Naha Aha Moment

The restaurant review in its present state is in need of a drastic makeover, and I’m just the guy not to do it. But until they become scratch and sniff or they come with flavor strips (or unless they’re on par with the interwoven personal histories of, say, a Ruth Reichl or are able to plumb the depths of a chef’s psyche, as Alan Richman did with Schwa's brilliant and troubled Michael Carlson), I say we put a moratorium on them.

I’m talking the prevalent middle-of-the-road, I came, I ate, I wrote about it reviews. These reviewers need to turn in their stained lobster bibs, toss their tiny notepads and Roget’s Thesauri onto a sacramental pyre and be fitted with hair shirts where they must trek the wilderness along with other equally useless professions, such as personal shoppers, those lab coated scientists who inject Maybelline into the eyes of bunnies, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s publicist.

While I’m at it, let me also propose there are two schools of thought when it comes to well-prepared food. There is, what I shall call, the Tom Colicchio school, which stresses the classics, harmonious flavors, balanced seasoning, and simplicity (but not simplistic), a straightforward cuisine with no curveballs. Sounds easy, right? Not exactly. Ask anyone who has ever stepped a Croc into a kitchen. In contrast to that, is what I’ll call the Ferran Adria school (he of the trendy global influence). The poet Ezra Pound, by way of Confucius, urged others to ‘Make It New’ and that’s what this camp does, pushing food to 11, like this:

...Reinventing tradition, taking risks and sometimes failing gloriously.

Which brings me finally to chef Carrie Nahabedian and her place Naha, which has garnered national attention and is within spitting distance from more famous Rick Bayless’ Frontera/Topolobampo, but in every way its equal. (Naha purportedly has a Cali-Mediterranean influence but I only see this tangentially; it is, generally speaking, that catch-all “American” food, grounded in seasonal, locally-sourced product.)

The dish I’d like to focus on seems to me to be a wonderful blend of the two camps I’ve described, although chef Nahabedian seems to have more taste buds in the Tom Colicchio corner than the Ferran Adria (in no way is this a value judgment).

Here is the description as found on the menu (on the LTH forum, a member of the grammar police indicted her for her liberal use of arbitrary quotation marks and, though at first a bit odd, I found them to be charming and emphatic):

Whole Roasted "Dressed" Squab,Foie Gras and Crisp Potato Cake scented with Armenian Rose Petal Marmalade and Licorice Root, Preserved Cherries, White Icicle Radishes, Pink Peppercorns, and Watercress Flowers

And a pic:

When I ordered this, the waiter leaned in close, like a concerned relative, “Sir, are you aware this comes with its talons, I just thought you should know.” Hell, yea! And I ordered a few pairs of extra talons, two for dipping and one to toss later into a boiling cauldron and cast a spell that would vanquish my enemies or win the lottery.

The squab’s skin was lacquer crisp, the succulent meat wild and flavorful, with not a trace of that blanched factory chicken white noise taste. (Domestic pigeon, go figure.) It would have been delicious on its own, but what pushed the dish through the roof was the flower power of the Armenian Rose Petal Marmalade. Could it have careened into an ‘Essence of Grandma’ abyss? Certainly. But it didn’t. The roses were not cloying and their notes played well against the savory. (Also, it made for the presentation, injecting a shot into the color palette.)

It was, for me, a gutsy ingredient and it edged the meal toward the exotic, a sultan’s repast, a valentine on a plate.

The Foodie as Potential Tool

I’ve been juggling a couple of books lately, as is my habit, and seeing if I could shoehorn either into this blog.

The first is “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”. Now while I was afraid that the initial gimmick (Victorian prigs with mad ninja skills meet brain-sucking zombies? Let the hilarity ensue!)-- would dissipate faster than a one-note Saturday Night Live sketch, it didn’t. But as how it might relate to food and/or wine, the best I could come up with was “Do Zombies Have Palates?” (Short answer: no.)

Which leaves me philosopher-mechanic Matthew B. Crawford’s “Shop Class as Soulcraft”

a wake up call that we need to get the “work” back into work ethic as our cubicle dwelling, carpel tunnel, spreadsheet ways just might have perverted and warped our souls and the only way to get them all whitely glowy again, like those aliens in that Steve Guttenberg movie with the old people acting cute because they were acting young even though they were just really, really old,

is to remember that our hands were made for more than pecking on a keyboard. (I am full aware of the irony, peck, peck.)

