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By noon on Friday we arrived at the Westside Market, which I don’t remember from our days in Cleveland but will celebrate its 100^th anniversary next year.  Ralph would have especially loved all the meat vendors’ stalls.  After lunch at the Westside Market Café we made the short drive to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum, smack-dab downtown and on Lake Erie.  Both of us had been there previously – in our past lives, not together – but hadn’t been able to spend the time we wanted to spend at the museum on our previous visits.  This time we spent the whole afternoon there and now feel like we have finally given the museum its due.  A spectacular experience for anyone who loves music.  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was designed by the famous architect I. M. Pei, who also designed the renovation of the Louvre.

After checking into our hotel the need for alcohol became apparent to both of us.  Old friend Wally recommended we browse a street near our hotel – East 4^th Street – which has been redeveloped in recent years and features many good choices for dining.  We could have walked from our hotel, and probably would have during warmer weather, but the hotel operates a shuttle for guests.  Our driver – apparently a rabid Ohio State fan – thought there was something absolutely hilarious about the fact that we were from Ann Arbor.  I didn’t tip him very well.  After stopping at a small bar – a martini for me and a margarita for Linda – we ended up at an upscale Italian restaurant called Chinato where we split an appetizer, salad and small pizza. 

East 4th St., Cleveland

Saturday was our busiest day.  Breakfast was at Presti’s Bakery in Little Italy, this again at Wally’s suggestion.  Little Italy is a special place and I never realized how close it was to our neighborhood when we lived in Cleveland.  I wish that Detroit still had great ethnic neighborhoods within its boundaries; Cleveland appears to have quite a few other such neighborhoods in addition to Little Italy.

After breakfast we went to Lakeview Cemetery.  I – or rather, Linda – located Bocky’s grave; more on this later.  Lakeview is a fascinating, beautiful spot and we would love to visit again during the spring when all is in bloom.  Before heading further east to South Euclid we visited Cleveland’s Botanical Gardens in the University Circle neighborhood.  Linda, of course, was enthralled and I truly enjoyed it as well.  We got in for free as a result of Linda working for Matthaei Botanical Gardens.  My favorite exhibit was a replication of the Costa Rican rain forest, and one could even take an elevator or stairs up to the top of the tree-top canopy where butterflies and birds flitted.  The gardens were probably the highlight of our trip, at least from a sightseeing perspective.

On to South Euclid with a requisite stop at Alesci’s where I loaded up on sopressatta, capicola, cheese, pasta and various sauces to the tune of $50; I’ll eat well this week at work!  Before showing Linda the old neighborhood we met Wally and Vince for lunch in Richmond Heights; both were extremely gracious and asked to be remembered to you, Mom.  Linda liked them, too.

L to R: Vince, Joe, Wally

Interesting monument, Lakeview Cemetery

After lunch with Vince and Wally I drove Linda around the old stomping grounds a bit before we headed off on another adventure, this time in a nice, re-developing neighborhood on the west side of Cleveland known as the Gordon Square/Detroit Shoreway neighborhood.  Linda saw a poster on a telephone pole in Little Italy advertising what she thought was a yarn store.  She called the number on the poster and found out that it was really a temporary storefront offering original knit goods from the now-defunct Ohio Knitting Mills company.   The storefront – located, as I recall, on Detroit at W. 65^th – and the undertaking to sell these fantastic items is headed by Steven Tatar, who is also a sculptor.  The company’s website describes the project as follows.

Founded by Harry Stone in 1927, the Ohio Knitting Mills grew to become one of this country’s largest knitwear producers, and was at the center of Cleveland, Ohio’s thriving garment industry. Three generations of the Stone-Rand family ran the Mill for 76 years, producing knitwear for iconic department stores from Sears to Saks, and hundreds of revered labels like Pendleton, Van Heusen, and Jack Winter.

