• Whole ears of sweet corn
• Canned black beans
• Red onion, finely minced
• Red and green bell pepper finely minced
• Jalapeño pepper (optional)
• Cilantro
• Freshly squeezed lime juice
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Freshly cracked black pepper
• Salt

Now…

I don’t have a grill, and it makes me a sad person of the testicle-bearing gender.  The grill validates our existence as men.  Sad, fat, hairy men, who just use this as an excuse to drink beer and fart by an open flame.  So, for those of us who live in the city and do not have a grill, well, we have to roast the corn in the oven.  Make sure your corn is shucked with the silk off.  Rachel Ray shows you a nice way to do this, plus you can practice giving handjobs this way.

Now that you’ve practiced your handjob skills, brush some olive oil on the corn, plus salt and pepper it pretty well, and toss into an oven preheated to 350° or 400° and roast for half an hour till soft.  At the end you can turn it up to something hotter for a few minutes to get some color and extra flavor on it.  Burnt is a flavor, right?

Slice the corn kernels off the corn by holding the cob upright.  Using a sharp knife, slice vertically down the cob against the kernels and they’ll pop right off.

Toss the kernels, rinsed canned black beans, minced onion, red and green bell pepper, cilantro, into a bowl, and mix.  Throw in some roughly chopped cilantro, a good splash of lime juice, olive oil (just a tablespoon or so, enough to add fat to the dish), salt and pepper to taste, and toss one last time.  Toss that salad.  Yeah, like that.  Do it again.  Who’s a naughty — I’m sorry.  Got carried away.

Now if you happen to have this chimichurri sauce from the last recipe, try throwing a few tablespoons of it in the salsa and prepare to have your pants blown off.

Good stuff. That corn will greet you the day after.

Ready?

No, seriously.  Are you ready?

The answer is: Fish Sauce!

Fish sauce is a Southeast Asian condiment/sauce that comes from fermented fish (I know, that sounds gross).  I am Korean and we used it in a lot of food while I was growing up.  It smells like buttholes, but tastes complex and savory.  I mean buttholes in the best way.  Fish sauce is my secret ingredient in a lot of things to bring out an additional dimension of flavor in any dish.  Also, I said buttholes.

[Pic fish sauce]

My version is as follows:

• Fresh parsley
• Fresh cilantro (this is not traditional, you could use basil, chives, anything else you like or have)
• Fresh garlic
• Fresh lime juice
• Red wine vinegar
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Fish sauce
• Salt and Pepper for taste

Couldn’t be easier to build this stuff — just shove it all in a blender and make judgment calls on how much lime juice to red wine vinegar you like for flavor.  I only use one garlic clove as the flavor is bold and any more might actually hijack the flavor of the herbs.  Use a lot of olive oil — it’ll be your main liquid, and just use a very small dash of fish sauce.  This is one of those things you should taste as you go along just to make sure it is okay.

Before...

Another judgment call is how finely you blend it.  Some people just hand chop the stuff and mix it in a bowl by hand (I guess it’s more rustic/homey that way), but I use a blender and puree the shit out of it.  Flavor becomes much more uniform that way.

After!

Best of all?  Use this on anything.  I mean anything at all.  You can marinate pork (as I did), any seafood including fish or shrimp, steaks, roasts, tofu, or even dip bread in it.  I even use this to enhance salsas (I’ll have a new recipe for this later).  Typically people like to marinate meat in it then grill it for that last bit of charred flavor.

Mmm. Pork Chops.

Also, while you’re waiting for your pork to marinate, you can do other productive things around the kitchen like this:

This is from a barbecue we had, celebrating my cousin Mike’s graduation (welcome to the miserable working world, cousin, your life is just going to go downhill from here).  Lots of food, a mix between Korean and American.  All absolutely awesome.

So just an important note — as a rule of thumb, when you’re buying fresh fish, check to make sure that what you’re buying doesn’t reek of fishy odor, kind of like Paris Hilton when she’s trolling for rich men.  I know that sounds stupid, but the fishier the food smells, the more likely it is to be old.  And old fish is not good fish.  While diarrhea is always hilarious when somebody else has it, I’m sure you don’t want diarrhea.  If you do, feel free to buy the old fish.  Good times.

Don't buy the fish if it smells.

