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Beard on a Wire

23 Dec

   I saw him fifty years ago, through the window of my father’s car, with the dirty London rain pouring down upon the crowds along the Charing Cross Road. I remember the soporific rhythm of the windshield wipers, the soft leather seats that smelt faintly of tobacco, and my father’s handsome, impassive profile, as he sat silently beside me, thinking his own thoughts.

   The evening traffic was particularly heavy. We would crawl along for a hundred yards and then stop, while people with umbrellas and Christmas shopping swayed around the car, their faces distorted by the film of water on my window. But Santa Claus had no umbrella. He was standing on the corner outside Foyle’s bookshop, dishevelled and sagging, held up by two policemen. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead and he had lost his beard; one half of his face was smeared with mud. His head was lolling and his mouth was twisted into an idiotic grin.

   My breath fogged the window and I quickly wiped it away with my hand. Perhaps he thought I was waving, for he suddenly looked up and stared at me with exhausted eyes. The grin began to fade away. His arms were pinned too tightly in the policemen’s grip, but I saw his right hand stiffen towards the car and move from side to side.

   To this day I do not know what to make of that small gesture. It seemed to say don’t worry – pay no attention to all this. It might have been a dismissal, or a benediction.

   Then the traffic edged us on and I lost sight of him. It was a while before I realised that my father had seen him too.

   “Just a drunk in a red ulster,” he murmured as we turned onto Oxford Street.

 


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Four pre-Christmas treats and one post-

19 Dec

Liquored salmon belly at Starfish Oyster Bed: is Patrick McMurray a genius or what?

STARFISH liquored salmon belly. My wife chose Starfish for her birthday dinner over the weekend and the ever-hospitable owner and oyster-genius Patrick McMurray surprised us with his latest invention – liquored salmon belly. He was thinking about the salmon he gets – organic Irish salmon of the highest calibre – and what to do with it… Cure it? But how? With some kind of brine… And what is the purest brine – and always available at Starfish? The ocean water trapped inside the shell of each living oyster. He had some gorgeous Welsh oysters from Anglesey to hand – grown in almost the same water in which that Irish salmon swam when it was pink and carefree in the glory of its youth. Salmo salar! The leaper! The selfsame fish whose avatar once dwelt in a secluded pool on Ireland’s River Boyne, nourished by the hazelnuts of knowledge as they plopped into the water from the tree of wisdom until that salmon was the wisest of all creatures. Alas, not smart enough to elude Patrick McMurray. He opens the deep shell of a Welsh Menai Straits oyster, removes the oyster without losing the brine and lies two slices of the fish’s fatty belly into the viscous, salt-thickened water caught in the empty shell. He poses it on a coupe of crushed ice and sets the oyster itself beside it, still alive but beached on the other flatter half of its shell. The brine starts to cure the salmon – even a moment or two is enough to begin to turn that coral-coloured flesh pale and opaque. It tastes amazing! The soft, buttery salmon belly with that hit of ocean salt… The oyster fat and creamy with a cucumber, minerally finish… A very good reason to go to Starfish asap.

Interesting trivia fact: almost all British oystermen now have a bed or two dedicated to Pacific species! Why? Because their season lasts all year long. Indigenous British flats have distinct seasons and are periodically unavailable.

 

SOMA chocolatemaker Green Tangerine 66%. Proprietor-chocolatier David Castelan has an unerring sense of what constitutes the most delectable chocolate in the world. With this slender bar he blends sharp, fruity Madagascar Trinitario and Criollo beans, rendering a chocolate of 66% cacao content and flavouring it with essence of green tangerine. The chocolate is intense and fruitily acidic to begin with – but not as bitter as it would have been at, say, 70%. The green tangerine aroma/flavour is perfectly pitched – a citrus fruit that is more interesting than lemon or orange or grapefruit but less floral than yuzu or kumquat – the ideal chocolate corollary. I tried to make my dainty little 80-gram slab last until nightfall. Yeah right…

 

ALIMENTO is the new Italian gourmet emporium at 522 King Street West that took forever to open but is now up and running. Judging by the empty aisles and the empty chairs in the attractive mozzarella bar, it is still a well-kept secret but we went down and checked it out last weekend. There’s a charming décor of old wooden floors and extravagant displays of imported (and a few local) Italian treats. Great strengths: the salumi bar featuring dozens of fab Italian and Canadian meats, plus real Spanish Iberico ham at a very reasonable price. An impressive cheese selection. A predictably strong wall of Italian olive oils. Decent canned items, antipasti and pastries. Lots more… We ended up going home and cooking up a lunch from what we bought, built around a spectacularly good dried angel-hair egg noodle, Spinosini 2000. It cooks in two minutes and has a gorgeous grainy flavour. Our sauce was simplicity itself – sliced cremini mushrooms sautéed with finely chopped shallot, dried porcini reconstituted in chicken stock, pepper, plenty of cream and a tablespoonful of President’s Choice black truffle aioli. This last is a product that had been sitting in my fridge for a while, waiting to learn what its fate might be. I wasn’t sure whether it would have that rank, locker-room aroma that some truffle-flavoured products lend to a dish so I had hesitated to use it. As things turned out, it was surprisingly subtle, pleasing and just the ticket for our mushroom sauce – the sort of thing that disappears texturally in a sauce or dressing but leaves a ripe and poignant memory of truffle in the air.

 

ACE Christmas berry jam and fig bread. ACE bakery always does something special for the holidays. The berry jam is divine – like a rumtopf turned into jam with whole cranberries popping in a runny, spiced-up red-berry matrix. The fig bread is a tasty brown loaf with a good crunchy crust and great big dried figs in it. Slice it and toast it and your kitchen will smell like Christmas. The jam is great on the toasted bread – but so is a creamy blue cheese like Cambazola, spread quickly while the toast is still hot so that the cheese starts to soften and think about melting. Be merciful – scrunch – and put it out of its misery.

