Put On For Your City
The Friday Newsletter has all the food, drink, music and more for your w-[FIGHTER JET FLIES BY]
At some point this afternoon, a fighter jet will buzz my office, and that is when I will know that it is Horse Time.
I assure you that this is all very normal, at least here in Louisville, Kentucky.
Tomorrow, the Kentucky Derby Festival kicks off with Thunder Over Louisville, a day-long air show that culminates with the largest annual fireworks display in North America. (They practice for the air show the day before, hence the Friday fly-by.) A crowd larger than the actual population of the city is expected to throng the Ohio River waterfront to behold it all, a massive event headlining two weeks of activities in anticipation of the Greatest Two Minutes in Sports. It is a ridiculous spectacle and a gigantic hassle.
It’s also a lot of fun.
Louisville is a fun place to spend a weekend any time of year—in fact, last year I wrote a handy guide to making the most of a visit to my adopted hometown—but this time of year is when this weird little river city really shines.
As I wrote in a 2019 feature for SBNation, the next fortnight is a citywide bender for better and for worse, a time when the city is at its prettiest and most festive and doing actual business becomes surprisingly difficult.
(I have already rescheduled meetings around it.)
Now, there are admittedly a lot of legitimate criticisms to be levied about the sport of thoroughbred racing and the often-misguided civic priorities surrounding an event like this, but it’s also genuinely fun to see the world turn its eyes to the place you live for one day a year.
I love the Kentucky Derby, and I love the weird pseudo-holiday season preceding it.
But I’m not here to write about Louisville today.
(Well, not any more than I already have.)
I want to know what’s best about where you’re from.
It doesn’t have to be a major sporting event like Derby; it doesn’t need to be an event at all. Maybe it’s an attraction. Maybe it’s a specific season. Maybe it’s just a really good sandwich. I want you to picture that you’ve just told someone where you live, and they told you that they’ve never been there.
I want you to complete this sentence:
“Oh, you should really come here for __________ “
What is it?
I’m the kind of person who can’t spent 48 hours in a city without considering what my life would be like if I pulled up stakes and moved there, so I’m genuinely excited to hear your best sales pitch for your town.
Friends? It’s Friday at The Action Cookbook Newsletter.
Every Friday morning, I bring you the very best in food, drink, music, reading, pets and more with the sole goal of making your weekend the best that it can be.
Today? I’ve got a little bit of Chicago on my mind, with a hearty steak salad and an after-dinner drink based around the same Windy City ingredient. I’ve got great music, a really engaging book, some thoughts on recent television, and some fantastic furry friends to send you off.
It’s Friday. Let’s put on.
I believe in an expansive definition of “salad”.
This past Sunday was a spectacularly beautiful day, and after taking the kids on a Cub Scout troop hike through the woods, I called my wife on the way home to say that I was stopping at the grocery store. It was to be a Grilling Out Night.
HER: “Okay, but let’s not go too unhealthy today.”
ME: [feigning static] “Can’t hear you—going through tunnel—”
I thought about it, though, and she had a point. Just because I was grilling didn’t mean it had to be an unhealthy meal. Heck, I could make a nice kale salad!
All I’d need was a nice big steak to put in it.
Steak Salad with Kale, White Beans, Barley and Tomatoes (and more)
serves 3-4? ish?
1 bag kale, sorted through and woody stems discarded
1 lb flat-iron steak
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
2 cups cooked and cooled barley
1 can white beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup cherry tomatoes, sliced into discs
1/4 cup spicy giardiniera (optional)
Dressing/Marinade:
1-1/2 cups olive oil
1-1/2 cups red wine vinegar
4 cloves garlic, grated
1 tablespoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons dried basil
2 teaspoons dried thyme
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
There’s a little planning ahead involved in this salad, making it a perfect Sunday evening meal—note the inactive prep times.
Whisk all ingredients together well, then divide into two portions. Half of this goes into a gallon ziploc bag with the steak, onion and pepper; leave that to sit in the fridge at least a few hours (and up to a day).