The Ohio Knitting Mills factory took up almost an entire city block, and at its peak, employed over 1,000 workers. Their products ranged from the sublime to the everyday, and between 1947-1974 the mill’s production and creativity were at a peak, knitting up caps, capes, sweaters, shirts, vests, dresses, and pants with bold colors, inventive patterns, quality materials, innovative techniques and a good dose of a strong Midwestern work ethic.

Beginning after World War II, the Mill plucked samples of each style they produced and put them into storage. Five decades later, this archive had grown into a vast collection of remarkable design artifacts, representing mainstream fashion from the classic 40’s, fab 50’s, swinging 60’s, and funky 70’s. We’ve opened this time capsule, and offer to you our collection of perfectly preserved American fashion and industrial craftsmanship.

 OK, I told you there would be more about Bocky later.  Linda made it very clear that this trip was about us getting away and not about me doing research into Bocky’s murder.  I agreed, but just to be safe she decreed that every time I said the “B-word” she would add $10 to the price of the cool gift she planned to find for herself.  By the time we got to the retro sweater store in the late afternoon – after visiting Bocky’s grave and lunch with Wally and Vince – the kitty was plenty rich enough for her to buy a super-cool, knee-length sweater from the mid-1960s.  Hey, she earned it.  In fact, look how many headstones Linda had to sweep clean – nine, I didn’t bring my boots – before we hit the jackpot.

Way down on the end . . . jackpot!

Both Wally and Steven the Sculptor recommended a restaurant called Johnny’s for Saturday night dinner; it was a short walk from our hotel so I didn’t have to deal with the jackass driver who thought everything about Ann Arbor and Michigan to be hilarious.  Johnny’s was a great Italian place.  I had veal scaloppini wrapped in prosciuto and Linda had the tuna nicoise salad which is featured on the menu page of Johnny’s website.

Waking early and feeling fresh on Sunday morning, we searched the internet and ended up returning to the neighborhood on the west side where Linda bought her sweater.  The restaurant was called Latitude 41° North and we loved it: delicious omelets, friendly owner and staff.

Is this Brady Hoke?

   NEW MICHIGAN COACH’S CRIMINAL

Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bompenserio and an unidentified companion, FBI surveillance photo.

PAST REVEALED?

     University of Michigan Athletic Director David Brandon’s self-proclaimed thoroughness during his search for a new football coach was called into question today when a blogger discovered evidence that the man Brandon believes to be Brady Hoke may, in fact, be a member of the New Jersey Mafia long-thought to have been murdered by fellow mobsters.  Brandon announced yesterday that Hoke would become the 19^th head coach in Michigan’s football history.

     The blog grassfed55 on WordPress.com published photos purporting to prove that Brady Hoke and Salvatore “Big Pussy” Bompenserio are, in fact, the same person.  The blog’s author, Joseph Neely of Ann Arbor, usually writes about the benefits of grass-fed beef as compared to beef finished on corn at a Concentrated Animal Feed Operation (CAFO).  It is not known how Neely came into possession of the photographs published on his blog.

     The FBI has so far declined comment.  Tony Soprano, under whom Bompenserio allegedly served as a captain in the New Jersey crime family, was reached on a throw-away cell phone at Satriale’s Pork Store in Kearney, New Jersey.  “I ain’t seen Pussy in ten years; what the hell do I know?  How’d you get this number, you?” Soprano said.

As soon as I can  figure out how to do so, I will change the name of this blog from grassfed55 to grassfedjoe; this at the suggestion of my son-in-law who thinks the change will make the blog easier for readers to find and remember.

I finally got two days in a row off from work and have been sick the whole time.  Damnit all.

I’ve got concerns about Ted Williams, the homeless man with the golden voice.  I would be thrilled if the whole saga turns out to be the ultimate feel-good story but I don’t expect that it will.  He says he’s been clean and sober for two years and I hope that is true, but addicts often make such claims while panhandling.  If he has been clean for two years why is he still homeless and working the sign?  What this man needs is a mentor and some coaching to bring him back into society so that he can use his God-given gift.  What he doesn’t need is all the publicity he’s been receiving for the past two days.  Let’s keep him in our prayers and hope that he’s the one to beat the odds.  At least one good thing has already come of this story: Williams was reunited with his 90-year-old mother in New York yesterday.  See his mother and listen to The Voice a http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rPFvLUWkzs.

