Cooking with a Broad

Madeleines

2012-02-14T13:22:00.000-08:00

Listen macaron, you've had your day in the sun. With your loud colours and buttercream filling, it's time for the unappreciated Madeleine to take a stand in the spotlight.

Delicate and airy, the mini sponge cake treat hails from Commercy, France and is baked in a traditional shell-shaped baking pan.

It's a cinch to make so I can't understand why it's not served at every patisserie and smart bakery or even on restaurant menus, made-to-order. From start to finish the recipe took an hour to make. You can add to the basic recipe with lemon or orange zest, and since today is Valentine's Day, I added the chopped up zest of a blood orange.

You can gild the lily by serving it with creme chantilly, a luscious preserve, a strong cup of coffee, or as my friend TFA suggests, glasses of Port. I couldn't agree more.

TFA's Madeleines au Miel
Makes 12 or so

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F

2 eggs

75 gram white sugar

10 gram dark sugar

Pinch salt

90 gram flour

1 tsp. baking powder

Vanilla essence

90 gram melted butter, cooled

10 gram clear honey

Whisk eggs, sugar and salt. Sift flour and baking powder. Fold into the egg and sugar mixture. Add vanilla and optional citrus zest.

Pour in the honey and butter and fold gently but thoroughly.

Spoon batter into each shell shape.

Bake 6 to 8 minutes. Watch carefully. Let cool slightly before removing each from their shell-shaped confines.

Serve with creme chantilly (whipped cream sweetened with icing sugar and vanilla), blackcurrent jelly and Port.

Carrot Top

2012-02-07T13:38:00.000-08:00

Out foraging at the local farms the other day, it's clear the last of the carrot harvest is upon us. At Michell Farms, 10 pound bags of carrots can be had for song, and I'm determined to sing their praises.

They might be big and woody-looking, but their flavour is intense, not only for juicing, but for a few versatile and easy to make dishes. One is a warm sliced carrot salad, the other, a dip to be used with warm pita or other Middle Eastern breads, or even slices of freshly baked baguette. Both take cues from Middle Eastern spices, with cumin, paprika and hits of olive oil and vinegar.They can be used as a side dish, condiment or accompaniment or delicious appetizer.

Here we go!

Keith Talent's Carrot Salad

Serves Two

1 lb carrots, peeled and cooked whole until al dente and sliced into coins

1 clove garlic, crushed

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 cup chopped parsley

1/2 tsp. cumin

1 tsp. paprika

Red chile flakes to taste

Salt to taste

Cook the carrots in boiling salted water until almost done, or al dente. Meanwhile, make the dressing, keeping the chopped parsley aside. Slice the just cooked and still warm carrots into coins or other shapes that take your fancy. Of course, this all depends on the size of your carrots. (I had to split mine in half lengthwise, and then cut diagonals). Toss the carrot shapes in the dressing and toss in the parsley. Plate and enjoy while still warm.

Moroccan Carrot Dip

Makes about 3 cups

2 lbs. old carrots, peeled and chunked

2 tsp. harissa

4 tsp. ground cumin

6 Tbsp. red wine vinegar

8 Tbsp. olive oil

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp. ginger

salt to taste

Olives for garnish

Cook the peeled and chunked carrots in boiling salty water until very soft. Drain and add to a blender or food processor, adding the rest of the ingredients until you have a cohesive mash - but don't overdo it. Taste for salt or other spices, but remember, refrigeration will intensify these flavours. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Serve with hot pita, lavash, sangak or baguette slices. Delicious.

Baked: Seven Sweet Treats

2012-01-26T09:07:00.000-08:00

You know the sayings: Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first. And, stressed is desserts spelled backward.

Whatever your philosophy, a sugary rejoinder enjoyed with morning coffee, as an afternoon indulgence, or to round off a delicious meal, is the icing on the cake, so to speak.

So when you want to have one's cake and eat it too, a little something to tart up a meal, here's a list of seven of my favourite treats guaranteed to hit your sweet spot. All are as easy as pie, a piece of cake, really.

The flourless, aka gluten-free, walnut cake

A crumble topping like no other

The sure fire pecan pie

When life hands you a surplus of olive oil

You'll thank me for these

Momofuku's famed Crack Pie

Something else besides carrot cake

Fast Track to Delicious: A Recap

2012-01-25T12:15:00.000-08:00

When faced with the dinner hour with no ideas of what to make or with minimal ingredients in the larder, hunger pangs can drive us to do and eat crazy things. Suddenly clearing out the fridge and cupboards seems tantamount: I'll finish that jar of pickles to make room, that partial box of crackers, first topped with every jam and marmalade in the fridge. Maybe I'll finally try that jar of pickled clams languishing in the back of the fridge.

But perhaps you're more organized and have more self control. If not, I've compiled a list of five previous posts highlighting quick and easy recipes for lunch, dinner or otherwise. A quick reference should low blood sugar have you considering drastic and unwise measures.

Garlic's involved, as is chicken, pasta and tomatoes, plus options for when there's no protein in sight. Just click on the underlined texts below.

The list

A dead easy and delicious pasta dish.

A garlicky marinade with salt and rosemary for chicken.

Zucchini standing in for pasta.

A quick and easy appetizer, on bread, or even crackers.

Garlic + salt = a simple and kick ass marinade for chicken, roasted, baked or grilled, with fields notes on accompaniments.

Bon appetit!

Carrot-Almond Torte

2012-01-18T16:48:00.000-08:00

In Victoria, snow makes us kind of giddy. People tend to smile more and greet strangers on the street. Small independent businesses have shuttered early, with notices such as, "We're off to play in the snow, see you tomorrow!" or "We've gone to make some snow angels!"

Snow pants, extra gloves and scarves are dragged out and many have made the pilgrimage to Beacon Hill today with their makeshift toboggans.

For me, it drives me to bake. Nothing beats the smell of baking when it's cold outside. This simple-to-make torte uses carrots for moisture and sweetness along with ground up ladyfingers - you know, the kind you use for making tiramisu.

The recipe has been passed along from friend to friend and I'm here to pass it on to you. Easy to make and really easy to eat, you can enjoy it as is or with sweetened whipped cream with liqueur, creme fraiche or even honey-sweetened pressed yogurt.

Carrot-Almond Torte

9 oz. (1 1/2 cups) unpeeled almonds (or finely ground almonds)

1 cup plus 2 Tbsp. sugar

9 oz. (about 6 small) carrots, peeled and cut into 1 inch pieces

1/4 lb. (14) lady fingers

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 Tbsp. Amaretto or Frangelico liqueur

1/4 tsp. salt

4 large eggs, separated

10 inch springform pan, greased bottom and sides

Whipped cream, flavoured with sugar and liqueur, creme fraiche or honey-sweetened pressed yogurt for garnish.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Put almonds and sugar in a food processor or blender and chop very fine. Transfer to a large mixing bowl. (If you're using the ground almonds, just mix it with the sugar in the mixing bowl).

Chop the carrots as fine as possible in the processor or blender (I grated mine on the fine grate blade of my box grater). Add to almond-sugar and mix.

Break up the ladyfingers into small pieces and chop in processor or blender until fine. Add to almond mixture. Add baking powder, liqueur and salt to almond mixture. Blend thoroughly.

Add egg yolks and mix into the mixture.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Fold into the cake batter in three batches, folding in gently but thoroughly.

Pour into the prepared springform pan, levelling off without pressing down.

Bake on middle shelf of oven 40 - 60 minutes. Check after 40 minutes using a toothpick.

When the cake has cooled to lukewarm, remove from pan. Start getting giddy. Serve at room temperature.

Like snow in Victoria, should you be faced with that rare occurrence of having leftovers, wrap in tin foil. It will keep several days without refrigeration.

Speaking with a Broad: Chef Patricio Sandoval at Villas Carrizalillo

2012-01-17T09:39:00.000-08:00

Mention the name Sandoval in the restaurant world and the first thing that comes to mind is Ricardo Sandoval. With 28 modern Mexican restaurants under his belt, spanning North America and even Dubai, it's no wonder. He's in the news a lot. But following in his corporate footsteps comes his younger brother Patricio. As owner of Mercadito with four locations spread between New York, Miami and Chicago, he is carving out his own niche of Mexican flavours with a more casual vibe.

I recently caught up with Patricio at Villas Carrizalillo where he was setting up a new menu at the Villas new restaurant, Espadin. The new palapa restaurant overlooking beautiful Carrizalillo Bay with ringside sunset views is not part of his corporate portfolio, but as a side hobby to cook and enjoy the ingredients of the region. Living the dream, as some would say.

Can you describe your approach to cooking?

Well, I went to French culinary school, so I love French food, I love Mediterranean food. I worked at French and Mediterranean restaurants while in culinary school. And prior to that I cooked Mexican food with my brother, Ricardo. And that's when I started to discover my style of cooking. I realize now that a lot of my cooking goes back to the things that I learned at those French and Mediterranean restaurants: marinating the meats, using different herbs, different layering. roasted garlic, acidic elements, the spices. Instead of making it two dimensional, I like to make it three or four dimensional. Then I take the traditional flavours of Mexico with the chiles, things that I grew up eating.

A few years ago, I had a chance to travel to Oaxaca and Veracruz, all the way down to the Pacific Coast so I'm still learning. I still haven't been down to the Yucatan Peninsula yet. So, I'm still learning Mexican food, as I left Mexico when I was eleven. Back then I never thought about cooking.

What is your first food memory?

Growing up in Acapulco and always being surrounded by food. My father opened his restaurant when I was five years old. I remember going out to eat with my brother every Sunday at fancy restaurants and being treated like adults.

Is there an ingredient you can't live without?

Chiles.

Ingredient that's overrated?

Tuna. I usually don't work with tuna. For one thing it's overfished and the flavour is so difficult to use with different ingredients and not overpower the flavour of it. I think the best way to eat tuna is sashimi-style.

What's your go-to comfort food?

I love burgers. Every time I go to New York, I have to have a burger at this place I've been going to for 12 years.

(The burger at Espadin)

Where?

Corner Bistro on the westside. A divey bar. They only serve burgers. When I started going there they were $4.75, now they're $6.75.

Can you describe it?

Sesame seed bun. They do their meat on a salamander. They don't grill it or put it on a flat top. Cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mayo, pickles. That's it.

Who are your mentors and why?

My brother Richard who discovered me as far as seeing that I had the capabilities of working in a kitchen. He had just opened a Mexican restaurant (Maya) in New York, and said why don't you come and work and learn the restaurant business from the bottom until you become a general manager. So I said great. Right at the beginning part of the training was to be three months in the kitchen, and he noticed that I caught on to the flavours pretty quickly as someone who never cooked before. And he asked me if I would rather stay in the kitchen. I really enjoyed the pace of it. I always knew when I was growing up that I would never be in an office. And then when I found cooking - that's what I love about it - the fast pace. I love the adrenaline of it, the rush, you're always doing something and you're always surrounded by people.

And a year and half later, my brother tells me, I think you need to start coming up with your own ideas, your own specials. So, I'd go home at the end of the night and always came back to things that were on his menu that I would redo, but I would never come up with anything and I'd think, am I ever going to create something that's my own, that this is my own dish. And of course, I realize that now, the reason why I didn't know what to do was because you need to have an array, like a library in your head, of ingredients, different cuisines to create what's your own style. So I realize that, back then I couldn't have done anything, I had no idea what are all the ingredients that are out there, and what was possible. I had only seen techniques of his food that I couldn't expand my knowledge any farther than what I was seeing everyday. So six or seven years later after culinary school and cooking at all these restaurants, I came up with my food. That's why they say, the chef's jacket doesn't make you a chef. And school doesn't make you a chef. It's the experience that gives you the knowledge to become a chef, to be able to run a kitchen, create food, that's your own food. That's what a chef is.

When you came to Puerto Escondido and Villas Carrizalillo did you have an idea right away what direction the menu was to take?

I said I would definitely do Mexican, and give people what they want. I don't think people that come here want Italian, it's funny but that's what every place serves. It's the mentality, oh, they want pasta. No, they don't. Traditional Mexican food, if it's done well, they're going to eat it. So that was my whole idea.

Did you take popular items from your restaurant?

I try not to do the same things that I do over there. Same style of course. The tacos are the same, some of the ideas are the same, but none of the flavour combinations are the same.

First time in Puerto Escondido?

I lived in Oaxaca City back in '07 for six months but this is the first time in Puerto.

How do you like the market?

I love it. I go there almost every day. I love to see the product that comes in.

How do you find the ingredients here?

Very inspiring. Just to be able to work with a lot of ingredients that you never get to see in the States. That was one of my biggest attractions. For me, one of the things was not to make money from this place, I wanted to come to the market and make whatever I want, something you don't get to do in the States very much. That was a big thing for me, to come here, go to the market and be a part of this. Just to be in the culture and come back here four or fives times a year, and just do cooking.

Where there any ingredients in the market that really stood out for you?

I always like to see the huitlacoche. You see it the States frozen, fresh frozen, but to see it here on the corn. And also the cheese: the quesillo, the queso fresco.

A kitchen tool that you can't live without?

Molcajete

If you weren't a chef, what would you be?

I wanted to be a doctor when I was growing up, but I knew it was going to be too much homework!

Guilty pleasure?

Drinking.

Tequila or Mezcal?

Mezcal.

Straight or mixed?

Straight. Blanco. Always.

What is your most prized possession?

A spoon that we've had in New York since we opened the restaurant seven years ago, and we still use it for service. It's a serving spoon. Stainless steel with a big handle and we still have it. Which is rare for it not to get lost.

Why did you chose the cities you chose for opening up Mercadito?

New York because my brother and I lived in New York when I had the opportunity for the location. Then, we chose Chicago because we already had three in New York before we opened in Chicago, then my brother Alfredo worked in Chicago for a long time at Sushi Samba and he knew a lot of people, and knew someone with a building that had a lot of different restaurants that never worked out. People were saying this place is cursed, nothing ever going to work. So we went in there, and we've been doing amazing. Then just a natural progression from New York, Chicago and then Miami, and there's plans in doing Vegas next.

Any advise for budding cooks that want to learn Mexican cuisine?

I think one of the things is to be able to use the chiles, how to control the spiciness, but also be able to get the flavour and also to get to enhance the food. You know I always say that in order to have spice you got to have something to kind of cover up the spice a little bit. Like a balance of acidic, saltiness, sweet. I use honey in my cooking because that balances out the spikiness of the chile. It gives you the spice but it doesn't give you the burn. And in a lot of my sauces I use a lot of sweet butter. It just rounds out the all the ingredients together, makes it creamy, richer, so you don't have that spiciness in your mouth the whole time.

