Parm It Up!

Play with your food.

Parms and the Man

Mar 25

Posted by The Parmer in the Dell in Meats, Media | 2 Comments


The Dawn of Sheep

Who out there doesn’t like a good old-fashioned Bacon Egg and Cheese Sandwich? There’s no tastier way to load your morning belly with simple carbs and saturated fat. Better yet, if you’ve had a few the night before, the salty fat sandwich is the best next-day salve for your headwound of regret.

But have you ever considered re-imagining this mouthwatering sandwich into a leftover pasta omelette? Well I have. So relax, for I’ve done the hard thinking for you.

I’m a manic believer in reviving old, nearly spoiled foods. For instance, who’s to say that your old Tuna Mac & Cheese from Thursday can’t make a great pasta omellete on Saturday? I’ve never said that. Or what about Mommy’s leftover soup? Well, just plop it into a saucepan and slurp it up, ya young one!

So here it is: The Bacon-Flecked Mac & Cheese Omelette. Oh, and there’s also another ingredient, and it rhymes with Barm…

Half Dead

Feb 20

Posted by The Parmer in the Dell in Confession | 2 Comments

You say tomato, I say ebola.


Last weekend, after making a Chicken Parm meal with a Rigatoni Al’Olio side, I woke in the middle of the night with a swimming head and a stomach of lead. As the hours passed and I grew more familiar with the tiles of my bathroom floor, it was clear that I had caught a stomach bug.

The tragedy was that I couldn’t help but associate the sickness with the sauce. Though this wasn’t food poisoning, my mind had poisoned the pleasure of parm. I ate bread and broth for the next few days. The thought of sauce and cheese only made my stomach hate me anew.

But as time boiled on, the fire in my belly cooled and the memory of the pernicious parm melted away. In fact, last night I made my first sauce in 7 days. Seven entire days! That’s plenty lent for me, thank you.

When this close, you can see parm atoms.

Do The Breakfast Dance!

Feb 10

Posted by The Parmer in the Dell in Media, Vegetarian | 1 Comment

Eggs in the morning. What could be more apt?

It's brown, so the chicken's ear lobes were red.

This ovate spheroid – an organic jewel encasing the pristine goop of life – is the perfect complement to the dawn of a new day. We celebrate the sun’s rebirth by devouring a baby star. For the new-agers out there – it’s like that “one door closes, another opens” thing you’re always citing amidst the obvious chaos of the living world.

But back to eggs. Incredible? That’s one way to put it. Edible? For thousands of years, yes. Parmible? Well, see now… let me think… it’s actually kind of tricky -- OF COURSE! If it’s digestible, it’s parmible.

Whether scrambled, over-easy, soft-boiled, open-faced, or scatter-brained, parmesan cheese has been helping eggs start the day since Man invented Mixing. For an bouncy example, check out the video, set to A.C. Newman’s “Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer.”


Jarlsberg before bed

Feb 4

Posted by The Parmer in the Dell in Science! | 2 Comments

I will never do this again.

The Horror.

I returned home last night around 11pm.  I was hungry and tired – a perfect physical circumstance to begin my experiment.

MATERIALS

Earlier in the day, I went to the Trader Joe’s on 14th St for groceries.  Luckily, I’d arrived at a rare slow moment  – I walked a full fifteen feet (!) before filing into their communist breadline.  Along my sullen slog through the store, I picked up a wedge of Jarlsberg – the Norwegian cow’s milk cheese.  I figured its mild flavor and semi-soft texture would ease me into this cheese-sleep experiment with minimal distress.  I’ve never been more wrong.

OBSERVATIONS, VISIONS

I ate about 4 ounces of the cheese less than an hour before bed.  Falling asleep was no problem – the dive into the deep black came quick.  But lying at the bottom of the dream-well were several bizarre horrors.  Without boring you with the sequence of these surreal events, I’ll just dribble in some details:  an abandoned New Hampshire mansion; an Asian man with one arm re-installing all the showers; four Care Bear-looking creatures – all living in the dank basement – busily scribing pornographic novellas for children.  Particularly frightening was when these tiny, furry things with sewn-on smiles swarmed me for a collective “cuddle”.

I clawed out of these mental threats and awoke with tight breath.  I thought of noting the details on a pad atop my end table, but decided against it.  Writing the nightmare down might revive an anguish best left behind.

CONCLUSION

Do not eat Jarlsberg before bed.  You may see the devil inside you.

And children: when mother sends you to bed without supper, thank her.


For in that sleep of cheese….

Feb 3

Posted by The Parmer in the Dell in Mythology, Science! | No Comments

couldn't even make it to the bed.

Resistance! Finally, the ether has pushed back on my ego volcano. Balance is restoring itself, as I’ve been called to task on a flowery jag of mine. In my last post I wrote, of parm, “it makes everything better: pasta, meat, and dreams.” This friend of mine – an accomplished graduate of an esteemed palace of learning – wanted this defended, scientifically. Namely, the effect of cheese-consumption on sleeping and dreaming.