 

TOMMASI makes a single-vineyard Amarone Classico called Il Sestante (“The Sextant”) and it’s coming to Ontario in January, on the General List at around $39.95. It’s a beauty – old style amarone, which Tommasi does so well – complex and intense that will be perfectly delicious with a knob of parmiggiano reggiano or a well-hung grouse roasted and served with its own juices on toast or a firm slab of polenta. I was lucky enough to taste a preview bottle and I’m still smiling. It’s full of the sense of cold autumnal larch forests in the Italian pre-Alps, of liquorice and dark spicy honey, smoky firesides and cherries that have been spiced and preserved for months. The finish is all about dried figs and raisined grapes – sweet but dry, if you know what I mean – like a great amarone can be. Worth waiting for.

 


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The uses of icewine

17 Dec

Sue-Ann Staff unexpectedly attacked by a wine barrel

To Sopra for a lunchtime tasting of 18 icewines and a sort of live seminar of food-and-icewine matching organized by the Wine Council of Ontario for “Wine Country Ontario.” It turned out to be a fascinating few hours for the food-writing brigade and for the wine-writing fleet, who rarely get invited to the same event. Being neither fish nor fowl myself (I’ve always preferred to forage in the tidal areas where food and drink overlap) I know both groups. It was heartening to see how well they all got along, thanks, perhaps, to the charm and engagingly easy manner of our two hosts, Sue-Ann Staff, winemaker and proprietor of Sue-Ann Staff Estate Winery, who introduced the wines, and Jason Parsons, chef of Peller Estates. It was Parsons who determined the format of the tasting – taste nine icewines to demonstrate the range of the style, then nine more with accompanying food – some savoury dishes, some spicy, some sweet. The intention, of course, was to demonstrate that icewine had more versatility as a food wine than is generally thought to be the case. The experiment was a success.

            As chef of a winery, Parsons gets to play with icewine in the kitchen to his heart’s content. For January’s Icewine Festival, for example, he will marinate a whole sucking pig in icewine for two days before roasting it off. He also, famously and delectably, poaches lobster in icewine. Despite the fact that icewine is so very sweet (at least 35 brix – in other words, more than one third of the liquid is pure sugar (imagine that ratio in your cup of coffee)), this leaves neither meat inordinately sweet. Rather it brings out the natural sweetness of the pork or lobster. The very high acidity in icewine that balances all that concentrated sugar  has much more of an effect in the kitchen. Parsons even uses it to cure ceviche.

            It’s also the key in the dining room – as was demonstrated by the first confrontation. Sopra’s chef Massimo Capra had devised the menu but it was executed brilliantly for us by chef de cuisine Derek Von Raesfeld. Not every wine and food pairing was spectacular but there were more than enough bullseyes to allow the project to make its point. Here are the matches that impressed me most.

            A rich, smooth chicken liver paté coated in butter and strewn with grains of salt, served with a clove-scented, very sweet onion marmalade, was overpowered by two Riesling icewines (made me long for a Select Late Harvest) but was great with 2008 Harbor Estates Cabernet Franc Icewine. Why? The red icewine lacked the intensely tangy citrus kick of the Rieslings, offering red berry aromas instead and an illusion of lower acidity.

            Those two Riesling icewines worked much better with crumbled Bleu Elizabeth blue cheese served in a bitter endive leaf with dried cranberries. The sweetness of the wine and the intense saltiness of the cheese mute each other slightly, letting the wine’s fruit and the cheese’s more subtle flavours stand out. Like port and Stilton.

The spicy trio: (from left) duck confit with curried squash puree; seared scallop with chili butter honey glaze, chestnuts and carrot puree; slow-cooked Iberico pork cheek

            Icewine has a lovely ability to counterbalance intense spicing. Chef Parsons found this out by accident once when his kitchen accidentally over-spiced a piece of venison then sent it out into the dining room where he was introducing the match. The meat was too spicy to enjoy on its own, but paired with icewine, it worked beautifully.

So our next flight was of three spicy dishes with three different icewines. The epiphany was a duck confit with mostarda, curried squash purée, baby green cabbage leaves and caramelized roasted onions. All three icewines were delicious with it, each one muting what would otherwise have been an over-seasoned dish, but angels sang when I tasted the duck alongside Reif Estates Winery 2005 Vidal icewine. It reached right into my palate and dismantled the spicing in an extraordinary way, as if it were shining a bright yellow light on the recipe putting each flavour into sharp relief. But the same wine was too sweet and thick for another of the three savoury treats – a slow-braised Iberico pork cheek with chili-apple braised radish and spiced apple-celery salad. This time it was another red icewine, Hillebrand Showcase 2008 Cabernet Franc icewine, that lifted the spices away from the rich sweetness of the meat and spread them like a hand of cards.

The trio of desserts

            Throughout these experiments, the sweetness of the icewines was not an issue at all. The spicy seasoning or the saltiness of the food balanced the sugar out of the equation leaving the field to the acidity and the array of fresh fruit flavours that an icewine wears so beautifully.

            Three desserts had their own tales to tell. German apple cake with salted icewine caramel was overwhelmed by a young Riesling icewine, okay with a simpler Vidal icewine but absolutely lovely with an old icewine that had lost some of its sweetness and mellowed with age, the 1999 Mountain Road Company Vidal Icewine.

            Best match of this end of the meal was a pear poached in icewine and served with lots of dulce de leche and whipped vanilla mascarpone. This time the balance was absolutely perfect with the Peller Estates 2010 Vidal Icewine. I suspect that was the very wine in which the pear had been poached.

            In sum, everyone around the table agreed that our eyes had been opened to new uses for icewine beyond dessert. With blue cheese, certainly; with spicy duck; with richly braised and glazed meats. I’m tempted to open an icewine and try it with barbecued ribs or very hot buffalo wings. Could be interesting.

