HEARTY

An ox heart is roughly the size of a deflated soccer ball and is festooned with all sorts of lovely martian fat that makes it appear a bit more grisly than it truly is. They set you back about $2 at the grocer, and if you know an unassuming cattleman, chances are you can get your hands on as much beef offal as you can carry.

The long slow cook is the ox heart's predestination. From happy graze and laze to the butcher's bloodsoaked floor, Ollie Ox is only thinking of food and sex and little more I would imagine. For as idiotic as they outwardly appear - getting caught in ditches and whatnot - they certainly have a grasp on the most pressing issues. If you happen to procure a happy heart, you'll need to bathe in in court bouillon for about seven hours at low heat. Little more than the clean, crisp broth will do.

I cleaned my heart of unesscessary fat and chopped it into enticing shapes mostly angular and likely to appeal to sodomites or folks compelled to "talk architecture." To each his/her own. Then it's to the charcoal grill or the broiler for a good exgterior sear. The last thing you truly want to do is make the heart any more rubbery than it is. Watch the heat. Embellisment is not an option here. I like a nice flurry of sea salt. Maybe some horseradish. Then there's red onion - pickled in house - and reddened with beet juice.

Maybe auquavit is in order...

FLATIRON

There's really no beter way to fight the Monday doldrums than a plate oiled high with beef. Actually, I suppose there is a better way: Wrap said beef in bacon and serve with mashed rutagaba and a thick puddle of onion gravy.

The beef in question is the so-called flatiron steak, a hearty cut from the steer's shoulder. Some butchers showcase it as "top blade roast" and that makes it sound as oppressive as your grandma's rosewater perfume. The cut is usually well marbled, which is lovely, but it is often too thick, which isn't so lovely.

Nothing I can't fix with a mallet and a sharp knife... I worked my aggression out on the flatiron - with spirited hoists of Thor's hammer - and pushed my knife at an angle through the cut, my palm over top to insure the appropriate depth. Meanwhile, a whole sliced yellow onion caramelized in a copper pan over low heat.

Carmelization is painstaking: You always want to futz with the onions, but you really must let them do their thing, otherwise they will not release all their natural sugars and therefore brown. Continue about your inner struggle if you will; let it be the thing of Sartre's Nausea - the onions will not care.

I wrapped my pounded thin steak in good applewood smoked bacon, secured it with kitchen twine and submitted it to a smoking hot cast iron pan for an even sear on all sides for about four minutes. The roll looked like something out of Hans Bellmer, but this is not the place for that... When the bacon is crisped, let the meat rest; now you have time to assemble your gravy. Onion gravy is a thing of Ms. Dorothy Hartley, and conjures up thick, ruddy maidens in heavy skirts fussing over a hob for a table of field-wary gents. Embellished with Lea & Perrins, incendiary Chinese mustard and cayenne, the dour gravy is rendered sublime.

The last of my winter roots, the lone rutabaga - "swede" for you, Tony & Andy - was a bit grizzled and showing much vegetal beard. I trimmed his manliness and boiled him soft. Mashed with some stock and cream, a blade of mace, black pepper and salt. To the plate with the vaguely genetalian meat rolls - again, not the place - and a ladle of gravy. Perhaps another... Pale ale and puckering Branston pickle. Doldrums begone.

TREASURE

The freezer has become a treasure chest of sorts. Ziploc bags frozen to strange brown and tan bricks, legends scribbled in black Sharpie across their expanse. Behind an old regal mallard awaiting the taxidermist were three exciting finds: Quail, venison liver, duck hearts. Almost akin to fiding well-aged wads of cash in winter coat pockets come first freeze. I thawed the liver and a loaf of good sourdough, too.

Venison liver is quite clean, immeasurably rich, and smoothly textured as earnest pate. The possibilities are innumerable, unless you've got one ear to the cheffy mob demanding game offal to be served "crudo" with microgreens and herb-infused oils. Not this cowboy.

