The State of Hospitality

I believe, as a born and raised son of Mississippi, that we have in us the innate responsibility of hospitality.

I know, I know. Your state is hospitable too. Kind folks...welcoming homes...but come on, Mississippi IS the hospitality state. (Go ahead, Google it.)

Now, what does being hospitable have to do with food?
I think it has everything to do with food.

My mom, for example, is a shining beacon of hospitality. She raised me in the same philosophy. If you have friends and family over...you cook good for them. You make them feel comfortable...you feed them their favorite things.
Now, I didn't have people over too often. Generally, someone bleeds or gets hurt or ends up inviting way too many people over and it calls for a late night and an aggravated parent.

But we did have people over when we could afford it.
If it was my friends: pizza. fried chicken. dorritos. fudge brownies. cookies. mountain dew. coke. You know, the usual barrage of fat, caffeine and sugar filled goodness. No wonder we never fell asleep before 2am...

This is simple food. Granted, it's junk food, but it is food and we ate it up.
My friends would send compliments to the chef, being my mom and I believe she always liked doing it. Sometimes to the point where she would ask why I wouldn't have people over more often. [Mostly because, when I'm tired, I can go home...not have to somehow kick everyone out...ha!]

I know it's the responsibility of the parents to always have food on hand, but I can remember my sister's friend group never seemed to catch on to the idea of feeding your guests...that is, unless they came to our house in which my mom would bring out the goods again. [Yeah, my mom is quite the hospitable ass-kicker extraordinaire]

I say all this, to paint a picture on how it all rubbed off on me.
This is why cooking and food have become such a joy to my life.
Being an introvert, I'd much rather feed people with love from a distance at times...and cooking is great excuse for this.
When people come over...I feel the need to impress, or at least satisfy their bellies and palates.
I'm not comfortable unless people are snackin' on bits or sippin' on somethin' good.

Sometimes, conversation feels empty without food and drink. Like communion at the holy table -- I think these things are spirit filled -- important to our communion with each other.

And I think that's what it's all about. We correlate food with something that makes us happy...at least if doesn't for you, it does for me. I would never want to take food for granted -- it should always be something celebrated.
This is why being hospitable is important to me.
It's about going out of your way to care for your guest.
It's love in the form of taste and experience and conversation.

It's love for another.
Hospitality is in my blood and I dare not take it for granted.

My G.G. always had a pot of coffee going for her visitors and relatives - a brown bag full of whole pecans and something sweet on the table. [And if you were really special, maybe some fried okra.]

It runs deep down like a river.
So next time you come over...let me put on a pot of coffee and we'll catch up.

[and if you just so happen to bring mountain dew or fudge brownies, I would hardly complain...]

Cooking Techniques with Bourdain

I've watched this episode several times over and found it to be incredibly useful. I don't recommend watching when you're hungry as it will only deepen your sense of hunger pangs. :P

So many of these things are simple, yet easy to mess up. Bourdain and some of his chef-buddies let us in on their techniques and I found it all to be very enjoyable.

(I'll hopefully update with a real post tomorrow. And by real, I mean with words. And...maybe pictures. :)

The Taco

I grew up, like most in the US, eating hard shelled tacos made from taco seasoning mixes and with those kits you can buy at the grocery store.

That is all I knew of the taco.

I knew it was hard to eat once you hit the top ridge - and they were completely unstable, especially if you cooked the shells for too long.
Generally it was filled with ground beef. You cook a pound or so of ground 80/20 beef - drain the fat, add a little water and the "seasoning" packet and Voila! You have homemade Taco Bell in 15 minutes!
And God, I did love these things.
I still do.

Until...I moved to Portland.

It wasn't until I dived into my first "legit" taco that I became a fan of one my all-time favorite meals.
The taco-truck style taco.

I was unfamiliar and nervous.
A food truck...generally in the parking lot of some other random business with a few picnic tables and various bottles of hot sauce and condiments.

And cheap.
$1.75 for an asada taco or pollo or lengua or carnitas or anything braised and falling off the bone.
I found salvation in this food.
So simple. So good. It found a home in my heart.

They generally stuff your meat of choice in between two layers of white corn tortillas [never flour] and topped off with a few pinches of chopped white onion and cilantro.
On the side generally comes a few wedges of lime and some sliced radishes...(Usually depending on the season).

