I’m not one to post press releasy information, but these free classes caught my eye on the King Arthur Flour website. Starting this week in Southern California and moving eastward through Colorado, Iowa, and Nebraska, the Vermont based baking gurus are taking their bread seminars on the road. I’ve not taken these demonstration classes, so this is not an endorsement, more like a neighborly heads-up on a reputable outfit. And it’s free. I like free.

King Arthur runs the oldest continuously operating mill in the United States, and is the largest of the artisanal milling companies. They make flours for both retail bakers and the commercial trade, such as 50 pound sacks of Sir Lancelot high gluten flour I prefer to bake bagels with. They also sell all manner of baker’s needs through their catalog, publish highly regarded baking books, and offer great information on their website.

Click on the first link above for full details:

Pasadena: January 31, 2007

Ventura: February 1. 2007

Ontario: February 2, 2007

Irvine: February 3, 2007

Whatever happened to Sam the Butcher, the sort of old fashioned, service oriented guy who’d gladly deliver Alice her meat? How did that archetype fade so quietly that we hardly missed his demise? As recently as the`80’s, hanging sides of beef were common sights in the back rooms of retail markets in America. The guy who handed your steaks across the meat counter processed the entire carcass into retail cuts, and dispensed sage cooking advice, too.

“Making pot roast? Buy the 7 bone chuck roast instead of the tenderloin. Rack of lamb? Let me french the bones for you.” Try getting that kind of expertise or selection at a Wal-Mart supercenter.

Across the street from one such Wal-Mart in Colorado sits a one year old butcher shop, run by a soft spoken man with fourteen years of meat cutting expertise in his hands. While you’d think that the big box neighbor would help to kill his business, it ironically highlights the differences between Sam the Butcher and Sam Walton. That juxtaposition drives discerning customers to House of Meat.

The best steaks in Grand Junction aren’t served in a dark, clubby restaurant with plush red leatherette banquette booths that smell of ancient cigar smoke. That sort of place doesn’t exist in a restaurant landscape dominated by casual dining chains. No, the best steaks in town are grilled at home, supplied by independent butchers like Jason Hicks.

Start with quality meat, and you can make your own great steak. House of Meat sells only the top two USDA grades of beef: Prime and Choice. Most supermarkets sell only the next lower grades, and tag them with misleading marketing fabrications like “Butcher’s Choice.” Hicks sent me home with two of the thick, well marbled ribeye steaks he’s slicing in this photo. Seasoned simply, grilled quickly over blazing oak coals and finished with a compound butter, it made a phenomenal dinner (ahem - if I say so myself). If only I can remember what I blended into the improvised butter mixture: anchovy fillets, freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese, smoked Spanish paprika, and what else, what else?

The display case tempts busy customers with ready to cook meats like fajitas, bacon wrapped filet mignon, and andouille stuffed chicken breasts. But Beef Wellingtons caught my eye because these pastry wrapped, mushroom and veal demiglace topped tenderloins take forever to make from scratch. There’s two types of cooks who’ll take time to finely mince a mountain of mushrooms and reduce it with shallots and butter into a classic duxelles: home cooks who want to impress their loved ones with this old school classic, or the rare professional like chef Tim Dougan willing to prepare this labor intensive dish for you.

In the House of Meat kitchen, Dougan cooks heat-and-eat specialities like white chili, Palisade peach pulled pork, beef stews and a rotating menu of braised dishes sold by the quart. We took home the spicy, fruity stewed pork made with regionally famous peaches from the neighboring town of Palisade. It’s a delicious pulled pork, albeit different from the hickory smoked Carolina barbecue style I’m accustomed to.

If the products and expertise described here don’t immediately remind you of a similar shop near you, perhaps you ought to seek one out before it’s too late. Supermarket butchers across the country are being driven to extinction by the next meat industry trend. “Case ready” meats come prepackaged in trays ready for stock clerks to unload directly from a truck into a display case. I object to the disappearance of knowledgeable experts from supermarkets squeezed to cut costs. Their replacement with increasingly prevalent plastic trays of “flavor enhanced” meat isn’t a value-added improvement in flavor for the consumer, but a profit-added proposition for producers selling salt water at meat prices.

In a retail environment where local supermarket chains battle Wal-Mart by laying off their skilled meat cutters, independent butcher shops have an opportunity to thrive, provided that consumers care enough to demand honest, high quality meats. Which Sam will you choose?

House of Meat
2546 Rimrock Avenue, Suite 200A
Grand Junction, CO 81505-8666
970-243-6111

If you read my Los Angeles food blog compadres The BBQ Junkie, The Survival Gourmet and Soul Fusion Kitchen, you know the four of us have teamed up to cook at the Autry BBQ contest on April 7-8, 2006.

