Well Preserved

We were visiting family in Lindsay this weekend.  We arrived home around 5PM and I was in a hurry to go to a friends house to watch the big football game (the first full game I`ve seen all year).

Our plan was to watch the game, order a pizza and drink a few beer.  There wasn`t much time and our needs were simple.

In a fit of madness I decided that I had time to make my own pizza dough.  I made my first pizza from scratch in the last few months and may be developing a bit of an addiction.  The process is simple, almost effortless and the taste is simply superior.  In less than 5 minutes of effort (plus waiting time for the dough to raise) you can easily create enough dough for 2 pizzas.

I took the ingredients to a friends house – a pizza bar in a back pack.  I presented some options and we came up with a spicy little number that tasted awesome, cost less and left a smaller environmental mark on our world (sans takeout box).

We also remarked how much cooking from ingredients fills you quicker than eating typical fast food.  3 slices of the homemade pizza (we cooked one of the two), filled me to the brim.  I would have inhaled half an extra large of a commercial product.

Writing about food has really forced us to think a great deal about it.  Thinking about it is creating radical changes in my life – even the definition of eating something easy (fast food vs cooking) is being rewritten.  I`m thankful and excited at the same time.

I have been stating that the U.S. is kicking Canada`s butt in terms of it`s beer scene for about 2 years (by many accounts I was very late to the table with that assessment).

It`s not that we don`t have good beer.  Our craft beer scene is picking up momentum and some world-class pint glasses are appearing in Canada.  Progress is slow and consumers are supporting the scene slower.  With the LCBO (Ontario`s Government Liquor monopoly) now devoting shelves to Ontario Craft Beer, a strengthening of the Ontario Craft Brewers Association and brewers who are starting to get International recognition (Mill Street, Beau`s and others) there is great potential for where beer may go in Ontario, and Canada.

The US now supports more than 2,000 craft beers who support each other and educate the public on the beer scene as a whole.  People are excited about breweries and brew masters and the industry is becoming closer to rock and roll than mass food production.  Brewers are combining efforts, producing unique and rare beers and making them accessible to the general public.

The less restrictive import laws also allow the US to indulge in beer from around the world.  I have been to more than 10 stores which offer 500+ brands of beer (Premiere Gourmet being the closes in Buffalo – they stock up to 1,600 different flavours).

You may recall that I visited Stone Brewery in the Spring.  They are nestled in the outskirts of San Diego, California.  They were also named (once again) as the number one brewery in America.  They set an aspirational example of what a brewery can be (if you have not seen the 3-minute video they produced called I am a Craft Brewer, you simply must).

I recently revisited San Diego.  I didn`t have the chance to get back to Stone (it was about $100 cab ride from where I was staying) but I did get out on the town.

Of 10 or 15 bars and restaurants I visited, 100% of their draft beer was craft beer – more than 90% of that was local.  When a tap wasn`t local it made sense (i.e. a Japanese craft beer available on draft in a sushi restaurant).

The support of local beer was everywhere.  The convention center which housed our conference even offered local bottle beer (an amazing and pretty Red Trolley Ale).  This may have been the first time I have seen craft beer at a mass convention in my life.

If I had a sudden bout of memory loss and found myself trying to figure out where in the world I was, it would have been easy to diagnose which city I was in by merely reading the taps of beer.

The day after I returned from my trip I ended up in a large hotel in Toronto.  The lobby bar supported mostly large US mass-produced beer.  This is not an indictment of the hotel – they are not an exception in our city.  It is however, a pint worth thinking over…

A quick post this morning to draw attention to a worthy cause and a great event.

This Tuesday evening is Eat, Drink and Give – a crazy amount of chefs and wineries are gathering at Roy Thompson Hall to create the food event of the winter.  The food, wine, space and time have been donated to raise funds for Haiti.

Tickets are $75 and the event runs from 6.30-9.30.  Click here to see the current participants – the list is stunning.

If you are attending, we`d love to meet up so drop a comment below and we`ll figure out how to find each other.

There is a shortage of phenomenal presentations in the world.

A phenomenal presentation is a combination of parts which rarely even appear by themselves – a great speaker, presentation material, expertise, appropriate props and audience engagement.  The importance of topic appears way down the list – great presentations transcend that.

Nancy Duarte helps people make great presentations.  She works with some of the world’s best.  Al Gore’s inconvenient Truth was prepared by her (and her team) as were a chunk of TED Presentations.

Nancy writes about including S.T.A.R. moments (Something They WIll Always Remember) in your presentations.  She worked with food advocate Pollan to develop a recent speech for POP!TECH (similar to TED – their differentiator is that they try to push their impact beyond the presentation by fostering collaborations to create world change).

Doug Neff, from the Duarte team, wrote about the experience of working with Pollan here.  There are some practical takeaways for presenters and presentation makers in that article.

To see the actual presentation (great food for thought), check it out below (less than 20 minutes and will likely pull you in during the first 60 seconds):

ANy other favourite food presentations out there – or am I just that odd?

