How Halifax's library deals with rule breakers.

Everyone has a vacation quirk. My family's is to visit libraries wherever we go. Last week we visited Halifax's central library and uncovered this brilliant scheme they have to make peace with rule breakers.

Tinned tuna Buddha

Hong Kong Airport, Terminal 1, Departures Hall, Non-restricted area, 10,000 tins of tuna—not Ortiz.

Recent Reading

 Pigs in space! Bacon went up with the first astronauts. Hat tip to Joe Cap.

From the annals of "Things that Only Exists in New York City." Rich people pay this guy to sit in line and buy them donuts. Sorry, excuse me, Cro-nuts.

My upper peninsula, too.

Do cheese and tuna have anything in common? What happened when I selected tinned tuna at Ortiz.

Decades ago chefs used to select their preferred tuna batches from the factory at Ortiz, Spain's highly esteemed fifth generation tinned fish titan. Cheesemongers do this with cheese, in fact it's a specialty of some exporters like Neal's Yard Dairy and Essex Street Cheese. But it's something that hasn't been done for decades with tinned fish. Last fall I visited with my colleague Brad to see if we could revive the practice.

We landed in Barcelona on a sunny November Sunday, a couple weeks after the six month tuna season had ended. It was a four hour drive northwest to Getaria, a small town on the Bay of Biscay, where the weather got progressively more Irish along the way: wetter, mistier, greener. Tasting was 9am Monday, a fifteen foot table in the break room set up with twenty-six batches of tuna and sardines. We had a round of Nespresso pod coffees and went to work.

The first question on all of our minds—including the folks from Ortiz, who, being in their 30s and 40s, had never batch tasted either—was "Can we taste a difference?" That got answered quickly. The second tin we tasted was very different than the first. That continued throughout the morning with some batches being good, some excellent, and a couple extraordinary. There is a big difference between batches of tinned fish.

The main differences in flavor were complexity, balance between sweetness and brine, and length. The best tunas had a range of high and low notes, were never just sweet or just salty, and had great length of flavor. Color foreshadows flavor: if a tuna was rosier, it was often better tasting. Texture played a smaller part on these tins, just made this summer, but over time it has a much bigger role. The older a tinned tuna in oil, the softer and more luxurious its mouthfeel.

The fishing boats in Getaria.

One thing that you may be asking is, "What constitutes a batch of tinned fish?" It's a little more complicated than with cheese, where a batch is a single day's make, usually a mix of last night's and that morning's milk. A tuna batch is a single catch from a single boat, brought in at one time and sold to one buyer. That's how fish are managed in the Biscay auction market and Ortiz stays faithful to the one boat one batch cooking, which means the tin you get from Ortiz is traceable back to a single boat on a single day's catch (that said, a catch may last longer than a day, but it comes from a single shoal of fish). It may take several days to cook a big catch and, since the fish in it are different sizes and different ages, there's bound to be more variability than with a single batch of cheese.

We decided on a single catch of bonito, caught that summer, but brought examples of nearly every tin we tasted back to Michigan so we can taste again and confirm what we thought. A second round of tasting is one of those steps that I've learned, over time, to be important when I'm making a big flavor decision. Sometimes, out on the road where everything may be a bit more exciting, I can talk myself into liking something that, second time around, doesn't live up to the hype. 

We're going to cellar a few thousand tins, too. I tasted some two and three year old tunas at Ortiz and pretty much everything I likede about a young tuna got better when they aged. (This is only true for good tuna stored in oil—water-packed tuna gets worse with age.) The good thing about aging tuna is its a lot easier than aging wine. You don't need a special cellar with specific humidity and temperature. Tuna in a tin is practically indestructible. Our aging room is going to consist of boxes stacked on a pallet stored high up on the racks in our warehouse, wrapped in plastic with a note that says "Don't Touch till 2016!"

Our first selected tunas will arrive this May.

Making even a simple dish three times in two weeks can teach you more about cooking than trying three different dishes in the same period. Pay attention to the process of making it, and to the small and large differences in the results

Judy Rodgers

Her advice is spot on and we would all do better to follow it more often. Every time I heed what she says—cook, repeat, repeat, repeat—I become far better at delivering table pleasure. It's not a terribly rigorous discipline for me since I'm also a relatively boring cook. I probably overdo it, repeating myself to everyone's boredom, the same dish coming off my stove week after week, year after year, seeking its own root cause.

