Category Archives: food

Doing the Atlantic, Chapter 15, Weather Prediction, Still Fishing, Doing Some Math.

To start reading about my transatlantic adventure from the beginning (highly recommended) follow this link.

Day 12

Wednesday, February 9, 2022, 12:45PM

14’19.546N 32”34.801W 1631nm made good.

SOG 6.0knts 

Winds are still quite light, we are and have been since dusk last night motor sailing, which is exactly as it sounds: running the motor while sailing.

Chris Parker, our weather guru, has insisted that we continue to head south-west until we hit the 14 parallel of latitude before changing our course to due west. The goal is to try to avoid some nasty weather to the north of us. The predicted weather the next few days will be a stark contrast to what we have dealt with since Sunday.  Winds are expected to pick up tomorrow and Thursday, to the low to mid twenties, while continuing to pick up through Saturday.  Thursday and Friday, expected winds are in the mid-twenties with gusts to the high-twenties. The worst of it is expected on Saturday, sustained winds in the high-twenties, with gusts into the mid-thirties. Leveling off a bit on Sunday in the low 20’s and Monday, becoming just right, about perfect, in the high-teens. The winds are predicted to be coming out of the north-east most of the time which means we will be on a starboard tack, taking the wind on our aft-beam which is preferable. None of the predicted seas are to be over 10 feet, which is high, but not scary. Bigger than the kiddie coaster, not the loop-de-loop coaster.

Heading west into the sunset and an ominous forecast.

Well, the head is still jocked. I did what any experienced boater should never do; I overloaded it, not with poop, rather with toilet paper. I know better! I’m embarrassed, not because I did it, but because I shouldn’t have done it. Wipe, flush way more than you think you should, repeat. I didn’t pump enough between wipes, dumb ass. Good thing there is a second head on board, you can guarantee that if the other head gets clogged it won’t be my fault.

Jabsco manual pump toilet, like the one on Avocet.

We got another hit on the fishing line. Our reaction was perfect, we all got into our predetermined places, ready to go. This fish was obviously quite large, the rod was bent to a promising angle, the fish was running, Dennis was reeling at the right time. We never did see this fish before the line snapped. This time it was not an operator error, it was the fish was bigger than the line test called for. We strung a new lure and leader and set it back out again vying that if the line breaks again we will change it out for a higher test. We’ll see…

~

We broke into our Villa Azul food stash again last night, Chicken-Coconut Soup with Basmati Rice. It was delicious, not the depth of flavor I get at home with ingredients that were not available on Lanzarote, but like I said, still delicious. We have 3 more meals of soup remaining, not a bad deal.

~

Cocktail Hour was Guacamole, Spanish White Anchovies, Manchego Cheese and Crackers. For beverages we tried/drank some Strawberry Gin and Tonic, and yup, it sucked. Round 2 was Bombay, much better.

~

This morning we discussed amongst many other things, how much booze we have already consumed, considering we are getting low on gin, we were curious if it was over consumption or under provisioning. Since we drank a total of 6, 750ml bottles of booze (25oz, 150 ounces total) in 11 nights, equals less than 14 ounces per night, which is less than 3.5 ounces each. Obviously, we under provisioned.

~

Dennis and I cleaned out the cooler that was full of the Villa Azul food. It was fairly nasty, with the expected upcoming rough weather we wanted to clean it out now before it got even nastier. While we had the cleaning supplies out we also cleaned the cockpit which was dirty mostly from general use and a little bit from fish blood.  We’re becoming domesticated, our wives would be proud.

~

I am once again clean, showered with clean under garments.

~

Amazingly, we are still on our first roll of paper towels, granted they are the industrial, heavy duty Spanish type, but one roll for 11 days is impressive. 

~

Our plan is to fire up the watermaker again this afternoon, the main tank is just about empty.

~

As of this morning we still had 1,700 miles to the harbor entrance in Guadeloupe, which is still more than half the distance. The encouraging thing is now that we have turned west all of the distance we travel will be “made good”, meaning that we are now making a beeline to our destination, no longer heading south so that we can eventually turn west. We have made that turn. 1,700mi/135mi per day = 12.59 days, which is very conservative especially considering the weather forecast. Alternatively 1,700mi/150mi per day = 11.33 days, still a bit conservative, yet doable.

