soupnancy

This week, I attended a workshop with Alex from Ideas in Food.  I have been reading their blog (http://www.ideasinfood.com/) for years now, so when I heard they would be in Ottawa on a Tuesday, only hours away, I was keen to participate.  At this point in my cooking life, it’s not that I am so into ‘molecular gastronomy’ or ‘modernist cuisine’ persay, but their work has always felt inspiring to me.

Infused with passion, never forgetting about the ingredients at the source despite their techy approach, this couple of ‘chefs for chefs’ is constantly exploring, pushing the envelope, asking questions and diligently digging to find answers..  They remain excited by the seasons and the simplest of things. Their mission is fundamentally about useful ideas and delicious food, and they share it all. 

By the way, I highly recommend their recently released book, (‘Ideas in Food; great recipes and why they work’ by Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot).  I haven’t tested any recipes among what appears to be a unique and generous offering, but there is more than enough value in the text alone with the science based explanations, and again the ideas that can’t help but get your juices flowing..

At the Urban Element workshops in Ottawa, sous-vide cooking and transglutaminase were on the agenda for a lucky few - largely chefs and cooks already operating in this universe.

I’ve been more modestly and hackishly cooking a certain amount of sous-vide for years now, but since I don’t have a circulator, I have been limited to small pieces of protein for low temperature cooking or fruit/veg that are cooked at a safer 85C range.  I can’t be sitting next to a pot stirring for 36 hours to make sure the temperature is stable at a precarious 55 or 64C, so close to the danger zone.  In any case, the only things I really want to cook sousvide are delicate, lean meats that are easy to overcook such as rabbit saddles, pintade supremes or piglet loin.  I am perfectly happy with braising tough cuts of meat in the oven, same with tongue, cheeks and etc.  I am equally fine with my larger, tender cuts of venison, beef or bison traditionally pan seared or roasted.  Why fix it if it ain’t broke.  Why add extra steps and take two days to cook something that can take an hour unless there is a clear benefit. 

Besides, I quite like the sensuous sizzle, transporting scents and primal heat of a ‘normal’ kitchen; I can’t imagine living 80 hr weeks in the likes of Marc Lepine’s lab-like kitchen at Atelier (the host for Alex’s dinner) with no ovens; only circulators, a thermomix, an induction plate.  I remind myself that I effectively chose a 1993 style kitchen over a lab when I left Biochem at McGill to cook.

However, when it comes to egg cookery, vegetable purées, fish and seafood, certain types of meat and offal, I undoubtedly see the point of sous-vide.  The advantages are improved control and consistency with temperatures tweaked to the tenths of a degree, the possibility of safe and easy low temperature cooking with a gentle even heat you don’t get in the pan, and the concentrating flavour effects of the vacuum which lock in taste, no leaching or evaporation as with blanching or simmering in a pot.    

After years of experience, a cook will usually manage to nail a ‘perfect egg’ be it shirred, poached or boiled, but with sous-vide, a monkey can punch in 1hr at 63.8C or 13 minutes at 75C (for a 60g egg) once you have figured out what your ‘perfect egg’ is.  Also, other possibilities open up - to have a warm egg yolk sauce that holds, or a no fuss poached egg without vinegar, a soft, hard-cooked specimen with no fear of grey, no matter who is on staff.

When cooking vegetables, you can keep them crunchy by remaining under 85C or conversely, pull off an intense and luscious purée with minimum added liquid/fat, no loss of flavour, no scorching..

With potatoes for mash, hash browns or gnocchi, you can avoid the danger of a gluey result by giving them a first cook at 64C for an hour to hydrate the starch, followed by a full chill, so that the starch won’t ever retrograde when you jack up your temperature to create a purée and proceed to whip the hell out of it. With this more intricate method, again a monkey can make the mashed potatoes.  One miscellaneous detail I really enjoyed was that he peeled the potatoes and made a potato peel butter which he used to mount his mash after slowly reheating the sliced potatoes – the flavour was ultra potatoey.

I also liked the tongue and sweetbreads cooked sousvide.  Not that I have never had a problem cooking either the old-fashioned way.  But if I had a brigade of monkeys, hmm..

As for the elk, a piece of raw looking filet that was actually cooked rare throughout, I was not enthralled, but I do see the appeal for certain cold dishes, and hot too, if seared for some crust after the fact.

The second workshop was devoted to Transglutaminase or ‘Activa’, three kinds: RM, GS and YG ..  This is a naturally occurring enzyme that acts as a catalyst in bonding proteins, which is why it has commonly become known as ‘meat glue’, although its uses go far beyond.

I have been intrigued by this since it came onto my radar because it really allows you to do things that were not possible before, like craft sheets or blocks of otherwise irregular shaped meat, neatly wrap fish or anything with bacon, produce even portions..  Alex awakened me to other novel applications too.

I did take a Hydrocolloids class in New York at the French Culinary Institute a couple of years ago with Dave Arnold and Nils Noren, and returned excited about their last minute add-on that was Activa.  Playing around in the following months, I came up with some decent, even extraordinary new dishes. Of course I did the bacon wrapped rabbit loin, bacon wrapped everything with a prettier product than before; I braised a lamb shoulder that I had deboned and put together for a nice even roast.  Occasionally, I felt irked by the amount of mystery powder I had to use, and how finicky it was.  I remember being annoyed that acidity, fat and all that I naturally wanted to season my meat with interfered with the bond.  I realized I could add flavour afterwards, but my old school blood coursing through my veins made me want to ditch this whole thing because I couldn’t play my way.

Anyhow, I eventually ran out of Activa, couldn’t justify ordering this expensive stuff only available by the kilo, and I didn’t feel like explaining it all to François..  It turns out we don’t mind the natural look of a piece of fish or tenderloin; it doesn’t need to be round or square does it?  I was simultaneously caught up in my reality, my ‘down to earth’ race with nature, processing and cooking our wild plants while running the restaurant; there was little time for fiddling unless it was about my ‘to do’ list with the plants..  No, I decided I didn’t need much of this ‘molecular gastronomy’ business. 

When I thought about it, the excessive manipulation and industrial food additives involved clashed with what we do in principle - our whole raison d’être being fresh Quebec wild terroir ingredients, reviving old traditons.  The complexity and fancypants, preciousness of this kind of food didn’t jive with our general outlook, disposition, clientele and rustic set-up. Not to mention that I couldn’t afford all the associated equipment; I don’t even have a powerful enough blender for a hydrocolloid hydration vortex and there is simply no room for a tank of liquid nitrogen in my dinky kitchen.  No, we weren’t destined to become a Noma (I didn’t know Noma at the time).

My unrealized Activa exploits remained lodged in the recesses of my brain though, the stuff too nifty to ignore.. And so, I was happy to be reintroduced to it this week.  After all, it is just an enzyme our body already produces.  In these food applications, it is used up, disappearing before it is eaten.  I found all Alex’s applications interesting and worthwhile.  He glued chicken skin to pre-sous vide cooked sweetbreads before searing, absolutely delicious.  He deboned a halibut and put it back together, cooked it sous-vide and sliced it up into cute little identical fish chops.  With the YG created for dairy, he made fresh cheese sheets or ‘noodles’.  I think I like the idea of eggless, flourless gnocchi or gnudi.

Now, I just have to get myself a proper circulator and some Activa before the season hits and I don’t resurface to think about it again until next March.  Anyone want to share some Activa?  Anyone know of a neglected PolySci circulator for sale?

Feeding the carpenter - the perfect continuum for a chef at rest

We just completed a couple of weeks of renos.  The kitchen was completely emptied, cleaned and repainted.  The dining room floor was sanded down to remove years of wear and tear and high heel dents, re-varnished, the walls painted, the table tops also sanded down and refinished.  The terrasse panels were redone, doors fixed, hinges oiled.. Numerous odds and ends on our accumulated ‘to do’ list got ticked off.  Before the season, it was imperative that our dehydrator be repaired, now or never.  In a month or so, when spring really hits, it and us will be in the juice again until Christmas, embarked on our annual marathon race with nature - picking, putting up, cooking and going to market. 

Aware of what lies ahead, I seized the moment and took it easy.  Ok, I did my share of cleaning, organizing, paperwork and planning, while tending to my miscellaneous other projects, but still.  It only seemed fair that I feed the working men when I was around.  Typically, after a few hours on my computer, and a couple more in the woods, I would hit my home kitchen in the evening to cook up a storm for the boys.

It turns out our friend the carpenter is a good eater, an exceptional one.  In fact, I have never seen anyone who doesn’t weigh 300lb eat this much at one sitting, regularly.  He’s not a glutton; the Frenchman definitely knows and appreciates good food, so more of a gourmand with no bottom.  He’s a 6 egg breakfast man (with 6 slices of toast and etc).  On the first days, we saw that a litre of hearty soup and a baguette was not going to be enough for lunch; we had to throw in a plate of left-overs or heat up a turkey pot pie or package of sous-vide venison stew to keep him going. 

