Recipes from Bill Fuller, big Burrito Restaurant Group Corporate Chef

If you want to point out grammatical errors, typos, and blatant omissions, or if you’d just like to drop me a note and say hello, or if you want to throw out an idea for a future column so I don’t have to sit around and scratch my head for a week, or if you actually cook a recipe and want to say how it came out, me. I would love to hear from everyone.

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The online archive of big Burrito Corporate Chef Bill Fuller's recipes and essays from 2007

January 2007

Time to wane

big Burrito Corporate Chef, Bill Fuller

It is a time of new starts. We all have our resolutions; to be a better spouse, work out more, walk the dogs more. And we will struggle with these new resolutions, fighting the inner sloth that makes us all human. My resolutions are many, to be a better person, spend more and better time with my family, to get healthier. One of the easiest ways to get healthier by eating better. So I’ll start the new year with a few light and fresh dishes to get us all off on the right foot. Where we take it from here is between us and our willpower. Good luck!

Fish is always an easy way to lighten up what we eat. Skip the steak and eat a piece of striped bass. It tastes great and makes your body sing. Might even help with that pant size that you are working down to. Striped bass (also called Maryland Rock fish or just Rockfish) is either wild-caught or farm raised. When you can find the wild-caught, grab it. It is easily one of the best tasting fish out there. Fished to the brink of extinction a number of years ago, good fishery controls have brought this Chesapeake Bay icon back to a point where we can actually enjoy its sweet, mildly gamy flavor. The farm-raised is an acceptable substitute but in my opinion has never matched the flavor of the wild. I’m sautéing it and serving it with braised fennel and leeks. A little simple citrus vinaigrette finishes the dish. Serve with a nice Meursault. Won’t save on calories, but you will feel like you are drinking lighter.

It is never too cold to grill. A few marinated chicken breasts and potatoes with a roasted tomato and olive sauce is a great dish. There is a little olive oil in this one, but that is okay. I always try to buy organic chicken breasts, but when unavailable, I pick up whatever brand of free-range/antibiotic-free/all-natural chicken. While these terms are less regulated than "organic", I figure the less crap in my chicken, the better. Of course, if you can get locally raised organic free-range chicken when in season, all the better. This time of year, there is very little local chicken. It is too cold to raise it outside and few of the local farmers use heated chicken houses. Most local upscale grocery stores have oven-roasted tomatoes in the gourmet deli section.

Striped Bass with Leeks, Fennel, and Citrus

Meursault

Grilled Chicken and Potatoes with Roasted Tomatoes and Green Olives

Pinot Noir

The underlined recipes are links to PDF documents. If you don't have the free Acrobat Reader, it's freely available at Adobe’s website.

February 2007

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Chef Fuller’s recipe for love

big Burrito Corporate Chef, Bill Fuller

There is a reason that the emotions of Valentine’s Day are wrapped around food. Chocolates, breakfast in bed, candlelight dinner for two, a quiet meal at your favorite restaurant—these are all distinct gestures of love. This is because one of the most intimate acts possible is feeding people. What I cook, the dinner I craft with my hands and my mind and my mouth, goes inside your body. Think of that. There are few connections more intimate, more intense, or more fraught with repercussions as feeding and being fed. Cooking for your love is about as romantic as you can get. Really.

Cooking is the only art from where the creation truly becomes part of the recipient. Each atom in your body (with the exception of oxygen) came from food or drink that you placed in your mouth. From milk nursed as an infant to the junk food of adolescence to last Saturday night’s steak, you are what you eat. Your health is effected, your mood, your soul. And without love by the cook, food is simply nourishment. With love, it is beauty and life.

When we opened Casbah eleven years ago, we had an unusual problem in the dining room. People were getting busy. In the course of the first year, we had couples making out on the bar banquette, fooling around under the tables, and going all the way in the bathrooms. It seemed every weekend gave the staff another ribald story to titter about at the bar after work. Never in my life have I worked in a restaurant with so much action going on, the occasional cook and waitress making out in the stockroom notwithstanding. It could have been the excitement of a new, darkly lit, fashionable restaurant. It may have been the racy art on the walls. But I have always thought that it just might have a little bit to do with the fact that the Chef had fallen in love and was cooking with the passion and desire of the newly smitten. I was in love with her, and in love with the food, and in love with the world. I wanted everything I made to be perfect and everything she ate to be delicious. By extension, everything in the restaurant had to be perfect. People ate my love, and drank my love, and felt it bloom in their hearts. Some of them got frisky.

So those of you reading this that were involved in those private and not so private trysts at Casbah all those years ago, I am glad to have helped you get lucky. And to any children who are a product of those wild nights, you are almost of the age where you will begin to fall in love. I hope those once wild parents of yours give you the benefit of the doubt and let you revel in the bittersweet ecstasy of new love when you stumble into it.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Chicken and Dumplings for Mary

Veuve Clicquot Champagne

The underlined recipe is a link to a PDF document. If you don't have the free Acrobat Reader, it's available at Adobe’s website.

March 2007

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Call of the West

big Burrito Corporate Chef, Bill Fuller

In my final year of high school, three good friends of mine moved to Seattle. Having nothing particular to interest me at home and having never been farther west than Sea World, I decided that upon completion of my senior year I would travel out to visit them and see the US.

