Bucket List

There is no other way of putting it – This past week, I had a bucket list day. This is how it went:

After a week and a half in Osso's production facility, I was moved on Tuesday to the kitchen to work with the saucier, William.  I noticed a lot of people call him Gordito, which I didn't like. I asked if he would mind if I called him "Willie." Willie is Renzo's guy charged with making sauces, seasonings, and chicharrones. Together, we started cooking up massive pots of BBQ sauce, antichucero sauce, and ají asado.

The beginnings of Osso's BBQ Salsa. 

Animal Sauce - what your hamburger has been missing!

 As thrilled as I was about leaving production to learn something new from Willie, I was even more thrilled to learn Renzo was waiting for me in front of the shop around mid-morning -  we were going to the downtown San Isidro location!
 
It’s a decent trip to San Isidro, mostly due to traffic. Lima has some ridiculous traffic and some of the most aggressive drivers I’ve ever seen, but that day it didn’t matter. I had a solid two and a half hours, one-on-one with one of my idols.  I had Renzo Girabaldi trapped in a car, and we talked about all the important stuff in life... like golf and meat.

I'll be honest - I didn't get any photos of us in the car. I was too busy asking questions! Here is one of the older pieces in the dry-aging room from the San Isidro location.

Renzo was just back from an exhaustive trip to Russia and used the previous weekend to catch up on a little R&R out on the links.  He was in need of some serious golf therapy. As Renzo described one of his rounds, I found myself missing the game. I haven’t picked up a club in the last three years - not since I started this crazy butcher adventure. About that time, Renzo said, “The club president cleared you to play – WE are playing with him next week.” 

Pinch me - are you kidding me?  I'm in a car with Renzo Girabaldi, and I'm going to play golf with him next week!  How do you say, "Bucket List!" 

I didn’t waste the opportunity - I had Renzo one-on-one, and I had a thousand meat questions I wanted to ask. For a guy who eventually wants to open his own shop, this time with Renzo was priceless. 

I gave him the general premise of my future endeavor, and he helped me focus and peel back the onion. The location has always been a big question mark for me. It is still a question, but after Tuesday, perhaps I have honed it down. 

We talked Dan Barber, Dario Cecchini, David Chang. We talked costing, machinery, and utilities. You know, the boring stuff you don't want to read or hear about, but I ate up every single word. 

Remember, when I started this carnivorous journey, I said that I wanted to work for Dario Cecchini, Renzo Girabaldi, and Francis Mallman. I've been working towards this for almost three years - a lot of hard, manual, and often free labor. And every ounce of sweat and blood that I've shed is worth it because of days like this past Tuesday.

Renzo Girabaldi, check.
 

Lamb chops and figs - a little special treat cooked up for Renzo and I.

The main grilling station at Osso San Isidro - in crunch time, that have plenty of space to crank out some serious meat.

Lamb saddle chops that I was charged with cooking. Renzo calls them "Batman" chops - I think that is the better name!

The Proof That Even Slaughterers Can Become Pop Stars Today

By Laura Ewert | WELT Iconist | Berlin | August 2017 | © WorldN24 GmbH. All rights reserved.

The modern butcher blogs and goes on educational journey

At least as beautiful as the meat products from his hands: The blogging butcher Jack Matusek

(Translated from Deutsch)

The butcher is often thick in movies, a bit angry. Sometimes bald. Chabrol rather thick-haired. He is wearing a white apron or white rubber boots and has reddened skin. He saws animals apart and leaves them on large hooks through the slaughterhouse. A place for psychotherapists. Battles are not nice.

Jack Matusek is beautiful. He is wearing a cowboy hat, long brown hair, sometimes green cowboy boots, sometimes a jeans shirt. A soft face. There are many photos of him, because he is a blogging butcher, in English, it sounds as nice as it looks: blogging butcher. He has large pieces of meat in his hand, he shows swine-ear terrines, or how to rouse a whole animal. On his "Raw Republic Meats" page, he writes about his travels, where he wants to learn everything about the craft. The 26-year-old is the proof that even slaughterers can become pop stars today - it helps of course if they look like this.