Assemble the cornerstones of good seasoning: salt, black pepper, Colman's dry mustard, cayenne. Of course, how much or how little depends on your personal taste. I tend to season my all-purpose flour "well," so translate that however you will. While seasoning your flour, have your pan on the heat. Cast iron, of course. Some butter to the pan. When the snap, crackle, pop begins, toss your livers in seasoned flour. To the pan for a good sizzle. Again, we're at the divide on matters of taste. I prefer my offal the same way I prefer my steak: medium rare or rare, and when it's something like venison offal - inherently clean - I almost want to heed the cheffy call for "crudo." A mere introduction to the heat. Count to 10. Turn. Remove. Submit the sourdough toast to the broiler.

Now for the gravy. Chicken stock to the pan. Scrape up the floury bits. A splash of the ubiquitous Lea & Perrins, some sherry vinegar. Reduce. It's ready. Toast on plate. Livers on toast on plate. Gravy over toast. A glass of Guinness. The sun setting and the weekend upon us. To your good health and appetite!

CASTELNAUDARY

I used to think only horrendously tragic events slowed time. The ephemeral - too often the primary focus - ceased to exist. Then I started futzing with "old world" cuisine, starting brine buckets, boning out pig's feet and accumulating duck fat for confit and cassoulet.

These activities take time. Lots of it. They slow everything down. No time for pointless politics, shameless materialism, who isn't sleeping with Lindsay Lohan. You're following the knife around complicated bone structure, or rendering fat, or soaking white beans for cassoulet. Your mind is quiet, hands active, feet calling for a soak from too much standing.

Even the cooking processes impart something of the ineffable. Cassoulet - if you do it "right" - takes two days. Much longer depending on whether or not you're collecting lipid and meats. Beans must soak and cook. Bread needs to be crumbed - a lot of it. Sausages and bacon and duck confit and goose and lamb must be browned. Tomatoes must be cored and seeded and chopped and cooked down to their essence. Assemblage is key, too.

I cooked my last cassoulet this winter. Beans soaked and cooked with pork knuckle 'til plump, swollen. Sausages wound and browned. Lamb bits browned. Confit pulled from jars of thick white fat. Duck meat picked pink from its bones. Goose breast browned the color of Abueleta. Bacon crisped brown. Beans drained and mixed with the tomatoes. A casserole dish slicked with lard. Beans, meat, breadcrumbs. Repeat. The roof? Breadcrumbs swathed in duck fat. Into a medium oven for a long slow cook.

Remarkably, winter had come to Georgia. Trees swayed in wind and creaked and then settled silently. The house brought about in the early 1900s, becomes cantankerous when the temperature dips below freezing. It stretches, groans. Soon the air smells of meat and spice. Ah, Sam Smith's Imperial Stout. Another. A doze on the den couch. The gas oven clicks on and off every 20 minutes. Cassoulet needs tending. Smooth the crust further down into the bean, meat, tomato mixture. More breadcrumbs. Another Stout. A snooze. Click on and off. The wind. The smell. A look to the Faulkner on the floor... Nah.

Hours later the casserole comes out. It's top bubbling brown and red, volcanic. A spoonful for the cook in small hours' midst. Nothing tastes better. Yup. Time has stopped.

BLUE

With great ambivalence I enjoyed immensely - and lamented immeasurably - the depletion of my venision stock last night. It's hard to believe I've chewed, gnawed, and smacked vociferously through pounds of jerky, sausage, saddle, strap, loin, and organs. I spent a few minutes Sunday checking the freezer inventory and saw I had only saddle "flaps" remaining. Not a bad thing, mind you. The meat is remarkably rich and earthy. Better than strap by leaps and bounds, and begs for little more than a kiss of fire, which got me thinking about "doneness phobia."

In the midst of "hamburger day" at the office, a co-worker thrust her burger towards me, eyes wide, mouth drawn up in horror. A single bite was taken. The grayed meat revealed a subtle weave of pink through its interior. "Is this safe?" she asked. Organic, grass-fed angus, 80 percent lean. Is that safe? Add some Lea & Perrins, strong mustard, chopped onion, cornichons, and an egg yolk. Steak tartare, sweet child. Is that safe? Raw as a summer rash. Red as anger itself. But is it safe?

