Früli

I have a weird relationship with alcohol, and it’s embarrassing, sometimes. See, I’m not a drinker. I can go months without tasting alcohol and, as I’ve told Brian (who’s taking his second course for sommelier certification, which makes this non-drinking thing more complicated since he now has more than 100 bottles), if all the booze on the planet disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn’t even blink. Do not drink, never have drunk, never have BEEN drunk (tipsy yeah; drunk, nah), don’t understand the appeal, and most importantly I don’t like the taste of the vast majority of alcoholic beverages. Why anybody would screw up a delicious glass of tomato juice for a Bloody Mary escapes me completely, and the reason I can stomach things like melon martinis or lemon drops is because of how little they taste of booze. But that doesn’t make me a girl drink drunk because even those sissy drinks make me kind of sick after more than one.

Getting back to the subject, how is this a problem? Well, it’s hard to be a grown-up without drinking. Now, what “drinking” means is class- and culture-bound, by which I mean I am not, in the life I live now, going to have to “worry” about getting forced into a Pabst chugging contest. But outside of certain contexts (like among devout Muslims), you just have to drink to be around other grown-ups. I’ve been asked point blank (by an idiot, but still) if I was an alcoholic after I ordered a coke at a bar. I look like a cheapskate to waiters when I order water and always feel compelled to assure them that I am indeed a good tipper, just not a wine enthusiast (and I do think it’s tacky to drink soft drinks at a decent resto, but that’s just me). I can’t appreciate my partner’s most loved hobby (wine), and I just feel like I’m missing out. I envy somebody who can really enjoy craft-brewed ale or fine scotch or wine, because I cannot.

Until now! Because I did something last week that I have never done in my 44+ years on this planet: I, John Manzo, BOUGHT BEER! Not at a bar (I’ve done that plenty of times, and pissed off the bartender because I can make one beer last aaaaaaaallllllllll night because I hate the damn thing so much)- at a liquor store! A place as foreign to me as, well, a rodeo I guess. Yes I am that immature and developmentally stunted. I had never bought beer before last week.

What prompted this important stage in my personal growth? Well, I discovered Früli, which is a strawberry flavoured Belgian beer, when it came as the “wine pairing” with Brian’s dessert at our big dinner at Chef’s Table (check it out a couple of posts below this one) earlier this month. This isn’t a wine cooler. It’s a top-quality Belgian “white beer” that has real strawberry puree (not artificial flavouring or some hyper-sweetened crap) added. It’s freaking delicious. I bought it–by the bottle, $3.49 each–at Liquor Depot on 17th Ave and 11 St SW, and this is pricey stuff because the bottle is teensy:

As all my fans and stalkers know, my hands are freakishly huge and so this pic might be misleadingly making the bottle look smaller than it really is, so this is what the contents look like poured into a 16-oz glass:

Nice strawberry colour eh? But yeah, this is too pricey and wee to get drunk on (though it is 4.8% alcohol, which surprised me a bit). But that’s the best way to enjoy this stuff, right? I mean, I have no interest in getting shitfaced, and so for me, as with coffee, it’s got to be about quality and not quantity. I might drink, sometimes, and that’s cool.

Op uw gezondheid!

“Chinese” food, or, how I stopped worrying and learned to love ginger beef

I remember watching Family Feud (the 1970s-80s version with that creepy Richard Dawson) when I was a teenager and the question was “name a food that kids hate.” Among the usual suspects (broccoli, brussels sprouts) was… Chinese food. Chinese food? I LOVED Chinese food when I was a kid, getting take-out tubs of “fine cut pork chop suey” from New Moon in Munster, Indiana (still listed, 8250 Calumet Avenue), and that taste- the bean sprouts, the sesame oil, the RICE which was like rice never tasted when my mom made it, the smell of the bags full of these exotic goodies when I was lucky enough to be with my parents when they picked it up and the whole car would smell of New Moon… it was beyond pleasurable. It was my first real food ecstasy as a kid and the sort of thing I looked forward to having EVERY SINGLE DAY as a grown up. That and nacho-cheese Doritos with Dr Pepper. So to see this as something that kids stereotypically hated… I was shocked and condemned those little survey respondents for their utter lack of taste

Fast forward to college and my unhappy discovery that what I had enjoyed and lorded over my unwashed peers as a sign of my good taste was… not a sign of good taste at all. What I’d grown up adoring was, in fact, Americanized gwai lo food. Inauthentic crap. And I had to learn to use chopsticks!