~

I will open the letters from the kids tomorrow. I am looking forward to it.

~

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Doing the Atlantic, Chapter 13, Heading Further South, Mahi Mahi 3 Ways.

Day 10

Monday, February 7, 2022, 10:40AM

17’38.136N 29’38.555W 1295nm made good.

~

SOG 5.0 kts

A mellow sunrise.

I had the 5AM ’till 8AM watch, which was quite pleasant, light breeze, full sails, reading and watching the sunrise. Very serene. Just after sunrise John got up and made us coffee. Fortunately we moved on from the last coffee, which was crap, way over-roasted and kinda rank. It did have a nice caffeine punch though, which once you got past the taste it was very helpful during the wee hours of a late watch. Each time I begrudgingly swallowed down a half a cup, dumping the rest of the cup. With this latest coffee I happily had a second cup. John said this coffee was one that he and Marcia got in Sardinia.

~

Yesterday afternoon Jens called me up on deck to check out this bird that was soaring around the boat. Jens said that it has been doing it for about half an hour. It’s a cool looking bird, Long gray/blue beek, the top of its head is yellow, most of its body is white with gray fading to black wings. It was really interesting to watch it soar effortlessly all around the boat, as though he was checking us out as much as we were checking him out.

I toke a lot of photos of this bird, none of which turned out well.

That bird stuck around us yesterday for at least 3 hours. And, the coolest thing is that when John came on deck and saw the bird, after a bit of discussion with Jens, they ironically determined that our new, short-term, mascot was indeed an avocet.

~

Also yesterday afternoon John received another weather update from Chris Parker. Chris highly recommended that we head another 300 miles south in an effort to avoid a situation of no wind followed by too much wind. We obediently obliged, changing our heading from mostly west to mostly south. We should be on this tack for 2.5ish days before heading back to our desired westerly direction.

~

The winds dropped to the single digits, so, once we were all up and properly caffeinated, we pulled up the spinnaker. After a bit of figuring out, it went up without a hitch. The spinnaker itself is made from lightweight magnificently bright blue cloth with the depiction of an avocet screeching through sky, smack-dab in the middle of the sail. Our speed immediately increased from 3 to 5 knots, and a little while later the wind stepped up just a tick and our speed went to over 6 knots.

Avocet’s spinnaker.

~

While I sit here writing at just after 11AM I am enjoying a Heineken. Yes, I did just use the words “Heineken” and “enjoy” in the same sentence. Jens “chilled” them in the ocean to about 70’. I have never liked Heineken, still don’t, urine would usually be thought of as an upgrade, but there is something about a semi-cold beer after physical exertion in the heat that is quite satisfying. I am looking forward to some hometown New England IPA’s, until then I will make peace with Heineken.

Writing at the Nav Station, while “enjoying” a Heineken.

~

Yesterday, Dennis, like an obedient little brother, finished our laundry, hanging it to dry on the lifelines. This morning it was dry, so I folded and put it away.

~

Dinner last night was on me. Mahi Mahi 3 ways. Sashimi with Soy, Lime, Chili Oil and Crystalized Ginger; Ceviche with Lime, Tangerine, Garlic. EVOO and Cayenne Pepper; Blackened with Cumin Scented Basmati Rice, Carrots, Mushrooms and a big squeeze of Lime. It was all really good. The only way to make it better would be if we caught a bigger fish…The line is out.

Blackening up some of the Mahi Mahi that we caught on Avocet’s stove.

~

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Doing the Atlantic, Chapter 9, Getting Clean, Adjusting Sails and Testing the Brownies.

Days 4 and 5

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

25’25.468N 18’10.313W 10:30AM
402nm made good

I’m clean! First shower on board, first shower since Saturday morning, which isn’t too bad. Light trailing winds and moderate seas make showering an easy task. Oh yeah…I pooped for the first time at about 4:30AM, now that was momentous, I was getting backed up. Had success again at 9:30AM today, I’m on a roll…well using one anyway. Okay no more poo talk for the duration of the trip, unless….

