Micah's Read of the Week, Vol. 124
‘The Most Interesting Man Alive’: Stories About Mike Leach Paint His Life Picture, Emeril Lagasse is Finally Ready to Kick it Down a Notch, NYE Recipe Corner, and more
Hello, and welcome to Micah’s Read of the Week.
This is a newsletter filled with things Micah Wiener finds interesting. Check out the archive of previous newsletters here.
Hello. It’s Thursday. Like so many others, we hit a few travel speedbumps this holiday season. I spent more than two hours on hold Tuesday with Southwest Airlines. It’s been lousy. But, thankfully the New York to Dallas leg of our trip wasn’t canceled. In fact, we were the only Southwest flight to leave LaGuardia yesterday. My wife, my dog, and I made it to Dallas and drove home to Austin in a rental car. It could be much worse.
I hope everyone made it home for Christmas and I hope you all make it back. Please enjoy the read.
M
‘The Most Interesting Man Alive’: Stories About Mike Leach Paint His Life Picture
I didn’t get to write about Mike Leach last week, but I wanted to share this piece full of stories from friends and colleagues. Leach was one-of-a-kind and always a favorite of mine. Leach absolutely changed the way that football is played at every level, and his unique personality and exploits will keep his memory alive for as long as football is played.
For about 20 years, Dave Emerick worked with or for Mike Leach.
In that time, he saw the coach operate a vehicle once.
“I rode in a car, with him driving, in 1997 when we were at Kentucky and we played Vanderbilt,” recalls Emerick. “That was the last time I ever rode with him as the driver.”
If Leach went some place, he was driven there or he walked. He much preferred walking. At Washington State, he walked from his home to campus each day.
He often encountered wildlife. Deer, quail, rabbits and, most famously, raccoons. During one of his walks, Leach tracked a raccoon through the snow.
Strolling through a neighborhood, he saw the animal’s tracks and followed them for a half mile. Why would he ever do that?
Said Leach: “I was curious where the sucker lived.”
Brad Peterson once went on a 12-night recruiting road trip through the state of Misisssippi with Mike Leach.
In an upset, Peterson lived to tell about it.
“We got back from that trip and I walked in the house and my wife said, ‘You look awful,’” he recalls. “I hadn’t been to bed before 1 a.m. in 12 days.”
A nightcrawler and a noon-riser, that was Mike Leach.
Leach introduced Peterson to late-night drinking, long debates and karaoke. At one point on the trip, Leach quipped to Peterson, “I haven’t been to sleep before midnight since I was in sixth grade!”
It was quite normal for Leach to converse over strong spirits until 3 or 4 a.m. and not arrive into his office until after noon. At Washington State, Chun’s day often started at around 5 a.m., when he’d wake up to a text from Leach that was sent an hour earlier. “When he was going to bed, I was waking up,” Chun laughs.
There were no quick calls with Mike Leach. And there was no possibility of saying “no” to the man. He routinely convinced hotel lobby bartenders to serve well past closing time. And he was unafraid to belly up to the local dive bar. In fact, he preferred it.
During one night of that 12-night road trip, Leach and Peterson arrived at their Hattiesburg, Miss., hotel at midnight after a long day of travel.
“So, where we going?” Leach asked.
“To bed,” answered Peterson.
About an hour later, Peterson found himself at a place called Shenanigans singing karaoke. Leach belted out favorites from Jethro Tull and ended the night by singing “Take It Easy” by the Eagles.
The story of how Mike Leach was hired at Mississippi State is very Mike Leach.
The tale features a Key West oyster bar, roosters in a Cuban restaurant, a poolside interview, a boat and a bike shop. But the most incredible factoid from the Bulldogs’ pursuit of Leach was that university officials flew to Key West completely unannounced.
Cohen, then the AD; Jared Benko, then the deputy AD; and Charlie Winfield, an attorney for the university’s fundraising arm; arrived on the island, set up a workstation at Half Shell Raw Bar and finally connected with Leach.
