chromedome

In less than 48 hours, I'm going to be pulling out of Edmonton and pointing my car east. I'm heading to New Brunswick to open a restaurant (yay!), and I'm going to be driving so that I can take my things with me instead of shipping them. I'm going to be crossing from Ottawa, and probably follow the southern route through Quebec to the New Brunswick border, and then the #2 down to Saint John. Seeking the wisdom of the assembled multitudes, then, my question is this: are there any roadside places along the way that merit a stop? I'm not looking to delve into a strange city in search of a meal, however excellent; I want to know where the good roadside diners and truck stops are. Y'know...good, simple, filling food. Any suggestions? (I'll be starting companion threads on the central and western boards, if your expertise extends across the country.)

Mine are always white or yellow. For the last while I haven't had to hoard them, because as chef I've had the key to the linen stores... I may be in the minority, here, but I think both the mitts and the towels have their place. I like the short (wrist-length) heavy-duty Kevlar oven mitts, found at most kitchen supply places. They're thick enough that it takes a long time for the padding to wear thin, even in a busy place, and they're short enough that the cuffs aren't hanging over the gas and catching fire. I tend to use the mitts for heavy items (full stockpots, roasting pans with a full case of bones in them, etc) and the towels for most other things. I have burned myself more with towels than mitts, but that says more about me than the towels. I have incinerated a lot of towels in my time, and a few of my whites have scorched cuffs. At one time, my daughter's weekend sport was checking my forearms for tell-tale bare patches where the hair had burned off. To me, forearm hair is my early-warning system: when I smell burning hair I know I've got a split second to move my arm before I scorch something important. Towels are the most amazingly versatile tool in my kitchen, though. In addition to the above uses, I especially value them as a way to get a decent grip on a slippery fish skin. Skinning a fillet without a towel is an exercise in frustration, unless your fingertips are sandpapery by nature. Side towels also provided one of several unintentionally humourous moments in Ruhlman's Making of a Chef. Early in the book, the obviously-awed Ruhlman mentions that the CIA uses specially-imported towels from Germany, since American-made towels are simply not of high enough quality. Shortly thereafter, he pounds home the point that these towels are not to be used for wiping hands, cleaning counters, or anything else...they are for handling hot pots and pans. That's emphatically all. I remember cracking up when I read that. What are they saying, there's no American towel fit to hold a pot with? Gimme a break! (No offence, MR...I loved the book, I just found that part funny)

Overnight refrigeration works just fine, with pretty much any bread (I've often had to postpone baking until morning, because of fatigue or overly-long shifts or what have you). There's a small chance of the bread spilling over the pans/bowl, but you should know by about the 2-hour mark if that's going to happen (it seems to depend on how warm the dough was when it went into the fridge). Check your dough after two hours: if it is already right up to the rim of the bowl, or already at baking size in the pans, punch it down and re-shape it, then return it to the fridge. You'll be fine the next day. You will find that your bread bakes to a beautiful reddish-gold, much nicer than it otherwise would have, and you will also get a fuller flavour. It will get a better oven spring if you begin to bake while it's still cold from the fridge (you'll have to slash the loaves to keep them from bursting). The only downside to this procedure, such as it is, is that the surface of the loaves will show a number of "blisters," where bubbles had formed in the dough. I don't mind those, it just tells me that the dough was slow-fermented for better flavour. Some people have aesthetic issues with the appearance, though. To each his own; I'll take flavour any day.

I've cut/mangled onions with a butter knife, in the effort to cook at someone else's house. Not even so much as a nasty ol' steak knife out of that Walmart knife block. That was pretty rough. Aside from bachelor quarters, though, I'm okay to improvise almost anywhere.

I'd call it dinner. A few short moments after that, I'd call it a pleasant memory. In fact, upon further thought, I call it Something I'm Going to Make Real Soon Now.

