Micro-batch Jellies & Jams

fig. a: ruby-red

It starts with a relatively small, but select, quantity of fruit. There are numerous reasons for deciding to work with such a small amount of premium fruit. Let’s consider the case of red currants, just for fun.

1. You get to the farmers’ market a little later than usual, and your favourite fruit vendor is nearly sold old of red currants, so you’re only able to get a pint.

2. A friend is generous enough to gives you some of her red currants, but for whatever reason she’s only able to give you a pint.

3. You have a hankering for red currant jelly, but you can’t afford the time and effort it would take to make a large batch.

4. You have a single, solitary red currant bush in your garden, and although it’s covered with beautiful red berries, when you’ve picked every last one of them, the yield is a mere pint.

You get the point.

In my case, it was #4 that applied. Our red currant bush was covered with berries, but when all was picked and done I wound up with the pint container you see in the photo above.

The good news is that it’s not going to take very long to make your jelly, as long as you have a jelly bag. That’s really the only piece of special equipment you need, aside from a scale.

Weigh your fruit. Add 40% of its weight in granulated sugar. Mix and allow to macerate.

When your fruit has macerated and released its juices, pour it into your jelly bag and allow it to drain into a bowl.

fig. b: papa’s got a brand new bag

fig. c: splatter art

Pour the juice into a pot (a small or medium one, depending on how small your batch is). Bring the juice to a simmer and simmer gently, watching the bubbles closely. It’s these bubbles that will let you know when your jelly has set properly. With a small batch, this will likely only take about 15-20 minutes.

Pour it in a jar. If you started with a pint of red currants, you’ll probably get a half a jar or so. The yield will be low, but the satisfaction will be high.

fig. d: small-batch jelly by Bon Papa Preserves

Especially if you get the set just right.

fig. e: perfect set by Bon Papa Preserves

This basic method can be used for a wide range of fruit preserves.

And if you want to make jam, it’s even quicker and easier. You don’t need a jelly bag, and you don’t need to do any straining.

Let’s say you started out with a pint or two of cherries. Sour cherries, for instance.

fig. f: sour cherries

You could use the recipe above, skip all the jelly-specific steps, and you’d have cherry jam in no time.

In fact, it might even look like this.

fig. g: sour cherry jam

Jackpot!

aj

Early Hints of Summer

There were certainly “early hints of summer” this week. It was downright hot. Un véritable canicule, as they say. True dog days of summer two weeks before the arrival of summer.

Anyway, Michelle sought out the A.C. at our local supermarché, and when she did she came across the loveliest bunch of apricots. Sure, they were from California, but we can’t be too choosy around here—Quebec is not exactly known for its apricots. Plus, she was convinced it would make for an “early hint of summer,” an early taste of height-of-summer tastes to come.

She was right.

She whipped together a rustic apricot crostata and the results were fantastic, as you can see.

We thought it looked particularly cute packed into a pizza box for protection and for ease of delivery, but its container caused a bit of “is it savoury? is it sweet?” confusion when we brought it over to some friends.

Never mind. Everything got sorted out, and that apricot crostata made for a dreamy dessert.

aj

Jam on it!

fig. a: total pothead

Guess who showed up on our front step yesterday?

That’s right! None other than our dear, dear friend (dare we say “dearest”?), Camilla Wynne!

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the real Camilla Wynne who turned up special delivery. It was “just” her brand-new book, Jam Bake: Inspired Recipes for Creating and Baking With Preserves (Penguin Random House, 2021)!

fig. b: Go ahead, judge this book by its cover—you won’t be disappointed!

But that was the next best thing to the real deal, because Jam Bake captures Camilla’s wonderful personality, her prodigious talent, and her singular style so perfectly.

I knew all about the project, but was utterly transfixed by the book from the moment I picked it up. My expectations were high, but the final product far exceeded them. This book is an accomplishment: it’s witty, friendly, smart, inspiring, and tantalizing all at once.

Michelle worked on the project—she was its stylist—and she was totally mesmerized by the book from the moment she laid eyes on it. She ended up reading the whole thing, front to back, as if she was encountering it for the first time. She was left awestruck by Jam Bake.

What’s the deal with this book? What’s the concept? What’s so damn fascinating about it? Well, it’s a book about preserving by a master preserver—Camilla “They Don’t Call Me ‘Preservation Society’’ For Nothing” Wynne. Someone who ran their own preserves company for years. Someone who teaches the fine art of preserving to this day, online, from her well-appointed kitchen.

fig. c: Camilla in da house!

fig. d: all the basics

It covers all the basics, including simple, straight-forward recipes to get you started and essentials like what kinds of tools you need for the tasks at hand.

fig. e: all the tools

But, more importantly, it’s a book about what you can do with your fabulous preserves once you’ve made them, beyond spreading them on toast. It’s a book about all the desserts you can bake, mix, dress up, and adorn with your delicious homemade preserves. Things like Victoria Sandwiches with Rhubarb Lemonade Jam.

fig. f: A dessert so good they named a queen after it

And Bakewell tarts with Tutti Frutti Jam.

fig. g: mixed-fruit Bakewell tarts

Linzer Torte à la Camilla, with Black Currant & Sweet Cherry Jam.

fig. h: There once was a torte from Linz…

Whiskey Baba with a Different Seville Marmalade, a recipe she developed with Michelle.

fig. I: Baba O’Whiskey

And the ever-so-intriguing Cranachan (wait until you read its backstory—drama!) with Raspberry Lambic Jam.

fig. j: Is this The World’s Most Intriguing Dessert? Could be…

And in addition to Camilla’s preserving, baking, and cooking genius, it’s a book that combines the skills of a crack team of collaborators, a dream team, a supergroup, if you will:

Maggie Boyd, of Maggie Boyd Ceramics, on illustrations and script

Mickaël A. Bandassak on photographs

AEB’s very own Michelle A. Marek on stylings

and Camilla Wynne on lyrics, compositions, and lead vocals

I love this team! I’ve never seen a cookbook that looks quite like it.

fig. k: How cute is this?

And I said it earlier, but it’s a book that’s just so true to Camilla, and that’s a treasure.

If you’re still not sure what I’m trying to convey to you, I highly recommend this beautiful book. I’m not the only one. Advanced praise for Jam Bake comes from a veritable who’s-who of food world superstars, people like Brooks Headley, and Natasha Pickowicz, and Ben Mims.

Congratulations, Camilla!

Can’t wait to put your book to use and get jamming!

Jam Bake is officially released this week, on June 1. Look for it on the shelves of your local, independent bookstore, and if they don’t have it in stock, order it through them.

aj

Days of Wine and Cakes

fig. a: great hair day

Bob Dylan turned 80 years old yesterday.

I’d been aware of the impending anniversary for a while, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it, aside from continuing to listen to his astounding, unparalleled body of work semi-obsessively, and trying to learn the occasional Dylan tune on my guitar.

So I grew my hair out.

fig. b: dece hair day

And I went out and picked up two bottles of Beaujolais, inspired by a passage from Nat Hentoff’s “The Crackin’, Breakin’, Shakin’ Sounds,” his New Yorker profile of the young phenom from 1964.

fig. c: Yea! Heavy and two bottles of wine!

I have no idea what “Beaujolais” signified at the time. Beaujolais Nouveau? Beaujolais-Villages? All I know, is that we’ve always been partial to wines from the Beaujolais region, especially crus from Morgon, and honest, light-bodied, inexpensive Beaujolais quaffers have been pandemic staples around here over the last several months—things like Christophe Pacalet’s Beaujolais les Marcellins 2019 and 2020. So when I saw that passage from the Hentoff piece, I knew exactly what I needed for the occasion.

Michelle outdid me, of course. Inspired by some friends of ours in Vancouver who baked Bob a birthday cake, she went ahead and did the same—she baked a strawberry shortcake she’d been wanting to make, and one she assured me Bob would appreciate, especially if he was still drinking Beaujolais.

We took it to a park, brought our bottles of wine, and had an impromptu 80th birthday picnic for Bob.

figs. d, e, and f: strawberry shortcake & Beaujolais for Bob

Of course, Michelle’s cake was modest in comparison with some of the birthday cakes Dylan has had in the past.

fig. g: Bob’s cake for his 25th birthday party, 1966

But Michelle’s strawberry shortcake was supremely delicious, and—she was right!—it paired very well with Beaujolais. We felt quite confident that Bob would have approved.

One of my favourite “Bob Dylan’s 80th Birthday” articles was this one from The Guardian that asked a whole host of prominent musicians to pick their favourite Dylan tunes of all time. The selections were shockingly conservative at times (really? “Blowin’ in the Wind”?)—a lot of them came from his very earliest albums, 1963-1965, and many of them were pre-electric. Luckily, the article contained a lot of great stories about encounters with Dylan and with his music, and the all-too-predictable choices were balanced out by some gonzo ones.

No one asked, but if I had to pick my “favourite” Dylan song, the tune that’s mesmerized me the most for the longest period of time, it would likely be “One More Cup of Coffee” from Desire, neither of which got mentioned in the Guardian piece. Is it that bass? Scarlet Rivera’s violin? The drums? That delicate bell sound? Those haunting vocals? That duet with Emmylou Harris? I have no idea. “All of the above,” in all likelihood. All I know is that it’s a song that hooked me the first time I ever heard of it, it’s never let go, and I’m quite sure it never will.

We didn’t have any coffee at our picnic—only Beaujolais—but it wouldn’t have been the worst idea. Probably would have been great with the shortcake.

