photography

Wang Galbi (Traditionally-cut Korean Short Ribs)

Back in 2012, I posted this recipe for traditionally-cut Korean Short Ribs (Galbi, Kalbi, 갈비). It’s one of the defining moments of this blog, when I started to dive head-first into the heritage, history, and language of food, and it remains one of my favorite recipes. In fact, we still cook this dish about once a month; after recently relocating to Virginia, I grilled up some Galbi for friends, and knew that it was time to share an updated version of this classic.

Wang Galbi (“King Galbi”) look a little different from the L.A.-cut short ribs you’re likely used to, but this is the original preparation for this dish. Ideally, you’ll want to find bone-in English-cut short ribs for this dish, but you could still use L.A.-cut or boneless short ribs as well.

I have a few versions of this recipe floating around on the internet and in my books, but for this week’s recipe I wanted to share the version that I’ve been personally making over the past couple years. I like to think of this as my weeknight-friendly recipe; I’ll combine the marinade the night before, and then pop it on the grill the following evening. All in all, you can’t find many recipes that taste this good while requiring minimal work.

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Skillet-Roasted Winter Vegetables

The other weekend, I was killing it in the kitchen. I had just finished off development and photos for a couple new recipes (my recent Curried Beef Stew and Garlic Smashed Potatoes dishes), and I was digging into two new creations: this week’s Skillet-Roasted Winter Vegetables, and next week’s Center-Cut Pork Rib Roast. Everything was going well, and my timing was just right – the dishes were going to finish just as the afternoon sun would be in the perfect position for photos.

But as anyone who’s visited Florida can attest, the weather can change in a blink of an eye. Case in point was this day, because in the course of a few minutes, my early afternoon sunshine transformed into a late evening sky, just as a tornado watch warning chimed on my phone. Clouds rushed in, winds gusted; the ambient light near the window I use for photography disappeared. So, picture this: in the middle of a storm, I rushed outside to our screened-in porch, laid down my photography surfaces, and desperately snapped some photos in near-dark conditions. Sure, I probably could have just waited for a different day, but I also enjoyed the challenge that mother nature threw my way.

The point of this story is to say that sure, my picture came out a bit blurry, but I will likely have fond memories associated with this photography session for years to come. I think it’s moments like those that I appreciate having a food blog in the first place; while cookbooks are often very particular – run through a team of editors and designers – blogging can be as fluid as the author defines. And really, the photo looks much better than some of the photos from this site’s early days, anyway!

This week’s recipe isn’t glamorous, and one we make often. Since the vegetables have varying cooking times, the best approach is to par-boil the hardier vegetables – carrots and parsnips, in this case – and then finish them all off together in the oven. Feel free to swap out the carrots and parsnips with other vegetables, like turnips or beets.

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8 Things You Didn’t Know about The Ancestral Table

It’s hard to believe that my cookbook is nearly 8 months old! As I was going through some of my blog’s draft archives, I came across this post that I wrote for Nom Nom Paleo back when the book first launched. For the sake of posterity, and for your reading pleasure, here it is again.

In case you haven’t grabbed a copy yet, you can find my book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or in your local bookstore. Also, be sure to check out the cookbook landing page, full recipe list, my reasons for writing the book, a list of tools and ingredients you’ll need, and a list of dishes that are Autoimmune Paleo compatible.

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2013: Year in Review (and a look at 2014)

Before I forget, let me start off by saying thank you for your support and continued readership. In October of 2011, I made a decision to follow a strict posting schedule – one post a week at the least, two posts a week at the most – to make sure that I had enough recipes to keep this little website chugging along at a steady pace. I’m happy to say that I haven’t missed a week since, and The Domestic Man has grown to be something far beyond my expectations; to give you an idea, my average daily traffic is now far higher than the traffic for the entire month of October 2011. This is all thanks to you and your encouragement along the way.

To be honest, I had expected 2013 to be a relatively quiet year for me. I started secretly writing and shooting for my debut cookbook in late 2012, and my goal was to basically just keep the website afloat while I focused on writing the book. Turns out that everyone else had other plans! Let’s look through some of this year’s surprises.

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Smoked Center Cut Pork Chops

Today’s recipe is a combination of two recent events in our house. First, I recently bought a remote grill thermometer, and I was itching to try it out. The thermometer has has two probes: one that goes in the meat and one to gauge the overall grill temperature. It’s an easy way to keep an eye on both the grill temp and your food without having to open the grill lid. Plus, it has a wireless receiver so I can keep an eye on the temperatures from afar, perfect for some wintertime grilling.

Second, we recently came across a beautiful French Rack of Pork at our local market, which is a shoulder pork loin still attached to the ribs; basically, it’s a rack of center cut pork chops. As luck would have it, the rack was on sale; my guess is that it intimidated customers and the store was having a hard time selling it. Either way, we couldn’t turn down the price, so I dragged the big hunk of meat home and the rest is history.

I decided to smoke the rack on my gas grill, which would allow me to give it a flavorful crust without overcooking the tender meat inside. Just to be safe, I brined the pork overnight to keep it from drying out, which was also a good call. The end result was crisp on the outside, and ridiculously juicy and flavorful on the inside.

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Where The Wild Thing Is

I filmed 14 short videos of my son, Oliver, to play alongside the soundtrack to Where the Wild Things Are. Oliver was 14 months old in the month I recorded the project. The main purpose of the films are to capture this moment in Oliver’s life so he can watch it later, and to send the videos to his grandparents (both sets live quite a ways away from us). I recorded everything with a Canon T1i, with a 50mm lens and manual focus.

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