At the Pork’s Pace
Welcome to Gourmet magazine, an independently owned digital food magazine that’s not affiliated with the Gourmet magazines of yore. Our Thursday editions are where we feature a great new recipe. Tuesday is for features.
IN THIS ISSUE: Get ahead with a taco talk from the authors of next week’s recipe or get mad about Cale’s cocktail tale.
Appetizers
Take Your Vitaminas
Angelenos, make haste: this Saturday, the Culinary Historians of Southern California will host a conversation with Jorge Gaviria, author of the new Vitamina T: Your Daily Dose of Tacos, Tortas, Tamales, and More Mexican Street Food Classics and founder of masa harina-slinging Masienda.
The conversation will mirror the book’s throughline: how to recreate antojitos (Mexican street snacks) in a home kitchen. We think the book breathes new life into that subject, a well-trod area in contemporary Mexican cookbook writing, and look forward to sampling some of said antojitos in the Library’s beautiful courtyard afterward. And watch out for more from the Vitamina T team in this newsletter next week. —A.T.
To Sweet!
[Editor’s note: imagine Cale writing this late last night while his other East Coast Gourmrades were fast asleep.]
Tonight I had the pleasure of participating in my dear friend’s wedding food taste test—it turns out when you’re not the one getting married, this can be fun. The six of us sat around a table while a wedding planner confirmed numbers and plans and waiters brought out endless courses ranging from little bites of croquettes all the way up to tagine mains.
We also were tasked with choosing two “signature cocktails.” Over the course of the night, we sampled the bar’s menu of ten cocktails, dipping tiny straws into the shared coupe to suck down a little bit of each concoction and discuss. My notes app is now filled with bad, progressively drunker observations such as “to [sic] sweet” and “gin and strawberry and cava. good” and “me likey” not to mention “chocolate chip cookie drinj [sic]… not amazing.” Midway through I was reminded of a thought that’s lingered in my head for years: All cocktails pretty much taste the same?
I’m home now, very full, still drunk, and I’ve decided to speak my truth. Prove me wrong! —C.G.W.
At the Pork’s Pace
By Amiel Stanek
Split pea soup in three hours or less, guaranteed.
You can make split pea soup in less than an hour. Those dried, broken little pulses will be duly cooked in that amount of time. Rehydrated fully, starting to fall apart, some bigger bits rattling about in a broth thickened by the smaller bits. Lots of texture, and soup for sure: aromatics, broth, starch, protein, enough of all the things to make for a meal. Butter some bread and call it dinner.
You can make split pea soup without a ham hock. And you will definitely need to forgo it if you want to eat in less than an hour. That stubborn, smoky snarl of skin and fat and cartilage and always shockingly little meat refuses to be rushed. Plenty of pork products can take its place, gesturing towards the fat, salt, and waft of woodsmoke offered up by the genuine article. Diced ham. Bacon. A bit of pancetta or guanciale if your fridge drawers are fancy. All will make for a fine split pea soup, hot and satisfying. Just the thing on a drizzly spring day.