We’re Team Four Q: “Where the blog meets the hog,” as in there’s 1,2,3,4 bloggers for the price of one. We’re a bunch of rookies up against a lot of competition-hardened pitmasters at the Autry. Come see us and cheer for the underdogs!

This contest is organized by the California BBQ Association, which follows Kansas City BBQ Society competition rules. KCBS teams compete in chicken, pork rib, pork shoulder and beef brisket categories. Each meat is blind judged, and champions decided for each category. The overall Grand Champion wins on combined points from four categories, so a team that’s gunning for the overall title has to do well in each category.

Our gang of four each took on a specialty. I’ve been assigned the pork ribs. Before April 7, I need to hone my skills at trimming meat, creating rubs and sauces, and of course, perfecting my fire control and cooking expertise.

Here’s two racks of ribs I made last weekend. It’s trimmed Kansas City style, which means the sternum and the flap meat have been removed from the rack, and the ends squared off to look pretty. It cooked for four hours at 200 - 235 degrees, and was mopped & re-rubbed three times during the cook. Howma doin’, team?

As preparation for this event, I did some field research on some top barbecue joints in Texas a few weeks ago. Stay tuned for my report from Luling, Lockhart, and Austin, Texas.

Get in a deep horse stance in front of a hot, open, oven door. Breathe out… breathe in. Grip wads of paper towels in both hands, and lift the unwieldy, 20 pound ball of 350 degree grease off a searing hot roasting rack. Lift with the legs, not the back. Rotate the hot grease ball a quarter turn to ensure evenly browned, crisp skin. Repeat at least four times, or until the medicine ball is cooked through.

I avoided this oven roasted turkey ritual this year by smoking my main course outdoors in a Weber Smokey Mountain cooker. And forget turkey. Even brined, butter slathered, free range, never frozen, organic, heritage birds aren’t as flavorful as a beefy prime rib. So as with my cranberry sauce recipe, I continue to stomp on tradition with my entree.

I’ve owned this smoker for about a year, and I’m confident enough now to cook my family’s Thanksgiving meal in it and not spoil an expensive hunk of meat in the process. There are several schools of thought on cooking prime rib, including these two:
1) The traditional English method: Start in a very hot oven to sear the outside of the roast, then lower the temperature to a moderate 350F degrees to finish cooking.
2) The low and slow: cook at 200 degrees for a longer period, then finish in a 500 degree oven to brown the outside.

Both methods will produce a rosy medium rare at the very center of the roast, but by using a gentler heat of method #2, more of that rosy pink is preserved closer to the surface. If you want to read more about the theory behind the methods, check out Alton Brown’s I’m Just Here for the Food, one of the books I’ll write up for my Required Reading list.

These principles apply to both indoor ovens and outdoor cooking over live fire. My friend Russ turns his prime ribs on an outdoor rotisserie using method #1, reportedly with great results. Since my Weber smoker is an outdoor oven that can hold temperatures in the 200-250 F degree range, it’s perfect for roasting a prime rib with the low and slow method. And if I say so myself, the result was fabulous. It’ll be long time before I roast another turkey in November.

He said “wood.”	Holding steady at 240	“Dam” fine pumpkin pie!

One tradition I chose not to stomp on this year is the pumpkin pie from the Filling Station Cafe, Orange County’s foremost pie bakers and my default purveyor of holiday desserts. Sure, I can bake my own, but for $20, I’d rather buy one that’s far better than one I can ever make myself. Note the height of the pie in the clickable photo. All their pies are singularly massive. A substantially thick, slightly sweet short dough crust acts like Hoover Dam and retains enough pumpkin to fill Lake Mead, yet crumbles under your fork like a Lorna Doone cookie. Baking this much pumpkin custard takes more time than pies of lesser size, yet it’s always perfectly done: never too loose, and never dried out. It’s flavored with just enough familiar spices to imagine your mama baked it, that is, if your mama got mad pie skillz.

Every year, they limit holiday pre-orders because demand is that high. When I picked mine up, I learned they stopped taking orders seven days before Thanksgiving. If you want one for Christmanukah, I suggest you call today. The caramel apple pie is my other favorite choice. Walnuts anchored by a hardened slurry of brown sugar “caramel” cascades like magma down the top crust of this massive, peaked, apple chunk volcano. The coating isn’t technically caramel but rather a sandy textured, dark brown sugar frosting. It’s a minor quibble with an otherwise damn fine pie.

Filling Station
This is their original location where the baking is done. Breakfast and lunch only.
201 N. Glassell St.
Orange, CA 92866
714-289-9714
and
195 Center Street Promenade
This location is open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and has a small, well chosen list of interesting beers and wines.
Anaheim, CA 92805
714-535-2800