I like to cook pretty cheap meals anyway.  Over the past year we’ve eaten more and more meatless meals, but even when I am cooking with meat I like using cheap cuts–not just because they’re cheap, but the fact that they tend to taste better than the premium, leaner cuts.  I have a well-stocked pantry and a freezer that already has plenty of cheap food that’s ready to go.  I have spices and oils and cookbooks and knowledge that all make the job of cooking cheaply much easier.

It’s not about the budget, it’s about time and knowledge.  My job is flexible, both my wife and I work day jobs that allow us to come in a little earlier and leave a little earlier so that we can transport the kids to where they need to be.  We get our salary, and have sick days and vacation days galore.  We and our kids have our share of activities during the week that can make the dinner prep schedule a little tight, but we have the means to pick up a pizza every once in a while when we don’t want to cook.  On the weekends I can spend luxurious hours in the kitchen preparing lots of food, or elaborate dishes that don’t fit in during the week.  This is time that people facing poverty often don’t have.

Even more important than time is knowledge.  Everyone can think of beans and rice… but canned beans are relatively expensive and dried beans take hours to cook (after hours of soaking).  I know that lentils are just as cheap, just as (if not more) nutritious, and can be prepared in as little as 15 minutes.  Some of the best dishes you’ll ever eat are those that are borne out of the poor, working class people of those places.  As a great example, Indian cuisine is full of dishes that at some point were conceived by poor people who wanted to get a good-tasting meal out of cheap or bad-tasting ingredients.

Beyond learning different cuisines, people need to learn basics that can save them money.  I used paneer in a dish earlier this week that I bought from an Indian grocery store, but I could have made it myself for half the price if I needed to.  I bought bread for my daughter’s sandwiches, but anyone can whip together a loaf in 5 minutes (plus the time to let it rise and bake).  Flatbreads are even easier… like the chapatis I made on Monday.  I made enough for 6 people with 30 cents of ingredients in 10 minutes.

These are all lessons we hear everywhere.  ”Shop the perimeter of the grocery store.”  ”Avoid processed food.”  ”Learn to cook.”  But what are we doing, as a community, to make it happen?  There are classes and recipes at Common Ground as part of their Food for All program on how to cook healthy meals on a shoestring budget, and I think that’s a great start to helping educate people.  What other resources are out there right now?  How are people learning to overcome the convenience of unhealthy pre-packaged foods?

I hope that there will one day be a larger facility, a community kitchen, where people can not only learn how to make (good, healthy, delicious, cheap, easy) food, but maybe have a chance at starting their own business venture.  Community gardeners could have a place to process a neighborhood’s crop of tomatoes or pumpkins into canned goods to last for months.  I want this community kitchen to come together because people need to be sharing their knowledge.

Like many people, I have the luxury of a pantry so full I could not buy food for at least a week and still be very well-fed.  On the other hand, a growing number of people are starting to face the reality that they are struggling each week to put anything into their pantry.  That balance needs to be shifted.  As I mentioned during the Million Meals for Haiti event, hunger is a global problem, but it’s also a local problem.

There’s no single solution here, but I hope that people will do whatever they can to make a difference.  You can donate money to your local food bank, or donate your time to places that package or distribute food.  Support the Flatlander Fund in its mission to create a community kitchen for Champaign and Urbana.

Nearly 1 in 5 kids in Champaign county live below the poverty line (18.7% according to a 2008 report).  Over 900,000 Illinois residents depend on food pantries each year, a number that’s grown during this economic recession.  September is Hunger Awareness Month, but I hope that you can find a way to remember each month that you can make a difference.  I don’t know how they do it, but the thought that our food bank can turn a $1 donation into $10 worth of food for needy families is a clear example of “every bit helps.”  Try this: each month, instead of going out to dinner one time, spend a little time in the kitchen and donate some of those extra bucks you saved.

Bacaro is the kind of place where you can get the best seafood, local meats and produce, all prepared with great care and skill.  The seasonal menu changes regularly, and I’ve never had a bad meal there.  It’s expensive for the area, but it really is worth it.  I always look over the menu, but more often than not, if I have the time I’m going to get the tasting menu.  This time, we got the wine pairings for each course.  I can’t claim to be an expert in the realm of oenology, but I appreciate the thought that goes toward choosing wines to pair with dishes.  I don’t remember most of the wines, so I won’t go into detail on what was served with each course, but it suffices to say that they all worked very well.