The man knows of what he speaks. He owns his own motorcycle repair shop in VA, called Shockoe Moto. How cool is that? I can hear the ad jingle already…“Why don’t you GO, GO, GO down to Shockoe Moto!”

How does it pertain to this blog then?

This one passage I’ll be discussing has struck a nerve with me. Which holds more water for the foodie lifestyle: the food or the lifestyle? Do we claim our patch of moral higher ground trumped only by vegetarians who, I imagine, prostrate themselves with their broccoli crowns at the shoes of vegans?

On with the passage:

“…our consumer choices contribute to a land war, on one side or the other, whether we are aware of the fact or not. This can be understood with analogy to our food choices…to buy food from a local farmer versus a distant agribusiness. This is a practice the bohemian consumer already has in the cultural toolkit he uses, not only to construct his dissident self image but to give expression to his genuine public-spiritedness. (Italics mine.) If the regard that many people now have for the wider ramifications for their food choices could be brought to our relationships to our own automobiles, it would help sustain pockets of mindful labor.”

What Crawford illustrates is that our purchases should be a reflective, moral act, his hope that the current locovore mindset might one day shift to other arenas of conspicuous consumption. But when he drops the payload “bohemian consumer” and then ups the ante with the money shot “dissident self image,” this blogger starts avoiding mirrors faster than Bela Lugosi.

Crawford touches on the whiff of smug self-satisfaction that can come with this lifestyle. Buying from a farmer’s market, I get a Two-For! I can buoy my ‘dissident self image’ while getting my warm fuzzy on and earning karma credits that I might be doing some good for the local community at large, whatever the hell that might be. Take that, Safeway!

Or another way of saying it: My purchases define me by what I choose not to choose. They say, I am the type who is above mindless consumerism. I am the type who defies the machinations of large (read: all-signs-point-to-yes EVIL) corporations. I am for the genuine over the mass-produced. I am an open-eyed maker of my own destiny and not another blind sheep with my compass pointing towards McDonald’s golden arches. It’s also, sadly, a choice of economic privilege cuz organic/farmstand ain’t cheap. Nor should it be. I stress: Nor should it be. Which opens up a whole other can of Campbell’s Cream of Worms I haven't the time to dip my spoon in today.

Adam & Eve Probably Ate Tacos: A Review of La Rosita's

We all love the idea of the diamond in the rough. At the garage sale, in that pile of community college class oil paintings, hides a Van Gogh.

In a large field of unremarkable stones, we’ll stumble on the lone geode. Poke our heads into a dive bar and through the gauze of cigarette smoke, it’s the Beatles playing at the Cavern Club.

So what if I were to tell you that behind the doors of a nondescript Mexican grocery, you can find a taco that tastes like the ones Adam and Eve probably noshed on? (Some Biblical scholars believe that it wasn’t an apple that Eve proffered to Adam from the Tree of Knowledge; it was a taco.)

Crystal Lake, IL, should erect a sign that reads “We’re #3, We Try Harder” as you enter the city limits. I am talking, of course, about its Chitown taco status AND its production of potassium. However, since this is blog about food, I’ll ignore the potassium and fixate on the tacos.

Here is what the Trib had to say about La Rosita:

“This unassuming grocery store about a block from the Crystal Lake Metra station…Here the standard taco comes with onion and cilantro ($1.50) while the "everything" comes with grilled and raw onions, lettuce, tomato, Chihuahua cheese and a sour cream drizzle. On both, the steak nubbins were slightly charred and bursting with flavor…Wedges of Persian limes added a citrusy note. But the real deal-closers were La Rosita's two breathtaking salsas in big squeeze bottles. Made with tomatillos, garlic and pureed avocado, the green oozes with creamy nuttiness while the chile de arbol-infused red unleashes an irresistible fiery, smoky finish.”

My advice? Fuck the steak. Fuck it in its stupid ass. Go with the pork instead. (I’m kidding, the steak rocks, but to my taste, the pork is, well, it’s pork.) It is prepared Al pastor style (trans: “shepherd style”. Think desert nomads. Lawrence of Arabia. Toss this scene into a joint that has greasy menus, ditch the white robes, and you’re talking gyros, my friend.) The pork gets marinated, skewered on a metal spit where it turns like a happy clock. Sometimes a pineapple will be affixed to the top as a combo flavorizer/tenderizer.

