what does Emmy Lou Harris and Etran Finatawa have in common?

Cooking at La Cuisine, Chapter 2

For the most part, all the performers eat with the volunteers. They eat the same food in the same blue and white tent as all of us. On some occasions we have performers who request special meals. They might cite health reasons, religious reasons, cultural differences, but for whatever reasons they give we try to accommodate. This performers are on the road for a large part of their lives and it is important for themselves to keep themselves healthy and happy. Sometimes, the "green room" crew takes care of the performers food. Sometimes they come to me.

This year, i was asked to make fish for Emmy Lou Harris. "Anything but salmon, she is sick of salmon", I was told. So I thought, because she is in Manitoba, i'll cook her pickerel. I wanted to keep the fish in the same flavour profiles as the rest of the dinner, so I floured the pickerel with chick pea flour that i seasoned with a little cumin, and then served it with lime and chives.

A couple of days later, we were asked to make a special meal for Etran Finatawa, a band from Niger. When they came for lunch, they asked for rice. The chicken in salsa verde was going to be good, but they needed lots of rice. So Danielle ran out front (in our little golf cart) and got rice from the East India Company. For dinner, I was asked to make a meat curry and a veg curry with lots of rice. That evening, we were serving a greek inspired dinner with grilled lamb and an eggplant moussaka. So I took the ingredients and twisted them to make a lamb curry, an eggplant and chick pea curry and rice (this time we made the rice).

Emmy Lou Harris's Chick Pea Flour Pickerel

4 boneless fillets of Manitoba pickerel

1/2 cup chick pea flour

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp salt

pinch of cayenne

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

1 tsp lime zest

1 tbsp chopped chives (or green onion)

lime segments

1. combine flour with cumin, salt and cayenne. Dredge pickerel in this mixture

2. heat oil in a pan and add butter.

3. fry pickerel on one side for about a minute and a half. flip and fry the other side for the same.

4. Sprinkle pickerel with chives and lime zest. serve with lime segments.

Etran Finatwa's Lamb Curry

2 lbs boneless lamb leg, cut into stew sized pieces

1 medium onion, diced

1 stalk celery, chopped

1 carrot, sliced

1 jalapeno, stemmed and chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp ginger minced

1 tsp curry powder

1 tsp cumin

1 cinnamon stick

dried chilies (as hot as you like it)

1/2 cup raisins

2 cups water or stock

1 tbsp chopped fresh mint

1 tbsp chopped cilantro

1. In a heavy bottomed pot brown the lamb. Do this in batches so you get nice colour. remove lamb from pot.

2. add onions carrots and celery to pot and cook till onions start to brown. Add spices and cook for a couple minutes. Put lamb back in pot. Add all the remaining ingredients except the mint and cilantro. Stew lamb on low heat for about 2 hours. (If you are a slow cooker type, this would work great in one of those) until it is very tender.

3. mixed chopped herbs into stew. serve with rice.

Etran Finatawa Eggplant and Chick Pea Curry

1 tbsp oil

1 large eggplant, cut into 1 inch dice

1 small onion, diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 jalapeno, minced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tbsp curry powder

1 tsp coriander seed

chilies to taste

1 can chickpeas, drained, or one cup dried chick peas soaked and cooked

1 cup apple juice

1. in heavy pot sauté onions and peppers until onions are caramelized a little. Add eggplant and spices, sauté for a few minutes.

2. Add chickpeas and apple juice. Cover and simmer for about 1/2 an hour. Veggies should be tender and all the flavours nicely combined. Serve this with rice

Cooking at la Cuisine

Bison Short Ribs with Maple and Chipotle

700kg bison short ribs (6000 pieces)

24 cans chipotle in adobo

2 x 4L jugs maple syrup

12 x 4L jugs pancake syrup

6 x 4L jugs soy sauce

4 x 50lbs yellow onions

500 ml salt

500 ml chili powder

500 ml pepper

12 x 100oz cans ketchup

60L water

1. Dice onions. Puree chipotle in adobo.

2. place shortribs in 18"x24" tinfoil pans. You will need about 80 pans.

3. combine onions, chipotle, syrups, soy sauce ketchup and spices.

4. pour syrup mixture into pans on top of short ribs. Cover pans with tin foil.