I didn’t bring pen and paper, so we’re going off my recollection of everything.  I’ll try to share as much detail as possible, but if I get something wrong I’d be happy to correct it.  I tried emailing Thad with some questions about some dishes, but I got no response.  I don’t understand why a business like Bacaro would have an email address on their site if they don’t respond to messages. Edit: I got a response from him AS I was writing this post.  Go figure.  He’s been extremely busy with a Prairie Fruits Farm dinner and, well, everything else that goes with running a restaurant.

Anyway… on to the meal.

First up is the amuse bouche, a bite to entertain your mouth and get you ready for the gustatory pleasure that awaits.  Tonight’s amuse was house cured salmon with pea tendrils and radish.  Salty, fishy, with a little crunch, it made me thirsty for more.

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The first real course of the tasting menu was an appetizer course of burrata cheese with porcini mushrooms and garlic scapes.  If you’ve never had burrata, you must seek it out.  It’s cheese curds and cream encased in stretched mozzarella.  This dish sets that sweet, creamy cheese against light aromatic porcini mushrooms and the slightly pungent flavor of the scapes.  It was served with a dry prosecco, whose effervescence really brought the dish home.

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For the fish course, we have the scallop.  Bacaro, in my mind, gets some of the best seafood in central Illinois.  It’s not wasted on them either, because they cook it very well.  This succulent scallop was seared and placed atop a bed of little beets (ETA) from Spence Farm and chunks of almonds.  The combination of beets and scallops was new to me, but they did work well together.  Sweet, earthy, salty all combined fabulously.  I wish I could get scallops this good.

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For the pasta course, we have gnocchi with morel mushrooms and arugula.  The gnocchi were a bit dense and overworked, but they were crisped a bit to add more flavor and texture to the otherwise very soft dish.  The morels were very nice… I wonder how Thad gets them so late.  The height of the season is in the early Spring.

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Then we have the light entrée course, another excellent piece of seafood.  This time, it’s halibut, served over fresh fava beans and topped with a salsa verde.  He didn’t serve it with a nice Chianti, but it was served with a red wine if I remember right.  The fish, again, was browned beautifully and seasoned well.  The favas fell short, a little undercooked and bland.  The herby salsa verde on top added a punch of flavor to the dish–I remember parsley, garlic, and citrus.

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After that, we are on to meat.  This tender medallion of filet is served over chanterelle mushrooms, cubed potatoes, and spinach.  Drizzled around the plate is a fruity balsamic reduction that makes me want to throw away any bottle of A-1 that might be lying around.  The meat was cooked through so evenly I wondered if it was cooked sous vide, (ETA) but it’s just a combination of a C-Vap oven and grilling the exterior.  The even sear around the outside, which was seasoned liberally, was remarkable.  Aside from the meat and the reduction (which were expertly cooked and seasoned), the rest of the dish was not executed as well as I’d hoped.  It lacked seasoning, and the potatoes seemed an afterthought.

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As a bit of a break in the action, transitioning to post-meal conversation, we were served a cheese course.  The cheese was great, the strawberry jam was amazing, but the bread was, to my taste, a bit stale.  My wife will tell you that I am overly sensitive to staleness, but maybe it was the humidity tarnishing the otherwise-tasty bread.  It was of no real concern though, as the pungent cheese (cow’s milk, but I don’t remember what a French Petit Livarot) elated my palate.  There was one tiny downside with the house-made strawberry jam… there wasn’t enough!  Yes, it was probably the appropriate amount, but I just wanted more because it was so good and complemented the cheese nicely.

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Finally, we have dessert.  A creamy chocolate terrine crowned with cherry ice cream and drizzled with chocolate syrup.  Most of you probably already appreciate the combination of cherries and chocolate, but this was my wake-up call.  The chocolate terrine was soft and yielding, like a moldable ganache, (ETA) thanks to a slight addition of gelatin, that coats your mouth with dark chocolate.  The ice cream, studded with whole cherries, was flavorful enough to match the chocolate in intensity.