The slaughterer's new star potential is well explained by the rules of modern gourmets, who eat his bread only artisan and carrots grow blue or crooked. For him, food must be fresh, easily prepared with effort, best self-cultivated. And, of course, ethically correct. This is a tedious business, particularly in meat. One that moves the minds tremendously, in the face of animal protection, in which cow eyes look sadly from truck slits. In the case of conscious eaters, it is, therefore, a good idea to try to find out whether you can kill your food yourself (see the book "Eating Animals"), or at least making a few sausages yourself.

This explains why the butcher is so interested.

“The humble craft of the butcher is definitely coming - worldwide”, says Jack Matusek, who has found his model in Italy. ”I’ve seen videos of Dario Cecchini cutting meat, while he heard AC / DC .  I was excited. Then I understood that it was more than cutting meat. It was art. ”

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Traveling around the world all over the world

This craftsmanship charmed Matusek. He is a Texan, seventh generation.

“If I could wear my hat in the bed, I would do it, he says. ”

Texas is known for one of the most important economic sectors in the country, the cattle breeding. In 2011 the US produced more than one billion kilos of beef . "I grew up on a ranch. As a child, I enjoyed playing in the kitchen and refined my childish cooking skills, says Matussek. Combining cooking and cattle seemed to me a suitable idea."

At first, he studied history and business administration, where he also developed a business plan for a delicacy butchery. This idea grew more and more in him. "So I canceled the job offers after my graduation and decided to learn everything about the butcher's trade." That was 2015. Since then, he has been on an educational journey with regard to meat.

Jack Matusek first researched, wrote e-mails, and asked at various companies if he could learn from them. He enrolled at the best Fleischer school in the USA, Fleishers Craft Butchery in Brooklyn, New York. Because there was no free place for him, he worked in the next slaughterhouse to learn the basics.

At the same time, he began writing his blog. "I wanted to create a way to teach people about good meat with recipes and video tutorials." That's how you see how he cooks his steak. Directly in the fire. He calls it "Dirty Steak", and the video, in which he explains that you have to leave it four minutes per side in the fire to enjoy it "medium rare" is underlined with action music.

Finally, he moved to Europe. "If you want to learn to surf, go to California, if you want to learn something about sausage, go to France," he had read somewhere. So he sold his car, grabbed his backpack and went to France together with a cowboy hat and a good finish.

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Learn from the best butcher

There he worked at the slaughterhouse, on a farm, in a restaurant, ate a lot and learned a lot about French sausages. He spent his 25th birthday at the "Le St. James", a Michelin-starred restaurant in Bordeaux.

Then he went on to Panzano in the Chianti, where he worked with his hero Dario Cecchini, the most famous butcher of Italy. Bill Buford, a New York journalist, was already working as a butcher's assistant. Cecchini sells the self-cut meat in his restaurant "Officina della Bistecca" (Italian for steak workshop). 

Matusek then went to France again. In the Gascogne, he was introduced to the secret of national sausage specialties such as Pâté de Tête. He learned how to make the boneless ham Noix de Jambon from a pig's leg, and that any excess blood can cause the meat to rot during drying.

He also studied in Peru, Argentina, and Mexico. "Each country has its own style, which depends above all on local products. But also the climate and the weather influence the way of preparation and storage." A bit like the wine. The Germans, he says, are very exact at slaughter. They would hardly leave meat on the bone. The French cut rather elegantly.

Jack Matusek: "What did the animal eat, how did it live, how was it slaughtered - all that counts for the taste"

Like a cook, a butcher always has his knives, he recommends that of F. Dick. Matusek's favorite sausage specialty is the Italian Coppa of the Schweinenacken. And he loves Hanger steak, the tail of a long bison loin. He likes to work, the boy from the cattle country, but now with pig. "I just know the most about it now." And his favorite vegetable? This is the potato: "So versatile!" The best sausage is made from fresh ingredients, he says. Naturally. He is enthusiastic about Chorizo: "With different types of peppers, smoked, spicy or bittersweet." In addition, only meat from animals, which had grown well. 

“What did it eat, how it lived, how it was slaughtered - all that counts ultimately for the taste.”

With extreme vegetarians , he had so far no problems. "Vegetarians love the welfare of the animals, just like me. Animals have to live a happy life, and they have a right to pain-free and decent slaughter. "

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Battles, Blogging, and Travel

Matusek is currently working in Denmark, where he is working for a few months. At the end of August, he will come to Germany and look at some pig farms and abattoirs. For the future, he has nothing less than to produce the best sausage specialties in the world. For this, he has to found a company in which he can control everything - from the breeding of the animals through their rearing to their slaughter. "I hope I will return to my ranch in Texas and build an ethically correct slaughter house, with pig farming. And a school for the butchers."

