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.

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.

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!!

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.

1st Post

This post is dedicated to Stu Spivack.

I have often wanted to blog, but have found very little time to do so. I finally decided to do one after hearing about an argument between some of the cooks at the restaurant that I am Executive Sous Chef at.

The argument they had was about the validity of "foodie" blogs. One side of the argument was that people don't really pay attention to food blogs(this is the side that I don't agree with).

The other side is in defense of "foodie" blogs and the publicity that they can generate(this is the side I do agree with).

In the last few years, blogs have taken off. Blogs about food have especially seemed to gain notoriety. One blog in particular, Chocolate and Zucchini, is extremely popular. The author of said blog, Clotilde Dusoulier, has been on television and has even published 2 books. I would say that this makes her blog something that people read on a daily basis.

I myself am extremely fond of food related blogs, especially blog posts that pertain to restaurants. I often look for reviews of the newest spots that are opening up. Blogs are even useful for finding out what events are being held at your favorite restaurants(ex: Stuart Spivack's blog).

Over the last few years, blogs have really opened my eyes to what is going on in the culinary world. Ideas in Food, opened up my eyes to "molecular gastronomy"....even though that term has been widely abused by many writers. This blog really began to show me how important a blog can be for expanding your knowledge of cooking techniques. It also showed me how much more I have to learn about food.

As I began the start of my career in Cleveland, I began to seek out blogs about the dining scene(ex: Cleveland Foodie). Michelle blogs about every restaurant in Cleveland. This is where my point about the validity of food blogs comes in. She blogs about the restaurants, she interviews the chefs, and people read all about it.

Chefs around town begin to notice, and soon she gets noticed when she goes out to eat. Some bloggers even get invited to events that chefs hold promoting their newest restaurant.

Chefs take notice, so why wouldn't educated consumers. Isn't it possible that a favorable review in a blog could make a restaurant goer more likely to dine at that establishment. Don't even get me started on how pictures of dishes can totally influence someone's decision to eat there.

In summary(sorry if I rambled to much for a 1st post), I think food blogs are very important. I feel that they can influence people to come to your restaurant, and have sometimes even influenced my decision.