What would be your desert island dish?

Shrimp tacos. Roasted garlic shrimp with lime, butter and chile and tortillas.

And mezcal?

100 percent.

*The interview was edited for clarity and brevity.

Drinking with a Broad. Tropical Afternoon Cocktails Part Two

2012-01-03T16:35:00.000-08:00

Seeing Red

Deep red hibiscus flowers, known as flor de jamaica in Mexico, are infused in water to create a cool refreshing agua. Its tart cranberry-like flavour, packed with vitamins, is especially welcome in the hot tropical sun - just add sugar to taste and pour over ice. For more adult tastes, a round of silver tequila makes seeing red all the more seductive for an afternoon beach-side respite .

Jamaica Margaritas

(a big ol' pitcher full, non-breakable of course)

Start the day by bringing two cups of the flowers to the boil in six cups of water. Sugar to taste. Lid on pot and let steep, off the heat, for a couple of hours. Go to the market. Have breakfast, etc.

Strain the flowers threw a sieve, pressing down on them to extract as much liquid as possible.

To the resulting liquid, add:

3 ounces of the finest silver tequila (100 % Blue Agave only)

3 ounces Controy

Juice of 2 fresh limes

Top the pitcher with ice

Collect your glassware and set up your station with a good book, sunglasses and sunscreen. The world is your oyster.

Drinking with a Broad. Tropical Afternoon Cocktails

2011-12-14T12:26:00.000-08:00

It's hot here. Very hot. And the thought of making a complicated lunch, or any lunch for that matter, seems far too daunting a task. But a woman must stay hydrated, so I have created lunch in the form of a cocktail that has been dubbed the Escondido Caesar. Part cocktail, part lunch, part woman's best friend, this little number provides salvation and nutrition, a perfect segue to Hora Feliz just around the corner.

Escondido Caesar

(recipe for two, because no one should drink alone)

One chile serrano, chopped, seeds removed, divided among two glasses.

Clamato juice

One market fresh nopal, cleaned and sliced into spears

One plump and ripe fresh cherry tomato

Juice of one lime, divided among two glasses

100% agave tequila

Lots of ice

Large glass (non-breakable preferred - for poolside safety)

Fill glass with ice. Add 1 ounce of 100 percent agave tequila per glass. Divide the chopped chile among the two glasses, add clamato and lime juice to almost the top. Stir. Decorate with spears of nopal cactus and halved tomatoes, sprinkle with salt. Salud!

Free the Brussels Sprout

2011-11-16T14:36:00.000-08:00

It's time to loosen up the baby cabbage from its tightly bound confines. For years it's been served whole after being boiled to a dull green, a sad specimen associated with many a family turkey dinner gone by.

But no longer. The Brassica oleracea is coming of age, shaking free of its leafy corset, and showing its true colours and versatility at the dinner table.

When trimming Brussels, those leaves that fall away can be put to good use. Washed, then blanched, and shocked in cold water, they turn a brilliant green.

Riffing on a treatment I heard about at a Vancouver restaurant, chop capers and lemon zest together. Grate some parmesan.

Heat olive oil in a saute pan and toss the leaves, coating evenly with oil and season. Throw in the caper-lemon mixture and toss evenly. Heat the leaves through, tossing all the while.

Sprinkle with the grated parmesan and serve. Serve alone or alongside a juicy pork chop, a slice of turkey or other roasted bird. It's crazy delicious.

Another treatment is to cut the sprout in half and slice each half in to 4 or 5 pieces - depending on the size.

Blanch and keep at the ready. Next, fry some good quality smoked bacon and add some reduced balsamic - a sticky sweet addition.

Add the sliced Brussels and a couple of splashes of chicken stock. Toss the ingredients to coat evenly and cook until heated through. Taste, adding more balsamic if needed. Serve.

Thank God Almighty. Free at last.

Enchiladas with Chicken and an Ancho-Tomato Salsa

2011-11-15T14:44:00.000-08:00

Enchiladas, a dish of stuffed and rolled tortillas bathed in a chile sauce, has many permutations. At its most trashy, it contains an overdose of cheap gooey cheeses and is laden with salts and fats. But at its very best, it's hearty and rustic fare, dead easy to make and is a great dish to feed a posse.

This version uses chile anchos, canned tomatoes, garlic, onion and chicken stock. The filling is chicken, which I had leftover from a roast, but the dish could easily be turned into a vegetarian dish by using braised collard greens or Swiss chard sauteed with a bit of white onion and tossed with queso fresco.

In Oaxaca, sauce from leftover mole is a shoo-in for mole enchiladas, and if you have leftover roasted salsa verde or roja around, you can also use it for enchiladas - for enchiladas verdes or enchiladas rojas respectively.

The steps in making them are the same no matter what kind of salsa you use, so feel free to use this technique as a stepping stone.

My stepping stone here is from the book Mexican by Marilyn Tausend. I've tweaked it just a tad by foregoing the frying of the tortillas, preferring instead to heat them to make them pliable, then dipping in the chile sauce.

Enough talk. Let's start cooking.

Ten beautiful chile anchos are stemmed and seeded, ripped into pieces and soaked in hot water for 15 to 20 minutes.

Once hydrated and softened, transfer the chiles to a blender jar along with 15 ounces of whole canned tomatoes, six cloves garlic, half a white onion, coarsely chopped, and a sprinkling of Mexican oregano. Blend until smooth.

Like other Mexican sauces and moles, this mixture needs to be fried and seasoned. Heat a deep saucepan with light olive oil, and pour in the sauce, stirring quickly. You may have to wipe down the walls, ceiling and yourself at this point! No matter.

Add four cups of chicken stock, bring to the boil and simmer until you have a velvety sauce. Season.

Preheat oven to 325 F. Add a layer of ancho-tomato sauce to a casserole dish. Make the enchiladas.

Heat the corn tortillas on a cast iron comal or pan until pliable. Dip the tortillas into the chile sauce and transfer to a plate. (Yes, it's going to get messy. Get used to it).

Crumble the chicken along the side closest to you and roll up. Place seam side down into the casserole dish.

Repeat until the casserole is filled and firmly nestled together. Cover the dish with more chile sauce, place in the oven and heat through.

Serve, garnished with crema - creme fraiche if you parlez-vous francais - thinly sliced white onion and radishes.
If you really need cheese, knock yourself out. Damn good eating either way.

Makes about six cups of sauce, enough for days of enchiladas.

*Update: After feasting on enchiladas, I still had sauce left and added it to a batch of stewed black beans. Heaven!

Broadly Speaking: The Laura Calder Interview

2011-10-25T11:48:00.000-07:00

This book happened because I was inspired by a bunch of 80-year olds. You just meet them by accident and then suddenly a book comes out of life and what you're living. - Laura Calder on her latest book, Dinner Chez Moi.

Last Sunday, Cook Culture hosted their first official culinary celebrity, Laura Calder.

Host of the James Beard Award-winning series, French Food at Home, and author of the cookbook of the same name, along with French Taste, Ms. Calder was on the road to promote her latest book, Dinner Chez Moi. The book, a departure from French cooking, attempts to take out the often stressful equation of throwing a dinner party with a spirited celebration of recipes shared with family and friends, most notably John Evans, a gifted cook and host, who inspired many of the meals in the book. In true Calder fashion, she entertained the audience with her easy style and funny, engaging stories. I interviewed her before the festivities.

What is the common misconception about throwing a dinner party?

I think the common misconception is that you have to do something differently from how you normally cook dinner for your family. And I think if you're cooking for friends you don't have to go all out. I think people book too far in advance, they get nervous, they set it up almost making it so perfect that it's a complete disaster and everyone's stiff and you can't have fun.

What would say are some golden rules for easy entertaining?

One of mine is don't do individual plating of things. Don't try to cook like a chef and design these plates. Just put a nice big convivial bowl of something on the table and let people help themselves. And it's nicer to do that too. For one thing, people help themselves and you're not running around trying to serve. Secondly, you're not forcing people to eat more or less than they want because they can choose themselves, and I think it means that it shows you're sharing instead of doing this sort of more mincy restaurant-like entertaining - I really like family-style.

Cook very much family-style food. I'm not saying never experiment and try something fun - and if you do, say it's an experiment and have fun with it -but I think people eat out in restaurants so often that the big treat is to get something that's home cooking. I'm staying with a friend of mine here and her mother's Polish and she cooked this thing for me last night called Bigos which is pork and sausages, sauerkraut and cabbage with mushrooms, and it was sooo delicious. Cooked for days. It was so good, and we had a big thing of that with dumplings and then she served muffins and yogurt - it was such a great dinner. She was just feeding her family and I just happened to be there. So it's not this going out of your way and freaking yourself out.

What do you always have on hand for impromptu entertaining?

Champagne? No. Booze? (laughs). I don't buy a lot in advance. I always have eggs. If you have eggs, potatoes and onions and people come over, you need a bag of salad and you can make one of those Spanish omelette things,which is a bit of treat. You can always make omelettes or souffles, or egg dishes. I think that's the best for impromptu. And I always have red lentils. I have a red lentil recipe in the new book, which I love. I make it once a week. It takes 20 minutes and it's fantastic.

What is the perfect hostess gift?

I often give - this is a ridiculous hostess gift - but I have a paper fetish. I loove paper products and there's a shop that I go to sometimes and buy these scrolls of beautiful Japanese paper. So sometimes I just put a ribbon around the paper and give people paper. Sometimes it's great to get flowers but it is hectic. If you get flowers and you're trying to cook, it's a bit of a pain.

Are you for or against potluck?

It's not that I'm against them, I think it's a nice idea, but you always get someone who brings a bag of chips. You have to know your friends before you do a potluck.

What is your very first food memory?

Well, I used to do little cooking things with my mother. I don't know if this is my first food memory, but she used to put me on the counter and I'd make cakes with her. I also used to make something called lettuce rolls. You go to the garden, you get lettuce leaves, you lay them flat, you sprinkle with salt (demonstrates rolling) you roll them, and eat them. But the rolling you see, completely changes the recipe.

Can you pinpoint a singular experience or culinary epiphany when you fell in love with French food?

I remember when I first went there having the same attitude that everyone I meet now seems to have. I remember thinking, (in a whiny voice: it's heavy, I don't want to eat this, I'm going to Provence and learn Mediterranean cooking). I don't know if it was an epiphany, but I'll tell you one thing that happened, I went to France, I was living with Anne Willian at a cooking school and eating amazing meals. We were working at cooking school so we had, crepe suzette with candied orange and ice cream on it. We had a meat stewy thing everyday with vegetables. We sat down for meals and we all ate together. It was really regular and in the first few months I lost 20 pounds! So, explain that. Bread, butter, croissants. It just fell off.

Who are your mentors and why?

Well, Anne Willan (of La Varenne) was a huge mentor. I worked with her for many years on and off. She was English with a love of French food and she believed in technique and believed in classics and not messing around with things. All the froufy-froufy stuff I learned in cooking school, she just beat it right out of me. So my style of cooking now, was very much influenced by her. And the other person who has been a mentor, and a muse, is a man called John Evans, an Englishman who lives here, in Bamfield.

It's who your book is dedicated to, right? Yes. And I met him through Paris friends, actually in Bamfield and I stayed with him for a while. Did I mention he was 80? He's an amazing cook. A lot of English-style stuff but very classical and he is an incredible host. And I met him with other friends of his and he was giving dinner parties. The way he entertains had a serious impact on me. So yeah, the book's for him.

What ingredient can't you live without?

Lemons.

Ingredient you can't get enough of?

Parmesan cheese.

One that will never touch your lips?

Commercial cheap salad dressings by a company that starts with K that I won't mention.

What's you go-to comfort food?

That red lentil dish.

Guilty pleasure?

Lay's potato chips.

Most overrated food trend?

Foie gras poutine. That's overrated.

Favourite culinary destination?

Bamfield, at the moment!

Most memorable meal this year?

This guy John Evans, all his friends live in Toronto, and I've been there for a couple of years, soon to leave. It's not that it's the most memorable, but I remember it because it was a party and I cooked it for all these guys that meet at a pub. Old people. So I rented out the pub room and I made a stew and apple tarts and a salad-y thing. I just loved having them all in that room together and they were so happy.

What are the most essential tools for cooking?

You need a decent sharp knife. You need a microplane grater. Or at least I do. I go nuts without one. And I think a saute pan is multipurpose.

What is your most prized possession?

Maybe not the prized, but I can't leave the house without a moleskin notebook.

What basic recipes do you advise for cooking novices to learn as a starting point?

I think everybody should learn how to make a soup, because then you can make a whole bunch of different soups. You should learn how to make a bechamel sauce because you can make souffles which are great and they're healthy. They can be meat or no meat, they're a one pot instant thing to cook. I think everyone needs to know how to make a stew with vegetables because it's one pot cooking, it's super healthy- meat, vegetables, broth. And you should know how to cook eggs well.

I always travel with good quality salt, do you travel with any cooking tool or spices?

Tea bags. I travel with tea bags. I don't eat much in the way of breakfast but I always have tea and I need to have my tea. It's King Cole from New Brunswick. My mother sends it to me. If I don't have it, I miss it.

If you could invite anyone - contemporary or historical - to a dinner party, who would they be?

Madame de Stael, Nigella Lawson, Nancy Mitford, Winston Churchill, but really, I'd just have my friends.

Favorite music to cook by?

20s, 30s and 40s music. Hands down. There's a radio station on satellite called 40s on 4, it's the best.

Where will you next adventure take you?

I'm leaving Toronto and I think I'm moving to Montreal. I'm on the road for another month and a half and I'm working with a new producer there. I'm scared to move and I'm scared to stay. So I don't know. And also with this book, it was a departure from French food, so am I going to go back to French food? I don't know. When you finish a book or any project, you're on empty and have to slowly fill up again. This book happened because I was inspired by a bunch of 80-year olds. You just meet them by accident and then suddenly a book comes out of life and what you're living. I guess I just have to keep living and see what comes out.

Random quotes from the event:

"Drink alone all you want but don't dine alone."

What to do when you're depressed:

" Melt some butter and saute an onion."

On Dining Out: " It's too expensive and usually not very good."

On her new book, Dinner Chez Moi:

"You're supposed to dive in and get lost in it."

"It's a very much a "why do" not a "how to"

On cooking:

"You need to make a recipe ten times to understand it"

" I like to try new things (dishes at a dinner party) and adding friends into the experiment."

"When looking for inspiration, I see what the season is and think about whose coming for dinner."