And so part of my cultural change that I’ve undergone over the last, oh, 25 years has been to disavow the Chinese food of my youth and to aim for “authenticity.” And now, I’m having second thoughts. We just had a little discussion on chowhound about Calgary ginger beef. Ginger beef is deep-fried, breaded strips of beef that’s tossed in a sticky, sweet/spicy sauce, and done right (so it’s tender), it’s completely delicious. But it was invented in Canada- Calgary even! No self-respecting foodie could enjoy this, right?

Well, chowhound poster “Mawson Plan” had some thought on this. He (she?) writes,

This is a search for Calgarian food so it is both interesting, and predictable that there would be a strong Chinese relation, as Chinatown and Chinese culture is a big part of Calgary. It’s interesting that you can’t get ginger beef in China, but we call it Chinese food. It is interesting to me to think about Calgarian food. I wonder why we don’t celebrate ginger beef like Montrealers do smoked meat, and Philadelphians do cheese steaks.

My reply:

I find your discussion about “Chinese food” really interesting. Part of becoming a “chowhound” is a stage wherein you are taught to denigrate local (especially North American) versions of “Chinese” because of its inauthenticity- but I think that becoming a TRUE chowhound and not a poseur entails learning that every country has its vernacular “Chinese” and they’re all interesting and as varied as the countries themselves.

There is nothing at all wrong with enjoying a particular country’s spin on it, aside from it sometimes being less than healthy, but all things in moderation and all that… I also think it behooves the chowhound to understand a bit about the cuisine’s history and to understand that this dish (Calgary ginger beef, for example) is part of the history of the Chinese diaspora. It’s CHINESE and reflects the adaptability and resourcefulness of Chinese people and their culture, something to celebrate and take seriously. What’s unfortunate are people who EQUATE ginger beef (or in the states things like twice-cooked pork or crab rangoons, “Chinese” things I cannot find in Canada) with “Chinese.” But equally sad are those who refuse something on the basis of its lack of authenticity when what they are doing is ignoring an “authentic” aspect of the Chinese diaspora and an important little nugget of history.

That’s my story now, and I’m sticking to it. I had delicious takes on “Chinese” in Trinidad (well, on Tobago actually) and in Berlin. Seeing these alterations as interesting and really appreciating them as part of the human condition- it’s pure chowhounding. I’ll still do dim sum (with joy!) and am really looking forward to “authentic” experiences next Christmas when we head to Singapore and Malaysia. But I’ll never refuse a nice bowl of chicken fried rice or some ginger beef- or fine cut pork chop suey.

Got goat?

We do.

It’s interesting how little respect goat gets. I don’t mean “goats,” as the happy providers of their delicious, delicious cheese- among the best purveyors are in Alberta (and Alberta makes damn fine cheese from all sorts of teets):

I mean goat. The meat. Goat. I’ll admit to having been skittish about eating the little guys for a long time- I got to avoid goat roti because Brian once told me that a sure mark of non-Trini wannabe was that they order goat to look all authentic, so I’d refuse it because, you know, I’m honourary Trini and have nothing to prove. But over the last year or so I’ve had some delectable goat, especially the loud, spicey goat chops from the Pakistani miracle workers at Calgary’s cheap and cheerful Mirchi (see “places I like” for location). I had not arrived at the place where I’d be comfortable cooking it. Until now.

Brian was looking forward to entertaining friends last week and like he always does he decided to spring a new recipe on them (I’ve never known anybody else who experiments on houseguests, but that’s part of what’s special about my special guy). He fell on one for “pappardelle with milk-roasted baby goat ragu,” culled from the July 2007 issue of Food and Wine. We couldn’t find “baby” goat so we got some chops (I think it was chops) from one of Calgary’s many halal butchers. Otherwise the recipe is straightforward if time-consuming (the sauce has to rest overnight, and it takes several hours to cook in the oven prior to that), and the end result was magnificent. Served on some really nice pappardelle (sort of a wider fettuccine), it is RICH RICH RICH, with a taste and texture I’d compare to beef short ribs. But definitely different. A little gamy, yes, but it was a huge hit.

