Harvey’s Guss Meat Co.

06 Dec 2010 4 Comments

by scolgin in Markets & Stores, Observations, Video Tags: , , , , ,

Is it possible for four people to eat six pounds of porterhouse steak? When my friend, Greg, brought over said meat (handsomely profiled in a previous post, “The Emperor of Steaks”), we figured there was going to be a LOT of leftovers. There was not. Usually my wife and I eat half a pound between us. But this was some seriously good dry-aged meat. We had a first serving. Then a second… None of us could stop. This was dry-aged nirvana from the hallowed coolers of Harvey’s Guss Meat Co. in Mid City L.A.

Meat mural

Our bookkeeper, Joe Gussman, had been telling us for years to come visit his dad’s butcher shop sometime when he was working. I made a mental note but never got around to following up. But one day friend Greg asked me whether I knew of Harvey’s Guss, the fabled L.A. butcher. I connected the dots but had my wife give Joe a ring just to confirm.

Fast forward a couple months after the porterhouse, and I decided to visit Harvey’s Guss myself. I ordered two 2-inch thick rib steaks on the bone — my favorite cut. Just by chance, Harvey was out of town so Joe was in charge when I went to pick up my steaks. The place is located in a strange confluence of streets and cultures — where the Fairfax Ethiopian neighborhood abuts the old Jewish Mid City abuts mini-Tijuanas all around. If you were driving along looking for it you’d probably miss it. Was it in that apartment building I just passed, or was that a warehouse? And you can’t turn on the street where it sits, like water for thirsty Tantalus, just out of reach. So you must drive around and around until you figure your way through the labyrinth. There’s no open sign, no helpful customer service associate to assist you, you enter through a metal security door into a space where white-frocked workers are busy. They wave you in, point you to the office. That’s where Joe (or probably Harvey when he’s around) sits, sorting orders, answering the phone. This is meat at its most glorious, and meat sales at its most elementary. If you want a nice gift box, go to an Omaha Steaks boutique. If you want a bag to put your meat in, bring one.

I got a tour of the dry aging cooler, which maybe all customers get if they ask. I prefer to think it was a privilege of knowing Harvey’s son. Joe graciously consented to my filming his explanation of what I was seeing to share with you. Here it is:

Funny to think when I was younger I didn’t like steak.

In case you don’t feel like clicking over to the links page to find your own way to Harvey’s Guss, here’s the info you need: (And don’t forget, call a day ahead. The Gussmen are busy and have meat to sell…)

Harvey’s Guss Meat Co.
949 S. Ogden Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 937- 4622

http://www.harveysgussmeat.com/home.html

The Skinny Girls Diet

29 Nov 2010 3 Comments

by scolgin in Observations, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories) Tags: , , , , ,

  1. Eat less.
  2. Talk a walk outside (include hills, if possible).
  3. Grow your own food.
  4. Don’t eat apples from New Zealand in July (unless you live in New Zealand).
  5. Give up “fast food” for “slow food”.
  6. Eat with family or friends whenever possible. Talk a lot. Laugh. Linger.
  7. Don’t text while you eat.
  8. Drink a cup of green tea every day.
  9. Get to know the farmers at your farmers market.
  10. Eat more dark green and orange things.
  11. Yoga is good, but it’s not the answer.
  12. “Satisfied” is better than “full”.
  13. Avoid diet beverages. Have a glass of water.
  14. Mayonnaise will not kill you.
  15. Chew slowly and mindfully.
  16. Olive oil, olive oil, olive oil.
  17. Choose heirloom vegetables over genetically modified crops.
  18. If you must eat at Claim Jumper, Cheesecake Factory or Buca di Beppo, one entree will suffice for four people.
  19. Calories are not your enemy. Bad habits are.
  20. Carrots make a great snack.
  21. Quinoa is good, but it’s not the answer.
  22. Drink wine.
  23. Remember that meat comes not from a styrofoam container in the market, but from an animal that was alive not that long ago. Honor that animal. And choose carefully.
  24. Don’t diet. Change.
  25. Try a new recipe at least once a week.
  26. Eat what’s in season.
  27. Take another walk. Stop frequently to smell flowers and look at birds.
  28. Have many dinner parties.
  29. Don’t trust Monsanto or ConAgra.
  30. Read cookbooks just for fun.
  31. You don’t want alcohol and caffeine in the same drink.
  32. Bacon is allowed.
  33. If you’re not hungry, don’t eat.
  34. Don’t eat in front of the TV. Unless it’s football and you’re eating buffalo wings.
  35. Salt is not your enemy. Processed foods are.
  36. Share.
  37. Get a sustainable seafood guide: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org
  38. Shop for food at least three times a week.
  39. Do not get your food at Costco once every two weeks.
  40. Learn to make your own jam. Or olives. Or sausages.
  41. Hug a chef.
  42. When you travel, eat what the locals eat.
  43. Anything — and everything! — in moderation.
  44. Dim sum will lift your spirits.
  45. The best things to put in your mouth come without shrink-wrapped plastic.
  46. Blueberries make a great snack.
  47. Use butter — not margarine, not Country Crock.
  48. Don’t sweat the love handles.
  49. You can’t love food too much. You can only eat too much.
  50. Be thankful every day for what you have. Remember, some people in the world have to eat bugs.

You’re a What-atarian?

24 Nov 2010 8 Comments

by scolgin in Observations, Starlets, Yoga Students & Quinoa (stories) Tags: , , , , ,

I was at a dinner party talking to my friend Jon, who was poking at a plate of quinoa.

“What is this?” he asked.
“Quinoa,” I said.
“What’s quinoa?”
“Yoga food,” I said.
“Is it pasta?”
“It’s a grain,” I said.
“Spell it.”
“Q-U-I-N-O-A”
He asked if our friend had grown it in her garden. I excused myself. Over by the stove, a gal was looking at the Venetian bean soup I had brought.