The “company casserole” recipe in the Detroit News sounded good to me: http://detnews.com/article/20110106/LIFESTYLE05/101060315/1463/LIFESTYLE05/Meals-that-HEAL.  I’ll make it tonight – using grassfed beef, of course – and also substituting whole wheat noodles, low-fat sour cream/cottage cheese, and canola spread for the butter.  Actually, I may not be able to make the last substitution when the time to do so actually arrives; I’ll see.

Christmas is over: two down, one to go.  Anyone working in retail will understand.  I was out on my feet, literally in a daze, for the final two hours of my shift on Christmas Eve.  This is not a “be nice to the poor retail workers who serve you at the holidays” plea; just about every customer was friendly and wished me a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays, and I’m certainly glad to have a job I enjoy and which allows me to pay most of my bills on time.  That being said, I came home and passed out on the couch quite early in the evening; great company, no doubt, for my brother and sister-in-law who made the two-hour drive to spend the night with us.  At least the chain I work for has the decency to close on Christmas Day.  Oughta’ be a law, but I suppose that would discriminate against non-Christians or some damn thing.  Whatcha’ gonna do? 

Lots of grassfed beef lately.  Short ribs from our freezer cow on Christmas Eve and tenderloin at my stepdaughter and son-in-law’s house Christmas Day.  Tomorrow we will feast on cornfed beef finished , I’m sure,  on a CAFO (concentrated animal feed operation).  I wrote that I’m not a grassfed only fanatic in one of my first posts; $4.99 a pound for choice rib-eye roast was too good a deal to pass up.  I look at it this way: 90+% of the beef I’ve eaten in the past two years has been grassfed.  Three years ago 100% of the beef I ate was cornfed and finished on a CAFO.  If enough consumers make that same choice in the future we’ll start to see a real improvement in the way the animals we eat are treated, a reduction in the pollution generated by industrial farming and improvement in the general safety of our food supply.  How’s that bumper sticker read, the one usually seen on sub-compact, foreign-made cars driven by someone who looks as if he or she were stuck in the 1960s?  BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE.  Hmmmmm…..

Long time no write, the problem being that it’s hard for two persons to eat a quarter cow, grass-fed or not.  I did cook up a couple of dishes for friends two weeks ago.  I made short ribs based on the recipe found at the following link, : http://www.food.com/recipe/slow-cooker-beef-short-ribs-32147, cutting the liquids (broth and red wine vinegar) in half and cooking on the low setting for 6 hours.  Delicious . . . I would make it again.

I also cooked a piece of round steak, making beef braciole out of Bobby Flay’s recipe but skipping the grilled tomato-basil relish because I ran out of time.  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/grilled-beef-braciole-with-grilled-tomato-basil-relish-recipe/index.html.  I wasn’t sure what to do with round steak because it’s not a cut I’m familiar with.  I think round steak is what my dad used to call “Marine Steak” because it can be tough and he was looking for a way to get us to like it.  It’s probably what we ate when my parents were a bit pinched financially, being less expensive than sirloin or porterhouse.  In later years I could tell whether the old man was feeling flush by the vodka we drank together on the porch in Grand Haven: Absolut when times were good, Nikolai when things were slow.  Speaking of cheap vodka, I’ve got a friend who swears you can run it through a Brita Filter a few times and it becomes indistinguishable from the top-shelf bottles.    I Googled the idea and it looks like the concept is at least worth a try.  The beef braciole, by the way, was good but probably not worth the prep time.  Anyone have any ideas for the next piece of round steak?

The next meal from Grass-Fed Gertrude is likely to be based on the concept of “Things I Hated As a Child but Kind of Like Now.”  I’m thinking pan-friend liver and onions/bacon, Brussels sprouts (I looked it up: capital B, generally-silent s on the end of Brussels) and beets.  Probably won’t be worth asking any of the kids if they want to join us for dinner on that night; ‘eh?

