Mommy, why is Daddy feeding us weeds?

What do you see in the picture above? Ignore the fuzziness and lack of composition. This is one of the reasons that I don't have pictures on my blog. I guess I should do a post about that some time.
I am talking about the bug. Well, not actually about that particular bug but that I found a real live bug on a weed in a front yard garden in Toronto. This particular weed is a lamb's quarter. It tastes a little like spinach when cooked and can be eaten raw. There is a strong chlorophyll flavour. If green was a flavour than this would be a good representation. Behind the leaves there is a dandelion whose leaves can be used for salads, roots for tea or coffee drink, and the flower can be made into wine or tempura.

All of this is made possible by the ban of pesticides in Toronto. This is not the real point but rather the reemergence of unwanted plants as foodstuffs. I went to the Leslieville Farmer's Market and bought some weeds this past weekend. The vendor didn't call them that but I recognize them from my lawn pullings. I bought some purslane and could have bought a tincture made of borage. It will not be long before we see some more of these older crops that may include lovage and other old time greens that are more in fashion for ground cover rather than culinary purposes.

Purslane is a sour green that tastes between lemon and vinegar. It can be used in a variety of ways such as salad, soup or fried. When fried, it becomes sticky and mucilaginous like okra.

Now the idea of sour in our diet is not new. I put on a medieval feast around two years ago and found that most of the recipes were more delicate and herbal with accents of sour. I really should post that menu. It was very enlightening. Other recipes called for herbs such as lovage, borage, dandelion, and sorrel.  From Absinthe to Zest : an alphabet for food lovers by Alexandre Dumas has reference to some of these being typical in a 18th century kitchen herb garden. These greens are now making a comeback. Sometimes all it takes is to look in your front yard at the weeds that are crowding out your grass. 

I dislike grass so much that maybe I will see if some of these ground covering plants can replace my grass and replenish my larder.

WTF... is a Beer Cocktail?

It's a mixed beer drink, duh. Okay, that is not exactly fair and not really descriptive. In fact, the term has only become a term in my life recently.  While strictly speaking, it should only count for adding distilled spirits, I think that the term is a little more loose.

The earliest beer cocktail is one that my Polish Grandmother would drink. It was considered a ladies' drink and consisted of Canadian lager, tomato juice and salt. Sometimes, if someone was being fancy, they would add Clamato juice. Looking up this classic on the internet shows claims of this being Mexican or some American city. I think that this is probably one of those things that has cropped up in many cultures at once.

The next one that I remember is beer and lemonade or iced tea. Yeah, I know the Coors Light Iced Tea thing has been circulating the internet but it was a thing a long time ago. Call it a shandy.

The next one is one of my favourites. It is a simple addition of Ribena into beer.

I have had fancy ones based on Delerium Tremens and recently been experimenting with whiskeys and ginger beer specifically ryes and bourbons.

The big question is why ruin beer by adding anything?  Well, I suppose there are three reasons to add something to beer.
1. to save a bad or bland beer.  You got a lager you hate or a beer that you are just meh about, then do something. Most beers of this time end up in cooking for me. But like saving wine by turning it into a Sangria, you can always turn beer into a cocktail.
2. to enhance a flavour profile.  Sometimes if an element is added to a drink, it can enhance and lift it up. I find that adding the Ribena to a lager highlights the malty elements and makes lagers make more sense to me. Also, adding salt to a sour beer can make that pucker even more prominent.
3. make a whole new delicious thing.  While I did not entirely enjoy the Delerium Tremens cocktail I had a Le Canard Mort in Toronto, it was a thing unto its own. When tasting one of these concoctions, invariably made by a mixologist, there is a sense of what they were trying to accomplish - normally marrying two main ingredients to lift both sets into something greater.  Reminds me of great cocktails such things as an old fashioned or a sidecar. You can taste something of the original elements but what you have is something better.

Try mixing your own but just remember for every classic there are the B-52s and Blowjobs and tons of justly forgotten shooters and cocktails. Have fun.

