Let's Talk About

Butter.
Wonderful, delicious, creamy, rich butter.

A friend and I were recently grocery shopping, and he asked if it mattered if we got margarine or butter.  After recovering from the shock of even being asked this question, I responded with a very deliberate, "Yes."

Butter and margarine are not interchangeable.  Butter and shortening are not interchangeable.  Let's just agree right now that we will never use any sort of butter substitute, period.  In fact, make this url your mantra: butterisbest.com.

Margarine is made through hydrogenation, a chemical process that only occurs through chemical tinkering.  On the other hand, butter is made by simply churning cream until the fat separates from the liquid.
Finding a recipe to make butter: Easy.  Finding a recipe to make margarine: Hope you're a scientist.

Most importantly, butter tastes amazing and margarine tastes like nothing.

My latest obsession is Nordic Creamery's summer butter.  After trying some at Green City Market last week, I have not been able to stop thinking about it.  This morning I visited the market again, and I bought my own tub of summer butter.  It is so creamy that it tastes a little like cheese, but I kind of enjoy when my butter tastes like cheese (and when my cheese tastes like butter for that matter).  It's smooth and sweet, and best of all - it's real butter churned just next door in Wisconsin.

Chipotle Cultivate Festival

I happened to drive by this advertisement on my way to the gym earlier this week.  First to grab my attention: Chipotle.  Next: Free Admission.  Quickly confirming with myself that October 1st was still in the future and that my current city was Chicago, I arranged my weekend plans to include the festival.

I was especially excited to learn that Richard Blais would be doing a celebrity chef demo after watching him win Top Chef All-Stars (if you want to relive it in charts and bullet points) earlier this year.  He was great to watch from beginning to end - passionate, creative, and clearly there to win.  I got really concerned thinking about what would happen if he didn't win because he took himself so seriously.  I was relieved when he won.

At the demo, he was much more personable than I had expected, given his serious attitude as a Top Chef.  He made fun of fancy food, he told jokes about his hair (styled with equal parts bacon fat and liquid nitrogen), and he tried to get the crowd to cheer when he said self-designated words-of-the-day.  I wanted to cheer when he said "oxtail," but I felt like it would be too much to be sitting dead center in the front row and cheering for cow parts.

His "Chipotle inspired" demo menu included:

Liquid nitrogen frozen ginger-infused margaritas

See how liquid nitrogen can make fluffy frozen margaritas?

Chorizo chips with tomato salsa jelly and queso froth

Assembling the tiny amuse bouches

Roasted tamale topped with oxtail in a grape-infused jus and lobster tail and a fresh corn and grape salsa

I too love my pressure cooker.

They gave out a few samples, but I wasn't of the lucky few that got one.  I can tell you that the food looked better than this picture:

It looks like it's wearing a hat.

Seeing the crowd that gathered around him after the demo, I immediately ditched the goal I'd made to snap a picture with him.  But as fate would have it, I ended up crossing paths with him and here we are as BFFs.

Neither of us is feeling awkward.

So thanks, Fate.  Thanks for bringing me to Chicago, letting me drive by this advertisement before the festival happened, having the bus pull up just as I stepped out of the apartment, and for making Richard Blais want to eat a bowl of Chipotle chili at the same time I wanted to.

What I'm Eating

Apples don't fall far from the tree, except in the fall when the apples are all far from the trees and in the market!

I visited Chicago's Green City Market this week to enjoy the local bounty that the city has to offer.  There were apples stand after stand, but I stopped at this one because of the sheer variety.

I read all the descriptions and snapped a few pictures of the ones I chose so I wouldn't forget.

Pristine, Ginger Gold, Prairie Spy, Jonagold, Asian Pears
I realize that Asian pears are not actually apples.

Despite the wet and dreary weather (hats off to the farmers who stick it out all the time), I happily carried home a bag of mushrooms that taste like chicken, a grab bag of apples, and two pots of sage and thyme.

And then just like a local leaving the local market, I rode the bus home.

Life adventures have brought me to the Windy City, Chi-town, the Second City, yep, to Chicago.

Before I left Austin though, I had a few adventures as a personal paleo chef. A classmate from Crossfit Central and I got to talking about food, how food is important to CrossFitters, and how much we both hated cooking -wait, only one of us hated cooking. The other one actually really loved to cook.

So for a few great weeks, I cooked and he ate. And I think it's safe to say he ate pretty well.

Week 1/Trial Meal:

Pan roasted chicken with a white wine sauce and sauteed kale with shallots, almonds, and coconut milk

Week 2:

Zucchini "pasta" with chimichurri sauce

Stuffed cabbage rolls in a spicy tomato sauce - stuffed with ground turkey, pork, eggplant, zucchini, onions, and garlic

Pan roasted chicken and kale (back by popular demand)

Week 3:

Chicken Broccoli stir-fry in almond butter sauce

Turnip latkes with crispy braised lamb

Zucchini bacon frittata and roasted butternut squash

Almond-crusted chicken tenders and Sicilian style Swiss chard

So if anyone out there wants to look like Mark Sisson but hates to cook, I would love to cook for you!

And why would you want me to cook, you ask?

• $10 per dish is a steal
• All dishes are made from scratch, including components such as chicken stock and tomato sauce.
• I like to dance while I cook.

That last one always makes the food taste better.

The Colors of Patriotism

Fourth grade math taught me about the commutative property: 3+2+1 = 2+1+3. Pretty simple, and I like to think that the commutative property works with flags too: red, white, and blue = blue, white, and red.

And that is why we celebrate the American and French Revolutions in the same month.

(Texas was a republic once.)

It seems that inventing traditions runs in the family. It is my personal tradition to celebrate Bastille Day, the grand kickoff to the French Revolution!

Since 2006, Bastille Day celebrations have included:

• A rousing game of vingt-et-oeuf. Yes, that does translate to "twenty-and-egg."
• Making Bastille Day t-shirts
• French food of course: peach galette, French onion soup, croque monsieurs et mesdames, French toast
• Adding "le" in front of everything you le-say
• Yelling both "Vive le France!" and "Liberté, égalité, fraternité!" as often as possible
• French braiding hair
• Building a fort (bastille) and watching Amelie

Other ideas that have yet to be completed:

• Recreating the storming of the bastille
• Knitting with the fervor of Madame Defarge
• Building the Eiffel Tower out of K'nex
• Letting them eat cake

This year, I have bought this amazing toy to help us celebrate our patriotism. It's a pretty genius action figure: royalty to peasant, head-on to head-off with just one click of a button. Just my kind of push button world.

Additionally, we are going to the market! Chicago's French Market is celebrating Bastille's Day Eve (Genius! I hope Santa Claus is there) with food, wine, and music...for free!

And as we might recall, "French" and "free" also fall under the commutative property.

"Liberté, égalité, fraternité!"