How many of us truly enjoy meat?

If we're cooking protein into textural, tasteless bits, what's the point of eating it? We fire the taste from it. We burn flavor and nuance off. The mark of a good grillmaster is one who is unafraid of fire, who is capable of searing the exterior, giving it a crust, and leaving the inner flesh blood red, nearly raw at its middle.

What do you taste? There are vegetal, earthy flavors. There is a metallic tang of blood. Maybe people don't want to taste this. Maybe they don't want to be reminded of the foodstuff as animal. That's all fine and good. But the hypocrisy smells like the monkey house.

I like my steak medium-rare. But I like venison "blue." Order a steak blue and you'll urge the chef to whisper descriptions of flame and smoke to room-temp ribeyes, t-bones, porterhouses. Your dinner will arrive on the plate amidst a pool of blood and offer no apology for its frankness, its being left bare. Fantastic.

Cast iron, smoking, was my cooking vessel, and the flaps were over-seasoned and pressed into the pan. A minute or two. Flip. Remove. I wilted a handful of Brussels sprouts leaves in a warm pan. A simple "jus" thickened with whole-grain mustard and taken to the plate. The ubiquitous fleur de sel...

BATHTUB GIN

The long sotted soak started with the trial by fire at the local Steak & Ale. Burnt hands and arms and shattered back, aching knees and visibly throbbing feet. Boiling bath and hair of the dog that bit you. Maybe something morose sobbing from a thriftstore radio.

I rekindled the affair after 12 hour shifts at a "gastropub" that shall remain nameless. More burnt hands, arms. Back and knees and feet much older and frailer. Pains that screamed for whisky and Melville. I'd slide into boiling bathwater and resume my spot with Starbuck, Queequeeg and the lot. A sip. A sigh. Turn the hot to a trickle. Ahab's angst. The endless cetological digressions. More sips. The pain warped, bloomed. A bloodred throb of broken ache. The whisky spilled into its cracks, smoothed them as clay. There was no room for music.

Two weeks ago we found ourselves showerless. The tub, still functioning, beckoned after a long day of moving things "around" and general cosmetic chicanery. I felt like I'd worked sautee for 12 hours. Choreographed torture trot from oil to pan to stove to order to plate to mise-en-place to expiditer. Burns and cuts along the way! Runners in your grill with a cold skirt steak, a raw skate wing, a request for additional "spicy seasonings."

No wonder the kitchen manager huffed bug spray in the walk-in.

To the cupboard. A tall glass. Ice. I rolled a lime under my palm and halved it; ground the juice and pulp with the vaguely Sadean citrus reamer. Hendrick's remnants. Ah... A little tonic: A subliminal suggestion of effervesence. To the bath. James' Varities of Religious Experience must suffice with Melville on the shelf. To your good health!

PIG ON PIG

For my final trick of the week, I acted as able and interested facilitator re: pig on pig action. Jowl bacon, crisped slowly in a sweltering cast iron pan. Foreleg tossed in olive oil and sherry vinegar and slid 'neath the broiler. A pan of arugula, watercress. A knob of butter.

I trimmed the bacon into lardons and tossed them with the lovely porky hunks, crusted, popping, smoking with heat. Folded into their bitter green blanket and augmented with chopped pickled onions. Like the most efficient meats, these two offerings from Harry Hog wasted little time making their own gravy as fat and juice dribbled from the flesh. Embellished as always with a splash of Lea & Perrins.

Thank you, Harry, for your sacrifice.

Q&A

Name your three desert island must-have ingredients.
Bacon, butter, bourbon.

What would you have for your last supper?
Hmmm. Well, I think I've written at length on this elsewhere, but I'll try to recreate the magic.

Any proper last supper would be enjoyed with friends, outdoors, autumn, at a long oaken table laden with candles. The meal would have to start midday, of course, as there would be at least 10 courses. Maybe I could hire the Scorpions to play an acoustic set.