-end

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Xiao Long Bao The Soup Dumpling

2011-10-18T15:09:00.000-07:00

"We handcraft food for your tastebuds," reads the business card of Dinesty Chinese Restaurant in Richmond. I'm here as a lunch guest of Rae Kung who insisted that I taste what is her favourite place for the Shanghainese soup dumpling, xiao long bao. Many online food forums have spurned passionate debate over who has the best, fresh vs frozen, thick vs thin, and I'm here to savour a thin version that Kung refers to as a "Taiwanese style."

The open kitchen at Dinesty reveals busy cooks handcrafting wontons, noodles, dumplings and buns reflected in the restaurant's extensive menu of snacks, side dishes, noodles, soups and entrees.

The dumpling is unique in that it contains a pocket of pork broth, added in gelatin form when being formed, and upon steaming, the gelatin liquifies, hence the name soup dumpling. Inside, a ball of ground and spiced pork rests inside the broth and the full meal deal awaits the lucky diner. A dish of flavoured black vinegar is served on the side for those needing a bit of tang.

Because they're brought steaming to your table, it's best to sit a dumpling on a spoon first, to cool down. Then enter the kingdom via the side where you see it's flat. Maybe cut a tiny entranceway with your teeth and suck in the rich luscious juices, then slurp that dumpling right into your mouth. It's a smooth segue. A cohesive unit with just the right amount of saltiness with good rich meatiness and a thin skin that allowed for a balanced taste sensation. Like.

Then came an order of panfried xiao long bao, an ethereal presentation that's kind of genius in its simplicity. It's really more of a steam-fry. Water is added to the bottom of a pan and in so doing releases some of the starch from the dumpling. It's allowed to reduce, settle and cook to the right crispiness, like a really thin pancake. The dumplings are presented on top and sprinkled with a few sesame seeds.

I find this technique completely awesome. The dumplings contained the same soupy porky goodness but with the added bonus of a crispy element.

From the steamed bun side of the kitchen, we ordered mashed taro and gingko buns for dessert.
Three rather sensuous-looking buns with just a kiss of colour arrived. Not cloyingly sweet, balanced with again that smooth taste, the wat, noted in an earlier post.

The taro and gingko combined produced a rosy hue, and was completely enjoyable with a cup of tea.

Handcrafted and labour intensive, a cuisine that's steeped in tradition and yet the price point is $5.95 a plate. Cooking this good and this talented would be around $14 at my local small plates tapas bar. This is not only exciting, delicious and educational but it's actually affordable and doable on a regular basis.

New Culinary Horizons: Vancouver's Chinese Cuisine

2011-10-16T11:05:00.000-07:00

The curious palate needs to be fed. And what better way to excite and educate it than to wade in to the deep delicious waters of Chinese cuisine. This vast pool encompasses the complex and the nuanced, the cheap-and-cheerful, the luxurious and the exotic. It takes its cues from the timeless traditions dishes of Cantonese, Mandarin, Hunanese, Shanghainese, Szechuan, Hong Kong - both traditional and modern - the congee, noodle and dumpling houses, and other distinct styles associated with provinces within China.

I'm not embarking on jet plane to far away Asian climes, nor attempting to know everything in three days, but sailing the high seas aboard BC Ferries, to the city of Vancouver and the restaurants that dot the landscape from the city to the suburbs of Richmond. They offer an diverse and delicious world beyond deep fried shrimp balls and neon-coloured sweet and sour, and I'm so ready to dive in.

Comfort foods are a good way start, and I find myself at the Congee Noodle House with Nathan Fong at the helm.

This popular Cantonese restaurant, and one of Fong's favourite hangouts, specializes in hearty plates of noodles and congee, a thick nourishing rice broth that holds its own against the renowned healing properties of chicken soup. The clean tasting broth held luscious pieces of sea bass and the soup's addition of cilantro, ginger, green onion and peanuts provided delicate verdant and textural counterpoints.

According to Fong, a fried donut is often served alongside congee, and he ordered a stylized version, known as Ja Leung. Made-to-order, the tubular-shaped airy donut came wrapped in rice noodle. It was delicious, and such a curious presentation. (Sorry, no photo).

Next came soy sauce chicken, that Fong says, "is the best in the city."

Why? Fong refers to the "smooth taste", which in Cantonese sounds like Wat. Indeed the meat was smooth tasting, almost silky, not in the least dry, and had such an exciting dipping sauce, one that I've written about in the past, a salty amalgam of green onion, ginger and oil. The result gives the chicken a shot of bright gingery saltiness that beautifully compliments the "smooth" chicken.

I've spoken to many aficionados about Chinese cuisine, and they all agree that wontons or dumpling are a great indicator of a restaurant's prowess in the kitchen. At Congee Noodle House theirs are massive beasts, buoyant beauties, densely packed. The wontons held pork fat, shrimp and bamboo shoots bobbling in a clean tasting broth, and the oblong shaped sui gow, or water dumplings held shrimp, tree ears, bamboo shoots and chinese mushrooms. Prowess? 10 out of 10.

For any newbies in search of culinary adventure, places like the Congee Noodle House are easy on the pocketbook. With the addition of a fried noodle dish and a plate of bright green Kai-lan, the four people at our table ate like kings for $50.

The adventures have only just begun.

Oaxaca's Smoked Chile Pasilla Gets a Late Summer Boost

2011-09-27T18:25:00.000-07:00

Summer came and went far too fast. And by the time I caught up with its crazy fast pace, it was gone, but I still had designs on a few summer recipes I did not want to let pass. Case in point: the smoked chile from Oaxaca stuffed with summer peaches, ricotta, walnuts and raisins, served cold as a dazzling first course or appetizer.

This dish came my way by a dear friend Mary Jane who now lives in the smoked chile's hometurf of Oaxaca. It's so unlike the usual recipes seen here and here, that beg for savoury pairings. This dish counterbalances the smokey earthy flavours, defying it with fruit, nuts and balanced sweetness, and is served cold.

The smoked chiles and raisins are first hydrated in a friendly mix of freshly squeezed orange juice, tequila and cinnamon.

Ricotta cheese is then blended with piloncillo, toasted and chopped walnuts (save some for garnish), cubed ripe peaches, the raisins and the juice of one lime.

The hydrated chiles are cleaned of their inner seeds, stuffed with the lovely mixture and refrigerated until ready to serve.

The orange-cinnamon-tequila liquid now a luscious amalgam, is reduced to an even thicker design to be used to drizzle over the finished product. It's naturally sticky sweet with an agave kick and a cinnamon spiciness.

Time for a taste test. Oh yeah!

Ladies and gentleman, presenting......

A cooling, juicy, crunchy, sweet, smokey, spicy dish that dancing on the palate. It sings of summer, my dear friend MJ, and the delicious flavours of Oaxaca.

Recent Dishes Savoured: On The Road in Washington & Oregon

2011-09-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

A road trip is remiss without roadside attractions. Besides the taco truck parked right across the street, this was Umatilla's redeeming feature in the arid landscape. I do believe this is John Wayne supersized.

A monster Cobb Salad somewhere in The Dalles.

Saffron in Walla Walla was a find. Chef Chris Ainsworth features Mediterranean flavours with the expected local, regional, housemade precept, and is walking distance from most of the tasting rooms in the city. Saffron also makes their own breads, including flatbreads, served at table with garlic-infused olive oil.

Lamb tartare with warm housemade flat bread was luscious, mixed with bulgar wheat, sweet onions, nigella seeds, cilantro, mint and chiles. Exquisitely done, very balanced. And the flat bread was sturdy and smelled amazing. I'd like to see bakers and chefs in BC make their own flat breads. All of our pita and Med-style flatbreads are pre-made, bagged and frozen, and rather dull of flavour. Except for the Sangak breads coming out of North Van. But I digress.

Ricotta gnocchi were served with ripe tart cherry tomatoes, goat ragu (goat. the new kid on the block) lovage and pecorino. Exquisite. Melt in your mouth luscious.

The other winning dish at Saffron is the octopus, grilled and heaped on top of local greens, seabeans, heirloom tomatoes and zhoug, a chile and herb spice mix that livened up the whole dish.Saffron's wine list also pays tribute to the Mediterranean and we found a refreshing bottle of Sigalas a crisp white hailing from Greece, something we last enjoyed in Chicago, at Taxim.

The amazingly convenient thing about a visit to Walla Walla wine country is that the winery's tasting rooms are not just at the winery but contained in the city's downtown core. Just pick a hotel or B&B and walk to each tasting room. Brilliant! I'd love to see this in Victoria.

We visited Charles Smith Wines with his hard edged and hip concept wines in an industrial setting.

And Walla Faces.

And on our way to Portland, we stopped in at L'ecole for some of their luscious reds.

Portland

With a considerable wait for a seat at Pok Pok, owner and chef Andy Ricker opened the Whiskey Soda Lounge across the street. Specializing in drinks and aahaan kap klaam, the drinking food of Thailand, the vibe was boisterous and fun and less stressed than Pok Pok.

We saddled up to the bar and enjoyed a Tamarind Whiskey Sour and a Rhubarb Blush with aperol,gin fresh lime juice and rhubarb bitters served on the rocks. We took in the room while watching wacky Thai music videos.

The hearty plates came next: Vietnamese fish sauce wings, spicy. Oh my goddess! Tangy, crispy, hot, juicy and lashed with a slightly sweet and spicy sauce, these really are the wings that you've been looking for all your life.

Next came the nightly special of pig bits trio: charcoal grilled pork jowl, tongue and crispy tail with a delightful tangy chile dipping sauce ($10!)

Back at Pok Pok, where you never know where you'll end up - they have seating everywhere within the warren-like space. We were in the basement area, and in retrospect should have stayed at Whiskey Soda Lounge. Regardless, the food is intriguing at both places (and the chef does have another 3 spots throughout Portland).

I enjoyed a dish of boar collars, served with sticky rice and an iced plate of mustard greens.

The Yam Samun Phrai was a refreshing Northern Thai herbal salad that topped off the night after the rich flavours enjoyed at Whiskey Soda Lounge. A mild coconut milk dressing smoothed the Thai chiles and the ingredients, ginger, peanuts, cashews, sesame seeds, carrots, parsnips, dry shrimp, ground pork, betel and lime leaf, sawtooth and fried shallots all played their distinctive roles: spicy, crunchy, bright, sour and soothing.

Lunch at Clyde Common. While the menu sounded enticing enough, the delivery kind of fell flat. Sliced pork sandwich with zataar spices, served with yogurt and cucumber was heavily salted, and the bun was your average white cheapie that added insult to injury. It made me sad.

Bill had the fried oysters with buttermilk dressing served with fries. The fries came with a noted dipping sauce of harissa and creme fraiche. (The leaning toward Middle Eastern spices I've encountered along the road has piqued my interest).

I will give Clyde Common this, they have an exciting cocktail program. We enjoyed barrel aged martinis done with beefeater and dry vermouth aged for two months in Tuthilltown whiskey barrels, and a Nasturtium done with Dolin Blanc vermouth, Domaine de Canton ginger licquer, Gentian, Quince and finished with lemon peel.

We enjoyed the cocktails even more at the tiny-sized Central in Chinatown. It's a tiny place that takes inspiration from speakeasy concepts, no website, no address on the front of the building and the bar is tucked behind the equally pint sized kitchen which is visible from the front window. I'm trying to find the photos but the drinks were innovative: some made with Ransom Old Tom gin from a Portland distiller. Old Raj Negroni made with Cocchi vermouth. The Sensei Sip with Old Weller bourbon matched with gen matcha.

We also enjoyed classic steak tartare done with traditional garnishes.

On to Seattle, where the burgeoning South Lake Union neighbourhood is showing great promise with many new restaurants such as re:public where we popped in dinner. Service was swift and pleasant and the food expertly wrought. This arugula-topped pork shank was killer, served with gnocchi, peas and a hearty tomato sauce, and at $20, superb value.

Tom Douglas has also discovered the area, with 3 restaurants, including the dahlia Workshop where biscuits are king. "The Zach" is the hungry man special, a biscuit encompassing fried chicken, tabasco black pepper gravy with a fried egg and bacon. Be afraid. Very afraid.

Before heading home, we toured through Tacoma to get a feel for the city. There's a small contingent of cool places, and Stink is one of them, boldly promoting ripe cheeses and cured meats. The saying goes, "We put the aroma in Tacoma."

We then headed out South Tacoma Way for some more roadside attractions. We were not disappointed. Bob's Java Jive.

The closed Chieftain with the adjoining Totem Room. Somebody's got to buy this place and give it some love.

Victoria

Intrigued with the use of Middle Eastern spices during our trip, I returned home and made a beeline to Mediterranean Specialty Foods (Lakehill Grocery) and into the hands of Yaseer Youseff who insisted on making me breakfast. Thick pita smeared with a mix of olive oil and zataar spices, baked and served hot with olives, thick pressed yogurt drizzled with a fragrant olive oil and sprinkled with dried mint. And a plate of cut green peppers, tomatoes and green onion, and a couple of espressos.

It was delicious and of course I left with tubs of zataar, sumac, cheeses, sangak and pita breads to create my own deliciousness at home.

Speaking with a Broad: The Vikram Vij Interview

2011-09-19T15:56:00.001-07:00

Vikram Vij recently stopped by in Victoria to host some media at The London Chef and teach a fortunate few a cooking class later that evening. He was also here to begin the launch of 15 take home frozen curries, a new journey with the goal of seeing his line of food in stores across Canada and the U.S..

For those unfamiliar, Vikram Vij is the owner of Vij's, a popular Vancouver Indian restaurant renowned for their award-winning Indian cuisine, one that elevates it beyond its all-you-can-eat-buffet stereotypes. Using local ingredients and creating new dishes alongside the time- honored curries, using signature handground and blended spice mixes, Vij's has long garnered a cult following for dishes such as chickpeas in star anise and date masala, BC spot prawns in coconut and fenugreek masala, or the famed lamb popsicles in fenugreek cream curry.

Charming, personable - and funny - with exceedingly good taste, he laid the foundation of his business back in 1994 with his wife Meeru and a coterie of devoted employees, some who have been with him since the restaurant's humble beginnings.

The restaurant, a favourite of people from all walks of life, from around the world, in every income bracket, come as equals to stand in line and wait - sometimes up to two hours - for a seat at Vij's, to enjoy the nuanced curries, the deep fried snacks that are passed around as appetizers in the bar while waiting, the famed ginger-lemon drink, and the warm hospitality.

I caught up with Vikram before his media presentation to ask him a few questions.

What common misconceptions are there about Indian food?