5. Put pans in Hot Hot Hots set at 275F overnight. Roast until falling off the bone tender.

This is a typical recipe of La Cuisine. We are the people who feed all the performers, volunteers staff and special guests of the Winnipeg Folk Festival. This amounts to about 4000 meals, three times a day for five days. In between meals and late at night we offer a continuous stream of snacks. We run the kitchen with a crew of about 250 volunteers. Some of these people are chefs, but most of them are teachers, social workers, mechanics and any thing but a cook.

Hummus

folk fest size normal person batch

48 100 oz cans chickpeas 1 28oz can chickpeas

12 Litres tahini 1/4 cup tahini

6 L olive oil 1/2 cup olive oil

5 L lemon juice 1/3 cup lemon juice

2 kg garlic, minced 1 clove garlic, minced (or more)

750 ml cumin 1 tsp cumin

250 ml paprika 1/3 tsp paprika

125 ml cayenne pinch cayenne

500 ml salt 2/3 tsp salt (to taste)

1. puree chickpeas with tahini.

2. add lemon juice, garlic and spices. puree.

3. with food processor going, drizzle in olive oil to emulsify.

4. serve with grilled pita and olives

One week before the folk festival begins, we have no kitchen. A crew comes in to set us up with 16 bbq's, 8 rented flat top grills, 5 coke coolers, 50 or so folding banquet tables, and 6 hot hots. The hot hots are ovens (of my invention) that were built by the hutterites for us. They are 6 feet tall, 5 feet wide and three feet deep. They are made of heavy industrial strength steel. The racks inside are made out of rebar. These ovens are heated with tiger torches that we stick in the bottom. The first three I had built used one torch per oven. Fully cranked, these would heat to about 325F. We call these the hot hot hots. The second set of three, I had set up to use 2 tiger torches per oven. These heat up to about 500F. We call these the über-hots. Our refrigeration comes in the way of 2 53' reefer trailers and one 30' freezer trailer.

Three Bean Salad

normal person batch

1 can kidney beans

1 can chick peas

1 bag frozen green beans (or 1 lb fresh green beans trimmed, blanched and cooled)

1 stalk celery

2 green onions

few sprigs of parsley

dressing:

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup red wine vinegar

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp paprika

pinch dried chilies

1/4 tsp fennel seed

1. chop celery, onion and parsley. drain and rinse beans

2, combine dressing ingredients.

3. toss beans and veggies with dressing. This is best if you make it a day before you need to serve it.

Our kitchen was started 36 or so years ago by a man named Harry Paine. He established a tradition of serving a very high calibre of cuisine. He and folk fest founder Mitch Podolak felt that if you fed performers and volunteers well, they would be happier, they would work harder, they would come back the next year and and they might even work for less money. So, carrying on the tradition, we can't get away with serving chili and hot dogs for 5 days in a row. We put together a menu that includes things like bbq leg of lamb, lentil mousskka, jerk chicken, pulled pork with biscuits and gravy, wild rice casserole, and meatloaf (both a meat version and a veggie version with mushroom "un-gravy"). We need to make sure we have food for meat lovers, vegetarians, vegans, people with gluten or lactose intolerance and a wide range of allergies and religious restrictions. Each meal is centered around a theme or a culinary style. Friday lunch we had perogies and farmer sausage. Saturday lunch with set up a taco bar with black beans, chicken in salsa verde or slow roasted pork "carnitas". Our desserts include maple blueberry creme brulee (done with a tiger torch), upside down chocolate pudding cake, and something I called "fake baklava". On sunday we did a brunch with bacon, sausage, hash browns, cheesy scrambled eggs, fruit salad and a baked apple pancake.

Baked Apple Pancake

1 cup apple pie filling (store bought, or if you are feeling fancy, sautee apples with brown sugar, butter and a pinch of cinnamon)

3 eggs

1 cup milk

1 cup flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/4 cup white sugar

1 tbsp cinnamon

1. in a greased 9 x 13" pan spread apple pie filling.

2. combine eggs, milk, flour and baking powder. DO NO OVERMIX.

3. spread pancake batter over apple pie filling

4. bake in a 400F oven for 15 minutes until puffy, firm and golden brown.

5. combine cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle over pancake.

Cinnamon Cider Syrup

1 cup apple juice or cider

2 cups brown sugar

1 cinnamon stick

1. combine all ingredients. Bring to a boil and simmer until "syrupy".

2. serve warm with baked aple pancake.

