soupnancy

A repost for Jo on his birthday - wow time flies! Since it dates back, it was hard to find on the blog..

http://soupnancy.squarespace.com/more-food-writing/my-mentor-and-my-apprentice.html

 

La Faune et La Flore

Another hurdle for Les Jardins Sauvages

Good thing we’re made strong and love what we do!

Profile: Les Jardins Sauvages, Pioneer and leader in Quebec Wild Edibles. 28 years in business, constantly evolving.. Now with a permanent stall at Jean Talon Market in Montreal & acclaimed Country Restaurant in St-Roch de l’Achigan; 100+ products fresh, 100+ products preserved; A Forager and Chef team with experience, long committed to quality, local and wild, artisanal and sustainable food..

I'm told I don't toot my own horn enough, see I'm practicing..  

In case you don’t know, Jardins Sauvages is the original wild foods business in Quebec.  Long before anyone heard of Noma, François was foraging, the first to introduce chefs to wild greens and many local wild mushrooms.  He spent years of walking the through the weeds & woods of Quebec to find healthiest spots to harvest each species; he intimately knows nature and how to pick for quality and sustainability – where, when, what time of day, what stage in the cycle. Working with Quebec’s top chefs, he refined his skills, learning what was best picked young, cooked in numerous ways. And now, I’ve been cooking his wild stuff for 13 years since I met him at L’Eau, on a full time basis since 2005. I’ve figured out what’s best how, say raw or cooked or dried, savoury or sweet, what mushrooms benefit from a sauté or a slow braise, how to put them up. We were the first to make mushroom ice cream and chocolate, to smoke mushrooms, to cook with cattail pollen, promote local teas & spices or pick and cook marine greens in so many ways - paving the way, showing people what could be eaten and how.  Unlike some of the newcomers jumping on the foraging bandwagon, we know what we’re doing.

Nonetheless..  a few weeks ago, we got a visit from a couple of officials from La Faune et La Flore, a governmental arm that regulates the environment, forests and fishing. We should have nothing to fear, buy nay and yay, another battle is before us.  They are banning crinkleroot and wild ginger, among other things, but these two affect us most, a dozen of our products, our menus.

The funny thing is that they were especially eager to pay us a visit because I had put wild garlic (ramps/ail des bois) on my menu this spring. In ten years, I never dared, but then I saw all Montreal chefs with ramps on their menu, and I figured if anyone should have them on the menu it should be us, given that the wild thing is our deal, we have tons on our property, and know how to harvest sustainably and all. Not to mention that it was just a few leaves from our field, ciselé as a garnish for a soup for 10 clients. Meanwhile, restaurants serving 100+ clients a night with anonymously sourced and less sustainable garlic don’t have an inspector in sight.  BTW apparently, whether it’s from Ontario or New York, the law stands, not allowed. Anyway, it’s not like I’m tattling on other chefs, I just want to be able to do what we do.  I have never even ever heard of a Montreal chef bothered by the F&F. It’s such a joke that they’re at our door. 

Like with wild garlic, they have decided that crinkleroot and wild ginger are endangered species and need to be protected.  We agree that they need to be protected, in that they need to be harvested with care and knowledge first and foremost, not completely ripping out the plants. Especially that the foraging trend means that there are new players in the game (many uninformed, unconscious or overly ambitious), evidently, some kind of general regulation is in order, maybe permits? In any case, there needs to be an official protocol for wild edibles, all above board, a traceability, an approved list of what can be harvested and how, where, by who, sold how and for what price, all registered.  A common code of ethics was enough before, but given the current climate, we are all for this. However, it is complicated to regulate; for the govt, much easier to ban.

In the meantime, it certainly isn’t fair for us, for François who has been doing it properly for 28 years professionally and plus.  He was the first to put most wild edibles on Quebec menus - before they were being imported from France (like salicorne, mushrooms) or simply weren’t known to chefs (like wild ginger, orpin, day lily buds, milkweed, arroche de mer, caquiller, the list is long..). He is in the same patches year after year, observing and taking care of nature while he harvests; he gardens the forest. We have more crinkleroot every year, more than enough wild ginger for our needs.  He has seen the progress of the crinkleroot for 50 yrs+ because they are family spots. His family has always eaten crinkleroot; we continue the tradition of making his great-great grandfather’s Henri Rochbrune crinkleroot mustard, but 100+ years later, now we’re not allowed.

All to say, these plants obviously aren’t endangered in François’ hands. There is a way to pick that stimulates the plant if it is in a healthy environment; he knows when to leave it alone. He invited the govt officials to visit his terrain, encouraged them to follow him and bring their scientists/advisors to study his reality, to open their minds.  He does not understand where they get their data.  They’re worrying about fiddleheads and spring beauty? C’mon, just come here and see. How much we harvest from the same land every year. Their sources are from controlled studies, another micro-climate, labs, foreign or outdated books, I don’t know. One thing for sure is that the pencil pushers and botanists aren’t in the Que woods on a daily basis like François.  

On top of it, we are a small diversified business, dealing in small volumes according to nature - a little bit of this and that, all sustainable, with our spots on private territory, maintained year after year, no big threat.  We led the way, and now because wild foods are becoming popular, we are penalized. Because there are others including some hacks who are just in it short term for a bang or because they think they might like doing this but don’t know squat or care to do things right, or want to exploit a lot of one thing. 

Not all foraged food is equal!  There is properly sourced, properly harvested and there is ravaged.  There is sweet, and threre is bitter. There is tender and tough; delicious and disgusting, nutritious and toxic.. Few in the marketplace seem to know or care about the difference. As long as it’s wild or Nordic, sounds good on a menu. Sadly, marketing seems to count more than quality or integrity.  Obviously we have some marketing to do.

We hate to see so many bad foragers around spoiling it for the rest of us, but, it is also important to note that most of the destruction of vulnerable plants and biodiversity is due to development/urbanisation. François has seen so much simply disappear because of autoroutes, Walmarts, condos and parking lots.., way more havoc wrought this way than any bunch of pickers could do.  More than once, François had proposed a solution to mayors/municipalities, say when they were bulldozing to make the 50, destroying so much rich land where there was tons of wild garlic, ginger, crinkleroot and much more; he wanted permission to go and save some of the plants. His project got bogged down in beurocracy and never worked out, but he said that in a day, he could have saved enough wild ginger to supply us and every chef for a lifetime. You’re not allowed to pick the wild garlic or ginger, but they’re allowed to bulldoze it. Doesn’t make sense.

It’s not just chefs and back-to-earth types getting into foraging. As the far away regions try to develop their resources and put people to work, the exploitation of the forest and land has become key.  Backed by Govt money, they have been training unemployed volunteers to forage, small businesses opening and they’re all trying to find markets. All dandy in theory, but it’s a mess.  Too many students expecting to make $$ picking mushrooms they can barely identify.  Detached investors wanting to harvest too much. We have no choice but be implicated.  François is working in Lanaudière and also with other regions as various agencies and business groups try to sort it out. They need his expertise, and he wants to make sure they aren’t making decisions that don’t stand up.  For instance, the tentative list of mushrooms allowed for sale excluded 30 varieties that we use (because the powers that be don’t know them well enough). Like when François started selling wild mushrooms 20 years ago, many didn’t believe him that there were wild mushrooms in Quebec. He’s come along way, but now everyone is catching up to him. All this is so much time and energy  in meetings and paperwork, just to be able to continue doing what we’ve been doing forever - now that the govt., big business, foodies, tree huggers and everyone else is waking up. It’s crazy and no one knows what’s going on behind the scenes.

I thought it would be smooth sailing for a while when we were finally fine with the MAPAQ (the food inspection part), but no now, it’s something else; I swear we have the most complicated business in the world!  You see, they just don’t know what to do with us because we do something so different they don’t understand and it worries them.  Whether it’s about picking nettle, cooking fiddleheads or milkweed, marinating mushrooms or smoking duck, they’re on our ass. All our products have passed all tests, but it was still a fight to prove that our mushrooms were properly dried, that our pickles and oils and etc are properly made, etc.  Meanwhile, cheap imports don’t get any scrutiny, Montreal chefs have toxic plants garnishing their menus. I understand that there have to be rules and inspectors, but why just us? I know what I’m doing and it kills me to talk circles around the inspectors who don’t have a clue about what they’re inspecting. We’ve seen it in the field, the guys thinking we’re picking garlic and its trout lily, they don’t know the difference. In the kitchen, it’s the same. They just want to check off lists: They check your fridge/freezer temperatures, soap and towels next to the sink, all the norms etc; do you have a ph-meter, a register for your products, sanitizer.. Yes, yes, yes. Do you douse everything in Javel regularly and boil everything for 20min. They want you to be a stainless steel aseptic factory that makes one sterile product en masse, easy to verify.  We do everything right but we’re not that.  You need to be a fighter to be an artisan in Quebec.

It seems to me that we’re the kind of Quebec terroir business that they should be favouring, but no it’s too complicated. They really don’t make anything easy for a small, artisanal business ‘thinking outside the box’ in Quebec.  Unless you’re in a far away region where there are subsidies (like most of the newbies). The rules, the taxes, the cost of having employees etc.- its all conducive to big business.  We manage to win them over, proving ourselves one person, one product at a time, one costly fight after another.  I wish I could just cut out the inspectors who are just doing their job and deal with their bosses, even better, exchange with their scientists.

I figure when I retire, I should get a job as a Govt inspector, I know more than most of them, and I bet the benefits must be nice.. But what a boring job, no thanks.  I’ll continue to fight to make a living while focusing on quality, delicious local food; maybe teach them a thing or two along the way.  And perhaps things will change one day;  Hopefully we will go on to survive and thrive. Others will surely profit down the line. We’re constantly breaking down barriers, teaching, making people taste new things, opening markets, developing.. all while taking the heat and struggling to stay afloat.  By nature, it is a difficult business venture; I could do without the extra headaches.

Our passion and vocation has become a cause, a crusade.  A fight for anti-industrial small community based business, and for quality, local food and traditions - especially wild things harvested and cooked properly, with a love and respect of nature. That is and will be our legacy if anything, whether recognized or not.  If only legacies paid the bills. Seeing L’Eau à la Bouche close after 35 years and a lifetime of Anne Desjardins’ visionary, pioneer work in promoting local artisanal food and top-notch authentic cooking, I know very well that life is not fair..  Oh well. I’m still not willing to trade my quality of life for another. Rant over.

The Ace Bakery Artisan Incubator in Toronto was one hell of a fantastic week end! So much fun, inspiring and enriching..  A select few of us artisans across Canada were invited to this event sponsored by Ace Bakery, and wow! did they show us off and treat us like rockstars, all while giving us tools to grow/improve our business with the conferences - a real treat.  http://www.acebakery.com/artisan-incubator/workshops/

I met so many amazing people and sampled an array of stellar Canadian products.  All of them are the epitome of what they should be, in that they are made artisanally with locally sourced ingredients, utmost attention to quality, and hands on traditional methods - so more tasty, natural and crafted than most similar products you might be used to.  You need to seek these out for your pantry or to offer as gifts, you won’t be disappointed..

• A real traditional method Cdn balsamic vinegar –Venturi Schulze, BC
• Cold pressed canola oil and flax seed oil (this is a revelation to anyone, just have to taste!) – Highwood Crossing, Alberta
• Ontario Peanuts and peanut butter, fresh and natural and local! Kernal Peanuts Ltd, ON
• Local, ethical and humble sausage and charcuterie: Chorizo and Saucisson sec – Seed to Sausage, ON
• Cream cheese like you haven’t tasted before – Grey Rush, Primeridge Pure, ON
• Other great cheeses (not only in Quebec!): Cow’s Creamery, PEI; Upper Bench Winery and Creamery, ON
• Chocolate, fair trade with local flavours and lots of personality – Choco Cocagne, NB
• A birch syrup that really is delicious – Uncle Berwyn’s Yukon Birch Syrup, Yukon
• Kimchi, sauerkraut, fermented beverages – Pyramid Farm and Ferments, ON
• If you’re into fancy salt, we have a Canadian ‘fleur de sel’ that tops any, great texture – Vancouver Island Salt Co.
• Lavender condiments that are perfectly dosed – Sledding Hill, BC
• More wild things: Origina spices, QC;  Candied spruce tips and oil – Upriver Commercial Fishing, BC
• Gelato, traditional and local, neat flavours – Bella Gelateria, BC
• Pub cider and Ice cider syrup (again, not only in Quebec!) - Spirit Tree Estate Cidery, On
• Sour cherry spread – Over the Hill Orchards, Saskatchewan
• Marinated oyster mushrooms – Champignons Charlevoix, QC
• Apple vodka – Ironworks Distillery, NS

Check them out here: http://www.acebakery.com/artisan-incubator/artisans/

Initially, I applied on behalf of Les Jardins Sauvages as an artisan for this contest/program without really knowing who Ace Bakery was. I guess because I live in Quebec and don’t shop at Loblaws. They mounted a campaign with chefs and food industry people, and were looking for the best artisans across Canada to celebrate and promote. We were of course happy to be selected in the top twenty among the 150 applicants, so I signed all the papers and kept up with what had to be submitted. When the date came, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was once again putting my energy in the wrong place, after filling out so many forms, writing recipes, sending out product and etc, while being so busy running our business on the side, not to mention having to close the restaurant for a week end and missing out on a best friend’s wedding. 

Lets just say, I left home ‘en reculons’, leery and weary. Only to arrive in Toronto to a series of surprises. First of all, there were the luxuries like the limo at the airport, the swish hotel, the package with taxi chits and spending money etc. – extravagant and superficial maybe, but very bonus to a poor artisan. It would have meant nothing if it hadn’t been for the rest. Most importantly, the Ace Incubator was a big, professional, hyper-organized event focused on us artisans, and it was fun! Ok, there were a few hiccups, but what they were doing was super ambitious. As a chef and caterer, I thought they were crazy given what they were trying to execute, with so many different venues, chefs, formulas and recipes etc. 

I quickly saw that all of us were winners simply by being there, to benefit from the exposure and the expertise/resources offered via the panels, to meet and share with others in the industry, mega networking that happens naturally, kinship throughout. I hardly had a chance to spend enough time with everyone I would have liked to; I wish I had attended many other workshops. So much to learn from others and not enough time. However I did have many inspiring conversations and forged some lasting connections.  It kind of felt like being at summer camp; when in a short time, you feel like you’re living something important and these people might be friends for life.

Some photo highlights via Ace Bakery https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8J2TJl3QtdCOFkwUEFyWV9weUU&usp=sharing#grid

Wrap up video – Ace Artisan Incubator Launch Event  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFokMw7Vfs&feature=youtu.be

At the end of it all, it was an intense, stimulating, fun and inspiring weekend, and all thanks to Ace Bakery. So ironic, me the anti-corporate idealist.  It’s not like I don’t know lots of cool rich people (like my customers) and I do believe in capitalism to a certain extent, but I can’t help but be a bit disillusioned as an artisan in an economy that seems to favour the opposite. So, it was especially refreshing to me to see successful business people who are full of heart and still grounded, so warm and generous, who would want to put so much selflessly into such a project. Ok fine, there might be a bit of marketing in there, things they can write off.. But only a special kind of person and company, true philanthropists would choose such a complicated route to give back. It’s because they know what it is like to be an artisan starting from scratch, living the hard life of knocks and what a small company needs; they recognize the value and want to sustain, help support this integral segment of society. When you know the Ace story and see how they grew from nothing, all while sticking to principles (and giving), it all fits – them doing this today; but still, its rare and impressive, heartening. It actually floors me.