The biggest misconception is that Indian food is fast, it's cheap and it's take away, and butter chicken and chicken tikka masala are the only two Indian dishes in the world.

For those who want to attempt Indian dishes at home, what would be some basics, some building blocks, to cooking successfully at home?

The first thing I would say is, buy your onions, ginger and garlic, chop them up. Get basic spices like cumin, coriander, cinnamon, garam masala, cloves, buy those spices and experiment and play with them. Make dahls, which are lentils, chickpeas which are simple to cook. So start with simpler dishes, simple masalas and then move on to the bigger, and try to experiment with them. Because it's almost like you can never know the music without actually knowing the notes. So, you can never write a song that's brilliant without knowing the basics of it. So you need to know some basics of this cooking.

Are there any essential tools one needs for cooking Indian cuisine?

Yeah, the biggest essential tool is patience, love and the desire to feed the family. Other than that, the ladles and the mortar and pestle and all that stuff, those come afterwards. The first desire is to say, I want to cook a delicious meal, has to be there. The passion to do a good job has to be there.

What ingredient(s) can't you live without?

I would probably say salt. I love my salt.

Do you have a guilty pleasure?

I love everything that's cooked with a lot of love and passion, but I love my deep fried stuff. I absolutely love it.

What was your first food memory?

Sitting on my grandfather's lap and having a bone of chicken in my mouth, that was spicy with my lips totally burning but I'm still loving the flavour of that chicken drumstick. It was a spicy chicken curry that my grandmother had made.

What inspires you?

I think when I come to a city like this, in Victoria, and I see how many people are interested now. Ten years ago, fifteen years ago if I had come here as an Indian chef I probably would have had no more than four or five people show up but tonight's class has 110 people on a waiting list, in an 18 seat class! So that to me is a testament that I've done my job, I'm pushing the limits, and letting people understand food and flavours.

What's your definition of a perfect meal?

A nice bottle of wine, simple but not over-fussed food and a really good conversation.

What do you always have on hand for impromptu entertaining at home?

Meats and sausages for sure, from a local butcher. I'll always have lots of spices, so I can add what I want, my pantry's full of different kind of spices. And rice.

How do you unwind after a busy day, wine or tequila?

Wine. For sure. We produce delicious wines. The Cowichan Valley produces delicious wines. Why would I drink tequila when I can drink wine at the end of the day?

If you weren't a restaurateur, what career would you have pursued?

Probably a Bollywood actor. That's what I actually wanted to do. I wanted to be a Bollywood actor and my father refused it so I became a chef. At the end of the day, it is still acting. At 5:30 when the doors open, and we have a restaurant that's busy, I am acting on stage, performing.

What would be your choice for your last meal on earth?

I would like to have a bowl of dahl (lentils), with two chapatis - which are homemade wheat breads - and I would like to have a bottle of local white wine.

Who would cook?

I would cook it myself. I would want to cook by myself, I'd love to cook it and take my time - because it would be my last meal. So I would love to smell the spices at the end, feel and enjoy the spices.

Would there be music?

Absolutely! There has to be Bollywood music.

With two successful restaurants, two cookbooks and a line of frozen foods and spices, what's next for Vikram Vij?

A new concept for Vij's which is, moving to a new location, a new idea for a restaurant so a third restaurant within two years, and to take our packaged foods across Canada and the States. To become a cuisine that - the journey that I started 16 years ago to bring the awareness of my cuisine and my culture to the rest of the world - to follow through on that journey and showcase that Indian food is not a cuisine that is just tucked under the carpet. That a few hippies went to India in the sixties and smoked dope on the beach of Goa and then they thought they knew Indian food. That Indian food is as versatile and as unique and as complex as any French, Italian or Californian cuisine.

Random Thoughts from Vikram

Who made you the most nervous at your restaurant? Martha Stewart

Who made you the most honored? Pierre Elliot Trudeau

The most fun? Anthony Bourdain - "he's hardrock."

On the balance of curry: "It should be subtle - your palate should never be hot."

On allergies: " If someone says they're allergic to curry, they're bullshitting."

On not taking reservations at Vij's: " I want everybody to be equal."

On enjoying his line of frozen curry meals: "It's not a TV dinner! I want you to relax and enjoy it."

Key to his enduring success: " To remain humble and focussed."

Be Obscure Clearly. Waitsburg, Washington

2011-09-18T12:53:00.000-07:00

We'll travel great distances for the perfect meal. Or a well-crafted cocktail. We'll fight our way through intense traffic, traversing great distances, getting lost en route, all the while knowing that at the end of the road, our journey will be rewarded.

Case in point: in the blazing sun, after five hours driving through seemingly endless fields of wheat, corn, apples and vineyards, we arrived at our destination: Waitsburg.

Without strong recommendations from friends in Seattle, Waitsburg, a forgettable vision at first glance, is easily passed over. Without a place to stay, we headed to the hardware store, where the owner dialed a number and told us to ask for Leroy. Leroy was booked up but suggested we talk to Imbert who luckily was across the street. Imbert walked us over to his guest house, The Seven Porches, where we had to share the bathroom with Jim, a 70-year old man who was walking around the world. Things were getting more interesting by the second.

While we could have returned to the hardware store to enjoy birthday cake and ice tea - one of the locals had turned 90 - we washed up in anticipation of our ultimate destination.

jimgermanbar is a most astonishing place and provided us with one of the most memorable culinary experiences of this year. I instantly loved the minimalist decor, a bit of taxidermy here and there accenting white washed walls, and the daily menu written on butcher paper. It was an oasis of calm after our long journey.

Run by Jim German and his wife Claire Johnston who both moved from Seattle in search of more affordable real estate, a space to create art and to provide sustenance, they stumbled upon Waitsburg and two side-by-side properties for sale on the town's main street.

The view below is from the adjoining space for private functions, where Claire makes a mean paella. The late summer light added a magical touch.

But let's get started with some of our just rewards.

Jim German, a contemporary of the famed bartender Murray Stenson (in fact, German was the one who hired Stenson at his first post at Seattle's Il Bistro back in the day), of course mans the bar, and the front of house, along with an exceptional waiter, and draws a solid fanbase by evidence of the reserved signs for bar seating (next time!).

We began the evening with The Rooster, a concoction of Beefeater gin, campari and lemon, finished with champagne. Absolutely delightful.

Next came German's elegant take on a French 75, and equally exciting mix of Gin with pomegranate, sparkling, and garnished with a lemon verbena leaf, maraschino and crushed pink peppercorns.

The Terroirist, was a rye negroni, an earthy rejoinder of 1800 rye, cynar and chinotto, the Italian bittersweet soft drink.

The menu changes with the seasons and is very Spanish influenced. Claire heads up the kitchen, alone, with nothing but a single induction burner and small convection oven. Her food is nothing short of miraculous. Robust and simple flavours, perfectly prepared, using fresh ingredients, and made to order in her tiny kitchen. She refers to her menu as Etruscan snacks, a cheeky way of replacing the much used and abused word tapas.

Potatoes came roasted with cumin and served with a lemon-garlic aioli.

Then chorizo poached in red wine and spices.

Then a plate of crostini with Monteillet feta drizzled with a perfect amount of lovage oil and chopped chives.

The mix master himself, Jim German, delivered us a plate of lightly grilled Blue Valley grass-fed hangar steak with fresh garden chard and tarragon oil.

Frequently during the evening, hammering could be heard in the kitchen, it announced that yet another order of Claire's schnitzel was being prepared. Blue Valley pork tenderloin was pounded to order, breaded and pan fried and served with a salsa verde, a chunky, bright piquante and herbaceous accompaniment that perked up the schnitzel. Heaven.

Claire allowed me to take her photo in her kitchen, but only posed from the side in front of her photo and postcard collection.

As the day turned to night, we were treated to a selection of grappas and eau de vies from the Jim German collection.

Out into the night and back to our guest house, we knew that more adventures were in order in this, not a one horse town, but a one camel town (it's brought out during festivals). This included taking a look inside the Anchor Bar, owned by the wine producer, Charles Smith, and that German designed and decorated.

A view from the sidewalk into a Waitsburg resident's livingroom.

Staying at the Seven Porches, we were issued a $5.00 breakfast voucher to use at Imbert's (another Seattle refugee) other business, Coffei, the town's coffee shop next door to Imbert's third business the Times, Waitsburg's newspaper. While we waited for the Anchor to open, we came upon another eccentric passing through town. Cycling through town on his double frame bike, his cardboard sign read, Philly or Bust.

The Anchor interior where you can enjoy, pinball, beer, sloppy joes and on Tuesdays, tamales.

The bar, once a notorious "buckets and blood" hangout, is roadhouse meets cabin-in-the-woods feel, with lots of space for their future plans that include a restaurant.

A deluxe antler chandelier, vintage pinball machines, taxidermy and other bits of wildlife highlight the wood interior.

Before we headed off to Walla Walla, the hardware store owner offered us his store up for sale, Imbert said goodbye at the coffee shop, we met the resident Victorian period costume maker who upon asking how she was, answered, "crazy", and the collectibles store owner, who also ran the gym.

All in all , a wonderfully kooky and colourful collection of people that makes Waitsburg a must stop before heading to or from the wineries of Walla Walla. For the perfect cocktail, the perfect meal at jimgermanbar, or just maybe it's the place you want to call home. The hardware store is still for sale.

Roast Chicken. Why Can't I Quit You?

2011-09-15T09:32:00.000-07:00

The change in weather has brought us indoors away from the bbq and back into the kitchen. I tried this brilliant and inspiring technique for roast chicken from Mark Bittman yesterday and it's a keeper.

For those unfamiliar, Mark Bittman is a master of simple cooking techniques from soup to nuts and everything in between. And this recipe is no exception.

Preheat a cast iron pan in a 500 degree oven. Add the prepared chicken ( I stuffed the cavity with thyme and lemon, the outside of the bird treated to a painting of olive oil, salt, pepper and pimenton).

After 15 minutes, turn down the oven to 350 and roast until done ( this took another 25 minutes).
It was just enough time to make a salad, steam rice and prepare vegetables. The resulting chicken was moist with a good crisping of skin.

So good and easy is this technique, my clay baker is heading to the thrift store.

*For more study on efficiency in the kitchen, I recommend a little known but influential book, Cooking in 10 Minutes by Edouard de Pomaine. Pomaine wisely disseminates classic French techniques in 300-10 minute recipes, peppered with wry humour.

Chicken? Again?

2011-08-09T15:24:00.001-07:00

Isn't evolution wonderful? Not the fact that we're now walking upright and the hairiness has abated - waxing keeps my eyebrows in check! - but the way a recipe can morph and adapt to suit a mood or the ingredients you have on hand.

I regularly use recipes as a springboard for cooking without the need of running out for an obscure or expensive ingredient that I'm more than likely not going to use on a regular basis. Risotto is a classic example. Get the basic recipe down and damn near anything can be added to that Italian comfort dish.

On the weekend, I bought a series of vintage Time-Life Cookbooks, called The Good Cook. Compiled in the late 1970s by the late and influential Richard Olney, the books are brilliantly illustrated and filled with inspiring recipes with many old school classics that are experiencing a renaissance.

Flipping through the books and craving chicken for dinner, I took a shine to an exotic sounding recipe called Kubab Chicken.

Credited to Elizabeth David, who adapted it from an Indian recipe found in an obscure cookbook, Indian Domestic Economy and Receipt Book published in Madras in 1850, the ingredients called for were things I had on hand. Sort of.

While the recipe asked for a whole chicken, I opted for my favourite economy cut, chicken leg with back attached. The butter requested was subbed for olive oil, and I added garlic to the roster of spices required: ginger, cloves, cardamom, black peppercorns, salt and lemon, ground in a mortar and pestle. I kind of took it from its Indian roots with a quick dip into the Mediterranean.

Hits of lemon juice and olive oil whipped it into a cohesive mass ready for marinating the chicken.

The recipe is unique in that it requests that the chicken skin be pulled back to make room for a slathering of the marinade and replaced to marinate for a couple of hours.

A quick searing in olive oil, and transfer to a 350 degree oven ....

.... where roasting and caramelizing works its magic. While the recipe requested lemons be served on the side, I added them to the pan to roast. I just love roasted lemons, they add a crispy, sour and citrusy note that is brilliant in this lovely rendition of recipe evolution.

Other possible life paths for this recipe:

Forgo the lemon, butter or olive oil and add yogurt to the marinade for a decidedly Indian flavour. Grill the chicken once it marinates overnight.

Vary the spice mixture, riffing on a garam masala by omitting the ginger and cloves, using cinnamon, saffron, whole cardamom and a little ground ginger.

When Life Hands You Lemons....

2011-08-08T20:34:00.000-07:00

Every year, my enthusiasm and anticipation of the yearly garden starts the same. Trips for sea soil, digging out the compost, buying seeds and mapping out where the plants should go for maximum sun, it all seems so promising. But this year has been the most challenging to date. What with slugs and the coldest weather on record, gardening has become a disheartening task, one that's given me new respect for our local farmers.

Wrapped in a non-seasonal sweater and trying to look beyond the pathetic-ness of it all, I've harvested our crop of fava beans - eight pods in total - what's left of the peas - around six or seven - and a few mixed pole beans, to "celebrate" our summer harvest.

Rumagging through the freezer, I found a batch of spot prawns to add to the mix, and with paella in mind, I made a risotto.

Saffron was soaked in hot water, and onions and arborio rice were sauteed in olive oil. A splash of vermouth, stir, add saffron and doses of hot stock, added in increments.

When the rice was almost al dente, I added the spot prawns and beans. Then the favas and peas and a chopped mix of garden mint and lemon zest. Salt to taste and a few hot red chile peppers for kick and some sliced up lomo made by chef Edward Tuson of Sooke's Edge restaurant.

Hey summer, here's mud in your eye.

Luscious Garlic-Salt-Rosemary Marinade

2011-07-05T09:25:00.000-07:00

It's the fourth day of sun, maybe the fifth. I'm so giddy that summer's finally arrived, I'm losing count.

With no time to waste, I've dusted off the grill and whipped up a quick marinade for chicken.

A chile-fennel-infused salt rub from Vancouver's Meat & Bread became the base, with the addition of six to eight cloves of garlic. Who's counting?

Then more chile and fresh rosemary from the garden. With a few quick turns in my volcanic stone molcajete a luscious fragrant paste was revealed. A hit of olive oil aids in making it a lovely cohesive mass.

I love using chicken legs with the back attached, separating one from the other and slathering the meat with the marinade. (Cooking Tip: I like to slash the fattest part of the legs, which allows not only the marinade to penetrate the flesh, but also quickens cooking time).

