Watch it. At first, you’re thinking, “Yeah, this is bad – really bad – but a career-ender? I don’t know about that. I mean, it was the eighties!”

And then it hits around 1:14, and the rest is history. Squier, who counted at least two legitimate hits and hip-hop sampling classics (“The Stroke” and “Big Beat”) in his oeuvre, was never to be heard from again.

You will not be able to un-see what you’ve just seen. Sorry about that.  But before you blind yourself Oedipus-style, here’s some ocular relief in the form of pretty photos of eggs, straight outa the Portable Chef kitchen.

Let me count the ways:

-The Backstreet Boys released “That Way” in 1998. The lip-sync di tutti lip-syncs above was recorded by three students calling themselves “Chinese Backstreet Boys” in 2005.  The Backstreet Boys were conceived with a shelf life of about a minute and a half in mind; however, seven full years later, the song still resonated to the point of inspiring this lovefest.  Now it’s 2011 and this song still has mindshare with me, thanks to these three superfans and the following magical moments:

-0:39: the botched “passing of the mic.” When the CBBs’ enthusiasm doesn’t wane a bit, you know you’re in for a classic.

-0:46: is Left Guy’s hand in a cast?

-0:53: Left Guy’s hand is in a cast!  This dude is a lip-sync warrior.

-1:10: Left Guy is FEELING IT!

-1:55: I think Right Guy is realizing he needs to step up his game here, and answers the call with a perfect to-the-beat head flip mid-lyric.

-2:55: A little controversy: did Right Guy intentionally loosen the headband, so it would slip off “in the heat of the moment” a few seconds later?  Or was the touching of the headband itself a result of Right Guy just plain lost in music? We’ll never know for sure, but that didn’t stop me from going frame-by-frame through that bit, Zapruder-style.

-3:22: Wow, the guy in the back working at his computer is never going to get up from his desk, is he?  But he appears to be wearing a Yao Ming replica home jersey, which plays beautifully off of the frontmen’s Yao Ming replica road jerseys.

But it’s more than that.  Really, it’s about love, the unbridled love and passion that these two guys have for pop music in general and “That Way” in particular. Every last bit of cool has been thrown out the window in favor of unabashed admiration and homage.  And regardless of what you may think about the object of this admiration, the purity of emotion demands respect.

I don’t quite feel that passionately about asparagus – how could you possibly? But as vegetables go, it’s one of the most perfect.  I’ll step out there and say that it’s the intrinsically tastiest of the green vegetables.  It also couldn’t be easier – one cut of the knife, some olive oil and salt, some broiler time, and that’s it.

When you're cooking with high heat, especially with vegetables, don't crowd the pan. Very important: DON'T CROWD THE PAN! Why? Because vegetables release a lot of water when cooked, and a lot of released water lowers the cooking temperature. Lower cooking temperature means no charring. No charring means less tasty. Kabam! Quod erat demonstrandum.

How much oil and salt? Easy: enough but not too much. For this amount of asparagus, I used a tablespoon or so of oil and 1/4 tsp of salt, but it's better for you to get a sense yourself: you want just enough to coat; not much should drip and pool in the pan. Salt I'm going to get into later, but the keys are (a) the dish should not taste salty but should taste as asparagus-y as possible (salt's primary benefit is as a flavor enhancer); (b) this will probably take more salt than you think.

With a broiler, you're relying on the unevenness of the heat - in this case, the extreme heat of the broiler should lightly char the asparagus by the time it's cooked through.

Shaking the pan will dislodge any asparagus that's starting to stick to the bottom, and will flip many of the asparagus over on their other side so they can take their turn with the big heat, much like a leathery 37-year-old on South Beach rolling over to expose her flanks to the noonday sun.

Easy like Sunday morning. The charring and the concentration of flavor from evaporation provides as much deliciousness as you'll need.

Nuttin' But Love

RIP Heavy D, who gave us two timeless hits (this one and this one), a lesser hit I like even more than the other two, and one great album title/nickname-of-a-nickname (“Waterbed Hev”).  As far as I know, he coined the word “conversate.”  He also left us with this, a line I’ve never forgotten.