Thing is, we made a tonne of this stuff, and I thought we’d just serve the rest with pasta. But I thought, why not tacos? Mexico has a strong goat-astic tradition and any meat is a tortilla’s friend- and this stuff is already shredded and seasoned. So I went for it, with the lovely corn tortillas from Tres Marias at the Calgary Farmers’ Market:

Which I heated up on a greased pan. I heated a portion of the goat ragu in the microwave, and lashed this liberally with lime and sambal oelek. I had to this because the meat is so cloyingly rich that it needs acid and spice to cut through it, especially (it seems) after a few days in the fridge. On top, I shredded a little cabbage and added some pickled onions that Brian made for a salad for the same dinner last week. End result, on paper towels to absorb oil from the greasy pan:

Very, very nice. What I wonder from this attempt is (1) why goat isn’t more popular, and (2) why there aren’t more taco places in Calgary. Even with a relative lack of Mexicans here, tacos are just dead easy. Real tacos, I mean, with real corn tortillas. They’re impossible to screw up as long as the meat’s good- and this meat was!

Our 13th at The Chef’s Table, Kensington Riverside Inn

So 13 years ago today I met Brian on a conference trip to Toronto (at the time, I was living in Lexington, Kentucky, wrapping up a two-year postdoc), and since it was, pretty much, love at first sight, we count this date as our “anniversary.” We were married on August 8, 2003 but think of June 1, 1995 as the date it all started. To celebrate, we went to a new restaurant, The Chef’s Table at the Kensington Riverside Inn, a 19-room “boutique inn”–too small to be a “hotel” and too big to be a “bed and breakfast”–on Kensington Road just west of 10th Street NW in, of course, the Kensington neighbourhood. We had plans to see a flick at Fairy Tales (Calgary’s queer film fest, now in its 10th year and going/growing strong) at the Plaza, had heard good things about Chef’s Table, so we booked for 6:30, expecting we’d make it through a six-course tasting menu in plenty of time for the 9:30 screening.

It was one of the best meals of my life.

First, the setting is gorgeous. It’s a revamping of what had been the Inn’s “breakfast room” and a chunk of the lobby. In the lobby is a lounge:

But as we were an pretty early seating we headed straight into the resto proper, a cozy room with nine tables; by my count it could seat around 30:

The kitchen is open and amazingly spacious for such a small room:

Service was friendly, professional, prompt, knowledgeable. Perfect. They had got word that it was our anniversaire and treated us to an avant-dinner prosecco. Salut!

Okay, to the food. We started with an amuse of foie gras on buttery grilled brioche, which was rich and perfectly competent (not to mention one hell of a pricey amuse). It was nice, especially since Brian had told them about his aversion to fatty fish (eg salmon) and salmon was in fact the amuse that other diners got. I can handle salmon but am much happier with foie! I neglected to take a shot of it, but did get our first course, which was what told us that we were in line for a really special meal. It was a dungeness crab salad with heirloom tomato, microgreens and watermelon with tomato “water.” It was EXPLOSIVE and the star of this dish was tomato (not the crab, which really carried the tomato) like I’ve never tasted it:

This dish was a revelation, and we both asked for spoons to drink up every drop of the “water.” Next up: another salad (ooh! daring!) with baby purple artichoke, Pecorino Toscana, frisee and a lemon caper dressing:

Some of the chokes were a little woody but the dressing, with the Pecorino, was very good. It was however probably the one dish that I think needs rethinking, just because artichoke can be unpleasant, and the other ingredients were superb. Plain frisee with this treatment would have been delicious.

Next: Charred Pacific OCTOPUS. This was the dish that changed my life. I’ve only ever had octopus in sushi (”tako”) and it’s always been rubbery and, frankly, horrible. I’ve never had it cooked and had no idea what to expect. Well, it was tender and glorious! I have a hard time describing the texture: It’s not like any seafood I’ve had. It’s meaty and yielding but still firm. I actually think that it’s almost like asparagus, if that makes any sense (and I know it doesn’t)- just try it. Here’s this gorgeous thing:

It’s piled together with olives, fennel, and garlic in a sauce made with preserved lemon among other ingredients.

