Photo Courtesy of www.offalgood.com

I originally wrote this article for Smoke Signals Magazine, an online publication of The BBQ Brethren, it is reprinted here with their permission.

Turning something many Americans would easily refer to as awful into meals that San Francisco tourists and residents alike flock to eat is what Chef Chris Cosentino is all about. Chef Cosentino has taken the art of cooking offal to a place most American chefs have shied away from.
According to Chef Cosentino’s website offal is described as “those parts of a meat animal which are used as food but which are not skeletal muscle. The term literally means “off fall”, or the pieces which fall from a carcass when it is butchered. Originally the word applied principally to the entrails. It now covers insides including the HEART, LIVER, and LUNGS (collectively known as the pluck), all abdominal organs and extremities: TAILS, FEET, and HEAD including BRAINS and TONGUE. In the USA the expressions “organ meats” or “variety meats” are used instead.” (www.offalgood.com)

Chef Cosentino’s interest stems from a desire to feature peasant cuisine of Italy, “so much of it is based on offal. When I slaughtered my first animal, I was amazed at how much meat was thrown away. From that moment on, I made it my mission to educate myself about how to cook and use every part of the animal. By doing this I am able to preserve and resurrect old techniques before they are gone.”

“These parts are only thrown away in the USA; every other country in the world eats them. Using every part is simply the right thing to do. When an animal gives its life for food, it’s important to do it justice by serving all of it. Moreover, each cut is beautiful in texture and flavor in its own special way, so why not enjoy all of them,” Chef Cosentino continues on why he gets a certain satisfaction out of making tasty eats from parts of animals most people would throw out.

Watching someone eat offal for the first time in his restaurant Incanto or his salumi Boccolone provides him with a certain satisfaction, “It’s great to see someone change their opinion about something they initially felt was a horrible thing. Most of the time customers have a bad perception of offal because of a past experience where it was not cooked properly or was not fresh,” said Chef Cosentino. “So when you serve offal in all its glory, cooked properly, people are usually very excited at how good it can be. To see the look of hesitation when they first get the dish turn into a smile and then to see clean plate tells me I have done my job.”

Chef Cosentino’s favorite part of the pig? “I love pig’s feet. They are delicious, rich and unctuous. They can be served so many different ways. Whenever I am out to eat, I like to order pig’s feed to see what other chefs like to do with them.”

One of the most important aspects of properly cooking offal is being able to acquire fresh animals and fresh fruits and vegetables. Being located in San Francisco is a key factor in his success, “being in San Francisco has given me access to great small ranchers, which in turn provides me with some of the best animals and produce around. The local farmers become like family; we now work together to find new varieties of vegetables and different stages to serve them. The fact that everything is so close makes things a bit easier.”

As much as Chef Cosentino loves San Francisco he does have other favorite “food” cities, “there are so many great food cities. I love going to New York and Chicago. New York is always pushing the limits of design and food and Chicago is a meat lover’s town, which is near and dear to my heart.”
Chef Cosentino’s history as a chef starts at a young age cranking the handle of his great-grandmother’s pasta machine in her kitchen. He was raised in Rhode Island where he was raised on a fusion of typical New England Yankee fare and classic Italian cooking.

His family has a rich food tradition. His maternal ancestor’s, the Easton’s founded the Easton Sausage Company. Founded in 1860 in Newport, Rhode Island the Easton Sausage company was well known on the Eastern Seaboard for their quality sausage. In 1942 they closed their doors due to a shortage of quality spices. Recently Chris fulfilled what he calls his greatest food achievement by “keeping a promise to my grandparents and brining back Easton’s breakfast sausage from the original family recipe.”
Whether it was cooking in his great-grandmother’s kitchen or the kitchen of Red Sage in Washington DC after his graduation from Johnson and Wales University other chefs have played an important part in his success. Chris lists Marco Pierre White, Fergus Henderson and Martin Picard as inspirations. However, Mark Miller was his most impactful food mentor: “All of the chefs I have worked for have been impactful, but Mark Miller was the first chef I trained under and an amazing teacher. He has also been my harshest critic over the years. He taught me that knowledge is power when it comes to food. And I’ve learned from him that examining history allows me to properly build dishes that make sense.”

“I admire all chefs who put their heads down and works. This is a hard job and it takes a certain type of person to “marry” the kitchen. My hats is off to all chefs who have committed themselves to the stove. I have a lot of admiration for Daniel Patterson of Coi (San Francisco) and David Chang of Momofuku (New York). Each of us, in our own way, has chosen to follow the beat of a different drum,” he said.

Many of Chef Chris Cosentino’s patrons would agree that he has mastered the art of following the beat of a different drum.

(If you’d like to read more about Chef Cosentino take a look at In To The Flames, a new blog from my friend Rob.

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My friends from Pork Barrel BBQ posted a little interview they did with me at Memphis In May.  Here I am talking about the Char-Broil Smoker Roaster Grill.