“Is there meat in it?” she asked.
“Yes, pancetta,” I replied. She looked puzzled. “It’s like Italian bacon.”
“Oh,” she breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m a vegetarian. But the exception is pork.”
My kind of vegetarian.

Although it seems a somewhat cut-and-dry concept, you meet many different kinds of vegetarians. I was doing a cooking workshop for my friend’s Girls Gourmet Group the other night. I should’ve researched their eating preferences first. I held up a dead chicken soon to be Moroccan chicken with preserved lemon and olives, and they all looked mortified. Turns out three of the five girls are vegetarians, and one is a “sometimes, mostly” vegetarian. (Which meant I had a window with the chicken for her…) But the three were not “strictly” vegetarian, as they had gobbled down a catch of fish last time I cooked with them.

“So you eat meat that swims but not that flies or walks?” I asked by way of clarification.
“Right,” they said.

I think some people are vegetarians for moral reasons, and others for dietary reasons. Some are vegetarians for proximity reasons (i.e. they’re partner is a vegetarian). I’ve always admired vegetarians. I love the idea that nothing was killed in the making of your meal. But I also love meat. More.

There are those people on the fringe who think that the plant cries a silent scream when you pull it from the earth. What do those people eat?

When we eat meat at our house, we (usually) eat very small quantities. A few ounces each of Kobe beef, a couple thin slices of pancetta in a pasta, etc. I think if the carnivore world at large took a more ethical approach to meat — eat less of it, know where your meat comes from and that the animal had a good life — the world would be a much better place on many levels.

I never could’ve married a vegetarian. Except, maybe, for that pork vegetarian.

“Better Cooks, Not Just Recipe Followers…”

18 Nov 2010 2 Comments

by scolgin in Cooking Tips, Observations Tags: , , , , ,

I was preparing a cooking workshop for a group of women later this week, and got thinking about exactly what it was I was trying to teach them, beyond the type of food they had requested…

A friend of mine recently gave me a cookbook, “Serious Barbecue” by Adam Perry Lang. After perusing various recipes, I turned to the introduction. Lang talked about learning to cook in culinary school and famous French kitchens, and then re-learning from Texas-born ranch hands on a ranch in New Mexico. “My new friends,” he said, “were as passionate as any of the professionals I’d met in French kitchens.” In reflecting on his journey and his reason for writing the cookbook, it was, as he said, to teach people “to be better cooks, not just recipe followers.”

Not trash.

This phrase stood out brilliantly to me. For it is exactly what I’m trying to do with this blog. And with my teaching of other people. I’m trying to do this myself with every meal I prepare — be a better, more mindful cook. When a friend invites us over for a roasted chicken she’s purchased from Costco, and I ask if I can keep the carcass when we’re done, it’s not because I’m weird (despite the startled look on her face); it’s because (as I will explain to her) this roasted chicken is filled with flavor and will make an insanely good stock. And then I leave the bones to her and explain to her how to do it. That is not a recipe, that is cooking.

Next time you’ve get a roasted chicken from Costco or Zankou or wherever — or roast one yourself — when you and your kids are done picking it over, throw the carcass in a big pot with enough water to cover, an onion, a bay leaf and a couple tablespoons of salt, an cook for about an hour. Then strain. You’ll see what I mean — this ain’t Campbells, and you made it with something you were going to throw out. (And you can freeze the stock in plastic baggies in the fridge to make soup whenever the spirit moves you.) This is respecting the animal that gave its life for your meal. This is cooking.

When I was in my 20s teaching English, I decided I didn’t like teaching very much. But now I find I love it. Maybe I just wasn’t teaching the right subject.

A Cook’s Tale

26 Oct 2010 1 Comment

by scolgin in Observations Tags: , , , , ,

My grandfather used to cook on trains during the Great Depression. I guess you could say it’s in my blood (a love of cooking… and a love of trains). I never met my grandfather. A train ran over his foot when my father was a boy, and he got cancer from the prosthetic. I’ll never know if he was a good cook…

This is not a photo of my grandfather cooking on a train during the Great Depression. My father didn't like his father much, so there are very few pictures. This is just some guy cooking on a train during the Great Depression.

When I cooked in restaurants, I used to wonder who was eating my food. It was a most intimate connection — the person preparing the food, and the person eating it — yet it was utterly anonymous. Save the occasional “compliments to the chef” delivered by a waiter, they ate and left back into the night to rejoin their lives, and you never knew. I wonder if my grandfather thought about who was eating his food when he cooked on trains. I also think about the person back in the kitchen cooking when I go to a restaurant, and hope it is someone who loves food. At home, when I am cooking for family or friends, I hope they can experience my love of food and my love of them when they eat.

I find myself thinking about food a lot, even when I’m not cooking. I wonder what flavors will taste good together, which textures and colors will complement each other. I think about it the same way I think about what colors and composition will work when I’m contemplating making a painting, or what chords should follow others when I’m writing a song. Cooking is every bit an art, but a fleeting one. If you create a masterpiece, all you are left with are memories. Which is more than enough.

There’s no reason to eat bad food. Because good food is so, so easy. Buy good quality raw ingredients. Treat them with reverence. Keep it simple. (The best meal on earth is composed of spaghetti, a couple really ripe tomatoes, some good olive oil and some well-aged parmesan reggiano.) Let each individual flavor and texture shine. Challenge, surprise and delight yourself. When you’re cooking for people, those you know or those you don’t, put love into the food. They’ll taste it. Don’t cook out of a box. Cook outside of the box.

Once I cooked on an ocean liner. Maybe one day I’ll cook on a train, too.

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