“Where are you?” Leach asked Cohen over the phone.
“Three blocks from your house,” he replied.
“Oh,” said a surprised Leach, “well then, go Bulldogs!”
Negotiations eventually got done. Leach scribbled his name on a memorandum of understanding from inside his Key West home. And then, in typical Leach fashion, he celebrated by sparking a bizarre conversation with Winfield.
“He walks over to me and says, ‘You ever been to Natchez?’” Winfield recalls.
“We got to talking about Natchez, which led to him talking about the Natchez Indians, then the Choctaw Indians, then the Trail of Tears, then Oklahoma, then the West and the Navajo Indians, and then he compared the Finnish language to the Navajo code talkers and how it wasn’t a great code because the Germans spoke too much Finnish, and then he talked about the Germans migrating to the U.S., and next thing I know, we are talking about Vicksburg and Natchez again.
“He seamlessly bounced from one thing to another and tied them all together. I thought, ‘Here he is having just signed the MOU to be our football coach, and we are talking about the Navajo Indians.”
Mike Leach would never be described as a foodie. He ate plenty of junk food, despite Sharon steering him away from it.
In Mississippi, he found soul food delightful. Fried chicken. Hamburger steak. Smoked ribs. Pulled pork. If it had parents, Leach ate it.
Leach once spoke at an event in Alabama where boxed sandwiches were served. By the time Leach and Mississippi State officials arrived, the only options left were meant for vegetarians. Leach opened his sandwich box to see a slab of mushroom and a slice of tomato between two pieces of bread.
“He had this look of terror on this face,” Cohen recalls.
He turned to Cohen, “Any good barbecue joints around here?”
No, there will almost certainly never be another Mike Leach.
“I remember my first night with him at Washington State,” says Eric Mele, an assistant coach under Leach at WSU and Mississippi State. “We were drawing up particular plays with tags and motions on the whiteboard. We’d draw a play and then we’d talk about the Germanic Vikings. We’d draw another play and then talk about the hierarchy of the New York mafia. We’d draw another play and then rank our best pizza joints.
“When we were finished, I asked for a ride home. He proceeded to tell me that he walked to work. Then he put some metal chains on his shoes and a miner’s light on his head and started to head out into the snow.
“That was Mike. Like Sinatra, he did everything his way.”
Rest in peace.
Emeril Lagasse is Finally Ready to Kick it Down a Notch
He was the most famous chef in the world. And then, after being spurned by the network he helped create, he wasn't. But the King of Bam! is done being angry and ready to get philosophical.
For as long as anyone under forty-five can remember, Emeril Lagasse has been the nitrogen in the cultural air. As one of the first chefs on the Food Network, he was a pioneer in transforming a man to a brand and a brand into an empire.
In fact, over the past decade or so, consciousness of Emeril has lapsed. Since both his live and cooking shows were unceremoniously cancelled in 2007, Emeril has been in diminuendo. In 2008, he sold his brand to his friend Martha Stewart for $50 million. Since then the brand, now lashed to the capricious steeds of venture capitalists, has cycled through multiple owners. (It is now owned by “some very nice Wall Street guys,” says Emeril.)
So what’s up with Emeril these days?
As for his restaurants, which once numbered a dozen and stretched from Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) to New Orleans (naturally) to Las Vegas (of course), only a few remain. His company, which once had 1600 employees on its payroll, has shrunk by half. But, says Emeril, sipping his coffee, “Let me make something clear: I’m not retiring anytime soon.”
Like his eyebrows, Emeril remains expressive and unruly. At 63, Emeril Lagasse is the world’s foremost expert on Emeril Lagasse. When one has done as much as Emeril has—over the forty years he’s been on television (and before that when he reinvented Creole food at Commander’s Palace), he has been a churning mill of content, product, spin-offs, one-hour specials, co-brands and add-ons—it is all but certain that only he, he who has kept all the receipts, can fully understand his own achievement.