Filled with years of Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac, and Richard Brautigan and of limited financial means, I arrived at the conclusion that hitchhiking would be a very inexpensive and interesting way to get from Falls Creek, PA to Seattle, WA. By my calculations, a quick hitch across the country on I-80 would take a week, two at the most. I would zip west to Colorado and work my way Northwest to Seattle. Catch a couple of long distance truckers at truck stops. Simple. At least that was how I explained it to my poor mother.

My short jaunt became a four month odyssey throughout the US. I went first to Denver where I worked as a laborer at a construction site, bounced down to Phoenix for a few days, took a bus to LA where I stayed with my cousin Frankie in the San Fernando Valley, lived on a roof top for a month or so in San Francisco, and eventually caught a ride all the way to Seattle with Skull and Ned, two brothers in an old van full of beer and pot, in October. Along with learning quite a bit about a lot that I didn’t really need to, I discovered how to eat well for little money throughout the West: Mexican food.

At the job in Denver, all the other laborers were Mexican. At lunch time, after a morning of ripping up flooring, sawing old pipes out of the ceiling, and hauling debris, they would head over the taco stand for lunch. I accompanied them, lonely and at a loss as to any other options for food. My bland Western Pennsylvania palate was blown away by the flavors. Braised tongue tacos with cabbage, cilantro, and chilis, burritos with rich refritos cooked in lard, hot salsa and mild pico. Tasting avocado for the first time of my life. It was a revelation. And cheap.

I continued eating in this fashion for much of my trip. I have great memories of stopping at taco trucks late at night in LA, wasted and frightened of the barrio. And giant burritos for three dollars from a little Mexican shop near Golden Gate Park that would fill my stomach for the whole day. I was in dining bliss.

I have continued my passion for good, authentic Mexican food. The chili passion led into the harder drugs, too, of Indian, African and Thai foods but I always return to the beginning, some great salsa and guacamole and tacos. In the almost 22 years since I embarked on that journey, I have learned a lot about food and cooking and, as may be expected, have experimented with the basic Mexican. In honor of this culinary journey, I am sharing some recipes for some good “Mexican” dishes.

During my journey of discovery, I also learned that beer is a great accompaniment to Mexican food. Initially, I limited myself to Carta Blanca and Tecate and Dos Equis, figuring that consuming Mexican beers with Mexican foods made the most sense. As my beer knowledge grew through the heroic efforts of endless tasting, I learned that there are many good beers made here in the US and that most of them sipped just fine with a plate full of spicy sauce and roasted meats wrapped in some sort of tortilla. With eight Mad Mexes sporting 165 taps gushing the best microbrews around, I am awash in beer sampling opportunities. Paired with the recipes below are two light and tasty spring beers that I know we’ll be pouring this month and that will also be readily available in the store. Enjoy!

Download all 3 recipes

Chips with Guacamole Two Ways and Roasted Tomato Salsa

Penn Brewery Märzen

Chili-Crusted Tuna Tacos with Green Sauce

Butternut Squash in Pepita Mole

Dogfish Head Apri Hop

The recipes are in a PDF document. If you don't have the free Acrobat Reader, it's available at Adobe’s website.

April 2007

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The Family Meal

big Burrito Corporate Chef, Bill Fuller

Family Meal. Nothing can engender more controversy in a restaurant than Family Meal. For those unfamiliar with the term, Family Meal or Staff Meal is the dinner prepared by the kitchen to feed the staff before dinner service. Too often, it is cheap, poorly prepared, insufficient, and/or downright disgusting. Nobody wants to be the one to make Family Meal. It usually falls to the lowest ranking cook. When I first worked at the Occidental Restaurant in Washington, DC, it was me.

A shelf was set aside in the walk-in cooler for all the leftover mise en place, bits of vegetables a little old for service but not too bad to eat, a pile of grilled steaks from last night’s banquet that didn’t get served because the host didn’t account for the Indian family, lettuce beginning to wilt, poached bits of fish trim, yesterday’s bread, and, on Monday, a big bucket of cracked eggs left from Sunday’s brunch service. My responsibility was to convert these bits and pieces into a suitable meal for forty to fifty people. It had to be presentable enough for the raging and abusive Sous Chefs. It had to be filling, satisfying the brigade of Salvadoran dishwashers that frugally ate their one meal a day at the restaurant. It had to have vegetarian options for the two servers who, stridently vocal, didn’t eat meat and haven’t eaten meat in 11 years and have a right to a meal without meat. It had to taste good or I’d risk the ridicule of the senior cooks, which at that point was everyone. And, ideally, in the Chef’s eyes, it should cost nothing and take no time away from my set-up, itself a formidable task.

Theoretically, my morning counterpart would set me up for Family Meal. But as busy as he was with prep and lunch service, he’d usually leave me little help. Usually, none. He’d leave me nothing prepared for staff, little mise en place for my station, and scant notes about what was needed for either. Demoralizing at first, my survival of this situation made me a nearly indestructible line cook. I began to arrive early, working off the clock for a few hours to get my prep done. I drove myself to get faster, becoming more efficient in my work. Finally, I’d take items home and prep them there. An especially daunting item was the daily production of perfect lemon, lime, and orange segments, at least a pint each, as well as hair-fine lemon, lime, and orange zest, blanched, 1 cup each. Picking thyme was a good one to take home as well, because it is a slow and delicate process, and because it was a favorite piece of mise en place for other cooks to ‘liberate’ from my station.

