Hey! Play With Your Food!

I had a revelation.  It should have been obvious (but obvious things don't feel very revelatory, do they...). I was on yet another airplane, for yet another one of those short, overnight hops to a city 1-3 hours away, destined for a hotel room with nothing to make it memorable except for knowing when I woke up the next morning, I could confidently say to myself in the mirror "Today, I am going home!"

On that airplane, I finished reading a book which my Shauna had bought, written by her favorite food blogger - the Gluten Free Girl, a.k.a. Shauna James Ahern.  It is an autobiography of a girl who had grown up like the majority of us end-of-the-boomer cycle babies, when pantries in North America were filled primarily with packages of prepared food made by corporations whose commercials on TV confidently assured us of their superiority in producing things that could be guaranteed to be the same every single time you bought a new package, regardless of where in our great continent it was purchased.  This made grocery shopping so routine as to become a point of resignation for our mothers, and quiet glee for our fathers who did not have to do it.  The problem is, that food was, to put it kindly, processed, flattened, homogenized, milled, stripped, sugared, plasticized and pasteurized within an inch of its nutritional life - and so it was that we began our continental odyssey towards obesity, craving variety and without even knowing it, trying to satiate those natural cravings with processed cheese food, white bread, and sugar bomb cereals...

This girl had a problem.  In the midst of malnourishing herself to death, she had the added, undiagnosed complication of having celiac disease.  It was not until she was literally hit by a car that the disease really manifested itself, making her desperately ill as she tried to survive on crackers and soft white bread - the very poisons that she needed to be avoiding.  Without stealing the rest of her thunder - this is where I got my revelation:  Once she was finally diagnosed, she came to the life-changing realization that because gluten was now dangerous to her, she was actually completely, totally free for the first time in her life to taste things that she never, ever would have considered even smelling, let alone putting in her mouth.  And with that kind of ridiculous abandon, she began not only eating a vast new palate of cheese, vegetables, meat, fish, fruit, and every possible way to eat them without a trace of gluten, but actually becoming absolutely driven to preparing them with her own hands, passionately exploring the new, the possible, the exotic, the full spectrum of what God intended his children to find, quench their hunger, and add to the exquisite pleasure of being alive.

This story was absolutely absorbing to me.  I am not hampered by gluten, so by rights my field of experimentation can be even broader than hers.  Yet I also realized that all too often, I don't reach outside my comfort zone, falling back on standbys that are actually bad for me, which don't really satisfy the flavor craver living in me, and making me take more in the vain hope that full equals satisfied.

I read on.  Ms. Ahern has the effortless knack of bringing you into the very moment of her discovery - tasting, smelling and feeling what she is feeling as she laser-focuses on the bulb of fennel, the fillet of wild Alaska salmon, or her very first bite of dark chocolate.  She goes one step further - with effortless grace giving you the exact recipe she used in that epiphany.

One of those recipes became my source of inspiration.  She addresses the humble roasted chicken.  Who among us has failed to thrust this common bird into an oven, for with naught but seasoning salt, a bit of pepper, and an hour or so of time, even the least motivated of us can receive absolution from those who hunger around us - roasted chicken does, at the very least, lend the credible illusion of culinary competence, doesn't it?  But face it - roasted chicken in its humility slips very easily into the same category as waffles - when you can't think of anything else, sigh in frustration and roast a chicken.  You can't go wrong.

Well, if you really can't go wrong with a roasted chicken - - - what would happen if you decided to jazz it up?  I mean, really trust in that rock-solid assurance that you cannot ruin a roasted chicken.  What would happen if you let yourself (mothers of the world, plug your ears!) - play with your food?

Shauna James Ahern played with her chicken.  Because she had become an omnivore, a seeker of things that taste good, she knew that dunking fresh rosemary into boiling water makes it taste eleven times more intense and flavorful when added to whatever you add it to.  She also knew that boiling a whole lemon just before shoving it into the cavity of the chicken gives a sublime, singing, lemony note to the meat as it roasts.  So her recipe, recommended with the same "go for it" urging your best friend feels free to use on you, calls for a whole lemon, fresh rosemary, the zest of two more lemons, and ten cloves of garlic.  Put the whole lemon in place, then take the rest of the ingredients and grind them into a smooth, headily fragrant paste, which you then massage into the chicken for roasting.  (I can smell it just thinking about it, thought I, and resolved to swing by Safeway on the way home from a meeting, to get those things that I did not have in my pantry, because I had a chicken to roast, by golly, and this one was going to make an entrance.)

I succumbed, as usual (much to the derisive delight of my children) to buying a bunch of extra things.  I love grocery shopping.  Among other things, some smoked paprika wound up in my basket.  Never tried that before - but Ms. Ahern said I wouldn't believe what it does when you use it...

I have a granddaughter now - a very small one, who gets her meals from her mommy.  Literally.  Whatever mommy eats, granddaughter gets a few hours later - or at least the essence of it distilled in mommy's milk.  She already knows that tomatoes, citrus, garlic, and broccoli are not yet her favorite foods, and she reminds us late at night that while she'll eat them, her tummy doesn't have to like them yet.

Oh-oh.  Panic?  I can't play with my chicken using Shauna James Ahern's playbook!  Ten cloves of garlic cannot be artfully slipped past my granddaughter.

That's when it hit me.  I don't need someone else's playbook to play with my food.  I grabbed the rosemary, plunged it in the pot a-boiling on the stove, and stripped off the leaves.  It was like walking through a British Columbia rainforest - incredibly fresh, incredibly piney.  In my other hand, I popped the top off the jar of smoked paprika.  A brief twinge of doubt - the kind of doubt you get when you wonder whether ketchup and plum jam go together - but then I jammed that bottle, and that fistful of rosemary right into my mustache and smelled for all I was worth.

