Mark's New Look: Bamark Obama

Thanks, John. This look should play well for Mark in East Coast interviews.

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Best Burger in Montana?

Maybe. It depends on your opinion, but in my opinion this one is up there.

The Mint Bar & Cafe in Belgrade, Montana, is known for its high quality steaks and hand-made cocktails. As it turns out, the hand-made, half-pound burger with fresh fries is 9/10ths of the steak experience at 5/10ths of the price - and tonight, 10/10ths of the satisfaction.

My burger was cooked to perfect medium rare (closer to rare) and was topped with a fried egg on a fresh English muffin. Between the basic seasoning on the meat, the substantial sandwich (sorry) of beef and fried egg required only a slim slice of tomato to dress things up. No additional ketchup, mustard or other condiment required. Very, very juicy, beefy, and good.

Also, the seemingly endless basket of skinny fresh fries delivered the perfect yang to the burgers massive ying. The sapphire martini chased it all down in an herbaceous goodness that only a chilled high quality gin cocktail can offer.

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First Ever Substantial Sandwich Photoshop Contest

That's right...help my friend Mark get back into the workforce by "upgrading" his photo for his LinkedIn page and win a prize. I'll kick things off with Blagojevich hair and a proper suit...complete with corporate name tag. The winner, judged by me...wins a fabulous prize, something fabulous from my fabulous garage. Contest ends Wednesday, May 6.

Post your entries here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/1126804@N22/

Good luck.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Beef Shanks Osso Bucco Style

Sometime yesterday I put four beef shanks into a slow-cooker along with a 1/2 bottle of red wine, some garlic, parsley, carrots, a small can of tomato paste, salt, and pepper. Before I went to bed, I put it all away in the fridge.

What this teensy bit of effort yielded a day later was a pretty decent Monday night feast. The sauce was a deep burgundy-brown...and at fridge temps, slightly gelatinous. No corn starch-wondra-flour thickeners needed here. Thanks to the shanky nature of the cut, the meat and bone work magic to create perfect a perfect sauce. 

Rounding out the plate were olive oil mashed potatoes with parsley, crostini, and a gremolata garnish. Look at the photo closely, and you can see a bit of marrow just waiting in the bone in the foreground. What else do you think the toast was for?

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Good Latte = Good Monday

If this is any indication how the day will go, I should be in good shape.

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Earning The Turns (and Tans) at Bridger Bowl

In what so far seems like an endless winter, I have learned to run outside at the first sign of a)blue sky or b) actual shadow-producing sunshine. Saturday produced both of these items and I headed up to Bridger Bowl with my intrepid ski buddy, Rick.
 
Some warm weather earlier in the week followed by one of our recent snowstorms had left the hill with a really firm base coated by about 4" of creamy spring snow. Not the only folks out on the hill, the parking lot looked more like mid-February than late-April in terms of cars, dogs, and general hangings-around by endearingly grungy ski-bum/dirtbag community.
 
SPF 50 sunscreen barely held back the intense springtime sunshine; cheekbones barely contained huge grins at we linked lazy turns down un-tracked not-quite-powder/not-quite-chowder snow.
 
Thanks to Rick E. for sharing the pics.

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Mark Bittman Joins us For Dinner...

...Not really...but everything on the plate tonight comes directly from his Bitten-ness. Wanting for some time to try a recipe I spotted on Mark Bittman's The Minimalist for mashed potatoes with dandelion greens; I decided to give it a go and pair it with the home-y goodness of meatloaf (the recipe based loosely on a recipe from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything).

With winter persisting (about 8 inches of snow so far today - it IS April 23rd, isn't it?) the dandelion greens were not plucked from my front yard, but snatched up at the grocery store for what I am sure is too much money for overgrown weeds.

A coarse mash on the potatoes and the rough-chopped and blanched greens become good friends in a baking dish when coated liberally with olive oil, salt and pepper. Bread crumbs, a bit more olive oil on top and a few minutes under the broiler and the mashed potatoes and weeds become something altogether different and wonderful. Savory, creamy, slightly bitter and the occasional crunch from the bread crumbs. Dude, and I haven't even had a bite of the meatloaf yet.

Look, the beef and pork combo was moist and good, but next to those potatoes....I think I am still blushing just a bit.

Here's the recipe for the potatoes.

Read the article and watch Mark do his thing here.