Café Montmartre's Winter Wine Dinner.

Chicago.

For Madisonians in need of a local food fix, Café Montmartre, the REAP Food Group and Fountain Prairie Farms will be hosting a special dinner on Sunday, 4 March. They're calling it the "Winter Wine Dinner", and pairing a multi-course meal with a special selection of wines. The tentative menu, from chef Ron Walters, will probably look something like this:¹

Amuse Bouche
Potato pancake topped with pork shoulder confit and pickled red cabbage

First Course
Roasted root vegetable soup, served with parsley coulis and crème fraiche

Second Course
Black truffle beef pot pie: braised beef shanks, chick peas, raisins and mire poix cooked in port wine and mounted with truffle butter

Third Course
Roasted pork tenderloin served with a warm caramelized onions, apple cider vinaigrette, braised mustard greens and potato gnocchi

Fourth Course
Roasted beet napoleon topped with bull’s blood micro greens and blood orange vinaigrette

Fifth Course
Chocolate cappuccino: espresso and chocolate pot du crème topped with cinnamon meringue

Note: the "bull's blood micro greens" refer to the particular type of beet, not actual bull's blood. Unless this is a somewhat more beef-intensive meal than I'm anticipating.

* * * * *

¹Except, of course, that it'll be printed on paper, with a more stylin' font selection.

Seven new CDs.

Chicago.

As befits a Midwestern midwinter, the weather's been various shades of dreadful this weekend. Friday night predictions in Madison were for an inch or two of snow; to just about everyone's¹ surprise, the city awoke to four inches or more. With a genuine blizzard on its way shortly thereafter, I decide to hightail it to Chicago while I still had the option. Since I left, Sharon described drifts of at least two feet - probably more, but she had the good sense to stay inside - just outside the back door.

Meanwhile, in the Windy City, it's been a less intense accumulation of slush. Sidewalks have become icy swamps, the semi-transparent, half-floating mounds of melting snow making puddle depths remarkably difficult to gauge.² Then there's the combined threat of minor lakes alongside the sidewalks and your average Chicago drivers, resulting in some pretty spectacular sprays of ice-cold filth. Smart pedestrians³ kept as far back from the street as possible.

So I ventured out into the muck, deciding to hit up a record store for the first time in a long while. I didn't have a strong idea of where to go, so a brief Google search led me to Reckless Records in Lakeview. I stumbled onto a page of staff picks, I think, and figured - from the rather eclectic selection - that I'd enjoy killing some time there, even if I didn't buy anything.

One of the recommended discs at the listening station was an EP by a band called Mies Van Der Rohe Ruined Everything. The first track reminded me of Stereolab, which I took as a good sign, and I ended up spending more than an hour rifling through the CDs.

A good number of which were used, so I eventually picked up seven of 'em, which is the largest music purchase I can ever recall making.⁴ And it's also the most eclectic bunch of CDs I've ever bundled together. I've tried to give each an initial listen today - not like there's been much else on my plate - and as follows are some of my preliminary impressions. In alphabetical order, by artist:

• The Bad Plus • Give Free-spirited jazz from the Minneapolis-based (I think) trio, with piano, bass and drums. There's no shortage of humor here, as evidenced by the title of track two - Cheney Piñata⁵ - and its associated description in the liner notes: "Picture our lonely VP rendered in papier-mache and filled with candy and treats instead of oil and defense contracts." They've also got covers of Ornette Coleman's "Street Woman" and Black Sabbath's "Iron Man". Plus, it was produced by Tchad Blake, who helped create Soul Coughing's sound.
  
  
• The Ornette Coleman Double Quartet • Free Jazz Wow. Free jazz, as a movement, essentially stems from this album, which is essentially a single thirty-eight minute track. (There's a second track, but it wasn't part of the original release, but rather tacked on to help fill space on the CD.) Eight accomplished jazz musicians, led by Ornette Coleman, doing what amounts to eight overlapping jazz solos. But they fit together, somehow, into a cohesive whole. It's difficult to follow - even with the group split into one quartet for the left channel, another for the right - but that's what you'd expect from this sort of "collective improvisation". Sure, the Stone Roses' albums looked pretty cool with John Squires' Jackson Pollock-inspired cover art. But the reproduction of Pollock's White Light inside the sleeve of Free Jazz fits perfectly.
  