This is just what the doctor ordered to help me from becoming prematurely crusty and cynical after so many years in the business. And then there is my partner François, the pioneer forager with 26 years professionally and a lifetime under the belt, the first to put wild foods on menus, always sustainable and with respect to nature, now getting lost in the fray of newcomers less so.. Any recognition (and practical encouragement) is welcome; we needed this.

We will benefit from their mentoring and resources to help grow our business following our needs. This is huge because we are typical artisans caught up in the day to day, who are both lacking and only lazy when it comes to business-sense and PR-marketing. Because we are such a unique, complicated business with so many limited seasonal products, not one thing to mass produce, it will be a challenge to apply big business rules.  But there are many ways that their expertise can help to make ‘living the dream’ as passionate artisans more of a viable enterprise. And for that, I am grateful, because it’s something to start thinking about at our age.

A video of me via Ace Bakery  http://www.acebakery.com/artisan-incubator/videos/

Good thing I got out of my kitchen this weekend and went to Toronto.  I wouldn’t want to live anywhere but the Quebec countryside, but I have to say that a visit to Toronto always provides a good kick in the butt (and there are no mosquitoes!). Everyone is so presentable and industrious, very nice, albeit stressed and rushed. The mantras wafting through the air can be annoying or energizing depending on your state of mind – Cruising around, I see, feel, smell and hear: ‘Show off your best. Make things happen. Polish your shoes and your nails. Get your business in order. Go to bed early. Don’t smoke..’  The camomile growing on the side of the road doesn’t smell like anything, not like ours. Its strawberry season and no one knows it. Whatever, I went home with renewed focus to work on our business, while staying true.  With a mental note that there is a lot to learn in the big city. In parallel, I will pay more attention to the rest of Canada. I love Quebec and everything local, but there is so much cool stuff going on across the country; we need to step out of the two solitudes and embrace it. It was so much apart of my identity before and then I slowly became more Quebecoise than Canadian. This weekend made me dust off the Canadian flag in my bedroom regardless of Harper.

More Photos from the week end https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8J2TJl3QtdCOFkwUEFyWV9weUU&usp=sharing#grid

 

My Greek Easter Soup with Lamb Lungs

Every time I get a lamb from Genevieve et Nathalie (L’Agno et le Lapin in St-Julienne), I break it down and use just about everything nose to tail style.  The gigots get separated from the rack, the flanks go to belly/ bacon, the shoulder divided into roasting and braising muscles, the offal put aside for terrines or a mixed grill.  The tongue and cheeks and heart are so small, barely more than a snack for the cooks.  Bones and miscellaneous bits go into the stock.  I even keep some of the fat for sausage or petit sale since this young lamb fat is mild tasting even buttery with the babies.  Not crazy about the liver, I still manage to make a decent paté that is quite appreciated by lamb and liver lovers.  But I never knew what to do with the lungs.  So I vacuum packed and froze them.  With a set of lungs per lamb, they have accumulated.  Then this week, Genevieve gave me a bag of lungs that she had been collecting for a European customer who disappeared.  She didn’t know what to do with them either.

Not particularly inspired by this organ, I now had no choice but to get creative and tackle a recipe or two.  With the season starting, I need the freezer space and it just seemed wrong to throw fifteen pounds of protein into the trash.

I remember a fellow cook of Greek heritage telling me they made soup with it on Easter.  Makes sense since they like to roast a whole lamb on a spit and historically let nothing go to waste, giving them something to snack on in the meantime.

With Easter around the corner, I looked it up – Mageiritsa; I was feeling gung ho.  I liked the idea of onions, lemon and dill (always good), but didn’t want eggs in there.  A quick internet search told me that there existed all kinds of lung dishes.  In India and Pakistan, they made lung curries.  There’s the Scottish haggis, Zuppa du Polmore in Italy, German sour lung soup, spicy Asian noodle dishes.  In fact, most countries have a traditional lung recipe; apparently it is only in North America that we shun it, like most offal.  Undoubtedly because the average family (or restaurant) here is far down on the food chain, numerous degrees of separation from the animal, nor living any real necessity of frugally making the most of every morsel.

When I think lamb, I think spices – cumin, fennel, mustard, red pepper..  Or herbs like thyme and rosemary, tangy condiments like preserved lemon and olives. This brainstorming had me salivating and eager to get started on my own Easter soup - a mix of the various recipes I had seen, a dash of my own style and a lot of what was in my fridge.

I had already put the lungs in a light brine to degorge (standard procedure for many variety meats), giving me a night to figure out what to do with them.  I saw that I had to sous-vide the fresh ones first to rid them of the air so that they wouldn’t float.  This turned them from a bright pinkish-red to purple. Hmm.

The next day, I threw them into some boiling water and simmered for 15 minutes to blanch and firm them up so that I could work them.  Most of the recipes I had seen started this way, and it seemed right given the spongey texture (think sweetbreads or brains or testicles).  Slicing the lobes open, I felt like I should remove the tough looking ducts and vessels, at least in large part.  Then I cut them up and threw them into a sauté with onions and bacon fat (when in doubt, add bacon!).  I added garlic and spices: thyme, bay, a hot pepper, some panch foran and a lemon wedge.  I deglazed with some white wine, added some tomato and lamb stock and put it on a very slow simmer.  Meanwhile, I put on some basmati rice to cook on the side with a clove, a bay leave, and black pepper, to add later.  I had some crunchy Jerusalem artichoke from a sous-vide experiment that I diced up to mix in near the end.  Sea parsley pesto kicking around - perfect.  I was psyched.

Soon enough, the kitchen smelled heavenly, but the lung pieces didn’t seem to be changing in the cooking process.  Maybe my heat was too low; I wanted them to become tender, but was fearing they would turn to shoe leather.  After an hour, even two, I wasn’t thrilled with the texture or the taste of the lung, although the broth was incredible. I reasoned that I should be patient.  There was no way I was giving up at this point.

Some time later, the texture had improved, going from tough and springy to tender with bite, like a properly cooked gizzard or heart.  But the taste wasn’t going anywhere – it tasted like a washed out lamb heart, with a touch of liver.  Discouraged, I started pumping up the mix- adding gremolata, salt, crinkleroot, a pinch of sugar, a touch of good red wine vinegar.  The broth tasted kick ass, there was still hope.  I sautéed swiss chard with garlic and threw that in with the rice and sunchokes.  I was determined to make something good of this.  Not to serve at the restaurant or sell, but at least for family and friends, something we would be happy to pull out of the freezer for a quick meal.  By now, I was up to 20+ litres of the stuff, not to mention a huge pile of dishes.  In the space of 12 hours, my enthusiasm had morphed into tempered frustration, relentless tampering, and a profound need to come out on top.

At 2am, I took it off the stove, finished with a tweak or two, some fresh herbs and called it a night.  To my utter disappointment, it was just ok.  I mean definitely edible, even surprising maybe for an average taster, but not what I had worked it up to be in my mind, with all the attention and love I invested.  I don't remember ever having such a hard time making something delicious.  Honestly.  Humbling.  But also, it makes me wonder about how far I want to push this whole nose to tail thing. 

Ordering whole carcasses is better for the producer; it’s the way it should be, and of course, we have to make the most of every ingredient for minimum waste, economically and ethically. But there does seem to be a sensible limit to the nose to tail thing when you aren’t starving to death.  I am quite sure that my customers would rather eat just about anything else even if I mastered the lung perfectly.  I’ve had a hard enough time getting them to try tongue, cheeks and sweetbreads; even rabbit, not to mention all the wild stuff. 

It is natural for me with all of the above ingredients because I love them myself and am confident that anybody reticent would be won over once they tasted. When it comes to lamb liver, kidneys and lung, I am not so sure.  I don’t dig lamb organ meats.  And in the end, I want to make food that makes people happy, I don’t need to challenge them across the board.  I need to more than believe in what I am making and serving – on a hedonistic level.

That said, I have not thrown in the towel.  I will treat my next lungs confit style.  Gizzards shine this way, and I think the lung once blanched and cut up would work similarly.  If confit treatment doesn’t work, then nothing will.  And if I ditch the lung thereafter, then so be it.  I tell myself that so many other chefs just order loins and chops and bones with no bother.  The reality is that most of the time when you work a less noble cut or make use of the ‘scraps’, those transformed scraps end up costing the same as ready filet in labour cost.  Which is fine.  The tough cuts and most of the bits are better anyway.  Although more expensive, ordering whole carcasses from a local producer, you get a fresher, better (and tracible) product.  The crazy thing is that these farmers aren’t even charging enough.  Because of the industrial system, people unfortunately think that cheap meat is normal. 

I wish I could pay my lamb producer more than I do, which is already twice (or more) what most restaurants pay for their meat.  But I then, I would have to charge my customers more, and I already don't charge what I should.  As they struggle to make a living, I struggle to come into my cost buying their lamb, so I certainly want to make the most of it.  Making something spectacular with the lungs would have been a real triumph and added value - for me, for them.

My Easter soup was a work of love, not a total success in my mind, but who knows.  I will wait and see what my guinea pigs have to say.  

 

 

Modernist Cuisine – the new bible?

With Modernist Cuisine: The Art of Science and Cooking released to much hype, good and bad, it’s hard not to get pulled in, to take stock of all that has gone on since chefs started hanging out with scientists.  When the dust settles, it can only be a good thing.  Needless to say, it is all on my mind again after having gotten more or less knocked off.

Michael Rulhman  gives an overview http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/dining/09modernist.html

John Mariani hates it http://www.esquire.com/blogs/food-for-men/john-mariani-grant-achatz-031811

Pro and Con from the Globe and Mail 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/trends/trends-features/con-modernist-cuisine-mistakes-the-chef-for-the-great-creator/article1961552/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/trends/trends-features/pro-modernist-cuisine-skeptics-just-dont-get-it/article1961698/

This revolutionary tome is said to document all the new techniques under the umbrella of what has hitherto been known as ‘Molecular Gastronomy’ in an encyclopaedic reference book format. Six volumes weighing 56lb and costing 600-700$, it is the first English compilation of the latest culinary techniques and breakthroughs.  Apparently, it includes a historical perspective with an overview of the science behind traditional methods too, so in effect potentially the most complete textbook for the present day.

I’m not sold on all facets of this ‘new’ cuisine, but I love that scientists and chefs are finally figuring things out - picking apart old myths, coming up with more efficient ways of doing things, developing new possibilities and taste sensations altogether.  Trends aside, it’s simply evolution, and many of the tricks are here to stay. 

The idea of 48 courses of unrecognizable food still irks me, but I can’t help but be excited by the new landscape and many developments because I remember the beginning.  It’s striking to see how things have changed in the past 10-20 years, or even since 2001-2 when I first tuned in, and again since I started this blog in 2005 (my science section is woefully outdated). 

In the early years, there was Harold McGee and his French counterpart, Hervé This explaining some of the science happening in the kitchen in common terms.  Ancient rules and recipes were being debunked and rethought, new possibilities were opening up with this knowledge.  Later there was Ferran Adria with his groundbreaking approach and talent, playing around with new techniques, ingredients and lab equipment.  There were new-fangled egg-less mousses, foams, liquid nitrogen, all kinds of ‘caviar’..  The Pacojet was a new bebelle that every chef wanted in order to make minute sorbets, glaces or the savoury equivalent without the sugar, egg whites or stabilizers required before. There were rumblings of innovative chefs making hot ice cream and shrimp noodles, serving flavoured air.. 

But there were no recipes, no accessible information, only basic theory and crazy ideas.

I recall being hungry and curious, experimenting up a storm on my own.  I was feeling empowered with a few lightbulbs of fresh understanding and a trace of fading scientific background, making egg white or egg-less mayos, attempting liquid stuffings, agar noodles, foie gras chantilly and derivative mousses, multiple foams, froths and gels. 

There were many successes and other labour intensive less-thans that made me question whether this was ultimately worthwhile.  Especially then, the customer was completely ignorant of these kitchen acrobatics, it was obvious that it had to be about good taste foremost.  Besides impressing the cooks, was this novel technique actually producing something absolutely delicious – was the customer going ‘Wow!!’?  Was it the tastiest, most respectful way to showcase our producers’ top-notch ingredients?

I went through my conundrums vis a vis ‘modernist cuisine’ long before it became what it is today, learning to pick and choose and not get too caught up by any trend.

Over the years, I stayed plugged in nonetheless just to feed my brain; but I remained aloof, more concerned with sourcing quality ingredients, fresh and seasonal, local and wild..  I already had enough tools to make delicious food, which is all I really cared about, not to mention a whole palette of incredible ingredients in the wild that I was just getting to know better.  With the wild stuff, I was on a steep learning curve too, adapting to a whole new way of working – with nature, not on a schedule of my own design.  Navigating this world was as foreign, surprising and stimulating as that of ‘Molecular Gastronomy’; yet it made me feel grounded in an incomparable way and was all consuming in a restaurant setting.  In any case, I needed to know the plants intimately before turning them into bubbles.

So I pretty much lost interest just when the field was starting to boom.  Shortly after, ElBulli had books and CD’s of notes out for sale; there were other chefs pursuing similar paths and talking about it, publishing snippets. 

Forever curious and fearful of turning into a dinosaur, I did take a trip to the French Culinary Institute in NYC to take a class on Hydrocolloids.. I continued to read the likes of Ideas in Food and Playing with Fire and Water, which kept me thinking outside the box.  I don’t want to cook like these kids, I thought, but I needed to keep exploring along with them..

I had a nagging feeling that it didn’t jive with what I was doing at la table – which is all about the ingredients and Quebec terroir.  There was excessive manipulation in this nouvelle cuisine which amounted to a denaturing of the product to me.  As I was opting out of the industrial food system, it didn’t make sense to be using the same additives as FritoLay or Kraft.

In my core, I prefer actual beets to beet caviar, briny shrimp to a day old shrimp sheet,  I don’t mind an irregular looking slice of meat.  I tend towards natural, taste before aesthetics. 

Of course, I do like soigné (pretty, carefully put together) food.  And I enjoy mental somersaults, creating, innovating, being in motion, fine-tuning.  There are many elements of this Modernist Cuisine that attracts me as repel me.

In principle, I am not against hydrocolloids; I understand that it is arbitrary that cornstarch is ok only because it is familiar.  That a chemical is a chemical is a chemical, whether it occurs naturally or is created in a lab, the lecithin in eggs or the malic acid in apples.  The popular hydrocolloids are typically extracted from seaweed or cellulose or produced by bacterial fermentation, probably as benign as gelatine.  I am acutely aware that natural is ambiguous and sometimes meaningless - nature can be as toxic as anything.  That the nitrite in ham and bacon make that taste we know and love and it makes no difference if it comes from pink salt or celery – still nitrite!  Likewise, MSG is not necessarily more evil than the natural glutamates in soy, cheese, tomato, anchovy, braised meats (that are body loves and requires). Yet I prefer the latter, I don't eat vitamins, only food.  Neither do I have no problem with edible menus, smoke and mirrors, or games.  All that said, it is just not my thing.  I can’t get psyched about the powders; being on the cutting edge with gimmicky creations is not what drives me most. 

