Okay, so this is a bit of a slightly off-topic article, meant as a counterpoint to the article @Patrick wrote comparing barbecues to virtualizaton.
A few good points, to be sure. But some of us are really "serving the home", and when your home is a small condo or co-op instead of a house with multiple power circuits, generous square footage, front yard and a back yard...what can you do?
Some of us might prefer the city life, but the city life means small spaces, pre-war housing construction, limited capacity electric circuits, limited kitchen ventilation, and if there is a significant other involved, the "ministry of internal affairs" situated on the other end of the bed will dictate terms like a quiet, tidy cozy and presentable home. Can a love of meat (red white and otherwise), much like a desire for running servers, co-exist in a small shared space with wattage and noise constraints?
Well, much like how every good techie has a few tricks to hunt for deals (eBay alerts, RSS feeds off bensbargains.net, scraping CDW and other sites), a good meat lover knows where to get red meat cheaper. For a New Yorker (that's downstate, 5 boroughs) like me, I can show you where I get some of my meat on.
Welcome to Ironbound, it's a neighborhood on the south side of Newark, New Jersey, about a 15 minute train ride from New York's Penn Station. What's so significant about it? Well, if you are a Lusophone (someone who speaks Portuguese or have Porutguese/Macanese/Mozambique/Brazilian heritage), this is your home away from home. The Portuguese population in Ironbound kept many of the best attributes of the "old country", which involves the incessant patronage of the fine arts of dessert making, cheese curing, great sausages, and proscunto (Iberian cured ham). They also do a hell of a job with seafood.
The neighborhood really comes together for occasions like the World Cup (that was the US/Portgual game during the 2014 Group G match), Portugal Day parades and Brazilian independence street fairs. You also tend to see similar things in Edison (NJ), Fall River (RI), Montreal (Blvd. Ste Laurent/Rue Rachel on "the main") and Ossington near Little Italy in Toronto.
Many of the Brazilians who immigrated to the East coast of the US also settled down in Ironbound, and they bring with them amazing street food (Acaraje, Pao de quejio) and their barbecue traditions. Oh. And their "lanches", which is the Brazilian way of referring to lunch. And their best lanche is the massive Cheeseburgers - which is pronounced "chisse-bor-gare" in Braziian Portuguese. Chisse is how they pronounce "X", and tudo means "loaded up" or everything in Portuguese, so their burgers are known as X-Tudo burgers (Chisse-shudo-bor-gare). What's in it? Cheese, bacon, Corn salad, potato sticks, tomato, ham, egg, and a burger patty and it's usually big. Hell, you can get a steak burger. And no, I don't mean a burger patty made out of steak. I mean, a burger WITH both a patty and a steak inside (this is, what, about 12 dollars? I dunno, look at the latest menu from Altas Horas lanches on Yelp)
That steak cut is one of the favorites in Brazilian barbecue situations (hit a Fogo de Chao for lunch and you'll see what I mean) - this is known as a rump cap/culotte, or "Picanha". The Lusophone way of cooking it involves marinating it with olive oil and large grains of sea salt, skewering it up on a massive kebab fork and broiling it over hot coals or indirect heat. Serve it with shredded kale-and-orange salad and bean stews. Of course, considering that this is a legit Lusophone area, their supermarket must be something special, huh?
Oh yeah - mouthwash bottle sizes of Piri-piri sauce, rows upon rows of fine cheeses, cured chouriço, proscunto up the yang, and 4 USD/lb Picanhas. Picanhas are nice, tender, fatty bits of meat, similar in texture to tri-tip, but even better. Its cheaper than say, a New York strip, and when prepared properly? Much better. Hm...but what's this? How am I going to take care of this large package of Picanha in my dinky NYC apartment?