What I find astonishing is how such a humble street food packs such a complex wallop. You’ve got the glistening charred hunks/slices of pork. You’ve got the lime’s bright acid, the peppery, perfumed grassiness of the cilantro, the bite-back of diced onion, the avocado/tomatillo salsa adding a dimension of tongue heat counterpoint to the physical heat of the roasted meat itself (when you get them, they are piping)--all of it rolled in a toothsome, double-bagged resilient corn tortilla.

Now if you were to come at me with a toothbrush after I just scarfed some of these morsels, I’d have to roundhouse kick ya, apologize later. It is a moment you’ll want extended, like the afterglow or sex or walking out on a particular hellish job.

Last thing, I like to wash these down with a bottle of tamarind soda. Tamarind is an Eastern seedpod fruit and the soda, to my taste, is a blend of cream soda and molasses, but that’s not really right. I’m still looking for the “objective correlative” of tamarind. In the meantime, I eat…

(To get to La Rosita’s in Crystal Lake, take the Ogilvie NW line and exit at Crystal Lake stop. La Rosita’s is a minute or two walk from the train station. 131 N. Main St., Crystal Lake; 815-356-7705.)

Stalking Alpana

Out here in the warm, fart-scented Snuggie that is the NW burbs, I had the opportunity to see Alpana Singh live and in person at my local Binny’s Beverage Depot not so many weeks ago.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re already familiar with Alpana as the likeable, easy-on-the-eyes host of PBS’ “Check, Please”, sommelier extraordinaire, and fledgling author. Now next to seeing the restaurants themselves on “Check, Please” being discussed, dissected and analyzed, my favorite part of the show is discussing, dissecting and snarking on that week’s assorted gaggle of reviewers, as there is almost always one of the bunch who is clearly mental, who sports the Anne Heche crazy eyes, and a possible Arkham Asylum escapee whose very first act of uncaged freedom is to hightail it to PBS studios where they can sit down with Alpana, sucking on Sauvignon and singing the praises of the frites at their local brasserie.

That said, Alpana clearly knows how to womanhandle various, er, ’personalities’, so she clearly has the chops to meet head-on my own brand of crazy. Oh, yeh, one part I left out. I was going to meet Alpana with my mom….

Now, mind you, mom is cool, and mom, she digs her some wine, but I was afraid I’d have that vibe of ‘40-yr-old-virgin-living-in-his-mom’s-basement’ vibe clinging to me like the stink of Hai Karate.

So mom and I get to Binny’s some time after lunch, glossy signage of a blown-up, Glamour Shotted Alpana greeting us at the door. A clerk points us towards the back of the store where they have set up an ad hoc tasting, finger foods in the requisite stainless steel chafing dishes, and Alpana dishing copies of her book “Alpana Pours” and fielding wine questions. I look around, crowd thinner than I had expected and, NO MIDDLE AGED SONS WITH MOMS IN TOW!

Mom and I, we navigate the line, dodging the two-fisting, half in the bag female divorcees who seem to comprise the largest part of the turnout here, and wait our turn.

And before you know it, there she is, her voice just as singsongy, smile as genuinely genuine, personality just as effervescent. Before I know it, I’m standing a couple feet in front of her. The exchange goes something like this:

Me: Mumble, mumble….like your show, mumble, mumble…I like TV, like wine, something, something.

Alpana: That’s….nice. That’s nice you like my show that’s played on the TV and that you like wine.

In retrospect, I could have had index cards prepared. E.g., “What do you think of the influence Robert Parker has had, ill or well, on the wine world?” or “Do you think biodynamics is a passing fad or will it radically reassess the winemaker’s approach to the land and to the vine?”

But no, I was tongue-tied and star struck like the worst Jonas Brother’s fan club treasurer. Just when the needle passed the awkward stage, mom appears from behind “Oh, him, he’s just got a crush on you”. I could have crawled into an empty Nebuchadnezzar right there.

















All credit to Alpana, who continued smiling but I could see one of her hands slip down under the signing table, no doubt reaching for her pepper spray she brings to these events “just in case”.

Had she Secret Service on her payroll, I would have had a hood tossed over my head, wrists strapped and body lobbed into the back of a black van only to be plunked down into a 4x8 cell at Guantánamo II, which has been secretly built right under the White House!

Mom, antsy to meet her, nudging me aside, to Alpana: “So, tell me, what’s the deal with those synthetic corks?”

What did I get from my pain and suffering? Dear readers, I got this nice photo op here (note, the gap between our bodies, big enough to drive a semi comfortably through):