Happy birthday, Bob! Thank you for the music. Thank you for the artistry. Thank you for the hair.

aj

Springtime in a bowl

fig. a: fresh tagliatelle alla AEB

The concept was as follows: the freshest, lightest, most Spring-like pasta dish of all-time. Or as close to that ideal as we could get.

Sure, we could have used high-quality dried pasta, or we could have bought some fresh pasta from a local purveyor of Italian specialty foods, but if you want your tagliatelle to be supremely fresh and delicious, you kinda have to make your own, which is what Michelle did. I’d gotten some beautiful eggs and some semola rimacinata. We had the time. After all, when you’re making pasta for two, it doesn’t take that long anyway.

Earlier in the day, we’d made a trip to Jean-Talon Market. We knew we wanted some organic Quebec asparagus for this dish, but aside from that, we were open to whatever caught our fancy.

fig. b: Springtime in a bowl

As you can see, it wasn’t hard to find inspiration. And, frankly, once we’d hit upon that asparagus-morels-fava beans trio, there was no question that the pasta had to be the freshest, finest possible. The dish demanded it.

Spring Tagliatelle

fresh tagliatelle, al dente

shaved asparagus, lightly sautéed

fresh morels, lightly sautéed

fresh fava beans, blanched and lightly sautéed

parsley leaves

freshly grated Parmesan

freshly ground black pepper

All that was needed was a crisp white and a green salad.

aj

Today's Menu: May 6, 2021

“Grilled” Halloumi Sandwich

baguette from Automne

mayonnaise or aïoli

halloumi cheese, pan-seared in a little olive oil

spicy carrot slaw

grated carrots

minced scallions

minced jalapeño pepper

grapeseed oil

rice vinegar

salt

pepper

honey

fresh cilantro leaves

green olives (in this case, “picholines” from France)

organic hothouse tomatoes

Optional, but recommended toppings:

cracked, pitted green olives

cucumber slices

ripe tomato slices

lettuce (butter, romaine)

The first time I ever had a grilled halloumi sandwich was on the island of Cyprus, its birthplace, in my early twenties. Food-wise, it was the dish that left the biggest impression on me on that leg of the trip. That and the old-school juice bars. I’ve never stopped craving them.

This sandwich is simple & satisfying. The combination of the honey, the cilantro, and the spicy slaw is the killer touch. Okay, well, I guess the perfectly pan-seared halloumi is pretty crucial, too.

And the bread. Let’s not forget about the bread.

All right, it’s an ensemble piece. Happy?

Enjoy.

aj

Today's Menu: May 3, 2021

Wheat-Rye Caraway-Coriander Loaf

60% all-purpose flour

20% rye flour

20% whole-wheat flour

15% levain

85% water

2.5% sea salt

2% caraway seeds, toasted and coarsely ground

2% coriander seeds, toasted and coarsely ground

rolled oats (topping)

+

The Breakfast (and Snack) of Champions

toasted slice of wheat-rye caraway-coriander bread

butter

honey

I don’t know about you, but for me, toasted caraway rye with butter and honey is a truly magical combination, especially if all the component parts are high-quality: the bread, the butter, and the honey. I may just be imagining things, but it’s possible this toasted caraway-coriander rye with butter and honey is even more magical. The coriander is surprisingly subtle, but nevertheless imparts a mysterious, and hauntingly delicious flavour. If you’re a fan of caraway rye bread, this is a recipe worth trying.

The idea came from Chad Robertson’s Tartine Book No. 3 (2013), and apparently it was inspired by time spent in the Austrian Alps. Robertson describes it as being a Tartine-style take on a classic landbrot. To me, the coriander calls to mind Scandinavia, but, either way, this bread is fantastic.

aj

Birria Hysteria

fig. a: the low rider is a little higher

fig. b: Californi-vacation

fig. c: sunset kingdom

fig. d: moonrise kingdom

The trip we took to Los Angeles in December of 2019 has taken on greater and greater significance over time.

For one thing, and perhaps most importantly, that was the last real trip we took before everything took a dramatic (and traumatic) turn early in 2020.

For another, that was when our love affair with birria began in earnest.

I’d been following the development of birria hysteria south of the border for a few years now.

fig. e: “How birria tacos conquered America”

I’d read about birria establishments in Tijuana, Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston, New York, Richmond, CA, and elsewhere. iIn some ways my fascination with birria mirrored my fascination with barbacoa. In both cases, full-blown culinary explosions were taking place all across the U.S., inspiring passionate, even ecstatic, followings. In both cases, these were not trends that had made their way north of the border in any appreciable manner. Of course, it’s just a matter of time. In fact, the process is already underway.

Los Angeles had become the epicentre of the “birria boom” according to most accounts. Proximity to Tijuana, sheer range of regional Mexican regional cuisines represented (and thus varieties of birria), and dedication to Instagram and TikTok were all factors behind this phenomenon. And we were staying in Venice, in close proximity to an outpost of one of the superstars of L.A.’s birria scene: Teddy’s Red Tacos.

This is how quickly things have happened: Though birria’s roots in Tijuana date back to the 1950s, when a Poblano native imported a dish from his home region and adapted it to local tastes (and cost efficiencies), it remained a minor culinary development there as late as the mid-1980s, when one Teddy Vasquez was born. By the early 2000s, birria had gained in popularity quite significantly in Tijuana, but one stand in particular, Tacos Aarón, dominated the scene. And it wasn’t until 2015—just over five years ago—that Teddy returned to Tijuana from Los Angeles during a particularly difficult time in his life and underwent a full-on birria conversion—on a religious scale. He returned to L.A. convinced that birria would be his salvation. He delivered food via Uber and Lyft in order to raise the capital for some kitchen equipment, and soon began selling beef-shoulder birria de res out of his car, developing a following on Facebook and Instagram in the process. Soon he’d upgraded to a food truck, and now Teddy’s Red Tacos is a mini-empire, consisting of half a dozen locations—most of them trucks, all of them hugely successful—spread out across Los Angeles. The influence of Teddy’s Red Tacos is much, much wider, however, because the operation is also an online sensation. The point is: Teddy Vasquez graduated from noviciate to high priest of birria in just five short years!

For us, one combo plate at Teddy’s was all it took. Actually, just one portion of one of Teddy’s combo plates was all it took: the quesabirria, or birria taco with cheese. The straight-up Teddy’s birria taco was already a work of art. The addition of cheese, which when dipped into the steaming container of consomé (spicy beef broth) that accompanied it (like in the photo above), became even gooier (impossibly so), even more decadent, was a masterpiece.

Anyway, at some point over the last year, with travel largely an impossibility, and nothing remotely like Teddy’s Red Tacos anywhere nearby, birria became a pandemic project around here. And it’s easy to get carried away. The range of recipes that are available in traditional resources like magazines and newspapers are already impressive. Explore Instagram and TikTok and the sources of inspiration grow exponentially.

Like all classic braises, birria is deeply satisfying to make. In fact, the aromas unleashed in our apartment each time I’ve made birria have been downright hallucinatory—the most intoxicating aromas I’ve created in the kitchen in recent memory. And not only are your best birria recipes highly addictive, but they tend to be extremely generous, and they freeze and keep well. Have a sudden hankering for a fully loaded, overstuffed birria burrito? No problem. Just grab one of those 250-ml containers of birria de res that you froze a few weeks ago, start your rice, and gently reheat it. Want to try your hand at birria ramen? or birria pizza? or birria tortellini? (This being an internet craze, the mash-ups are endless.) Same deal. You’ve already got the most important ingredient on hand.

Tejal Rao’s New York Times article “The Birria Boom Is Complicated, but Simply Delicious” from earlier this year, is a great overview of birria mania and its permutations. It also comes with a selection of tantalizing recipes, including an excellent one for birria de res from chef Josef Centeno of L.A.’s Bar Amá Although he trained in haute cuisine temples like Manresa in Los Gatos, CA, Centeno is originally from Texas, and his restaurant is a sophisticated ode to the Tex-Mex comfort food he grew up with. Birria is not a major part of his menu, but it is a staple, although it often appears in non-traditional forms, like the mushroom birria that is currently on offer. His classic birria de res at Amá, which he makes on a seasonal basis, when the temperatures are right, is based on how his grandmother made her version.

Though the present birria craze is a modern phenomenon, and is largely beef-centric, the dish and its roots go back centuries to pre-Columbian times, and involve a wide variety of meats, depending on the region of origin, much like barbacoa. As a matter of fact, both dishes are closely associated with the use of fire pits.

fig. f: “Mexico’s original celebrity chef”

Rao cites a recipe that was published in a book of regional Mexican dishes that were collected by Josefina Vélazquez de Léon—a woman Saveur named “Mexico’s original celebrity chef”—back in 1946. The recipe in question is Zacatecan and it calls for an entire sheep (!), which is then rubbed in chilies, herbs, and spices, allowed to marinate, and then placed in a (presumably large) pot, sealed tight with masa, and buried in a fire pit—not unlike barbacoa.

Where birria and barbacoa differ widely is how they’re served. In the case of birria, traditionally the dish was served in a bowl, swimming in a plentiful amount of heady consomé. Though purveyors of birria tacos and related dishes—quesabirrias, vampiros, mulitas, etc.—have gotten the lion’s share of the attention on Instagram and TikTok, this more traditional version of the dish—a stew served with corn tortillas and an assortment of simple accompaniments—remains a significant part of the “birria boom.” Rao’s article cites several places in Los Angeles alone that serve these types of birria, including Bar Amá.