At the end of the day, I would rather use eggs or gelatine than a powder to stabilize, gel or emulsify; I prefer lemons to citric acid, maple syrup to malic acid and glucose – whole ingredients as opposed to extracts.  I don’t need to turn a liquid fat into a powder with filler or serve molten amuse bouches on edible spoons.

That said, I have gradually incorporated some aspects into my kitchen.  I went from despising agar to finding certain good uses for it.  I say no to Methocell, Gellan and co; even from expert hands, I can taste it.  Maybe I could have it work for me, but I’m not inclined – too strange, too much manipulation.

Xanthan is neat as a stabilizer and emulsifier; I can’t help but want to use it often, but I don’t, rather keeping it to a minimum.  A properly adjusted ice cream recipe doesn’t need it if served fresh, and most of the time, it is ok to have a broken vinaigrette or thin sauce.

I say Maybe Yes to Activa – the nifty enzyme that disappears.  I won’t be making all my meat and fish into perfect squares, but there are some applications that have me itching to explore.

Definitely Yes to Sousvide – for specific applications. (see prior post:http://soupnancy.squarespace.com/blog-journalessays/2011/3/31/a-visit-with-ideas-in-food-sous-vide-and-activa.html).  Above all, this is just a smarter way to do certain things for optimal tenderness and flavour, if you have the time and tools.

As far as the tools go, I can live without liquid nitrogen canisters, antigriddles, smoking guns and etc..  I am not into gadgets. I wouldn’t sneeze on a combi-oven, induction plate, Thermomix or centrifuge, but can absolutely do without. I have a sousvide machine only due to the nature of our business, that we butcher whole carcasses, that we put up so much for the year in terms of wild stuff and local veg.  A circulator is on my wish list, along with less modern appliances such a proper dishwasher and ice machine...

With the advent of Modernist Cuisine the book, out front and center, as well as recent books on Ferran Adria, and Grant Achatz’s memoir, there is no doubt that their technologically driven work is making its mark on our culinary history. 

Nonetheless, in the big picture at this point, I still think that Thomas Keller has been the most influential chef in North America in the last two decades.  With his reverence for quality products, classic technique, creativity with a smart and playful touch, precision and attention to detail, his well written books, he is god to an army of chefs.  Think of all the butter poached lobster out there; many were coached by his sousvide.  His cooking and philosophy touches the soul of a chef in a more universal way than any of the new breed of star chefs.  In Montreal, there are as many other European influences, but Thomas Keller certainly had an impact.  Meanwhile here, the ‘molecular gastronomy’ trend never made waves.  Of course, many high end kitchens use some of the equipment and techniques but keep it low key, only to provide a better product, without announcing it; there are no ‘concept’ restaurants as there are in most cities.

Modernist Cuisine may very well be the next, most influential force in NA.  Young cooks will certainly be equipped like never before with information; who knows where they will take it. 

I certainly want my copy, 60lb and 600$ or not.  I want to move forward, all while beating to my own drum in the sticks, without having to change my old school ways or my kitchen too much.  Never dismissing what is most essential: good, real food that makes me and my customers happy.

 

 

 

 

 

At les Jardins Sauvages, we are celebrating Canada Food Day next Saturday, July 31st. 

(Un message en français suit)

This is a national ‘holiday’ celebrating local food and good eating.  On the same day, across the country, both chefs and home cooks (whole villages even) will be simultaneously feasting on menus composed of fresh and local products while raising a glass to our rich and diverse culinary landscape.  Organized by Anita Stewart, acclaimed food writer and long time proponent of Canadian food.  Read all about what's going on from coast to coast here..

www.foodday.ca.

http://cuisinecanadascene.com/2010/07/22/food-day-canada-2010/

Of course, my menu is always focused on local, artisanal and wild foods, but I love this initiative.  We should be eating like this year round both for our health and happiness, as well as for the land.  I like the idea of fostering national and regional culinary pride, and I am all for another reason to get together over good food and wine.  At the height of the growing season, every meal is so easily a celebration!  

Our food day menu can be viewed on the website http://jardinssauvages.com/index.php?nom=menu&res=m&m=31canada10en, or below.

Just so you know, juicy Saskatoon berries have shown up since I posted this menu, as well as a number of other surprises, mushrooms of all kinds too..  So my menu will be overloaded with seasonal bounty!

To reserve, please call 450-588-5125

 

Menu

July 31st, 2010 

*Canada food day*

 

Nordic shrimp with wild ginger,

sea asparagus and sea rocket, fava beans,

bell pepper, oxalis and mint

 

Cauliflower soup with La Moutonnière cheese, sea parsley pesto and bee balm

 

Salad of wild greens with egg & duck ham (purselane, daisy, sea spinach, day lily), cherry tomatoes, pickled hen of the woods, 

crinkleroot-chia seed dressing

 

Venison from the farm, hops-sarsaparilla pan sauce, wild mushrooms,

cattail flour polenta, cattail spear

 

Optional : Quebec cheese plate,

home made bread and chutney

(100g for two, 7.50$ supplement per person)

 

Wintergreen ice cream sandwich in a sweet clover meringue cookie,

 wild blueberries and Labrador tea syrup

 

Tea, coffee or house tisane

Fair trade espresso, 4$ supplement

 

Bring your own wine

75.00$ including taxes, service extra

 

Your host and forager:

François Brouillard

Your chef: Nancy Hinton

 

*A Canada wide celebration of local food * www.foodday.ca 

 

 

Salut!

Nous célébrons ‘Canada Food Day’ A la table des Jardins Sauvages Samedi prochain,  le 31 Juillet, 2010.

Ce jour, à travers le Canada, comme à toutes les années depuis 2003, c’est la fête des produits du terroir. L'idée c'est de créer un menu mettant en valeur de beaux produits de chez nous, bien manger et célébrer la richesse culinaire Canadienne (et Québécoise) - ensemble les chefs dans les restaurants avec leurs clients, et les gens au BBQ à la maison.  Cet événement est organisé par Anita Stewart, une grande doyenne de cuisine Canadienne. www.foodday.ca

C'est certain que mon menu est toujours basé sur les produits locaux, artisanales et sauvages, mais je trouve cela une belle initiative.  A la hauteur de la saison, c’est si facile de manger frais, d’embarquer les gens et les sensibiliser à la façon la plus saine et joyeuse de se nourrir..  En plus, une fête de plus au tour des plaisirs de la table - pourquoi pas?

Vous pouvez visionner mon menu ici sur le site http://jardinssauvages.com/index.php?nom=menu&res=m&m=31canada10, ou en bas de la page.

Pour réserver, SVP appelez 450-588-5125

Cheers, Santé

 

Menu

31Juillet, 2010

*‘Canada Food Day’ *

 

Crevettes nordiques au gingembre sauvage, salicorne et caquillier de mer, gourganes, oxalis et menthe

 

Soupe au choufleur et fromage ‘La Moutonnière’, pesto de persil de mer, pétales de monarde

 

Salade de pousses sauvages, oeuf et jambon de canard (pourpier, marguerite, arroche, hémérocalle), tomates cerises et polypore fumé, vinaigrette carcajou-chia

 

Cerf du domaine, sauce houblon à la salsepareille, champignons sauvages, polenta à la farine de quenouille

 

Option : Assiette de fromages Québécois,

chutney et pain maison (100g pour deux personnes, supplément de 7.50$ par personne)

 

Sandwich de crème glacée au thé des bois, biscuits de meringue aux fleurs de mélilot,

bleuets sauvages, sirop de thé du Labrador

 

Thé, café ou tisane maison

 

Apportez votre vin

75.00$ taxes incluses, service en sus

 

Votre hôte et spécialiste de plantes sauvages: François Brouillard

Votre chef : Nancy Hinton

 

* Une fête nationale de produits du terroir www.foodday.com

 

 

Wine pairing, what a headache..

Not that it has to be.

 

I feel slightly guilty to be griping about wine pairing now, because once upon a time, it was a favourite pastime of mine. I was the biggest advocate, coaxing my poor friends to pay more attention to their wine and to their food, the juxtaposition.  I was nibbling, sniffing, and pontificating away, out loud. Annoyingly going on about how this would go with that, how this could be made to go with that, how we should be drinking this or that.   

At the time, I was also playing around in the kitchen with wine in mind, often composing menus starting from wine as opposed to the traditional other way around.  It was so much fun.  Eyes wide open to this other alchemy at play; I was beginning to understand how I could take a leap up from cooking something great by taking a dish over the top with the right wine, especially if I let the wine lead.  I was on the first, steep part of that learning curve, eagerly attending wine tastings, excited to detect every last note in a wine, and to tweak out every little nuance in my cooking.  I loved the challenge, and found it rewarding; the energy and patience required came easy.  I was devoted to finding the ‘perfect fit’.  Most importantly, I was backed up by a deep wine cellar and a team of sommeliers. Key.

The thing is, no matter how green or cushioned I was then, I believed in it wholeheartedly, and now I don’t.  The ‘perfect wine fit’, that is.  I do in theory yes, but for real life, no..  Of course, I know a wine can elevate a dish, and make it sing, and vice versa.  A wine can also wreak havoc on a dish (and vice versa) or simply lose its character, a crying shame.  From a chef’s point of view, it is worse when the food doesn’t shine because of a stupid wine.  At best, a wine doesn’t get in the way and is something you enjoy drinking, period. 

 

The bottom line 

I love wine as much as ever, and am just as curious about it in all its variety; I just couldn’t be bothered to spend too much time on preliminary farting around, speculating how it might interact with food in this guise or that. Beyond considering a few basic principles, the truth is only revealed in trying things out; every particular meal and circumstance is unique.  And most of the time, it isn’t practical to return to the kitchen and fuss with seasonings once the wine is open (which I might have readily done before). Personally, my number one consideration in choosing a wine now comes down to what I feel like drinking, perhaps a wine that has peaked my interest that I’m eager to try, or simply something familiar that I happen to be in the mood for.  Number two is matching the body or style of wine with the food - light body with light body, big with big, approximately matching the weight and intensity of flavours.  Obviously, there isn’t much point in opening a whopper of a red with a delicate shrimp or fish dish, nor firing up a pepper steak when a complex, aromatic Riesling is on the agenda.  That’s the bottom line.

On top of that, I do always keep some general guidelines in mind, and I pay heed to the tried and true: classic pairings like Sauvignon blanc and chèvre, lobster and burgundy, as well as personal rules like crisp white most of the time, Riesling with Proscuitto, Oysters with Prosecco, and Chianti with Bolognese, Champagne and good Burgundy anytime. It always depends if food or wine is the priority too; keeping the one that is off-setting the other good, but restrained.

 

The elements at play - games and headaches 

There are other tidbits I’ve learnt over the years that I bring to the table, the very things I once got off on, but am now calling on others to dismiss, because herein lies the headaches..  Without any desire to play sommelier or pick specific wines, I can’t help but have my opinions on what goes with what, in a broad sense.  I know that my customers often get worse advice from professionals with respect to my food only because I know my food and they don’t.  Knowing the chef’s style is as important as knowing the ingredients.  Many wine guides have people thinking that if there are blackberry notes in the wine, they should be eating blackberries.  Goddamn it, I don’t care what the wine specialists say, it isn’t true.  First of all, fresh blackberries don’t go with any wine, worse than artichokes or asparagus, trust me.  For sure, a fruity wine will go well with a fruity dish, but it might go even better with an earthy dish, say mushrooms or root vegetables.  Often a same taste cancels out a same taste.  A gamey wine can go with a gamey dish, but it won’t be great unless they both have something else to offer.  The wine has to be fruitier than the fruity dish, acid, body and everything else in order.  Acidity, fruitiness or sweetness needs to be more prominent in the wine for success.  Salty food calls for acid and/or sweet.  Acidic food needs acidic wine so that the wine doesn’t fall flat, but fresh and sweet can provide a nice foil.  Sugar (not just dessert, even caramelized onions, squash or corn) can kill a wine, increasing bitterness, sourness and astringency, so something sweeter, but multi-dimensional will compliment; focus on the fruit when you want a dry wine.  Rich food needs a squeeze of lemon, so something fresh fits the bill, but you need body so it doesn’t taste acrid or disappear.  Flesh calls for tannins, and long cooked delicate meat the opposite.  Umami can also bring out bitter/sour notes, but with salt, it can really soften a meaty, tannic mix, and provide surprising links. 

You can often balance a dish with a wine, but I believe most in balancing a dish first (with acid, salt, sugar, umami, heat); not only because food is my priority, but it is the easiest thing you can do to cover your bases and let a wine shine, assuming you are serving a balanced wine with it.  It is trickier to play off the food and wine dance, relying on one to bring out the best in the other.  In this scenario, you really have to think about wine as a condiment, finishing a dish, with a boost or a calming effect, offering layers of flavour.  But for the condiment to work, the players have to be from the same domain in style and in heft. (think girls, boys, ladies, men). 

At the restaurant, my cooking is always flavour forward, yet subtle, with underlying touches of earth and unami, always some sweet or fruit in there somewhere, alongside acid and salt, and religiously somewhere between ‘boys’ and ‘ladies’ in body and soul.  I never serve a big rare steak, so a tannic wine never works.  My food is too delicate for a super oaked wine.  Because of the freshness always, a lighter red is appropriate.  And for the first few courses, a girly white, something tart and aromatic is usually winner (because I start cold and light, and there is always seafood or charcuterie with aromats like wild ginger..).  And a soup and salad of some kind follows.  For the main course, duck or venison usually, a Burgundy, an old Bordeaux, possibly a Merlot or new world pinot goes well - so a lady-like red..  Whatever the ingredients are, I know this is what suits my cooking.  It happens every once and a while in fall/winter when I have a creamy sauce with corn and lobster or pintade that calls for a new world Chardonnay, or a bold dish with sweet harvest vegetables that calls for a manly Shiraz, but honestly, it’s almost never.   I feel like I could give the same wine guide every week and be in the ballpark.  That might be a cop out if I was a sommelier.

 

Enough is enough

But I know that's good enough.  Despite all the taste experience and mental notes I have up my sleeve, I can't pretend to effortlessly fall upon exquisite food-wine pairing.  Although extraordinary matches do surface, more often than not, they are just Ok, but it never stops me from enjoying the food or the evening, and I’m pickier than anyone.  There seems no point in worrying about every little note.

The ‘perfect fit’ is a lofty goal, and so easily thrown off by a side dish or punchy sauce or some finishing touch by the chef.  It’s even more readily mangled by all the variables that make up a real life dinner, be it at home or at the restaurant.  People showing up here and there, ordering a martini, going for a smoke, munching on this or that, bringing wines they want to drink.  There are people’s varied palettes always at play, their likes and dislikes, and how they eat.  Most people don’t change wines with every course, and the best wine to accompany two or three courses is rarely the same as any of those that would be best for any one dish.  So given the company and the menu, how many wines and what wines should you choose?

