Made it to Springfield

Made the move successfully to OR last weekend. Unfortunately, the new place still needs an internet connection (which should be set up by this coming weekend). 

The house is old and funky, but absolutely perfect- and the new roommate is awesome. 

Everyone up here is just so much more laid back and happy to help than in Sacramento.

As soon as my internet hookup gets set, going to be uploading a bunch of pictures. Here are some basic pictures of the house and kitchen in the mean time.

Cooking:

Had some extra frozen chopped spinach and mixed it with some large chunks of napa cabbage. After defrosting and squeezing the moisture out of the spinach, I cooked both with some sesame oil, shaoxing rice wine, and some soy sauce. Finished it off with some combo pork/chicken stock I had frozen. Had the look and texture of collard greens with distinct Asian notes, but not greasy at all. 

Topped it off with cuts off of a Beef Round Eye tenderloin that I had souvided to medium rare in sesame oil, dave's insanity sauce, shaoxing rice wine, and soy sauce- then cut steaks and seared them off in the pan. 

The red dots around the plate are deposits of siracha, just in case anyone wanted a little more pain. Turned out better than I could have hoped. The combo of spinach and the napa actually worked great. Perfect meal to share at 1AM.

Long's Meat Market

It warms me to experience honest and genuine service when it is completely unprompted and unexpected. On the last night of my trip up to Eugene to set plans for the move in the coming weeks, I wanted to really cook something for my host (and potential future roommate), so I set about getting the ingredients to make my rendition of a French Onion Soup. I like to use Mirror Pond Pale Ale instead of kirsch, and incorporating raw spring and red onions as a garnish for additional texture and color (all of those ideas are borrowed from the preparation of the soup at the Deschutes Brewery's Pub in Bend- a place I would highly recommend). I also would have floated it with some broiled chevre (for tang) and emmenthaler cheese (for contrast and texture) on top- but I literally forgot to buy one of the cheeses- and then forgot to garnish with the one that I did have. 


... But back to Long's Meat Market


My host recommended Long's as a good place for picking up the bones that I would need for makings the stock. I should have just purchased the stuff they had in the cold case buy the door, but we came in on the opposite side of the shop and I didn't notice the case until I was leaving. While on on the other side of the store, however, I picked up a bottled root beer since I was pretty thirsty. I knew just by their cheese selection that the place was going to be great. It is akin to visiting a new restaurant, cracking open the menu, and wanting to try a bite off everything the place serves. 


I am confident in my ability to distinguish between pretension and pure quality- and Longs has very little of the former and cases full of the latter. I am sure their prices aren't as cheap as bargain brands. However, when buying meat at Long's, you are literally getting a more nutrient dense product for your money. This is because the meat is  straight off the carcass, natural, and not pumped with water (or products intended to increase the meat's absorption of that water). So while the raw weight of the product you are buying at a Safeway may be less per pound, all of your "savings" can be found in those extra items tacked onto the end of the "Chicken" or "Beef".. i.e. water + salt + ? in the package ingredient list. Go out and check a package of chicken breasts in the freezer or "fresh" packaged meat section of your favorite large-chain supermarket if you are curious. I once watched an online video of Heston Blumenthal literally doubling the weight of a chicken breast using a syringe, salt water, and a chemical additive designed to increase the absorption of fluids in the cell walls of meat. The cut of chicken slowly inflated, but didn't have any kind of noticeable bulges (just looked a lot bigger than it did originally) . Even if the bargain brands are 1/2 as much, you can probably still buy more actual meat for the money (instead of meat + added water) when you buy from Long's. 


So I needed to make beef broth for my rendition of the soup, and began to make my way to the Beef side of the meat counter. This was quite difficult, because (to borrow a joke from Patton Oswald) I literally felt like Templeton the rat at the fair in Charlotte's Web.


Gazing at Long's awesome selection in the case, I spied some excellent stew meat. Yes, even their "stew" meat looked delicious. I can't remember if the actual meat cut was listed, but generically I think it is shoulder and leg pieces. Essentially it is cut from the places on the animal that are doing a lot of work, so there is a lot of intramuscular fat deep in the muscle. That fat renders slowly over time, making these stewing cuts more tender in longer cooking applications than their leaner cousins. I also noticed Long's unfortunately didn't have any beef bones for sale.


I decided to break from tradition further and snap up some of that picture perfect (literally) stew meat, since "Why not?," there really wasn't anything "French" about the soup at this point anyway. Everything planned to go into it, short of salt and pepper, was/were coming from either Eugene, OR, or the surrounding areas.  


After getting the stew meat, I asked the gentleman that began assisting me on the other side of the case if they had any beef bones they might sell me. He smiled and said "Let me check," and walked over to a covered counter with a large covered partial carcass. He cut me off a large piece (not sure what it was off of but it had a lot of meat on it that I cut off and added to the soup when I finally removed the bone. I probably would have had to pay 5 dollars for something like that from a Sacramento market or butcher shop. My half pound of stew meat, bone, and Root beer ($1) rang up to just under $4. I didn't realize it at the time, but I wasn't even charged for the bone. 


The soup turned out great despite my forgetfulness, but I felt the need to extend a special thanks to Long's Meat Market for their hospitality. 


As I was leaving, I noticed a newspaper clipping (or copy maybe?) of an article reviewing Long's. The story featured a picture of the gentleman who was assisting me, owner Mike Wooley. 


Thanks for the great level of professionalism and the quality of the products that your store sells, Mike. I hope the natives of Eugene really appreciate the amount of effort you put in to stocking the best quality products, resulting in Long's Meat Market being an exceptional resource for local gourmets and amateurs alike.

  
The only picture I managed to snap from the store- but you can visit their website at http://www.longsmeatmarket.com/index.htm

Back in Sacramento

Eugene was absolutely awesome. Just everything about it was great. It has an amazing food scene, beautiful lush green landscapes, and is populated by a bunch of really nice people. Highlight of the trip was definitely visiting the Saturday Market downtown- but it was exceptionally relaxing to see the area in person. I know I am going to love it up there. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip...