For the past several months I have been working as part of the Taste of the Nation: Los Angeles Marketing Team. The event, held June 6th in Culver City at the Media Park (across from the Trader Joe’s) is the premiere chef event in the city. It’s really insane how many awesome restaurants come out for it. There will be a bunch of wineries, several incredible liquor sponsors, a live demo, a silent auction featuring amazing items (like having your script read by the Director of Development at Ratner Productions and 100’s of other things).

Some of my favorite places that are confirmed so far:

Animal, Akasha, Comme Ca,Hatfield’s, Grace,Mozza, AOC, Tavern,The Foundry… and dozens more to be confirmed soon.

Ok – that picture of coleslaw sucks. I knows it. But hey, you try starting to drink at 1pm while cooking and entertaining 40 people and then trying to remember to take picture of the food. Yes, the coleslaw recipe will be in this post…but wait…we are getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s rewind to Saturday evening around 7.30pm.

I went up to my favorite place to buy meat - Marconda’s at the 3rd street Farmer’s Market (http://www.yelp.com/biz/marcondas-meat-market-los-angeles) to snag 8 lbs. of beautiful fatty pork butt. Little known fact - Jews actually  learn how to spot a good cut of pork butt while studying for their haftorahs. And…now that we’ve offended several dozen people with that joke let’s move on. 
At Marcanda’s I  had a good conversation with a guy next to me at the counter who was buying 20 lbs of pork butt for his Super Bowl party (ok, showoff Mcgee). He and HIS buddy had gone halvsies on a $500 smoker and were going to town starting it at 5am (oooo la-fuckin la, Im SOOO impressed early risers). 

Since I had just drank an orange pop, which to my sensitive system might as well be made out of adderall,water and orange food dye, and since I wanted to knock this guy off his meat high horse, I told him I was starting my pulled pork THAT NIGHT bc I’m that dedicated to my craft. I then did some side to side finger snaps, told him to talk to the hand and took a huge bite out of a raw steak to let him know a) I’m crazy b) don’t step to this bull bc he WILL get the horns. Supposedly he was just trying to make casual conversation, but I was way too much in the zone.

I got home at about 8ish, cleaned some of the fat off the top for the (heart attack alert)pork fat sauteed onions and then put a nice dry rub all over the PB. The dry rub consisted of Salt,Pepper,Onion powder,Paprika,Brown Sugar,Cayenne Pepper,Cumin and Garlic Powder. I seared the pork belly and cut off a small hunk to make a pork sandwich for that evening cuz, dudes gotta eat. 

 Then I put the remaining butt in the dutch oven with the braising liquid, which consisted of – apple juice,ketchup,grey poupon mustard,more cayenne and a whole yellow onion. Into the real oven set at 220, I placed the dutch oven ever so gently and waved goodbye.”When I see you again you’ll be pulled pork!!” I said. It was as emotional as it sounds.

At 1.30am as Ashton Kutcher continued to be consistently unfunny on SNL,I knew I needed to taste the PB and make sure this train hadn’t gone off the rails on the way to flavortown. I pulled the pork using two forks,my massive triceps and all the personal will i had to not gobble it all down right then and there. The aroma wafting up was like if Albert Einstein built a special BBQ in heaven for Julia Childs to make God’s BBQ lunch. I put the shredded meat back in da dutchie,closed the oven door and let it do it’s damn thang.

Still awake at 3.30am, I made an executive decision to not leave the oven on all night for fear of liquid evaporation and separated the pork from the liquid allowing both to cool faster. At around 4.15 I put it all in the fridge. The next morn at 10am it was back in the 220 degree oven cooking away till 2pm. By mid-party, the sun still high in the sky, discouraged party guests were left with nothing else but the ability to wipe clean the sides of the dutch oven to gather the last tasty morsels of liquidy porky goodness. 8 lbs taken down in no time. Save your clock/portion management mumbo jumbo for someone else.To me, THAT is party success.

In addition to the coleslaw and the slow cooked pulled pork I made a variation of German potato salad with pork fat onions and bacon and then a sample pack of handmade donuts. Here’s a shot of the donuts

from L-R : M&M encrusted, Vanilla Frosted, Almond and Vanilla, Caramel coated.

Overall the Super Bowl party was a slambash of epic proportions. Half a keg, 100+ beers, a handle of Johnnie Walker, 8 lbs of pork, 5 pounds of slaw and 10 pounds of potato salad. If you were to tell ME that you left hungry, I would tell YOU that you also left a goddamn liar (or perhaps you just came a vegetarian…)

Jalapeno Coleslaw

1 head green cabbage, quartered then sliced into strips. 
2 medium sized jalapenos,cut in half lengthwise then sliced on a mandolin
1 whole carrot, grated
1 red onion, quartered, sliced nearly paper thin on mandolin (while drinking Gin)
juice of 1 lime
2-3 tablespoons mayo
1 tablespoon white vinegar
2 cloves of raw garlic diced fine
salt and pepper to taste
OPTIONAL – 1-2 shakes Cayenne pepper (this will obviously make it spicier)
 
 Cut all veggie ingredients. Mix well.
Add mayo and gently toss.
 add vinegar and lime juice.
salt and pepper. Mix well.
Taste it.
if you want it to have more of an acidy flavor (more bite) add another 1/2 tablespoon vinegar until its where you want it.

