My love for oysters began in college while working for a high-end catering company in New York City.
I recently took the opportunity to test my new Opinel Huîtres et Coquillages knife on some Connecticut Blue Point oysters.
A FEW THOUGHTS ON FOOD PART TWO - SAUSAGES
Saucisson and Bleu D'auvergne
I was recently described as a food snob – a label I balk at given my periodic need for a McDonalds Big Mac, my unhealthy affection for whatever Velveeta is, and my unabashed love for all types of sausage.
While I don't consider myself a food snob, I do acknowledge a natural gravitation towards foods whose flavor masks the fact that they may very well foreshorten my life – especially in contrast to the cardboard-tasting “healthy” alternatives. A life without good food is not a life; and certainly not one worth living. I once saw an article that said consuming one sausage a day could increase one’s cancer risk by 20 percent. I hope that isn't the case in the same way that I hope gluttony doesn't turn out to be one of the seven cardinal sins; however in the latter case I am prepared in the off-chance and have reserved my table in the great restaurant of Lucifer’s infernal hotel where I, in-turn, become the multi-course meal.
I feel no remorse knowing my minuscule Parisian refrigerator will smell of Camembert weeks after I have devoured the pungent cheese, and I feel no hesitation in cooking up large Saucisses de Toulouse for my dinner tonight. As a great author, poet and food writer once said, how easily we forget that life overexamined is also not worth living.
Growing up in St. Louis, eating sausages was de rigueur. Hot dogs at the Cardinals’ game were part of childhood and bratwursts were beside the burgers on the grill at every cook-out; served with baked beans and potato salad. Though not the most glamorous of cuisines, a simple, well-cooked bratwurst satisfies like little else and I will gladly choose a Papaya King hot dog over quinoa or some Whole Foods stir fry bowl when in a hurry.
My beer-poached saucisses
My first apartment in New York City was in the Alphabet City section of Manhattan's East Village where I was in close proximity to two master sausage cookers, Crif Dog and Zum Schneider.
Crif Dog is located on St. Marks Place near the corner of Avenue A and is home to inspired hotdog specialties. One example of their fare is the BLT dog, a bacon-wrapped hot dog, served with lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise on a toasted bun; or the Spicy Redneck, which comes wrapped in bacon and covered in chili, coleslaw and jalapeños. Living within the delivery zone, we would order their Crif Paks, which are about ten dollars per person and they bring a random and customized meal. Once two of us received four specialty hot dogs, tater-tots, a can of root beer and a chocolate malt. I couldn't have asked for better.
Four blocks up from my apartment was Zum Schneider, an outstanding German restaurant and Bavarian Bierhaus, where even during our most financially-limited of times we would go for the Wiener mit Brot or Weisswurst appetizers. The Wiener mit Brot were two bratwursts which came in wonderful home-baked rolls with a good spicy mustard and the Wiesswurst was served in a bowl of hot water with a Bavarian soft pretzel and three choices of mustard. This was my first true introduction to German-style sausages.
Zum Schneider – Borrowed from zumschneider.com
When I left New York for San Francisco, I spent several months living with my relatives where Bangers and Mash were an easy meal that we would have on a semi-regular basis. We would quarter potatoes and boil them until soft, drain and mash them adding milk and butter to taste and consistency and then salt and pepper them while cooking good pork sausages on the grill - a wonderful meal served with mustard and a salad on the side.
On my initial visit to France I ate saucisson my first night in Paris. I was staying with a friend and his (now) wife. Upon my arrival they sliced the dry cured pork sausage and made a plate with a baguette, fresh salted butter and brie cheese. To my knowledge there exists no better welcome to one's country and one's home.
Recently while walking along the Seine near Notre Dame, I went towards Le Marais and found a cafe with a shaded outdoor terrace that was open for lunch and had a terrific Andouillette cooked in mustard and served with potatoes gratin, roasted vegetables and washed down with the chilled local product.
The terrible realization that what happened here should have been documented.
The French love sausage so much they've created the “Association Amicale des Amateurs d’Andouillette Authentique (AAAAA)” or “The Friendly Club of Lovers of Authentic Andouillette”, which gives certificates to high-quality producers. I was fortunate to enjoy one such Andouillette on my drive from Chenonceau to Chambord while in the Loire Valley.
In its most basic definition, a sausage is seasoned and encased minced meat. It can be dried, cured, boiled, baked, grilled or prepared in a variety of methods and consisting of an imaginative range of ingredients.
