carswell

Cautionary tale

If I were you, I'd make a beeline for Les Fromages Pierre-Yves Chaput (the store has changed hands and names, but it'll always be LFPYC to me; 1218 Bernard West in Outremont, 514 279-9376). Although the selection at any given time is small, the cheeses are exquisite: mostly French farmhouse or artisanal with a few made-to-spec Quebec goat's and cow's milk cheeses thrown in for good measure (in season the Quebec Vacherin is a treat). They are good about letting you taste before you buy and, provided they're not too pressed for time, are generous with the explanations and advice. They also often have a number of cheeses a few days from maturity, which can be a good thing when you're travelling (underripe cheese smells less and transports better and you can finish ripening it at home, thereby prolonging the pleasure). I always deal with them in French but visitors from the States have gone there and come back raving, so I guess they don't have a problem with English; if in doubt, why not give them a call? Also worth checking out are Fromagerie Hamel on the north side of the Jean-Talon Market and the stores in the Atwater Market. Hamel has a huge selection; my favourite is probably the Maroilles à la Maudite, a Port Salut-like raw milk cheese that they import young and ripen in their cellars, washing the rind every few days with Maudite, a locally brewed Belgian-style brown ale. Laurier Gourmand on Laurier St. a couple of blocks west of Park Ave. has a small but worthwhile selection featuring some of the better Quebec raw milk cheeses. For Italian cheeses, I usually go to La Baia des Fromages (1715 Jean-Talon East, a few doors west of the Fabre metro station, 514 727-8850). I've never had problems with cheese at the border. (Don't advertise the fact that it is made from raw milk, however.) For the official pronouncement, you could call U.S. Customs at Dorval, er, Pierre E. Trudeau International weekdays during business hours and ask (514 636-3875, although they may tell you to call the Homeland Security Agriculture outpost at 514 631-7083).

Ari, on Saturday I finally got around to having an espresso at Benelo and am pleased to report that it was first rate: rich, sweet, good crema, long aftertaste. And there wasn't a pod or hermetically sealed envelope in sight; the coffee was ground directly into the portafilter. They special-import the beans, a custom blend, from Italy (don't recall the roaster's name; it started with an R). Their grinder and three-group semi-auto machine are made by Saeco. Have had no luck finding the Arkestra disks you mention in Montreal, though the jazz rack at Archambault on Berri/Ste-Catherine has a divider with Tapscott's name on it. With unknown (to me) artists, I like to try before I buy, so I guess my initiation will have to wait until I'm next in NYC, DC or Boston. Thanks for the tip, though.

Personally, I'd suggest foregoing the varietal approach. First, lots of wines are blends (e.g. Bordeaux, southern Rhones, many Languedoc and Loire reds, California meritage wines); where do they fit into such a classification? Second, depending on factors like terroir, vinification and vintage, a given grape variety can produce wines of wildly differing styles: a young Pommard can be downright rebarbative while a Mercurey from the same vintage can be a silky, gulpable delight; many zinfandels are galumphing mastodons, yet some are made in a fruity Beaujolais-like style; a sharp and gun-flinty unoaked Chablis is worlds away from a fat and blowsy California chard overladened with vanilla-oak and tropical fruit flavours. Third, a percentage of your customers are going to have no idea what, say, malbec is. A more customer-friendly approach would be to organize the wines by style. Something like: Sparkling/Champagne White - Crisp and dry (e.g. Muscadet, aligoté, Sancerre, some Chablis) - Aromatic and dry (e.g. most dry Alsatians, pinot grigio, Graves, many chenins, malvasia bianca, Pouilly-Fuissé, most southern Rhônes, Soave) - Rich and dry to off-dry (e.g. California chardonnay, Montrachet, most late-harvest Alsatians, Hermitage) Pink Red - Light and fruity (e.g. Beaujolais, Tourraine rouge, generic Burgundies, run-of-the-mill Valpolicella, medium-bodied wines from lesser vintages) - Medium-bodied (e.g. Côtes-du-Rhône, Chinon, many Burgundies, Oregon pinot noir, Barbaresco, Barbera, many Rioja, most Chilean reds) - Full-bodied, beefier (e.g. Châteauneuf-du-Pape, cru classé Bordeaux, top-drawer Languedoc, higher-end Shiraz and California cab/merlot/zin) Sweet

