I can be a sucker for punishment.

I’m writing this post from 37,000 feet above the ground en route to Toronto from Atlanta (via Chicago). I’ve only been away for 4 days but these short trips sometimes feel longer than the long ones – there’s not enough time to truly get settled in one place so you spend 4 days between places and never really feel grounded to where you are.  It’s almost like I’m on a 4-day trip to Toronto from Toronto,if that makes any sense.

Other than family and friends, I miss being able to be in the kitchen the most.  The kitchen is one of the few places my brain goes to silent and all of my senses become engaged with the task at hand.  Cooking is one of the most rewarding tasks I know of.

I’m not a sucker because I like to cook.  I a sucker because I’ve just spent an hour flipping through a Gourmet magazine special edition (it’s kind of like a best-of tribute to past recipes) which featured 125 recipes for comfort food.  I’m hopeful that it’s now apparent how I’ve come to self-diagnose my affliction.  Pouring over home-style recipes and accessible cooking while being pounded by stale air, pressure of flight and some popcorn-style turbulence is enough to make one search for a teleporter that will magically whisk them back to those they love.

Alas, this plane is fresh out of teleportation devices.

As I flipped through those pages (as I’ve done in many airports over the last 15 years) I realized that I was starting to miss something different than I used to.  In the past my cravings were clear – I would want to make that thing that appeared before me, to consume it, devour it, share it.  I would think of the changes I would make to the recipe presented and how I would turn it to something that was “mine.”  And, when I got home, I usually did just that.

But my desires are changing.  Pouring over the recipes I noticed that my longing was for many of the ingredients themselves.  Looking at macaroni and cheese made me realize that I haven’t had access to a glass of milk (something I drink rarely but love) or a simple piece of cheese (very few menus feature a “hunk of cheese” as an appetizer).  I am missing the simple subtle flavors that come from reaching your hand inside the fridge and pulling out the first taste you see.

As I shared in December, I’ve learned a lot about the wonders of simple cooking in the last year.  I am realizing, to my own surprise, that those changes are not only transforming the food I make – but also the flavors I crave.

These cravings go beyond business travel too.  I’ve realized for the last few weeks that I’m starting to get really excited about beans.  I’ve only had them sparingly in winter (in restaurants) and I’m finding myself really excited about eating beans and cooking them in different ways.  This is somewhat odd to me as I’ve never really been a big fan of them at all.  It’s not that I didn’t like them, just that I barely noticed them.

Perhaps travel is a metaphor to the increasing amount that we eat seasonally.  Periods of abstinence serve to exponentially increase the enjoyment of things you didn’t even know you loved.  In the end, isn’t that the ultimate definition of “comfort food?”

What are simple flavors you miss when you can’t have them?

I’ve just come in from a great dog walk on a beautiful morning.  There’s a light frost on everything in sight that’s being gently coaxed into oblivion by the sun of early winter.  This is the time of year that dark comes early (it’s practically night by 5:00PM) but the long shadows of the rising sun seem to last forever.  I love it.

It’s been a great week in our kitchen.  No single dish stands out but there’s been many new memories forged in it and several little projects just ‘worked’.  Some of the highlights included a great polenta feast on the weekend, an awesome squash soup, the magic of our fermented hot sauce and a ginger cordial that was just fabulous.  But these are small victories and my reflections of the week that was proves that the sum of the parts are greater than the whole.

I don’t remember being particularly excited about any one thing that came from our kitchen this week but it’s nice to take a few moments, reflect on the week and just see that what’s happening in there is working.  I’d love to know how many people think about such things or if each meal is something that stands on its own and once prepared, life moves on.  For me, it’s different (I’m sure this is partially as a result of having a mind that never rests); I think often about individual things we cook, eat and share – but each one plays a small part in a large orchestra and I occasionally take the time to listen to the rhythm of the entire symphony.  I find the ‘macro’ view of our cooking to be just as fascinating – and rewarding – as the result of a dinner cooked with love.