Another thing you’ll want is parchment paper.  It is easy to find in most stores, and you can usually find it near the aluminum foil.  You know, the same foil you can make those useful hats out of, the ones that block alien transmissions.  Yes, THAT foil.  It can do anything.

Now that this is all out of the way, LET’S COOK, BITCH!

• Cod or any whitefish fillets of your choice
• Asparagus
• Sliced prosciutto
• Lemon Zest from one or two lemons (more fish, more zest!!!)
• Garlic
• Butter
• Salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• Thyme (fresh or dry, fresh tastes livelier)
• Any other herbs you’d like too!
• Parchment paper (you can get this at all big groceries)
• Paris Hilton

Preheat your oven to 500° F.  Yes, you heard me.  If you’ve got a dirty oven, be prepared for your smoke detector to go off, you dirty penis.

I always start this recipe by trimming the woody stems of the asparagus, then blanching the asparagus just for a few minutes.  That way you can ensure the asparagus is cooked all the way through later, but you might be able to get away with not doing that.

Now melt some butter in a saucepan (I’d say about quarter of a stick in a pan for every four fillets, but that’s a rough guess), and toss in a clove or two of minced garlic, the lemon zest, the thyme and any other herbs you have on hand, the salt and pepper, and let it all kind of sit together on medium-low heat. Don’t let it burn. Just let the flavors mix and leach out into the butter.

Pull out equal measures of parchment paper per piece of fish and lightly spread olive oil on each piece where the fish will be sitting. The parchment can be big, but don’t make them gigantic. Enough to wrap up the cod like it was a small gift, let’s say. A gift that won’t be returned to you because it’ll be in somebody’s stomach. You don’t want that returned to you.

Salt and pepper each fillet of cod gently — not too much, remember that there’s salt and pepper in your lemon herb-butter mixture already. Spoon a generous amount of lemon herb-butter onto each fillet sitting on the parchment paper, spread it over the fish. Place a few prosciutto pieces on top of the cod, and add the asparagus on top. Arrange this attractively because this is what the guests will see when they tear into this shit.

Here’s my personal side note about the prosciutto in the bag — last time I made this recipe the prosciutto kinda got gross in the bag being steamed with the fish. The texture got a bit weird, rubbery, and dry, so be careful. I would recommend trying the recipe once with the prosciutto in the bag (it’s not horrible, trust me — it just turns into cooked ham, but its just not the same as fresh prosciutto). If you don’t like the texture, you can open the bag before serving and add fried prosciutto as a crunchy garnish if you prefer.

Wrap the package any way you’d like using the parchment paper. You can make it fancy, with cooking twine on top, or you can make it ghetto style, like me, with…staples. Yeah staples, fuck you. I’m lazy.

Toss the neat little packages onto a cookie sheet, and throw it into the oven for about 12 minutes. It cooks fast so do NOT run away.

You can let your guests open the bags at the dinner table because that way they feel special. Real special.

I stole this picture.

PS. If this recipe looks familiar, I stole it from here.  I liked it that much.

Life is tough sometimes, and she passed away from cancer at the young age of twenty-six a few years ago, but she never let anything get her down.  There are a lot of things I remember now, suddenly, like the skit we did in Shakespeare class involving a swordfight at the University of Illinois — but that’s just something I will carry with me and think about now and then.  My God, here come the memories.

I promised myself that this wouldn’t be a blog that dwelled on sappy memories that strangers couldn’t care less about, but there is a drink that came out of this.

• 5 oz. Champagne or Cava
• 1 oz limoncello (maybe a little less)
• 1/2 oz. raspberry liqueur or raspberry syrup (syrup is preferred because it sinks better)

These are eyeball approximations of ratios, so play with them to make a balance that you like.  Combine Champagne and Limoncello into an 8 oz. flute glass, stirring gently, you don’t want to lose all the carbonation!  Sink the raspberry liqueur (or syrup) down to the bottom of the glass for a blushing effect.

Garnish with a bit of mint stuffed into a raspberry.

One last thing — I was able to share one of these with her before she headed to the purple light and soothing hum that waits for us all.  And she loved it.

“I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone.”
- Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five

Wheel of Fish! You so stuuuupid!!!!

Sparrow, if you’re reading this…this is where you stop and close the browser.

No, seriously.  Is it closed?  Good.