And it’s this brothier, more traditional approach that we’ve been working on in the AEB test kitchen. The first recipe we tried was Centeno’s birria de res, as featured in The New York Times (and adapted by Rao). Even though Rao gives considerable attention to the birria tacos craze (as you’d expect), it’s Centeno’s version that serves as the lead image for her article.

fig. g: birria de res and the “birria boom”

And in a rare instance of truth in advertising, Centeno’s recipe turns out exactly like this when you actually make it. We made our own corn tortillas, too, so the overall arrangement was very similar to what you see in the photo above.

This birria de res is really great, and a great place to start if you’ve never made this dish. The consomé is rich and seductive, the beef luscious. It’s everything you want in a beef stew—and more! This is a recipe that gives and gives and gives. The leftovers are heavenly, and it freezes very well. You’ll probably end up with more consomé than meat, but that’s a good thing. Trust me, it will come in very handy when it comes to dressing up a burrito, for instance.

A couple of months later, just before Easter, our local butcher, Aliments Viens, advertised that they’d gotten a nice shipment of Quebec lamb. I remembered a recipe I’d come across years ago in an issue of Bon Appétit that was originally created with goat in mind, but had been adapted for lamb (recalling Vélazquez de Léon’s recipe mentioned above). So I called Aliments Viens, and asked them to put a shoulder aside for me.

The recipe in question came courtesy of a birria specialist restaurant in Chicago, Birrieria Zaragoza, but it’s based on a version that has its origins in the Zaragoza family’s hometown, La Barca, in Mexico’s Jalisco state. It was one of the very first birria recipes to really catch my eye. I’d been meaning to make it for years. Suddenly I had all the inspiration I needed: I was in the midst of my own personal birria craze, I had access to fresh, locally raised lamb shoulder, and it was Easter. I couldn’t think of a better rendition of the paschal lamb—a spicy, blissed-out version that was both braised and roasted, and oh-so giving. Once again, the results were sensational—a true show-stopper.

fig. h: braised lamb shoulder

fig. i: roasted lamb shoulder

fig. j: all the fixings

Braised Lamb Birria

4 ounces ancho chiles (about 10), seeds removed 1⁄2 cup raw peanuts

11⁄2 teaspoons cumin seeds

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

2 cloves garlic, peeled

1⁄2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1⁄4 disk Abuelita Mexican chocolate or 11⁄2 ounces dark chocolate

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

5 pounds bone-in goat or lamb shoulder

Kosher salt

2 bay leaves

2 chiles de árbol, seeds removed

1⁄2 15-ounce can fire-roasted tomatoes

4 cups low-sodium chicken broth, preferably homemade

1⁄2 teaspoon dried oregano

Accompaniments: Chopped white onion, chopped cilantro, lime wedges, and warm corn tortillas (for serving)

Special equipment: a mortar and pestle or spice mill

Preheat your oven to 275° F. Bring ancho chiles and 4 cups water to a boil over medium-high. Remove from heat and let cool.

Meanwhile, toast peanuts on a rimmed baking sheet, tossing once, until golden brown, 15–20 minutes. Let cool.

Turn the oven down to 250º F.

Toast the cumin seeds and peppercorns in a dry small skillet, tossing occasionally, until very fragrant, about 2 minutes. Let them cool, then finely grind them together in a spice mill or with mortar and pestle, along with the cinnamon.

Purée the ancho chiles and soaking liquid, peanuts, spice mixture, garlic, and chocolate in a blender until smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a Dutch oven or another large heavy pot, reserving any solids. Return the solids in a sieve to the blender and add 3 cups water. Process until smooth and strain back into Dutch oven; discard any solids.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high. Season meat generously with salt. Cook, turning occasionally, until browned all over, 12–15 minutes total. Carefully add meat to Dutch oven and add bay leaves. Bring liquid to a simmer over medium-high. As soon as it begins to bubble, lower the heat, cover the pan tightly with foil, then place lid on top. Place the Dutch oven in the oven and braise the meat until it shrinks off of bones and is fork-tender, 3–3 1⁄2 hours (check periodically to make sure liquid is at a gentle simmer).

Meanwhile, purée the chiles de árbol, tomatoes, broth, and oregano in a clean blender until smooth. Strain through a clean sieve into a large saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium heat; cook 10 minutes to let the flavours meld. Season with salt; keep this sauce warm.

Increase the temperature of the oven to 400°. Let the meat cool, uncovered, in braising liquid 30 minutes. Transfer meat to a rimmed baking sheet and roast until edges begin to brown, 13–17 minutes. Pull or slice meat into servings. Divide among shallow bowls along with tomato-chile sauce.

Serve meat with onion, cilantro, lime wedges, and tortillas alongside.

[Serves 8 generously, or makes some wonderful leftovers]

{Based very closely on a recipe from Jonathan Zaragoza of Birrieria Zaragoza in Chicago}

As you can see in the photo above, in addition to the onion, cilantro, and the lime wedges and tortillas (unpictured), I made some pico de gallo, some salsa verde, and some pickled serranos to complete the scene. Sour cream and Tapatio were also served, just in case needed someone needed even more layers of taste sensation. What you can’t see, is just how elegant this version is. The meat is deeply roasted, remarkably tender, and extraordinarily flavourful, and it’s served in a pool of thin, but incredibly tasty broth (the “tomato-chile sauce”). The tacos that result, if you’re so inclined, are outstanding. It was hard for me to imagine a better Easter meal. Birria for the win, once again!

For the moment at least, it’s birria’s world, and some of us are lucky enough to live in it.

aj

Which side are you on?

When it comes to the fabled Montreal hot dog, are you Team Steamé or Team Toasté? In my mind, there’s no competition: Toasté, all the way!

My friend Mark Slutsky and I were among those who got interviewed on the subject by a writer from American’s Test Kitchen. Turns out we’re on opposite teams. (You think you know a guy!)*

You can read the article (“The Montreal Hot Dog is Magnifique”) here.

But I can tell you that the author asked me a few things that didn’t make it into the final version. I also volunteered a bunch of things that didn’t make the cut.

Among other heresies, when asked why Montreal is such a good hot dog town and why hot dogs here taste better than they do elsewhere, I had this to say:

I'm not sure that I think that Montreal hot dogs are better than in other places. Maybe they used to be (maybe), but I'm not sure they are now. That might be because they're not as central to the culture as they used to be. They're certainly not as central to the culture as they still are in places like Buffalo and Chicago. It's still a pretty good sausage town, though…

That doesn’t mean I don’t have a soft spot for certain venerable Montreal hot dog joints. As much as I love the gritty glamour and the cultural significance of the Montreal Pool Room (I mean, check out that photo from the Montreal Gazette photo archives, ca. 1974!), and the iconic qualities of a place like Gibeau Orange Julep, when asked what my preferred Montreal hot dog establishment was, I responded as follows:

My favourite hot dog place is probably Paul Patates in Pointe-Saint-Charles, although it's now been quite a long time since I've been (because I moved away from Montreal a few years ago). Back in the day, it was a regular stop for a couple toastés, some excellent fries, and a bière d'épinette. You can find out more about them here: http://www.bieredepinette.ca/restaurant-paul-patates/ . Their signature bière d'épinette is made in-house [Bière d’épinette Bertrand! 100% natural fermentation!] and is a true taste of old-school Montreal/Quebec culture [since 1898!]. It's also a great accompaniment to a hot dog.

Now that I’ve plugged a legitimate old-school Montreal joint (since1 1958!), and one that totally deserves the love, why not drop one last bit (bite?) of Montreal hot dog heresy—one having to do with the vitality of the local hot dog culture?

As much as I love an old-school hot dog joint, I think one sign that Montreal is no longer as vital a hot dog town as it used to be is that there haven't been any upstart/new-school (but traditionally minded) hot dog joints that have opened here. I'm thinking of a place like Frank's in Buffalo ( https://www.findfranknow.com/menu ), where they make their own dogs in-house and only use premium ingredients.

Traditionalists in Buffalo have been known to decry the “high prices” at Frank’s, but, personally, I’m all too happy to pay a little more for quality and craft. Plus, it would be hard to find a restaurant that’s done more for its community over the last year, during exceedingly trying times.

To my knowledge, only one venture has tried to take the Montreal hot dog in this general direction in recent years: Jonathan Cheung’s short-lived Chaud Dogs food truck, where both the dogs and the buns were house-made.

So, which side are you on? And what are your hot hot dog tips?

aj

*Actually, I already knew that about him. It hasn’t hurt our friendship too much. :)

[photo courtesy of Montreal Gazette photo archives]

Gravlax Made Easier (and Brighter!)

fig. a: three amigos

It started with the Three Amigos: lemon, lime, and orange.

I crave citrus all winter long. I always have, but in recent years it’s become an even more essential part of my winter survival kit. And during a pandemic winter, what we might call the urgency of citrus grew considerably. Since December, when we picked up our first case of Spanish clementines, we’ve been on one helluva citric kick.

Miraculously, we haven’t maxed out yet. This in spite of the fact that lemons, limes, and oranges have been in countless ways, both savoury and sweet, as well as in the form of juices and cordials. In fact, the range of citrusy things I’ve been craving seems to be expanding as the first hints of spring have arrived. With artichokes? Yes, please. On asparagus? Why, thank you very much. Gracing a green salad? Absolutely. Zested and sprinkled on fish? Might as well.