The only time an attempt at spot on wine-pairing is realistic is with a one pot meal at home say, and that still requires some forethought, experience and luck.  The best way to play the extreme wine pairing game is in the hands of a well orchestrated professional tasting menu that delivers one wine with every dish, preferably in a top notch establishment where much effort has gone into fine tuning the dishes and the matches.  In this case, it makes sense from the restaurateur’s point of view to invest the time, expertise and money to hash out the details, because customers are coming for that experience and are paying for it.  Finding the kind of balance, complicity and contrast in the elements, the specific recipe and cooking technique, that culminates in the kind of marriage that makes you sit up and take notice ( Hallelujah!) is something. To systematically reach beyond the realm of crapshoot requires work.

 

The Paradox

With modern-style globally influenced multi-component meals, smart wine pairing is more complicated than most make it out to be, and then, paradoxically, not.  Although technically, it is, with the hundreds of chemical compounds at play; in reality, it actually is not, only because the average person doesn’t care so much.  If you are really tasting what’s in your glass and what’s on your plate, tentatively swirling them around together and thinking about it, you will catch the jiving or jarring notes, and you know how rare the 1+1=3 thing is.  But almost no one does this.  So it doesn’t matter as much as we make it out to.  It’s all about avoiding big clashes, trying to keep both wine and food intact, and optimising synergies.

I think back to numerous catering events where only fine wines were being poured, all carefully coordinated for each canapé or course, only to largely and ultimately pass on muted taste buds and blocked minds.  Besides the odd keener or bored person with nothing else to do, many guests seemed annoyed with the complicated formula, being forced to change wines so frequently.  After all, they just started sipping a delicious Meursault, and now what – something sweet for the foie gras?  Shy to say they were less than enthusiastic with the host’s wine plan, they would hold tight to their glass, and eventually admit that they would rather just drink Champagne or even jump to red.  At many a tasting menu dinner in many a restaurant, I have observed that few people keep up; they’re drinking anything with anything.  Come to think of it, I don’t really like to change wines at every course either.

Another example of misguided wine-pairing efforts: Every week, I witness sloppy wine pairing (funnily working out just fine).. When customers bring my menu to the SAQ and ask a ‘conseiller’ for advice, I discreetly groan at the sight of the wines they show up with.  Just because the ‘expert’ saw ‘venison’ for instance, the unfortunate guest comes armed with a ‘costaud’, tannic Cabernet, which I know goes awfully with my food.  You need more than ‘venison’ as a clue to choose the perfect fit!  And Cahors with duck - stop it already! But if some ‘expert’ told them it was the best choice, chances are they will convince themselves of it.  I’ve seen it countless times.  Even with connoisseurs who pick wines from their cellar based on the menu, they seldom say anything other than that their selections were just right.  Either I have a bunch of Einsteins as guests and I cook magically to match all wines, or I suspect there is some of that subjective, positive feedback, rationalizing normalizer at play (placebo effect), mixed with people not tasting too carefully.  Not that I blame them, and I should be pleased.  If everything tastes good without thinking too much, and everyone is having a grand time, what else matters?  Food and wine are supposed to be fun, not stressful, and just as much about the setting and the people. 

The fact is, the older, jaded me drinks and eats separately anyway - sipping, then devouring, then sipping some more, not too concerned with marriage.  On occasion, in a stolen moment at a tasting menu event or alone say, I silently linger longer, savouring the party on my tongue, thinking long and hard about it if I’m allowed.  But when the company is good, I hardly do more than notice if the wine is corked, adequate or not; I’m definitely not worrying about the perfect match, and none of my friends are ever.

Beyond the odd aficionado, no one wants to go there anyway.  Most diners prefer to nod to the illusion of a perfect marriage, and go on talking. Likewise, people like to let someone else choose the wine, or simply drink what they like to drink.  So even if a California Cab or St-Joseph is not what’s ideal, if that’s what they are used to drinking with everything, then chances are they will prefer it to the Loire Valley red that would be the better mate.  If they hate white wine and three white wines are recommended with the menu, they won’t be thrilled.  They might be won over at Toqué or L’Eau à la Bouche where a professional, knowledgeable sommelier is there to charm them into loving a wine they don’t; but in the real world, forget it..

 

At Les Jardins Sauvages, I give up 

When it comes to recommending wines for my menu at Les Jardins Sauvages, I find it impossible!  Because there is no simple answer to please everyone.  Because I know how elusive that perfect fit is.  Shoving perfection aside, I still know how so many different wines could do the trick in other ways, so I don’t know where to start.. Mainly, it’s because everyone wants and expects something different.  And I don’t have the knowledge, resources or patience of a sommelier.

Some are looking for a different wine for each course; others want the super bottle to cover the meal.  Groups of 4 or 6 might decide on 3 wines for the meal.  Then of course, there are their individual likes and dislikes, and their respective budgets.  A few are just seeking some general guidance because they have a cellar.  Others don’t know squat about wine but are willing to go the distance to impress their guests, so they ask for specific SAQ numbers, and they will go across town to secure the wines.  Yet others want something reasonably priced and widely available (at the SAQ in rural Quebec). 

So that means I need to recommend a wine per course (7), as well as shorter wine selections of two, three, four or five wines, then another one for that conservative couple who will share one bottle.  And for any suggestions I might have, I need to offer something suitable in several price ranges, never forgetting a red option if I give a white (because Quebeckers still are white weary).  Let me tell you, it’s quite a job.  Only a treatise would do, and that would likely overwhelm the average diner looking for a little help, not to mention take up too much of my time.

Then, there is the inherently problematic nature of my menu..  There’s all the wild stuff, all the greens, so much going on in the multi-course meal.  I don’t mean for it to be the kind of menu that hurts upon reading, but because I need to mention all the wild edibles (what people come for), and the main gist, as well as any allergenic ingredients, it is wordy and rife with terminology, certainly enough to confuse a sommelier (so it’s hard to blame the poor SAQ guys).  I know my menu is sound and balanced on delivery, but with all the ingredients at hand, when I think of wine pairing, I get a headache too.  The fact that I change my menu every week only makes matters worse.  But the changing menu is essential to the quality and magic of dining at la table champêtre, more so than the wine.  My gut and experience tell me that the best thing I can do to ensure happiness all round is to cook to the best of my abilities with the best ingredients and let the gods (wine and otherwise) take care of the rest.

 

Opting out (or not), for fun

As you can see, I’ve been beating around the block, circuitously building a case to opt out of wine pairing.  I'll continue to follow my own curve, but on a professional level, it’s just too hard to find proper matches for my menus while pleasing all sets of customers.  Especially when I know that it doesn’t really matter in the end!  I think everyone should just bring what they like/want to drink and all should be fine.  If you want to take it up a notch and practice your food-wine pairing skills, then think about it, do some research, consult a sommelier, and have fun with the exercise, which will be reward enough.  You don’t need me.  And I have to stop bugging Bill.

Or maybe I just need a courageous sommelier.  Either way, I’m opting out.  I want to keep wine and food FUN, no more headaches please. 

Cheers.

Back from NYC with a spring in my step

And a new perspective on hydrocolloids

  

I flew down to the big apple to take an advanced studies class at the French Culinary Institute: Magic Potions: Hydrocolloids. For those of you who don’t know, hydrocolloids are gelling and thickening agents composed of sugar chains basically- things like agar, carageenan, locust bean gum, gum Arabic, cellulose based methocel and xanthan, and gellan. Initially exploited in the food industry, they are now being a

pplied more artfully to fine cooking by chefs for enhanced flavours, new textures and forms. We were also introduced to some enzymes like Transglutimase (meat glue), Corelase and Pectinase (used to clarify), with all the latest technology on display to jazz up the demonstrations and make us envious.

 

This kind of cooking falls into the domain of ‘Molecular gastronomy’, which by the way is a ‘bad’ word according to just about everyone in the field. But whatever, it is the term that is most widely used to umbrella all these new techniques, you know what I mean.

 

The class was intense, very high calibre; the teachers were great - tops in the field: David Arnold (the science/tech guy and inventor of some of the tools you see) and Nils Noren (the chef with the mettle, formerly of Aquavit, ‘back when it was great’). My time with them was definitely inspirational; it was a lot to take in, and my brain still hurts. My wining and dining by night probably didn’t help that.

 

 Nils, David and his hot poker

  David's pimped up mixer the carbonator                        It was a good thing for my faint science background, and that I had read Harold great burger: the cheese is a gel, but this tasted amazing because Nils fried the patties to set then cooked them gently sousvide in suet to refry for crisp, served with a cassis liquid gel like ketchupMcGee, Hervé This and dabbled a bit, or I would not have gotten much out of the barrage of terms, temperatures, methods and unconventional dishes. Most of the chefs in attendance had significantly more hands on experience than me with this stuff, there to fine tune their tricks and ask specific questions.

 

Surrounded by this set, I half wondered what I was doing there at all. The thing is, I’ve been gradually moving away from this movement, as my main focus has been on a more natural ingredient driven cuisine with less manipulation. It’s hard to picture ‘Les Jardins Sauvages’ and ‘hydrocolloids’ meshing. Thinking back to my first experiments in ‘molecular gastronomy’ (or whatever you want to call it), although fruitful, I was left with Anne’s voice resonating in my head, ‘mais c’est tu vraiment bon?’ ‘Would you walk a mile on your elbows to eat this?’ (loose translation). After the novelty wore off, I came to the realization that old fashioned mayonnaise was often better than a new fangled one, that a chocolate mousse objectively had better mouth feel with cream than without. Even if I embraced sousvide for certain applications and adopted foams for layering effects when I wanted flavour without fat, I remembered that many cuts are just fine roasted, pan-seared or braised, and that Chantilly remains the best foam of all. I wasn’t inclined to carry on the ‘for chefs only’ somersaults for the sake of it. The fact is the average customer does not care what acrobatics you are doing in the kitchen. They only care if it is delicious or not. Taste should always be the main goal, not presentation tricks. Of course there is a small market for food as theatre (like chez El Bulli or WD50), but we’re not that, our spotlight is supposed to be on the wild stuff. Nonetheless, I always stayed tuned into the scene somewhat out of curiosity, regularly marvelling at what these avant garde chefs were doing. While I shrugged most of it off, I remained intrigued, and aware that the landscape had changed enormously in the last few years. I knew deep down that there was something to this and that I should be paying attention.

 

But I signed up for this class mainly because I wanted to learn something new, ANYTHING. Of the classes on offer, it was the one fit into my schedule, and the one I knew the least about. Regardless of how rustic our place is, I’m still fancy Nancy and no matter how simple I say I want to cook, it never is, I can’t help it. And I do want to stay up to date with what’s going on on the cutting edge; I don’t want to become a dinosaur. Of course, I’m always looking for a good excuse to go to NYC too. I was dying to be around other chefs, to learn instead of teach for a change, to come back inspired and juiced, which is what any conference, class or trip does for me.

 

Mission accomplished. This class certainly opened my mind, challenging it to stretch in all directions. All of a sudden, so many different things become mind boggling possible, when you remove the constraints of hot and cold, and stop thinking only along the lines of gelatine, cornstarch and eggs. It requires learning a new language and new rules, retraining your instincts as a chef. With each new ingredient, there is a new set of properties.. While gelatine sets cold and melts at 55C, others melt at closer to boiling or stay solid hot, then run cold. Some don’t work in acidic conditions; others need or are activated by calcium, some set slowly, and others quickly, then stay that way or not. To stir or not to stir; to freeze or not to freeze. Specific dispersing and hydrating become ultra important, grams and degrees too, you can’t hack around. All of this sucks for an old school chef who likes a pinch of this and that. No, this is about scaling and precision and spec sheets. BUT! You can produce air out of essence, clarify a juice or stock without cooking it (preserving flavours), get a sauce to that perfect consistency in a flash, and have it coat a protein hot so it doesn’t slide off. You can turn liquids to solids or solids to liquids on a whim, and serve hot liquids in separate layers. You can deep-fry mayonnaise, brulée foams, serve ice cream hot (this is arguably not ice cream), make hot buttered drinks that don’t separate, and serve carbonated sauces that hold… Talk about really playing with your food.

 

 

I can’t help but think I could fiddle with many of my classics to make them better, how I could so simply perfect our wild grape balsamic aesthetically; but then, do I want ‘Xanthan’ and ‘tartaric acid’ on our ingredient list? The acids are not hydrocolloids, but a part of the arsenal and approach, you see. A recipe with apple would be more appropriately boosted with malic acid than lemon juice (as I normally do). And why not? But clients might think the product is less natural or of inferior quality with additives they don’t understand; it’s the wine screw cap phenomenon. And like with screw caps, I’m sold, but not everybody is.

 

That’s the thing with these magic potions.  Despite the reputation of hydrocolloids, it’s not really about adding ‘chemicals’ to food. All of these ingredients are natural in that they are derived from seaweed, cellulose, seeds, tree sap or fermentation, no more foreign than sugar or starch. A few of the latest ones come from microbes. They are also used in such small quantities, and if applied properly with taste as the primary goal (not shelf life or productivity like in industry), it not only allows for prettier plates and surprising textures, but potentially a purer taste, so that a beet taste more like a beet. Our teachers reiterated this, reminding us that hydrocolloids were just innocuous tools that could be used to noble ends or not, treated well or poorly. Their ‘no bullshit’ analysis of each product and what is going on in the field offered me an enlightened perspective on the whole game.  Although I would still rather use ingredients in their natural form (say eggs or lemon juice), there is nothing inherently wrong with using a hydrocolloid when these aren't ideal for the task.  We use powdering gelatine or sugar or starch (all extracted from their natural form) without thinking twice; it's no different, it's just that these powders are less familiar and have unpronouncable names, poor guys.

 

Some of these products and techniques make so much sense. I know that many are here to stay, transforming the way we cook in professional kitchens - new tools in our toolbox. Anyhow, it’s about time mainstream cooking evolved beyond the ways of a century ago; especially equipment wise, it can’t hurt.

 

No matter how seductive these tricks are, I’m not too sure how much of it I will end up using. I will cherry pick. First of all, I can rule a bunch out because I just don’t have the expensive toys or space or staff. François was very scared I would come back with all these costly requests. No, I am realistic. I will be lucky to get a circulator on Ebay.

 

However, I will definitely revisit agar, for the liquid gels. (I thought I hated agar). I can’t wait to play with my meat glue (I’ve often wished for it, say to make a roast uniform, and this week, I will try it). The methocel for eggless meringue and foams really interests me. That’s because I tasted a brilliant, delicate, shattering passion fruit macaron (dehydrated foam) that Nils made. This is a great example of the hydrocolloid providing a purer flavour that would otherwise be diluted by the egg. I was intrigued by the ‘caviar’, but now, I’m less enamoured since alginate caviar are tricky, need to me made à la minute, and the taste of the product is masked, deteriorating quickly. But then, the reverse alginate method shows promise (that’s the ‘egg yolk’ Bo), so who knows. If I have time to tinker, I could very well get carried away. It’s fun stuff.

