Sauerkraut – which we boys love for its gut health and wild fermentation properties – has fulfilled far more utilitarian purposes.
Case in point: We learned recently that Evan’s grandfather grew up with big tubs of kraut aging on the back porch. It was the only salad his big fam could keep during long winters in Utah. Grandpa remembers the process of making kraut like this: layer of cabbage, layer of salt, layer of cabbage, more salt. At near freezing temps, the stuff could go for months. It made meat or bread or a potato a meal. And it cost nearly nothing.
Unable to let our recent love for the stuff go, we keep playing with new flavors. Our recent batch won “best yet” by all accounts. A mixture of sliced fennel and green cabbage, we spritzed it with fennel seed, peppercorns, a touch of vinegar and the dill-like flowery tips of fennel stalks.
So how does our new-agey version stand up to the old-school tubs? We had the grave pleasure of driving a batch up for an ailing grandpa to sample. The jar came out, sniffed and passed around the lunch table – a hurried spread of lunch meats. He cleaned his plate, poking at the fennel seeds left behind. “Pretty good,” he said, “though I never cared for the stuff in the first place.” We will take that.

Fennel Sauerkraut

1 fennel bulb
1 green cabbage
1/2 white onion
4 cloves garlic
4 Tbs. kosher salt
2 Tbs. black peppercorns
2 Tbs. white wine vinegar
1 tsp. fennel seeds
1/4 cup fennel fronds (garnish)
1. Use a mandolin and a large mixing bowl to slice the fennel and cabbage for salting: Start by cutting the fennel bulb in half, remove the stalks. Quarter the cabbage and remove (and discard) the core. Now, slice both on the mandolin in two batches. Do half the fennel and half the cabbage. Slice a quarter of the red onion on the mando, and pulverize half the garlic with a garlic press. Sprinkle half the salt on all of the above. Scrunch mixture until fully mixed and depleted in size. Toss in peppercorns. Transfer the mixture to your aging vessel (ceramic is best.)
2. Repeat with second half.
3. Press the mix down hard, making sure its covered with the brine liquid. Place the kraut vessel somewhere in your kitchen where its out of the way and at constant room temperature. Age for 1-2 weeks. Taste it everyday. Don’t be afraid of any scum that forms on top of the brine; scoop it off and discard. As long as the veggies stay totally submerged, there’s no way they’ll spoil.
4. When the kraut reaches a funk level you like, finish by tossing with splash of vinegar and the fennel seeds. Serve with a nice garnish of chopped fennel fronds.

Beverage: Lindeman’s Cuvee Rene
Soundtrack: The Cure, “A Strange Day”

Now that our homemade KniQuil killed the germs, we need something to keep ’em dormant. Enter our own concoction of this infamous hot sauce. And minus the sodium bisulfate!
The first time we contemplated making our own cock sauce (you know, Sriracha, “Rooster” sauce, whatever you wanna call it) was a couple years ago. Thanks to a surge in popularity the maker of the sweet and tangy green-top squeeze bottle was undergoing a bit of a supply-and-demand problem. Yup, the Rosemead, CA factory was behind on orders. It got so bad, event planners in Texas were calling L.A. distributors for pallets of the stuff. Alex fielded one of those calls from a poor fucking Texan willing to pay twice the price! Terrified of running out ourselves, we played with a fresh red chile recipe – essentially red jalapeños and vinegar – and came across something we thought came close, a nuclear orange puree. In retrospect, we were kidding ourselves.
That sweet tang… not sugar. Although there’s a bunch of palm sugar added to this tradish Thai compound, the real thang is aged for several days to let the chili and garlic actually ferment until bubbly. With our newfound obsession with fermenting wild things in our kitchen, we gave it another go. Head to head with the “real stuff,” nearly indistinguishable.