I recall a time in my life that the concept of business travel sounded very prestigious and romantic.  It was a long, long time ago, but I do remember it.  J

I travel every few months.  There are some definite benefits to travel so I`m not entirely bitter about the deal.  I`ve had an inspiring week and an exciting time, certainly enjoyed some nicer weather than we had at home and met some great people.

The drawbacks are the obvious ones – time away from those you love, odd sleep patterns, long hours, extra work piling up, cramped travel, dragging bags and so forth.

It`s a tolerable balance.  I`m not anti-business travel it`s just different from I dreamed it would be.  I would fantasize that you would be whisked to a magical city, do your gig and explore a foreign land on endless adventures.  My reality, as I get older, is that the exploration becomes less and less and the appeal of a simple meal and a night of tossing and turning in a comfy bed is more alluring than conquering new worlds.  This holds especially true when I am attending conferences (which I was this week) – my brain is so filled with great information, ideas, plans and excitement that adding more stimuli is just overwhelming.

There are, of course, exceptions.  With 7 days abroad I did manage to take some time to explore San Diego.  It`s a charming city with a central airport and a tonne of great food, drink and entertainment.  I managed one solid night on the town on Saturday and was thrilled with the discovery of Red Pearl Kitchen.

I stumbled on the Red Pearl after seeing a poster for Asian Cuisine that looked more like an ad for a new Grand Theft Auto video game.  It was clear that this was Asian food with a modern flare.  The poster was dominated by a picture of a woman who, at first glance, appeared to be wearing traditional attire but the longer you looked, the quicker you realized she wasn`t.  The nylons were far more modern, the pose more evocative, a tattoo peaked out and so forth.  There was no photo of the restaurant but it was clear what the message was – modern Asian cuisine.  This is the power of design to me.

I was a little sceptical – so many offerings of fusion end up being merely excuses for poor execution of traditional dishes.  The possibility of something spicy was just too exciting to pass up.

As I opened the door it became apparent this was going to be a different experience.  I couldn`t see very far into the restaurant as the entrance gave access to a ramp that wrapped behind an extensive bar and into the restaurant.  The lighting was dim and moody and music was loud.  I had entered a bar as much as I had entered a restaurant.

The music stayed loud all night.  It wasn`t uncomfortable – you could easily converse over it but it was loud enough to dim he conversation of others around you.  The music was familiar from my youth and was fun – I remember Jackson 5 in particular.

I grabbed a seat at the bar.  There were 4 taps – all local or Asian (Kirin on tap!). I also noticed a few bottles of Hitachino Nest which I recognized as a fantastic Japanese craft beer.  They also had a great Scotch selection – the place couldn`t be awful!

My bartender was fantastic.  Friendly, courteous and knew her stuff.  She gave an honest walk through of her recommendations on the menu and I followed her suggestions to try the Salt and Pepper Shrimp and the Spicy Beef.  Both were fabulous.  When I asked for local reccomendations she gave me a handwritten list of 5 or 6 places to visit for food and drink – these are the types of things that happen so rarely and will be long remembered.

The Salt and Pepper Shrimp were lightly breaded crustaceans paired with fresh chives and a dipping sauce that was refreshingly spicy.  The beef was tender, tasty and plentiful.  The mushrooms stood out in the dish and it was made with an extra kick of hot as I had requested.

Ivanna, my friendly bartender, offered a suggestion for a beverage.  She held up a bottle of Vodka which had hot peppers floating in it – the bar did it`s own infusion.  This was mixed with a combination of their own lemon squash, simple syrup, muddled Thai basil and a slice of green apple .  Easily one of the best cocktails I`ve had in years and bonus points for the unsolicited recommendation.

It was a great place, awesome night and a great balance between very serious food and drink without taking itself too seriously.

They say 1,000 words is worth a picture…

There are 124 Transport trailers on that boat – two boats a week arrive in San Diego.  One is from Costa Rica, the other from Hondouras.  As soon as the ship is emptied it is sent back with empty trailers to fill again.

It`s been very powerful seeing the boat there for the whole week I have been here.  The irony that I have travelled from just as far as the bananas is not lost on me.

I don`t eat a lot of bananas – maybe 1 a year.  I do eat plenty of other food from just as far, especially in the winter.  There can be many complex problems with eating locally as well so this isn`t drawing any significant conclusion.

It is, however, making me think.  A lot.

We typically post once a day – and always on food.  Today I`ve agreed to post something for a class I took in San Diego which does not relate to food – to compensate I`m going to attempt a loose tie-in to food and post twice – the days normal post can be seen here.   I agreed to do this because I found part of my learning particularly useful and am willing to extend this favour to pay back to the group of people in the room and shared the experience with me.

To place a bit of context in the following, I should let you know that I, among other things, have a passion for training and creating learning experiences for, and with, others.  One of the most difficult things to do in training is to work with a group of experts and gain direction and consensus from them on what learners need to understand about their topic.  Imagine that you have a room full of 30 or 40 chefs and you are trying to decide what they should cook for dinner with a given set of ingredients.