Picked up a dozen sesame bagels from the St. Viateur factory last night. Pulled one out of the bag to eat on the way home and was shocked to see how fat it was — a new record in my books. And while the others in the bag were not quite as obese, they were still pretty tubby. Curious, I just pulled out a tape measure and got some stats on the thicker of the two remaining bagels: 15.5 cm (6+ inches) around at the thickest point with the diameter of the cross section an astounding 5 cm (2 inches). The really thick portion forms about half of the bagel; the other half is thinner, c. 10 cm (just under 4 inches). The taste is basically unchanged, though the higher ratio of dough to crust means the bagels are definitely less chewy and maybe a bit less sweet. They also tend to compress more when you bite or cut into them. Yuck. What is driving this trend?

Side-by-side comparisons being impossible, it's hard to say for sure, but my impression is that the taste hasn't changed much in the last 30 years. Schmearing may be one of the factors driving the trend to fatter bagels; they do make for better bagel burgers.

Although I'm not a fan of the stuff, I've been on a long and so-far fruitless quest to learn how smoked meat is made. As I wrote on another board, "A homesick Montrealer once asked me to find a recipe for smoked meat. Despite spending hours combing the Web and searching through cookbooks, I came up with naught. Some aficionados claim it's unique, a thing unto itself; others say it's a kind of cross between corned beef and pastrami. According to my information, it's not brined, which rules out a corned beef connection. I suspect it's very much like pastrami: rubbed with spices, dry-cured (no marinade) and smoked. The main difference would be the spice mixture. As I understand it, pastrami is cured with a mixture of sweet and savoury spices. But the roots of smoked meat are in eastern Europe (some say Lithuania, some say Romania). Sweet spices (e.g. cinnamon, clove, cardamon) were expensive and so were saved for use in flavouring breads, pastries and desserts. My guess is that the smoked meat rub includes corriander, pepper, garlic and sugar. But let me reiterate that this is all conjecture. Maybe somebody who actually knows what they're talking about will reply..."

Montreal bagels are said to be closer to the original Old World bagels. They're scrawnier and chewier than NY bagels and have a coarser crumb. The smaller diameter of the cross-section means the ratio of crust to doughy centre is greater, which is probably one reason they're chewier. And they are briefly boiled in honey water before being baked in a wood-fired oven. Have also heard that the dough is different, with Montreal bagels using more malt and a different yeast.

IMO, St. Viateur bagels are still the best in the city. Whether the bakery has kept its quality up is less clear. The bagels are fatter, less chewy and a bit sweeter than they were, say, in the '70s. In fact, these days you sometimes get ones with holes so small you can't thread them on your finger! They've also begun to offer other flavours — cinnamon raisin, for example. To date, there's been no popular revolt, probably because the changes have been gradual and the bagels remain so superior to others. But neither trend is to be encouraged, and if someone wants to start a petition, I'll sign it...

Beware the Mirror's Best of Montreal survey results. The respondents tend to belong to a very narrow, very anglo demographic and the results tend to be skewed toward the big names, not necessarily the best. That has to be why McDo's made it into third place; most self-respecting poutine lovers in my acquaintance would put it on the bottommost rung. And how else does one explain the absence of Frite Alors!, which many connoisseurs consider the crème de la crème (great fries make great poutine), or the gourmet offerings of places like Au Pied de Cochon and Globe? For some background on poutine, check out this post I made on another board.