~

During the day yesterday Dennis and John filled the fuel tank using 15 gallons from the auxiliary jugs we filled in Lanzarote. 15 gallons for more than 30 hours of engine operation is not bad, less than .5 gallons per hour.

The same photo of the diesel jugs I’ve used before.

~

In the Afternoon John checked the engine fluid levels, all seemed to be good.

~

Jens made Chicken Piccata-ish with baked potatoes and broccoli for dinner. It was quite good, making me think about how much Colleen and Shane love their Chicken Piccata.

~

Nothing to report about the overnight, Dennis and Jens saw a ship pass during their first watch, that was about all the excitement.

A cargo ship passing us on the horizon.

~

Jen’s made smoked salmon, veggie, cheese frittata for breakfast. I’m gonna have to step into the galley at some point to help Jens out. Keep in mind the galley is a one person at a time size. Dennis and I have been helping with clean-up and when it comes to utilizing all of the food that we prepared at Villa Azul in Lanzarote. We will step up to the plate helping Jens keep us fed.

The food that Dennis and I prepared is all in a cooler lashed to the deck, just forward of the mast. When we packed the cooler everything was frozen solid in vacuum seal bags, hopefully they are still frozen solid, no one has opened the cooler yet, that will probably happen tomorrow.

Cooler filled with the food that we prepared at Villa Azule.

~

Light rain and light winds so far today, though…

John just yelled down the companionway that we have some thunder and squalls coming, that should be interesting, hopefully not too interesting. He doesn’t seem concerned, that helps with any anxieties I may claim not to have.

Day 5

Wednesday, February 2, 2022,

23’57.776N 20’49.415W 3:35PM
542 nm made good.

COG (Course Over Ground) 240’m

SOG (Speed Over Ground) 6+kts

With the wind almost directly behind us, we are sailing “wing on wing”. The main sail is out almost to the spreaders to port and the jib is poled out with the whisker pole to starboard. This point of sail will give you both decent speed and a flat ride. You just have to make sure you keep the sails full, the main sail with the boom, if not lashed down properly, in a jibe, could fly across to the opposite side of the boat causing substantial damage to the boat or anyone’s head that happened to be in the way. 

A stock image of Wing on Wing sailing.

Later in the day the wind and seas have picked up substantially, 20 knots plus sustained, gusts to 27 knots. Seas my guess are running upwards of 10 feet. We adjusted our course slightly and changed our sail format from wing on wing to a starboard tack with both sails out to port. Switching the main to the trysail, rolling in the jib and pulling up the stay sail.

~

Jens cooked some steaks and roasted potatoes for dinner. Did I mention, I need to step up my galley game. Jens is doing too much, he doesn’t seem to mind, but I want to help.

~

Winds have calmed down a bit, the forecast looks good, we have decided to leave the small sails, the trysail and stay sail, up to deal with changing them tomorrow morning during daylight. John wants to test the brownies. As a loyal crew member, I didn’t want John to have to try them on his own, so I “volunteered” to join him; I am a real team player. Remembering the “advice” from the shopkeeper in Lanzarote, we cut that in half. John had about a quarter of a brownie and I had about an eighth. It was plenty, that shit was strong, nothing over the top, no sea monster hallucinations or anything like that, just a nice glow. 

With our slightly altered minds, we had an uneventful watch. Talking, looking around and eventually I could concentrate enough to read.

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Doing the Atlantic, Chapter 8, Settling In

Day 3,

Monday, January 31, 2022

26’15.006N 16’44.206W 4:00PM
237nm made good

Last night and today have been much less eventful than the previous 24 hours.

~

Jens is still hanging in the galley, sandwiches for lunch, roasted potatoes, carrots and soy marinated seared pork medallions for dinner last night, yeah, food wise, we are not suffering.

~

During my first watch last night with light wind and flat seas we motor throughout it. The biggest excitement was seeing two fishing boats on the AIS system (Automatic Information System). We could see the lights from one of them, when they came within 1.6 miles of us. I read on my Kindle, looking around, at all of the instruments and the horizon between each chapter. I think John was able to get about 2 hours of sleep, which was great, he has been going strong since long before our departure.