Once I developed a program where I was consistently ahead on the menu mise en place, I began to turn more attention to staff meal. I’d toss out a simple meal one day; salads with focaccia pizza, and then use the time to prep the next day’s meal. Two ingredients that were perennially on the Family Shelf, squash guts and greens stems, were always a challenge. Squash guts were the remnants of yellow squash and zucchini that had had their yellow and green exteriors shaved off with a mandoline for vegetable spaghetti. This was the most despised ingredient, always present, always flavorless. Greens stems were the stems and heavy leaves of greens, often Swiss chard and rapini, that were unsuitable for ala carte service. These two vegetable parts danced with each other in my meals. I’d try to get the texture and flavor of the greens to balance the bland sogginess of the squash guts. This dance occurred in pastas, risottos, casseroles, soups, and on pizzas.

Pasta was and is a Family Meal favorite. Cheap, fulfilling, and easy, we always kept a big sack of dried inexpensive penne for Family Meal. Everything can become a pasta. Chicken hind quarters were usually in abundance as we butchered whole chickens for the chicken breasts. Occasionally we’d pull all the beef, veal, and pork trim out of the freezer and grind it up for meat loaf. The two days worth of Family Meal this provided was a godsend, giving me a whole day off of Family Meal to catch up on ala carte mise en place.

Of course, what I learned through this process, in addition to how to plan my production days in advance, please entirely disparate groups of hungry people, and keep up with a ridiculous load of prep responsibilities; was to cook, really cook real meals for real people. The process of preparing plates of food in a fine dining restaurant is assembly and production. We make this sauce, pre-roast that meat, pre-blanch these vegetables, then, to order, finish the sauce, re-heat and slice the meat, and re-warm the vegetables in butter and season it all. It is the only way to produce hundreds of plates a night, and I was learning that skill every day at the Occidental. But what I also learned every day was cooking at a more fundamental level. I made stews, soups, and casseroles. I roasted, grilled, and barbecued chicken hind quarters every way imaginable. I cooked dinner, placed it on the stainless steel table in front of my station, and stood there prepping my station for dinner service. Each member of the staff then filed by and filled their plates, commenting on what I had presented them. They would comment after too, mocking or praising, sometimes both at once.

I fed the people. At 3:45 PM, every day, I was the most important person in the restaurant, especially if some particular tasty treat had wandered onto the Family shelf. If Family Meal was especially bad, I’d not be invited for beers after work and the chefs would scream at me and everyone would complain. If really good, I might get a smile from the pretty redheaded waitress named Sara that I knew I never had a chance with. But it was immediate, the pain and joy. And intimate.

Two meals, simple and quick to prepare, are adaptations of Family Meals I have made. Both are chicken, and you can actually use the leftover Rosemary-roasted chicken to make the Gnocchi dish if you like. One might even get you a smile.

Gnocchi with rapini, squash, braised chicken, and figs

A white Burgundy, such as a true Chablis or an unoaked American Chardonnay such as 2006 Ponzi Chardonnay Wilamette Valley

Rosemary-roasted chicken breasts, new potatoes, garlic pan broth

Icardi Barbara d’Alba ‘Suri Di Mu’ 2000

The recipes are PDF documents. If you don't have the free Acrobat Reader, it's available at Adobe’s website.

May 2007

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Pittsburgh, Most Livable City, and Asparagus

big Burrito Corporate Chef, Bill Fuller

Pittsburgh must be one of the most self-conscious cities in the country. We fret over declining population, proclaim our greening Greenness, worry about our aging people and infrastructure, and crow over our friendliness and low cost of living. We talk about what Pittsburgh was and what it is and what it will be and could be and should be and might be and won’t be. Ask anyone, they’ll tell you.

But what is true, and we all know it, is Pittsburgh is a great place to live. Low crime, few natural disasters, cheap housing, beautiful scenery, charming inhabitants, bracing history, and an unrivalled sense of place-pride. One of the phenomenal pieces of the Pittsburgh puzzle is the great availability of fresh, locally grown foods. Pittsburgh, in addition to being The Most Livable City, has the most farmers markets per capita of any major US city. As spring trudges forward, desperate to escape from winter, the opening dates of the farmers’ markets creep closer and closer. Farmers at the Firehouse in the Strip will open May 12. All the Pittsburgh Parks markets will open soon after that. Independent markets and road stands will quickly follow, as farmers get the first spring crops of greens, lettuces, asparagus, spring onions, and other great stuff.

But already, we are looking to our farmers and foragers for their wares. The foragers are bringing us wild ramps from their secret spots in rich bottom lands along PA streams. We gorge and stink, unable to resist the earth’s first offerings of edible food. With the ramps come the daily reports of the beginnings of the morel season, an event as anticipated by chefs as baseball’s opening day. Derek Stevens, Executive Chef of Eleven and amateur mushroom forager, sends pictures around from his mobile phone of the first arrivals. Soon, he’ll tell us of his breakfasts of fresh morels and eggs.

