chromedome

Semantics are always fun, aren't they? When I only cooked at home, I jokingly referred to myself as "chef" quite often. Then I went to cooking school, and began working in a restaurant, and began to see what really went into being a chef, and I changed my tune. Now, with the majority of the industry, I consider the person running the kitchen to be "chef," and noone else (unless it be a "chef emeritus," so to speak). This has nothing to do with formal training. I work for a woman with no formal training who's run one of the city's leading fine dining restaurants for 25 years (a mathematician and industrial engineer, in fact, by trade). Is she a chef? Durn tootin'. Am I a chef? Not yet. Not nearly. Interestingly enough, to my boss, "chef" denotes a cook who's had sufficient training or experience to be functional in a busy commercial kitchen. To her, my colleagues and I are chefs. To each his/her own, I guess.

I guess there would be two, for me. I stayed home from university in the fall of 1980 to fish with my father and my uncle. My plan was to save my earnings and tour Europe on a Eurail youthpass. I had collected all of the necessary applications and such, but...that year the fish didnt' come, for the first (but by no means the last) time, in that part of the Newfoundland coast. We spent a lot of time and hard work on earning very little money. When all was said and done, I'd have had about enough money to get me to Heathrow and back, and that was about it. Although my focus at the time was not gastronomic, I know beyond a doubt that a trip like this would have spurred my interest in "good" food (as opposed to "just" food) years earlier than it did happen. This, in turn, leads me to a second regret: the twenty years I drifted from sales job to sales job before becoming a cook. I'd like to have at least a few of those back. There are lots of others, of course, but they're not culinary...

That's outright genius! I'm on it right frikkin' now... (To Do List: 1) Learn to read music 2) Learn to write music 3) Learn to orchestrate 4) Pirate a copy of movie script 5) Translate same 6) Write libretto 7) Write score 8) Translate back, 'cuz opera doesn't sound right in English) Actually, writing an opera is my personal "dream big" project, the accuracy of the above To Do list notwithstanding.

Unscrupulous fishmongers have been known to punch rounds out of skate wings and sell them as scallops. October 28th was my wedding anniversary, but we didn't do anything much. I made steak with panfried potatoes and bearnaise sauce, and later we sipped on some port. That was it.

Tsing Tao is pretty widely available, so I guess an inquiring mind could experiment. It's also pretty much identical to Beck's, so if you can't get Tsing Tao that's the alternative.

In one or another Indian cookbook, I found a variation on parathas that uses a fairly similar technique. Except, of course, they used ghee for the oil. They were easy and quick to make, and even more so to eat.

You may also want to visit the Beyond Vegetarianism website. The proprietor is a long-term vegetarian and sometime vegan who started the site because he felt that the various dogmas (and pseudoscientific substantiations thereof) did vegetarianism a disservice. While he supports the choice of a vegetarian lifestyle, much of the site is given over to debunking the various forms of silliness that are promoted by earnest and well-meaning vegetarians, as well as some of the more self-serving health gurus. More to the point, in this specific instance, the site has a great deal of information about the anti-nutrient properties of various raw foods, and which ones should not be combined and/or should be eaten in isolation at a separate sitting. Raw spinach, for example, binds several nutrients and enables them to pass through your body without benefit. This is not an issue for most of us, since as opportunistic omnivores we have lots of nutrients passing through our systems on a given day. For a raw foodist, especially a vegan, it can be a real concern.

I like vegetarian food well enough, if it's prepared well. I could probably even eat vegetarian for an extended period in a place like India where it's done well. Here, though, I don't trust the food in explicitly vegetarian places to be well made, because frankly it usually isn't. In order to sample a significant number of vegetarian places, and sort out which ones do it well, would require pretty much my entire eating-out budget (roughly, two-three times a year) for some time to come. Frankly, I don't see the point when I can do better myself at home. I have no problem with legumes in general, I eat them more than most North Americans. Tofu I can do without, as it is a waste of mouthspace as used in most vegetarian establishments I've visited. As for Yves and the rest of the mock-meat crowd, well...some of them are modestly palatable, but I still don't see the point. I will give Yves this, though...their Lack of Ram is one of my all-time favourite product names.