I'll start with a sweet vermouth cocktail, and move slowly from garden fresh snails sauteed in butter and ramps to a fruits de la mer platter: Oysters, langoustines, sea unrchin -- all served with preserved lemons and a big bucket of aioli. A few glasses of Pouilly Fuisse. Cream of celeriac soup with pork cracklings and truffle butter. Several terrines: Pork, Game: One hare; one Duck, Woodcock, Pigeon. Bagna cauda with artichokes, fennel, celery, cardoons. A few glasses of strong chablis.

Then we'll move on to the main events: Cassoulet; Tripes ala mode de Caen; Fritto Misto alla Offal: kidneys, livers, gizzards. More than a few glases of a grizzled Chateauneuf du Pape. Maybe a snifter of armagnac. Then some dancing. I'm a great dancer.

Downshifting is easy: A salad of oak leaf lettuce, braised hearts of palm, and bacon. Dressed with lemon juice and olive oil. Some cheese: Crotin, Stinking Bishop, a Camembert melting in a ripened, odorous pond. Then a bourbon. And another. Did someone put on The Stooges? Finish with pears poached in zinfandel and about fourteen bourbons. Death, come for me.

What foodstuff would you eliminate if you could?
Chicken. I know cheffy folks love talking up their "simple roast chicken." Bah. The crime is how these jokers are cloned, killed, breaded and fried for toddlers, children, adolescents, teenagers, adults. It's ubiquitous. It's annoying.

What's your favourite table?
Our kitchen table. It's made from a boat hatch. This insanely talented nerdy historian/carpenter/gunsmith finished it for us and called it the "Mayflower Table." He suggested we break it in with "flagons of grog." We did.

What's your poison?
Bourbon. Scotch will do fine. But it's always been bourbon.

Which book gets you cooking?
A Taste of France. There aren't many recipes, but the photos really get the juices going. And the "indigenous peoples" are fantastic lardy toothless folk straight from Baron Munchausen. I finally bought a used copy last year for $1.

What's your dream dinner party line-up?
I think I've already sort of answered this. But if you're asking who I'd like to have there, famous, dead or alive it would be a lot of fat people, i.e. eaters. I don't want to be around anyone picking at food. Let's eat and let's eat a lot.

What was your childhood lunchtime treat?
Fond memories of Devilled Ham, which is potted meat with a lot of spice. But Goober-Grape, this jelly infused peanut-butter stuff, is the best. Oh, and these jarred tamales. Incredible.

What would you cook to impress a date?
I'm married. But when I want to impress my wife all I have to do is cook Bolognese. And I won't protest when she wants to toss it with angel hair pasta.

Who would you most like to cook for?
No one in particular. But I like to cook for people who appreciate stuff other than chicken.

What was your most memorable meal?
By that you mean favorite, I guess? Has to be the catfish my grandfather fried up just moments after I'd caught it in the pond. He helped me land it and then beat it in the head with a hammer. I was told to clean it. I did. Fried catfish, Hunt's Catsup, Sweet Iced Tea.

Have you had any food disasters?
I catered this party once where nothing went right. I had too much to drink before the party-goers arrived and forgot the roast. It was cooked to the consistency of old boots. Thankfully my balsamic reduction wowed everyone. Boiled vinegar, people. No big deal. And then we all got high and someone backed into the oven and turned it off. The pears were left cold instead of poaching. No one finished theirs. I'm still shocked I was paid.

What's the worst meal you've ever had?
That's easy. Our first night in Florence, honeymoon... Some dump run by gypsies in mistmatched clothing and lifeless shoes. I ordered leg of lamb. What came was a shin with connective tissue, hair, and fat. I can't remember what Katrina had, but I'm sure it was just as abysmal. We laughed it off, and I just kept ordering wine. It was one of the most expensive meals I've ever had too.

What's the most outlandish thing you've ever eaten?
I'm not a big shock person. I don't go for the donkey scrotum and stuff like that. I don't really know the most outlandish thing I've eaten. Maybe a McRib?

Who's your food hero/food villain?
Dorothy Hartley is my heroine and Emeril Lagasse is my villain. Hartley's Food of England was one of the first cookbooks I ever read. It's not really a book of recipes, but stories rather. There aren't any measurements. There's just a narrative and suggestions. Hartley celebrated her ingredients, handled them carefully. Lagasse, conversely, is yelling and screaming and tossing garlic and cajun seasoning all around. He should be castrated.