I’ve been working a lot on bridging flavors lately – serving a single ingredient prepared multiple ways in the same dish is something that fascinates me.  This quest began in August (in this post where we innocently baked rolls with the same flavors that we used for a dry rub).  It was something that was done without a lot of thought and I had nearly forgotten about the rolls when I stumbled on the article this week.  Although I hadn’t consciously thought about the rolls since then, it’s apparent to me how that one meal had a profound affect on how I’ve been cooking ever since.  It makes me wonder how many things I’ve long forgotten that still effect the way I cook today.

How is your kitchen creativity flowing lately?  What’s working for you?  What’s influencing you?

Happy cooking, happy Saturday…

A few weeks back there was a comment on the FaceBook group from the lovely Auburn Meadow Farm that got me really excited.  The comment was in regards to a recent dehydrated dish (part of today`s picnc at the Brickworks) and was followed by a question about home-made veggie powders and how many spices from `far away`could we eliminate.  The comment pointed out that while our approach to powders may have seemed gimmicky at the start of this journey, a cuisine was developing out of it.

I am indeed trying to develop a sense for my own cuisine.  I`m not original in this quest nor are our techniques unique from the rest of the world.  This isn`t about laying claim to some sort of `cutting edge`thing – it`s about developing the techniques and concepts that will guide me to new dishes as well as perfect others.  It`s also an open invite to participate.

The Flavor Bible continues to be a book of influence around our house.  It`s an awesome study guide but has also made me rethink my approach to cooking and eating.  The book lists ingredients and their natural pairings with other foods.  It also lists Flavor affinities – combinations of 3 or more ingredients which make happy families.  These are cases where one plus one plus one equals six.  The concept of affinities and purposefully seeking them is something I get very excited about and continues to influence how I cook (both using the book and not).

When I cook I love to present the same ingredient several different ways in a single dish.  This was the genesis behind our nose-to-tail fruit and vegetable approach.  There`s just something playful about tasting the same thing in different formats at the same time.

The pairing flavors-with-themselves idea isn`t new and I did it because it entertained me.  But slowly it is evolving into something different and something that is becoming a fundamental tool of how I cook: the flavor bridge.

There`s probably a `real`term for this concept, but I don`t know it.  It assumes that a dish has several components (i.e. today`s re-dehydrated leeks, pickled garlic and bread) and each of those components have layers of taste.  Each component has a different texture and each component also has different flavors that you could further dissect.  There is at least one primary taste profile and there is at least one secondary.  For example, tomato sauce can primarily taste like tomatoes but have secondary flavors of garlic, basil or more.  The concept of bridging only applies to dishes with multiple components (i.e. it wouldn`t work with just applesauce).

Bridging maps a secondary taste profile of one ingredient to the primary or secondary of another.  For example, todays dish:

• Pickled garlic maps to the bread as it features roasted garlic.  The umeboshi vinegar in the bread bridges to the leeks which were redehydrated in the same.
• Stuffing in turkey is a natural bridge as it gets flavor from inside the bird as it roasts.
• Applesauce served with something brined in apples or cider vinegar would also be such a bridge.

Bridging works best when your food is simple though bold.  Simple in that it features few combinations of flavors but bold in that they demand your attention.

Would love to hear anyone else`s experiences cooking this way – or your ideas on how you will…

Happy Sunday!

We`ll be updating the FaceBook group with live photos as we serve 600-1,000 portions of pickled garlic at the Slow Food fundraiser today.  Pop over there (or to the event if you`re local) to follow along!

It`s the middle of summer and bright red tomatoes are starting to appear everywhere.

I picked up our portion of community shared agriculture tonight – the small market stand at our local pub reeked of tomato, basil and fresh dirt of the harvest.  It`s a lovely time of year.

We`ve continued to eat more seasonally each year.  It`s not a conscious thing any more, it`s just the way it happens.  We visited a large grocery store for our first time in a long time on the weekend and it caught us both a little uneasy.  The novelty of 1,000,000 options was exciting but many of the produce just appeared lacking.  Our diets are largely maintained by our CSA, farmers market, preserves, fence garden and local convenience store for certain staples like butter and milk.

