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Food Thread: You Can't Drink All Day If You Don't Start In The Morning!

Why is it that we suspend all of our eating and drinking rules when in airports?

That's a glass of champagne and a Bloody Mary at 6:45AM.

While I will occasionally have a Bloody Mary, and I try to drink champagne as much as I can, I never combine the two...except when flying. And the crap food in airports, especially the jumped-up steamtable stuff in the airport lounges? Yeah...I'll eat that too, and have seconds!

If you look closely at the glass of champagne, or simply the blurred background, you will see what sane people drink at that hour...a cup of hot tea. But that seems so wrong to me, especially when the booze is free, and the champagne is good!

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I wrote on Thursday about the the EU regulatory state that was designed to replace innovation and competition with regulation, and here it is in all its glory!

EU to ban Brazilian meat imports from September

An EU committee made up of experts from member states voted on Tuesday to ban imports of Brazilian meat starting 3 September due to the use of antimicrobials to stimulate animal growth.

Oh look! Experts! I'll bet they went to all the best schools!

I don't much care whether Brazil abuses the use of antibiotics to promote cattle growth. Is it a bad idea? Probably. But anything the EU does is by definition anti-competitive, so I am on Brazil's side.

Meat is very expensive in the EU. In my limited experience, it is at least double or triple what we pay here. But those experts don't want the peasants to be able to eat meat, so they limit imports and protect their own inefficient and expensive industry. That is functionally identical to the way the people were treated by the Church and by royalty...in the Middle Ages!

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That's a whole bone-in pork loin that was so big it wouldn't fit on my half-sheet pan for a reverse sear! So I had to cut it into two chunks, which is fine...that means double the number of end pieces! That fed 11 people with a ton of leftovers. Granted, I had some tasty and filling sides, including my world-famous Cauliflower Gratin that I supercharged with some (a Lot) bacon. And crunchy Rosemary and Garlic roasted potatoes that were delicious, and got gobbled up before I could get a second helping.

It is possible, even in these post-Biden-inflation times, to feed a bunch of people tasty, wholesome food without breaking the bank. That pork roast was about 13 pounds, and while not on sale, it was reasonably priced for our area. All the other stuff was not particularly pricey, and If I don't count the booze (damn, they drank a lot!), it was probably less per person than my everyday meals!

And it was a rollicking good time to boot!

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Vegetables? Yuck!

Except when cooked correctly, with flavor rather than some nebulous concept of healthful eating in mind.

I bought a head of broccoli, peeled the stem as much as I could, then sliced it into 1" steaks....whatever the hell a broccoli steak is. Then I microwaved them with a bit of water, just to soften them a bit. three minutes, covered.

The next step is going to disturb you healthful eating types, so...piss off. I brushed them with a liberal amount of melted butter, salted them, and grilled them on high heat until they got a bit toasty and charred.

They were great! Easy, delicious, and I didn't feel like I was being punished.

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I love them, but I have had more than my share of woody, overcooked stalks, which is particularly galling because I cooked a fair number of them!

Part of that is the massively long supply chain for asparagus, which limits my access to really fresh stuff. The other is my fixation on roasting them in very high heat. It makes sense to me, but as Richard Feynman famously said:

It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.

And my theory was wrong. So I finally gave up on it and started roasting asparagus at 350 degrees, bathed in butter and with a pinch of salt, and cooked just until tender.

And what do you know! They taste great that way!

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It sounds better in French: Champignons à la Savoyarde, but Creamy Mushrooms on Toast tastes just as good in English. He uses Morels, which are grand! And tough to find. And expensive. But any mushroom will do. Just don't use sour cream...heavy cream makes a better dish!
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The garlic is doing well! I know all of you are worried, but it is tall and green and healthy! I even fertilized them! And if they survive the deer and squirrel apocalypse, and actually grow into something edible, I will be in garlic heaven! In case it doesn't, send all of your excellent home-grown garlic to: cbd dot aoshq at gmail dot com.

Rumor has it that the Bourbon Bubble is bursting. I have seen no evidence of decreasing prices, but maybe the bursting started somewhere else! I think the sweet spot is $40-$60 for excellent and interesting bottles, and bumping that to $100 gets you an incremental improvement in quality, but nothing mind-blowing. More than that and I think you are paying for hype and rarity, which may look good in your liquor cabinet, but doesn't translate to more quality in the bottle.

The problem...or the solution...is to buy lots of bourbon, take tasting notes, and eventually arrive at your favorites! It should take forty or fifty years, but it is worth it!