I nearly cried.  That smell took me instantly to a campfire with the friends from my youth, in Banff National Park, cooking meat outside on the grill, with twilight and drizzle intensifying the rich enveloping scent of the pine forest around us, and the smoke under the steaks lazily, tantalizingly snaking up past our faces...

I had to put this on my chicken.  I did not need anyone's permission, nor did I want to Google it.  These smells belonged to each other today.  Now, I got to play.  I have never owned Kosher Salt.  But I got some today.  It went on that chicken right after the rich, rust-brown smoky paprika, in gleaming white chunks carelessly covering this nook, that cranny, that gleaming curve of drumstick...then some pepper.  The rosemary went on, in little bunches, here and there.  Man, that green looks good against that deep, deep red...  Then - why not ring the whole thing with those big fat white mushrooms....and put on some of that olive oil that actually smells like freshly mown hay, the kind that you mix with balsamic vinegar to dip your bread in.  Hey - why not put some of that balsamic vinegar on too?  And then some kosher salt - imagine the tiny crunchy explosion matched with the silky smoothness of a mushroom slaked in fragrant olive and balsam.....

I put the whole thing in a 350 oven, for an hour and a half.  That was the most enjoyable hour and a half of this busy day - waiting to see what smell would emanate next from the oven as each piece in this new puzzle took its rightful place in the alchemy of a meal coming together.

I made a salad, slowly.  I put sweet pea shoots in it - not just cucumbers and tomatoes.  Pea shoots.  Like bean sprouts, but without the taste of dirt, and like alfalfa, but without the peppery attitude.

We ate the chicken with mashed potatoes.  Nobody said anything - they chewed with their eyes closed.  That is the greatest gift you can give a cook who loves you - closing your eyes when you chew.  I'm glad I played with my food today.  And tomorrow, I will see what else other people who love making food and eating food play with, because inspiration does not need to come from Morocco or Sri Lanka every day.  It can come from smelling smoked paprika at the same time as rosemary.  Just play with your food, and see what happens.

(By the way - Shauna James Ahern's book is called "Gluten Free Girl".  Her blog is located at www.glutenfreegirl.com.  She has also written cookbooks - as her passion is helping those with celiac disease see that life is not over.  Far from it - it can be the start of something really big.  And that brings up the last point in my inspiration.  I don't have to be celiac to love this food.)

Demilitarized Korean Food

Asian cuisine - a misnomer in itself, since Asia is so vast and diverse - has held a special fascination for my tastebuds because I lived in essentially blissful ignorance of anything related to Asia right up through eleventh grade at boarding school in Nigeria, where to be honest, we rarely had any interaction with anyone from that continent.

Discovering Japan, then China, Korea, Hong Kong, Vietnam, India, and so on came well after high school - starting with my chosen major of Japanese in University, and my introduction to what remains my bedrock favorite cuisine, and on through a job which let me work with, and visit, and immerse myself in at least part of the culture of Japan, Korea and China, and of course, the food for which they are justifiably famous.

So, I started late diving into all the intensity and distillation of thousands of years of evolutionary cooking, and if there's one thing I am discovering, it's that I probably will not live long enough to taste everything there is on offer in even one of these cultures, let alone all of them.  But man, it's beyond fun to try, and even more so to find something every now and then which is so impossibly good that it becomes one of those cravings that you really need to have on a pretty regular basis.

Of all of them, the one I know least, and yet the one that packs the biggest culinary punch in the mouth (in the most indulgent and satisfying way) for me has got to be Korean.  Oh yes, if adventurous, we in the West will occasionally grace our hot dog with sauerkraut, for example.  In Korea, sauerkraut is mere baby food compared to the punishment endured by their cabbage.  Kimchi, the national dish - innocuously translated as 'pickled cabbage' -is a riotous symphony of fermentation coupled with tongue-searing pepper and supersaturations of garlic guaranteed to trail in your wake for four days after eating.  Kimchi is frank, in-your-face, unapologetically direct food.  So is Bulgogi, and other variants of marinated and barbecued meat - soaked for hours in spiky-sweet, vinegar and garlicky goodness, then seared on a blast-furnace griddle in the middle of your table - the very essence of what meat and fire together should produce.  Putting the two together seems impossibly egregious - but match them on a bed of plain white rice, or cold glass noodles (jap chae), and the blend becomes obvious and right - a match which is made in heaven, a result of centuries of experimenting to make it perfect.  Not unlike the perfect giant sushi hand roll, or pad thai, or Szechuan chicken.

It's always deeply satisfying to watch food which you used to have to drive miles to eat, suddenly show up then in places like the food court at the mall.  Look around you next time - next to the A&W, Arby's, Mrs. Vanelli's Pizza and Taco Time - there's a Manchu Wok, a Teriyaki Experience, a Thai Express, or a Pho Noodle House....

The problem is, most of them tend to dumb down the exotic factor which made them so attractive in the first place - maybe because the 'real' flavors are still too exotic to sell.  But at least you can get sriracha hot sauce at just about all of them, in a bottle next to the hoisin.  Not bad - we're getting there.

So, when a new guy shows up in town, hope stirs again that maybe we've made enough progress to get the real thing this time.  Sadly, last night proved again that there's a long way to go.

How could you go wrong with a place that brazenly calls itself Kim Chi at the Market Mall food court in Calgary?  Better order the special - looks like a sizeable pile of beef and chicken piled on rice and sauteed veggies.  Haven't had my Korean quota for the month, but this is a good night to do that, being that my wife had Thai soup, so the garlic will happily cancel each other out.  (It is nice to be considerate and eat garlic when your spouse does.  Trust me.)

I ordered the special, and then cavalierly added a small order of dumplings.  Whether Korean, Japanese or Chinese - all know the essence of a sublime dumpling - pork, garlic and greens nestled in a soft wrapper, crisped on the bottom, juicy throughout, begging for a quick marriage with vinegary-sweet soy dipping sauce....(eyes closed, imagining the first bite, while the chef wokked away at my entree, and gently laid the parboiled meat on the grill to finish it....

Wait.   He's speaking Chinese.  Not that there's anything wrong with a Chinese guy cooking my Korean food, but you know, I was hoping for really authentic.  I know Italians who would laugh at my attempts to make pizza like their nonna does, too.

No matter - it looks pretty good.  The chicken is fiery red - should be a warning of spicy times ahead, okay, okay....the spare ribs are charred in all the right places, okay - that's a lot of rice, but all the more to soak up the garlicky meaty runoff - and the vegetables look al dentishly fresh...

I turn to walk away - "Sir!  Sir!  Don'r forget your dumplings!"  Ah yes, of course, thank you very much.

First bite.  The dumpling.  Remember the porky garlic, the crispy underside?  Think again.  This one tasted exactly like an old sponge, lovingly soaked in old cooking oil.  The dipping sauce?  Aqua Velva aftershave, thanks.

Second bite.  The chicken.  Have you ever eaten chicken that's just barely done?  That uncomfortably cool slithery taste that says "Hey, buddy - put me back in the pan for a few minutes, wouldja?  What are you trying to do, get someone killed?"  I swallowed, hard.   The red color?  Mealy, forgettable - like those gumballs from the machines outside Zellers, where the flavor almost gets there, then disappears into shapeless, taste-free disappointment.  And those lovely black hash marks from the grill?  Like a briquette on the palate.

Third bite.  The spare ribs.  Look - fat is crucial to eating well - it carries taste, it marries with salt, it's no accident that properly used, it deserves its place at the pinnacle of the food pyramid, if only for short bursts of pleasurable reign.  The fat in this meat, though, was trying to avoid my teeth, adroitly slipping out of the way as I, increasingly concerned, tried to find some edible flesh in there between the bones. 

Maybe the rice, then.  It did look brown, and invitingly teriyakish.  But there the resemblance ended.  This was nothing more than the pooling of mediocrity - which I suppose may have been designed to simply not overshadow the bean sprouts and carrots, both of which left no doubt that they had been grown in the dirt.

I am not normally squeamish.  But the spectre of Salmonella, coupled with the odd slithery quality of the flesh made me start to really worry about the prospect of seeing my whole meal once more in its entirety, this time tinged with violence and wreathed in porcelain....

I survived the night.  But I will not be returning to that place.  Even though its name promises a Korean experience you'd normally want to impress your friends with.  Forewarned, dear reader.  If you want real Korean fast food in Calgary, you're way, way better off at Koryo in either North Hill or Northland Village malls.  Those guys make food you remember.

Las tortillas absolutamente auténticas

Today have I taken a solemn vow - never again shall I refer to Taco Time, Taco Bell, or (heaven forbid) Julio's Barrio or Chili's as "Mexican Food", when that particular form of peckishness hits me.  I grant you, the basic flavors have become ubiquitous worldwide - cilantro, chilies, cumin, salsas both green and red - all have become part of the usual North American pantry, which we shake with abandon into various stews, sauces, salads, whatever...mainly because when food is allowed to develop someplace over thousands of years, the best flavors naturally rise to the top and endure.  (See also Vietnamese, Arabic, and Italian cuisine....).  

So why is it that the tacos we order here are really nothing but the palest shadow of what you get when you order a meal at a roadside stand in Playa del Carmen, or Tijuana, or for that matter, Los Angeles or San Diego?

I think it has to boil down to our uniquely Anglo-Saxon penchant for believing that complicated is better.  Look what we've done to pizza - the Italians take dough, tomatoes, and basil, and with perfect heat and perfect timing create a miracle food.  We think - let's add 80 pounds of cheese IN THE CRUST, and five kinds of processed meat, and three kinds of vegetables on that baby, and THEN see how much better it is.  Nope.  Don't get me wrong, deep dish has its hallowed place in satisfying cravings - but is it pizza anymore?  Not really.  Not if it makes Italians gag.

Same goes for tacos.  There's something to be said for the pure simplicity of four or five ingredients, precisely assembled but with speed and alacrity that comes from centuries of knowledge and wisdom, that produces eye-closing, soft-moaning sighs of pleasure with each bite.  But no - we heap on the cheese, the greasy hamburger dripping with orange fat, the guacamole, the crispy tortilla wrapped in the soft one, the tomatoes, the lettuce, the salsa - and all in a vast sheet of floury blandness to make a package as big as your head....

Here's the thing -  there's no doubt, once you've sampled the real thing, what the foundation for a real taco is.  It's the tortilla on which the rest of the ingredients lay in resplendent repose.   

What?  That unassuming disc of white boredom?  That little thing?  Why, it wouldn't feed a child, let alone a man like me!

Yes.  That little thing.  Made out of something called 'masa' - white or yellow corn flour, mysteriously processed, with a mysteriously elusive signature scent and flavor.  On this is what real Mexican food is based.  You can put pretty well anything on a real corn tortilla.  Eggs, salsa, meat fried, shredded, barbecued, boiled, vegetables alone or in concert with others - and for the heretic, pretty well anything else.  It's the real tortilla that makes all the difference in the world.