But, for me, as much as I love ramps and morels, these are just the opening acts for the big player of the spring recital, asparagus. The headliner of spring vegetables, the show stopper, asparagus comes with her own trailer and hairdressers, a slender diva in a slinky sheer dress. Coyly and with no respect for any schedule but her own, she slides into our world in her own time. Once here, she owns the stage and rules our hearts and minds. Chefs, lusting for the first of the season, beg farmers for their crops, willing to pay almost anything for the first bundles of green.

In honor of this true star of spring, big Burrito will celebrate May as Asparagus month. Our menus will be rife with asparagus accompanied of course by her supporting stars, ramps and morels and baby lettuces and spinach and nettles. Brandy’s Asparagus Sandwich will re-appear at Kaya, along with asparagus tropas and a May vegetarian tasting menu loaded with asparagus. Alan Peet at Casbah will have an asparagus pasta, an asparagus appetizer, and asparagus salad, asparagus with entrées, Jamie at Soba will be throwing asparagus at everything and Derek at Eleven will make room in his morel-loving heart to load his vegetarian tasting menu with all the spring treats in addition to bringing back the asparagus salad and replacing all these pesky winter vegetables with this delicate spring gem. Finally, Matt Glick, Chief Mad Mex Kitchen Dude, will be featuring asparagus specials at Mad Mex. Look for an asparagus quesadilla, an asparagus salad, and asparagus tacos. Go Man Go!

Recipes not available this month.

June 2007

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Traveling and Eating

big Burrito Corporate Chef, Bill Fuller

The fragrance of honeysuckle, sexy rich and reminiscent of jasmine, blooming in profusely intertwines with this humid blast of early summer transporting me to Thailand. I traveled there nine summers ago, joining my then-girlfriend now-wife at the end of her two months of work teaching life skills to workers in the sex trade and ready to relax. I was fresh off a stretch of consecutive restaurant openings and overwork and badly needed a break.

We partied in Bangkok, sunned and scuba-ed on the islands of Ko Samui and Phuket, visited Hill Tribes in the north and shopped in Chaing Mai. And ate everything we could. The most memorable food was the street food. Pad Thai made in a makeshift wok and served on plastic plates, eaten on the sidewalk, was phenomenal. We had whole fish steamed with ginger, lime, and chilis on a portable stove and were instructed to finish by eating one side, lifting off the frame (skeleton), and finishing the second side. When pressed, the cook explained that if one turned over the whole fish to get to the other side, the fisherman’s boat would turn over. There were hundreds of grilled skewers of meatballs and chicken with various sweet and sour sauces. Whole frogs quartered in a spicy dark sauce. Spring rolls, summer rolls, and egg rolls. And the squid cart. Ahh, the squid cart. Late at night, as we would be gathering our senses after much Singha beer and Mekong whisky and preparing to return to our hotel, the squid carts came out. A three-wheeled bicycle cart with a small work area, pedaled by a single cook, with many lines of dried squid hanging from fishing wire would pull up and offer its wares. The customer would pick a particular squid, the cook would grill it over a small comal, and run it through a hand-cranked tenderizer similar to an old washing machine roller. It would then be cut into strips and offered with a dip of chilis and lime in fish sauce. Delicious!

I recently traveled to San Francisco on a two-day eating trip to refresh the creative juices. Jamie Achmoody, Executive Chef of Soba, accompanied me. Our agenda was to get some new perspective on Asian food. The city, with its large populations of Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese citizens, is a perfect dining destination for this work. The centerpiece restaurant of our trip was The Slanted Door, Charles Phan’s amazing interpretation of Vietnamese street food. In two meals there, we tasted almost everything on the menu from his hearty chicken in a clay pot to a delicate dish of little more than sparklingly fresh crab, minced spring onions, cellophane noodles, and a very light dressing of fish sauce and sesame oil. All the flavors of everything we ate were clear and brilliant. Easily one of the best meals I have had in a long time. We ate also at two other Vietnamese-influenced Pan-Asian restaurants as well as a modern Japanese restaurant where we were walked through a sake tasting by an attractive and knowledgeable bartender. All the dishes we sampled were along the same theme, plated interpretations of homey street foods. The trip was successful and gave us some great ideas for future Soba menus.

I write this newsletter on Delta flight 255 to Mexico City. We are going on a Mad Mex eating trip. We’ll spend four days there eating everything we can. A good part of the dining will be at markets, street stalls, and small taquerias. We’ll walk and eat, smelling the aromas of the market, hearing the sounds, ingesting the experience of eating in Mexico City as much as the food. Mixed in with market grazing and truck taco munching will be meals at Mexican restaurants operated by chefs recognized as the leaders in Modern Mexican Food. I expect the approach of these venerable women to be similar to that of Charles Phan, taking familiar flavors of home cooking, polishing it up, and presenting with refinement and grace. We hope to get a renewed look at Mexican food and to fortify ourselves for future menu development.

So this all takes me back to Thailand. After I returned from Thailand, I re-engineered the menu at Soba to incorporate a lot of foods I ate, trying to re-create the flavors of Bangkok and Hong Kong, to bring my memory of the street and the stalls to the plates of the restaurant. I read everything I could on Thai, Chinese, Indonesian, and Korean food. I wanted to get the aroma of Jasmine flowers mixed with the scent of fresh chicken blood at the market stalls and fumes of diesel exhaust and bring our guests to the streets of Bangkok. Some of the dishes that came out of this period were Pork and Shrimp Fried Rice, Thai Fish Cakes, Larb Gai, Pad Thai, and Pork and Shrimp Spring Rolls. For the last two items, I offer recipes here. Please, if you prepare these, buy yourself some Singha beer, pour it warm into a glass and add some ice, and sit outside in the sweaty humid weather, and imagine a crowded, vibrant city filled with the aromas of exotic foods cooking at small stalls. I’ll travel there with you.