1 lbs. Red Thai chiles (about 1 1/2 cups)
4 cloves Garlic
1 1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
2 Tbs. Agave nectar
1/4 cup Filtered water
1/4 cup White vinegar
1. Remove the stems from your chiles and roughly chop ’em up. Toss them in your blender or food processor (seeds and all). Peel and add garlic. Add salt. Add agave nectar (cane sugar works here too.)
2. Pulse the mixture for about 20 seconds, adding up to 1/4 cup filtered water if needed to help it move.
3. Transfer the mixture using a spatula into a glass vessel (we used a measuring cup) and cover it tightly with plastic wrap. Set aside somewhere warm, out of sight, and let ferment for 4 to 5 days.
4. Remove plastic and skim any discolored spots or fuzzy mold. Dump the fermented chili paste into a saucepot and place on medium heat. Add vinegar. Let the mixture hit a rolling boil and turn down to simmer. Let cook for about 5 minutes before turning off and letting it cool.
5. Return the mixture to a food processor and blend thoroughly one last time, about 2 minutes, or until the seeds are completely crushed and you’ve attained a beautiful, fiery red-orange consistency.
6. Place a fine mesh strainer over a jar, a measuring cup or other storage vessel and dump your puree into the strainer. Using a spatula, gently swipe the surface of the mesh to keep the puree filtering through. Once you’re left with just a goopy pile of crushed fiber, you’re done. Bottle and use as desired.

File this under fashionably late.
A few weeks ago, when Peach season was in its final throes, Alex’s habañero plant was blossoming out of control. This left us, and those we love and live with, in a state of simultaneous joy and fear. How would all those orange monsters find their way into daily dishes? Would everything we make be punishingly hot for months?
While we both have a penchant for all things brutally spicy, we decided to give our ladies (and our digestive tracts) a ‘get out of jail free’ card. We decided to tame the little orange baddies into something even the most ardent capsaicin-phobe can handle.
The thing about all hot chilies, especially brutes like Habañero and Bhut Jolokia, is that beyond their ability to cause mind numbing pain, they have strong and sweet smelling perfumes that carry into their flavor.
What are the two fool-proof ways to counteract the sweat-inducing, tongue burning poison? Lipids and sugars, dudes. If you’ve got steady hands and sharp knives, this recipe will produce a swell jam that has all the flavor of the habañero, and just enough of the bite to let you know that the peppers could, like if they wanted to, kick your ass. The flavor gets dangerous; then it goes away.
Slather this jam on anything and everything; it’s great as a cheese accompaniment, with bagels and cream cheese, on toast, mixed into cocktails or vinaigrettes, or as a topping for ice cream or any other desserts.

4 lbs. fresh peaches
8 each fresh habañero peppers
2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup honey
2 lemons
1. Heat a large pot of water to boil, and set up a sizable ice bath (big bowl, ice water) next to the pot.
2. Cut an “X “in the bottom of each peach; don’t go too deep.
3. In batches of three, blanch the peaches for about 2-3 minutes. Let the water lose its boil (we hope T. Keller isn’t reading) and when it returns to a bubble remove the fruit. Ice them fools down!
4. Repeat step 3 until all the peaches are in the ice bath.
5. Steel your sharpest knife.
6. Unless you are confident that you will not stop slicing chilies to a) rub your eyes, b) piss, c) get intimate with yourself or another person, you might want to wear some latex gloves for this step. Gently wash the habañeros, and then slice off each section of the chilies trying to avoid the central nervous system, and the seeds. If you do this successfully, the jam will not be too hot. Remove all seeds.
7. Finely julienne and dice the chilies.
8. Gently peel away the skin from each peach, then pit and chop them. The peaches will hold a little of their shape; if you want a chunky jam chop roughly. We like a finer dice.
9. Juice the lemons and strain out the seeds.
10. Add all ingredients to a large pot and then turn up the heat to medium/high flame. Stir frequently and mind yer jam, you do not want it burned. Bring to a burbling simmer for about 15-20 minutes. Process however you want. If you don’t feel like canning, just seal whatever you don’t think you’ll use in a week in a container and pop it in the freezer.
Beverage: Dogfish Head’s Festina Peche
Soundtrack: Beck, “Peaches and Cream”