Incredibly, we found them here in our home town - again not so much by idle foodie searching, but out of the necessity of finding delicious things that do not have any wheat at all in them.  Thank goodness for Google, by the way. Who would have ever found that tiny shop in Northeast Calgary, a stone's throw from the giant LRT station on manic 36th Street NE, tucked into a residential neighborhood.  It's called "Las Tortillas", and that's enough, because the family that runs it knows that Las Tortillas are the basis of both great food, and their well-deserved fortune.

It's a combination grocery store - featuring essentials like chipotles, salsas of all descriptions (both red and green), tomatillos, masa by the sack, and Yerba Mate from Argentina - and a restaurant.  The kitchen is right there, across the counter - and the dining area is an old dining room suite - one table, six chairs.  The cooler is stocked with Mexican pop, and Coca-Cola.  And on the counter are several tidy stacks of fresh-made corn tortillas, tightly wrapped in butcher paper and sold by the kilo in a plastic bag.  Six bucks only - for an extremely impressive pile of tortillas.

We could not leave with just the tortillas.  Why not stay and sample them with fillings made by the same genius who made the tortillas?  So we ordered tacos.  Two each.  Your choices include beef, pork, shrimp, chicken - and something called "lengua".  I ordered lengua.  From which we get our English word "Language".      Yep - beef tongue.  With green salsa.  And that was all.  You can add raw onions and cilantro if you like, but there's no law.

No, it is not disgusting, regardless of your opinions about tongues other than your own in your mouth.  It's absolutely divine.  The proprietor/chef called it "the cleanest meat".  He's right.  It's straight-up muscle, no gristle, no fat, no yucky distractions.  Fabulous, silky, smooth, meltingly tender - the soul of beef in a slice.

Shauna had one barbacoa - beef, and one chicken taco.  Her chicken came with red salsa, the beef with green.  They were so completely different from each other - the beef spiked with cumin, the chicken with a bang of essential tomato, and just piquant enough to make you have to sniff.  We ate in reverent silence, broken only by strongly-worded compliments to the chef, who was beaming like any artist who sees his life's work being appreciated.  He assured us - no gluten whatsoever.  The fillings were just the meat, cooked with chilies, and the salsa.  No added fat.  Ever wonder why Mexico does not have our endemic obesity problem?

Yeah, I know.  It's just a taco, right?  Calm down!

No, it isn't just a taco.  This is how tacos are done in Mexico.  We were only there for a week once, but we ate tacos, and decided we had never had anything like this.  Since then, we have pined often for that fabulously fresh fast food. We found it today at Las Tortillas, and came home with 2 kilos worth.  I think pretty well everything in the pantry is going to wind up in those tortillas for the next little while.  And heck, when we need the complete package, it will be worth the drive back up to the Northeast.  You cannot lose, at just 3 dollars a pop.  Do yourself a favor - give up Vicente and his Taco Time "Mexi-fries" for Lent, and get yourself some classic, ancient cuisine instead.

Winterpeg Redux

When the trip is less than 24 hours, there isn't much chance to develop any kind of a realistic impression of a place, let alone the much more difficult task of changing a preconception, so I have to admit that I had resigned myself to "another trip to Winterpeg" in March.  I have offhandedly dismissed that city as a conundrum - why would anyone really want to live there, given the drab industrial scenery to which I had been exposed between the airport and downtown and the breath-robbing cold and dry blasts of wind alternating with gigantic piles of melting slush when the sun does deign to shine in the long arctic penance.

So when we went to meet with Steve, a transplant from Britain to the coldest city in Canada, I didn't even bother to ask my usual question - "What's good to eat in Winnipeg?"  Bob asked it for me, once our business meetings were done and it was time to fill the void before going back to the cookie-cutter hotel.

Bob explained to Steve my obsession with eating the essence of a place, to at least literally and physically absorb a piece of what forms the soul of a city or a country - the food.  The food that comes from a kitchen of a person passionately devoted to proving that what they do with their ingredients is not a copy of anything anywhere else, but a visual, olfactory, and gustatory signature - "this is part of me, my home, and my place, and I invite you to take a bite.  Go ahead, there's lots, and I can always make more...."

Steve leaned forward, eyes gleaming, no longer a clinical microbiologist/virus hunter, but to my astonishment, a dedicated omnivore also looking for not only what's good, but what's good to share and make a point.  "If it's Manitoba you want, then we have to go to Fude".

"What do they do at Fude?"

"Well, it's bison, (provincial symbol and emblem of Manitoba, name of a hockey team, statue by the legislature, and representation of the stubborn hardy toughness of the folks who live there), and elk, and berries, and pickerel from the big lakes, and herbs...and the most unexpected and vivid combinations that will just blow you away..."

How could we NOT go?

On the way, I drove the rental behind Steve and Bob in Steve's Mini.  It was a roundabout route, and a long way through several streets and neighborhoods, cutting through downtown.  I saw beautiful parks.  I saw beautiful houses with perfect yards.  I saw modern, I saw practical, I saw pride and purpose, I saw architecture that meant something.  I was ashamed of myself.  Winnipeg is not ugly.  Winnipeg is unique.  Winnipeg has a soul - even though I will not be here long enough to be introduced, and more's the pity.

We stopped, and parked, and I saw a place that was once old.  They call it Osborne Village, and in its own way, it is just as assertive as San Antonio's Riverwalk or Medicine Hat's Old Downtown, or Kansas City's Country Club Plaza - a place where people have pushed up their sleeves and made something old into something that lets you participate in the soul of the place.  Sure, it's got some rough edges yet, and that darned winter means you might have to walk quickly and duck into several doorways before getting to your destination, but next time bring a scarf, toque and mitts, and have a good look at what Osborne Village is becoming.