At the end of the day, they would saunter home from the table champêtre exhausted, covered with sawdust, crack open a beer and wait for dinner.  I first set out snacks while I prepared our ‘every night salad’, a mix of tomatoes, cukes, radishes, fresh cheese and olives, a dish that François and I eat daily with a green salad to start.  I replaced the normal sized oval plate we customarily use for a giant round one and doubled the quantities. Since we had company, I would add an entrée, maybe some snails or mussels or charcuterie.  Then the main course - bavette, ribs, ossobucco, fish, rabbit or some game bird, systematically served with several sides, rice or mashed potatoes, and at least two vegetables, sometimes more. Once and a while, there would be dessert (we’re not big dessert people), more likely a digestif.

I am generally accused of making too much food, but with this carpenter around, there were never any leftovers.  Caught off guard, I started playing defence, cooking more copiously in fear of coming up short, not fully satisfying..  To François’ chagrin, there were still no left-overs.  Meanwhile, of course, I loved this.  All chefs love good eaters.  It is a pleasure to feed someone with such a voracious appetite who is appreciative.  It justifies all we want to throw into our cooking, and it feels good. 

Nonetheless, as I went all out and dirtied every pot in the kitchen night after night, there was no doubt that this was becoming almost-like-work and definitely time consuming, with more frequent trips to the market (and SAQ) than usual, so also expensive.. I was having a hard time keeping up without compromising my other commitments..  I’m the one who jumped in; they could have been ordering pizza; what the hell was I doing? 

I was somewhat relieved when it was all over, to be able to rediscover my less labour intensive boyfriend in a tête à tête.  Yet I couldn’t help but feel a bit of a missing-it-pang.  I guess I was meant to cook, and for more than one person a night.  Perhaps feeding an army of a carpenter gave me what I am used to getting at the restaurant – a reason to cook a little more extravagantly than usual, an outlet and reason for my creativity and need to cook, not to mention constant enthusiasm on the receiving end.  No matter how good and loving your boyfriend or family are, they eventually take your cooking for granted.

Throughout, I had lots of happy, no pressure time in the kitchen (which is always why I love cooking at home), and then delicious, fun time around the table in good company.  Here I was doing simple home cooking with top ingredients, abundant and varied, served platter style with lots of wine.  Exactly what hard working boys and girls deserve at the end of the day.  It provided the perfect break for a chef like me.  I was able to play around in the kitchen without all the constraints, pump out food and know it would be eaten.  Plus, I actually got to sit down and partake. 

On any night, busy or not, I am a chef who cooks at home, if not for François, at 1am for myself.  François and I eat well on any given night; it is religiously a careful and joyous feast. But there is only so much my guy and I can eat.  I don’t like waste, so I’m constantly giving food away to neighbours or holding back.  I apparently need a family of mouths to feed, but don’t want kids and all the rest of it.  With the carpenter, I had the perfect scenario. He did good work, I was soo happy to nourish him. 

In the high season however, the restaurant is enough.  At that point, I am lucky to get one or two dinners with my François des Bois a week, for an ‘everynight salad’ and some crab, no time for hungry carpenters.

The carpenter’s favourite dishes:

Mussels with white wine, mustard, tarragon, tomato and crinkleroot cream

Sweat chopped onion and celery (leek and carrot if you have it) in butter or olive oil; then garlic, pinch of tarragon, dill and chilli; deglaze with white wine, add a bit of stock or water and cream, reduce down; add chopped tomatoes, a hit of crinkleroot mustard and crinkleroot (or Dijon and horseradish); simmer a few min., add salt and pepper, a squeeze of lemon. Add cleaned mussels (debearded and checked; closed with a tap if open), cover the pot, crank the heat and let cook, mixing or shaking the pot every now and then for 3-5 min.  Until open and juicy looking.  You need a 6L pot to cook 2lb of mussels.  Serve with crusty bread.

Quail with maple and thyme

Butcher the quail, separating out the legs and the supremes.  I use whole quail and make a jus with the back bones, tips and neck, but you can buy semi-boneless quail and skip this, just cutting the legs from the breasts.  Every time I cook quail and people tell me it is the best quail they have eaten, I tell them I bet it is because the two were cooked separately as apposed to a whole roasted or bbq quail, which by the way can be very tasty too, stuffed with foie gras or smokey from the grill, but never with perfect cuisson.

Season and pan-sear the breasts skin side down in a hot pan with a little oil a minute or two, turn over for 30 seconds and remove.  Add the seasoned legs, brown all over (a couple of minutes), then add some minced shallots and garlic, a pat of butter, a hit of chilli, deglaze with a couple of ounces of white wine, sherry or  honey wine, some stock or water,  a dollop of maple syrup, a squirt of soy sauce and a squeeze of lime. Throw in a bunch of fresh thyme.  Take off the heat, cover and put into a 350F oven for 20 min.  Add the breasts to the sauce and return to the oven for 5 minutes.  Serve with rice and veg. 

I often spice up the quail with panch foran or curry or wild ginger or even steak spice and modify my sauce in consequence.  Whether it’s cloudberry or pimbina or maple syrup and lime or cider vinegar, there is always something slightly sweet and tart, mixed with something salty and meaty (soy, stock, butter) and something herbal (coriander or thyme, rosemary, bee balm, sweetgrass..)

Our every night salad

Slice tomatoes (at this time of year, the cocktail tomatoes from Savoura are a good choice), cucumbers and radishes into bite size pieces and mix on a communal platter.  Slice up some fresh cheese (Buffalo Mozzarella or Bocconcini or Baladi or Botenaro (a Quebec made Mexican style cheese) and scatter over top.  Add chopped green onions, salt and pepper, a splash of Pettinicchi chilli oil and a generous sopping of olive oil, a drizzle of 10 yr balsamic and a generous handful of Crespo anchovy stuffed green olives (We are addicted to these).  We occasionally add pickled mushrooms or hearts of palm, and in summer, we might add a seasonal veg like beans or corn, but most of the time it is like this.  We always mix a green salad on the side with Romaine and endive or some bitter wild green.  When we finish eating the tomato salad, we pour the juices over the green salad and eat that.  Then it’s time for dinner.  Anyone who is a regular guest at our house knows that this is inevitably part of the meal unless it is a special event with a fancied up menu.

Bavette with gremolata vegetables and mashed potatoes

If not venison or moose, it is Piedmontais beef from Prince noir at JTM; I marinate it with a bit of soy, a squirt or two or Worcestershire, some rosemary olive oil, thyme and steak spice (or the equivalent type of home blend)..  I pan-sear it say 3-5 min a side depending on the thickness and let it rest another five.  Sometimes I deglaze the pan with red wine, stock, finishing with butter to make a proper sauce.  If lazy, I skip the step and serve it with a good mustard. But that’s only if I have a soft purée or something saucy and tasty like bacony fiddleheads as an accompaniment. 

I always let François make the mashed potatoes, it’s his thing.  He boils them, dries them, adds milk and butter, s&p and sarriette.  I like his spuds.  I do all the cooking, but when it’s steak or sausage time, he makes the mashed potatoes.  He’s the ideal task-specific kitchen helper; he also shucks oysters and grates cheese.

We eat a lot of vegetables, wild and cultivated, from sea spinach, milkweed broccoli to beans, rapini, cauliflower and button mushrooms (?!)..  I have a potted gremolata kind of mix with wild garlic (don’t tell), garlic mustard leaf, sea parsley, lemon, sumac and a whole bunch of other spices, pepper and herbs, for our personal use… I like to throw that into my veg; I keep it subtle, but I know it would only take another teaspoon to turn a veg-hater or teenage kid into a veg lover..  I sometimes slather it on steak, in which case, I would leave the veg au naturel..

No knead brioche, who knew..

I’ve been into the no knead peasant loaf for a while.  Like most people who know what I am talking about, the lightbulb moment came with Mark Bittman’s article in the New York Times in 2006 (in collaboration with Jim Lahey).  Naturally, I was curious about the whole idea because it was pretty revolutionary for a cook wannabe baker who learnt her basics in another era.  With all the new science to back up what many fiddling bakers have already figured out, it seems that all it takes is time and enough water to sufficiently develop the gluten.  From the get-go, I had decent results with plain bread (flour/water/salt/yeast).  But brioche?  Browsing through the new Ideas In Food book by Aki Kamozawa and Alex Talbot, my eyes popped when I saw it. 

In my boulangerie course at the Cordon Bleu last year, one of the twenty or so standard doughs we tackled was one our teacher called ‘Instadough’, even less finicky than Lahey’s loaf.  You mix all the ingredients, wait a day, then shape and bake.  Ok, it didn’t have the complexity of some other more labour intensive loaves, but it was very good.  All in one movement, I could even put the salt in right away; although salt inhibits yeast action, it would be sitting overnight so that was alright.  A longer fermentation time meant more water was needed (77% hydration).  I learnt that wet was ok, I could always add flour when shaping. 