Yes. I don't often do a traditional roasted turkey, unless I'm hosting a get-together with family (I'm not, this year). I don't have anything much against turkey, but it's not one of my favourite meats...especially a whole roasted bird. Even when done perfectly (a rare occurence), roasted turkey gives me a wicked case of drymouth for about three days afterwards. Sometimes, if I can get a nice fresh turkey, I'll break it down to make multiple meals out of, and roast one or both breasts for the Day Itself. One stuffed with fruit and nuts, one stuffed with a traditional savoury stuffing; this way the stuffing cooks to a food-safe temperature before the turkey turns to sawdust. When I'm doing this I roast the carcass and wingtips for drippings and then make stock, so running out of gravy is never an issue. If you make stock with your current turkey, then you'll always have enough gravy for the next one; avoiding the heartbreak of running out. I kicked off this weekend by cooking a piece of pork sirloin, stuffed with coarsely-chopped prunes. I served it with orange-saffron rice, glazed baby carrots from my garden (I deliberately overseed, so they stay small right up 'til fall), and some escarole sauteed in butter with toasted walnuts, then deglazed with fresh-squeezed orange juice...sort of a warm "vinaigrette" effect. I deglazed the pork pan with a splash of LBV port, finished the sauce with butter, and that was dinner. For tomorrow I've got a piece of ham. Normally I'd roast that and make gravy with the drippings, but I'm thinking just this once maybe I'll do the ham "en croute," like a German friend of mine in Nova Scotia used to do. Wrapped in bread dough and then baked, and the bread soaks up all the lovely juices. If I do that, then I'll have to come up with something else in the line of a sauce. Buttermilk "gravy," perhaps, with a bit of the ham's fatcap diced and rendered and sprinkled into it for some extra umph. I've got a "Sweet Dumpling" squash and a "Delicata" that I want to use up, so I'll probably use the Sweet Dumpling to bookend my Thanksgiving meal. I'm leaning towards little ramekins of soup for a starter, and then with the remaining squash individual souffles for dessert. Maybe with a ginger creme anglaise. Or perhaps squash creme brulees, I haven't decided yet. I have new potatoes, baby carrots, and pretty little beetroots from my garden, and at present I'm still deciding how I'm going to put it all together. That's the fun part.

Hi, there! After a year in the bakery at my work, I'm back to being a cook again (woooooohooo!). On a day-to-day basis, I'm now the saucier, responsible for soups, stocks, sauces, etc. However, for a cooking class later on this month, I've been asked to put together a meal (four or five courses) on the theme of Oktoberfest. Now, I do have a reasonable grounding in German food, and coming up with individual dishes is not a problem as far as that goes. My question is whether there are dishes that are generally identified with Oktoberfest, or at least seasonal? As far as I know, most O-fest food is of the "eat-while-strolling-with-a-beer-in-hand" variety, which doesn't really lend itself to a cooking demo. I guess I could show them how to make bratwurst, if it came to that. Format is demonstration-style rather than hands-on, with me having roughly 90 minutes to prep the dishes before the wondering eyes of the (20-35) paying customers; after which we all sit down and eat the food (which would be prepared in quantity by other kitchen staff, while I'm setting up and doing the demo). Should ideally be the sort of dishes that people might legitimately want to try at home, which is why I'm not keen on the sausage-making. Whaddaya say? Any suggestions?