Check out some of the true gentlemen of BBQ at Pork Barrel BBQ

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My maternal ancestors grew up as somewhat poor country folk.  Whether it was the dust of the Red River basin in East Texas or the farms of Northern Alabama they were people who struggled to feed families through the 1800’s.  The simple comfort country foods they ate, to make ends meet, made their way to Southern California where I enjoyed them, not because we had to, but because they just tasted great.

One of my favorite lunches was a simple fried bologna sandwich.  Bologna, fried on the stove, slathered in mayo on Wonder Bread it was my “go to” after school sandwich whenever I had a chance.  I’m not a huge fan of bologna normally.  The flavor just doesn’t appeal to me.  But fried, bologna takes on a whole different flavor.

This “enhanced” fried flavor is complimented by mayo, and makes even the cheapest, plain white bread edible.  So when I got the craving for a fried bologna sandwich this week I decided that I needed to go a little over the top.  Of course it has to be done on the grill.  And in this case, the smoker and the grill.

I started with 2.5 lbs of bologna that I rubbed down with olive oil and seasoned with “Simply Marvelous Season All.”  Besides the olive oil and seasoning rub down I used a knife and cut slits all the way around the bologna.  This allows the seasoning and smoke to get a better penetration, thus improving the flavor.

Here's the chub seasoned and rubbed and on the Traeger ready to start the smoke. The chub was smoked at 250 degrees until the internal temperature reached 155 degrees.

The chub at about 90 minutes. You can now see the slits starting to appear.

All done! 155 degrees internal. Ready to rest and then slice.

A nice slab of smoked bologna on the Char-Broil RED Grill.

Some simple "Country Style" potato bread and mayo makes a great sandwich! Nothing better than making a childhood memory into a kicked-up adult memory.

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According to Underwriters Laboratories (UL) more than 86,000,000 households, or 75% of U.S. households, light up their grills every year as they prepare over 3,000,000,000 meals.  With Memorial Day right around the corner, one of the most popular grilling weekends of the year, many families will host backyard cookouts to celebrate.

While nothing beats a grilled meal, every year outdoor grilling accidents cause 19,000 Emergency Room visits and 7,900 home fires.  This is the reason UL, a leading product safety organization, is sharing simple, yet critical, grilling safety temps that families need to know and use.

Before reading the tips check out this video from Underwriters Laboratories on how fast an unattended grill goes up in flames:

Prepare For Safety First:

• Keep your grill a safe distance from your house or any building whenever possible
• Never us a grill in a garage, breezeway, carport, porch, under an awning or any other surface that can catch fire
• Be cautious of overhead obstruction including tree branches while grilling
• Keep a fire extinguisher handy when grilling and know how to properly use it.
• Never us gasoline or kerosene to light a charcoal fire.  Both can cause an explosion.

Safety While Cooking:

• Never leave the grill unattended, especially when young children or pets are nearby.
• Never attempt to restart a fire by adding additional lighter fluid to an already-lit grill, as this can cause a flare-up
• Keep kids, pets and bare hands away from the grill.
• Use insulated, flame retardant mitts, barbeque tongs and utensils when grilling
• Coals get HOT–up to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.  Wait until coals have completely cooled before disposing of them.

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

My British BBQ friends at Dobbies.com have come up with a few informational BBQ Guides you can download.  Download this free Barbecues Guide from Dobbies.com to learn absolutely everything you need to know about barbecues, just in time for summer.

Find out the essentials of barbecue safety, including how to ensure children stay out of harm’s way and a comprehensive checklist of important precautionary measures.

Discover which barbecue is right for you in our superb buyers guide, with detailed advice on gas, charcoal, chimenea and portable barbecues, as well as recommendations about the best barbecue accessories available on the market.

And most importantly, enjoy the fruits of your labor with our exciting menu of delicious barbecue recipes, from old favorites such as BBQ ribs and BBQ chicken to more exotic ideas such as Tuscan Trout. We’ve also included a number of tasty vegetarian dishes to ensure everyone is catered for at your Dobbies inspired barbecue.

Click here to download the Dobbies.com Barbecues Guide (PDF)

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

First cook on the new Char-Broil RED Grill was 60 chicken wing drumettes for a review of some BBQ sauces.  The grill performed great.  I was amazed at how fast it got hot.  I even tackled some smoking during the first cook.

Used one of the Wild Cherry wood "pucks" from Appalachia Smokers. The 3 burner RED Grill is divided into two sections. One section with 2 burners and one section with 1 burner. I used the smaller side for lighting the wood.

The wood "puck" was burning too fast, with too much smoke in the trough so I moved it to the warming rack. What was great about the "puck" was that it continued to smolder and smoke after it was removed from the heat.

The wings were seasoned with Simply Marvelous Season All

They browned up nice and cooked to perfection.

Another shot of a grill full of wings

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My second batch of Olympic hockey winnings arrived.  Looks like Canadian Hockey pride is alive and well.