Bitten by the baking bug, in the past year, I have experimented with all kinds of dough, mostly the kind made the same day that involve some kneading, with different starters and pre-ferments.  I was drawn into this new, fascinating world of miracles, spending every spare kitchen moment covered in flour tinkering with the variables and observing; I wanted to fully understand, all while more practically building a personal repertoire of favourites for the restaurant. Throughout my bread adventures, I had no choice but face the reality of logistical constraints – timing, oven space, customers..  Needless to say, there was not a small amount of stress getting my bread on the table for dinner time amidst everything else. 

Eventually, I found that starting the day before definitely suited me best.  Besides a preferable long and slow fermentation, I didn’t want to be getting up at 5am, which would mean no sleep.  I couldn’t get the same-day breads down without close catastrophe; busy with too many other last minute service details, they would overproof or need to go in the oven when it was full, or worse not be ready for service.  My Leonard starter (my muse for months) eventually got on my nerves, so demanding and expensive, never giving me a nice crust.  After I kissed a stinky Leonard goodbye, I came to rely on the Instadough when I didn’t have the time for more.  It became my back-up.  Whether I made other special breads or not, at least I knew I would have something in the basket when the customers showed up.  Fresh out of the oven, brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with salt, perfect or not, homemade bread is just about always a beautiful thing anyway- overall so complicated, yet surprisingly forgiving.

I successfully modified many of my recipes to fit a 20 hour schedule- Fougasse, Rye, Viennois, often throwing something wild into the mix..  But I never ever considered making brioche any other way than the traditional way.  I knew I could easily let a rich dough finish rising overnight because it develops slower by nature.  But leave out the kneading when it comes to brioche?  No matter how rebellious I am, I never dared.  Brioche is a different beast because of all the butter.  I’ve made quite a bit over the years, but always the same way, thinking that it had to be made just so.  I was taught by an expert baker that it had to be made in stages, adding the fat at the end, and then working it big time, because the fat inhibits gluten formation.  By machine, we would beat in the solid butter for a difficult emulsion, letting it whack, whack, whack for 10-15 minutes (poor machine) to the desired smooth texture and springy feel.  In my Boulangerie class, I had to make it by hand and Geez, there is not a work-out like it, our teacher acting as boot camp coach yelling at us to keep kneading to a beat lest we throw in the towel.  Why would everyone be going to so much trouble if there was another way? 

No really.  Why knead if you don’t have to?

Ok, so apparently all I have to do is start 18hrs in advance, make the dough moister, diminish the yeast..  No problem.  Inspired by Ideas in Food, I decided to stick to my own brioche recipe (not so different than theirs) but I started it the day before, changing nothing except that I melted the butter for the initial mixing following their lead, then replaced heavy kneading with waiting.  I leisurely kept an eye on temperature and fermentation progress, watching as it transformed from cake batter to dough (about 3hours at my kitchen room temperature) at which point I folded it over a few times and stuck it in the fridge.  After a couple of hours on the counter the next day, it was ready to shape; an hour later, it was ready for the oven (when my finger dent stopped wanting to spring back); 350F for an hour.

I was so sceptical.  But, do you know what?  IT WORKS!  Maybe I have to do a few more tests to talk nuance, but honestly, I see no difference.  With a little foresight, I save on muscle and electricity, definitely on stress, no sweat.  Sweet.

I’m amazed. Giddy with excitement, I couldn’t shut up about this all evening at work; the waiters baffled by their geeky chef (who is usually more serious), not getting what the big deal was, even though they thought the brioche was phenomenal.  Typical really - the front of the house, waiters and customers alike, are rarely aware of our kitchen acrobatics.  As long as they are well fed, they don’t know or care whether we are killing ourselves kneading or not.  Which is fine.  But for me, quelle petite triomphe, only more to toast to at the end of the night.  There is always so much to learn or revisit.



For once, no food talk per say. 

Winter provides a short break from the growing season mindset of non-stop exploitation and hard work in the business of providing fresh wild edibles, cooking, serving and putting up.  With nothing to pick but pimbina in the heart of winter, we enjoy our preserves, play catch-up, cook a few dinners, take the time to relax and appreciate nature as it rests along with us.

‘There is pleasure in the pathless woods where no one intrudes..’

This Keats quote came into my mind today as I trekked through the deep snow in the forest outback on snowshoes, winding my way between the trees, aware of a few passing critters from their tracks, but otherwise entirely alone.  For miles.  There was no hunting or gathering.  Just putting one foot in front of the other to a silent beat, working up a healthy sweat, soaking up the surroundings, letting the endless, tranquil beauty take over.

Without my man of the woods on my escapades, I can easily get lost, mostly thanks to my habit of sporadically going off into my head, but I don’t care.  It’s nice to let go.  Besides, I’m still young enough to manage a longer than anticipated way back.  I could always just follow the river, which is equally breathtaking only different, somewhat more dangerous, but François has coached me well.  Once the sun is setting, I stick to the river. 

Out there with him, I can go blind for ever, which is another kind of peace, watching his stride from behind, hearing another thump thump (or swish swish on skis) to match my own in sync..  Security and pleasure in those pathless woods; utterly romantic..

How privileged I am to have this winter wonderland out my back door, a guy to share it with from time to time, and a schedule that allows me to take advantage of it, having paid my dues all year.

The added bonus is such outdoor activities only justify hearty meals and festive 5à7’s around the fire afterward.  When accompanied, communal feasts and flowing wine easily ensue; there is never a better moment for cheese fondue and big ass roasts or braises.  Even alone, a proper celebratory, restorative meal is in order.  There might be some Nordic spa action too, but always no doubt lots of soulful cooking, wining and dining after a good dose of nature and fresh air..  Better zzz’s too.

I love winter.

Salt pork is bacon’s quiet, old fashioned cousin. Taken from the back as well as the belly, cured like bacon, but not smoked, it is a fundamental part of our heritage too.  Yet Bacon, so hip and widely adored, has been trending for years now, on menus everywhere, famous with its own blogs, bandaids and paraphernalia. Meanwhile salt pork seems less sexy, almost forgotten about in fact, despite its storied history. 

In my kitchen however, it has made a comeback over the past few years.  I never thought I’d say it, but move over bacon, if just ever so slightly please.

I was recently cooking up a feast of moose, wild hare and partridge and so naturally reached for the salt pork.  Wild game needs fat. 

By the way, if you are ever lucky enough to be given such a treasure by a hunter, don’t screw it up by cooking it like farmed meat.  I learnt this lesson years ago when I moved to the country as a young city chef, eager but too confident, and suffered several humbling experiences with tough-as-a-plank goose, and dry-as-a-carpet partridge.

The secret to edible wild game is long and slow cooking and lots of fat – pig fat, duck fat, butter, something.  With hare or bear, bacon seems to be a natural, but with more delicate partridge, I choose salt pork.  And sometimes, you don’t want your moose to taste like bacon either.  Salt pork delivers the necessary lubrification, lending a more subtle savoury piggy taste, remaining in the background. 

I first warmed up to salt pork over a traditional Quebecois recipe that François showed me when we first started working together -têtes de violon ‘facon bas du fleuve’, a lime green coloured mix of fiddleheads stewed with onion and salt pork that isn’t pretty but absolutely delicious, addictive even.  This recipe simultaneously broke down my prejudice against cooking green vegetables past the aldente stage and woke me up to the possibilities with salt pork.  At the time, I was particularly inspired by old fashioned Quebec cooking, so I soon realized I better stock up on the stuff.  Happily, I had lots of extra fat on hand since we deal in whole carcasses. 

Flip open any old Que cookbook such as Lorraine Boisvenue’s ‘Le Guide de la Cuisine Traditionelle Quebecoise’ or  pick an elder’s brain and you’ll see, salt pork comes up in just about all the recipes, be they meat or vegetable dishes..

As I got down to making my new staple, I found out that the back fat of a milk-fet piglet makes salt pork that tastes like butter.  Sliced thin lardo like, many people enjoy it straight up.  Personally, I prefer cooking with it.

Salt pork is the perfect winter ingredient with its hearty touch.  Adding a slice or slab to any pot like you would a bay leaf will kick up a pot roast, braise or ragout, making it ultra satisfying, while your guests wonder what magic you have up your sleeve. 

It so happens that pig fat is a natural for wild greens too.  As bacon sings in a bitter green salad, salt pork takes the edge off any green vegetable and works magic on beans. It is great in soup (say fava bean or green pea, lettuce or potato) playing the same role as a ham bone does in split pea soup, but again when you want body or piggy flavour in the background without too much smokiness. 

