Bistro Gal

Before she was Bistro Gal, she was my wife. Before that, she was punk rock chick, figure skater, folk fest volunteer and activist Danielle.

The wife of a chef puts up with a lot. Late hours, unpredictable schedules, lousy money is kind of what they sign up for. It can get so bad that they become what people have started calling a Chef's Widow. (www.chefswidow.com) And over the years my wife, Danielle, has put up with a lot.

Not only did Danielle have to put up with the usual chef craziness, she had to put up with my own unique brand of craziness. For example, every time we had a baby, I left a good stable job and took a new job. When my first daughter was born, I left the Tap & Grill to go work at 3 different jobs until I found on that stuck. When my Son was born I left Pasta La Vista to go work at Pineridge Hollow and when my youngest was born, I left Pineridge Hollow to open the Bistro.

When I was at Pineridge Hollow, I had everything. A stable job, a decent salary, full creative control, a garden and my own goats. So, I decided to leave and open my own place. Not only did Danielle support this descision, when she should have said "are you nuts? stay at your perfect job!", she actively encouraged me and helped me get the place off the ground.

And that is how she has always been. Any crazy idea I come up with, she is right there with me. When I asked her to put our lives on the line to open a little Bistro, she said sure, lets do it. Owning a restaurant was my dream, not hers, but she made it her own. When we opened, she was homeschooling our children, working in the post-trauma department at Klinic and working nights at the bistro. Very soon, she put her career on hold to work at the bistro full time. The bistro is what it is, and is as successful as it is, because of the genuine warm welcoming hospitality that she brings to the room.

Even though life can be stressful, it is not easy running a small business, it is so much better that we can do this together. I get all the glory, and she holds me up. Nothing I do could be possible with out her. She supports me, she helps me realize my dreams, she nurtures and cares for me, she has fun with me, she joins me on all of our crazy adventures. In return, I give her more craziness. Often I wonder why she puts up with me. Often I wonder why she sticks around. She could just find a nice doctor or lawyer to be with. But she chooses to remain by my side. And for this, I love her deeply.

Thank you Danielle Carignan Svenne for all you do. Thank you for being you.

Chef's Don't Get Hangovers

People think chefs drink a lot. This is, of course, a myth.

I woke up this morning for the second time in a month in a strange city with a low grade headache and my insides asking me WTF? This is the second time in a month that I found my self closing down a local wine bar with my new BFF Chef Michael Blackie. And just like last month in Ottawa, our grape fuelled carousing was the night before the big event. Why do we do this to ourselves?

One my friends in the twitter universe asked us if we were "nursing hangovers". I flippantly responded, "chefs don't get hangovers". While this is not entirely true, it is true that chef's don't "nurse" hangovers; we ignore them.

There is an ethic among chefs that you just have to "git er done". My friend, Chef Aron Epp, has a motto: "Head down, work hard." Guests will arrive, they will expect to be fed, and it is our job to feed them. How we are feeling in the process, really doesn't matter.

I learnt this as a teenager working at Chi Chi's. Some nights I'd stay out all night carrying on with my friends, catch a couple hours of Z's, and then show up to work for my 7:30 prep shift. I wasn't going to let my boss give me shit for being hungover so I would work extra hard. What I learnt in the process, is the best way to get rid of a hangover is to work hard. If you are really hungover and you lay around all day nursing it, you will feel like garbage all day long. If you ignore the hangover and just do some hard physical work, you will feel right as rain in a couple short, painful hours. I see this in my young cooks at the Bistro now. They will never complain, they will never call in sick. The only way I will ever know that they are hungover, is the jumbo size bottle of Gatorade in their station.

But why do we do it? I think people attracted to the restaurant industry are highly social people. I don't party like I used to when I was a young man, but I do like to get together with friends. And because for the most part we work nights, our socializing happens in a friends restaurant with a few drinks. While we are enjoying each other's company we are fully aware that we have to get up tomorrow morning and "do it all over again". But we never want the party to end. How many times have I said , "That was stupid. But it was so much fun". It is hard to end a good conversation with friends.