I crashed from 12:45 until 3:45 when I got up to relieve Dennis and Jens for my second watch. When John and I came on deck there was another fishing boat passing 1.2 miles in front of us. Before sunrise, just after 7AM, it was much the same. I read, looked around, John slept, I read some more and looked around. 

Even with full foul weather gear I was surprisingly chilled to the bone. I’m sure the temps were in the low fifties, however, being stagnant, just sitting in one place for several hours, the chill creeps in.

At sun up we shook out the reefs in the main, going from double reefed to full main. Avocet is equipped with the ability to put three reefs in the main, making it smaller or larger to adjust for different wind conditions. With a little bit more wind in the air, we also pulled out the jib. There was enough wind to fill the sails, but not enough to power Avocet more than 3 knots, so we kept the motor running, pushing us along at close to 6 knots.

John enjoying his morning coffee.

Dennis arrived on deck at around 8:30AM with coffee for us. After coffee, we deployed the Whisker Pole, a 5” diameter aluminum pole used to keep the clew of the jib, the lower aft point of a sail, where you want it to be. It is attached to the mast on an up-down adjustable car. At the jib clew there are lines used to adjust the clew of the jib, up, down, forward and aft. The idea is to set it in a position, whereas, even with the pitch and yaw of the boat the jib will remain in a position to best capture the wind.

Sunrise with the whisker pole rigged and ready.

~

While John, Dennis and I were busy on deck Jens prepared breakfast, scrambled eggs with sauteed green peppers and onions, toast, seared leftover meatballs and some jarred Spanish Verde sauce, along with a hit of guava juice.

~

After brushing, flossing and medicating, I hit the V-berth for a needed nap. I woke to the quiet of no engine, the wind had picked up enough for us to be doing better than 5 knots. I also woke to a dressed lunch salad of lettuce, tomatoes, croutons, smoked sockeye salmon, thanks Jens.

Doing the Atlantic, Chapter 5, Final Preparations.

Friday, January 28, 2022

Puerta Calero Marina, Lanzarote, Spain

We had a busy day today, starting on the veranda with some more of the Ethiopian coffee that Steve brought with him.

Ethiopian coffee beans.

~

At 10:30AM we headed to Arrecife to find the Customs Office. Someone had told John where to go, so we followed him there.  John and Jens in John’s rental, Dennis and I in ours.

~

Arrecife police station.

We ended up at the Arrecife Police Station, where no one was of much help. Not much English spoken, along with the typical cop attitude, we were sent in circles. We eventually took it amongst ourselves to go to the marina, which was in close walking distance,  to ask around there where we needed to go for customs. First stop was the “Information” kiosk, not much information was found there. On we went, subsequently John asked an obvious boater if they knew where we should go, she directed us to the Marina Office. The people in the office were very helpful, sending us about 5 miles by land or 200 meters by sea, to the shipping port, where the customs office was. John also was able to get the same address from the marina manager in Puerto de Calero, which we were able to put into our phones for GPS directions.

Arrecife Marina

~


Eventually we found the right office in the right building, and we got our passports stamped and off we went.

~

Dennis and I headed to Avocet to organize whatever we coud. John and Jens went in search of a new third cooler and a gaff for fishing. We planned on meeting at the boat later. I dropped the car off at Villa Azule for Steve and Victor to use and Dennis and I headed to the marina. 

Fishing gaff.

We went through a lot of the provisions already on the boat, throwing out some obviously bad items, opened out-of-date products, small black bug riddled pasta and rice, and rancid oil. No real surprise, the boat has been sitting for months.

~

John and Jens soon returned with the cooler and gaff. It was decided that John and I would stay on Avocet, cleaning and organizing, while Dennis and Jens would go to the supermarket for provisions.

Lidl supermarket in Puerta de Carmen

~

James, one of the mechanics from the marina, with John, changed the filters and went through the operations of the watermaker. It was running late, for James, so John and James agreed to meet in the morning to test and calibrate the operation of the autopilot. 

When James left John and I got a lot done- we cleared the decks of all unneeded items. The big plastic jugs filled with diesel from Avocet’s tanks, which had to be emptied before the seals were replaced, needed to be poured back into the tanks. We took the anchor from the bow and put it into the pit along with the gas generator, duffle bags, linens, excess lines, amongst a whole lot of other stuff.