Fun stuff. I have great bunches of "rules" that I cheerfully ignore, many of which have already been discussed upthread. Unfortunately I haven't had my coffee yet, and can't come up with a whole lot right at the moment. Hmm, let's see... Pie for breakfast is an ancient and honourable tradition in my household. I don't wash OR scrub OR brush my mushrooms, at most I'll wipe any unusually dirty specimens (not applicable to wild mushrooms, though...). I don't sweat refrigeration a whole lot when I'm at home (my grandmother had a pantry right up until '75 when she moved into the house she's in now), though at work of course I adhere to industry standards. Tomato paste in beef stock is a vile and disgusting practice, and now that I'm the chef it doesn't get used. Escoffier was dubious about it, and in this I agree with him wholeheartedly. As you may imagine, I also dislike traditional demiglace. It's not a "rule," but the widespread revulsion over anything bone-in or with visible fat mystifies me. That's fine, just pass those bits down to my end of the table. I have nothing against raw fish as such (I'll cheerfully fill myself on sushi if someone else is paying for the damned stuff) but let's face it, people...almost every seafood you can name tastes better when cooked. Most recipes calling for unsalted butter work just fine with salted. Some are improved. Crispy chicken skin is unnecessary at the table. It's much better if the cook disposes of that prior to the meal, rather than having it clutter up the serving dishes. I always cook my stuffing inside a chicken (or under a spatchcocked chicken), but never a turkey. The damn things are too big, and dry out well before the stuffing is done. In a chicken I spoon the stuffing in loosely to fill the cavity halfway, as opposed to packing it full with a solid plug of stodge. Extra stuffing I put in a baking dish and spoon drippings onto, which makes it taste pretty much the same. Almost any rule you can imagine about bread baking is either wrong, or can be worked around once you've got a feel for the process. I had a roommate once who insisted that it was necessary to put a pinch of salt into your coffee. That was his single, prized, "gourmet tip." Don't do it. Many people think of soy sauce as a uniquely Asian ingredient, and therefore adding it to western foods creates "fusion." I grew up in a household where soy sauce was routinely added, in varying amounts, to almost any dish containing meat or poultry. It adds a bit of salt, a bit of colour, and a nice depth of savoury flavour to those dishes, and when used with due discretion is not notably "Asian." As for the whole produce issue? Local factory-farmed is better than organic from 3000km away. Local organic/home-raised/heirloom are all better than that. My own backyard, or my neighbour's, is best of all. That reminds me of another rule..."if you are limited for garden space, don't bother growing things that are cheap and widely available in your area." I happen to like spuds and onions straight from the garden a whole lot better than store bought, so I always plant them. My rule is to plant and eat what I want. There are lots more dangling just outside my consciousness, but I've already violated my rule about posting before coffee...

If you make strudels or other phyllo-based items regularly, you can use up some of your crumbs by sprinkling them between the layers of buttered phyllo. The crumbs keep the layers separate, making the finished product flakier and crispier.

I've been rifling my freezer in preparation for moving, so I've had a number of those discoveries in the past couple of weeks. Cherries that I'd bought on sale last year, during the peak of their oh-so-short season: found those one night when I was craving fruit, but everything was closed. Inhaled the lot between loads of laundry and dishes. No less than five kg of lamb trims, brought home from work; cleaned of excess fat and bony bits, ground, and turned into kofta and lamb sausage (another private treat, since I'm the only one in the house who likes lamb). Multiple packages of chicken carcasses and trims, diligently set aside for stockmaking. Last year's abundance of rhubarb, just in time for a revival of the rhubarb thread. Frozen peaches, frozen cranberries, frozen blueberries, frozen saskatoons. A big hunk of smoked bacon rind, from my first experiment with home-cured bacon, which is destined for the bean pot Real Soon Now. I'll be moving to the east coast in two weeks' time to open my own restaurant, so my task (one of many, to be sure) is to turn all of these ingredients into a freezer full of things for my ex and kids to eat. My daughter and I are working our way through Bread 101 (I showed her basic lean bread last weekend, this weekend we're using a pre-ferment, and before the day's out she'll have made her first brioche and ciabatta). My goal is to have at least 24 loaves in the freezer before I go, so that she'll have had enough "reps" to be comfortable making it on her own.

I've had the opposite problem the last few years, as a naturally nocturnal person coping with a 6:45AM wake-up. It is essentially impossible for me to fall asleep anytime before midnight, and sometimes beyond that. This makes life rather difficult for me, especially since if I nap at any point after getting home I can't sleep later. It's ironic that, as a person perfectly suited to "normal" cook's hours, I've had all daytime shifts for some time. I've coped by catching up as best I can during the weekends, and going to bed early when my fatigue level gets to the point of helping me drop off ahead of time. Geez, maybe I should be scoring myself some weed, that always makes me nod within minutes...

The first meal I shared with my now-ex was steak and eggs at a Tops 24-Hour restaurant in Vancouver, in the wee small hours of our first real date. I don't remember the first thing I cooked for her, but since she was living on peanut butter and rice noodles at the time, I do remember her being impressed (she moved in a few days later). I still do almost all the cooking, and my daughter picks up the slack most days if I'm working late. First thing she cooked for me was her grandmother's borscht (tomatoes instead of beets). She thought she was cooking for leftovers, since it's better the second day. I ate the whole pot in one sitting.

