Back in the swing of things

I’m busy working on another project and have neglected the blog lately so today in order to share with you some content I’m posting some links to things that are interesting and important.

First of all: How can you tell if what you’re buying from the grocery store is genetically modified? Seems that, as consumers, we should be able to know right? Well not really, because the FDA decided that you didn’t need to; this despite the increasing research that is finding unhealthy consequences in GMOs.

But!, there is a way to know! Here’s how:

http://www.kipnews.org/2011/07/14/how-to-i-d-genetically-modified-food-at-the-supermarket/

Pretty cool!

Alright, secondly, today, Wednesday January 18th 2012, you might have noticed some weird things happening on the web. For example, if you follow my GMO link above you discover a blacked out Wikipedia site with this stated on it;

Imagine a World
Without Free Knowledge

For over a decade, we have spent millions of hours building the largest encyclopedia in human history. Right now, the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet. For 24 hours, to raise awareness, we are blacking out Wikipedia.

In the U.S, a bill is making its way to Congress that is, in my mind, a threat to my freedom of speech, to my creativity, to my ability to interact and share thoughts about my culture. Furthermore, it has been my experience, that despite the claims of the large media companies that billions of dollars are lost to piracy, a much greater amount of economic development takes place on the already regulated web in a number of different ways. Despite my understanding of the frustrations of having your content stolen from you and shared across the world, I have seen how this kind of spreading of information also has the potential to promote your content as well as celebrate it. Financial repercussions also stem from this sharing and spreading of information. The bill, as it is formulated at the moment, is much to vague and represents a threat to many people’s livelihoods, the creative potential of many artists, the censorship of content and material, not to mention an economic threat to one of today’s biggest economic building blocks: the internet.

Here are links that you should look into in order to learn more and form your own opinion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

http://www.lessig.org/

http://creativecommons.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oar9glUCL0

Watch this movie!

Ok, gotta go.

Thought provoking piece by Christopher Hitchens in Vanity Fair

I just read this very well articulated piece by Christopher Hitchens that tackles the quote “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger“, in relation to his personal struggle with esophageal cancer. Honest and introspective, Hitchens allows us to reflect on the trials of suffering, and the pains and questions that arise from it.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/01/hitchens-201201

Well worth reading.

Lebanese inspired dinner

The days are like the tasty chocolates that Carolina anxiously snacks on while doing her school work. They’re being digested at unbelievable rates! Where are they all going!

In many ways, this is a good sign, I guess. I’ve been busy, and yet, because my professional future is so far up in the air at the moment all of my activities seem to be enjoyed in vain. And so, despite increasing my exercising, eating well, hiking in the Adirondacks, and filling up on cinematic and literary goodies, I find myself a bit tense.

Anyways, the holidays are approaching, which means family and friend time in Toronto. In the meantime, I’ll keep on being active while enjoying the rather good life I lead despite the underlying tension.

Today’s post is about last night’s dinner. I love variety. I like the idea of buffets(although most offer bland and old food), I like the idea of eating with groups and sharing dishes, of picking at hors-d’oeuvres and experimenting with flavors, textures and smells. I very much enjoy eating at the small Lebanese restaurants in the city, where they’ll put together a dish of sliced chicken pieces, of beef or lamb, falafels, humus and garlic mayo, tabouleh, olive oil doused eggplant, and rice or potatoes. They’ll usually have more choices and, most often, the flavors are bright and pungent. They use a lot of beans and lentils and most of their meat is cooked on a large skewer that slowly rotates around a heat small that cooks it to perfection and allows the fat and juices of the meat to accumulate in the meat that rests below. There’s not much fat in the process and when I have a large plate of Lebanese food both my stomach and my body feel satiated in a healthy way.

a mix of lebanese inspired dishes

I wanted to make something quick and simple and avoid meat. There’s a small company in Montreal that makes Lebanese take home snacks that include humus and falafels. I made sure to have some of both. I also bought these very large and thin savory crepes that you can wrap food in. At home I cut some eggplant and large chunks of garlic and sauteed both in a love of olive oil, finishing it off in the oven for the desired sweetness. I toasted pine nuts and added some to the dish. I also bought local freshly made ricotta that I seasoned with some fancy olive oil, ground pepper and spicy Chilean chilli flakes. I bought those rice balls wrapped in vine leaves and added them to the table. I grated some carrots and mixed in toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds, raisins and herbs in order to add to the variety. And finally I made a salad of cucumbers, tomatoes, mint, parsley, confit lemon and olive oil that was amazing.