Remember that as this sits overnight, the flavors/spice will intensify

I’ll  be there again tomorrow, serving up Breafast Burritos with Jeff’s homemade chorizo, homemade authentic (that means lard, folks) flour tortillas (ok, we made vegetarian too) and a scrambled egg inside.  Topped off with some homemade salsa and served alongside a green salad straight from the SELMA hoophouse…what more could you ask for? Stop by between 6 and 10AM for breakfast.

Can you say The Today Show with Hoda and Kathie Lee?

I am sure you are reading this post and thinking “How did 2 young guys with a cookbook get noticed by a national TV show?

Well here’s the answer : Luck, amazing family friends and having something that you really believe in (whatup Hallmark card…)
Anyone from Michigan will tell you that we help each other out there. Maybe it’s that Midwest mentality, but when people in Michigan have something to offer to another person – be it time, connections or just some good ol positive encouragement, Michiganders are quick to dish it out.

So through this Michigan networking, a family friend’s relative was given a copy of our cookbook and liked the book enough to show it around to some of her work friends. Oh yes, this family friend happens to work at the Today Show in New York City. This far flung shot in the dark actually came to fruition when we received a phone call that the Today Show was interested in us and our cookbook.

Max called me and in his typical dry, very nonchalant fashion he said something like “So I think The Today Show wants us to be on sometime.”

A week went by and Today Show called us and said “Can you clear a week of your calendar?”

We didn’t want to seem desperate and tell them that pending nuclear disaster we would be in New York at any time or day they wanted us, so we gave a few “potential dates that would work for us.”

Once the Today Show settled on March 20th, we both bought calendars and circled the date.

This post means we are only a little more than a month away from our Today show appearance. If you think we’ve slept well since we found out you are very very wrong. We’ve been ramping up our efforts and practicing our witty banter (we hope to be better than Penn and Teller and near Vince Vaughn Swingers by the time of our appearance).

In order to connect with all our web-saavy fans out there we decided to create a twitter account. Now you can now instantly follow the food musings, dinner party menus, random thoughts and blatant self promotion at FreshmanKitchen on twitter.

Max and Eli

Let’s Eat: Judy Zeidler cooks with
Jayne Cohen, Jennifer 8. Lee and Max and Eli Sussman.
Tuesday, November 11, 7:30pm $45

Join us for a delicious gourmet kosher meal that features recipes from Jayne Cohen’s Jewish Holiday Cooking • Jennifer 8. Lee’s The Fortune Cookie Chronicles • Max and Eli Sussman’s Freshman in the Kitchen: From Clueless Cook to Creative Chef • Judy Zeidler’s Gourmet Jewish Cook. Schmooze with the authors while you eat. Three-course meal included.

Hopefully you can join us!

Then at the spiffy new Whole Foods Ann Arbor we are going to be doing a serious cooking demo with some select cold weather friendly dishes from the book. And it’s free! Here are some more details on the Whole Foods event:

Sunday, November 2nd

Freshman in the Kitchen: From Clueless Cook to Creative Chef with Max and Eli Sussman

1:00-3:00 p.m. Free

Join Max and Eli in the Lifestyle Center as they prepare recipes from their new cookbook, Freshman in the Kitchen, and autograph personal copies. The book will be available for purchase. Their fun and inspiring book provides step-by-step cooking instructions to new cooks, as well as instructions on grocery shopping, how to outfit the kitchen, and a myriad other kitchen tips.

Here are the events:

Saturday August 23: Book Signing at Noble Lexington. Maybe you’re vacationing in beautiful Lexington, MI this weekend? If so, stop by Noble Lexington and say hi, we’ll be signing books and cooking up some delicious dishes from the cookbook!

Sunday August 24: Book Release Party at the Book Beat.  We’re excited to be signing books and sharing some recipes at the Book Beat, the bookstore where Eli and I got some of our first books as kids and have been getting books ever since.

Monday August 25: Book Signing and Party at eve – the restaurant.  This is it, folks. The Ann Arbor party to celebrate the release of Freshman in the Kitchen is going down at one of the town’s best restaurants. We’ll be providing some tastes of our favorite dishes from the book and eve’s well-stocked wine bar will be open throughout the evening. Books will be available for purchase, Eli and Max will be happy to sign, and there will be music and merriment all evening long.

Come stop by, grab some snacks and a signed copy of our new book! Feel free to RSVP by clicking the link for each event but it’s totally cool if you just show up!!

Also keep checking our calendar on the right side of this website for more events in Southeast Michigan, LA, and beyond throughout the year.