I just cut all my fine pig trim into strips and cure it like I do duck proscuitto by tossing them with coarse salt and spices for a couple of days (similar to bacon but without the sugar and less spicing).  Then I rinse, pat dry, sous vide and freeze for future use.  Or you can buy salt pork at any butchers or supermarket for nothing.

Sooner or later, when you tire of bacon, why not try a little salt pork. You’ll discover or rediscover a major element of ‘cuisine de grandmere’, the ultimate comfort food condiment that feels so good at this time of year.



Looking ahead to 2011

I'm not one for diets, fasts, cleanses or wagons.  Besides the fact that that drastic measures rarely seem to work, I inherently believe that life should be enjoyed to its fullest with minimum self-imposed punishment.  My motto has always been:  Work hard, play hard; Everything in moderation including moderation.  

That doesn’t mean that a little realigning is not in order after an indulgent holiday season.  I do crave balance most of the time, especially in January when I want a clear head to take stock and optimistically plan for the year before me.  Looking back and thinking ahead, I am reminded of forgotten projects I should attack anew, neglected relationships I want to rekindle, and all the little lifestyle details I could improve upon, bad habits to curb..  I could swap the odd glass of wine for a green tea, a late night for an early morning here and there, exercise more etc.  Little things..  At least I never have to tell myself to eat better.

I do have one real New Year’s resolution though.  To be a nicer boss.  Without compromising my quest for quality and striving for our best (which requires rules, performance and attention to detail), I can surely try to be gentler in my hard ass ways.  Perhaps smile more on the outside when I'm in soupnancy mode, and not save all my pats on the back for the flawless night. 

I know it won’t be easy because I am by nature somewhat of a perfectionist and definitely impatient.  Not to mention that I am forever annoyed by the modern work ethic and norm of issuing compliments for simply completing the barebones job requisites.  No, I don’t want to lower my standards more than I have to. I need to feel proud at the end of the night; all this hard work would not be worth it otherwise.  I will remain demanding, but never more than I am on myself.  Regardless, I will indeed make a real effort to be nicer when I'm cracking the whip, to be slightly softer when I’m mad, disappointed or stressed out. 

I love my job, I love what I do.  I want the people around me to feel the same.  They don’t need a nightmare of a crazy chef, no matter how truly passionate she is.

Good luck and Bon courage with your own new year’s resolutions whatever they are.

Happy New Year!

And finally, a toast I never get sick of:

May all your joys be pure joys,

And all your pain champagne.

Cheers, Santé



So it’s winter, ie. duck fat season. 

A big fan for a while now, I’ve written about duck fat before.

http://soupnancy.squarespace.com/blog-journalessays/2009/6/20/duck-fat.html

However, then, it was still somewhat of a novelty, my new ‘bacon’ (as in the solution to every difficult game meat or recipe that wasn’t kicking).  

I had been cooking with it for many years (confit), but all of a sudden, I was searing meat with it, making pie dough and putting just about anything through the duck fat treatment.  I did have a lot of it on hand which is what happens when you do your own butchering.  Plus, enlightened about its ‘good fat’ properties, I wanted everyone to embrace it like olive oil and have a tub in their fridges.

A few years later, I am heartened to see duck fat in supermarkets all over, and remain enthusiastic, but it has become as much apart of my daily life as mushrooms are in summer and fall.  It’s a cooking fat of mine year round for certain preparations but come winter, it takes on mega importance.  With production for the X-mas markets and winter menus, there is duck confit and rillettes, confit rabbit, sausage, cassoulet, tourtiere, foie gras this and that; in other words, duck fat everywhere..  Then comes our duck festival in January, when for a month, I am making all sorts of ducky things up the ying yang; my kitchen and me coated in a thin film of grease, smelling like duck 24/7, and the poor dishwashers have a bitch of a time.

We’re not even there yet, and I already have duck fat burns on my face.  What kind of girl or chef has duck fat burns on his/her face?  One that is short, sloppy, and overly passionate about duck fat I presume; I might find sympathy on the line at Au Pied de Cochon.  Meeting customers or running errands these days, I wish I had a sign posted on my forehead explaining that those red spots aren’t worrisome sores, just duck fat burns for a good cause.

There is no doubt that people love duck (and its fat).  During the holiday season, the fervour is at its peak.  I made a ton of cassoulet and after one weekend, it has just about disappeared.  Our team that is selling was proud to report this; for me, it was like ‘Geez, do you know how much work is involved, please sell something else’.  When you’re making your own confit, your own sausage, bacon and ham, it’s something else to make cassoulet.  But I know, anything with duck fat (and bacon!) sells big time.  And in the end, it is worth it. 

Over the years, I’ve come to see that it is a sure-fire way to a man’s heart; perfect to spoil all the men in your life – be it fathers, friends, brothers, neighbours, collegues, suppliers.. Guys just love cassoulet;  perhaps the wallop of ribsticking protein and fat satisfies a deeply ingrained craving, genes handed down from their more physically active ancestors.

The scent of duck stock or duck in the oven, confit mode makes people melt any day of the year.  It evokes a super-duper chicken soup aroma profile and associate feelings.  On a confit day, I know I will have many customers drawn into the kitchen - watch out.  Over the years, I’ve learnt how to convert any gastro-phobe out of their stupid bubble with duck fat potatoes or confit, springrolls or anything duck related that they don’t recognize as duck.  Duck is magic. 

No matter how many hours in the company of duck and its fat, I have never had the ‘I am so out on duck’ thought bubble, even after intense periods with the bird over the years, which says something.  It may be my favourite protein.  Especially when it comes to Ferme Morgan’s Barbarie.  Although I do date other ducks for for foie gras and charcuterie these days, it remains my top pick for an entrée, whole duck or a pan-roasted supreme - so lean, tasty and tender even cooked medium rare to medium.  I’m not a big meat eater, but somehow, I never tire of duck.  Mushrooms before duck, believe it or not.

All to say, I’m ready for the duck fat season, burns and all.

And the cross country skiing that goes along with it.

Bee balm and blue cheese

I keep bee balm on hand (vacuum packed petals we picked this summer) mostly to make our flavoured butter.  Sometimes I chop them up fine and whip them into mashed potatoes or use them to brighten a soup garnish, stuffing or sauce.  Bee balm makes a pretty pink béchamel or froth that is lively and light tasting.  I find the sweet/herbal quality blends nicely with root vegetables and dairy, and the delicate flavour accompanies fish, poultry, pork or rabbit nicely.  A knob of bee balm butter makes a fine simple sauce placed on top of anything hot – coquille st-jacques, steamed vegetables, even a steak. 

I recently stumbled upon another winning combo.  On the menu was a composed salad of celeryroot and parsnip slaw, smoked duck, pomegranate, spiced pecans, pickled day lily buds and blue cheese.  To please the masses, I decided to soften the blue cheese by transforming it into a cream* that I could quenelle and on a last minute whim, threw in a good measure of my petal paste.  Wow!  Striking appearance, delicious taste, so surprisingly complementary –the honey-thyme notes of the bee balm marrying seamlessly with the blue. 

Mental note: this could be served as a dip or a spread or a sauce outside the salad context, and might be a way to turn squeamish kids or fussy adults onto blue cheese..     

 *Blending it with a white wine-shallot reduction with cream and an egg yolk..



In the travel section, about Les Jardins Sauvages and what to do/where to stay in the vicinity..

There isn't much, but in December, there is the Marché de Noel de L'Assomption that is definitely worth visiting, and a place to stay at l'Ange Gabriel.. 

http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Enjoying+forest+bounty+comfort/3882980/story.html

The harvesting season is officially over - big sigh of relief.  Up until this recent hard freeze, believe it or not, there was still a trickle of mushrooms (mostly oyster varieties), and we just finished processing the sumac.  Now, it looks like the snow is here to stay.  So, apart from some pimbina (squashberry), there won’t be too much more picking until spring.

Our Jean Talon market stall is still open on the weekends in a reduced capacity, and will remain open as long as it is possible to be outside.  Hats off to our market staff freezing their pants off, tough Jardins Sauvages stock or not. 

All to say the pace has slowed down considerably, which means we can breathe a little now and take a day off here and there.  No vacation yet however!  We have transitioned into X-mas mode, with parties at La Table, and most importantly, into full on production to prepare for the X-mas markets (we participate in a few) for which we need a major supply of all our goodies.  We will be at the Marché de Noel de l’Assomption from Dec.2^nd to Dec. 23^rd, , a widely popular, annual fair of artisans selling food and handicrafts 45 minutes outside Montreal..  www.marchedenoeldelassomption.ca  Music, fire and festive village ambiance make this a highlight of the year for our team.