            Thanks to the Wine Council of Ontario for organizing the event and for the lovely parting gift – a white icewine aroma kit made by Wine Awakenings that contains samples of the 12 aromas most commonly found in white icewine, from passion fruit to raisins and caramel to kerosene. So interesting – and a good way to sharpen olfactory acuity. They will be on sale at Niagara wineries during the January Icewine Festival.

 


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The County General

14 Dec

Awesome fried chicken two ways with an array of garnishes

As Scrabble games go, it was an embarrassing blow-out – a Leafs versus Bruins game with my wife as Boston, creaming me by well over 200 points. It was over so quickly we found ourselves drained (emotionally and linguistically) by 5:00 p.m. – and hungry, too, since we ran out of those spicy, anchovy-spiked cheese straws from The Harbord Bakery (best cheese straws in the city) just about the time Wendy put down “parvenus,” her fourth seven-letter word. So we went out to dinner, early enough to find two seats at the bar of The County General, the casual new place opened by Splendido’s owners, chef Victor Barry and manager Carlo Catallo. Neither of them were there (I suppose they were at Splendido) but we were beautifully looked after by the two women behind the bar – smart, friendly service really stands out sometimes. I didn’t realize that one of them is Aja Sax, whose cocktails I have read about but have yet to try. Last night we were in more of a white wine mood and found a lovely Fielding Estates Viognier on the small but proudly all-Niagara wine list. Aja also does the music, apparently, which was right up my boomer-box tin pan alley – drifting along through Leonard Cohen to U2, Chris Isaak, the Stones, Derek and the Dominoes… and all at a reasonable and highly civilized level.

            The County General is small – just 14 seats plus another 10 at the bar – but it’s nicely put together. The decorative theme involves a large number of 2-by-1 planks, lining the walls, creating a dropped ceiling and forming the bartop. They play on this barn-like feel with occasional sculptures of chicken – which makes perfect sense when you see how often chicken appears on chef Garth Legree’s short menu. He is working with a fairly narrow palette of flavours – sort of Thai meets American barbecue – but the results are absolutely delightful.

winging it

            We started with a hearty soup full of chunks of tender, pale-as-pork ham, white beans and hunky croutons of Marc Thuet bread. The thickish broth was tangy with mustard and lemon juice, thyme and rosemary – just the way to start a winter evening. I had the daily special of wings which were easily the best wings I’ve ever had (okay I’ve only ordered wings three times in my life, but these were the best). Legree cooks them sous-vide then flash-fries them so they’re unbreaded, relatively lightweight and glazed with a sticky and delectable bbbq sauce that avoids over-sweetness and gains depth from a hint of espresso coffee. The wings are strewn with sliced up raw red chilies and a mass of fresh cilantro. Three condiments are presented separately – a creamy, smooth blue cheese dressing, a herbed mayo, and a fresh, tangy apple slaw. Being almost a virgin where wings are concerned I don’t know the protocol of these extra sauces. They were too good to waste, but I was enjoying the wings’ own flavours so much I didn’t want to mask them. In the end, I used the bones as dippers and had the best of both worlds.

            Another star dish is the trio of miniature steamed buns each of which contains a small quivering block of lightly smoked pork belly. Again changes are rung by a variety of condiments. In one bun it’s a crunchy, not-too-garlicky kim chi; in another, that green apple slaw; in a third, a dollop of oniony avocado chutney with a mittful of fresh cilantro. A runny green chili sauce is delivered in a miniature squeeze bottle.

            The main event of our dinner, however, was the fried chicken – a dish intended for two. Served on a wooden board, two substantial chicken breasts have been cooked sous vide and then differently treated – like twin sisters who have grown up in different parts of the world. One has a tamari glaze of great complexity – spicy-sweet and altogether delicious. The other has had a brush with a spice rub featuring allspice and chili and has then been battered and fried. It’s pretty well perfect fried chicken, juicy and flavourful, and ends up being the one we mess with, wrapping thick slices up in lettuce leaves with various combinations of the accompanying garnishes. You can see them in the opicture in their teeny metal bowls – cilantro, green onion, radish, pickled red onion, kim chi, grated fresh ginger, Thai chilies, avocado chutney with plenty of kaffir lime, bbq sauce, a squeeze bottle of red chili sauce. Awesome.

            Other treats? Great frites, triple-fried to make them soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside, with a ramekin of smokey, house-made ketchup. A slice of classic apple pie dusted with cinnamon. A flight of 4 top rums, part of a fulsome and very sophisticated program of brown spirits (mostly rums and bourbons) that Aja Sax has put together. It all costs far less than  it could. The only drawback is that you have to get there pretty early or pretty late if you want to find a table. Me, I’d rather sit at the bar.

            The County General is at 936 Queen Street West (on the corner of Shaw). 416 531 4447.

 


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BOM BOM bom bom bo bo bi bi

07 Dec

Hearken! and observe how healthily, how calmly, I can tell you the whole story.

There is a sound within the walls of this old house. My wife and I have heard it for the better part of a year – longer perhaps. How to describe it…? I imagine a schoolboy, bored and weary, kept in for detention, alone in the classroom. He is slumped across his desk, his head on one outstretched arm. In his right hand is a small, hard rubber superball. He holds it two inches above the wooden desk then lets it fall. BOM BOM bom bom bo bo bi bi… As its bounces quicken, they lessen in volume. He gathers up the ball, waits a moment then repeats the movement exactly. Over and over again, finding some solace for his boredom in the perfect repetition. That is the sound we hear in our wall: only it is deeper by many octaves than a ball on a wooden desk.

The sound is often with us. We hear it only in two rooms – the bedroom and the bathroom, both built out from the rear of the house, unconnected to the neighbour’s property. We hear it when the wind blows and when the air is perfectly still. When it rains and when it doesn’t rain. By day or by night. Whether or not the furnace and the water heater are working. There is nothing to bang against the outside wall of the house. The sound does not reach the ground floor or the basement. Sometimes in the night it is loud enough to wake us. At other times, when I’m shaving, for instance, it is barely audible. Often it disappears for days on end.