So, another thing about this restaurant, is that the waitresses are HOT.  Like Mexican soap opera hot.  It’s like the Hooters of Mexican food in Chicago, except the food is actually really good.  Oh God, here she is coming with a knife right now, Sparrow’s going to chop off my dick.  I’m screwed.

Back to the food.  Even though all I want to talk about is hot waitresses in booty-hugging pants and tight tops.

This, my friends, is the Snow Crab legs.

I neglected to take a picture of Sparrow’s giant red snapper, because I was too busy ogling, my, uh, food.  From what I remember, this was just under $20, which is an amazing price for crab legs.  These are hard to eat at a restaurant, because what inevitably happens is you have trouble getting the crab meat out, you start swearing at your dinner, and basically starve to death in front of a giant pile of food.  Also, once you’re done, you smell like you just got back home from a date with the preacher’s daughter.

Yes, that was an inappropriate comment, and no, I’m not sorry.

The sides aren’t really much to write home about, but that’s not really why you’re here — the seafood (I have to give a shout-out to the margaritas) is awesome, and so are the…ti–decorations.  Decorations.  That’s what I meant.  Eat here, fucker, and you won’t regret it!

El Barco Mariscos
1035 North Ashland Avenue,
Chicago, IL 60622

Because…I am a renegade.  But not quite like this guy:

Lorenzo Lamas...the Renegade.

Ingredients are as follows:

• Spaghetti (thin or thick, whichever is fine, though I did read people like the thick stuff better)
• Red wine (anything cheap is fine)
• Anchovies
• Garlic, finely minced
• Basil
• Parmigiano-Reggiano (aka whatever parmesan you have/like, except for that shit in the green can, shudder)
• Goat cheese
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Freshly-ground black pepper

Bring the red wine to a boil in one pot, one or two bottles, depending on how much spaghetti you’re making.  As to that ever-popular notion that you should only cook with a wine you’ll drink, well, I call total bullshit on that one.  Buy some cheap bottles.  Maybe not $1 bottles, but $5 bottles that aren’t THAT bad, you should use.  Boiling drinkable wine is just a total waste.

If you’re rich, use Château de Ballsacks from 1942 and also I hate you because you’re rich and I’m a poor Sales Operations Manager that hates his life.  How’s that, you rich, elegant, dickface?

Ahem.  Boil the wine.  Then in a saute pan, toss some roughly chopped anchovies in — they’ll melt down as you cook them.  The fishy taste will give way to a richer, savory, and salty flavor as it cooks.  Then throw some minced garlic in there and let that cook for a little while.

Cook the spaghetti to the instructions on the box, in the wine.  When the spaghetti has finished cooking, toss it in the saute pan with the anchovies, oil, and garlic.  Throw in a bunch of parmesan, chopped basil, ground black pepper, toss a little further, then plate.  Add a little bit of goat cheese (not too much) on top to help cut the flavor of the wine, and you have a beautiful steaming plate of the craziest looking pasta you’ve ever seen.

Or you have this.

My lousy photo. Someday, when I grow up, I'll be able to afford a real camera, which means...never.

“I haven’t seen one of those logos since I left Louisiana!” He exclaimed, clearly excited.

“Yeah,” I said.  “Got it in North Carolina last year.  Isn’t it awesome?”

We talked for a while and laughed about the grocery chain and the chef left to go greet other customers.  That kind of stuff doesn’t happen much, in my experience, so it was pretty cool to meet the guy who created the menu.  I felt special.  I am special.  That’s what my mother tells me.  Sometimes, I don’t believe her.

My father followed it up by asking, “Did you know that guy?”

“Dad, you were clearly not listening to our conversation.  You’re sitting next to me.  I’ve never met the dude in my life.”

Ten minutes later, my father asks, “Did you know that guy?”

Dammit, Dad.

Anyway, everybody ordered beer, except for me.  Sis ordered the popular Tavern Pale, which was light, crisp, and clean, though not a ton of flavor.  I had my father order the Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ Ale from Lagunitas, which is a summery hoppy American Pale Ale (I am admittedly not a beer snob, but I liked that beer. What’s even better is listening to your father try to order it with a Korean accent.).  He liked it, turned bright red, and told our waitress we were 57th generation Cherokee Indian.  Which is a hard lie to pull off if your whole family is Korean.  Good one, Dad.

Mmm. Piles of calamari, or what I like to call, "O-Rings."