For me, it means a different kind of cooking, and one that I love.  For a month, I get to focus on charcuterie (terrines, patés, sausage, foie gras, cured and smoked meats and fish), braised dishes sold sous vide (pintade aux chanterelles, stuffed and braised rabbit, venison stew, lamb couscous, cassoulet, etc.), soups and sauces, and my tourtières..  I also have to make sure we have all the JS products and preserves en masse (mustards, vinaigrettes, oils, tisane, dried mushrooms, etc), as well as mason jars aplenty of pickles, sauces, chutneys..  All the things people want for the holidays, either for gifts or to make it easy to whip up a gourmet meal for guests.

This year, I will be making my cassoulet with homemade bacon and ham, braised piglet, homemade duck-pork-venison sausage, duck confit.  I’ve decided to ditch the classic lingot (or tarbais that I used last year) for lima beans.  François loves lima beans, and although anyone French would have something to say, I have no bean snobbism; the more terroir the better.  While François likes his cassoulet white; I like to add tomato (an annual fight of ours).  I win.  C’mon, you need something to cut through all that fat.

My tourtières this year will be made with piglet, venison, pintade, braised rabbit, duck confit, a bit of potato, and a lard-butter crust, giving the duck fat crust a rest.  There is bound to be some sauvage in there too, maybe some wild ginger or crinkleroot, cattail pollen and sea parsley.  No mushrooms though.  Despite the touch of sauvage and braised/confit meats, I like to keep it in the traditional realm.  Definitely gourmet and luscious, but it has to taste like tourtière.  Besides, I’ll be making enough other mushroom treats – rillettes, sauces, several soups (the Champi-Thai is back!), mushroom candies, chocolates and caramels.

At la table, I will also be cooking up a storm.  My holiday menu..

http://jardinssauvages.com/?nom=menu&res=m&m=fete10

Fun, fun, fun.

I do love winter.  It’s less about the bounty of fresh greens and pretty things, so much more about comfort and real cooking..  Not just braising, but the weather is right for making sausage, for smoking, for working puff pastry, for drying cured things in a closet.  The cold brings appetite for hearty dishes that don’t inspire me in summer; now it’s the season for all those ‘manly’ soups and stews and labour intensive recipes I only feel like making at this time of year.  Not being in the total juice all the time helps too.   I can fathom making pasta dough, crackers and sausage on the same day because there isn’t 50lb of cattails/berries/mushrooms to process.  I can return to making bread every day. 

Even at home, we are eating lavishly, because François is cooking too. As soon as the season slows down, he takes to the stove, concocting his old family recipes (poulet au cari, ‘stew’ which is like a pot au feu, soupe aux poireaux, Bolognese..).  It seems that as the temperature drops, we both get cooking more than ever.  Looking at the contents of our fridge, I can’t help but think we should have teenage kids or more neighbours to help us eat all we feel the need to cook.  Thankfully, there’s always staff meal.

10 great places to sample local food and wine
http://usat.me?41111334

I love Autumn all round and Autumn shrooms are the best

chicken polypore, cepe, hen of the woods, beefsteak, bolet jaune, cepe des meleze, lepiote lisse, coprins

After a dry summer and a spotty mushroom season when it comes to certain early varieties (except for Lobster!), the late summer/ fall season has shown a turn around; the autumn varieties are coming in beautiful and abundant.  At this point, the challenge is getting out there and finding a dry day.  Not only is being knees down in the mud no fun, but there is no point picking mushrooms in the rain if you hope to keep them more than a day or two..

cepes des melezes, bolet jaunes

Now it’s time for those prized boletes – the cèpes des mélèzes (larch bolete) and nonettes (bolets jaunes or slippery jack), two key mushrooms to dry for desserts due to their fruity chocolate, buttery and vanilla/coconut notes..  The cèpes (king bolete/porcini) are still on the agenda; François scored almost a hundred pounds this week himself, plus what others brought in, mostly little tight babies – very sweet.  The cepe is equally valued in savory and sweet thanks to its firm texture and flavour fresh, with a whole other set of complex aromas once dried.  I don’t need to tell most of you this, but such a bounty from Quebec is exciting, even just to prove to sceptics that they are just as good (better!) than the European imports.

The polypores are at the party, to be found adorning the oaks – Hen of the Woods, Chicken, and Beefsteak.  François had a 32 pound hen at the market today (spotlighted on Des Kiwis).  With the truckload so far, I made broth, I sautéed, froze-sousvide, pickled and smoked…  I really love Maitake (Hen of the Woods) for their versatility, and the way they can be worked by easily tearing apart into strips (no knife action necessary) like with cultivated pleurotes; and then there’s the meaty yet subtle flavour profile (nutty, melon and floral).  It just might be my favourite.

The coprins (shaggymane) are starting, the puffballs are still popping up, the parasols (coulemelle and lépiote lisse), the tricolomes (not one on our menu but a family favourite) are at their peak.  There are signs of autumn oysters in the trees as the leaves change..  We still have a couple of weeks to harvest all we need and to wait on the late-comers like the pied bleu.  As usual, it will be a race. 

kid next door picks baby puffballs -doh!

We are just finishing with the Matsutake.  Hands down, it was a phenomenal year for Matsutake.  The weather certainly played a role; what is good for one shroom isn’t necessarily for the next, and it depends on the region.  It also helped that there were more people out there looking for the Matsutake and willing to pick them.  Partly because the Japanese value them so much, Quebeckers woke up and caught on to the fact that there was a market for something in their backyard.  François has spent some time in northern Quebec but only realized this year how much Matsutake there was and formed coalitions with networks there.  In the far out regions, they are looking for ways to put people to work and exploit the natural resources in a sustainable way; François is the person they need to sell their goods.  Airfare and all, it makes for expensive shrooms, but in a good year like this, it turned out to be feasable and beneficial for everyone. 

The matsutake is a special mushroom.  So delicate and floral.  François says it tastes like cinnamon.  I say lavender.  There's a definite mushroom taste to them too, but soft, mellow, and the texture offers bite.  It's also an easy mushroom to cook.  It's great in broths or sautéed, braised, just about anyhow..  I felt fortunate to be able to serve it up in so many ways recently.  I processed so many pounds of this shroom that I still feel its particular aroma oozing out of my pores, and it is in my dreams. 

I am ready to replace those dreams with different scent bubbles and recipes featuring our local boletes, and all those other great autumn shrooms.   I’m not quite done with the vesse de loup, but going further into fall, the bolet jaune, cepe des meleze, pleurote – they really are the best.  I prefer to dry most of the bolet jaune (slippery jack) and cepe des meleze (larch bolete), but a few babies are good fresh or frozen for soup and sauce.  The pleurotes (autumn oyster) are best fresh.  The coprins (shaggy mane) are best fresh too; sautéing them is a waste of time; they turn to mush, but what mushroom flavour! So soup, sauce or stuffing.. meatloaf?  The options are endless with mushrooms. 

I’ve run the gamut over the years, from entrée to desserts, but surprisingly enough, I never feel like I’ve exhausted the possibilities.  I have an ongoing list of ideas and tests not checked off. I made mushroom marshmallows tonight.  Pretty good if you like marshmallows; but I’m not sure about that one yet. 

For the record, my goal in life is not mushroom acrobatics and only cooking mushrooms.  Just cooking in general, with the best and freshest ingredients.  It just so happens that I have a forager-boyfriend who inundates my pantry with shrooms.  So I cook them up in a myriad of ways.  But, in fact, I prefer to be free and all over the place, all while cooking local and seasonal with a dash of wild bien sur. 

I would rather woo a first time diner here on a regular night outside the mushroom event when there are all kinds of things on the menu and the place is less crazy.  I also hate having to publish a menu weeks in advance and stick to it.  Especially one that's so complicated.  But its the customers who want this mushroom extraganza.  It seems like I've created a monster.  Each year, I feel I have to come up with different things and have at least 20+ kinds of mushrooms on the menu because there are so many return customers expecting the same or better all the time.  No one understands how hard it is to secure these quantities and come in on time, let alone serve it all out of my dinky kitchen.  Most of the wild mushrooms on the plate end up costing way more per kilo net than top filet.  Foraged, cleaned, cooked down, chopped or dried, puliverized or infused, there isn't much to show..  Each person ends up consuming a pound or two of exotic mushrooms by the time they are finished with this menu.  It is an amusing, exciting, not necessarily profitable enterprise.

Mushrooms are great, but really, there is more to life than mushrooms.  I wish (now not so secretly) that I didn't have to spend so many stressful monthes devoted to a rediculous convoluted mushroom menu when the menu we serve each week is just as adventurous, balanced and delicious, with a little wild mush here and there, among all the other plants and game.  I don't want to be pigeon holed as the mushroom chef or the girl that smells like a mushroom forever.

That said, I can only be pleased with the interest, and fine, I will continue my mushroom somersaults, passionately so..  It is fun; I like challenges.  And whatever it takes to get diners out to our liittle old cabin in St-Roch de L'Achigan, I suppose. 