As much as you’ll hear us brag that we never fall ill (largely due to copious amounts of garlic, onions and vitamin C) we do — once in a blue moon — get sick. And yes, we have chased the green dragon. NyQuil, DayQuil, other sorts of new fangled drugstore opiates in their generic versions. We will fess up. The stuff works!
But not this year. When one of us woke up last week with a throat tickle that blossomed into a gnarly case of the flu, we took it on with fresh produce, organic sweeteners and thimbles of liquor.
In place of Acetaminophen (pain and fever reliever), Dextromethorphan HBr (cough suppressant), and Doxylamine succinate (sleep aid) we used green chile, ginger, citric acid and booze — all herbal, if subtler, forms of the chemical stuff. A couple shots, errr, doses, of the stuff is perfect for sitting on the couch in a sweatshirt and sweating out your germs. Take that Big Pharma!

2 cups fresh mint leaves
1 cup water
1 cup agave nectar (sugar, honey work)
1 small ginger bulb
1 lemon
1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 Tbs. roasted green chile
2 shots Pastis
2 shots Southern Comfort
1. Start off making a mint simple syrup. Pluck 35-40 mint leaves off their stems, this should yield about 2 cups of mint. Roughly chop half the mint (set half aside for later use) and add to a saucepot with 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil and let simmer for about 5-8 minutes. Remove from heat and strain the leaves out. Put just the mint tea back on a medium heat and wait until back to a full boil. Add agave nectar, mixing, and let cook 1 minute before removing. Set aside to cool.
2. Ready your other veggies for the blender. First peel the ginger and slice into matchsticks. Next, zest your lemon, place the zest into a small dish and cover with 1 tsp. of good quality olive oil.
3. Toss the ginger, green chile and remaining cup of fresh mint to the blender. Add lemon juice. Finally add half the mint syrup, setting the rest aside for garnish. Pulse thoroughly for up to a minute. (Note: If you do not have the luxury of having authentic green chile, try subbing in a roasted jalapeño. Remove the seeds and use half in place of green chile.)
4. Strain the mixture into a bowl. Use a spoon to slush it around, allowing it to pass through the sieve or fine mesh strainer. Now you have the fresh juice part of your elixer! Taste it with a spoon, if it seems too tart or spicy, add more mint syrup one teaspoon at a time.
5. Mix. The basic proportion is one-part juice to one-part pastis to one-part whiskey. For a single dose: measure out a tablespoon of each into a cocktail shaker. Add a teaspoon of lemon zest oil. Complete with 3 ice cubes and shake fervently. Pour into a shot glass or desert wine snifter.

File this one under ‘old world magic.’
Sauerkraut is nothing short of vegetable wonder tonic. But unlike kombucha, 100-year-old sourdough start, or psychotropic mushrooms, sauerkraut takes just a couple minutes to make and costs literally less than dirt. We never knew, until we jammed a couple batches for the Hot Knives Oktoberfest freak-out. Our healthy, handmade bacteria-slaw elevated the beer brats from simple to ridiculously rich and salty.
It seems silly now, but we sought out advice for how to kraut. And we came upon our fermentation yogi, whose book we looked to for pickling. His granola-hippy-brain-dead cooking videos aside, Sandor Katz is a kraut-master. He even credits the stuff with helping keep him healthy despite HIV/AIDS. Still doubt its power?
Let’s start with the basics: cabbage, salt and time. Crunch the cabbage in your hand with some salt and you immediately have a brine. Poof. We went from there to adding a couple choice ingredients – beet and garlic with caraway seeds seems to have won the ‘which gallon of kraut will get eaten first’ contest. But decide for yourself. Or make something new.

