Spokane Food Blog

Wish me luck.  Tomorrow I will eat turkey.  I have not eaten meat since the burger incident so I am nervous about the turkey.  Yesterday I went to the butcher to pick up my “fresh” bird, and I saw a pile of meat molded to look like a pig with sunglasses.  Now, I was warned the butchers at this shop like to have fun, but that did not help my anxiety about Thanksgiving Day.

I wish everyone a happy holiday and good luck cooking for the big meal.  If you would prefer to go out, a few select places around town are dishing out meals:

• The Davenport
• C.I. Shenanigans
• Prospectors
• Union Gospel Mission
• One World Community Kitchen

In addition, French Quarter has its grand opening this weekend. Make sure you check them out!

Hamburger? Why not call it a beef-burger?

Sitting in the carpool mini-van, on the way home from tap dance class, stopping for a quick McDonald’s meal, I would always get picked on a bit for ordering a “hamburger without the burger.”  Healthy, I know, but in 1991 the options were scarce.  One of my friends always wanted me to try a burger or chicken nuggets. At times I was even bet $200 to eat some meat, but, of course, I refused the monetary temptation and did not eat it.

Celebration time!  My childhood friend came back from 4 years of service in the Marines, and we celebrated by going out for burgers at Globe Bar & Grille.   I got a bit cocky and thought I could pretend I was eating a Boca Burger instead of a beef burger.

Rookie move and big mistake.

I got sick!  A type of sick I have not felt before.  Almost like the moment before your stomach lets you know you have had too much too drink and that alcohol poisoning is imminent, but really… I just felt very heavy and horribly uncomfortable.  Do not get me wrong, my pineapple burger tasted great, but it was something I definitely could not digest properly.  I wonder if anyone can really eat hamburgers without feeling sick?

I am a recovering vegetarian, but please do not lead me to a hamburger just yet. I am going to stick to burger revised for a bit and cool off while being a recovering, recovering vegetarian.

First, I start to eat meat. Then today, I meet an 11 year old who is friends with the Palin Family. Her Grandma grew up with my second cousin once removed. That cousin’s Aunt is my Grandma. She grew up in Metaline Falls. Metaline Falls is the town the train to Ione travels from (as seen in Benny and Joon). I ate buffalo in Ione last weekend. Does that mean I am going to turn into Sarah Palin?

Eat buffalo in Ione. Really you should. The town is surrounded by gorgeous scenery and contains about 497 residents.

One of those 497 residents whips up amazing organic home cooked food. If she had a restaurant, I am sure Chef Ramsay would have to search deep in his soul to find one bad thing to say about her cooking. My buffalo was grain feed on a reservation near Ione. I don’t just go eating buffalo everyday but from what I could tell it was perfectly cooked.  Very tasty. The cut I had was a bit more dense and chewy than the red meat I have been eating. It had a distinct savory flavor.

Maybe I will take up buffalo hunting with Sarah next year?

Despite a message in my email inbox today reading “Holidays Are Murder on Turkeys,” I am looking forward to my very first Thanksgiving turkey and all of the dishes created out of turkey leftovers.  The email came from Action for Animals, a Seattle based 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation to promote the vegan lifestyle.  I signed up for the Action for Animals emails at least 4 years ago.  If you read past all of the invites to gather to close another KFC and protest fur, you can get some great tips for vegetarian restaurants in Seattle and Portland.

For more information about the group you can visit their sites:

http://www.afa-online.org
http://www.myspace.com/actionforanimals
http://actionforanimals.buzznet.com
http://www.VeganStarterPack.com

I’m not gonna be much help on the chicken front…

When people ask me for good tofu I can point them to places as varied as Mizuna in Spokane to Kingdom of Vegetarians in Philly. I really will be no help on the chicken front for quite some time. When I dove into meat two months ago, a year after I lost my meat-virginity, I concluded that good steak is awesome, while I blissfully avoided other types of meats.

Then, for whatever reason, I woke up one morning to find myself wanting to cut to the search for perfect chicken.

Kusina Filipina, an East Francis establishment, might just have put an end to the search, at least as far as flavor goes. When my chicken arrived, I discovered I had to eat around the bones, and, sadly, there was no one to help me figure out how to exactly do that. I guess my dining companion was more fixated on his poker winnings than on my new found gold mine of chicken. Can I really blame him though? He was with me a year ago when I lost my meat-virginity.

The texture was… strange, but good. It perfectly absorbed the flavors of the marinade, not unlike tofu, yet completely different at the same time. I liked the flavor. Maybe not as much as I like steak, but at least there are other alternatives out there.

It isn’t simple, eating chicken. Those bones get in the way of a delicious flavor, and I was not prepared to fully take on this chicken-encounter quite yet. I am, however, ready to move past the steak.

A few weeks ago, I enjoyed a wonderful meal of potatoes and filet mignon.  My remaining meat sat close to my portion of stacked potatoes.  Which do I eat?  In the past there would be no question; I would eat the potatoes.  It never would have crossed my mind to go for the filet mignon, let alone any meat at all.