Pad Thai with Chicken and Shrimp

Singha Beer

Pork and Shrimp Spring Rolls with Plum Sauce

Singha Beer

The recipes are PDF documents. If you don't have the free Acrobat Reader, it's available at Adobe’s website.

July 2007

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Mr. Fuller goes to Mexico

big Burrito Corporate Chef, Bill Fuller

As a chef, one of the most difficult parts of the job is to stay fresh, to keep having new ideas, to stay creative and focused. We read magazines and cookbooks, check out websites and blogs, exchange ideas with each other, go to restaurants and markets, and of course, eat everything we can. But nothing beats traveling to a different country and eating on someone else’s home turf. Not only does one see and taste the food, but it is in context, wrapped in the culture and the history of the place. Last month Matt Glick, my Head Mad Mex Kitchen Guy and Eating Too Much Partner, and I took a trip to Mexico City. This was the first trip into Mexico in my life. All sources of my knowledge of foods Mexican are secondary. My personal experience with Mexican food was mostly with Northern Mexican/TexMex – refried beans, enchiladas, lots of cheese.

The food, culture, and magnitude of Mexico City blew me away. With 30 million residents, a beautifully violent history, and incredible food, the scope of life Mexico City was astounding.

The size of the city is unbelievable. It is broken into hundreds of Colonias, or neighborhoods, each with its own style and feel. We ate every Colonia we could: from the Rodeo Drive-esque Polanco at Patricia Quintana’s Izote - chowing down on shrimp in hibiscus mole and squash blossom quesadillas, to the comfortable bourgeois neighborhood of Roma at Contramar, where we had smoked marlin tacos with avocados and tacos salteados de camaron, to Lindavista of working class homes, muffler shops, liquor stores, and the amazing tacos al pastor and pozole de cabeza of El Charco do Las Ranas.

The subway system is one of the best I’ve ever seen, serving the entire city via comfortable trains with beautiful stations. One station featured works of art from good local artists throughout the halls; another was a running science lesson with beautiful and well-described photographs of star systems, protozoa, and geophysical anomalies. The faces on the subway write the history of the city. Dark, Asiatic Indians stand next to European blonds and both are surrounded by a rainbow of skin hues. A beautiful harmony of races, the daily subway rides describe the clash and commingling of nations that evolved into modern Mexico City.

From the very simple sustenance level to opulently stylized modern cuisines, Mexico City’s food evolved with its history. New World ingredients of corn, tomatoes, beans, tortillas, chilis, chocolate, game and seafood are blended with the Old World elements of cheese making, baking, complex sauces, beef, spices, and wide use of dairy products. The food we had was a beautiful harmony of history and cooking and geography that shamed me for my pre-conceived notions of a “Mexican Food” relegated to burritos and refried beans and leaves me yearning to return and eat the rest of the country. I am in awe of the food of Mexico. There is so much to learn there.

So for July, I’d like to share some dishes from Mexico. The cooks of Mexico treat squash blossoms entirely differently than we do. In the US, squash blossoms are delicacies, expensive and hard to get, and treated with mild flavors. In Mexico, there are piles and piles at market, and they are matched with bold flavors and used in profusion. We had squash blossom quesadillas a few places, the version I am sharing we tasted at Mercado Merced, and huge indoor/outdoor market. Also, I have been playing with tacos al pastor to work out the flavors on a smaller scale (see recipe) and have tried to represent the dish in the attached recipe.

Squash Blossom Quesadilla with Salsa Verde

Tacos ‘al pastor’ with Roasted Pineapple

Herradura Anejo Tequila, neat, with Sangrita

The recipes are PDF documents. If you don't have the free Acrobat Reader, it's available at Adobe’s website.

August 2007

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It’s time: Peaches, Corn and Tomatoes

big Burrito Corporate Chef, Bill Fuller

Two trips to the San Francisco Bay Area (the most recent involving a surprise Harley ride down the coast), an extended vacation in Nags Head, a wedding weekend in Maryland, and my dining jaunt to Mexico City, all filled with too much eating and drinking, and the associated rush to squeeze my job duties in between packing and unpacking and doing laundry, have left me mentally exhausted yet somehow energized.

My head is spinning with new food ideas and I can’t wait to get to work on them. I’ll be tweaking all the restaurants’ menus a lot over the next few months. But, it being August means we have more pressing business to attend to. Nature is here with her high summer treats and demands attention. Peaches by the bushel, sweet corn by the sack, endless tomatoes, flats and flats of blackberries, big bunches of basil, pecks of beans and zucchini. And after a thunderstorm, wild chanterelles appear. All of it blasting incredible flavor. We have to grab it now, load this bounty on our menus, and revel in August’s glory. Because in three weeks the blackberries will be gone, four for the peaches, six for most of the corn and tomatoes and by mid October the party will be over except for the apples, fall squashes and greens. This is the season, truly, to make hay while the sun shines.