Your friend is more or less right. In the days before phylloxera, malvasia was the traditional variety used to make Malmsey (which name is an English corruption of the grape's name), and it has been making a comeback there and elsewere in recent years. There's some excellent dry white malvasia coming out of Friuli these days. Here in North America, Bonny Doon regularly turns out a fun, nearly dry malvasia bianca. The bouquet is remarkable; your tangerine descriptor is right on the mark. I usually serve the wine as an aperitif by itself or with hors d'oeuvres or sometimes with simply prepared seafood, especially mussels. Other food pairings are not always obvious. Some friends and I once chose a Bonny Doon malvasia to accompany a first course of asparagus thinking that, like Alsatian dry muscat, its floral/orangey qualities would make for a decent match. Wrong. The surprise was that the wine was superb with the following dish, a savoury "salad" whose main ingredient was perfectly ripe cantaloup.

Um. What's so funny about that? Unless, of course, you mean he should have said screw caps are the ultimate thing... My top howler came from a still-wet-behind-the-ears SAQ (Quebec liquor board) clerk who answered the phone when I called to ask whether they had a certain California chardonnay in stock. He said he'd check. A few minutes later, he came back on the line and asked, "Chardonnay — that's a white, right?"

Don't know if you're aware of this, but Auberge Hatley was originally built as a country home for the eponyms of the ritzy downtown Montreal department store, the Holt-Renfrews. Are you talking about the actual preparation or the quality of the game per se? If the latter, probably nothing will match it. In Canada, all game sold in butcher shops and served in restaurants must be dispatched in government-inspected slaughterhouses, which effectively means that all game sold for public consumption is farm-raised. That's not the case in France, where individuals can sell wild game and fish they harvest to restaurants. There, wild rabbits taste of the garrigue they eat, wild boars of acorns. Given the quality of Quebec's real game — moose is simply the finest red meat I've tasted, snow goose breasts are darkly, deliciously wild-tasting — this is a sad state of affairs, especially for the non-hunters among us. I once had an interesting discussion with M. Boileau, Quebec's leading venison producer, about the ungaminess of his meat. Maybe when I have a few minutes, I'll type up a report and post it on one of the more general food/cooking boards. Thanks, by the way, for taking the time to write up such a detailed review.

Nope. The first time I saw theirs, I thought they'd finally acquired a cast-iron skillet, except it had that funny red spot in the middle. You know, I just realized that none of my French (as opposed to Canadian) French friends uses naked cast iron except for one guy who has a ridged griddle for stove-top "grilling." Le Cruset-style enameled cast iron, bien sûr. But good ol' American cast iron, pas du tout. Will have to query them as to why.

Close but no cigar, FG. Turns out there are several lines of Tefal (T-Fal in North America and Japan) cookware with red spots. As the price indicates, the Perfection line is on the lower end of the North American line. See T-Fal USA Cookware. My friends' skillet is the top of the French line. Made from cast aluminum, it is one piece (the handle is part of the skillet, not screwed on) and has something of the heft of a cast iron fry pan. Their particular model may have been discontinued, as they can't find it on the Tefal France website. The current line that appears to come closest is the Passion. Note that the description says metal spatulas can be used, which jibes with my friends' experience; one of the reviewers on the site you linked to complained that her Perfection plan had become badly scratched.

Although I've used one only a few times, I find the Striam Cybernox fry pan to be pretty impressive, and my friends to whom it belongs swear by it with a few caveats. The surface is stick-resistant, not non-stick. The advantages are: - fried food browns really well - those tasty caramelized adherances form on the pan - said adherances release instantly during deglazing - sautéed thinly sliced calf's liver, which never turns out well for me in a stainless skillet (it sticks) or non-stick skillet (it doesn't brown), cooks to perfection - the coating is tough, so you don't have to use wimpy nylon utensils and the pan can go in the dishwasher. The main downside is that the pans don't work well for eggs and other preparations involving liquids that congeal in the pan. Also, you need to heat the pan completely before adding what you want to cook. Other friends have an impressive skillet made by T-Fal. It looks and weighs about the same as a cast-iron skillet but has a red dot in the centre that turns bright red when optimum temperature has been reached. The coating is tough--they don't hesitate to use metal tongs to turn meat frying in it. Not having cooked eggs in it, I don't know whether it's non-stick or stick-resistant. My friends lugged it back from France last summer, but I recall their saying they've since seen it in the States. If you're interested, I'll see if I can track down the name.