Add the other half to the kale, tossing in a large bowl and massaging it with your hands to really rub it in. This will help the kale soften, and make for a far more pleasant end product. Cover and place in the fridge for at least an hour.
Close to serving time, toss the marinated kale with the cooked/cooled barley, white beans and cherry tomatoes. Now, I’d just picked up a nice jar of spicy giardiniera—the Italian relish of pickled peppers and vegetables—at Jungle Jim’s in Cincinnati, and I was a hammer in search of a nail with it. I couldn’t help but add some in for spice and crunch to my salad. (I left it out of my wife’s.)
For the steak, I used a cast-iron griddle on my grill, but a cast-iron pan over very high heat indoors would work well too. Either way, blot the marinade off the steak prior to cooking, toss the onions and peppers on with it, and cook to your preferred internal temp (129F for me.)
Allow the steak to rest 5-10 minutes, then slice and serve over the salad.
Now, as you can see, there is kale underneath this, so it is healthy.
(I have also used this argument at a Pizza Hut buffet, to be fair.)
This was really good—the advance marinade really tamed the kale, and the barley and beans gave a nice body (and some not-unwelcome fiber, I’m over 40, I can say it) to the salad. The giardiniera was a really nice addition, too; it gave the greenery a fighting chance against the grilled meat.
All this needs is a steakhouse-worthy drink to wash it down, and I might just employ some of the same ingredients in making one?
Midnight in the Giardin’ of Good and Evil
I’ve experimented a bit in the past with the concept of fat-washing spirits, to varying degrees of success. It’s always a fun little science experiment: you take a spirit, shake it up with a flavorful fat, then transfer it to the freezer for a day. After chilling, the fat will have solidified on top of the spirit, allowing you to easily skim it off and leaving behind a clear, smooth and liquor infused with the flavors of the fat. This can be done with butter, bacon grease, olive oil—any type of flavorful fat.
[looks at jar of oil-packed spicy giardiniera] hmm
[looks at bar] Hmmmm.
[looks back at giardiniera] HMMMMM.
Would I? Could I?? Should I???
Folks, you already know that I did.
Giardiniera-Washed Vodka
1-1/2 cups vodka
1/3 cup spicy giardiniera, with oil
Add the vodka and giardiniera to a lidded glass jar, seal, and shake well. Place in the freezer overnight. By morning, the oil should have frozen on top, and the vegetables settled to the bottom. Scoop out just enough of the solidified oil to allow pouring. Place a coffee filter in a strainer, set over a large bowl, and pour the vodka in. Put this in the fridge for a few hours, and let it slowly filter through. In the end, you should have a vodka nearly as clear as what you started with, but with a surprising smoothness, vegetal note and a nice spicy kick. (Mine was so clear I worried I’d filtered all the flavor out, but that was decidedly not the case.)
This was destined to be in a Dirty Martini, one of my favorite drinks and not just because it comes with snacks. (The snacks help, though.) I’d complement the giard-infused booze with some garnishes straight from the pizza parlor, which influenced my thinking when it came time to name this.
The Dirty Malnati
2-1/2 ounce giardiniera-washed vodka
1/2 ounce dry vermouth
3/4 ounce brine from an olive jar
3 big, good olives
smoked fresh mozzarella
sliced pepperoni
a pickled pepper from the jar of giardiniera
Add the vodka, vermouth and brine to an ice-filled shaker; stir vigorously. (Don’t shake. You’re not James Bond and neither am I, and that leads to a much cloudier drink.)
Thread a cocktail pick with the olives, pepper, mozzarella and pepperoni.
In the words of George Costanza: “Do you ever get down on your knees and thank God you know me and have access to my dementia?”
Seriously, this was great. It played much like a typical Dirty Martini—briny booze, what’s not to love—but the giard-wash really did bring an extra note to the table, a smooth spiciness that I really enjoyed. Also, there’s a little pizza on that skewer!