So many options, so much to cook, so much to eat. The farmers can barely keep up. Amy McConnell-Schaarsmith of McConnell’s Farms is already asking if her sole function in life is to bring us corn and peaches. Art King, tanned and sweaty, hauls in basket after box of vegetables. Penn’s corner Farm Alliance needs a bigger truck. All of the farmers run from market to restaurant to field to bed, rising before sunrise and running until well after dark. Dark circles are beginning to show around their eyes.

So what will we do with what lies in front of us? Chef Brandy Stewart asks, only half joking, if we can put the desserts in the Tropas section because she is so excited about the blackberries and peaches. Chef Derek Stevens at Eleven is so excited about corn that he forgot to put together a tomato salad for the season – an annual tradition. He’s doing it now, after it was pointed out to me (I had also forgotten) and I reminded him. Matt Glick has a bunch of specials at the Mad Mexes featuring local corn, tomatoes, squash, and zucchini (see below). At Soba and Casbah and Café Phipps we are embracing the summer as well, working new dishes onto the menu as well as slipping these ingredients into old favorites. Casbah will be doing a corn and prosciutto frittata and an heirloom tomato scramble at brunch. Casbah, Kaya, Eleven, and Café Phipps are debuting new tomato sandwiches in the next few days as the best of the tomatoes begin to ripen and find their way to our back doors. Soba’s Indonesian corn fritters and Casbah’s sweet corn risotto showcase the wonderful sweetness of summer on the cob.

So what to cook this time of year? If you must, here are some simple suggestions. Hit the farmers market near your house. Do as little to the food as possible. Cook simply and quickly. Eat and drink some wine. Relax. Repeat as necessary. Here are two simple recipes that make a nice meal. I have paired the Bernardus Sauvignon Blanc with the Tomato Salad for two reasons. One, sauvignon blanc, especially one like this that is not over-the-top grapefruit-y, pairs nicely with fresh tomatoes. Two, I visited Bernardus for dinner last week and they treated me and my wife so well that they deserve to be the Sauvignon Blanc listed (out of the many, many I’ve had). Ponzi Pinot Noir is always good, and I can’t get enough.

Tomato Salad with Chilis, Herbs, and Sea Salt

Bernardus Sauvignon Blanc, Carmel Valley, CA

Herb-Scented Pork Tenderloin, Natural Jus, Buttery Corn

Ponzi Pinot Noir, Willamette Valley, OR .

The recipes are PDF documents. If you don't have the free Acrobat Reader, it's available at Adobe’s website.

September 2007

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Bill's to-do and to-eat lists

big Burrito Corporate Chef, Bill Fuller

September is always a time of transition. The light changes as the sun slips down the sky, a softer orange tint imbuing the day. I often feel some relief that the bright summer sun has cooled off, like a radio station turned down. We reconsider our menus, talking about what produce is drawing to a close and when, or what is gone, and how long we’ll have stuff. Farmers sound tired on the phone as they call and tell us what they don’t have, or won’t have next week. We begin to write New Year’s menus, trying to remember what products we’ll be able to work with. The temptation to reach for the butternut squash is strong, but menuing those items is an admission of the end of the season. “Cool Change” by The Little River Band sticks in my head.

We get the kids back to school, re-structure our lives, and get back to the gym. Vacations are over and we can get tasks completed that take more than three people communicating. Gotta tidy up the garage, put all the toys back in their places. Give the hedges the last trim and mulch the flowers. Schedule the dentist and the PTA. And in my house, can your butt off as bushels of tomatoes become sauce and the pressure canner steams the whole house muggy. Beg the last peaches from the farmers and make golden jelly. Pick all the basil before the first frost and make pesto for the freezer. Load it up and get ready for winter.

So we take a last shot at summer and cook food with the remaining great produce. As long as the weather holds, tomatoes are great. Late corn hangs on, and those squashes begin to fill the planks at the farmers’ markets. Cool weather crops like lettuces and arugula are easier to grow. It’s a good time to eat an early meal with friends and reflect on the great summer we all had. Eat all the wild Alaskan Halibut you can because the season ends soon and we won’t have any until the spring.

Corn and Clam Chowder with Thyme and Pancetta

Domain Drouhin Chardonnay, Willamette Valley, OR

Sautéed Alaskan Halibut with Crispy Potatoes, Wilted Arugula, and Sun Gold Tomatoes

Estancia Pinot Noir, Monterrey County, CA

The downloadable, printable recipes will be linked to the titles above soon.

October 2007

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The Phuket Dinner

big Burrito Corporate Chef, Bill Fuller

This endless summer has kept my Thailand experience on my mind. From my trips to San Francisco and the sampling of Asian foods there, to my visit to Mexico City and the concomitant immersion in the Bangkok-esque juxtaposition of great wealth and dirty, desperate poverty, to the continuing hot days even as October arrives I keep having Thailand flashbacks. In hopes of purging the final remnants of my distraction, I will be hosting a Thai dinner at Soba this month. The dishes are based on Southern Thai food, the hottest and most striking food I tasted.