When I lived in Saskatchewan years ago, I knew a family of English ex-pats. They'd arrived from the southern end of England, where the climate is similar to Vancouver, on a January day in the late 1960's. Back then, there were no nice tunnels into the terminal; they rolled the steps up to the door and you got down and walked across the tarmac. They arrived in a terrible blizzard, in white-out conditions, and the pilot was lucky to find a small hole in the storm so he could set down. When the doors opened, the father was the first out, setting an example for the rest of his rather intimidated family. The kids, of course, swallowed their terror and followed. When the mom got to the doorway, though, she stopped dead, grabbed the doorframe, and announced to the entire area that she was NOT getting off, NOBODY could make her, and they could just turn the airplane around RIGHT NOW and take her home. They told this as an amusing anecdote, when I knew them in the early '80s, but the mom had only the thinnest of smiles...

I use this kind, and it works just fine for almost anything I could think of. Wheel cutter I thought that croissant cutters were a pretty neat idea, too, until I priced them out.

Score! Picked up a copy of Cooks Illustrated's "The Best Recipe"...from a remaindered bin at Safeway...for $6.99 CDN (list price $40 CDN).

<sigh> This Nova Scotian's been living inland for 2 1/2 years. Last time I did that (early 1980's) I made two trips to the East Coast and one to the West during that time. No such luck this go-round...I can't fit all I own in a duffle bag anymore, and hitchhiking with the wife & kids is O-U-T out! Your pix have been wonderful medicine for the homesickness. Maine looks almost as nice (cough, cough) as New Scotland.

When I lived in Newfoundland, no festive occasion (graduation, wedding, baby shower, etc) was complete without the mandatory three bowls of potato salad: one white, one green, one pink. The white was (at least where I lived) yer basic potato/egg/Miracle Whip agglomeration; the green had mushed-up canned peas mixed into it; while the pink had little bits of pickled beet and the attendant juice mixed in. Not being a fan of Miracle Whip, I wasn't that keen on any of them. Other than that, I'm open to pretty much any variation on the overall theme of potato salad. I like them with and without eggs; with mayo or vinaigrette (or German-style with bacon fat and vinegar); with or without mustard; with pretty much any kind of pickle or any kind of fresh herb...let's face it, potatoes whether warm or cold are pretty much a blank slate. They'll work with any combination of other ingredients that taste good in their own right.

Apricot kernel paste is widely used in patisserie, as a lower-priced alternative to almond paste. I don't recall whether roasting is the key to utilizing them safely, and McGee is silent on the matter, but I'll check some other sources and see what I can turn up.

I'm curious about this too, but I have a small problem. I buy my tamarind in the traditional compressed format, which needs to be soaked and strained before use. How would I go about converting?

I read the whole thread from the start. It was rather interesting, in a slow-mo-train-wreck sort of way. I can see why several of those involved are now "legacy participants"! The original question, stripped of its inherent western paternalism, was an interesting one. Is there a trend, among "ethnic cuisines," to a more subtle approach toward spicing? If there is, does that constitute greater skill and "balance," or does it simply signal a transient response to Western influence? Personally, my feeling is that the pendulum is shifting in the other direction; in that classically-trained...even French...chefs are integrating a wider variety of spices, and more adventurous levels of spicing, into their cuisine. Admittedly I don't get out much. But I do read everything I can get my hands on. I will say that the departed Mr. P's rather narrow definition of a "cuisine" gets my back up in no uncertain fashion. It's difficult to grasp any set of criteria that dismisses the heady flavours of, say, Thai or Keralese cooking as the product of unenlightened and unskillful hands.

Great to see you joining the ranks of active posters, VV! You actually played an indirect part in my arrival here at eGullet, a year and a half ago. I was listening to Stuart MacLean's "Vinyl Cafe" on CBC 2, and he was talking about visiting your restaurant with a friend. He made your place sound *so* damned good, I had to Google you up...and found myself reading threads here on this forum. I joined a couple of months later, after exams were over. I haven't been in Vancouver since 1993 (briefly), but next time I'm there I will be first in line outside your door one night. PS: A good friend of ours back home in Halifax was a Punjabi from Amritsar. I used to make him things like carrot halwa when he was homesick...