Which is how I came to make a recipe for Citrus-Cured Salmon (a.k.a., Citrusy Gravlax) that I’d noted and admired in an old issue of Bon Appétit. My need for yet another citrus fix kicked in one day recently, I started flipping through my mental Rolodex, and I suddenly remembered the image of a bright, citrusy, beautifully cured gravlax that I’d once seen. A little digging around ensued, and…

fig. b: “…a bright, citrusy, beautifully cured gravlax that I’d once seen.”

It appeared in BA’s 2016 Travel Issue (page 140 of the May issue, to be exact) and it accompanied a piece about a remote restaurant (on stilts!) that sits on Ismailof Island in Alaska’s Halibut Cove called The Saltry. It’s a seasonal operation, only open from Memorial Day to September, and it appears to still be going strong. And one of the specialties of the house at the time was an unusual—and unusually tasty—citrusy gravlax.

It’s also unusually quick and easy to make. You might recall that I posted a recipe for gravlax back in December that claimed, “it’s as easy as they come.” Well, this one’s even easier. No joke. The cure-to-fish ratio is relatively high, which allows the curing process to be a little faster than usual—24-36 hours, as opposed to the 3-5 days that’s common with gravlax recipes.

The only real challenges here are tracking down a beautiful salmon fillet (preferably wild king—or, even better, organic wild king), gathering together a few spices, and making sure you’ve got those Three Amigos on hand.

The transformation is remarkable. Take a look!

fig. c: before

fig. d: after

And the finished product is both phenomenally beautiful, and incredibly delicious.

It’s remarkable what a little citrus zest can do. This gravlax sings with a citrus zing.

Citrus-Cured Salmon (a.k.a., Citrusy Gravlax)

5 oz kosher salt (1 cup Diamond Crystal or 1/2 cup Morton’s)

2/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar

1 tsp black peppercorns

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp fennel seeds

1/2 crushed red pepper flakes

1 x 1 lb skin-on, boneless salmon fillet, preferably wild king

1/2 tsp finely grated lemon zest

1/2 tsp finely grated lime zest

1/2 tsp finely grated orange zest

Grind the pepper, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, and pepper flakes in a spice mill, leaving them slightly coarse.

Then mix the salt, sugar, brown sugar, and the spice blend together in a bowl.  This is your curing mixture

Line a rimmed baking sheet with a large sheet of foil (it needs to be large enough to wrap around your salmon completely).  Spread half the curing mixture in the centre of the foil-lined baking sheet.  Place your 1 lb. salmon fillet, skin-side down, on top.  Scatter the zests over the fish; then cover the fish with the rest of the curing mixture, piling it up against the sides of the fish so they get cured too. 

Bring the foil up and over the salmon and crimp to create a sealed envelope.  Top with a 2-gallon zip-top bag filled with water, or some other kind of similarly weighty object, keeping in mind that you’ll have to find enough room in your refrigerator to place the ensemble.  Chill in the refrigerator for 24-36 hours, making sure to unwrap the fish, flip it skin-side up, and re-wrap it once during that span of time (preferably halfway through).  

When the fish is fully cured (after at least 24 hours), rinse it of most of the cure and pat dry, then place skin-side down on a cutting board.  Using your longest, sharpest knife cut on a diagonal 1/8-1/4” thick, leaving the skin behind, and wiping down the blade with a moist towel between slices if need be.

Serve with rye bread, or bagels, or blini, or matzah, or pile onto a citrusy salmon version of Eggs Benedict.  You get the picture. 

Whatever you do, take the time to enjoy this bright, beautiful ray of sunshine. We could all use a little more light.

aj

Zep Heads, Report!

fig. a: Zeppole di San Giuseppe in all its glory

Festa di San Giuseppe 2021 is coming to a close, and that means you only have one more day to try and score one of Michelle’s phenomenal zeppole.

Michelle’s pistachio cream-filled zeppole will be on offer again tomorrow, Sunday, March 21, from noon until SOLD OUT.

If you’ve never been a Zep Head, isn’t it about time you became one?

Don’t you owe yourself one of these beauties? After all, San Giuseppe (a.k.a. St. Joseph) is Canada’s patron saint.

You can find them exclusively at Elena, 5090 Notre Dame ouest, Montreal, QC

Call 514-379-4883 anytime after noon (but before they sell out) to reserve.

buona fortuna e felice festa di San Giuseppe!

aj

Ribs to the Rescue

fig. a: Thai-style ribs

fig. b: Thai-style riblets (a.k.a., where the ice-cold beers at?)

Four score and seven years ago

These are the times that try men’s souls

There comes a time in every nordique grill fanatic’s life

There comes a time every winter, usually around February or March, when—in the words of the late, great Charlie Feathers—I can’t hardly stand it.  

I’m crazy about grilling and smoking.  I love cooking over a live fire.  But my circumstances are such that doing so is pretty much impossible for several months of the year.  A big part of the reason why is just climate, but the deciding factor is definitely living situation.  Even if I wanted to brave the elements to do some winter grilling, my premises don’t allow it.  I’m sure I’m not the only one.  I’m sure there are plenty of you out there who understand my predicament and feel my pain.

In any case, come February or March (sometimes even earlier), the proverbial thrill of the grill really starts gnawing at me, and that’s usually around the time that I respond with one of my oven-roasted spare ribs recipes.  It’s never quite the same as smoking them over a live charcoal fire, of course, but buy some nice meaty racks, coat them with a tasty rub, slather them with a wicked BBQ sauce, roast them real slow & low, and serve them with a little BBQ dip, and those ribs are as close an approximation of the pleasures of the grill as I’m likely to find until The Thaw occurs.

This year when that urge hit me I came across a recipe in the New York Times for oven-roasted ribs that was rather different than the Southern-style ribs I usually make, and I found myself entranced by what I read.  The recipe was David Tanis’s riff on a Thai barbecued spare ribs recipe that first appeared in Andy Ricker’s Pok Pok cookbook back in 2013.  

When Tanis’s version was first published in the summer of 2017, it was introduced as a recipe that was perfect for a scorching summer day.  One of those days that’s so oppressively hot that you certainly don’t want to do a lot of cooking, and any cooking you end up doing needs to be easy.  In this case, the idea goes as follows: having picked up some racks from your butcher and gotten her to saw them in half lengthwise, you marinate your ribs for a couple of hours, pop them into a low-temperature oven, retreat to an air-conditioned room (or the coolest room you’ve got) with a  cold drink. Flip the ribs a couple of times (every 30 minutes or so), and an hour and a half later, your ribs are nearly done.  Raise the heat in the oven briefly, paint them with your sauce, and ten to fifteen minutes later you’ll be rewarded with gorgeously lacquered Thai-style spare ribs—utterly “irresistible finger food,” as Tanis puts it.

Well, it turns out this recipe is equally good in the wintertime.  In fact, it might even be better.  I don’t know about you, but when it’s really, really hot, I’m not sure I want the oven on for two hours at all, even if it’s set at a low temperature.  When it’s really, really hot usually all I want is salad, or conservas, or cold noodles.  But in the doldrums of winter, when I can’t wait to get back on the grill, but I know that possibility is still weeks away?  This recipe was truly phenomenal.  It also proved to be highly versatile.  I made sure to make plenty so that we’d have leftovers, and I ended up serving those leftovers a couple of different ways.  More on that later, but for the moment let me just add one last ironic detail to this story:  Tanis devised this as an oven-roasted recipe quite specifically because he didn’t want to grill outside—because it was too hot, and he’d already had a few occasions that summer where he’d decided to grill on a particularly hot summer day, only to regret it later.  Needless to say, this is not a problem we’re experiencing right now here in Montreal.

Beyond the fact that it lent itself to oven-roasting, Tanis was originally drawn to the recipe because of its simplicity and its lack of pretence, and because of Ricker’s stubborn insistence that his ribs should be cooked relatively quickly.  “Not falling-off-the-bone tender!”, Ricker emphasized.  As Tanis explains this approach is the preference in Thailand.  “Thai diners prefer ribs on the chewy side, with a little tasty, crunchy cartilage or gristle in the bargain.”  Among other things, this means these ribs are quicker and easier to prepare than recipes that are ultra-slow & low.

The only thing that takes a little extra forethought is the marination phase.  Following Ricker, Tanis recommends a minimum of two hours’ time for the ribs to get the benefits of their tantalizingly sweet and funky marinade.  If you can marinate the ribs longer—a few hours, or even overnight—they’ll be even better.

And it was with the marinade that Tanis took just a couple of liberties:  adding tamarind paste to offset the honey and up the funk factor, and a bit of extra chili to give the ribs a more pronounced kick.  Ricker’s original recipe is Chinese-influenced.  You’ll know what I’m talking about when you taste them.  Tanis’s alterations—minor thought they may be—may not be 100% authentic (there’s a reason his recipe is titled “Thai-Style Spare Ribs”)—but they have the effect of making the ribs even more savoury, even more intoxicating, and somehow even more “Southeast Asian.”

As Tanis points out, the resulting ribs are so lip-smackingly delicious that they don’t require an additional dipping sauce when you serve them.  But if you choose to whip one up—especially a spicy, garlicky Thai or Southeast Asian number—you won’t be disappointed.  Quite the opposite.

