Does St. Louis even exist?

St. Louis may have been the location that such great inventions like Dr. Pepper, Cotton Candy or even the Ice Cream Cone could have been invented or were first introduced to the masses.  However, it appears that this city is dead and I am just too naive to know it.  I think that a city that has a diverse culture as well as almost 3 million people can come up with a way to get on the map, nationally, as far as food is concerned. 

Well, what does St. Louis have for anyone to even stop by and see?  Well, Crown Candy was featured on an episode of Man vs. Food for its challenge of taking down 5 large milk shakes.
http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Man_V_Food/Photos/Slideshow_St_Louis?slidevalue=1

But is that all?  With all of the travel shows and cooking shows, St. Louis seems to go by unnoticed.  This is odd because St. Louis, was settled in 1703 and founded in 1764.  It is rated at about the 15th largest city in the nation and for some reason always comes up bottom when it comes to press and people knowing about it.

This makes me wonder what people think is located or happening in St. Louis. I know we have Anheuser-Busch, which still is classified as the world's largest brewery, as well as Brown Shoes, Energizer, Purina and even Macy's-Midwest.  We used to have a huge Chrysler plant just outside of the city and TWA was also here. 

The picture above denotes exactly what I and many other St. Louisans feel.  Anthony Bourdain, chef, writer and TV personality was here in St. Louis 2 months ago to promote and sign his new book.  From what we learned by asking him, during the Q&A part of his show, was that he doesn't view St. Louis as nothing more than an airport hub.  When asked if he was coming to St. Louis, he told us all that he is doing a show based in Missouri, but covering Ozark cuisine, which most St. Louisans find appalling.  St. Louis culture and people are completely different from Ma and Pa Kettle.  What is sad is that I had even contacted a staff person for his company and was assured that when Mr. Bourdain does come to St. Louis, I would be allowed to take him locations.  This was the highlight of my day or even the year, but as the reality starts to set in, I discover that this holds me over about as much as a single White Castle would, on one of my hungry days. All and all though, the whole thing reminds me of a young kid who is such a fan of a superhero and when he gets to go to a convention and meet his hero, he stands face to face with a pot-bellied, drunk, clown in a cheap costumed getup.  Mr. Bourdain was a hero of mine as a chef and writer and while I like the way he talks and writes and while I was a fan of his show, after he basically said that St. Louis is good but not good enough to do a show on and show the world, I lost faith in him. 

What makes St. Louis bad, I wonder?  I know as a food and restaurant critic that St. Louis has a few minor flaws involving restaurants, but that can't be the only reason, can it?  I know that there are great restaurants like The Stable or Mosaic, but do those places outshine the bad places like Mayan Cafe' or Riefschneiders Grill and Grape?  Celebrity chefs come to St. Louis to open their restaurants but don't seem to care about the quality that they produce, as my wife and I experienced when we ate at Sleek, Chef Hubert Keller's restaurant. Maybe they are right in that people only hear about those bad places and not the good places.  If that is the case, then I am sorry about that as my regular full time job does not allow me to go out each night and eat at a different location.  In some cases, when I go somewhere for food, I actually bring my whole family and the location may not be child-friendly.  Also, in some cases, if we get in and wait for more than 20 minutes before someone even talks to us, we skip it.  So, there may have been a diamond under the rough, but we never found out because no one even noticed us.

Hopefully through this new year in less than 2 weeks, I will be able to check out more restaurants for you, get more interviews with some of the St. Louis chefs and try to find more things to place this city on the map. Whichever the case, I hope everyone has a good Christmas season.

My castle is the white one...

While having a quick discussion at work with an employee, I thought about a food product.  These tasty and small morsels have infiltrated ever level of American culture since their invention in 1921!  The small burgers which have been mass produced and sold out of white edifices, complete with parapets and stone walls, showed up first in Kansas in 1921 where they were first sold for 5 cents each.  Can you imagine paying a nickel for a white castle hamburger now?

The story has it that after the novel, The Jungle, was release and showed how unsanitary the meat-packing industry was, two people set out to bring ground beef back to the tables of so many families.  They tried to make their restaurants look as clean as they could and did so by designing the interior with stainless steel and white walls.  The very first castle buildings were made of porcelain.