Let the chicken marinate for at least an hour.

Heat up your grill to at least 400 and let the magic begin.

Turning a few times, this quick dish takes about 20 minutes tops to cook.

A Caesar salad is the perfect accompaniment for this herbaceous, salty, garlicky wonder made with a house dressing (ratio of 1 egg yolk to 1/2 cup of olive oil, plus garlic, anchovies, a shot of Worcestershire sauce, cracked pepper, salt and lemon juice).

The salad gets a turn of cracked pepper and flakes of freshly grated Parmesan, and dinner is served.

Some field notes: Any cut of chicken will work for this marinade but chicken legs with the back attached is one of the most economical cuts around and is full of flavour with all those bones.

If you don't own a mortar and pestle, a sharp chef's knife will create the same paste using a technique of mashing and chopping the ingredients on a cutting board.

The marinade was created totally on the fly and I encourage you to do the same. You can substitute tarragon, basil, oregano or marjoram for the rosemary, throw in lemon zest, more or less garlic, and eliminate fennel all together. Just let the summer heat inspire you.

Flourless Walnut Cake

2011-07-04T13:07:00.000-07:00

Walnuts are used throughout the world in a myriad of ways from sauces and medicines, pickled whole, used in liqueurs, or ground for making tortes and cakes. This versatile nut can be found growing throughout Europe and Japan, in southeast Canada, California, Mexico and Argentina.

When ground, walnuts are used to great effect in flourless cake recipes, adding denseness and flavour when coupled with egg yolks, and beaten egg whites.

The following flourless walnut cake is one of my favorites to make, and I'm sure it will make a great addition to your culinary repetoire especially if guests have a wheat allergy or are gluten intolerant. Or are just plain deserving of a delicious dessert.

I prefer to hand chop walnuts for the desired effect. Make sure you have a sharp knife.

If you're making this for restaurant use, you most likely will use a food processor on the pulse setting.

Once baked, let is cool a few minutes before removing the sides. Be aware that the cake will fall in the centre but don't be alarmed .........

because you're going to cover the cake with a nice thick layer of whipped cream that's been infused with coffee.
Sprinkle some extra chopped walnuts over the cake sides and top. Slice and serve.

Since I made this cake on Canada Day, I sprinkled it with pomegranate seeds for a festival red note. I've also enjoyed the cake with fresh seasonal berries but it's also just right as it is, served with cups of strong coffee. Enjoy!

Flourless Walnut Cake with Coffee-infused Whipped Cream

Oven 350 degrees F

10 inch springform pan - bottom buttered

1 1/2 cups plus 8 Tbsp. walnuts, chopped fine, still maintaining texture

6 large eggs, separated

3/4 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups whipping cream

4 1/2 Tbsp. powdered sugar

1 1/2 tsp. instant coffee, dissolved in 2 tsp. whipping cream

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat the oven.

Using a food processor on the pulse setting, or by hand, chop walnuts until fine and crumbly - NOT UNTIL A PASTE. Set aside 4 to 6 Tbsp. for garnish)

Using electric beaters, beat yolks in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually add the 3/4 cup sugar, beating until well blended. Stir ground walnuts into the yolk mixture.

In another bowl, and using clean beaters, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry. Fold the whites into the yolk-nut mixture in two additions.

Transfer to the prepared springform pan and baked until set and the centre comes out clean when checked with a bamboo skewer. (around 40 minutes).

Cool 5 minutes before removing the sides of pan, and cool completely.

Topping

Beat cream, powdered sugar, dissolved coffee mixture and vanilla until stiff peaks form. Spread on top and side of cake evenly and sprinkle with reserved walnuts. Cut into wedges and enjoy.

Jammin' with the Gypsy

2011-06-24T15:34:00.000-07:00

This is Sivia Sadofsky and she has some preservations of the compote, confit, jam and marmalade variety. They're all part of her newly launched Gypsy Jams, and she's ready to rock your crumpet, your croissant, your artisanal cheese or your nearest spoon.

Sivia, a devout fruit eater, especially berries, has been preserving the fresh fruit flavours of summer - and fall and winter - since moving to the west coast over 15 years ago.

Staring down a bowl of blackberries one day, she's never looked back.

Family and friends have always been the lucky recipients of Gypsy Jams, until now. Twelve flavours are hitting a Vancouver farmers market near you, with more in the works.

Hot Cherry with a warming hit of chile, Ruby Seville, a jewel-toned blend of Seville and Blood oranges, Belgium Chocolate-Cherry, Wild Blueberry, Fig-Citrus and Lemon-Ginger-Vanilla Marmalade, these are full flavoured, fruit-forward preserves, not sugar bombs, and just some of the creative combinations to hit the market.

Not just for baked goods, Sivia encourages buyers to try them with yogurt, or use as a condiment for cheeses and smoked meats. (Once my crumpet supply has dried up, I'll be following her advice.)

Other combinations in the works include: Organic Lemon Marmalade with Vanilla and Ginger, Chocolate-Cherry-Chile - "great on pork", Apricot, Pear, Quince and Fig Mostarda inspired by her recent trip to Italy.

Why gypsy? "I consider myself a bit of gypsy," she says, " a little free spirited, a little unrooted, and I have a footloose, fancy-free approach to the creative process."

So the next time your palate has wanderlust, take it on a little trip with Sivia's Gypsy Jams.

Friend her on Facebook at Sivia Preserves Ltd., or follow her tweets @GypsyJams.

Vodka Sauce

2011-06-07T14:24:00.000-07:00

Vodka has very little use in our house. Gin on the other hand.... but that's another story. Our neglected bottle of vodka emerges only for that brilliant Sunday morning restorative, the spicy Caesar - Bloody Mary to you Americans - or used for a carb session in a vodka sauce.

My first taste of vodka sauce came out of a jar thanks to the Rao's, the 10-table you-can-never-get-a-reservation Italian restaurant in East Harlem, New York.

Thick with saucy oregano and basil-flecked tomatoes and rich with parmesan and cream, it came with an equally rich price tag and saved for special occasions.

According to research, vodka sauce originated in the 1980s. Joanna's restaurant in New York was the first to make a success of the dish. Others, including Rao's followed suit. Then came cookbooks and celebrity chefs' versions, including Nigella Lawson. Most recipes always add cream and butter, but the version created one wine-soaked evening with friends is and has become an old reliable.

It goes something like this: lots of garlic, finely minced and slow-simmered in olive oil, a few crushed red chiles, an ample dose of vodka, add pureed whole tomatoes and simmer until thick. Serve over penne pasta with lots of freshly grated romano. No cream. No butter.

Using whole tomatoes is very important, as I've found chopped or pre-pureed canned tomatoes contain too much water. Every recipe for the sauce requests penne pasta but cavatappi (aka Scoobie Doos) also works brilliantly, as does my fallback noodle, spaghetti.

It's a zingy sauce with deep tomato flavour with mellowed garlic and vodka sweetness complemented by chile heat.

So dust off that bottle of vodka and get cooking!

Vodka Sauce (with thanks to the Ushers)

Serves 4

Penne pasta (substitute Cavatappi or Spaghetti)

4 Tbsp olive oil

4 to 6 large garlic cloves, minced fine

2 to 3 Tbsp. crushed red chile

1 cup of vodka

5 cups of pureed tomatoes (from 1 1/2 cans (the 796 ml size) of quality whole tomatoes)

Salt to taste

Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated

Gently heat the olive oil in a deep saucepan and simmer the minced garlic for about five minutes, taking care not to brown the garlic. Add the chiles and fry for a minute and pour in the vodka. Bring to a boil and simmer for another five minutes. Puree 1 1/2 cans of whole tomatoes and add to the pot. Bring to the boil and simmer between 30 to 40 minutes until thick. Add salt to taste. Serve with al dente pasta and pass the cheese, please.

Daidoco Revisited

2011-06-03T13:47:00.000-07:00

Visiting the cozy confines of Kaori and Naotatsu Ito's Daidoco (kitchen in Japanese), is where I could spend most of my lunches. And I often do. I got there just in the nick of time, 12:30 to be exact, just as they were selling out of most of their small plates of freshly made salads and fish dishes.

Dishes are priced individually between $3 and $6.00 and combined together you have yourselves one of the best values in town, prepared by one of Victoria's most talented chefs.

As I mentioned in a previous post (link here), this is not your average Japanese restaurant. As such, the only sushi you'll find on the menu uses tuna belly combined with green onion. As with everything else on the menu, it's available in limited quantities, while supplies last. I scored!

That delicate, silky, buttery wonder was followed by a selection of three of today's specialties, each made with such forethought and care.

Poke tuna, finely chopped tuna tossed with sesame oil and spices was served over organic greens. Two salads, one of baby beets, snow peas, kabu and shi-li-huong tossed in a creamy tofu dressing, and the other a medley of komatsu-na, daikon, fuki, and baby wasabi-na greens tossed in a lightly spiced miso sauce. All the ingredients were organic and gleaned from the Ito's and Umi Nami Farm's gardens.

Each dish held onto its own distinct characters: a sensual celebration of spring's bright flavours, verdant, with a bit of crunch and varying textures that tickled in the mouth. Nothing was overwrought with sauce or soggy from sitting around in a fridge for days. What you eat at Daidoco is prepared that morning, or cooked to order.
Before I tackled my lunch, Nao-san sent out a gift, a tsukdashi of rock fish kama (cheek), served fried and topped with one of Nao-san's favorite spices, smoked paprika. The luscious flesh was presented beside Salt Spring Island shitake mushrooms and a mound of ribbony sweet knob onions that had been tossed with smoked salt and topped with bonito flakes.

Nao's philosophy is to provide nutritious food at affordable prices and he has definitely succeeded. But with food this outstanding and with the lineups that ensue every day, it's amazing he doesn't feel the need to raise his prices, dumb down the menu, open late, open for dinner, or on the weekends, where he can be found tending his Saanich garden growing food for the restaurant.

Daidoco. Get there early and be nourished.

Wise About Spot Prawns

2011-05-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

The spot prawn season runs just under two months, and it's such a treat to find them fresh and live right off the boat.

If you're unfamiliar with spot prawns and have lived most of your life on the west coast, you're not alone. The majority of this exquisite delicacy, the largest of the seven commercial species of shrimp in our waters, was exported until a consortium of fishers spearheaded by Steve Johansen had a good idea. He joined forces with chef Robert Clark and the Chef's Table Society and held a festival celebrating the seasonal crustacean. The rest is history.

While some are still exported - and why not - the majority can be enjoyed in most restaurants with an Ocean Wise mindset, or at home, purchased right off the boat or from a reliable purveyor.

A few tips: once the prawns are no longer alive, it's imperative that their heads be removed. The head contain an enzyme that begins to permeate through the tail and turns the meat mushy. The head also turns black. So if you see a collection of prawns at your local grocery store, swathed in plastic with black heads still attached, keep walking.

With that in mind, we took a dozen still kicking prawns and sauteed shallots, jalapeno and chopped tomato before adding the prawns with white wine and lemon zest, cooking them until they just turned pink. Yes kids, there's goodness in those heads too!

The rest of the prawns became headless, and were packed in salted water in tubs before being frozen for later use. (This technique of packing in salted water can be applied to any fish or seafood, from salmon filets to octopus, it prevents them from drying out).

Another batch of prawns was held back for risotto with Saanich asparagus - another seasonal item - made with a light chicken stock and shallots. No cheese here please, just the sweet lovely flavours of B.C.
For more information on B.C. seafood and sustainability issues, check out The Ocean Wise Cookbook, edited by writer Jane Mundy, and packed with recipes, tips and facts.

Here are chefs Robert Clark and Bill Jones spreading spot prawn love during the festival.

Spot On

2011-05-16T13:29:00.000-07:00

It's May on the west coast, and that means spot prawns are in season. Held up as an icon of sustainability, the sweet crustacean, and the largest prawn fished on the coast, is a chef and home cook's darling, a cause celebre of the sea.

Last Sunday, Vancouver Island saw spots in Cowichan Bay for the annual spot prawn festival.

Home to many fisherman, farmers, artists and artisan food producers, and North America's first Cittaslow community, the historic village was a fitting venue.

While local fishers brought their daily catch to market, chefs set up stands outside of their restaurants and cooked the critters.

A luscious spot prawn quiche was one of the dishes from True Grain Bread.

Hilary Abbott of Hilary's Cheese and his chef/apprentice cheesemaker were the tag team behind skewered prawns, grilled and served on a grilled tortilla, served with mango salsa.

Robert Clark of Vancouver's C Restaurant made a guest appearance, and wowed the crowd with a creamy pea and mint soup highlighted with a cooked prawn.

Chef Bill Jones officiated at the chef's demo station, introducing and assisting not only Clark, but chefs from the surrounding area.

J. J. Skidmore of the new Terrain Regional Kitchen served up prawn gyozas and gin sauteed prawns over organic quinoa.

People came from far and wide, music played, a little Miss Spot Prawn was crowned and wacky hats were sold.

Live spot prawns were available at $8.50 a pound. Some folks bought 15 pounds at a time, others only a couple. We purchased five and set off home for our own festival. Everyone had a delectably good time.

A Quickie for the Meze Platter

2011-05-10T14:31:00.000-07:00

Feta cheese, red peppers, a couple of garlic cloves and some great tasting olive oil is really all that's needed to throw together a quick and easy dip with Mediterranean leanings.

The biggest prep involved is roasting the peppers.

Cut them into quarters, removing the inner membrane and seeds. The shapes make them easier to achieve an even roasting.

Once evenly roasted, let them rest on the counter or in a plastic bag, making the roasted peel easier to remove.

Dry your lovely little fillets and chop into small cubes. Forget about being perfect, any little charred bits are okay, as they add a rustic element to your final product.

Crumble feta cheese into the mix along with a couple of crushed garlic cloves, some salt and finally, the tasty olive oil. Not too much, not too little, just the right amount.

Serve with slices of fresh baguette, or toast the slices for crostini - very authentic. I also recommend Triscuits for a crunchy vibe. For extra flavour flav, try adding freshly chopped basil or fresh dill to the pepper mixture. The world's your meze platter. Knock yourself out.

Dinner Redeems a Dull Day

2011-05-02T18:42:00.000-07:00

A gloomy, overcast day and a craving for Moroccan spices. Not that the two go hand in hand, but spices are proving to be a remedy for our unusually cold spring. So in between writing research, I planned a Moroccan-inspired meal to wake up my senses and nourish my soul.

Last Friday's foray into the Saanich farmlands while hopeful with young spring greens and cucumbers, still carried evidence of winter produce. Beets are still on offer and are a tad woody used in their raw state, but baked whole offer earthy comfort.