Magazine Review: ACQTASTE

Over the summer and early fall, there have been a number of food themed special issues from Lapham's Quarterly, dandyhorse, Creative Nonfiction and spacing (No link available yet).  These are one offs that try to marry to varying degree of awkwardness, their niche with food in general.  Then there was a BIG launch of Lucky Peach, the McSweeney's entry into food starring David Chang followed by their first recipe book, Mission Street Food.

Food is hot right now.  Food issues are now becoming reasons for municipal debate in areas such as food regulations, food carts in Toronto and the whole Stop the MegaQuarry.  There has been a growing food literature but it all seems disjointed.  The above magazines fall into one of two types, niche magazines that are putting out a special issue that loosely cleaves to their interest (food as fuel, food as fodder for thought or a miscellany of food related facts) or very focused, hyperfocused on one topic of food (Ramen).  These have all been entertaining and eye opening to some degree.

Along comes ACQTASTE with the acqward title, (see what I did there) that is probably to be read acquired taste.  It is roughly the size of Kobo or Kindle with a distinct layout mix of photos and text.  The articles cover people cooking your food, what a chef's brunch looks like, Jen and Grant and other pieces including two thought pieces at the end.

This magazine is largely a product of Chuck Ortiz, if the published piece bylines are to be believed.  This magazine reminds me of another first issue that I read a long time ago.  It was another high concept and specific magazine that many thought could not make it.  Wired was the magazine that came along at the advent of the web and wrote about technology culture.  It was nebulous at first with a design aesthetic that eventually influenced web design and other magazines.  A good portion of the magazine was electronic and connected.  It was a San Jose Mercury for the world but told in small stories with big thoughts.

ACQTASTE could be the Wired for food.  I believe that acqtaste could be the advent of magazines for portable readers.  It is the first magazine that really gets the format and how stories need to be told for a smaller screen with limited attention.  Not the small twitter feeds but rather the blog sized pithiness with weight in few words that can be given.

Looking at their website is required for understanding acquired.  Yes, the writing can be a little clunky and quirky much like blog writing but there is one opinion piece at the end that makes me believe that there is a need for overarching stories about food.  'The Space Between' begs to be unpacked liked a McLuhan koan into its component parts.  It reminds me of a finished dish where you can taste the components but know that underneath the simplicity of sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, there lives some serious technique of thought and writing.

The electronic bits are less expensive than the paper bound magazine and some thought should be given to creating a decent digital version of the magazine after the fact.  The extra content on the website follows the same design as the mag.  It fits. I am not sure how one makes this work as a business model but as a paying customer, it is immensely satisfying and I look forward to the next issue.  I will pay because I understand the worth.  Like a simple dish ordered from a good restaurant, you know good when you try it.   It is not simply an acquired taste.  (oops, see what I did again?)

Food Trends: Sausages

I've been waiting for the right moment to write about this growing trend and it has finally come through a review of WRST on blogTO.  But before we go there...

In the last couple of years, Toronto has seen quite a few food trends centring around taking a humble (read cheap) food and doing it up so that a few extra dollars can be charged.  This is probably in response to the economic downterm.  There was the burger trend (still going with Retro burger opening a fourth restaurant at Coxwell and Danforth), waffles (Waffle Bar opened a production space beside Knead Bakery and sells its waffles at the Leslieville Farmer's Market) and poutine.

Sausages are not exactly new.  The Rebel House has been doing daily sausage specials for years.  Lately, I have become more interested in sausages, especially since local butchers are bringing out their creative sides. 

Close to the Bone starting making their Bacon Bangers, Manic Hispanic and Ćevapčići, a slavic sausage last year.  Sometimes there is even an experimental sausage such as the elk sausage they made a few weeks ago.  This year, Royal Beef has a returning butcher, Paul, who trained under Paul Estrella and is coming from a stint at the Healthy Butcher.  With his youth comes new sausages and a reinvigoration of the meat counter.  Spotted so far, Chicken Orange, Turkey Lime patties, Lamb and Stout, Jalapeno and Cheese, and Berkshire breakfast links that are really good.