So this, my friends, is how I spent my summer holidays. In order to feed all these people, I build a recipe book (actually a data base) of 103 recipes. I have included just a small sampling. If you want specific recipes, or menus, just leave a comment on this blog and I will add your requested recipe to this page. Thanks, see you all at the festival next year!!!

I would like to thank all of our volunteers for their hard work. I would like to thank the folk festival staff for their support. I would like to thank our suppliers for their products and donations. And I would like to thank all of you volunteers and performers for enjoying our food and for making us feel so good about it. Thank You, happy Folk Fest!

Haute Campfire, vol. 1

How to elevate your campsite fare.

Alright happy campers, there is more to campfire cooking than weiners roasted on sticks, beans straight out of the can and s’mores. The beauty of campfire cooking is that everything you make tastes better. So if you are an alright cook at home, you will be awesome out here. To make life easier, I always pack little ziploc bags with spices. I make blends, my mexican blend with chilies, cumin and coriander, my imediterranean blend with oregano, rosemary, thyme, you get the idea. I also make little baggies of pancake batter, bannock dough, pizza dough and the like. You can mix all the dry ingredients, (including instant yeast) and the fat and then you just need to add water at the campsite. Be careful if you have to cross the border, there might be some ‘splainin’ to do.

One real quick meal is asian noodles It can all be done in one pan, and you can use whatever veggies and meats you have on hand. (at the folk fest camground, you can go get some veggies from our little porduce stand, a luxury you don’t have when camping in the deep dark woods) When I camp, I always like to bring a bag of frozen cleaned and deveined shrimp. It keeps your cooler cold, and can be turned into a light snack or quick meals. Those little tetra packs of tofu are great for the campsite as well.. To make campsite chow mein, slice up your veggies into bite size pieces. You want to take advantage of the campfire’s quick unpredictable heat so slice everything fairly thin. If you are using beef or chicken, slice it thin, shrimp is right out of the bag. tofu cut into ½ inch bricks. You can also crack open a can of chick peas or kidney beans if that is what you have. Heat you frying pan over the fire. Pour in a little oil. Quickly sautee your protein, add your veggies. If you brought ginger, garlic or chilies add it now. Now here’s the trick, you need to save those little pacakges of soy sauce you get with chinese takeout. Add some soy sauce to the pan and a little splash of ketchup (everyone always has ketchup at the campsite). The ketchup adds as little sweetness, some tang and that glossy chinese stirfry look. Now add your noodles. I like those little mini packs of steamed udon noodles, or those steamed chow mein egg noodles work great. Try to get a noodle that is already fully cooked. Even you instant ”mr. noodles” would work. Add a splash of water or apple juice to heat the noodles and make a sauce. Garnish your noodles with a little toasted peanuts, trail mix or everyone’s camprgound favourite “gorp” for a little texture.

I love to do Huevos Rancheros on the campfire. You use salsa to protect your egg from the inconsistent heat of the campfire. To make, heat salsa in a frying pan. When it comes to a low boil drop in one or more eggs. Poach to desired doneness. If it is getting too hot, remove pan from heat. It will continue to poach with its own heat. Heat up a toritlla on the side of the grill. Drop egg and some salsa onto the tortilla. Garnish with cheese, lettuce, tomato, green onion, or whatever you have.

For something more substantial, I make cast iron cassoulet. Grill sausages, whatever sausages you may have. Sautee bacon and onions in a cast iron pan. add a sprig of thyme or rosemary. Add tomatoes, the grilled sausage and canned beans. (you can use white beans, black beans or even libby’s brown beans). Season with salt and pepper. Then take some bread crumbs, or crumble up some stale bread and mix it wth butter. Sprinkle crumb on top of cassoulet. Classic french cooking over a campfire!

For dessert, here is a great cast iron rocky road brownie recipe. In a bowl mix 6 tablespoons cocoa, 1 cup sugar, and ¼ tsp salt (you could have this all done ahead in a little baggie) Mix in ½ cup vegetable oil or butter with 2 eggs. Grease your heaviest pan with oil or butter. I like to bring a cast iron pan camping, In the pan toast about ½ cup nuts. You can use walnuts, pecans, peanuts, whatever you have. Get the nuts nice and hot, because these will help cook the batter from the inside out. Spread batter into the pan. Sprinkle with with chocolate chips and mini marshmallows. If you have any caramel candies, throw those in as well. You can even add broken up cookies or chocolate bars. The whole thing is going to look like a mess, but will taste fantastic. Keep pan away from the hottest flame and when the batter is about half cooked remove from the heat and cover with a large plate, pizza pan or tin foil. Let the heat of the pan fininsh cooking the batter. Dig in!