Once cooked, cooled, peeled and quartered, they became a simple and delicious first course, stacked and sprinkled with feta cheese, mint, salt and a grassy Greek olive oil.

Mitchell Farms is carrying flowering cabbage tops gleaned from their vast acreage of winter's cabbage, and savoy cabbage tops seemed to fit the bill. Likened to rapini but sturdier, I blanched them first and applied nothing more than that olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt. Second course, done.

For the main event, I cut up three lamb shoulder chops and marinated them in ground cumin, cinnamon, turmeric, paprika, garlic and lemon. After six hours or so, I sauteed the lamb pieces in a deep casserole dish with onions, more garlic, cumin and cinnamon, added a couple of bay leaves, a few raisins, a reduced tomato sauce - I had on hand - and simmered the stew for a couple of hours.

This dish was totally on the fly, incorporating what I had in the house, plus a few leftovers, and it's a dish that could have many variations: preserved lemons, roasted red peppers, apricots, chicken standing in for lamb, etc.

I served the resulting stew with smashed chickpeas. I took a regular can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed, and heated them in a bit of water. Meanwhile, I sauteed some minced onions and sliced garlic in olive oil and once they were soft, added the warmed chickpeas, stirring to combine. I mashed them roughly and added more olive oil to make the mixture just a tad smoother, then a couple of dashes of hot paprika and lemon juice. The chickpeas were added to the top of the stew just before serving. A little Moroccan in flavour, a little Greek and a little local and a whole lot of delicious. The perfect remedy for a cold gloomy day.

Mixiotes, Gift of the Maguey

2011-04-26T15:11:00.000-07:00

Give me a great travel story centered around a delicious dish using exotic ingredients, and I'm smitten.

Through many trips and the many cookbooks sitting on my shelves, Mexico continues to deliver the delicious and the exotic. I've been inspired to make time consuming moles utilizing rare chiles I've brought back from the open air markets. I've returned home heavily laden with dried herbs and chiles, cooking tools, and on one trip, 10 kilos of sea salt.

I've been willingly led to try ant eggs (escamoles), crickets, salsas made with gusanos, iguana and travelled off the beaten path - 10,00o feet to be exact - to indulge in wild potato and heirloom corn tortillas. Some didn't live up to expectations - you can keep the escamoles - and others exceeded it - I still dream about those tortillas. Then I read about mixiotes.

Huge century plants, or magueyes, dot the Mexican landscape and are commonly associated with pulque, that milky fermented beverage that predates mezcal. But that's not all. Their giant pointed leaves are used to line barbecue pits and the tough outer skin of each leaf is peeled off and used to wrap chile-marinated meat before being cooked in the pit. Exotic? You bet. Besides, I love the idea of food that's gift wrapped. The image and consequent fantasy about the dish has been in the back of my mind for years, so when two years ago, I spied real dried sheets of maguey leaves in a market in Jalapa, Mexico, I couldn't believe my eyes, or my luck.

They're tough and very much like parchment paper - even stronger - an amazing thing to behold. You can still see the pointed ends from the original leaf shape. They've been waiting patiently in my pantry to be put to use.

Using a Diana Kennedy recipe as a springboard, I created a guajillo-pasilla chile paste by first toasting the chiles - no seeds - and soaking them in a mixture of hot water and beer . The beer is a substitute for the pulque, which I couldn't seem to locate in my neighbourhood.

Herbs and garlic were hand ground in my trusty molcajete and added to the mix. The soaked chiles and herbs were blended together to form a smooth paste and slathered over beef ribs to sit for 12 hours.

The maguey skin was soaked to easily unfurl, and laid out.

One rib and sauce for each leaf, wrapped and tied.

Steamed for 2 hours over more beer and water, I served the dish with garlic mash and green beans, and unwrapped each package at table.

I'm sure it's nothing like being cooked in a maguey-lined pit - which is still on my bucket list - but they were delicious none the less. A hearty rich meal with lusciously tender meat, gift wrapped. A gift of the maguey.

Jalapenos Rellenos - Stuffed with Mint and Two Cheeses

2011-04-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

Once you get the hang of roasting and cleaning jalapenos, this appetizer dish, stuffed with goat and cream cheeses, and brightly flavoured with mint, is a hands down winner.

Roasting a jalapeno not only partially cooks and softens the flesh but mellows its heat, especially once the seeds and inner membrane are removed, and the cheese and mint combination counterbalances the chile's remaining fire.

Choose jalapenos that are smooth skinned and of normal size. We are often inundated with mega-sized chiles that are better suited for other recipes, not for a delicate two bite appetizer. (But if you can only find the mega variety, once you roast them, cut the peppers in half length-wise, and stuff).

Roast the chiles on a cast iron comal or pan until evenly blackened. Transfer to a plastic bag, or covered bowl and allow the chiles to sweat. This makes them easier to peel.

Using a paring knife, scrape away the blackened skin, then make a lengthwise slit in each chile and carefully remove the seeds and inner membrane. Lightly rinse the chiles to get rid of any residual seeds and skin and pat dry.

Meanwhile, make the filling (see recipe below), and using two teaspoons, fill the chiles and shape the chile around the filling to keep it enclosed and neat looking. Don't overfill them. I found around two teaspoonfuls is ideal with a regular sized jalapeno.

At this point, the dish can be made ahead.

Just before serving, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and heat the stuffed chiles until heated all the way through, around 12 to 15 minutes.

Enjoy with icy margaritas, preferably on a hot sunny patio.

Fire Roasted & Stuffed Jalapenos with Mint and Cheese

Yield: About 12 chiles (allowing two per person)

12 roasted jalapenos, peeled, seeds removed

125 gr. cream cheese

113 gr. plain goat cheese

1 Tbsp. minced shallots

1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, tightly packed, chopped fine

Roast the chiles on a comal or cast iron griddle until evenly blackened. Put them in a plastic bag to sweat.

Meanwhile, make the cheese filling, working the softened cheeses together with the back of a spoon. Add the minced shallots and chopped mint and work it in evenly and set aside.

Carefully, scrape the blackened skins off the chiles. With a small sharp knife, make a slit lengthwise on each each chile and removed the seeds and membrane, especially the seeds attached to the stem of each chile. Take care to leave the chile attached to the stem. It's going to make it easier to stuff.

Pat the chiles dry, and with two teaspoons, add 1 1/2 to 2 teaspoonfuls of the cheese mixture to each chile.

When ready to serve, heat the chiles in a 350 degree oven until heated through.

Salsa de Chile Pasilla de Oaxaca - Version Two

2011-04-15T14:15:00.001-07:00

The smoked chile pasilla de Oaxaca, or chile Mixe ( pronounced, mee-hay) is unique to the state of Oaxaca. It imparts a fiery, smokey flavour to salsas, chiles rellenos, and vinegary condiments for the table. Used in a cooked tomatillo salsa, it's exquisite with grilled meats, served alongside chips or tostadas with fresh cheese, or even topped onto scrambled eggs nestled inside a hot corn tortilla.

I stock up on the chiles whenever I'm in Oaxaca, easily purchased in one of the many market places in the city or on the outskirts. I would recommend that you bring back some the next time you go to Oaxaca - because you are going, aren't you?

The following salsa recipe is one of the easiest around, and was a table salsa used in a friend's Oaxacan restaurant, where I helped out for a brief time. It was served with tlayudas, those large sized tortillas made with various kinds of corn masa, from golden yellow to deep blue, heirloom of course. Slow food at its finest. Carried in woven baskets expertly balanced on their heads, a coterie of women would drop by the restaurant once a week with their freshly made, still warm tlayudas for sale.

Salsa de Chile Pasilla de Oaxaca - Version Two

(Version One here)

Makes 2 1/2 cups

2 medium sized chile pasilla de Oaxaca

1 lb tomatillos, husked and rinsed

3 small garlic cloves, crushed

Salt to taste

Cook the whole chiles and cleaned tomatillos together in just enough water to cover. Bring the water to the boil and simmer until the tomatillos soften and change colour. Don't let them fall apart.

The chiles will soften sooner than the tomatillos, so remove them with a slotted spoon to a plate to cool.

Once the chiles are cool enough to handle, make a lengthwise slit in the chile and scrape out the seeds and remove the stem.

Blend half the tomatillos, garlic and chiles, then add the rest of the tomatillos and blend until smooth. Add salt to taste.

Let the salsa cool down before serving at room temperature.

Candied Jalapenos

2011-04-14T16:14:00.000-07:00

Not only for salsas or roasted and stuffed with cheese, jalapenos can also be used for purposes of a sweet nature.

Washed and dried, stemmed, seeded with the inner white membrane removed, I like to slice the chiles into strips before dipping them into a sugar syrup. (You could also slice them).

The ratio of sugar to syrup I use is 2 cups sugar to 1 cup of water, brought to the boil and boiled for a few minutes before my little lovelies take a bath.

Once the strips are added, bring the syrup to the boil again and boil the chiles for two minutes. Remove the strips with a slotted spoon to a rack over a parchment-lined sheet pan. Cool. Repeat. Three to four times.

Drain for the last time and transfer to a clean piece of parchment to dry a bit. I just love the shapes they make. Without question their flavour is sweet, but they retain the chile's grassiness and a delicate heat.

You can roll them in sugar if you prefer, but I like them just the way they are. Delicious served with coffee after a meal, or as a garnish for flan or ice cream. Store them in a lidded container until use.

Another candied item you might like to try are hibiscus flowers. The next time you make yourself a batch of agua de jamaica, save the blossoms. Once they are almost dry, add them in batches to sugar syrup and let drain before use.

That is all.

Spaghetti Aglio,Olio e Peperoncino

2011-03-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

On the Amalfi coast, everyday provided another exciting round of flavours and sights. Lemons, the size of grapefruits were everywhere. The fresh leaves were used to wrap ingredients, infusing a dish with an enticing citrus aroma and flavour upon baking. Wrapped around soft raisins and tied, the leaves, left to dry, imparted sweet citrus notes to a lovely packaged snack. And Limoncello, that intense lemon liqueur was waiting in everyone's freezer.

One day, we picked pine cones in the woods above the city. Thrown in a fire, the cones burst open like a flower, revealing a warm pine nut in each of its petals. Heaven.

I had the best pizzas of my life there, and a dish of spaghetti tossed with olive oil-sauteed garlic and red chiles. Aglio (garlic), olio (oil) and peperoncino (chile).

It's the only dish from my Amalfi travels that I'm able to reconstruct at home. The ingredients are readily available, simple to make and don't cost a fortune. I return to it time and time again. It's a quick lunch, dinner, a great hangover cure and a profoundly comforting dish.

While the spaghetti is cooking, roughly chop 4 or 5 cloves of garlic. Add the garlic to 2 to 3 tablespoons of fruity olive oil in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once the garlic starts to dance, add chopped fried red chiles - with the seeds - and fry a few minutes more, carefully not to burn.

Drain the pasta and toss it with the aglio, olio and peperoncino mix. Salt to taste. Add some grated parmesan or romano cheese. Toss. Enjoy.

The garlic-chile-oil ratio can be adjusted to suit your sensibilities. Some days I crave more garlic, more chile, other days, less. Sometimes I add chopped parsley, but mostly not. I've ordered it in restaurants, but it never comes close to my own technique. It's a personal thing, one that's imbued with sweet travel memories. That's never on a restaurant's menu.

Black Beans

2011-03-22T09:28:00.001-07:00

Top: dried avocado leaves, right: toasted ground black beans and left: ground avocado leaves

It was quiet that morning except for what sounded like a beaded curtain blowing in the breeze. The place was Santiago Apoala, north of Oaxaca City, a fairly remote village, perched 1,970 meters above sea level in the Mixteca high sierra.

While waiting for breakfast of scrambled eggs mixed with the red flowers of the colorin tree, picked just outside the hostel, I went to investigate the sound.

Two straw mats were laid out on a dirt road and a group of people were sifting their harvest of black beans. Because of the strong wind, the villagers scooped the beans and let them fall, allowing little bits of dried straw or other debris to blow away. No one was saying anything. Just the rhythmic sound of the beans falling, over and over again, like a beaded curtain.

In Teotitlan del Valle, just outside of Oaxaca City, black beans are toasted and ground by hand on a volcanic stone metate. The resulting powder is mixed with water and spread on freshly made (also by hand) tlayudas as part of a healthy breakfast.

In Xalapa, Veracruz, tiny bags of ground avocado leaves are sold in the markets for around 20 cents. Bright green in colour, its anisey fragrance is added to stewed black beans.

In many regions of Mexico, whole avocado leaves are toasted and added to black beans and other dishes.

Today, black beans are cooking on my stove. And while the beans cook and I reflect over delicious memories, the toasted, ground black beans will be my breakfast spread over a hot corn tortilla.

Kale Chips

2011-03-21T16:01:00.000-07:00

Fry it and they will come.

Another recent addition from the friends's recipe file are kale chips. And not a moment too soon. As spring takes hold and my garden beckons, what's left of winter's kale needs to be used up.

Here it is, with many thanks to Joie for this installment.

Kale Chips

Preheat oven to 350 to 375 F, depending on your oven.

Wash 2 bundles of kale, spin dry. You want the leaves bone dry.

Massage leaves with 1 - 2 Tbsp olive oil. Remove stems and rip leaves into chip-sized pieces. Spread kale onto a cookie sheet.

Season before or after baking.

- Coarse salt is a must.

- smoked paprika.

- grated Parm or asiago

- cumin, cardamom

- flavoured salt.

Based on your oven temperature, bake 10 - 15 minutes until edges are crispy and chips are brittle to touch. Pull out the tray before kale browns, otherwise it will be bitter.

Note: found that I needed to turn the oven down to finish the chips to brittle stage so they didn't brown. Damn, these are good.

Lionel's Salsa, Julie's Margarita

2011-03-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

Among the food and travel journals, post-it notes and cookbooks, is a black binder filled with recipes. They run the gamut from a cooking class I attended to pages torn from the NY Times food section, but the recipes most cherished are the ones I've collected over the years from friends. From cookies to sorbets, simple salads to complex main courses, printed or handwritten, my little black book is a delicious testament to friendship and conviviality.

Case in point: when the prospect of ripe tomatoes are slim to nada, my friend Lionel created a wonderful salsa recipe that I've enjoyed many times in winter and summer.

It uses a can of plum tomatoes, extracted of all their juices, with the addition of minced serranos or jalapenos, garlic, cilantro, juice of half a lime, a bit of sugar, salt and olive oil. Served with freshly made corn chips, you have the makings of a fiesta with friends.