In the meantime, he wants to travel further, to continue writing, to continue learning, to continue, as in Copenhagen at the annual "Butcher's Manifesto Summit". There meet Fleischer from all over the world, to formulate goals for the craft and to exchange ideas about what the world's foodie now calls charcuterie : Superstar meat products.

The Butchers' Manifesto Origins

This is the first of a three part series...

It all began in Germany with Hendrik Haase. Hendrik is a food activist, designer, and part owner of Kumpel & Keule, a nose-to-tail butcher shop in Berlin that is completely constructed from glass.

Kumpel & Keule, the German butcher shop made from glass.

Talk about transparency. You can literally see everything that happens in this butcher shop. They even have little glass windows in each production room so butchers can offer samples to onlooking crowds.

A glass door into one of the rooms at Kumpel & Keule allowing for the utmost transparency.

In case you were wondering, Tyson, Cargill, and other industrial meat companies don’t share the same "clear" philosophies when in comes to meat processing facilities.

Two years ago, Hendrik traveled the globe and collected information on the best and most progressive butcher shops he could find - from Dario Cecchini and Kate Hill all the way to Salt & Time in Austin, TX. His published findings are in his book, Crafted Meat, an all-important catalyst for the future.

Michael Museth, founder of The Butchers' Manifesto and Folkets Madhus.

Now jump to Michael Museth in Copenhagen, Denmark. Michael  was the visionary.  He had talked about creating an international meeting of butchers - a place to share wisdom and grow the craft. Late last year, he picked up a copy of Hendrik's book.  He was inspired by Hendrik's portrayal of these craftsmen in an artistic and heroic way. Michael scrutinized, that across the world, the time-honored craft of butchery was being gutted by large corporations making inferior  products on a massive scale. Michael saw a trend developing too.  Just as he longed for the homemade sausages he had grown up with as a child, consumers were starting to drift away from commercially processed, tasteless sausages and meats. He realized it would be up to him to unify the craft butchers of the world and save their age-old skills.

Michael started by sending emails.  He visited shops and spoke with butchers. Some called him crazy – even Hendrik himself didn’t believe Michael could pull off such a lofty goal of globally uniting butchers and their craft. However, after eight months, Michael had convinced twenty-five butchers to make their way to Copenhagen to discuss their plight, swap good stories and recipes and create change.

Radical.

(1st of 3 parts, continue reading)

For those interested in a meat revolution, you should read Hendrik Haase' book, Crafted Meat. It's available through Amazon.

Crafted Meat, by Hendrik Haase

Fambam in Italy

The Italy Plan was formed a few years ago: take Nana Marge (my grandmother) to see the country of her ancestors. It would require lots of walking and many flights of stairs – bad news for a woman with bad knees, but a couple of years and a couple of knee replacements later, Nana Marge was kicking and ready to roll. The itinerary was for a three-week tour throughout Italy, all fourteen of us. That’s right, one – four.

We roll hella’ deep.

Before their arrival, I had been in Florence for a week, cramming in every bit of Italian cuisine knowledge I could get my hands on:

• an all-day wine tour through the Chianti region,
• 4 cooking classes,
• and countless balsamic and wine tastings.

My family joined me in Florence and we trained down to the Amalfi coast for the first leg of our trip.  We stayed at a small, lemon villa right on the coast and visited the charming coastal towns of Maiori, Positano, Ravello, Sorrento and of course the Island of Capri. I got to practice some of my new pasta skills there in the villa’s kitchen.

My brother, Sam, and I on the Amalfi Coast.

Not a shabby view from our villa.

The family was buried in Italian food.

After a few days of relaxation in the Italian sun, we visited the ancient city of Pompeii and then dropped in for lunch at  L' Antica Pizzeria da Michele, in Naples.  Many consider it to be the best pizza in the world. Julia Roberts thought so in the movie, Eat, Pray, Love.

Views from the ancient city of Pompeii.

The ancient people of Pompeii even knew beef was king.

L'Antica Pizzeria da Michele, a landmark from the movie, Eat, Pray, Love.