  
• Jawbox • Savory +3 Okay, so I already own two of the tracks on here - "Savory" and a cover of "Sound on Sound". But it has a different, slower version of "68", as well as "Lil' Shaver", which I hadn't heard before. I consider it four bucks well spent.
  
  
• Naked City • Heretic: Jeux des Dames Cruelles The cover claims it's an "original motion picture soundtrack", but that's a little misleading. There is, it seems, some bizarre Japanese bondage film that uses this as a soundtrack, but it was made well after the album. But, yeah, it's decidely strange. (I knew this before I bought it.) Hyper-frenetic compositional work by John Zorn, featuring Bill Frisell, Wayne Horvitz, Fred Frith, Joey Baron and Yamatsuka Eye,⁶ it's a smash-up of everything you might associate with S&M. Heavy metal, punk rock, avant-garde noise rock? All that and more. Suffice to say, this is the sort of CD you wouldn't play for your mother.
  
  
• The Promise Ring • Nothing Feels Good While this isn't a CD I'd recommend for my mother, it is one that I might have on while she was around. Insanely catchy post-punk wonderfulness from Davey von Bohlen and those other guys he left Cap'n Jazz to play with. I can't imagine how I managed to get through nearly six years of American indie-based CD purchases without ever picking this up. But I did, at least, see them live - and for free, with Joan of Arc, the Dismemberment Plan, and Burning Airlines, in that brief period before I knew who any of them really were.
  
  
• Squirrel Bait • S/T I can't believe I found this, but Drag City's short-lived sub-label Dexter's Cigar decided to reissue Squirrel Bait's first (and only) EP. Hardcore punk from Louisville, Kentucky in 1985. Eight tracks in less than 18 minutes. And these guys later went on to form bands like Slint, Gastr del Sol and The For Carnation.⁷ To sweeten the deal, it looks like Skag Heaven, Squirrel Bait's only full-length album, is floating out there, too.
  
  
• John Zorn • Masada Recital After listening to bits and pieces via YouTube, I've been really itching to get my hands on some actual Masada stuff. This is just two musicians - Mark Feldman on violin and Sylvie Courvoisier on piano - playing Zorn's interpretations of traditional Jewish music. Unusual, yes, but not an aural assault like Naked City. If you weren't paying attention, you might even think somebody'd left the radio tuned to the classical station. I'm still anxious to get the Bar Kokhba album, which is a fuller ensemble, but this ought to tide me over for a while.

* * * * *

¹Snowplow drivers included.

²Good thing I decided to wear some waterproof hiking shoes, though the cuffs of my jeans got an occasional soaking. Reminds me of a comment from a guy I knew in college, as he walked into class from a thunderous downpour: "You know, a Gore-Tex jacket's only so useful if you don't have Gore-Tex pants."

³Actually, that's not true. The truly smart pedestrians stayed indoors.

⁴In college, I bought a lot more, averaged out over time. But City Lights was a five minute walk from my dorm room - assuming you had to wait for a break in traffic to cross College Ave - so picking up CDs, one or two at a time, twice a week, was pretty standard.

⁵When a couple of us saw these guys a few years back, when Luther's Blues still existed, they introduced this song with a promise that it had a tragic ending.

⁶Admittedly, I don't have the first clue as to how this guy's name is actually spelled. Yamataka, Yamatsuka... whatever. He's the guy from the Boredoms, the one who roars and grumbles and screams for Naked City. Distinctly abrasive at first, but I've come 'round to enjoying him plus Zorn on Nani Nani II, so I've good reason to believe some, if not all of Heretic will be something I enjoy eventually.

⁷Who didn't play at Glastonbury in 2000, which still irks me. I really wanted to see them play. Sure, Badly Drawn Boy put on a pretty good show in their absence, but it wasn't at all the same. Then I went ahead and completely missed the Slint reunion tour in 2005.

Bread experiments.

Madison.