A horse is a horse, of course, of course

I think I need to talk about my decision to serve horse meat at Bistro 7 1/4. To begin, I want all of you to know, this is not a decision I made lightly. Many of the things I do are spontaneous or whimsical, but this decision is something I have been wrestling with for 2 years.

Personally, I don't have any problem eating horse meat. (I will get in to my own reasons shortly.) But serving horse meat has stirred up some controversy. I have a very good customer who informed me she would not be coming to our restaurant as long as we have horse meat on the menu. Another customer, who owns horses, joked after finishing his meal here that he would have to go home and count his horses. There was a little on line discussion about the ethics of horse meat on our facebook page. Other customers have been excited by it and have wanted to try it. Those who try it, enjoy it.

Before I get into this discussion, I want to tell you a little story about rabbits. I was serving rabbit pot pie as a lunch special one day. When a customer heard what the special was, she started to cry, told us she had rabbits for pets, and walked out. I don't know if she ever returned. What I wanted to say to her was that although people have rabbits as pets, the rabbits I was serving were not anyone's pets. These rabbits were raised for food in the same way we raise chicken, pigs and cows for food.

Eating horse meat is perfectly acceptable in some cultures, and totally taboo in others. France, has restaurants devoted to the preparation and service of horsemeat; but just across the channel in England the idea of eating horse is horrific. The United States has predominantly followed the English example. In Canada, it is a little more complicated. English speaking Canada is generally opposed to the use of horse meat, but in Quebec it is far more acceptable. All through the world, you will find examples where horse is accepted and counter-examples where it is strictly forbidden.

In a multi-cultural society, we are always dealing with the questions of what is acceptable and what is taboo. For Jews and Muslims, eating pig is taboo. Hindus don't eat cow. Very few of us, eat bugs, although that is a common food staple in much of the world. I don't think i could eat the meat of a dog, but if i was in a place where it was culturally acceptable would i turn it down? For some of my customers, eating any meat at all is wrong.

I guess what it comes down to is the ethical choices we make as individuals, and the lines that we draw for ourselves. Every time you put food in your mouth, you make an ethical choice. And these choices are complex. Is it organic? Was it humanely raised? Does its production or shipping harm the environment? How much was the farmer paid for his work? Was the farmer treated fairly? Who are we supporting by paying for this food? The list goes on.

The ethical decision includes what species of animal we are okay with. I believe, that if you are willing to eat one type of animal, you should be able to eat any type. I say this, but i know that I would draw a line somewhere. And that's what it is all about. Where do you draw the line? Some people eat fish, but not fowl. Some eat no meat, but dairy and eggs are fine. Others avoid all animal products. And others, eat whatever you put in front of them.

As a restaurant owner and chef, I make ethical decisions about what I will serve every day. I don't always make the right one. Sometimes price, convenience or expedience wins out over the "right" choice. Sometimes the "right" choice isn't clear. I may have conflicting "goods". Which is better, organic lettuce grown 2000 miles away shipped in plastic bags or non-organic lettuce grown a few miles down the road with the mud still on the roots? I choose to buy much of my meat from local farmers. I choose, for the most part, fish that is considered sustainable. I use eggs that come from free run chickens. I support small, local grocers.

But once I have made the menu, the ethical decisions don't stop with me. You, the customer get to make those choices in what you order. If you think eating pork is wrong, then you will choose not to order it. Some people come to my restaurant, the "home-of-giant-grilled-hammer-chop", and order strictly vegetarian food. Some vegans come, and trust me to make them some thing special. Maybe you like duck but think foie gras is wrong. Then I suggest you order the duck and not the foie. Maybe you choose to only order organic wines.

And so, if you come in and I am serving horse, don't get upset with me. Just don't order it. If no one orders horse, it won't stay on the menu very long.

Is it wrong to serve or eat horse? I don't think so. At least it is no more or less wrong than eating cow or any other animal. So back to the question of why I put horse on the menu. Partly because it is a tasty, healthy meat. But I guess i wanted to engage in this very debate. The horse meat controversy is a catalyst for a lively debate about the ethics of food.

So, I invite any of you to come down to talk to me, email me (chef@sevenandaquarter.ca) or post comments on this blog. This conversation is worth having.