I’d like to see a remake of “Return of the Jedi” where at the end, a redeemed Heavy D goes to Jedi heaven, where fellow portly-to-obese rappers Big Pun, Notorious B.I.G., and Buffy the Human Beat Box await.  But until that day comes, I console myself with this great technique for shrimp with a shockingly low amount of muss and/or fuss.

Just buy them that way. I'm sure there's a very good argument somewhere out there for why one should buy tail-on shrimp and do all the dirty work at home, but I don't even want to hear about it right now.

Why? When you're baking, the heat is being created at the bottom of the oven. The closer something is to the heating element, the less evenly it cooks. This is a dish without much, as some people inexplicably say, "heighth," so you can put the rack all the way up near the top of the oven for results more even than the number six.

Nine minutes is the time it'll take for "26/30 count" shrimp (ie, 26-30 shrimp per pound) at refrigerator temperature to cook. Lower count = slightly more time, but unless your shrimp are freaky-big is shouldn't take more than 11.

A lot of cooking is about precise application of heat. Once the job is done, you want your food to get the hell out of there to make sure it doesn't pick up any more heat. It's been proven by science: 92% of all botching of dishes comes from overcooking. And by "science" I mean "facts I just made up."

I used: 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 cup almond butter, 2 oz. onions, a tablespoon of rice vinegar, and a half-teaspoon of red pepper pureed in a blender, with a couple of leaves of sauteed spinach.

Stop riding the wrong way on the bike lanes.

This should be obvious.  We’ve been thrown a huge bone by the Bloomberg administration, whose bike-friendly policies have made it possible for me to take a 25-mile ride from my front door to here and back, almost entirely free of car-related worry:

Beautiful, right?  Especially for the 212.  And a few idiots (actually, it’s a pretty large number of idiots) are messing it all up by riding down First Avenue and up Second.

Stop it!  The aggressive, prickly, get-there-at-all-costs attitude that was necessary to survive a rush hour bike ride needs to be scaled back to accommodate the kinder, gentler, more bike-friendly New York.

Think of the pedestrian.  You’re one, sometimes.  When you ride the wrong way up the street, pedestrians aren’t looking your way before they cross.  And remember the extent to which the NYC pedestrian’s world has been rocked by the new bike lanes; the same traffic realignment that gave us better intracity riding has made things harder on the folks going about on foot.  We cyclists enjoy miles of new lanes protected from moving cars by a row of parked cars, and further protected from parked cars by a buffer zone designed to prevent an unaware automobile passenger slamming a bicyclist with a car door; pedestrians are reeling from the introduction of high-speed traffic to the five or six- foot safe haven between the curb and the passenger side of the parked car.

That zone is – or in many cases now, was – the most important piece of real estate for the savvy jaywalker.  That’s the spot where the New Yorker goes to get a better viewing angle, to suss out the traffic situation and plan your move in peace without putting yourself at risk.  Before a good jaywalk, like Lexington Avenue in midtown, you’d get over to that space and lie in wait for your opportunity to cross.  And now, in many parts of the city, those spots are gone.

And think of the novice cyclist, a key political ally if you want these bike lanes to survive the next administration (remember, Bloomberg’s gone in a couple of years, and before going out like a bitch, then-serious mayoral contender Anthony Weiner pledged to run on a tear-out-the-lanes platform, even taunting Bloomberg to that effect).  And when these guys dust off their Schwinns and take their first tenuous steps onto the city streets they’re greeted by… a banshee on two wheels tearing the wrong way up the street?  We’re better than that.  Let’s show our junior members some love.

Only about 3% of New Yorkers (236,000, according to a recent Times survey) bike daily; add in other regular riders and this pushes the total to… 10%, maybe? While the other 90% see no immediate, direct benefit, and have to fear for their lives every moment they’re off the curb?  This doesn’t seem like a sustainable state of affairs – we need to increase our numbers, and we need to earn some goodwill among the 90% for whom the new bike lanes mostly represent inconvenience and outright terror.

So pretty please, with sugar on top.  Ride with traffic.

Speaking of things that are known to go upstream, here’s how you should prepare salmon.  It’s a quintessential Portable Chef-compatible technique: delicious, easy, and foolproof.  Thanks to Andy G for teaching me this.