It's not that I'm behind the times; it's just that, for recipes not of my own devising, I find that I'd prefer to experiment with them, learn them well, before making something of them. I need to make them mine, play with them, forget them, and come back to them, like settling into an old pair of worn-through, unwashed blue jeans.

Some months ago,¹ Mark Bittman's Minimalist column carried a recipe for no-knead bread, creating a stir like recipes rarely do. But bread without kneading? And with the sort of delicate, crust that shatters as you slice it? It wasn't surprising.

I've made this loaf numerous times since then, continually tweaking it, just to see what happens.² The first time, almost immediately after the article ran, I made a plain, white bread, using all-purpose flour. The result: stellar, and I've been making it again and again, with great results every time. Especially for Thanksgiving dinner. I have made a few modifications, though, to tailor it just to my taste.

The original recipe:

No-Knead Bread

Adapted from Jim Lahey, Sullivan Street Bakery
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours' rising

• 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
  
• ¼ teaspoon instant yeast
  
• 1¼ teaspoons salt
  
• Cornmeal or wheat bran as needed.

1. In a large bowl combine flour, yeast and salt. Add 1 5/8 cups water, and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, preferably about 18, at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees.

2. Dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it; sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

3. Using just enough flour to keep dough from sticking to work surface or to your fingers, gently and quickly shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with flour, wheat bran or cornmeal; put dough seam side down on towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another cotton towel and let rise for about 2 hours. When it is ready, dough will be more than double in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.

4. At least a half-hour before dough is ready, heat oven to 450 degrees. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Slide your hand under towel and turn dough over into pot, seam side up; it may look like a mess, but that is O.K. Shake pan once or twice if dough is unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover with lid and bake 30 minutes, then remove lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is beautifully browned. Cool on a rack.

Yield: One 1½-pound loaf.

Simple enough, eh? So simple, of course, that it begs for experimentation. So far, I've tried the following:

• Salt. Add more salt. Not that it isn't great as above, but increasing the salt to a scant tablespoon of kosher salt really helps enhance the flavor.
  
  
• Longer rising time. I've given loaves anywhere from fourteen to twenty-four hours to rise, and they're better with more time. Not an enormous difference, but the flavor and crumb seem just a shade better. Same goes for the second rise, under the towel. Two hours works well for white bread, but an extra hour definitely helps with denser breads, like whole wheat.
  
  
• Whole wheat. Whole wheat makes for a great loaf, and definitely one with a far superior crumb and texture to my old method. I find that one-third whole wheat flour, two-thirds bread flour makes a fairly delicate loaf with great flavor. Half and half also works, but makes for a distinctly denser bread. I have yet to try 100% whole wheat, though the followup Minimalist article noted that others have had some success.
  
  
• Flavorings. Dried herbs work perfectly well; fresh herb season has yet to hit since I've been making this bread. The long, wet rising does a great job of rehydrating herbs, even spruce-needle-like rosemary. Amounts vary with different herbs and spices, of course, but I find that two teaspoons for stronger flavors - rosemary, say - and a tablespoon for others, is a good starting point for a perfumed loaf that's not overpowering.
  
  With chunky stuff, like chopped onions, a half cup works for just a hint of flavor. (It seems like a lot at first, but not too much once it's risen.) Stirring them in at first helps give a nice, even distribution in the final loaf.
  
  
• Liquids. Why limit yourself just to water? Milk, as it does for all breads, produces a soft, tender crumb.³ Beer - granted, it was Sapporo,⁴ left over from the lunar new year party over the weekend - worked perfectly well, even if it didn't change much of the flavor. Note that one twelve-ounce bottle of beer is just about the perfect amount of liquid for this recipe.

The experiments aren't over, as I expect to continue making this bread for some time. Upcoming variations:

• More liquids. A dark ale, like a good, rich brown ale, is a definite, to see if I can get a good, malty flavor. I'm also planning to try black tea,⁵ at some point - a double-strength batch, as for iced tea. At some point, even fruit juices - without added sugar, which will only weaken the gluten structure, in addition to the natural acidity of the juice - seem like a worthwhile test.
  