Everyday I make choices, I don't always make the right ones. But I sure do think about them a lot. And I guess that is my point. We all need to think about the food we put in our mouth.

Too many rants, not enough time

So I have been paralyzed! Too many things to talk about that I can't decide where to start.

1. potato-gate, i was going to write about how the big bully Peak of the Market, yes, the guy who talks into carrots, was oppressing the small farmer, the small grocer and the small restaurants who want to buy direct from the growers. But before i got to my computer, peak of the market met with the potato coalition people and made concessions to allow small producers to sell root crops with out restriction. (Thank you to the Shreimers, the Crampton's, Tall Grass Prairie and Ben Kramer and all the rest who lead the charge) I did get a letter back from our premier's office 4 days after the issue had been resolved, saying he would forward my letter to Stan Struthers, Ag minister.

2. Iron Chef Centrex, My team was brilliant but were crushed in the final. I was going to post a play by play, but some of the highlights include turkey skin short bread, rabbit ice cream, smoked chicken wings in a butternut bbq sauce-hanging over smoking coals, rabbit baby back ribs, butternut ravioli with butternut chutney, zucchini sangria...

3. Rapid Transit, not really a food issue, but it sounds like the city is building a bus path from downtown to my restaurant. 170 million to increase my traffic. I think i need more seats! But really, if we are going to spend money on rapid transit, shouldn't it be useful?

4. M.L.C.C , oh don't get me started!

5. Milk, it is easier to buy crystal meth than to get milk from a cow. This was going to spin into a tale of how the man (government) is so concerned about "protecting us" that they interfere with our ability to make informed choices. The people become like children...

6. Horsemeat why is it okay to eat some animals and not others? Why would rabbit pot pie make one woman cry and leave the restaurant but a chicken sandwich is perfectly fine? How do you decide what is ethical? I try to come down to two questions, Is the animal humanely raised and slaughtered? Is it sustainable? but what other issues are there?

7. Complaints and forgiveness, so many people don't complain in a restaurant cause they "don't want to cause trouble". The problem is that if you don't complain we can't fix it. If we can't fix it you will leave with a negative impression of the restaurant and then you will tell your friends how much we suck. If we can fix it, you will be happy and we will be happy. If i overcook your steak, let me make you a new one. Once you have complained, and it has been addressed, forgive us. We all make mistakes and in a busy restaurant it is hard to always be at %100.

8. %110, you can't give anyone %110. all you got is %100 percent. i was at a hotel that promised that if your room wasn't %110 clean you would get your room for free. I wanted to take them up on this, because no room could ever bee %110 anything. I could spin this rant into the overuse of meaningless cliches. Doesn't anyone have new words? hey, it is what it is.

9. waiting for your table: When you go to your dentist, and arrive on time, you expect to wait 1/2 an hour before you are brought in to see anyone. At a restaurant, why do people get annoyed when they have to wait 10 minutes for their table? At least at the restaurant, you can have a cocktail while you wait. They should have martini bars in medical offices!

10. Chew your Food why is it that in north america, the true test of the quality of a piece of meat is how soft it is. Are we too lazy to chew? Every piece of meat needs to be as tender as boneless, pumped, chicken breasts. This really limits the types of things a chef can do. Personally, i don't mind a piece of food that is a little "toothsome".

11. How Much Does Your Food Cost? I wanted to talk about what it costs a restaurant to put food in front of you, and let you in on the secret of how little money the owner actually gets to take home. I am concerned with restaurant reviews that focus largely on price, particularly when the reviewers sense of current prices is a little out of date. Food costs, labour costs, rental prices, and utility costs have all gone up in the past few years, and menu prices have to go up accordingly. My favourite customer comment is "32 for a rack of lamb", I can get one at safeway for $8. Yes sir, you could, but it is not quebec lamb, it doesn't come with a herb crust, potatoes, veg and a sauce, you would have to buy it, prepare it, serve it, pour wine, play music, wash the dishes and mop the floor when you left. You are not doing all this for $8. I think for my next blog, coming soon to a computer near you, will start here. I guess I want all of the dining public to understand that restaurant owners want you to get value for your dollar, and want you to leave happy and satisfied.

veal brains and fresh chick peas

Just got back from Montreal. Actually, it was two weeks ago, but time sure flies. I was looking at my last post and realized I haven's posted since December. Sorry about that, i am not a very reliable blogger it seems. Well anyway, here goes:

Veal Brains and Fresh Chickpeas

Visiting the markets in montreal always makes me weep. Tears of joy, yes, but tears of longing as well. We were in Montreal for 3 days and we visited 2 different markets. At Jean Talon we visited Olives et epices. Every spice you have ever read about in fancy cooking magazines. not only that, but they have a spice smelling station and an olive oil tasting bar.