I usually cut mine to length and let them dry to the leathery stage before cutting and/or cooking them. A little bit of flour, semolina, or cornmeal tossed with the noodles after cutting will keep them from sticking together. I haven't tried freezing the uncut sfoglia yet, but probably will sometime soon. If it works well, it will be a big timesaver for me.

I've had the Glen Breton Rare (the Canadian whisky, from Glenora), and it's a perfectly decent lowland-style malt. Unfortunately, it sells for $20 more than comparable lowland malts, so I seldom buy it. They sell all they make, though, so who am I to say they're doing anything wrong? I plan to stock their 10 yr malt and possibly their brand-new 15 yr malt at my restaurant, since they are the "home team."

There's something to be said for the boil-and-drain method I suppose, though I seldom use it myself. The key, if you're going to do it, is to not cook the rice until it's done. Check the rice after 5-6 minutes. You want it to be not quite al dente, but not entirely chalky either. Drain it and turn it under cold water a few times, to rinse off some of the surface starch. Return the rice to the pot and the pot to the heat, with a tight-fitting lid on it. As soon as you see some steam escaping from the pot lid, turn the heat to minimum and let the rice finish cooking in the steam for ten minutes or so. The rice will be light and fluffy. This is similar to the traditional Iranian method of cooking rice, although that has one or two additional steps. I do agree that this technique reduces the flavour of the rice, so I seldom use it except for dishes which will have potent flavours (saffron, curries, etc) added to it or served with it.

That's a good feeling. I've never had the opportunity to remodel a kitchen, but I have moved more times than most people would in a few lifetimes (my lifetime average per location is about 16 months, and I'm 43...do the math). On that first day, no matter how frazzled things were, I always made a point of having a bit of time in the kitchen. When my wife (now ex-) and kids smelled the bread and soup coming together, they knew that they were home. It was a minor ritual in the midst of a major upset, but it made a world of difference. I'm moving again in a couple of weeks (long story), and bread and soup will be the first things I make in my new kitchen.

[shrug] I've worked with them, and I've worked without them. I'm more comfortable using a mixer with the shield, because I'm just enough of a klutz to catch my apron in it while it's running, or some damned thing... I also favour steel-toed boots for working in. Call me paranoid.

The Michael Ruhlman/Eric Ripert Return to Cooking does contain recipes, but the heart of the book is Ripert's creative process as he moves from place to place and season to season.

I use it in many of my cooking classes to give an example of how reductions work. All the flavour, without the water! At home I mostly use it in baking, but in my sessions I'll often use it to make a punchy mayonnaise or vinaigrette for winter vegetables. For one example, you could shred raw beets/carrots/white turnips on a box grater or a food processor, washing after each vegetable. A hint of ground coriander in the beets, nutmeg in the turnips, and toasted cumin in the carrots (just a hint, mind you); and toss each vegetable separately with the orange mayo. Stack them in distinct bands of colour, with the beets at bottom so their juices don't discolour everything else. I also use frozen OJ for a quick-and-dirty Maltaise, or for glazing roast pork. It's also good for making a quick orange-pineapple ice cream (pineapples are cheap and plentiful most of the year, up here).

There is substantial variation from one type of rice to another, from one brand to another within a given type, and of course the age of the rice is a factor. There's one other that hasn't been mentioned upthread...the quantity that's being prepared. As a rule, the more rice you're cooking at a time the less water you need. Assuming "ordinary" long-grain rice as sold in most North American supermarkets, the standard rule of thumb is two cups of water to one cup of rice. And this is fine...if you're using one cup of rice. If you're using two, you'd probably want to cut back a bit on the water to keep your rice from being mushy. At my work, we make rice in 4" deep hotel pans; the ratio there is two water jugs of rice to three (scant) water jugs of water. By water jugs I mean the clear plastic ones that sit on the table during meetings and seminars...y'know the ones I mean. (A point of semantic interest, Fat Guy...you add water, in search of "fluffy" rice, while I subtract...to me, the opposite of "fluffy" is "mushy," while to you it seems to be "dry.") In my cooking classes, I advise people who have trouble with rice to bring the pot to a simmer and then pop it into the oven, with the lid on tight, for the rest of the cooking time. I find that the all-around heat makes it easier for the unpracticed to have evenly-cooked rice, rather than crusty on the bottom and chalky/undercooked on top. Another point I stress is the importance of a resting time when the rice has finished cooking. At least five minutes with the lid off is important to allow the rice to dry and cool slightly. Attempting to "fluff" the rice with a fork or spoon, while the grains are still above the gelatinization temperature, does not give the desired result. Same thing as cutting into a loaf of bread while it's still hot, it'll always be a bit "doughy" even if it's been baked perfectly. The above applies to long-grain and basmati rice, the kinds I primarily cook with. I haven't played enough yet with shorter and Asian rices to comment on those.