I thought that maybe this trend had already jumped the shark when I saw that the Insider's Report had fresh sausages (Leek and Pepper, Tomato and Mozzarella).  These are the only products that I have tried on this page that I recommend you don't try.  They are just too salty with very little meat flavour.

It seems to me that the idea of ground meat encased, pattied, wrapped around a stick or even raw is another way to elevate a humble ingredient.  Germans are renowned for their wurst and now Toronto has a beerhall like place.  I haven't been yet but I wanted to note the trend.  I am looking forward to a variety of these humble meats making a resurgence.  Whether it is a supreme kofta, a slavic spread of sausages or just a few more choices at the street meat cart on the corner it is time to give the lowly sausage its due.  In fact, I pledge to have a sausage party before the end of the year...now who do I invite.

Update: You know you are onto something when the fans of Cthulhu start pumping its virtues. Cthulhu weenie roaster looks like a wonderful father's day gift for an Elder One.

Leslieville Farmers' Market

The Leslieville Farmers' Market starts tomorrow, June 5th.  It will be open from 9 am to 2 pm at Johnathon Ashbridge Park. I normally stop at the East Lynn Park Farmers' Market or at Withrow Park.   This one is close and convenient enough that the whole family will be going.  I am looking forward with a little bit of trepidation.

I am concerned at the balance between `Farmers`and producers.  The mix is 50/50.  While I have no problem with producers of fine foods or musicians or other stuff, I don't typically think of that as a farmer's market.  It was the slight off mixture that eventually put me off the evergreen brickworks.  They were upfront with their goal to make livable cities.  Food is only one aspect.  I love the evergreen site and recommend it to destination eaters but not so much for weekly shoppers. 

This phenomenon of destination farmers' markets feels more like a new way for producers to connect with the consumers.  It is a cheaper delivery mechanism with built-in immediate feedback.  I think that it is always admirable to get to know your food and those who make it.  It makes it harder to poison the eater.  I always wonder if the Maple Leaf executives feed their family the same food as they produce.  I wonder if their food production methods would change, and quickly if their family became sick with listeriosis.  But then again, I know people who have poisoned their families with homemade potato salad.

The quibble is the naming of this market as a farmers' market when it is really more of local market where people go to the park rather than the local mall.  The difference is that the goods are local, and it introduces more people to the park in a congenial atmosphere with revelry.  More people will get a sense of their food and how it gets there from attending the market.  But is this really just the beginning of a new type of corporatization of food; replacing malls with stalls?

This market is invitation only, meaning that the Market manager will be the one that ends up shaping the market, its purpose and the rules.  It is not run by farmers but by residents.  They are asking for local and thoughtful food and products.  This is a step to fixing the food system as it works now but care has to be taken that it is not creating a system that will undermine the more permanent and nascent changes that seek to transform the larger food networks. (CSAs, businesses selling local food, etc)  We need for consumers to break down the wall, as we all eat from the same trough.  However, it is easy for a densely populated and affluent area to demand and receive but I am not sure what effect this will have in the long term.

In the mean time, I am going to enjoy this market for what it serves and report back as always.

Food Trends: Seaberry

In the past two weeks, there have been two products that have had seaberry in them.  One was Ricola and the other was a tart at Earth Rosedale, a restaurant close to work.  The seaberry is some sort of orange berry from the sea buckthorn bush that is tart. 

Unfortunately, I can't give you good explanation of the flavour as I was only able to try the throat drops.  The tart was missing in action at Earth Rosedale but I did try their smoked sugar and vanilla panna cotta.  The server described the tart as sweet sour and one of her favourites.  They used juice from Everspring Farms from Wingham. I would guess the berry and juice would be similar to cranberry in terms of how to work with it. 

I am intrigued by the little taste that I had and I will be curious to see if this makes its way into the mainstream.  I would like to get my hands on some fresh or frozen seaberry to see how it will taste.

Spotted: Real Viscera Noodle Soup

Walking in Chinatown East in Toronto, I spotted a bilingual sign stating "Real Viscera Noodle Soup".  This sign is both really honest and also a bit dismissive of other offal soups.  It could be that other soups may be using fake viscera cheating by using what? 

