Eliminate all human sorrows. Activate joy, stat.

This is a totally simple and tasty recipe for a liver pate that I snagged out of Cook’s Illustrated. It calls for chicken liver, but I made this with goose liver’s from Gephardt’s last time. For our annual Christmas party this weekend I’m making it from beef liver. I’ve not used beef liver before and I’m a little worried it’s not going to be as tasty as goose liver, but fortunately, if it does bomb terribly, we’ll have some fresh lobster and filet mignon to deliver us from that evil. Viva la indulgence.

8 tbl butter
3 large shallots, sliced
1 tbl fresh thyme
1 lb chicken liver
3/4 cup dry vermouth
2 tsp brandy

Saute the shallots, thyme and a pinch of salt in the butter until brown. Add your liver and cook just until pink in the middle. Take the liver out, add the vermouth and cook down to a syrup. Put all of this into a food processor along with the brandy, a couple pinch’s of the pate blend from the Ruhlman and Polcyn book Charcuterie and salt and pepper to taste. Get it smooth and soft. Put it in a container and push saran wrap down against the pate to keep any oxygen off it. Put a lid on the container and let it sit for a couple days so all the flavors can blend. Serve it with some butter drenched toasted bread slices.

EDIT: I tried it this morning and it’s pretty good. Not as smooth as the goose liver – there’s a bit more of that chalky liver flavor than I would prefer – though that may have more to do with me cooking it a bit longer than I should have and not so much with the beast from which it was ripped from.

A co-worker just hit me up with the news that Alan Lake is going to be the new chef at Chief O’Neil’s.

About two days ago, Lake told me he took the full-time chef position at O’Neill’s. What cinched the deal for him, he said, was his experience at the famous Shelbourne in Ireland, where he earned the kitchen honorific Underpants O’Malley (I have no idea what that means, but it sounds Irish and a little naughty).

“My goal is to elevate the food at O’Neill’s,” Lake told me last night, and he has plans to cure his own corned beef and take the native simplicity of the cuisine and see what he can do by sourcing locally and applying to this traditionally simple food the skills of an accomplished fine dining chef.

As Achatz had his way with Thai street food, Lake wants to see how far he can push Irish pub grub toward a kind of haute Hibernian.

Hopefully this means they’ll be adding some decent beers to their draft list as well!!

Our country of fat fucks are about to hit their annual apex of indulgence and I couldn’t be happier.

You see, I fancy my self a fairly learned sensualist. Certainly, at times, my adventures slant nearer towards escapes than escapades, but I’m comfortable with my batting average. And what kind of sensualist demands perfection anyway? Be it moral, idealogical or otherwise, perfection is anti-septic and boring. Sensuality lives in those lines between intent.

But there’s a great divide between properly dipping your neurons into the velvety rivers of impress and flat-lining your fat ass into a narcotic stupor with cheap, shitty food, lousy music and bad conversation. Which is why, every year at this time, I’m reminded of two of my favorite men of letters, Allan Watts and William S. Burroughs.

First, everyone’s favorite philandering philosopher, the Zoro of Zen, that drunk monk you know and love, Mr. Alan Watts:

“The commonly accepted notion that Americans are materialists is pure bunk. A materialist is one who loves material, a person devoted to the enjoyment of the physical and immediate present. By this definition, most Americans are abstractionists. They hate material, and convert it as swiftly as possible into mountains of junk and clouds of poisonous gas. “

Amen, Doctor.

And then there’s Uncle Bill, who, in his inimitable way, can carve down any bogeyman to it’s proper size, weight and gravitational pull with a few choice words.

Between these two pillars I level my gravy boat.

This year we’ll have a few selected handmade beers to enjoy during our 4 day bender:

We’ve got a decent American Pale Ale I lovingly call the Maggie Thatcher as it’s very dry, extremely bitter and the yeast has it smelling a bit like eggs. I used the White Labs WLP060 in it, so I knew that the eggy smell would be around, but figured it would pass. Maggie’s been sitting for about a month now and she’s still a stinker. I actually kind of like the sulphur stink a bit and the agressive dryness of the yeast is impressive, but it’s hard to convince other people that her sulphur stank is all that “interesting”. I probably won’t be using WLP060 again.

We’ve also got a yummy belgian golden strong ale weighing in at 7.77% ABV and named for another brit, this one a queen. The Golden Dawn has been given it’s title in honor of that fat little cocksucker Aleister Crowley and his first hermetic society. This was made with the Achouffe yeast and some spices. It’s really quite good and a little fruity, just like Frater Perdurabo.