  
• Adapt it into other recipes. The long rise with a smaller amount of yeast works well for kneaded doughs, too. In particular, it helps enhance the flavor of other doughs that benefit from a less rustic appearance. I've had great success with cloverleaf dinner rolls, pretzels and pizza crust. And if it saves on kneading effort, it can only be a plus.
  
  
• Cornmeal. Sharon and I love adding a little cornmeal to pizza dough, which really weakens the structure, but gives it a distinct sweetness that works well with the acidity of the tomato sauce and any other strongly flavored toppings. Usually, we make it on a fairly short notice, but I expect that an overnight rise can only improve the flavor and texture.
  
  
• Sourdough. It's been a long time since I've had a living sourdough starter.⁶ My last - which was around for over a year - succumbed to some sort of infection, and just couldn't be revived. Since then, I've been wanting to start up another, if for no other reason than its growth developed great flavor, but required long rise times.
  
  
• Other yeasts. Okay, so a sourdough starter takes a lot of continuous effort, especially if you want to develop the real sourdough flavor. (It takes weeks, even months.) But I'm intrigued to try other, unusual sources of yeast. Possibilities include: kräusen, the yeast foam that gets left behind when racking beer between containers; the living yeast inside a bottle of unfiltered, bottle-conditioned beer; or even unwashed organic grapes. I'm particularly interested to see how it comes out with just a bottle of beer as both the liquid and yeast.

I'll try to post updates as the experimentation progresses.



* * * * *

¹November 8th, 2006. The article, should it be of interest; also, the followup, on December 6th, 2006. And, for kicks, the video.

²The key difference is that I snapped a few photos this time.

³According to Harold McGee's On Food And Cooking, the proteins and fats in the milk interfere with the gluten chain bonding, which results in a more tender loaf.

⁴Which is just about water.

⁵Or green tea. I'm thinking of Chinese-style steamed buns.

⁶We called it "The Bitch", in reference to Adam Real-Last-Name-Unknown in Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. People never knew what to make of the note on the refrigerator that screamed, "Feed The Bitch or she'll die!"

Clip/Stamp/Fold.

Madison.

They're a former incarnation of the zine, a snapshot of the evolution of self-publishing from a time when students - as a whole, in great masses - believed in revolution. The Storefront for Art and Architecture has organized a show of architectural magazines from the '60s and '70s: Clip/Stamp/Fold: The Radical Architecture of Little Magazines 196x-197x. Today's New York Times carries a review, and you can check out a lot of the covers at the Clip/Stamp/Fold site, under the "Magazines" section.

Fascinating stuff. These little magazines, many student-published, often highly politicized, and generally full of idealism, cover a wide range of topics from architectural criticism to satire to discussions of comics as an art form. A large number appear to be European - English, French, Italian, mostly - but there are showings from Japan and Mexico, among others. Arquitectos de México (1969) strikes me as particularly interesting, as a voice of political and social consciousness against the repressive government, only later to be crushed by it.

What stands out, both in Nicolai Ouroussoff's review and in my own experience, is how it's hard to imagine something of this sort, these radical views from within the design community, against the design community, ever sprouting today. As Ouroussoff puts it:

Part of the point here of course is that ideas matter. Even the flimsiest of these magazines were shaped by the crazy notion that design not only was important but could also change the world.

How often do we see architects intent on focusing their efforts to making social change? To making a small but powerful impact to improve the world they live in?

Not every day. One example - the one that usually springs to mind - is the late Sam Mockbee, founder of Rural Studio at Auburn University in Alabama. The program, amazingly, has continued in the five years since his death, designing and building houses and other structures for some of the most impoverished people in America, in western Alabama. It isn't the perfect model for the place of design in world - for one, it relies heavily on volunteer student labor, over a limited time frame, which tightly confines the types of projects that can be effectively taken on - but it's a fine start. It is, if nothing else, an eloquent argument for the ethical responsibility¹ of architects, of designers.

In general, though, you don't see that. I don't often see it professionally. The design world, these days, is heavily influenced by fashion, by the flash of brand marketing, the rapid-fire sound bites of television and advertising. Who makes the headlines? Frank Gehry. Santiago Calatrava. "Starchitects". Big names, showing off bold designs. Bold, expensive designs. When I was a student, these were the sorts of heights to which everyone aspired. It was all about design, about form, about, essentially, how cool architecture could be.