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Some of the other dinner guests in our party did not get the tasting menu and tried some of the on-menu desserts.  One seemed to have a piece of the same magical chocolate terrine as my own dessert, but topped with a chocolate(?) ice cream and macadamia nuts(?).

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Another dinner companion got a slice of cheesecake.  I have no idea what flavor it was, but here’s a picture.

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If any of the guests from the party visit this post, it would be great if you posted your impression of the meal, especially if you didn’t have the tasting menu.

The meal wasn’t perfect, but it was really good.  I have to hand it to the kitchen, who handled our large group amazingly well.  In a group of 13(!), we had 6 doing the tasting menu, two of whom requested no meat (they got a soft-shelled crab instead of the filet).  Our server, Evan, deserves a shout-out for doing a really good job of serving all of us.  I expected our group’s service to be shared across two servers, but only in delivering plates was Evan given any assistance.

The tasting menu is expensive… and that’s why it’s not something we do all the time, but even the regular menu items are well-prepared.  The food at Bacaro comes out of having the highest quality ingredients.  Some dinner companions ordered some of the fresh oysters they had on hand (served with a yuzu mignonette), and they were both smiling with delight.  If you go during the right time of year, you can get dishes with white or black truffles, ramps, or morels–all highly seasonal, prized ingredients.  We are lucky to have Bacaro in this town as a resource for those who can and want to indulge in fantastic food.

First I made some crusty bread.  This is a pretty standard Ratio (5:3) bread, formed into a baguette shape, baked with steam until very crusty.

The centerpiece of the sandwich are the delicious little meats, carnitas, made from a big hunk of pork shoulder.  I used the simpler-than-you’d-expect “Slow Roasted Pork Carnitas” recipe from Rick Bayless himself.  You get tender shreds (or chunks if you prefer) of pork with crunchy surfaces, and all that without the mess of stove-top frying.

I also made some black beans, a blended chipotle salsa, and some pickled onions.  Slice the bread, top with meat and all the fixings, then slide it all into the oven to melt the cheese a bit.  Here it is pre-bake.

So, I wasn’t 100% accurate, but the spirit was there.  My bread was a little too crusty, but the components come together in a symphony of rich, sweet, salty, tart, spicy Mexican flavor.  The pickled onions are vital to balancing the richness of the carnitas, so you should make plenty.  I usually go with a really simple preparation and wish I made twice as much.

Pickled Onions

These things are great on sandwiches, tacos, toss them in salads or eat with a fork–anywhere you want that acidic zing.  Keep them refrigerated and they will stay nice and crunchy.  I like to use cider vinegar, but feel free to use whatever you like or is most appropriate for your dish.  I like them to be crunchy and bold, still offering the heat of the onion.  If you’d like to tame them a little, combine all ingredients and cook anywhere from 30 seconds to a few minutes, depending on the texture you’d like.

• 1 medium onion, sliced thinly
• 1/2 t salt
• 1/4 c vinegar (cider vinegar, or whatever you like)
• sugar, to taste (optional)

1. Sprinkle sliced onions with salt, and toss to distribute.
2. Add vinegar and toss to coat the onions.
3. Allow to sit 10-30 minutes, tossing occasionally.
4. Taste and add sugar to balance the vinegar, if desired.

In blog business, the winner (chosen by random draw) of the contest was Stuart, who writes the excellent food blog kitchenhacker.net.  A couple disks of Mexican chocolate (and a little something extra) from Taza Chocolate will be its way to him very soon.  He used to live in the Champaign-Urbana area, and I was fortunate enough to meet him a few times.  When he was in his last-minute moving preparations, he offered me some of his frozen stash that he just couldn’t take with him.  It’s still in my freezer, but it will be featured soon.

Taza is supporting the efforts to aid people devastated by the earthquake in Haiti by donating half of each retail sale on their website through January 22nd.  You can read more about the organization they are donating to in their blog post.  Go buy some chocolate and help a good cause.  I get nothing for telling you this, but there are plenty of people whose lives will be changed.