This time, though, I went for the amazing cow. My mind was baffled with the choice I made. Right up until that moment it wouldn’t have crossed my mind to go for the steak.  My previous mindset would only allow me to eat the potatoes.  Quite a concept to grasp if you are a meat eater, I’m sure. It’s maybe even hard to follow if you are a carnivore turned “veghead,” but these days there really isn’t a question in my mind.  As long as it is a great cut of meat from a reputable butcher I vote for eating the cow.

Does anyone want to support a local farmer and buy a whole cow with me?  I only want quarter of a it.  Do you want the remaining three?

I lost my meat-virginity at Luna almost one year ago to a tablespoon of salmon. Ever since then I have not eaten fish.

I went to Latah Bistro last week and ordered my second piece of salmon since childhood, and it was wonderful. The cherry sauce over the fish and vegetables added a great blend to my uneasy feeling about trying fish again. The flavor was so intense my taste buds were blasting off.

Overall, the whole experience was very unusual to me, particularly the complex texture of the fish. I managed to work up to eating about 2oz. Chef David Blaine did an amazing job.

I certainly am adding Latah Bistro to my list of places I am willing to experiment with meat eating again.

Walking into the market. I discussed my day and unintentionally used the idiom, “running around like a chicken with its head cut off,” to describe my feelings. I stopped. Hum, I am actually at the store to purchase ingredients for my first chicken salad (my second attempt at eating chicken.)

Thinking about the origins of this idiom reduced my enthusiasm to eat chicken – poultry may sometimes run around frenziedly for several minutes after decapitation. Oh well, I was determined to try this American fad: chicken on every salad.

The trend has hit all walks of American restaurants; from the upscale bistros to drive-through McDonald’s. In the past I have ordered the Oriental Chicken Salad without the chicken, or I would go to low quality restaurants and order the Chicken Cesar Salad without the chicken, making sure they were low grade enough to leave the anchovies and fish juice out of the dressing.

Forging ahead I am going to eat a chicken with its head cut off, and make sure it is plated over a nice green salad. Earlier in the day I checked my favorite blog group, *sugar, and found a great fall salad on Yumsugar. Butternut squash and pomegranate with toasted pecans over greens. Yum indeed.

A bit turned off by the plastic wrapped chicken I decided not to meet my meat face to face in its raw form. After the chicken miraculously landed cooked on my salad I skeptically geared up and took a bite. Not bad.

I just might try chicken on a salad again next month.

Cooking with Tim a few weeks back launched me into a full on meat coma.

Tim seared a few boneless New York Steaks cut from organically fed free-range cows. (I am not sure if the three pieces were from the same cow or different cows.) I ate about 2 ounces, drank a few glasses of Merlot, and not 10 minutes later almost passed out. I felt drugged. A week later I decided I should attempt to cook steak.

In the course of my life I have cooked meat twice. The first at a city sponsored BBQ where I flipped burgers and turned hot dogs for approximately 200 people (there were no illnesses due to my cooking.) My instructions were simply to wait for the blood to rise, then flip the burger.

The second time in 2004 ended in a complete disaster at making chicken teriyaki for a friend’s birthday.

I did not want my steak to turn out like my chicken, so I found a Barefoot Contessa recipe on Foodtv.com and enlisted a meat making coach to guide me through the process. Making meat may seem simple for some of you, but for recovering vegetarians it’s a gentle learning process.

I went to a local market and bought meat from the butcher. This is a first; I have never purchased meat, let alone picked it out. Until I got home with this brown wrapped package I forgot I would have touch it. Gross! It is pink and there are white tissues or fat or something holding parts of it together. A big “t” shaped bone runs down the middle.

Very gross! Luckily I had tongs so the flesh did not have to meet my flesh. When my cow looked fully dead I stuck the meat thermometer in just to be certain.

I ate about 2 ounces and gave the rest to my meat making coach. It tasted great. I would even make it again.

I have been a food lover all my life, but have up until recently never eaten meat! Now, as a fish out of water, I am stepping into a brave new world, the world of the meat-eaters.

Whether it’s learning to use a fork and knife while eating a rib-eye steak or discovering that buffalo wings and hot wings are, in fact, the same thing, I will engage in becoming a true carnivore. In fact, I will eat (or try to eat) almost anything to learn a new culture through meat.

This web site will chronicle my adventures in a world unknown to me. The world of meat.

After seventeen years of vegetarianism I decided to become a carnivore. I lost my meat-virginity to a tablespoon of salmon at Luna, followed by filet mignon at Churchill’s Steakhouse in 2007, though after that I didn’t have meat again for a year. Last month I decided to try it again, by eating a 3 oz New York strip. I liked it, even though it sent me into a meat-induced coma.

This blog section will chronicle my ventures into discovering meat, and to become a full-fledged carnivore.