The two partners who founded White Castle, Anderson and Ingram, became well known for delivering the same quality of product, in any of their locations, partly because not only did Anderson invent the hamburger bun, but he also invented the food assembly line.  This was the first fast food restaurant and everything that we associate good fast food with, started with White Castle.  They started making their own meat plants and even their own bakeries.  A restaurant could get freshly ground beef, onions and freshly baked buns all for their restaurant.  They soon started to make their own factories to make paper hats, building materials for other castle restaurants and even the boxes and packages.  It was completely self sustained and did everything but raise their own cows and grow their own wheat.

Musicians from Eminem to the Beastie Boys have sung songs involving White Castle hamburgers.  Movies, such as Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, show off how popular the food is with those who smoke pot or do other drugs. 

While things are done a bit differently now, no one can argue that even at the inflated price, White Castle hamburgers are not worth their weight in gold.  I feel like picking up a crave case right now.

Your punishment is to wash the dishes...

I know it sounds like a punishment but I know that other people get paid for it and some people do it for free.  This morning, after 5 years of service, our dishwasher died.  Once a year, we have had to call in a service request and have the pump fixed.  So, it cleans the dishes but cannot pump the water out when it is finished. I know that after spending 30 minutes cleaning the pots, pans and other dishes by hand, that there is someone who will tell me "when I was young we had to wash dishes every day by hand."  This kind of a statement is fine but not one that should be taken seriously when you live in a first world country.  People used to have to dig a hole in the ground for their latrine, but no longer as we now have indoor plumbing.  When a toilet breaks, do we go outside and pee on the side of the house?  No.  In America, air conditioning, heat, indoor plumbing, electricity and a dishwasher are pretty much considered necessary for life.

 So, our 5 year old dishwasher has died.  It was the first dishwasher we purchased when we moved from our apartment to our house. I looked and as a first time homeowner, after 1 year being married, my wife and I looked for the best we could afford.  The Frigidaire was the best we could get at Best Buy for $299.  Thank God we purchased the extended 4 year warranty as this dishwasher had a broken pump or motor, every year that we had it.  Sure enough, the pump broke this year, after the warranty has expired.  I consider us lucky to have used the dishwasher, sometimes running twice a day, and not even using every cycle.  It lasted this long!

The dishwasher was first patented in 1850 by Joel Houghton.  It was wooden and used a hand crank to power the device and spray water onto the dishes.  It didn't work too well.

In 1886, the first real dishwasher was invented by Josephine Cochrane and was the first motor powered dishwasher. She had said that "If nobody else is going to invent a dish washing machine, I'll do it myself!" Josephine was wealthy and had servants that did the washing but wanted to make a machine that would do the cleaning and not chip her dishes so easily. She started by measuring the dishes she had then created a rack that would fit them. She then made a large copper drum where the rack and dishes would sit as hot soapy water sprayed over them and then were rinsed afterwards.  She later formed a company, that would later be called KitchenAid. Her grandfather was the inventor of the steamboat and she had enough money to make many of these dishwashers and show them off at the 1893 World Fair.  She hoped everyone would get them but only restaurants and hotels bought them up.

In 1924, William Howard Livens invented the first dishwasher that was run with indoor plumbing.  It had a front door for loading, a spinning sprayer and even a rack for loading dishes onto. Although rumor has it that didn't work properly and flooded the kitchen floor with water.

By 1970, electric dishwashers were commonplace and in almost all US homes for domestic use.

A Man's topic...

Peanut butter and jelly, whether you like them fried or fresh, the PB&J seems to have become a staple for any male's diet.  It could be a tie in with some feeling of a comfort food or a piece of nostalgia, but this sandwich seems to show up in almost every setting and I almost always have seen men enjoy this over women.

 

While the first recorded mention of this sandwich was in the 1940's, we have a couple of facts that can be seen and laid out here for everyone's view:

1.  We know that George Washington Carver created a peanut butter for culinary uses in 1880, but did not patent it because he thought that anything from nature was a gift from God and allowed to everyone.  But this is the first recorded listing of peanut butter.  The peanut probably was first seen around 950BC in South America.  From there it was sent to places like Africa where it is believed that the Africans did grind it up into a paste.