NOTE: It’s come up several times in these pages that when it comes to cooking, technique is the thing. Being able to follow a recipe is a skill in and of itself and a very important one; however, at a certain point that method stops teaching you much. To go further, you must master techniques and incorporate them into your cooking (for example, I recommend taking this method of preparing eggplant and using it to replace any technique for cooking eggplant you see in any recipe that calls for eggplant). You’ll be immediately improving whatever you’re making and putting your own chefly stamp on the recipe.

For Portable Chef I evaluate cooking techniques by deliciousness, foolproofiness, and efficiency of preparation, traits valued by many a home cook as well. Enjoy!

Sometimes, I think about what would happen if we lived our lives not chronologically, but sorted out by activity.

So you’d get all your sleep in (25 years’ worth) in a row, every trip to Disneyland, all the sex you’re going to have – all in a row.

One thing’s clear: such an existence would totally suck. I mean, can you imagine spending a solid year waiting on line? (and you would; 20 minutes a day for 72 years would do that). a month tying and untying shoelaces? Two years commuting? A week and a half of listening to “Stairway to Heaven?” Even a few months of solid laughter doesn’t sound that appealing.

RELEVANCE ALERT: Well, salting eggplant would probably only take up a couple of days on such a list, but that is a couple of days too long. I have good news: consider one bit of tedium wiped off the map. From this day forth, you can scratch off “waiting for my eggplant to salt” from the list.

For whatever reason, the way I learned it, preparation of eggplant has always involved cutting up and salting in a colander. This was a given, and while I enjoyed eggplant as a kid (thanks, Mom) I quickly gave it up when I started cooking for myself. Too much time and effort. And on top of that, eggplant soaked up oil like nobody’s business. To spend an hour waiting around to cook a vegetable* that ends up greasy as hell seemed like time that could be better spent elsewhere, like watching the Yankees play a mid-August game against the Kansas City Royals, playing some more Zork, or… whatever.

No longer.  This incredibly simple way to make eggplant requires no salting and requires just the right amount of oil for cooking as it does for flavor and texture. Win-win-win-win-win.

Whoomp! There it is.  This is delicious as is as a side vegetable, which is how I almost always have it.  But it’s excellent chopped up with some olive oil and Parmesan cheese over pasta.  And use this in ratatouille, eggplant parmigiana, moussaka, or any other dishes that call for eggplant.

*I just realized, just now, just this moment, that my three favorite vegetables – eggplant, mushrooms, and tomatoes – share the trait that they aren’t, in fact, vegetables.

Insert OJ caption here

I promised some vegetarian material.

And it’s coming. Believe, me, it is.

It’s just that I have a bull’s horn in my pocket, bull blood on my gloves, bull poo on my pants, and a bull’s testicle in my pocket right now. So I’m having a hard time thinking about tofu.

I recently visited my friend Katie Sue’s family ranch in southeastern Colorado, and I’m here to learn something more about where beef comes from by taking part in a big day around these parts: the day that the calves get branded.

There's the beef

Spend a half-hour on a ranch and you learn quickly that water is important to a degree that’s hard for a city-dweller to imagine.  It’s been a very dry year; rainfall had been only around an inch total for 2011, well off the pace of the still-arid 10-inch annual average. And even with the ranch’s water allotment from the government, this was not enough water to support the farm at its current size.

Calf operations are made and broken based on rainfall, and people who are good enough – or lucky enough – to forecast the weather well make out well. “Farmers are the biggest gamblers there are,” Mike Nicklos told me. And it’s true; at the time of our visit, Mike was contemplating whether to sell some of his cattle (effectively, a bet that the dry spell would continue) or keep them (a bet that they’d get enough rain to nourish enough grass to feed the cattle they’ve got). Away from the JEJ Ranch, it’s not uncommon for farmers to take out huge mortgages to buy equipment, supplies, or more land, betting on a big rainfall the following year; if it doesn’t come, that they won’t be able to repay their loans and foreclosure is a real possibility – literally betting it all.

While Colorado conjures up mountains and Coors, this part of Colorado is the western edge of the Great Plains, which was renamed from “The Great American Desert” in the mid-1800s as part of a government-led marketing effort to encourage western settlement in one of the last Indian strongholds in the USA. It’s hard to imagine, but the entire Great Plains area was once full of buffalo, an animal that was rescued from near-extinction in recent years but was once so plentiful that seven million pounds of buffalo tongue alone were sold during a three-year period in Texas in the early 20th century. That’s a lot of tongue.