Beat to the punch. Should get in the habit of checking the Web before hitting the books... Anyway, I'll go ahead and post as this contains a few tidbits not covered in the linked dissertation. The following info comes a bit from my brain and a lot from reference books, mainly Robinson's Vine, Grapes and Wines (which has finally been reissued, and in an affordable soft cover edition) and indispensable Oxford Companion to Wine. Excuse the redundancies with melkor's link, but I've spent enough time on this already and don't feel like revising it further. You've got the three top varieties but in the wrong order. Muscat blanc à petit grains is considered the finest. The grapes are smaller and rounder than most other varieties and, name notwithstanding, can be white, pink, red or black. This is the grape used in Frontignan and Asti, where it bears the regional name (muscat de Frontignan, moscato d'Asti). It is also known as muskateller, moscato bianco, moscatel de grano menudo, muscat canelli, brown muscat (in Australia) and muskadel (in South Africa). It may be the oldest cultivated wine grape variety and is thought to rank 12th in acerage in the world. It buds early, which effectively limits it to warm climates. It was the first muscat planted in Alsace (and it still goes under the name muscat d'Alsace), although it has since been replaced by muscat ottonel. All moscato d'Asti and Asti spumante and most of the finest sweet muscats of southern France (e.g. Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise, St-Jean-de-Minervois, Frontignan) are made from this variety. In terms of acerage, muscat of Alexandria is almost as popular as muscat blanc à petits grains, although it is losing ground to that variety in the south of France, Spain and South Africa. It is especially tolerant of hot climates but tends to produce very sweet grapes and heavy, unsubtle wines. Much of the fruit goes for uses other than wine; for example, nearly all of California's crop is made into raisins, much of Chile's into pisco. The grape goes under many names, including moscatel de España, muscat romain, zibibbo and mocatel gordo. Most Spanish moscatello is made from muscat of Alexandria, as are most French muscats from the Côtes Catalains region (e.g. Rivesaltes). It is also the predominant muscat variety in Turkey, Israel, Tunisia and Sicily, where it is used to make Moscato di Pantelleria. Surprisingly or not, it takes a back seat to muscat blanc à petit grains in Greece. Either or both muscat blanc à petits grains and muscat of Alexandria are used to make dry muscats in southern France and Spain. Dry muscats from this region are a recent invention and were first developed as a way of using grapes not needed for sweet wines, which suffered from declining popularity. In colour and aroma, muscat ottonel is the palest of muscats. It is probably a recent arrival; some trace its origin to the mid-1800s and claim it is a cross between the chasselas table grape and the inferior muscat de Saumur. Early ripening, it is better suited to cooler climates: Alsace, Austria, the Ukraine, Romania, etc. Nearly all Alsatian muscat wine and most Austrian is made from this variety. Although grown mainly as a table grape, muscat Hamburg is used to make wine in eastern Europe. In China, wine is made from crosses between it and the indigenous Vitis amurensis grape.

Cooking in rhythm with the seasons, shunning non-local produce except when unavoidable. Last weekend I cooked what I expect were the last asparagus I'll eat until May of next year. We probably have another week to go with strawberries. Fresh tomatoes are part of my repertoire for about two months a year. Living in the Great White North, I relent a bit in the dead of winter, otherwise it'd be nothing but root vegetables, cabbage and onions. And some non-local fruits and veggies survive the trip not too worse for the wear -- bananas, citrus fruit, pears, apples, cherries, mangoes, artichokes, arugula, chestnuts. But those are the exceptions, and even they are seasonal. The advantages are that the food actually tastes like it's supposed to; each season brings a unique set of joys and flavours; and it costs a whole lot less. In a way, this is a subset of Jaymes' theme (using only the best ingredients).