2. Jelly can likely be traced back to the Middle East, where sugar cane grew naturally.  Mixing some macerated fruit with the ground sugar cane and cooking it down, reducing it, could have produced a very simple jelly if not a fruit spread.  Scientists believe that this happened before the Crusades, as it was likely Crusaders who brought the idea of jelly in to Europe.  Modern jelly probably did not exist until much later, around the 16th century when the Spanish used sugar cane syrup to preserve fruit. Pectin was not extracted from apples to make jelly until the late 17th century.

3. While some could point out that South America had peanuts and the India actually had the first sugar cane, then  could the two have collided at some point and created the sandwich?  I guess this comes down to the bread.While the Middle East and India may have had sugar cane or sugar first, their bread has been a thin bread not made with any yeast, so it would have resembled a rolled or very skinny and flat sandwich. While the more leavened bread would have required grains and yeast to rise and would likely have originated in the Scandinavian countries, it could be noted that Spain did have a grain bread like what we are familiar with now, in America.

This being said, thanks to help with wikipedia, by looking up different histories, it could be seen that the Spanish may have invented more closely what we refer to as peanut butter and jelly. The Spanish Conquistadors brought peanuts over to Spain and if Spain already used honey and sugar by then in their fruit preserving, then the love of the peanut and jelly could have kindled. If Spain had access to honey or sugar around the 16th century and had access to peanuts or ground peanuts and bread, then they could have sliced it in two and created the first peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Now, whether you prefer grape, strawberry or another flavor of jelly, wheat, white or another kind of bread and chunky or smooth peanut butter, that is another story.

What is the one thing you could live on for the rest of your life?

Are you asking me?  If so, that is an easy question to answer: chocolate milk.  If you are among the others who are left in the dark about how something that they give children in pre-school could possibly be good for adults, let me enlighten you. 

While chocolate milk is nothing more than chocolate and milk, it is filled with important fat calories, protein and calcium.  Let's look at some important factors and notes about chocolate milk:

*The chocolate flavoring is one of the more important elements and now, for the first time, chocolate sauces are being made without high fructose corn syrup.  These taste more like the dark or unsweetened chocolate and add a rich flavor to the milk.

*Chocolate flavorings have been in a powder form for some time as well, with everything from Nesquik and it's sugar-free version to Ovaltine and it's inherent nutritional drink mix.  Ovaltine started off by making a healthy nutritional supplement-type of drink that gave people the vitamins they needed with a glass of milk.  Well, how do you get kids to drink your product? Make it chocolate.

*Most people continue to use whole milk to help the solution have a silky and rich consistency as well as a richer taste.  Whole milk gives the drink a taste like one is drinking pure melted milk chocolate.  There is a push to make chocolate soy milk, but that ruins the purpose of the original thought.

Lately there has been some scandal because some doctors believe that milk has been contributing to childhood obesity.  They blame that milk has natural sugar and fat in it and think that these natural things which your body deals with naturally are the causes of the fat and overweight children.  These same doctors refuse to believe the findings of the latest research against high fructose corn syrup.  Think of this; you have some pretentious idiots who think that milk is what is making kids fat.  What is really making them fat is likely the large doses of high fructose corn syrup that is in everything they eat or drink.  You know, these are the kids that get McDonald's for lunch, get their mcnugget happy meal, filled with high fructose corn syrup and sugar, then wash it down with a soda, also filled with high fructose corn syrup and sugar.  Then when their kids get fatter, because they go home and play WOW or other video games and don't move off of their butts for a few days, they complain that it is the milk.

Science finally proves the dangers of high fructose corn syrup

I don't give a Puck....

First of all, the word 'puck', in culinary circles is synonymous with Wolfgang Puck. That chef, has done wonders with fusion foods and also has kept his feet on the ground to create master works of culinary art that still tastes like the foods mom used to make. However, if you are in st. louis and you were thinking of going to get his brunch menu at the st. louis art museum, skip it. My wife and I attended this hot brunch a few months ago.  You can find better food for the $25 a person.