Still at Jean Talon, I visited a butcher that raises pigs on Iles de Madeleine. A six hour boat ride, followed by a 15 hour car ride brings to the market a beautifully rustic selection of cured pork products. Tender head cheese, not overdone

with gelatin, sea salt cured bacon, rillettes and cretons, terrines made with hearts and kidneys, and a selection of beautiful dried sausage. We tried a spicy, very spanish tasting chorizo and an incredible dry liver sausage. The eighteen year old girl behind the counter, un-like the stereotypical apathetic teenager we have grown to expect, was passionate and knowledgeable about the products she was purveying. This one, she says, starts off tasting like sweet pork, then you get the liver taste, then you get a hit of spice. She let us try a piece, and you know

what, she was right. Back in winnipeg, I gave a few slices of this particular sausage to a good customer of mine. This gentleman, born in Hungary, man of the world having lived in both Paris and Rome, said that this was the best sausage he had ever tasted.

Our day was not yet done. We had heard from the cooks at Au Pied de Cochon, that they had picked up some fresh chick peas at Jean talon market just the other day. I have never even seen fresh chick peas! So we went looking. Exploring the produce section was incredible. Vendor after vendor selling beautiful fresh produce. We saw baby squashes, yellow and white carrots, wild mushrooms, bright red tomatoes that smelt like tomatoes, dandelion greens, salsify, golden beets, fingerling potatoes and more. And then we found the fresh chick peas. In my life, chick peas come in a can or dried. These, looked like little pale, slightly fuzzy, pea pods. Each pod had one or maybe 2 chick peas. They looked like chick peas, but were a pale green. Their flavour was a revelation. Yes, they had the flavour of a chick pea, but this was combined with the fresh green taste of a garden pea.

We finished of our day with the frothiest cappucinnos I've ever seen.

The next day, we hopped on the metro and went to the Atwater market. Again, we were blown away by the produce sellers. Remember, this is February in Montreal. As in Winnipeg, there is still a foot of snow on the ground. This produce is not coming from the neighbouring farms. Yet it is so important to these green grocers to only showcase the best. Not only is the produce fresh and healthy looking, it is displayed in beautiful ways. Individual pint cartons of baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, baby squashes, haricot verts and more are all arranged to create a painting with colour and texture.

Our day at Atwater always begins with a stop at the bakery. We go for cafe au lait served in a bowl and pain au chocolat (chocolate filled croissants) . We go their with the clear intention of having pain au chocolat, but we are always tempted to have the apricot pastries, or the almond frangipane tarts, or the eclairs... It takes a great deal of willpower to stick to the plan. After shopping for a couple of hours, we always return to the same bakery for a light lunch of terrines, pates, rillettes and local microbrewed beer.

After breakfast we check out the butchers. The second floor of the market is taken up by 6 or 8 butcher shops. Each one has more variety than anything we have in Winnipeg. Although they all have a wide range of products they all have a focus; one will do veal, the next duck, the next wild game. The first one we visited was clearly into sausages. In addition to a wide range of cured, dried and smoked sausages, they had 60 distinct flavours of fresh sausage: wild b

oar with red wine, broccoli and cheddar, cauliflower and bacon, spinach, maple you name it. Another butcher we visited had all kinds of duck confit, foie gras terrines, duck rilletes, pates and whole lobes of fresh foie. Another shop had ready to go meats. Beautifully garnished roasts of veal, pork or bison all tied, seasoned and ready to go in the oven. All decorated with elegant cuts of vegetable, fruit or charcuterie. Another shop had cuts of local veal. Not just chops and cutlets, but necks, cote de veau, shanks, liver etc. Every shop had its own boudin noir (blood pudding). My favourite was the one that was cooked and packed in duck fat. One shop had a whole shelf of thinly sliced, cured meats: duck prosciutto, air cured venison, salted beef. Just when I thought I had seen everything, I came to one shop that had in their cooler: fresh quails, fresh sweetbreads, fresh lamb kidneys and fresh veal brains. This is stuff you rarely find in

Winnipeg, and when you do, its always frozen. What struck me at that moment, was that people around here must eat this stuff. You wouldn't keep fresh veal brains on hand if you didn't know someone was going to buy them.