Rachael or Giada?
Neither: Nigella Lawson by a mile. More curves than whipped cream.

Vegetarians: genius or madness?
Madness. There's nothing worse than dining with one.

Cereal or eggs and bacon?
Cereal during the week. No time for anything else. Coffee is taken in large doses on the road.

Appetizer or dessert?
Never been into sweets.

Fusion food or Classic American?
I detest fusion and most classic American, unless it's some wiseass recipe of James Beard's involving goat legs and gin and fire. The real problem is we've gotten away from "classic american" cuisine. Look at a menu from the 1940s or '50s and you'll see lots of meat there: porterhouses, ribeyes; forelegs, trotters, heads, tongues. All sorts of offal... Cockscombs. Etc. Crazy seafood: Lagoustines. Periwinkles. Outlandish stuff. There was as much blood on the plate as there was on the butcher's block. Now we're a nation of O'Charley's and TGIFridays. Kill me now.

What's the best/worst thing about the American food scene?
Closemindedness. Mimicry. Chefs putting seviche and brunoise vegetables into a martini glass and selling it for $20.

What would you do if you weren't a chef?
I'm not a chef. If I wasn't a newspaper guy, I'd try to be a chef.

Make a wish...
I wish for a lingua taco and a cold Carta Blanca!

Photo: A favorite dish... Nigella Lawson

PICNIC

Pork Picnic isn't exactly a breeze to work with. I've rendered it inedible with too little cooktime, and, conversely, I've braised it to gelatin. The Picnic is the lower cut of the hog's foreleg, therefore comprised of fatty, greasy shoulder bits, and leaner roasty bits all kept toasty within a thick white lard coat. The flavor comes from the bone, which the meat is rolled around.

O' when Harry Hog was ruddy and happy and grazing noisily upon dandelion, the blood would rush and swell about his chubby legs as he waddled about his farmland paradise. Circulating his fluids for us? Yes, Harry was.

I honored Harry with a long braise in four cups ale, mustard seed, juniper berries, two heads of garlic, an onion, a bay leaf. Harry's foreleg cooked for nearly seven hours and struggled to stay together as I pulled it from the pot. An hour left in the process, I introduced two handfuls of ripe, red globe radishes to the braise. They came out light pink, earthy and forgiving to the bite. Like turnips with less ire. Fantastic.

To serve, I carved a 1/2 inch "chop" from the foreleg and browned quickly in butter. A ladle of cooking liquid to the pan. Some grainy mustard. Some cognac. Watch the flames subside. To the plate. Porter, please.

VEAL LIVER

Most green about the gills "farm-to-table" types will champion lamb's liver to no end. Noses flare upturned at the mention of chicken livers, much less calf's liver. Then there's the regal veal calf, and its light brown and remarkable supple organ. I've had luck on my side finding medium cuts as there is no butcher to speak of save the questionable "ethnic" spots where there's as much dirt on the floor as blood. Whew.

Again, nothing to hide the organ's flavor. A light coat of seasoned flour and to the pan of popping butter. A turn. Add some Lea & Perrins, some mustard. They're done. Introduce some arugula to the heat. Bacon, onions, sherry vinegar, salt and pepper.

To the plate.

KNUCKLES

Pork knuckle, hock, shank, etc. They are all the same. The irony here is America slices their knuckle into half-inch "steaks" whereas the Germans and French simply serve the whole monty in its Flintstonian glory. I'm still scouring meat aisles for the real deal...

Roasting is the primary method for these thrifty bits. Were the knuckle in its entirity availible, the warm oven would've been its foil. Alas, I played the hand I was dealt and braised the knuckle in cider/chicken stock with aromatic veg and garlic. The result? Sublime.

An outer ring of gelatinous, wobbly fat framing supple pink meat. Even the marrow was bubbling from the bone. The meat is actually better than braised pork shoulder or butt, as it bears the distinction of being, (1) close to the bone, and (2) insulated with sumptuous goodness.