Our average grocery bill isn`t a lot more than it used to be – it`s around $55-65 a week which includes things like flour, pasta and garlic which we dry for winter but doesn`t include large-scale preserving projects.  We do eat out 1-2 times a week and recognize tha we`re very fortunate to have the budget we do for groceries.

While our grocery bill hasn`t changed, our diet certainly has.  There`s a lot less meat in it and when we do include it, it`s often as an ingredient as opposed to a course.  A small-farm raised pork chop was cut into tonight’s stir fry where years ago we would have had two large cuts of pork or it just would not have been dinner.

Because of the dedication to our small sources, if it`s not available or in a jar, we tend not to get it.  I can`t remember the last time I bought a mango, banana or orange (but I have brought lemons, limes and avocados home).  I`ve been meaning to dehydrate some mangoes but there`s so many fabulous local options that I just haven`t got around to it.

Our small suppliers have also kept us seasonal.  Asparagus ended just as I was tiring of it but I didn`t eat nearly enough fiddleheads (2 years in a row) and I`m making up for forgetting to eat peas 2 years ago by eating several cups each week (boy I love them).  I also made awesome use of cherries (and can`t beleive how quickly they disappeared but am glad to have gorged on a whole pile and preserved even more) and I`m just starting to find blueberries and corn.

But it`s the tomatoes that have me in love.

I rarely eat them in the winter (other than the 100+ bottles of tomato sauce that we share with my parents) and we never buy them.  The odd red-colored disc that comes on the side of a plate in winter is often eaten with near-disdain and utter disappointment.  So they are typically avoided until the blanket of the sun warms our fields long enough to bring my favourite fru-egtable (half fruit, half veg in my head) home for our delight.

We started with cherry tomatoes.  Dana and I ate 5 quarts in a week.  It was a tomato masacree.

Then the heirlooms started appearing.  I find myself bringing them home from the CSA, the market and even our own garden.

Now we`re into all sorts of tomatoes of every shape and size.

The wonderful thing about eating them in such quantity is noting how great the flavors change week-to-week.  By this point in the summer they are as sweet as candy and make my shoulders dance when their flavor bursts within my mouth.  There is little I cherish more from a culinary perspective and little one can add to them to improve their flavor.

All of this high-acid eating has its dark-side of course.  The beginnings of those awful sores that fill the mouth to beg you to stop eating tomatoes are starting to tease me.  Each bite is like navigating a taunt tightrope between savoury-bliss and acid-like pain.  It`s a constant battle where I weigh the merits of one more taste vs, the chance of rendering my mouth to painful to even consider a taste of tomato for the next few days.

It`s these moments that I count my luck and fortune – and how lucky we are to have the dilemma of such a bounty.

For the vegetarians amongst us (who are always welcome here), I ask that you work your way through the story at the top as the analogy is rooted in meat but is an important aspect of cooking as a vegetarian as well…

One of the more exciting food moments of my last year was getting to spend one-on-one time with Fergus Henderson (thanks to our friends at Hooked).  If the name is unfamiliar, Chef Henderson is a British Chef who is largely credited with the resurgence of nose-to-tail eating and transforming the offerings of kitchens around the world by bringing honor back to consuming the whole animal – i.e. tongue, marrow, jowls and more.  His cookbook is a fixture in my kitchen.

Nose- to-Tail is more than simply consuming all parts of an animal.  Many include curing, smoking, animal husbandry and more as part of it’s ethos (I am not a definitive expert).  The one aspect that is sometimes neglected in casual conversation and description is the acceptance that every part of an animal is very different in texture, density and fat and requires different cooking temperatures and techniques.  I saw this first-hand early in 2010 when I watched Chef Mark Cutrara give a butchery demo at his Restaurant, Cowbell (an entire series of posts is here including an odd revelation that changed my uses of vegetables based on the experience).