There's something about that combination of crunchy white onion, cilantro and lime that infuse all layers of your palate.
The best part is, I've learned to make this dish at home, and I think you should try it.

First, you gotta figure out what kind of meat you need.
For me, it's always pork. Pork has this delicious salty fat that I think brings out a better braising situation. It's also a meat that tends to be a bit more moist in the final product.

I generally buy a 1-2lb pork roast. (Depending on how many people you're feeding) If you can, buy it with the bone. I think it tends to be a more flavorful cut of meat.
1 - Yellow Onion (for braising with the pork)
1 - White Onion (for garnishing your taco)
2-3 tbsp chili powder
2 cups beef broth (if you don't have broth, water works fine.)
A tiny bunch of cilantro (depending on how much you'll use to garnish)
1 1/2 tbsp salt
1-2 tbsp pepper
3-4 cloves of garlic
The juice of two lemons & a few limes for garnish later on.
A bag of white corn tortillas

I use our 4-quart dutch oven, but any big pot with a good tight lid should work fine.
I cut up the pork into 2-inch pieces and drop them into the pre-heated pot with a little olive oil for browning.
I go ahead and throw in the yellow onion, medium chopped.

After the onions have browned a bit, I add the two cups of beef stock and fill the rest of the pot up with water until you barely submerge all of the pork in liquid.
This is also when you add your dry seasonings; salt, pepper and chili powder.
You can also, at this point, add the lemon juice and the cloves of garlic.

The rest just takes time.
I put on the lid of the dutch oven and let it cook for a good 2 1/2 - 3 hours. Check every now and then to make sure the meat isn't sizzling to the bottom of the pan.
After a couple of hours, the liquid will start to reduce, leaving the meat tender enough to pull apart with a fork. And you'll actually want to pull it all apart with a fork and give it a good stir to pick up all those bits from the bottom of the pot.

After the meat is done, I just warm the tortillas up in a pan by sprinkling them with a little water and heating each side for 15 seconds or so. (It's easier if your pan is pretty warm...)

Prepping is pretty straight forward. Place your meat in the tortilla - top with cilantro, onion and squeeze a couple of slices of lime (to taste) and indulge your palate in a wonderful barrage of simplicity and culture.

You should have an end product that looks something like this:


I'm not good at writing recipes, so bear with me if they are super confusing. It's definitely harder than it looks to explain to someone how to cook without actually being there to show them.
There are tons of recipes on the internet and youtube, so don't be intimidated.

Bon Appetit! [...hence my lack of spanish -- which would seem more appropriate than French... :P ]

The Cappuccino

Since working with coffee, I have fallen in love.

The traditional 5.5oz cappuccino.
An obsession. An art form. A badge of honor.
The perfect ratio of espresso, steamed milk and foam.

And by foam, I'm not talking about globs upon globs of airy frothed milk, but a velvety and creamy crema layer that is in perfect harmony with the other two parts.

While we're on the topic of milk, your cappuccino should not be hot enough to burn your tongue. The pros generally drink it just when it becomes warm to the touch...and that's just the way I like it.
The hotter you steam the milk (or have your preference of steamed milk) the less sweet it becomes.
So every time you order your 24oz Startbucks cappuccino extra hot, a barista looses their tattoos...(and we don't want that to happen!)

Any barista competition has you making the following: two shots of espresso, a cappuccino and a "specialty" espresso beverage.
Therefore, the cappuccino is an important drink to make right if you're any sort of serious barista. I know people who spend 3-4 hours a day practicing the double cappuccino...because there is a very fine line. You're always one second away from either making it too foamy, or two hot. The variables are quite timely.

Here in lies, my obsession.
But I'm not the only one.

This trailer seemingly tells the story of what America's "fast food" culture is doing to this beloved beverage -- and why it's important to stay away from damaging coffee culture.



Another video, showing Kyle Glanville. He was the 2008 US Barista Champion and all around coffee nerd turned rock star. He knows what's up and does it well.



And though, it is only coffee, it IS a livelihood for so many of us.

Ultimately, it's about the farmers.
There is justice in good coffee.
There is justice in good coffee buying.
It's when farmers are able to afford healthcare for their babies.
It's when they can put food on their table and be treated with dignity by being paid fairly.

To me, this is what making good coffee is about. The things we do only take away from the product they pick with their weathered hands.

There is respect in making their products with dignity.