Thai-Style Spare Ribs

2 racks of baby back ribs, 3 to 4 pounds, halved lengthwise to make 3-inch ribs (ask your butcher to do this)

2 tsp kosher salt

3 tbsp honey

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp tamarind paste

1 tsp toasted sesame oil

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 tbsp grated ginger

½ tsp crushed red pepper (preferably Thai)

½ tsp black pepper

¼ tsp cinnamon (preferably Vietnamese)

pinch of grated nutmeg

pinch of cayenne

2 tbsp Shaoxing cooking wine, mirin or sherry (I used mirin)

3 tbsp chopped garlic chives or scallions, for garnish

3 tbsp chopped cilantro leaves and tender stems, for garnish

Lay the ribs flat in a roasting pan, meaty side up. You will have 4 long pieces. Season lightly with salt on both sides.

Make the marinade: in a small bowl, combine honey, soy sauce, tamarind paste, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, red pepper, black pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg and cayenne. Add the wine and 1/4 cup hot water and whisk well.

Pour marinade over ribs to completely coat. Marinate at room temperature for 2 hours, turning once or twice, or cover and refrigerate for several hours or overnight, making sure to turn the ribs at least once or twice.  (If you choose to marinate the ribs slowly in the refrigerator, just make sure to pull them out to temper them at least one hour (and preferably two) before roasting them.

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 250º F. Transfer the roasting pan, uncovered, to the rack. Roast ribs for 1 1/2 hours, basting with pan juices and turning ribs over every 20 minutes or so. If pan juices seem to be drying out or burning, add a little water to the pan.

Pour juices from the roasting pan into a small saucepan. Spoon off fat from surface of sauce, then simmer sauce for a few minutes until slightly thickened, then use the juices to paint the ribs. 

Turn up oven the heat to 400º F. Return ribs to oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until nicely glazed.

Use a sharp knife to divide ribs, cutting between the bones. Pile ribs onto a platter, sprinkle with garlic chives and cilantro, and serve.

According to Ricker, “these ribs are often served in Thailand to accompany ice-cold beer,” as Tanis notes. Did you catch that? They’re a snack meant to accompany beer. The ice-cold beer is primary. The ribs are just an accompanying snack. Like salted peanuts. All I know is these ribs can be eaten as a snack or appetizer, and they are fantastic with especially cold beers.

fig. b: bbq ribs & vermicelli noodles

I also know that when I served some of my leftover ribs over vermicelli noodles, with pickles, cucumber slices, lettuce, herbs, and nuoc cham, like some kind of Viet-style/Thai-style mash-up, it was exhilarating—easily the very best vermicelli noodle dish of its kind that we’ve ever made at home.

fig. c: chopped rib sandwich

And when I slathered a freshly-split baguette from our friends at Boulangerie Automne with parfait de volaille from our friends at Vin Mon Lapin, and then layered it with chopped BBQ rib meat, daikon and carrot pickles, lettuce, herbs (cilantro and mint), and a schmear of mayonnaise, it was the very best sandwich I’ve had in months—maybe years.

fig. d: anatomy of a chopped rib sandwich

So, yeah, enjoy these Thai-Style Ribs as a snack, with those ice-cold beers—by all means!—but don’t overlook their versatility.

aj

Conjuring Congee, once again

This recipe from Danny Bowien is one that first appeared in “…an endless banquet” way back in 2013—in an entirely different era—but the recipe itself is a keeper, and it’s one that we’ve returned to again and again, especially around this time of year. In fact, the first time it appeared in these pages was on February 24, 2013.

Our latest batch of congee, made just last week, was a response to winter 2021, out of a need for the kind of comfort only chicken soups of all kinds can offer—because that’s essentially what this version is: a supremely comforting, even reassuring chicken soup. But it was also a response to a recent batch of chili-crisp that I made, one that was just begging to be drizzled over a steaming bowl of congee with all the trimmings (or at least some of them).

fig. a: AEB chili-crisp

In addition to the chili-crisp, we dressed our bowls of congee with an assortment of vegetable and herbal accompaniments: simple stir-fried cabbage, simple stir-fried shiitake and cremini mushrooms, chopped scallions, cilantro, an oil-fried egg, and toasted sesame seeds.

If you’ve never made congee before, it’s an incredibly nourishing meal. It’s easy to feed a large crowd with it (as many as 10-12), but it’s also great for a small household—like ours—because the leftovers are equally phenomenal and it freezes well. You could scale back the recipe, but unless you’re without freezer space or you live in a temperate climate and don’t have access to an “outdoor freezer” like we do here in Montreal, what’s the point? I guarantee that you’ll be thrilled to have extra portions on hand in the coming days and weeks. I certainly have been. When I had a bowl for lunch the other day, this is what my simplified version looked like:

fig. b: chicken congee, cabbage, cilantro, chili-crisp

Though this particular recipe is all about the chicken—it has everything to do with the wonderfully silky texture that is created as the rice cooks with a cheesecloth-bound chicken suspended in it, as well as the lovely perfumed qualities the chicken takes on as it is poached in the rice—it’s quite possible to make a delicious vegetarian (vegan, actually) version of congee. Just cook the rice in a flavourful and highly umami-rich vegetable broth (one that makes great use of dried shiitake mushrooms, say). When Michelle used to prepare congee at the Foodlab years ago, she did exactly that. Their congee was entirely vegan, as were many of the topping options—and all the more popular for it. And recently I’ve seen another Danny Bowien congee recipe, one for an entirely vegan (or at least easily vegan-ized) kabocha squash version, kicking around on the internet.

Lastly, it’s my understanding that congee is not a traditional offering during lunar new year celebrations. It’s too simple. It’s not considered festive enough. But as many people have noted, the fact that 2021 is the Year of the Ox seems somehow appropriate in the midst of an ongoing global pandemic, given the fact that this astrological sign has everything to do with resilience. And the ox is nothing if not a reliable animal, of course. So now might perfect time for congee: it’s as reliable and comforting a dish as they come, and it’s the kind of recipe that makes for an especially tasty and satisfying show of resilience.

Without any further ado, here’s our AEB take on Danny Bowien’s congee recipe, one that first appeared in the “Chinatown” issue of Lucky Peach back in the fall of 2012:

Chicken Congee

1 whole chicken, preferably with head and feet
1 celery stalk
1 carrot
2 cups white rice
8 qts water
cheesecloth
2 chopsticks

toppings of your choice (such as toasted sesame seeds, chopped cilantro, egg yolks, salmon roe, smoked eel, sea urchin, etc.)

Salt the chicken heavily inside and outside the cavity. Make sure you rub salt under the wings. Stuff the cavity with the carrot and celery stalk. Refrigerate overnight.

Bundle the chicken in a large piece of cheesecloth and tie it off. The cheesecloth needs to be big enough that you'll be able to tie the excess cloth to the side of a stockpot in a knot.

Toast the rice in a dry stockpot over medium heat. Don't rinse the rice first. Here, you want the starches on the surface of the rice to thicken the porridge. Also, be careful not to burn the rice. Stir constantly until it is lightly toasted and aromatic--just a few minutes.

Add the water and bring to a boil over medium heat. Starting with cold water and boiling over medium heat (as opposed to high heat) will yield a lighter, cleaner soup.

Once the porridge boils (be patient, this will take a while), lower the chicken in and tie the cheesecloth to the handle of the pot, so the bird doesn't sit on the bottom and burn.

Vent the pot with a pair of chopsticks by balancing the chopsticks on opposite ends of the pot. Point one toward you, and the other away from you, then rest the lid on the chopsticks. (Bowien notes: "My cooks used to burn this porridge because they thought they knew a better way to vent the pot, but this is the way grandmothers do it. Trust me." We note: this method works perfectly. It both vents the pot and catches the condensation. The result is an ideal cooking temperature and maximum flavour.)

Cook at medium heat for 45 minutes to an hour. The rice should be very soft but not completely exploded into mush. Pull the chicken out and shock it in ice water. Once it's cooled, you can slide it and use it as a garnish or any other application that calls for a nicely poached chicken. Because that's exactly what you get: a nicely poached chicken with hints of rice flavour.

Season with fish sauce and salt. Bowien suggests: "Garnish with chopped cilantro, sesame seeds, an egg yolk, and your choice of toppings--smoked eel, ikura, uni, whatever."

Bowien claims that this recipe produces "4-6 servings," but, in fact, it makes enough for at least 12.

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Stay safe, have a great weekend & tchin-tchin!

aj

2020 Re-Vision, rev. ed.

Things that quickened the heart (in a positive way) in 2020…

Moving Pictures

Small Axe (2020), dir. Steve McQueen—the whole series of films, really, but especially:

Mangrove

Lovers Rock

Red, White & Blue

Time (2020), dir. Garrett Bradley

King:  A Filmed Record…Montgomery to Memphis (1970), dir. Ely Landau

The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971), dir. Howard Alk

American Revolution 2 (1969), dir. Howard Alk, Mike Gray & Film Group

City Hall (2020), dir. Frederick Wiseman

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), dir. Céline Sciamma

Dark Waters (2020), dir. Todd Haynes

A Hidden Life (2020), dir. Terence Malick

Babylon Berlin (2017- ), created by Henk Handloegten, Tom Tykwer, and Achim von Borries

Aswang (2019), dir. Alyx Ayn G. Arumpac

Sister Rosetta Tharpe, “Didn’t It Rain,” Blues and Gospel Train (1964), dir. Philip Casson

The Last Dance (2020), dir. Jason Hehir

Dick Johnson is Dead (2020), dir. Kirsten Johnson

Holiday (1938), dir. George Cukor

Nomad: In the Footsteps of Bruce Chatwin (2019), dir. Werner Herzog

Salt Fat Acid Heat (2018), dir. Caroline Suh

The Battered Bastards of Baseball (2014), dir. Chapman & Maclain Way

Idiot Prayer: Nick Cave Alone at Alexandra Palace (2020), dir. Nick Cave

Stella Cooper, Evan Hill, Dmitriy Khavin, Arielle Ray and Drew Jordan, “‘I Am On Your Side’: How the Police Gave Armed Groups a Pass in 2020,” The New York Times, November 2, 2020