Diesel jugs and one of the three coolers.

~

Dennis and Jens filled their car with an absurd amount of food. It took well over an hour to find homes for all the food on Avocet. With every little cubby, hanging net hammocks were filled. It was getting late and we were hungry.

~

The Upper Deck closes at 10PM and it was 10PM, fortunately over the 2 weeks that John was in Puerta Calero he had forged a great relationship with the staff there and were well taken care of even though it was past there normal hours. Steve and Victor met us there. We finished our night with some food, beer and talk of tomorrow’s anticipated departure.

The crew with Steve and Victor at The Upper Deck Restaurant.

Our hope is to depart tomorrow afternoon. There are some final systems checks to be done, as well as topping off our tanks, getting bottled water and ice.

Life After EVOO: Embracing New Adventures

I’m sure by now you know that EVOO has closed. Last June, after 26 years we decided it was time step back and take advantage of our health and good fortunes by spending more time with our friends and family; I hope they feel the same way as we do. With EVOO closed I find myself in a great place with less stress and more time to do the things that I have dreamed about doing.

Colleen and I enjoying a bit of our
new found free-time.

EVOO had been a passion for me, I truly loved creating local-seasonal menus, the camaraderie and the rush of working a busy line shift. I am going to miss so many wonderful aspects of EVOO, especially the people, we were blessed with extraordinary co-workers and loyal guests, many of which have become good friends. That said, now several months after closing, I don’t in any way want to go back to long hours, working most nights, weekends and many holidays. Nor do I wish to have the daily stresses of running a chef-driven farm-to-table restaurant back in my life.

Randy and I on EVOO’s last day

Colleen and I still own and operate our pizza place Za in our hometown of Arlington, MA, which recently celebrated 20 years of being in business. Being less than two miles from home it’s a super easy commute, quite often done by bike. The staff, many of whom have been with us for more than a decade, not only do they make my new less stressful, less-hours job easy, they make it a pleasure to be there.

Za Arlington

With some of that extra time I find myself with a desire to continue to write about the things I enjoy. Most of my previous posts have been about EVOO. I now want to branch out and write about some of my other passions, such as the time spent with friends and family, the places I am fortunate enough to visit and sailing adventures may end up being subjects of future posts. I will also continue to write about food and the happenings at Za with an occasional recipe thrown in.

Speaking of sailing adventures, with my next blog I am going to introduce it’s new direction by sharing a multi-part post chronicling a sailing passage across the Atlantic Ocean which I took part in back in 2022. I documented our trip as it unfolded, writing details daily. I didn’t know if I would ever be able to partake in such an ambitious trip again and I wanted to have a keepsake, so I wrote about it. Follow the story and see how we delt with getting to the starting point in the Canary Islands while dealing in a newly post COVID world, provisioning the boat and overcoming a myriad of challenges along the way; ending in Guadeloupe 24 days after we initially set sail.

Avocet sunset

Let the adventure begin…

      Holy Cow!

      photo: Liz Linder

      grilled roasted garlic studded pastured MA Beef Tenderloin with sour cream whipped potatoes and orange bearnaise.

      This dish has been on our menu since we opened in June of ’98. Yeah, that’s 25 years of making the same dish over and over again. We have perfected it.

      I came up with this dish while I was still the chef of The Bostonian Hotel and it’s since closed, highly acclaimed restaurant Seasons. I was roasting lamb legs for a sandwich we had on the lunch menu, for extra flavor we would poke holes in the meat and stuff them with garlic before popping them into the oven. While the legs roasted the garlic would also cook seeping mellow sweet slightly caramelized garlic flavor into the meat. This process got me thinking about doing the same thing with individual beef tenderloin steaks. Since the beef would cook much faster than the lamb, I thought that using garlic that was already roasted would work with similar results. I was right, this dish is fantastic. The dish never made on to the Seasons menu, it came close though. I was planning on adding it to the fall menu when I decided that after almost 10 years at the hotel it was time for me to move on and open my own place. I knew then that this dish was coming with me and would be the star of EVOO’s menu for the foreseeable future, I was right.