Fude is upstairs in one of the quirky buildings along the street.  Inside, the decor is decidedly casual, but the kind of casual that you go for when you transform your living room at home into a candle-lit sanctuary.  It's cozy and welcoming and modern and jazzy.  The waitstaff look you in the eye when you arrive - the kind of look that says, "just you wait, you won't regret having picked our place tonight".

The menu is split into lightly punny categories - Fude for Thought is salads, Flat Fude is gourmet pizzas, Fude to Share is appetizers, etc.  OK by me, because the real stars that make you concentrate in a hurry are the actual dishes on offer.

Steve had sealed the deal by telling us about two appetizers in particular - the Chili Chocolate Chicken Skewers - this is not a misprint - featuring Manitoba chicken tenderloin dusted in cocoa (!) with chili powder and cayenne pepper, pan-seared and grilled, and then slathered in a house-made Callebaut dark chocolate sauce streaked with a cayenne cream.  What?!?

...and the Hyper Seared Tuna - espresso-seared sushi-grade tuna with Asian vanilla soy sauce reduction for dipping.

Again - huh??  Fish with espresso and vanilla?

So we ordered both.

Look.  Coffee grounds on raw tuna, dipped in sweet vanilla soy sauce just looks wrong on paper.  Doesn't it?  But it was so right.  The coffee hits you with a bitter mini-bomb, which is swiped right clear by the cool tuna, and the vanilla is like a reward for being an exceptionally good boy.  Bite, after bite, after bite.  My question is - who figured this out, and how?

Now - it has dawned on a lot of people that chocolate and pepper were actually made for each other, in certain circumstances.  This chicken came expertly sauteed, and the most intriguing thing was not just how the cayenne and Callebaut played off each other, but how the distinct absence of expected salt in the meat meant that your other taste buds could explore a side of chicken you never thought you'd see.

These two starters did what appetizers are supposed to do - focus your attention, and I mean like a laser, on what's going in your mouth and what is coming next....

They were accompanied by some foccacia pan bread, with balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  But it was a vivid dark pink, and there were dangerous flecks of rust and orange and yellow floating in the mix on the plate.  Somebody added beet juice and hot red pepper flakes.  Let me tell you - this is how bread and dipping sauce should always be done.  It looks wrong, it doesn't make sense - until you let your mouth decide.

Mission accomplished.  I wanted very badly to see what was next.

I ordered ribs.  From a bison.  They make their own barbecue sauce in which these guys are braised.  It has espresso in it.  What's with the espresso, already!  Well - don't forget, in the land where barbecue was invented, the cowboys poured coffee into the dutch ovens swinging above the fire, simmering the beef for six hours while they worked.  There's a reason the best barbecue has coffee in it.

The ribs are as big, or bigger, than the beef ones you order at any Tony Roma's.  Any resemblance ends there.  The meat is unctuous, gooey, and sublimely smooth, with the very slightest touch of wildness still shining through.  I had to ask, when the chef/owner came to see how we were doing - how do you get lean wild meat, famous for its lack of fat, to become so essentially and deeply....porky?

They cook them low and slow, six hours in the oven, and then let them cool right off.  When you order them, they go back in the oven, back up to temperature - and that's where the chemistry happens.  The meat surrenders, falling off the bone when you tell it to.  I ate it like pig.  The sauce is marvelously complex, with little pronounced hits of orange, of nutmeg, of savory, of molasses.  I do not know if they put all that in the sauce, but that's what comes out of the sauce, and it carries the bison proudly to its conclusion.

There were potatoes and vegetables to go with them, but I honestly can't remember how they were done.  They were the chorus that helped push the meat to stardom, just like they are supposed to be.

We could not do dessert.  The chef did not care.  She waited until after our cappuccinos had waned, and then presented us with a scoop of Saskatoon berry sorbet each, on the house.  Steve said "I've gotta get me an ice cream maker".  Point being - Manitoba Saskatoons grow in the backyard.  If she can do it, why can't I?

I left Fude, and Winnipeg, with a new respect, again ashamed for pigeonholing a place which I'd never even thought of giving a chance.  When you go to Winnipeg, take a minute and look around, and taste around.

Fude for thought.

The Celiac Conundrum: Chapters 4 to 6 -In Which we Explore a Troika of Time-Tested Comfort Food, Modified to Suit Both Celiac and Layman Alike

You know, there are days when the excitement of Rapini with Blue Cheese Soup, and Free Range Pork Farmer Sausage, and Gnocchi alla Bolognese gives way to the simple cravings of life.  Things which you shouldn't necessarily eat every day - as they present certain cardiovascular perils - but which sometimes you just have to have.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I recently experienced three such hankerings, virtually in a row, and wondered if it would be possible to modify them in such a way that their sacred taste and provenance could be preserved, yet altered in such a way as to bring nostalgic tears to the eye of someone who must no longer eat gluten.  Not because it is easier to cook one meal for everyone, but because everyone around the table deserves the same level of gastronomic satisfaction, regardless of condition.  Life's too short...

1.  Pulled Pork with Slaw on a Bun

With that, I pulled out a pork butt roast I had sitting around in the freezer, waiting its turn to become something interesting.  Confession time - pork roasts have always been my nemesis.  In my constant effort to try and make something juicy, fork tender and sweet like pork should be, I have tried just about everything - low temperature, high temperature, long braising in a variety of liquids, rubs, glazes - you name it.  Usually, it's been disappointingly dry and unsatisfying.  Maybe this time....

I read a lot of recipes online for pulled pork, looking for a common theme, and yes, looking for ideas to steal. The common theme that emerged was this - you gotta cook this low, and you gotta cook this slow.  A good rub makes all the difference.  And - seal up your cooking vessel that it may keep in all the flavor, steam and goodness.