It is a translation issue, of course, but when I put it through google translate, I get real gut soup so I am assuming tripe soup.  I wonder if the Chinese community is also suffering the issues that many other migrant populations suffered with their brood becoming "westernized" and disavowing poverty dishes that use unused nose to tail eating parts?  With the spread of Food Network extreme eating shows, many of these leftovers have increased in price. Maybe these dishes will soon be elevated to the point that offal will be the same price as the rest of the animal. 

There is a tripe sandwich on the menu at a Turkish place beside the Only on the Danforth that I have been meaning to try.  Each time I go in they are out.  Maybe I should have put this as trending -- Tripe is in...

Food Trends: Dust

For the last month or so, I have been working with dusts.  A dust is dried fruit, either dehydrated or dried using a low temp oven (170-190F) and then powdered using whatever crushing implement is your favourite (food processor, coffee grinder or mortar and pestle, if you are that kind of person). This can be used with  any fruit or vegetable like those old Ronco commercials.  Make sure to put it into a air sealed container as any moisture will cause clumps.  An aside, what really is a vacuum sealed container?  Is anyone really removing all the air?

When the powder is added to water or rehydrated, it takes back the liquid which is a good way to infuse the fruit with another flavour.  I have tried tomatoes and apples so far.

Tomato powder:  used it in making an instant ketchup, like tomato paste--added to pasta, soups, etc, and at the 1970s party made a play on a traditional caprese salad.  Take a bocconcini ball, roll it in olive oil and tomato dust, attach a leaf of basil to the top using a toothpick and drizzle with olive oil.  It looks like a little apple and tastes really tomato-ey.  Even though I was using winter tomatoes, the drying brought out the best flavours including the sourness of unripe tomato. It worked.  I am looking forward to trying this with mozzarella and fresh garden tomatoes.

Apple powder:  I have really only used it with cheeses when trying to come up with a cheeseball recipe, as below...

1970s Blue Balls

Take a blue cheese that is soft enough to work with a room temp such as Geai Bleu.  Make small bite sized balls. Add some chopped dried apples, and roll in apple powder and toasted crushed walnuts.  Serve on crackers (black sesame work well).

The food trend is that this technique is cropping up all sorts of places. (Mandarin dust, wasabi pea dust) Some restaurants are even doing dusts of all sorts of stuff including a dust of chocolate.  Isn't that just warming chocolate and making pebbles of goodness? 

This is an easy technique that can be used to create all sorts of interesting illusions and allusions.  It is a technique that if used with good fruit and veg will yield good results.  Maybe this will drive the dehydrated onion soup and sour cream dip into a special occasion rather than always showing up at the potluck. Think about it -- banana and peanut butter dip without the bananas going all brown, or lemon powder on top of a white cake, or so much more.

Food Trends: "Pasta Water with Parmesan Foam"

In the past week, there has been three mentions of pasta water; TheKitchn, the first episode of Foodies, and a review of Modernist Cuisine in the New York Times. 

The Kitchn posting was about what to do with leftover pasta water.  There were some admirable answers including cook more pasta, use for thickening and so on.  One person reference Foodies, a new web serial about a bunch of Foodies in California who host a dinner club every week.  There is a love story, ex-boyfriend, goofy overwrought foodies and in the first episode a special hazing dish -- Pasta Water with Parmesan Foam.  It has a hint of nutmeg in it.  Watch the episode, a little draggy in parts but this is the setup episode for the rest of the series.

Finally, I wondered if the Foodies bit was inspired by Nathan Myhrvold's behemoth of a cookbook, Modernist Cuisine.  In the picture linked above, there is an inside out soup with noodles.  Okay, this link may be a stretch but it seemed like a fit in that the outside broth in placed inside a bubble and served with noodles like a pasta.  The broth becomes the object and not the noodles--pasta water as far as I am concerned.

But where is the trend... 

These three point to a root to leaf type of cooking that seems to becoming more clear to me.  Taking throwaways and making them delicious.  Might be a stretch but my prediction is that we will see more of these interesting concoctions showing up in restaurants near you.