Little old Jardins Sauvages in the Sunday New York Times, September 26th, 2010.  We were so busy with a catering event that pushed the limits of our capacities, we didn't even notice until later.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/t-magazine/26remix-foraging-t.html?_r=1

Nice.  We are thrilled.  Great article, but we remain baffled by the chosen photos, given two days of photo shoot, oh well.

Gazette article about Women Chefs Saturday, September 18, 2010.

http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/food-wine/Girls+under+hood/3543195/story.html

A piece that captures the big picture of women in the professional kitchen today, featuring three Montreal chefs and me.

Photos  http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/food-wine/Storyboard+gallery+Women+kitchen/3533885/story.html

And there were a few other photos in the actual paper.

We certainly don't look our best, but I guess that’s kitchen lighting, and not something any of us worry about too much anyway..  

The bottom line is that kitchen life is tough, ever so sweet but not always pretty.  But perfect for a special breed of girl.

Salute to summer – wild Quebec berries

Most of the wild berries are now done with.  The wild strawberries, dwarf raspberries, red raspberries, black raspberries, Saskatoon berries, elderberries, high bush cranberries, blueberries – they’ve all been processed. My coulis, jam and frozen berries are put up for the year.  The last of the sarsaparilla is being harvested now, and the wild grapes are on their way.  They are looking ripe early, but we are still waiting for the first frost, in hopes that we will get to them before the birds this year though.  They need to be at their sweetest for our wild grape ‘balsamic’ which is a hot ticket.  Then when the snow comes, it will be sumac and pimbina, much less tricky.

Looking back, I must say that it was a pretty fabulous year for wild berries; not only thanks to Mother Nature, but because we were blessed with enough hands to do the hard work of picking them when it was time.  Better them than me.  I am very psyched about my stocks for winter, when local Vitamin C and fruity flavour is so scarce. 

Truth be told, in previous years, I have rarely been impressed with some of these berries - like black raspberries, wild blackberries and Saskatoon berries, given the typically high seed/pit to flavour ratio and cost (labour).  François has always claimed that wild black raspberries are the shit and he freezes enough to eat for breakfast year round.  I never bought in, yet never objected to a few in my glass of mousseux on a sunny day.  But this year I swooned over them all round; they were so plump and tasty.  I naturally focused on the blackberries and Saskatoon berries too, much more than the easier to love blueberries and strawberries.  Elderberries have no trouble retaining elite status in my kitchen; I just adore them.  Ever since I was introduced to them in a real sense along with François, I have embraced them every year (and the flowers too!).  It is only bonus that they are have recently been deemed a super-food thanks to their anti-viral properties. This year, we dried some berries and they taste like licorice, flowers and tea with a raisin-like fruitiness that I am happy to have on hand as a spice, or to layer flavours in infusions with the fresh/frozen fruit. 

My desserts naturally got wilder this summer with the abundance of berries to go along with the sweet-grass, Labrador tea, wintergreen and wild ginger..  I had them oozing out of tartlets and cobblers, in ice cream sandwiches, upside down cakes, crepes, cheesecake, trifle..  However, even in a good year, the thing about the wild berries is that they are often more full of fiber, making for chewy desserts, not to mention small yields and expensive cooking..  But they have a complexity of flavours that make cultivated berries seem sweet and one-dimensional, which in my mind makes them equally well suited for savoury preparations where I generally don’t like too much fruit/sweet.  I really went nuts with them in infusions - in jellies and sauces, as well as in marinades for duck, pintade, ham and venison, alongside the desserts, jams, syrups and granite/sorbets..

Sarsaparilla is another baby that is neat dried.  It resembles a fruitier juniper berry, especially the petite salsepareille.  Grande salsepareille is reminiscent of the taste in your mouth after a glass of fruity (not tawny) port.  Again, both are good infused in sauces for game or to add complexity to another fruit based coulis, marinade, vinaigrette or dessert preparation.

So, here’s one last toast to the berries!  Thank you for the berries.

Like with the marine greens, I am sure to forget about them soon as I steadily move into an autumn life that is all wholly, fully all about the shrooms.  Mushroom madness is officially underway with hundreds of pounds to process a week now.  I know I asked for it; I am happy. 

Goodbye berries and greens, hello shrooms.



The market is spilling over with abundance – the tomatoes and peppers, aubergines and squash, cauliflower and melons; we are putting up en masse.  Mushroom season is taking hold, which means that from now until the first frost, we will be focused on the shrooms.

So before I get caught up in these late summer- fall rituals, I feel the need to make a last salute to summer, and to the wild marine greens in particular, which proved to be a real gift this year..  before I forget about them until next year.

A stellar year for marine greens in Quebec

While most of the wild edibles we cook with do grow in our backyard, there are a few goodies we depend on that come from a far away part of Quebec that has stuff we don’t. 

In the Bas du Fleuve, going all the way from just past Quebec City (say around Monmagny) to the Gaspésie, there is a wealth of sea greens: sea spinach, sea parsley, sea peas, sea asparagus (or samphire/glasswort), not to mention others… There is salsify (shoots to sauté in garlic) and spergulaire that I love (chicken feet that taste like beet greens).  There is also sabline which I love less – bitter, but crunchy with a sweet cucumber taste when picked in water-rich conditions. Then there are the bonus sides like églantier (wild rose, petal and fruit), Saskatoon berries, juniper berries, and sweetgrass..  No wonder François claims this region as his second home.

This year seems to be one of those years when all the convergent forces are in order for a good harvest in that neck of the woods.  With the sea spinach, it was extraordinary – abundant, deep green leaves, rich and tender..  Back in July, François jokingly said we could supply all the superstores in a sustainable way, if we had enough good pickers.  Bad idea of course.

At the beginning of the season, we found salicorne that was tall, plump and juicy, like I’ve never seen it.  So promising, but after walking 10 kilometres along the shores, we realized that it wasn’t all that plentiful, leaving with us a pound or two to show for the trek.  There were scattered sweet patches, surely a lot more covered in tidal sludge.  We were early, but everything was two weeks ahead, could it really be over? Like with all the wild stuff though, you just never really know.  So dependent on nature, the weather, and a touch of something we will never understand, there are typically a couple of sweet days for every plant but you have to be there.  The landscape changes completely in a minute; walking along the shore, you feel like you are crossing time zones, from barren to bounty.  There are the different little micro-climates, and here you have to figure in the tides.  In the end, because it was so hot, the season for tender salicorne turned out to be short, but while it lasted, it was sweet indeed. 

François has spent the last 15 years scoping out this land foraging.  He was the first to put all these sea greens on the market, to make them known to chefs.  It happened because he was in the business of wild edibles supplying chefs in the 90’s, and one day, one sharp cookie had a tip for him. Anne Desjardins (of L’Eau à la Bouche), a loyal client of his in her mission to promote Quebec terroir back before it was a common term, told François that she had spotted salicorne on the shores of Kamouraska.  Up until then, chefs in fine dining restaurants had been ordering salicorne from France.  No one seemed to know that it grew here, like with wild mushrooms not so long before.  This tidbit was shared with other chefs on the circuit, and it soon became a chef’s favourite local product, sourced by Francois.

At the time, François lived out of a van, foraging his way all over Quebec to end his week in Quebec city, Then onto Montreal and the laurentians in hopes of selling his harvest.  However exciting, He couldn’t make a living doing this, so eventually he opened the table champetre and focused on transforming the wild edibles into something more people could wrap their heads around and actually eat.

As his St-Roch based business took shape, he realized he could not be all over Quebec all the time.  He had met this girl who picked for him who was talented and smart and cared for the land - a Kamouraska local and a hippie at heart, Claudie.  After 7 years or so, he encouraged her to open her own business, to supply him and his restaurants – good for her, good for him too, since he couldn’t be there regularly anymore.

Claudie adopted the job as her baby, it became her life.  She turned out to be the best steward of the region, taking care of the territory and the plants, earnesty watching the life cycles throughout the different regions, bullying out idiots, working with the agricultural university on work ups.  She even pionneared A CLEAN-up of the shores.  Across one village, they filled 4 trucks with garbage.  This costs money, and of course, cleaning up the environment isn’t a profitable enterprise, so shortly after, there was no money for that.

Claudie (Jardins de la mer) remains the connaisseur on the terrain, the reference and the defender of this precious resource in that area. 

There is a true bounty along these shores, but it isn’t always good, depending on mother nature, and how polluted the area is.  It took 10 + years for francois and her to work all this out, to find the sweet spots, to see how and where everything grows best year after year, how best to pick and process, and in collaboration with a handful of chefs, how best to cook up the different plants…

As these plants come onto M.-Mme tout le monde’s radar, even showing up on bistro menus, it may soon enough be adopted as a widely popular Quebec ingredient.  I would like for people to know the story, the history, before it all is taken for granted.

It was Francois that made this happen, with Anne Desjardins as the initial instigator, the lightbulb.  All the chefs he worked with after helped him realize what was best, Normand Laprise in particular.  And Claudie allowed him to keep it going.