This house is full of strange noises – the creaks and croaks and sudden reports of the hardwood floor, unexplained clicks and gurgles in the kitchen that can only be something to do with the fridge. But the sound in the wall is different. BOM BOM bom bom bo bo bi bi… Armitage – if you are reading this – and I know you are – pray keep your fevered, psychotic hypotheses to yourself. Anyone else, if you can shed some light onto this strange occurrence, we would be more than grateful.

 


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Easton’s charcuterie + Lillet Rouge = *

27 Nov

Easton's - a meaty new star in the Market

A new store opened in Kensington Market about six weeks ago – Easton’s Charcuterie and Prepared Foods. It’s the brainchild of Derek Easton, formerly one of the team at Sanagan’s Meat locker, just around the corner on Baldwin, and its purpose is to provide the neighbourhood with an impressive variety of local charcuterie, artisanal deli meats and a superior line of house-made prepared foods. A veteran cook who worked at Mistura and Auberge du Pommier before specializing in meats, Easton has exactly the personal connections to find smashing product and, judging by the line-up at the till this afternoon, he has also found an eager clientele.

What does he offer? A couple of dozen different kinds of charcuterie to begin with, including real Parma prosciutto, Spanish chorizo and real, spectacularly delicious, garnet-coloured Serrano ham, all at bargain prices. Other treats, including gently spiced soppressata, pungently salty smoked duck prosciutto, wild boar prosciutto and richly flavoured venison sausage, come from Seed to Sausage, a small company north of Kingston, together with a wide range of the excellent salumi from Romagna Mia restaurant right here in Toronto.

Today's charcuterie - click on the blackboard to read it

Easton also makes super sandwiches (a brisket melt looked awfully tempting) and his partner, Jade Kay Pollack, provides a range of ready made South East Asian curries plus invaluable basics such as duck fat, veal demi glace, vegetable stock, duck confit, and many other delights. Jars of Bumpercrop preserved vegetables and pickles from McClure, out of Detroit, will also pry the coin from your pocket.

And what should one drink with this array of carnivorous treasures? I stumbled upon a most successful pairing – Lillet Rouge on the rocks. Lillet, of course, is that vermouth-like elixir from Bordeaux, best known for its white version (a key component of the Vesper, James Bond’s original Martini from Casino Royale). The red is just as delicious, mildly herbal, verging on sweet, tasting of red fruits shot through with bitter orange and a hint of quinine.

Somehow it works remarkably well with the charcuterie, zeroing in on the spicing in the sausages while supporting the natural sweetness of the meats and using its citrus element to soothe the saltiness. Lovely stuff.

Easton’s is at 61 Kensington Avenue, 416 518 0051. Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday noon to 6 p.m., closed Mondays.

 


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Le Kensington Bistro

23 Nov

Burger Bar's lamb burger (not available at Le Kensington Bistro)

This is a picture of a fabulous lamb burger from Burger Bar on Augusta in Kensington Market. That’s all I’m going to say about it since I’m writing about Burger Bar for Zoomer magazine, where I have the signal honour to be the new restaurant critic (I urge you to invest in a subscription).

Instead, we will cross the street to Le Kensington Bistro, the new venture by front-of-house guru and sommelier Sylvain Brissonet and chef Jean-Charles Dupoire, who are also co-owners and operators of Loire on Harbord Street. Certainly, Loire is still doing well, and the two Tourangeaux are devoted to their firstborn. But they also tell a tale of how Loire slipped away from their original intention for the place, becoming a tad too posh and educated. Le Kensington is deliberately more “of the market.” So we see Brissonet in jeans (which merits a ! when we remember how proper he was during his years as maitre d’ of Langdon Hall) and Dupoire cooking in a sport shirt instead of chef’s whites (he was much more formal as the wunderkind chef of Epic in the Royal York hotel, once the tallest building in the British Empire).

But casual is the mood in the market, cheri! Behind the yellow façade, La Palette’s old premises have been cleaned and repainted a warm terra cotta but the floor is linoleum tiles, the tables are plain wood and the lighting something less than atmospheric. There are some odd touches that don’t work (Ignore the – I say ignore the kitch Foghorn Leghorn chicken signage and logo, for example) but Brissonet smooths over any cracks in the experience with his welcome and his charm. He’s also responsible for the tiny wine list, literally 13 bottles long – but they are all good wines and available by the glass.

Le Kensington's menu

That chicken logo, incidentally, is to remind the world that this is also a Rotisserie, with Dupoire roasting whole chickens (from St. Andrew Poultry) for only $32 – a take-home bargain since they come with sauce of the day and a lightweight summer ratatouille or succotash or frites.

Another speciality is charcuterie – delicious salami; creamy, smooth-as-satin chicken liver parfait; pork rillettes of a correct and delectable fatty weight and density; salty but exceptionally tender duck breast prosciutto; a sweetish, well-seasoned, slightly gelatinous terrine made from slow-braised oxtail with a nice prickle of horseradish. Boudin noir is a starter in it’s own right – a soft, loose-textured version that isn’t as spicy as, say, David Lee’s version at Nota Bene, but has a beguiling richness that is nicely cut by slices of baked apple and salt crystals.

And how lovely to come across really good skate wing meuniere – a classic version that has just enough walnut butter to make the dish’s point without swamping everything in fat. The juicy fish comes with a scrumptious heap of diced root vegetables, baby red potatoes and wilted spinach.

Desserts didn’t wow me. Poire Belle Hélène (yes, this menu would have seemed perfectl à propos in the 1980s) had fine chocolate sauce and vanilla ice cream but the pear itself had a mealy texture. Crepes filled with apple compote and topped with caramel sauce needed more apple and caramel to be truly sinful.

Still – it’s a lovely addition to the Market and the street patio will be much in demand next summer. Prices are great ($22 for a striploin steak frites) and locals already love it.