So, after all, I do not feel ridiculous for loving this drink and striving to make it better for others. It is a product that comes full circle and we give thanks to all who are involved in the process...

[except for those gas station cappuccino machines...what are those anyways??]

cafe work. [and why it's addictive to be a barista]

I never knew coffee culture to be so interesting or have so much power in a city.
As I moved to Portland, I was gratefully given a job at a certain cafe [which I help manage today] with no prior coffee knowledge and a very short lived history of food and beverage service. (Well, minus the Wendy's stint that I talked about a while ago and that I wrote about a while back.)

When I mention to folks in other places that I manage a cafe, more or less, am a barista in the PNW, it's met with, "Oh..that's cool.."
But, I feel sometimes that description is inadequate.
No, it's not some Starbucks or coffee joint that names their sugar filled espresso drinks after movie stars or weather systems.

This is the life of a professional barista.
And this is why I'm addicted to making coffee.

We don't just made damn good coffee...we wake up early in the morning because we know what we make comes from East Africa and South America and Indonesia.
We know that what we make can only damage or mess up the beautiful product of the green coffee plants.
What we do, is find ways to make our products with the least error possible...and this isn't easy.

There are factors.
Temperature. Pressure. Technique. Clean water. Good milk. Passion. Experience.

So goes the ebb and flow of a barista in PNW.

The newspapers wait outside our locked doors. Usually it's news on the economy or well, more news that's somehow related to our hurting economy. I don't read them much. Usually too depressing. But I'm glad we sell newspapers. It's generally nice to see people still reading them....sifting through the garbage that pays the printers bills in order to get to a good piece of writing.

I check around the store and look to see if things are out of place...or dirty. Usually, it's fine.
I hear the espresso machine clicking and hissing and filling itself constantly with water.
I turn on some music. Generally starting out with some slower like Bon Iver, Jose Gonzalez and The Album Leaf...cranking it up mid-day to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Arcade Fire. [Also depends on who's working...]

Music is important to cafe life. I don't like making coffee or food if there's no music. It feels awkward. Like having to dance to something with no rhythm. I believe it goes the same for customers. Customers are more comfortable when there's a little more noise...something to chat with so they don't have to whisper to their friend, business partner, lover, blind date or some combination of the two.

You do your random assortment of tasks...putting away pastries...making eggs...putting on the soups.
If you're on "bar", which means pulling shots and making drinks, you season the espresso machine.
Before you do that, you gather your "mise en place" of barista work - a few towels...one for wiping away moisture and grinds from the previous coffee puck and the other two you keep wet for wiping off your steam wand and cleaning off your tamping area.
Our machine has three groupheads (aka, where the portafilters tighten into) and I pull shots on each grouphead two times to season the spouts. Once I get around to the third 'go' at seasoning the machine, I test my shots.

I taste to check bitterness...overextraction, underextraction.
With our Hairbender espresso blend, we're looking for sweet chocolate, caramel and jasmine. Once I'm satisfied, I move on.

I fill milk pitchers. Nonfat. Whole. Half&Half.
Our customers drink Half&Half like it's goin' out of style.
Can't blame them, it's good.
Damn good.

If you do like a bit of milk in your coffee, I'm right there with you. A little splash of half&half in a hot cup of coffee is next to perfect after not having any milk in a good cup of french press.

I move on to making our drip coffee, which is our Hairbender well, ground for drip.
Then, me grind our single origin coffee (which right now is from a small farm in Guatemala.) for French press.
French press obviously requires more time and more attention.
Grind 7oz for a 12cup press [and we make two presses per airpot]
Fill with hot water [nearly 200F] a little above halfway, and set timer for four minutes.
We give the coffee one minute to bloom, which it will bloom quite a bit if it's freshly roasted releasing those good gases that show us it's fresh.
Fill it to the nozzle and let it sit for the remaining three minutes.
Timer goes off, press the pots, dump into bigger airports and there ya have it.

I crack the doors open, place our sandwich board near a lonely fire hydrant and wait for those first few customers to come in for the coffee...and maybe a bagel with cream cheese. Nothing that takes too long.

And so it goes, as we see the regulars and start making their goods before they tell us what they want...
I catch up with the vendors like Doug, my boy from Sunshine Dairy.
I poke fun at his inability to park his huge delivery truck and it goes back and forth.
I made him toffee nut mocha because he has a sweet tooth and it's common courtesy to treat your vendors well.