Before continuing, note the study he sent me here.

The “Scientific” Method
So now, I – a middling graduate of an esteemed palace of partying – will undergo a rigorous experiment on myself. Over the next several weeks, I too will consume a variety of cheeses one half-hour before bed and see what dreams may come. I think I can improve on the above experiment, since my testing will proceed with an actual control – me – rather than the British study, which fed nighttime cheeses to 200 different people. I find this approach highly suspect, since each of the 200 subjects brings to dreaming their own unique psychological gunk.

A New, Selfish Approach

To counter this relativistic trap, I’ll simply eat all the cheeses myself! The only lingering gunk shall be my own. For instance, how might a few Jarsberg slices work overnight on my unresolved fraternal issues? Or what might my REM sleep produce from a hunk of Pecorino and a knack for math? Meunster and mother-love?

The results will trickle in. They will be breathtaking and gassy.

To Parm or to parm?

Jan 31

Posted by The Parmer in the Dell in Mythology | 2 Comments


I think in the first flush of generating content for this site, I may have overlooked a crucial point in the ethos of parming it up. One must remember that parming, as far as I know, cleaves off into two major arteries of decadent cooking. So, in order to proceed with any sustainable dialogue on the merits of parming, we must first know of which parming we speak. Let’s here float along these two tributaries off the River of Deliciousness.

Parm as more than parm.
The first method of parming is the kind demonstrated in any classic red-sauce Italian place. When you order your __(food)__ Parmesan at Gepetto’s Ristorante, you’re getting a pure food product (often Eggplant, Chicken, or Veal) that has been battered, breaded, fried, layered with marinara and mozzarella, then baked before serving. This is the kind of parming I took you through in my Pretzeled Chicken Parm. The inherent contradiction within this parming process is the near-absence of actual parmesan cheese. Perhaps, as American palates devolved to prefer blander, chewier cheeses, this famous dish’s very namesake was subverted. So now, any __(food)__ Parmesan dish is a flagrant misnomer lotted with such other culinary hypocrisies as the peanut (it’s a legume!), the egg cream, Grape-Nuts, head cheese, sweetbreads, and the eggplant (rendering “Eggplant Parmesan” a brazen, wholesale deception on par with Watergate and Milli Vanilli). This kind of parming will henceforth be given a capital “P”, since it’s often part of a dish’s title.


Parm as parm.
The second type of parming implies adding the hard, granular, northern Italian cheese to a meal or snack. Since this website’s inception, most of the parming-it-up has taken this second tack (more due to practical hindrances than preferential yearnings). When the cheese is crumbled, shaved, or hunked over a typically modest dish, flavors are enhanced by parm’s inherent saltiness and dry, near-smokey fat notes. Yeah, that’s right. Fat notes. In short, it makes everything better: pasta, meat, and dreams. From here on out, this parming shall receive a lowercase “p” due to it’s majority use as an accent, or supporting player, to a dish’s starring flavor components.

I’m glad this one’s been put to bed. However, if someone knows of another parming implication/application, please post a comment and prepare to defend it.

Savory Oatmeal Parm

Jan 28

Posted by The Parmer in the Dell in Media, Recipes, Vegetarian | No Comments

Use either fork or spoon for this gruel.


Welcome, everyone, to the newest waste of your time…

“How to Make Savory Oatmeal Parm”

Most of us who live in the great American cities – New York, St. Louis, and Omaha -  have tasted the Italian dish, Risotto, at least a few times.  If you haven’t, make a thought bubble over your head and place within it a creamy bowl of cheesy rice.  Imagine it steaming unctously up your wintry nostrils, coating your cracking skin with the savory lotion of buttery late afternoons and leaden-bellied naps.

Now, fast-forward to your twenties.  You’re poor, aging, and viscerally aware of your inevitable death.  In the middle of a ho-hum day, the cold, black nothing strikes you with a flash and without warning. Your spine shudders in submission and the banal comforts at your fingertips seem to evaporate until all is none…

Time to eat!

Why deal with death right now?  Chew on this instead.  It’s an easy one-pot meal that unites the Irish and Italian – oat-wise and cheese-wise, respectively.  You can call it “Ris-oat-to,” but I won’t.

It only takes this (plus mindfulness):

Water, collected in a marble amphora from a mid-November rain

Irish Oats, steel-cut (if in a pinch, substitute with titanium-cut)

Parm, as much you will find in Slovenia

Olive Oil, drops

Cannellini Mac & Mercury

Jan 26

Posted by The Parmer in the Dell in Fishy, Media, Recipes | 1 Comment

Cannery in Parma. Maybe.

In the spirit of the recession, I thought I’d share my haute take on some classic American fare. I like to call this food-tangent my “Cannellini Mac and Mercury.” It’s basically a parmed-up version of a simple stovetop Mac & Cheese recipe. The ingredients can be easily amassed with some loose change and spare oil from your roommate’s pantry.