In the thirty years since he first stepped onto a television set, Emeril had created a world and now that world had passed him by. Cooking on television—that is the art form Emeril, following in the footsteps of Jacques Pepin and Julia Child, had perfected—had spawned a universe of highly stylized and cheaper-to-make cooking competitions where the point isn’t so much to follow along at the range as to nicker and winny at the small glories and daily degradations of the erstwhile gladiators. This left Emeril, who has an avowed aversion to competition shows, battling obsolescence.
What does the future hold for the big guy?
A man doesn’t name his son Emeril and his daughter Meril and his shows Emeril and his restaurants Emeril and his airfryers Emeril who doesn’t keen for the dynastic. And yet these days, Emeril seems at peace with his dwindling affairs. Plus, Emeril’s got a new generation of Lagasses to carry on. His twenty year old son, E.J., is now the chef at Emeril’s. After studying with Eric Ripert and staging across Europe, E.J. returned home last year. “E.J. came back with all this knowledge and he just hit it off with the guys,” explains Emeril, “we’re going to totally revitalize the restaurant, make it something that I always wanted it to be.” He’s even contemplating opening another restaurant with E.J,, a Portuguese tapas restaurant dubbed 34, after their respective generations.
Mostly, though Emeril seems a man unencumbered by his past, one able to contemplate the ebbs and flows of his life philosophically. After years of kicking it up a notch, he is ready to take it down a few. But what looks like retreat from one angle is advance from the obverse. Emeril Lives! might be over but Emeri lives nevertheless, an emperor emeritus in his throne drinking a cortado, and doing just fine.
New Year’s Eve Recipe Corner
Queso Fundido with Guajillo and Garlic Mushrooms
Forget every other appetizer (except pigs in a blanket and the biscuits below) and just serve this Friday night.
1/4 cup olive oil
6 cloves garlic peeled, plus 2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
3/4 cup finely chopped white onion
2 dried guajillo chiles stemmed, seeded and finely chopped or snipped with scissors
1 lb mixed mushrooms such as white button, baby bella, and wild mushrooms, thinly sliced
3/4 tsp kosher salt or more to taste
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper or to taste
4 cups grated mixed melting cheeses such as asadero, Oaxaca, Monterey Jack, or mozzarella
8 to 10 flour and/or corn tortillas
Guacamole or 1 ripe avocado halved, pitted, and sliced (optional)
Salsa of your choice for serving (optional)
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F, with a rack in the upper third. Lightly oil a large shallow baking dish.
Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the whole garlic cloves and cook, stirring occasionally, until they soften and brown, 7 to 8 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and discard, leaving the flavored oil behind.
Add the onion and guajillo chiles and cook, stirring, for 1 to 2 minutes, just until the onion begins to soften. Add the chopped garlic, stir, and cook for a minute, until fragrant. Stir in the mushrooms, salt, and black pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until all the mushroom juices have been released and begun to evaporate and the mushrooms have begun to color, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the heat, taste, and adjust the salt.
Combine the cheeses thoroughly and arrange in the baking dish. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the cheese is completely melted. Top with the mushrooms, return to the oven, and bake for another 7 to 8 minutes, until the cheese is bubbling, the edges are crusty, and the top is lightly browned.
Meanwhile, heat a comal or large skillet over medium-low heat for at least 5 minutes. One or two at a time, depending on the size of your comal or pan, heat the tortillas, making sure they are not overlapping, until warm, puffed, and browned in spots, about a minute per side. Place in a tortilla warmer or wrap in a clean cloth or kitchen towel.
Serve the queso bubbling hot from the oven, with the warm tortillas and guacamole or avocado slices and salsa, if desired. Let everyone assemble their own tacos at the table.
Gruyere and Onion Cocktail Biscuits
Serve this with bubbles. Impress people.