My little roast was about a pound and a half.  That's a little roast.  You are technically supposed to use a pork shoulder or pork butt which is anywhere from 3-5 pounds, but I found this worked with this little guy as well. Of paramount importance - do NOT use a lean pork cut.  Use the less expensive ones with good lashings of fat and occasional gristle - because trust me, the low, slow heat transforms those often 'yucky' things that we like cutting off into utterly sublime messengers of unctuous taste, evincing involuntary groans of gustatory pleasure.  Mmmm.....

Back to the point.

Let that roast sit on your counter until it achieves room temperature.  Cold roasts cook unevenly, and make uneven pulled pork.

Sometime in that timeframe, make yourself a good dry spice rub.  This is what I used:

1 tsp chili powder

1 tsp dry mustard powder

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp ground black pepper

1 tsp poultry seasoning (use rosemary, thyme, and or marjoram if you don't have this)

1 tsp. cumin

2 tbsp. salt.

3 tbsp.  (yes, tablespoons) brown sugar.

Mix extremely well together, using the back of your spoon to take advantage of the natural moistness of the brown sugar to mash this stuff together extremely well.

Pause and preheat your oven to 275 Fahrenheit.  I dunno what that is in Celsius, sorry.  Look it up?

Lay down a long strip of wax paper on your counter, and thinly spread an even layer of spice rub about the same width and length of your roast, onto the paper.

Put your butt (the pork one) onto the layer of spices.  Grind it down, so that the spices are crushed into the meat.  Turn it over and do the other side.  Do the ends.  Rearrange the spices on the paper so you can mash the maximum amount of rub into the meat.  Knead it in there with your hands.  You want this thing covered and crusty.

Now - it is the depth of a Canadian winter as I write this, so going outside to put this thing in any sort of outdoor smoker is, while realistic, just a bit too masochistic for my taste.  I cheated brazenly in the next step.  Put your pork into a very heavy (preferably cast-iron Le Creuset) dutch oven (one that comes with a very heavy lid).  Sprinkle the roast liberally with 4-5 shots of liquid hickory smoke flavor.

Get a piece of parchment paper.  If you have none, stop and go get some.  It's important.  Tear off a piece big enough to cover the top opening of your pot, and put it on the pot.  Put the cover on.

Put the roast in the oven.

Three full hours must pass, for a little roast like this.  For a big one, give it up to six and a half hours.  No kidding.  Do not open the pot to "see how it's going".  Trust in the power of the fire.

During those hours, make yourself a pot of baked beans from a can.  Add some BBQ sauce, if you like.  Get some coleslaw - the creamy kind, not the vinegar kind.  Get some hamburger buns - not ciabatta, not whole wheat - the real kind.  Soft and white.  (Yes, I know this part is not gluten free.  Gluten free potato buns work here for the same purpose.  The point is, they are supposed to fall apart under the pressure of the soft pulled pork and creamy coleslaw later.  Both the buns mentioned here will do so, satisfactorily).

Take the roast out of the oven.  Take two forks, and begin shredding the meat of the roast into a large pile in the bottom of your roasting pot.  It will fall apart into nice shreds with little or no effort.  Let it soak up the concentrated liquid goodness in the bottom of the pot.

You may, at this point, add some heated barbecue sauce and mix it into the meat, although it is kinder to let each person add their own sauce to their liking, on their buns.

Serve on buns with coleslaw on the meat, and some beans alongside.  Pickles, while optional, add a certain exotic twist. You will not be disappointed.

2.  Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs

Spaghetti and Meatballs.  A child's favorite, horribly corrupted by Chef Boy-Ar-Dee, yet still lovingly redeemed in a thousand delicious forms worldwide.  Here's a twist that should have you savoring each bite.

Grate one small onion, or half a big one, into a big mixing bowl, using the side of the cheese grater that makes really small shavings.  You should have a fresh onion mush in the bowl when you are done.

Mince three cloves of garlic into the onion mush.

Add:

1 large egg

1/4 cup of Cream of Rice Cereal (Gluten free!  Gluten free!  And, a fine alternative to traditional bread crumbs).

3 tbsp. ketchup

1/4 cup of fresh parsley (use 1 tbsp. of dried oregano, poultry seasoning, marjoram, or rosemary if you have no fresh parsley)

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese.  The real stuff if you have it, if not the Kraft in the green container is just fine.

1/4 cup feta cheese, crumbled finely

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper.  Or more, if you want.

1 pound dark (or light) ground fresh turkey meat.  Use pork or beef if you want.

Mix this mixture together well, with your hands.  Get a little olive oil on your hands, then start rolling the mixture into meatballs about 1-1.5 inches in diameter (no bigger, please).  Place them on a plate or baking sheet.

Heat 3-4 tbsp of olive oil in a large, heavy frying pan over medium-high heat.  Add the meatballs and brown them on all sides, about five minutes.  Add 1/2 cup of red wine, and deglaze the pan.  (Scrape up the browny bits from the bottom, and let the wine boil down to a nice syrupy coating.   Turn off the heat and transfer the meatballs to a plate (a different one).

Pour into the pan one jar of store-bought spaghetti sauce.  I like the four-cheese versions.  (I like cheese in all its incarnations).  Add one can of diced tomatoes.  Return all the meatballs and juices into the pan.  Turn the heat to medium-low, and just simmer the sauce for awhile until the sauce thickens a bit and the flavors blend - probably just as long as it takes you to get out your spaghetti pot, boil the water, add the gluten-free spaghetti (I like Tinkyada and Rizopia rice noodles, and even better, a rice and corn combination made in Italy, brand name Misura), and cook it up.  Once the spaghetti is done, your sauce with meatballs will be too.