Confit lemon is my new and current favorite ingredient. I bought a bunch of lemons to make lemon juice about 2 months ago and put the skin and zest in a glass container with thyme, water, sugar and salt and let it accumulate flavor in the fridge. I recently decided to test the results and was very pleasantly surprised. The flavor is bright and exciting, salty with a nice balance of lemony acidity and bitterness. Fantastic. Marc Cohen, chef at Lawrence, used some in a lamb dish he was making a few weeks ago. It added a wonderful depth of flavor to the dish’s broth.

The rest involved sitting down and pigging out at the various dishes and flavors that lay before Carolina and I.

Yummy veggie lunch fix

I’ve been quite good at eating less meat recently, and especially good at avoiding meat from large producers where antibiotics and hormones are used, and where the animals suffer in what I feel are unethical environments.

However, I’ve noticed that I haven’t been posting any of the tasty vegetarian food I’ve been eating. So, in the spirit of healthy eating and veggie food, here’s what I ate for lunch.

spinach salad and veggie patty humus cracker

orange, almond, sun dried tomato, spinach salad

I’ll start with the salad because it’s more straight forward and doesn’t need much preparation time.

The salad consisted of:

Spinach
one large orange, cut into wedges
3 pieces of sun dried tomato, thinly sliced
toasted almonds
aged cheddar(a softer cheese like fresh ricotta, cottage cheese, or a less powerful Parmesan would have been better)
Sherry vinegar
Dijon mustard

I used the orange juice that had emerged from the wedges for a vinaigrette base, in which I added sherry vinegar, salt and pepper, a tiny amount of Dijon mustard, some dried marjoram, and finally olive oil. The rest involves mixing in the rest of the ingredients, aha. Not too hard. It’s a really nice salad, that would be better as mentioned above with a cheese that is softer on the palate than an aged cheddar.

The cracker on the side had a humus spread, caramelized onions and vegetarian patties I had made the previous nice for dinner.

The patties consisted of:

Short brown rice, pre-cooked
Black beans, boiled and ready to eat
A small grated carrot
A small grated parsnip
Pumpkin seeds
Wheat bran
A few dried dates
one egg
salt and pepper

The ingredients for dish were inspired by leftovers and pragmatism… There are unlimited ways to make a veggie patty, and this is just one of them. In fact, I’ve never made any that were remotely similar to these ones.

The brown rice was a leftover, and the black beans I had soaked and boiled for dinner didn’t appeal me as is. Both ingredients, together, contain the necessary amino acids(the building blocks of proteins) to create a full protein, which I wanted for dinner. To this, for some extra vitamins and minerals, I added the grated carrots and parsnip. I added the pumpkin seeds for more protein and for their high content of iron. They also would provide a textural element. Finally I added about 3 seedless dates and an egg for binding purposes. When roughly blended in the food processor I noticed that my mix was too moist. To rectify this I could have used a number of different solutions, popped amaranth for example, but instead chose to add wheat bran as an experiment. It is an ingredient rich in dietary fiber, essential fatty acids as well as protein, vitamins and dietary minerals. It’s also dry, which is what I needed. I shaped the patties, slowly fried them in a small quantity of sunflower oil in a non-stick skillet and finished them off in the oven. They have a really nice texture and taste good.
Today, cold, combined with the humus and caramelized humus, they tasted even better.

Together, the 2 dishes provide a healthy meal that is easy to digest and cheap to make.

A fragrant and floral fish and mussel soup/dish served with Vin Jaune

Last week(wow, already…) I decided to prepare an elegant dinner for my wife and I: something with which we could enjoy a glass of our newly bought, expensive and never before tasted VIN JAUNE from the French region of Jura.