Marketing materials promoting the available land in the Great Plains told that the very act of plowing the ground would lead to more rain, a ridiculous premise that nonetheless had people digging up grasses all over the middle of the country and planting crops like wheat, foregoing what this land “wanted” to be – grazing acres for cattle – and forcing in crops that didn’t belong. What digging up the land did manage to accomplish was to eliminate the grassy roots that were holding the dusty, dry land in place – this was one of several factors that led to the Dust Bowl (which is one of recent history’s more unrecognized weather-related tragedies, chronicled in Timothy Egan’s excellent book). One of the many things that is so cool about JEJ and farms like it is its link to the past; here, a century after we nearly hunted buffalo off the face of the earth and repurposed hundreds of millions of neighboring acres to crop farming, the Nicklos’ land is still being used for its natural purpose.

Making beef is a land-intensive business.  The ranch is 240 acres and can support 60 cow-calf pairs (the mom-child pair is the standard unit of measurement in the cow-rearing trade). This is over four acres per pair, more land per animal than Derek Jeter will enjoy in his newly-constructed and totally ridiculous 30,000 square foot Tampa-area mansion, which sits on a measly 1.6 acres.  And four acres per pair is a low number, achievable only through active rotating of grazing areas – many operations run at 60 acres per cow-calf pair.

It’s also a labor of love.  The same 240 acres that provided a living for 16 people at JEJ as recently as 1930 barely covers its own expenses today. Profits have been squeezed down by oligopsonist feedlot operators that comprise the bulk of the customer base for businesses like JEJ Farms. Mike Nicklos has been a practicing lawyer for 31 years to support his ranching.

The cattle bred at JEJ could go anywhere – most will get sold to commercial feedlots – but the first year or so of their lives is spent in circumstances that seem pretty ideal.  Up until today, these newborn calves spent most of their time – up to a year on JEJ – roaming land, chilling with mom.  Not a bad way to spend your days – in fact, there are credible evolutionary theorists who believe that cows’ tastiness is a survival trait.  Yes: cows evolved to make tasty burgers because it guaranteed that humans would go out of their way to ensure there are more cows in the world.

Today, however, was probably the most unsettling day of these cattle’s short lives.  On the agenda:

-Brand each calf.

-Vaccinate each calf.

-Put a squirt of insecticide on each calf.

-If the calf has horns, cut the tips of his horns.

-If the calf is a boy, castrate him – which this ranch does by putting a rubber band around its… um… well, let’s not beat around the bush.  By putting a rubber band around its scrotum, just above the balls.  This is meant to be less stressful for the animal, though the eventual effect still gives me shudders: a few weeks after the banding, the blood-deprived man-bits just drop off.

Which brings us to some cow terminology.  There are bulls, steers, heifers, and cows, enough to make a city slicker’s head spin.  How to keep ‘em all straight?  Just remember the handy equation:

bull – testicles = steer

And the less catchy:

heifer + motherhood = cow.

Ouch

To start the process, the calves are grouped together (and away from their moms for the first time, which in itself is probably pretty traumatic).  They’re then run one at a time through a narrow chute.  They do not want to go down this narrow chute. And while “calf” connotes “baby,” these animals weigh up to 350 pounds by the time they get branded and are extremely powerful – there’s a lot of opportunity to get kicked in the knee, head, balls… you get the picture. The way to get a cow through properly is to get right up behind it, pelvis-to-bum, and us your hips to push the calf forward.  It’s somewhat less sexual than it sounds.  You want to try to stay right up on it the whole way through – if a cow gets any room to maneuver, it will unleash hooves of fury.

There's too much space between my crotch and her bum

At the end of this chute is a large green steel device that holds the calf in place on its side; a team of people immediately descend, auto-racing-pit-stop style, to do what needs to be done.  One person administers the vaccinations; another sprays the insecticide; a third, the branding.  The males have it far worse: the castration (’nuff said) and the horn-cutting, which can often get bloody.