It was pretty good — the problem with piling fried food into a glass like this is that the bottom of the pile gets all the oil.  The sauce had a good sharp flavor, as well as a mustardy kick to offset the richness of the fried spicy batter.  Then we all ate the romaine lettuce garnish.  True story.  My family does strange things when we’re all together.

For our entree, we ordered the Sunday Smoker (offered only, well, on Sundays), which is just a sampler platter of barbecue.  1/4 smoked chicken, 1/2 slab of ribs, smoked corned-beef brisket, cajun/barbecue seasoned potatoes, and corn pudding.

Mmm. Smoked.

Sorry if this picture is blurry, but cell phone pictures generally suck balls, so that’s what you get.  This is a lot of food.  The sauce was a Memphis-style sweet with a lot of black pepper and some spiciness.  I really liked the char on the ribs, which is a really good detail — for me, finishing them that way makes them infinitely better.  The chicken was moist, and the corned-beef brisket was interesting, though it had a strange pale color and I didn’t quite taste the corned-beef flavor.  Fresh onions on the brisket, however, was a great addition.  But that’s just me, I like scaring women away with my breath.

My sister loved the potatoes, but we all agreed that the corn pudding was really sweet.  I think with barbecue, having rich meat with rich sides is a little much, but, that’s just me.  Nobody respects my opinion anyway.

Verdict?  Definitely eat here, fucker!  The other dishes coming out looked really, really good too.  And a special shout-out to our waitress, who was probably one of the best waitresses I’ve ever had.  She cracked smart jokes, was really sweet to my parents, and made fun of my Dad, which is really what I like to see whenever we go out to eat.

Bluegrass
1636 Old Deerfield Road
Highland Park, IL 60035

• Frozen oven fries (don’t judge me)
• Pre-shredded parmesan cheese (food snobs, go away)
• Black truffle oil (gift)
• Eggs
• Parsley
• Drunken antics

I know most people don’t have truffle oil just lying around, but you can get decent bottles for around $20 or so, and they last for-ev-er.  Also, yes, I know — there’s no such thing as legitimate truffle oil.  I’ve been told that real truffles go rancid in oil fairly quickly, and nobody wants rancid anything in their food.  So the stuff you see on restaurant menus is actually a synthetic flavor, reminiscent of truffle, so in the end, it’s about as real as Pamela Anderson’s boobs.  You’re paying a premium for processed food.

BUT.  That doesn’t mean it tastes bad.  I love the shit.  In conclusion: Eat it with no regrets.  Just know that people are sort of fucking with you.

Parsley -- for the sharp green flavor.

Anyway, back to the food.  Bake the fries according to the directions, and while that’s happening, poach an egg.  Once the egg is cooked, let it dry off on a paper towel so there isn’t excess water.  Toss finished fries in parmesan cheese and truffle oil, put the egg on the pile of fries, and throw some chopped parsley on top.  Then, continue drinking, lose pants, wake up in bed, naked, with — AAH, WHO’S THAT?

Really, really, good. Easy too.

Next is an interesting concept in that 1) every three months, they switch the entire menu based off a theme, and 2) you buy tickets to this place, which people have likened to going to a concert.  Tickets are by a lottery only, and they are very difficult to come by.  My cousin happened to have two extra tickets and let me have them at cost, which, surprisingly, wasn’t too bad ($175 for two people).  I don’t know if there are other prices, my guess is yes.

Tip is included in the price, and a wine pairing or non-alcoholic beverage is an upgrade you can do at the table if you don’t buy it right off the bat.

I have reservations about going to really expensive restaurants — when all is said and done, and you’ve paid $500 for two people, is it really worth it?  That $500 can pay for food for an entire month, or that DSLR camera I want, but can’t afford.  You could also buy $500 worth of marbles and see what happens when you throw them on a dance floor.  Or a lot of fun times from that lady on the streetcorner in those amazing high heels who always asks you if you want to party, who may or may not actually be a man.

The theme of our meal was Paris, 1906, the golden age of French cuisine.  I bet French people then were fatasses, because damn, butter and cream was probably in every course we had.  Please excuse any blurriness — these are cell phone pictures, and also…I had a lot of wine.

Hors d'Oeuvres, the most mispelled word in the history of spelling. Quail egg with white anchovy, pork rilletes, mushroom wrapped in leek, foie gras torchon within brioche and apricot preserves on top, egg custard with black truffle and I think, salt cod. I loved every single one of these - all of them were FULL of flavor. Crazy!