2 cabbages
6 Tbs. Kosher salt
4-liter vessel (ceramic crock, food grade plastic)
1. Shred the cabbage: We urge a chef’s knife and a mandolin of some sort (you will end up with a rougher-cut kraut without a mandolin). Start by quartering the cabbage (rounded dome facing up), and cutting out the stem. Shred each cabbage quarter on the mandolin, gripping the outer folds of the cabbage, slicing inner layers first. You may not get all the way down to the interior levels on the mandolin – so fold what’s left of each quarter and thinly slice the cabbage with your knife. Place shredded cabbage in a large mixing bowl.
2. Peel, grate, press and/or slice the other vegetables and set aside in a separate bowl. For instance, peel and grate the raw beet, or slice red peppers, peel and press the garlic etc.
3. Now the fun part: Combine the ingredients into a new, large mixing bowl and mix (we suggest starting with half the cabbage, half the other veggies and working in 2 batches). Once veggies are equally distributed in the bowl, add a generous 2 Tbs. of salt and start squeezing cabbage with your hands. Mix and squeeze until the batch has significantly shrunk. As you squeeze hard, much of the water from the cabbage should be released.
4. Pack the well-squeezed cabbage mixture into your vessel, pressing down hard so that the brine you’ve created just about covers the cabbage.
5. Repeat as needed to finish the batch.
6. Use a plate or other weighted object (a plastic bag filled with more brine works) to keep the cabbage below the liquid’s surface.
7. Store in a warm nook, out of direct light, for 1-2 weeks. Taste it everyday.

Borscht Blast
(Right)
2 purple cabbages
1 beet
6 cloves garlic
6 Tbs. Kosher salt
2 Tbs. caraway seeds
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/8 cup red wine
Sweet Dill
(Left)
2 green cabbages
2 carrots
1 red bell pepper
6 Tbs. Kosher salt
2 Tbs. dill seed
1/4 cup white vinegar
1/8 cup whole grain mustard
Beverage: The Bruery’s Hottenroth Berliner weisee
Soundtrack: Low’s “Time is the Diamond”

It’s both amazing and bizzarre that in L.A., the land that birthed the burger, one of the most pervasive street foods consists of a simple plastic bag, brimming with fruit. Where else but east of the La Brea dividing line, in all the awesome eastern hoods, can you find dudes on every other corner, hawking fresh fruit salads garnished with nothing but salt and citrus?
Our twist on the street level is like a land-bridge from LALA to Spain – where onions and oranges play together often, frequently in the company of olive oil and salt. This little pedestal of chevre absorbs the extra juice (what little you can stand to not slurp from the salad bowl like some dorm room guzzler) making for a savory creamsicle vibe that will keep this salad etched in your pre-heat wave brain until the rain comes again.
Note: if you do not have olive oil in your cupboard that’s a little on the pricey side, this is your chance to splurge. Recession is no excuse: Find a bottle of oil that costs as much as getting drunk, you’ll thank us. If you can’t find a Vallée Des Baux (a sick appellation in Provence that hurts so good), get some 100% Hojiblanca or Arbequina oil. Seriously.
Chevre Plaquette
4 oz fresh goat’s cheese
4 6″ x 6″ sheets of plastic wrap
1. Divide the goat cheese into two equal portions and roll into balls.
2. Lay two sheets of plastic wrap side by each on a clean flat surface and place each ball in the center of each sheet. Cover each ball with another centered piece of saran wrap.
3. Using a rolling pin, or a pint glass, carefully roll out the chevre until it is about 1 millimeter in thickness. Place each flat disk on a plate or other flat surface and stick in your freezer while you prep the rest of the salad.
Citrus Y Cebollas