There’s no way around the fact that if you’re a calf, this process sucks.  During the procedure, the cattle are pretty clearly terrified and in pain (loud and potentially disturbing, so caveat emptor: here’s a video of the calves getting branded and one getting all the rest).

And it’s traumatic – just take a look at these videos of the cattle together, before the branding and just after.  The silence and cautious glares of the cattle post-branding speak volumes:

vs.

But.  Let’s remember that this is the worst day of these cattle’s lives so far, and perhaps the second-worst day they’re ever going to have.  Seen in that light, the branding didn’t seem so bad.  Compare their reactions to that of this middle-class American boy had when his mom closed out his World of Warcraft account, and I’m not so sure the cows have it so terrible.

And as for the physical duress, it’s quick.  Female calves are in and out in about 90 seconds, the bulls maybe double that.  And once released from the contraption that holds them down, they prance away and over to their moms, apparently none the worse for wear:

As difficult as the going is financially for a small family farm like JEJ, I was surprised that such an entity could exist at all alongside the big meatpackers that make up its customer base. Why weren’t the big companies just sweeping in and driving all small farms out of business with massive scale economies and poorer animal welfare? Some have (Tyson, a leading chicken producer that has also gotten into beef, is one example), but most keep clear of calf-raising entirely and buy their young steer and heifers at auction.

I go back to Mike’s comment about farmers being the biggest gamblers there are, and I think therein lies the answer. Big corporations tend to eschew risk. Why would they get involved in a business that is so dependent on something as unpredictable as the weather? If drought in one part of the country renders one farm unable to produce, there are always hundreds of others in different parts of the country waiting to fill those voids. So feedlot conglomerates, in all likelihood, have consciously decided to push the biggest risk in their business onto family farms.

And the farms will take it on. Partially because of tradition: everyone who’s a farmer here comes from parents who were farmers. Partly for love; it’s clear, looking around the farm here, that raising cattle is what the Nicklos family loves to do. And branding day is a huge event. Family members come from across the country to participate; it is a great, task- and team-oriented activity that involves being outside all day and being connected to nature, with a frisson of unpredictability and danger.

Over the day, I ran three calves down the chute, branded one, and held down the tail and the leg for countless others. Of all these jobs, holding the leg was the hardest. This happens when a bull is in play, and the top rear leg (remember the bull is on its side) has to be held in place and out of the way so someone else can get right up into the bull’s man-bits to put on the +5 Rubber Band of Castration (with Magic Missile).  Basically, the job of the leg-holder is to keep the castrator from getting a face full of pissed-off cow hoof. and that’s a high-pressure job.

Ball removal makes the steer grow more; JEJ uses rubber bands because the technique adds yet another 10-15 pounds of sale weight.  I’ve also read that castrated steer provide much more tender filet mignon, as the tenderloin that it comes from is essentially a cow’s “humping muscle,” which toughens up during use (and a steer, much like a eunuch, doesn’t much get jiggy wit it).

Fundamentals: look the ball right into your glove.

Speaking of cow sex: Rocky Mountain Oysters, if you haven’t heard, are cow balls.  I’d never had one, and it looked like I still wouldn’t when I learned about the rubber band technique. But I lucked out; one calf appeared to only have one ball, so it had to be castrated the old fashioned way so they could make sure they weren’t leaving one in the chamber.  Mike took the testicle and slapped it in my hand with a smile and much gusto, and Uncle Carl was good enough to prep it and throw it on the grill for me.

They’re absolutely delicious.  If it weren’t for the obvious marketing challenges involved selling balls to a populace that is squeamish about eating balls, testicles would be featured in high-end restaurants everywhere.

By 2pm, we were done, 38 calves branded. There was a sort of high we all felt after the work day was done. Given the bull-poo covered state of my pants, the vibe of the moment, and the date (branding took place on May 21, 2011, a date that will live in infamy for this crazy old coot), there was no doubt that I was experiencing…

The Crapture.

I must break you

What is the most delicious animal?

For as long as I can remember, the answer to this question was a no-brainer.  Ever since my mom started making the best spaghetti carbonara ever when I was about five years old, the pig – He Who is Made of Bacon – was number one with a bullet. Over the thirty-plus years since, the world has seen extraordinary changes, but one thing has remained constant: the swine in pole position.