I'm a pretty pragmatic person, where appliances are concerned. At my current workplace, where we serve roughly 2000 people every weekday, we use both heavy-duty and domestic appliances as applicable. Our microwaves typically last about two years, although the one elderly Amana is still plugging away after God knows how long (it may be original with the store, for all anyone knows). We have even gotten four years out of a cheap-ass low cost StarFrit mandoline. Go figure. I'm thinking that the smaller of those Warings would probably work well for what I intend (some broiling, the occasional rotisserie chicken for guests' picnic lunches). I'll also be picking up some low-cost Belgian waffle-makers, on the premise that at $30-40 for a domestic unit vs. $800-1500 for commercial ones, I can afford to throw away a lot of broken waffle irons and still come out ahead. Commercial units can wait for my kitchen reno (third year, hopefully) when I can make a proper spot for them. Life is filled with compromises, no?

I like a combination of roasted and raw for my stock. I'll usually roast the carcasses of my leftover birds and stash them in the freezer, each carcass divided between two freezer bags (for small batches I'll use one, for full batches I'll use two). When I've got a chicken I want to use (often a large "retired" hen) I'll typically reserve the breasts for another use, on the grounds that they don't add much flavour anyway. I simmer the rest of the bird with the roasted half-carcass and my mirepoix, until the leg meat is tender. Then I lift the bird from the pot and remove the legs, reserving them for another use. The rest of the fresh carcass goes back into the pot for a couple of hours, until I'm satisfied with the flavour of the broth. I find that the whole chicken imparts a better flavour, and the wings/bones etc give lots of body to the stock. The roasted bones deepen the colour (usually - but not always - desirable, to my mind), and add complexity to the broth with their toasty/caramelized overtones. When I have opportunity to plan my stock making, this is my ideal situation. That being said, I often have to improvise due to time constraints, so I go with whatever I have on hand. If I end up with a light-flavoured broth, I'll either use it for risotto (where that is preferable), or else when I make soup of it I'll be sure to jack up the flavour with other ingredients.

When I was in cooking school, I had great fun pushing my classmates' buttons in just that very way. We were debating the merits of organ meats one day, during a break (me in favour, everyone else opposed), when I got onto the subject of liver. "Best part of most animals, when it's cooked properly," I pontificated, "take seal, for example...the old-timers are all about the flipper pie, but I'll take a big plate of seal liver anytime." This, as I knew it would, provoked a mighty burst of outrage from my classmates, especially the younger female ones (y'know they're thinking about baby whitecoats, not big adults which are essentially 400-lb Rottweilers with short legs). Eventually one of the braver souls piped up and asked me what seal tasted like. "Darker and gamier than moose," I told them (accurately), "but not as dark as whale." Pandemonium from them, evil-bastard amusement for me...