The show on L’épicerie in july introduced the quebec public to these marine greens. Up until then, it was a thing of the region, or featured on menus in a few high end restaurants, and chez nous.  They interviewed a chef at length, Colombe ST-Pierre, who François remembers introducing this stuff to years ago.

Francois sells all these greens at Jean Talon market in season, mostly picked by Claudie and her gang, and sometimes by him.

I celebrate the marine greens every year – they are the epitome of summer and wild marvels to me.  But this year provided a few more exclamation points.  I truly revelled in the quality of the marine greens this time around, letting them take up a big place on my menu.  I just love them.  Sea spinach is my favourite.  For the record, before any exotic mushrooms, François wooed me with sea spinach. 

Sea spinach.  Let’s see, this summer, I’ve used it cooked and raw in a number of ways, too many to name..  I have made so many salads and soups, both hot and cold – green salads, chopped salads, remoulades, chowder and vichysoisse; I put the crunchy leaves in fresh spring rolls with duck and crab, in risotto, rice and pasta, pretty much all over the place.. Although dynamite in any compound salad, it is the best simply wilted with garlic and olive oil.  It is also great in spanikopita, with eggs and fish, or absolutely anywhere you would put spinach, and then some.  The best thing ever!  I also blanch/sousvide it to put up a whack for the year.

Persil de mer (liveche ecossaise or sea parsley).  I have dried a ton for our sea salt, and made myself a major batch of pesto.  I have used it in aioli with fish and seafood, in brandade, in soups and salads too, in a tabouleh like marine green salad, in gremolata with sumac, as a chopped garnish or main ingredient, and again, all over.. Tasting like celery, but with a touch of salt, parsley and anise, and a touch of something floral, it is totally versatile and easy to love.

Pois de mer (sea peas)..  I used them to garnish, in soups and salads, and most memorably, in a summer cassoulet with smoked duck and confit gizzards and heart.  Quickly blanched, they taste mildly nutty but still like leafy peas.  Some people like them raw, but I find the taste too green and astringent.  Then again, I prefer just about everything cooked, even if just kissed by the heat.

Caquillier de mer (sea rocket) is majorly robust, like wild mustard - so best used as a condiment, to spike up a vinaigrette or cream sauce, added to coleslaw or a compound salad.  I use it as an herb more than a green, say to kick up my kohlrabi slaw.  It is amazing in an omelette, pasta, risotto or potato salad..  It is good in soups and stews too, where it softens up, but I find it best raw or added to a dish at the last minute in small quantities.  We dry some for our salt, but this is one green I don’t bother putting up.  In pesto, it loses its pungency, same once cooked.  It is one of those greens that is to be had in season and that’s it.

Salicorne (sea asparagus/samphire/glasswort)  I don’t need to say much about this one – everyone knows it’s something special.  For it’s aesthetic appearance, for its salty crunch, and because it has long been valued by the French, this one is an easy sell.  Trickier to find and pick while tender, it deserves specialty status.  I like it raw in salads or as a crisp, punchy garnish for something smooth, soft and bland (like a soup or brandade or creamy salad); I love it in asian style preparations (it just seems to scream for wild ginger-sesame treatment); I like it quickly blanched and made into a seaweed salad or as a wilted garlicky side dish for fish too.  When it’s at its best though, it stands alone - like they do at the Brughel Micro Brasserie in Kamouraska, serving it as a snack with peanuts and beer.



Notre vesse de loup géante,

25lb of pristine mushroom flesh

http://lejournaldemontreal.canoe.ca/archives/journaldemontreal/actualites/faitsdiversetjudiciaires/2010/08/20100820-040600.html

This baby provided the excitement at Les Jardins Sauvages this week.  A record for François when it comes to puffballs, his biggest before being 18lb.. Although he did once score a 57lb hen of the woods. Bob (the name François coined the famous vesse) was on display at our kiosk at Jean Talon Market in Montreal all weekend.  The media (and customers) had a field day.  Bob got a full page two with François in the Journal de Montreal, showed up in the Journal de Quebec, on CBC TV, among other radio stations and other papers.  It was hard to get anything else done at the market or at the table champêtre amidst the mushroom frenzy. I was just worried it wouldn't hold up to all the time out of the fridge being fondled by journalists; afterall, I want to cook the thing while it's in top shape.  I guess that's a price to pay for publicity!  But no matter, today it gets the knife (after one last TV appearance, on des Kiwis et des Hommes, this morning).

We thought we were having a good vesse de loup (puffball) year when François harvested this little family a couple of weeks ago.  He had watched them grow for a week, then jumped in when it was time.  You see, they need to be picked when white throughout and still firm.  Under the right conditions, they can grow to impressive sizes, but it's a gamble; they can easily go bad in a day or two. I have seen François water them like plants in drier times, and shield them with an umbrella on stormy rain days.

I am certainly stoked, because it has been two years since we've gotten more than a couple of babies.  They used to show up in the same spot every year on our property, but for the past two years, there has been nothing.  Now, I get to feature them on my menu as more than a garnish and I can play around.

It is definitely a delicious mushroom, and when young and firm, quite versatile and easy to love.  With a pronounced mushroom character, it is nevertheless quite delicate in taste when young, gaining in intensity with age.  The texture is tender and sponge-like but nice.  François says it reminds him of cheese, I say eggplant.  And in fact, I find it cooks up just like eggplant.  If you don't use a hot enough pan or sufficient oil, it will soak up the oil and burn quickly, at which point it turns bitter.  So you need to turn down the heat and cook it gently once it starts browning, or bake it.  I like coating it too to fry up à l'anglaise or in a batter.  It is stellar in soups and sauces, but I find it a shame to pass up on the interesting texture. 

In previous years, I have also used it in a stuffing for wontons, fried up tempura style, and in a potato gratin.  The latter was particularly winner due to the contrasting textures and the way the puffball perfumed the spuds.  Oh and I always peel it before slicing or dicing.

Now, if only the rest of the mushrooms would show up.  We are way behind schedule due to the dry summer in most of Quebec.  Our gang in Gaspésie have all but given up.  Our favourite forests next door have not delivered much.  Anything that comes in has been going to the market.  All this rain should help if it stays warm, but I'm afraid we have missed out on a few species.  We will have enough to do our mushroom festival hopefully, if only with a few less varieties (still 20 though..).  But it is when it comes to our pickles, dried mushroom mix and stocks for the year that we will surely come up short.  I have thousands of pounds to go, only a few hundred pounds down. 

So fingers crossed.. C'mon mother nature (and François and co.), pretty please. 

A comment from a recent review of our restaurant brought up a question that often comes to haunt François.

How can wild foods be considered a luxury? Aren't they out of place on a fine dining menu?  

Well, it depends how you define luxury, or what you consider as fine dining, I guess.  

Certainly, foraged food can be inexpensive, even free - if you have the land, the knowledge and the TIME to do it yourself.  But in this day and age, no one has much of either when it comes to getting down on your hands and knees in the woods.  Truffles are free too, if you happen to live in the ideal micro-climate, own a pig (or the right dog) and have nothing to do but scavenge for truffles.

In the old days, when fine dining wasn't even a phrase among common mortals, foraging was an essential and economical way to help feed the family. Like all the old school DIY homemaking skills and traditions, the use of wild edibles has become somewhat of a lost tool and art.  Along with artisanal everything that is old but becoming new again.  These are things our great-grandmothers did all day –  foraging and farming, butchering and cooking from scratch, making cheese, growing heirloom vegetables, composting and etc.  They were necessarily fully in tune with nature, totally connected to where their food came from. 

Thankfully, François’ family never stopped any of this. In fact, the only reason Jardins Sauvages exists is because he kept up what his ancestors were doing for long enough so that trends like Slowfood, and chefs into local, seasonal, fresh food eventually caught up to him.

There was never any marketing, any angle, or calculated, carved out business plan in his case.  However he happened to be making a living from his teenage years onward, he was always serving up the wild things on the side, naturally passionate about keeping his family’s foraging tradition alive and sharing, making people taste and smile.  He has never made any money to talk about doing it.  To the contrary, through the 90’s and for years afterwards servicing chefs, he struggled to make a living.  He carried on nonetheless, persistently exploring new ways to introduce people to his foraged treasures, causing his business to evolve and morph into what it is today.  I am only a part of the last chapter, but coming on ten years now around François, I know enough about the whole deal to size up the issues.

So I took offence along with him to that one little comment in the Voir article that implied that wild foods and haute cuisine (food that costs money) don’t mesh.  Although the write-up was fine (more about that later), the last matter-of-fact statement about how unfortunate it is that these weeds so accessible to all have become elevated to luxury status got our goat.  Although delicately said, and whether intentional or not, it remains a misinformed, misleading, hurtful dig.  Leaving me with much to say on his behalf.