Until now.

Right now.  This morning.  Because I had a paradigm-shifting thought that puts the cow over the pig, probably to stay.

How can this be? you ask. It feels a little like the time around 1985 that my local rock radio station, in its Fourth of July countdown of the top 500 songs in rock history, shocked listeners by naming “Born to Run” as the #1 song of all-time in lieu of perennial #1 “Stairway to Heaven”: completely unsettling, you say.

Why?  What could possibly justify such a seismic shift at the top?  What could unseat the pig, He Who is Made of Bacon? (Check out this replica of Van Gogh’s Starry Night made entirely out of bacon).

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit to you:

Cheese.

Cheese.

When considering the question of the tastiest animal I, like many before me, had only been thinking about meat. However, upon further review, this isn’t fair.  The cow’s dairy contribution to world gastronomy may even exceed that which its meat provides.  And beef is no slouch either.  So when you take into account the entirety of the animal’s gastronomic contribution, it’s no contest.

This puts the lamb/sheep into the discussion as well, but I’d take beef/cow dairy over lamb/sheep dairy.  Think about the breadth of scope of deliciousness that wouldn’t exist (or would be fundamentally altered) without the humble cow:  Cappuccinos. Puff pastry. Any pastry.  Rice pudding. Cereal.  Bread and freaking butter.

Looks like there’s a new sheriff in town.

Vegetarians:  I’m working on two articles at the moment.  One is about mushrooms and another is on tofu, tempeh, and seitan. Your time is nigh.

5/14/11

27. Uri, filet mignon, homemade crouton, wilted spinach with lime, hulled barley with adzuki beans

3/22/11

26. Maamoun, Top sirloin steak

3/22/11.

25. Tanvi, New York strip steak with sauteed spinach

3/22/11

24. Tanvi, beef and mushroom lasagna (ground beef)

3/15/11

23. Jeremy, T-bone steak pan-roasted with butter and herbs

3/12/11

22. Tanvi, Spaghetti Bolognese (ground beef)

3/8/11

21. Maamoun, steak sandwich (sandwich steak)

3/7/11

20. Tara, goulash (stew meat), with spaetzle with brown butter and roasted carrots and a bottle of Anton Paul Zweigelt, Blaufrankisch, and Merlot blend

3/5/11

19. Jeremy, cheeseburger (ground beef) with the works

3/4/11

18. Uri, sauteed beef with coconut milk (sandwich steak)

3/3/11

17. Jeremy, meat loaf (ground beef)

2/11/11

16. Uri, salad with ground beef, baby greens, almonds, cranberries, and blood orange vinaigrette

2/9/11

16. Jesse, burger

2/8/11

14. Uri, Ground beef with penang curry and cranberries, shredded broccoli and carrots

2/4/11

13. Uri, chuck steak braised in ale with mushrooms, onions, and bacon

2/3/11

12. Jesse and Liz, top sirloin, pan-seared and roasted, squash, broccoli

2/2/11

11. Maamoun and Andy, pan-seared ribeye steak with mashed potatoes

1/31/11

10. Jonathan and Carleen, homemade pasta Bolognese (ground beef)

1/28/11

9. Uri, salad of baby greens with ground beef, almonds, and truffle salt

1/27/11

8. Andy and Maamoun, Beef Bourguignon (chuck steak), baby lettuce salad

1/25/11

7. Lasagne al forno con sugo di Eduardo Pazzo

1/24/11

6. New York strip steak

1/23/11

5. Mongolian beef with cabbage and peppers (ground beef)

1/22/11

4. Ground beef. Fusilli with meat sauce

1/21/11

Lots of ground beef in the early going.  But we do have a ways to go.

3. Meatballs from the Frankie Spuntino Cookbook (ground beef)

1/20/11

2. Cincinnati Chili (ground beef)

1/19/11

After completing the 2010 Beef Draft, the first thing I made was a burger.

I started thinking about the enormity of our purchase relative to the size of my burger, which was providing an entirely filling and memorable meal.  If my quarter-poundish burger was an average serving size, and we had 550 pounds of beef (the 600 lbs. shipping weight minus some for bones and packaging), then there were 2,200 individual meals to be had from our one steer – in hundreds of separate preparations.