The supermarkets in question have a full service meat counter - slip my man here a few dollars and he'll cut it down to size - I usually ask for 1-2 inch thick slices across the grain for steaks. Always tip your butcher for he is the shepard who shall guide you into meaty righteousness. Oh, and the next time you happen to be near EWR for business (after this COVID19 ridiculousness work its way out), jump on a Lyft, head to Ironbound and grab some good eats. The barbecue joints on Ferry street are well known and the area is open late. It's extra fun when the MLS NY/NJ Red Bull soccer team plays NYCFC in Harrison Stadium across the Passaic river, or when a Brazilian or Portuguese star plays in a "friendly" match - people will pour you glasses of Vinho Verde.
I don't only hit Ironbound for meat that often. New Jersey Transit round-trip is 10 USD/person from Midtown Manhattan, and I tend to go there in June (Portuguese day parade) or September (Brazilian Independence). However, if I have weekend business in the meadowlands (Equinix NY2/4/5) , NASDAQ (Carteret) or NYSE/ICE (Totowa) I would grab a zipcar and head to Ironbound for Portuguese/Brazilian, Fort Lee/Palisades Park for Korean, or Edgewater for Japanese afterwards. If it's Ironbound, I am picking up provisions at the local supermarkets - the only constraint is the relatively dinky freezer in my home...
Now, what happens if I don't want to take the subway for 35 minutes to get to midtown, and then another 10-15 to get to Ironbound?
Well, there are cheaper sources of meat, like a certain South American Korean supermarket chain here in NYC that caters to the blue collar communities...like a certain 24 hour supermarket in Queens with a large Hispanic AND Brazilian community nearby, and a Korean megachurch down the block. Considering how much the locals love their meat, the turnover is fast and the pricing is around 10-15% better than most of NYC.
6 USD/lb tenderloins, 8 USD/lb skirt steaks, 4 USD/lb short ribs. And the full service meat counter is right there who can cut and trim to size.
Okay, very nice, but what does that have to do running servers? Patience, folks. Here's a little clue:
Yes. Thats a short rib. And yes, it was slow cooked over 3 days. And it's LIKE BUTTTTTAAAH.
On to part 2...
(...to be continued).
A few good points, to be sure. But some of us are really "serving the home", and when your home is a small condo or co-op instead of a house with multiple power circuits, generous square footage, front yard and a back yard...what can you do?
Some of us might prefer the city life, but the city life means small spaces, pre-war housing construction, limited capacity electric circuits, limited kitchen ventilation, and if there is a significant other involved, the "ministry of internal affairs" situated on the other end of the bed will dictate terms like a quiet, tidy cozy and presentable home. Can a love of meat (red white and otherwise), much like a desire for running servers, co-exist in a small shared space with wattage and noise constraints?
Well, much like how every good techie has a few tricks to hunt for deals (eBay alerts, RSS feeds off bensbargains.net, scraping CDW and other sites), a good meat lover knows where to get red meat cheaper. For a New Yorker (that's downstate, 5 boroughs) like me, I can show you where I get some of my meat on.
Welcome to Ironbound, it's a neighborhood on the south side of Newark, New Jersey, about a 15 minute train ride from New York's Penn Station. What's so significant about it? Well, if you are a Lusophone (someone who speaks Portuguese or have Porutguese/Macanese/Mozambique/Brazilian heritage), this is your home away from home. The Portuguese population in Ironbound kept many of the best attributes of the "old country", which involves the incessant patronage of the fine arts of dessert making, cheese curing, great sausages, and proscunto (Iberian cured ham). They also do a hell of a job with seafood.
The neighborhood really comes together for occasions like the World Cup (that was the US/Portgual game during the 2014 Group G match), Portugal Day parades and Brazilian independence street fairs. You also tend to see similar things in Edison (NJ), Fall River (RI), Montreal (Blvd. Ste Laurent/Rue Rachel on "the main") and Ossington near Little Italy in Toronto.
