Aviary and Next

Not everyone is crazy about the food coming out of Alinea. I am. I think it's amazing the way they shift the conversation about food to a different perspective. You are invited to disagree, but I'm right. I don't necessarily think they make the best food in the world, or anything so silly and romantic like that, but the
y do have some amazing stuff happening there, and I would love to eat there. Now that the preface is out of the way, the news is this. They are going to do the same with drinks. And apparently time periods. Now that Achatz has solidified Alinea's consistency, he has turned mind to a few other projects as well. Aviary will be their cocktail bar. This is the cocktail bar of the future, ladies and gentlemen. No simple G&T here. Let the video explain.


If you liked that, I highly recommend going to check out the others flicks. Some of the stuff is mind-blowing. I'm a gin and tonic man myself, but I particularly like ol fashion "in the rocks", because I think it's hilarious.

Beyond my rampant alcoholism, there is another story. Next restaurant. No, not next restaurant. "Next" restaurant. Nevermind.

The website is http://nextrestaurant.com/ and the story is as follows. They are going to do dinners exploring places in time. For example, Paris 1912, or Tokyo 1960,or where/whenever. The possibilities are pretty much endless, though I worry about Rome, 200 B.C.E. or something similar, where everything is pretty much fermented beyond recall. I'm sure those fine folks would find a way to make it delicious. Like they made this octopus delicious.

The reason I mention this restaurant as a concept I like is that it pretty much encapsulates a meal as a place in time. I find this doesn't happen at many of today's restaurants, and perhaps that is their biggest failing. It also is, in my opinion, Alinea's biggest strength. A restaurant whose decor, ambiance, and food are all in line with one another will always provide a stronger showing with it's food than one which has no attention to history, and serves fusion in a classical french setting. This isn't a stab at any one restaurant, just a trend I've begun to notice.
People are keen on exploring, and that is important, but so is context. If I went to a sushi parlor in Kyoto and was served minestrone soup, I would sense something amiss, and the soup would suffer for it. This is an integral part of the dining experience. The best way to enjoy Panang Curry is from a hawker in Thailand, eating it on the beach or while the sun rises over a temple. I assure you that this will improve the flavour. Obviously this only applies within reason, but it is an important factor. Next restaurant should be, if done correctly, the pinnacle of this. I'm excited to see what they pull off.

They are also introducing a couple other new contexts to their "performances". You have to buy tickets. It's a full night out, entering another world. The idea is that it is like "dinner and a show" except all in one. Really, Grant is just like a food buddhist, harmonizing everything together. Alright, that's bullshit, but you get the idea.

That is it for now. I'm working on lining up the interviews and getting all the "ducks in a row", as the generation before mine would so randomly put it. See you soon.

Duelling Braises

So service is over, a relatively short and sweet one, but there is one more thing to do. Me and my sous chef have two massive pigs legs sitting next door in the fridge, and they need some long term loving. Braising is one of the nicest parts of cooking, the slow, sensual process of dragging flavour into and out of the victim of the braise. Not only do you get a phenomenal tenderness in any protein, but also a wicked meaty and flavourful liquid out of anything you braise the protein in. One of these pigs legs is going to become a massive ragu, pulled and stewed into our pasta sauce for lunch's papardelle. It's been doused in red wine, tomato paste, and mirepoix, loaded up with mustard and bay, and will be slowly relaxing over the course of tonight in order to fully facilitate our desire to make our pasta delicious.

The other leg is getting what I feel is a more dinstinctly fun approach. Braised with tons of apples and cider, it will become a pork and apple terrine for garde manger. The thing is, folks, that winter is, though apparently not fully upon us, nevertheless arrived. And this necessitates new things in the Domus kitchen. When you are prisoner to the seasons, which I would have no other way, winter is a difficult time for salads. There are no greens to be had, you see. Our beloved suntech tomatoes are done for the year, and even spinach doesn't hold until this point. Thus, we turn to other avenues of food to satisfy those hungry mouths in the dining room. The result: this delightful pig in a bath of aromatics, mirepoix, apples and cider; bobbing along in it's own lovely fashion. I'm supremely excited for this one. I think we'll be fully decking this platter out. It's the first thing I'm doing when I get back from my weekend.

Beer!

So this is a post that was worthy of being posted sometime like a week before christmas. Me and my father made beer, which I may have mentioned before.

Our cider was mediocre at it's highest point. Our beer was all gone in like 2 weeks. We made something like 25 litres, so that statistic is high testament to it's deliciousness. Sadly, it's all over now, but that doesn't stop the promise of the next batch, which will be concocted this evening. Slightly more ambitious in our maturing, we have decided to approach a double oatmeal stout this round, but will be making another batch of the same pale ale as well. This means more beer, almost 50 litres! There shall be a party had by all.

In looking back on our beer, and in light of circumstances this evening, which required me to play MD on a particularly yeasty beast now residing in my fridge, I'm happy. Not only did we successfully create a great beer in our basement, we did it for exceedingly cheap, and even used the garbage. After the beer was a completed endeavor, racked off into bottles to sit, carbonate and get funky, there is an odd sludge remaining at the base of the carboy in which it ferments. This is known as "lees" in wine, though I'm sure beer culture as another more elegant word for it. I decided to see if I could feed it. And feed it I did. And now, An organism lives in my fridge, and takes part in my bread.