I never took any courses in ethics. The subject never came up; it never crossed my mind. A quick scan of three major US architecture programs - Harvard, Princeton, and Yale - doesn't pick up but a trace of the notion there. Harvard has a "professional practice" course requirement, but it's running in a completely different direction, with courses on "Markets and Market Failures", "Advanced Real Estate Development and Finance", and "Public Approvals for Private Development Projects", among others.

So, does the design community just think this isn't an issue?²

I am aware of one school that does consider this an issue: Archeworks. Founded by Stanley Tigerman³ and Eva Maddox, it's an alternative one-year architecture program for people from all backgrounds. They even have a mandatory Ethics and Morality course during the first semester. Still, it's a tiny program, intended as a means of intellectual growth for professionals. And these professionals need to have the same sort of goals on their radar already; it's unlikely to attract those who've never given their ethical responsibilities much thought.

I suppose we have yet to see what direction the design world decides to take in the future. The outlook, it seems, is bleak. Until we see the return of youthful idealism, we can only expect Sam Mockbee and his like to be brilliant exceptions to the norm.⁴

* * * * *

¹I wish to point out, here, that Mockbee was not a religious man, that his notions of decency in design were not buttressed by some sort of religious ethics. Informed by them, perhaps, in the way that religions and other schools of thought influence our cultures, but Rural Studio was, and is, far more open-minded than that. Also worth noting is the distinct regionalism of Rural Studio, the notion that if one is to make a difference, there are plenty of opportunities in one's own backyard.

²Well, that's my guess.

³One of the old guard, who very well might have been behind some of the magazines in the Clip/Stamp/Fold show. He's loud, he's brash, and he'll only take crap from you if you can back it up with good ideas that show serious thought. He's very funny if you're on his good side, and unapologetically blunt if you're not.

⁴Mockbee was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, in 2000, for his Rural Studio work. So, yes, there are people out there who think he might have been on the right track.

Snow cow.

Madison.

The Underground folks held another seasonal dinner out at Fountain Prairie, though Sharon and I weren't able to make it out this time. Mark Dohm was busy taking pictures again, though, and has posted them on the web for all to see. I particularly like the ones where Ben's going to town with the meat saw. Perhaps it's the hat.

Mark, for those who don't know him, is one of the most well-connected, food-centric people in Madison. He's everywhere. He's aware of most everything.¹ And he does some nice camera work.² Mark is also one of the folks behind FERMENT, a casual monthly meeting for food- and sustainability-related stuff. The last two - the ones I've managed to attend - were at RP's Fork and Spoon Cafe, which meant you could load up on some fine, fresh pasta³ and local beer. It's yet to be determined where the next one will be, just a week from today.

It was a week late for the dinner, but I was out at Fountain Prairie this weekend, hunkered down inside to avoid the fierce cold.⁴ I did take the opportunity to snap a few photographs in the brief moments before the camera's battery and my fingers froze stiff. The light was gorgeous, with the sun's low angle lending strong relief to the drifts of snow. Here's one of the better shots I managed to get before scurrying back into the kitchen:



* * * * *
¹Such as the recent worldwide mustard tasting and judging at the Mount Horeb Mustard Museum, which apparently included over 350 entries, some from as far afield as Europe and Japan.

²Stirs a mean sausage gravy, too.

³Made, presumably earlier that day, on the machines that you can see behind the counter.

⁴In the event you're someplace balmier, it's worth noting that last night's low temperature was somewhere in the neighborhood of -18°F. Before the onslaught of the deep freeze, I'd intended to try cold-smoking some sausages this weekend, but I figured it was all but impossible. The "cold" bit doesn't mean frozen.^a

^aBut it was nice to have a backup freezer, i.e., the back porch. No worries about cooling down that gallon of turkey stock from last week's sausage-making leftovers. Last week's sausage: Moroccan turkey (Bourbon Red, with raisins and the sorts of flavors you'd put in a tagine). This week's (unsmoked) sausage: Cajun pork and shrimp, sort of like an uncured, unsmoked andouille.