You see, it so happens that in this modern world of mass produced food where the majority of eaters are disconnected from the land, foraged foods actually do deserve luxury status.  Not because we decided this, only because by nature, they just are relatively costly to deal with if you count time as money, which of course is a given, especially today.  Anyone one who dabbles beyond making their own dinner (and even then) will attest to this.  You have to know what you are doing first off, and then take the time and energy to find the good stuff, to be there at the right moment (requiring outings beforehand to prospect and figure out when and where the sweet spots are), to do the hard physical work bent over picking for hours, getting dirty and bitten by bugs.  Then you have to get back to the kitchen and clean and prepare it all.  And every plant and mushroom has it's own schedule.

When you take it to the realm of a restaurant, it is even more complicated.  In our case, it’s not just a couple of weeds from the backyard either, it’s twenty odd different sprouts and greens, several other wild roots and vegetables, the panoply of marine greens, a dozen different flowers, another dozen varieties of berries, thirty kinds of mushrooms.  These wild edibles are labour intensive and you can rarely decide when and where you will harvest them.  It makes menu planning a nightmare for a chef.  And it is hard to find people who are willing to work flexible schedules and game for the physical aspect of the job, let alone to spend the preparatory time and effort to learn beforehand. That's on the picking side.  In the kitchen, there are many sets of hands needed to process the stuff following the same unpredictable, race with nature schedule.   When the cattails decide to be ready, you cannot be at a wedding, on a photo shoot or have a catering gig.

François has been doing it for 25 years professionally, sharing and teaching, providing wild foods, foraged respectfully with care, to chefs and curious consumers, while fighting to make a living throughout.  We still work hard every day at it.  I hope you can see how that comment was mildly insulting, even infuriating.

With fumes coming out of all orifices, François could only rant and rave about taking this journalist out in the woods for a week (or even just a full day) of foraging to enlighten her to the real value of this ‘free’ food.  I tried to calm him down, reminding him of how many people just don’t have a clue about anything green, and all that is second nature to him.

As a chef who has worked in the city ordering stuff for 24hr delivery from purveyors, I can vouch that this foraging thing is WAY much more work, WAY more expensive, but also WAY better.  When I think of garde-mangers across town sticking their hands into boxes of mesclun (made in Chile or China), throwing a bit of dressing and cheese shards on top every two minutes for 12$ a pop, while on the flip side, I consider the work that goes into a salad or dish of the equivalent price at our restaurant, I shudder and wonder what the hell we are doing.   I might also point out that à la Table des Jardins Sauvages, we aren’t just serving weed salad, there is real cooking going on here, as well as all kinds of other locally sourced products on the menu.  When I tally up the labour costs and yields of each harvest, what goes into the enterprise, onto the menu and into each jar or sac sousvide, the numbers tell me we aren’t charging enough.   

I understand that people don’t grasp the work behind wild foods.  If you haven’t done it, you have no idea, as with real food in general.  Be it grass fed beef, artisanal cheese, cultivating organic vegetables or dining out Toque style..  People wonder why these all cost so much, when in fact they are less marked up than so much other crap on the market.  So many people don’t even visit a farmers’ market regularly; have never even met a farmer, let alone a forager, shopping in super-stores, taking it all for granted (all while missing out on the good stuff). 

And if a restaurant critic (albeit with an urban job, this is someone who is supposedly knowledgeable about food) doesn’t see the big picture, then it is obvious that many others would think along the same lines, leaving us misunderstood.

I haven’t forgotten either that I was once a well educated, but stupid city chef who only saw loins or bavettes (as opposed to carcasses), who trusted my suppliers about what was in season (bad idea if you don’t want to be 3 weeks behind or miss out completely).  So how is the average person living a ‘normal’, non-food-centric, urban life to know about the best strawberries, duck or nettles?  When they don’t see country stalls (Blé D’inde, Framboises!) on their way to work..  If they’ve never picked enough wild berries to make a pie in their life, or gotten poison ivy or stung by a cloud of wasps getting dinner on the table.

Even with cooks working in top kitchens in the countryside (Anne Desjardins taught me this), you have to take them out picking mushrooms, or to visit a farmer to make them understand the value of the product that passes through their hands daily.  When they meet the farmer, see his day to day and hear his stories – how much turmoil he goes through living nature’s ups and downs, dealing with the predators, the lack of labourers, the fussy chefs, in order to get it all done and make a meagre living.  I saw the change in cooks when I took them out foraging on several occasions - to see them pick a small basket of mushrooms after a full day's work, and come back to sort, clean and cook, finishing with enough for two people.  Let me tell you, in a few precious hours, they learn to vastly value the product beyond, ‘wow, nice shrooms’, and nothing is going to waste.

With the wild stuff, we’re not dealing with neat lines of cultivated crops that follow the calendar, and even that’s more difficult than most people imagine.  Talk to any farmer about trying to pick his green beans or apples in the time frame without cheaply paid migrant workers.  So much of the food people are used to seeing in super stores is unreasonably inexpensive because it is either massed produced with hidden costs to the environment, to the animals or crops in question given their economical but unhealthly diets, the use of antibiotics and pesticides, and/or because the people working (even the owner-producers) are underpaid. 

Good food isn’t cheap, and it shouldn’t be.  Wake up.

P.S.  Take a closer look at the chain or the random restaurant on your street corner, what they are sourcing and charging for it, and think about that.  Some restauranteurs may be opportunistic; but most can't ask for a fair price for their work.  Otherwise, maybe cooks and farmers would have the same salary and benefits as an average fonctionnaire (civil servant/ desk job).

Voir Article

http://www.voir.ca/publishing/article.aspx?zone=1&section=21&article=71988

As for this write-up about the restaurant in general..  Ok, it’s not the best ever, but not bad at all, and in any case, ‘j’assume’.  For the record, it was one of my worst days in recent history, when the reservations sky-rocketed at the last minute.. I was short-staffed and afraid to come up short on all levels (even food wise); but most stressfully, I ran out of gas (as in no stove) - rigging up a bbq tank to my gas-line for hours, only cooking what was essential (like pie crust) until the guy came (at 6pm) for an extra 250$.  It was a surreal day - the kind of ‘juice’ day that hits you every once and a while no matter how damn well organized you are.  A humbling reminder of how fragile any kind of success is when you are cooking for a living.  In the end, I was just proud to get through that god forsaken day without too many scrapes and apparently happy customers intact.    That’s enough for me. 



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

Bison

La Terre des Bisons in Rawdon  www.terredesbisons.com

Definitely a good, local alternative to feedlot beef for the BBQ.  Very beefy, lean but quite tender, tasty; I can’t imagine any meat lover not loving it.

The only red meat I normally serve at the restaurant is venison (cerf rouge) because we have a direct source on the property – a farm two steps away, a small production with the finest quality.  I loved Cerf de Boileau when I was at L’Eau à la Bouche (or dining out, it is ‘the’ cerf on top restaurant menus)  – a terrific product and the leader in Quebec, but believe it or not, I don’t miss it.  With such a fine meat in my hands from next door, I never saw the point of bringing in bison, no matter how much I want to encourage local producers. 

We generally get a venison carcass or two a month, depending on the month.  But for most of the summer now, we have been cut off because there were no animals ready for slaughter..  So for my menus, I did lamb, duck, duck, duck and duck, pintade, quail, and more lamb…  I loved the change up, but it came time for some red meat, and like I said, I have always wanted to encourage La Terre des Bisons.  Now, without my regular supply, I finally had a good excuse to put Bison on my menu.

The customers loved it.  Not more than venison though.  They are both delectable but just very different meats. The bison is just like the very best beef.  It screamed out for a marinade and grill treatment.  Even a zesty sauce.  Whereas I see farmed venison to be more subtle.  Ours is delicate and tender, ‘tres fin’.  I never marinate my venison.  I like to leave it au naturel, deglaze and use the pan juices, serve a tasty sauce yes, but not overdo it for the sake of the meat.  This might surprise you.  Everyone thinks that venison is gamey, and so needs a big sauce and a big wine.  Maybe hunted deer which has an indeterminate life and diet, but not our venison.  Speaking wine, I say it calls out for a soft red, a deep burgundy or Pinot noir, or at best an old Bordeaux (with more Merlot than Cab), depending on the preparation.  With Bison, I would let you go all out with a younger, fruitier, more extracted and oaked wine – a Meritage, even a juicy Zin..

As I pick hairs discussing the finer points of Bison vs. Venison, comparing the two meats with wine parallels, I don’t want you to lose the point.  That is, that Bison is delicious; even if a notch below good venison in my books, it is a stellar local product and a smart choice.  Naturally raised, pastured, lean, local, and so importantly more healthy and tasty (and better for the environment) than your average protein.  Realizing how many people are slapping big pieces of meat from the superstore on their BBQ’s these days, I only wish that bison or venison from local producers could meet backyard menus, as opposed to feedlot beef from Costco.