Once on Manhattan's Upper East Side I had french-style baked eggs with spicy chorizo for breakfast in a Franco-Mexican restaurant and have been challenged to find a more stimulating start to the day. No cup of coffee wakes you up like the fire in your mouth from a good spicy Mexican sausage.
Now at home in my apartment I cook my own style of bangers and mash, combining pork sausages - seared in butter, poached in beer - with purée aligot; an outstanding French version of mashed potatoes adding cheese for a rich, creamy side dish.
George Eliot once said, "there are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them." I like to believe she was talking about sausages.
A FEW THOUGHTS ON FOOD PART ONE - MY KITCHEN IN PARIS
My apartment in Paris faces a small courtyard on the border of the 9th and the 18th arrondissement. It is an interior apartment and is quiet and calm and from the street outside there is a clear view of the Basilica Sacre Coeur at the top of the hill Montmartre. The apartment has what is known in France as an “American Kitchen”, meaning that it is an open kitchen with no wall between the cooking space and the living room. There is an oven and an induction stove, a dorm room-sized refrigerator and a small dishwasher. To be honest, I am rather lucky to have such a kitchen in Paris.
When I first arrived the small temporary apartment I rented was seven floors up by stairs and had a tiny refrigerator built-in to a single console that contained a miniature sink and two hot plates - one of which worked. Being fortunate enough to have a decent kitchen, I eat most of my meals at home.
Several nights ago while preparing my dinner - a roast chicken with pasta in a simple garlic Alfredo sauce - I began running through some of my personal history and philosophy regarding cooking and cuisine.
I began cooking for myself when I moved into my first apartment as a college freshman in Boston. At first my meals were rough examples; I would boil macaroni and add velveeta cheese, squeezed from what most closely resembled a massive mayonnaise packet. This could be prepared in a single pot and eaten with the large wooden cooking spoon. Clean-up was simple. I soon graduated to cooking massive amounts of spaghetti and a crude Bolognese sauce that I would combine and keep in the refrigerator, pulling it out and eating cold for my dinners at home.
My own cooking abilities developed at first slowly and then in a full rush in conjunction with my knowledge of and taste for haute cuisine. I learned quickly that if I wanted good food and could not afford to buy it, I had to cook it myself.
The first formal-esque training I received was while working for a catering company in New York with an exclusively high-end clientele. I was the bartender and would negotiate with the servers to leave a cocktail napkin on my back bar with whatever hors d'oeuvres were being passed. Sometimes it would be a braised short-rib or pulled pork sliders, other times a small dish of their terrific white-truffle risotto. But occasionally if I was lucky, it would be a few of the caviar and creme fraiche morsels, wrapped in a blini and tied into form by a strip of chive, thus earning the ironic name of “beggars purse”.
For the company Fourth of July party they had an assortment of fresh Atlantic and Pacific oysters. No twenty-one year-old on a college-student budget should ever be introduced to oysters and top sturgeon caviar. “For he on honey-dew hath fed, and drunk the milk of paradise”.
Following my graduation from university I moved to San Francisco where I was introduced to the sport of abalone diving. It is a dangerous and demanding sport and the thrill of emerging exhausted from the cold, great white shark infested water was matched only by the cleaning, cooking and eating of the wonderfully unique shell fish.
My appreciation for French cuisine began many years ago, growing over time. However, it wasn’t until my first two-month long stay in Paris that I truly began to comprehend its phenomenal breadth. As Charles de Gaulle once said, “how can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?”
A great liberty exists in the fundamental knowledge that we are no long bound by the primordial necessity of eating to live and have transcended into the boundless realm of being able to live to eat - a phenomena I do not take lightly. My kitchen in Paris now has become an embodiment of my (possibly peculiar) culinary history and epicurean inclinations. Here I cook the simple quesadillas with guacamole and salsa fresca that I ate as a child living in Mexico. I also prepare Aligote, a French version of mashed (or pureed) potatoes, made with the melting of a regional French cheese to create a warm and rich side dish to the beer-broiled sausages with mustard I learned to love in my adolescence in the Midwestern United States. Last week I made a baked macaroni and cheese, adapted from a recipe to utilize the wonderful variety of cheeses available to Parisians.
Many of my favorite memories are meals; whether in restaurants, other’s homes or my own kitchen. I constantly look forward to eating again