Beaujolais Nouveau comes out this week.  As tradition dictates, I’ll have it on the sales floor at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 18, and not a minute before.  This wine is made from grapes which were in the field just a few months ago and is meant to be consumed immediately.  Some wine snobs love to pooh-pooh Beaujolais Nouveau but it’s a wonderful celebration of each year’s harvest and, with its light nature and pronounced fruit, a stellar choice for the Thanksgiving table.  Cheers!

I made Hungarian goulash following the recipe found at this link: http://homecooking.about.com/od/beefrecipes/r/blbeef166.htm.  At least I think it was authentic Hungarian goulash, although I’ve never made it before and have no idea how the idea occurred to me.  I used sirloin tip but I think a less expensive cut – bottom round or even stew meat – would have worked just as well.  The only change I made from the recipe was to double the amount of mushrooms called for and cook it for 6 hours on low in the crockpot instead of a Dutch oven after all the meat-browning and vegetable-sweating was done.  Linda gave it a “10 out of 10, at least for this kind of recipe” and said she would eat it again.  By this kind of recipe she meant easy, inexpensive and tasty.  We’re not going to serve it to the Queen when she stops by for a visit, but we’ll have it again.

Yesterday brought home another illustration of the advantages of buying/dealing locally.  We screwed around for 3 months with one of the big national banks trying to re-finance our condo and it never got done.  They need this, they need that, blah blah blah.  I finally told them to piss up a rope and made an inquiry at Linda’s local credit union.  Four weeks and very little aggravation later – yesterday – we closed on a new mortgage at a great rate.  So beef is better, for a lot of reasons, when purchased locally and banking is better, too.  I’ll be moving all my accounts to the credit union soon.

                Lots of beef lately – hamburgers, sirloin and porterhouse steak – all wonderful.  It’s a bit boring to write about eating beef, however, so I’m more focused right now on the local angle of this journey.  As important as the grass-fed aspect is the fact that our beef came from a neighbor just 20 miles away.  My 1997 GMC Sonoma truck gets 20 miles to the gallon so it took 2 gallons of gasoline to get a quarter cow into our freezer.  I’m confident that is a lot less – in terms of environmental impact – than getting a quarter cow into my freezer from a feedlot in Nebraska via multiple trips to the grocery store.

                We’ve made a few additional local choices recently as well.  I bought a locally-raised, fresh turkey from our local organic grocery store for a family gathering rather than a frozen Butterball® turkey from the regional chain grocery store where I work.  The price difference – $1.99 vs. $1.69 per pound – was insignificant.  I can’t swear an independent tasting panel would give the nod to our locally-raised gobbler but I thought it was pretty damn tasty and I liked putting the dollars into a local farmer’s pocket rather than putting them toward industrial agriculture’s bottom line.

                How much more local can you get than hiring family for work which would otherwise be done by someone else? We just hired Linda’s son, Nick, to work with us for two days at our home on Lake Michigan in Good Hart.  Nick needs the work, we need his expertise and work ethic, and the money we paid him may well come back to us as a dish he brings to pass at Christmas.

                On our way back to Ann Arbor Linda and I stopped at one of the great farm markets in Michigan, Bill’s Farm Market outside of Petoskey.  Visit their website at www.billsfarmmarket.com.  We’ve got enough squash to get us through the next few months.

BILL'S FARM MARKET, Petoskey, MI

We ate the first steaks a few days ago.  The steaks were labelled ‘rib steaks’ and appeared to be basic rib eye steaks with the bone still attached.  Quite honestly, I thought this entry would be a defense of grassfed steaks even though they are tougher and not-quite-as-flavorful as cornfed steaks, something along the lines of, “Yeah, they’re tough but just think of the health benefits!  Tough and not-quite-as-flavorful is good, and I helped a local farmer!”. 

Thank you, Pollyanna.

