How To Eat (that)

After roasting the Ballotine in the oven, Erik de-glazed the skillet by putting it over heat and whisking in red wine and chicken broth (made from the bones from the chicken) and a teaspoon of flour.

The crispy bits – the roasted garlic and roasting juices – combined with the liquids and stomped out a powerful gravy.

Once the sauce thickened, Erik added a shot of Clear Creek Apple Brandy .

Served over the sliced Ballotine, life got really, really, really good.

How quickly can you bone out a chicken? Jacques Pepin can rip the flesh from a chicken in less than 90 seconds. Me? 9 minutes plus a running start of prayer and bribes.

Boning out a chicken is the first step to Chicken Ballotine – a bird that is stuffed, rolled and trussed up tighter that a hussy on Halloween.

Then comes the stuffing of roasted sweet potato in one half of the bird and lentils and mustard greens in the other. Each leg has it’s own flavor which is kind of exciting for those of us with limited attention spans.

The trussing has always gotten me in trouble, causing the bird to look like a Picasso Ballotine –a disfigured but essentially good thing that makes for an interesting presentation. This past Ballotine, knot gods behind me, the thing looked (mmostly) right.


























Ballotine Stuffing:
Roasted sweet potato with caramelized red onion

Black lentils and mustard greens sautéed with garlic and salt

We roasted the thing at 350° for nearly 90 minutes.

If I had to do all over again, I’d lower the temperature a bit on the back side of the cooking time.

The lemons added to the skillet roast beautifully and go well is duck cracklins, should you have them about.

We had a happy growing and gathering moment the other day. Erik and I found a quince tree on our property.

We had also harvested our tomatoes. The Seattle tomatoes did relatively nothing on the vine. Some had been volunteers (they tasted terrible) others were simply under ripe. The cherry and yellow plum tomatoes did the best.

Our Eastern Washington garden produced tons of stewing tomatoes and a few white heirloom tomatoes. In the end, with our travel schedule, we had to stew, puree, strain and freeze everything.

So this is what happened:
Half an onion
Two pounds of yellow tomatoes
A whole quince, cut in two
Some salt
Olive oil to coat

Roast at 350° until soft (about and hour)

Puree.

Strain.

Taste.

Should be tart and bright and perfect over an artichoke heart dressing or over roasted leg of lamb.

The simple beauty of a hotdog is an American Truth. In a time when being an American means something different than it used to, the hotdog still stands proud to be at the ballpark, the county fair and the Costco. The hotdog doesn’t question or have political agendas. It just wants to experience the traditions of this country with everyone who can stand to eat mystery animal bits.

The American Truths at Costco have become a dicey little game for us. Before leaving Missoula yesterday, we went and got a hotdog at Costco. It was early, but we were hungry and no longer willing to spend our money on the restaurants of The Most Food Forsaken Town of America.

We’ve danced this hot waltz with the devil before. Eat the hotdog. Release the hotdog. Regret hotdog.

But they’re only a buck a piece!

So we go back. Still we load the sucker up with mustard and saurkraut and we one-two –three-it into the phrase Never Again.

What draws us back to the Costco hotdog?

I’ll tell you what it is: Because they’re there. They aren’t loyal to you, but they’re there.

Food on the road is never easy. In Paris there are too many choices. In Ritzville, Washington there is one. Portland has a swath of greatness speckled with mediocrity.

Missoula, Montana– a beautiful place with wonderful people– needs a restaurant high colonic.

Here's the rundown of where we've et at:

Finn and Porter Go for dinner. our hotel's restaurant:

- Great Mashed potatoes, made better if you ask that the teaspoon of raw garlic be left off.

- The Penn Cove Mussels are wonderful at the bar. Horrible from Room Service.

- Avoid breakfast unless you crave fat with a side of sneer.

- Beautifully rounded wine list.

- Their wild mushroom sautée is a medley of button mushrooms

Red Bird Run AWAY!

- Touted as one of Missoula's best.

- Red Bird gives food the middle finger and then charges you for it.

- I want to rip the quality of service apart, I do. I suck as a server, so I won't.

- We had rice cakes with red curry sauce, pork and shrimp fried spring rolls, beef kabobs with peanut sauce. The rice cakes were fried to humiliation. The pork spring rolls were slightly burnt, the beef kabobs were beef carpacio kabobs.

- We wanted this place to be adequate. We looked forward to going. We look forward to seeing it close.

- It is a nice room!

- great sauces, someone needs to be commended for them.

- The kitchen staff needs more direction and more clean towels.

- The red silk banner that covers the kitchen door needs to be replaced with something that doesn't get flung aside like Madam Bovary's virtue every time someone walks into or out of the kitchen.

El Cazador

You know in the reality tv shows when some character does something completely offensive and another character says, oh hell no.

- Beef tacos should never do that to anyone ever.

- e-v-e-r.

Caffe Dolce (just opened)

- Have a coffee and chocolate rubbed tritip blue cheese and arugula sandwich for lunch.

- Have any of their house made pastas for dinner

- Try their house salad and rethink what house salad means

Iron Horse eh.

- Food is fine.

- Service is waiting for every patron to turn, magically, into a football player.

- Kitchen staff to be avoided when met in dark alleys, bowling alleys or anything with only two exits.

Want. To. Go. Home.