Our next stop, was the cheese shop. Here, we go a little crazy. We purchased about twenty different cheeses. Most of them raw milk from quebec. Hard nutty cheeses, outrageously stinky cheeses, bloomy rind goat cheeses, salty blue cheeses, old raw cheddars and runny bries. The people who work there clearly love cheese. They enthusiastically offer us cheeses to try. They will shrink wrap them for us for the flight, and will be sure to be gentle with the soft cheeses.

And then our last stop is always the little gourmet grocer. Here we struggle to decide which of the hundred types of mustard we should buy. How many different salts do we need? Do we bring home some crazy pastas, some beluga lentils, some white truffle honey? We buy a bottle of elderflower cordial, some violet syrup and some hibiscus flowers packed in syrup.

And then, fully laden down, we hop onto the metro and return to our hotel.

When we return from Montreal people always ask us, where did you go? what did you do? where did you eat? When we tell them we spent most of our time in the markets they think we are pretty lame. But if I went to Montreal, and the only thing i did was go to the market, i'd be happy.

So I can hear you all asking, "where's the rant, Alex?" My blogs usually have a bit of a ranty tone to them. When i publish my first cookbook, it will be subtitles "recipes, ramblings and rants of chef alex" So far, i have presented a sweet travelogue of my trip to Montreal. So here we go:

Why can't we have a year round in-door market in winnipeg?

I love St. Norbert Farmers market. I go there as often as I can. I love that more and more farmer's markets seem to be popping up and I try to visit each of them. There is one at Assiniboine downs with some great meat suppliers, there is one at Pineridge Hollow, one in old market square and even one in Osborne village. The problem is that these places are only open one or two days a week for about 3 or four months in the summer.

Market shopping is not a lifestyle here. We go to markets in the summer kind of like a hobby. But we don't really do our shopping there. When I lived in Italy, our only fridge was the size of a bar fridge for a family of 5. We kept a jug of milk, a bottle of water and a couple of beers for papa in the little fridge. For food, we went to the market every day. Every day we had fresh produce, fresh bread, a couple of yummy cheeses and we would by our meat or fish for the day. There was no weekly trip the the big box grocer. Buying food was part of your every day experience, and because of that, our food was always fresh, new and always tasty.

When the forks opened, many years ago, I was super excited. Finally, Winnipeg was getting a year round, in door market. Unfortunately, my dreams were quickly shattered. The forks is a nice place to take your out of town guests, it is a nice place to go tobagganing and skating in the winter, it is a good place to host events like the children's festival or the dragon boat races, but it is no market. Inside the forks market building, you have a food court. You have a few boutique shops. There is one butcher, one baker and one green grocer. The forks, from its inception really missed the mark. I don't want to disparage individual shop keepers, as they are all well meaning, and like me, are just trying to make a buck and put a little away for the kids college fund. The problem the forks faces is structural. The forks does not allow competition. If there is one candy seller, there can't be two. if there is one meat seller there can only be one. And this is a huge failing. It is competition that makes a market great. I remember in Italy when there would be half a dozen stands selling nothing but roma tomatoes. All basically thesame, all roughly the same price. Each Tomato vendor was convinced that they had the best tomatoes, and they would do whatever it took to convince you that his were bigger, tastier and cheaper than the next guy. In that kind of atmosphere, you could never get away with selling bland, dry or wilting tomatoes. The vendors in the markets in Montreal are all in fierce competition. They have to always be convincing you that their sausage or their honey or their carrots are the best. In this kind of fiercely competitive market, you are forced to have the best products available and you have to put great effort into displaying your wares in beautiful, eye catching ways.

The other problem our market faces is that it is not used as a place to shop. And this is a catch 22 situation. Because it is not a great market, no one goes there to shop. Because no on goes there to shop, it can't be a great market. People will stop and pick stuff up when they are there, but no one plans there weekly shopping around the market. The forks meat market tried to do some neat stuff. She had some great steaks, some merguez, andouille, toulouse and other neat sausages. I was pretty excited, but the next time i was there it was all gone. She couldn't sell enough to keep it up, but because she couldn't keep it up she couldn't build a following. So, becasue the forks doesn't do the volume of sales it needs to sustain it, it can never get good enough to attract the following it needs.

