When the heatwave hit Paris, I forgot how to eat. My appetite dissolved into a sad shadow of its former self. I was thirsty, but nothing came close to quenching the void I felt. Not even a cold slice of watermelon could rouse me.
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Earlier this month at the We Love Green music festival held just outside of Paris in the Bois de Vincennes, our food stand, the Asado Club, dished out nearly 6,000 portions. For an event that lasts only two days, and for a relatively small food market stand that usually only does around 200 servings per day, that is quite the accomplishment.
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For the whole first year and a half after I moved to France, I lived without a stove or a refrigerator. It may seem an odd predicament, but in France, it is actually fairly common for apartments not to come furnished with appliances. And while living without such modern conveniences was definitely not without its challenges, thinking back on the experience now, it actually didn’t really bother me that much at all.
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As a chef with relatively traditional training, alternative milk, or “mylk” as it is sometimes called, is not the go-to in my kitchen. Call me old school, but the milk I use is more likely to come from a cow than a handful of almonds.
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Ever since I began cooking professionally, the art and process of fermentation have fascinated me. So much so that Wild Fermentation, a book by self-taught fermentation revivalist Sandor Ellix Katz, was the only book, besides my own personal recipe notebooks, that I brought with me when I first moved to France. Considering how little space I had in my suitcase at the time, that is saying a lot.
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On a recent trip to Montreal, amongst a sea of bagels, smoked meat and poutine, I was surprised to find an abundance of celery root. Okay, maybe it didn’t quite have an incredibly abundant presence at the poutineries I visited, but I was happy to see a variety of restaurants around the city featuring it in one way or another on their menus.
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Figuring out how to make the preparation and execution of mealtime easier has inspired home cooks for generations. Whether we plan ahead and prep on weekends for the week to come, or rely on processed foods or eating out in order to get us through, we all do our best to find solutions when it comes to meals.
Simple and easy recipe. Make as a party snack or as part of a weekend brunch spread.
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One Sunday night soon after moving to Paris, some new friends and I found ourselves in the Marais district without any plans for dinner. It can be notoriously difficult to find open restaurants on Sunday evenings in the city of light, but luckily one person among us had a place in mind.
After being led down a maze of twisting streets, we finally arrived at our destination. Tucked behind a large, brightly lit window and just off of Rue des Rosiers, was Miznon, an Israeli food canteen that dreams are made of.
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I have been in the south of France for a couple weeks now and the rain won’t seem to let up. Cats and dogs, pouring endlessly from the sky, the sun utterly unable to burst through and shine. The local Provençal people have taken to joking about how nobody should ever say it doesn’t rain in the south, which I guess also sort of means “get used to it.” All I want to do is cozy up with a good book in front of the fireplace in hopes of forgetting the chaotic climatic conditions outside.
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One thing I like to be mindful of in the kitchen is food waste. How easily stems, stalks and scraps get tossed in the bin when they are often just as edible as the prized leaves or bulbs that have been picked from them. Trim from meat and vegetables for example can be easily saved in the freezer and made into a flavourful stock once you’ve accumulated enough of them. Most stems from herbs like cilantro and parsley, or from leafy vegetables like kale or Swiss chard, can also be eaten, we have just simply been taught to toss them because they aren’t the part of the plant that is considered the most “desirable”.
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As a chef it is always interesting for me to discover and research a new ingredient. Cannabis, on the cusp of legalization in Canada, and in the context of its potential application in food is no exception. Still, when the initial request for the assignment came in from my editor I had to laugh. Far from an experienced user myself, and long having written off edibles (thanks to once snacking on a horrible-tasting, heavily dosed weed cookie), what would I be getting myself into?
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Crunchy on the outside yet chewy and marshmallowy on the inside, pavlova is the egg white dessert that dreams are made of. Don’t let the meringue aspect of this fancy-looking treat scare you away – it is easier to make than it may seem. Purportedly named after a Russian ballerina, pavlova, an icon of Australian and New Zealand cuisine, is an airy grand jeté of sweetness that pairs perfectly with a classic pas de deux of whipped cream and ripe in-season fruit.
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As summer slowly slips away into fall, the last thing I want to do is hole up in my kitchen and tuck into a complicated recipe. Instead, I take advantage of the seasonal abundance that late summer brings. I relish in the hard work of my favourite farmers at the market by making simple, classically inspired dishes that let the fresh plentitude of the season do the talking and that speak from the heart of where the food came from.
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It’s the end of August and the markets are bursting with sun-ripened food. I have been cooking in Naramata, B.C., for the past three weeks and the Penticton Farmer’s Market is hands down one of the most amazing places I’ve ever shopped for ingredients at. For starters, a two block stretch is devoted entirely to organically farmed produce. Not even the incredible 2.5-kilometre long Saturday market in Arles, one of the most beautiful and abundant I have ever been to in France, can boast that. Also the farmers are incredible – passionate and dedicated, each specializing in something a little different and ready to share what they know and love about the food they grow. It is heaven…
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When it comes to summer food, tartines are a no-brainer. These simple open-faced canvases provide perfectly toasted vessels to carry all the awesomeness that begins to pour out of a sun-ripened summer garden in August.
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If I could be anywhere in the summertime, I would chose the south of France. More specifically, Marseille. Sure, it gets crazy hot, and as a city, it gets a bad rap for being dangerous and dirty, but if you take the time to look just beneath its deceptively rough surface, you will find that France’s second largest city is also a charming and vibrant city full of colour, life and soul…
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This dip isn’t fussy, or at least it really shouldn’t be. In fact, it should be prepared in exactly the same way it is intended to be eaten – that is, in a leisurely fashion. Take your time roasting and chopping and mixing it all together and then promptly enjoy eating it, standing barefoot in your yard, feeling the grass tickle your toes beneath you…
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I live on the fifth floor of an apartment that doesn’t have an elevator, and this might sound a little lazy, but sometimes I just can’t be bothered to walk down (and then back up again) all those stairs in order to buy supplies for making dinner...even if the closest shop is only right across the street from our building. Good thing figuring out what to do with all the bits and bobs I tend to have leftover is basically one of my favourite activities. Call me crazy, but some of my most memorable meals have been born from simply cleaning out the fridge or rummaging through the semi-abandoned contents of my crisper. Off the top of my head, some of the greatest hits in this repertoire include the caramelized onion dip my friend Rebekah came up with, the spicy kimchi fried rice I made for lunch yesterday and the warm lamb salad made from leftovers the day after our wedding…
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This may come as a surprise, but despite what we have always been told, it actually is possible
to eat (and enjoy!) oysters all year round and not only in months that end with ‘r’…