Lastly, we’ve got the Lemmy, an 11% coffee stout that clocks in at about 51 SRM, made with Metropolis coffee. We monkeyed around with a couple different ways to get the coffee into this, but found that racking on top of coarsely ground coffee and letting it sit for 60 hours was the best way to get the most flavor without any shitty side effects. Thanks to the Jamil show and the guys at Terrapin for this bit of insight.

There’s our beverage profile. Add into that a few bottles of decent bourbon, some Bailey’s and a theives ransom of coffee and we should be solid. Some red ambulance never hurt either.

For food this year I think we’ll try something different and make a Turkey on Thursday and then maybe eat shredded Turkey and mayo sandwiches for the rest of the weekend. But, seriously, why mess with success? There is a Platonic ideal that is the Thanksgiving Turkey and to stray too far from that premise is treasonous at best. But, since we’re talking about it, I did come across a recipe for braising the turkey that sounds amazing. Seriously, say that slowly with me: Braised Turkey.

So there you have it: turkey, beer, and booze. Throw in some guns and bath salts and we can send off this holiday with the panache it requires.

My money is on Green Bay.

As much as I like turtles, I like history even more. So, in honor of tomorrow’s celebration of Guy Fawkes’ Night, where apparently a large demonstration is being planned on the steps of Parliament, I thought I’d post a little historical note on the beloved terrorist.

In 1604 Fawkes became involved with a small group of English Catholics, led by Robert Catesby, who planned to assassinate the Protestant King James and replace him with his daughter, third in the line of succession, Princess Elizabeth.[15][16] Fawkes was described by the Jesuit priest and former school friend Oswald Tesimond as “pleasant of approach and cheerful of manner, opposed to quarrels and strife … loyal to his friends”. Tesimond also claimed Fawkes was “a man highly skilled in matters of war”, and that it was this mixture of piety and professionalism which endeared him to his fellow conspirators.[3] The author Antonia Fraser describes Fawkes as “a tall, powerfully built man, with thick reddish-brown hair, a flowing moustache in the tradition of the time, and a bushy reddish-brown beard”, and that he was “a man of action … capable of intelligent argument as well as physical endurance, somewhat to the surprise of his enemies.”[5]
The first meeting of the five central conspirators took place on Sunday 20 May 1604, at an inn called the Duck and Drake, in the fashionable Strand district of London.[nb 5] Catesby had already proposed at an earlier meeting with Thomas Wintour and John Wright to kill the King and his government by blowing up “the Parliament House with gunpowder”. Wintour, who at first objected to the plan, was convinced by Catesby to travel to the continent to seek help. Wintour met with the Constable of Castile, the exiled Welsh spy Hugh Owen,[18] and Sir William Stanley, who said that Catesby would receive no support from Spain. Owen did, however, introduce Wintour to Fawkes, who had by then been away from England for many years, and thus was largely unknown in the country. Wintour and Fawkes were contemporaries; each was militant, and had first-hand experience of the unwillingness of the Spaniards to help. Wintour told Fawkes of their plan to “doe some whatt in Ingland if the pece with Spaine healped us nott”,[3] and thus in April 1604 the two men returned to England.[17] Wintour’s news did not surprise Catesby; despite positive noises from the Spanish authorities, he feared that “the deeds would nott answere”.[nb 6]
One of the conspirators, Thomas Percy was promoted in June 1604, gaining access to a house in London which belonged to John Whynniard, Keeper of the King’s Wardrobe. Fawkes was installed as a caretaker and began using the pseudonym John Johnson, servant to Percy.[20] The contemporaneous account of the prosecution (taken from Thomas Wintour’s confession)[21] claimed that the conspirators attempted to dig a tunnel from beneath Whynniard’s house to Parliament, although this story may have been a government fabrication; no evidence for the existence of a tunnel was presented by the prosecution, and no trace of one has ever been found. Fawkes did not admit the existence of such a scheme until his fifth interrogation, but even then he could not locate the tunnel.[22] If the story is true, however, by December 1604 the conspirators were busy tunnelling from their rented house to the House of Lords. They ceased their efforts when, during tunnelling, they heard a noise from above. Fawkes was sent out to investigate, and returned with the news that the tenant’s widow was clearing out a nearby undercroft, directly beneath the House of Lords.[3][23]
The plotters purchased the lease to the room, which also belonged to John Whynniard. Unused and filthy, it was considered an ideal hiding place for the gunpowder the plotters planned to store there.[24] According to Fawkes, 20 barrels of gunpowder were brought in at first, followed by 16 more on 20 July.[25] On 28 July however, the ever-present threat of the plague delayed the opening of Parliament until Tuesday, 5 November.[26]

So here’s to it then, the gunpowder, treason and plot. And here’s to everyone out on the streets protesting or drinking or laughing or building or somehow making shit happen.