Serve immediately, with plenty of grated cheese for garnish.

3.  Southern Fried Double Dredged Buttermilk-Marinated Fried Chicken

I have a dream. Someday, I shall make fried chicken as good as my girlfriend did, the first time we went on an all-day trip to Jasper National Park, where we ate it cold on a picnic blanket, next to the Athabasca River (or maybe it was the mighty Pembina River?  I dunno - all I know is that the chicken was amazing).  Having evolved since into my loving wife, she told me just the other day what her secret was.  She fries it till it's golden brown, then she bakes it in the oven.  Aha!  Maybe now my dream will come true.

Here goes.  Please note that if you want this chicken today, you should have started this process yesterday.  Govern yourselves accordingly.

Place 9-10 good sized chicken pieces into a shallow, coverable container (Tupperware, or analogue).  Our family is well divided into white-only and dark-only meat lovers, so we use equal measures of boneless skinless chicken breast, and either drumsticks or thighs.

Mix together in a bowl one liter of buttermilk with a 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.  You may also add some sliced onion, some paprika, and some fresh herbs to this sauce if you like.  Pour the whole thing into your container over the chicken.  Get in there with your hands and lovingly massage this liquid into every cranny of the meat.  Cover tightly, and put it in the fridge overnight - for up to 24 hours.

The next day, mix up in a plastic ziploc or similar bag the following gluten-free coating mix:

1/2 cup sweet sorghum flour

1/2 cup light buckwheat flour

1/2 cup tapioca flour

1/2 cup white rice flour

1/2 cup "all purpose" celiac flour

1 tbsp. paprika

1 tbsp. ground black pepper

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp. onion powder

1 tbsp. sage

1 tbsp. poultry seasoning

2 tbsp seasoning salt.

Close the bag and shake this up to mix together well.

Lay out several layers of paper towel on the counter.  Remove the chicken pieces, smoothing the buttermilk coating back into the container.  Dry the chicken pieces with the paper towel.

Drop the pieces one at a time into the coating mixture.  Close the bag, shake well until completely coated, and remove onto another layer of paper towel.  

When all the pieces have been duly coated, dip them again into the buttermilk sauce and without drying them, drop them back one at a time into the coating mix, shaking them again to make a second layer of crust.  They should come out looking something like this:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large heavy frying pan, and preferably one in which you can watch and control the heat of your oil, heat about two cups of oil (NOT olive oil, but something with a high smoking point, like peanut or canola or grapeseed oil) up to 350 degrees.  If you have no thermometer, then heat over medium-high heat until a pinch of flour dropped in the oil sizzles immediately.  It is important to keep your oil at at least 320 degrees during the frying process - it will drop in temperature when you put the chicken in.  Putting in too many pieces at once lowers the temperature too much, and your chicken will get soggy.  Not what you want in a good fry.

So, fry the chicken in batches of 4-5 pieces at a time, until golden brown, turning once to get the other side brown.

When they are all brown, put them on a rack on a cookie sheet, and put them in the oven.  It should take about 40 minutes to get them all well done (you can check doneness with a meat thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh, but don't touch the bone with the thermometer.

When they come out of the oven, they should have a uniform, thick, dark-brown crusty crust, with the most impossibly flavorful, tender and juiciest chicken you can imagine inside. Drain them for a minute on some paper towels just to get any excess oil off.

Serve some of them hot, until everyone is full.  The rest should be saved in the fridge until tomorrow, (or midnight), for a second round of amazing flavor, but cold this time.

There.  That oughta hold ya for a couple of days....

The Making of a Foodie - Our GF Weekend Extravaganza

"Let's go to Kingsland Farmer's Market today", says Shauna yesterday, having heard from her increasing network of celiac and food-conscious friends in Calgary that this place is apparently chockablock with vendors that know what celiac disease is, and what it does to people, and most importantly, how wonderful it is to come across something which you can eat with abandon and not worry once, about any bite going in your mouth threatening to incapacitate you for the next four days.

This was new for me.  I have always been on the hunt for what tastes good.  I figured - what the heck?  Not only might we find a GF biscuit or two that will make Shauna's tummy happy, but I might get some interesting tastes in besides.  But when I saw tears in her eyes as she sampled the shiitake cream of mushroom soup, followed by the exquisite red velvet almond macarons, the Saskatoon berry compote, the Spolumbo's chicken and apple sausage with fresh tomato sauce, the fresh free-range grilled pork farmer's sausage, the Thai green curry on jasmine rice, and the tuscan olive salad - every bite gluten-free, and every bite (as I herewith confirm to be true) absolutely, unbeatably and undeniably as delicious as anything I have ever tasted anywhere else....I witnessed, right before my very eyes, the birth of a new foodie.

Her eyes shone as someone walked past her, carrying a plate of roasted root vegetables with herbs.  She asked that total stranger, ever so politely, if she would mind telling her where she got that.  She gasped audibly at the concept of meat-filled, AND ricotta-filled canneloni - and doubly so when the proprietor of that stall promised that his gluten-free pasta is better than anything we've ever tasted.  If it wasn't, he laid a free lasagne on the line - come back, say you didn't like it as much as the old wheat pasta, and the lasagne is yours.  We bought one of each.  And gnocchi!  Wheat-free gnocchi - pillows of love!  Never had these had the pull, the attraction for her as they did that day.  We bought some of those, too.

We sampled the Alberta-made traditional mead - yup, that medieval wine made with honey.  We sampled three kinds of Thai curry before settling on the green one to take home - they pack all the ingredients in a kit, inside one of those Chinese carry-out cartons - for you to cook up when you get home, from scratch.  We did that for dinner tonight - with exotica like slivered lime leaves, palm sugar, fish sauce, coconut milk permeating the kitchen.  Not a single bite was left - and the whole family ate it.  We made ours with chicken and fresh broccoli....