      The pastured beef we use is almost exclusively from Carne Locale, a Waltham, MA, based company, run by Andy Carbone. Andy works directly with Massachusetts livestock farms distributing their products to some of the areas finest restaurants.

      The vegetable accompaniments change with as the local growing seasons change. Depending on the time of year you can get it served with carrots, mushrooms, broccoli, asparagus or as we are now serving it with green beans.

      An testament to the love that this dish receives, my wife has often commented, hopefully jokingly, that she would “dump my ass” if I ever took it off the menu. So it remains…

      Chinese Box

      shrimp

      This dish has been on our menu for more than 20 years, to say it is a crowd favorite is an understatement.  We sell a lot of orders everyday, repeat customers exclaiming “it’s the only dish I ever order” or “I came here just for the Chinese Box”.

      Here’s the deal with how I came up with it:

      In the 90’s I was the Executive Chef of the Bostonian hotel and it’s fancy restaurant Seasons, where every entree was served covered with a silver cloche.  The waitstaff would present the cloched entrees  to the entire table of guests before uncovering all of the dishes simultaneously with white gloves and much fanfare, the guests loved it.

      seasons bostoian

      As the cloches were removed, unveiling the sights and smells of their entrees, the guests were wowed.  It was more than a bit too precious for what I wanted for EVOO, I wanted to replicate that “wow” of the unveiling without the pretense.

      silver-chrome-cloche-closing-food-dish-restaurant-isolated-white_59529-611

      It was one of those ideas that took a while to come to fruition, it was there, stuck in the back of my head, I new what I wanted to accomplish, I just couldn’t quite pull it together.  I was thinking about what I could use as a cover, I even thought about  getting some silver cloches to use as a homage to my time at Seasons.

      One night after many months of mulling over different options, it just popped into my head.  I was driving home after a busy night, thinking about what I often think about, food.  POP there it is!  Stack different layers of flavor and texture in a Chinese style to-go box invert it on a plate and uncover it at the table.  That was the start, from there I had to come up with what the layers would be and in what order it would be stacked. 

      My notes showing how to “plate”
      Inverted on a plate

      Since I was using what in my part of America is a Chinese to-go container, the food would be Chinese influenced.  I quickly thought that the rice should be placed in the box last, so when it was inverted onto a plate the rice would be on the bottom as a good base to hold up the other ingredients.  From the get go I went with a surf-n-turf angle, the first iteration was with Seared Arctic Char, Gingered Vegetable Salad and Orange Braised Lamb.  Then I tried Seared Sea Scallops with Braised Pork. Both iterations were very good, but not quite right.  Neither had the mass appeal I was hoping for.

      Eventually I settled on the current version: Mustard Glazed Rock Shrimp, Gingered Vegetable – Cashew Salad, Hoisin Braised Beef and Organic Brown Rice.  Each layer offers something different to the whole.  The shrimp layer is sweet ‘n’ spicy with honey-mustard and herbs.  Clean, crisp, crunchy gingered vegetable – cashew salad makes up the top-middle layer.  The rich, succulent hoisin braised beef is the next layer, sitting directly on top of the final layer of organic brown rice with it’s earthy nuttiness soaking up all of the other flavors and adding some of it’s own texture.

      There have been a few changes to this version over the years, early on we were using Jasmine rice from Thailand, which I love.  However, as I always try to do, I wanted to make it more local and preferably organic.  So, I switched the rice to short grained organic brown rice from California, which doesn’t have the floral aroma and flavor that the Jasmine rice has.  But, it more than makes up for that with its own nutty-earthy flavors, as well as being from California and organic, had a lot to do with my decision.  Early on we braised beef flap meat from our local distributor, eventually I was able to find a consistent source for local pastured beef, so I made the switch to beef chuck.  The most recent change was switching from Gulf Shrimp to Rock Shrimp.  This change made the dish taste better, have better texture and made it easier to eat, especially with chop sticks.

      So, all of this came from me wanting to add a little wow to our guest experience when a dish was served.  It’s been on the menu for so long I sometimes forget how good it is.   Every so often I try it again and realize why we sell so many orders.  It has the “wow” and a whole lot more!