Chef Cutrara explained that he rarely cut ‘commercial cuts of meat.’  He explained many of those cuts included two or more muscle groups (i.e. a T-Bone) and each required different cooking times and temperatures.  He explained that muscles were separated by layers of fat (sometimes thin, sometimes thick) and that you simply needed to follow the lines of fat to find your way to butcher an animal.  After seeing carcasses of animals for most of my life, this was a profound discovery.  It’s a moment that changed the way I cook, eat and even think of food.

Those moments started out directly thinking about meat, as it was the topic of the evening.  But the decent to madness did not stop there…

The first breakthrough into the world of vegetables was the realization that our compost pile was actually an amazing vegetable stock waiting to happen.

The first transition of using nose-to-tail concepts with fruit and vegetables and preserving came with dehydrating the roots of wild leeks.  These remain one of my most favourite preserves of all-time.

The concept later moved to strawberries.  We preserved 3 parts of the same strawberry different ways:

• We started by grasping the hull and carefully slicing the bottom of the berry with a mandoline for perfectly thin dehydrated strawberry slices.
• When I felt that the blade was a little close to my fingers, I used the top half of the berry and made strawberry syrup.
• The hulls were deyhydrated and used for tea (I also want to smoke food with them)

By using different parts of the berry in different ways, we are able to reduce waste, increase variety and become even more creative in ways to use the bounty that is offered to us.

Which takes me back to that day at Hooked…

Chef Henderson saw a small jar of dried wild leek roots I had given as a gesture of thanks to Dan and Kristen (my hosts).  He was drawn in and curious.  He mentioned he had eaten ramp bulbs which were prepared by his friend Mario (I quickly figured out he was referring to `Batali`) but never heard of the roots being dried.  He asked me where I got the idea.

I meekly explained the idea was loosely from him (Mark Trealout, a friend and awesome farmer actually coined the term `Nose to Tail Vegetables`when he teased me about my approach – I hadn`t made the mental connection).  He asked me to explain and I shared the above, figuring he would humour me at best.

What followed was one of the nicest compliments I have ever received.  It was a very simple British Acknowledgement from one of the top chefs in the world and the man who knows more about Nose-To-Tail than I ever hope to dream, `Brilliant, you`reabsolutely brilliant.`

It was a proud moment and one I`ve kept to myself for unknown reasons.  I`m not sure why today is the day to share it, but it`s as good as any other!

I plan to share some more ideas on Nose-To-Tail Fruit and Veggies in the next little while.  I`m sure that I can learn lots off others (truly it`s the term and not the act of using every piece of a fruit or vegetable that is being discovered here).  I`ll also share some of my favourite people who have similar sentiments, as we`ve tried to do here.

We`d also love to hear your ideas on how you use the most you can out of the ingredients you are provided with!

For those viewing this through readers or on our home page, we`ve switched to our new format (perviously announced) which only prints the first part of the article and allows you to click to view more.  We believe this will make finding the content you want easier for you and not hog your reading space.  We`ll repeat this announcement for about a week as a public service announcement.

We`re not really a house of resolutions.  It`s not that I`m anti-resolution, it`s just that I wouldn`t know where to start…or stop.

We are, however, a house of patterns and intent.  Patterns simply refer to recognizing groups of seemingly different objects, events or actions and recognizing how they relate together.  Intent is about controlling, focussing or harnessing those patterns into something that creates a desired result.  After all, some patterns occur by happenstance and the others by design.

We were out for a walk last evening when Dana mentioned that she was thinking about trying to do more with less and focus on doing that this year.  While the conversation certainly went beyond the kitchen, it is a focus in our cozy little realm and my mind invariably goes there.

