Category Archives: Meat

Getting Ready for Pigs & Pinot with Chef Charlie Palmer

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OK, how cute is this little oinkster?

If you’re at all squeamish about seeing animals being raised ultimately for the dinner table, you might want to stop reading now. But if you’re like me, and believe it’s important to know that our proteins actually were once whole, living, breathing animals before they ended up shrink-wrapped in select cuts in the supermarket, then I hope you’ll appreciate knowing a little more about the artisan ingredients going into this year’s fifth annual ”Pigs & Pinot” extravaganza at the Hotel Healdsburg in Healdsburg.

Chef Charlie Palmer of Dry Creek Kitchen in the Hotel Healdsburg and his staff once again are overseeing the epicurean event, March 19-20. Proceeds will benefit Share Our Strength and local Healdsburg educational organizations.

If you’re thinking about joining the festivities, you’re late to the game, unfortunately. For the first time ever, the event sold out within the first half hour that tickets went on sale. But that’s what happens when you have the hoopla of  Bravo TV’s “Top Chef” added to the mix. Although the event usually attracts mostly locals, organizers were pleasantly surprised this time to see folks from the East Coast, Atlanta, and Seattle eager to buy tickets.

Besides great Pinot Noir producers from California and around the world, Palmer will be joined by “Top Chef” finalists, fan-favorite Kevin Gillespie (of Woodfire Grill in Atlanta); and Bryan Voltaggio (of Volt restaurant in Frederick, Md.), who narrowly lost the title to his younger brother Michael Voltaggio (of the Dining Room at the Langham in Pasadena). Gillespie will be creating a cold appetizer for the ”Pigs & Pinot” gala dinner, and Bryan Voltaggio will ply his skills with seafood for another course.

Food Network star Tyler Florence and Roland Passot of La Folie in San Francisco will round out the mix in the star-studded kitchen.

I had a chance to learn more about the preparations when I was invited up to Healdsburg last week with a couple of other food writers. On a rainy morning, we loaded into the back of Palmer’s truck to visit the two heritage Gloucestershire pigs he was raising for the event. It’s the first time he’s raised his own pigs for the event. Others used for the event will come from a farm in Missouri.

“Chefs are always talking about wanting to get back to the earth. You can’t get any closer than this,” he says. The two pigs are fed vegetable table-scraps from the restaurant, and will switch to an all-acorn diet for the last three weeks before their slaughter.

The two pigs, which Palmer purposely didn’t name, will grow to about 170 pounds each. They are being raised at the biodynamic-certified Quivira Vineyards and Winery in Healdsburg, which also grows specialty produce — everything from arugula to Swiss chard to apples to raspberries — for Dry Creek Kitchen and seven other restaurants in the area.

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Organic Lamb with Idaho and San Francisco Connections

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A perfect lamb stew for a cold winter night.

Lava Lake Lamb of Idaho, 100 percent grass-fed and certified organic, is luscious, juicy and flavorful meat to be sure.

But what really sets this lamb apart is that all profits from the sale of the meat benefit land and habitat conservation efforts across nearly 1 million acres in south-central Idaho. Those efforts include restoration of wetlands, and studies of rare plants and songbirds.

I recently had a chance to sample some of this fine lamb and to learn more about this unusual enterprise near Sun Valley, Idaho.

Philanthropists Brian and Kathleen Bean of San Francisco purchased 20,000 acres of land on the Pioneer Mountain range-land. Of that, 7,500 acres were made permanently protected in a conservation easement held by the Nature Conservancy, where Kathleen worked for seven years. Her husband is an investment banker.

One of goals of the Beans was to run a sustainable business that sold lamb. The meat is now served at a number of Idaho restaurants. It also can be purchased on the Lava Lake Lamb Web site.

The rosemary garlic lamb sausages I tried made a simple, harried weeknight dish of pasta and tomato sauce something extra special.

The sample of lamb stew meat, tender and mild tasting, went into a recipe from “Flavors of Tuscany” (Broadway) by Nancy Harmon Jenkins.

“Lamb with Black Olives” is an easy stew flavored with garlic, rosemary, a little tomato paste and some dry white wine. As the dish cooks, the lamb juices infuse the sauce, giving it a richer flavor. Like most stews, the taste is even better the next day after the flavors have really melded.

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Burger Buster

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Angus burger at Burger Bar in San Francisco.

Times were that chefs considered it downright unseemly and uncouth to feature a burger on their menus. These days, that old-school mentality has been ground up and reshaped into a super-sized burger bonanza. It’s practically gauche now if a beefy patty isn’t front and center everywhere you turn.

I should know. One day recently, I embarked on a challenge to eat at three different burger joints in one day. Yes, that’s nearly one burger per hour in a three-hour span with no breaks in between.

But I was on a mission for a story for San Francisco magazine about new burger restaurants in the city, which you can read in this month’s December issue. I, of course, took along my husband, aka Meat Boy, on this gut-busting experience.

Would you believe that Americans consume 14 billion burgers annually, with 41 percent of us chowing down on one at least once a week? In 2008, two market research firms found that 7 percent more restaurants, from quick service to fine dining, offered burgers on their menus than did two years ago. In fine dining establishments alone, burgers have enjoyed a 30 percent penetration growth in the past three years, according to Nation’s Restaurant News.