Le Kensington Bistro and Rotisserie is at 246 Augusta Avenue (a short walk south from College Street), 416 792 9440. Open noon-10 pm, Wednesday to Sunday. www.lekensingtonbistro.com.

 

 


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St. John’s Gold Medal Plates 2011

18 Nov

The bronze medal winner from chef Tony Velinov of Bistro Sofia - not at all what it seems

All good things come to an end and the weather finally caught up with us in St. John’s last night as the Gold Medal Plates team blew in for the final gala of the year. But a little drizzle failed to put even the suggestion of a damper on things (they’ve seen worse here) as an exuberant local crowd packed the Convention Centre. And when our event was over we found the rain had stopped and we stepped out into a mild clear night to make our way to the first after-party at the Majestic.

The music is always a particularly important part of our visits to Newfoundland and Labrador and last night we were delighted to hear Jim Cuddy, Anne Lindsay, guitar whizz Colin Cripps and local star Alan Doyle of Great Big Sea. Their rocking blue-grass version of Honkey-tonk Woman had the whole room in an uproar. The trips we auction off fetched Rock-solid prices and the keynote speakers were awesome – especially Catriona Le May Doan and the great Scotty Bowman, who was interviewed beautifully by Seamus O’Regan and received the first of the evening’s several standing ovations.

            On the food side of things, the judges worked hard, as always – an admirable team led by Senior Judge for St. John’s, television, radio and print journalist Karl Wells and including chef and educator Bob Arneil, restaurateur, food consultant and food stylist Kitty Drake, food columnist and all-round gastronomic guru Cynthia Stone, renowned local chef Todd Perrin and last year’s gold medal winner, chef Jeremy Charles. Standards were very high and there was no run-away winner, with only two percentage points separating first, second and third.

            Our bronze medal went – for the first time ever in Gold Medal Plates history – to a dessert. Chef Tony Velinov of Bistro Sofia was the brave man who decided to bring forth something from the sweet kitchen, though more than a couple of guests did a double take before realizing it. What looked like a small burger with fries and ketchup was nothing of the sort. The bun was soft sesame cake, the slice of cheese was firm apricot jelly, the patty was a disc of stiff chocolate mousse and the fries were crunchy sable biscuit, perfect for dipping into the tart raspberry ketchup. The only component of the dish that really was what it seemed were the rashers of crispy bacon in the “burger” but they had been candied. Indeed, the salty bacon worked beautifully with the chocolate and added a new level of sophistication to the whole witty idea. Chef Velinov’s wine match worked nearly perfectly – the Peller Estates sparkling Ice Cuvée, a lively bubbly sweetened with a dosage of Icewine.

Chef Chris Chafe of Magnum and Steins won the silver medal with four cuts of lamb

            Our silver medal went to Chris Chafe, a talented young man of 24 who is chef at the veteran St. John’s establishment, Magnum and Steins. He worked with lamb, offering four different cuts and four different cooking methods. First there was a thick slice of a soft, caseless lamb sausage – something like a muergez – made from the shoulder and smoky roasted red pepper. It crowned a mound of creamy celeriac purée. Beside this we found some of the pulled leg meat of the lamb, moist and well-seasoned, set on a tiny round of toasted focaccia, a raft it shared with caramelized onion, a herby ragout of chanterelles and a partially dried tomato. A nicely frenched lamb chop was the third element, cooked rare and full of flavour, set over a hillock of what chef called “risotto” but was really finely chopped potato in a creamy, parmesan-spiked sauce. The fourth lamb moment was a crisp fried raviolo filled with osso bucco. Scattered over everything, adding colour and tang were glistening red beads of “caviar” made from the wine Chef Chafe chose – the terrific Van Bers Vineyard 2008 Cabernet Franc from Tawse winery in Niagara.

Goat brought hom the gold for chef Mike Barsky of Bacalao

           

 Our gold winner was a chef who has really been building his approach over the last two years of Gold Medal Plates St. John’s – Mike Barsky from Bacalao. He chose to work with local goats, putting no fewer than 11 separate components on his plate. Slices of the seared loin were the major element, the meat rare, juicy and admirably tender, dressed with a classic demiglace of red wine and partridgeberries. A goat rillette was crusted with pank crumbs and fried to create a scrumptious little croquette the size of a loonie. Beneath it was a spoonful of smooth, creamy mousse made from the goat’s brains. Two slices of pickled goat tongue were propped up against brussels sprouts petals. There was a comma of bright yellow saffron goat-milk pudding and some crunchy crumbs of crumbled goat cheese sablé. Two dots of goat curd vinaigrette stood apart from the well-composed arrangement, matched by two perfectly turned spheres of turnip. All in all, it was an amazingly labour-intensive offering but it ate beautifully, paired with the Pinot Noir Reserve from Pelee Island Winery.

            So, Mike Barsky now joins a potent line-up who have until February to prepare for the Canadian Culinary Championships in Kelowna – Michael Dacquisto from Winnipeg, Jean-Philippe Saint-Denis from Montreal, Mike Dekker from Calgary, Jan Trittenbach from Edmonton, Rob Feenie from Vancouver, Anthony McCarthy from Saskatchewan, Jonathan Gushue representing Toronto and Marc Lepine from Ottawa-Gatineau. I’m already pondering what fiendish items to hide in the black box for that part of the competition – and I’m sure David Lawrason has an idea of what the mystery wine will be… It’s going to be extraordinarily good fun.

And here is David Lawrason’s wine report from St. John’s – very aptly titled, in my opinion.

St. John’s Wine Report – The Party         by David Lawrason

With fewer chefs (only eight competed) and less access to Canadian wines from the mainland, the wine component of Gold Medal Plates St. John’s was clearly not as strong as in other cities. But there was plenty of it consumed, along with Molson’s M beer as St. John’s turned out to party.