A slice of bread smothered in fat...a salad smothered in fat...I don't really see much difference. I suspect that, given a choice between salad w/ranch or bread w/dripping, I'd lean toward bread with dripping, but that's just me. I don't have strong feelings about ranch dressing either way. It's rich, bland, a little bit tangy; adds flavour and mouthfeel without being "challenging." The appeal isn't really all that mysterious, it's a mainstream cognate to the sour cream/creme fraiche/labneh so widely used elsewhere.

Seafood and berries are about it for local specialties, but they're very very good inded. More to the point, the Margaree area is breathtakingly beautiful. If you get the opportunity to travel around a little bit, the Alexander Graham Bell museum in Baddeck is a uniquely wonderful place (if not food related). Likewise the Highland Village Museum in Iona, which chronicles the Scots presence in Cape Breton through the years.

Yep, that's got instant classic written all over it.

This is why I don't grow zucchini myself! During the appropriate season, I just walk out to the street close my eyes, hold out my hand, and wait for someone to hand me some... Ok, that was a joke. I didn't plant any this year because of my limited garden space and my limited appreciation for zucchini. I've found that I do love the blossoms, though, and I do like the baby ones (about the size of a large dill pickle) much more than the bigger ones. As for uses, any good mid-East/Med cookbook will include numerous recipes for zucchini, or eggplant recipes in which it may reasonably be substituted. Stuffed with various combinations of fruits/meats/grains/vegetables, poached/simmered/baked/braised, take your pick. Or grilled and coarsely chopped in various salads and mezze/maza/tapas. Next year, in my (hopefully) expanded garden, I'll probably plant a vine or two of zucchini for the sake of the blossoms and babies. I'll also be attempting eggplants for the first time, and will be increasing my tomatoes sharply (only three this year).

I can certainly attest to that. I grew up in Nova Scotia during the days when there were only five vegetables (the 1960's and 1970's), and before the newly-arrived Lebanese began their transformation of the local palate. The closest I came to anything exotic was the newly-introduced "donair" (a local adaptation of shawarma/doner kebab with a sweet-sour milk-based sauce). And then, at the beginning of my twenties (ie, the early 80's) I moved to Vancouver, and the world changed. I lived in the Commercial Drive area, still known as "Little Italy" although its ethnic mix had broadened dramatically. The strip included a variety of Italian restaurants and coffee bars, certainly, but also Salvadorean, Portugese, Mexican, Jamaican, Thai, Chinese, Indian, and many other cuisines. The produce stores carried things I'd never dreamed of. And then, there was Patel's. I don't know if they're still there, at Commercial and, um...6th? 7th? Just before Broadway, anyway. Walking into that place set my blood afire. I never knew it until I set foot in that place, but somehow my mixed-UK ancestry left me genetically susceptible to the smell and flavour of cumin. Cumin toasting on the stovetop (a technique I would not acquire for several more years) is a smell that transports me in a visceral way few other things - fresh-baked bread, maybe - do. I spent endless hours in that store, smelling spices I knew nothing of: cumin, coriander, fenugreek seeds, ajwain, nigella, panch phoron, cardamom (three kinds!), turmeric...it was purely hypnotic. And I never knew there were so many legumes in the world! That was when my interest in food really began to soar: between the availability of so many new things at Patels and the great Commercial Drive greengrocers; and all the exposure to new flavours and smells. For the newly-hatched foodie, there are far worse places than Commercial Drive. Sorry, I'm rambling. My point was that the foods of the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East, and the Maghreb (however you wish to distinguish and differentiate them) are able to exert a powerful influence on outsiders, even outsiders who lack an emotional attachment to the respective regions.

I think it was Day-Lewis' "Tarts with Tops On" that I saw, so I'll have to check next time I'm there. "Thinking man's Nigella" works for me. The library book sale yielded a total of 20 items for $18, most of them not food-related. I did pick up the companion coil-ring recipe booklets for two of the Time-Life "Foods of the World" books I own (Chinese and Provincial French), as well as the "Good Cooking Cook Book" which features recipes by various luminaries including James Beard and Jacques Pepin. So I guess that's three more.