Palate cleanser next, an apricot sorbet:

… which was nice, apricot-y. After a little breather came another magnificent course, which was pan-seared pheasant breast with asparagus (white and green), MORELS (yay!) and crispy potato on the bottom. The morels were “fire morels,” and all I can say is: well played, pine beetles, well played. We were both audibly moaning with this one:

Oh oh, I forgot to mention, somewhere in there (after the second salad I think) we got “bread.” It was served with a sweet lemon butter that had been brought to our table early on and just sat there- it was tempering. I asked jokingly (but not really) why there is butter on the table and was informed that bread comes out almost as a course unto itself, and rightly so, because this was moist and sweet and deserved its own stage. A picture cannot do it justice but suffice to say that I asked for more:

OKAY. Now Chef’s Table allows diners (for the tasting menu) to add a cheese course (as well as wine pairings, of course- Brian went for those naturally), and we took them up on it; we got a blue and a brie with shallot chutney, rainforest crisps and a little pile of frisee. Lovely and light enough (we split it), but sorry no pics.

Dessert was the capper and was magnificent: ricotta mousse with poached Okanagan cherries and lemon curd (and another sauce- cherry, I think) sprinkled with fresh thyme. Sweet, tart, even a little savoury, a great end to a perfect meal:

Okay, this has been a long post so I’ll end with the happy couple!

Thanks to chef Theo Yeaman, Fraser Abbott at Hotel Arts/Kensington Riverside, and the amazing staff (I should have paid closer attention to names, sorry!) for making this evening so special.

Oh- the film was about the making of a Colt Studios gay porn feature, and it was fun and sexxxy! Exposed: The Making of a Legend and we got to meet the filmmaker too. Great night!

Mis tacos son deliciosos

I posted a little while ago on chowhound about how thrilled I was about a new “pretty darn authentic” Mexican place opening at the Calgary Farmers’ Market, and as it turned out, the place lasted about three weeks. This was a tragedy for this taco- and burrito-deprived city (never mind flautas, enchiladas, flan, etc etc), one that has myriad immigrants from pretty much everywhere except Mexico it seems. Canada as a whole is piss-poor for Mexican coast to coast to coast (I grew up in thrall of a ton of real Mexican food prepared by real Mexicans, in the Chicago area, not that I was a connoisseur as a kid, but I could have been if I’d wanted to be), and I guess that if we want anything like Mexican (or Tex-Mex or Cal-Mex), we have to make do on our own, and today, I did just that.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere in my blog, Brian is the real cook in this house, but sometimes I get inspired. Today we bought some nice boned/skinned chicken thighs from the salubrious T and T Supermarket in Harvest Hills (yes this is an Asian market, bear with me) , and seeing that we had a pack of 10 corn tortillas in the freezer, I decided to try tacos. Here’s how I did it:

1. I sauteed a couple of small thinly-sliced onions and four minced garlic cloves in some peanut oil in a chef’s pan.

2. After the onions/garlic seemed a little limp, I added good tablespoonful of Doña Maria brand Pipian paste. Pipian is a kind of mole made with pumpkin seeds and no chocolate, not that I had any idea of what it was when I bought it (at Boca Loca Mexican Grocery, not at T and T); it’s mild but with lots of flavour. I also added about a teaspoon of sambal oelek, and yes I know this is getting ridiculously “fusion” but I used what we had in the cupboard.

3. I tossed in the chicken thighs, chopped, and sort of stir-fried this mixture for a couple of minutes.

4. Then I added, slowly, about a cup of water. Bubble bubble, the sauce is lookin’ and smellin’ good! After a bit, I turned the burner off and covered this rich-looking stew.

5. I wanted to put shredded cabbage on my tacos but had no cabbage, so I did a desperate thing: I sliced some brussels sprouts thinly and sauteed them in a different pan for a bit. And wow, what a nice way to prepare brussels sprouts, makes them nice and sweet and pretty bright green too.

6. I chopped some cilantro too…

7. Ready to assemble now: First, make the tortillas (CORN tortillas please!) warm and pliable by heating them–this is my suggestion–over an open flame. You can heat them in a greased pan, on a griddle or enchilada-style in a bath of hot oil, but this worked well. Second, if you like, sprinkle a little cheese (queso fresco or monterey jack or just plain mozzo which is what we had), or not, on the warm tortillas (trad tacos are double tortilla-ed); then I added a nice big spoonful of the stewed chicken mixture; then a good squeeze of LIME (never lemon!); then a few pinches of the green stuff.

MAN this worked! It was delicious, one of my proudest culinary moments, and a resourceful one at that. Here’s what the finished product(s) looked like:

Okay, there is cabbage on there, because Brian let me know that there was indeed cabbage in the fridge and cut some up for these… also, single tortillas but that’s how likes them. Still, happy times- who needs a “real” taqueria?