Several chefs sought my help in finding pairing partners, but I would like to defer to and thank St. John’s GMP Chairman Scott Giannou of Beverage World for his help in co-ordinating so much of the wine presence, as well as donating the Moonlight wines by Andrew Peller to the Celebration and Awards portion of the evening

I was joined by two of Newfoundland’s most prominent wine palates to find our Best of Show Wine Award. Local wine connoisseur Tom Beckett of Beckett on Wine is widely known as one of the most experienced palates on the Rock. Stephen Delaney is a former area rep for the Opimian society who writes a wine column for the St. John’s Telegram. It was my first time working with these two gentlemen and I was impressed by their fastidious note taking and rating of the wines.

Our opinons on the best wines lined up well, with a unanimous choice of Tawse 2008 Van Bers Vineyard Cabernet Franc as Best Wine of Show. From an organically farmed vineyard just on the escarpment downslope in the Twenty Mile Bench this was impressive indeed with much more richness and depth than expected from the vintage. Second place was awarded to the complex, firm Le Clos Jordanne 2008 Village Reserve from Niagara, and third spot went to the very well balanced off-dry Andrew Peller Ice Cuvee sparkler.

The wine that accompanied the Gold Medal winning chef Michael Barsky’s inventive goat-inspired dish was Pelee Island 2009 Pinot Noir Reserve, a quite successful match. Other chef-paired wines included Henry of Pelham Cuvee Catharine Brut, Peninsula Ridge 2008 Chardonnay Reserve and a delicious Eric’s Cream Ale from St. John’s Quiddi Vidi Bewery.

And that was a wrap – nine cities almost 100 wines and beers later. It was a fascinating tapestry of Canadian wining and dining.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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Ottawa-Gatineau Gold Medal Plates 2011

15 Nov

Marc Lepine's dish, hidden beneath a fin of crisp celeriac paper, won gold in Ottawa

Warm sunshine in November, and Ottawa looked particularly stately and welcoming. Last night, we returned to the National Arts Centre for our Gold Medal Plates event (long ago sold out with around 500 attendees). Bidding was gratifyingly brisk during the live auction, the energy levels spiked by inspiring musical performances from Jim Cuddy, Anne Lindsay and local star Kathleen Edwards. I love how the configuration of the NAC lets the chefs’ brigades watch the stage during the second half of the evening, lining the balcony and grand staircase for the best view in the house.

Mixologist Dave Mitton from the Harbord Room in Toronto travelled with us to demonstrate some superb cocktails. This time I tried his awesome Pear & Cinnamon Sour made with Alberta Premium rye, cinnamon syrup, fresh pear puree, egg white and freshly grated nutmeg. Thick, rich but also refreshing, it was subtly fruity and tingled with the flavours of Christmas spices.

The judges have a private room of their own at the NAC (out of space-management necessity rather than choice) but it allowed us unusual freedoms in our discussions and commentaries. Senior Judge for Ottawa-Gatineau, Anne DesBrisay, led the team, ably abetted by author, educator and celebrity chef, Pam Collacott, author and Canadian culinary ambassador, Margaret Dickenson, by Judson Simpson, who is executive Chef at the House of Commons and National President of the Canadian Culinary Federation, and by last year’s Ottawa-Gatineau champion, Chef Michael Moffatt of Beckta Dining & Wine.

Charles Part's treatment of local lamb took the bronze medal

It was our shared opinion, as the evening progressed, that the city had really raised its game this year. Most dishes were decidedly complex, and all of them looked sensational. But while we do award marks for imagination and presentation, we award more for taste: flavour even edging texture on our scorecard. Our bronze winner had flavour in spades, a dish from a previous gold medallist, Charles Part of Les Fougères in Chelsea, Quebec. He began with lambs from Berg en Dal farm, 25 minutes from his restaurant, roasting the little tenderloins to pink perfection, making a sausage from the fatted shoulder meat and minced roasted red pepper and slow-braising the shank, neck, rib and leg meat. This tasty mix of meats was stirred up with dreid cranberries and a touch of preserved lemon then wrapped in bright green spinach leaves. The lamb bones were turned, over several days, into a delectably savoury jus that underpinned all three elements. Sharing the plate were soft shards of fennel and red onion, a stripe of silky fennel purée and a little rampart of alternating dice of salty, pungent preserved lemon and creamy ewe’s-milk feta from Folies Bergères. There was fennel seed and tarragon in there too, but the taste of the lamb sung through it all. The wine? Chef Part surprised us all by pairing the dish with a white – a minerally, judiciously oaked 2009 Chardonnay from Norman Hardie in Prince Edward County: it worked particularly well with the lemon and fennel flavours.

Caroline Ishii won silver for the second year in a row

Our silver medal, for the second year in a row, went to Caroline Ishii of Zen Kitchen, a vegetarian restaurant and one of Ottawa’s finest. Chef Ishii described it as dedicated to the memory of her mother’s home cooking when she was growing up in Japan – and also to the flavours of the fall. It was a dish of many components: a pan-fried gyoza dumpling stuffed with chopped shiitake and oyster mushrooms and a little kimchee beside a smear of subtly spiced “Japanese curry” sauce; a “lollipop” of rich, soft, grilled eggplant, salty and sweet beneath its yuzu-Asian pear dengaku sauce; a sturdy grilled onigiri rice cake folded around a stripe of shiso-umebochi pesto; a chunk of roasted kabocha squash with an apple-butter miso glaze; a most beautiful crimson square of tissue-thin pickled watermelon radish; a final garnish of a crispy wheel of lotus root dusted with matcha-wakame salt; and three dots of very spicy persimmon-mango-habanero hot sauce for those who wanted to turn up the heat. As I said, a complex dish with masses of autumnal flavours going on, but Ishii’s refined aesthetic made a harmony out of all the flavours. Her wine was a personal favourite of mine, Cave Spring Cellars’s 2009 Chenin Blanc, its lovely intensity reaching in and through the exotic ingredients.