People say we can't have a year round market becasue we have winter half the year. To that I say phooey! Yes, phooey! Montreal has winter as well and they sustain at least 3 markets. We need a market modelled on the atwater market. Indoors, year round, with butchers, bakers, green grocers and the like. A market that encourages competions and pusshes for excellence. In the summer, like they do at atwater, we can add stalls outside the market building for all the farmers to bring in their seasonal wares. And what I say to all of you, if someone out there has the vision to make this happen, then all of you people who take food seriously, need to get out and support that market.

on the meaning of names

When is a chowder just a soup? How far can you go from an original dish and still keep the original name? I was having a discussion about food with another chef last night and it turned into a rant about the naming of dishes on a menu.

I am all for inventive cuisine. I am all for pushing the limits. I love the twists on classic dishes that creative chefs engage in. But i wonder how far you can stray from that dish and still use that name. Do dishes have an essence that must be preserved?

Let me explain. Beef carpaccio is thin slices of beef served raw. A simple drizzle of olive oil, some sea salt, fresh cracked pepper and maybe parmesan or capers sprinkled on top. Creative chefs can dress it up with arugula or shaved fennel, drizzle truffle oil, maybe a gastrique whatever they want. Any funky riff on the classic and it is still carpaccio. I think you can make it with bison or venison or elk and still call it carpaccio. What happens when you move away from red meat? Is thinly sliced raw tuna or salmon still carpaccio? or are we better off calling it sashimi? But it gets really dicey when we start talking about fruit or vegetables thinly sliced. Thinly sliced beets, or tomato, or cucumber is not carpaccio, its a salad. Thinly sliced watermelon, i don't care how you dress it up, is just watermelon.

Another favourite is bisque. Bisque is a rich, creamy soup made of crustaceans. What makes bisque interesting is that the shells are pureed and added to the soup. Bisque is traditionally thickened with rice. If you made a creamed soup with salmon and pureed it should you call it a bisque? If there is no seafood, can it be a bisque. Is a pureed tomato, mushroom or squash soup a bisque? Is it fair to call it that?

What about chowder? My definition of chowder is a soup which contains potatoes and bacon. It can be creamy (new england) or not (manhattan). It is traditionally clams, but i've made mussel chowder, crab chowder, corn chowder and my new favourite, cauliflower chowder. But the essence, to me, is potatoes and bacon.

Chicken cordon bleu is chicken stuffed with ham and swiss cheese. Is it still cordon bleu with prosciutto and fontina? Is a caesar still a caesar if you grill the lettuce or leave out the anchovies? Do latkes have to contain potato?

I encourage chefs to go crazy! Do whatever. Combine flavours that have never been combined. Use techniques in new ways, or invent completly new techniques. Just don't stick it with an old name. Leave the classics intact. If you are creative enough to invent a new dish, you are creative enough to give it a new name.

I am not talking about deconstruction here. Deconstruction in the culinary world is the technique of dismantling a classic recipe and re-assembling the components so that the diner can experience the essence of the original dish as they enjoy the different components separate and then recombined. (For all you literary critics and english majors out there, don't start getting all technical and start quoting derrida on me. This is a culinary movement that has little to do with literary criticism) Deconstruction, done right, is all about preserving or even celebrating the essence of dishes.

I am talking about moving so far from a dish that you lose the essence of that dish. What makes beef carpaccio interesting, is that you are eating an item that you usually eat cooked (beef) and serving it raw. If you serve tomatoes thinly sliced, it might be pretty, but it really is not that interesting, and it is definitely not carpaccio.

Roast Cauliflower Chowder

1 head cauliflower

2 tbsp canola or olive oil

1 onion, diced

1 red pepper, diced

6 slices of thick cut bacon (cut into 1 inch peieces)

1 clove garlic, smashed

4 potatoes, diced

4 cups chicken or vegetable stock

1 cup heavy cream

salt and pepper to taste

sprinkle of parsley

1. cut cauliflower into flourettes, toss in oil. on a cookie sheet spread out cauliflower and roast at 400F for about 20 minutes. ( it should be nicely browned)

2. Sautee onions and peppers with bacon. add garlic.

3. add potatoes, cauliflower and stock. Bring to a boil and simmer until potatoes are tender.

4. add cream, check seasoning and serve with a sprinkle of parsley.

enjoy!