"Frank Duba! You know Frank Duba!"

I have memories of Frank involved with every part of my life, childhood, high school, my year in Germany, college, the night I met my wife, our weddings to name a few. He was my constant and my wise council. It was his guidance and insight that helped me find my way so often. It is hard to believe he will no longer be there to offer that guidance.
Frank inspired a reaction in people that I was never able to duplicate and honestly I was a little jealous. Frank was with me the night I met my wife, in between the time that we met and our first official date she met a group of other people from Livermore. She explained how she met me and Frank. No one knew who I was. But these people all exclaimed “Frank Duba! You know Frank Duba!” as if she knew the Pope or Gavin McCloud.
I met Frank on a soccer field when I was about 7 years old, well before he had reached his celebrity status. To be honest, neither of us was very good. But we did have many conversations on the sidelines; He was interested in film even back then. Frank and I would spend the next 35 years talking about all manner of things: food, coffee, books, movies, politics, etc. With a nice symmetry, one of the last conversations we had was about soccer and his beloved Tottenham Spurs.
I remember at Jr. High Graduation there a rose a chant of “Du-ba Duba”. It wasn’t kind although not entirely mocking either. He was undeniable. Frank really hit his stride in high school, where in his senior year he ended up on the homecoming court. Like a scene out of a John Hughes’ film stood Frank in an embroidered smoking jacket next to 6 guys in matching Tuxedo’s. It was triumphant. I have the yearbook photo, if anyone would like to see it. This is how I would like to remember him- impressive, full of energy, and potential.
To quote one person Frank had an “impish sense of humor.” In my words, Frank liked to make shit up. The night I met my wife Frank tried to convince her that his brother Charles had aluminum kneecaps, due to a freak rowing accident. Years later at Frank and Rosie’s wedding, all three brothers continued the story until it was finally dispelled by their mother Lucy with a resigned eye roll. Frank, at times, also tried to convince people that the only explanation for The Family Circus was that it was coded messages to Soviet subs of the California coast. By the way, a peg leg would allow you to excuse yourself from any activity. “Sorry I can’t, I have a peg leg”, that everyone had a super power. And that he was a beat poet named Tyrone. “it’s hep” snapping.
We shared a love of coffee and food. We all have to eat and many of us had the pleasure of eating with Frank. A few times that I remember particularly fondly are: an espresso in bar in Hamburg when we were 18. Summer BBQ’s in his parent’s backyard. The back patio at Patois one October weekend tented with the wood burning stove. Amish Root beer somewhere outside of Lancaster during the first visit post cancer. And Dinner at Ko last summer.
We cooked together, starting after college we were Cowboy Bob’s Gourmet Experience. Frank was truly proud that we were able to cater a party for 50 people on a $30 budget, or it may have been 30 on a $50 dollar budget, either way it was tight and the food turned out pretty good. Cowboy Bob’s was also a self published cookbook that went through two editions. It was better than our soccer playing, but never did get a book deal.
On Facebook some of Frank’s students started a secret Cult devoted to Dr. Frank Duba. He knew about it but commented that it wasn’t all it cracked up to be, mainly because it was very hard to get them to do his bidding.
The cult has had a real spike in membership lately, but in the end I just feel lucky to say “Frank Duba! I knew Frank Duba!”

What do you eat at a funeral?

It is with great sorrow that I ask this question. My co blogger Frank passed away on Monday. He has been my friend since we were young. And honsetly I don't feel like eating anymore.

A meal in France II

If you ran a restaurant, is there anything you would deny your customers?

My brother the medievalist, many years back, took us to a restaurant at edge of Burgundy, the most rural area. The restaurant was essentially a private home; we ate in their dining room. A few years before, he had visited and had an amazing lunch for 20 dollars. In between our visits, Gault-Millau visited.

The price was now 30 bucks for the same lunch. I don’t remember all the choices, but I did have pate first. They brought out the entire loaf, sliced me a big piece, and it returned, equally unceremoniously, to the kitchen. My main course was rabbit, with prunes I think. This being France, even a 6 table restaurant had a cheese plate, 6 cheeses that reflected the owner’s own tastes. I suspected our cheese plate and theirs was not far apart.

Here’s the thing—the entire lunch was basically home cooking. None of it was complicated, or even particularly pretty. The first courses were all things that could be assembled, not cooked—prosciutto and melon, pate, soup. Authenticity wasn’t a worry.

Well, that’s not exactly true. Over lunch, my brother told us of his visit the year before, with the local historical society. The entire way to the restaurant, these three men couldn’t stop talking—In Burgundy—of the local Cider, how much better it was than its Norman cousin, how they would have to have some with their lunch. And of course it was on the menu.