 

Because my heart lies with traditional food, while everyone else in the class wrestled for reservations at Wylie’s WD50, Taylor and other hot spots known for doing these new science tricks, I went to Babbo and Momofuku (to their puzzled looks).

 

At Babbo, I had a blast, but the food didn’t exactly blow me away. It was certainly very good; zippy, bold flavours and delectable sauces, generous portions (too much for me). I had shrimp with radish, fennel, sea beans in a jalapeno vinaigrette (very nice, except for the swampy tasting shrimp), black pasta with pancetta and parsnips, quail with scorzonera and saba,; I also tasted goose foie gras ravioli and fennel dusted sweetbreads with duck bacon and sweet vinegar onions thanks to my neighbours… Some interesting wines too like a white Nebiolo.

 

Momofuku Saam Bar was amazing! Surprising, a party in your mouth, great ambiance, super friendly service, very reasonable. Of course, I had the famous pork belly buns (wow), a hamachi dish with edamame, horseradish and peas, some oysters with kimchi consommé, and I loved-loved-loved the calamari salad. The fried brussel sprouts in fish sauce vinaigrette, and the spicy pork sausage, Chinese greens and fried rice cake dish were equally delish, again tasting from my ‘friends for the night’s plates. There were delectable sweetbreads as well, with chestnut and mushrooms. Overall, this food was not incredibly complicated, yet unique, fresh, interesting, and super tasty. I would love to try Ko, his more upscale 14 seat tasting menu place, but for that I would need a serious date, more time and $$.

 

I also visited a teeny wine bar with loads of personality and tons of good wines by the glass in the East Village called Terroir, owned by the same guys as Hearth (apparently one of the partners is from To.).

 

        As you can see, although I might not have come near a hydrocolloid in my outings, I wined and dined like a queen on my own, but never alone, always surrounded by interesting people who loved food as much as me. At all restaurants, people were so nice, pouring me wine, even inviting me to taste their dishes! I found everyone in NYC so beyond friendly (except for bus-drivers and taxi-drivers – who can blame them?).

 

Such a mix of sights and sensations, such a treat. So much food for the brain, the heart, and the soul. Gotta love NYC.

Cuisine Canada has a new blog, http://cuisinecanada.wordpress.com/, and I will be contributing as a voice from Quebec on an occasional basis. I believe strongly in their mission to promote our rich and diverse Canadian cuisine(s), to create an exchange between food professionals across our vast country, thereby strengthening our Canadian culinary identity. Here is my first post: http://cuisinecanada.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/how-to-beat-the-winter-blues-in-quebec-with-food-of-course/

 

I hardly want to added to the recession talk but ignoring it would leave me with a big, fat elephant in the room. Despite a sluggish winter in the restaurant business, I opt to remain hopeful in reflex to the annoying, aggressive media doom and gloom, but mainly because looking around, I can’t help but notice that food obsessed Quebeckers are surviving remarkably well. So there.

 

 

The thing is, food is an upper, an elixir, the perfect weapon or escape for troubled times. When it comes to food, you have to be pretty hard up or down right pessimistic to not find some kind of silver lining, something fun or creative to do, cook and eat, some way to beat the winter blues, especially here in Quebec. We have a joie de vivre clientele that doesn’t really want to let up. We have so much good food. Even the tomatoes don’t taste so bad in winter anymore thanks to competitive greenhouse operations. I must say I might be having a more difficult winter without my put up tomato sauce and all my preserves, but still. There is always the wonderful world of Quebec cheese, and what could be better on a cold winter night than a cheese fondue? Maybe a cassoulet or a venison roast with wild grape must and juniper, a wild mushroom and barley soup, cold oysters with chilli and lemon, or hot steaming mussels with crinkleroot mustard cream, pain de ménage toasted on the wood stove and a salad with Mirabel lettuce and Pierre André Daigneault’s special greenhouse greens.. I’m still not finished with the fall squash, root vegetables and potatoes, and there are still terrific Quebec apples available..

 

In winter, I don’t think we should beat ourselves up too much about a few imports anyway, for the right products that is (no snow peas from China). We have to have some fun and a touch of the exotic can go a long way in lifting the morale. It is in the off season that I tend to explore the odd exotic ingredients (jicama, tonka bean..), and I will use olives, citrus, truffle and such more than usual, because it’s the only time I feel I can; in summer I have more local abundance than I know what to do with, so it wouldn’t make sense.. I look forward to the winter for that, as well as for any moments to get caught up on inventory, back-logged projects and experimentation.

 

You see, WITH FOOD to face the winter blues, we have a fighting chance, nothing is ever as bad as it appears, and everyone has a trick or two up their sleeve. And fingers crossed. One foot in front of the other, one dish a time, and next thing you know it’s maple season and spring, a new bounty of ingredients, a fresh source of cheer as colours and crunch flood readily back onto our menus.. By then, hopefully, the looming monster of economic hell will be less frightful, even a thing of the past. If we can survive the winter, ‘he’ doesn’t stand a chance against us and summer food, the farmer’s markets, the ‘terrasses’, the jazz festival.. So there! Hang on, and Bon Appétit!

 

 

 

It isn’t over yet!!

Montreal en Lumière (The Highlights festival):

• The guests: http://www.montrealhighlights.com/volets/table/invites_en.aspx
• The events: http://www.montrealhighlights.com/volets/liste_eve_en.aspx?volet=table
• Cheap treats: http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/prices+amid+High+Lights/1274492/story.html

Our duck festival – two weekends left!

www.jardinssauvages.com

I am so sick of people talking to me about foie gras..

 

I seldom eat it, I serve it on special occasions, I am a fairly ethical chef in general.. Why me? And enough already anyway.

 

I don’t love it, I don’t hate it, I don’t have a problem with it really, probably because I grew up in the French influenced province of Québec where food, tradition and indulgence (joie de vivre) are deep rooted in the cultural fabric.

 

But apparently many people (not around me, but on line) do have a problem with it. So, maybe we should all stop serving it. No matter how traditional or yummy it is to many people. Even if it is not any more inhumane than most of the meat we eat, perhaps it is something that we should rethink. But that largely comes down to the vegetarian –meat eating debate the way I see it. And this is a sub-sub-sub category. Like I have said before, foie gras is a luxury, specialty item, consumed by few, largely produced by small family style operations. In other words, a blip on the scale of our omnivorous dilemmas - nothing compared to the crass, mass produced chicken in cages, the corn, petroleum and antibiotic fed beef, the equally antibiotic ridden and environmentally destructive farmed shrimp and salmon, the un-fair trade coffee, chocolate, and every other industrial thing the vast majority of the western population consumes daily in huge quantities. If you saw how your factory farmed chicken breasts or snow peas or shrimp or chocolate bars or T-shirts were produced, you would be horrified - for the health risks, for environmental concerns, for the slave labour and so much more.. altogether far worse than a few ducks that naturally gorge by design, being fed an excessive amount of corn.

 

 

 

So, just when I thought I’d heard it all on this subject, I got a call alerting me to a contest for making faux foie gras!

Making faux foie gras, the contest: http://www.peta.org/FauxFoieGrasChallenge/

 

I couldn’t be less interested. I don’t even understand.

 

First of all, how do you make vegetarian foie gras? I’m a cook, not a lab scientist. This is obviously a call to those anti-foie, creative molecular gastronomy dudes (I wonder how many of them are out there?) or maybe agribusiness food science geeks. Such a task calls for ‘meat glue’, emulsifiers, stabilizers, all kinds of chemicals no doubt, and then maybe some fatty vegetable like avocado, some chicken bits, who knows, who cares.. It recalls the once novel but ultimately HUGE aberration that was Margarine, and industrial, processed food in general. The idea of manipulating elements, concocting seductive pseudo-foods marketed for convenience and profit, like all those trans fats and refined sugars - think the biggest mistakes of the last few decades. The opposite of real food! I’m against it.

 

If you don’t want to eat foie gras, then don’t. If you don’t want to eat meat then don’t. I don’t get this contest, or any of that fancier vegetarian restaurant fare that embraces the concept of making foodstuff look and taste like meat. If you want to eschew meat, then vegetables, grains and legumes are good enough on their own. You can make them tasty without shaping them into meat and crustacean shapes with chemical help, less manipulation is better anyway. I eat vegetables all the time, I rarely eat meat, I know. But I also know that a little meat is probably a good thing. Not only does your body tell you so, but read this when you get a chance .. http://soupnancy.squarespace.com/im-a-natural-born-killer/

 

 

All to say I’m not too sure why I’m getting so much attention from both pro and anti foie crusaders; the few times I’ve spoken about it, I feel like I made my stance clear. http://soupnancy.squarespace.com/blog-journalessays/2007/7/22/foie-gras.html

It seems that I was diplomatic enough to have encouraged all kinds of people to write to me, and many yahoos who don’t seem to have gotten what I was saying. No, I don’t think they ever read any of it. They just saw a site where foie gras was being debated and so wanted to insert their propaganda. If they post it on my site, I leave it. If they send it to me as an email, I delete it. I’m willing to engage in dialogue, but with them, there is no dialogue, they have their mind made up, they assume I do too; with no arguments, with an aggressive ‘like it’s so obviously bad because it’s cruel’ kind of attitude, they so turn me off. I would let their words rest on my site if they had the guts to do so, just not in my personal inbox. Like I said before, I would like to see what’s in their fridge and cupboard before taking them seriously -if they are those two-faced unconscious people who eat mass produced chicken breasts from Costco and have never spent any time in nature, haven’t met a hunter in their life or a seal outside a PETA video, never think about where their own food comes from, but then are against foie production - no it doesn’t add up, and I can’t deal. I’m just so tired of that debate.

 

I have our duck event coming up, so I will be serving foie gras. After that, I don’t know, we’ll see. But it’s going to come down to being more about what my customers say than what these guys say. I have my finger out in the wind, I am flexible, but at this point, it seems that foie makes Quebeckers happy, they’re not quite willing to give it up as a special occasion, celebratory kind of thing. And without any moral high ground I feel solid on, I am willing to accommodate them, at least once a year.

 

The funny thing is that when it comes to fish, I’m quite a bit more opinionated, I don’t leave it up to the customers at all. I have been avoiding over fished species for years, to the surprise of any fish monger I came across, I was causing a ruckus 5 years ago .. But it’s because to me, especially now, that is much more black and white as an issue; we have devastated our waters with undeniable detriment to the planet, and it’s currently an incredibly neglected cause. Fish as we knew it no longer exist, thanks to trawlers, greedy governments and their indiscriminate technology (ours too), and uninformed eaters of course. The marine eco-system has long collapsed. We have no choice but to choose to eat from the bottom of the food chain and to research the particular sustainable fisheries, anything else is truly criminal or just insane even health wise.. (‘Bottomfeeder’ by Taras Grescoe is a must read BTW). Thankfully, oysters are still good. As long as we have oysters, who needs foie gras. But seriously, we have to be more worried about our fish than our ducks. And I have better things to do than try to simulate foie gras, thank you.

I have been so busy all summer and fall (yes, in the weeds) that I haven’t written all that much. Actually, what I have is a number of unfinished pieces – half hashed out ideas or stuff I wrote but never bothered to post. Now, looking back, most of it seems dated. Being excited about the seasons and the science of happiness related to that - Ugh! Maybe it will come back to me one day, who knows.. In the meantime, I’m happy to see the busy season go and I don’t care about the science behind it. I wanted to write all about our mushroom festival – the ins and outs of the up and down season that it was, the varieties that wowed, those that didn’t show up, the hits and misses, recipes, highlights - all while it’s fresh in my mind, I have loads of photos. But I don’t have the energy, or the desire.. Although it was a huge success, it is the climax of our season (that starts in spring) and I’m ready for a break, not to mention eager to be cooking and thinking about other foodstuffs.

Amongst all the scraps of paper and half written posts, there is this one that remains timely only because in this business, the weeds are the kitchen are the weeds. I got writing one night in response to a post by Shuna (on Eggbeater), and I went off on a tangent or two, but I still think it’s worth posting, even if it only gets you to read her (now old) post.

I love it, Shuna - so dead on. Please see her post about cooks in the weeds, especially if you are a young cook. http://eggbeater.typepad.com/shuna/2008/10/the-weeds-resta.html

Here, we call ‘the weeds’ being ‘dans le jus’ or ‘in the juice’, but it’s all the same: that kitchen reality of relentless and unpredictable pressure that can make or break a cook, that reveals our experience and competence, our strengths and weaknesses, that inevitably weeds out the unfit, sending misguided newbies running for greener pastures, that makes the rest of us stronger and always on our toes, trying/needing to be better all the time.

No matter how much you want to coddle your carrots or your greens or your quail eggs or your dough, the fact is, it all has to be ready ‘Yesterday’, despite the fact that it’s hot outside and the dough isn’t cooperating, that the fridge is AFU and your greens half froze in the cooler, or that the silpats are sticking and the oven is full, that you’re one scallop short, or that the dishwasher hasn’t shown up or the fish guy hasn’t arrived. And none of your team has eaten, pissed or had a break with no window in sight. Still, the show has to go on, customers are hungry, they are there expecting the best, you HAVE to deliver, you have to be ready, you have to have a pocket of solutions when...

The ‘weeds’ or ‘the juice’ is exactly what work experience is all about. You aren’t even a cook, let alone a chef, out of school – no, not until you have years of weeds under your belt. And then as a chef, you still deal with that monster, being put to the test regularly, but you also have to train your cooks to deal with it, and as Shuna so eloquently puts it, there is no one way. Some need to be coached big time with words or with side by side action, but ultimately, all cooks have to ‘sink or swim’. No matter how much you learn, how well you are prepared, the weeds will come and you will have to deal. Best be as prepared as you can (MEP, MEP, MEP), and then be ready for anything. But then you will still need good judgement to negotiate those ominous weeds, and a good relationship with your fellow workers who might have to jump in to help when needed (solid team dynamic), all of which requires humility and social skills, and of course resourcefulness, passion and stamina throughout.. Who ever said cooking was easy? If only people really knew what was behind all their beautiful, delicious dishes. Oh yeah, that’s what the food network is on to, not that a few screaming chefs and cockroaches do it justice.

I clearly remember my first real cooking job (Quartier Latin, garde manger 15 years ago), where I tasted the ‘true - out of school’ weeds for the first time. I was a top student, but all of a sudden, I was NOTHING, useless. Always in the juice, I started and finished every shift in a sweat, daily on the verge of tears, I really wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to do this ‘crazy business’. I prayed to just get through the day, chop fast enough, get those tartares and salads and escargots and blue cheese beignets out quickly and just so, not forgetting all those damn squid and brains I had to clean, making the crème brulées, the fussy pear tart and etc., all while passing under the radar of the French chef I hadn’t impressed because I didn’t know what a ‘cul de poule’ was (why do I have to be anglo?) and because I couldn’t turn a mushroom for crap (what is the point of turning mushrooms? I still don’t know.) It was boot camp for sure - physically exhausting, mentally draining, a whipping of the ego, a whipping dans tous les sens. Especially because I had another full time job in a similar kitchen on the side (I was eager and driven), where luckily, I had a slightly softer chef in charge who still pushed me to the limit, but was supportive and empowered me; no matter, I was still always in the weeds.