1/2 white onion
2 ripe oranges
1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
1 Tbs. Radical Olive Oil
1/4 cup bitter greens (arugula or frisee)
1 tsp. unseasoned rice wine vinegar
Maldon salt
Black pepper
1. Cut the onion in half lengthwise, peel away and discard the first 2 layers.
2. Slice the onion in a thin julienne 1/8″ thick and submerge in a bowl filled with cool water. Break up the pieces so they’re all individual like.
3. Supreme the oranges over a mixing bowl, making sure to reserve every drop of juice. When you’ve cut out all the segments, give what’s left a good squeeze.
4. Seed the pomegranate.
5. Wash your greens.
6. Strain the onions and add them to the orange segments and juice, add the pomegranate seeds as well. Add the oil and vinegar and mix with your hands until the juice and the oil have generally incorporated into each other and the fruit is all coated. Throw in the greens and make sure they get sauced.
To Serve
1. Remove your frozen chevre. Remove the top layer of plastic wrap.
2. Using a cookie cutter or a thin-rimmed glass, punch out a shape that you like. Make sure to work gently (the cheese could shatter) and quick, the cheese will warm quickly and be harder to work with.
3. Center each chevre plaquette on two plates and arrange first oranges, then onions, greens and seeds. Dress the whole mess up with an extra spoon of the vinaigrette-juice and garnish liberally with
Maldon salt and fresh ground pepper.

Beverage: Jolly Pumpkin’s Oro de Calabasas
Soundtrack: Os Mutantes’ Baby

There’s nothing wrong with potato chips in a bag. Except, we guess, their temperature: they are cold. Chips, like anything fried, are better hot. This is a scientific fact.
With that in mind, we decided to offer freshly made, hand-cut chips at our summer Gnosh Pit barbecues. The pots we used were a mix of purple Peruvian and white skinned farmers market beauties. We washed ’em and sliced them thin and long using a handheld mandolin. Then we rinsed them again and (taking Thomas Keller’s lead) we sat them in water overnight to strip the potatoes of their sticky gluten (Keller suggests milk). To finish them the next day, we had a cast iron pot filled with canola oil bubbling next to the grill. They got spun dry in a salad spinner, dunked in fry oil to order, fished out and left to drip-dry, then seasoned. Brilliant! The only problem was that with a line of 20 people ordering “hot chips,” we got a little backed-up.
The best advice we can give you? Drop a small handful in first to prevent scary spill-over oil fires (we learned after that one) and don’t do this barefoot.

4 medium-sized potatoes (purple are prettiest)
2 liters canola oil
1 Tbs. sea salt
1 Tbs. Aleppo pepper
1 Tbs. minced flat leaf parsley
1. The day before: Scrub potatoes clean. Slice potatoes using a mandolin to achieve a consistent centimeter-or-less thickness. If you slice them lengthwise, you’ll get nice long chips. Use that finger guard unless you are a daily mandolin user…
2. Rinsing: fill two large containers (stock pots work great) half way with clean water. Fill one with sliced potatoes and swirl them around/scrub them against each other to get rid of excess starch. After 4 minutes of vigor, transfer the partially clean potatoes into the other pot of clear water and repeat this process, replacing the starchy water with clean water, until the chips are not releasing any starch. To do this correctly, as you can tell, you will use LOTS of water (imagine using milk). Use the water to water your plants and you won’t feel so bad.
3. Place the now clean potato proto-chips in a large Tupperware or vessel and cover with clean water. Jam into the fridge and let sit overnight.
4. Day of: fill a large vessel that is appropriate for the batch size you’re making either a cast iron pot or your favorite, sturdy soup pot 2/3 full with canola oil. Keep on high heat for about 20 minutes, until oil is hot, hot, hot. Don’t bother with a thermometer – drop in one chip to test (dry it first). It should float and sizzle hard.
5. Vigorously dry the chips using a salad spinner. You want them to have as little moisture as possible to avoid a nasty oil-water reaction. Pat them dry if need be too.
4. Drop chips in small handfuls, never exceeding a ratio of roughly one-fifth chips to four-fifths oil. Otherwise your frying. Will. Be. Slow.
5. Once the first chips start to brown, and they appear crisp to the touch, fish them out with a strainer or tongs. Drip dry on paper towels.
6. Season with salt, pepper and parsley and serve.

Beverage: Lagunitas’ Hop Stoopid 2009
Soundtrack: Hot Chip’s “We Were Made in the Dark”