FOR THE ONIONS
1 medium onion (6 ounces), halved and sliced
4 anchovy fillets, minced
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon heavy cream
FOR THE DOUGH
1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (226 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more the counter
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
6 tablespoons (3 ounces/85 grams) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch dice and frozen
3/4 cup (2 1/2 ounces/71 grams) grated Gruyère cheese, plus more for sprinkling if desired
2 1/2 tablespoons (1/2 ounce/15 grams) grated parmesan cheese, plus more for sprinkling if desired
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Heavy cream, for brushing
Make the onions: In a skillet over medium-low heat, combine the onion, anchovies, oil, crushed red pepper flakes and salt. Cook, stirring occasionally and adjusting the heat as necessary, until the onions are soft and golden, 30 to 45 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool, then chop the mixture. Transfer the mixture to a medium bowl, add the cream and refrigerate for about 15 minutes.
Make the dough: In a food processor, combine the flour, baking powder and salt and pulse until combined. Add the frozen butter and process until the mixture resembles a coarse meal, about 15 seconds. Transfer to a large bowl and mix in the cheeses until combined. Add the onion mixture and pepper and, using a fork, stir just until the onions are evenly distributed. The dough will be crumbly.
Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees. Line a large, rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
Lightly flour a work surface, turn the dough out on it and shape it into an 8-inch square. If the dough is too dry to stay together, sprinkle it with more heavy cream, 1 tablespoon at a time, just until it holds its shape. Using a sharp knife or bench scraper, cut it into quarters. Stack one quarter on top of another so that you have two stacks. Push them close together; then, using a rolling pin, gently flatten and roll it out into a 1/2- to 3/4-inch-thick square. For neater biscuits, trim any uneven edges of the dough with a bench scraper or sharp knife, reserving the trimmings, then cut the dough into 1-inch square biscuits.
Reroll the trimmings and cut additional biscuits as needed. Working in batches if necessary, arrange the biscuits about 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheet. Lightly brush each biscuit with heavy cream. Sprinkle them with additional gruyere or parmesan, if desired. If your kitchen is very warm or the dough has gotten soft, chill the cut biscuits in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes.
Bake the biscuits for 7 minutes, rotate the pan front to back and continue baking 4 to 5 minutes more, or until the tops are golden. The biscuits are tender, so if the sprinkled cheese on top melts causing them to stick to the parchment, gently free them with a thin spatula before lifting them.
Serve warm or room temperature.
Salt and Pepper Brick Mushrooms
I’m not hosting a party. I’m cooking a big steak for my wife and me. I will be making this as a side.
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 1/2 pounds fresh mushrooms, such as oyster, maitake, lion’s mane or portobello, trimmed and kept in the largest pieces possible
2 teaspoons capers, drained (and rinsed, if salt-packed), divided
1 lemon, cut into wedges, for serving
In a small bowl, combine the salt and pepper.
In a large cast-iron skillet over medium-low heat, heat the oil until it shimmers. Place the mushrooms in the skillet and sprinkle with half of the salt and pepper mixture and half of the capers.
Cover the mushrooms with a sheet of foil, folding it into a round to cover the mushrooms and fit the contours of the skillet. Place a Dutch oven or another cast-iron skillet as close to the same size as the first one on top of the foil. If you have more cast-iron cookware, stack it on top, flattening the mushrooms. (If you don’t have more cast iron, use your hands — wearing oven mitts — to press down firmly on the skillet.)
Press (intermittently, if doing it by hand — you’ll need to rest periodically) until a crust has formed, 10 to 15 minutes. The mushrooms will release varying amounts of liquid depending on their variety and freshness; unstack the cookware and pour it off a time or two during cooking, as needed. (Reserve the liquid for seasoning and sipping — it’s delicious!)
Flip the mushrooms over, pour off any extra liquid, and sprinkle with the remaining salt and pepper mixture and capers. Cook the other side the same way, weighting and pressing intermittently until a crust forms on that side, 10 to 15 minutes.
Remove from the heat and serve hot, with lemon wedges for squeezing.
Did Micah practice yoga this weekend?
Yes. 60 minutes at Rebel Yoga in Thornwood, NY.
That’s 48 in-person weekend classes in 51 weeks this year.
Reflections on a year of yoga, coming next week.
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