Sounds

Super Mama Djombo, Festival (Kindred Spirits)

sample track: “Festival”

Various Artists, Let’s Go Riding (Origin)

sample track: Mr Freddie, “Let’s Go Riding”

The Revolutionaries, “Kunta Kinte Version One”

Toots & the Maytals, “54-46 (That’s My Number)”

Various Artists, Really! The Country Blues, 1927-1933 (Origin)

Various Artists, Excavated Shellac (Dust-to-Digital)

sample track: Miyagi Michio, Yoshida Kyoto, and Miyagi Sayoko, “Sakura Variations, pt. 2”

Khruangbin, Mordechai (Dead Oceans)

Khruangbin & Leon Bridges, “Texas Sun”

Tidiane Thiam, Siftorde (Sahel Sounds)

sample track: “Dannibe”

Destroyer, Have We Met (Merge)

sample track: “It Just Doesn’t Happen”

Destroyer w/ Nap Eyes, The Opera House, Toronto, ON, March 4, 2020

Ranil, Ranil y su Conjunto Tropical (Analog Africa)

sample track: “Muévete Mi Amor”

Blind Blake, 1926-1930: ‘Bootleg Rum Dum Blues’ (Biograph)

Blind Blake, 1926-1932 (Volume Two): ‘Search Warrant Blues’ (Biograph)

Blind Blake, 1926-1929 (Volume Three): No Dough Blues (Biograph)

sample track: “Too Tight”

Mary Lattimore, Silver Ladders (Ghostly International)

sample track: “Silver Ladders”

Orchestre Super Borgou de Parakou, The Bariba Sound, 1970-1976 (Analog Africa)

Various Artists, Masters of the Blues: 1928-1940 (Historical Records)

Captain Beefheart, “Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles”

Endless Boogie, Basement Jam Ritual 

Voz di Sanicolau, Fundo de Marê Palinha (Analog Africa)

sample track: “Fundo de Marê Palinha”

Sahara, Pure Glass (Hand Drawn Dracula)

Helena Deland, “Truth Nugget”

Bert Jansch, s/t (Superior Viaduct)

sample track: “Veronica”

Roísín Murphy, “Something More”

Fleetwood Mac, The Alternate Rumours (Warner Records)

sample track: “The Chain” (Demo)

Andy Shauf, The Neon Skyline (Arts & Crafts)

P.J. Harvey, To Bring You My Love — Demos (Island)

Aretha Franklin, Amazing Grace (Atlantic)

Adrianne Lenker, Songs (4AD)

Sister Rosetta Tharpe, “Didn’t It Rain,” Blues and Gospel Train (1964), dir. Philip Casson [see “Moving Pictures”]

Food & Drink

Elena, Montreal, QC

Canteen Creemee Company, Waitsfield, VT

Dedalus, Burlington & Stowe, VT

Hatch Chile Store, Hatch, NM, the Big Jims they shipped to us, and the Green Chile Madness that ensued

Hatch’s Fish Market, Wellfleet, MA

Oyster Blood, Montreal, QC

Taco Gordo, Burlington, VT

Heyday Farm, Cabot, VT

Flywheel Farm, Woodbury, VT

West Worcester Woodfired, Worcester, VT

mushroom season, 2020

Buffalo Mountain Co-op, Hardwick, VT

Hunger Mountain Co-op, Montpelier, VT

Plainfield Co-op, Plainfield, VT

Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant online, Berkeley, CA

Sakai Bar, Toronto, ON

Honey Road, Burlington, VT

plums!

DIY gravlax

homemade soba noodles

Michelle’s Simply Beautiful Plum Cake

AEB pan pizza

B.L.T. sandwiches

dish of the year: Michelle’s braised napa cabbage with Sansho pepper

Print

James Baldwin, “Letter From a Region in My Mind,” The New Yorker, November 10, 1962

James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

Dan Barry and Annie Correal, “The Epicenter: As winter turned to spring, the coronavirus hit a corner of Queens harder than almost anywhere else in the United States,” The New York Times, December 3, 2020

Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement (Penguin Press)

Gillian Thomas, Because of Sex: One Law, Ten Cases, and Fifty Years That Changed American Women's Lives at Work (Picador)

Jim Robbins, “The Ecology of Disease,” The New York Times, July 14, 2012

Abrahm Lustgarten, “How Climate Migration Will Reshape America: Millions Will Be Displaced. Where Will They Go?,” The New York Times Magazine, September 15, 2020 (with photographs by Meridith Kohut)

Jill Lepore, “The History of the ‘Riot’ Report: How government commissions became alibis for inaction,” The New Yorker, June 15, 2020

Toluse Olorunnipa and Griff Witte, “Born With Two Strikes: How systemic racism shaped
Floyd’s life and hobbled his ambition,” from the series “George Floyd’s America,” The Washington Post, October 8, 2020

Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia

Thomas Mann, Death in Venice

Alec MacGillis, “The True Cost of Dollar Stores,” The New Yorker, July 6 & 13, 2020

Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides

Russ Buettner, Susanne Craig, and Mike McIntire, “The President’s Taxes” series, The New York Times, September 27, 2020

Isaac Chotiner, “Noam Chomsky Believes Trump Is ‘the Worst Criminal in Human History,’” The New Yorker, October 30, 2020

Toni Morrison, Beloved

George Orwell, 1984

Samin Nosrat, Salt Fat Acid Heat

Sonoko Sakai, Japanese Home Cooking: Simple Meals, Authentic Flavors (Roost Books)

Bobby Stuckey, Lachlan Mackinnon-Patterson, and Meredith Erickson, Friuli Food & Wine: Frasca Cooking From Northern Italy’s Mountains, Vineyards, and Seaside (Penguin Random House)

Michelle Polzine, Baking at the 20th Century Cafe (Artisan Books)

Roseanne Cash, “The Godmother of Soul,” Oxford American, November 10, 2020

Adam Skolnick, “The Biggest Wave Surfed This Year,” The New York Times, September 22, 2020

Miscellany

Comet NEOWISE

“1619” podcast (The New York Times)

The Daily (The New York Times)

On Point w/ Meghna Chakrabarti

“This is Not An Interview: A Conversation With Yung Chang About ‘This is Not a Movie’ (2019)”

“Rabbit Hole” podcast (The New York Times)

“Wind of Change” podcast (Crooked Media)

Sori Yanagi stainless steel kettle

Tojiro 235mm bread knife

Corridor shirts

Izzy & Ozzy

R.I.P.

George Floyd

Breonna Taylor

Ahmaud Arbery

Rayshard Brooks

John Lewis

Robert Fisk

Toots Hibbert

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

David Cornwell, a.k.a. John le Carré

Max Von Sydow

Lulu Peyraud

and too many others, an unimaginable loss

Gravlax Made Easy

fig. a: perfect breakfast combo

You’ve already made your Russian Black Bread. Sure, you could enjoy it with locally produced smoked salmon, like I did when I first baked this delicacy back on December 13, but wouldn’t it be even more satisfying to serve this sweet & savoury sensation topped with your very own gravlax? Of course it would.

If you’ve never made gravlax, or if you’ve been intimidated to even try, this is the recipe for you. It’s as easy as they come, it doesn’t require a lot of attention (in fact, it’s very hands-off), and the results are fantastic. The recipe in question comes from none other than Gabrielle Hamilton of New York’s Prune—sadly, now on indefinite hiatus due to the ongoing crisis. At the time that she wrote about gravlax for the New York Times Magazine, back in February, she called making it at home “the best party trick” and she emphasized the pride that came from preparing something so beautiful (“translucent, dense persimmon red”) and “so tasty that you’ll still be excited to eat it even after you’ve made thousands” (as Hamilton evidently has).

Months later, in the Covid-19 era, aspects of Hamilton’s article seem eerily prescient. As her title suggested, Hamilton had entertaining in mind when she wrote about gravlax. The idea was to encourage her readers to create a show-stopping centrepiece for their next elaborate or semi-elaborate brunch. Obviously, entertaining a crowd is out of the question these days, and for many, salmon—especially Alaskan King salmon— might seem like a ridiculous splurge, given the circumstances. But as Hamilton points out, once you’ve properly cured your gravlax, it freezes and defrosts remarkably well, and making your own is much, much less expensive than buying it at your “gourmet deli.” If you can source a big, beautiful side of salmon (preferably wild-caught and organic), go ahead and cure the entire thing. Once it’s ready, you can portion it according to your needs, and freeze all the quantities you don’t immediately need. When you feel that you’re ready for a treat, your gravlax will be ready and waiting.

Even better, this recipe scales down really easily. Don’t feel like curing an entire side of salmon, or don’t have the budget for it? Just cure a nice, thick fillet instead. You won’t have to use all the cure, of course—just save the rest for the next time—and you’ll only need one bunch of dill instead of two. And in place of the large-dish lasagna baking dish that Hamilton recommends, you’ll only need a much smaller of the same, like an 8” x 8” baking dish, and the whole operation will take up less fridge space.

Because the thing is, gravlax didn’t begin as a luxury dish. It was just a clever way of preserving fish in order to extend its longevity, one that literally involved burying the salmon (lax/lox/laks) in a trench—one that resembled a grave. Hence, grav + lax.