Damn good pizza.

Then up the peninsula to the capital city, Rome. We took in the Coliseum and the Vatican along with every other tourist in the world.

Warning for those headed to Rome – be ready to fight your way through densely packed crowds in tight and enclosed spaces.

Rome requires a lot of walking! We found a seat whenever and wherever we could.

Sam and I at the Coliseum.

In Rome, we did the obligatory dinner at Alfredo’s, home of “the king of noodles” and Fettuccini Alfredo. The restaurant has long been a celebrity hotspot, indicated by the numerous photographs of stars hanging on the walls. It was my cousin Mitchell’s birthday and he was honored to dine with the original gold fork and spoon gifted to Alfredo by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks.

The birthplace of Fettuccini Alfredo

JFK even liked the spot.

Next to Venice where we dined at Harry’s Bar, home of the Bellini and Carpaccio – thinly sliced raw beef dressed in a tangy mayo sauce. It was formerly a hangout for expats and celebs including Ernest Hemingway, Orson Wells, and Charlie Chaplin. One night, Mitchell and I veered away from the family to visit the Casino on the Grand Canal – we didn’t stay very long, but we did feel like we were in a James Bond movie.

The cousins taking on Venice!

Beef carpaccio at Harry's Bar.

The last leg of our trip was a week in Tuscany at a villa near Montalcino. We did little day excursions throughout the countryside, but the best was definitely our time in Panzanno visiting the Le Fonti vineyard and dining with Dario Cecchini at Officina Della Bistecca.

The family at Dario's.

We were given the seats of honor, right in the middle of the table next to all the meat.

Sam and I visiting A winery in Panzano.

We couldn't leave without a small tasting!

As our time in Italy came to a close, we made our way to Milan, but not without a surprise departure to Sumirago. (the village where my nana's family came from)  As luck would have it, our bus broke down right as we entered the village.  All fourteen of us spilled out of the bus and onto the cobbled street - nearly doubling the town's population, but the best thing of all, as we were waiting for a rescue bus, we became acquainted with an old man on the street who, as you guessed it, was Nana Marge's kinfolk!  It was a wonderful surprise.

Our Italian Fambam was an epic vacation - a trip of a lifetime.  It was good to see my family after traveling alone for two months. As they made their way back across the Atlantic, I grabbed my pack and rucked-up for my journey back to the land of wine and cheese for some more in-depth training in charcuterie.

Red is His Signature Color

My grandpa, Doug,  use to say,

If it ain't red, it ain't no good.

I think his love of the color red started with his first pair of cowboy boots - Every truck and barn he ever owned were painted red until the day he died.

As I sat with my bulging bags piled next to me at one of the slate tables on the patio of McDario (Dario Cecchini’s burger joint located conveniently next door to his macelleria), the noon Italian sun beat down on the black table where Dante, Zac, and I sat. My companions had joined me for my last meal before I was to head to Florence. We took in the namesake meal of the restaurant – the “McDario” - a very thick, burger patty cooked in beef tallow and served with a side of tallow fries. Even though this was the end of my time in Panzano, I wasn’t ready to head to the bus station. Not quite yet.

I grabbed a permanent marker from my bag and headed next door to the macelleria. When I saw a break in the action behind the counter, I seized the opportunity.

Dario, posso avere una firma?”

I asked as I held out my hat and the marker.

Ovviamente!

He exclaimed as he produced a giant red marker from inside his vest.

Of course Dario had a red marker. It’s his signature color that matches his ubiquitous pants, socks and plastic crocs that he wears every day, seven days a week! I have a feeling Dario and my grandfather would have gotten along quite well.

Dario signing my Stetson with his large red permanent marker.

I showed him the section in my hat designated for his signature and away he went. When he returned it, I realized he had found a new place for his signature. Inside the crown of my hat,

"EAT MEAT Dario Cecchini"

was scrawled in red and ran all the way through “Panzano, Italy”, past “Lima, Peru” and most of Patagonia. I couldn’t have been happier. I even got him to sign my apron before we embraced and parted ways.

On a sidenote, I can’t begin to describe the incredible generosity and hospitality Dario Cecchini showed me throughout my stay. This man is the reason I became a butcher – a landmark in the butchery industry and a true inspiration to me. Working for him has been surreal. I am deeply honored to call him a mentor and a friend.