Anthony Bourdain (Kitchen Confidential, etc.)

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I'm on vacation with the parents, and we're stuck in this bookstore right. So where am I at, well, since there aren't any magazines worth looking at, and I have fiction to read, I'm in the cooking section. Normally I would check out a few cooking books or some art or something because I'm usually in these places for hours each vacation. Well I pick up this guy's new book, because I read an article about him where he has a new tv show coming out where he travels the world looking for exotic culinary pleasures, such as live cobra heart, and grubs, and whatnot. I decide that I better limit myself to the west coast chapter since that's where I'm at. He's a fucking interesting guy. I love his damn bitter soul. Also he pointed out, through his description of an evening out with some ten vegetarian/vegan chefs, that vegetarians have no (almost no) idea about food, something I'm experiencing first hand right now. Man, I'm going to have to start giving you guys some recipes. I just feel bad some people just get all these ideas what's good when they lose that fleshy essense. First off, don't blanch (cook off in boiling water) your average fresh vegetables longer than five or six minutes. And if you blanch your brussel sprouts, be careful not to go longer than seven minutes or you'll make them funky tasting due to a chemical change. I'll post more ideas when and if I think about them. Oh, and get a chef's knife and start getting some knife skills, you just don't realize how important it is to make your veggies look appetizing for us meat eating folk. That's all for now, but all you graff cats that like to cook should check this guy out, he's funny, sufficiently jaded, and on point.

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Here's one for you guy.

 

homemade pasta

 

you need:

rolling pin

2 cups flour

one cup semolina flour (really fine stuff, you can find it at some health food stores, and prepackaged in the supermarket sometimes)

1/2 tsp. salt

2 eggs

good drizzle of olive oil

1/4 cup cool water

 

sift tog. flour, salt and semolina in pile on smooth, sanitary, dry surface such as breadboard or marble countertop, but linoleum will suffice. form into pile into which you hollow out a crater. crack eggs into crater, being careful to crack eggs on a flat surface so shell is less likely to fall apart. get water handy. drizzle oil, i like about a tablespoon maybe. now keeping eggs in the well, start combining some of the flour in with your hands, you can add some of the water now too, but only a little at a time. once it forms a ball of dough, scape up some of the crusty stuff from the surface, flour and knead dough. rotate a quarter turn and fold on itself, knead, rotate a quarter turn, repeat for at least ten minutes or so, the longer the better. be sure to keep flouring your surface. form into a thick pancake, and let rest for 10 minutes or so. now roll out dough into a thin sheet probably as big or bigger, and the same dimention as a cookie sheet. thin enough to see a nice impression of your hand through. flour nice and remove excess. now roll as one would a carpet in a five inch round cylinder (fold three inches over on itself, take that and roll it on itself slightly larger, until the whole thing is rolled. then cut along it with a large knife every 1/4 inch. spread them out on a clean, dry surface, or hang for at least an hour and a half. cook them in boiling salty water for two to three minutes. and serve with tomato sauce, alfredo sauce, garlic and olive oil, anchovies, breadcrumbs, and spinach, bacon, or just about whatever, it's good as hell.