“People are tired of gastro obnoxiousness,” says Clark Wolf, a bi-coastal restaurant consultant. “The economy falling into the pits has made burgers just a good idea and a good meal.”

Mission Burger's astounding specimen.

Of the three places we tried, we agreed that our favorite was to be found at the most unusual Mission Burger in San Francisco, which is located inside the Duc Loi market on Mission Street.

Yes, walk into the bustling Asian-Latino supermarket, and make a sharp left to the butcher case, where Anthony Myint and Danny Bowien have rented a small space to turn out messy, drippy, heart attack-inducing ($8) burgers that will leave you speechless after one bite. They’re available only noon to 3 p.m., daily except for Thursdays.

Since they’re behind a butcher case, they grind the meat themselves from aged brisket, short rib and chuck. The meat is extruded, with the thick strands formed into a tight column that’s then sliced into thick patties, giving the burgers a very hearty texture.

The burgers are fried in beef fat (yeah, baby!), then topped with Jack, caramelized onions and house-made caper aioli. It’s a flavor powerhouse, and so rich I don’t think I could eat a whole one by myself. But Meat Boy sure can.

The fries, cooked to order, arrive piping hot and crisp as can be. They are fabulous. Order a mint lemonade and real mint leaves get muddled in your plastic cup.

Once you place your order, take your ticket to any of the grocery store check-out stands to pay, then come back to the butcher case to pick up your burger.

If you’re lucky, you can snag a spot on the old vinyl couch by the worn coffee table, which serves as seating. Otherwise, you have to take your order to go elsewhere, as it’s way too messy to eat while hoofing it around the neighborhood.

For good measure, one dollar from each burger sold is donated to the San Francisco Food Bank.

Cheeseburger at Acme Burgerhaus.

Addicting crinkle-cut sweet potato fries at Acme Burgerhaus.

Next stop, Acme Burgerhaus in San Francisco, where burgers run the gamut from beef to salmon to veggie.

We went bonkers for the crinkle-cut sweet potato fries ($3.95). The cheeseburger ($6.95) and lamb burger ($9.95) were cooked fine, but a little bland. Fortunately, the condiment bar is stocked with copious amounts of both artichoke lemon and pesto mayonnaise, and both hot and pickled peppers.

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Putting On the LBs at LB Steak

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Crisp, airy pomme souffle.

It can’t be helped. Not when you’re at the swank LB Steak in San Jose’s Santana Row, where there are calories galore.

But Chef Roland Passot’s latest creation, run by Chef de Cuisine Chris Joslyn, is a place where you just have to dine with a devil-may-care attitude. All the better to enjoy the numerous meaty and rich offerings.

On a warm evening, the dark, striking restaurant throws open its front, floor-to-ceiling windows, so that you feel like you’re dining al fresco even if you’re seated inside underneath the glittering chandeliers.

The steaks are all USDA “prime.” But this is one steakhouse where you don’t have to indulge in red meat to have a good meal. There’s also an array of fish and pastas, and even a vegetarian burger of oats, bulgar, wheat, brown rice and crimini mushrooms.

I was invited in to dine recently. My companion that evening at LB Steak was — who else — Meat Boy (my husband). As if you think he’d let anyone else go in his place?

The waitstaff brought over an order of the pommes souffle ($9) — thinly sliced potatoes that puff up and get super crispy from being fried twice. Although a little oily, these were gossamer puffs that crackled when bitten. Eat them fast because they taste best while they’re still hot.

Escargot with bone marrow.

I couldn’t resist the dramatic starter of escargot in Pernod garlic butter piled inside a shank of bone with its marrow ($15). The tender snails were enveloped in richness. I don’t even want to know how many calories are in that dish. But it was a dish worth busting any diet for.

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A Porky Time at San Francisco’s Ferry Building

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Lard caramels. Oh, yes!

Last week, I ended up on a most porky mission.

Yes, foraging for all things pleasingly porcine at San Francisco’s Ferry Building Marketplace.

And what a very piggish day it turned out to be for moi.

After all, as I ducked into Boccalone Salumeria, I was happy to discover that the charcuterie store had just received its first batch of the new Humphry Slocombe lard caramels. Yes, you read that correctly:

Lard. In. Caramels.

Humphry Slocombe, the crazy good San Francisco ice cream store, has started making caramel candies using Boccalone’s lard.

These babies are outrageous. The second you unwrap the wax paper wrapper, you’ll notice the sheen of grease on it. These have got to be the richest caramels ever. Sweet, sticky, and with an almost bacony, fatty lushness to them, these candies just coat your entire mouth like biting into a juicy piece of pork belly would.

A package of four is $3.20.

Lard shortbread cookies.

Of course, I also had to buy a package of the Humphy Slocombe shortbread cookies, made with Boccalone lard, as well as butter. Trust me, don’t think about the consequences. Just eat them.

They come four to a package.

The cookies (a package of four for $3.20) are very crisp, with a crumbly texture, and the subtle taste of sea salt. Again, there’s a long finish to them because of all the F-A-T. But again, don’t dwell on that. Just chew.

Boccalone now also sells jars of pork ragu, made with ground pork, bits of its Boccalone salumi, red wine, and fennel.

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