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A couple of Canadian BBQ enthusiasts were willing to bet some BBQ sauce on the outcome of the first USA vs Canada hockey game.  Ultimately Canada won the Gold but I scored too.  Here’s a shot of the first package of winning arriving.

© 2010, The BBQ Grail. All rights reserved. On republishing this post you must provide link to original post.

Foodie Feeds is the latest website in the BBQ Grail family of food related sites.  Foodie Feeds is a place where you can easily see the latest posts on Food Blog sites. The sites with the newest posts are shown first, and you can click the link to open a new window that will display that food blog post. It’s quite easy to use — just view the page, and click on the link you want. Since a new window (or tab) is opened for each site, you can easily return back to FoodieFeeds to click on more food blog sites.

We use a customized process to look at the RSS feed of each participating food blog site. This process runs many times a day, and stores information about each food blog’s latest entries in our database. When you view the main FoodieFeeds page, that information is quickly extracted from the database and displayed on the page. The food blogs with the most recent entries are displayed first, so you can easily see which ones that you would like to read. Just click on the link, and a new browser tab will display that selected food blog’s latest post.

If you own a blog about foods, you need to get your blog on FoodieFeeds. It’s quite easy, just fill out our FoodieFeeds form. And if you want your food blog to have a higher position on the FoodieFeeds page, or want to have an ad displayed on FoodieFeeds, let us know via the comment form.

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The following interview with Top Chef contestant Kevin Gillespie was originally published in Smoke Signals magazine, the new online publication of The BBQ Brethren.  It is republished here with the permission of Smoke Signals magazine.  The original interview was conducted prior to the winner of Top Chef – Las Vegas being announced.

Imagine, if you will, a young high school senior from a small school in Henry County, Georgia receiving the letter almost any parent would be happy to have their child receive, a letter of acceptance, with a full-ride scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Flash forward about 8 years and that student is about to, possibly win one the biggest prizes in his field…Bravo TV’s Top Chef competition.

Kevin Gillespie, one of this year’s final three contestants turned down the full-ride MIT scholarship to go culinary school instead.  With a smile on his face and simple, yet elegant meals, Kevin has become one of the fan favorites to win this competition.

As the Executive Chef and part owner of the Wood Fire Grill in Atlanta, Georgia,  Kevin has combined his love of southern culture with casual dining to create a menu that doesn’t quite fit the mold of most restaurants in the area.  “I believe food should be simple and approachable but still packed with surprises,” he said in explaining his philosophy for cooking.  “We change the menu every day. We don’t write a menu and then place an order for ingredients. It’s the other way around. Every day we tell the suppliers to bring us whatever is best and then we write the menu from there. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle,” continued.

“I hope they leave with the feeling that they dined at my house and not at a restaurant. I’d like them to be shocked that it was better than they expected,” he said when asked what he wants most for his customers.

“I’m a huge advocate of the preservation of traditional southern barbecue,” Kevin explained recently during a break in the taping of Top Chef.  “I use a lot of the old techniques in the restaurant.  A wood fire grill is similar to an open pit,” he continued.  “My favorite meat to prepare is pork,” he said.  “I use an open pit. I build a separate fire and shovel live coals under to minimize smoke and drip down,” continued to explain.

Kevin also has an active interest in sustainable foods and the “slow food” movement.  He only uses locally grown produce and proteins in his restaurant.  And takes pride in that achievement.

However, Kevin sees a disconnect between the traditional southern BBQ culture and his interest in slow foods.  “The BBQ culture is moving further away from tradition. It’s too convenient.  An electric machine that you push digits on and leave is not BBQ – that’s an oven that smokes,” Kevin explained.

When asked if he cooked “ribs” he said yes.  Although Kevin professes a love for Eastern Carolina type sauces he is quick to point out that  “if you cook ribs the right way, sauce is not necessary. But in moderation, sauce can benefit.”  When it comes to BBQ Kevin claims some of the greats in southern BBQ as his inspiration, the late Pete Jones, Wilbur Shirley and Ed Mitchell.

Kevin takes away a great deal from his Top Chef experience.  Win or lose he discovered that “people are really capable of doing more than they think. If you push yourself you can make yourself do anything. Failure is a temporary setback to success.”

For a southern BBQ fanatic Kevin enjoyed the “escargot challenge” on Top Chef the most.  The biggest challenge, during Top Chef, was the infamous “Restaurant Wars.”  Kevin’s team had the distinction of having the worst restaurant ever in six seasons of Top Chef.  He places the blame on this failure on “the fact that we made a critical error in judgment and didn’t appoint a leader. It was a bunch of chiefs and no Indians – or vice versa.”

Like many other chefs Kevin has many tattoos.  When asked why so many chefs have tattoos he explained, “We are in a field that allows us to express ourselves and not face the scrutiny of the business world. Chefs are very creative. My favorite tattoo is my pig.”

Where does Kevin see himself in the years to come?  He’d like to someday own a BBQ restaurant but in the mean time he, “wants to be busy by focusing on making the restaurant better every day. Being a mentor. Making a difference.”

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