A beer starter must be a common enough thing for people to have, but I feel honoured by its presence. Its nice to have something that totally relies on you for survival. Starters need feeding, you see, in the form of water and flour. Today I had to bring it back from the edge of extinction. In all my excitement over the thrill of new years, I had totally neglected my newfound pet. It was shivering, hunched in a corner of the fridge, barely bubbling, almost decrepit. I felt instantly responsible, like if it died, somehow it would be like killing a cat through neglect. How am I ever going to forage the wilds with a trusty wolfhound at my side if I can barely accomplish keeping a starter alive. Currently, it's gorging itself on a pile of flour, and sitting on top of the stove with the oven on, for a little warmth, get things percolating, as it were. Anyways, enough about that.

If this sort of thing gets you going, or you particularly enjoy making the idea or ideals of making bread, please watch that Tartine video in the last post, and possibly even buy his book. Another great little tome on the subject is Sourdough: A recipe for life, by Erin Turcke. I got this handy little edition off of Paul Harber at Ravine Vineyards in Niagara. He's a maniac, and his polemic about Erin being a fellow maniac was enough for me. Here is how much he wanted her on his team. She was baking somewhere else. He said "what do I have to do to get you here?" She said, "build me a brick oven", possibly as a bit of a joke, because it seemed unlikely she was going to make the move or something. He called her when he had it built and she came. Almost biblical, really. Build it and they will come. Moving on, her book is awesome, soulful and chipper to a fault, and very right. It's not at all measurements or anything, mostly feelings and a bit of insight into the process. Very intuitive. Hard to teach that, I suppose.

So, beer and bread, together at last, just like every day in thousands of places all over the world. Hope you enjoy. Happy risings if you decide to make some.

Breaking the silence.

So I'm back after a bout of non-blogging. I doubt anyone is listening anymore, but the blog serves a purpose to remind me as well as inform you, so while there are things worthy of reminiscing on, I will blog.

I've also been inspired to get back on the wagon by Fabian's blog, which he is voraciously posting on, and doing some really interesting thinking and food-ing on. He also recently got put up for a blogger award on Beer and Butter Tarts, a site which generates traffic for both of us, so if you read this, go vote for him!

Whilst perusing my abandoned ambitions this morning, I came across one that I thought was a stellar idea, and have no idea why I abandoned it originally. For those of you surprised by the notion of keeping track of abandoned ambitions, don't be. Or do be, but know that I do it because(as now) some may have future validity, or(as sometimes) it's good to know what you wanted to do at a certain time. I must confess that I also make grandiose plans fairly often, so abandonment is often the only option available. But I digress.
The idea is simple. Interviews. It was what I bought the video camera for, and something I never really tucked into, to use the terminology of the subject at hand. It's a pity, because we met so many amazing people on the trip across, and I feel like it's totally something I would love to do not only for myself, but to personalize the concept of the chef/client relationship. Knowing who cooks your food is almost as important as knowing who grows it! Most victims of poisoning would even testify that it's more important. So I have made this ambition public, in hopes that it spurs me to complete it. Ideally I'll start small, interviewing local chefs, even more ideally in conjunction with either a meal or a stage at their restaurant. This could be a major step in the right direction. Not only will it give YOU(the reader) something to intellectually chew on, it'll help me understand their philosophy more completely, and get a better handle on the different perspectives people bring to food or cooking.

Why, you may ask, did I revisit this idea, brilliant though it may be? Most thoughts require a catalyst of some kind, and this one is no exception. I get to put two plugs in here. One is for Owen Lightly's blog "Butter on the Endive", which, though he posts rather seldom of late, is about as soulful and intimate as you can get. He currently lives in between farms in the hills near Whistler, where he works at Araxi. He loves Italian food, hosts amazing dinners once in a while, plays guitar, and is neighbors with goats. What else do you need to know? The reason I've thrown the man a proverbial "holla" is because he turned me onto this video. One of the more inspiring pieces of cinema I've seen.

Tartine Bread from 4SP Films on Vimeo.

Not only has this video inspired me to bake more of my own bread(more on that later) but it also made me swing through the breads at Domus, and scrounge together what little knowledge I had, plus a bit of help and some thoughts, and put together a happy rye bread recipe that we now use. Took a bit of adjusting, but I'm really happy with the way it's been coming out, and customer feedback has been good.

In case I hadn't announced that yet, I am now working at John Taylor's Domus, and it's a great time. Adjusting a bit to the winter, as produce is scant as it gets at the moment. We literally use parsnips, squash, potatoes, cabbage and a few select others to get us through the white madness that comes this time of year. With that little variety, technical difficulty gets ratcheted up, and you really start to see the varied ways in which things can be used. It's a nice change of pace from the summer, which I understand is basically an inundation of amazing produce from all corners of Canada. I'm excited for that as well, but winter seems a good time to work on my skills. The rest of the updates I have to give, I'll slot into tidy little individual posts for your reading pleasure. I'm likely easier to take in small doses, so please enjoy.

In the spirit of film, I'm going to leave you with a second video I was reminded of when I heard this song today. This is the cast and crew of Atelier plating their fabled Tomatrix dish, something like 30 elements on every plate, the the tune of Abba's "take a chance on me". While I'm on the subject, I've also decided to go eat there, soon. And I would turn you all on to their blog, as they seem to be one of the millions of folks much keener at blogging than myself. Plus, they have a sexy website. With that, I bid you Adieu. Hopefully the videos work! Enjoy.