Judy Rodgers passed away recently. Her restaurant, Zuni Cafe on Market Street in San Francisco has been one of my—and half the universe's—favorite for twenty-five years. Much less stuffy and reverential than Chez Panisse but equally CaliFrenchiFornia in every way. The layout still blows me away, especially the bar. Who sets up a bar to deliberately block a plate glass view? There are floor to ceiling windows, but you must look past the bartenders and their bottles to the street beyond, which is like looking at a partner partially clothed versus naked. Turns out partially clothed is way more sexy.  In the fifteen years or more I've visited San Francisco the city has gotten much richer and uglier and Market Street has stayed its poor ugly self. Judy's restaurant stays pitch perfect.

One of the hidden problems for driverless cars

This evening in New York, NPR broadcast a live press conference on the commuter train crash that killed four people in the Bronx. The crash has been on the news constantly, it's occupied page one of the New York Times website every day for the past three days.

Meanwhile, in the same period of time, I'm sure dozens of people have been killed in automobile traffic accidents in the New York metro area and there's been virtually no news about them.

This happens all the time and it points to one of they key problems that driverless cars will have to overcome: people's reaction to transit death is much more extreme when the driver wasn't one of us—i.e. an unpaid amateur, driving themselves. 

It's not just the quantity of people who die in public transit crashes that make them news. It's the fact that none of the victims had control over their fate. It also doesn't matter how statistically better a bus or a train or a plane is. Traveling on a major airline is far safer than virtually any other mode of transit, including walking. But when people die on one everybody freaks out. 

Now imagine what will happen when no one is the driver. A driverless car can be ten million times better than a human-driven one at avoiding accidents. It will get in an accident, though, and someone will die. And when that happens, the repercussions—especially those for the law and insurance—will be tremendous. Let's hope that doesn't slow their arrival down too much, though. We've been waiting for them for a long, long time—the picture above, an unfulfilled promise from 1957.

Pays Basque

Bay of Biscay

Zumaia

Turbot

Getaria's boats won't go out again till January or February when mackerel season starts.

In defense of old tourist restaurants

Swan Oyster Depot

Sometime in the last decade or so I lost whatever hangup I had about going to restaurants that serve a lot of tourists. I guess it should have happened a lot sooner given that I've been part of Zingerman's for almost two decades and we've been a tourist joint almost the entire time. I think I can pinpoint my personal transformation to sometime around the second bite of lunch at Cal Pep in Barcelona. It was a crowded counter swarmed by Americans. I was there with my friend Eric Farrell, now the owner of one of my favorite bars. We did that kind of anxious wait you do in Europe when you stand around not sure if anyone has seen you or if you should be doing something different or just leave. Sometime later a bottle of wine was handed to us, no questions asked; naturally we emptied it. An hour and a half later we closed the place having eaten most of the menu. I've never forgotten the food. I'm sure there are technically better meals in Barcelona — I've eaten a couple of them — but for sheer force of expression almost no place I've eaten at feels quite like Cal Pep.

What was a small transformation has grown into a larger passion. Where once I avoided them or held my nose when I visited, now I'm really drawn to old places that continue to do something great. That said, I like new places, too. They have loads of energy and I learn all kinds of things. They're exciting like a new rock band is exciting. But with older places there's almost something else to grasp. It's not like they have to do everything well, and in fact most of them don't. It's kind of like watching old movies; you have to get over the period artifice to some extent in order to enjoy it. Same with old restaurants. Most of the time half the menu will be crap. Order carefully. If they do enough well — or even just one thing — that's enough for me. The part that makes it worth it is that they've done whatever it is so well for so long they wear an elegance that newness can't share. My friend Dai who owns Astro Coffee (highly recommended) put it well when he recently told me, "When people ask me where to go in San Francisco I tell them Chez Panisse. I mean Mission Chinese is red hot and it's fine but Chez Panisse has been at it and after 40 years it's beautiful. You want to know the secret to a great place? That's it. You just show up and keep making it great—endlessly."

Here are a few of my favorite old tourist joints — some older than others — that I think are worth it for one reason or other.