Tough and not-quite-as-flavorful has been my experience with the grassfed steaks purchased at my local and beloved organic/local foods grocery store.  The steaks we ate the other night – the steaks from our cow – were delicious: tender and every bit as flavorful as comparable cornfed steaks.

I think there are two factors accounting for this pleasant surprise, the first being the thickness of the steaks.  I ordered our steaks cut 1″ thick, which is substantially thicker than the grassfed steaks purchased from the store.  The thicker cut allowed me to cook the steaks to medium-rare without drying them out. 

The second factor was some good cooking advice I got from an old friend on Facebook: bring the steaks to room temperature, brush them with some olive oil and pepper, hold the salt until just before cooking.  The weather was nice and I planned to cook on the grill but got home from work later than planned and decided the heck with it, where’s that trusty old castiron skillet?

I pre-heated the oven to 450 degrees, then pre-heated the castiron skillet to medium-high (the 7 setting on my electric range) with just a little olive oil in the skillet, seared one side of the steaks – already basted with some olive oil and pepper, adding the salt just before dropping them in the skillet – in the skillet for about 4 1/2  minutes, flipped the steaks and immediately put the skillet in the hot oven for another 4 1/2 – 5 minutes.  I pulled the skillet out of the oven and used an instant-read meat thermometer to confirm that the internal temperature of the steaks was right around 125 degrees, then let the steaks rest on a cutting board for about 7 minutes before slicing and serving.

Next up: smoked brisket on Wednesday, weather permitting.  I have the day off from work and will be able to devote the afternoon to tending the coals and feeding the chunks of wood necessary to produce smoke into the grill.

TRUE STORY.  A customer at work asked me where he could find “the bacon that’s already cooked and you don’t need to refrigerate.”  Sadly, we had it available but the customer wasn’t happy because what we had was already refrigerated.  He said, “Once it’s refrigerated, you have to keep it refrigerated.  I want something I don’t have to refrigerate!” 

Can you imagine the chemicals in that stuff!  Thanks, but no thanks.

Someone asked about boxed Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc in a comment.  Mounthaven Chardonnay in a 3-L octavin box is great if you like some oak on your Chard.  I’m hearing good things about Silver Birch Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, New Zealand, in a 3-L octavin box but haven’t had a chance to taste it yet.  How bad can 3-L of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc be when it only costs $15 and lasts for 3 weeks?  That’s a gamble I’d be willing to undertake.

TOMORROW: the first steaks.  Check back soon!

Julia Child probably never cooked in a crock pot but my guess is that Julia never spent 9.5 hours on her feet working retail and arrived home without one single ounce of energy, only the promise of an already-cooked meal providing the strength to make it through the evening so she could start all over again the next morning.

Our fancy 7 qt. crock pot – the one with an electronic control panel which automatically switched to the warm setting after the specified cooking period – died before I left home.  After consulting with Linda I bought a new 4 qt. crock pot at work – $16.99 less my 10% employee discount – with a manual control gauge and brought it home at lunch to start the pot roast.  Damn thing worked liked a charm and I’m convinced there’s a lesson in that.  Downsize.  Simplify.

 The pot roast was simple and delicious: dredged it in some salted-and-peppered flour; seared it in a pan with butter; crocked potted it (is that a verb?) with a can of diced tomatoes, 2 TB browning sauce, ½ cup coffee (an homage to my Swedish grandmother), 4 small sliced onions, 3 stalks sliced celery, 2 bay leafs and some peeled potatoes, cooked it on the high setting for 6 hours.  We threw a small green salad at it and – violà.  Plenty left over for dinner tonight and a sandwich or two.

 THE WINE: pot roast = comfort food = Merlot ≠ the only Merlot I have on hand, an  ’05 Duckhorn Three Palms Vineyard being saved for our 10^th anniversary in 2015.  I stuck with the box of Big House Red.

 APROPOS OF NOTHING: Men over a certain age – is it 37? – need a woman in their lives if for no other reason than to gently remind them to trim their nose hairs.  Ladies, adopt a single man today but be gentle.  Nose hairs are a daily reminder of our advancing age.