In the past month I have been involved in two national "chef events". Last month I was privileged to represent Manitoba at the Prairie Scene conference. Today, I am cooking at the Cooks and Curds gala dinner at the Great Canadian Cheese Festival. Both times we had the opportunity to get together with the chefs involved. We all work so hard that it is nice to meet other chefs in fun social settings. Last night, we had chefs literally from coast to coast. We had a chef from Tofino, and chefs from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and everywhere in between all sitting at the table together. This was such an incredible time that how could we cut it short, just because we had a lot of work to do the next day.

We all knew, that we would wake up feeling rough, down a couple mugs of coffee and then get to work. No one at the table would be "nursing a hangover". And tonight, we will do it all over again. Watch out "Acoustic Grill", we are all coming tonight.

I am especially privileged to be able to work with my wife Danielle. So when I am out carousing with "the boys" she is right there beside me.

The Essence of Hospitality

After the 8th course was served, the host stood up to make a toast. "This is the essence of hospitality."

I want to describe two very different dinners. I want to explore what brings them together, because in there somewhere, is the meaning of hospitality.

The first dinner was an off the grid dinner hosted by me and a few industry friends at a warehouse space in the exchange. The guess were given a time and a date, but no location. On the day of the event, they received a call from someone they had never met telling them where to go that night. "look for the blue door." When the entered they were greeted with a cocktail concoction involving grapefuit, elderflower, gin and oregano. They were ushered up a rickety freight elevator to the third floor in what looked like a construction zone. Here they received two apps, one was a pice of tuna with horseradish wrapped in pickled cucumber and one was a waffle with chicken pate, coffee chipotle syrup and crispy salty quail skin.

They were led into a space which was beautifully appointed with linens, candles, flowers and silverware. At each seat was a little gift box which held an amuse bouche. Four different types of amuse gave the guests something to talk about. Then the dinner commenced.

8 1/2 courses all expertly paired with wine or other beverages followed. We had "bacon wrapped scallops" which took the form of a bacon consomme with scallop noodles, we did quail confit and quail ribbons, we made a pork cheek bolognese with a duck fat "parmesan". For dessert we messed with Thai flavours with a coconut panna cotta, a thai basil ice cream, a cream curry syrup and cashew brittle. The we finished with frothed brie, blackberries and balsamic caviar. The event was about four hours of wine and food and fun. Some of the guests said it was the best meal they had ever eaten.

The space belonged to a friend of ours. It was the third floor of a building he had bought. The space we were in was going to be turned into an apartment for him. This dinner, felt like the first dinner party in his new home. Everyone arrived to the dinner, he said, with the usual one or two degrees of separation, but now they had zero degrees of separation. People in the room started as strangers, but now they had a shared experience. My friend, the host, said that this dinner was "the essence of hospitality".

The very next day we were having a nice peaceful sunday. We had had a very long week which culminated in this fancy dinner and very late night. We were at home, trying to do as little as possible. My wife had made a big pot of soup so that whoever needed to eat, could eat whenever they needed to. If you have never had one of Danielle's soups, you need to understand that her soups are hearty. They make hearty stews look like gruel. Big chunks of potato, vegetables, kale, beans, hot sausage held together with just enough broth to allow her to call it a soup. Always delicious.

Our good friends came by to drop something off, or pick something up. They are also a family of five with kids that correspond in age to our kids. We were chatting at the door with the mom, and gradually one kid after another came in. Eventually the dad came up to see what was going on. We hadn't visited with these friends in a couple of weeks, so we wound up inviting them all to come in. We poured drinks, ladled big bowls of Danielle's soup and tore big hunks of bread. As tired as we were, we all had supper together and had a lovely time. At the time, reflecting on the night before, I thought to myself, "this is the essence of hospitality."

Fish with Cheese: The curse of the purists.

Anyone who has ever seen Scott Conant on Chopped will know that combining fish or seafood with cheese is a serious no-no. He will argue, whenever he's given the opportunity, that Italians never combine seafood with fish, and by extension, neither should you.

He is not the only one who takes this line of thinking. Many "foodies" will argue the same thing. I have customers who remind me of this every time I cook a seafood pasta. Recently on Iron Chef America, the talented Chuck Hughes was criticized for his lobster poutine because it was made with cheese curds.