Barcelona, Cal Pep

San Francisco,  Swan Oyster Depot and, on some nights, the Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel

Buenos Aires, La Preferida

Rome, Sora Margherita

New York, Grand Central Oyster Bar

Montreal, Schwartz's

New Orleans, almost anything

Portugal Pastelaria

If the defining utility food shop of New York is the bodega, in Portugal it's definitely the pasteleria. A pasteleria is a pastry shop crossed with a coffee shop and, like New York's bodegas, they are ubiquitous. There's always one on the next block just where you need it. The picture I took (below) was on a street corner in a small town—there were three other pastelarias on the same corner. Someone is always getting pastries there, day or night. For some reason the coffee is uniformly poor, another trait they have in common with bodegas. Pastelerias may look a bit shabby, or they may be fancy with mirrors and glitz. They usually have some seating, though at any given time 75% of it is empty. The most popular pastries, bottom picture, are pasteis de nata, custard cream filled puff pastries about the size and shape of small cupcakes. 

Barcelona Graffiti

Leaving Barcelona

Bilbao Groceries

Scenes from inside a couple grocery stores in Bilbao, Spain. The bacalao is an entire department dedicated to salt cod, including sinks where customers can rinse it.

The real reason people live in Brooklyn

If you read about life in Brooklyn these days it often seems like a carnival of excitement because of all the small craft businesses, restaurants, music and art. That’s pretty much true and it’s great. But to me, a boy who grew up in the suburbs, another reason Brooklyn is magical is how different it makes everyday life. I grew up thinking urban density made life hell. But it can make life easy, too. Take today.

I left the house at 3pm. I got passport photos made, dropped off a UPS box, had my luggage zipper fixed (no charge, thanks Michael—you’re the best!), got a chip from the paint shop, found and bought a pair of jeans and got an iced tea. I never used a car or anything besides my feet. I was home a little after 4.

This brief escapade would have been mundane in American towns just fifty years ago. It’s a shame that today it’s considered exotic.

Note that all this happens in spite of a thriving trade in online shopping. UPS and FedEx drivers are crawling all over Brooklyn. They usually deliver things that are hard to find in the neighborhood— books, electronics, shoes, furniture. It makes me wonder if those businesses didn’t die because of mail order but are thriving in part because of it.

More signs of the times

 

More food trucks...and trailers...and buses...from South by Southwest. Pig Vicious—love it! Hat tip to Kristie.

Ketchup, what's that?

 

Condiment station at a restaurant in New Orleans' airport.

Italian Coffee: Truths & Myths

Café at the Rome airport.

I first went to Italy almost two decades ago. Back then there was only one café in Ann Arbor, Espresso Royale on State Street. It was half the size. As students we all called it Café Pretentious and you could smoke there. This made it an instant substitute for the library. It was always busy.

Things are a lot different now. Yet while cafés have become a fixture across America, there’s still an aura surrounding Italian cafés and, along with it, a lot of myths and legends. It got me thinking and observing on my last visit as I made the trip to an espresso counter three or four times a day. Since American cafés have basically copied a lot of Italy’s espresso style and culture I thought it’s worth it to check in on some typical myths — and truths.

Myth or Truth: Italians only drink cappuccino in the morning, after that it’s espresso only.

Myth! Italians order every coffee drink every time of the day. At the end of dinner, though, espresso is definitely the norm.

Myth or Truth: Italians never order coffee To Go.

Truth. I’ve seen it once, maybe twice in a thousand coffees. There are no paper cups at an Italian cafe.

Myth or Truth: Italians drink coffee really fast.

Truth. I sipped a cappuccino at normal speed and the counter turned over three times. Once I was on a bus that made a stop at a red light and — no shit — the driver got out, bought and drank an espresso, and got back on the bus before the light turned green. The whole bus burst into applause. In Italy this is considered an act of athleticism.

Myth or Truth: Italians drink their coffee standing up.

Truth. Most cafés have no seats. If they have them, no one is sitting at them. (The coffee costs more when you’re seated.)

Truth or Myth: Italian coffee is affordable.

Truth. A shot of espresso runs about a euro ($1.40). A cappuccino, 1.40 ($2).

Myth or Truth: Italian espresso drinks are the best in the world.