Cafe Italia gets my vote for the city's best espresso and cappa. Several coffee merchants in Little Italy (e.g. Faema, Union) also pull a decent shot. The award for the best allongé I've been served in a Montreal restaurant goes to Leméac. I agree with Raspoutine and others that Café, Toi et Moi serves more-than-acceptable café au lait and latte, probably the best of the Brûlerie St-Denis, Aux Deux Marie, Café République bunch (and let's not broach the subject of Van Houtte, Second Cup, Starbucks, etc.). Has anyone tried the coffee at the relatively new fair-trade coffee roasters on Rachel a few blocks east of St-Hubert? Can't remember the name but have heard good things. food_eater, don't know about Hungary and Austria, but espresso is properly made with water a bit under the boiling point, around 90°C. The portafilter (the thing with a handle and a basket in which the ground coffee goes), group head (the thing on the machine you attach the portafilter to) and the cup should all be preheated. Identifiler, espresso is brewed at 90°C ±2°C because less than that produces an underextracted, sour tasting cup and more than that produces an burned tasting, bitter cup. The immediate consumption thing is just a side benefit. arkestra, it's Benelo. David Benelo, the owner, has been my haircutter for (ack!) over 20 years (he does beards, too, raspoutine). The cafe, which is run by partners of his, used to make espresso using pods or preground coffee in bags and, as a result, I wrote it off. Will try again the next time I'm there, probably later this week. The cafe's sandwiches, salads and homemade gelati are all good, though they don't come cheap. By the way, you wouldn't happen to be a Sun Ra fan, would you?

Alsatian dry muscats make a delightful aperitif. They are also one of the few wines that pair nicely with asparagus (although, oddly, my Alsatian acquaintances all consider beer the beverage of choice with that vegetable). Dry muscats are also found in the south of France. Chapoutier makes a delicious (not a word I usually associate with them) Muscat Sec as well as Cigala, a blend of muscat and macabou. Both are Vins de pays des Côtes Catalaines and real QPR winners; the Cigala retails here for US$8, one of the cheapest truly drinkable whites around. Last I heard, Argentina's torrontés grape was thought to be related to muscat. Certainly the wines made from it have a muscat-like aroma. They, too, are great bargains. One thing to bear in mind: there are several varieties of muscat and not all are of equal quality. Carema, muscat is indeed a splendid table grape: fat, juicy and honeyed. The ones we see tend to come from Sicily. In fact, muscat is (I believe) the only common table grape that is also commonly used to make wine (setting aside some North American varieties and French hybrids).

After experimentation, I'm pretty much convinced that five types of wine glasses are all any geek needs: Flutes, for bubblies. Standard red wine (12.5-20 oz), for most reds and the biggest whites. Standard white, about 20% smaller than the standard red. The primary reason for a smaller glass is that the serving is smaller and so has less time to warm up before it is consumed, or so it seems to me. Is this right? Balloon glasses, 25-35% larger than the standard red wine glass, for Burgundies and other reds whose bouquet benefits from the extra space. Beware the hulking 32 oz and bigger balloons, however. Many wines, even Burgundies, get lost in them, and they're highly prone to tipping. INAO tasting glasses, for Port, Sherry and some sweet wines, as well as for tasting, the main advantage being that using a standard glass removes the stemware from the analytical equation. They're also easy to swirl. Have to agree with the others about their shortcomings as tablewine glasses, though. Appellation/varietal-specific glasses may make sense if you drink a lot of one type of wine. If I made Brunello, I'd probably be tempted to own some Riedel sangiovese glasses. But having played with various Riedels and attended one Riedel-led tasting, I find Riedel's claims exaggerated. And, though a big deal is always made about how their glasses direct the wine to the most receptive area of the tongue, what are we to make of that claim in light of recent studies that show that receptors for bitterness, sweetness, etc. are not specific to any area of the tongue? Psychological factors were obviously at play at the Riedel tasting I attended, and I left wondering whether the whole business wasn't first and foremost a brilliant marketing ploy, a way of upping sales by playing on consumers' insecurities. Riedels are gorgeous but outrageously priced and the high-end stuff is extremely fragile; does your pretentious friend also insist that a Rolex is the only watch worth owning? Spiegelaus are a close-to-ideal compromise between cost, function and robustness. Crystal d'Arques' Oenologue series is excellent, too. Mikasa (sp?) has got good reports. I always wash stemware by hand. Have heard good things about Crystal Safe racks, however, including from Riedel owners. FG, are you sure the INAO tasting glass was designed to highlight the wine's flaws? I thought that was the big selling point of the Impitoyable series.