I believe I have mentioned this region before. It is a small region, north-east of Savoie, near Switzerland, where they make very interesting and rather unique wines. In Québec, at the moment, they’ve become something of a rage. The main cépages found in Jura are the white grapes Savagnin and Chardonnay, and the red Poulsard, Pinot Noir and Trousseau grapes. The whites usually produce rather heavy bodied, well structured slightly oxidative wines with nutty, mineral and apple cider notes. Often, their finish will be dry with a subtle acidity to lighten the flavors that excite the nose and palate upon first impression. VIN JAUNE is a wine produced specifically in the region that follows a process similar to Sherry. The process involves aging the wine in a barrel for a number of years, I believe 6 to be exact, where it produces a yeast, or voile as it is referred to in France, that covers the wine and lets it develop its flavors. No wine is added to the barrel in order to not disturb the process. However, unlike Sherry, the wine is not fortified; which is when a distilled alcohol or “spirit” is added, such as brandy, to help preserve it. It also adds character and flavor to the original, unfortified product. VIN JAUNE is only made with the Savagnin grape, and is made with grapes harvested late during the season, grapes that have developed enough sugars in order to produce slightly higher alcohol levels, typically around 15%. The voile takes 2 to 3 years to develop and when the 6 years and 3 months have passed where the VIN JAUNE has been oxidizing, only about 60% of the original liquid is left. The VIN JAUNE is always bottled in 62cl bottles.

I should mention, that my understanding of the process is limited…

Picture used from allisonvidub.wordpress.com

picture used from emilyintheglass.wordpress.com

Anyways, in order to complement this Vin Jaune, which I imagined being a robust example, with deeper and more complex flavors, of the whites from Jura I had already tried, I decided to make a rich and floral fish and mussel soup, or stew, or dish: whatever you want to call it. The combination was surprisingly perfect. More on that later: let’s speak about the soup.

The soup consisted of the following ingredients:

Fish fumet(stock)-bought
Safran
Bay leaves
Cherry tomatoes
Sablefish
Mussels
onions, carrots, celery (for a mirepoix)
garlic
paprika
oranges
fennel
potatoes
parsley
Olive oil
Butter

I started off my sweating my mirepoix and garlic in olive oil and a touch of butter at a low heat. When that was ready, I added a table spoon of paprika, let it cook for about 30sec. and then added the fish fumet, safran, sliced fennel, diced potatoes, orange wedges, bay leaf and halved tomatoes, which I covered in water. I let that simmer with a top on until the fennel and potatoes had cooked through. When this took place, I added my two pieces of sablefish, which would poach in the broth and then after a few minutes, I added the mussels on the top of it all and raised the heat in order for the steam to cook them.

safran and sablefish

soup base

cooked mussels on soup base

Voila! We have no large bowls, so we served ourselves in smaller cooking pots...

When the mussels were cooked, which happens when they’ve opened, I mixed in some fresh Italian parsley, and seasoned it.

The Vin Jaune we enjoyed was probably not its the greatest example. There a number of more renowned producers in the region, but it was delicious none the less, closer to a white Jura than I had expected, fuller bodied, but with a dry, mineral finish complemented by a nice acidity that paired beautifully with the flavors of the fennel and oranges that were in the broth. Success!

Eating sustainably for cheaper food and the pleasures of creativity

I’ve got a wonderful article for you all to read. The writer, Tamar Adler, shares many of my thoughts about food and eating, and I would like for you to read it and think about what she has to say. So much of our consumption(this goes beyond food) is carelessly wasteful and needs to be rethought. There’s so much packaging now and a lot of what we use is unnecessarily disposable. There are days when I am exasperated by it all. Anyways, I think that Ms. Adler makes a number of great points. It’s a simple, straight-forward and good read that will leave you thinking about new ways to approach your week when it comes to groceries and eating. She mentions some great ideas(Crispy fish skin and sticky rice: Brilliant! so simple! I can already taste it!), and got me thinking about how I could reduce my food waste. This is a small step we can all take that can have major social and environmental impacts.