Myth. This may have been true twenty years ago. Perhaps even ten years ago. But in the last few years I’ve had better coffee in London (Monmouth), Portland (Stumptown), Chicago (Intelligentsia), New York (Gimme!) and Ann Arbor (Zingerman’s). I would say, on average, you can get a better espresso drink in Italy than America. But the best cafés in America beat the best in Italy. And I hear New Zealand beats all of us, though I’ve never been there.

Truth or Myth: Italians don’t order coffee at a restaurant. They go hit a café after dinner.

Myth. Six Romans ordered espresso at a pizza joint next to me. Then three more next to them. They’re ordering coffee all over the place, all the time, restaurant or not. That said, an Italian may still hit a café on the way home for a post-espresso espresso. The shots are all singles.

Truth or Myth: Italians don’t drink drip brewed coffee.

Truth. In restaurants and cafes it’s not available. If an Italian doesn’t have an espresso machine at home they have one or two of the ubiquitous silver Mokha makers.

Truth or Myth: the foam on an Italian cappuccino is different.

Truth. They don’t heat the foam as much. It’s lighter and cooler than ours. Because of this and the fact that they use less milk overall, coffee lines in Italy move super fast. You never wait more than a couple minutes.

Bacon Wrapped Hot Dogs, Part I

The whole operation. More photos.

I first tasted bacon wrapped hot dogs in Mexico. Brad introduced me to them. We ate them as appetizers before going to dinner, which is an act of gustatory hubris I don’t entirely recommend. They’re a street food in the Baja peninsula, sold from hot dog stands. I thought they were particular to that area until I tried them a second time, this time in Sayulita, Mexico, a small town about an hour north of Puerto Vallarta. There were two stands on the main town square dueling it out within eye shot of each other. Both charged ten pesos, about a buck.

In Sayulita the bacon is sliced paper thin and wrapped all around the hot dog like the candy stripe on a barber’s pole. They’re grilled and held warm until you order. The bun isn’t toasted, but they will ask you if you’d like it slathered with mayo, port and starboard inside the bun, and whether you’re up for any chopped raw tomatoes and grilled onions. The rest of the toppings are up to you. If you want to do it Sayulita style you can add mustard, ketchup, sour cream, pineapple, mango and relish.

If you like bacon and hot dogs separately, you might just lose your cookies when you eat one of these. They're easy to make at home. Just make sure to get the bacon sliced really thin. If it doesn’t hold to the dog you can pin it on with tooth picks.

Travel Tip: Internet Maps To Go, Cheap.

A friend of mine has a neat travel trick. He takes pictures of his computer screen Google maps with his digital camera, like this. When he needs to get directions he looks up the picture on the camera. Using zoom and scroll he can read the map really well. Neat, cheap option to owning a smart phone -- or buying maps!

Puerto Rican Sandwich

There’s a venerable diner in old San Juan called Café Mallorca. It’s the kind of place I like a lot. Big counter. Old guys working the sandwich press with ties on. Regulars eating and drinking alone.

They make a sandwich that’s kind of famous in San Juan called–no surprise–a Mallorca. Ham and cheese, stuffed in a buttered, split sweet roll (that’s the mallorca part), grill-pressed, then topped with lots of powdered sugar. In spite of its odd-sounding finale, it’s pretty tasty. And easy to make at home. A challah roll would make a good stand-in if you can’t find a mallorca roll around town.

A couple other interesting notes about Puerto Rico.

The Piña Colada was invented on the island in 1954. Odd, I thought, I didn’t see it on bar menus much. But loads of roadside stands had handmade signs offering it for sale. I laughed at first. They looked like lemonade stands selling cocktails to drivers. Later I learned: no alcohol.

Wild oysters are harvested on the northwest coast, near Aguadilla. I'd never seen wild oysters before. They look a lot different than cultivated, which is what you see for sale almost anywhere. They grow in a big craggy mass that looks like coral. The oysters are broken off the mass like barnacles off a hull. Their shells have odd shapes, twists and turns, it's hard to find a place for the knife. In Boquerón, a town 40 miles south, cart vendors line the last street before the water to shuck and sell them, six for two bucks. They may be ugly, but they’re tasty, sweet and punchy and go great with the local condiments—a squirt of lime juice and a dab of Bohia hot sauce.

If you’re heading off to a new place and are interested in some tips feel free to drop me a line. If I’ve been there—and sometimes if I haven’t—I keep notes.