      It is available for lunch and dinner, at dinner we offer it in two sizes and it is always available with organic Maine tofu and our in-house made Kimchi for a vegan variation.

      Lamb Sandwhich

      20200122_134942

      Continuing with the lamb we received from Feather Brook Farm- A sandwich on our lunch menu.

      Slices of Roast Lamb Leg with Smoked Cloumage, Pickled Green Tomatoes, Lettuce, Red Onion and Carolina White Barbecue Sauce on Mark’s Cumin Focaccia

      20200117_174530

      lamb leg in the immersion circulator

      We marinated the legs in a mixture of garlic and spices and then sous vide’ the legs at 137 degrees for 3 hours. We then chilled them in an ice bath, finally put a nice sear on them before slicing them.

      The cloumage is an artisanal fresh, creamy cheese from Shy Brothers Farm in Westport MA, which we smoked in our backroom smoker.  The Lettuce was grown in The Food Project’s greenhouse in Roxbury, MA. We pickled the Kimball Fruit Farm’s green tomatoes last September.  Mark our excellent lunch sous chef made the Focaccia.

      Sous Vide

       

      sous vide
      /ˌso͞o ˈvēd/
      noun

      Sous vide, which means “under vacuum” in French, refers to the process of vacuum-sealing food in a bag, then cooking it to a very precise temperature in a water bath. This technique produces results that are impossible to achieve through any other cooking method. –  Anovaculinary 

      20200117_153615

      Our sous vide station.

      I have been cooking for a long time, starting in the late 1970’s.  First as a prep cook in a neighborhood restaurant, while in high school, making beer money.  I had no passion for food at the time.  I was still feeling my way through life, not sure what I was going to do.  Slowly, and I mean really slowly, I found that I not only was pretty good at cooking, I was actually enjoying it.  Looking back I don’t think it was the food that I was falling for.  Rather, I was an impressionable young man who enjoyed the camaraderie, the manual work and the fact that a free beer was never far from reach.  However, the more I cooked and discovered new foods my passion finally blossomed…I digress.

      This post is supposed to be about sous vide, my digression stems from- In those many years of cooking there have been a few techniques or processes that I have learned which have changed the way I cook and think about food. Cooking sous vide is probably the biggest one for me, with whole animal butchery / charcuterie being a close second (see my 10 part “Death of a Pig” blog post).

      When I first encountered cooking sous vide I remember thinking- cooking something in a pot of water in a plastic bag…how lame; what skill does that take?  Well, I was quite wrong.

      About 14 years ago we started experimenting using a big pot of water, Ziplock Bags and an instant read thermometer on a burner where we would constantly check the temp and adjust the heat.  I quickly realized that this was a great  cooking method.  We could perfectly cook a piece of meat ahead of time, taking the guess work and timing with a lot more possibilities of screwing something up out of the equation.  Once the meat was cooked ahead of time, perfectly, all we had to do is once the customer ordered and it was time to pick-up the meat all you had to do give a quick sear to the meat and serve it.  No more inexperienced cook fucking-up an expensive piece of meat.

      lamb leg in the immersion circulator
      lamb loin going into an ice bath after being immersed
      duck confit, made sous vide

      Our experiments started with meats using the ziplock method, now we have several immersion circulators and a restaurant size vacuum sealer that are in constant use cooking all sorts of different things; red meats, burgers, chicken, vegetables, eggs, fish and even an occasional pudding for part of a dessert.  Gone are the days of over cooked chicken breast (sorry, Trisha), every chicken breast we serve is moist and tender.

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      My initial trepidation was replaced with “why wouldn’t we cook this way”…a little bit more forethought (prep before service) equals serving a better, more consistent product, it only makes sense.

      Sous vide cooking is not just for the professional kitchen,  My Anova immersion circulator and FoodSaver vacuum sealer have been an integral parts of my home kitchen for the past 10 years.

      I highly recommend all cooks- pros, wanna-be pros and amateurs to get into sous vide cooking.

      The below link is to an informative article in Bon Appetit Magazine.

      https://www.bonappetit.com/story/what-is-sous-vide-cooking