Thanksgiving Thrift: The Holiday as a Model for Sustainable Cooking
By TAMAR ADLER

thanksgiving meal

Simple navy bean veggie salad

navy beans, sage, tomatoes, leeks, capers, olive oil,

*The radicchio was not yet added in this picture.

Here’s a quick salad recipe that I made last night. We ate it with some leftovers.

Here’s the ingredient list:

Navy beans
tomatoes
capers
sage
leeks
radicchio
olive oil
sherry vinegar
bay leaf

I put the beans in water when I woke up yesterday morning and let them soak for the day. I gave myself about an hour to cook them in simmering salted water in which I added a large bay leaf and a sun dried tomato for additional flavor.

I thinly sliced the whites of leeks and gently fried them in olive oil. When slightly golden I took them out and added sliced radicchio that I cooked and then added to a small amount of salted boiling water with about a tbls of sherry vinegar.

I added fresh sage to the frying pan, using the oil that was leftover and let the herb cook and develop a bit of crispness. When almost ready I added a small quantity of capers to the pan and sauteed them for a moment with the sage before adding both to the beans that were now ready.

I gently squeezed out the boiling liquid from the radicchio and added them to the beans. To finish it off, I seasoned it with salt and pepper and liberally added a high quality olive oil I only use occasionally. I also sprinkled a touch of lemon juice.

The whole thing was surprisingly delicious!

With a bit of organizing I quickly and simply made a healthy and cheap dish that is easy to refrigerate and yummy.

Fragrant orange, sage and bay leaf chicken dinner.

beautiful colors

We’re enjoying a brilliant November here in Montreal. This morning, the 14th, a usually grey and cold period of the year, my mom(in town visiting) as well as Carolina and I went jogging for 45 min in t-shirts… Carolina is still fantasizing about a snow-less winter. AH! Frankly, as I’ve written before, I’d rather a grey-less winter than a snow-less one. Let me soak in the brightly reflected sunlight while skating, cross country skiing and whatever other outdoor activity I might indulge in. I’d rather the moonlit nights than the dark ones that start oh so early(despite the warm weather, the nights are still starting at about 5…these things don’t change.).

Anyways, I had some fresh bay leaves and sage as well as some small oranges in the fridge last night and wanted to use them favorably. I succeeded. The following meal was wonderful.

I went out bought some organic grain fed chicken, with its skin still on: a key element of the recipe in my mind. Sacrifice a bit of your healthy behavior and do so. I highly recommend it.

Here’s what you’ll need if you want to follow the exact meal I made:

Chicken
oranges
fresh sage and bay leaves
sherry, or sherry vinegar
A large teaspoon of both smoky paprika and regular paprika: preferably good quality paprika. I converted to buying more expensive paprika last year and its changed my life. Drop by a good spice shop in your neighborhood if there’s one.
Garlic: ideally local. Chinese garlic isn’t very good.
Pearl onions
Fennel
Fennel seeds
Potatoes
Olive oil
salt and pepper

I started by marinating the chicken pieces in sliced oranges, roughly chopped sage, bay leaves(fresh), roughly cut garlic, both kinds of paprika, and olive oil.

savory and slightly smoky chicken marinade

I followed this by prepping my potatoes, which I skinned, quartered and steamed. Ideally you want a sharp knife to go through with a bit of resistance. The rest of the cooking should take place in the oven when all of the ingredients bake together.

I also prepped my pearl onions, which I skinned by cutting the root of the onion bulb and by then blanching the onions quickly and transferring them to ice water where I could then just squeeze the onion out of its skin. This process makes it easier and faster to do so. You can also skip this but the skin and onion juices are kind of sticky…

potatoes ready for a steam bath...

pearl onions

After prepping this, I then seared the chicken pieces to crisp the skin and use its fat to fry the potatoes, fennel, pearl onions and fresh herbs that were in the marinade.

seared chicken pieces

After taking the chicken out of the pan and returning it to the marinade, I added a bit of olive oil(chicken doesn’t produce as much fat as a duck magret does, so it depends on how much fat you want in your food) and added some of the fresh bay leaves, sage, pearl onions, large garlic chunks, fennel seeds and potatoes.