New Years was decadent this year.  I`m particularilly proud of the use of what may have been waste for us a few years back:

• The marrow bone remnants (people used spoons to pull the marrow out) became a stock and we added the minimal leftover short rib meat as well as the tasty wine and stock it was cooked in.  3 liters are now freezing in ziplock in the freezer.
• The few leftover seafood shells, oysters, home-canned tomatoes and bay scallops became a chowder with the aid of leftover herbs, cream, carrots and other veg.  2 bags are in the freezer to great us on a cold winter night ahead – adding a few clams will take this to an entire other level. Read more

I recently had the honour of being invited to a butchery demo in the basement of Cowbell (a very unique restaurant in Toronto).  Our friend Margaret Mulligan (the fabulous photographer) was shooting the session and, along with Head Chef, Mark Cutrara, I was offered to come along.  I always love the chance to explore something I haven’t seen or tried before – we only write about the experiences that we liked or loved.  This was one to love.  Today’s article is art 1 of 3 and is a serious comparison of a butcher, a chef and a vegetarian.  All of the photos are hers.   To see the entire series of posts, click here.

In the butchering process, they weigh the scraps (waste) that they cannot use.  Their waste is stunningly small – a lamb had less waste than the amount of trimmings, peels and vegetable ends that we dispose of weekly.

I was thinking about that last statement and a few others.  Restaurants, delis, food producers and fish mongers all find ways to reduce their waste.   Less waste = profit.  Less waste also equates to less overall consumption, an easier budget and a better sleep at night.

So I was chewing the proverbial fat with a vibrant discourse in my head as I filled my cart at the grocery store.  Although I had many vegetables I also knew that I needed stock.  I had a $4 “box” of it in my hand when an idea struck…

I realized if I cleaned all my vegetables when I got home, I could make a quick stock of my scraps.  Carrot peel and tops, celery bottom (and top), the stalks of herbs, seeds from our squash, mushroom ends and so forth.  Jam them in a pot, cover in water and simmer with a bay leaf.

The verdict?  It’s a work in progress but a very promising one.  The yield was 1.25 liters (5 cups) of golden broth – the seeds made things bitter and slightly awkward (like being a kid at a wedding – you belong with the family but don’t entirely fit in just yet).

I wouldn’t drink it on it’s own but it’s plenty flavorful to add to dishes through the week, deglaze pans and add to think mashed veggies or other soups.

Many of these vegetables took months to create – finding a way to use the parts we skip could make a small difference in so many things.  It also just makes me feel great.

Last night`s dinner plan was simple, yet special.  Two small moose steaks, pickled wild leeks and crab were the focus – our family had harvested all 3 ingredients.  We were going to match that with peas and pickled beets that we preserved.  It would also be the first test of our own canned peas.

Once the small package of steak defrosted, I opened the package.  The butcher butchered the cut of meat.  It was a single cut, folded in two and the width varied from less than half an inch to more than 2 inches.  There was no question – the plan for dinner had to change fast.

It`s times like this that having more than 100 flavors of preserves of different types is an absolute joy (we`ve made about 60 of the current flavors).  We didn`t have a lot of other ingredients in the fridge so a bit of creativity and a lot of options help out.

I resigned myself to a stir fry of sorts – the only fresh veggie we had was an onion.  I recalled that we had a comment (from Ferdzy of Seasonal Ontario Food) on our blog suggesting that we could use our dehydrated oranges for a chinese recipe called orange beef.  Most of the recipes I found called for deep frying the meat; I varied a fair distance from the suggested technique but decided that orange moose was the way to go.

The beets and leeks went back into the pantry and out came the dehydrated mandarin slices from Christmas.

Our stiry fry was served on fried rice which featured Ontario pressure canned peas.  For those new to pressure canning, it is simply a way to presserve low acid foods (pickles and fruits are high acid) such as most vegetables.  I hadn`t tried our peas before and almost melted when I did – though they are soft (they were cooked for 15 minutes at high heat in the jar), they taste like a summer pea.

The meal was fabulous – a combination of so many flavors that came together from the great wall of preserves.

Winter is a great time to learn how to preserved and to discover that it`s not complicated and that it`s easier than you may think.  It`s a great time to practice and hone your technique and experiment with ingredients from further away (marmalade is great to make in winter).

Soon we will have an abundant crop of options (more than 30 fresh and local ingredients can be preserved in the Spring of Ontario).  The work that we did last year feels so little in comparison to our options and flavors now.

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.