But obviously, it’s not only about the preservation. This isn’t a survivalist blog. The magic of gravlax is that a simple cure + a little time transforms your humble piece of salmon into something utterly transcendent.

If expert gravlax is the kind of thing that appeals to you and you’ve never had the pleasure of making your own, right now might be the time. Hamilton’s recipe requires five days of curing. Even if you only started your batch after Christmas—on the 26th or 27th, for instance—you’d still have enough time to fully cure your gravlax in advance of New Year’s Day.

Gravlax. New Year’s Day brunch. Sounds, good right?

Gravlax à la Hamilton

1 side clean, fresh and fat Alaskan king salmon, skin on, pin bones removed, neatly trimmed of all undesirable bits of fat and tissue (about 3 to 3 1/2 pounds total), or 1 fat and gorgeous 2 1/2-pound fillet cut from the widest part of the body [These suggestions are important—your gravlax will only be as good as the slab of salmon you started with. There’s no point in starting off with a questionable piece of salmon.]

½ cup kosher salt

½ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup finely ground black pepper

2 bunches dill (about 4 ounces each), clean and dry, left intact (no need to pick fronds from stem), coarsely chopped (about 2 cups)

Now you’re ready to cure the salmon. Lay the salmon skin-side down, flesh-side up in a glass or stainless-steel baking dish. (A large lasagna dish works well.) In a small bowl, toss together the salt, sugar and pepper until blended. Sprinkle the mixture over the salmon evenly, with abandon, until fully covered, as if under a blanket of snow. Use all of it. [You can use some discretion here. If your slab of salmon isn’t a large and thick as the one Hamilton recommends, you may not need “all of it.” But your cure should be applied liberally.]

Spread all the chopped dill on top of the cure-covered salmon to make a thick, grassy carpet. [Here, don’t hold back.]

Lay plastic wrap or parchment paper over the salmon to cover and press down, then place a heavy weight — such as a 2-gallon zip-top bag filled with water — on top, to weigh heavily on the curing fish. Refrigerate just like this, without disturbing, for 5 days, turning the salmon over midway through the cure — on Day 3 — then covering and weighting it again. [The zip-top bag trick works perfectly.]

Remove salmon from the cure, which has now become liquid, brushing off the dill with a paper towel, then set fillet on a cutting board.

With a long, thin, beveled slicing knife tilted toward the horizon, slice salmon thinly, stopping short of cutting through the skin. Generally, you begin slicing a few inches from the tail end and you slice in the direction of the tail, moving your knife back, slice by slice, toward the fatter, wider belly portion of the fillet. The last slices are always hard to get. Once you have shingled the fillet, run your knife between skin and flesh, releasing all the slices, then transfer them to parchment until ready to serve. [This may take some practice. It definitely requires a well-sharpened knife.]

Serve with Russian Rye Bread, pumpernickel, bagels, crackers, blini, or whatever vehicle you prefer, along with cream cheese, crème fraîche, and/or (as Hamilton recommends) a dill-mustard compound butter. And it pairs well with vodka and vodka drinks, like a vodka martini (Hamilton: “just rinse the glasses with aquavit instead of vermouth!”).

[Thank you, Gabrielle Hamilton! Great recipe! Thank you, Prune! We miss you!]

aj

Meanwhile, at Elena...

fig. a: exterior shot

Meanwhile, at Elena, Michelle, Willow, Janice & co. have been in a full-on panettone frenzy (“pane-mania”?) mode for weeks now. And I’m happy to say that all the tests, all the reading, all the discussions, all the artisanal panetonne-making video-watching, and all the dough-whispering have paid off. The results have been spectacular.

See for yourself.

fig. b: cross-section

Live in Montreal? Haven’t had a chance to experience a Panetonne alla Elena? Never had the pleasure of tasting a true sourdough-based artisanal panetonne? There’s still time!

Just pick up the phone and give them a call.

fig. c: pane-phone

The number to call is 514-379-4883.

Or order one online.

Still need convincing? You can find more info about Elena’s panettone and all their other seasonal offerings here.

aj

All photos courtesy of Dominique Lafond and Elena. Follow Dominique @dominique_lafond

On "Good Bread"

fig. a: “good bread”?

“Good Bread,” an article that appeared in the April 13, 2020 issue of The New Yorker, is one in a slew of recent culinary dispatches from Bill Buford, the author of the best-selling Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany (2007), and in many ways, it’s an extension of that earlier project. In fact, I didn’t realize it at the time, but it turned out to be a teaser for his follow-up to Heat, another culinary Bildungsroman of sorts with a similarly questing title: Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking.

The action takes place in the years immediately following the publication of Heat. Buford is no longer working the line for Mario Batali in New York City’s high-intensity fine dining scene. He’s no longer apprenticing with Dario Cecchini in the idyllic hills of Tuscany. As his title suggests, he and his family have moved to Lyon, and Buford has decided to study la grande cuisine—and to become “French-trained”—in the city many consider to be the very heart of French gastronomy. He’s hoping to learn in an actual restaurant—a leading one—but no restaurant is interested in taking him on. (His lack of French doesn’t help.) He eventually decides to go to cooking school in Lyon, but between his arrival and his enrolment at l’Institut Bocuse, Buford takes on a fateful apprenticeship with a mad genius baker named Bob, the central subject of “Good Bread.”

Buford’s article turns out to be rather poignant, it contains more than its fair share of narrative twists and turns (don’t worry—no spoilers here!—or, at least, not too many), and, not surprisingly, it has quite a lot to say about what makes “good bread”—and boulangerie baking, more generally—good.

What are the ingredients that make good bread good? Well, it has to do with a fanatical dedication to baking, at the expense of regular hours, sleep, and one’s appearance (after describing Bob’s physique as a cross between Fred Flinstone and Jackie Gleason, Buford observes the following: “HIs hair was brownish and shaggy and usually matted with flour. There was flour in his beard and on his clogs, his sweater, and his trousers... Bathing was not a priority.”).

It has to do with proper (ideally, historic) boulangerie spaces and with well-seasoned ovens (Jacques, Bob’s brother, is the one who first discovered the space for rent, and when he found a wood-burning oven marked “1802” on the premises, he summoned his brother and father. All it took was one look from the outside for Bob’s father to declare, “Yes, this is a good boulangerie.”).

It has to do with natural yeasts (“I knew enough about yeasts to know that, here, they were everywhere,” Buford writes), a sensitivity to temperature, and patience—a willingness to not rush things, to not try to speed up the process artificially, but instead to allow those yeasts the time to work their magic.

And of course, it has to do with technique, too. Bob, we’re told, has remarkable touch when he works, forms, and slashes his loaves.

But it’s also about flour. In his quest to discover Bob’s secret, the source of what makes his bread so superlative, Buford grills the master baker on one occasion. Yeasts? First rise? Final resting? Yes, it has to do with all of those things, Bob tells him, “These are the ABCs.” But then he brings up something Buford hadn’t considered: “Good bread comes from good flour. It’s the flour.” And in Bob’s case, his preference was for artisanal flour, made from locally raised wheat, milled in the traditional manner, from the Auvergne region to the west of Lyon.

While Buford’s article is certainly evocative, and there’s plenty there to inspire those of us who take our bread seriously, his conclusions on what makes good bread good might be disheartening to the amateur baker. You might be quite capable of developing the patience, the attention to detail (including the vagaries of temperature and humidity), and even the basic technique necessary to become a decent baker. You might even be entirely prepared to embrace the fanaticism of bread baking, at the expense of general cleanliness, healthy sleep habits, and even your personal grooming and hygiene (Bob-style!)—plenty of non-professionals have! But what if you don’t have the ideal baking space? Or the right oven? Or flour milled in the traditional manner from small-production, heirloom wheat? Will you ever be able to create “good bread” at home?

The final section of “Good Bread” involves Buford paying a pilgrimage to the region of Auvergne that produced Bob’s very favourite flour. There he visits a miller, Philippe Degrange, whose family has been milling locally grown, small-farm-raised wheat (“nothing over forty hectares”) since the early 18th century. Degrange’s flour—his entire operation—is a true product of the terroir, we’re told, and the notion of terroir that’s presented to us is environmental, but it’s also a matter of history and tradition. Through his flour, “le goût et les valeurs sont trasmis”—both taste and values are passed on, according to Degrange. In other words, the flavours one tastes when Degrange’s flour is turned into bread by an expert auvergnois bakery like Boulangerie Vincent are a complex affair because terroir (one sense of the “dirt” in Buford’s title) is a complex affair.

Buford is gifted a 10-kilo bag of flour by Degrange before he leaves Auvergne and returns home to New York. When he and his family finish the boule he brought back from Boulangerie Vincent, he begins to bake again in honour of Bob and Degrange using his auvergnois flour. While his bread is not quite to the standards of Boulangerie Vincent, the loaves he bakes are exceptional: “[they] had fruit and complexity and a feeling of nutritiousness.” But when Degrange’s flour runs out, he quits. He stops baking bread. What’s the point?, Buford is suggesting. After all, as Degrange once told him—echoing Bob—“It’s all about the flour.”

—————

The good news is that while there’s no question that flour matters, when it comes to baking good bread, it’s not “all about the flour.” It couldn’t possibly be. Imagine great flour used by a terrible baker, or just a terribly distracted one. The flour wouldn’t matter. In fact, the end result might actually be worse than if it had been made with conventional flour. It would be an abomination.