I currently have a low-end model by Proctor-Silex, the third in a longtime series. My parents bought the first one and used it for several years, giving it to my sister, who eventually passed it on to me. Then I used it for another 4-5 years! It was ugly but durable, and made great toast. My second one lasted me for eight years, and was much the same as the earlier model. Simple and functional. My current one, OTOH, has been something of a disappointment. It is now microprocessor-controlled, beeps when the toast is done, and is frankly inept at a couple of core functions. The "toast" function, even when set on maximum, will not even begin to brown my home-made bread, and brings store-bought only to moderately golden. The "broil" function is similarly useless, as it will not give me any surface browning at all within a useful timeframe: I usually use the toaster function for broiling. For the mid-range temperatures, it does work reasonably well. I use it regularly to make biscuits, and have made cakes and pies (mine will accommodate only 8" pans) in it, as well as small roasts (my kids loved a good feed of "toast beef"). It's also very good at baked or roasted potatoes, chicken pieces (mine's too small for a whole chicken, though I could do cornish hens or quail, I suppose), chops, etc. I will say that chicken tends to spatter the toaster with fat, making a lot of smelly smoke, but for those of you who only buy BSB's that shouldn't be a problem. If you're using your toaster to bake or roast something originally intended for a full-size oven, you'll probably need to make a couple of adjustments. With the element being so much closer to the top of the food, you may find that it tends to brown more quickly than you'd like, especially in a "stripe" directly below the element. I deal with that by using square or round pans, where possible, and rotating them; also by covering things with foil or parchment as needed. If your oven will accomodate dishes with lids, that's even better for some purposes. I'll usually reduce the temperature 25F from what the recipe calls for, and find that the baking time will be a bit shorter than in my main oven. This is without convection or any other fancy features, so I think it's just a function of the elements being so close (or maybe the small space, which would have less temperature fluctuation as the elements cycle on and off). I'll throw out a question, though, for those of you who have higher-end units. I'll be opening the doors on my own restaurant in May, in a little boutique hotel in southern New Brunswick (just up the road from where fellow eGulletter Markian plies his trade). The kitchen is sharply limited, but I have space underneath the microwave for one more device of similar size. I've been thinking in terms of a broiler/convection/toaster oven, with or without rotisserie (price is a factor), to give myself a quick-and-dirty broiling option. How do these units stack up? I've seen then priced at anywhere from $80CDN at Wal-Mart all the way up into the $5-600 range. It seems safe to assume that the low-end models are not especially capable, but I'm curious how much I'd have to spend to get a good one; and especially curious in how the higher-end models compare. Upthread I see good things written about the Delonghi and Cuisinart...anyone using any of the others?

Your secret's safe with me...

Homemade jam Really, really stinky cheese (any cheese, really, but those especially) Canned tomatoes, cold and straight from the can. Bacon. Baconbaconbaconbacon. Any other cured meat, in the absence of bacon. Garden fresh tomatoes. Roasted garlic Sardines Anchovies Tapenade Hummus Muhammara Leftover romesco sauce. Leftover pasta sauce. All the gravy left on my plate, the pan the gravy was prepared in, my kids' abandoned plates...you get the idea. The drippings in the bottom of the roaster. Sambal Oelek (nothing like a sambal sandwich to wake you up in the morning!) Whatever leftovers the fridge yields, tossed into the frying pan with an egg.

One of my clients is right across the street from the CP - next time I'm up for a meeting, I'll have to haul Nessa across the street. If there's chocolate involved, I don't think I'll get much of a fight... The Inn at Bay Fortune gave me the best meal I've had in two years; the five course tasting menu was out of this world. Pearl barley risotto with wild mushrooms, two perfect Malpeque oysters, some sort of sake-poached haddock, beef tenderloin and cappucino pannacotta for dessert...fabulous. Although my favorite part was wandering through the monstrous herb garden with a perfect gin and tonic in my hand before dinner...they know how to make you feel welcome and spoiled all at once there. As for Fran's, I don't know if it's still there or not - haven't been by in about five years, I guess - but my Dad was convinced that it was the one decent chinese spot in the Maritimes. That was probably because it was the only place you could find ginger beef done "Calgary" style - deepfried, then stir-fried in the spicy ginger sauce. I remember their cashew gai ding being exactly like this amazing dive near our old house. Next time I'm through Halifax, I'll find out. As far as Saint John goes, I'm actually quite impressed with what's gone on since I left five years ago. This town was always a culinary wasteland, with the exception of Suwanna (upscale Thai, and very, very good). I've heard good things about Opera but haven't gotten there yet; also heard good things about Lemongrass, but wasn't overly impressed when I went. My go-to around here has been the Saint John Ale House, which does pub food very, very well (another innovation to the culinary map down here). The kettle chips are fantastic, the calamari's very nice, and I'm a big fan of the pulled pork sandwich (needs a healthy kick of Tabasco when it hits the table, but it's damn good) - and they've got St. Ambrose Oatmeal Stout on tap, which I used to have to go to the Lunar Rogue in Fredericton for. My girlfriend put me onto a little convenience store with a lunch counter in the back that does great cheap thai food, too...and the lunches at The Infusion (top of the City Market) are simple and excellent. Last time we were in, my girlfriend had a beautiful squash & ginger soup that made me sorry I ordered the (also quite good) beef stew. They also have a ton of non-caffinated tea, which has been great for me since the doc's got me off the caffeine... And Reggie's still makes the ultimate hungover breakfast. Corned beef hash, a couple eggs, a cup of chili and a good cup of coffee...bliss. ← Glad to get the input on local stuff, Tmac...I'll be moving down there in mid-April, opening my place (just outside SJ) in May. Few things in this world I like better than corned beef hash for breakfast.