Our gold medallist was competing for the third time, though he had never reached the podium before – Marc Lepine of Atelier, a young chef renowned as Ottawa’s master of molecular cuisine. In the past, his dishes have seemed overly intellectual to some of the judges. Last night, he tempered his tastes a tad to please the crowd as much as astonish it – and the move paid off. At the heart of the dish was a perfectly seared Qualicum Beach scallop, gilded by the pan but trembling and opalescent at its heart. It basked in a thick, smooth purée of truffle-scented, aerated potato that hid the treasures beneath its surface – smooth, slippery pickled chanterelles, bacon and fennel, two crispy chorizo meatballs, celery that had been compressed with sambucca, a secondary sauce of lemon thyme and shallots… The flavours were well-judged in their intensity and I began to enjoy the realisation that I had no idea what I might find under the scallop. Across the top of the bowl (by serving it in a bowl, Chef Lepine made sure that we would eat the dish as he wished, tasting many things on each forkful instead of analyzing every separate element) across the bowl he set a crisp yellow paper that crumbled into shards and was made, by I know not what kind of monkey business, out of celery root. It was dabbed with caviar and white powdered bacon that tasted of maltose. As a final flourish, Chef squirted an atomizer of sambucca and lemon verbena over the top of the dish. His wine was one of many Chardonnays chosen last night – a delicious 2009 from Hidden Bench Vineyards in Niagara that played beautifully with the scallop.

And so it only remains to finish our campaign in St. John’s on Thursday then our table will be set for the big game in Kelowna next year. Good luck to all our valiant contenders.

Here is David Lawrason’s wine report from our Ottawa-Gatineau event:

A White Wine Tour de Force

The chefs of the nation’s capital were part of a country-wide trend in choosing predominantly white wines to match their creations. There were only three reds poured. All but one of the wines were from Ontario, so again riesling figured heavily on the menus, along with chardonnay. And the pairings with the white wines were quite bold with two of them matched to meat dishes.

I was joined on the judging panel by two prominent local wine experts. Rod Phillips is the wine columnist for the Ottawa Citizen, the author of several wine books and judges several competitions. Janet Dorozynski is Wine Advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and standing judge for the Canadian Wine Awards. Both teamed up to create the Ottawa Wine Challenge, a competition for wines poured at the Ottawa Wine and Food Festival which ended the day before our GMP event. So thanks to Rod and Janet for staying the course!

The judging for Best of Show Award was not as easy as in other cities, with no unanimous choices. But with Painted Rock 2010 Chardonnay from British Columbia receiving two first place votes, it was the winner. Things became even closer thereafter, with Hidden Bench 2009 Chardonnay taking second spot, and Chateau des Charmes 2007 Old Vines Riesling in third. Hidden Bench Chardonnay was also paired with gold medal winning chef Marc Lepine of L’Atelier.

The other chef-paired wines included: Trius 2010 Cabernet Franc, Angels Gate 2010 Gewurztraminer, Cave Spring 2009 Estate Chenin Blanc, Ravine 2010 Sand and Gravel Chardonnay, Norman Hardie 2009 Niagara Chardonnay, Huff Estates 2007 Merlot-Cabernet (drinking beautifully) and Lailey 2010 Pinot Noir.

The Celebration wines were an exact duplication of those poured in Toronto, so many thanks again to Tawse, Malivoire, Trius and Black Hills for their exceptional generosity in supplying two cities. In the VIP Reception guests enjoyed the slender, refreshing L’Acadie Vineyards 2008 Brut Prestige sparkler.

 

 


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Toronto Gold Medal Plates 2011

10 Nov

Jonathan Gushue decorated his station with splendid produce from Langdon Hall's garden

Last night saw the much-anticipated Toronto Gold Medal Plates gala unfold at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre for a huge and glittering crowd. The British theme was greatly in evidence, especially during the VIP reception where last year’s champion, Frank Dodd, rose to the occasion with four separate stations representing (most deliciously) Wales (Welsh cakes), Scotland (deep fried miniature “Mars bars”), Northern Ireland (wee cones of colcannon) and England (a spectacular “breakfast broth” of bacon, egg and mushrooms in a demitasse of delectable consommé).

This year we were delighted to welcome Patrick MacMurray of Starfish as a non-competing chef. He too followed a British theme, bringing superb oysters from the U.K. including great plump beauties from Mersey Island in Essex. The judges had to be dragged from his station when the time came to sit down to work.

We had the strongest line-up of chefs ever assembled in Toronto and the most gloriously decorated stations we have ever seen. Dave Mitton of The Harbord Room is our guest mixologist for the cities of the east, creating unique cocktails to showcase our three Canadian artisanal spirits – Iceberg vodka from Newfoundland and Labrador, Victoria gin from B.C. and Alberta Premium rye from Alberta. Dave also happens to be President of the Ontario Chapter of the Canadian Professional Bartenders Association and last night he was very ably assisted by renowned local colleague, Scott Mochrie. I sampled one of his offerings – the Old Fashioned Vic, made by muddling orange and lemon zest with Dave’s own cherry-vanilla bitters and simple syrup. Gin is added, the mixture is stirred over ice and then strained to be served straight up with an orange twist. I thought it was a great cocktail, the citrus nicely underpinning the subtleties of the gin.

Thus fortified, I made my rendezvous with the other judges. Our gallant posse was led, as ever, by Senior Judge Sasha Chapman, food writer, editor and now senior editor at The Walrus magazine; celebrity chef and author Christine Cushing; chef and educator extraordinaire, John Higgins; author, broadcaster and Canada’s gastronomical guru Anita Stewart; author, food editor and trusted columnist with the Globe and Mail, Lucy Waverman; and last year’s Toronto Gold Medal Plates champion, Frank Dodd of Hillebrand Estates in Niagara. A formidable bench indeed. Which was just as well, because the standard of the dishes set a new gastronomical high with five of them jostling for the podium. In the end, and after considerable debate, we reached unanimity.