Many of the Brazilians who immigrated to the East coast of the US also settled down in Ironbound, and they bring with them amazing street food (Acaraje, Pao de quejio) and their barbecue traditions. Oh. And their "lanches", which is the Brazilian way of referring to lunch. And their best lanche is the massive Cheeseburgers - which is pronounced "chisse-bor-gare" in Braziian Portuguese. Chisse is how they pronounce "X", and tudo means "loaded up" or everything in Portuguese, so their burgers are known as X-Tudo burgers (Chisse-shudo-bor-gare). What's in it? Cheese, bacon, Corn salad, potato sticks, tomato, ham, egg, and a burger patty and it's usually big. Hell, you can get a steak burger. And no, I don't mean a burger patty made out of steak. I mean, a burger WITH both a patty and a steak inside (this is, what, about 12 dollars? I dunno, look at the latest menu from Altas Horas lanches on Yelp)
That steak cut is one of the favorites in Brazilian barbecue situations (hit a Fogo de Chao for lunch and you'll see what I mean) - this is known as a rump cap/culotte, or "Picanha". The Lusophone way of cooking it involves marinating it with olive oil and large grains of sea salt, skewering it up on a massive kebab fork and broiling it over hot coals or indirect heat. Serve it with shredded kale-and-orange salad and bean stews. Of course, considering that this is a legit Lusophone area, their supermarket must be something special, huh?
Oh yeah - mouthwash bottle sizes of Piri-piri sauce, rows upon rows of fine cheeses, cured chouriço, proscunto up the yang, and 4 USD/lb Picanhas. Picanhas are nice, tender, fatty bits of meat, similar in texture to tri-tip, but even better. Its cheaper than say, a New York strip, and when prepared properly? Much better. Hm...but what's this? How am I going to take care of this large package of Picanha in my dinky NYC apartment?
The supermarkets in question have a full service meat counter - slip my man here a few dollars and he'll cut it down to size - I usually ask for 1-2 inch thick slices across the grain for steaks. Always tip your butcher for he is the shepard who shall guide you into meaty righteousness. Oh, and the next time you happen to be near EWR for business (after this COVID19 ridiculousness work its way out), jump on a Lyft, head to Ironbound and grab some good eats. The barbecue joints on Ferry street are well known and the area is open late. It's extra fun when the MLS NY/NJ Red Bull soccer team plays NYCFC in Harrison Stadium across the Passaic river, or when a Brazilian or Portuguese star plays in a "friendly" match - people will pour you glasses of Vinho Verde.
I don't only hit Ironbound for meat that often. New Jersey Transit round-trip is 10 USD/person from Midtown Manhattan, and I tend to go there in June (Portuguese day parade) or September (Brazilian Independence). However, if I have weekend business in the meadowlands (Equinix NY2/4/5) , NASDAQ (Carteret) or NYSE/ICE (Totowa) I would grab a zipcar and head to Ironbound for Portuguese/Brazilian, Fort Lee/Palisades Park for Korean, or Edgewater for Japanese afterwards. If it's Ironbound, I am picking up provisions at the local supermarkets - the only constraint is the relatively dinky freezer in my home...
Now, what happens if I don't want to take the subway for 35 minutes to get to midtown, and then another 10-15 to get to Ironbound?
Well, there are cheaper sources of meat, like a certain South American Korean supermarket chain here in NYC that caters to the blue collar communities...like a certain 24 hour supermarket in Queens with a large Hispanic AND Brazilian community nearby, and a Korean megachurch down the block. Considering how much the locals love their meat, the turnover is fast and the pricing is around 10-15% better than most of NYC.
6 USD/lb tenderloins, 8 USD/lb skirt steaks, 4 USD/lb short ribs. And the full service meat counter is right there who can cut and trim to size.
Okay, very nice, but what does that have to do running servers? Patience, folks. Here's a little clue:
Yes. Thats a short rib. And yes, it was slow cooked over 3 days. And it's LIKE BUTTTTTAAAH.
On to part 2...
(...to be continued).
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