Each person in the room is given an index (recipe) card and asked to write one thing that they feel is most important.  Each person is then asked to emotionally detach from their point and asked to walk around the room trading cards without reading others.  This continues until a signal (i.e. a whistle) sounds and you have to find a partner.  Each person should have a single card and the pair shares their two questions.  Following sharing, they are challenged to distribute 7 points between the two questions (i.e. if the two agree one question is irrelevant they would give one question 7 points and the other 0 – if the questions are questions are close you would rank them as 4-3 and so forth).  You cannot use half points or negatives and the total score must equal 7.  The score is written on the reverse side of the card.

The whistle blows, you trade cards again and move around the room trading more until the whistle goes.  Pair up with a different person, rate 2 new questions and continue the process a total of 5 times.

When the exercise is complete, each person will have a card with a set of scores.  They are asked to total the scores and each card is totaled.  This works particularly well with a large group of experts – maybe something that can be used at the chefs congress? 

Our task was to decide what course developers needed to know to create training courses before starting (a very clear problem statement like this is a key to a successful exercise).  We were able to create the following in about 10 minutes – the entire time people were smiling, moving and appeared to be enjoying.

26           What is the business need of the training?
24           How motivated or resistant will the audience be to this subject?
23           What must the learner be able to do or know as a result of the training intervention?
23           What will the learner be able to do based on the content delivered?
22           What should the learner be able to do after taking the training?
22           What is the topic?
21           What is the intent and expected outcome of the training?
21           Do we have to train this – are there better solutions (i.e. automation)?
19           What would you expect from this training?
19           what are the objectives?
19           what is the goal or outcome of the training i.e.what should the learner be able to know at the end of training?
18           what is the goal of training?
17           what work or task do you need them to accomplish?
16           What must, should, could be learned from the training?
15           what are the resources available for the training module?
14           what are the content and curriculum that learners need to know?
14           ask the participants what they want to learn?
12           what resources will i need – audio, graphics, animation, etc?
11           what is the budget for the training?
11           how long would the course be – .5 day, 1 day, etc?
11           is there a budget for the program?

I am in the middle of a cross-continental road trip.  I am in stretch of working 12 days in a row which includes two long days of flying.  The travel is compounded by a severely deviated septum which means I come down with a sinus infection after 1 out of every 3 or 4 flights.  This trip is the one – I am stuffed beyond acceptable limits.

Despite the long stretch, the cold and long days on the road, I am thrilled with this trip.  I have learned a lot and am coming home a better person for it – both in regards to new skills and perspective.

The travel does make updating the blog a little challenging – I am at ac conference that has activities which consume 10-14 hours per day.  It makes features like Cheap Tuesday Gourmet a challenge.  But a challenge is merely a game in disguise so I`ve decided to make wine from these sour grapes and use todays post to feature great resources for cooking and eating affordably that we`ve found online.  Here`s a few:

Cheap Healthy Good – a 5-day a week blog that features recipes, seasonal ingredients and ideas for eating well and cheap.
CheapCooking.com – menu planning, education, recipes and techniques.
YumYum.com (students) – 20,000 student recipes to learn from and share
Recipe Street – Simple recipes.  Period.
Healthy Cheap Food – different link than our first but premise is the same.
NetMums – cooking on a budget – general tips on shopping, planning and cooking better.
Frugal Meals for Big Families – Cooking affordably for the big family (i.e. 6 people).

Any other sites out there our community needs to know about?  Would love to hear your ideas…

It was quite the adventure and I am thankful for the loan of the SousVide Supreme. When they lent their unit to us there were no conditions attached – we only post about things we genuinely like and this made the cut.  There is enough negativity in the world without us adding more to it here!

There were several lessons learned, some victories and challenges.  I’ve had some time to reflect on the experience and here’s what has stuck with me:

• The machine was easy to use, accurate and allowed us to adjust temperature quickly.
• It was the easiest cleaning kitchen appliance I’ve ever used.
• Using a proper sealing system would have offered more options, control and reliability than what we had to work with us.
• The precision of control is exciting – and knowing that you can come close to replicating a world-class recipe is a definite benefit of the technique.
• As superficial as this is, it was darned cool to cook Sous Vide at home and share the results with friends.
• The use of plastic in cooking offers some potential challenges – both sustainably and, possibly, for health.  I am not a scientist and do not know the facts well enough but a comment left by Diane mentioned the possible estrogen content that could come with this.  A dear friend of ours is a scientist and I remember her telling me of experiments involving control groups of snails – one group raised in a plastic bottle and another in glass.  The group in plastic had significantly higher estrogen content.  On the flip side I think of the amount of bottled water (and pop) I drank in my past and tend to think that it would be far more plastic than the amount I’d consume from SousVide cooking at home.
• The texture, flavour and taste of food are definitely different than any I’ve had before.  It can be hit or miss depending on your taste.
• The technique is very easy – I believe further experimentation with recipes would have found some we love.  The hard-cooked egg was definitely on the right track.  I’d love to take it further and try moose, ribs and a lot more vegetable dishes.
• There are few cookbooks.  Do your research in advance – learning what is possible is far more work than cooking it.
• I would like to try to eat more Sous Vide prepared by people with more experience than I have – though I think I could have learned plenty more without this luxury.
• I would try to cook it again.

We`d love to hear about any other adventures out there – for now, this is the end of our Sous Vide adventures at home.