Drinks are now in order, and his partner in culinary crime, Julie, makes a mean margarita, a simple recipe that has become a mainstay in our household.

I give you both, because a friend in need is a friend indeed.

Lionel's Salsa

2 cloves garlic

2 serranos or jalapenos

1 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1/2 freshly squeezed lime

1 - 796 ml. can of plum tomatoes

1/2 bunch of cilantro, washed and coarsely chopped

Mince garlic and serranos/jalapenos. Add sugar, salt, olive oil, lime juice and pulse the ingredients a few times in the blender.

Fork tomatoes out of the can (saving juice in can). Squeeze tomatoes by hand ins a sieve until the tomatoes hold together in a sense ball. Add the mixture to the blender, add cilantro and pulse, adding tomato juice slowly until the mixture reaches the right consistency.

Add chips and enjoy.

Julie's Margarita (con rocas)

Add ice cubes to a glass

1 1/2 oz. tequila

under 1 oz. triple sec

juice of one lime (or to taste).

Stir and taste. Adjust lime or triple sec. Taste again. Enjoy.

P.S. What to do with the leftover tomato juice? It's great in a cocktail, soup, sauce or in a sangrita, that lovely Mexican accompaniment to a shot of tequila.

Chicken Estofado

2011-02-17T15:01:00.000-08:00

In Mexico, and more specifically, Oaxaca, moles play an important part in the country's culinary repertoire.

In Canada, we only see moles, usually red, and made with the addition of chocolate on menus, but moles in Oaxaca are not only red (rojo) but black (negro), yellow (amarillo), green (verde), and made with various chilies, spices and herbs. There are the fruit-forward moles of the coastal regions known as manchamanteles, the rich pumpkin-seed based pipianes which also fall under the mole umbrella, and the estofados (stews). Many recipes are attributed to a person, a family, a pueblo, there are moles made on regular rotation and others made only for special occasions. They're far removed from the small jar of pre-prepared mole sauces available on the market. Making a mole from scratch is very labour intensive, but so worth the effort.

Anyone who digs long and slow barbecue techniques, or nose-to-tail cooking will love making moles.

Going through my notes and recipes over the last 15 years of Oaxacan travel, I discovered a recipe for chicken estofado, taught to me by Reyna Mendoza.

Many of the estofado recipes find an extensive list of ingredients, as one would expect, but this one is a simpler version, using sesame seeds, almonds, raisins, roasted tomatoes, garlic and onion as the base.

Like moles, estofados are blended and seasoned creating a rich, velvety sauce, but there are exceptions, such as this estofado we enjoyed in Rojas.

I checked in with Reyna before making this dish, and discovered she was taught the recipe by another gifted cook, the late Irene Garcia. For many years, I'd enjoyed the food cooked by Irene, a longtime cook for Oaxacan friends we visit regularly. Knowing the source of this recipe has brought a whole new meaning to the dish and I'm happy to share it with you.

Irene had the most amazing palate, and could instantly memorize how to make any dish and knew exactly how it should taste. Her repetoire ran the gamut from Mexican moles and tamales to Indian curries and Canadian-style Christmas cookies and cakes. She was an awesome person and incredible cook.

This estofado finds chicken pieces fried in olive oil first, instead of par-poached, and then finished in the blended and seasoned sauce.

Roasted tomatoes, garlic and onion, and toasted sesame seeds really drive this sauce.

The classic addition of capers and green olives are added at the last minute before serving.

Absolute ambrosia.

Estofado is served with white rice, served on the side - hey, isn't that one of those corn husk boats? - and pickled jalapenos for those who want a bit of zip. The vinegary heat adds another level to the sauce, cutting through its luscious richness.

This is so freaking good.

Here's to you, Irene!

Chicken Estofado by Irene Garcia and Reyna Mendoza

8 pieces of chicken (thighs, legs and breasts)

2 Tbsp. olive oil

2 lbs ripe Roma tomatoes

1 whole head of garlic

1 med. white onion, cut into 1/2 inch slices

3/4 cup sesame seeds

1/4 cup raisins

8 whole almonds with skin

1 tsp. oregano

1 tsp. thyme

3 thick slices of pan de yema, or one thick slice of challah

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup small pitted green olives

1/4 cup capers

Pickled jalapenos (Morita or Herdez brand, if you don't make your own)

Rinse and pat dry chicken pieces and lightly season with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in Dutch oven to medium heat. Fry the chicken, covered for 5 minutes, turn over and cook another 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave the cover on.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with foil and add whole tomatoes, sliced onion, and garlic (in its skin). Roast in the oven until the tomato skins blacken in spots, and the onion and garlic soften. At the same time, place the bread slices in the oven and toast until golden brown.

Heat 4 cups of water in a saucepan and keep it handy.

Heat a dry cast iron skillet or other heavy skillet to medium, and add the sesame seeds all at once, stirring constantly until lightly golden. Transfer to a bowl. Add the raisins to the hot skillet, stirring until they plump up. Transfer to another bowl. Add the almonds to the skillet and toast evenly. Add to the raisins.

Turn off the heat, allow to cool slightly, add the oregano and thyme an quickly give them a stir, just long enough to give off their aromas. Remove from heat.

Remove the chicken from the dutch oven to a platter. Cover and/or refrigerate until ready to add to sauce.

Pour 2 cups of hot water over the toasted bread and set aside.

Blend 1/2 of the tomatoes, 1/2 of the onions, garlic squeezed out of their little sleeves and all the sesame seeds on high speed until as smooth as possible.

Heat the Dutch oven over medium heat, scraping up any bits stuck to the bottom. Place a large sturdy metal strainer over the pot, and pour in the blended tomato-sesame mixture. Giving small sharp jolts to the strainer, pour the mixture through bit by bit, pushing the last through with the back of a spoon. Add a little hot water to the strainer to help wash through the last small bits.

Whatever's left in the strainer, add it back to the blender along with the rest of the tomatoes and onions, the raisins, almonds, oregano and thyme.

Repeat the straining process as described above.

Note: I find stirring the mixture through the strainer a lot faster.

Lastly, blend the bread and water until smooth and add to the estofado. Stir often.

Add the chicken and continue simmering the estofado for another 30 minutes - adding the extra hot water if the mixture is too thick. It should be velvety. Adjust seasoning. Add the capers and olives just before serving.

Serve in deep bowls, spooning the sauce over the chicken. Serve with rice and hot corn tortillas. Accompany with the chilies on the side.

Welcome to your new addiction.

Life of Pie

2011-02-17T10:14:00.000-08:00

Leftovers. The word never sounds enticing, does it?

With a bit of creativity, leftovers can be elevated out of their deemed unworthy and uninspiring reputation, to a starring role, beyond the stir fry or eating cold food out of a takeout box.

With rising food costs, there's no better time to step up to the plate and wisely use up extra food.

Case in point: the roasted bird. A regular feature at our house, roast chicken stuffed with lemons and herbs is our go-to comfort meal. The next day, leftover meat is picked off the bones for sandwiches or used for soups or stews. The roasted bones are made into a rich tasting stock, used for risottos or soup. Extra meat can also be frozen for later use, especially with larger birds, or used for a pot pie, a delectable treat encased in flakey pastry.

You can dress it up with lots of fresh vegetables, or keep it simple by using leftover veggies from the roast, a combination of the two, or simply chicken and gravy.

Squash, carrots, celery, leeks, and potatoes, I like to saute the fresh vegetables first to let their flavours co-mingle, season to taste, and then fold in leftover chicken meat and or leftover vegetables.

You can certainly make the pie in small individual sizes - great for lunches - but I like to make a dinner party-friendly size with my trusted pie crust recipe. (It's makes exactly the right amount for a double crust pie).

If you are concerned about the ingredients holding together, you can add a flour and water, or cornstarch and water mixture. ( If you have gravy on hand, add it now).

Cool the ingredients slightly before adding.

Apply the top layer of pastry, make a nice fluted edge, cut slices into the pastry so it can breath, and brush with an egg wash.

Another delicious dinner is almost ready.

For two people, this is dinner over the next few days - and a few lunches - jazzed up with mushroom or an onion gravy, and salad, or simply heated up and served with a big dollop of mustard.

Food should never go to waste.

The Cobb Salad. The Brown Derby Dressing

2011-01-30T14:21:00.000-08:00

The Cobb Salad came in to existence in 1937. Created late at night, with access to the restaurant's kitchen, then Brown Derby owner Bob Cobb threw together ingredients readily at hand, and a star was born.

The original creation consisted of iceberg lettuce, an avocado, romaine, watercress, tomatoes, chicken breast meat, hard boiled egg, chives, cheese, crispy bacon and French dressing.

I've enjoyed many permutations of the Cobb, but had forgotten about its sturdying protein blast and interesting history until flipping through one of my journals. On one page, I had hastily written down the recipe for the Brown Derby salad dressing. Not knowing why or how, or what exactly it was I was looking for anyway, the dressing and the Cobb salad has taken up my attention.

The dressing - see below - has evolved somewhat from its French dressing origins - but with its hits of red wine vinegar, Worcestershire sauce and dry English mustard, the baby's got kick, a kick that can stand up to bacon, blue cheese, chicken and avocado.

In fact, it was a little too jarring against delicate fennel and celery that was already on the go for the previous evening's salad, below, so Cobb for lunch the next day was on the agenda.

(But, I think it would be ace highlighting braised winter greens such as kale tossed with bacon and shallots).

The salad too, has evolved. I've seen it served with a poached egg, a boiled quail's egg, with less ingredients, and with more. I've seen it on old Vegas restaurant menus, in steak houses and on Canadian pub menus. It's a hungry man dish, a classic, a perfect rejoinder after a bout of too much booze, or nourishment after pulling a grueling shift.

It's also a perfect winter salad, comforting on a cold day.

Crunchy iceberg lettuce provides a steady base for hard boiled eggs, bacon - only the double smoked bacon from Red Barn will do - crumbled blue cheese, avocado, quartered tomatoes and shredded chicken meat from the previous night's roasted bird.

Simply compose the salad on a plate, or platter, if you're entertaining guests. Drizzle over the dressing and serve. Add freshly cracked pepper to taste.

Brown Derby Salad Dressing (for Cobb Salad)

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup red wine vinegar

1/4 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. lemon juice

2 tsp. salt

3/4 tsp. black pepper

3/4 tsp. Worcestershire

1/4 tsp. dry English mustard

1 small clove garlic, minced

1/4 cup olive oil

3/4 cup vegetable oil

Put all the ingredients in a jar with a lid. Shake it, baby!

A Quick Salsa

2011-01-11T09:51:00.000-08:00

I've been exercising in the kitchen again. That's right. Cooking is exercise. Chopping, turning, stirring, tasting, tossing pans, all that work adds up to some calorie burning my friends. Sadly, eating doesn't burn calories.

Preparing for cooking classes, I've been buying ingredients and dusting off some of the recipes I've collected over the years. After making this earthy caldo, and making a batch of corn tortillas, and with time to spare, I tried my hand at a simple salsa.

My advice to any novice to the Mexican mesa: think simple.

Two jalapenos, stem end removed. Make a slit down the side and remove the seeds. (I did this because these happened to be extra picante). Chop them roughly and put in a blender along with a small clove of garlic, some chopped cilantro I had leftover, some salt and just a bit of water to release the blades. Blend until smooth.

The grassy-ness is so spectacular slathered on a piece of white cheese wrapped around a hot corn tortilla. Salt to taste.

It's not the most brilliant photograph, but you get the picture.

You see, you don't need multiple ingredients to create a salsa. There's another one here.

Jalapenos and serrano chilies are both readily available. Try your hand at making one today. Both salsas are excellent on grilled meats, firm white fish, eggs, cheese or added to a warm corn tortilla for a bit of zip. Simple.

Mexican Cuisine Revisited

2011-01-05T09:29:00.000-08:00

Okay, you might think this is a cop out, but I'm providing some links to previous posts to revisit Mexican cuisine and plot a course for the new year. I'd like to start teaching a few classes, not only through this blog, but perhaps privately or through one of the many outlets in the city.

Would you be interested in taking a class? What would you like to learn?

Moles? Perhaps something more rustic, like chilaquiles, pork and chile soup or tortilla soup? Party fare such as tacos, or that gooey cheesey snack, queso fundido? Chilies rellenos? A salsa masterclass that explores simple and complex methods of making that fiery, or not fiery, essential condiment? Or maybe, generally going through those mysterious-looking ingredients you've seen at the grocery, such as cactus paddles, and how to create something delicious and muy Mexicano from them?

Let me know.

Post Christmas Empanadas

2010-12-27T11:32:00.000-08:00

After three days of holiday cooking, eating and drinking it seemed vaguely unsettling to enjoy my morning coffee in a quiet, clean kitchen.

No lists to go over, no ingredients to pull from the fridge, no table to set. That lasted about an hour. Not wanting to go for my morning run in the dark, I mulled over the bits of ingredients I had leftover: the small piece of the pork roast from Christmas day would be thinly sliced for sandwiches, gravy or salsa verde to add as needed, and those bits of nice cheeses from the party tray needed to be used up.

They'd be brilliant in a cheese sauce on pasta, or maybe something more involved with a Mexican flavour. Yeah, that's it.

I'd read recently about queso fundido empanadas and the image of roasted peppers, sauteed mushrooms and melting cheese in a little half moon shape of dough has been tempting me ever since.

I whipped up a batch of dough using not vegetable shortening or sweet pork lard, but beef dripping bought from Orr & Son's Butchers.

The four anaheim chilies I had hanging around were roasted on the stove, and I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to my upstairs neighbours for the smoke and charred aromas that might have alarmed you while you snuggled up in bed this morning. Once the chilies were peeled and chopped they were added to some sauteed onions, garlic and sliced mushrooms. The bits of cheese were grated together and add to the mix - much easier than adding the cheese as a separate ingredient to your rounds of dough. At the last minute, I add some chopped red chile de arbol for colour and extra heat.

I cut out circular shapes of dough, added the mixture, dabbed the edges of the dough with water, folded over and pressed together.

Refrigerate - or freeze for later use. Oven at 425 degrees, brush the empanadas with egg and milk to make them shine, and bake until golden.

Once again, quiet has descended.

For more on empanadas, check here.

Eating Local in Puerto Escondido

2010-11-28T07:07:00.001-08:00

I spend most mornings in Puerto Escondido picking up fresh provisions from the local Benito Juarez market. The produce is perfectly arranged in tidy piles, or tied into bundles, and is of utmost freshness. The most popular provisions such as nopales are cleaned and often pre-sliced and put into bags for five or ten pesos, making it easier on the consumer.