Following this, I quickly seared my fennel slices on both sides.

searing fennel

When the searing of the vegetables was done I put them in a deep oven dish and then added the seared chicken as well as its marinade and finished it off by sprinkling the whole thing with some sherry.

veggies ready to the oven

ready for the oven

I had preheated the oven to 350 degrees. I let the whole thing slowly cook, every so often basting everything with the juices that accumulated in the bottom of the dish. When the chicken was cooked, I turned my broiler on and ever so slightly burned the chicken pieces for additional flavor.

ready to eat

Voila!

Take the time to exercise

Scientifically established reasons for exercising appear in the press at strikingly frequent rates. The benefits of exercise have been well founded now for decades and even centuries. Here’s something I read today in the New York Times that further reveals how beneficial taking care of your body is.

AGING WELL THROUGH EXERCISE

This picture was found on the site alternativehealthwellness.com

A brief personal story about aging and exercise. I was very fortunate to have a wonderful grandmother who had suffered much in her life but who had steadfastly refused to give in to time and bodily decay. After a terrible car accident in her late 30s that almost crippled her: damaging her spine, breaking her wrist, killing her husband and almost taking away her resolve to live, she managed to fight through the various challenges associated with the accident and got better. She maintained a strict morning regiment of stretches and exercises and made sure to eat healthy. In her eighties, mentally sharp and still independent, the doctors marveled at her physical health. Despite a distorted spine, she had managed to create enough core strength to avoid the likely deterioration that would have taken place without her disciplined approach to life. I admire her, and am thankful for her influence in my life. As is said, “the proof is in the pudding.” Take care of yourself and life will take care of you.

Soups, stews and Autumn

A few weeks ago, during one of the last warm weekends of the year, Carolina and I made our way to the Atwater market. It was an opportunity for a nice bike ride and, more specifically, the chance to try some food from the seemingly infamous Satay Brothers. I’d been hearing about real South Asian style street food being sold at the market for some time, and had a craving for a spicy coconut broth we headed through Westmount, admired the architecture, did a bit of dreaming, and sped down the steep slopes of the neighborhood for a taste of Singapore. Satay Brothers: here we come! I could only hope that the hype was well placed…

Opened at the beginning of the summer, the Satay Brothers is a small food stand at the market that is indeed manned by brothers, as well as on occasion their mother. Simple and straight forward, the menu was short with a total of about 5 dishes available including dessert. There were marinated meat and shrimp skewers(satays), porc buns, a noodle salad and a coconut broth with rice noodles, a quail egg, chicken(optional), bean sprouts, tofu, shrimp and fresh coriander.

Carolina and I both opted for the soup with chicken. There was no disappointment. It was fresh and delicious; the kind of food perfect for all seasons, well conceived to warm you up, cool you down, make you smile and sigh.

yum

Inspired, I’ve been making a rather large amount of soups and stews. The weather certainly helps, and as I’ve mentioned before, I like leftovers and it’s easy to make large portions of the stuff…

It’s the perfect time of year to do so obviously, as the northern winds blow, and the clouds unfurl above, the crisp air is made more appealing with a bowl of steamy grub and some thick wool socks…

Here’s one of the more interesting ones I made:

Matsutake and kale soup

This was a relatively simple soup to make. I made a broth with some dried lobster mushrooms(not too much; they’re not cheap…), shiitake mushrooms, celeri, a white onion, garlic, a bay leaf, and the stem of a Matsutake mushroom I bought with the purpose of making the soup. After letting that develop flavor, I strained it, mixed in a Tbls of miso paste, and added large chunks of the Matsutake mushroom, and kale leaves. I let that cook, and prepared some toppings for the soup in order to make it more consistent(I realized that it wouldn’t be enough for dinner otherwise). I fried some tofu to make it crunchy, grated fresh daikon, mixed in some bean sprouts and make a quick thin omelet in sesame oil for extra flavor. All of these were mixed together, sprinkled with mirin and light soya sauce and then added to the soup when ready.

soup with its toppings

Fortunately the result of the experimenting was very good. This is not always the case…