My clearest memory of dining in Southern Thailand was a night spent at Timber ‘n’ Rock. The restaurant, also called Timber Hut, becomes a club after hours, a fact we didn’t know upon entering. The building is built with lots of wood and represents (I believe) a Thai interpretation of an American hunting lodge. We sat down at long communal tables and dove into one of the most mind-blazingly spicy yet delicious meals I have ever had. We had Larb Gai, a spice salad of ground, stir-fried chicken with mint, basil, red onions, crisp lettuce, lime, and a lot of chilis. A whole fish seamed with ginger came swimming in a gingery broth loaded with chilis. Stir-fried clams with fermented black beans, herbs, and chili paste was amazing, the little local clams more like cockles than clams and very sweet. A stir fry of chicken with black mushrooms, chili paste, and a sweet sauce showed up as well. An unstoppable train of spice. Of course, the server spoke no English, and we spoke enough Thai to know that “pla” is fish, “gai” is chicken, “tow rai” is how much, and the numbers. They just made the dishes like they make ‘em and we were left to fend for ourselves. We loved it.

To wash down that spicy food, we drank a number of Sing Ha beers, on ice of course, and I had a shot of Mekong, local whisky. As we were finishing the meal, the restaurant began to fill up with young Thais. A group of college students sat next to us and were quite excited to get to try their rudimentary English on two Americans. Mary and I got separated, one at either end of the group. They began to buy me beers and pass me shots of tequila, a big favorite of Thai students. Unable to breach the language barrier (their English wasn’t that good) and decline the shots, I drank them every time they arrived to avoid being rude. What I didn’t know that my wife had bought the students the bottle as a kind gesture and they, in turn, were sharing it back with me as thanks.

At some point, the music started. A Thai band, headed by local rock star Khun Boonkurt, got up and blasted out great covers of every top 40 Eagles song in Thai-inflected English. I shouted along to Hotel California with the rest of the packed bar, oddly at home and desperately out of place. But my belly was warm and the kids were nice and we were having fun. We toasted the music, laughed at each others’ indecipherable jokes, and had a great cross-cultural good time.

And then it was time to go. Probably well past time to go. I learned later that the students we were drinking with assumed that I could drink three times what they could (I was truly a giant there) and poured for me accordingly. I also learned later that as I crashed out of the bar, I stumbled over three Thai women and knocked them to the floor. Additionally, I fell out of the tuk-tuk (the local cab) and burned Mary’s toes with a forgotten cigarette. I had a hang over for two days, attenuated by the heat and the dim sum lunch we had the next day with droopy chicken feet I regrettably ate to prove I could.

So, while incredibly tamer, I hope this dinner distills some of the fun, sweaty, burning deliciousness of Phuket Town for Pittsburgh later this month. See you there.

Kaffir Lime Scallop Purse, Sour Garlic Sauce

Crispy Black Sea Bass, Thai Eggplant, Green Beans, Tomatoes, Thai Chilies

Sing Ha Beer with a bucket of ice cubes and tongs, shots of Herreadura Tequila

The recipes are PDF documents. If you don't have the free Acrobat Reader, it's available at Adobe’s website.

NEW: See an archive of Bill's recipes from 2007 here.

November 2007

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I like pig butts and I can not lie

big Burrito Corporate Chef, Bill Fuller

So finally, the summer ends. Abruptly, the cold fronts drifted down, temperatures plunged into sweater range, the rains arrived, and muddy season started another brutal six-month dominion over Pittsburgh.

At this time of year I get pensive, reconsidering the past year of new experiences and exciting achievements sorted among missed opportunities and blown connections. Watching blowing leaves (finally) and listening to the emotive longing of Boca Chica’s new album “Transform Into Beasts”, I think about ramps that didn’t get eaten, strawberries not worked into an ethereal dessert, striped bass left swimming in the Atlantic and the painful gap left by the sudden departure of the corn. Never enough time to cook enough nor the capacity to taste it all. I force myself to accept the autumn crops at the farm stands, finding inspiration for the hearty months to come.

Greens become my obsession now. The following is an excerpt from the list from Harvest Valley Farms. Pure Autumn Farm Food Chef Porn.

Kale
Arugula
Rapini
Mustard Greens
Turnip Greens
Turnips, with greens
Turnips, bottoms only
Daikon Radish (large)
Green Cabbage
French Breakfast Radishes

Note the offering of turnip greens alone, turnips alone, and turnips with greens. Wow, does Art know us well. Chefs totally dig things like this.

The richness of this season helps to assuage the loss of the tomatoes. In fact, it makes the wan offering of a single selection of field tomatoes (after a full page of various heirlooms, cherries, greens, plums, etc.) less like a total loss and more like an afterthought, the tail end of the moan of a passing night train. Time to settle into the season and cook the autumn.

This is the season of the pig. From some deep genetic memory, a signal is sent to us by our agrarian ancestors that the change in seasons marks pig-killing time. There is an urge to make bacon and sausage and ham and to just eat and eat the pig. I claim no immediate heritage of farmer folk, but I am sure my Polak ancestors raised and killed their fair share of swine back in the day. I honor my heritage thus:

Slow-roasted Pork Butt with Garlic and Cider

Butternut Squash in Sage Brown Butter

Greens Again, Dammit

Anderson Valley Boont Amber Ale

The recipes are PDF documents. If you don't have the free Acrobat Reader, it's available at Adobe’s website.

In case you missed it, Bill is featured in Whirl Magazine this month. See the article.