Separate rows with cheese makers, fish, chicken and meat vendors display their daily offerings in the open air and are absolutely spotless.

Besides the beach there is nowhere I'd rather be, especially on Saturday, the market day, when vendors and farmers make the long trek from their ranchos to set up make-shift tables or simply set things down on the ground to display their wares.

Let the fun begin.

Great bundles of hoja santa, the saint leaf - a staple of the Oaxacan kitchen. Its anise-like flavour and aroma enhances stews, moles and tamales, and is always available every morning, freshly picked.

Farm fresh eggs, their yolks a deep yellow colour from a steady diet of corn and garden scraps, are a welcome addition to my kitchen.

The local chile tuxta is everywhere right now, being sold in red, yellow or green, or in combinations of the three.

Ripe tomatoes are also everywhere and we are eating them every day. I especially love the pleated indigenous variety (criollos or tomates rojos tecos) seen below. Lovely sliced in a salad, something we've been eating a lot of this week.

A lovely woman and her young daughter were selling roses from their farm and made sure that we were aware that they were grown by her family, not in a huge greenhouse factory. A bundle is currently gracing our table.

Cilantro, at a couple of pesos for a small bunch, is sold with its flavour-packed roots. I threw the roots into a chicken broth one day. The leaves have been added to everything - from morning omelettes and guacamole to nopale salads and salsas. As it should be.

I'm also using a lot of purslane, available at the market in big bunches for only five pesos!

I've been serving it with a slice of queso ranchero, bought from Ines, one of many cheese-makers at the market. It's sold wrapped in a huge green leaf, that Ines said was from a water plant. It doesn't impart any particular aroma or flavour, just decoration. And it's so beautiful.

Knob onions.

Squash blossoms.

Cabbage.

Indigenous squash (calabaza).

Lots of freshly-made tortillas are for sale, piled high in white pails lined with plastic, and wrapped in multi-layers of embroidered linens to keep them hot.

Memelas are also for sale, packaged up fresh in plastic bags. All that's needed is a little bag of asiento - rich caramelized pork drippings - to spread on them, followed by a sprinkling of queso.

Tamale vendors are in full force on market day, and we enjoyed black bean and hoja santa tamales on a break. I call these session tamales because they're not too thick on the masa, making it easy to devour more than one. In fact, they are sold in sets of three, for ten pesos (around a dollar!).

We also enjoyed sweet tamales with squash and pine nuts, wrapped in banana leaves.

This slightly fuzzy leafed and slightly fuzzy photo is oreganon. Big leafed, its pungent aroma is a cross between mint and oregano. It's been exquisite to use in its fresh state, added to a pot of black beans and a chicken stock. (Update on oreganon: according to Diana Kennedy's book, Techniques and Ingredients, this plant is native to Africa and has taken root in many areas of Mexico, and shows up mostly in markets of Veracruz and Campeche. But now, I guess it's doing a bit of travelling and showing up on the Oaxaca coast).

Beyond foodstuffs, the market is chock-full of herbal remedies, including horsetail for your kidney ailments and stalks of chile de palo, used not only for flavouring foods, but as a tea for gastritis.

Calla lilies, one of my favourite flowers, are sold in big bunches, again, picked fresh from somebody's farm.

Herbs, chard, carrots, lettuce, garlic; the abundance and the affordability is outstanding.

And lots of fruits and vegetables I'm still unfamiliar with.

Including this alien life form tuber.

Jicama are displayed with their vines, but are cut away when you purchase some. Now, that's service!

Tiny wild tomatillos make a lot of work for any cook, especially compared to the regular variety, but are still a prized ingredient.

Chayote.

Inside the market, a vendor we regularly buy from, carries a wide variety of dried beans, chilies and spices. Everything is meticulously displayed.

Some ingredients that go into our daily diet.

Mandarins are also in season and are sold for pennies, or pesos, anywhere from five to eight pesos for a kilo.

We juice a kilo every morning for breakfast and later for sunset margaritas.

Although there are many restaurants and comedors to choose from in Puerto - serving everything from regional specialities to sushi and Italian pizza - the market is too good to pass up. Find a place with a kitchen and feast on a finely-tuned locavore diet - one that includes coffee, chocolate and mezcal. One that you can only dream about in Canada.

Chilaquiles Rojos with Huevos Revueltos

2010-11-21T11:17:00.000-08:00

Coaxing nourishment and deliciousness out of what's leftover in the fridge can be either daunting or inspiring depending what the ingredients are and your mood at the time.

Feeling a tad shaky after a party the night before? Cold pizza while standing in front of the fridge just might do the trick. Thinking about an impending trip to a tropical beach in Mexico? Chilaquiles just might assist in feeling closer to your casita by the sea.

This classic Mexican breakfast dish is both nourishing and delicious and uses leftover tortillas to thicken the sauce, like one would use crackers in soup.

It's made with a sauce based either on tomatoes (rojo) or tomatillos (verde), chilies and a bit of onion and garlic. I've gone through my fridge to create my own rojo version with canned tomatoes, roasted jalapenos, leftover cheddar and the addition of scrambled eggs.

Jalapenos were first roasted, peeled and seeds removed. I used three of the chiles - the other two will be used for another purpose - and blended them with a small piece of white onion and close to a full can (796 ml.) of whole tomatoes.

In a deep saucepan, with a tablespoon of heated olive oil, I added the blended sauce, frying and stirring on medium until reduced somewhat. The flavours meld and lose any sharpness, it takes around 10 minutes. The consistency ends up soup-like, not too thick, not too thin. (The tortillas thicken it in the end). I threw in a few leaves of epazote for authenticity.

Meanwhile, I lightly whipped together the four eggs I had left. I first sauteed a tablespoon of minced white onion in olive oil until transparent, added the eggs and lightly moved them around until just set.

While most recipes will ask you to fry the tortillas first and break into pieces, I like to just break them into pieces into a bowl, without those extra calories from frying.

Pour the sauce on top, add eggs, cheese.

With eyes closed, this sturdying dish did the trick.

Vancouver's New Street Food Culture

2010-11-02T08:17:00.001-07:00

It started with a city run lottery earlier this year. 17 new food cart spots were up for grabs. Nearly 800 people showed up.

A few months and a few bumpy starts later, Vancouver's downtown core offers exciting options for eating al fresco that goes way beyond the hot dog. (Although, I still have a soft spot for JapaDog, the innovator that now boasts numerous locations).

Let's get started, shall we?

Fresh Local Wild is not chef Josh Wolfe's personal profile but reference to his menu of sustainable seafood and accompaniments. The cart sits on Granville and Robson near a bench so you can hunch over and enjoy their tasty offerings.

The menu is simple and straightforward and the service spirited.

While waiting for the oyster po'boy, we ordered up the wild chanterelle mushroom poutine - only $3.00 when you order a sandwich.

Hot skinny fries slathered with mushroom gravy and cheese curds. Completely awesome!

A perfect setup for the plump, juicy beach oysters, battered and fried and heaped with coleslaw and secret sauce.

To be perfectly honest, I could pass on the bun. Then I guess it wouldn't be a sandwich now would it? I just thought it got in the way of enjoying those oysters.

You can't miss Roaming Dragon's big red truck. You'll find it parked weekdays on West Georgia between Thurlow and Burrard. Find an ambitious Pan Asian menu overseen by Don Letendre.

Chinese pork belly sliders on custom-made tiny steam buns set the tone. Slow roasted pork belly with the right fat-to-meat ratio was redolent with Asian spices and served with a lightly pickled and crunchy cucumber and Hoisin sauce. Okay. Asian spices. I noted star anise, szechuan pepper and cinnamon. Hoisin has a sweetness that could be toned down, but other than that, this is a welcome take on the usual burger sliders appearing on a uninspired pub-style menu near you.

Other Roaming Dragon offerings appear in their spot-lit museum-like showcase.

We enjoyed their soup du jour of curried shortrib with rice and vegetables, topped with a bit of feta cheese. Super rich and immensely satisfying on a damp westcoast day.

R.D. also makes their own beverages each day, and the lemonade with basil and lychee and hit of soda was pitch perfect.

Next up were the Korean short rib tacos. Kind of like a stir fry on a corn tortilla, it was brilliant. Slow braised short rib meat with spinach, shitake, carrots with a hit of kimchee and topped with nori and sesame seeds.

All the flavours were fearless and delicious.

Clearly Roaming Dragon has a lot more on the back burner in terms of a masterplan. Office party? Give them a call, they can pull right in to the parking lot. Want to start your own food cart business? Their Gourmet Syndicate posse can help. I do believe T-shirts are available.

Re Up, on Hornby and Georgia, serves pulled pork on a soft bun with coleslaw and a chipotle bbq sauce.

The name, urban slang for buying more drugs is apt. Welcome to your new addiction.

Not overly sauced, or overly slawed, but a proper balance of flavours with slow roasted pork butt generously portioned and served up with a smile. And an absolute bargain at $6.75.

Korea meets Mexico again at the corner of Burrard and Georgia with Cartel Tacos.

Cartel gets bonus points for being really street. It's open and just like the real street carts all over the world where you can get a hit of steam and aroma from the flat top. Yeah!!

We ordered both pork and beef, topped by hand with chopped fine white onion, cilantro and kimchee.

Absolutely incredible flavours. Again. The Cartel boys were making their own salsas but the powers that be said no, even though it was made fresh and held on ice. Weird. I hope they work that out but in the meantime, they offer a vast array of kick should you need it.

And the tacos made our Oaxacan friend, who was missing flavours from home, muy feliz.

In contrast to the fancier carts, I like Cartel's basic setup the best.

All the food eaten over the two days was bold and fresh, and everyone seemed genuinely happy to serve their customers and happy with their product. It's inspiring to experience and watch this turning point in our food culture. I hope they can all maintain the love, especially with their first winter just around the corner. I'll be supporting them as much I can, I hope you will too.

I've got a lot more carts to work through. I just need a couple more days.

Autumn Forage

2010-10-23T14:37:00.001-07:00

Produce is absolutely perfect right now, and it's off to the Saanich farms to stock up. Mars is always the first stop as their prices are best. It's a tiny shack set up on a vast acreage run by the long established Mars farming family.

Mrs. Mars, always in gum boots and always smiling, is well into her 80s, and still works the back breaking tasks of a farmer. Her energy and vitality is awe inspiring. I love the part when she tallies up the provisions with a pencil and pad of paper, doing the math out loud; 5 plus 8, carry the 1, etc.

Farmers' fields are dotted with orange everywhere in Saanich right now. The pumpkins are ready, in a myriad of shapes and sizes.

Next stop, Michell farms for extra produce goodies, and where they have a u-pick pumpkin fest going on as families get ready for Halloween.
Michell's, another long time farming family, is open all year. Mr. Michell, the patriarch, still works the fields, along with his farmhands, constantly bringing in loads of produce on a fork lift, or even sweeping the floor on the store's interior. Awesome!

Everything is tidy and presented with such care.

Each bunch of Rainbow Chard has a moist piece of paper towel at their ends to keep them fresh.

Savoy cabbage is always enticing. I try to get my fill before they run out and/or I'm sick to death of cabbage and root vegetables - usually around the January mark.

Lately, I've been digging a Savoy cabbage salad, sliced super thin and tossed with capers, chopped parsley and tossed in a red wine vinaigrette.

We scored some exotic pole beans today for next year's planting.

Incredible!

Borlotti Bean Soup with Roasted Pumpkin

2010-10-21T19:21:00.000-07:00

With the coming cold weather comes cravings for comfort foods. Long simmering stews, roasts and other hearty pleasures of the table beckon. That includes soup and those beans at the back of the cupboard begging for attention.

Take one cup of Rancho Gordo's borlotti beans, rinsed, and put on the stove with plenty of hot water to cover, add half of an onion and two garlic cloves. Bring to the boil and simmer, adding - when you get a chance - two chopped up ripe tomatoes and a bunch of fresh sage, chopped.

Meanwhile, cut up half of a pumpkin, season with salt and pepper, and bake at 350 degrees until just done.

Once the beans are done, add salt to taste and chop the roasted pumpkin - peeled, of course - into smaller pieces and add to the soup.

In hot oil, fry fresh sage leaves until crispy. Drain on paper towel.

Serve the soup in warm bowls and garnish with the crispy sage leaves.

Simply filling and delicious. Each crispy leaf imparts a delicate yet direct sage-y hit adding both texture and flavour.

Ken Gordon Makes Kick-Ass Espresso

2010-10-18T14:27:00.000-07:00

Street Level Espresso is a tiny space that sits maybe 8, with some room for standing. Sandwiched in between the iconic Dutch Bakery and a shoe repair in the downtown core, Street Level attracts a diverse and devoted crowd in search of a good hit of caffeine made by Ken Gordon, aficionado of the bean.

I go for the macchiatos, others for the mochas, the cappuccinos or the lattes. The menu is simple, all bevvies are double shots and one size. It fits all.

Personable, funny and deeply creative, Gordon has been making great coffee for the last 22 years. His career has been enhanced over the years with stints as a courier, cook, guarder of Christmas trees, karaoke host, women's roller derby referee and trapeze acrobat. He's also an escape artist, able to wiggle his torso through a tennis racket - although he's a bit rusty at the moment - and can get out of a straight jacket hanging upside down. I'm not sure if this has made him better at making coffee but it has made him a fascinating individual. He is currently studying modern dance, is a confirmed espresso drinker, a whiskey and cocktail aficionado, involved in cycling culture and a staunch supporter of the Island Chef's Collaborative. Oh, and I do believe he speaks a variety of languages.

His coffee shop is part club house/meeting place where you can enjoy a cup of java and shoot the breeze with Gordon or one of his cohorts. Maybe kick back and listen to some tunes from Ken's record collection .....

.....buy a Lomo camera (he also teaches pinhole photography and can answer questions about the process), or maybe enjoy some breakfast cereal.

Gordon's fan base encompasses chefs, artists, musicians, dancers, suits, writers, a reformed bank robber and a suitable assortment of scallywags. He notes that a visit from Jim Murray, author of the Whiskey Bible, was one of the most memorable at the cafe. "He was able to detect the country of origin of 3 out of the 5 beans in the (coffee) blend," says Gordon, " and said it was the best espresso he'd had in years - better than France."

The coffee at Street Level is sourced from Discovery Coffee, a local roastery. "It's got a nice spice and limey-ness to it" he says, " I'm able to pull cinnamon and cardamon notes out of the flavour profile."

That said, I think I'll have another macchiato.