Here’s to Alan Moore, one of the more effective wizards words have put to print.

And here’s to those grand spells that get spun, especially the one’s that take a bit longer to ferment.

Between 5p-7p this Friday, October 14th the nice folks at Finch’s Beer Company will be giving out their American Ale yeast that was used to make their Blonde Ale.

Bring a sanitized container to carry your yeast in!

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It appears Jake Burton has testicular cancer. If you follow this link you’ll read his rather stoic and inspiring letter to his employees. I think it says a lot about the guy and, clearly, it says just as much about the culture he has created at Burton Snowboards over the years.

It will be 20 years this november 22nd that I was diagnosed with stage 4 Testicular Cancer. A harrowing day indeed, one my 17-year-old mind was far from ready for. One I am, in so many ways, still reconciling. But, while being diagnosed with cancer at age 17 posed some unique and soul starching moments in the immediate, that day, and the subsequent 8 months of surgeries and in-patient and out-patient chemotherapy that followed, would prove to be the most important of narratives in my life. From that moment in my pediatrician’s office to this moment stumbling away across my keyboard, I have been informed and engaged by a disease most people only understand as an enemy. But that didn’t have to be the case.

With super-human support from everyone in my family, and an equally strong support of friends and acquaintances, I was able to contextualize the emanation of my mortality in a way that was not only healthy but, as far as I can tell, deeply advantageous. I consider it a great gift of fortuitousness that, at a very young age, I was no longer blindfolded from the cold realities of the criminally short time I would be given on this planet and, with the help of a large group of friends who knew the proper techniques of the ancient and honored art of the belly-laugh, that the only currency that matters on this planet is Joy. How you get to Joy is a deeply personal and terribly complex pattern of actions and reactions, but, outside of specifics, if you work for any other goal aside from Joy, mark my words, you are a fool and a rube.

Life is too fucking short. You will die, hopefully peacefully, but if you waste any time not pursuing the highest aims of hilarious and terrifying achievements, you’re a dumb shit.

It’s clear from his letter that Jake Burton has already figured this out. I wish him the best as he ventures into his own, very personal, dark night of the soul. I hope it is short, but I hope, also, that it is resonant, challenging and mind-blowing.

And I hope the same for all of you.

Michael Rulhman’s book “Ratio” is one of the best things that’s ever happened to my cooking. It is typically my first reference when approaching a new dish and has helped me understand how I might someday develop my own voice with cooking more than any other book or experience I’ve come across to date. But does that mean I’m going to go down to Butcher & Larder on October 11th for a book signing by Anthony Bourdain’s straight man? Probably not. But I do think it’s great that there are people that will.

From his books “The Making of a Chef” to the amazing “Charcuterie” and his newest “Ruhlman’s Twenty” to his appearances on No Reservations, Ruhlman tends to present himself in the kind, interested, unassuming and slightly stoned manner of someone who deeply cares about their craft and sincerely enjoys in sharing it’s riches with others. And, in an industry populated by orange croc wearing neo-reptillian gingers like Mario Batalli and his smarthy like, it brings me more than just a little bit of happiness to know that substance can still persevere over, or at least amongst, style.

Butcher & Larder is also offering an opportunity to have a more intimate experience with Michael Ruhlman:

Relate to me in a tweet (@butcherlarder) an ‘a-ha’ moment involving a cooking technique or ingredient. 20 winners will be selected to hang out at The Butcher & Larder with Rob and Michael Ruhlman while they make sausage and put together a version of the sausage and escarole soup from Twenty. This will be a great opportunity for fans to talk about the new book and his amazing career from The Making of a Chef to co-writing The French Laundry and Charcuterie.

The “sausage-making party with Ruhlman” will take place from 6-8 PM on Tuesday, October 11th, and if you are not selected for the party, there will be an open book signing for anyone and everyone from 8-9 PM.

Ken Burns has a new 3-part series on the chilling horrors of prohibition just in time to kick-off the Halloween season. Tune in to see what happens when humanity rolls over to have it’s belly rubbed by joyless sods.