All it takes is a rectangular box of dried mac & cheese mix (I prefer the “shells and alfredo” version because it’s not neon yellow), some olive oils, cannellini beans (Italian for “from the can”), a can of tuna (to fortify it like an old Tuscan town), some milks, and that ethereal singing siren we like to call parm.

So it’s healthy! For just two extra bucks, you can turn this meal into something loaded with protein, fiber, and Omega-3s, Alpha-9s, and Theta-3000s! L. Ron Hubbard LOVED this dish, so you’ve got no choice!

Cast, in order of appearance:

Shells and Alfredo box, from the store that rhymes with “Bold Dudes”

Olive Oil, enough to drown a roach

Tuna, canned in water

Cannellini Beans, canned in bean juice

Milk, 2 splashes

Parm (“parmesan cheese” to novelists), size of a pulverized baseball

Research and Development

Jan 22

Posted by The Parmer in the Dell in Mythology | No Comments

Now Arriving, New Heaven Station

Two years ago, after living a series of Manhattan hovels to save money, I’d finally stowed enough sweet cash to visit Italy.  Finally, a chance to get up close and personal with parm… in Parma, The City Of The Cheese.

Through some divine luck, both sides of my family hail from this sleepy city north of Bologna. For over a week – a week! – I walked barefoot and peasant-like through the gentle hills. I toured the various curing houses, whispering to the friendly parmesan cows by day, dozing off onto pillows of prosciutto hocks once night fell.

Sleep came quick and heavy while on tour, the demi-gods of Chianti and Lambrusco vaguely chiding me, “Chill out, Johnny Worryface! We Italians ran this Earth for like 15 centuries. Now we get to just relax, eat, and complain. These are spoils, my son. So go spoil yourself.”

It was in those dry-aged dreams where images of a parming paradiso first flashed. And so, in the Italian spirit of “getting to it whenever” comes this website. A full two years later.

Below are some photos from Parma. Keep in mind, each photo was taken while chewing a panini. Andiamo!

The Parmalat plant, eerily situated across the road from my relatives. Nature? Nurture?

Ancientness.

Admirable.

My uncle, appalled by my Italian.

Of The Pine.

Home to Napolean's second wife. This is true.

Eating some street mangia.

Garibaldi Square. Not the Brooklyn one.

I made it rain so this shot would work better.

Constant red-carpet treatment.

Feelings.

Il Duomo di Parma. A gentle reminder of God's sniper position.

Cieling of the Duomo. You can't see from here, but there's a lot of salami imagery.

Road.

Il Besto Pesto

Jan 20

Posted by The Parmer in the Dell in Meats, Recipes, Vegetarian | 2 Comments

Can you hear Domingo swoon?

With a free day on my plate and a nagging want to smell like garlic for 3 days, I decided to resurrect an old recipe from college and make my famous – to four people, including myself – “Rigatoni With Smokey Lemon Pesto and Near-Burnt Tomatoes.” It’s very filling and thoroughly adequate as a meal unto itself. But being someone who eats twice as fast they I think, I decided to add a simple Parm-Accented Chicken Cutlet, with a Bad-Breath Salad on the side. Here’s my very imprecise Pesto recipe for one pound of pasta:

Garlic, nearly 1 full head (leave out the prefrontal cortex. that’s where the garlic’s personality lives.)
Pine Nuts, enough to feed 5 pigeons for 10 minutes
Olive Oil, a King’s goblet-full
Shallot, 1 small one
Basil, 1 gaggle
Parmigiano Reggiano, however much fills an hourglass
Lemon, the zest AND the juice
Salt and Pepper, to good taste!

Once you’ve assembled these ingredients, steel yourself for some chopping with a large cup of coffee and sports-talk radio. DO NOT use a blender or food processor. If you want to taste the rustic history of my ancestors, chewing the true agriculture of the Appian Way, you MUST CHOP. I recommend an over-sized knife. Pretend that you are Caesar and the ingredients are the Gauls.

The process is pretty standard. Chop, mix, add to pasta, blah blah. The key tangent with this pesto, though, is how you treat the Pine Nuts and Lemon. With the nuts, toss them into a pan and toast for 5 minutes or until you start smelling burning popcorn. With the Lemon, skin it, then finely chop the zest.

In the meantime, you’ve obviously been bringing a salted pot of water to a boil, right? Good. I’m glad you can multitask. Send the pound of Rigatoni into the rolling boil. When the pasta comes up “Al Dente” – which by now, we should all know, means, “to the dentist” – strain over a temporarily-detached window screen and return to pot. Once the pasta’s back in its home, turn off the heat, and add the pre-parmed pesto. (I like to parm up my pesto at the very end of the process, since it helps retain the cheese’s zing.) Stir it all with a old wooden spoon and serve, expecting swoons.

Oh!  And did I mention that I’ve been oven-roasting tomatoes THIS ENTIRE TIME?

Divide and Conquer!

Shedding by Force

Nut Beach

Blackenned Tan

The vigor of my chop split the cutting board.

Even my plant wants in.

Flavor Attack!

This fork-knife position says, "I'M STILL WORKING."

Accelerating Sun-Dry Process.