And I thought, wouldn’t it be great to record those meals?

Fortunately, these thoughts occurred to me just seconds before what would have been a concept-killing last bite:

1. Burger. Ground beef, Food for Life sprouted grain muffin, special sauce

My draftmates are game.  This blog post will be continually updated with new photos of meals from Crazy Eddie beef.

Well, if he were smart, he’d bone up on cheese, cured meats, and wine, staples in any serious attempt at decadence.  These all happen to be foods made of few ingredients and with the artful application of time – usually one dominant ingredient to which you add a handful of one or two others, combine, then kick back with a lemon Four Loko and let nature take its course.  I would say that not only couldn’t you have a proper Bacchanal without these items, but you could easily make do with nothing else on the table.

This has been a source of fascination in recent years; my very first blog entry was about a half-cured filet mignon.  In fact, I’m going to take that and any other things I write on easy, decadent foods and create a new column called “The Lazy Sybarite” which I’ll augment often from this day forth. Cool? Cool.

Alcohol and cheese have been on the list for some time. I’m not quite ready to set up a Dukes of Hazzard-style moonshine operation in the spare room, though, so cheese seemed to be the way forward.

I started feeling serious cheesemaking pangs a few days ago when I was cooped up in my apartment during the height of the snowstorm in New York.  Not feeling anything remotely approaching a burning desire to get out of my comfy apartment, I was relieved to find out that the simplest cheese was makable with ingredients I had on hand (and that you probably do too). While making  an aged cheese in on the goal list, achieving it that day would have required getting off my sweats-becladded heinie and out into the blustery wild.  That wasn’t going to happen – I wanted immediate results.  And fortunately, a first step into cheesing can provide just that.

Shall we? You will need:

1/2 gallon milk

2 tbsp white vinegar

1 1/2 tbsp lemon (if you have more vinegar and less lemon, or vice versa, then change up the amounts as needed – just make sure you’ve got 3 1/2 tablespoons total acid)

1/2 tsp salt

Two stockpots, or a stockpot and a large bowl

Colander

A clean pillowcase

Take the milk and bring it to nearly a rolling boil in the pot over medium-high heat.  If you’ve got a thermometer, shoot for 200 degrees; if you don’t, just take the pot off the heat as soon as it starts to boil.  Watch it like a hawk; once it starts to boil, the milk will overflow in seconds.  Don’t lose focus:

After you’ve taken the milk off the heat, add the acid – the milk should start curdling immediately.

The greenish liquid is the whey, which we won’t be needing for the cheese.  Let it sit for 15 minutes, then pour everything into the pillowcase and let it hang for an hour.  I hung it over a second pot to collect the whey for later use – you can also hang it over a bowl or, if you’re not feeling whey-thrifty, over the sink.

After an hour, you should have a lump of cheese.  Just add 1/2 tsp salt and mix it up with your hands.  Et voila!  A nice crumbly queso fresco, or whole milk ricotta.

A half-gallon of milk made 3/4 pound of ricotta, which worked out to $6.67 a pound for cheese made out of our fancy unprocessed milk.  This seemed  very reasonable to me.

As anyone who’s had ricotta knows, this is among the simplest of cheeses.  This ain’t no Parmesan or St. Agur.  But still, I had a tremendous level of satisfaction from the process: I had made cheese.

Cheese can be made from milk in one of two fundamental ways: with acid (as I had just done) and with rennet.  Rennet, a series of enzymes that help mammals digest milk, is usually taken from calves’ stomachs (there are vegetarian alternatives).  The acidity of lemon juice or vinegar prevents the growth of flavor-forming bacteria that characterize most of your favorite cheeses; cheese made with rennet gives you a lot more options.

And beter yet, after making rennet-based cheese there’s still enough oomph in the whey to make ricotta cheese anyway!  Ricotta is Italian for “recooked,” and that’s exactly how ricotta cheese is made – out of the leftovers of the rennet-based cheese manufacturing process.  Ricotta, real ricotta, is a cheese of thrift.

This idea of taking some milk, pulling some cheese out of it, then pulling some more cheese of a different type has all the elements of the black arts to me.  So I know I’ve got to get involved.