We stopped by Primal Grounds' stall in the market - yes, it's a coffee emporium, but with a huge, confident, and well-deserved reputation for making the best gluten-free soups in the business.  On offer, as samples, were the shiitake cream of mushroom - which made Shauna cry out "I belong here!  These are my people!" - as well as German caraway borscht.  We promptly bought a liter of the mushroom, and a liter of the roasted tomato vegetable, with a commitment to come back for Japanese miso and lemon dill chicken (because they had sold out).  And then Margaret, who cooks these soups that sustain and bring comfort to so many, told Shauna that because her diagnosis had been so recent, she deserved to be spoiled - and provided a fresh walnut and berry biscuit to eat with the soup.

She had the tomato soup for lunch today.  Last night, we had the free range pork farmer's sausage, with the sweetest, creamiest cranberry coleslaw and a genuine German oma's potato salad.  I don't care anymore that those pigs are loose in the back forty - leave them alone, let them eat - look at this sausage!!!

Today, we decided to spend an afternoon in each other's company, looking at overpriced showhomes - a hobby for as long as we've been married.

We visited exactly one such place...

....and then wound up at Primal Grounds' home base - a little restaurant, transformed from a vintage diner atmosphere into a funky little cafe.  I thought we were getting some tea or hot chocolate - the chinook winds had died back and it was getting cold.  But there was my gourmand wife - peering intently at the display case.  There was a sweet pineapple and chicken curry there.  She looked at me and said - we should split one, don't you think?  I DID think - so we did.  And we added a spinach salad, with freshly slivered almonds and dried cranberries in an intensely orange dressing.

The curry was sublimely smooth, with snow peas, sweet potatoes, bell peppers and a creamy, unctuous sauce caressing the chicken bits.  As an added bonus, the turmeric turned our tongues yellow.  We washed it down with vanilla steamed milk - which on paper sounds wrong, but let me assure you, it's right.

And when we got home, after a couple hours of rearranging our growing library of books, my Shauna announced - I'm ready for supper!

You have to understand - when food is only something you eat to live, and especially when so much of it could be dangerous, it just isn't exciting.  It wasn't ever nearly as exciting for Shauna as it has been for me.  But this weekend, when we found a bonanza of things made by people who really, truly care not only about taste, and freshness, and texture, and infusing every bite with dedication and love - but who also care about the people who cannot eat everything, a new foodie found a home.

And I like that.  A lot.

The Irresistible Pull of Pork

I have been on a pilgrimage through the US Barbecue belt – Washington DC, St. Louis, Kansas City, San Antonio, Atlanta, Houston – eating "low and slow" meat in a quest to find the best – and always yearning for someplace in Calgary to at least come close, for those long stretches when business kept me here, unable to find excuses to head south of the border. Yes, there were one or two wannabes in town that approximated the real thing, but they’ve swirled down the drain of mediocrity.

So imagine my barely contained, hopeful glee when I was zipping down Manhattan Road on an errand last fall, and just out of the corner of my eye spotted the Holy Smoke sign, with a bunch of guys at a picnic table. This is always a good sign. Fortunately, it was lunchtime, so I stopped in.

The first confirmation of my hope was the smell - the essence of smoky porkiness, in all its olfactory glory. Next, everyone at the gingham-plastic covered communal tables was eating off trays lined with butcher paper. My faith grew.

I made a resolution on my birthday that I needed to slim down again – which is the only reason I did not order one of everything on the menu. And besides, thus saith the holy grail of barbecue – “by thy pork shalt thou be judged” – so I reverently requested the full 8 ounce version of the pulled pork sandwich. And pit baked beans on the side. With a Dr. Pepper, naturally.

Peaches, behind the counter, as well as Jim Bob and a variety of other industrious staff, all clad in vestments of repair-shop coveralls with helpful nametags, were completely and devotedly interested in what I had on my tray. Before I even turned fully to face the wall of sauce choices (from Missouri, to Lip-Blistering to Jack Daniels, among 12 or 15 others), Jim Bob materialized beside me, and guided me in the way to the sublime vinegary Jim Beam-based version, which I slathered on.

The bun came with coleslaw, like it’s supposed to. The bun fell apart halfway through my meal, like it’s supposed to. The extra pork dropped all over my tray, ditto. The juice ran down my hands. I think I probably moaned a bit, because Peaches was watching me, expectantly, from the counter. I had told her my last stop for Barbecue had been Rudy’s in San Antonio. She wanted to know how this compared - you know why?  Because they told me they modeled Holy Smoke after Rudy's.  Small world!  My mouth was full, so I just put up two dripping thumbs. She made the universal sign for “Score!” – and you know what? I think she genuinely meant it – these guys rejoice in knowing that they have hit it out of the park.

I looked across, behind the assembly table where the sandwiches were being packed at blazing speed, to try and find the smoker. It’s actually parked outside, in a huge trailer. Somebody was thinking.

The pit beans were a rich, chocolatey brown, with the kind of unctuous sauce that can only result from being forcibly converted over several hours in a hot, smoky room. Perfect.

And when it was time to clean my hands before trying to navigate my BlackBerry again, I found the washroom impeccably clean. Yeah, there are license plates on the walls, and the atmosphere is devotedly redneck – but make no mistake. This is a class joint, that does it lovingly right. And the price? You’d pay the same at Wendy’s for lunch. And – if you don’t have a GPS and can’t find it on the map – they’ll apparently cater your event right at your house.

www.holysmokebbq.ca