The Stone Fence Cocktail with Caramel Apple

We had a "cider bash" last week at Fog Creek, rather than our customary "beer bash". The place was stocked with hard cider and a bunch of other apple-related paraphernalia. I mentioned to my friend Bradford that it was a shame we didn't have any rye whiskey, as then we could make Stone Fences. A Stone Fence is hard apple cider and rye whiskey over ice.

Magically, a bottle of rye appeared and we were a go!

The Stone Fence traditionally calls for some Angostura or other bitters, which we did have on hand, but decided to omit. On a whim I cut up a caramel-nut apple and garnished the glass with a slice. I thought it was visually appealing, but it was Bradford who kept his garnish on his glass and pointed out that inhaling the scent of nuts and caramel while drinking the apple-and-rye cocktail was amazing. And indeed, it's just what the cocktail needed.

There's precedent for this in [one interpretation of] the traditional mint julep, which is to pour bourbon and simple syrup over shaved ice and garnish heavily with mint. Serving with a short straw forces the drinker to plunge their schnozz into a bouquet of mint.

The same principle applies here.

A recipe here for your convenience:

2 oz. rye whiskey
ice
6 oz. hard apple cider
A nut-coated caramel apple

In old-fashioned glass, pour the rye over ice, then top up with cider. Garnish with a wedge of caramel apple.

photos: @bmccormack

The Frito Omelet

Every other Wednesday, I cook omelets for the people in my office. I do it right before our biweekly all-hands meeting, so it makes for a full morning, but it brings people together informally on a day we're going to get together formally, and really strikes a nice tone for the morning.

A couple days I had a brainstorm. I really wanted to get the eggy-corny taste of migas or chilaquiles in an omelet. Rather than frying my own tortillas, or getting some fancy chips and crushing them up, I went with Fritos.

"But, Rich," you say, "Don't you abhor processed foods in all forms? Isn't that part of that fancy, snooty, foodie thing you've got going?"

To which I say: read the ingredient list of (original) Fritos.

Corn, corn oil, and salt

Do not substitute chili-cheese Fritos or any other newer version. Only the original Fritos are made with 100% pronounceable and understandable ingredients.

This is the omelet technique I've been perfecting at home every morning for M and my daily breakfast. I haven't got it down perfectly, but I am making nice, custardy, football-shaped omelets every morning. (For daily consumption, we use two egg whites and one whole egg, cooked in coconut oil with a ton of veggies, like shallots, mushrooms, spinach.)

Luckily, you don't need to obsessively perfect your omelet or scrambled egg technique in order to get the goodness of Fritos. Just add some crushed Fritos to your regular scramble or omelet technique, about when you would normally add the cheese. For those who want a recipe, though, here's a guess at an ideal migas omelet:

Migas Omelet

1 tsp butter or vegetable oil
2 eggs
2 tsp bacon bits
1 tsp chopped chives
1/4 tsp chili powder
2 tbsp crushed Fritos
2 tbsp cheese, preferably pepper Jack

Garnish:
Sliced avocado
Pico de gallo or fresh salsa

Heat butter over medium heat in a nonstick pan. Beat eggs with bacon bits, chives, and chili powder. Pour into pan and cook as you would a normal two-egg omelet, or two-egg scramble.

Before things firm up too much, add the Fritos and the cheese. Heat through until the cheese is melted and garnish with avocado and pico de gallo.

The Pleasures of Running Lean

There was a recent event that was mindblowing and I want to go into raptures over, but I'm going to hold off on talking about that for now.

I wanted to talk about a change in the way I've been stocking my kitchen and running the food in our two-person household. By "lean" I mean like a startup, not lean like chicken breast. And I definitely don't mean "running" in that sense. I mean only keeping a bare minimum of produce and meat in the fridge, forcing you to shop and make some decisions during the week.




Recently, I've been taking a great deal of pleasure in not stocking the fridge for the week. Over the weekend, we had been planning our dinners for the coming week. Doing this has given me insight into what the throughput on our kitchen actually looks like and has forced me to change how I cook. Planning ahead has some great advantages, chief among them that you can stock the fridge with healthy food. But not planning ahead can have real benefits, too.

Faster and Easier Meals - By this, I mean that when I'm planning on Sunday, I'm far more likely to believe that my Wednesday self will want to cook something challenging, time-consuming, or involved. But the Wednesday me wants something basic and satisfying. If you want another example of this phenomenon, check your Netflix queue. How many challenging foreign films are there? That's because all the basic, satisfying, funny ones done got watched.

You'd expect that short-term shopping makes for poor choices, health-wise. There's some pretty good studies around the idea that we'll make unhealthier choices for our near-term selves. But I've never been very good at forcing myself to eat things that are unpalatable and (putatively) healthy according to the prevailing wisdom (v.s., chicken breast). When I swing by the market on the way home, I'm much more likely to choose something that'll take less time, and will be less complicated, and result in fewer pots and plates to clean. A

Less Food Waste - We find that we waste far less food by buying only three dinners per week at the weekly supermarket run, and filling in with takeout or leftovers for the rest of it. My office has lunch catered with leftovers a tasty side benefit. That will supply at least one meal a week. I just have to not mind eating the same thing for lunch and dinner (which I often don't). It's galling to throw away expensive wilted produce.

Fresher Food - If you try to eat seasonally and locally, it left the farm two days ago. Why make it then linger in your fridge for four days? Our food co-op runs through it's entire inventory in six days on average. Produce turnover is much faster, on the order of four days. After reading Harold McGee, I'm much more aware that the kale in the fridge is not an inert green thing just waiting to be eaten. It's a living thing--or, more gruesomely, a slowly dying thing--and living things need nutrients. From the moment it's picked, produce starts to digest itself.

More Serendipity - Wandering through the market. "Hey, I've never cooked veal breast before. I wonder how you do it." One hour in the pressure cooker with dried porcini reconstituted in broth, and an onion. Mix in a dab of cream and serve. Heaven. And I never would have (or should have) planned it. It needed to happen on a night where I had a bit of time to play with. And it did.

Clearer Vision - I may be alone in this, but when there's too much variety in my fridge, I can't "see" what's there. I suspect I'm not alone, though. There's good science on how too many choices can be harmful. Contrary to the ice-cream-and-vegetables experiments above, real-time choice is as much of a factor in healthful eating as anything. A bursting-to-overflowing produce bin is more likely to get ignored in my house because I can't "see" what's in there to remind myself that we were meant to have the Tuscan black kale salad with Meyer lemon caper vinaigrette tonight (so good).

Hmm, looks like there's at least two recipes I have to get out on the web.