When asked why, there are usually two defenses given to this position. The first goes something like this, "The cheese will hide the delicate taste of the fish." I would like to argue against this by saying that there is a huge spectrum of cheeses and a huge spectrum of fish. Yes, a dover sole would be drowned out with a heavy stilton, but the flavour of a grilled sardine can stand up to anything. My other argument is that we use many strong flavours when cooking fish, that are perfectly acceptable: Olives, capers, fennel, garlic, tomato.

The second defense is the old stand by: tradition. Italians never combine cheese with seafood. This may be partly true, but even the Italians have exceptions. A pizza with anchovies will still have mozzarella. Linguine with clams will often be served with a little shaved pecorino. I used to enjoy a tasty dish at Mona Lisa of shell pasta stuffed with shrimp and smothered with melted cheese.

But why must the cuisine of North America be slave to the traditions of a small European nation, even if it is a nation known for its food. The no cheese and seafood rule does not extend past the Italian borders. The culinary tradition of France does not have the same restrictions. Going back to Escofffier's Grand Cuisine, we see countless recipes of delicate fish combined with cheese and cheese sauces. Northern european culinary traditions will combine pickled or smoked fish with hard cheeses. In American tradition, we see such delicious classics as shrimp with cheesy grits.

North American cuisine, arguably on the forefront of cuisine today, is about moving beyond tradition. The best practitioners know the tradition, they know the rules, and they know where and when to break or bend them. Lobster mac and cheese? Why not? North american cuisine is about looking at tradition and spinning it with our own personal creativity.

But ultimately it is about taste. If you like cheese with seafood, go for it. enjoy. Sometimes I give in to the purists. I will serve a seafood pasta without cheese. Invariably, I get asked for a side of parmesan. Why? Caus regular people don't care about the rules, they like cheese on their pasta. Two of our best selling mussel dishes are with bacon and cheddar or blue cheese and mushroom. Ask my friend Tamara about the lobster grilled cheese I made her.

I could go on, there are so many ways the food purists are trying to beat the fun out of eating. Don't even get me started about sushi ginger! Your best bet is to cook from your heart. Learn from the past and have fun experimenting with new twists. Cooking has more to do with the senses then the intellect. And the next time one of these foodie snobs looks down their nose at you, grate a little extra parm on your seafood linguine, smile, and say with out any shame, "I like it this way"

Breakfast TV

I was on Breakfast TV this morning and this is what I made:

Cassoulet

The original pork and beans, this is traditional dish of france, and one of my favourites from the bistro. Don’t get to hung up on having all the right ingredients, think beans and meat, try to get a good balance of flavours. Beans absorb flavours and can taste flat if you are not paying attention. Taste for salt and pepper, acidity and sweetness, and make sure their is enough moisture to keep the cassoulet from being heavy.

For the Beans:

1 cup dry white beans, I like the texture of Great Northern Beans, but you can use navy beans or white kidney beans.

6 peppercorns

4 bay leaves

1 sprig fresh thyme

2 cloves

1 diced onion

1.Soak beans overnight.

2. drain and rinse beans, place in large heavy pot with lots of water. Add seasonings.

3.bring to a boil, then simmer until beans are tender but not mushy.

4. drain off any excess liquid.

5. or you can cheat and use canned beans, but you compromise both flavour and texture.

For cassoulet

1 onion, diced

1 clove garlic, chopped

4 slices of bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces

4 -2inch pieces of cooked pork belly. Feel free to substiute pork shoulder, hock, ham...

4 lamb sausages. feel free to substitute whatever sausage you like. Garlic sausage works.

4 legs duck confit.

2 cups cooked white beans

1 tomato, diced

2 cups chicken stock

salt and pepper

¼ cup bread crumbs

1 tbsp garlic butter

1. in heavy dutch oven sautee bacon. Add garlic and onions. sautee until onions are golden.
2. Add sausage, and brown on both sides. Add the rest of the meat. (I usually cook the duck leg separately to get that nice crispy skin)
3. Add beans, tomato, chicken stock. Bring to a boil. Check for seasoning.
4. combine breadcrumbs with garlic butter and cover the beans. Bake at 325 for 45 minutes.