Anyway, at the Quartier Latin, where I was terrified stiff, my saving grace was the incident when he asked me for a brunoise when he wanted a macedoine, scolded me but then realized I was right, coupled with the fact that the following night, I cut my finger off and taped it all up solidly without letting on and worked the night, only going to the hospital at 1am (it was too late for stitches), and then I think I made a surprisingly good staff meal for a rookie to boot. All to say that I passed the hump, I started getting pats on the back. That bit of extra work and recognition kept me going; maybe I could do this after all, I thought, just MAYBE I did have at least some of what it takes. The juice came again every day for hours at a time, and I still never knew if I would survive, but somehow I did. Then I’d go to my other job and go through another gut wrenching service, days, weeks, months on end. If I had stopped for a minute, I may have gotten weak and bailed, but before I knew it, the adrenalin rush, the steep learning curve, the exciting food we were cooking, the team spirit, that kitchen stadium battle feeling with its sweet highs, had taken hold of my soul. I finished the year stressed out, with a foot problem and a back problem, but I was almost a cook. I had worked all the stations, I could make all kinds of dishes, even menus, but it still wasn’t easy - managing the rush, the juice, the weeds. There were the Radio Can lunch rushes at Picolo, the hundreds of brunches at Winnie’s, my catering events that started hours late, the non-stop chit machine at the Tavern, then the stars and reputation of L’Eau à la Bouche.

As a somewhat seasoned cook at l’Eau, I still wasn’t out of the weeds. Instead of volume and non-stop chits, it was all of a sudden about important details, a brigade, managing up and down customer flow, staff and inventory, living up to Anne’s reputation. The pressure never abated, the looming weeds never left, staff meal at 5pm – forget about it. Now at Les Jardins Sauvages, although simpler in format, and me better equipped with experience, I’m still constantly in fear, and I can rarely manage a 5 min. break, let alone staff meal. Definitely, a lot of that pressure is self imposed, but mainly it’s the nature of the beast - professional cooking is wrought with details, time limits, perishables and PEOPLE, ie. Ten zillion things that can go wrong, especially if you’re striving for high standards. And I don’t want to/can’t bang out food. None of this would be worth it if we banged out food.

Who wants to bang out food? And so, I plan and I organize and I fret; I feel like I do everything in my power to minimize the weeds (all while cooking them), but they still keep cropping up. That’s life, as they say, especially in a restaurant kitchen. I have no choice but to do my best to avoid them at all costs, but I do embrace them too, it’s a part of what makes this crazy life tasty, keeping life exciting, keeping you sharp. How to pass that on? I don’t know. It’s just years in a kitchen. Stick it out, and it comes. Stick it out, you’ll understand. All chefs can relate 100% to Shuna’s post, it’s so good.

Now, I have a small kitchen, I’m there every night manning the stove, searing the meat, making the sauces, I have a set menu. All that means I have more control, minimizing disasters that aren’t my own fault, but there’s a lot more to a meal than meat and sauce, I still need good staff. And again, because I only have six burners, limited space and a small staff, I am flirting with the weeds because I push the limits with my complex menus; cooking everything that needs to be à la minute, stove space is calculated from the time we arrive, every countertop is always in use. I get an allergy or a kid (pasta), and there goes two burners.. If tables are staggered due to late arrivals – I can’t be searing scallops and deer at the same time, nor can I be plating scallops and deer at the same time (space, staff). So, even my supposedly serene kitchen is ripe for weeds. But not like in a big one with a brigade and a big carte, or another small one with no brigade and a line up.

Oh, but I remember.. Over the years, I can think of so many juice nights, most of which you get through and sit around afterwards and have beers in relief; everything is fine after the fact, a happy blur. But there are certain scenarios that if repeated don’t wash down with a pint of beer. There’s the cook who is NEVER ready, that always needs bailing out, that relies on it, that won’t last. But it does happen to all of us too, to tank, to almost not pull through until someone on the team comes to the rescue, and it’s classic that - the uber talented cook who ends up sinking because of his ego because he is working alone, in contrast with another perhaps less talented cook who is friends with everyone, who jumps in here and there, often to save the day. A cook like that provides a kind of glue in a kitchen, so much more valuable than sheer talent I now understand. Like a chef de partie who can tell you exactly what the score is, that we are in the shit, that there are exactly 3 pintades left with 5 on order, that we are low on this or that, or that so and so is fucking up, or who can fess up and ask for help. You have to be quick, on the ball and a good cook, but if you can’t take the heat and say it like it is when the shit hits the fan, you take the team down. Like Shuna says, in the weeds, it’s the team that counts. As a result, I don’t choose my staff the same way anymore (when I can choose). But really, I don’t care about CV’s or credentials or even talent really, it’s more about being smart (in a general sense), quick, tough, passionate, dedicated, and most importantly, having a good personality that fits with the team and the place - all the better to get through the weeds together.

The 'artist' in me

I’ve often heard writers talking about a story taking control of them, how once the plot is drawn or the characters outlined or even that they sit down to write, they feel no choice but to resign to that new life taking shape.. They might step in to guide, to shake things up, but mainly they are just along for the ride..

I always found this bizarre, even unbelievable. I know it takes incredible imagination to be a true author or storyteller, but to let go that much, and end up with a masterpiece?? Maybe I don’t understand how to let go that much, and so can’t completely relate.

However. I relate a teeny bit which is why I am writing this. I’m not talking about elevated artistic expression here, no novellas or grand works of art - only menus, nothing important, only a chef’s thoughts. In any case, I do feel like my ‘artistic’ sense is taking up more space lately.

I’ve always considered myself more of a logical, order-phyllic (academic, scientist) type, but with a definite artistic side in my desire to feel unbridled, my need for creativity. I was always creative really, but in a very structured way, and in a very personal way; it’s not like anyone was ever watching. I would draw, I would sing (bad idea), I would write, but I had to work at it. Even as a doodling kid, I worked hard. I stayed up late after my homework writing songs, poetry, and drawing, until I discovered sports and regular high school pursuits (sex, drugs rock and roll, more or less) and got side tracked. Meanwhile, I found math and science which was seductively much more straight forward than all the artsy stuff, and being coaxed by the establishment, I fell into step and followed that path. That’s what the smart people should be doing (the thinking of the time), that’s where you got the pats on the back… It was easy for a while; little did I know that it would lead me on a big detour. Soon enough, I would find my way back in touch with my artistic soul in cooking, although it took ten years or so, and then some.

At first, I took on cooking like any other class or challenge, very studiously, like an academic, but I quickly learnt that my senses had to be engaged; this was different, invigorating, overwhelming. As a young cook, I read so much, I cooked so much, I slaved and I dreamt so much, and years down the road, I think it eventually all came together. I was brainstorming all the time, reading, jotting things down in a journal.. I could always come up with ideas or new menus on a daily basis, or write something when I sat down to do so, but it’s because I already had a handbag of inspirational material to work with from my relentless collection of stimuli, an arsenal of ideas just waiting to be hashed out. Maybe I was moving too fast for the artist in me, or perhaps learning what I had to in order to be able to make the most of it.

Nowadays, I am that same person, but I have to say I fly by the seat of my pants more, I am less influenced by what I see and read, I go with the flow more, I take more risks. Or maybe I take fewer in a way, because I’m less adventurous (in terms of attacking new trends or technologies for the sake of it), I don’t know. It comes down to the fact that I’m less rational, I'm doing whatever I feel like in the here and now, be it because of the forager’s finds, because of a day-dream, or because of something great I tasted in a casse-croute or in an old fashioned French restaurant that struck a chord. I’ll riff on a quirky recipe I saw in some sketchy cookbook or even in Chatelaine, or it might have been a molecular gastronomy acolyte that lit a spark. That’s nothing new, all chefs can’t help but be affected by what’s going on around them, there's definite osmosis going on all the time.  But there is less going on around me than ever before and I’m paying attention less and less; my moves are more spontaneous, not calculated. The other night it was after watching a foreign film (not food related at all) that my jostled mind started spewing out ideas. I honestly don’t know what I will be cooking next. That’s the thing. I’m acting more like an artist than ever.

I guess it’s part experience, growing up, and being comfortable in one’s own skin, then part my environment being conducive to letting the artist in me out..

But not quite.

I am short staffed right now, I know my budget, I know my constraints, but I push those limits all the time. I never want to do the same thing twice; I’m always doing new things when it would be more sensible to go with the tried and true. I keep complicating my menus even when I don’t want to, in that I don’t see it as necessary or even adherent to the style I want for myself, beyond it not making business sense. I absolutely hate it if I have to produce a menu more than a week in advance, because I’ve found that when I do that, when the time comes, I don’t feel like cooking whatever I had planned weeks before - no, now I feel like cooking something else and it feels wrong. When I sit down to write my menu for the week, I have ideas swirling around in my head, maybe even some written down (on my ‘to try’ list), but I honestly don’t know what it will end up as before I’m done. And then, I’m like, what the hell, that’s so much MEP! So then, I might do a more practical rewrite, take off homemade pasta, inject Israeli couscous, take off sausage, inject rillettes etc., but more often than not, I don’t. I guess I kind of like the challenge, the ride.

Intellectually, I feel like my style is simple, but I can’t help but notice that although I am not using much fussy technique or big frills, practically speaking, my menus are infallibly intricate: I keep adding subtle layers of flavour, background ingredients, new or old fashioned multi-step recipes in spite of myself. Several times this summer, I cancelled an engagement or a day trip away from the kitchen to stick around in order to reduce my stress and space out my workload, but then found myself adding a few labour intensive components to my menu, or deciding it was all of a sudden imperative that I defrost the freezer, do inventory or do some tests, because now there was the possibility of swinging it. One step forward, two steps backward; my to-do list for the day has to have a few too many items on it, it seems.

The manager/partner side of me is critical of all this. I know that professional cooking and the restaurant business is very little about art, more about organization, manual labour, management and accounting, even common sense. Nancy , why not reproduce some of your more successful, you-can-do-in-your-sleep dishes instead of inventing new ones each week? Nancy , why make your crackers or bread or pasta when you can buy them? Maybe then, you could take the time to clean the fan, and anyway, is it really necessary to degrease the fan twice a week? Nancy , why not cut down on the complexity of each dish, either in the number of steps, or at least in the number of à la minute motions in dressing (labour) for each dish, then you might not have to worry so much about your staff? Nancy , why not cut down on the number of ingredients period? Nancy , do you really need all those expensive top end ingredients when your mission is the wild stuff?

But I feel that no and yes, I am who I am, I cook how I cook, I follow my inclinations, and I can’t (don’t want to) do otherwise. I need to be true to that passion, I need to be evolving. Which is why I am here, that is, still bitten, and in the woods at Les Jardins Sauvages. I have been doing it my way for a while (even with Anne, I worked this way, never really cooking anything I didn’t want to, always with recipes/menus/compositions that came from the heart, from some ingredient I was enamoured with, from some technique I wanted to explore, from some old dish that spoke to me that I wanted to reinvent – that she agreed with, of course). And at the Tavern before, I was free creatively too, only limited by my naiveté and by the somewhat conservative customers. Of course in both places, I had to keep the clientele, establishment and purpose of the restaurant in mind, but in each moment in time, I was fully committed to that particular job while continually pushing my limits. Now, I have another set of constraints, but I have more of an open template that I’ve been slowly moulding into my own (based on François’ reality). All to say, I could not be cooking at some mega star hotel in Dubai or any of those top jobs I was once offered with the freedom I have here and with ingredients I believe in, like I have here. Years in the making, and thanks to the present circumstances, without me realizing it, the artist in me has been unleashed.

In a setting where I finish my own sauces and sear my own meats, with a set chef’s menu, I can change things on a whim, I can do as I like, and ultimately, I know that the food is better for it. It’s so personal, so cooked with love, so true, so in the moment, not to mention the underlying quality of the ingredients from local artisans I love and those foraged by my guy and his team.

What a great way to cook. But I know it’s not the most profitable way, or the easiest way. The day to day logistics of pulling this off in a small country kitchen, amidst fluctuating business and a shortage of resources, often means a lot of stress for everyone involved. An artist maybe, but I’m no peace-and-love, piece-of-cake to work with, more like a whirlwind of seriousness and pressure on the job. But at the end of the day, when everyone is happy, the customers wooed and satiated, the staff paid and proud, the resulting sense of accomplishment and gratifying exhaustion makes it all seem worth it. To me anyway. Until the next day when I’m in the juice again.. but don’t have time to think, just do-do-do until the curtain closes and that rush comes again. Maybe François who pays the bills and runs around like a chicken with his head cut off trying to keep my larder stocked and check off my many lists, has more than the occasional second thought. Poor François, he courted a chef who seemed like she had her wits about her, and he ended up with an unpredictable artist. Especially that he is one of sorts too, it all makes for a colourful life, both in business and outside.

Yes, at times it indeed seems like a crazy life, and not much of one outside the restaurant, which would no doubt be made simpler without any artist in the equation. But then would it all be worth it? The endless hours sweating it out, with so little stability or security, so much peddling and damage control, so few days off..  Then again, there is so much excitement and action, and so much beauty, so much gratification, so many good people, so much good food and wine, so many laughs, so many more highs than lows..

No, I wouldn’t have it any other way; that’s me, that’s us, that’s this business. And besides, it just might be that ‘la vie d’artiste’ ‘malgré tout’, is the best elixir ‘dans un monde de fou’.

A breath of fresh air, a bright future, a diamond in the rough

I’m happy to report that there is hope yet – on the work front and in the youth of today (la relève). Just when I’d almost given up on finding good help, a young kid blew in to knock my socks off.

What a breath of fresh air. Throughout my weekend of juice in the kitchen, I remained in a relatively upbeat mood and finished elated, thanks to things going off without a hitch despite being short-staffed, but mainly from having my faith restored even for a night. The source of my elation – a teenager who came in to do the dishes. I’ll call him my diamond in the rough.

I saw from his first night how hard working, positive and curious he was. The next night I had him helping in the kitchen, doing odd jobs like peeling cattails and potatoes, decorating plates. He worked diligently, never asking for anything, was poking his nose into my pots, keenly observing and tasting; I could not believe how ‘allumé’ this kid was. And he hails from a backwoods small town, knows nothing about food or cooking or gastronomy or wild plants. I gave him his first taste of Reggiano, alongside a number of artisanal Quebec cheeses, he also tasted duck, scallops, veal cheek, not to mention a multitude of wild greens and roots for the first time. He was thrilled with each bite. He had no idea what a scallop was but asked if he could taste it raw! I'm used to having to cajole or threaten students into tasting anything remotely exotic, let alone raw.. In service, he danced the kitchen dance with ease, never getting in the way, aware, following cues and jumping in, executing any task I’d given him exactly. It was so impressive for a kid who had never been in a professional kitchen or taken a class. I could not have asked for more even from a ‘trained’ cook out of school. It was obvious this kid ‘had it’. This never happens, I’m never impressed, this kid was something else. I began coddling him like crazy - I’ve never been so nice to any newbie. In the early phase, I’m usually annoyed most of the time and more concerned with discipline, starting off on the right foot, laying down the law, seeing if they’re cut out for it before investing too much.