There was just one problem. The owner/maitre d’/waiter refused to serve it with food. They could have it before lunch, after lunch, instead of lunch—but they could not have it with lunch. With food, one drunk wine—not cider. My brother was relieved that his hosts saw the correctness of this advice and had their cider before. After all, lunch was on the line.

My favorite grilled pork chop recipe

Do you have a favorite grilled (or non grilled) pork recipe?


Thinly sliced pork chops are particularly suited to grilling, as they cook quickly, can get a nice char and can be done in bulk. They are also very forgiving—a few minutes of overcooking will not ruin them (just a few—too long and you’ve got shoe leather). The trick, if you can call it that, is to put a little of a sweetening agent in with the marinade—not so much for the sweetness as for caramelization during cooking. This particular recipe is my approximation of the chops found in Vietnamese restaurants and I’ve been making a version of it for years. You could add galangal, chili sauce, shallots—marinades are, for the most part, pretty forgiving. While it isn’t quite the right season for this recipe, I find that sometimes reading or thinking about grilling makes it seem warmer.



Pork Chops

2 1/2 lbs center cut pork chops, thinly sliced (note: bone in is more tasty, boneless is easier), and pounded.

Marinade:

1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tb chopped garlic
1 tb chopped ginger
1 lemon grass stem, tender part, coarsely chopped
juice of one lime
1 tb fish sauce
1/3 cup lightly packed cilantro leaves and stems.
1/3 cup coarsely chopped green onions
1 tsp honey

Lettuce, herbs, cucumber, lime wedges for garnish

1. place Marinade ingredients in blender and blend until smooth.
2. Pound pork chops two or three times on each time. The purpose is to make them a little thinner and to tenderize the chops.
3. Marinate pork chops for 6-24 hours.
4. Grill over high heat for 3-5 minutes on each side.
5. Serve with garnishes and roll in lettuce.

Serving Suggestions

I work for a company that makes frozen Chinese food. It is Chinese in the same way that frozen pizza is Italian food.
I work in R&D.
Today our task was to create Preparation Suggestions for frozen dinner kits. Those tips on the package that tell you to add peas to the Mac and Cheese for a healthy treat or to punch up your frozen meal with a squeeze of lemon juice.
The basic criteria are that the items need to make sense in the meal, taste good and do not point out that the product we sell is not up to snuff. Then we need to test that it could be made by your average American consumer. This involves making and tasting many options some of which are bad.
There are several questions here we need to ask ourselves in this process. Who follows the serving suggestions on packaged food? Is it useful info for the consumer? Does this person have any sense of how to cook? If they are buying a meal kit from the freezer then they may no. But if they are enhancing it with further ingredients then they might? Can we enhance the emotional response of the consumer to the food? Are we adding items that people might have? French’s Fried onions are a better choice than fresh mango.
Have you ever followed a ‘serving suggestion” from packaged food? How did it make you feel?

The Gingerbread Project

In between Chirstmas and New Years we built a gingerbread house from scratch. I am not exactly sure why or how we got onto this project. And if we had known what we were getting into it may not have happened at all. After 30 hours of planning, baking, building and decorating we ended up with this. It is an accurate representation of a Victorian Farmhouuse with a wrap around porch.

The top lessons learned

1. Have your architect make templates.
2. Hard crack sugar syrup is better than Royal icing to stick gingerbread together
3. 26 different pieces of gingerbread takes a long time to bake
4. The children will eat important pieces of the house if they are left alone too long.
5. Gingerbread is an ephemeral form that should be “eaten” by New Years Eve.
6. Once you start to wire the house for lighting you have crossed the line.
7. Graham Crackers and burnt sugar syrup can make replacement walls in a pinch.
8. Rice Krispie treats with food coloring can be made into trees, bushes or a number of other plants.
9. If you make your roof out of caramel it will slide off the house overtime or really overnight.

We are now in the process of planning next year’s house. It will be bigger and better in a yet-to-be-decided architecturally accurate style. Feel free to let me know what style that should be.

A recipe I want to try

Lishapisa, over at the Cookng Blog, posted a recipe for Rice Ball Soup, which comes in both sweet and savory versions. It is made with a chicken-based stock, rice flour, and water. It sounds amazing—and a lot like Matzoh Ball soup. I’m thinking of taking the great original savory version of the recipe and adding a little duck fat and maybe a dash of seltzer to the balls, but otherwise keeping it as is. Here is the link: http://cookng.blogspot.com/2009/12/rice-ball-soup-tong-yuen.html