Braised Beef Short Ribs

1 tbsp vegetable oil

12 meaty, english cut shortribs

1 large onion julienned

1 bottle of dark beer

2 cups chicken or beef stock

salt and pepper

1. Season short ribs with salt and pepper. In a heavy skillet, brown shortribs on all sides. Do this in batches, if you try to brown they won’t brown well. Transfer browned shortibs to a casserole dish or dutch oven. A slow cooker works as well.
2. After removing all the ribs add onions to the pan, lightly brown. Add beer to onions to deglaze the pan. Bring to a boil and reduce. Add stock and bring to a boil.
3. pour onion and stock mixture over short ribs. Cover ribs with tin foil, leave one corner uncovered to allow the steam to escape and reduce the sauce. Bake in a 275F oven for 6 hours (or in a slow cooker).
4. Let short ribs cool in the liquid. When the ribs are cold, you can remove the fat.
5. Reheat ribs in liquid, check seasoning for salt and pepper. Serve with mashed potatoes and your favourite veggie.

Pecha Kucha

They were sitting at the bar, talking with great excitement and passion. I asked them if they had just come from a concert. They answered, "Pecha Kucha". Then they explained.

Pecha Kucha is a gathering of creative people where creative people talk about some aspect of their craft or life that they feel might be interesting. The subject matter and format can be quite divers, but the event is governed by a strict structure. The participants show twenty slides and each slide is shown for only 20 seconds. Each presentation lasts only 400 seconds (6mins 40 secs). Pecha Kucha was invented in Japan as a way to get notoriously long winded architects to tighten up their presentations. It is now an international event, being hosted regularly in over 300 cities. Winnipeg does one four times each year. The statistic is that any night of the year, there is one happening somewhere.

So these guys sitting at the bar said, "Chef, you should do one!" I said sure, that sounds like fun. And thought nothing more of it. Until I received an email inviting me to present at the next Pecha Kucha. And so, last thursday night, I found myself standing on stage at the Park Theatre presenting 20 slides for 20 seconds each.

I talked about my creative process, how I cook, where I draw inspiration from. I was trying to get across the notion that cooking is partly about preserving an old tradition and partly about furthering that tradition with new ideas. I tried to focus on the sense that most of cooking is not about crazy creative explorations and fanciful presentations, but i is about the basics. It's chopping onions and peeling carrots. While I presented my slides, I cooked. I made a batch of Tequila mussels in my 6 minutes and 40 seconds. I felt it important that my slide show had a sense of smell component added to it. At the ends some of the guests enjoyed my mussels.

I was the last of twelve presenters. The presentations ran the gamut from a piece on architecture to solve humanitarian crises around the world, to a artist showing pictures from his sketch book. One guy presented a story about how he developed a popular iphone app. (Makes me want to develop my own, but I don't know what it would do.) Shawna Dempsey did a presentation on her art, it was almost a retrospective, with slides of her different work. Another gentleman presented about his relationship with a great aunt who he only got to know late in her life. One gentleman presented on a trip to new york and his visit to the world trade center the day before 9/11. He talked about how fate intervened and saved him from being in the towers the next day. One woman, presented photos that she wove into a short story. Some of the presentations had audience participation. One had you touch and hold onto a complete stranger, the other had you look deep into the eyes of your neighbour and say "you're fucked, and that's okay".

It was a great night. It was inspiring, informative and entertaining. I was honoured to be invited to present. I look forward to the next one, I will attend just to see the presentations. But I am already planning my next slide show. 20 recipes in 20 seconds each.

Thanks to the organizers of pecha kucha for inviting me and putting on the event. Thanks to Kiki May for taking photos and putting together the slides. Thanks to Eric at the Park for hosting the event. Thanks to Ruben for covering my shift on line so I could attend. And as always, thanks to Danielle, my lovely wife for her love and continuous support in all my crazy projects.

(I tried uploading the slide show, but it seemed to confuse blogger. I'll try again, later.

So I tried again, and then again. Does anyone know how to attach a video?)

but you can check out some pictures on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adrianjkshum/5191816719/in/photostream/

yes, the pumpkin ravioli is back, but come try the choucroute garnis

Okay, so this is how it played out. I kept the pumpkin ravioli. I am making and serving it exactly the same way I have made and sold it for the last few years. People are loving it, and we are selling lots of it.