What had me so rapt, what was I so worked up about, why was I being so nice all of a sudden? It was his keen eye, ear and nose, the ability to think on his feet, to catch on quick. An unbridled curiosity, a hungry nature, an open mind, and smart questions (not useless ones, so commonly asked without thinking first - that just break my concentration and sap my energy..) His politeness, hard work and stamina, with no special needs on the side. He was eager to try anything and everything. The pressure didn't seem to bother him, he was sharp and optimistic the whole way through, he naturally knew when to buckle down, when to talk, when not to talk. He evidently had a tough composition, but a sweet disposition. Here was a (smart) kid who was simply happy to be working and learning. Come to think of it, this package shouldn’t be such a rare thing, but trust me, it is, especially so young.

diamonds

Most restaurants I know are looking for cooks, farmers are equally short of labourers, businesses across the board are in relentless search of enthusiastic, reliable workers at every level. Although there is technically a shortage of skilled workers, among the candidates available, it’s not necessarily that talent is lacking, the problem is more to do with attitude, work ethic, passion, dedication.. We’ve all gotten used to expecting less, having to retrain and retrain, accepting that one out of every ten employees will amount to anything, in this industry in particular. They all want big pay and glory off the get go, too many days off, with no concept of paying their dues.. It’s a common dialogue among chefs, restaurateurs and business owners in general. The times, they are a changing and fast, albeit for the good in many aspects, but we can’t up-end our whole operating order overnight, at least not until people are willing to pay way more for their food. So it’s all about doing your best with what you’ve got, damage control, avoiding the bad apples, making the most of the good eggs. Thankfully, a good egg makes up for a few bad apples.

Back to this good egg, my diamond in the rough. I showed him how to hold a knife for the first time; he was so determined to be able to cut like Jonathan (my beloved apprentice and pseudo kid, now a seasoned cook) - he was intently studying his every move and then going at it with such determination. After we’d cleaned up, he also helped with the dishes, never looking at his watch, never asking for a break.. While his peers are out being delinquents, uninterested in working for minimum wage, he’s happily busting his ass.

He was so proud at the end of the night when we gave him 2 oz of wine to cheers with us (he’s underage after all) and all the staff was complimenting him. He told me how fun he found the kitchen, doing so many different kinds of cool things, being a part of a team, seeing happy customers.. I understand how it would beat cutting grass or strictly doing dishes, but he seemed genuinely pleased, even bitten. And I’m quite sure he didn’t understand how brilliantly he had done. I was beaming for his mother.

I know better than to get my hopes up so quick, but what the hell, a girl needs to find her diamonds wherever she can, and regardless of what happens next, this one made a difference in realigning my disillusioned outlook with respect to kids today.. And I was reminded once again that I really can/still/do love teaching..

P.S. After I wrote this, I couldn’t help but think of Jonathan in his early days as my apprentice at l’Eau.. I wrote about him too a while back (you’ll see some common threads I’m sure). http://soupnancy.squarespace.com/more-food-writing/my-mentor-and-my-apprentice.html

The Elements of cooking

January 2008

Michael Ruhlman has a new book out called ‘Elements of cooking’ with a blog to accompany it. blog.ruhlman.com/elements_of_cooking/ It’s all about the basic principles of cooking, as in let’s put the recipes aside and try to understand what’s going on. I love that approach, and I think it’s especially relevant these days in the era of flashy food TV, when foodies are heading to the kitchen armed with star chef signature recipes and no hand me down knowledge from their grandmas. The emphasis in the food media is on the recipe, like that’s all it takes to turn out a successful dish. Even professional cooks themselves are busy getting carried away with new techniques while young cooks are leaving school without knowing how many millilitres are in a cup, focused on creating or on how fast they can chop. Just about everyone has lost sight of the basics.

But the beauty about the basics is that once equipped with a certain understanding of them, you rarely need a recipe for more than inspiration, you are liberated, and better equipped to play around, to troubleshoot when something goes wrong. And for the professional, a look back to the basics is only a good reminder tool to help make sense of all the new stuff going on. The oft overlooked underbelly of fine cuisine is the unglamorous, ‘boring’ study of the elements, essential to any cook.

So, yes – let’s study water as a vehicle and cooking medium and let’s talk about the ‘aromats’, the common building blocks of soups, sauces and braises. Let’s review the different kinds of cooking methods, the different cuts of meat, let’s delve into the process of thickening things and emulsifying things. Harold McGee’s article in the Times about heat (the invisible ingredient) is another perfect example of some basic information more helpful to any home cook than some fancy recipe.. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/dining/02curi.html?_r=1&ex=1357102800&en=8a147e3904430a08&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss&oref=slogin

Breaking things down into the elements, we can look at the properties of ingredients and pick apart basic technique, but in effect all we are doing is drawing on what generations past have done, and allowing science, as it slowly catches up, to qualify it some. In our imperfect grasp of food and cooking phenomena, knowledge of the classics or culinary history in general is still key, science secondary. Knowing that something has been done for hundreds of years a certain way does have some merit, which doesn’t mean we can’t dissect it, try to understand it and riff on it. With empowered superchefs and molecular gastronomy the rage, novelty and science are in the forefront, so tradition and history are easily sidelined, especially here where we have little tradition and history. Yes, every once and a while, there might be a true modern improvement or invention, but mostly we’re just revisiting the old with new eyes. The way I see it, keeping that tie to the past is a big part of what’s fundamental, and something that's become clear to me with time.

Of course, it’s natural that a cry for ‘the elements of cooking’ would strike a chord with me. As a cook with a scientific background, I’ve always been someone who is drawn to the how, the why - I ask questions. In my early days, even now, I read passionately. If I look to a recipe, I look at 20, I look for common threads, I draw my conclusions, form a mental master recipe of general guidelines before trying anything. I gobbled up Harold McGee’s ‘On food and cooking’ in 94 when it was the only thing out there on the science of food and cooking. I always gravitated towards general manuals over cookbooks, to publications like Cooks Illustrated over the flashier recipe dense magazines. I tackled the concepts before taking down crates of chicken or peeling tubs of potatoes, the opposite path of most cooks. But performing the menial tasks in a kitchen are just as important as grasping the elements, hence the common prejudice against the ‘theory’ side. But you just can’t turn out consistently good food or climb the ranks in a professional kitchen without both.

That said, I certainly didn’t move forward thanks to my speed and technical skills or any fancy French CV. Besides being organized and being a fighter (which every cook requires), my force has always been more idea based. My focus has always been on the big picture, and so slowly, a certain creativity and vision has come along with it, however immature. But I always knew that it was a knowledge of the basics, both in terms of science and tradition, that would enable me to see the links, to see that such and such is just a derivative of such and such, that an ingredient is flavouring and not a building block so that it can be changed, how to pick apart or create a recipe, etc.. Hence my mission of ‘Desperately Seeking Truth’ through constant reading and in my need to go commando in the kitchen. It’s all an effort to clear up some of the fuzz in my big picture, to connect more dots, to find another piece to the puzzle. And to have a better ally when trying new things, a bridge between the old and the new..

I’ve noticed that when I stray too far from planet earth by getting too experimental and flaunting or forgetting some basic principle, it inevitably backfires and I resurface feeling stupid. I am personally somewhat of a schizophrenic in that I jump forward wanting to try it all, and then I back up and cherish the old ways. I’m dying to make spheres out of beet-wild ginger juice, wanting to push limits; then again, I’m very into lying down next to Escoffier. I love tradition and simple food, but I love stretching the brain and tasting new things. I go through my push-pull phases, always playing around, rarely doing the same thing twice, making up recipes when I could easily follow something tried and true. Then again, I want the focus to remain on taste in my cooking, and on the products we have, not on any of my kitchen antics. Nonetheless, within every freshly executed dish or unscripted kitchen exploit, eventful or not, lie a few kernels of truth to add to my arsenal of cooking knowledge, a line or two to draw on my map. You see, a reverence for the elements of cooking keeps me grounded while spurring me on to new challenges, truths and tastes.

In contrast, following recipes blindly doesn’t offer anything beyond a crapshoot at something edible. It is actual cooking, critical thinking and paying attention to the principles at play that make for real progress and satisfying time in the kitchen.

So, next time you find yourself tackling a recipe for which you don’t have all the ingredients or the proper equipment, plough forward anyway, use your head and learn from it. When you pick up a cookbook, take the time to read the background information on the recipe if its there. Repeat the same recipe a few times with alterations in ingredients or technique, and see what happens. Try to free yourself from the fear of failure and the printed recipe by grasping on to the bottom line, or just by having fun.

On the other hand, if you are working the line in a kitchen, then just listen to the chef and think about it all later. Sometimes too, it doesn’t hurt to be forced to do something foreign to your own thinking if only to learn why you would never choose to do it the same way in the future.

Understanding everything is impossible, which is why cooking is so endlessly fascinating. Maybe understanding the elements is not everything, but trying to seems like a natural starting point and the eternal home base for cooks. It can prove an undeniably powerful tool, is definitely enriching, and not at all boring. It wouldn’t hurt all cooks to pay attention. I welcome more books like Ruhlman’s The Elements of Cooking to the culinary landscape.

There’s so much interesting stuff being published (along with the junk) these days – its overwhelming and heartening. Maybe one day, we’ll actually understand as much about food and cooking as we do about microchips and putting men on the moon.

Meet my new buddy Mac.

Mac

We've been together for 3 weeks now and I can't tell you how much I love him.  He's changed my life.  He's an 8" chef knife but with dimples.  He can do just about anything but heavy work, he's not great at boning, but since he came into the picture, I've barely touched another knife.  Slicing and dicing veg, carving meat, sushi - he kicks ass with super smooth style.  He's Japanese in origin, western in style, swift and light but very comfortable, with a hard, thin razor sharp blade.  I wasn't into Japanese until now.  No one touches him but me and I put him to bed in his box every night, which is something else for a brute like me.  Let's hope it lasts (the edge, us)..  And that he doesn't chop my finger off.

Hot and cold

Regular chefs vs. Pastry chefs

I’m a regular ‘hot kitchen’ or ‘savoury’ chef who has worked alongside several pastry chefs from different backgrounds: Italian, French, Quebecois, some with classic training, others who were more home-baker types, young and old, medaled and not. I’ve admired them all, but still, I can’t help but notice the inherent fundamental difference between a true hot kitchen chef and a true pastry chef. I’m not talking about cooks who show up to punch their cards but the ones that live and breathe their vocation. Amongst these cooks, you see two groups: two callings, two people, two beasts. Between them, there is a contrast in temperament, in talent, in likes and dislikes.

I have long been intrigued by the difference between these two types of people and their intricate dynamic, having lived it, studied it and marvelled at it for so long up close. This is what I can say for now about what makes the hot and the cold sit at opposite ends of the food production spectrum.

Pastry chefs need to measure. Cooks hate to.

Pastry chefs operate in MEP mode. Cooks more often than not are under the gun.

Pastry chefs don’t like to have to move at a fast pace, or improvise too much, they do anything to not be ‘in the juice’. Cooks need to fly, are always ‘in the juice’ and get off on it.

Pastry chefs find finicky, monotonous tasks satisfying and soothing. Cooks find them a boring bother.

Pastry chefs like early mornings. Cooks don’t.

Pastry chefs hate yelling. Cooks are used to it. (But you never really need to raise your voice in a pastry kitchen because the bulk of the work is done before hand, where as in the hot kitchen, it is all about à la minute.)

Pastry cooks are soft and fuzzy. Cooks are hard and gritty.

Pastry chefs are polite. Cooks are brutes.

Pastry chefs strive to be Zen. Cooks should, but they’re off the hook and they like it that way.

Pastry chefs show restraint. Cooks tend to excess.

Pastry cooks are always organized and meticulous. Cooks need to be, but it’s more of a stretch, hence they need more discipline.

Pastry chefs are more esthetical, they tend to think more about the look than the taste. So often, they are thinner. And their homes don’t look like cooks’ homes (designer decorated vs. student apartment).

Cooks taste. Pastry chefs don’t.

Cooks smell like veal stock, grease and garlic. Pastry chefs smell sweet.

Pastry chefs have more evenings off. Cooks are jealous of that.

Pastry chefs think they are superior beings. Cooks think they are superior beings.

Tied at the hip in a love-hate relationship, with a lot of mutual respect for each other deep down, they/we still live in separate worlds. We both know a little about the other, having learnt the basics about the adjacent school, and are vaguely interested in the other if only to taste each other’s offerings. We work side by side, share and joke around, occasionally party together, but often get on each other’s nerves. There’s a rivalry between cooks and bakers, just a notch lower than that between waiters and kitchen staff. In face of the other side, we stick together, but amongst ourselves, there are two camps, continually badgering the other, more for amusement’s sake than anything. We swap veal cheeks for donuts; we jump in to help each other out, but laugh at the other’s gaffes over staff meal.

Of course, a good pastry chef can be a good cook and vice versa, if the interest is there. But, in my experience, most often this isn’t the case, especially if a person is really good at one or the other. I find that the better the pastry chef, the least likely they are to be the chef type and vice versa. Understandably, the top guns aren’t usually interested in the other side and they don’t have the time if they’re busy climbing one ladder or the other. Those that are good at both are most valuable to a small kitchen, but we don’t hear about them often. In the upper echelons of the profession, in a high end kitchen or a big operation, Pastry and Hot are necessarily two very different fields.

However different, with modern trends blurring the lines between sweet and savoury, it seems that more than ever, the two should be working together, even outside the small restaurant scenario. The dessert, no longer just a finale, is morphing, multiplying and encroaching into savoury territory on tasting menus, salt and pepper and carrots and balsamic vinegar are showing up in desserts, while chocolate and gingerbread are now common in entrées. We’re more intertwined then ever, and it seems insensible to ignore the other. I suspect that the in-between type might flourish in the upcoming years.

Personally no longer part of a big brigade, I have no choice but to pay attention to and nurture my sweet side. As a savoury cook first, I sometimes find pastry to be a chore, especially if I’m swamped and feel like I could be doing ten other things while I painstakingly roll out butter dough. But at the same time, I think it is important to keep my fingers in the flour. It would go against every molecule in me to order them from the outside, and besides, it’s an endless source of challenge, not to mention humility. I think that a really good cook should be able to bake something, and I think that a person should struggle every once and a while. My pastry dabbling also means that I am not ultimately dependent on anyone, as dessert is an important part of the meal to most. On the other hand, I am more than happy to let a real pastry chef take over when it’s time, say for a wedding, a buffet centerpiece or when I need technical help in transforming a new idea into a plated dessert that doesn’t look like a kid made it . I now collaborate often with a queen (Isabelle Sauriol), who gives me the odd tip, and is big enough to serve my homemade desserts without scorn, making them look better then I ever could. Ironically, she is also one of the few real pastry chefs that can also cook, probably because she has an unbridled curiosity and passion for food. Patrice Demers, Montreal’s hottest young pastry chef (at Laloux, formerly of Les Chèvres) knows how to cook too. Funny enough, he fell into pastry first because the cooking class was full the year he tried to enroll. Maybe some things were meant to be after all.