The bronze medallist - Chef Michael Steh of Reds

Our bronze medal was awarded to chef Michael Steh of Reds Bistro and Wine Bar, who also medalled last year. He called his dish “Bacon” but as he explained when he introduced it, there was no bacon or pork of any kind in any of the three elements on the plate. They were inspired by bacon and they alluded to it in their textures and flavours and especially with a bold use of three different kinds of smoke. The first element was a slice of fresh brioche with a smooth, creamy scallop mousse at its heart. On top lay three rashers of oak-smoked duck breast, cooked sous vide to an enchanting tenderness. Beside that was a shot glass of rich, tangy cheddar-and-sweet-onion soup topped with a crispy, tissue-thin tuile of apple that had been cured with spruce, chili, pepper, garlic and salt and then cold-smoked over applewood. The third component was a hollowed egg shell partly filled with a soy-lavender egg custard, slivers of northern kiwi, finely chopped riesling jelly with a lively and fruity acidity and some shards of “coconut bacon,” a fabulous notion involving curing coconut with salt and pepper and then smoking it over hickory wood. Chef Steh’s chosen wine, a glory in its own right, stood up to these bold flavours beautifully – Chateau des Charmes 2008 Old Vines Riesling from Niagara.

Silver for Chef Rob Gentile of Buca

Our silver medal went to chef Rob Gentile of Buca who chose to work with goose. He cured the breast with salt, cinnamon, cloves and orange rind for 24 hours then sliced it incredibly thinly, setting the ruby meat like carpaccio on the plate. Perched on top was a single, perfect tortello of soft, delicate pasta filled with a tangy, well-seasoned mixture of the goose offal and chopped porcini mushrooms. The more technically minded judges marvelled at the skill with which the chef timed the tortelli for 750 people! Texture was added with fragments of crispy goose skin, crumbled hazelnuts and crisply fried rosemary leaves. Two sauces ringed this beautifully composed and harmoniously unified creation, one a vincotto reduction of the chosen wine, the other a bright yellow emulsion of Peking duck egg. Chef gentile’s wine hit all the right notes, particularly with the goose offal and breast – the 2010 Merlot from 13th Street Winery in Niagara.

 

Exquisitely yummy - gold for Jonathan Gushue of Langdon Hall

Our gold medallist, who won silver two years ago, was Jonathan Gushue from Langdon Hall. I don’t recall tasting a more elegant and refined dish at any previous Toronto GMP event. It looked like a tiny salad – almost a garnish – in the bottom of the plate, but there was a miniature world of flavour to be found. Chef had used many ingredients from Langdon Hall’s garden including the dish’s principal component, Brussels sprouts. He had separated the sprouts into tiny, perfect leaves, tossing them for 30 seconds in warm butter and then using them as dainty bowls for a number of treats – a quarter-teaspoon of the yolk of a duck egg, hard-boiled and grated almost to powder, another little scattering of the egg white, treated in the same way; and three dabs of smoked trout caviar bringing salt and richness. Little crisps of fried black salsify from the garden were tucked in amongst the Brussels sprout petals. Beneath them we discovered preserved oysters – Virginias from Nine Mile Creek in PEI that Chef Gushue had prepared sous vide for 10 minutes with leek, cold-pressed canola, pine, cider vinegar and sea salt – extraordinarily delicious! Beneath them was a silky purée of white salsify and apple. Scattered over the top were pungent chives and calendula petals. It was a dish that caused innumerable oohs and aahs from the judges as they discovered its Lilliputian treasures. It was also the wine pairing of the evening with the 2009 Fume Blanc from Organized Crime Winery in Niagara.

The line-up for the Canadian Culinary Championship next February is almost complete – just Ottawa-Gatineau and St. John’s to go. It promises to be a spectacular competition!

David Lawrason now provides his wine report of the event:

Toronto Wine Report 2011 – Wineries Bring Their A Game

Toronto chefs brought their A game to the Metro Convention Centre, and so did Canada’s wineries. It was the best collection of wines, all from Ontario, of the 2011 Gold Medal Plates season, complemented by two very fine beers from Beau’s and Mill Street. And although we wine judges were not officially voting for a best match, I did find the level of wine pairing skill very high as well, at the same level of expertise as Vancouver. We were unanimous in picking the Gold Medal-winning dish by Jonathan Gushue of Langdon Hill and Organzied Crime 2009 Fume Blanc as the best match of the evening.

For the Best of Show wine judging I was joined by two colleagues from WineAlign.com. John Szabo, Canada’s first master sommelier, is a writer for several publications and a judge at the Canadian Wine Awards. Most recently he has been contracted to create the wine program at Toronto’s Trump Hotel. Sara d’Amato is a sommelier as well, currently raising a young family and writing for several publications. She too has judged the Canadian Wine Awards.

In a tough field our Best of Show wine was a slam dunk. Chateau des Charmes 2008 Old Vines Riesling has won several other awards as well, including gold at the Canadian Wine Awards and White Wine of the Year at the Ontario Wine Awards. It is deep, rich and powerful. The refined, rich, layered Status 2008 White placed second, with refined and nuanced Tawse 2009 Laundry Vineyard Cabernet Franc ranking third.

The Tawse Cab Franc was one of several generously poured for the VIP reception and Celebration and Awards portions of the evening. From Nova Scotia we enjoyed a delightful sparkling Cremant from Blomidon Estate Winery. Malivoire’s sumptuous, elegant 2008 Moira Chardonnay graced the Awards portion along with the fine, surprisingly complex Trius Brut, and the smooth, young Black Hills 2009 Syrah.

Other wines donated for the Chef Pairings included: Henry of Pelham 2010 Riesling, 13th Street 2010 Merlot, Closson Chase 2009 Churchside Pinot Noir, Hidden Bench 2008 Terroir Cache, Niagara College 2007 Dean’s List Meritage, Mill Street Organic Helles Bock and Beau’s Night-Marzen Oktoberfest Lager.

 

 

 


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