Potage à la Tortue Claire. Which is Turtle Consommé. Which is a clear broth. I think the soup was made from one of the Ninja Turtles. It was good, kind of like beef broth.

Filet de Sole Daumont. I'm going off of memory here. Sole in the middle, a mushroom stuffed with crawfish on the bottom right, deep fried fish roe, and crawfish head stuffed with mousse, all on top of a glorious sauce of butter...and the sea. My God, that sauce was retarded good. I wanted to lick the plate and smear some under my eyes like a football player. Who doesn't actually play football, but just eats like a fatty.

Suprêmes de Poussin (do you know how hard it is to get these French accents right? I have to Google them, then copy/paste them like a monkey). This is...CHICKEN! Chicken breast poached in butter, with nearly dehydrated chicken stock reconstituted with whipping cream, and poached cucumber filled with what I think was chicken mousse, surrounded in chicken skin. I THINK.

THIS. This is what we came for. Caneton Rouennais à la Presse is the official title. It's basically duck (medium rare, breast meat) in this unbelievable sauce they make by pressing the remainder of the duck - a blend of duck meat juice, blood, marrow, basically super-essence of duck, reduced with other ingredients to make a sauce that I may never get to try again. It was AMAZING. Rich flavorful duck, perfectly cooked, with a sauce like velvet that tasted like, well, more duck, with red wine. Gratin de Pommes de Terre à la Dauphinoise: Potato gratin: basically sliced potatoes in cream and Comté cheese. Went well with the duck, salty, fatty, best use of daily calories ever. I basically duckulated the inside of my pants after this.

Extra duck sauce. ALL ABOARD THE GRAVY TRAIN! I hope I never say that again. What a terrible joke.

THE CARNAGE IS OVER...for now. Paris 1906: The journey continues.

Salade Irma. Asparagus, frisée (frilly lettuce stuff), radish, green beans, nasturtium flower, in some sort of...dressing. I was too busy drinking duck juice to notice this course.

...and dessert. Bombe Ceylan, basically a round half-ball of ice cream over a chocolate wafer, encased in another thin layer of chocolate. Custard and berry cream on the outside and rum soaked cherries (!!!). This...was kind of a sad dessert. After all that amazing food, we got grainy ice cream. Also, that's my buddy's finger in my food. I'm surprised we didn't get kicked out for drinking too much wine.

Last but not least, small bites of candy. Beet jellys, which...tasted like beet, which...is sort of gross if you don't like beet. A nut nougat (nougat is like my favorite word, nougat nougat nougat), and a salted caramel. This is icing on the meal consisting mostly of butter and justice.

Everything was great about the restaurant – the servers joked a little, they weren’t terribly serious, and were pretty loose for one of these fancy places.  If you Google Next Restaurant, you’ll find a lot of photos and reviews of the place.  The door girl was cute and knowledgeable, and each waiter had something good to say about the food and the experience.

Now the question: Was it worth it?

My answer is a resounding yes, but again, with reservations.  My modus operandi is to cook at home most of the time, but when you do go out, save up for the occasion and have fun.  That being said, you can also have just as much fun for $7 as long as you’re in the right mood and have the right company with you.  Unfortunately for you, I was in the last few days of the Paris 1906 tasting so you’re out of luck there, but Bangkok 2060 is what appears to be next (though I *thought* I heard it was going to be 2032, not that it matters too much).

If you’re lucky enough to get tickets, you should go.  Send me pictures and let me know what you think, bitches!

Full Menu, with Wine Pairing:

Hors d’Oeuvres
Hors d’Oeuvres Vincent Carré Brut Champagne

Potage à la Tortue Claire
907
Domaine de Montbourgeau ‘L’Etoile Vin Jaune’ Jura 2003

Filet de Sole Daumont
1950
Meursault Goutte d’Or 1er Cru Coche-Bizouard 2005

Suprêmes de Poussin
3130
Domaine Leon Barral ‘Jadis’ Faugères 2006

Caneton Rouennais à la Presse
3476
Gratin de Pommes de Terre à la Dauphinoise
4200
Domaine Brusset ‘Les Hauts De Montmirail’ Gigondas 2005

Salade Irma
3839

Bombe Ceylan
4826
Graham’s 10 year Tawny Port

Mignardises