Generally though, I do think we cooks and pastry people are two different personalities yet cut from the same cloth, like non-identical twins. We love each other but love to assert our individuality and we love to scrap. But we’re definitely two different animals. And like a good balance of girls and guys makes for a better kitchen dynamic, a good balance of hot and cold chef types can make a food team work magic. Here’s to them and to us, to salty and sweet, to hot and cold, to contrasts and extremes, to balance and harmony.. We need eachother and we can do so much together in the name of good taste and good fun.. Cheers.

 

At the Mercy of Nature

Wild mushrooms drive the point home

September 17, 2007

 

shaggy mane

lepiote lisse

lepiote élevée

larch boletus

 

In this era of climate change, more of us are starting to wake up to the notion that we are at the mercy of nature. This is something that farmers, winemakers and foragers have always intimately known, and so the best have learnt to respect nature and work with it the best they can. With every season, they find new optimism and pick up a few new tricks, never quite knowing exactly what’s in store. I admire them.

These days, my life as a chef with a set of principles relies increasingly on the bounty in our backyard. With the growing season peaking, this has not been a problem for some time. Now however, the thermometer is dropping and we have a menu event featuring 20 odd kinds of wild mushrooms just weeks away, and so my anxiety with regards to what nature will provide in the last breaths of summer is climbing.

Mushrooms are more unpredictable than anything. I reckon therein lies the spell they hold on foragers and mushroom lovers alike. They are so beautiful, delicious and impossibly difficult to get to know well, always playing hard to get. And no matter how many books you read, or how much time you spend in the forest, you are always one careless step away from being a goner.

That is, if you can find them. This has been a dreadful year for most wild mushroom varieties in and around Montreal . Further north in the Laurentians and in the Mauricie, they seem to have had marginally better luck. Pickers in the Charelevoix and the Gaspesie on the other hand, can’t keep up.

I have plenty of chanterelles and pine mushrooms, a good amount of lobster mushrooms, and assorted boletus. But I’m still waiting for substantial quantities of hedgehog, porcini, puffball and fairy ring.. The oysters, the blue-foots, among others have yet to come into season.. Will they? Will we find them? If anyone can locate them, my François can, but he can’t be everywhere at once and the clock is ticking.. He seems confident that nature will cooperate, but I can’t help but wonder, having witnessed by now how magic mushrooms can be indeed.

 

I hear people ‘in the know’ speculate about it having been too hot, not humid enough, the winter too harsh, but that all we need is one good rain and then some nice weather, blah, blah, blah.. It seems to me that no one really knows much. Seasoned pickers tell stories about their hits and conquests in big, but if you listen long enough, the tales of disappointment and puzzling misses inevitably follow. How year after year, they had a fruitful fairy ring or porcini patch in a particular spot that they carefully checked, and then poof, no more. How the common varieties are coming out in the wrong order, novel unfamiliar species being spotted here and there, reports of a certain beloved mushroom now on the skull and crossbones list.. Just look at the books: they all say something different about a particular mushroom, if you can even identify anything at all amidst the multiple styles of classification, the complex jargon and poor photography. Against my bookish ways, I’ve found the surest backbone in anecdotal knowledge, knowing that generations of the same family have picked and eaten a certain variety growing in a certain place for years without malaise. And when it comes to my customers, I play it safe. But still, the wild mushroom remains elusive.

 

So to me, the wild mushroom seems to be the perfect metaphor for the mysterious ways of nature as we live them. It’s a food we can hardly understand, that we can barely cultivate. We’re seduced by it, but scared of it. It’s one of the last examples of nature exercising its power over us. We’ve dabbled just about everywhere we could in our natural landscape, but just when we think we understand something, we try and exert control, at which point nature eventually surprises us. For example, super bugs and antibiotic resistant bacteria, global warming and climate change, industrial food and obesity, to name a few..

Being in mushroom desperation mode, I am in my own personal face-off with Mother Nature and I must bow down and acknowledge the fact that I can’t control the outcome too much. Being so involved with planet earth and the unknown makes me feel like I’m living life in its essence, but it’s exhausting for a worry-wart like me. It would be so much easier to tone down my menu and just order up what I need from miles away.  All I can do is be organized so that I’m ready for anything, and I need to do what I can to liberate François, the real forager, so that he can go out and gather whatever Nature has decided to give us. I need to change my menu according to the finds. But mainly in the mean time, I need to have faith.

There is still a thread of the city girl in me that wants what I want now, nice and conveniently clean and ready to use, but it's wearing thin. Going on eight years in the country now, cooking with the seasons and frequenting grounded types, I've changed into someone who values everything but, and chooses to be at the mercy of nature; it's almost a religion.  My tie to nature, my new reverence for it, and associated requirement for faith all remind me of exactly that. I think this is the closest to feeling ‘God’ that an agnostic can muster. Not unlike what I sensed studying the upper echelons of calculus and biochemistry. To be wowed by a beauty you have the slightest grasp on, to sense a governing omnipresence that you deem in your best interest to worship, to feel like a small part of something much larger and more magnificent, to feel the need to have faith, and to feel better for it.

Even if it’s all about ‘fancy’ food here, living this dance with nature feels important and necessary as a human bean in the grand scheme of things. I also can’t help but feel closer to our ancestors who devoted most of their waking hours to securing their food at the mercy of nature.  And I feel like I've shed a childish or superficial layer or two. 

I lose that connected feeling when in the city too long. I love the city - the people, the stimuli, the freedom, but it can also be decadent and unhealthy. Besides having too many places to go and too many indulgences at my fingertips, it’s more about how easy it is to lapse into a detached state, where I feel grateful and awed less often, more impatient and preoccupied with things that don’t really matter, like traffic. I know it’s time to get back to the country when I forget to stop and smell the flowers, when it makes equal sense to eat a mango as it does an apple in September, or to use a small tree’s worth of firewood without seeing that empty space.. Or when I’m too far to know if Nature is giving me a bounty of mushrooms to cook up..

 

puffballs!

cèpes (porcini)

François et les chanterelles en tubes

lactaires delicieux

pieds de mouton (hedge hog)

armillaire (pine mushroom)

Stéphanie et les lobsters

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you are interested in our wild mushroom dinner event at La Table des Jardins Sauvages starting October 18th, please visit www.jardinssauvages.com, or view the menu here  http://soupnancy.squarespace.com/recipes-/ and call 450-588-5125.

Enclosure

Critics and The Star System

The Challenge of Quantifying Quality

by Nancy Hinton, April 16, 2007

 

When scoring wines, rating restaurants, or even ranking lovers, the question is whether a standard barometer for sensory pleasure makes sense, and if so, how do we fairly accomplish this? With a number, a letter, or words, and according to what rules? How effective is this anyway? And do we need it?

I got thinking about all this for a number of converging reasons, from the whole Jeffrey Chodorow affair last month (when a restaurateur with a zero star review took out a rebuttal ad in the NY Times) to the Parker effect in the wine world around me, as well as the ongoing arguments among friends over newspaper restaurant ratings.

Words or numbers?

Thanks to Wine Spectator and the Parker Phenomenon, number scores for wine are now common. This is a very American construct by the way, in opposition to the entrenched European style long on romanticism and short on numbers.

In Montreal, we see this difference in approach in our city’s restaurant reviews, with La Presse, which uses a descriptive, critical blurb and no grade, whereas in the Gazette, like in New York Times, we see a bold star rating followed by a supporting critique; the emphasis on measuring performance just above delivering qualitative information.

The New York Times restaurant review, the mother of all ratings of this kind in NA in terms of clout, is considered by many as the ultimate reference in NYC and regularly causes much uproar. The French have the Michelin guide, which is a historic three star system, but a different creature altogether, only judging the cream of the crop. A mere star is an honour, with 70 or so two-stars and only twenty six three-star restaurants.. On this side of the Atlantic , one star would be a lacklustre grade. Here, we’re more generous with our stars, but then take them away to determine the score. The guides with authority in Quebec besides local newspapers, are the CAA, the Voir, the Guide Debeur, all with slightly different criteria and scales of their own. The Zagat consumer based guide, hasn’t made significant inroads here, mostly because it’s in English only.

No matter the format of the rating system, in our evaluation of the arts, selecting a number or a making a global statement is an especially difficult, controversial process. Think about it, even words don’t mean the same thing to everyone. Unlike in math or a bicycle race, there aren’t many absolutes in the subjective world of taste and a good time out.

Grey matter

Being a diplomatic, ‘nothing is black and white’ kind of girl, absolute scores like restaurant stars have always made me uneasy. Nevertheless, I do secretly kind of like them. I consume year-end reviews and top-ten lists with glee, I eagerly flip to the dining review in the Saturday paper, all the while feeling a little trashy deep down.

Why do I like the stars, even though I don’t really believe in them? I am drawn to stars and ratings probably because like most of my generation, I grew up on them. Mine was an era of percentage scores, contests with definite winners and losers, and gold stars that I sought to get stamped on my work. I am indeed competitive by nature. But more importantly, I believe in honest opinions, I honour truth and value quality. I accept that some are better than others at a given task, and I like to see those that manage to rise above mediocrity get pats on the pack. I think laziness and poor work should be nailed as such. There is also that natural inclination of mine towards order and classification that surely has roots in my scientific background. Although life has taught me otherwise, the desire to quantify reality is deeply ingrained in me. And like most people, although I know I should hold back from being judgemental, I can’t help it.

Apples and oranges

The thing is, as Nathalie Maclean states in ‘White, red, and read all over’ (a great breezy wine book), “An emotional response can’t be quantified mathematically”. She includes an amusing Adam Gopnik quote in the New Yorker about a man and his harem that makes the point..

‘A man who makes love to fifty some women and then publishes a list in which each one gets a numerical grade, would not be called a lady’s man; he would be called a cad..’

Scaling restaurants is problematic because like women, wines and restaurants are unique; there are personality quirks, and a non-tangible, fleeting, and sometimes magical element to the relationship or experience. Just like you can’t compare apples and oranges, you can’t accurately compare a no-fuss bistro serving tried and true classics with a formal, innovative place; they’re just different.. How do you compare a new Asian restaurant that has beautiful food with chintzy décor and a poor wine list with an ‘haut de gamme’ French restaurant with history, ultra professional service, Riedel glasses and acceptable, by the book food? How do you justly gage a tapas joint or a wine bar against a BYOB? You can compare them on price point or on service, on décor or on authenticity, but overall, it is impossible to do so without nuance; the stars cannot stand alone. Even a few qualifying paragraphs hardly suffice. Restaurant critics try to deal with this dilemma by judging a restaurant according to its raison d’être, what it is trying to be. Talk about obscure guidelines, regardless of how noble the idea is. Add to that the fact the restaurant product, and to a lesser extent any wine, is in flux, constantly evolving, any one experience a singular, unique snapshot in a reel of thousands.

So given all this, how much value should these ratings be given, and who do you trust? The democratization of criticism and art today means that anyone can put out a music video (or a blog); everyone’s opinion matters, anyone can claim to be an expert.. Overall, I think this is a good thing. Dialogue and multiple views offer perspective. But like with the internet, it also means wading through a bunch of crap on a daily basis on any given subject to uncover any truth.

Short cuts

The major problem is we don’t have time for it. (For that reason, I’m sure most haven’t made it this far down my post..) Our attention spans are shorter; we’re in a rush, we’re multi-taskers and skim readers. We want the reader’s digest version of everything; there is no time for details and real complexity. Hence, we rely on such tools as top-ten lists, stars and ‘so and so’’s pick’s to tell us what to consume. We need oversimplification in our fast paced lives.

It allows us to have the overwhelming excess of information around us to be boxed and filed away for easy retrieval. We also like to feel like we know more about all the things of which we know very little, so that we can feel like we’re really living, or at least have some interesting dinner conversation. Mainly, we appreciate convenient short cuts to the good stuff because they save us time. Shouldn’t we be able to trust the experts anyway? Whoever they are..

Five stars says who?

I enjoy having access to lists, ratings and expert opinions, being keenly aware of their limitations. I know who I like and who I don’t (I still read them). But that’s the key, context. Who. We should know that a review is just one person’s opinion, one slice of a story. We should pick our guides and pay attention to who wrote an article or who backed a certain study or produced a show, etc., so we know how to take it. Like when doing research, you try to consult many sources, and check credentials, before accepting anything as currency. Wikipedia offers a quick fix, a few hints, not a basis for a thesis. Most critics, like artisans, have their personal agendas and prejudices.

More than ever, in this age of sound-bites, people make unchecked statements all the time, and it seems acceptable. I get so annoyed with quotes that such and such a place is a 5 star hotel or restaurant, for example. Five stars says who? What are their criteria, what does it mean? If there is no source, it means nothing to me. I also cringe at newspaper headlines making a big claim, citing one vague ‘scientific’ study or some anecdotal evidence, knowing that many readers will take it as law without finishing the article, and decide that butter is bad or that MSG is a plague.

My conclusion is that amidst this sea of opinions, we need the critics with credentials more than ever. I like to read, and so personally prefer an article with substance full of grey, over a black and white star rating. But the star ratings can be fun, like icing on a cake. We must all just take it for what it is…not the holy grail, but some info, a possible lead, or merely some entertainment..

When it comes to entertainment, Beware

Before getting so caught up in criticism as sport though, we mustn’t forget about the real effects it has in real people’s lives. A restaurant is someone’s business, their livelihood, years of blood, sweat and tears, and home to a family of employees and regular customers… A wine is the same thing, usually decades of hard work, investment, patience and love, with troops of earnest faces behind. A bad review necessarily hurts all of these people.

On the flip side, any artist, producer or chef has to answer for what he/she puts out there. They must be thick-skinned, able to take some criticism, and accept that ‘you can’t please everyone’. To survive, they must stay focused on their art, their product, their customers, and not what too many outsiders think. Criticism is a part of doing business and making art.

Too much influence, the uniformity of taste

Besides some potentially hard feelings, the danger of any critic or guide gaining too much influence is that it can start to alter the art, the kind of wine being made or the food being cooked. A trend towards uniformity in taste is never a good thing because not only does it mean a loss of diversity on the landscape of taste, it often results in a ‘dumbing down’ to the lowest common denominator and a lower quality product overall. Big business lobbies and marketing strategies are surely guiltier of this, but a variety of independent critics can balance this effect, in a sense protecting us, all the while challenging the purveyors of our pleasure to perform their best.

The critic, our friend

Critics often claim that they are working for the average diner or customer, that they are a defender of the public, guiding the innocent to sure hits, and away from bad meals and rip-offs. But, really, the only establishments I don’t mind seeing criticized are the frauds, those out to make a dime by fooling people, those who deal in poor quality and charge far too much. I’m all for the outing of a hoax, but cheer far louder at the celebration of an underdog. And in fact, nothing does either like a no star or a full star rating. As long as there is something to back it up, a real person you can know and trust.

Sometimes though, we must agree to disagree, and take it all with a grain of salt.