NEW: See an archive of Bill's recipes from 2007 here.

December 2007

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Big Wrap Nosh Party

big Burrito Corporate Chef, Bill Fuller

I like to eat with my hands. For 25 years, my primary mode of dining has been on my feet, walking around the kitchen, tasting little bits of this and that. It is a stream of consciousness eating unmarked by discrete beginning and end. At the end of a day, I often look back and think “I didn’t eat all day”. Yet somehow, I don’t seem to go hungry. It’s a great way to eat, not getting wrapped up in one whole plate of food but sampling many flavors and textures. Through this meandering nosh I’ll taste many things in the kitchen and get a feel for the food of the day as well as develop new ideas.

I also like to wrap things in things and eat them. As my foraging throughout a kitchen progresses, I might grab a leaf of arugula and wrap it around a piece of braised lamb, fold a piece of braised short rib fresh out of the oven into heel of bread, drop a little turkey chili into a soft corn tortilla. A favorite of mine is to wrap anything that doesn’t move in a slice of cooked bacon. A chunk of fresh pork belly just out of the braising liquid curled inside a slice of hot out of the oven peppered bacon is a beautiful thing that most people in the world never get to experience. It is holy, almost.

Many cultures make this type of eating a central piece of dining. Tacos, of course, from Mexico, are a great example. A platter of meat surrounded by salsas, cilantro, and onions makes a great dinner. In Vietnamese food, a plate of crisp lettuce is served with hand foods, enabling the diner to eat a spring roll by wrapping it in a leaf of Bibb lettuce and keeping grease off the fingers. The Ethiopian table is the paragon of wrapping and eating. Stews and curries are served on a platter lined with injera, a delicate giant pancake-type of bread. More injera is served on the side and the entire meal is eaten by wrapping morsels into pieces of torn-off bread and popping them in your mouth. My favorite part is wrapping the sauce-soaked injera underliner into another piece of injera and eating that. Finally, I really dig a delicious Thai dish: wild betel leaf served with dried shrimp, a citrus sauce, peanuts, chilis in fish sauce, steamed rice, and chopped limes is a great appetizer. With these ingredients, you can explore the balance of the four pillars of Thai food; hot, sour, salty, and sweet while varying textures with the chewy shrimp, crisp leaf, and crunchy peanuts.

One great part of eating this way is that, through the activity of making little wraps, passing bowls to your table mates, discussing the combinations of what may or may not be good together, and the humor of the inevitable exploding tortilla. For casual parties, this is a great way to feed a bunch of people with eclectic tastes as well. Have some stuff with meat, a hot vegetarian dish, and a lot of garnishes and everyone gets their favorite.

This month’s recipe is a program for a fun wrap station. It is a mish-mash of tropical flavors and everything works well together. Every item can be prepared ahead of time and can be put out when the guests arrive. You’ll need a lot of bowls and dishes, for sure, and a way to keep a couple of items warm if they’ll be sitting out for awhile. Luckily for me, my fetish for pretty little Asian ceramic ware and my inability to control my bidding in the silent auction at the Pittsburgh Food Bank’s annual Empty Bowls charity event has prepared me for putting out this spread. As far as what beverages to serve with this array, I recommend fruity reds (the all-loved Pinot Noir), Alsatian-style whites, and a mixed case of Unibroue to add to the tasting-trying-compare-contrast fun.

Big Wrap Nosh Party

The recipes are saved as a PDF document. If you don't have the free Acrobat Reader, it's available at Adobe’s website.

NEW: See an archive of Bill's recipes from 2007 here.

big Benefit wrap up

I would like to announce the success of our second annual Big Benefit for the Hillman Cancer Center. On November 4, 2007, we raised over $57,000 for cancer research and patient care. All dinner food sales from all big Burrito Restaurants was donated. Not profit, not after costs, all of it.

Not only were all the restaurants filled with good-spirited guests, many patrons took the opportunity to select from the special Bigger Benefit chef's menus for the evening. At Eleven, chef's menus filled the room. Two large parties ordered the Chef Bill Fuller/Chef Derek Stevens Dueling menu. Derek and I each separately wrote a ten-course tasting menu from a simple outline of ingredients. First course was tuna, second was porcinis, etc. At the tables of ten, each of our menus was served to alternating guests. They compared, contrasted, and discussed, even keeping score to see who was the winner. Relieved, I have to announce that both dinners ended in ties. Desserts, of course, were by Pastry Chef Erica Idler. Additionally, two other large parties had Chef Derek's eight course menu that finished with three courses by Chef Erica. No score was kept, of course, but Erica's desserts gave a strong finish.

Kaya was busy as well with a very gracious party selecting the Chef's menu. A complimentary e-mail from the host of the group was received first thing Monday morning. "I was the lucky one to purchase the tasting menu offered by Chef Brandy and it was simply put, Outstanding! Her selection of foods and garnishments just complimented each course with wonderful tastes and flavors."

Soba and Casbah were also filled with generous diners. Chef Jamie Achmoody and Chef Alan Peet both sold their six-course Chef's menu as well as a lot of other food. Spirits were high, and the entire evening was a complete success. And Mad Mexes were packed across the company, feeling a lot like a Saturday night, not a Sunday. We are touched by the generosity of our customers, and look forward to our next Big Benefit being and even bigger success.