Accompaniment should be fundamental. White beans. Maybe some wilted arugula or mizuna. I made a mustard gravy with the cooking liquid and made sure there was plenty of brown bread on hand for sopping. Popped a bottle of Norman cider and away I went.

COLD LAMB

I don't know many people that enjoy eating meat cold or even at room temp. That's odd. There is really nothing more enjoyable than a fatty cut of meat embellished with strong mustard, horseradish, green sauce, or piccalilli. Ham, lamb, beef, etc. All good, but great when cold and sauced. Fantastic. Here I pan seared a lamb steak and kept it overnight in the fridge. From the fridge to the plate with wilted broccoli rabe. Piccalilli courtesy of Mr Sylvester.

NECKS

Neck bones. Lamb, beef, pork. They are all excellent. Pork neck bones are the least expensive. Ten dollars will secure enough to feed a full table and then some. Stew them in stock, or water, or beer. Onions, carrots, peppercorns. Six hours 'til the meat slips from its bone. The meat is slick, fatty, full of the flavors of meat and blood. Life, for all intents and purposes. Of course the only thing one should do with a taste this strong is dress it minimally.

Green vegetable. A vinaigrette. Some garlic. A few peppercorns. The cooking liquid. Easy. I made a pungent Colman's vinaigrette, tossed some watercress. Added the garlic from the braise. The mustard cuts the fattiness of the bones. The greens give a good vegetal crunch. Smack any cook more haircut than technique who's willing and able to go into some exegesis about how this is Yin to Yang, or vice versa.

SOUPE a L'OIGNON

Katrina & I were in Paris for the new millennium. Supper started late, as is usual, and I was more than wobbly from sweet vermouth cocktails, countless Kronenbourg, a few nips of single malt.

The table was lengthened with leaves and seemed to fill the entire apartment. It was like one of those surreal short stories by Calvino or Perec. Everyone was smoking. I took a good beating from other grad students for claiming Plato as my favorite philosopher. To make matters worse, I even began to vociferously defend his system(s) and quote liberally from Sophist, Parmenides, Gorgias. Enough of your Derrida, your Blanchot! Bah... Wine was literally raining from the ceiling. Rescue boats were dispatched. And then the cordials came out.

We talked about walking to Les Halles for onion soup. The Belly of Paris. We should have. The sun was up and I was still babbling about Pythagorean notions of soul as harmony of the body. The French are more forgiving than Westerners make them out to be.

Drink through your hangover, they said. I complied. And I made my first onion soup upon returning home.

Recipes, like everything else, change over time. The constants are the onions, the butter, the flour, the cheese. I've made the soup with veal and lamb stock. I've made it with chicken stock, with beef stock, with weak pork stock whipped up from neck bones and trotters. I like brown chicken stock best and extending it with red wine sharpens it it in ways lemon juice or vinegar simply fail to do. A thick, crusty crouton is a must, too.

SNAILS 02

Spent a king's ransom on cinematically beautiful Oak Leaf lettuce at the green grocer's market. The purple and green leaves behave without the threat of the knife and demand to be left whole. I acquiesced.

Fresh snails and sweet onions in the pan. Drippings, bacon. Listen to them screech and pop. A glug of brown chicken stock. Off the heat to rest. Assemble your dressing: Dijon, olive oil, garlic. Pungent, earthy, sharp.

To the bowl. Hand toss. Coat the leaves. Take the snails and onions and bacon to the leaves. Watch them slowly wilt. Drizzle additional dressing, but attempt to keep it from looking as contrived as I did. Salad!

STRAP

Cooked correctly, venison backstrap bests filet, offering a depth of flavor bovine must pine for while grazing the hills, wishing they were mule deer.

Strap wrapped in young bacon is even better. Salty baste, sweet piggy insulation. Pan sear for minutes and finish in a hot stove. Let your strap rest and enjoy a cocktail. Now slice hearty chunks. Blood and drippings is more grown up than any fussy french sauce will ever be. Mashed rutabaga to the plate.