You treat your vendors well, and they'll do the same for you.
If your vendors start missing deliveries and are late, you gotta stay on their ass.
I can't be havin' late bagels or messy orders.

A rush comes about 8:30 when all the 9am workers have to be at their desks...
Then we get the folks who do business at our cafe. Constantly walking outside on their cell phones and picking away at their keyboards.

Then you get the few socially awkward customers that force conversation down your throat like some bitter pill.
I hate this.
I know it's good to know your regulars, but some folks...I try to hide in the stock room.

After a while come the folks that hug the counter and look at their watches as you make their drink. You feel their stare and it doesn't help me your drink any faster. You look at me like it's my fault you're going to be late. I know how to do my job quick and right.

And one of the most important things...
Don't mess with folks that make your food.
No we don't spit or feed you things off the floor..but it doesn't make us want to serve you our best.

The customer is NOT always right. The employee knows when they messed up.

Tip.
If you can afford to be a regular or eat out - TIP!
I can usually correlate tips by how much the ticket is.
Higher tickets tip less.
Some people drop 24 bucks on cafe fare and leave 50 cents.
Some people drop 2 dollars and leave a dollar tip.

For those of you who tip your waiters and cafe workers well, thankyou.
I think I'd like to call it bad attitude tax.
We take a lot of mean attitudes because most cafe workers are young and not always at their best.
This is no reason to be angry. If we're working hard and there's a line, you should probably relax and notice we're doing all we can.

If you yell at one of our employees for no good reason, I'm not gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. I know my employees and I know they're all sweethearts.
If I get fired for it, I'm goin' down with the ship.
It's an injustice to treat customers like they're kings if they treat you like garbage.

All of this aside...all the crap you take from people...the heated rushes and crazy customers...it comes down to the love of doing what you're doing. Making food. Making coffee.
Making people feel comfortable and known.

Even when you've had a bad day, you can always rely on a consistently good cup of coffee.

And this is what I do.
Day in and day out.
I love it.
Well, most of the time.
I love the rants with fellow employees that makes the day go by quicker...and legitimize that yes, that person was an asshole.

Oh, the world of hospitality and customer service. A never ending battle of ups and downs.

And always, with everything we do, we give thanks to people who support us and grow our food and teach us how to be better.
Thankful.

Yes. Thankful...

and way over-caffeinated.

"FrosTop" [most guilty pleasure of the South]

Cheeseburger + chili + dripping roast beef + "fixins'" = Frostop's infamous, Eli Special.

I came across the Eli Special somewhere near my junior year in high school.
It's found at one of the best greasy, little po'dunk joints in my hometown of Picayune, Mississippi called, "Frostop" [Pronounced: Frost-top/Or as my wife has been known to say, "Fro-Stop"]

Whatever you call it, it's damn good.

I had the distinct pleasure of getting one of these babies a few days ago as I visited my native land for a friend's wedding.
Attempt to eat with your hands, but I prefer using the oh so convenient plastic knife and fork. (and plenty of napkins)

What I also noticed was their prices - like, ridiculously cheap. $1.10 for a single burger, .90 for an ice cream cone and a couple of bucks for a hotdog po'boy.
Yeah, you heard me.
Hotdog poboy.
Po'boy bread (generally a more airy french bread - hard to find unless you leave in the deep down south, or find somewhere that makes it legit)
Mayo
Lettuce
Tomatoes
Roast beef gravy
and of course, those cheap red hot dogs bursting at the seams.

Most folks don't come here for a hot dog poboy, but for that infamous Roast Beef Poboy.
It's similar to the Debris Po'boy but not as ripped to shreds.
The juice runs down to your elbows as the bread is soaked to bits.
And there's the usual barrage of po'boy love like shrimp, catfish, crab, and cheeseburger. [Cue saliva glands..]

These are sandwiches that make the gods angry for not being human.

They have some epic french fries too.
I love fries...especially if they're done right. Crispy on the outside, soft and mushy on the inside. Perfect. (and cheap as well..)
They most likely have this stuff down to a science.
I've always noticed this one older woman who does all the grill work. When the line is out of control...she always seems calm and collected. I'm sure she's been doing it for over 30 years - nothing much has changed accept her hair-do, which she keeps so tightly bound in her hair net...which I'm sure isn't so necessary these days.