Also, I brought the cassoulet back, the rainbow trout with fennel, the duck confit with cherries, the warm fennel salad and the gnudi with butternut squash, sage and brown butter. We also brought back the big double cut berkshire pork chop with spaetzle, braised red cabbage and caramelized apples.

For new things, I am doing foie gras with apples and toasted almonds. We have a tasty baked polenta dish (see my blog about San Francisco) and a dessert with apples, bourbon ice cream and bacon brittle. (Ditto) I also added a whole new sections called bouchées (ripped that name of from Frances in San Fran). Here you can get a little bowl of olives, some pickled eggs or some crispy fried white beans. Or, my favourite, a spiced pickled egg. We take Herman's Natures farm eggs and pickle them in a brine with cumin, coriander, fennel and hot chilies. Yum. It's like the big jar of pickled eggs you see at the garrick hotel or the woodbine, but we have 'kicked it up a notch'.

My favourite new dish is the Choucroute Garnis, which translates to big pile of pork with saurkraut. This is a classic bistro dish which originates in Alsace. "Why do you see this Alsatian dish on the menus of Paris Bistros?" I hear you asking. Well, let me tell you. A large number of the cooks at Paris restaurants orignally come for Alsace. Many left Alsace during the franco-prussian war and subsequent conflicts along that border. While learning the traditional paris dishes, they brought in some of their favourites from home. Choucroute Garnis is one of these dishes. I have wanted to put choucroute on the menu for as long as the bistro has been open. But I thought maybe it was too weird. I have run it for specials, but it never really did well. Maybe it was just too rustic to be considered a "special". So, this time round, while writing the menu, I decided I would try it out and see how it went. So far, it has been well recieved and I am serving lots of it. The idea, is that it is saurkraut cooked with "garnishes" which tend to be sausages and other pork products. Some versions might even have seven different sausages is it. We use knackwurst, which is basically a smoked bratwurst, smoked pork chops, fresh pork belly and smoky bacon. We serve this dish with mustard, bread and cornichons.

Other dishes from last year didn't make it back on the list. The one we get the most requests for is the bouef bourguignon. It's a great dish, but to be honest, I really only put it on the menu to capitalize on all the free publicity it got for Julie and Julia. But it is a dish I will use for dinner specials this season. In fact, I had a customer ask about it just yesterday. They have a reservation for Nov. 20th and were wondering if it was back on the menu. I told them no, but that I would run it for my dinner feature that night. Did you know that you can put in requests for dinner features? I have one good customer who always request veal chops when they come.

So anyway, the fall menu is written. It is tasty. And now, we right the fall/winter wine list. Any requests? I'll definitely put an Alsatian white on to go with the choucroute.

Choucroute Garnis

Step 1.

1 jar/can saurkraut. (If you know any hutterites ask them for some, they make the best)

1 medium onion, julienned

1 clove garlic, smashed

1/2 lb bacon cut into lardons (you can substitute the bacon for a smoked pork hock, or diced ham)

4 bay leaves

4 juniper berries

6-8 peppercorns

1-2 whole cloves

1 tsp mustard seed.

2 cups dry white wine. (riesling is the classic)

combine all the ingredients in a heavy pot or dutch oven. Simmer on a low burner or in a 300F oven for an hour. You can use this right away, or refrigerate to use later. We also use this on a a sandwich and in our new mussels with saurkraut, knackwurst and mustard. It's great on hot dogs, a little more interesting and less acidic than your standard jarred saurkraut.

Step 2.

choucroute from step 1

4 smoked (or fresh) pork chops

4 cubes of slow roasted pork belly

4 sausages.

16 potatoes

2 cups chicken stock

this is just a guideline. use as many different sausages and as much smoked or fresh pork products as you like. avoid overly lean cuts, they go against the spirit of the dish, and will get stringy from long cooking.

1. combine all ingredients in a heavy dutch oven or casserole.

2. bake at 300F for an hour.

3. serve with mustards, pickles and good hearty bread.

Pair this with a good german or alsace riesling or a tasty lager style beer.