!!!!

Sustain-o-bar!!

Ideas for the revised bar concept at Fire are still floating around. We hope to unveil the new drink menu and happy hour menu once we change over for spring. This has been a fun exercise, even though it seems that not everyone is as excited as I thought they would be.

Anyhoo, we have been trying to reinvent the bar by staying with the theme of the restaurant itself: "simple food, sustainable practices, igniting the community".

The bartenders have been saving the liquor bottles for us to refill with syrups and infusions.



We are also working on a seasonal drink list. We think it would be great to have a cocktail list that changes with the seasons, like the dinner menu. Look for some rhubarb cocktails in the spring!

We have also started to make our own bitters and a smoked vermouth syrup(for the perfect manhattan).

These drinks are all being designed to bring back the art of bartending. Its time to sit back and watch someone craft the perfect cocktail before your eyes, instead of slopping random alcohols together without any passion.

Hopefully, drinking is about to be a lot more fun at the good ol' Fire Food and Drink Saloon!!

Yummy, Yummy,Yummy....I Got Corned Beef in a Bucky!!

As you can see, we had to transfer the briskets to a larger brining device. The hotel pan was just way too crowded.


Today is the day I've been waiting for. We finally get to try the corned beef at the restaurant. The menu is a prix fixe. You get 3 courses of St. Patty's goodness for 30 buckaroos.

Anyone that reads this, needs to come in and get some!!!

The Virtues of Housemade Bacon

For a while now, we have been making our own bacon at Fire. I know that many places in town make bacon in house, but ours is special for 2 reasons.

1st, we have the real deal "baconator".
This bad boy was fashioned out of a deep hotel pan. My man, Dave "Geez" Treaster, then drilled holes and hung five rows of painter's hooks in the pan.

2nd, we have a tandoor oven in which to smoke our deliciousness. I, being the genius that I am, forgot to take a separate pic of the tandoor. So, if you don't know anything about them, go HERE. This monstrous beast is perfect for smoking bacon and does a better job than most commercial smokers.

For our bacon, we adjusted the basic cure recipe(the one with dextrose instead of sugar) from Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie book. Before curing the bacon, I brush each slab of pork belly with copious amounts of good ol' Knob Creek bourbon. The bourbon accentuates the smokiness of the finished product.

After curing for 10 days(7 just ain't enough), we get the tandoor nice and smoky. Then, we hang the slabs(5 at a time) from the painter's hooks and invert the pan over the tandoor's round opening.

The bacon is then smoke until it reaches the desired temp(155 F.). After its done, we brush it with maple syrup from Snake Hill Farms. Their grade A Amber is incredible with the bourbon soaked bacon.

The finished product looks like this:


The white spots are just a little bit of congealed porky goodness, not mold. Bacon looks good chillin next to the latest issue of Meatpaper magazine.

We are about to start working on small batch artisan bacon that we will sell through the restaurant as "private label". I'm just waiting on Doug to finally purchase a cryovac machine, so we can finally insert ourselves into the 21st century.


All this being said, I think we have the best bacon in town. Thanks Tandoor!!!!

Spring Menu Brainstorm Extravaganza!!!!

Tonight we sat around and made huge strides towards completing the spring menu for Fire.

Here is a tease of our minds at work:


That tease was for you Stuart!!


We also experimented with a few new drinks. The one that was the best would have to be the new "house" manhattan.

The "hot and bothered" martini is incredible as well. Something about habanero vodka and pickles...............yee-haw!!!!

New Cheeseplate Cheeses!!

I'm pretty excited about 2 new additions to our everchanging cheese plate lineup. I am super excited because I have never tried either of these cheeses.

The 1st cheese is Saxon Creamery's Green Fields Cheese. This cheese comes from Wisconsin and you can learn more about it here. I took a pic of the wheel cause it looks awesome.


The other cheese is Istara. This cheese is made in the Basque region of France and is made from sheep's milk. This cheese can be ordered from Amazon. Below is another another pic of cheese wheel goodness.

Tasty Bites

Below is a pic of my new favorite BBQ sauce. I experimented a little bit and decided to make a Smoked Dr. Pepper and Strawberry BBQ sauce.

This tasty as it can be sauce was served at a function promoting "minimally invasive surgery" for Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland.

If anyone wants the recipe, drop me a line.

Maple Fed Foie Gras!!!

Two weeks ago, I purchased one of the best DVD sets that I own. The set, Martin Sur La Route, is a series that aired on Radio-Canada. The episodes follow Martin Picard and his sous chef on a road trip throughout Canada while they explore regional delicacies of the country.Sur la Route, which means on the road, is super entertaining. The only problem, at least for me, is that it is only in French. Still, I have enjoyed these shows more than I have enjoyed most food media in awhile.

Martin Picard, for those of you that don't know, is the chef/proprietor of Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal. This restaurant is know for its indulgence and excess. Foie gras factors into many dishes. This restaurant is my favorite and Anthony Bourdain's too.

Check out this video from No Reservations:




I had the opportunity to eat here and instantly fell in love. Enough gushing about my personal hero.

One of the episodes of Sur La Route titled, Le Foie Gras, is awesome. They travel to a farm where Martin purchases his foie gras. I didn't feel like the animals were being abused, like so many others sissyfied animal rights activists/vegans. The animals seemed to be well taken care. I laughed pretty hard when I watched Chef Picard play with the baby ducks.

Martin and his Sous Chef(Hugue), prepare several dishes using a portable stove they have in the back of their truck. Towards the end, the make renditions of burgers, hot dogs, and poutine...all with foie gras!!!!!

The true highlight of the episode comes when they are at their campsite for the night, and a man delivers "secret" lobes of foie gras in a suitcase. Martin and his sous are obviously excited about foie, because it is foie from Maple fed ducks.

Martin worked on this project last year, and watching them eat this milky white treat made me hungry as heck!! The ducks are force fed maple syrup in addition the corn mush that are accustomed to. The product looked incredbile and I'm gonna try to order some for next year.

He mailed little care packages of the foie with champagne to chef's and food critics. Eric Ripert looked like he was gonna have an orgasm while eating it. The whole time Chef Martin is giggling like a schoolgirl.

I hope you enjoyed this post and the video that accompanied it. Let me know what you think.