Great sodas with crushed ice.
I'm convinced crushed ice like they have makes things taste better. Maybe it's colder. Maybe it's texture...maybe it's awesome.

This place is sentimental for me. It's a place I went to with my family for junkfood binges and high school excursions. It is dear to my heart and I hope they stay where they are for some time to come. It's not often you can feed three people for 13 dollars. Maybe that's not a good thing...

But there's something in that food [besides fat] that keeps me happy.
Maybe it's the memories...the warm and fuzzies of comfort food..

Or probably...because it just tastes...really...really good.

A Conviction [in a bowl of Vegetable Soup]

My wife and I have been on a kick of sorts... watching Jamie Oliver's: "Food Revolution".
Jamie is an English chef who is more so an advocate than famous TV chef personality.
But, it is what it is.

Jamie completely revolutionized the school lunch menu in England. This show, he sets out to do the same here, in the US.
I absolutely love this show and without a doubt, support what he's doing.
His current "revolution" is taking place in Huntington, West Virginia. The nation's most overweight city. [As they correlate Gov't statistics to death by heart disease, diabetes, etc..]

And, it is, absolutely heartbreaking. Hearing children's stories of their parents dying due to weight related issues. It is, most definitely, a silent killer.
Now, I'm not one to always advocate for healthy foods or alternatives.
I love starches. Pork fat is amazing and Coca-Cola may be the nectar of the gods.
But, these things are generally not so good. Nothing new there.

Also I want to say, it's good to eat starches and some fats in good moderation. Our bodies need what the earth produces. [They just don't need it all.]
I'm writing all this to express my own convictions of our food culture...especially in our schools and what we don't know is feeding our kids.

There are strict rules and regulations school cafeterias have to follow. There has to be a certain amount of veggies and fruit and bread. Most often, these veggies are french fries and terrible looking salad creations we all know, we won't eat.
Milk is generally chosen in its most chocolate flavored form, which tends to have the same or more sugar than soda!

And understandably so, we cook food for those kiddies out of convenience with what's easy to cook and easy to serve. But, this "stuff" is killing younger generations -- it's killing our generation. I mean, who doesn't want to stand in the french fry line?
Kids are not being taught what food is and where it comes from. I wasn't taught in school - I didn't know the difference between a potato and a tomato when I was in first grade.
Teachers these days have such strict material matter they can teach in order to make high on those state tests - no wonder they don't have the freedom to teach kiddies about food and how it helps them to grow. (Or, if you're a teacher and you are doing this, thankyou, thankyou, thankyou.)

I am becoming an advocate for food knowledge. As my palate shifts from salty and greasy, to bright greens, reds and earthy browns, I sense a shift in our view of food culture.
I recently took a culinary knife skills class - just cutting up veggies in different ways and at the end, we made a veggie soup out of our hacked up goodness.

Now, maybe it had just been a while since I had veggie soup, but it hit my soul [real good]. Simple, delicious and so good for you.
And there, as I was slurping up that heavenly broth and soft vegetation, I understood what it meant.
It's about outlook.
Veggies are like...the math of the food world. It's great and necessary and all, but most of the time, intimidating and we tend to see them as...not very good. [At least in US culture.]

At least, I did. And, still do, most of the time.
But, I'm learning.
Learning to uh, "Eat those vegetables!"

Because something needs to change. Somehow...we need to shift how we grow up eating food. And I do know that some economic and lifestyle circumstances hinder us from eating fresh food, but not if we all demanded it. The people in those big white buildings make a living off of us and will shift towards what we buy and demand.

If we want crap food, that's what we're going to get...and boy, are we getting it.
Limit choices. I feel like, if you put a piece of pizza or a piece of baked chicken in front of a little kid, they're probably going to go for the pizza.
If only we knew how privileged we were to have more than one choice.

As I learn more and more about what food does to my body, the more my views shift on what food means to me. It changes the way I cook food...and my thirst to learn more.
This food we're pumping into our bodies is so..so important. And I speak more so to myself, than anyone else, that something needs to change in our diets. Or else, we're going to be seeing a lot less life...and it may be yours.

So, here's to a good conviction, in a bowl of soup...that we work for that change. May we stand in our kitchens and cook our own food and give a deep thanks to this earth that gives it to us; the farmers that nurtured them and the folks of many miles who handled them. Eat more local. Think more sustainable.

And uh,
EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!!!