Yes, flour matters. And, yes, there’s a lot to be said for small farming practices, and the cultivation of heirloom varietals, and the importance of healthy land, and tradition. But what if the flour that resulted from this process sat on a shelf for months and even years? Would it still have its goût? Would it still have any life in it at all? In other words, there’s more to flour than just its provenance.

Serious bakers have always been concerned not only with the quality of their flour, but also with its freshness. And it’s become clear to many bakers—myself included—that the freshness of one’s flour—how recently it was milled—might actually be of much greater significance than was previously realized, affecting not only the taste of the bread produced, but also its nutritional value and its digestibility. But, again, all of this would be beside the point if this exceptional, freshly milled flour was handled by a lousy baker. The results would be disastrous.

The reason a bakery like Vermont’s highly acclaimed Elmore Mountain Bread matters—and it does!—and the reason they’ve become pioneers of the the fresh-milled movement, is not because they are working with local producers, it’s not because they bake in a wood-fired oven, it’s not even because they only work with flour that’s been milled in the last 24 hours (!). Yes, all those factors matter a great deal, they’re all part of the reason their bread is so flavourful, and it would be hard to be a leading force in today’s “grainiac” community if you were actually using conventional, mass-produced flour (especially if it was stale, too). But the primary reason their bread is so good—the reason the public has taken notice—is because they know what to do with their carefully sourced, freshly milled flour. They are also expert at both making bread and baking bread. As a wise man once put it, “It don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got that swing.”

fig. b: good bread!: country loaf with sesame seeds

What I’m trying to get at is that there are primary factors that result in good bread, and then there are secondary factors.

Primary factors:

• time—Yes, “time heals all wounds,” “time is an ocean, but it is not the shore,” and “time is a construct”, but for our purposes, time is what allows your leavener, and especially your natural leavener, to work some real magic.

• patience—If you want your loaves to bake successfully, and you want to create bread that ranks high when it comes to flavour and digestibility, patience is your friend. This means starting your baking process early enough that you won’t be tempted to rush things and cut corners at any point. One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a novice baker is to look at a recipe for, say, a sourdough country loaf, and see that the author recommends mixing the the batch of leaven you’ll need “the night before” you plan to assemble your dough, and to interpret that as, “1:00 or 2:00 AM is still ‘the night before, right?,” and then hope to have a nice, bubbly batch of leaven at 9:00 AM when you roll out of bed eager to mix some dough and bake some loaves. If you happened to make that rookie mistake, it’s not the end of the world. You’d just have to be patient and adjust your schedule accordingly. Your leaven will become nice and bubbly eventually. And eventually you’d be able to make great bread with it, if you were patient. Get it?

• sensitivity to one’s baking environment (temperature, humidity, etc.)—If you’re going to be baking in a fully climate-controlled environment, your results are pretty predictable. If, however, you’re going to be baking in an environment that’s subject to heat and humidity in the summer months and cold drafts and chilly air in the fall, winter, and possibly even the spring, you’ll have to learn to “read your room” and make the necessary adjustments to continue to bake successfully. Sometimes, when the weather is particularly turbulent, these adjustments can be quite elaborate. Sure, such conditions can be a challenge, and they might even result in failure. But if you manage to succeed, if you manage to ride that wave somehow, and produce great loaves of bread in spite of it all, the glory is all the greater.

• technique—Bread baking can be remarkably forgiving, but there’s nothing like technique to get you out of a jam (see “sensitivity to one’s baking environment” above), or to create not just “good” but exceptional bread.

Secondary factors:

• baking spaces—Of course, it’s wonderful to have an ideal space for bread baking, but “good,” even great bread, can be produced in even the tightest and most awkward of spaces.

• ovens—There’s no reason to be hung up on baking bread in an expensive, tricked-out oven, or in a beautifully crafted wood-fired oven (especially a historic one stamped “1802,” or something to that effect). Even your most basic home unit is capable of producing fantastic bread.

• leaveners—Many of us are devoted to sourdough baking, but if creating and maintaining your sourdough seems like too much of a hassle, even supermarket varieties of instant yeast can be used to produce delicious bread—possibly even “good bread”—especially if you’re willing to work with time and exhibit patience (see “time” and “patience” above).

• even flour—Of course, try to source the very finest flour you can find, preferably locally or regionally produced and organic, and as freshly milled as possible. But if your options are limited (including your budget), try to at least buy unbleached flour, and try to bake with flour that’s reasonably fresh.*

This should be a relief to the amateur baker. All of the primary factors are fully within your grasp. Even the technique needed to produce exceptional homemade sourdough is something that can be easily picked up over time. Mixing and folding your bread is very straightforward. Baking it requires a little care, but is not particularly difficult. The trickiest part really has to do with forming your loaves properly.

We can’t all have a ramshackle, bohemian bakery in Lyon, or even visit one—especially now, given the situation. We can’t all source our freshly milled flour from the terroir of Auvergne. But we can certainly all make good bread—perhaps even great bread.

aj

• Flour is volatile. It can go rancid and/or become infested if it’s not properly stored and it isn’t used quickly enough. This is important to remember if you’re shopping in pandemic mode. Buying large quantities of flour only really makes sense if you have optimum storage conditions or, even better, if you’re going work through such quantities of flour in relatively short order.

Today's Menu: December 13, 2020, rev. ed.

fig. a: Russian Black Bread, whole

Russian Black Bread

50% rye flour

50% bread flour

15% levain

30% coffee

15% molasses

10% honey

30% water

2.5% sea salt

1 tbsp cocoa powder

2 tbsp poppy seeds

2 1/2 tsp fennel seeds, cracked

2 tsp caraway seeds, toasted

1 1/2 tsp nigella seeds

fig. b: Russian Black Bread, crumb

fig. c: Russian Black Bread, slices

fig. d: Russian Black Bread with smoked salmon

This recipe was heavily inspired by the one for Russian Black Bread in Michelle Polzine’s excellent Baking at The 20th Century Cafe: Iconic European Desserts From Linzer Torte to Honey Cake. I adapted it according to my modified Chad Robertson method, and the results were terrific.

aj

"Japanese Home Cooking" For a Year of Cooking at Home

Our good friend Joanna Fox has a timely rundown of great cookbooks from this past year in today’s Montreal Gazette, as contributed by a number of local Montreal chefs, food writers, and other tastemakers. Of course, this was a year when home cooking took on increased importance for so many people. Luckily, there were quite a number of new cookbooks that were released in 2020 to help inspire us, in addition to all the newspaper and magazines, the YouTube tutorials, the TikTok videos, the Instagram posts, and all the rest of our contemporary multi-platform culinary universe.

Joanna’s contributors include such luminaries as Meredith Erickson (Alpine Cooking: Recipes and Stories from Europe's Grand Mountaintops, Friuli Food and Wine: Frasca Cooking from Northern Italy's Mountains, the Joe Beef cookbooks, and others), Janice Tiefenbach (Elena), and Jonathan Cheung (Appetite for Books), as well as our very own Michelle (!).

If you’ve had any contact with Michelle over the last 8-9 months, her choice should come as no surprise. She first picked this book up from our local library late in the winter of 2020, and when the pandemic hit and the library was closed for weeks on end, the book was stuck with us for an indefinite length of time. We all got to know each other pretty well! And when the library reopened again, and they asked for all their books back, Michelle promptly made a point of returning this book to the library (what did you think?) and picking up her very own copy. Since then, she’s continued to cook from it with passion and abandon, and she’s talked about it at length with anyone who’ll listen, including Joanna, apparently. That book, of course, is Sonoko Sakai’s Japanese Home Cooking: Simple Meals, Authentic Flavors.

Here’s what Michelle had to say about the book in her own words:

This is hands-down the book I have used the most in the past year. It hits the right tone of home cooking without shying away from more technical projects for those looking for a challenge. Every single thing I have made from this book has turned out perfectly. When I suddenly had reams of time, but no ability to focus, I threw myself into hand-making soba noodles. Her method and recipe are spot-on — all you need is practice to get the thickness and cutting right. (Check out her soba noodle-making webinars.) Bonus: the book features a recipe for rustic buckwheat dumplings (sobagaki), which are much easier to make than soba noodles and give you the same great taste when you use fresh sobakoh flour.

And here are some shots of Michelle making Sakai’s soba noodles for the first time, back in late March:

If you’re curious about the method, here it is in Michelle’s own words:

I had ordered specially milled buckwheat flour to make soba noodles before the madness began. My cutting leaves a lot to be desired but believe me when I say that this flour has a texture and flavour absolutely unparalleled by anything I have ever had. In case your self-isolation needs soba noodles, here is the recipe:

200g soba flour
50g all-purpose flour
120g water, more or less
Sift the flours together in a large bowl, add water and mix until dough starts to come together. Add a bit of water if necessary and knead until smooth. Lightly flour your work surface with tapioca starch and roll dough out to 1/8” thick. Sprinkle with more starch, fold, and cut into thin noodles. Not as easy as it sounds!

Boil in salted water about 1-2 minutes and rinse noodles with cold water. Serve.

[The soba flour in question came from Soba Canada, Inc. If you live in the United States, another phenomenal option is the “ni-hachi sobakoh” from Anson Mills.]

So, has Sonoko Sakai largely been responsible for eight or ninth months of particularly inspired Japanese home cooking? You tell me.

Long live the cookbook! Long live home cooking, Japanese and otherwise! Thank you for a great year, Sonoko!

And it should go without saying, but, if at all possible, please support your local bookstores in this period of economic crisis, stores like Appetite for Books, Drawn & Quarterly, and others.

aj