First, and more to the point, if GordonCooks is phoning the chateau (figuratively or not), it's probably not to learn how the name is pronounced in London or L.A. Second, the pronunciation of foreign names and words in English is not nearly as cut-and-dry as you would have it. Yes, the names of certain cities, for the most part historic centres of trade, have long been Englished (e.g. Hong Kong, Cologne, Florence and, bien sûr, Paris). But that is rarely the case for the names of smaller places. And bear in mind the modern-day trend to move closer to the native orthography and pronunciation (Peking -> Beijing, Bombay -> Mumbai, Leghorn -> Livorno, Quebec City -> Québec). When pronouncing the name of a foreign estate/producer, here's the safest rule to follow: approximate it in English, trying to get as close as possible to the native pronunciation without sounding affected or unnatural. Why pronouce the s in Cornas and not in Chablis? Why pronounce Billecart bee-ya-car instead of bile-cart? Aloxe alosse instead of alox? Fumé fu-may instead of fume or few-mee? Rioja ree-o-ha instead of ree-o-jaw? Because in every instance it is closer to the native pronunciation. Yes, standard usage determines correctness in English. But who is in a position to say what the standard usage among anglophones worldwide is for Pétrus, let alone Pacherenc du Vic Bihl? In the end, the only reliable touchstone is how native speakers pronounce it. Melkor, that's the French pronunciation (and spoken by a francophone to my ear). Note that the first syllable is closer to pay than to pet and that the t goes more with the r that follows than the é that precedes. Am a bit surprised by the pronunciation of Cos, though. I've always understood it was pronouned cosse but the clip sounds closer to casse.

There's an acute accent on the e (Pétrus), so the first syllable is pronouced pay. The tru is pronouced somewhat like English true and the final s is pronounced but unvoiced (i.e. like the s in caboose, not goes). The syllables are given equal emphasis and, of course, the vowels are purer than their English equivalents.

It was Socanav head Michel Gaucher whom the Caisse de dépôt et de placement backed in the Steinberg takeover. If I recall correctly, the Caisse ended up losing around $450 million of their, er, our money when the house came tumbling down. Good thing they learned their lesson, eh?

Couldn't agree more, champ. The cooking is first rate and (hurrah!) more comforting than challenging, the welcome is warm and heartfelt, and the decor is cozy. The terrasse in front of the restaurant is great on warm evenings. Lunch (on Thursdays and Fridays only, I believe) is a good deal. The menu sometimes includes meat, by the way, but fish rules in more ways than one. All in all, Delfino is a feel-good kind of place as well as one of the city's value-for-money champions. Don't worry about its being overrun by hungry hoards, however. It may be only a short block north of bustling Bernard, but it's well off the beaten path, out of sight and out of mind, as far as the general public is concerned. I've recommended it on other boards, yet, as far as I know, no one has ever gone there on my advice. If anything, we should fret about the opposite problem, which was one of the things that made staying in business a dicey proposition for the restaurants that occupied that space before Delfino. Still, it has hung in there for -- what is it? -- five or six years now. (And about the Alois Lageder pinot: close but no cigar. It's Krafuss.)