HUNGRY GERALD

Choucroute simply means sauerkraut. Choucroute Garnie (on French brasserie and bistro menus) is sauerkraut cooked with a variety of pork products. Chez Jenny in Paris has always been touted as a great place for Choucroute. HG disagrees. The Paris best is Brasserie de I’Isle St. Louis. Despite a touristy location near Notre Dame, the brasserie turns out serious, old fashioned French food. Dedicated foodies say that to taste real choucroute one must travel to Alsace. HG is not that dedicated and likes BSK’s home cooked choucroute. BSK rinses a jar of Bubbie’s sauerkraut and cooks it with onions, juniper berries and white wine (SJ notes that a nice Riesling is the preferable choice). Adds Kassler Rippchen (German smoked pork chops from Schaller & Weber online) and knockwurst. Serves it with boiled potatoes, French cornichons and Keen’s English Mustard. Noted food writer Jeffrey Steingarten attempted to codify the ingredients of Choucroute in his wonderful book The Man Who Ate Everything, but one of the joys of making the dish at home is going to a good German/Polish/Alsace butcher (SJ reccomends Jubilat Provisions for Brooklyn folk) and picking out numerous yummy things. Cold beer or ale with a shot or two of chilled vodka are the obligatory beverages.

This might be the best Christmas holiday ever. It began with the surprise gift to Beautiful Granddaughter Sofia R. of Pippy, certainly the most enchanting puppy HG has ever encountered. Then the traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes (Jewish-Japanese-Italian style as befitting the multi-ethnic group). Three types of smoked salmon; smoked tuna; wasabi enhanced flying fish roe (Tobiko); whitefish; sable; red salmon caviar. All prime stuff from Russ & Daughters on New York’s Lower East Side. SJ also provided the table with plenty of scallion cream cheese and superior Kosar’s bialys, bagels and that baked rarity — the old fashioned “pletzel” (onion roll). Big bowls of sour cream plus raw onions, capers, lemon wedges and three varieties of pickles (sour, half-sours and green tomatoes). Lesely R. made her ethereal blinis and crepes while SJ sizzled his superb, crisp potato pancakes. But, for HG, the star of the feast was herring, namely raw Dutch herring from the cold waters of the Netherlands coast. HG coated the delicious morsels with chopped raw onions. Chilled Tito’s Vodka. Black and Tan (Guinesss Stout and Bass Ale, mixed half-and-half). HG drank these accompaniments to happy excess. Christmas morning, HG received gala gifts — a cane topped with the ivory head of a fierce eagle from Lesley and Massimo R.; a soft and warm flannel nightshirt plus nightcap; A Russian faux fur hat emblazoned with the hammer and sickle (warming gifts from BSK who likes a Heated Hubby); old time candy bars and a wanted book from SJ; a copy of the latest installment of Robert Caro’s monumental biography of LBJ and other literature from L. and M. R.; granola of the gods handcrafted by Gifted Granddaughter Arianna R. L. and M.R. gave BSK the complete Hellen Mirren/ “Prime Suspect” DVDs (perfect for chill weather viewing), SJ presented BSK with her own website, putting BSK’s glorious pottery online. Everyone else received thoughtful and glorious gifts. Wishes were fulfilled. Joy was unconfined. Sometimes materialism is sheer fun. Christmas Day dinner was a rerun of the previous feast with the addition of chopped liver plus pastrami and tongue from Katz’s Deli in New York plus smoked ham sourced by SJ from the illustrious Polish butcher, Jubilat Provisions in Brooklyn. Because of eccentric schedules and the arrival of Restaurateur Daughter Victoria F. on the day after Christmas, the Christmas dinner of brisket and assorted good things will be delayed for a day. Worth waiting for. (Also, HG must fully recover from much ingestion of an after dinner alcoholic digestif, Limoncello, handcrafted by Lesley R. for her bibulous Dad).

Jubilat Provisions sits smack dab on the blocks (dubbed “South Slope” by real estate agents) where the cachet of Park Slope gently blends into the Mexican/Chinese mosh up of Sunset Park. It is a tiny temple for the worship of smoked and prepared pork products of all kinds. In other words, it is a classic Polish deli simply jammed with house made and house smoked sausages, bacons, and force-meats. There is a line of hard, grizzled thin sausages that range from lightly smoked (pinkesque) to triple smoked (dark and snapping with flavor) and are basically the best Slim Jims you could ever eat. There are Kielbasa in a range of sizes and flavors (spicy, garlicky, fresh, double smoked and one thick and short like a tough, Slavic Bologna). There is a ridiculously juicy Black Forest Ham; the greatest bacon; smoked pork loins; head cheese, liverwurst; a rolled, stuffed veal thing with parsley that almost killed me with pleasure when I paired it with boiled, new potatos. The butchers are all Polish and don’t speak much English and actually aren’t that interested in explaining what everything is….Which is better! That way you can just lose yourself and basically order a little bit of everything. They make all of this in house, so everything is fresh and nitrate free — they also make stews, soups, vats of pickles and sauerkraut and once I came in and there were about 15 different smoked fishes on newspapers that were amongst the best I have ever had. And — here’s the kicker — its cheap. I mean REALLY cheap!!! I have bought BAGS of stuff there and never gone over seventy bucks. It is an inspiration. These guys are artisans, old school butchers, examples of real, local food-ways and they don’t feel the need to have tattoos of pigs on their necks, and weird 1910 mustaches, and charge $20 a pound for “house-cured” bacon like this whole new realm of hipster butcher/food producers. Why? Because the Jubilat guys are part of their community, they are FEEDING their community with reasonably priced GREAT, homemade food.

I digress. The politics of food and community are interesting but not as interesting as a quick tip if you ever make it over to Jubilat. Basically buy a spread of smoked meats and make sure to include the bacon, a kielbasa (or many types of kielbasa), some frankfurter and whatever else catches your eye. Buy a bunch of sauerkraut, a jar of super strong Polish mustard and truck back to your house with a dry Riesling and bunch of friends. Cook the sauerkraut with onion, a cup or two of that Riesling (add some juniper berries if you can!) and some new potatoes. Layer the smoked meats on top and basically by the time the potatos are cooked through you have one of the great meals of all time. Crack open some dark beers, cheer the noble men of Jubilat, and get to work…thank HG and SJ later.

Jubilat Provisions – 608 5th Ave – Brooklyn, NYC