There was a hot foods buffet line, with things like egg, cheese and spinach quiche, freshly cooked bacon, sausage, waffles made on the spot, chicken marinara, a carving station with roast beef and other smaller details. There was a cold bar with fresh fruit and some small pastries and salads, like a fresh spring green salad with walnuts, dried cranberries and a oil vinaigrette.

There was a desert bar as well.

For $25 a person, I was expecting a bit more: 2 out of 5 stars.

The cold food was too plain. The melons were sliced almost paper thin, so you had to stab 19 on your fork to fill the same space one normal chunk of melon would take. The croissants were good, but taste like pillsbury made them at the store. I doubt that there was a pound of butter in that batter for those rolls. The hot food was normal and mediocre at best. There was no awesomely sublime ideas presented to us, like fresh salmon and eggs or rich buttery and creamy waffles or pancakes (flapjacks, griddle cakes, etc). After working at a buffet most of my life, I know that you need to change out the meats because they tend to dry out fast under that heat lamp. The carver would sometimes leave his station and the beef looked like it was dry as a bone by the time he came back to it. Dessert was things like what seemed to be flourless chocolate cakes that were small, like 2 cm each way and then chilled, so there were almost frozen solid. Or there was peanut brittle that was rock hard as well. Cookies, which seem rather safe and chocolate covered strawberries.

Here's the thing: the brochure says that they have an "incomparable Sunday brunch". Well, it is, because I don't know what to compare it to. It didn't have the complexity that a more high priced brunch should have and didn't have the regular feel to it that normal places have. It is like if you wanted to go to Mesa Grill but only wanted to eat their baked goods, like the jalapeno bread or blue corn muffins. While blue corn bread is something strange, it is still something that you can make at home. I guess this is slightly biased because as I become more and more skilled some things are easier for me to cook at home. So, here is my standard: if I can't do it, and it tastes great, I pay a lot for it.

So, the cooked foods at Puck's brunch, sadly, I could do it all myself. I should have saved me from the $50 and just cooked breakfast for my wife in bed. I would pay $50 for the two of us for fancy french food at Chez Leon, in the central west end, and that gets me a grilled chicken with a black truffle risotto and my wife some soft shelled crab with a desert. (we always go prix- fix)

What was the most comical of all, when my wife and I did do this art museum brunch, which was actually several months ago, was that the restaurant area was filled with a large assortment of pretentious and snobby individuals who felt that the best way to judge the food was how easy it was to cut with a knife and fork and for them to place in their mouths and chew: hoping their dentures didn't crack or fall out. My wife and I are foodies, so when we sit and try food we comment out loud sometimes as to what we think.  I remember the looks of someone at the table next to us act like we were horrible people because after the meal I had stated what I thought of everything.  I'm sorry ma'am, that the eggs that my wife makes at home don't taste as good as the ones your butler makes every morning for you, but we still have a right to an opinion.  I think we received the most stare-downs that we have ever had at a restaurant in a long time.  (Which was odd, because I had a full suit on, my wife had a long dress and we were perhaps the two most well dressed people there.)

The falling leaves....fall past my window....the falling leaves of red and gold...

I will admit that in my limited cooking education, seeing how I have had no real formal classes and work, very little has been instructed to me on what to do when you have something with an open cavity and something that can be cooked inside.  Much like the stuffing inside of a turkey, many great things can have a great stuffing and therefore make for some delicious food.  I decided to take a risk and in doing so, tried to make some Lebanese food, probably the most tricky Lebanese dished to make, for those not familiar with the style, technique or the cuisine.  What dish could this be?  It involves leaves and a filling.

I know it looks like we just pulled some leaves off of any old deciduous tree but these are in fact pickled grape leaves.  You take these leaves and stuff them with a mixture of ground beef, rice and cinnamon. 

Make sure the rice is uncooked.  Now, you take out a single leaf, place some stuffing in it and roll in up.  Then carefully place them in the bottom of a pot.

How weird is that?  It looks like a pot of leaves.  While the grape leaves do have a leafy flavor, overall, they take on the flavor of the filling, as well as the garlic and lemon juice that you place in the pot, with the water to cook them.  They are delicious and as weird as the leaves are, it was definitely worth trying to cook with them.